Bob NC
07-01-2002, 10:03 AM
Part 6: Our Trip. “More butter, PUHLEEEEZE”
We have to take our time winding our way thru the headstones, I mean Legacy stones, in order to finish the beers we bought at the beer stand near TT. We have to get beer there because they sell Jane’s favorite, Killians. I, of course, had the King of Beers, (Light). We finish them up and head for the monorail. Walking up the ramp we see a monorail had just left a minute ago and there’s maybe 30 people lined up. It’s a maybe 15 foot wide line area for the monorail, but these 30 folks are in like single file on the left. We walk right past them to the front. We get to the gate, and there’s a CM maybe 12 feet from us, closer to the track, bent over, elbow on a railing, chin on his hand. I say to him, “Is there room for 2 in the front”? His reply, “If you say please”. Hmmmm.....“Is there room for 2 in the front”? His reply, “If you say please”. This opens up a wide array of options for me....If he had merely said, “Yes”, my reply would, of course, had been, “May we please ride up there”?....But nooooooo. The english teachers pet student had to get wise with me. If his response had been, “No”, do you think I should have said, “Then may we please ride in one of the other cars”? I can just see the 300 people behind us in line, each stopping for this CM...”May I please ride the monorail”....”May I please ride the monorail”....”May we please ride the monorail”.....OK, OK....Instead of jumping the gate and doing magic tricks like turning his hat into a necklace....“Is there room for 2 in the front”? His reply, “If you say please”. I just turned and looked at Jane and started laughing. After getting this out of my system I said “May we please ride up there”. And, I didn’t even place the emphasis on please...like PPUHLEEEEEEZE!!! Remember, on vacation, I’m nice. I don’t know if there was any response from him, because now, to me, he doesn’t exist anymore. He’s dead to me. Actually, I did notice one more thing involving this CM. An older couple were waiting in line, and the gentleman came forward, got the dead CM’s attention and asked if this monorail goes to the Magic Kingdom. The CM’s reply? “Yes”. Now these old folks looked a little confused to start with, so I quietly approached them and told them the truth.
The monorail comes shortly and we high tail it to the front. We sit up there alone for a minute when a man and his, about 6 or 7 year old daughter enter. The daughter is quite the conversationalist. Now, my kids are kind of shy and don’t converse easily, right off the bat, with strangers. This little girl though....How are you?....Where are you staying?.....Did you fly here?....How many days do you have left?....How’s the stock portfolio going?.....Ok, perhaps I exaggerate a tad. Her and her Dad were from Ohio, this was their last day....And I wish just a little bit of this girl could rub off on my children. At this point, at 2:30, the skies proceed to absolutely open up. It’s really neat being in the front of the monorail when it’s raining like crazy. The bad part is knowing you have to get off and go out in it. Geez, we’re gonna have to go down the ramp and up the resort ramp to get to the monorail to the Contemporary. Out come the ponchos...Just to hold over our heads and we go down and up. The things we’ll do to find pins!!!
When we get to the resort monorail waiting area, there’s a guy and girl standing there wearing those newlywed Mickey hats. He has the top hat with ears and she has the white hat with veil and ears. Now, I just can’t keep myself from glancing at these things. This guys hat is like a car wreck to me, I JUST CAN’T stop looking at it. And it seems that every time I glance at his hat, he makes eye contact with me....The look on his face is like...”Whatchou lookin’ at!!!???” “Geez man, I’m lookin at the Abe Lincoln hat with rodent ears on it”....I mean c’mon, ya don’t see THAT every day.
The train comes and off we go. We get on a car with the screamenest kid I’ve encountered in quite some time. It sounded like someone was slaughtering cats in this car. When we pull up to the Poly, I grab Jane’s hand and get up to leave. She kinda pulls me back and says we’re going to the Contemporary. I told her to come on. We get off, go back one car and get back on. Screaming kid taken care of. There’s more than one way to skin a...nevermind.
