Sunday, October 21st - BiMonSciFiCon or ... That's a Pretty Effing Good Ten Dollar Milkshake!
After eating ourselves senseless the night before, we decided to take things slow on Sunday morning. We munched on some mini-bagels and fruit while sipping our own fine coffee that we brought with us from Stinktown. With a food and wine pairing scheduled for later in the afternoon at the Rose & Crown, Jay and I didn't want to wander too far from the Epcot resort area, so we opted for a visit to MGM.
**As an aside, I don't like the new name for the studios and I don't think it makes any sense and I'm not ever going to use it, so there!**
During this trip Jay and I discovered that we walk faster than the Friendship sails. On Thursday morning of our visit we had every intention of taking the Friendship to MGM once we finished our "breakfast" at the Yacht Club Gacky. But as we stood waiting in the heat at the boat queue, listening to the ear shattering wails of a toddler whose parents refused to allow him to hurl himself off the dock in pursuit of waterfowl, we realized that had we just started walking we'd already be halfway to MGM and our surroundings would be much quieter to boot.
So, based on that experience we set out Sunday morning from the Beach Club Villas and walked to MGM - I'd say it probably took us about 25 minutes. It's a lovely walk along a winding path that follows the canal and the back portion / pool area of the Boardwalk Villas. We encountered very few people along the way but were briefly accosted by a family of surly ducks who were searching for a long-lost family member. And we only saw one Friendship the entire time we were burning off the prior evening's caloric splurge.
That's right - one.
**Alcohol Alert!! Alcohol Alert!! I repeat: Alcohol Alert!!
Jay and I just created our own version of Keoke Coffee ... and is it ever good!
We brewed up a pot of freshly ground coffee and heated some milk.
Depending on the size of your cup, you may want to adjust your pour, but we just eyeballed it. Anyway, we poured 1/3 coffee and 1/3 warm milk into each cup, and then added a generous splash of Kahlua, Napoleon Brandy, and Godiva Chocolate Liquor. I also added three sugar cubes to my coffee to sweeten it up a bit and then we topped both drinks off with a cloud of whipped cream.
YUMMY!!!!
**End Alcohol Alert**
As you will no doubt guess, I'm about to tell you how busy MGM was,
again; and on a Sunday no less! But we only have a few attractions that we really enjoy at MGM and we assumed we could knock those out in short order. Our first stop was The Tower of Terror, which we couldn't have spent more than 10 minutes waiting to ride. The best and worst part of the whole experience was that two members of the Dream Team showed up while we were waiting in the lobby to be admitted to the library pre-show. They just stood there giving everyone the giant eyeball without awarding any prizes.
Or, I should say: they didn't award any prizes to anyone in our group of disappointed, doomed, multi-dimensional travelers. I would have at least liked to have seen them dole out the magic, you know what I mean?
The ride was uneventful and we were not surprised at the end with any kind of dreamy, magical More-Than-One-But-Not-Quite-Two-Years-Of-745,689-And-Hey-Who's-Counting-Anyway-Dreams. And actually, once we saw the tax implications for some of the bigger dreams, we were so horrified that we allowed the Photopass guy to snap our picture.
We have to claim how much in Miscellaneous Income???
Our next stop was Rock-N-Roller Coaster, which had a 45-minute wait time ... good gawd! We've never seen a wait time like that in October before, but we didn't have anywhere else to be and we weren't planning on coming back to MGM, so we joined the ever-lengthening line with a lot of sweaty, fragrant guests and made the best of it.
And as luck would have it ... it was a great decision!
We were in line behind two fathers and a group of tweens - they were staring intently at the MGM guide map and discussing the other attractions they wanted to visit. Can you imagine our delight when we noticed that one of the fathers was wearing a SpongeBob baseball hat???
Jay and I spent the next fifteen minutes debating whether or not we should ask this man to pose for a picture with Plankton, who had somehow managed to sneak into Jay's cargo pocket before we left the villa.
The conversation went something like this...
Brenda:
Do you think I should ask him? I bet he'd do it since he's wearing the hat.
Jason:
You're a freak.
Brenda:
It would make a great picture!!!
Jason:
I bet one of his kids picked that hat for him.
Brenda:
I'm just going to ask. What's the worst that can happen: he reports me to security and I get hauled off for an interrogation about smuggling a non-Disney plush toy into a theme park?
