Thursday 5/15
Epcot planned for the day
We decided that we wouldn’t set the alarm all week so we got a slower start to the day. My eyes popped open at 7:30 and I laid there feeling my poor aching body come to life while Mighty Good Man snoozed in the other bed. At 8, I woke Mighty Good Man up and he slowly got moving and went out for a run while I took a moldy shower and got ready.
We finally got into the power lock car after hitting the panic button just because we could and noted that it was ten o’clock, because Mighty Good Man’s watch alarm goes off every day at that time. I commented that we were late, and Mighty Good Man rolled down the power window; again, just because he could.
We zipped out of the parking lot and saw a sea of people waiting for the bus- and saw that the MK spot was full of people, Epcot’s, not so much. Said a prayer of thanks for Tour Guide Mike for the first of many times.
We cruised into the parking lot and parked in Amaze 30 lot. I only remember it because I told Mighty Good Man that I was amazed I wasn’t 30… I’m 29…. again. And I will be always. And we proceeded to bag check.
Welll---- we get up there and the officer that I got was a newbie! His badge had on it “Earning my Ears” and he proceeded to talk my ear off for the next 3 minutes while looking at every article in my bag and commenting on each piece. Mighty Good Man was nice and asked Officer Mouth how his day was going so far and he replied that it was a wonderful day- the sun was shining- the sky was blue- the people he’s seen so far were wonderful… and I’m thinking- “Hellllooooo… we have the Soarin’ Stampede to get through- please let me go…” ! We finally get past Officer Mouth after wishing him well and Mighty Good Man looked at me and we busted out laughing. I said that he was new- to which Mighty Good Man asked how I knew that- to which I told him about the badge. Mighty Good Man laughed even harder and said he is making a note to search out Officer Mouth in October to see if his Happy A-- is still happy.
We grin the grin of Epcot and walk hand in hand to Soarin for a FP. Lots of people here in the Land Pavillion- the standby time is already 40 minutes, so with FP’s in hand, we walk to search out some coffee that was truly coffee, not that Nescafe Nasty stuff. I had heard that a real coffee place was set up by M:S so we walked there to which we found Nescafe Nasty so we left still searching for the real deal. We remembered that right in front of the lake there was a coffee stand serving the real stuff so we started our journey towards it. It’s now 10:30 and I am starting to feel a bit boo-boo headed from the lack of caffeine. I said I needed to use the restroom- and we head towards my favorite bathroom- the one where the Bathroom Bandits were the day before.
On our way over, right in the middle of the walkway up ahead- I saw a vision that made my heart start beating quickly. I looked at Mighty Good Man and said “Up ahead, what do you see.” He looks and sort of squints one eye to the sun and says “I see a man and a woman talking to a man and a woman”. And I said “But what’s in their hands?????” he looks and says “I don’t know” to which I said “walk quick they'll give us a dream!!!” We get up to them and they yell “congratulations! You’ve just won Dream Fastpasses as part of the Year of a Million Dreams Give away!”
!!!!Woo the freak Hoo!!!!
Fastpasses around our necks- bathroom break all forgotten- we grin like a you-know-what and skip down the path to the coffee stand. Mighty Good Man becomes Mighty Great Man and orders me up a Superstar (For those of you who are new to the MAYers- ‘Superstar’ is JoBird code for coffee with cream and lots of sugar- something I have all but given up except for on special occasions- which this truly was- Mighty Good Man didn’t even ask if I wanted it- he took it upon himself to Superstar me in celebration of the FP’s). We call home and tell Mary C who is still home sick about our luck and she is happy for us. It’s now 10:45 and WS isn’t open yet- we walk to Norway and walk into the little church there to have a moment of quiet time. It’s cool in there and we enjoy our coffee break, feeling very lucky and blessed.
As soon as the rest of WS opens, we’re out the door of the church to China to the Tomb soldiers section. It’s a part of China that I somehow have never been into and so Mighty Good Man and I look around and marvel at the individual faces of each soldier. When we come out, we walk through the Zodiac gardens and continue on through the rest of WS.
We pop into Germany, so that I could feel in touch with my roots on my dad’s side and Mighty Good Man buys me some bling-age that I find and adore. Awww.
