Something feels funny. I must be thinking too hard. (Winnie the Pooh)
And thinking too hard we were. We were hungry but didn’t really want to eat CS. We wanted to sit down for a while, relax. Ok, what we really wanted was an ice-cold beer. Two options: A. we head over to DCA and get one there; or B. go to Downtown Disney and get one there. Obviously we had already decided that from the last chapter.
Lady H and I board Manny and let him take us back to Downtown Disney. We’re leaving the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy, today; only to come back later since we won’t be going there tomorrow but later on in the near future.
Another reason we’re headed to downtown is so we can go to Paradise Pier and buy postage for the postcards. When we bought the postcards, we asked the CM where we could get postage. She let us know that PP sold it. We figured we can sit down and have lunch, have a beer and explore the resorts.
Manny is cruising along and tells us how Ramone gave him and the other monorails a new pimped out paint job. We should go check him out over at the new Carsland. On our way to downtown, Manny also cruises us through the Grand Californian. Looks nice. Might have to stop by and check this place out as well. We may never afford to stay here, but at least we can see what we’ll be missing out on.
Manny pulls in to the downtown monorail stop. We hop on out and start going down more stairs. At the end of the stairs is a CM with something in her hand, and she’s smacking people’s hands with it. Lady H and I pause afraid we might lose our hand until we examine the situation. Everyone seems to be getting through with both their hands and all their fingers intact, so it must be safe. We finish proceeding down the stairs and stick out our hands and hope for the best. 10 seconds later I’m through and so is Lady H. We both have our hands and fingers but are now branded with this invisible mark that can only be seen with a special flashlight. We’re told if we want to get back into the park, we needed this special hand stamp.
Let me refresh your memory here a little. I said there would be a love/hate relationship with the tickets. No finger scans, but they use a stamp. Keep this in mind as we move along.
Lady H and I walk through downtown trying to figure out what we want to eat. Don’t want to do Rainforest Café because we have reservations for later on in the week for dinner.
Tortilla Jo’s is out of the question. One thing about living in New Mexico, we get accustomed to the local Spanish cuisine. It’s very rare that we will eat Spanish food when we travel, unless we take some along with us and make it ourselves. Which we’ve been known to do in the past. The chili here in NM is much different than most states. Anyone ever heard of Hatch Green Chili? It is grown in the southern part of our state. Leave it growing long enough and eventually it will turn red. So if you ever have been in NM, or come to NM, the famous question you will here is “Red or Green?” Anyways, since we’ve become so accustomed to this NM favorite, canned chili just isn’t all that great to us.
Still trying to decide on a place, we spot the ESPN Zone. I read good reviews about this place so we agree to give it a try. We walk in and give our name the hostess. She says give her a couple of minutes and she’ll seat us right away.
Cool. We walk in with no reservation and get a table almost right away. People weren’t kidding when they said you don’t really need reservations here like you do at WDW. Lady H and I each order our much needed beer along with a soda. Ok, our much desired beer. We look over the menu (because it would’ve been too simple to put it down and watch the games on all the tv’s) and try to figure out what to eat.
After a looking at the million and one things they have on the menu, we decided to get only appetizers. The Ultimate Tailgate Appetizer Platter that is. Comes complete with hamburger sliders, buffalo & bbq chicken wings, chicken tenders, bbq riblets and dip.
Now the dip I have never tried before so I was little leery about it, but it turns out I would absolutely love this dip. I could’ve eaten only this and I would be content.
I’ve never tried artichokes before. Thought they would do just that, make you choke. Turns out I was wrong. If you ever want a good artichoke and spinach dip, I would recommend it here; unless of course you don’t like artichokes, spinach or even cheese for that matter.
A fair warning if you’re going to order this platter as well. Take an army with you because it is a lot of food. That or don’t eat all day and have this for dinner. For 4 people, this could probably be a decent appetizer. For 2 people, it’s a meal and then some. I think we managed to finish half, but that was about it. Price wasn’t too bad either. $39.99 for the platter.
While sitting down and enjoying our beer, I remember that the battery in my camera died. Now would be a good time to switch it out. We’re headed over to the hotels and it would be nice to get some pics. Waiter comes over and hands us the bill. Lady H has so graciously offered to treat me to lunch. A woman after my heart, although she already knows it belongs to her. She glances at the bill and sees it’s less than $30. Wow for a $40 pile of food, 2 beers and 2 sodas, that’s cheap.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Some of you are thinking we need to let the waiter know he charged us wrong. Others are thinking like me. Cool, he screwed up let him take the loss. We did what was right and brought it to his attention. Turns out he handed us the wrong bill. Trust me, we thought about not saying anything and just pay for the bill he handed us, but then we would feel guilty the next hour or so. While Lady H is waiting for the proper bill, I excuse myself and go the restroom.
