Skellington
04-02-2001, 08:23 PM
I'm sure this is one of those things has happened to you all at least once beforeâ¦
Twas a Christmas like many others. Wife Holly, Daughter Katie, Mom/Grammy, Dad/Jimpa, my annoying brother and I sat in our living room sipping eggnog and opening presents, when SUDDENLY, SOMETHING HAPPENED THAT WOULD CHANGE OUR LIVES FOREVER, SOMETHING SO EARTH-SHATTERING THAT I CAN'T BELIEVE IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! Mom and Dad nonchalantly (that is, with complete absence of chalant) handed us an envelope. Lottery tickets, McDonald's dollars? No, it was a gift certificate for a Disney World-Disney Cruise vacation! Ohhhh yeah! This caught us totally by surprise. I mean we're a nice family, Holly, Katie, and I, worthy of maybe a VCR and some Barbies, but helloâ¦! (My brother got a certificate for landscaping. Landscaping--Hee hee!)
And so began the first day of many months of joy spent readying ourselves for this trip of a lifetime. I'm sure you all have felt the same thing, that a good part of the overall Disney Vacation Experience is the planning and the anticipation; I can get through all the pains and irritations before me, for I know that shining on the horizon is Disney (I suppose it would look like Mickey's smiling face with a sunburst behind it, like in the old cartoons.)
We chose to cruise in late October: Spring? Too early, not enough time to look forward to it and micro organize the trip (or to turn from overweight schlub to musclebound adonis, capable of walking great distances across Epcots and Animal KIngdoms) Summer? Are you kidding?! Do I look Like a Dade County voter? You think I don't know what all those queues we walk past in the off season are used for? THOSE QUEUES ARE MADE FOR PEOPLE--PEEEEOOOPLE! (that's a soylent green joke, friends) But fall: ahhh, the off season. Smaller lines, cooler weather, cheaper rates. Although it was still within the dreaded Hurricane Season, it was the tail end and we felt pretty safe. Yeah, no worries there. Yup, no sweat. Who cares if the boat rocked back and forth a little? Hurricanes Shmurricanes.
So out travel agent made our reservations, following our specifications with only one or two annoying but livable errors (Cruise Thursday? I thought we cruised Sunday? Sunday? Thursday? Sunday? When do we fly? Sunday? Thursday? Cruise the Disney world or Disney World then cruise? Show me the chart again!) . Looking through the big Disney Cruise 1999-2000 (pretty pictures, Mommy!) magazine, we found there weren't any rooms set aside at the Wilderness Lodge for the Cruise, the Lodge being our unreachable Everest hotel, so we had to settle for the Polynesian Resort. (I know-- I can feel your sympathy flowing our way over the computer! Don't worry, we eventually worked our way through the depression.) We tacked a few days at Disney World at another hotel we hadn't been to before, the Coronado Springs Resort. The depression levels of returning from the cruise without some more Disney World would have been intolerable I tell you!
We had just gotten our first home computer a few months ago so one of the first things we did was begin surfing for all things Disney World. It didn't take long to come across the Disney Information Station and figure out that there were a lot more people participating on its boards than any others we found.
I now feel the need to wax nostalgicâ¦I remember when lovely Holly and I were married in 1989 and decided to go to Disney World for our honeymoon. When we got back (this was my first visit) I felt as if Mickey had summoned me forth, laid his white glove on my forehead, and squeaked "Heal!"--I had the Disney in me! I, one of the most cynical people on the planet, had come home with a big Goofy grin on my face and Mickey figurines in my suitcase. But with whom to share my newfound faith? No one really. I was one of the hippies in the old Coke commercial. I'd like to buy the World a Disney Coke (one of those $2.50 ones the park vendors display in those big fake ice cubes) and keep it company!⦠I was left with the pathetic act of writing a letter to Official Disney World Guide Guy Steve Birnbaum detailing our adventure and offering suggestions; I'm sure the odds of him reading it then are about the same as him reading it now. Years later, I wrote to the Unofficial Disney World Guide hoping to get a mention in the book. Those days are over! We revel in our newfound power to keep updated, spout off in debates, offer suggestions, etc. We're connected!
These trip report pages were wonderful, offering little hints, shortcuts, etc. Mostly, we were instilled with an almost religious reverence for the amazing ziploc bag, savior to all Disney trip packers!
In addition to the DIS (doesn't that sound cool-- th' Dizz!) we also enjoyed the MousePlanet (http://www.mouseplanet.com), Deb's Unofficial Walt Disney World Information Guide(http://wdwig.com), Inkkognito's Cruise Page (http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/brigham/612/),
vital information-wunnerful!, and Magical Disney Cruise Guide (http://hometown.aol.com/entropym). The highest of accolades to the Disney Cruise Guide-- a step by step guide to your cruise that reduces one's fear of the unknown and the most detailed packing list!