After a spell we realize it’s closing in on noon and we’re getting quite hungry. Having no reservations to any TS restaurant for lunch, we discuss where we want to eat. Mighty Good Man says he really wants either Chinese or Japanese so we look at both CS menus at each country and decide we don’t like either. We look at Nine Dragons menu in China and he decides that it looks pretty good to him. I am afraid, b/c I have heard some not so stellar remarks about the food but suck it up and decide to give my Man what he wants. We are quickly shown to a table that is right next to another table. Not exactly what we had in mind so we ask for a table off to the side. There were around 200 tables in there with maybe 10 people total dining, and yet the waitress said to wait while she checked to see if it would be okay to seat us there. O-Kay……
She comes back to say that the table we requested would not be okay, but seats us at the one behind it. My goodness she was picky. Anyway we both decide that the shrimp stir fry with vegetables sounded good, so we ordered two and waited.
I must say that I am happy we went to this restaurant. Not because it was so good, but only because our pain has been eased and we never have to go again. LOL. The shrimp were just barely cooked- I mean they were probably plunged into the boiling water and removed immediately. I called them Wobbly- like they could’ve grown legs and walked off of the plate. The vegetables were cooked cauliflower ( gross) and carrots that were practically raw. The sauce was a clear sauce (which I don’t like). Needless to say, I ate 4 shrimp and felt sick, so I excused myself to the bathroom while Mighty Good Man ate both mine and his. His reaction to the entire meal was to say “The white rice was good”, to which I said “No comment”. Our meal there with tip came to $41. Pretty expensive long grain, if you ask me. But no one did, so I digress…
We then walked to Soarin to use our FP’s from earlier and had to stand in line for 20 minutes. We lucked out and got the top cart- so we had an unobstructed view of the ride. It might have been the best ride we’ve ever had on it. I leaned forward a bit while going over the skiing portion, looking down and really had a neat sensation of flying. Mighty Good Man gets motion sickness so he sat back fully and enjoyed his flight by looking straight ahead.
We left there and went to TT to use our Dream FP’s. The FP return line was a 10 minute wait so we went in and enjoyed zipping around the track for the second time this trip. We got out and went to the part of the ride where they have all of the different cars. There was a baby blue convertible SAAB, so Mighty Good Man made me sit behind the wheel. Too bad they didn’t have my dream car- a Cadillac CTS- but the SAAB was nice. We then sat in the Hummer H3- Mighty Good Man was in the drivers seat- and these young kids on a school trip climbed in the back, giggling and having fun, excited to be there. Mark said to them “Buckle up kids, we’re going on a ride” and they all laughed. Then he said “well, since this is such a large car, I don’t think I have enough gas money, so I’m gonna have to ask each of you to donate some to our trip fund.” They all started pulling money out of their pockets and I said “well, the heck with gas money, that’s not fun- who’s got the money for the Cheeseburgers?” to which they all started yelling “Me! I’ve got a Dollar- I’ve got two dollars.” They were giggling and having fun and we climbed out and the parent that was with them smiled a grateful, but beleaguered smile and mouthed “Thank you”. We nodded and off we went.
At this point, I was needing to use the restroom once again and since we were very close to my favorite bathroom (funny, I know, but I have favorites all around each park- Lord help me I have become my Mother)- we decided to stop by it. As we approached the spot- we noticed that part of the building was still roped off where the Bathroom Bandits had been. There was a lady CM stationed outside of it and she motioned to the bathroom. No one was really around, because a lot of people don’t really know it’s there.
So I went inside while Mighty Good Man waited outside by the rope for me. When I came back out, he had a grin on his face like he was the cat that just ate the canary and I said “What happened?” And he says “well, remember yesterday when you saw those two girls in that bathroom?” I nodded and he said “I just saw the blonde.” I nodded again and he said “I know who they are”--- and I’m like “well- who the heck are they???” and he says “Ever heard of a little Production called High School Musical 3 ?”
And I’m like “Shut the heck up!” He says –“The blonde girl-what’s her name???” and I’m yelling “Ashley Tisdale????” he says “Yeah- she just came out with the credentials saying HSM3 on it and her agent”. I’m laughing at this point- he is so funny. I tell you that everytime we go to WDW we see famous people- last year it was Corbin Bleu, this year Ashley Tisdale and that Black girl- I don’t know her name. And before, we have seen Joey Fatone there as well as David Hasselhoff. So we’re laughing about being all around famous people but we are only famous to each other and walk around a bit more. We comment about how dead that Epcot was, and I told Mighty Good Man that anytime you can put your arms out straight to the sides of your body and walk for twenty feet without touching anyone, you’ve had a great day in The World. He agrees and tries it out. It works. Not a person in sight. Sigh. A very good day indeed.
