The line at Mecca was somewhat long. Mecca being the POP Century check-in desk. And there I go again. It wasnt a line; it was a queue. My bad. We stood in this cattle drive for what Id have to guess was about 25-30 minutes. I had anticipated this. We were checking in to a value resort for the last full week of free dining and I had heard POP was booked solid. So it didnt come as a surprise. Yet theres still a certain feeling you get when you see the number of people standing there wanting exactly what you want. Keys to The World. I think its called dread. It all went quite painlessly, however, and I was thrilled to find that our (my) first request for a non-smoking, Epcot-facing, 4th floor room was completely fulfilled. With key-cards in hand and smiles on our faces, we set off to find Building 2, room 2415.
What are these bugs? Theyre all over. Has some plague befallen the greater Orlando area due to the displeasure of some omniscient deity? Has Mickey overtaken said deity on the hierarchy and the punishment is this swarm? And what are the bugs doing? Why does it look like theyre all stuck together in pairs? Oh geez. LOVELY
Please dont let Jillie ask why the bugs are stuck together
Please, please, please!!!!!! And for petes sake Matt
stop pulling them apart! Leave love alone!
The bugs were feasting on what looked like a frozen-coke spill from perhaps a few nights before that was just outside our door. Room 2415. Wow! This is most certainly the end of The World! Were almost the furthest away from Classic Hall as we can get, at least on this end of the resort. Happy to say we werent staying in the 90s!
Our room was clean and fresh-scented. No complaints! And a bit larger than my brain had been imagining. I had something pictured where it would be difficult for two people to pass each other without one having to sit on the bed to make room. But this wasnt nearly that small. Cozy, but not snug.
Our new goal, now that the room-finding goal had been achieved, was to find a) food and b) Epcot, in that order. We dropped off our carry-ons (as well as the camera
brilliance at work!); I repacked the Baggallinni (which will from henceforth be known simply as the Bagg, because Im tired of spelling the whole thing out) for touring, rather than flying; made sure I had the magnets for my friends Candee and Cathryn, should I happen to run into either of them, and off we go!
They say that Everything POP is the food and the gift shop together, and yes, it is
but its also not. Theyre together, yet theyre separated by a wall, and by the seating area for the restaurant, and once you know your way around, its easy to avoid one or the other. Or both. Since our goal was food, we sort of sped right through the gift shop area to the food court, since we didnt yet know there was a food court back door that would avoid the gift shop area. And no matter what anyone else says, its a food court. It may have Mickey bars and plenty of Goofys candy, but its a food court.
Yes, we bought the mugs. Nuff said.
I didnt write down what everyone had. Jillie had Mac~n~cheese, Im sure. I had the cheesesteak wrap. I dont remember what Matt had and I think Jack had the Lo Mein. Nope, nope, I take that back. He got the meatball sub. He had the Lo Mein later in the week. I did note, however, that Matt got the tie-dyed cheesecake (as pictured in the elevator poster) and it got a big thumbs-down. And the kid loves cheesecake. I didnt have a bite, because I was working on my own chocolate marshmallow cheesecake, to which Ill give a thumbs-up, but not a super-enthusiastic one. It was OK. But what I had really wanted was a Twinkie tiramisu. And there werent any.
Since I knew Id end up being the one to drag around all the mugs, I voted that we take the mugs back to the room before heading to Epcot. It was only 5ish, so its not like we were pressed for time at all. My only true goal for that day was IllumiNations, and it wasnt until 9. Plenty of time to get to Epcot, check out the basics and find a place to see the show.
The bus queue was medium full for Epcot, and was about the same for all the parks. The bus came pretty quickly and it was around 6:00 when we entered the front gates at Epcot. WOW. All those Leave a Legacy squares! And Spaceship Earth! Finally! There we were! Slow down, wouldja?? Lets take our time!
As we wandered by Spaceship Earth, the standby wait was all of 5 minutes, so into the line we skipped. This ride, while incredibly boring on the thrill-scale, is pretty darn cool. It gets you there at the top with the awe-factor. Jillie really enjoyed it because it goes backward. Who could ask for anything more?
We left Spaceship Earth and saw a really big wall that displayed the wait times for the really big attractions. The wait time for Soarin reminded me that we wanted to ride that one. We being me. So, I decreed that we shall obtain FastPasses for Soarin and then we shall decide what to do next. Our FPs were for 8:15. Cutting it a lot close for getting those primo seats for IllumiNations, but well decide whether or not to use the FPs when the time comes.
