Maleficent Lives
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2010
- Messages
- 48
A Preamble and Book One: 36 Hours of Solo Bliss
I am headed to Disney for what I consider an official trip next week. We will be celebrating my niece's second birthday for three days there. Since I found out about this trip, I have made several unofficial stop ins at the World and wanted to include those as a kind of gear up to my full on report of next week. What follows is divided into two sections: Book One - 36 Hours of Solo Bliss and Book Two - Celebrating Olivia. Unfortunately for you picture hounds, Book One features no photos from my time, I was there for me! Book Two should be chock full of photos, so be prepared. Thus begins my story:
Book One: 36 Hours of Solo Bliss
Part One: Late as Usual and Eighty-Sixed by the Messiah Himself
My alarm goes off at 5:45 as planned. I shut it off and got back under the covers, planning to wait ten more minutes for the snooze to kick it back on. Of course, sleepy me is much smarter than that and has completely turned off the alarm. I sleep for what seemed like seconds and wake up with a start. Sleepy me is hiding something. I check the clock and to my horror realized that it is now 6:40!
I was supposed to leave ten minutes ago, now I'll never make park opening.
I shower and dress, grabbing the first pair of pants and the least wrinkled shirt that I can find. I complete my triple check: seasonal pass, Sun Pass, wallet, camera, notebook, pen, book (The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, highly recommended), chewing gum, and chapstick. Great, we are good to go.
I live in Gainesville, about two hours and 15 minutes from the Epcot parking. I ended up leaving just after seven, so my plan was to make up time on the interstate and the turnpike. This was my first trip using the Sun Pass on the turnpike and with that and my insane speeding, I made up ten minutes. I park my car and walk through the secondary bag check and toward the park.
Seasonal pass in hand, I approach the turnstiles with a huge smile. I'm here, it's the Flower and Garden Festival, let's go in. It was finally my turn at the entrance. My card went in, I put my finger on the switch, I got the red light. This is not unusual, I get it about every other time that I try to enter a park because I can never remember which side of my pass goes down. I flipped my card and try again. Red light. The CM asks to hold my card and all I can think is "Why can't I get in? Does it somehow know that I am planning on visiting Universal later this year to check out the new Harry Potter attractions? Did I get put on a list for something? Please tell me!"
While I am having my paranoid breakdown, the CM is scanning my card's barcode. "Oh" she says, "today is a blockout day." I know that this cannot be correct, I have been planning this trip for weeks. I obsessively made sure that this specific day would not be blocked out. I also know that blockout dates can change at will and rather than accept responsibility, I blame it on that. I hang my head and go to a ticket window. Some responsible part of me has saved enough money for just such an eventuality, and I ask the CM how much it would cost to upgrade my ticket and what in the world would prompt them to start the blockout on today of all days. "Ah, yes." he replies. "Well it is a blockout day... Easter is coming up. If you want to upgrade it will be $127 and some change."
Huh, Easter. Well I guess I can't complain too much, I love Jesus and it's really cool that Disney wants to celebrate him for three whole weeks. I upgrade grudingly and hope that my card features someone other than Minnie. Don't get me wrong, Minnie is cool, but I am a 24 year old man, I would like something a bit more masculine. A Donald card drops. Yes! Donald rocks! Oh, but Robert has to change the dates of validity so that I don't get extra time. He prints another and I get... Minnie. Sigh. Oh well, at least I get in today. Onward!
It is now 9:10. Not bad considering the delays. I take my newly minted pass to the same turnstile that I went to before, entered and started to head toward... Hmm, where am I going first? Well, let's have a look at the line for Spaceship Earth, I've never been on that before. Being somewhat new to Disney, I start looking around for a FP machine because the line is always snaking around the ball when I walk by. I see a CM and ask where it is located. She looked at me like I had asked her if she had just seen ten thousand disembodied tongues fly by licking the concrete. Once she recovered, she told me that there was no line right now and that it usually died down later in the afternoon. She never actually told me that there is no FP for this attraction, but I can't blame her for being nearly speechless. Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people asking questions.
I stroll merrily through the rails and straight up to my chariot. Wow! This has never happened before! I should have known that there was a reason for this.
Inside one of the coolest architectural features of the park was one of the weirdest and most pointless rides in Disney. Spaceship Earth is old. Like I can smell the dust old. It might be nice in the summer to ride for a relief from the heat, but unless I hear that it has been updated, I hope to never ride it again. I don't hang around after the ride to check out the stuff there, I need to be in line for the butterfly garden seminar by 10:15 and I have much more to do.
I head off in search of Mission Space.
