jgates
<font color=teal>Must vow NEVER to toggle the tags
- Joined
- Oct 12, 1999
- Messages
- 3,072
Mama - me, 42, Disney FANATIC and Swan's #1 Fan
Monkey - DD, 11, Disney FANATIC and Swan's #2 FAN
Well, you get the picture. I do not EVER want to hear my name on an airport PA system again!!! At least they were not going to tell me my luggage was lost--only still sitting behind a dumpster at the Milwaukee airport!!! She (the nice little 98 lb girl they stuck with giving us the info) said it definitely would have made it except they had a new luggage person in MKE. (Yeah, right)
So I fill out an excessive amount of forms, give them our hotel name, etc. and then head off to the Dollar Rent-a-Neon counter. IS THIS THE ONLY RENTAL AGENCY AT THE AIRPORT? The line is HUGE - no lie, there are over 20 people (plus family members) in this line!!! Luckily my brain, even with no sleep for 30 hours, no luggage and a severe hunger for lunch, does remember I have a FastLane card from Dollar. Well, lo and behold, there is only one person in the FastLane. So off we go.
I bestow my FastLane card, my upgrade coupon and my credit card to the nice gal with the Scandanavian accent and we begin. I have a great rate (I feel) from Mousesavers for this 15 day adventure. Right around $355. She does offer me a van for an extra $7 per day or a convertible for an extra $9. I started trying to multiply this in my head x 15 days and when you are nearly asleep standing up it does not go well. I figure - it's enough to buy some nice souveneirs - stick with what we have got. No pressure for any insurance, provides me with an extra key right away - I like this place!!! I even checked to make sure I could add an extra driver if my aunt wanted to drive when we came back to get her. I will have no qualms about renting from these guys again. Off to the garage......
We have a nice gold color Dodge Stratus with the upgrade coupon. Looks like 7 million other cars in every parking lot in Orlando. Luckily the main key ring has a PANIC button on it - we may need this.
Off to the Royal Pacific. We took the expressway towards I4 following the signs for Universal. I felt much more comfy once we had paid $37 in tolls (or something like that - remember - I was tired!) and hit I4 - this was looking familiar. We easily made it to RPR and I felt a nice rush of 'homecoming' when we pulled in there. Kind of stupid - we only stayed there one night before - but I know some of you will know what I mean. OK, off to self-park. I am stuck paying $6 per day (it was free last time) to park the car - I sure don't want to pay $12 for valet when we plan to leave it.
Down the first row.
Up the second row.
Down the third row.
Up the fourth row.
You get the idea.........
Our only good luck for the day was at the Dollar Rental Desk. Now we are in for it again.
OK, I am a professional Holiday shopper. Let's do the stalk and drive method. Here comes someone walking out to the parking lot......follow them up and down until we figure out where they are parked. Are they leaving? Oops, nope. Just hauling in the two coolers to their room. Must not have wanted to be seen going thru the lobby with them.
Even the handi-cap spots are full!!! (Had a brief wish I had brought my mom's tag from my car at home - I DIDN'T - so no flaming!!!) Well....let's stalk the next person. BINGO!!!! We have a spot!!!
Geez - you know how easy it is to check into a hotel when you have no luggage? Grab the carry-ons and in we go. Take a mental note of where the car is parked!
Another long line......BUT!!! We are Loews!! Head to the empty line at the end. I try a Disbug routine and ask about possible upgrades to Club, but am told we have to pay an extra $169 or so if we want that priviledge. So much for asking nicely! (We had a $164 rate - FAN). We are down on the bottom floor but just down from the elevators. My memory fails me at the room number right now - 2104 I think. We were facing the gardens under the walkway into the hotel - our Loews did not even get us an upgraded view on this round! No refrigerator (for my insulin) so I called and they assured me it would arrive within minutes. It DID! Wow - 2 things have gone right today!!! A nice $$ guy shows up with the fridge within 10 minutes (I seemed to now be starting a process of handing out 2 or 3 bucks left and right here). He sets it up quickly and appears grateful for the meager tip I give him. I avoided the LYMI, as he didn't appear the type.
Royal Pacific View - Just down from our room -
Now these are not heavenly beds, but we are pushing 32 hours of no sleep now so they are looking pretty inviting. Monkey wants me to take her to Target to buy a new suit since hers is somewhere up by Lake Michigan, but I told her she needed sleep too and she actually believed me. We passed out on those close to heavenly beds and off to dreamland......so much for lunch!
