Flowers, 5Ks, and Fiancées-A May 2011 TR *Updated 4/30 The Last Update*

[amazingact21]

Introductions:

Welcome readers!

As my title states, this trip report will cover my experience at being at Disney during the Flower and Garden Festival, running in the Expedition Everest 5K, and celebrating an engagement at the world.

Before I begin diving into my explanation on how and why this trip came to be, let me begin by introducing the cast.



There was me, Alicia, the writer of this TR and the "original" Disney lover. Normally, I'm the planner of the trips and the one who tries to do everything humanly possibly in one trip. I'm 20 years old and am a junior in college, and a rookie runner.

Then there's my DF, Alex. He's 22, in the Air Force, and works very hard so that we can take wonderful trips. I took him to WDW this past December, and he fell in love with it. So much, that he was the one who convinced me to go on this May trip.


This trip was never in the books for us. We had spent 4 amazing nights at Shades of Green during the holidays, and we were thankful that we got the wonderful experience that we did. It was fantastic to escape reality for a few days, but by the new year DF was occupied with work, and I was knee deep in school work. Anyone following along in my December TR could see how hectic our life was by the lack of updates I did.

The thought of another trip was just a nice fantasy that we pulled out when we didn't think we could stand another staff meeting or another group presentation.

But then, one day, DF ran into a man at his gym wearing a runDisney shirt.

It must have been fate.

And a whole lot of pixie dust.

Because DF and the runDisney man began talking and before I knew what had hit me, DF was asking me to sign up for the Expedition Everest 5K Challenge with him.

That was back in early March.

By the end of March, we had checked our financials and my school schedule and deducted that a short trip could, in fact, be done.

We set the dates.

May 6-11th.
With the EE 5K Challenge falling on the night of May 7th.

Then we called to reserve a room.

All Star Sports.

Then DF convinced me to add on the DP, because he really wanted to give it a try. So, we began making ADRs.

The details were done, the trip was ready, and we were in training!


Two weeks before the trip, DF popped the question, making this trip more than just a 5K run and a small get-away.
Despite the fact that the trip wasn't very long, and it wasn't very well-planned, DF and I had quite the adventure.

There were some tear-induced, heart warming, moments.

There were some really ugly moments.

There were some moments we wished we were back at home.

And there were some moments we wished would never end.

Initially (since I hadn't even finished my Dec. TR when we went on this trip) I wasn't going to do a TR for this one. However, there were too many times when DF and I caught ourselves going, "Won't THAT be a fun story to tell when we get back home?!" And, so, here I am, beginning a new trip report.

For anyone who followed my December one, I promise my posts are going to be more consistent and more organized.

And have more pictures!


So, without further ado, here is my May TR!!!

 

[amazingact21]

Introductions
A 1922 Story and 203 Cars Later
The Interanational Drive of Hate to a Painful Packet Pickup
Striking Out the King
Tangled Up in the End Zone
I Like A Little Coffee with my Creamer
There's Two Rules to a Happy Marriage
If You See Me on the Side of the Road, Just Throw Some Water on Me and Wave
She'll Think I'm a Stalker!
The Expedition to Everest
Searching for the Batmobile
Alex vs the Toilet
You Have to Pose Funny
Stitch for Pluto? Sound's Good
Just Lettuce and Cheese? No Buns?
You're Engaged...She Deserves Flowers
It Reminds Me of My Room
Your Eyes Were Bigger Than Your Stomach
You're Back
I Was Trying to Give the Gate Guard My Suicide Prevention Card
I See Flashing Lights
We Give Up Our Orange Cards For Good
Congratulations, I'm a Captain...I Can Marry You; It Wouldn't Be Legal, Though
I Want a Starfish Like That!
Sum of all Segways
You're Having a Panic Attack and Your Pocket Book is Having One
Can I Have Extra Teriyaki Sauce, Please?
Which Way Do We Go?
Where's Wishes?
Put Your Bag Down, Sweetheart
The Monorail of a Thousand Daddies
Are You Going Bashful on Me?
Wait, That's a 100% Tip!
I'm Tired, My Legs Hurt, I Need a Margarita
Caramel Coma
Yo Ho...Oh No!
Is That Your Final Answer?
But What'll We Do With These Snack Credits?