Jason:
If you get arrested I'll bail you out after the Food & Wine pairing this afternoon.
I took a deep breath and tapped the gentleman on the shoulder. He turned to face me, looking slightly puzzled.
"Pardon me," I said, trying to appear both cute and non-threatening at the same time. "We couldn't help but notice your SpongeBob hat and were wondering if you wouldn't mind posing for a picture with Plankton."
He still looked puzzled and answered me in a distinctly non-American voice. "I don't know who that is."
"Ummm, he's a character on SpongeBob Squarepants ... the villain who's always trying to take over the world. He's our vacation mascot." I never realized before now just how lame this must sound to people who don't really know us or our sense of humor.
The poor man was completely baffled and he took off his hat to examine it more closely. "Is this SpongeBob? My children chose this for me at the airport."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, smiling at the group of tweens while Jay doubled over with laughter. "Then you guys know what we're talking about, right?"
As a group they all shook their heads. "No, not really. We've never watched SpongeBob."
By now the moment had moved from slightly awkward to downright confusing and perhaps even a little disturbing. Luckily the man had a healthy sense of humor and thought the whole thing was funny - it probably didn't hurt that Jay and I fit right into his idea of "daft Americans."
You Yanks are crazy but harmless
Thanks again Guy from Wales, for being such a good sport and for not reporting me to security as a potential escapee from the local mental asylum!!
Harassing other guests and making a total fool of myself is hard work, and I had a quite an appetite by the time we exited the ride. We had canceled our reservations the day before at Sci-Fi due to Jay's tender tummy, so we decided to wing it today and see if we could get seated without an ADR. Jay and I presented ourselves at the podium and were told that the wait time would be about 15 minutes.
We must have lucked out because we had arrived shortly after the restaurant opened for business, and we were soon being led into the "theater" where we were seated in the back of a car facing the movie screen. There are a fair number of "cars" scattered around the restaurant, but there are also flying saucer tables in the back of the theater near the "snack bar." We loved the theming and the premise of this restaurant right away, but it did feel a little strange to be seated in a car with another family. We thanked them for the "ride" but they seemed a singularly humorless group and weren't interested in human contact outside of their own little group of three.
This was our first visit to Sci-Fi and I had done enough research to know that we should keep our food choices simple. We both ordered the Angus Chuck Burger, which came with a choice of cheddar or swiss cheese, onion, mushrooms, or bacon. It was also served with a choice of fries or some weird veggie-fruit salad.
Hold the onions and the 'shrooms - needs more bacon!
And to wash down our tasty burgers, which were quite good but don't really need any additional explanation, we each ordered a $10 alcoholic milkshake!!
I chose Marsha's Martian - chocolate and vanilla milkshakes mixed with Bailey's Irish Cream and Kahlua.
It's Choc-tastic! And Van-tacular!
These over-priced drinks also included a seizure-inducing glow cube! How much fun is that? I chose red, to match my shirt.
We have a level-four meltdown!
Jason decided to order the Space Monkey - a chocolate shake with Malibu Rum and Banana Liqueur - and requested a blue glow cube so that we could create a police car effect.
Clever caption unavailable at this time
We thoroughly enjoyed our milkshakes and finally were able to have our long-awaited Vincent Vega moment. Yes Vincent, it was a pretty effing good $10 milkshake!
Look at us in the backseat of some guy's car ...
We really thought that Sci-Fi was a fun experience. The movie clips were absolutely hysterical and we spent a good part of our time at the restaurant laughing ourselves silly. So many of those clips were from movies that we first watched during Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K for those in the "know") and that just made the whole experience even more fun as far as we were concerned.
Now I know that Jay and I find a lot of things funny that other people don't, but for the life of me I can't figure out why we were the only two people snickering at the movie clips and "educational" shorts. And don't try to blame it on the milkshakes - there wasn't that much alcohol mixed in! The only thing that we can think of is that the other guests were trying to be quiet so that they could follow what was taking place on the movie screen, because it sure was quiet in there ... except for the giggling and snickering and running commentary from the backseat of that orange cadillac.
Here are some additional pictures of the interior of the restaurant to give those of you who haven't been to Sci-Fi a better idea of of what it's like:
This last picture pretty well sums up our morning; and most of my trip reports now that I think about it!!
I will have to ask the (even though he's several years older than me
Why oh why!
and you'll be slathering that Tillamook icecream on your missing leg for moisturizer, it is so common. 
