Little Mermaid Rooms, Passover and The Bathroom Scale

[Mindy5767]

Joining in Mindy



Emma x

Hi Emma!! Nice to see you again!!!

Looking forward to more. I'm curious about how and where you held your Seder!

:Welcome: Now that I have my seder photos ready...I can start talking about that...but I left off before our journey..so I have to start there. I've been crazy busy this week and haven't had much time to write. I went to a business networking event at King Pinz bowling in Leesburg today. I met lots of people..of course, one is a lady who makes cupcakes! YUMS..although...I will still cut the frosting off. I am a cupcake decapitator! I am just NOT a frosting person...which reminds me of a Disney cupcake situation.

One time...when I was at EPCOT, my daughter and I wanted to get some sweets before Illuminations. We went into Karamel Kuche because Heidi wanted something simple...I think she wanted Mamba candies..and I wanted something yummy. Oh..I wanted a chocolate cookie with caramel sauce..well...the cookies had JUST come out of the oven, and weren't cool enough to add the freshly made caramel...so I said I would take the cookie plain... NO sireee...those German CM's...they are a stubborn...you cannot take the cookie plain! So I ended up with a chocolate cupcake which had a VERY large swirl of white frothy frosting laced with caramel drizzle...so I take my cupcake, which is in a non-green plastic clam-shell case out of the case ..oh yeah..I had found a bench to sit upon. I am sitting there trying to figure out how I am going to extract this frosting. Not happening...no it was not! Oh..and I had white pants on. naturally..my husband was not with me to help because we'd forgotten to return to the Kodak Photo center to get our free Disney Visa 5x7 character greet pic. so I sent him to get that. I ended up eating most of the frosting.. Why do they have to ruin a good cupcake with all that frosting! feh! So then Henry finally comes back..and he's got 2 margaritas in his hands because he walked back through Mexico... Mmmmmm now after stuffing myself with too much sugar in the form of frosting...I get to down a Fiesta Margarita..oh well!

 

[tinkerbell60]

Late to the party but here!


Wendy

 

[Mindy5767]

Late to the party but here!


Wendy

Better Late than Never...welcome, its ALWAYS great to have you aboard!!!

So... as I always say..it takes us 4 hours to get out of the house. My husband ALWAYS thinks it'll take less. He is NOT a morning person, however, he does aspire to be one. Getting him up and going in the morning takes a huge amount of caffeine..and he doesn't drink coffee..so lots of Chai Latte is required. This time, by the time we packed the car all up (which by the way required lots of comments from Henry that we are packing too many things and "why do we need all this stuff".. I think we finally hit the road at 12:30pm. I wanted to leave at 8 am. The ONLY time we ever have left THAT early is when my sister and brother-in-law are with us. They are very early people, and my husband strives to keep up. They also don't wait for stragglers.

Now... we actually don't do too badly with traffic until we hit the bottle neck on 95 south around Dale city where the express lanes and/or HOV lanes merge back into the regular 95 traffic stream. So.. here we are...running 4 hours late. Our normal goal is to make it to Kingsland Georgia for our stay overnight. If we make it to Kingsland, then the following day, leaving the hotel by 9am we can make it to check-in by noon to 12:30 pmish. Not too bad. However, this time, we made it to Savannah. Normally, we stay in Savannah at the Comfort Suites, Richmond Hills. Well, I called there from the car and low and behold, its a Holiday Inn?? Or at least the phone number belongs to Holiday Inn. Not gonna happen. So I looked up Sleep Inn on the Garmin, and we called. They had a great rate..like $59.00..so we went with it. They also had a breakfast, which doesn't do me any good because I don't like their choices, but I ended up having some instant oatmeal Not the high fiber kind. I had my Kirkland Signature Nature's Path Organics Ancient Grains granola in a Snap-Loc cereal keeper in the car..but I did NOT have any lactaid milk yet. So my cereal wasn't any good.

I had told my son to pick me up a 1/2 gallon of skim, lactose free milk at his grocery store and bring it with the Passover food. I need a better way to have lactose free milk while traveling without having to keep a 1/2 gallon in the cooler. I haven't found it yet. I tried bringing Almond Breeze, but while I love it in my coffee, its not wonderful in my cereal. The Pop Century has single serve soy milk (It might be Silk brand) in their coolers, so it must be sold at some grocery stores somewhere..but I need to find it.

