Saturday, Aug 4
So, having checked in we leave the car out in front and bring just what is necessary to the pool awaiting the cue our room is ready. It will be a few hours until the family gets here, so after we put our stuff on a table, we decided it was a perfect time to go and check out the Art of Animation resort.
As you approach it crossing the Generation Gap bridge, it doesn't look too special at all, and the buildings themselves come acrooss as looking like Cell blocks, since they don't have balconies or external walkways.
But inside the grounds, well, now that's a fish of a different color, they went all out in the landscaping in most areas. Unfortunately, the first stop we made was in the gift store,,,, taking my first picture, my camera wouldn't work and I hoped it was just because of dead batteries.
It was.
I bought a new pack of AA, but they weren't included so I had to buy them again.
(that's right, I did, and I'm going to keep on using it till I'm sure that everone had heard it)
I planned on checking out tihe insides of the main hall a lot better later on, but first impression was, again,, much more impressive than the other Value Resorts, this includes the food court as well.
I'm not going to describe each picture, just going to throw them at you and see how many you catch. We started in Nemo section, then worked over to Cars and finally Lion King. Mermaid was still filled with construction equipment and kind of blocked off so we left it out.
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That was pretty much it for now, what we really want to do is come back some evening to see the Cars section, it's supposed to look way cool at night, like Radiator Springs.
But all 3 areas impressed us, I just wish they were all like the other Values with ouside corridors,, ok,,, and not almost all suites, empty nesters have little use for suites.
By the way, yes, you need a card to enter the pool areas, this even includes the Poolside bar, or you can do what we did and just wait till somebody goes through and follow them, or grab it before it totally swings shut, which, come to think of it, doesn't close on it's own, you have to close it manually.
Back at the Hippy Dippy Pool I had this feeling that this is more where I belong, and not duking it out with a Turtle Lady at an expensive resort.
Not long after we got back, our room was ready so we were off again.
And guess what, I have no video or room view pictures, I was going to do that later on when I had more time, but it was pretty much where we expected it to be, facing a courtyard wehere the laundry carts park, not far from the elevators or stairs and ice at all, which meant we also had a look out right over the pool there. At the end and around the corner now we have a lake side view, but I have to admit,, not many good views of the lake there, way too many scraggly trees in the way. I was happy, it took nothing to run up to our room from the pool to get something.
We did a quick unpack and hurried back down expecting a call any minute now.
An hour later we were still waiting.
Finally it came, and we met them at the check in.
ANd we were more excited then they were, at last, finally we get to share our happiest place on earth with some one. I kept looking at Jackson and he had a huge smile on his face!
After we took them to their room they only had partial luggage so far but changed into pool type clothes and rejoined us.
Unfortunately, want to guess what happens when you don't have much time for a swim?
Code Brown.
Welcome to Disney!
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One thing Diane and I noticed about Jackson is that he is not a demonstrative child; I never see too much of a change of emotion in him, good or bad, and it was kind of disappointing in Disney World.
Two years ago we took him to Kiddieland here near Chicago right before it closed for good, and all he really wanted to do was ride the little boats that went in a circle and ring the bell, everything else pretty much scared him, but now he says he'll go on anything and everything, and i didn't doubt him.
It turned out he meant every word of it, and he's not yet 7.
As far as pictures go, keep in mind I'm expecting to have the entire week for them, so no rush, and no need in irritatiting them for better shots, I know how annoying that can be.
With the pool shut down, we decided to hit the Downtown Disney area a little early to show them around a bit before our T-Rex engagement.
Before we left, they came in our room and I made them each margaritas. I was surprised to see them using the "connecting" room doors, I thought we would just leave them closed the whole time and not set a privacy precedent, but everybody was going in and out until we all left through our door for good.
I had had enough driving so I thought Diane would drive now, but instead she turned it over to Todd, heck, he didn't care.
Know what?
Not much to really show folks around DD, about the only thing interesting is the
Lego place and the big sea serpent and stuff out front. The Magic Shoppe is gone, and so is the Magnet store. Hey, these were my favorites there. And of course the balloon was just sitting there like it always is.
After they turned in their vouchers for the park tiks at Guest Relations, it was time for dinner.
But everybody got a kick out of T-Rex, Jackson seemed to love it, and I loved everything but the bill, Smidgy had told them we'd pay for dinner tonight.
Did I mention that I also bought another round of margaritas at a kiosk when we first got there?
Pretty scary when you buy a drink for the 4 of you and have to hand over a fifty!
(shudder)
I got a burger, Smidgy got a usual type of chicken sandwich, you know, we ordered first to try and set the mood,,,,,,, and Todd and Kimmy got some type of reall food, you know, what they call sometimes, "entrees".
