WDW Poly Princess
Needs a Disney Fix
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- Jul 17, 2000
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***note*** If you would prefer to read the version of this trip report that includes photos, go to http://www.lovemanythings.net/disney/2002index.html
Crystals Second Solo Trip Report- Day 0
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! We invite you to sit back and pull up a chair as I tell you the tale of a great adventure that happened long, long ago (also known as last week.) Grab a dole whip and a Beavertail, and sit back and relax, remembering to keep your hands and arms inside the trip report at all times, and to take small children by the hand.
And without further ado
The Cast!
Starring
WDW Poly Princess- Me! Crystal- 20 year old (then) Disney traveler extrordinare- My 4th trip to the World, as well as my 2nd solo trip. Lover of the Haunted Mansion, cheesecake, and the Polynesian!
And in our supporting roles
*Nate- Known to the DIS as Aerobics or That guy who wrote that one trip report.., Nate is a wonderful guy I met via reading his trip report. We ended up at WDW at the same time last year, and through the miracles of Disney Magic, we found ourselves vacationing at the same time again this year! Also along with Nate is his younger sister Gwen, a first time Disneyer.
*Katie- Known later in this trip report as Trixie, Katie is an old friend who lives less than an hour from WDW, who I always try to meet up with while Im on vacation.
*Katt & Ash- More friends who live in Orlando. These two work at Universal, and ended up getting me free tickets. Hooray!
All of that Fun Planning Stuff
This was a very unique trip in that almost all of my planning was crammed into the two weeks before the trip. Due to unpredictable finances, it wasnt until two weeks before I left that I actually knew what days I would even be going, which made it rather hard to plan. My original plan was 6 nights at the Polynesian, followed by 6 nights over at Dixie err, Port Orleans Riverside, both of which are favorites of mine. I made these reservations several months in advance through Dreams Unlimited (Much love to Carole Annette!), but as time passed, it became pretty obvious that I wasnt going to be able to afford 12 days, and especially couldnt afford 6 nights at the Poly, despite my fantastic AP rate ($184/nt! For the Poly!) I changed my reservations to two nights at the Poly followed by five nights at PO-R ($88/nt w/AP discount), which was much more affordable. Since I would be buying my tickets online and knew I would probably end up not getting in to Orlando until late evening, I also added on one night at All Star Music ($55) for the first night of the trip, since I would hardly be spending any time at my resort that day.
My trip dates ended up being November 11th through 19th, 2002. I have to admit that at one point in my planning, I was very tempted to cancel my reservations and reschedule for December, so that I could go to Dis-Con. I debated this for about a week, and finally decided that going to Dis-Con sounded like far too much fun to pass up, so I e-mailed Carole to check on rates and availability for that week. It turned out that the only place she could find was WL Concierge, which I knew I couldnt afford, so it was back to square one and a November trip!
I did quite a bit of shopping around online for my airline tickets. The actual airline sites were giving prices from $350 on up, but I knew I could do much better than that. Expedia offered my tickets for $209, Travelocity for $203, and Hotwire came in as the winner with tickets for $183. I was worried that I would end up with horrible flight times, but actually did pretty well. I would arrive in Orlando at 8:13 on the 11th, and return at 2:45 on the 19th, arriving home at 6:30. I would have preferred to get in much earlier on the 11th, but otherwise, not half bad!
