BONZO
<font color=660066>Has been known to go off topic!
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2001
- Messages
- 2,100
MONDAY 14th May 2001
Cast list: -
Me (Shaun) - Wallet opener, chauffeur and bag carrier
DW (Alison) - Chief planner, navigator and mother
DD # 1 (Alexandra 7) - Cautious, shy and parking lot number guru
DD # 2 (Laura 5) - Daredevil, chatterbox and sleeper
Well, after yesterday you'd have thought we would've had a bit of a rest but no - on with the plan.
Early entry day so the alarm is set REALLY early at 6:20 am!. (I guess I'll have to have a couple of beers less tonight to compensate - but then again .).
We had breakfast in the room, (this turned out really well - a real time saver today and on many other days. We bought cereal and milk intermittently and had brought plastic bowls and spoons from home. )
OK, "everybody neat and pretty? - then on with the show"
Arrived at Aruba's bus stop by 07:05 BUT no bus of any description until 07:30 and it was FULL UP and whizzed past without stopping! - AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!
Waited until about 07:40 for another bus to MK as plenty of AK and MGM stop and move on. DW is about to morph into the Hulk or something - the advantage of ee is slipping away and we have a perfectly good car sitting there in the car park!
Anyway, we're on the bus good ..but no ..it then calls at every other village @ CBR before moving off! - eventually arrived at MK at 08:00 - so much for early entry!
We vow never to use the bus system again and just use the car. On other days we feel kind of "smug" as we pass people pacing up and down in the coach waiting areas. I do feel for those who don't have the option of the car so beware.
OK, so in we go switch to" DUMBO BEFORE DISHONOUR" mode as per the plan. As we are so late the queue is 30 mins already .blast there goes all the timings on the plan as "Joe Public" is let in.
Thinks time for a beer!
Our guide books do not have FASTPASS in so that's it we are off plan completely and floundering about like a wet fish on the dockside. It was all so easy in the "virtual" world of the DIS - what's gone wrong?
Right then, Dumbo done - check
Peter Pan - no wait - check
Indy Speedway - 20mins - check
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - 25 mins - check
Splash Mountain - Fastpass - check
You can see by this that everything was taking longer than we thought - it was more crowded by about 10ish and hot enough to make us move more slowly than normal!
Now it's 11:40 and we'd only done 5 rides and now we were feeling peckish and headed over to Tomorrow Land.
FP for Buzz
Went on TTA (We love this ride but we still call it Wedway People Mover!!)
We went to Cosmic Rays to eat .great, they do sandwiches!
Brits beware, these are not your normal Roy Keane Prawn ones! - LOL
This was salami, ham, chicken, cheese and oh, Salad all together and fries!!!!!!. It's about 12 " high - and you get a small packet of saltines (?) with it - Why??????
But, it was very good value (at $4.95 each) and kept us going until dinner time.
Back to Buzz and here are our initial scores: -
Laura 0
Alexandra 1800
Alison 21800
Me 49500
"Who's your Daddy?" - competitive nature takes over. I think I need a celebratory drink! - LOL
(Insert from Alison - COMPETITIVE???? Shaun was running around whooping and hollering as we got off Buzz. I saw a lot of sympathetic glances being thrown my way - "Just out of the asylum" I mouthed. Total agreement on their faces!! )
Grabbed some Ice-creams and went to get bus back to CBR. Just to add insult to injury we wait another 20 mins before our bus turns up. That's it, I've had enough of the transportation for ever!
We got back to the room to find all the toys watching the Toon channel on the TV! - a big hand for the maids!
Quick swim and freshen up, beers nice and cold, then head over to GF and make it in 10 mins flat! (Alison insert here - another black mark for the Richard Petty/Shaun Bonner driving experience - we all got out of the car white faced and shaky!!! LOL!)
There, I wish we had taken the car this morning!
W drive in and are greeted by the Valet parking attendant! - Where did that uniform idea come from?
We are VERY impressed with the GF, so light and airy - a bit like Dixie Amos I suppose! - LOL
However, I wouldn't be impressed if I'd paid $$$$$ for a room that overlooked the new pool building site or the noise it created.
I thought that there were more "lurkers" there than actual guests. Also, there were quite a number of wedding parties and no-one bats an eyelid or anything. I guess it's "business as usual" for folks at the GF.
1900 Park Fayre Villains meal
Now that we are back, I'm REALLY glad we did this before it shuts. The food was really good and the kids loved it. I can also get "dark" beer here as well and settle for a Becks.
The villains were:
Captain Hook
Prince John
Governor John Ratcliff
In the restaurant and: -
Cruella de Ville (top babe today)
Queen of Hearts
just in the lobby area.
The food was good prime rib, veggies, Chinese selection, salad bar and more besides.
Kids had hot dogs, burgers, chicken etc.
Desserts were awesome crumble,bread pudding, ice cream, toppings, cakes, cream etc!
The total bill including coffee and tip came to $110 - Oh well, it is holiday I suppose!
(Another insert from Alison - more than one beer included in that!!)
Walked round GF a bit and went on the monorail. "can we ride up front" - "Sure".
This was good, REALLY good.
It wasn't that busy so did a complete round trip!
The icing on the cake was that we managed to get Co-pilot licences for the girls - WOW!
Back to CBR and collapse! - 4 hours in the parks in this heat is about as much as we can take.
PS
The 2-way radios were REALLY useful and came into their own today
PPS
We had a note in our room saying that we were eligible for 4 free special resort pins. Over to OPR to pick them up. We toyed with the idea of pin trading for the girls but left it at that. Now we have bought them a lanyard in pink and bought some other pins. They both traded pins with one of the CMs.
Oh dear, thats the start of it now!