Forgot I taught the kid well. Glad they didn't have a "surf and turf".
And boy, I'm always surprised at how loud it is in there.
One extremely disappointing thing though, the burgers and sandwiches used to come with what they called as chips, but were some kind of home made, freeze dried deep fried American potato hash browns,,, whew,,,
That were, in reallity, quite good. Much more that plain ol' potato chips.
All gone!
Remember when I told you about the new crappy chips you get with a meal basket at Siestas? Real fries no longer come with meals, they have to be ordered separately now? And the name on the blue bag even said Disney.
Well, ditto for T-Rex, all of us that were supposed to get the homemade "chips" got these crappy things instead.
No, I didn't get to see the actual bag, they were spread out on the plate, but they were the same thing, no mistaking the non-taste.
I even tried to cheer them up with mustard, ketchup and mayonaise.
Didn't help, and mayo usually helps anything.
The Mayo Clinic couldn't help these tasteless, cut your gums chips.
Soon we were homeward bound.
(oh Peter I worried about you)
then we got our big surprise
(baby what a big surprise)
Remember I mentioned that we all left through our door?
Well, Todd had slid the "deadbolt" chain in his door, no one knows why, probably just because it was there, meaning that you can't get in with just the key, it would open two inches and that's it.
Problem was, the design of these doors, and now I"m referring to the connecting room doors.
Each room has one, with a doorknob on the side of the door that faces into the room.
But the insides of the doors have a metal plate there, nothing usable at all to help you open the door.
Even though there is a lock on the room side of the door, even if it isn't locked, there is no way to open the door from the other side, as long as either door is closed, the lock is really unnecessary.
No, they didn't close the connecting door, thereby locking themselves out. They didn't have to.
Mother Nature did it for them. Or physics.
When we left that night to go to dinner, and opened up OUR outside door, the vaccuum pressure created caused the connecting room door to pull inwards the two inches it needed to close. Diane and Kim and I heard it close, but thought nothing of it. Most of us didn't know he had slid the chain in place.
But now it's a Fobidden Room, the keycard alone aintagonna get you inside.
Now that it's late at night, we go in our room , and find out that even though it's unlocked, there's no way to open the inside door from this side. There's no handle, no doorknob, no nuttin, we can open our inside door, but that's as close as we can get. What a brilliant design!
They are locked out!
This is now the beginning of a beautiful friendship between many of us and our telephone.
Call housekeeping and explain it, they connect us to maintenance. We explain it again.
They send up a man.
With a skeleton key!
It was like nobody was listening.
He says he's gotta go back and get another guy who can get us in that has the proper tools.
Now it's , "Play it again Sam, play "As Time goes by."
Oh, it went by allright.
Half hour, we call again, they're working on it.
An hour, "still working on it." Diane and Kim start a game of Yahtzee.
Hour and a half, more calls, Todd is getting hot, this not good. We tried everyting we could think of to get the chain off, but it is very effiecient. Maybe with a stubby Phillips screwdriver,,,,,,
Finally a guy comes up, with the proper tool.
A small envelope.
There is a way of bending the envelope to make it go around the corner and slide the chain out of it's rack. I didn't see this done myself, Todd told me about it.
Took him 30 seconds, that's how secure your deadbolt is in your room should you think about it. He says it happens all the time, but it sure didn't seem like it when we first called down, and if so, why don't more employees know how to do this? It was like they called him and woke him up at his home in Ocala to come and open the door!
But they got in, we all agreed to not touch the connecting doors again and went to bed, between Code Brown and Forbidden Room, not a great start for them.
Little did I know that it was to be the last good night I would have for the rest of the trip!
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Sunday morning, August 5.
Hot Fudge Sunday.
Hot Fudge Sundae.
By 8:30 we were on the bus, on our way to Magic Kingdom. I was excited, as we all were.
Got there early enough to get a "ledge/wall" spot right in front of the train station, and when the welcome show started I thoiught I was going to burst.
It was all I could do to look away from Jackson, and Todd, and Kim, you know how that goes,you want to make sure they are enjoying it, but I also don't want to be committed to the mentally insane hospital either.
I had a good idea how the day should start out not being early entry, and I got them to listen to me at first.
At first.
Once inside, we zipped right up the stairs to the train station, only problem now is that you cannot help but get that feeling that you are being left behind, especially when you see thousands of people charging down Main Street heading for the biggies.It's almost a panic feeling, and I could see it in their faces. I kept telling them, "Don't panic, don't panic, we'll still beat them, and save a lot of walking at the same time, not to mention get in a kind of short train ride as well!