The last weeks before my trip absolutely flew by, and before I knew it, it was the night before I was to leave, and I was in a major panic. I just felt so unprepared for this trip! I had a general idea of which day I would be going to Universal with Katt and Ash, and knew that I would be meeting up with Katie sometime near the weekend, and that Nate would be getting in the day after I did, and would be calling to plan things out once he was there. I had ordered new pockets for my Passporter, which made me feel a bit more organized, but otherwise, I was feeling pretty lost. I finally decided to leave it all to fate, and got more in the Disney mood by reading through some trip reports. I was up until nearly 4am reading, and getting quite excited. The next morning, I was up at 7:30am for work, which started the SLOWEST morning of my life! I planned on working until 11:30 so that I could leave for the airport around noon. The minutes seemed like hours, and finally around 11 I called my boss to tell him I was going crazy, and needed to go on home and get ready to leave. He met up with me at 11:15 to finish up, and I sped home for last minute preparations. As excited as I was, the whole thing felt very unreal. I felt like Id be going back to work that afternoon, and everything would continue as normal. Even as my mom and I were making the hour long drive to the airport in Springfield, I still didnt believe I was going. I finally put on my Disney CD, and we sang along with Its a Small World, the Tiki Room song, Supercalifragilisticexpealadocious, Be Our Guest, Everybodys Got A Laughing Place, and more. All of the Disney music was FINALLY making me realize that I was going to Disney World!
On a rather funny note, a few days before I left, my dad had a dream that someone was singing Its a Small World, so he decided to give me $100 for my trip. Thanks, dad! (And no, I promise I wasnt standing over him singing as he slept, although that may not be a bad idea for next time )
We arrived at the airport a little before 1:30, and I checked in with no problems. We sat in the tiny airport café (Our airport has exactly one gift shop, one café, and something like a total of 10 gates.) My flight started boarding at 2:10, so mom stood right outside the line as I waited to go through security. We were amused by the sign listing all of the things that were illegal to have in carryon luggage. They seriously had cattle prods listed, along with some equally amusing items. WHO tries to take a cattle prod on the plane? Are they expecting to do some branding, or that there might be a stampede mid-flight?
Mom & I said our goodbyes, and I was off! I had laughed when I read on the website that tells the best seats on planes (Cant remember what its called right now..) that the front rows of this plane were the best, simply because Youll be among the first off of this horrible cramped little plane. I had laughed at the time, but as I squeezed on, I understood what they mean. I usually like small planes, but Im a tall girl (a little over 510), so when I have to duck to get through the aisle, I know Im in for a fun flight. Luckily, there was nobody sitting next to me, so I had a little extra room for my legs.
The flight to Memphis was pretty uneventful, and we landed about 3:40pm. I was a little nervous about only having an hour and a half before my next flight left, since the last time I had to pick up a connecting flight in Memphis, it took nearly an hour to get from one gate to the other. As I stepped off the plane and into the airport, I stopped to check the status of my flight on a whim. Oddly enough, instead of 5:20 as the departure time, it listed 6:45. Three hours before we left was not very exciting, but I figured at least I would have plenty of time to explore the airport gift shops and such. I went to my gate to double check that we were leaving that late before I took off to explore, and as I got there, I overheard the lady at the podium telling someone else that we would most likely not be departing until 8pm. Now three hours in the airport wasnt all that exciting, but almost four and a half? Eep!
My first worry was that I wasnt sure that Mears ran all night, so I tried calling Orlando information to get the number for Mears so I could check (One of those times I really wish I had a laptop so I could have just gone to the website!) I tried the number that information gave me several times, but nobody answered. I tried to spend some time amusing myself by calling everyone in my cell phones phone book, but most of them were either not home or busy somewhere, so that didnt last long. The lady at the podium finally got permission to give everyone on the flight a $5 meal voucher, so I set off to find a way to spend it. I was excited to see that the airport had a Cheers bar (a favorite hang out in the St Louis airport when my friends and I go there every year), but they have a really limited selection of food on the menu, so I had to continue my search. I finally decided that I wanted a muffin from Starbucks. You cant get change from a voucher, so I spent the whole thing on the $1.25 muffin. I would later wish that I would have been smart and gotten three, or at least a frappuccino to go with it, but thats jumping ahead a bit. I found myself thinking that as nice of a gesture as a $5 meal voucher is when you have a wait, it really felt so inappropriate for four hours of waiting. I knew it could be much worse and I could be stuck there for six or eight hours, but at the time it was just depressing.