At this point, we are tired and go back to the Dupont outdoor patio place for a respite and call home to talk to the kids. Mary C was still sick and having issues of major levels and my Mom was concerned enough to want to take her to the ER. I calmed everyone down and gave out Nurse Jo’s free advice and made sure everything was okay. It had been about an hour and a half and we got up and backtracked to Norway to ride Maelstrom
( we were in the last seat). Then we went back through Morocco, France, the UK and Canada before heading all the way back around for a reservation for dinner at Mexico.
Now I know that it is a place that always gets mixed reviews. The last time we ate there, we really thought it had gone way down since 10 years ago when we were on our Honeymoon. But not being ones to break with tradition, we went in and had an open attitude about it. We asked to be seated by the water and we were, just as the Mariachi band began to play. We ordered the nachos and when they came out, we were very pleasantly surprised! They were actually VERY good! We ordered the Platos Mexicano- the dish with a steak, one enchilada and one flauta. It was, again, surprisingly good! So our faith has been restored in this restaurant- at least for this time. Our total was $71 with tip.
When we finished, I remembered Huggie and I sort of tentatively planning on meeting up at France’s Patisserie, so I suggested to Mighty Good Man that we go over there. We walked through the shops casually but I didn’t see her and Mighty Good Man was getting restless. He wanted to hop over to the MK for the second showing of Spectro, so we left Epcot, finding our car via the panic button. Again, I was Amazed at not being thirty- and we rolled down our power windows and sang songs.
As we entered the MK area, I saw a sign I had not seen before-- it said “Ironman event parking”
Oh snap!!!!!!!!!! I yell to Mighty Good Man- “holy canoli, Baby! Some of our very best friends are here! How the heck could I have forgotten, he was going to run the Ironman.” It had been a couple of months since we had talked to them so I had forgotten that they were going to be there. The wife had asked me if we would go down with them the last time we had talked and I had told her no that we were waiting for October. For sake of the story from here on out, the friends will be known as Mighty Good Neighbors b/c they were our neighbors when we had our first house in Charleston.
We get into the parking lot and see a sea of cars. Mighty Good Man comments that it is crowded- a lot more than Epcot and we both say simultaneously “Thanks Tour Guide Mike!!”
We hop the tram and then the monorail and get into the MK and realize it’s 5 minutes until the first showing of Spectro. We hop the train, riding it to Toontown and swim our way through a herd of people to get coffee at the Enchanted Grove. We are happy that it isn’t 10 o’clock, b/c that’s what time they close. We get our coffee and make our way to the bridge connecting Main Street and Tommorowland. We sat for a minute and then walked back around To the Noodle Station where we decided that we’d like to get to Adventureland before Wishes began.
We pushed and shoved our way through a million and a half people, still thanking TGM for his wise predictions, only to come out in Adventureland with only a few people around. Rode POTC with a 5 minute wait and when we came out, Wishes was just beginning. We ran to BTMRR and tried to get on it while the fireworks were still going. We got on with only a few minutes wait, but alas, for some reason that night they didn’t run a train during the finale. We were on the train immediately following and watched as the line went from a walk on to a 40 minute wait immediately.
We staked out a spot in Frontierland for the second showing of Spectro and watched in amazement as the entire park emptied out. We were next to only about ten people during the parade and the characters stopped and greeted us. Gepetto waved to me from the float and blew kisses at me while Prince Charming waved and Cinderalla winked. It was truly a wonderful spot and I made a mental note to check for times for Spectro for our trip in October and told Mighty Good Man that we would always come back to the same spot to watch it b/c the character interaction was better than any other place we’ve ever sat.
After the parade came through, we walked backwards through an empty park through Liberty Square and saw the Kiss Goodnight as the castle changed colors. We got onto a nearly empty monorail and got into the pwer lock car at 12:30. Back to the hotel and showered and asleep by 1 am.
What a truly amazing day!
Up next: DHS, Mighty Good Neighbors and a truly terrifying experience on TOT!!!!
