Episode 3 - The Band of Despair
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First, my sincere and deep apologies for the long absence. Life=Crazy. I will spare you details as it is not really "on topic"; with this forum, but the good news is things are settling down a bit.
Thanks for sticking around! Enjoy!
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Previously on Biscuit's Grand Adventure, plans were concealed, surprises revealed, and a Delawarean made me giddy.
Having stood on the balcony of our Wilderness Lodge room and admired our courtyard view a bit, I was now compelled to head back inside and get down to business. There was not only lunch to think about, but also the FastPass Plus reservations we had at Epcot later that evening. The girls were eager to meet up with their cousins, and commandeering First Lady Biscuit's cell phone, called and asked them to come check out the room. While those communications were underway, I declared the procurement of our remaining belongings to be our top priority. I called down to Bell Services and asked them to send up our colossal cart O' stuff, and settled in with some Resort TV to await its arrival.
The next few minutes were spent texting back and forth with Nick and Tammy, uploading our room view to Instagram, a bit more room exploring, and some TV tuning.
(iPhone Instagram Upload)
Before long, a knock at the door signaled that our bags had arrived. After tipping the bell services guy, I kept the door open for Nick and Tammy & crew who were heading down our way. All four cousins fell to whooping and hugging and having themselves a full blown hootenanny. They didn't stay too long as they had to go and fetch their own luggage, so we bid them a temporary farewell and commenced to organizing.
We did some unpacking, some stashing and some stowing, grabbed what we needed for the evening, invoked the balcony as a sunscreen application zone, and took a final gander at our digs. Smiling again at being here, in this amazing place and in this amazing room, I shut the door and we headed downstairs for lunch at Roaring Fork.
We arrived around the same time as Nick and Tammy's gang, and found that they wound up with an upgrade of their own...bunk beds. (They were staying on the fifth floor of the main lobby above Whispering Canyon.) Double upgrade celebrations commenced as we headed inside to order us some chow.
By this point it was around 3 P.M. and we were more than a little hungry. After perusing the offerings, I'm fairly certain that we all went with flatbreads. (Though I am forced to confess that I don't recall what all Nick's crew ordered.) All I know is, The Biscuits Four chowed down on flatbreads, drinks, and cookies. After a long drive and exciting check in, it truly hit the spot.
Sidebar - I didn't snap a huge amount of food pics this time around. I can't really say why. I just didn't.
We ate fairly quickly, and soon it was time to part ways for the remainder of the evening. Nick's crew (all of whom were on the
Disney Dining Plan) was heading to Chef Mickey's. I had pondered joining them in the months leading up to our excursion, but I just wasn't up to paying for it out of pocket. Don't get me wrong, I love Parm taters, but I don't love them to the tune of two Benjamins.
Plus I can make them at home.
And have.
Instead, I was taking my crew to Epcot for some rides, Illuminations, and the second and final big surprise that I had in store. But that's getting ahead of myself.
Passing back through the lobby, I noticed more of the construction going on at the Wilderness Lodge. I had been in such a room-seeing swoon on my way through the first time that I had completely missed it. The fountain was still walled off, as was the outside area between the pool and the back of the lodge. The construction theme would be a constant companion the entire trip.
For reasons unknown, I felt compelled to drive to Epcot for the night. One would think three days in the van would have been enough, but apparently one would be wrong. (This would lead to more adventures later that evening.) We headed down the hill, piled back into the Blue Beast, and were soon on our way.
As we drove past the Polynesian Resort, the construction frenzy was once again fully on display. I drove in and out of our resort at least a dozen times on this trip, and on nearly every one, I wound up stopping in front the Polynesian for either construction vehicles or backed up traffic. After swinging a loop around the outside of the Magic Kingdom Parking lot, I heard my GPS say something that would become a recurring source of humor to me. "Proceed to Ep-kit Drive and exit right towards Ep-kit."
For pretty much the rest of the trip, Ep-Kit found its way into my vacation vernacular. "Proceed to Ep-Kit Drive and exit right towards Ep-Kit," was announced when we left every attraction that evening.
We arrived in the Epcot parking lot in short order, and after finding a berth, we discovered the tram was broken down. We were a good ways back and our journey to the gates began what come to be known as "The Night of Excessive Ambulation."
(iPhone Instagram Upload)
We were soon approaching this and my excitement level was beginning to soar.
Our first park on our first day.
Oh yes friends, life was pretty good at that moment.
We made it through bag check fairly easily and headed inside.
Our first FP+ reservation of the evening was for Spaceship Earth. The standby line was 25 min at that point of the day, signaling the type of crowds we would be dealing with for the remainder of the week. We headed to the FP entrance, held up our Magic Bands, and got our first flashing green Mickey Head of the trip.
I think I felt my spleen flutter.
There was not any sort of line at the top of the ramp and aside from pausing for First Lady Biscuit to take a picture of the girls, we never stopped walking until we got on.
(Phone Pic from FLB)
Tracy and Hailee boarded first and Tahlia and I were right behind them.