Like many of you, I'm sure, we soon found ourselves with a mound of trip reports and tips. Six inches tall, I tells ya! We had to figure out how to convert this monolith of information into something we could easily use for our trip planning. Basically, we ended up creating a word document with a page for each day of our trip. This made it a lot easier to visually see and figure out what park/restaurant/show to visit on which day and to start listing the corresponding tips under their respective subjects.
Ah, the Disney Stores! Years ago these were incredibly neat but hard to get to Meccas. I remember our rare visits to Baltimore's Harborplace, home of, at the time, our only Disney Store. Now, they're in every big town around us. Isn't it nice, though, to step from the real world into a little piece of Disney World, almost like it was a Disney World Embassy! You can't depress me--I have Disney diplomatic immunity! In the corner of our store there's a little TV built into the wall that constantly plays scenes of Disneyland and Disney World. It's always nice to sit there for a minute and put yourself there in your mind. Unfortunately, you have to leave the store and return to the reality of mall life.
Anybody checked Napster? (Hurry, before it moves from a free service to pay!) We found the music to Space Mountain and most all of the rides, the entire Monorail narration (including "Por favor, Montengan se alojado a las puertas"), the entire narration to the Haunted Mansion and other rides, Polynesian resort background music, "Grim Grinning Ghosts" by Barenaked Ladies and a lot more. Burned us a nice little Sounds of Disney World CD to listen to in the car.
The first deadlines to approach were the reservations for the character meals (Cinderella's Castle Breakfast--I'm sure you've all read how important it is to reserve a spot as soon as you can. It's worth it, by the way.) Had 'em marked down on the calendar. Good ol' calendar. One night about four months before our trip I took it down and numbered each individual square with the number of days left 'til Disney World. For the longest time we would look at it and yell "Go faster!" with no success. Then it came down to 30 more days; from then on it was fast, like those old movie montages where they rip off calendar pages really fast.
So the days dwindled to one, Disney Vacation Eve! (Isn't it great to leave work that last day and think "I'll never be farther away from having to come back here than I am right now!") We took the day off so we wouldn't be rushed. We checked over our list to see what still needed to be doneâ¦
Stop papers
Batteries in FRS radios
Confirm flight
Room request faxed to Room Allocator, Poly
Turn down heat
Garage locked
Get gold coins for tipping
Disney dollars for Katie
Bills paid
No problems! Vacation Eve was going to be a breeze! We'll just spend a couple of hours packing, cruise on over to Columbia, have a nice late lunch, and on to the Ramada airport hotel. With a flight at 6:40 am, staying at the airport the night before made sense, plus it was free to leave our yuppie van in their lot for almost two weeks (which would normally cost almost $100 to do at the airport, so we thought of the hotel stay as free! This really is a great thing to try.)
We started out okay that morning, with me cleaning the house as Holly, the official packer of Trip 2000, set about filling up our new luggage (60% off at Kohls) with the many things we had collected for the trip over the months. Like many of you, we had bought the biggest Rubbermaid tub we could, labeled it "DISNEY BOX O' FUN," and stuck it in the corner of the bedroom. Eventually it overflowed with stuff we had seen on packing lists on the Internet:
Misty Mate beach shoes
Backpack suntan lotion
Rolaids Sea Bands
Aloe lotion magazines
Toys Candy
stamps, address labels coloring books, crayons
bright fabric strip for rental car antennae
We morning passed quite quickly. I got the house pretty much in order, but the packing--omigawd, the packing! Anybody ever see the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure?" Remember when Pee Wee was riding the rails with a hobo, singing "Skip to m' Lou". Remember how happy Pee Wee was at first but in successive scenes grew less and less enthusiastic until the very thought of the song seemed to turn his stomach? We started armed with boxes of Ziploc bags and full of vitametavegimen, but as the morning wore on into the afternoon, our happy peppy outlook gave way to "let's just get the last of it in some gymbags and go!"
We finally got everything together: three suitcases, five bags, and two backpacks! Oh, the humanity! How much did everybody say I should tip per bag--one dollar, two dollars?! As the sun went down, we headed to our airport hotel, the Ramada Parkway Drive. Forget any swimming at the hotel pool; we just wanted to get some rest. We made it to our room, bought some $1.00 cans of soda, watched some sitcoms, and conked out. Our 4:15 wake up call would start us on our next day.