Epcot planned for the day
We decided that we wouldn’t set the alarm all week so we got a slower start to the day. My eyes popped open at 7:30 and I laid there feeling my poor aching body come to life while Mighty Good Man snoozed in the other bed. At 8, I woke Mighty Good Man up and he slowly got moving and went out for a run while I took a moldy shower and got ready.
We finally got into the power lock car after hitting the panic button just because we could and noted that it was ten o’clock, because Mighty Good Man’s watch alarm goes off every day at that time. I commented that we were late, and Mighty Good Man rolled down the power window; again, just because he could.
We zipped out of the parking lot and saw a sea of people waiting for the bus- and saw that the MK spot was full of people, Epcot’s, not so much. Said a prayer of thanks for Tour Guide Mike for the first of many times.
We cruised into the parking lot and parked in Amaze 30 lot. I only remember it because I told Mighty Good Man that I was amazed I wasn’t 30… I’m 29…. again. And I will be always. And we proceeded to bag check.
Welll---- we get up there and the officer that I got was a newbie! His badge had on it “Earning my Ears” and he proceeded to talk my ear off for the next 3 minutes while looking at every article in my bag and commenting on each piece. Mighty Good Man was nice and asked Officer Mouth how his day was going so far and he replied that it was a wonderful day- the sun was shining- the sky was blue- the people he’s seen so far were wonderful… and I’m thinking- “Hellllooooo… we have the Soarin’ Stampede to get through- please let me go…” ! We finally get past Officer Mouth after wishing him well and Mighty Good Man looked at me and we busted out laughing. I said that he was new- to which Mighty Good Man asked how I knew that- to which I told him about the badge. Mighty Good Man laughed even harder and said he is making a note to search out Officer Mouth in October to see if his Happy A-- is still happy.
We grin the grin of Epcot and walk hand in hand to Soarin for a FP. Lots of people here in the Land Pavillion- the standby time is already 40 minutes, so with FP’s in hand, we walk to search out some coffee that was truly coffee, not that Nescafe Nasty stuff. I had heard that a real coffee place was set up by M:S so we walked there to which we found Nescafe Nasty so we left still searching for the real deal. We remembered that right in front of the lake there was a coffee stand serving the real stuff so we started our journey towards it. It’s now 10:30 and I am starting to feel a bit boo-boo headed from the lack of caffeine. I said I needed to use the restroom- and we head towards my favorite bathroom- the one where the Bathroom Bandits were the day before.
On our way over, right in the middle of the walkway up ahead- I saw a vision that made my heart start beating quickly. I looked at Mighty Good Man and said “Up ahead, what do you see.” He looks and sort of squints one eye to the sun and says “I see a man and a woman talking to a man and a woman”. And I said “But what’s in their hands?????” he looks and says “I don’t know” to which I said “walk quick they'll give us a dream!!!” We get up to them and they yell “congratulations! You’ve just won Dream Fastpasses as part of the Year of a Million Dreams Give away!”
!!!!Woo the freak Hoo!!!!
Fastpasses around our necks- bathroom break all forgotten- we grin like a you-know-what and skip down the path to the coffee stand. Mighty Good Man becomes Mighty Great Man and orders me up a Superstar (For those of you who are new to the MAYers- ‘Superstar’ is JoBird code for coffee with cream and lots of sugar- something I have all but given up except for on special occasions- which this truly was- Mighty Good Man didn’t even ask if I wanted it- he took it upon himself to Superstar me in celebration of the FP’s). We call home and tell Mary C who is still home sick about our luck and she is happy for us. It’s now 10:45 and WS isn’t open yet- we walk to Norway and walk into the little church there to have a moment of quiet time. It’s cool in there and we enjoy our coffee break, feeling very lucky and blessed.
As soon as the rest of WS opens, we’re out the door of the church to China to the Tomb soldiers section. It’s a part of China that I somehow have never been into and so Mighty Good Man and I look around and marvel at the individual faces of each soldier. When we come out, we walk through the Zodiac gardens and continue on through the rest of WS.
We pop into Germany, so that I could feel in touch with my roots on my dad’s side and Mighty Good Man buys me some bling-age that I find and adore. Awww.