Extra Posts
Off Topic Post
The Cons of Cruising
The Pros of Cruising

 

[amazingact21]

May 6th:

Normally, when I go on trips, I have all my bags packed and sitting ready to go 1 to 2 days before my departure. But for this trip, I became Princess Procrastinator.
I hadn't finished with my classes for the semester until late Monday night, and up until that point I hadn't so much as thought about what I wanted to pack.

Two days before we had to leave, I took my mother out for the day to celebrate Mother's Day, since I'd be gone. We had so much fun, I didn't even consider that it was time to pull out the dusty suitcases from the shed.

Thursday morning rolled around, and it finally dawned on me that we were leaving the very next morning. I hadn't even done my laundry, yet, and it was almost 11 o'clock in the morning.

So, I spent the next four to five hours running around my house like a madman, grabbing shampoo bottles and flip-flops and praying I didn't need to run out to the store for anything.


My cat, Oreo, slunk into my room and zoomed in on the suitcase.
The last time she saw that suitcase, I abandoned her for two weeks.

If you're leaving again, you'll have to take me with you:



With a lot of scolding and feet stamping, I got her to jump out of my suitcase.
Silly me, though, forgot how vindictive cats are.

Oreo proceeded to jump onto my bed, where all my clothes were folded neatly into stacked piles, separated by what days of the week I was planning on wearing them.

Nooooooooooo

I knew what was coming as soon as she jumped on the bed. I felt like one of those characters in a movie that runs in slow motion with their arms flailing, trying to stop the inevitable from occurring.

And just like all those amusing actors, I was too late.
Oreo had happily knocked over all my nicely washed and folded outfits.
And, choosing the softest shirt she could find, she laid down on top of it, making sure to cover every inch of the fabric.
Because, naturally, her act of vandalism wouldn't be complete if she didn't deposit as much cat hair as she could on the clothes.


I swear, she looks like she's laughing at me.

Once, I'd thrown the evil little cat from my room, I got down to business and finished packing in record time.
DF arrived at my house around 5pm, but I didn't see much of him. He works a 4:30am-1:30pm shift at work, so he had been awake since 3am that day.
I left him to watch tv for a bit and then head to bed early, while I headed out to a friend's college graduation ceremony.

I was in bed by midnight, which might not have been the greatest idea in the world, but the graduation was something I could not miss.

The alarm woke me at 5am sharp. Despite the feelings of we're going to Disney rushing through me, I was still a little grumpy.

5 o'clock is early.


DF and I were supposed to leave the house at 6am, but we ended up taking longer than we'd planned on just about everything.
Our dog, who we were dropping off at his parent's house, was being stubborn and wouldn't eat or go outside. (What's with us and adopting hardheaded animals?!)


DF didn't even hop in the shower until 5:30.

At 6am, we were just sitting down to a quick bowl of Frosted Flakes.
At 6:15am, we were saying farewell to my younger brother, who was leaving for school.
At 6:17am, we began packing the car.

Since we'd had practice with that in December, it didn't take long, and shortly after we were in the car.


Only 22 minutes behind schedule. Not great, but also not terrible.

I could live with 22 minutes.


Since it had been almost an hour and a half since I woken up, I was starting to become really excited about going to Disney.



We'd brought an audiobook along to keep us occupied during the 8 hour drive, but I did not choose very wisely.
I'd gone to the library, and, at my mother's suggestion, checked out a collection of Stephen King short stories.

Who in their right mind picks Stephen King to listen to while going to Disney World?!?!

We popped the first disk in and listened with a little horror as the story covered gruesome events and macabre thoughts.

Yikes!

When I think of Disney World, words like magical, enchanting, exciting, thrilling pop into my head.
Listening to the story "1922," all DF and I could think about were murder, rats, robberies, anger, etc

It was more than a little disturbing.


I wish something exciting happened during the drive down through Florida, but it was a typical road trip. (With the exception of the creepy story, of course.)
We stopped in Gainseville for lunch. I wanted Steak N Shake, and DF wanted Chick-Fil-A.

Meh, what the heck, why don't we have both.

We hit the Steak N Shake drive-thru first, ordering two milkshakes. We figured it would save us time to just speed through the take-out windows and eat while on the road.

Speed through.....HA!

We were both aware that Gainseville's a college town and busy, but we survived a year in Tallahassee when I went to FSU, so we were pros at weaving our way through massive conjestions of cars.

And we were, in fact, doing pretty good.

Until we got to Chick-Fil-A.