Little did we know what trials awaited us!
:eek:
Skellington
Twas a Christmas like many others. Wife Holly, Daughter Katie, Mom/Grammy, Dad/Jimpa, my annoying brother and I sat in our living room sipping eggnog and opening presents, when SUDDENLY, SOMETHING HAPPENED THAT WOULD CHANGE OUR LIVES FOREVER, SOMETHING SO EARTH-SHATTERING THAT I CAN'T BELIEVE IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! Mom and Dad nonchalantly (that is, with complete absence of chalant) handed us an envelope. Lottery tickets, McDonald's dollars? No, it was a gift certificate for a Disney World-Disney Cruise vacation! Ohhhh yeah! This caught us totally by surprise. I mean we're a nice family, Holly, Katie, and I, worthy of maybe a VCR and some Barbies, but helloâ¦! (My brother got a certificate for landscaping. Landscaping--Hee hee!)
And so began the first day of many months of joy spent readying ourselves for this trip of a lifetime. I'm sure you all have felt the same thing, that a good part of the overall Disney Vacation Experience is the planning and the anticipation; I can get through all the pains and irritations before me, for I know that shining on the horizon is Disney (I suppose it would look like Mickey's smiling face with a sunburst behind it, like in the old cartoons.)
We chose to cruise in late October: Spring? Too early, not enough time to look forward to it and micro organize the trip (or to turn from overweight schlub to musclebound adonis, capable of walking great distances across Epcots and Animal KIngdoms) Summer? Are you kidding?! Do I look Like a Dade County voter? You think I don't know what all those queues we walk past in the off season are used for? THOSE QUEUES ARE MADE FOR PEOPLE--PEEEEOOOPLE! (that's a soylent green joke, friends) But fall: ahhh, the off season. Smaller lines, cooler weather, cheaper rates. Although it was still within the dreaded Hurricane Season, it was the tail end and we felt pretty safe. Yeah, no worries there. Yup, no sweat. Who cares if the boat rocked back and forth a little? Hurricanes Shmurricanes.
So out travel agent made our reservations, following our specifications with only one or two annoying but livable errors (Cruise Thursday? I thought we cruised Sunday? Sunday? Thursday? Sunday? When do we fly? Sunday? Thursday? Cruise the Disney world or Disney World then cruise? Show me the chart again!) . Looking through the big Disney Cruise 1999-2000 (pretty pictures, Mommy!) magazine, we found there weren't any rooms set aside at the Wilderness Lodge for the Cruise, the Lodge being our unreachable Everest hotel, so we had to settle for the Polynesian Resort. (I know-- I can feel your sympathy flowing our way over the computer! Don't worry, we eventually worked our way through the depression.) We tacked a few days at Disney World at another hotel we hadn't been to before, the Coronado Springs Resort. The depression levels of returning from the cruise without some more Disney World would have been intolerable I tell you!
We had just gotten our first home computer a few months ago so one of the first things we did was begin surfing for all things Disney World. It didn't take long to come across the Disney Information Station and figure out that there were a lot more people participating on its boards than any others we found.
I now feel the need to wax nostalgicâ¦I remember when lovely Holly and I were married in 1989 and decided to go to Disney World for our honeymoon. When we got back (this was my first visit) I felt as if Mickey had summoned me forth, laid his white glove on my forehead, and squeaked "Heal!"--I had the Disney in me! I, one of the most cynical people on the planet, had come home with a big Goofy grin on my face and Mickey figurines in my suitcase. But with whom to share my newfound faith? No one really. I was one of the hippies in the old Coke commercial. I'd like to buy the World a Disney Coke (one of those $2.50 ones the park vendors display in those big fake ice cubes) and keep it company!⦠I was left with the pathetic act of writing a letter to Official Disney World Guide Guy Steve Birnbaum detailing our adventure and offering suggestions; I'm sure the odds of him reading it then are about the same as him reading it now. Years later, I wrote to the Unofficial Disney World Guide hoping to get a mention in the book. Those days are over! We revel in our newfound power to keep updated, spout off in debates, offer suggestions, etc. We're connected!
These trip report pages were wonderful, offering little hints, shortcuts, etc. Mostly, we were instilled with an almost religious reverence for the amazing ziploc bag, savior to all Disney trip packers!
In addition to the DIS (doesn't that sound cool-- th' Dizz!) we also enjoyed the MousePlanet (http://www.mouseplanet.com), Deb's Unofficial Walt Disney World Information Guide(http://wdwig.com), Inkkognito's Cruise Page (http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/brigham/612/),
vital information-wunnerful!, and Magical Disney Cruise Guide (http://hometown.aol.com/entropym). The highest of accolades to the Disney Cruise Guide-- a step by step guide to your cruise that reduces one's fear of the unknown and the most detailed packing list!