After a spell we realize it’s closing in on noon and we’re getting quite hungry. Having no reservations to any TS restaurant for lunch, we discuss where we want to eat. Mighty Good Man says he really wants either Chinese or Japanese so we look at both CS menus at each country and decide we don’t like either. We look at Nine Dragons menu in China and he decides that it looks pretty good to him. I am afraid, b/c I have heard some not so stellar remarks about the food but suck it up and decide to give my Man what he wants. We are quickly shown to a table that is right next to another table. Not exactly what we had in mind so we ask for a table off to the side. There were around 200 tables in there with maybe 10 people total dining, and yet the waitress said to wait while she checked to see if it would be okay to seat us there. O-Kay……
She comes back to say that the table we requested would not be okay, but seats us at the one behind it. My goodness she was picky. Anyway we both decide that the shrimp stir fry with vegetables sounded good, so we ordered two and waited.
I must say that I am happy we went to this restaurant. Not because it was so good, but only because our pain has been eased and we never have to go again. LOL. The shrimp were just barely cooked- I mean they were probably plunged into the boiling water and removed immediately. I called them Wobbly- like they could’ve grown legs and walked off of the plate. The vegetables were cooked cauliflower ( gross) and carrots that were practically raw. The sauce was a clear sauce (which I don’t like). Needless to say, I ate 4 shrimp and felt sick, so I excused myself to the bathroom while Mighty Good Man ate both mine and his. His reaction to the entire meal was to say “The white rice was good”, to which I said “No comment”. Our meal there with tip came to $41. Pretty expensive long grain, if you ask me. But no one did, so I digress…
We then walked to Soarin to use our FP’s from earlier and had to stand in line for 20 minutes. We lucked out and got the top cart- so we had an unobstructed view of the ride. It might have been the best ride we’ve ever had on it. I leaned forward a bit while going over the skiing portion, looking down and really had a neat sensation of flying. Mighty Good Man gets motion sickness so he sat back fully and enjoyed his flight by looking straight ahead.
We left there and went to TT to use our Dream FP’s. The FP return line was a 10 minute wait so we went in and enjoyed zipping around the track for the second time this trip. We got out and went to the part of the ride where they have all of the different cars. There was a baby blue convertible SAAB, so Mighty Good Man made me sit behind the wheel. Too bad they didn’t have my dream car- a Cadillac CTS- but the SAAB was nice. We then sat in the Hummer H3- Mighty Good Man was in the drivers seat- and these young kids on a school trip climbed in the back, giggling and having fun, excited to be there. Mark said to them “Buckle up kids, we’re going on a ride” and they all laughed. Then he said “well, since this is such a large car, I don’t think I have enough gas money, so I’m gonna have to ask each of you to donate some to our trip fund.” They all started pulling money out of their pockets and I said “well, the heck with gas money, that’s not fun- who’s got the money for the Cheeseburgers?” to which they all started yelling “Me! I’ve got a Dollar- I’ve got two dollars.” They were giggling and having fun and we climbed out and the parent that was with them smiled a grateful, but beleaguered smile and mouthed “Thank you”. We nodded and off we went.
At this point, I was needing to use the restroom once again and since we were very close to my favorite bathroom (funny, I know, but I have favorites all around each park- Lord help me I have become my Mother)- we decided to stop by it. As we approached the spot- we noticed that part of the building was still roped off where the Bathroom Bandits had been. There was a lady CM stationed outside of it and she motioned to the bathroom. No one was really around, because a lot of people don’t really know it’s there.
So I went inside while Mighty Good Man waited outside by the rope for me. When I came back out, he had a grin on his face like he was the cat that just ate the canary and I said “What happened?” And he says “well, remember yesterday when you saw those two girls in that bathroom?” I nodded and he said “I just saw the blonde.” I nodded again and he said “I know who they are”--- and I’m like “well- who the heck are they???” and he says “Ever heard of a little Production called High School Musical 3 ?”
And I’m like “Shut the heck up!” He says –“The blonde girl-what’s her name???” and I’m yelling “Ashley Tisdale????” he says “Yeah- she just came out with the credentials saying HSM3 on it and her agent”. I’m laughing at this point- he is so funny. I tell you that everytime we go to WDW we see famous people- last year it was Corbin Bleu, this year Ashley Tisdale and that Black girl- I don’t know her name. And before, we have seen Joey Fatone there as well as David Hasselhoff. So we’re laughing about being all around famous people but we are only famous to each other and walk around a bit more. We comment about how dead that Epcot was, and I told Mighty Good Man that anytime you can put your arms out straight to the sides of your body and walk for twenty feet without touching anyone, you’ve had a great day in The World. He agrees and tries it out. It works. Not a person in sight. Sigh. A very good day indeed.