APPARENTLY, that Chick-Fil-A is immensely popular with its drive-thru.

The first thing that tipped us off was the sign that proclaimed every 100th customer eats free.

Free food is never a good place to stop when you're in a rush.
Everyone loves free food.

The second thing that tipped us off was the very intricate drive-thru.

It had loops.

Loops!

And within those loops was a traffic guard. Some poor Chick-Fil-A employee was in a reflective jacket directing people on how to properly move forward in line.

DF and I looked at each other with scared, startled, and confused expressions on our faces.
We wanted to escape the madness, but apparently, once you get in those loops, you can't pull away. There were other cars further back in line blocking our way.

We were stuck.


It took about ten minutes for us to get to the order window.
So much for us saving time.

Right before we reached the speaker we saw this huge sign:


203 cars in 3 hours!?!?!

After another three minutes of waiting for our order to arrive, I looked at DF and simply said, "Never again."

That Chick-Fil-A was mayhem!!! Utter mayhem! I've been through some busy drive-thrus in my life, but this one took the Lombardi Trophy for most impressive, most hectic.
So, fellow drivers, if you ever feel the craving for a chicken sandwich, avoid the Gainseville Chick-Fil-A at all costs.


Leaving Gainseville with our highly-earned lunches, we decided not to make any more reckless stops until we reached his parent's house in Rockledge (about an hour east of Orlando). It was already 1:30 and we still had to drop the puppy off, drive back to Orlando, go to packet pickup, and check into our resort.

We'd already been on the road for 6 hours (time change) and we still had another 6 hours worth of tasks to do. The day was hardly over.


Up next...The International Drive of Hate to a Painful Packet Pickup

 

[CAStevens218]

Great start, I'm in! Sounds like an interesting trip. I'm especially excited to read about your experience with the Expedition Everest challenge!

203 cars in 3 hours is crazy! I would have been very intimidated by that drive-thru, and I worked one in high school!!!!!!!

 

[DisneyAsh32]

Yay! Another trip report That Chick-Fil-A sounded insane I can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip!

 

[Shannon84]

YAY soooo excited you decided to do a TR for this trip!!

 

[TanzUnited99]

Hi Alicia! I've seen you post on some of the TRs/PTRs I've been posting on and followed your link over.

A great start - love the list of chapter links to come.

Wow on the Chick-Fil-A mayhem!

 

[Shell & Ted]

Nice job on your report so far. I'm anxious to hear about the 5K.

 

[amazingact21]

Great start, I'm in! Sounds like an interesting trip. I'm especially excited to read about your experience with the Expedition Everest challenge!

203 cars in 3 hours is crazy! I would have been very intimidated by that drive-thru, and I worked one in high school!!!!!!!

Welcome! Thanks for reading! The Expedition Everest Challenge was unbelievable, and it was something I'm so happy my DF convinced me to do.

Yay! Another trip report That Chick-Fil-A sounded insane I can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip!

I can't believe DF and I weren't paying attention and got caught up in the Chick-Fil-A madness. It's taught us to be a lot more attentive when picking places to eat!

YAY soooo excited you decided to do a TR for this trip!!

Thanks for following along! I think I'm going to enjoy writing this one more than my December trip; funnier moments happened this trip.

Hi Alicia! I've seen you post on some of the TRs/PTRs I've been posting on and followed your link over.

A great start - love the list of chapter links to come.

Wow on the Chick-Fil-A mayhem!

Glad you could find my TR! I have been reading your PTR, but I've just been lurking and haven't said hello.

Everytime we're at WDW, DF and I always get a kick out of overhearing fellow guests' jokes. On our second day of this this trip, a CM joked with us about the 5K and said, "If you see me on the side of the road, just throw some water on me and wave," and DF turned to me a said, "Wouldn't that make for a hilarious chapter title to that trip report thing that you do."
And at that moment, we decided those little jokes would be included into my report. Plus, It was actually kind of fun, standing in a long queue or riding the monorail, thinking about what phrase could summarize that time frame.

DF enjoyed it wayyyy more than I did.

Nice job on your report so far. I'm anxious to hear about the 5K.

Thanks! I can't wait to write about the race, it was a one-of-a-kind experience.

 

[DCDisney]

I'm loving your chapter titles and furry baby pics

 

[amazingact21]

I'm loving your chapter titles and furry baby pics

Thanks! I have to give DF most of the credit on the chapter titles; he enjoyed coming up with them.
Oreo loves having her picture taken! I've never seen a cat so willing to just sit in one spot and look at a camera.