Now guys, is this the coolest thing you’ve ever seen in a restroom?
Even above the used beer department.
I’ve read advertisements and the sports page, but never have I been able to stand (or sit for that matter) to do my business and WATCH sports.
I showed Lady H the pics and she started laughing. “Only you would think to take pictures of that,” she told me. I told her I want to do this at home now. I got that look. Guys know the look. "Uh-huh. Sure. Go right ahead" she tells me. "Where you going to get the money to do that?" Always a catch.
After lunch, we set out for Paradise Pier Hotel.
I tell Lady H “I wonder if Earl of Sandwich is open yet?” So we head out in search of EoS. We’ve yet to eat EoS so we thought maybe we could try it for lunch later on in the week. Get to where it’s supposed to be and they’re still working on it. I think. You can tell it’s almost done, but I didn’t see any workers actually working on it at the time. So who knows how much longer it will be until it’s open.
We walk to Paradise Pier and enter the back way. Again we must try to navigate our way through the hotel. Wasn’t as hard as the DLH and we find our way to the front desk. We ask the CM where we can buy postage stamps for postcards.
"I can sell them to you right here."
"Great we’ll take 10."
"That will be $3.20"
I had him over my debit card.
“Oh I’m sorry we only take
$CASH$ for postage. I have no way of ringing them up on our computers so it has to be a cash only transaction.”
We knew this would come back to bite is in the rear. We tell the CM we don’t have any cash at the moment but we saw the ATM as we walked in the building. We’ll have to go get cash and we’ll be right back. Off we go to surrender ourselves to the enormous ATM fee we knew we would eventually have to pay. Knowing Disney, it’s probably going to be something like $10 on the top of the fee my bank is going to charge me. Since we knew we would have to pay the fee, might as well make it worth our while and get the max we’re allowed. Turns out, the fee wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Between the ATM fee and my banks fees, I think I paid $3.25.
Now that we finally have cash, we head back to the front desk for our postage. The CM that was helping us the first time is busy with someone else. Another CM comes out from the back and helps us. Younger CM. Looks like he would be a college student. We tell him that the CM next to him was helping us prior but we would like purchase postage for postcards. He asks the CM next to him and he tells him “Oh yeah. I put them back in the money bag” and he hands him the bag.
Now junior starts counting out 10 more postage stamps. Grabbing the ones that the prior CM had already counted out probably didn’t sound like a good idea. After counting out 10 postage stamps, he finally realizes there were already separated. Shrugs his shoulders and says “I didn’t realize there was already 10 there. Oh well. That will be $4.50.”
“Huh?! $4.50 for 10 postcard stamps? Shouldn't it only be $3.20? That's the amount he told us.”
“Oh, you were needing postcard stamps and regular stamps?"
Ok. Now junior is really lost. I think we finally tell him twice that we only want the postcard stamps. Not regular letter stamps before he finally gets it. So now that he has the right amount of stamps and the right total, I hand him one of the 20’s that ATM machine just made for us.
Ok this next part is so true. Stuff like this I can’t make up even if I wanted to. After I hand him the $20 bill he just stares at it with this blank expression on his face. Almost like he’s never seen money before. Of course with all of today’s technology, he probably hasn’t. You can see the hamster running in the wheel as he’s figuring out what to do with it. Finally he realizes that I’m using it to pay for the postage since they don’t accept credit or debit cards for postage. Next problem, junior doesn’t have change. Which I can understand. Since it’s the check-in/check-out desk, most people pay with their credit/debit cards and they don’t have any need to have cash on hand. Unless you’re selling postage stamps. So off junior goes in search of change for a $20. Must have to go to the bank or US Treasury to get change. Took him a while to come back once he disappeared. At least he came back with the right change.
After 30 minutes, we were finally able to get postage and mail the first batch of post cards.
Because it took so long to get postage, we lost our interest to look around the hotel. This time we went out the front door and across the street is the Grand Californian.
Since it was on our way back to the parks, might as well go check it out. We crossed the street and went in to the GC.
I have to look back at our pics and see if we have more. I thought we took quite a bit here. I guess I missed uploading some. Oops, my bad.
We also looked in some of the gift shops, restaurants and pool (through the security gate). Not too shabby of a place. I wouldn’t mind staying here. It’s the closest hotel on property to both the theme parks. Anybody want to contribute to the “Thumpers Wanting to Stay at the Grand Californian Charity Fund?”