At this point, we are tired and go back to the Dupont outdoor patio place for a respite and call home to talk to the kids. Mary C was still sick and having issues of major levels and my Mom was concerned enough to want to take her to the ER. I calmed everyone down and gave out Nurse Jo’s free advice and made sure everything was okay. It had been about an hour and a half and we got up and backtracked to Norway to ride Maelstrom
( we were in the last seat). Then we went back through Morocco, France, the UK and Canada before heading all the way back around for a reservation for dinner at Mexico.
Now I know that it is a place that always gets mixed reviews. The last time we ate there, we really thought it had gone way down since 10 years ago when we were on our Honeymoon. But not being ones to break with tradition, we went in and had an open attitude about it. We asked to be seated by the water and we were, just as the Mariachi band began to play. We ordered the nachos and when they came out, we were very pleasantly surprised! They were actually VERY good! We ordered the Platos Mexicano- the dish with a steak, one enchilada and one flauta. It was, again, surprisingly good! So our faith has been restored in this restaurant- at least for this time. Our total was $71 with tip.
When we finished, I remembered Huggie and I sort of tentatively planning on meeting up at France’s Patisserie, so I suggested to Mighty Good Man that we go over there. We walked through the shops casually but I didn’t see her and Mighty Good Man was getting restless. He wanted to hop over to the MK for the second showing of Spectro, so we left Epcot, finding our car via the panic button. Again, I was Amazed at not being thirty- and we rolled down our power windows and sang songs.
As we entered the MK area, I saw a sign I had not seen before-- it said “Ironman event parking”
Oh snap!!!!!!!!!! I yell to Mighty Good Man- “holy canoli, Baby! Some of our very best friends are here! How the heck could I have forgotten, he was going to run the Ironman.” It had been a couple of months since we had talked to them so I had forgotten that they were going to be there. The wife had asked me if we would go down with them the last time we had talked and I had told her no that we were waiting for October. For sake of the story from here on out, the friends will be known as Mighty Good Neighbors b/c they were our neighbors when we had our first house in Charleston.
We get into the parking lot and see a sea of cars. Mighty Good Man comments that it is crowded- a lot more than Epcot and we both say simultaneously “Thanks Tour Guide Mike!!”
We hop the tram and then the monorail and get into the MK and realize it’s 5 minutes until the first showing of Spectro. We hop the train, riding it to Toontown and swim our way through a herd of people to get coffee at the Enchanted Grove. We are happy that it isn’t 10 o’clock, b/c that’s what time they close. We get our coffee and make our way to the bridge connecting Main Street and Tommorowland. We sat for a minute and then walked back around To the Noodle Station where we decided that we’d like to get to Adventureland before Wishes began.
We pushed and shoved our way through a million and a half people, still thanking TGM for his wise predictions, only to come out in Adventureland with only a few people around. Rode POTC with a 5 minute wait and when we came out, Wishes was just beginning. We ran to BTMRR and tried to get on it while the fireworks were still going. We got on with only a few minutes wait, but alas, for some reason that night they didn’t run a train during the finale. We were on the train immediately following and watched as the line went from a walk on to a 40 minute wait immediately.
We staked out a spot in Frontierland for the second showing of Spectro and watched in amazement as the entire park emptied out. We were next to only about ten people during the parade and the characters stopped and greeted us. Gepetto waved to me from the float and blew kisses at me while Prince Charming waved and Cinderalla winked. It was truly a wonderful spot and I made a mental note to check for times for Spectro for our trip in October and told Mighty Good Man that we would always come back to the same spot to watch it b/c the character interaction was better than any other place we’ve ever sat.
After the parade came through, we walked backwards through an empty park through Liberty Square and saw the Kiss Goodnight as the castle changed colors. We got onto a nearly empty monorail and got into the pwer lock car at 12:30. Back to the hotel and showered and asleep by 1 am.
What a truly amazing day!
Up next: DHS, Mighty Good Neighbors and a truly terrifying experience on TOT!!!!