Up next... Part Two: Some Rides, Some Food, More Disappointment, and the Tongues Reappear
I am headed to Disney for what I consider an official trip next week. We will be celebrating my niece's second birthday for three days there. Since I found out about this trip, I have made several unofficial stop ins at the World and wanted to include those as a kind of gear up to my full on report of next week. What follows is divided into two sections: Book One - 36 Hours of Solo Bliss and Book Two - Celebrating Olivia. Unfortunately for you picture hounds, Book One features no photos from my time, I was there for me! Book Two should be chock full of photos, so be prepared. Thus begins my story:
Book One: 36 Hours of Solo Bliss
Part One: Late as Usual and Eighty-Sixed by the Messiah Himself
My alarm goes off at 5:45 as planned. I shut it off and got back under the covers, planning to wait ten more minutes for the snooze to kick it back on. Of course, sleepy me is much smarter than that and has completely turned off the alarm. I sleep for what seemed like seconds and wake up with a start. Sleepy me is hiding something. I check the clock and to my horror realized that it is now 6:40!
I was supposed to leave ten minutes ago, now I'll never make park opening.I shower and dress, grabbing the first pair of pants and the least wrinkled shirt that I can find. I complete my triple check: seasonal pass, Sun Pass, wallet, camera, notebook, pen, book (The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, highly recommended), chewing gum, and chapstick. Great, we are good to go.
I live in Gainesville, about two hours and 15 minutes from the Epcot parking. I ended up leaving just after seven, so my plan was to make up time on the interstate and the turnpike. This was my first trip using the Sun Pass on the turnpike and with that and my insane speeding, I made up ten minutes. I park my car and walk through the secondary bag check and toward the park.
Seasonal pass in hand, I approach the turnstiles with a huge smile. I'm here, it's the Flower and Garden Festival, let's go in. It was finally my turn at the entrance. My card went in, I put my finger on the switch, I got the red light. This is not unusual, I get it about every other time that I try to enter a park because I can never remember which side of my pass goes down. I flipped my card and try again. Red light. The CM asks to hold my card and all I can think is "Why can't I get in? Does it somehow know that I am planning on visiting Universal later this year to check out the new Harry Potter attractions? Did I get put on a list for something? Please tell me!"
While I am having my paranoid breakdown, the CM is scanning my card's barcode. "Oh" she says, "today is a blockout day." I know that this cannot be correct, I have been planning this trip for weeks. I obsessively made sure that this specific day would not be blocked out. I also know that blockout dates can change at will and rather than accept responsibility, I blame it on that. I hang my head and go to a ticket window. Some responsible part of me has saved enough money for just such an eventuality, and I ask the CM how much it would cost to upgrade my ticket and what in the world would prompt them to start the blockout on today of all days. "Ah, yes." he replies. "Well it is a blockout day... Easter is coming up. If you want to upgrade it will be $127 and some change."
Huh, Easter. Well I guess I can't complain too much, I love Jesus and it's really cool that Disney wants to celebrate him for three whole weeks. I upgrade grudingly and hope that my card features someone other than Minnie. Don't get me wrong, Minnie is cool, but I am a 24 year old man, I would like something a bit more masculine. A Donald card drops. Yes! Donald rocks! Oh, but Robert has to change the dates of validity so that I don't get extra time. He prints another and I get... Minnie. Sigh. Oh well, at least I get in today. Onward!
It is now 9:10. Not bad considering the delays. I take my newly minted pass to the same turnstile that I went to before, entered and started to head toward... Hmm, where am I going first? Well, let's have a look at the line for Spaceship Earth, I've never been on that before. Being somewhat new to Disney, I start looking around for a FP machine because the line is always snaking around the ball when I walk by. I see a CM and ask where it is located. She looked at me like I had asked her if she had just seen ten thousand disembodied tongues fly by licking the concrete. Once she recovered, she told me that there was no line right now and that it usually died down later in the afternoon. She never actually told me that there is no FP for this attraction, but I can't blame her for being nearly speechless. Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people asking questions.
I stroll merrily through the rails and straight up to my chariot. Wow! This has never happened before! I should have known that there was a reason for this.Inside one of the coolest architectural features of the park was one of the weirdest and most pointless rides in Disney. Spaceship Earth is old. Like I can smell the dust old. It might be nice in the summer to ride for a relief from the heat, but unless I hear that it has been updated, I hope to never ride it again. I don't hang around after the ride to check out the stuff there, I need to be in line for the butterfly garden seminar by 10:15 and I have much more to do.
I head off in search of Mission Space.
Up next... Part Two: Some Rides, Some Food, More Disappointment, and the Tongues Reappear