We arrive at the CR and Jane goes in search of the pins she wants that she’s sure she saw HERE. Well, they aren’t here now. She does manage, however, to find others for the kids. 1 Haunted Mansion pin, 1 Pirate Mickey pin, ($14.31). Hopefully the guy who came up with the pin idea was the same guy who came up with the Leave a Legacy idea, cuz the pins probably saved his job. I, meanwhile, went into the little store there on the 4th floor near the pin station. The store that sells beer, wine, snacks and such. I noticed they have a decent selection of cigars in there. Now, I quit smoking cigarettes in June of 1999, and haven’t had a cigar since then either. I am fairly certain, by this point, that a couple cigars won’t turn me back into a 3 pack a-dayer, so I pick up a couple, ($13.78). Then we decide to head back to the AKL. How do you get from one resort to another? We could take the monorail to the MK, then get a bus to the resort. We could take the monorail to the TTC and get a bus. We could take a bus to a park, then get another bus. We could walk to the MK, then get a bus. OOPS, no walking, it’s still raining. We decide to take the monorail around to the MK, and get the bus from there. By the time we get around to the MK stop, the rain has slacked off to a few sprinkles. We wait like a minute for a bus, and we’re off to the AKL.
When we arrive, we stop at Zawadi to spend....um.....$7.61. At the room, I do the daily ice maintenance, and we sit out on the balcony for awhile. Plenty of animals to look at all the time. We pondered where to eat tonite. We had never tried Yachtsman’s Steakhouse, so I dialed 55 and secured a PS. We hung out for awhile, at some point in the next couple hours we spent $12.57 at Victoria Falls, Casablanca was involved, I’m sure. Oh yes, I remember, we took off for awhile to check out the resort some more, locating Simba’s playhouse, looking at the pool view rooms, etc. Just basically checking out the various room locations, because Jane actually wants to make reservations now, for NEXT June to stay here.
Getting ready for dinner we now have transportation issues again. How to get to the Yacht club. I don’t really wanna get the car out of valet. We decide to take a bus to MGM, then get the launch to Yacht Club. That seems to us to be the quickest most direct route with the least walking involved. There’s a short wait for a bus to MGM. When we get off at MGM, we see that the launch is at the dock, so we begin our fast walking down to the boat. The boat takes off before we get there. Oh well. We walk down the ramp and are first in line waiting for the next launch. Perhaps 10 minutes later we’re on the boat heading for Swan/Dolphin then on to Yacht Club. I don’t know what it is, but this whole Yacht/Beach/Boardwalk offering of resorts does absolutely nothing for me. The theming just isn’t to my liking...I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with them, I’m just saying I don’t like them.
We find the Yachtman’s Steakhouse and are seated immediately. We’re at a table for 2 near the back of the restaurant, right next to a table of 12. After a longer than necessary wait, John, our waiter makes an appearance. Nice jacket, Captain! He takes our drink orders and disappears. We see that he is waiting on various other tables, plus the table next to us with 6 adults and 6 unruly children. The table for 12 is having multiple bottles of wine and such, so I can see right away where John’s bread is buttered. Their dessert display looked so good that I decided to forego the appetizer in order to save room....I don’t think good ole John liked this too much either. Jane ordered the filet, and I ordered the 24 ounce T-Bone. Both with baked potato. Then John disappeared. Well, he didn’t actually disappear, we could see him waiting on the party of 12 and all his other tables. My beer was empty for maybe 10 minutes and try as I might, I couldn’t get John’s attention. Now, pardon me if I’m wrong, but when I’m paying $36 for a steak, I expect the waiter to at least GLANCE my way occasionally. So, here I am waving my arms, ya know when you THINK a waiter is looking at you, you raise your arm...Then you realize he’s NOT looking at you, so then you have to do something with your raised arm....Like adjust your hair or something? Well, that was me, many, many times. And I mean, this guy is walking RIGHT BY our table many times and I can’t get his attention. By this time the service I’m receiving from John is really starting to tighten my colon, I see the manager making his way thru the restaurant. Just before he gets to our table, he turns around and heads back from where he came...lol. OK, now John is delivering a dessert to tableof12 and I practically reach out and GRAB him and tell him we need more drinks. After awhile our meals come. He puts the plates down and I say, “I’ll need butter for my potato”, he says...”It looks like you have enough butter left over from your bread”....And he turns and walks away. I’m sitting there with my mouth dropped open, I’m sure. I mean, this ain’t Shoney’s, folks. This is SUPPOSED TO BE a higher tier restaurant where they are in no way embarrassed to ask for top dollar prices. But man, ya gotta give a little service with that. So, one minute later, I’m becoming a little less subtle in my actions in getting John-boys attention. HEY JOHN, I NEED BUTTER HERE. lol, I didn’t really do it like that, but I had to get his attention and ask for more. I have to say the steak was good, cooked to perfection. Jane’s steak was WAAAAY too rare for her, but she will NEVER mention something like that, and I didn’t know until later. We skipped dessert as I was tired of dealing with Captain John. I left a 10% tip and had a few words with the manager on the way out, ($95.99). I told him I didn’t think the service was commensurate with the prices they are charging. I told him the potato/butter incident and he says...”He should never presume how much butter you want”....After a very lame “I’m sorry”, from him, we crossed Yachtman’s off our future dining list. Hey, we all know the food at Disney is overpriced, a big portion of what they are charging for, in my opinion, is theming and service, in this case they failed.
