Disney Commando Style - yet still wearing our underwear

[Nienor]

DISCLAIMER: To read this report you must be in good health free from backpain, highblood pressure, random bouts of insanty, e.t.c...

ok, might not be that bad, but you could get tired reading this report. As we spent a minimum of 9 hours in the park up to 14, not including the occasional fiasco of getting back to our resort after having dinner at another resort. So to put it mildy, we are commando style tourists. We see everything in the park and we see it twice. Because for some strange reason we enjoy vacationing like this.

Cast of Characters
me - 30 *eek* year old part-time office manager, Disney nut since first vacation there at 3 months old.
DH - 35 year old mechanic, tolerates his wife's Disney vacations quite well.
DS - 6 1/2 year old amusement park freak, he regularly refuses to leave amusement parks til they close, and even then grudgingly.

Our vacation started early on the 23rd, but for your reading enjoyment I will start with the afternoon before on 9/22.

After finishing up all necessary work I arrived just in time to pick up DS from school. Unfortunately five minutes before the bell rings is not enough time at his school to possibly find a parking spot anywhere. So like a good Jerseyite, I attempt to double park next to the pick-up row. This happens to be the first day our principal decides to enforce the no double parking rule and has one of the town officers driving around to enforce it. The moment I step out of my double parked car I hear, "Miss, you need to move your car." While I was overjoyed to be called miss, I still needed to move my car. I had the fortune of managing to find a spot on the one street nearby where they allow parking. Go me.

Fortunately the rest of the evening went better. My packing was complete so I had little to do besides take my son to the park and go out to dinner (the DH offered, how could I not accept) Budget-minded me pulls out a coupon for the Macaroni Grill for a free appetizer if you order their new entree, so off to Macaroni Grill we go after calling ahead for seating. For all the dining report nuts out there here is my report of the Macaroni Grill, Disney restaurant reviews to follow. They have seriously decreased the amount of choices on the menu!! Maybe this is a restaurant trend? But there is maybe half of the choices on the adult menu they had previously and the children's menu had maybe half the selections too. The ravioli my DS usually orders was gone along with most of my DH's favorite choices. But we manage, after all we were going for a whole week of free food at Disney. We order, I mistakenly call the Sausage Canneloni , Sausace Cannoli, mmmmm new taste sensation.

After an uneventful but less than wonderful dining experience, we all head over to Staples to get a new memory card for the Digital Camera. DH runs in to find it and comes back out happy with his purchase. We go home, but DS to bed and the DH finds out he bought the wrong memory card. At this point in time it is after 9 pm and Staples is of course closed. My husband mumbles about it for awhile and takes a late night 45 minute drive to our nearest 24 hour Walmart. I wisely decide to get some sleep as we have to up very, very early for our flight the next day.


Next post - 9/23, Early Flight and Day 1 of our Vacation

 

[Nienor]

9/23

Bright and early at 4:30 am our alarm went off. If it was next to my head, I could have thrown it across the room, but I'd have to reach over my DH to do that. Up we both get and dressed, not easy to make it to an 8:05 AM flight. I rouses my son fairly painlessly as he was excited to go on vacation. Just at 5 am my mother and brother come to pick us and our luggage up to take to the airport.

At 5 am, it was too early for me to even be able to contemplate a cup of coffee, but we stopped at 7-11 for my DH's convenience. Even in New Jersey there is no traffic on the roads at 5 am, so we make it to Newark airport in no time. I had done our online boarding with Jet-Blue the night before so all we had to do at the main desk was have our luggage (and DS) weighed. Hey, he climbed on the scale. He weighed more than any of our suitcases, no wonder why we won't carry him no matter how tired he is. On my way to security I saw a Seattle's Best, I really want to try their coffee but can't take it through security so I pass. In a matter of minutes we are through security and over two hours too early for our flight.....