So, after several trips around the airport in search of food and 45 pages of the book I picked up in the gift shop, it was 6pm, and I found myself dreaming of that original delayed departure time of 6:45, since that would mean I would be boarding in just a few minutes. I guess one definite negative point to traveling alone is finding yourself stuck in an airport for four hours and not having someone there to talk to! The hour I had spent there seemed impossibly long, and I found myself laughing at the fact that all morning at work I had been complaining about time passing too slowly. That was nothing!
I decided to call All Star Music and let them know that I wouldnt be checking in until very late, just to be sure they didnt give my room away. Honestly, I think I was just dying for someone to talk to, since I didnt really think that my late check in would be a problem
The person that I talked to confirmed that everything would be ok to check in that late, and ended by saying Have a magical day!. That really got to me, because it reminded me of just how different Disney is from the real world. It made me feel so much better to know that I would soon be on my way!
We finally got to board at 7:20, which was a bit earlier than we had come to expect. At one point the captain announced that we would be ready to go after the crew finished some safety checks, and all I could do was hope that nothing was wrong with the plane that would cause any more delays! Luck must have been with me because we were ready to go! Woohoo!
I found my seat in row 6, and settled down for the flight. Soon, a family of about seven people came by, and they kept looking at their tickets and the row number, and speaking in a language I couldnt identify. Finally a girl from their group leaned over the seats and said that her brothers ticket had my seat number on it. Theirs said 7E, so I started to explain that no, that was the row behind me. Then I looked up and realized that I was in the wrong row! Oops! I apologized and moved up to the right row, feeling pretty silly.
While we were flying in to MCO (Orlando International. I never have figured out how they decided to abbreviate that MCO), I started wondering how many times I had flown. I added it up in my head and discovered that this was my 11th flight. Yes, my 11th flight on November (11th month!) 11th, and we would be arriving at about 11pm! Ooooh! Now if only I were staying for 11 days! (Pft, no kidding if only!!)
Even when we were only a half hour away from landing, I still found it impossible to believe that I was almost THERE. At times I found myself wanting to stand up on the plane and ask if everyone was as excited to be going to Orlando as I was, but I resisted the urge
Once inside MCO, I boarded the magical monorail to baggage claim. I love the monorail! I nearly broke in to tears waiting for the luggage because the little boy from the family seated behind me RAN up to one of the Disney signs and was pointing at it and shrieking with joy saying Mickey! Mickey! He was SO excited, I almost lost it, and kind of wanted to abandon my luggage to go join him in his jumping and screaming
Next I went down to the Mears desk to get a shuttle to ASMu ($28 round trip). The lady at the desk gave me a ticket, which I was supposed to give to the guy at the booth outside. He gave me a big hockey-puck looking thing which was supposed to vibrate and light up when my shuttle was there. While I waited for the shuttle, I laughed when I saw that the time stamped on my ticket was 11:11, but my jaw absolutely dropped when I saw that my beeper was #111! Welcome to the twilight zone!
The ride from the airport to ASMu was about a half hour, which I spent talking with the several other people in our van. Every other time Ive ridden with Mears, its been on one of their busses, but I supposed that getting the van is the price you pay for arriving so late at night. I tried to get everyone to cheer as we passed through the gates of WDW, but I was the only one who actually did.
Before I knew it, we were at the resort! I was a bit worried about check-in, because my room was booked with an AP discount. My plan had been to pick up my new AP at the Disney store in the airport so that I would have it for check in, but the store was already closed by the time I got there. I figured that if they needed to see it before I checked out, I would just get up early the next day, go buy one, come back to the resort to check out, and then go back out to the parks. Not the most exciting way to start the day, but it would work I was very happy to see that the CM checking me in didnt even ask for my AP, so I didnt need to worry about it at all! Hooray! (Funny enough, none of the CMs that checked me in at any of the resorts asked to see my AP, so I dont know how they prevent people without APs from getting the discounts.)