Now, it’s off to Illuminations. We make our way thru the International Gateway and decide to watch the show from over near Canada. “I’d like a Blue, please”. The show was great as ever. Then we headed for the AKL bus stop. The bus was there, about 20 folks piled on and off we went.
Arriving back at the resort we went up to change into bathing suits and were off to the hot tub. Uzima Springs, ($9.00). Jane had brought a beer from the room, so all I purchased at Uzima was one mudslide. We had been wondering about these really neat beer glasses they have there with the AKL logo on them, Jane wanted some. I asked the bartender about them and he said they are souvenir glasses that can be purchased for an extra $1.50 when you buy a draft. I told him my wife liked them and I’d like to have a couple of them. He gave me 2 and didn’t charge for them. SOOOO, lol....I left him a $3.00 tip. It’s kinda like in Vegas when they give you free drinks, but you end up tipping more than the drinks ever would have cost, lol.
We sat in the hot tub until the words of wisdom took hold....”When you start sweating in water, it’s time to get out”.
Back to the room. Jane hops in bed to read by the 52 watt bulb....(Note to self: Bring light bulbs next time)....while I retire to the balcony to enjoy a cigar. Jane doesn’t even want me smoking that out there with the door CLOSED. Actually, I’m not liking it too much either, but before bed Jane makes me use extra mouthwash, spray myself with Lysol, and roll myself in Bongo dung.
Out goes the room service Breakfast card...In goes the 6:30 wake up call. Jane falls asleep while the tv watches me for awhile.
We have to take our time winding our way thru the headstones, I mean Legacy stones, in order to finish the beers we bought at the beer stand near TT. We have to get beer there because they sell Jane’s favorite, Killians. I, of course, had the King of Beers, (Light). We finish them up and head for the monorail. Walking up the ramp we see a monorail had just left a minute ago and there’s maybe 30 people lined up. It’s a maybe 15 foot wide line area for the monorail, but these 30 folks are in like single file on the left. We walk right past them to the front. We get to the gate, and there’s a CM maybe 12 feet from us, closer to the track, bent over, elbow on a railing, chin on his hand. I say to him, “Is there room for 2 in the front”? His reply, “If you say please”. Hmmmm.....“Is there room for 2 in the front”? His reply, “If you say please”. This opens up a wide array of options for me....If he had merely said, “Yes”, my reply would, of course, had been, “May we please ride up there”?....But nooooooo. The english teachers pet student had to get wise with me. If his response had been, “No”, do you think I should have said, “Then may we please ride in one of the other cars”? I can just see the 300 people behind us in line, each stopping for this CM...”May I please ride the monorail”....”May I please ride the monorail”....”May we please ride the monorail”.....OK, OK....Instead of jumping the gate and doing magic tricks like turning his hat into a necklace....“Is there room for 2 in the front”? His reply, “If you say please”. I just turned and looked at Jane and started laughing. After getting this out of my system I said “May we please ride up there”. And, I didn’t even place the emphasis on please...like PPUHLEEEEEEZE!!! Remember, on vacation, I’m nice. I don’t know if there was any response from him, because now, to me, he doesn’t exist anymore. He’s dead to me. Actually, I did notice one more thing involving this CM. An older couple were waiting in line, and the gentleman came forward, got the dead CM’s attention and asked if this monorail goes to the Magic Kingdom. The CM’s reply? “Yes”. Now these old folks looked a little confused to start with, so I quietly approached them and told them the truth.