 

[amazingact21]

There always seems to be a really dark thunder cloud that sits over my head at least once on my trip to WDW. Last December, it was when DF and I went to lunch and I ordered a philly sandwich I couldn't eat. Despite the fact that I was inside the Magic Kingdom, I couldn't help but feel like a part of my day was ruined.
Well, thankfully (I suppose) the black cloud for my May trip happened before we'd even arrived. I had another bad moment later on, but it wasn't nearly as frustrating as this one.

Afternoon of May 6th:

DF and I pulled into his parent's driveway around 3:00pm. I was half an hour behind schedule, but I still wasn't too concerned. We were being very efficient ever since the lunch incident, and I had promises from DF that we would make the 5:00 course talk at packet pickup.

If anyone read my December TR, you can remember that the last time DF and I headed to Orlando from DF's parent's house, we were an hour behind.
Well, I was NOT going to let that happen again.

I made DF remind his family several times that we were visiting them for 3 days after the trip, but the afternoon of the 6th was just a drop-off day for our puppy. They agreed wholeheartedly, especially when we explained that we had to go to a race registration event.

"Of course, Alex, that makes perfect sense. We'll just hug your necks and you can be on your way."

I made DF promise over and over again that he wouldn't procrastinate, because he tends to have a difficult time leaving his family once he sees them. (Understandable)

We had luck going for us before the trip, because his older brother works 9-6 M-F, so he was scheduled to be at work.

As was his mother.

The only person who was going to relieve us of Buster duty, was DF's father. Who isn't much of a talker and would've been perfectly okay with us making a brief pit stop.

But since when do plans ever go that smoothly???

DF's brother greeted us from the front porch when we got out of the car.

Followed soon after by his mother.

When we asked why they weren't at work, they told us that DF's brother had to take his cat to the vet so he got the afternoon off, and DF's mom wasn't feeling well, so she called in.

Ironically enough, DF's dad was the only person NOT home at the time.

I had prepared for emergencies like this, though, and had given DF a 30 minute grace period to socialize with his family.
We took all the dog's stuff inside and sat down on the couch.
Before long, DF's mom was begging us to wait until DF's dad got home so that he could say hello.

"It will only take fifteen minutes."



After DF's dad got back home, DF's younger sister called.
She was on her way home from school and wanted to see DF.

"It will only take ten minutes, she's really close."





Finally, at 4:15pm, DF and I got back into our cars.

Just like last time, we were an hour late.

I wanted to cry, I was so frustrated. I told myself to bite my tongue and not say anything.

Alex knows how mad you are, and you don't need to have a fight before Disney.

Bite your tongue, Alicia. I don't care if it falls off, don't make a peep!

And, in my defense, I tried.

We made it ten minutes on the road before I blew up. I'd say it resembled a bottle rocket exploding on the passenger seat floorboard.
Flailing, exploding, noisy...

Or a Macy's Thanksgiving Day float losing control.
Causing mayhem, filling the place with hot air, making people scream...

As per my usual self, I turned to the dramatic side and said absurd things like, "From now on, YOU get to plan all these vacations, because obviously you don't listen to my itineraries."

After I exploded, I gave DF the silent treatment.

"1922" was still playing in the CD player, and it was oddly fitting at that time.


We drove through the classic "Welcome to Disney World" sign, but I was too mad to take a picture.
DF dared to complain, because last trip we'd gone in the back way and missed it, so he wanted to capture it this time. Naturally, that only made me more frustrated, and I told him where he could put the camera.

Without any trouble, DF managed to drive straight to the ESPN Wide World of Sports. Originally, we were going to check into our hotel first, then take one of the buses to the complex, but because it was getting so late, we decided to get the race preparations out of the way.

By that point, I knew we needed some pictures of the complex, so, still angry with DF, I tried to snapping a few photos of the entrance sign.

I tried to take it through the front widshield and realized that wasn't going to work:


The squished love bugs kind of detracted from the main focus of the picture.

Alright, let's try from the passenger window:

Too close.

By that point the light had given us a green arrow and we were turning.

DF found a nice parking spot in section 2. Since it was after 5 o'clock, there weren't a lot of people milling around. In fact, most everyone was leaving the complex.

The whole place was really big and nicely spread out.