Anybody?
No.
Darn.
It was worth a shot.
After touring around the GC for a while, we decided to head on over to DCA and prepare ourselves for Tuesday’s visit. Little did we know that you could get into DCA directly from GC. We saw the entrance during our quick tour. Our first thought was you needed to be staying at the hotel to go in and out that way. We would find out later in the week that anybody may go in and out through here. Still we weren’t too from the main entrance.
Now here is where the love/hate relationship of the tickets comes in to play. We had the huge platter over at ESPN. It was all finger foods. What do you do after you eat finger foods? You wash your hands. What was on our hands?
I felt like a kid again when we tried to enter DCA. The CM scolded us for not having our stamps, even though we did have them. The system clearly tells her that we have park-to-park privileges on our tickets. She could probably also tell this was the first day we used our tickets as well. We explained that they must have washed off when we washed our hands. She let’s us off with a warning and makes it crystal clear that we need the stamp to go in and out, and from park to park. Ay Ay Captain. No stockade for us today.
I understand the reasoning behind the stamp. Since you ticket isn’t tied to a fingerprint scan like at WDW, anyone can just use the ticket. Neither Lady H or myself ever signed the back of our ticket; and not once were we ever questioned about it. Since all we received was a slap on the hand, anybody probably still could. Regardless, we got in and that’s all the mattered to us.
Once inside, we could see why the wait times over at DL were so short. The crowds are here. Our plan for DCA is just to look around. We'll save riding the attractions for Tuesday when we come back. This being the first time to DCA for either one of us, we look for a park map. Can you believe they ran out of park maps printed in English? Well in the front of the park anyways.
Oh well, we'll wing it. We'll follow the road and see where it takes us. We walk until we reach the crossroads. Straight, left or right. Right it is. Along the way we pass Soarin', Grizzly River Rapids and the entrance from the GC. Now we're seeing it from the other side. Wait time for GRR was 40 minutes and Soarin' it was 30 minutes. Definitely not doing rides this afternoon. Besides by the time we finished lunch and toured the resorts, it was already close to 3:30 by the time we got to DCA. We want to head back to DL to watch Fantasmic. Now that summer has ended, they shortened the days when it would be showing. Tonight would be one of the only chances we would get to see it.
Continuing on our way we land up at Paradise Pier.
Isn't this the one picture everybody just has to take. Us included.
Once here, Lady H and I go searching for another beer. Again we head to the right in search of a place to quench our thirst. We pass Ariel's Undersea Adventure and see Goofy's Sky School up ahead. We stop when we get close to GSS because we have found what we came looking for at the Bayside Brews.
To answer Betsey's question from earlier, this would not be our favorite watering hole. It would do for now.
With beer in hand, we see where Carsland is. Might as well go see what all the hype is about. We were really impressed with Carsland, but couldn't believe the crowds.
Out of curiosity, we went to go see what the wait time was for Radiator Springs Racers. Yikes!
Wandering aimlessly through Carsland, we saw a famous race car. The real Lightning McQueen this time. He had his own secret service and everything.
We even saw an old tow truck. We were told he's a real knight. Sir Tow Mater is what they call him.
This concludes our brief tour of Carsland.
What you wanted to see more pics? Well we have plenty to show you. Just not at this moment. It's time for another beer. From the Pacific Wharf this time. There's a beer truck that sells microbrew beers from a San Diego microbrewery called Karl Strauss. Sorry, we missed taking a picture of this beer truck, but you can do a google search and easily find a picture.
There were some pretty good brews here. I got the Amber and Lady H got the Endless Summer Light. Both were pretty good, but this would be the only time we would get a beer from here. We found a place where we could get beer much faster. We sat down and just took in the sights of DCA while we killed a little time and killed these beers so we can head back to DL. Kill is such an awful word isn't it. Maybe I should rephrase that.
We sat down and waited for time to pass by and enjoyed our microbrews so we can head back to DL. We want to stake out a piece of real estate so we can build a home and live at DL forever. Since we really can't build a home there, we'll settle for is a good spot to view Fantasmic.
We're done with this beer and I'm done with this chapter. I'll tell you a little more about our night at DL and finish up this day. Once I'm done here, Lady H will take you through the next day.
Have a good weekend.
Must've been a different trip. Yeah, that's it.
Kidding of course. You'll have to ride it and let us know. Don't think we'll get the chance anytime soon. Hopefully next year.
. 