The monorail comes shortly and we high tail it to the front. We sit up there alone for a minute when a man and his, about 6 or 7 year old daughter enter. The daughter is quite the conversationalist. Now, my kids are kind of shy and don’t converse easily, right off the bat, with strangers. This little girl though....How are you?....Where are you staying?.....Did you fly here?....How many days do you have left?....How’s the stock portfolio going?.....Ok, perhaps I exaggerate a tad. Her and her Dad were from Ohio, this was their last day....And I wish just a little bit of this girl could rub off on my children. At this point, at 2:30, the skies proceed to absolutely open up. It’s really neat being in the front of the monorail when it’s raining like crazy. The bad part is knowing you have to get off and go out in it. Geez, we’re gonna have to go down the ramp and up the resort ramp to get to the monorail to the Contemporary. Out come the ponchos...Just to hold over our heads and we go down and up. The things we’ll do to find pins!!!
When we get to the resort monorail waiting area, there’s a guy and girl standing there wearing those newlywed Mickey hats. He has the top hat with ears and she has the white hat with veil and ears. Now, I just can’t keep myself from glancing at these things. This guys hat is like a car wreck to me, I JUST CAN’T stop looking at it. And it seems that every time I glance at his hat, he makes eye contact with me....The look on his face is like...”Whatchou lookin’ at!!!???” “Geez man, I’m lookin at the Abe Lincoln hat with rodent ears on it”....I mean c’mon, ya don’t see THAT every day.
The train comes and off we go. We get on a car with the screamenest kid I’ve encountered in quite some time. It sounded like someone was slaughtering cats in this car. When we pull up to the Poly, I grab Jane’s hand and get up to leave. She kinda pulls me back and says we’re going to the Contemporary. I told her to come on. We get off, go back one car and get back on. Screaming kid taken care of. There’s more than one way to skin a...nevermind.
We arrive at the CR and Jane goes in search of the pins she wants that she’s sure she saw HERE. Well, they aren’t here now. She does manage, however, to find others for the kids. 1 Haunted Mansion pin, 1 Pirate Mickey pin, ($14.31). Hopefully the guy who came up with the pin idea was the same guy who came up with the Leave a Legacy idea, cuz the pins probably saved his job. I, meanwhile, went into the little store there on the 4th floor near the pin station. The store that sells beer, wine, snacks and such. I noticed they have a decent selection of cigars in there. Now, I quit smoking cigarettes in June of 1999, and haven’t had a cigar since then either. I am fairly certain, by this point, that a couple cigars won’t turn me back into a 3 pack a-dayer, so I pick up a couple, ($13.78). Then we decide to head back to the AKL. How do you get from one resort to another? We could take the monorail to the MK, then get a bus to the resort. We could take the monorail to the TTC and get a bus. We could take a bus to a park, then get another bus. We could walk to the MK, then get a bus. OOPS, no walking, it’s still raining. We decide to take the monorail around to the MK, and get the bus from there. By the time we get around to the MK stop, the rain has slacked off to a few sprinkles. We wait like a minute for a bus, and we’re off to the AKL.
When we arrive, we stop at Zawadi to spend....um.....$7.61. At the room, I do the daily ice maintenance, and we sit out on the balcony for awhile. Plenty of animals to look at all the time. We pondered where to eat tonite. We had never tried Yachtsman’s Steakhouse, so I dialed 55 and secured a PS. We hung out for awhile, at some point in the next couple hours we spent $12.57 at Victoria Falls, Casablanca was involved, I’m sure. Oh yes, I remember, we took off for awhile to check out the resort some more, locating Simba’s playhouse, looking at the pool view rooms, etc. Just basically checking out the various room locations, because Jane actually wants to make reservations now, for NEXT June to stay here.
Getting ready for dinner we now have transportation issues again. How to get to the Yacht club. I don’t really wanna get the car out of valet. We decide to take a bus to MGM, then get the launch to Yacht Club. That seems to us to be the quickest most direct route with the least walking involved. There’s a short wait for a bus to MGM. When we get off at MGM, we see that the launch is at the dock, so we begin our fast walking down to the boat. The boat takes off before we get there. Oh well. We walk down the ramp and are first in line waiting for the next launch. Perhaps 10 minutes later we’re on the boat heading for Swan/Dolphin then on to Yacht Club. I don’t know what it is, but this whole Yacht/Beach/Boardwalk offering of resorts does absolutely nothing for me. The theming just isn’t to my liking...I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with them, I’m just saying I don’t like them.