We (I) decided that the other must-ride at Epcot for us (at least on this first night) was going to have to be Maelstrom. We headed to the right after leaving The Land pavilion so we could check out the Honey I Shrunk the Audience situation also. Since time seems to run at a different speed in The World, it had already managed to become 7pm and HIStA was already closed. Bummer. But my 61 tall super-sized kid had some fun catching the water from the jumping fountains. I could have left Matt there for a couple of hours and hed have still been there entertaining the masses when I got back. Mom! Mom! Im going to do a full twist in my jump this time! When he wasnt annoying the fuddy-duddies, he was really pretty funny.
But Im not one of those moms that leaves their kids to annoy other people for more than a couple of minutes, so we headed toward Norway, at a pretty decent clip. Now, today is Saturday the 23rd and the Food and Wine Festival is scheduled to start on Friday the 29th, so there are already booths set up with big canvas covers and it makes me wanna come back for the food and wine festival. But right now, I just need to get to Norway. Oh, look, a Mayan ruin
. Now, lets MOVE it, folks!
Our early trip to Norway to ride Maelstrom was probably a good thing because I got to see where Restaurant Akershus is at the same time. Jillie and I were on the schedule for lunch there the next day. Lots of Princesses at half the TS price there!
The wait for Maelstrom was all of 5 minutes, so we hopped right on that one. And heres my review
Uhhhmmmm
. Ok. Well.
We debated on whether or not to ride again. No, we really did! Jillie loved it because
well
it goes backward. But the wait time had built back up to 10 minutes and the line was out the door and we had 8:15 FPs for Soarin and all. Hmmm. Soarin or Maelstrom
.
We got back to The Land and in front of the OFFICIAL SOARIN' FASTPASS CLOCK at 8:02pm. We sat. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tom Petty said it best
the waiting is the hardest part! Rebels that we are, at 8:14 we decided to give it a shot. Now dont tell ANYONE! This is just between you and me! The CM let us on the ride at 8:14 with our FPs that clearly said 8:15. Yes!
Really!
Yes way! No,
YOU get out of town!
Id like to point out that having a FastPass for Soarin apparently only means that you get to wait more quickly. Because theres still some waitin goin on. You wait after the CM checks your FP and counts the correct number of people. Then you are assigned a row and you wait while hottie Patrick Warburton (oh, did I say that out loud?) tells you stuff I dont really remember.
Sorry girls, but Ill stay and stare at Pat
here while you gals go over to Mission:Space and ogle Gary. Meet ya in Canada.
The ride itself is indeed, quite amazing. The weightless feel on the ride is quite realistic (said as if Ive ever been hang-gliding. Ive not.) and the pumped in scents, which I expected to be distracting, arent all that odd. There are two scenes that seem to share the same big-pine-tree scent, which seems like a bit of a rip-off, but I digress. Soarin gets a 9 from me. It doesnt rate the 10 simply because its not a roller coaster. And it gets a 9 from Jillie also, despite of the lack of backward motion. My motion sickness guys both enjoyed it as well. Four big Thumbs-Up from The First-Timers!
Well, now its getting darkish and we need to find a place to plant ourselves for IllumiNations. Id seen a portion of a video of the show on YouTube, so I had a vague idea of what to expect. I didnt watch the whole video, because I wanted to have some surprise when I was actually there to see the show.
We crossed the bridge back to World Showcase and stood there trying to decide whether to go left or right. And I noticed that there was a CM letting people into an area that had been roped off on our two prior trips through the area. I didnt know if these people were in a group and the area had been reserved, but I figured there was only one way to find out. I drug my family into the fray, past the CM and onto a patio with an amazing view. Another CM was instructing people to SIT! There would be no standing on this patio (One fella even got in trouble for kneeling! They said BOTTOMS had to be on the ground!)! I was also somewhat reassured, as the people on the patio with us seemed just as random as we were, so we didnt seem to be imposing on a group.
Matt parked himself right up at the fence, but there wasnt room for all of us there, so Jack and I stayed toward the back. Jillie wasnt too thrilled with her brother having a front-row seat while she was back with mom and dad, so we let her go up and sit on Matts lap. Which, amazingly enough, Matt let her do also! I got my little mom-moment of They DO love each other, after all! And it was wonderful.
As was IllumiNations! This was by far the best fireworks show we saw. Granted, it was also the best view we managed to get for any of them, but I also enjoyed this one the most. The music combined with the fireworks, lasers and the Earth turning on the lagoon
. Excellent! Highly recommended!