We had a lovely tour of mankind's storied and hairy history before exiting back to our own timeline safe and sound. I didn't take any photos inside because I had managed to get all of the way into the park before realizing my camera was not in the camera bag. (Hence all the cell phone pics above and below.)
I had taken it out and worn it on my neck at the Wilderness Lodge and rather than putting it back in the bag, I stuck it in the console when we got in the van to drive over. I did however record the audio on the ZoomH4n, but I can't figure a way to share it that works well. If you MUST listen to the Spaceship Earth loop to properly be in the Ep-kit mood, I recommend D-Cot for your aural pleasure.
After spending a few moments farting around in the exit area, I headed over to guest services to get our ticket upgrade completed.
Once again I struck out. I had made the mistake of sending the girls to use the facilities while I did the upgrade, and the CM needed all four Magic Bands.
This was now four times I had tried to upgrade our tickets and couldn't. I have never had such a difficult time giving money to Disney.
The girls were eager to ride something else, so I postponed our upgrade and we headed over to attraction number two. Next on our list was the merry old land of Mission Space. My last encounter with this attraction nearly ended in disaster when I foolishly decided to ride the orange side twice in a row. I wasn't sure how everyone would handle this one, (including myself) so we headed into the green side as an introduction to the place. (We walked straight through the queue and right into the briefing room.) I was put in charge of hypersleep. A task I hope I have avoided repeating in the telling of this tale.
The girls really loved the ride and the theming of the "spaceship". They were pressing buttons, flipping switches, laughing, and having a ball. Upon emerging from our computerized cocoon, I asked if they were ready to take it up a notch. I had FP+ reservations for the Orange side; an unnecessary reservation, but with the FP tiers and the late arrival, it was all I could get.
My original intent was to take Tahlia and Hailee back on while First Lady Biscuit chillaxed it out in the mission control area. (See that? Biscuit be bringing the street cred.) To my great surprise, she wanted to test out the Orange side and the girls were raring to go. Well, not one to back away from a ride that has the potential to kill you, I led us back through the queue, used our FP+ to bypass the minimal line, and we headed right into the briefing room again.
(iPhone Pic)
Well, sort of.
That's what was what was supposed to happen anyway, only it didn't quite go that smoothly.
You see two of our bands didn't work.
This was only our second attraction.
The FastPass+ system which had accounted for a substantial bout of frustration and irritation over the course of the past several months, the system which had me calling technical support on 3 occasions, the system which in recent days had seemed to have overcome much of its instability, that very SAME system now was once again giving me pangs and twitches.
I would like to say this was our only problem of the week. I would like to say that from here on, FP+ never had glitches again. I would like to. But I can't.
But that's getting ahead of myself.
Back to Mission Space.
The CM let all of us through based on my word of honor, (the virtually deserted queue may have played into his sympathies) and I promised to head to Guest Services as soon as we exited the attraction.
I was not sure how the girls would react to the Orange side, nor how my own innards would appreciate the experience. However, I needn't have feared. Everyone loved it and the girls screamed and squealed the entire time.
That wasn't me.
No seriously.
I only made man noises of acceptable attraction appreciation.
We exited our pods, and to my great relief I was able to walk in a mostly straight line. I wanted to be done with the ticket nonsense, and find out why my bands weren't working, so we once again returned to guest services, this time with all four Magic Bands.
After poking around the keyboard, scanning the bands, poking some more, and scanning some more, the Cast Member whose name eludes me determined that he had no idea why the attraction wouldn't accept our bands. (Well that just fills me with uncontainable confidence.) He also finally completed my upgrade, and I added the elusive two days to our tickets.
Upgrades complete and bands certified as being healthy, we split up. I sent Tracy and the girls over to Sunshine Seasons for a snack, while I ran the like the wind (Bullseye) to the car to get my camera. Yep. Did I mention we parked near the back of the Create lot? And that the mechanic was still fixing the stalled out parking tram?
Now had it been just a normal park night, I would have made due with the iPhone camera. I would have been a sacrifice yes, but I would have made it work. (NoTimGunn) But this was not a normal park night. Not only were we here to see Illuminations, but there was also the surprise I mentioned earlier. I can't tell you what it is yet, but I needed the camera to capture it.
I huffed and puffed like a wolf in a pork enclave, and beat a streak to the mini-van. I grabbed the camera, inhaled a few deep breaths of highly humid air, then started heading back to the park with that "powerwalk" move DIS'ers know and love. (Pausing for a photo along of the way of course.)
As I entered the park, I looked at my phone and realized something. I was about to miss our FP+ return window for Soarin. Between browsing the shop at Mission Space, waiting in line at Guest Services, waiting for the CM at guest services, and my There and Back Again journey, I had burned over an hour. I knew how much of stickler Disney has become about the FP+ times, and I was already starting into my grace period. It was time to burn soles and make a beeline to The Land. Would I make it to Soarin in time? Would getting the camera be worth it? Would my FP+ work?
Next Time on Biscuit's Grand Adventure: The Flight of the Angry.
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Thanks for stopping by and checking in! 
I didn't tell my kids there was a more intense version, because there is a good chance they would want to ride it, and I could not bring myself to get over my irrational fear.