 

[carrie6466]

Hi Mindy! J didn't realize you did a tr thus time I am in. Hey! We are going the same time in August!

 

[Mindy5767]

Hi Mindy! J didn't realize you did a tr thus time I am in. Hey! We are going the same time in August!

REALLY!!! What are your dates? Finally we'll get to meet. Which resort are you staying at?

I have got to get busy on this trip report. I've been so darned busy with life. Of course, Life = Disney

 

[carrie6466]

REALLY!!! What are your dates? Finally we'll get to meet. Which resort are you staying at?

I have got to get busy on this trip report. I've been so darned busy with life. Of course, Life = Disney

August 20 - 28th and we're staying at BLT. That is awesome. Kristina just got glasses, too, btw!

I can't wait to read the rest of it

 

[Mindy5767]

August 20 - 28th and we're staying at BLT. That is awesome. Kristina just got glasses, too, btw!

I can't wait to read the rest of it

AWESOME...when I get this TR done...I'll start a pre-TR for August. We're arriving the 18th. I thought we were going to go to my son's to visit for a few days to visit and install a fence around the yard, but my DH claims that he needs at least 5 days for the fence and can't take that much time off work..so the fence will have to wait. my son got a dog, and our yard has pieces of fences from other neighbors...we were just gonna get some chain link and complete the perimeter.

 

[Mindy5767]

ok, the hardest thing about doing a trip report and real life is that it makes it hard to keep up. I need to take notes next time. That's what I'll do!

Ok...I left off at having asked my son to pick-up some milk for us. I'm going to talk about our arrival at the resort. We arrived in the early afternoon. I thought we needed to stake out the food court ASAP to get in and pick a table for our Seder. WHY WHY WHY did I think it was a good idea to arrive the same day Passover begins...I have no idea. I do not recommend this approach for any other people. Too much frantic work let me tell you!! We arrived, parked the car in the check-in parking area, and came inside. We had a Little Mermaid room, and not having developed any opinion of where I wanted to be, I didn't really care what room they gave us. We were in the building that was on the right side... we had Ursula as our building ICON. Once we got checked in, this is when the chaos began. I REALLY wanted to stake out the food court. I had planned that our seder needed to begin BEFORE the dinner rush....I HAD to have a table with access to a plug. My son was bringing a triple crock pot and a single crock pot. I needed to be able to plug them in. We had decided that 4:30 would be the best time to get started with our seder. Between 4 and 4:30...I think I told my son to be there by 3:30-4:00 pm. I told my husband to go move the car to a spot closest to the building we were staying in (the building Ursula is not directly next to the parking lot... we didn't have a lake view, but the building HAS one). We had a courtyard view. Next time, if I stay there again...I would definitely ask for the building next to the parking lot. Unless i'd flown..then I wouldn't have my van to park. My husband was not too happy about my decision to stake out the food court and let him to find the room himself and start to unload. I normally want to start taking photos of the room right away, before it gets messed up...but what to do? The food court issue was more important at this time. So off Henry trudged to move the car and start moving the stuff.

I then returned to stalking the food court. This was serious business! I had to have the right spot. I walked around and looked at tables against the walls...looking for plugs. This was NOT going to be easy!! There were NOT that many wall tables with plugs. How could they not have plugs? I needed just the right plug spot too. I found one over by the glass doors to the pool...but I decided that this location was right in the "mit n Derit" yiddish for right in the middle of things... too public... wont do! So off I go around again. Finally..I found the right spot. There was a set of plugs, next to the table that was furthest from doors or where the most people would be walking. THIS would do! Now..it had just one problem....there were people sitting there. There was a mother sitting with two daughters..one daughter had Downs Syndrome. They were eating a pizza from a box. I would just have to set my stuff down nearby..so as soon as they finally got finished..I could grab the table. This women kept looking at me, and was probably thinking that I was staring at her because of her daughter...so I tried to smile at her a few times to indicate that I wasn't judging her....even though I was judging how slow they were eating!! They really did seem to take forever. I thought they'd never finish. Finally, after more than 40 minutes, she finished and they walked away. I swooped in. I grabbed the the table she had, and the table next to it, and pushed them together. Then I walked over to a cast member and asked that he wipe the tables. Once that was done, I opened up my brand new table cloth packages and laid down two white table clothes across the two tables. It was a little short on length but it was fine. I'd bought about 2 dozen white table clothes at Bed Bath & Beyond for the tables at Lily's wedding. I got them on clearance for $7 so I bought all that they had. I didn't use them all, so I kept the packaged table clothes for a future use. They had a spring design with bunnies and tulips..which when I bought them in August for Lily's wedding, were about out of season. I thought they were perfect for Passover.