Tomorrow: DW's birthday, Neverland club, E ride night
Cast list: -
Me (Shaun) - Wallet opener, chauffeur and bag carrier
DW (Alison) - Chief planner, navigator and mother
DD # 1 (Alexandra 7) - Cautious, shy and parking lot number guru
DD # 2 (Laura 5) - Daredevil, chatterbox and sleeper
Well, after yesterday you'd have thought we would've had a bit of a rest but no - on with the plan.
Early entry day so the alarm is set REALLY early at 6:20 am!. (I guess I'll have to have a couple of beers less tonight to compensate - but then again .).
We had breakfast in the room, (this turned out really well - a real time saver today and on many other days. We bought cereal and milk intermittently and had brought plastic bowls and spoons from home. )
OK, "everybody neat and pretty? - then on with the show"
Arrived at Aruba's bus stop by 07:05 BUT no bus of any description until 07:30 and it was FULL UP and whizzed past without stopping! - AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!
Waited until about 07:40 for another bus to MK as plenty of AK and MGM stop and move on. DW is about to morph into the Hulk or something - the advantage of ee is slipping away and we have a perfectly good car sitting there in the car park!
Anyway, we're on the bus good ..but no ..it then calls at every other village @ CBR before moving off! - eventually arrived at MK at 08:00 - so much for early entry!
We vow never to use the bus system again and just use the car. On other days we feel kind of "smug" as we pass people pacing up and down in the coach waiting areas. I do feel for those who don't have the option of the car so beware.
OK, so in we go switch to" DUMBO BEFORE DISHONOUR" mode as per the plan. As we are so late the queue is 30 mins already .blast there goes all the timings on the plan as "Joe Public" is let in.
Thinks time for a beer!
Our guide books do not have FASTPASS in so that's it we are off plan completely and floundering about like a wet fish on the dockside. It was all so easy in the "virtual" world of the DIS - what's gone wrong?
Right then, Dumbo done - check
Peter Pan - no wait - check
Indy Speedway - 20mins - check
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - 25 mins - check
Splash Mountain - Fastpass - check
You can see by this that everything was taking longer than we thought - it was more crowded by about 10ish and hot enough to make us move more slowly than normal!
Now it's 11:40 and we'd only done 5 rides and now we were feeling peckish and headed over to Tomorrow Land.
FP for Buzz
Went on TTA (We love this ride but we still call it Wedway People Mover!!)
We went to Cosmic Rays to eat .great, they do sandwiches!
Brits beware, these are not your normal Roy Keane Prawn ones! - LOL
This was salami, ham, chicken, cheese and oh, Salad all together and fries!!!!!!. It's about 12 " high - and you get a small packet of saltines (?) with it - Why??????
But, it was very good value (at $4.95 each) and kept us going until dinner time.
Back to Buzz and here are our initial scores: -
Laura 0
Alexandra 1800
Alison 21800
Me 49500
"Who's your Daddy?" - competitive nature takes over. I think I need a celebratory drink! - LOL
(Insert from Alison - COMPETITIVE???? Shaun was running around whooping and hollering as we got off Buzz. I saw a lot of sympathetic glances being thrown my way - "Just out of the asylum" I mouthed. Total agreement on their faces!! )
Grabbed some Ice-creams and went to get bus back to CBR. Just to add insult to injury we wait another 20 mins before our bus turns up. That's it, I've had enough of the transportation for ever!
We got back to the room to find all the toys watching the Toon channel on the TV! - a big hand for the maids!
Quick swim and freshen up, beers nice and cold, then head over to GF and make it in 10 mins flat! (Alison insert here - another black mark for the Richard Petty/Shaun Bonner driving experience - we all got out of the car white faced and shaky!!! LOL!)
There, I wish we had taken the car this morning!
W drive in and are greeted by the Valet parking attendant! - Where did that uniform idea come from?
We are VERY impressed with the GF, so light and airy - a bit like Dixie Amos I suppose! - LOL
However, I wouldn't be impressed if I'd paid $$$$$ for a room that overlooked the new pool building site or the noise it created.
I thought that there were more "lurkers" there than actual guests. Also, there were quite a number of wedding parties and no-one bats an eyelid or anything. I guess it's "business as usual" for folks at the GF.
1900 Park Fayre Villains meal
Now that we are back, I'm REALLY glad we did this before it shuts. The food was really good and the kids loved it. I can also get "dark" beer here as well and settle for a Becks.
The villains were:
Captain Hook
Prince John
Governor John Ratcliff
In the restaurant and: -
Cruella de Ville (top babe today)
Queen of Hearts
just in the lobby area.
The food was good prime rib, veggies, Chinese selection, salad bar and more besides.
Kids had hot dogs, burgers, chicken etc.
Desserts were awesome crumble,bread pudding, ice cream, toppings, cakes, cream etc!
The total bill including coffee and tip came to $110 - Oh well, it is holiday I suppose!
(Another insert from Alison - more than one beer included in that!!)
Walked round GF a bit and went on the monorail. "can we ride up front" - "Sure".
This was good, REALLY good.
It wasn't that busy so did a complete round trip!
The icing on the cake was that we managed to get Co-pilot licences for the girls - WOW!
Back to CBR and collapse! - 4 hours in the parks in this heat is about as much as we can take.
PS
The 2-way radios were REALLY useful and came into their own today
PPS
We had a note in our room saying that we were eligible for 4 free special resort pins. Over to OPR to pick them up. We toyed with the idea of pin trading for the girls but left it at that. Now we have bought them a lanyard in pink and bought some other pins. They both traded pins with one of the CMs.
Oh dear, thats the start of it now!
Tomorrow: DW's birthday, Neverland club, E ride night
We have found Cosmic Rays to be a great place to eat too. I especially like the bbq sandwiches. Cant wait to read more!