Like many of you, I'm sure, we soon found ourselves with a mound of trip reports and tips. Six inches tall, I tells ya! We had to figure out how to convert this monolith of information into something we could easily use for our trip planning. Basically, we ended up creating a word document with a page for each day of our trip. This made it a lot easier to visually see and figure out what park/restaurant/show to visit on which day and to start listing the corresponding tips under their respective subjects.
Ah, the Disney Stores! Years ago these were incredibly neat but hard to get to Meccas. I remember our rare visits to Baltimore's Harborplace, home of, at the time, our only Disney Store. Now, they're in every big town around us. Isn't it nice, though, to step from the real world into a little piece of Disney World, almost like it was a Disney World Embassy! You can't depress me--I have Disney diplomatic immunity! In the corner of our store there's a little TV built into the wall that constantly plays scenes of Disneyland and Disney World. It's always nice to sit there for a minute and put yourself there in your mind. Unfortunately, you have to leave the store and return to the reality of mall life.
Anybody checked Napster? (Hurry, before it moves from a free service to pay!) We found the music to Space Mountain and most all of the rides, the entire Monorail narration (including "Por favor, Montengan se alojado a las puertas"), the entire narration to the Haunted Mansion and other rides, Polynesian resort background music, "Grim Grinning Ghosts" by Barenaked Ladies and a lot more. Burned us a nice little Sounds of Disney World CD to listen to in the car.
The first deadlines to approach were the reservations for the character meals (Cinderella's Castle Breakfast--I'm sure you've all read how important it is to reserve a spot as soon as you can. It's worth it, by the way.) Had 'em marked down on the calendar. Good ol' calendar. One night about four months before our trip I took it down and numbered each individual square with the number of days left 'til Disney World. For the longest time we would look at it and yell "Go faster!" with no success. Then it came down to 30 more days; from then on it was fast, like those old movie montages where they rip off calendar pages really fast.
So the days dwindled to one, Disney Vacation Eve! (Isn't it great to leave work that last day and think "I'll never be farther away from having to come back here than I am right now!") We took the day off so we wouldn't be rushed. We checked over our list to see what still needed to be doneâ¦
Stop papers
Batteries in FRS radios
Confirm flight
Room request faxed to Room Allocator, Poly
Turn down heat
Garage locked
Get gold coins for tipping
Disney dollars for Katie
Bills paid
No problems! Vacation Eve was going to be a breeze! We'll just spend a couple of hours packing, cruise on over to Columbia, have a nice late lunch, and on to the Ramada airport hotel. With a flight at 6:40 am, staying at the airport the night before made sense, plus it was free to leave our yuppie van in their lot for almost two weeks (which would normally cost almost $100 to do at the airport, so we thought of the hotel stay as free! This really is a great thing to try.)
We started out okay that morning, with me cleaning the house as Holly, the official packer of Trip 2000, set about filling up our new luggage (60% off at Kohls) with the many things we had collected for the trip over the months. Like many of you, we had bought the biggest Rubbermaid tub we could, labeled it "DISNEY BOX O' FUN," and stuck it in the corner of the bedroom. Eventually it overflowed with stuff we had seen on packing lists on the Internet:
Misty Mate beach shoes
Backpack suntan lotion
Rolaids Sea Bands
Aloe lotion magazines
Toys Candy
stamps, address labels coloring books, crayons
bright fabric strip for rental car antennae
We morning passed quite quickly. I got the house pretty much in order, but the packing--omigawd, the packing! Anybody ever see the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure?" Remember when Pee Wee was riding the rails with a hobo, singing "Skip to m' Lou". Remember how happy Pee Wee was at first but in successive scenes grew less and less enthusiastic until the very thought of the song seemed to turn his stomach? We started armed with boxes of Ziploc bags and full of vitametavegimen, but as the morning wore on into the afternoon, our happy peppy outlook gave way to "let's just get the last of it in some gymbags and go!"
We finally got everything together: three suitcases, five bags, and two backpacks! Oh, the humanity! How much did everybody say I should tip per bag--one dollar, two dollars?! As the sun went down, we headed to our airport hotel, the Ramada Parkway Drive. Forget any swimming at the hotel pool; we just wanted to get some rest. We made it to our room, bought some $1.00 cans of soda, watched some sitcoms, and conked out. Our 4:15 wake up call would start us on our next day.
Little did we know what trials awaited us!
:eek:
Skellington