I was assigned to Jazz building #2, which was great because it was a short walk from the main lobby. I had hoped to stop in the food court for something to eat, but I had arrived at the hotel at almost midnight, and they had closed at 11:30.
The neon saxophone-playing Jazz guy on my building looked so cool that I had to stop and take pictures of him (Yup, I was definitely at Disney now!), but as I looked at the display screen on my camera, I realized that not only was snazzy looking, he changed colors, too!! Too cool!
I was absolutely starving by this point, so I feasted on my package of airline pretzels and what was left of my muffin (It had crumbled so much in my bag on the flight that it was practically dust by now, but at least it was yummy banana-nut dust!) I decided to set out to explore the resort, since I was way too excited to sleep by this point. The main pool was right outside of the lobby, Melody Hall, with the Calypso buildings on either side of the pool. The Jazz buildings were next in line, with the Broadway buildings off to one side, and Rock & Country to the other, next to the piano pool. I loved that the lights in the street lamps flickered like real flames, and the little sitting areas with benches that were scattered along the paths.
My jaw literally dropped when I walked down the street of Broadway. It was incredible, and my jaw stayed on the ground the whole way down the street. The manholes, the taxi cab with steamed windows, the street signs, and the sidewalk painted like a real street made it feel like I was in a dream- definitely magical! It really felt like walking down a NYC street at night (Well, maybe a movie version of a NYC street.) It felt a lot like a movie set, really. It was awesome, and I made a mental note that if I stayed at ASMu again, that was the section I wanted.
Overall, I think I was more impressed with the theming at ASMu than I had been at ASMo last year. Movies would probably be better for kids, but the little details and special touches at Music made it my favorite of the values.
My room was #2641 on the 3rd floor. I had one king-sized bed, which was perfect since I was alone
. The bathroom was done in shades of a sort of aqua blue, instead of the black and white bathroom at Movies. It did have the wall dispenser of body wash/shampoo instead of the cute mickey soaps, but I had packed my own foo-foo stuff, as Nate calls it, so I cant tell you much about that.
I finally fell asleep around 2:30am, wishing I could just go to a park that minute and really get things started!
Crystals Second Solo Trip Report- Day 0
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! We invite you to sit back and pull up a chair as I tell you the tale of a great adventure that happened long, long ago (also known as last week.) Grab a dole whip and a Beavertail, and sit back and relax, remembering to keep your hands and arms inside the trip report at all times, and to take small children by the hand.
And without further ado
The Cast!
Starring
WDW Poly Princess- Me! Crystal- 20 year old (then) Disney traveler extrordinare- My 4th trip to the World, as well as my 2nd solo trip. Lover of the Haunted Mansion, cheesecake, and the Polynesian!
And in our supporting roles
*Nate- Known to the DIS as Aerobics or That guy who wrote that one trip report.., Nate is a wonderful guy I met via reading his trip report. We ended up at WDW at the same time last year, and through the miracles of Disney Magic, we found ourselves vacationing at the same time again this year! Also along with Nate is his younger sister Gwen, a first time Disneyer.
*Katie- Known later in this trip report as Trixie, Katie is an old friend who lives less than an hour from WDW, who I always try to meet up with while Im on vacation.
*Katt & Ash- More friends who live in Orlando. These two work at Universal, and ended up getting me free tickets. Hooray!
All of that Fun Planning Stuff
This was a very unique trip in that almost all of my planning was crammed into the two weeks before the trip. Due to unpredictable finances, it wasnt until two weeks before I left that I actually knew what days I would even be going, which made it rather hard to plan. My original plan was 6 nights at the Polynesian, followed by 6 nights over at Dixie err, Port Orleans Riverside, both of which are favorites of mine. I made these reservations several months in advance through Dreams Unlimited (Much love to Carole Annette!), but as time passed, it became pretty obvious that I wasnt going to be able to afford 12 days, and especially couldnt afford 6 nights at the Poly, despite my fantastic AP rate ($184/nt! For the Poly!) I changed my reservations to two nights at the Poly followed by five nights at PO-R ($88/nt w/AP discount), which was much more affordable. Since I would be buying my tickets online and knew I would probably end up not getting in to Orlando until late evening, I also added on one night at All Star Music ($55) for the first night of the trip, since I would hardly be spending any time at my resort that day.