I felt like there was a ton of space between the events going on, and everything was easy to find.


There was a person directing us to a bulletin board. They told us to find our name and write down our bib number. (I took a picture of both our names, but I don't want to post it, because it had dozens of other people's first and last names on there as well.)

We saw that we were number 1428.

That seemed like a nice number. Nobody has ever disliked a 1428 before.
Surely, we wouldn't do horrible with a number like 1428...

Right after we found our number, we followed the sign to where a bunch of tables were set up:


We found the table indicating where bib # 1000-1500 should report.Turning our waivers in, I signed our name in a binder, and DF took a huge envelope with all our information in it, and picked up our t-shirts and collector pins.
Our shirts were black, which sort of bummed me out, because I thought they were going to be white. I rarely ever wear black shirts when I work out. Yes, they were race tech shirts and could breath easily, but I live in FL...no matter what material its made out of, black is HOT.

The collector pins were extremely cool, though. They were 2 out of 900, which DF thought was incredibly awesome. They had a green and red oval with the words Expedition Everest Challenge written in the middle and the date of the race above it. Sliding up and down above the oval was a yeti, making it look like he was climbing over.

I'm sure later on the pin can be seen in one of my pictures...

The overall packet pickup took less than three minutes to complete.

Even though we were really late, we decided to listen in to the last of the course talk.


Since we got there so late, though, we didn't learn anything. DF and I left the talk five minutes later and went to sign a wall that was set up.

There wasn't anything left to do after writing our names down, so we headed out. There was a small make-shift "base camp" set up in the grassy area in front of the complex, but I was still mad at DF and wasn't in the mood to cuddle up next to him for a photo.

Throughout the packet pickup, DF kept looking at me with an expression that said, "We're doing something Disney related, aren't you going to be happy?"

But you know how when you're mad at someone...really mad at them, everything they do irritates you? DF disagreed with me and said he liked that the shirts were black. If I wasn't in such a rotten mood, I wouldn't have cared, but it just made me grumpier.
While we were signing our names, he asked a CM standing around a race-related question, and I snapped at him, "If we'd made it to the course talk on time, you wouldn't have had to ask someone."

That was, by far, the worst time I had at Disney. By that point, I was just in a bad mood, and I didn't think my outlook would improve once we got to our resort.
I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I had a late night the night before, and hadn't gotten a lot of sleep, and we'd been in the car for 8+ hours.

Happy or not...we left Wide World of Sports and headed to All Star Sports.


Up next...Striking Out the King

 

[TanzUnited99]

Oh no on having a bad moment but at least you got it out of the way before the remainder of your trip! I didn't know your DFs family lived in Orlando. That must be cool but annoying at the same time especially when they kept trying to stall you and make you wait to meet all the family!

I can imagine me being the one having bad moments on our trip because not everything is going as planned. Have been there and done that with the silent treatment!

Anyway, looking forward to reading the next chapter and am hoping the calmness returns

 

[Shannon84]

Oh my gosh you sound just like me!!! I tend to hold grudges once I am in a bad mood, it takes a while to shake it I hate blowing up like that, but I have to admit I do it too in situations like that!

I hope that you guys were able to have a fun time at Disney though

I wish I would get some race shirts that weren't white, because I tend to get anything white dirty right away but black to work out doesn't sound good either!

 

[DisneyAsh32]

You sound exactly like me. I would have exploded too. Especially after all of those reminders and everything. It would have made me feel like everyone just totally disregarded my plans and everything we had talked about, so I definitely understand your frustration. But at least you got it out of the way before your trip really started. It can only get happier from here!

 

[PirateKate]

It's never fun to start a trip angry and an hour behind. Maybe next time, you could drop the dog on the front step, ring the doorbell, and run back to the car and leave.

 

[amazingact21]

Oh no on having a bad moment but at least you got it out of the way before the remainder of your trip! I didn't know your DFs family lived in Orlando. That must be cool but annoying at the same time especially when they kept trying to stall you and make you wait to meet all the family!

I can imagine me being the one having bad moments on our trip because not everything is going as planned. Have been there and done that with the silent treatment!

Anyway, looking forward to reading the next chapter and am hoping the calmness returns

Having his family so close really is both a blessing and a curse. It allows us to visit his family, but it also means...we have to visit his family.
They don't understand our Disney obsession and are beginning to get mad that we go to WDW instead of just driving down to spend time with them.