About 7 my cell rings and Miss 98lb informs me my luggage made it to ORL from MKE and it will be there around 8:30 or so. I grunted a 'Love ya, mean it this time' and was out again. Around 9 I woke up within a matter of minutes before bell services delivered our luggage....get out the $$ again and we were finally able to get cleaned up and change. We did find out an interesting item from our bellman. Since Midwest Express has only two flights in on Sat's they deliver after the 2nd flight. The other big ones such as NWA & AA have so many flights that they do not deliver their luggage until 2 to 3 in the morning!!!
It's now 10 by the time we are functioning. Let's find supper......find the car easily....It's time for the next mistake!! DO NOT TURN ONTO INTERNATIONAL DRIVE AT THIS TIME OF THE NIGHT. Why didn't we go to Citiwalk? Who knows - brain fade. We make a quick turn into Walgreens and grab water bottles, diet Dew and a couple of other things that I can't remember - then out into traffic heXX again. We finally wandered down to this huge McDs that had a bistro menu - right near an I4 exit. I decided pasta had immediately become lo-carb and ordered chicken fettucine (sp?). Monkey I think ordered fries - who knows - I was asleep. However, this food was excellent. After we felt a bit better the drive back to the hotel, even though traffic was just as bad, was a lot better - more of an adventure then.
Around 11:30 or so I think we made it back to RPR. Now there really aren't too many people to stalk in the parking lot at this time of the night. We are still tired and want to get back in and there is not a single parking space. In fact there are about 35 cars parked illegally & I don't dare do that with a rental - that's about the time someone would hit me!! After several rounds thru the lot, I gave up and went up to valet and asked if there was more parking. Well, sure......over by Tampa. Oh, you mean the convention center? Isn't that way on the other side? No thank you!!! I would never make it back to the room! The 'head-dude' whispers something in his ear. 'You're lucky- the boss man said we will park it for you tonite at no extra charge in valet. You can either move it tomorrow or leave it - but same fee tonite!' Great - here are the keys - see you in a few days!!! I told Monkey I didn't care - we would leave it in Valet for the extra $6 per night - parking spots were too hard to come by. The beauty to this story that we didn't find out until we checked out was that the 'boss man' never did charge us the extra for the next 2 days! How nice!
Back to that beautiful room.....Get this - little did we know!!! Disbug was 2 doors down from us!!! We never saw her family and she never saw us!!! We were 2104 and she was 2100 I believe.
Sorry I have a tendency to drag my stories out guys.....if you start to doze off I'll forgive you!!!
Part 1
Pre-Trip
Monkey - DD, 11, Disney FANATIC and Swan's #2 FAN
Well, you get the picture. I do not EVER want to hear my name on an airport PA system again!!! At least they were not going to tell me my luggage was lost--only still sitting behind a dumpster at the Milwaukee airport!!! She (the nice little 98 lb girl they stuck with giving us the info) said it definitely would have made it except they had a new luggage person in MKE. (Yeah, right)
So I fill out an excessive amount of forms, give them our hotel name, etc. and then head off to the Dollar Rent-a-Neon counter. IS THIS THE ONLY RENTAL AGENCY AT THE AIRPORT? The line is HUGE - no lie, there are over 20 people (plus family members) in this line!!! Luckily my brain, even with no sleep for 30 hours, no luggage and a severe hunger for lunch, does remember I have a FastLane card from Dollar. Well, lo and behold, there is only one person in the FastLane. So off we go. I bestow my FastLane card, my upgrade coupon and my credit card to the nice gal with the Scandanavian accent and we begin. I have a great rate (I feel) from Mousesavers for this 15 day adventure. Right around $355. She does offer me a van for an extra $7 per day or a convertible for an extra $9. I started trying to multiply this in my head x 15 days and when you are nearly asleep standing up it does not go well. I figure - it's enough to buy some nice souveneirs - stick with what we have got. No pressure for any insurance, provides me with an extra key right away - I like this place!!! I even checked to make sure I could add an extra driver if my aunt wanted to drive when we came back to get her. I will have no qualms about renting from these guys again. Off to the garage......
We have a nice gold color Dodge Stratus with the upgrade coupon. Looks like 7 million other cars in every parking lot in Orlando. Luckily the main key ring has a PANIC button on it - we may need this.
Off to the Royal Pacific. We took the expressway towards I4 following the signs for Universal. I felt much more comfy once we had paid $37 in tolls (or something like that - remember - I was tired!) and hit I4 - this was looking familiar. We easily made it to RPR and I felt a nice rush of 'homecoming' when we pulled in there. Kind of stupid - we only stayed there one night before - but I know some of you will know what I mean. OK, off to self-park. I am stuck paying $6 per day (it was free last time) to park the car - I sure don't want to pay $12 for valet when we plan to leave it.