 

[Mindy5767]

This is our spot. I had Heidi sitting at the table, so I could get things put out and walk out to the hall to see if Max was there yet. I was getting antsy because Max had texted that he was leaving the house.... 90 minutes away..when I had told him to be there already!! I understand it took longer than expected to pack-up all the food...but...oh well.

So Max and Casey were making all the hot food . I had brought the wine, the grape juice, macaroons and any of the dry goods that we needed. Max and Casey bought a seder plate too.

 

[jenseib]

Too funny about Max. Thats how my son is too

 

[carrie6466]

You are good! I wish I could be that organized. Max is starting to sound a bit like my son...

 

[Mindy5767]

Well, I was really hoping that I would find my missing SD card before I wrote more...but I haven't found it. We brought 2 cameras with us. We have our "good" camera, our Nikon SLR with interchangeable lenses and a monopole, and my little pocket samsung. Somehow, the pictures from the Nikon did NOT get transferred to my laptop. I did my samsung pix, but the others apparently not. Now, the card in the Nikon is a different one. I've gathered and reviewed 8 SD cards. It was none of those. I'm so sick about it!! Also, the pics are time-stamps for me to tell where and what I did and when. Without half the pics...I'll be missing half of what we did.

So..from my memory... We left off with me stewing in the food court waiting for Max and Casey to arrive with the Passover Seder food. I laid out what I had while I waited for Henry to put away our luggage and all the other loose 8000 loose items in the car. That's where the bathroom scale comes in...it was actually on the packing list. On our Thanksgiving 2012 trip, I was helping make trips to and from the car to our 2 bedroom villa at Saratoga (an easy enough walk). As the van got empty, I saw that my husband had brought the bathroom scale. He began weight watchers, and he is an engineer...enough said! He meticulously monitors his weight, marks it all on a graph... you know..engineer things. I told him he was welcome to watch his weight at Disney, but I was having NO part of that!! He said he would watch his weight at Disney until he reached his goal weight! He had not..so in goes the bathroom scale. So this time...he ended up forgetting the bathroom scale. It WAS on the list!

It seemed like it took forever, but Max finally arrived. I asked him to start bringing in the food. He'd brought a triple crock-pot. The kind that has 3 1.5 qt crocks in one single base..that had the matzo ball soup, potato casserole and...the green beans. The family sized crock-pot had the brisket. Now, he tells me that he can't bring the food in yet.. because Casey is outside with their dog. Oh yeah!!! I totally forgot that they'd just gotten their dog, so they were bringing her with them so we could meet her. So then we had to take turns going back and forth to the front (just outside the doors) so we could all meet the dog. When Henry finally returned, after texting him 6,763 times, he had to meet the dog. Then, Henry left to take Casey over to the doggie daycare place over by Ft. Wilderness. Best Friends Dog Daycare..I think that's what its called. At least Henry remembered to ask for his annual pass discount. Adina, the dog, the spent the day at Ft. Wilderness. So..Max finally is there, Henry and Casey have gone off to take the dog to Ft. Wilderness, and Max makes trips back and forth getting all the food. We get that set up. Then Henry and Casey returned and we were finally able to get started with our seder. I'd only been sitting in the food court now for what? At least 3 hours!! OY ]

 

[PopArtGal]

Where did you go? hehe

 

[Mindy5767]

I'm here! I had to locate my pictures. They are my only "notes". I need to get restarted. I will soon. But apparently, I cant do this on my tablet. It reacts too slowly.