CleveRocks -- 2005, Final Day

[CleveRocks]

DAY 7 – Saturday, May 14 (The Last Dance)

A day at WDW never starts off well when you open your hotel room door and see that evil envelope hanging from the door knob, the envelope telling you it was all just a dream and it’s time to wake up. “Thanks for the money, now go home!”

We were staring down the barrel of a 4:00 p.m. DME pick up for a 6:45 p.m. flight back to Atlantic City. We had planned to spend the day relaxing in the room until the last possible minute, then going to CBR’s main pool and spending those five hours swimming, eating, and trying to avoid reality for just a few more sweet minutes. We had Mollie already in her bathing suit. However, the REAL leader of our group, my five year old Ben, announced that he really wanted to go to Downtown Disney, uber-consumer that he is. He knew about it from the planning DVD. We didn’t have any terrific reason to say no, so we gave in to his preference. My in-laws were actually happy with the idea, since they weren’t going to go into the pool, anyway.

When we called Bell Services at 10:30 a.m., they told us they were backed up and we should just leave our luggage, including carry-ons, just inside the hotel room door, and it would be picked up and stored. Off we went to the bus stop for the Downtown Disney bus.

Wow! Things have changed since I was last in that area in 1993. It was kind of like seeing someone when they were five years old and then BAM you see them again and they’re 17 and completely different, looking all grown up. That was the Downtown Disney experience to me. I remember eating at Chef Mickey’s in 1990 when it was back there.

Mollie enjoyed herself, but Ben was in heaven. Even my in-laws liked it. They wanted to go to Earl of Sandwich for lunch, but Lisa twisted their arms to go to Wolfgang Puck Express. Wow, what a great place, and what great prices! For the rest of our trip, just a few hours, my FIL repeatedly told me that if I had told him WPE was nearby he would have taken the bus to go there for dinner every night. I only wish they delivered. I wish I could eat many, many meals there to sample all the offerings. It’s been a while, but I think I had a roasted veggie sandwich, and FIL had something like pad thai. Both dishes, and the others that MIL and Lisa had that I can’t recall right now, were well worth the bus ride from CBR.

The kids rode the carousel a few times (we didn’t do it in MK, so who was I to say no?), and then we split off from the in-laws. They argued when I suggested we meet at the bus stop at 2:45 p.m. to get back to CBR in plenty of time for our 4:00 p.m. DME pick up. I told them I knew a lot of Disney stuff but I didn’t know how to make Spirit Airlines hold the plane for them if they’re late, and I just told them (without attitude, or as they pronounce it in Philadelphia, “addy-tude”) that Lisa and the kids and I will be on the first CBR bus after 2:45 p.m. with or without them.

Once Upon a Toy. If I could have afforded to go away for Spring Break when I was in college, I would not have had half as much fun as Ben had in Once Upon a Toy (although I suspect even if I had gone away for Spring Break I would not have remembered much of it, anyway). To my disappointment, however, he didn’t want to buy Mr. Potato Head stuff. Lisa got all the fun doing it with Mollie, who had decided not to do My Little Pony stuff.

After we left there, we took turns distracting the kids at the Lego Imagination Center so we could each pop into World Of Disney to shop for anything that WE wanted (which between us added up to three shirts and a cap which Lisa won’t stop “borrowing” from me). I think the kids liked the playground the best and Lisa and I liked the store the best. We briefly thought of decorating our home with canisters of loose Lego blocks (they looked SO COOL in the store), but then decided that was just the fatigue and humidity talking. We headed back to the bus stop, where her parents had already parked themselves. It only took me seven days to whip them into shape. God did his thing in only six days, but he didn’t have my in-laws to contend with.

We got back to CBR around 3:15 p.m. and did the slow, agonizing, depressing wait in the Custom House for our 4:00 p.m. bus. Around 3:40 I requested our bags from storage, and when the CM brought them to me later she refused my $10 tip. My last Disney moment.