Down the first row.
Up the second row.
Down the third row.
Up the fourth row.
You get the idea.........
Our only good luck for the day was at the Dollar Rental Desk. Now we are in for it again.
OK, I am a professional Holiday shopper. Let's do the stalk and drive method. Here comes someone walking out to the parking lot......follow them up and down until we figure out where they are parked. Are they leaving? Oops, nope. Just hauling in the two coolers to their room. Must not have wanted to be seen going thru the lobby with them.
Even the handi-cap spots are full!!! (Had a brief wish I had brought my mom's tag from my car at home - I DIDN'T - so no flaming!!!) Well....let's stalk the next person. BINGO!!!! We have a spot!!! Geez - you know how easy it is to check into a hotel when you have no luggage? Grab the carry-ons and in we go. Take a mental note of where the car is parked!
Another long line......BUT!!! We are Loews!! Head to the empty line at the end. I try a Disbug routine and ask about possible upgrades to Club, but am told we have to pay an extra $169 or so if we want that priviledge. So much for asking nicely! (We had a $164 rate - FAN). We are down on the bottom floor but just down from the elevators. My memory fails me at the room number right now - 2104 I think. We were facing the gardens under the walkway into the hotel - our Loews did not even get us an upgraded view on this round! No refrigerator (for my insulin) so I called and they assured me it would arrive within minutes. It DID! Wow - 2 things have gone right today!!! A nice $$ guy shows up with the fridge within 10 minutes (I seemed to now be starting a process of handing out 2 or 3 bucks left and right here). He sets it up quickly and appears grateful for the meager tip I give him. I avoided the LYMI, as he didn't appear the type.
Royal Pacific View - Just down from our room -
Now these are not heavenly beds, but we are pushing 32 hours of no sleep now so they are looking pretty inviting. Monkey wants me to take her to Target to buy a new suit since hers is somewhere up by Lake Michigan, but I told her she needed sleep too and she actually believed me. We passed out on those close to heavenly beds and off to dreamland......so much for lunch!
About 7 my cell rings and Miss 98lb informs me my luggage made it to ORL from MKE and it will be there around 8:30 or so. I grunted a 'Love ya, mean it this time' and was out again. Around 9 I woke up within a matter of minutes before bell services delivered our luggage....get out the $$ again
and we were finally able to get cleaned up and change. We did find out an interesting item from our bellman. Since Midwest Express has only two flights in on Sat's they deliver after the 2nd flight. The other big ones such as NWA & AA have so many flights that they do not deliver their luggage until 2 to 3 in the morning!!! It's now 10 by the time we are functioning. Let's find supper......find the car easily....It's time for the next mistake!! DO NOT TURN ONTO INTERNATIONAL DRIVE AT THIS TIME OF THE NIGHT. Why didn't we go to Citiwalk? Who knows - brain fade. We make a quick turn into Walgreens and grab water bottles, diet Dew and a couple of other things that I can't remember - then out into traffic heXX again. We finally wandered down to this huge McDs that had a bistro menu - right near an I4 exit. I decided pasta had immediately become lo-carb and ordered chicken fettucine (sp?). Monkey I think ordered fries - who knows - I was asleep. However, this food was excellent. After we felt a bit better the drive back to the hotel, even though traffic was just as bad, was a lot better - more of an adventure then.
Around 11:30 or so I think we made it back to RPR. Now there really aren't too many people to stalk in the parking lot at this time of the night. We are still tired and want to get back in and there is not a single parking space. In fact there are about 35 cars parked illegally & I don't dare do that with a rental - that's about the time someone would hit me!! After several rounds thru the lot, I gave up and went up to valet and asked if there was more parking. Well, sure......over by Tampa. Oh, you mean the convention center? Isn't that way on the other side? No thank you!!! I would never make it back to the room! The 'head-dude' whispers something in his ear. 'You're lucky- the boss man said we will park it for you tonite at no extra charge in valet. You can either move it tomorrow or leave it - but same fee tonite!' Great - here are the keys - see you in a few days!!! I told Monkey I didn't care - we would leave it in Valet for the extra $6 per night - parking spots were too hard to come by. The beauty to this story that we didn't find out until we checked out was that the 'boss man' never did charge us the extra for the next 2 days! How nice!
Back to that beautiful room.....Get this - little did we know!!! Disbug was 2 doors down from us!!! We never saw her family and she never saw us!!! We were 2104 and she was 2100 I believe.
Sorry I have a tendency to drag my stories out guys.....if you start to doze off I'll forgive you!!!
Part 1
Pre-Trip
lovin' your reports, jenny!