My trip dates ended up being November 11th through 19th, 2002. I have to admit that at one point in my planning, I was very tempted to cancel my reservations and reschedule for December, so that I could go to Dis-Con. I debated this for about a week, and finally decided that going to Dis-Con sounded like far too much fun to pass up, so I e-mailed Carole to check on rates and availability for that week. It turned out that the only place she could find was WL Concierge, which I knew I couldnt afford, so it was back to square one and a November trip!
I did quite a bit of shopping around online for my airline tickets. The actual airline sites were giving prices from $350 on up, but I knew I could do much better than that. Expedia offered my tickets for $209, Travelocity for $203, and Hotwire came in as the winner with tickets for $183. I was worried that I would end up with horrible flight times, but actually did pretty well. I would arrive in Orlando at 8:13 on the 11th, and return at 2:45 on the 19th, arriving home at 6:30. I would have preferred to get in much earlier on the 11th, but otherwise, not half bad!
The last weeks before my trip absolutely flew by, and before I knew it, it was the night before I was to leave, and I was in a major panic. I just felt so unprepared for this trip! I had a general idea of which day I would be going to Universal with Katt and Ash, and knew that I would be meeting up with Katie sometime near the weekend, and that Nate would be getting in the day after I did, and would be calling to plan things out once he was there. I had ordered new pockets for my Passporter, which made me feel a bit more organized, but otherwise, I was feeling pretty lost. I finally decided to leave it all to fate, and got more in the Disney mood by reading through some trip reports. I was up until nearly 4am reading, and getting quite excited. The next morning, I was up at 7:30am for work, which started the SLOWEST morning of my life! I planned on working until 11:30 so that I could leave for the airport around noon. The minutes seemed like hours, and finally around 11 I called my boss to tell him I was going crazy, and needed to go on home and get ready to leave. He met up with me at 11:15 to finish up, and I sped home for last minute preparations. As excited as I was, the whole thing felt very unreal. I felt like Id be going back to work that afternoon, and everything would continue as normal. Even as my mom and I were making the hour long drive to the airport in Springfield, I still didnt believe I was going. I finally put on my Disney CD, and we sang along with Its a Small World, the Tiki Room song, Supercalifragilisticexpealadocious, Be Our Guest, Everybodys Got A Laughing Place, and more. All of the Disney music was FINALLY making me realize that I was going to Disney World!
On a rather funny note, a few days before I left, my dad had a dream that someone was singing Its a Small World, so he decided to give me $100 for my trip. Thanks, dad! (And no, I promise I wasnt standing over him singing as he slept, although that may not be a bad idea for next time )
We arrived at the airport a little before 1:30, and I checked in with no problems. We sat in the tiny airport café (Our airport has exactly one gift shop, one café, and something like a total of 10 gates.) My flight started boarding at 2:10, so mom stood right outside the line as I waited to go through security. We were amused by the sign listing all of the things that were illegal to have in carryon luggage. They seriously had cattle prods listed, along with some equally amusing items. WHO tries to take a cattle prod on the plane? Are they expecting to do some branding, or that there might be a stampede mid-flight?
Mom & I said our goodbyes, and I was off! I had laughed when I read on the website that tells the best seats on planes (Cant remember what its called right now..) that the front rows of this plane were the best, simply because Youll be among the first off of this horrible cramped little plane. I had laughed at the time, but as I squeezed on, I understood what they mean. I usually like small planes, but Im a tall girl (a little over 510), so when I have to duck to get through the aisle, I know Im in for a fun flight. Luckily, there was nobody sitting next to me, so I had a little extra room for my legs.