Oh my gosh you sound just like me!!! I tend to hold grudges once I am in a bad mood, it takes a while to shake it I hate blowing up like that, but I have to admit I do it too in situations like that!

I hope that you guys were able to have a fun time at Disney though

I wish I would get some race shirts that weren't white, because I tend to get anything white dirty right away but black to work out doesn't sound good either!

I didn't think about the white shirts getting dirty!
I hate not being able to let things go once I get mad at someone, but I guess as long as the people around you are aware, it can handled.

You sound exactly like me. I would have exploded too. Especially after all of those reminders and everything. It would have made me feel like everyone just totally disregarded my plans and everything we had talked about, so I definitely understand your frustration. But at least you got it out of the way before your trip really started. It can only get happier from here!

I think that is what bugged me the most. DF cannot make plans ahead of time to save his life, and he loves that I can just tell him where and when we are doing things on the trip. So to have him insist that I make the plans and then to ignore them drove me nuts!

It's never fun to start a trip angry and an hour behind. Maybe next time, you could drop the dog on the front step, ring the doorbell, and run back to the car and leave.

Ha! We have actually talked to my younger brother and my mother and they agreed to watch the dog the next time we go! After two incidents, I made sure to fix that mistake!

 

[amazingact21]

I hope everyone had a great Memorial weekend! I had a huge cookout with my family and was able to see a lot of my cousins and aunts and uncles. That was also why I was MIA for the past few days. Sorry about that!

May 6th Arrival:

DF, who always knows where to drive in unknown places, found the sign for the All Star resorts without a hitch.
f1 by Alicia Wolchick, on Flickr


While he was driving towards the entrance gate, I kept telling myself I needed to drop the attitude. We were about to be going to our first-ever Disney-owned resort. I didn't want the memory of us checking in and seeing what a Disney room was like to be tainted by my crankiness.

I told myself that the second I walked through the lobby doors, I was going to be happy.


All Star Sports was the first of the three resorts, so we took the first right we came to and were greeted with the huge gold star.
f2 by Alicia Wolchick, on Flickr

Neither of us had ever seen the All Star Resorts before, except in pictures, and we were both taken aback by how big everything was. The decor, signs, even the red carpet leading into the lobby were blown up to massive porportions.
I almost felt like an ant when I looked out of my car window.

DF parked near the bus stop that way we could check in.


I tried to get a photo of the whole sign in front of the stop, but just like everything else, it was too big to fit.


We walked up to the lobby doors, and I got a little kick out of the carpet and and the backside of the star.


Inside the lobby, the online check-in counter was directly to our right, so we hopped in the waiting line. There were families occupying each of the three desks, but there was nobody else ahead of us in line, so DF and I were content to wait until one of the three groups left.
However, a very friendly CM was not all right with that. He came up to us and said hello and asked us if this was our first visit. He also asked us if we were on the dining plan, and the three of us discussed what restaurants we liked best at WDW.

He forewarned us that being on the DP meant we had a lot of food to consume. At the time, DF and I silently laughed at him and thought to ourselves, "You haven't seen us eat before. We pack away food like we've never seen the stuff before."

Later on, we discovered just how accurate the CM was being when he made the comment.

The three of us had only been standing around talking for a minute and a half, but the CM was not accepting the wait time. AT ALL. He called over to another CM working behind the counter and asked him to take our reservation confirmation papers and find our packet. He then guided us over to a concierge counter and asked the CM behind the desk if she could check us in.

The CM helping us ran back to the check-in desk and grabbed the packet he had asked the person to retrieve. Handing it to the concierge woman, he said farewell and returned to his spot across the room.

DF and I were trying desperately to follow along. We felt kinda bad, because we didn't mind waiting and we certainly didn't mean for the poor concierge CM to have to check us in.
I think what baffled us the most was the fact that the lobby was pretty empty. The regular check-in line didn't have more than two families waiting, and it was apparent we had missed the rush by a long shot.
There really was no need to hurry to help us.

Being treated so nicely by the staff made my bad mood disappear. I couldn't help but smile and feel gracious.
It's hard to feel angry when you have a total stranger falling over their feet trying to help you.

The concierge CM was very efficient and checked us in quickly. She handed us our WDW packet, which had two Just Engaged buttons inside it. DF had apparently called the resort after he proposed and asked for the buttons.
They were pretty cute:


The CM then handed us our Key to the World card (that had everything but our tickets on it) and showed us where we needed to drive to get to our building.