We find the Yachtman’s Steakhouse and are seated immediately. We’re at a table for 2 near the back of the restaurant, right next to a table of 12. After a longer than necessary wait, John, our waiter makes an appearance. Nice jacket, Captain! He takes our drink orders and disappears. We see that he is waiting on various other tables, plus the table next to us with 6 adults and 6 unruly children. The table for 12 is having multiple bottles of wine and such, so I can see right away where John’s bread is buttered. Their dessert display looked so good that I decided to forego the appetizer in order to save room....I don’t think good ole John liked this too much either. Jane ordered the filet, and I ordered the 24 ounce T-Bone. Both with baked potato. Then John disappeared. Well, he didn’t actually disappear, we could see him waiting on the party of 12 and all his other tables. My beer was empty for maybe 10 minutes and try as I might, I couldn’t get John’s attention. Now, pardon me if I’m wrong, but when I’m paying $36 for a steak, I expect the waiter to at least GLANCE my way occasionally. So, here I am waving my arms, ya know when you THINK a waiter is looking at you, you raise your arm...Then you realize he’s NOT looking at you, so then you have to do something with your raised arm....Like adjust your hair or something? Well, that was me, many, many times. And I mean, this guy is walking RIGHT BY our table many times and I can’t get his attention. By this time the service I’m receiving from John is really starting to tighten my colon, I see the manager making his way thru the restaurant. Just before he gets to our table, he turns around and heads back from where he came...lol. OK, now John is delivering a dessert to tableof12 and I practically reach out and GRAB him and tell him we need more drinks. After awhile our meals come. He puts the plates down and I say, “I’ll need butter for my potato”, he says...”It looks like you have enough butter left over from your bread”....And he turns and walks away. I’m sitting there with my mouth dropped open, I’m sure. I mean, this ain’t Shoney’s, folks. This is SUPPOSED TO BE a higher tier restaurant where they are in no way embarrassed to ask for top dollar prices. But man, ya gotta give a little service with that. So, one minute later, I’m becoming a little less subtle in my actions in getting John-boys attention. HEY JOHN, I NEED BUTTER HERE. lol, I didn’t really do it like that, but I had to get his attention and ask for more. I have to say the steak was good, cooked to perfection. Jane’s steak was WAAAAY too rare for her, but she will NEVER mention something like that, and I didn’t know until later. We skipped dessert as I was tired of dealing with Captain John. I left a 10% tip and had a few words with the manager on the way out, ($95.99). I told him I didn’t think the service was commensurate with the prices they are charging. I told him the potato/butter incident and he says...”He should never presume how much butter you want”....After a very lame “I’m sorry”, from him, we crossed Yachtman’s off our future dining list. Hey, we all know the food at Disney is overpriced, a big portion of what they are charging for, in my opinion, is theming and service, in this case they failed.
Now, it’s off to Illuminations. We make our way thru the International Gateway and decide to watch the show from over near Canada. “I’d like a Blue, please”. The show was great as ever. Then we headed for the AKL bus stop. The bus was there, about 20 folks piled on and off we went.
Arriving back at the resort we went up to change into bathing suits and were off to the hot tub. Uzima Springs, ($9.00). Jane had brought a beer from the room, so all I purchased at Uzima was one mudslide. We had been wondering about these really neat beer glasses they have there with the AKL logo on them, Jane wanted some. I asked the bartender about them and he said they are souvenir glasses that can be purchased for an extra $1.50 when you buy a draft. I told him my wife liked them and I’d like to have a couple of them. He gave me 2 and didn’t charge for them. SOOOO, lol....I left him a $3.00 tip. It’s kinda like in Vegas when they give you free drinks, but you end up tipping more than the drinks ever would have cost, lol.
We sat in the hot tub until the words of wisdom took hold....”When you start sweating in water, it’s time to get out”.
Back to the room. Jane hops in bed to read by the 52 watt bulb....(Note to self: Bring light bulbs next time)....while I retire to the balcony to enjoy a cigar. Jane doesn’t even want me smoking that out there with the door CLOSED. Actually, I’m not liking it too much either, but before bed Jane makes me use extra mouthwash, spray myself with Lysol, and roll myself in Bongo dung.
Out goes the room service Breakfast card...In goes the 6:30 wake up call. Jane falls asleep while the tv watches me for awhile.