The flight to Memphis was pretty uneventful, and we landed about 3:40pm. I was a little nervous about only having an hour and a half before my next flight left, since the last time I had to pick up a connecting flight in Memphis, it took nearly an hour to get from one gate to the other. As I stepped off the plane and into the airport, I stopped to check the status of my flight on a whim. Oddly enough, instead of 5:20 as the departure time, it listed 6:45. Three hours before we left was not very exciting, but I figured at least I would have plenty of time to explore the airport gift shops and such. I went to my gate to double check that we were leaving that late before I took off to explore, and as I got there, I overheard the lady at the podium telling someone else that we would most likely not be departing until 8pm. Now three hours in the airport wasnt all that exciting, but almost four and a half? Eep!
My first worry was that I wasnt sure that Mears ran all night, so I tried calling Orlando information to get the number for Mears so I could check (One of those times I really wish I had a laptop so I could have just gone to the website!) I tried the number that information gave me several times, but nobody answered. I tried to spend some time amusing myself by calling everyone in my cell phones phone book, but most of them were either not home or busy somewhere, so that didnt last long. The lady at the podium finally got permission to give everyone on the flight a $5 meal voucher, so I set off to find a way to spend it. I was excited to see that the airport had a Cheers bar (a favorite hang out in the St Louis airport when my friends and I go there every year), but they have a really limited selection of food on the menu, so I had to continue my search. I finally decided that I wanted a muffin from Starbucks. You cant get change from a voucher, so I spent the whole thing on the $1.25 muffin. I would later wish that I would have been smart and gotten three, or at least a frappuccino to go with it, but thats jumping ahead a bit. I found myself thinking that as nice of a gesture as a $5 meal voucher is when you have a wait, it really felt so inappropriate for four hours of waiting. I knew it could be much worse and I could be stuck there for six or eight hours, but at the time it was just depressing.
So, after several trips around the airport in search of food and 45 pages of the book I picked up in the gift shop, it was 6pm, and I found myself dreaming of that original delayed departure time of 6:45, since that would mean I would be boarding in just a few minutes. I guess one definite negative point to traveling alone is finding yourself stuck in an airport for four hours and not having someone there to talk to! The hour I had spent there seemed impossibly long, and I found myself laughing at the fact that all morning at work I had been complaining about time passing too slowly. That was nothing!
I decided to call All Star Music and let them know that I wouldnt be checking in until very late, just to be sure they didnt give my room away. Honestly, I think I was just dying for someone to talk to, since I didnt really think that my late check in would be a problem
The person that I talked to confirmed that everything would be ok to check in that late, and ended by saying Have a magical day!. That really got to me, because it reminded me of just how different Disney is from the real world. It made me feel so much better to know that I would soon be on my way!We finally got to board at 7:20, which was a bit earlier than we had come to expect. At one point the captain announced that we would be ready to go after the crew finished some safety checks, and all I could do was hope that nothing was wrong with the plane that would cause any more delays! Luck must have been with me because we were ready to go! Woohoo!
I found my seat in row 6, and settled down for the flight. Soon, a family of about seven people came by, and they kept looking at their tickets and the row number, and speaking in a language I couldnt identify. Finally a girl from their group leaned over the seats and said that her brothers ticket had my seat number on it. Theirs said 7E, so I started to explain that no, that was the row behind me. Then I looked up and realized that I was in the wrong row! Oops! I apologized and moved up to the right row, feeling pretty silly.
While we were flying in to MCO (Orlando International. I never have figured out how they decided to abbreviate that MCO), I started wondering how many times I had flown. I added it up in my head and discovered that this was my 11th flight. Yes, my 11th flight on November (11th month!) 11th, and we would be arriving at about 11pm! Ooooh!