We had been put in Building 8, third floor, room 8302. I had not done too much research on what was the best building and the best room, because this was a last minute trip, and DF and I aren't picky. We lucked out in December with our Shades of Green room, and we figured we'd see how everything panned out on this trip.

Building 8 was the baseball section, which was okay with me. My younger brother has played baseball for the past 10 years, so it was nice to be put in a sport section that I at least knew.

DF and I headed out of the lobby and back to our car, where we took a right and drove around the resort.

As we drove past buildings 6 and 7, we saw construction going on at All Star Music.
f3 by Alicia Wolchick, on Flickr


We came to building 8 and DF stumbled upon an open parking spot in the first row. (Actually, every time we returned to ASSp, we were able to park in the front.)

We got out of the car and assessed our temporary home.



I wasn't crazy about the color of the building. I knew it was supposed to resemble a baseball field's grass, but it was ugly. All the other building were bright and colorful but baseball looked like pea soup.
It didn't matter in the end, though. The color of the walls weren't going to affect our stay in any way.

DF and I walked to the building and immediately, DF noticed the stairs hidden inside the Coca-Cola cup.


"Can we go up them?"

I looked at him like he'd lost his mind.
"You want me to climb up 3 flights of stairs...on my vacation?!"

DF didn't see the problem. He lives on the 3rd floor of an apartment complex that doesn't have elevators, so he's conditioned to lots of climbing.
I, on the hand, hate stairs. I've got a bad knee that rebels when I have to walk up them.
I'd rather run a half marathon then climb up 3 flights of stairs.


DF looked mildly disappointed, but didn't argue and followed me down the walkway to the elevators. We reached the 3rd floor and rather then look at the sign on the wall stating where the rooms were, we plunged straight ahead.

I've discovered that when DF and I are really excited, we forget to look at important details.

We walked all the way down the walkway, looking for room 8302. We turned right and the end (passing the cup stairwell) and began going down the adjoining walkway.

We had walked down the entire walkway when we finally saw that our room was the second to last door. Which, we realized, meant that if we'd taken a left at the elevator instead of going straight we would have been right at our room.

We'd just gone in one big loop to find our room.

What is with us and loops?!?!

We brushed the incident off and got ready to see our room.

Our first Disney room!



When DF called about our engagement a few weeks ago, he asked if we could have a king bed room and the CM told him it was automatic. DF and I aren't the smallest people in the world (DF is 6'1") and a double just seemed like it'd be really cramped. The CM told him that Disney would go ahead and put us in a king room because they would see who was on the guest list.
I told DF that I think the CM was just pulling his leg, trying to get him off the phone, but DF was adamant that we were going to get a king.

Much to his disappointment, when we opened the door, we were greeted with two doubles.


I didn't care either way. I was just estatic that we were staying on Disney property. I couldn't wait to explore the room and see all the Disney-related decorations.

There was a towel-head Mickey on the bed to welcome us home.

Which led my eyes to discover the Mickey heads on the comforter:
f4 by Alicia Wolchick, on Flickr

The bathroom counter was a little hard to handle, because I am a counter hog. I take up way more space than I should, so I knew DF and I would have territory issues over who could put their stuff where during our stay.



The bathroom had a wallpaper with baseball players all over it.


The paper was a little weird.
I don't know if I would have gone with people.

There's nothing like stepping out of the shower and seeing a hundred pairs of eyes on you.


The two of us explored the room, top to bottom, because we're curious people and like to see how everything is set up.

Eventually, though, while DF was reading all the important-looking papers on the table...

I told him we really needed to unload the car and get our stuff unpacked.

Two trips to the car later, everything was in the room and we were ready to really begin our Disney trip.


Up next...Tangled Up in the Endzone

 

[TanzUnited99]

Yay on spending Memorial weekend with your family - sounds like you had a great time!

I love the red carpet welcome! What a way to be greeted by the friendly CM!

I wouldn't want to climb 3 flights of stairs either or have 100 pairs of eyes on me when stepping out of the shower!

 

[PirateKate]

I agree about the color of the Baseball building. I've always thought of baseball grass as being extra green, sort of like a golf course.

Too bad about the doubles, but I think a lot of the rooms at the Values with king beds are also handicap accessible, which could be why it was harder to get one.