Good morning from the vanity area of room 5065 at The Boardwalk! I'm going to recap our day yesterday. if you want to see photos from yesterday go to twitter.com and search for @DisLaura74. Forgive the probable typos and sloppiness. i'm typing this on my iPad.
Yesterday I was up before 4 am. Actually it was more like 3:30. I lied. It was really more like 3:15 but that sounds much crazier than before 4. We didn't need to leave the house until 6 but I am neurotic.
Our puppy Kevin was brought to the kennel the day before so not having to feed him and take him out a few times made getting ready a bit easier. I double checked my bag several times and added a few things that will probably turn out to be nonessential. I always pack as if we are vacationing in the backwoods with no access to things like stores.
I had also ordered an
Amazon pantry box. But I ordered it too late and probably forgot to check weekend delivery because it won't arrive at our resort until Tuesday. We will be eating a lot of chips in 5 days. If you have ever ordered one of these things it is an exercise in frustration.
Enough about all this prep stuff. We left the house at about 5:50 for our approximately 15 minute ride to our tiny third world airport. Upon arrival we see that all the good parking lots are full. The attendant tells us we have to go to the North Lot which is a mile up the road and take the shuttle back. Squid decides to drop us and the luggage off in front first. He's worried about doing that because there are no parking signs everywhere and about 5 policemen standing at the entrance. But we're rebels so we do it anyway.
He unloaded all of us and drove off. It's now about 6:15. We need to have our bags checked by 6:45. I don't know what happens after 6:45 but I don't want to find out.
We sat on the bench surrounded by all of our lime green luggage and waited. At 6:25 we saw the shuttle bus approaching. Good. Moments to spare. But Squid was not on that bus. He was probably busy battening down his car to guard against theft. The shuttle bus leaves.
And then we saw Squid drive by. Oh my God!
"He can't find the parking lot!," I said.
"Mom! Stop panicking!"
"I know! But we might be L word, you know, LATE!"
I texted Sheena and they weren't even at the airport yet so that made me feel a little better. She would never panic like this.
At 6:35 the shuttle approached again.
"He better be on it!"
"Mom!"
The shuttle arrived and luckily Mr. Squid was on it. We went to the short bag check line and I was amazed the my bag was not over 50 pounds.
OMG. I haven't even gotten us into the air yet. How am I going to finish this thing?
We went t the first security checkpoint where we met the friendliest TSA agent ever! He said, "Have a great time at Disney I mean Florida! i always worry that some poor kid is going to be going to Orlando to visit grandparents and I'm mentioning Disney!" We joked with him for a bit and moved on to the scanner.
We dutifully took off our shoes, etc and Monkston went through the scanner or whatever it's called with no trouble. I walk through and the thing start beeping! I am not wearing any jewelry and do not have any metallic body parts. What the heck?
"Maam, you've been selected for a random patdown!"
Well, this is interesting. It turned out to be not much of an ordeal and at least it's something I can claim to have experienced, not having been the suspect of any crimes.
After sitting down we saw that Sheena is spending a lot of time with a TSA agent and later found out that she was picked for a random strip search. Druid joked that at least we weren't chosen for a body cavity search!
Our flight was uneventful. We had a bit of turbulence but we made it to Orlando in two hours.
Sheena went to the one place in the entire airport and Disney World that sells her beloved Diet Pepsi and stocked up. I steered her wrong about how long amazon pantry takes to so her diet Pepsi and water will arrive midweek also.
We made our way to Magical Express where we herded liked cattle into very long, twisting queues. I have never seen it this crowded before.
Mickey and his family were even further back in the line than us. It would be a while before we get to the hotel.
About a half hour later we got on the bus. Sheena somehow finagled her way to get a front seat that had had a reserved sign on it.
There is a new DME movie and it feels even more commercially than the previous one. I'm not sure I like the host of this one.
The first stop was Carribbean Beach and after people staying there got off the bus the couple across from Sheena suddenly decided to get off too. She said they wanted to go to a bar there. I found that an interesting destination for a late morning drink. Why not go to the Boardwalk where there are many more options? Or Epcot?
Our stop was next. We were lead to online checkin and met Greg who would be helping us.
"Hi Greg. Are you going to hook us up with a great room? We haven't had much luck lately and I think it's because we are dvc members so you don't have to impress us anymore."
"Oh, I am sure that's not the case! Let me see what I can do for you."
He showed us a room all the way down the long hall with a view of the quiet pool.
"Do you have anything closer to the lobby? We did that walk last year."
He got on the phone with room assignment manager and showed us another location on the map. Fifth floor with a partial view of the Boardwalk. He said it was almost like being upgraded to boardwalk view. A sneaky upgrade! We'll take it ,
It turned out that Sheena and Druid's room was amazing. The Inn rooms are huge and this was freshly renovated.
They are on the first floor and outside their room in the courtyard a man in a nice suit was standing very still. They told me he was out there for a while. In fact Druid inadvertently mooned him while changing into shorts. I thought he looked like a groom waiting for his bride. There wasn't an audience or a pastor though so who knows what he was doing. It turns out that we later saw him in the gazebo getting married.
We head over to Epcot for lunch. Some of us opted for lunch in France. I think some of us were more interested in the desserts.
I had some trouble finding something for Monkston. All the sandwiches are premade and have some sort of sauce. I opted for the ham and cheese with bechemal on a croissant for her and Brie, apples and cranberry sauce on multigrain for me. They really should have put that on baguette. I also got Monkston the package of five macarons. She is on a macaron kick lately.
I would say lunch was pretty good. I wish I had ordered croque Monsieur but it was an ok sandwich. Since Mickey is on dining plan I got to try a bite of his pastry which was a nice bonus.
Monkston wanted to shop in Japan so we went over there where she oohed and aaahed over all the cute stuffed animals. She decided not to spend $60 on one animal though and instead got some stickers, chopsticks and some little trinket that I have no idea what it was.
We headed back to swim since Monkston only had long pants and long sleeved shirt on and was roasting. I had forgotten to put shirts in carry on. Bad mom!
So far the weather was holding up. We found a table and some loungers by the kid pool and settled in. Some of us may have had a delicious margarita.
I got a text at 4 that our room was ready so I headed up to get unpacked. But there were no bags to unpack. I had to call bell services to bring them which is annoying because now I have to tip rather than have them magically appear.
The view is amazing though. We have a great view of Crescent Lake.
Will finish this up later.
Hope you have another great trip!!
It took me a while to get out of that habit.
OMG! That's hysterical!