Now if only I were staying for 11 days! (Pft, no kidding if only!!) Even when we were only a half hour away from landing, I still found it impossible to believe that I was almost THERE. At times I found myself wanting to stand up on the plane and ask if everyone was as excited to be going to Orlando as I was, but I resisted the urge
Once inside MCO, I boarded the magical monorail to baggage claim. I love the monorail! I nearly broke in to tears waiting for the luggage because the little boy from the family seated behind me RAN up to one of the Disney signs and was pointing at it and shrieking with joy saying Mickey! Mickey! He was SO excited, I almost lost it, and kind of wanted to abandon my luggage to go join him in his jumping and screaming
Next I went down to the Mears desk to get a shuttle to ASMu ($28 round trip). The lady at the desk gave me a ticket, which I was supposed to give to the guy at the booth outside. He gave me a big hockey-puck looking thing which was supposed to vibrate and light up when my shuttle was there. While I waited for the shuttle, I laughed when I saw that the time stamped on my ticket was 11:11, but my jaw absolutely dropped when I saw that my beeper was #111! Welcome to the twilight zone!
The ride from the airport to ASMu was about a half hour, which I spent talking with the several other people in our van. Every other time Ive ridden with Mears, its been on one of their busses, but I supposed that getting the van is the price you pay for arriving so late at night. I tried to get everyone to cheer as we passed through the gates of WDW, but I was the only one who actually did.
Before I knew it, we were at the resort! I was a bit worried about check-in, because my room was booked with an AP discount. My plan had been to pick up my new AP at the Disney store in the airport so that I would have it for check in, but the store was already closed by the time I got there. I figured that if they needed to see it before I checked out, I would just get up early the next day, go buy one, come back to the resort to check out, and then go back out to the parks. Not the most exciting way to start the day, but it would work
I was very happy to see that the CM checking me in didnt even ask for my AP, so I didnt need to worry about it at all! Hooray! (Funny enough, none of the CMs that checked me in at any of the resorts asked to see my AP, so I dont know how they prevent people without APs from getting the discounts.)I was assigned to Jazz building #2, which was great because it was a short walk from the main lobby. I had hoped to stop in the food court for something to eat, but I had arrived at the hotel at almost midnight, and they had closed at 11:30.
The neon saxophone-playing Jazz guy on my building looked so cool that I had to stop and take pictures of him (Yup, I was definitely at Disney now!), but as I looked at the display screen on my camera, I realized that not only was snazzy looking, he changed colors, too!! Too cool!
I was absolutely starving by this point, so I feasted on my package of airline pretzels and what was left of my muffin (It had crumbled so much in my bag on the flight that it was practically dust by now, but at least it was yummy banana-nut dust!) I decided to set out to explore the resort, since I was way too excited to sleep by this point. The main pool was right outside of the lobby, Melody Hall, with the Calypso buildings on either side of the pool. The Jazz buildings were next in line, with the Broadway buildings off to one side, and Rock & Country to the other, next to the piano pool. I loved that the lights in the street lamps flickered like real flames, and the little sitting areas with benches that were scattered along the paths.
My jaw literally dropped when I walked down the street of Broadway. It was incredible, and my jaw stayed on the ground the whole way down the street. The manholes, the taxi cab with steamed windows, the street signs, and the sidewalk painted like a real street made it feel like I was in a dream- definitely magical! It really felt like walking down a NYC street at night (Well, maybe a movie version of a NYC street.) It felt a lot like a movie set, really. It was awesome, and I made a mental note that if I stayed at ASMu again, that was the section I wanted.
Overall, I think I was more impressed with the theming at ASMu than I had been at ASMo last year. Movies would probably be better for kids, but the little details and special touches at Music made it my favorite of the values.
My room was #2641 on the 3rd floor. I had one king-sized bed, which was perfect since I was alone
. The bathroom was done in shades of a sort of aqua blue, instead of the black and white bathroom at Movies. It did have the wall dispenser of body wash/shampoo instead of the cute mickey soaps, but I had packed my own foo-foo stuff, as Nate calls it, so I cant tell you much about that.I finally fell asleep around 2:30am, wishing I could just go to a park that minute and really get things started!