She told me to leave the bags on the cart, and when the empty DME bus pulled up, I wheeled the cart over to the courteous and friendly driver. I lost track of my DME voucher, but he told me anything official from Disney with my name on it was fine. I had lots of things from WDTC in my handy-dandy clear plastic document folder, no problem. I then told my MIL, Keeper of Documents in her family, that the driver needed to see anything official from Disney with her name on it. One by one, she kept producing papers printed from our TA’s computer and showing them to him, and each time he and I told her that wasn’t from Disney, and she said she did not understand the distinction. Finally I reached in and pulled out her hotel voucher, and we were on our way.

We went straight from CBR to MCO, no stops. Our bus was about three-quarters full. We watched a DCL and DVC video along the way. All of us were at airlines on the same side of the airport, so he made only one stop. Before we stopped, he requested that we wait until he unloaded all of the luggage before we got off the bus, to avoid a line and to avoid us badgering him about which bag to get next. Through the bus windows, I noticed only one skycap, and I made it my business to snag him when I got off the bus, and I succeeded. He loaded up all of our bags, and we had quite a long walk to the Spirit counter (including an elevator ride to the third floor). My MIL, who walked at WDW Sunday through Wednesday and walked within our resort each day, suddenly needed a wheelchair for the airport, so the skycap got that for her, too. She yelled at my poor FIL a few times because he didn’t know how to wheel her exactly perfectly (as if he’d any experience at it whatsoever).

I had a chuckle at her expense that I quickly felt badly about, because Lisa and I both knew better but didn’t think to act ahead of time. We got onto the airport monorail, and as soon as it started moving my MIL’s wheelchair BOLTED backwards, and I ran and grabbed her/it before she/it hit a pole. I then showed her how to operate the brakes (and even explained that brakes existed). The line at security was long and took a very long time to clear.

We needed to eat, and I found on the directory a food court in our terminal. I waited in a very long line to get hot dogs for the kids and Lisa, and after I endured that I went over to a place who’s name I forget but it described itself as a Cuban café. Now, I love eating AUTHENTIC foods, and even though MCO isn’t exactly Havana, it’s not so far from Cuba, and I thought here was an excellent opportunity to eat AUTHENTIC Cuban food. We have two Cuban restaurants in Atlantic City, but I have no way of knowing how authentic they are. I somehow doubt the average worker in Cuba is drinking mojitos before eating a huge dinner of marinated grilled skirt steak in a Rioja demi and drizzled with scallion oil presented on top of roasted garlic mashed potatoes and crisp yuca fries -– www.cubalibrerestaurant.com in case you’re hungry and in the neighborhood. So imagine my disappointment when I walked over to discover the Cuban café took the word “café” very seriously – it sold only coffee and pastries. #$!*!!!

I had to get back in that super-long line. The only thing that made me feel better is even after I waited in the long line again and again got to the cash register, my FIL was still there at the counter waiting for his and MIL’s food. What did they order? Last meal in Florida same as their first meal in Florida – Philly cheesesteaks.

After the waits at security and the food court, we made it to our gate just as they were beginning pre-boarding. This taught me I was justified not to complain about DME picking up 2 hours and 45 minutes prior to departure.

The kids loved the plane ride, again. We had an interesting person behind my MIL, which put the person across the aisle and one row back from me. She was talking on her cellphone non-stop before the airplane left, She said things like, “I can’t be on the phones until after 9:00 p.m. (when we were scheduled to land), but then I have them ‘til 8:00 a.m. It’s going to be a very busy night. I already have five parties booked and there’s a fight (boxing match) in town tonight. If a guy from Borgata calls tell him he can’t get a girl for under $500 tonight.” The Atlantic City Yellow Pages has 18 pages of display ads for escort services (I just counted), but I never met anyone who worked for or owned one before. None of it bothered me because she was not being explicit in any way, so there was no way she was exposing the kids to anything, but at one point she did utter an expletive that had nothing to do with her profession. I shot her one of those parents-only disapproving looks, and she didn’t repeat it.

I could feel the airplane begin its descent. Time was running out. Only precious few moments remained for me to have fun at my MIL’s expense. I found my moment. Although she doesn’t let it show on the outside, she is terrified to fly, and her fear of flying is surpassed only by her fear of her loved ones flying (when her youngest son flies for work, she typically calls the airline starting about 30 minutes before scheduled arrival to find out if he landed safely; I used to tell her to just keep her TV on CNN and if there was no report of any plane crashes by around arrival time then he must be safe).