I had no doubt that if this didn't work out well, they would never listen to me the rest of the trip.
We not only beat them to Frontierland, the first wave wasn't even really in sight yet.
Smidgy had all our tickets so she went for the Splash fastpasses and we met her at BTMR.
We sat way too far up front, but even still, this is the first tiem we've ridden it since the big refurb, and it seemed much faster, especially for first thing in the morning when the grease is still thick and unmelted on the tracks. Later in the day when the sun has melted it down it's faster.
But for the early morning, it was plenty fast, and no, it's not smooth. Yeah, it beat the crap out of me!
Those 3 rode together, Smidgy and I rode together, right behind them.
Notice how some things never change?
I was to find out that the theme for the rest of the trip was that it was extremely difficult to get Jackson to ride with you, or anybody other than his dad, Todd. I even saw many times a disappointed look on Kimmies face when he would turn and say he wanted to do a ride with Todd.
For one thing, he just adores his daddy, I'm sure a contributing factor is that Jackson lives with his mom, and only gets to really see his dad every other weekend, and two weeks during the summer. That's an arrangement that they are working on changing to divide the time more fairly without disrupting Jackson's life.
Anyway;
Well, they wanted to do Big Thunder again, so I suggested further in the back.
But I stopped them from getting in the very last car, "The one in front will give you the same thrills and we may get a double out of it.
THis time we sat right in front of them, and we did get a double. So far I'm two for two on insider knowledge!
When the train pulled up, nobody was waiting to get in our cars,,, but there were folks waiting for the very last car!
We didn't even get out.
This time, when it pulled up back in the station, people were waiting for our car, but the short row for the Jackson car was still clear, so off they went around again, that's fine, threee times is good enough for me, I felt beat up.
Smidgy and I went down to our rocking chair to get the mandatory picture in.
Mine didn't come out, so I used a picture of Ponzi ten years from now.
We then rode Splash Mountain with Kim being the lone person by themselves.
But I had Jackson right behind me on the other side, and I kept looking back at him the whole time,he just thought it was the best, and,,,,,,
Of course we had to do it again. This is where the fastpasses came in, as it was getting crowded. As a matter of fact, I have not seen the park this crowded suddenly in many years, it was like somebody snapped there fingers.
But , for some reason now, the second trip through the line was exhausting to me, and I didn't like the way I was kind of becoming, which was my heart just wasn't into it.
Sometimes feeling my way through in the dark wears on me, yeah, I really do get tired of banging my groin into a rail, or smacking my arm and shoulder into a wall, or yanking my back outa whack cuz I suddenly stepped down onto stairs I didn't see. Smidgy does her best to help me but only so much you can do, especially with 50 people behind you in a hurry.
I didn't like having to do everything multiple times, I could tell we are never going to get everything done at this pace, but I wasn't going to make waves about it.
I really hated this mood I got into suddenly though, I thought we'd really be sharing Jackson more, and that he' want to take turns, but also that I just felt so tiiiiiiired.
On the second go-around of Splash, I mostly had my eyes closed and tried to doze.
Right.
Me.
At quarter to ten in the morning.
We then went over to a enjoy a completely forgettable trip on POTC, because it got stuck near the beginning for 15 minutes which took the fun out of it, especially for Jackson since it got stuck right by the skeletons with the voice constantly, constantly, repeating, "Dead men tell no tales."
That one spot is creepier than anything inside of Haunted Mansion.
Then to Jungle Cruise, got a so so skipper, she talked too fast actually to be understood, after that Smidgy and I went on a fastpass run to get Space Mountain tiks while they did the Treehouse. That's right, by now there was no way I was climbing stairs unless the theatre was on fire.
I am going to pull the plug on this right now, it's getting out of hand, and just leave them where they are, Smidgy running for the fastpass machines, me 15 feet behind, like usual, and Jackson, Todd and Kim at the top of the Treehouse.
And yes, I have written the next two chapters about 50 times in my mind, but have absolutely nothing jotted down about any prose style or descriptions, so I guess I'll write it one more time.
So, c'mon, it'l be fun, we'll have a few laughs!
And then you can all say since this has been built up beyond expectations,,,,,"THAT"S IT?"
Holy smoke! That borders on incompetent! I can see that (literally) 100 years ago, maybe. But really? A rag to bite down on??? Was this doctor's name Mengele, by any chance?!?
Look everyone, Ponzi speaks female. He's bilingual! Or is that... nah, not gonna go there.
I'm cringing for you in anticipation. But you're ok now... 
True story. Met her in Space Mountain this past June. I was glad that the line split. I like visiting with my fellow guests but she was my bff for that long line for too long.