For a few moments everyone sits down and tries to sleep, but I find that impossible. Fortune smiles upon me and there is a Starbucks in the terminal. I order a white chocolate Mocha to find out they don't have any more white chocolate. Still wanting a nice sweet caffeine buzz, I order a venti caramel macchiato. Sleep will never find me now.

Due to the fact DS can't rest either, we walk around the terminal for awhile, doesn't take long to complete a rotation, but it kills time. I offer him breakfast but he just can't eat. However my DH always can and he manages to get himself another cup of coffee and some sort of breakfast sandwich from the Uno's Express. After DH comes back with breakfast, my son and I take another trip around the terminal to kill time. We watch the sunrise and I notice at the restaurant area (Budweiser Ale House) there are people already drinking beer. Must be nervous fliers. lol

Shortly before 8, we get on the plane. The flight was normal and over fairly quickly due to the fact Jet-Blue has personal TV's. We landed by about 10:30ish, before we were supposed to. I needed a quick consultation with someone in the terminal and found the Magic Express counter. Even though it wasn't quite 11 am, the counter looked really busy. But with usual Disney efficiency, I was on line there for maybe 5 minutes then waited maybe another 5 for my resort bus to arrive. Before noon we were checked in at All Star Sports.

Since DS and I hadn't eaten our first stop was the ASSp food court. One quick and satisfying meal later we were off to MGM Studios. Our first stop, Rock N Rollercoaster. My son couldn't wait, he rode this last year too (very tall for his age) and couldn't wait to ride it again. We rode that twice then made our way over to the Lights Motor Action stunt show. There we thunderstorms last year when we wanted to see it and we missed the show. Even though we arrived just a few minutes before the show, there were still plenty of seats. It's a great show, my DH and DS were thrilled by it. After there we headed over for some free time for my son in the Honey I shrunk the Kids playground. I think my son could play there all day. We managed to get him out after an hour or so in time for another ride on Rock N Rollercoaster.

Just after that ride, it was our reservation time at 50's Prime Time Cafe. Unlike last year during free dining, there was hardly any wait for our table. This time we got to sit at a table with a TV on it and our waitress, plus the other one in the section, were hysterical. They frequently told everyone to keep their elbows off the table, made my DH take his hat off, had everyone sign a b-day card for some guy in the restaurant who was having his b-day. The food was good too, we all had fried chicken and DS was able to have his make your own sundae.

After dinner we watched the Muppets in 4D. I love that show so much, probably because I remember watching the muppets as a kid. Probaby dating myself there.. We planned on going to see Fantasmic but DS was getting exhausted. So I let my husband stay to watch Fantasmic while DS and I went to our room. The bus ride back was great, the bus was sitting there with just two people on it and left as soon as me and my son got on.

At the resort we made a quick stop at the giftshop to get a room snack. For one snack credit you can get a 4.00 bag of Chip and Dale snack mix. After our purchase we made our way to the room where all our luggage awaited us. My DS promptly turned on the TV and watched the top 7 program over and over til bedtime. My husband walked in during the second viewing of the program, rolled his eyes and asked if I thought they were going to change it before the next time we visited Disney. He can't stand it.

We were all completely exhausted and went to bed early, dreaming about our next day in the Magic Kingdom.

 

[pumba]

great start........your son is a daring kid to be able to LOVE RNR coaster...took me two years after it came to Disney before I dared to.
thanks for your report

 

[Nynaeve]

Great report so far Nik!
Much better than getting it slowly through MSN. Now where's the rest?

 

[Nienor]

Much better than getting it slowly through MSN. Now where's the rest?

And seriously boring Kris in the process.

I'll get to the rest of my trip report as promptly as I get to my admin stuff on TFF.

 

[Nynaeve]

Man, at that rate, I'll finish mine (including my bad procrastinating if I do one) before you do.

 

[OhMari]

I hope too you come back and finish. I like reading commando stories, I can never believe how much you guys can do in a day.