Now for the journey back to the bus stop. I tried to get my family to sort of hang back and take our time, but they just thought I was crazy. Its closed! Closed is when you leave! The sooner you leave the sooner youre home! Didnt I know that?? So we meandered. Somewhat quickly.
The bus stop queue for POP wasnt quite full, but it got that way pretty quickly after we got into it. And theres a bus loading up a
scooter driver when a second bus pulls up to the outside and starts loading people from the queue. I asked the driver if we were getting on his bus because he was the better driver of the two and he said, You bet! And the outside bus leaves first! Well you certainly didnt need to talk me into that one! Onto the outside bus we go!
Upon our arrival back at POP, the Better Driver promptly ran his bus up onto the curb at the bus stop.
I guess thats the price for taking the outside bus! Risking life and limb! Lesson learned!
This has been a great day! Our flight was fine! We made it to Epcot and had excellent seats for IllumiNations and managed to ride Soarin. What could possibly go wrong?? Nothing, right? After all, this is Walt Disney World! Uh-huh. Sure. I wonder if that Murphy fella
the one with the law
has ever been to WDW. Id bet so, because when we walked into our room at 10:15, we were greeted with a complete and utter Lack~O~Luggage. No toothpaste. No toothbrushes. No Right Guard. No jammies. Uhm
that certainly seems to have exceeded the 1-3 hours that it normally takes to have Magical Express to deliver you bags to your room. It's neither Magical OR Express. So, while my family wanders over to Everything POP to fill our collective refillable mugs with frozen coke and frozen blue stuff, I get on the phone. And I wait. And wait. And wait. Had I known that Id be on hold for 15-20 minutes (long enough for my family to walk all the way to Everything POP, fill the mugs, check out some snacks, check out the Hippy Dippy pool, slowly wander back to the room, and then sit there and stare at me for 5 or so more minutes!), Id have turned on the TV and spent some quality time with Stacy. But she and I hadnt met yet, so I didnt know what I was missing at that point.
Rob told me that the bags were there at POP and that it would probably be another hour until they got to our room. Alright, I can wait until 11:30. We flew from another time zone so we lost an hour anyhow. 11:30 is really 10:30 to my brain. No problem. I asked Rob why they were so delayed and he said they got waylaid at the airport. Then I asked Rob why I was on hold for so darned long and he said that he was the only one there answering the phone. Everyone else was sorting and delivering bags. So then I joked with Rob about how I had to hold for so long and here I was talking his ear off and keeping him from talking to the next person on forever-hold. Poor Rob. But he took me in stride and laughed at my idiocy and we hung up. Then began another Wait.
I think I turned off the TV at 12:30 after everyone else had fallen asleep. I joined them pretty quickly in snoozeland. But it was in spurts, since I kept expecting a knock at the door.
At 2:00, I called again, just to see if theyd still bring the bags or wait until morning. The gal said that they were delivering bags all night. Oh goody.
Finally at 2:55am, I awoke to a gentle rap at the door. I was too fuzzy to make out the CMs name on his tag, but from the voice, I would bet that Rob was the lucky soul that apologized very sincerely for the delay and for waking us. I was just glad to have some toothpaste! And the chance to get some restful sleep.
Next up: Our first full day! Epcot, here we come!
Tell you what, next time one pees on my carpet, you're the first one I'll call! 
Hi Chris.
But Im also a mom and this is my kids first flight, so when I see that our four seats consist of two aisle, one middle and one window seat, I relinquish the window and the middle seats to the kids, so THEY can see. Jack and I take the aisle seats, with Jack on the two-seat side of the aisle and me next to the kids. Then the nice lady that was assigned the window seat next to Jack arrives and explains to him that shes not a window seat person and would he mind taking that window seat so she can sit on the aisle (She didnt know we were together at that point)?? And, super-nice guy that he is, he says yes
even though HE is not a window seat guy either! Hes a motion-sickness monster and he hates the window because he can see stuff move! So Im sitting on the aisle, with my kids to one side and my husband taken away from me by some older-book-fanatic lady, and he's sitting by the window, no less, and I'm slightly bitter about it. This is kind of boring. But I have magnets to cut out, so Ill try to not be too bummed about it, because I am going to The World!!!!!!!
And its cloudier than all get out! Yippee! 
I see white!! YAY!!!! And look! Its a WING!!! Clouds and wing!!!! Could I get any luckier?!?! 