Anyway, at one point during our descent the captain made some routine announcement or another, but his voice was muffled. She leaned across the aisle and asked me what he said. I looked around and asked if she heard anyone screaming. She looked around, too, and said no, she didn’t hear anyone screaming. I told her, “Then good, the captain’s announcement must not have been that important.”

We landed. ACY has a fairly new parking system, new enough that I’d never used it before, and FIL has never been in the airport before. You insert your parking ticket in a machine a certain way and pay for your parking, then get another card with a magnetic stripe that you need to insert in another machine as you drive up to the parking lot exit. Like I said, I never did this before, I learned it at that moment by reading the instructions on the machine. I paid, got my card, then went to join the rest of the family to wait for our checked bags. FIL was in the men’s room, and then came right to baggage claim. I had to tell him to go to the machine to pay for parking.

We could see him from across the room, and his body language told us he had no idea what to do, and Lisa wanted me to go help him. I told her I was having too much fun watching him, and she laughed and pushed me towards him. I had to explain the whole process to him, basically by reading the printed instructions aloud. When he saw that the ticket he received looked just like the ticket he put into the machine, he said it was a stupid process and he should have just not paid (a whopping $4.25 per day, but until recently it was free) and used his original parking ticket at the exit. He did not accept my explanation that the exit is not manned, and that the machine would read the magnetic strip of his entry ticket and not let him exit because there was no evidence he paid.

My in-laws decided to stay at our house tonight and go back to their home the following day. Oh joy. We were all a little hungry when we got back to my house around 9:45 p.m. Our first priority was to get Ben to bed (Mollie fell asleep in the car). As I was rounding Ben up to take him upstairs, I asked my FIL, “After Ben is in bed, do you want some P-I-Z-Z-A?”, accenting the spelling and motioning with my head towards my son, in the universal parental gesture that I did not want my son to comprehend what I was talking about. I swear, I’ll bet space aliens do the same things with their young – it truly IS universal! In every universe but my FIL’s. He responded to me, “Sure, I’d love to have some pizza after Ben goes to bed.” Guess how much of a fuss there was from Ben. Guess how much longer it took me to get him to bed because of that. If you guessed “a lot of fuss” and “a freakin’ long time,” you’re in the ballpark.

Thus ended my WDW experience. My favorite ride/attraction? For me personally, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, hands down. For my kids, just seeing their total joy in everything they were doing. Ben said he liked Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin the best. Mollie really couldn’t say.

Lisa’s favorite ride was finally being able to put her contact lenses back in on Tuesday morning.

Since almost all our food was counter service (just as I anticipated prior to our trip), I don’t exactly have any fine dining comments. My favorite food? A three-way tie between the hand-tossed chicken Caesar salad at CBR food court, the grilled turkey and cheese sandwich with arugula and red peppers served on some type of hearty multi-grain bread at Backlot Express in MGM, and anything from Wolfgang Puck Express in DTD. My least favorite food? Easy, the ribs at Hoop Dee Doo Revue.

Regrets? Besides allowing my in-laws to come with us? Don’t let me get started on this. Just as Lisa and I expected, 7 days with them, and never once did they offer to watch the kids to we could have some time together to relax or have a romantic dinner or anything like that. And we didn’t want to ask, that’s just not our way (we feel if they don’t offer then we would be imposing to ask and they would feel uncomfortable saying no).

Regrets? Next time, about two years from now, I’ll try to go for 10 days instead of seven, to allow for more down-time as well as more relaxed touring. I also regret not taking the kids to Epcot’s World Showcase, but if we had the same time frame again I’d do the same again. In two years, both kids will be old enough to participate in some sort of on-property child care experience, so Lisa and I can get a nice dinner together – I can’t wait to try Restaurant Marrakesh. And ride Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster A LOT more. Just not in that order.

Thank you for putting up with my wordiness. And with my in-laws. Wanna trade?

 

[rdjm]

Thank you so much for the wonderfly amusing trip report. It has been a pleasure to read about your adventures.