Master Gracie
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2004
- Messages
- 455
It was dark in the room. For what seemed like an eternity I had sat there, securely bound to the chair. Not able to move my arms or my legs, I had resigned myself to an immobile existence. I was not sure how long I had been there. My captives kept me gagged and blindfolded. Even if the blindfold were removed, I had the feeling that there were no windows in the room from which I could discern the passing of time. Thoughts passed through my mind in an endless parade. Why was I brought here? What did they want with me? Would they ever allow me to leave? What in the world would I tell the devoted readers of my trip report when the next installment did not arrive? These questions weighed heavily on my already taxed mind.
Suddenly, I heard the shattering of a wooden door. I could hear my captors leap into action, attempting to repel the unseen invader that had forced his way into my prison. They put up an awful fight, but in the end they were no match for the paragon of truth, justice, and the American way.
The gag and blindfold were removed and I looked up to learn the identity of my savior. I saw nothing. I looked lower nothing lower lower. Ahh there he was. Spiderman, the three foot tall version was standing there grinning at me.
His look turns serious as he says to me, "Get back to da twip weport, now!"
At least that is how it would have gone in a perfect world. In all actuality, the chair to which I have been bound is ergonomically designed and my captors pay me a paltry salary biweekly. The savior who set me again to writing the trip report was not, in fact, Spiderman, but my guilty conscience. But the first story was better.
Now, you may want to go back and catch yourself up on the story thus far. It has been awhile since my last installment, so I understand if you don't remember who the players are. I am a horrible trip report host. I admit it. That is the first step. So get off my back already sheesh some people.
While those who are catching up are umm catching up. I will ask the remainder of you a question. Why is it that when you make the unforgivable mistake, the biggest blunder known to man, the penultimate of errors (agreeing to a salary position), that your work week goes from 40 hours to 400? I can understand that the "man" want to get his money's worth, but come on people. Let a guy breathe here. It's not like the "man" works any overtime noooo his is the first happy butt on the elevator when the day is done. It's not like he can add anything useful to the meetings that have to be attended every day you know the ones where you sit for 4 hours and discuss something that is not remotely connected to your job description and then have to spend the next 4 hours trying to get finished the 16 hours of work that they expect from you in a day. It's not like they can sit down at a **** desk and have a **** meeting with **** helpful input to determine a **** reasonable schedule to complete the **** useless project that they gave you in the first place when . *SMACK* .*sniff* I'm sorry you had to see that, and I will refrain from relapsing in the future.
I see those who went for the refresher are back with us. Trust me, you didn't miss anything. Don't say a word vettechick!
Anyway, where were we? Ahh yes, part 4, in which our intrepid group of adventurers brave the Hollywood of the 20's, aka. MGM.
We got up and breakfasted on the usual poptarts and waffles, and headed to the bus. Upon arrival, our first order of business was to head to the first annual crime fighters' conference. That must have been what it was what else can you call a meeting between Spiderman and the Power Rangers?
When we arrived at the meeting place, there was not another soul to be seen. It was really a little freaky. The only other time we have seen a WDW theme park that crowdless was when Ivan was on his way.
As the designated time drew near, however, the people came out of the woodwork. I guess you just can't keep a newsworthy event of these proportions from leaking to the press. It was quickly determined that there would be no way that all of the kids would be able to get to all of the Rangers before they had to leave. The Rangers, not the kids. The kids were there for another 2 days.
We each took a kid and headed to a ranger. Deston and I went to the White DinoThunder Ranger. Deston has reached that age where it is not enough to see the Power Rangers, you must see the RIGHT Power Rangers. As the white one was the only DinoThunder team member present, that was the only one he wanted to see. The other two saw the Red Ranger, and the Blue Ranger as well. No one but Trent wanted to see the Pink Ranger. Give them a few years and they will be more interested in her than the others. I know I was. *SMACK* OUCH you misunderstand me dear! I was merely in awe of her obviously superior assets. *SMACK* OUCH skills I said skills her obviously superior crime fighting skills.
Moving right along. We headed from here to have a wonderful chat with Bear in his Big Blue House. Now this is something that my lovely wife and I have had no previous experience with. Bear live, that is Bear on TV, my wife was subjected to on many an occasion while babysitting Deston for her sister when he was younger. Not a bad show, all-in-all. Not one that I would have seen without the kids, mind you, but good none the less.
From here we made our way to Endor for a trip with the Star Tours company. Now before I go further, I want you all to know that this particular series of attraction visitation was not my doing. I would not go from one side of the park to the other back and forth all day it wastes too much time. Today, however, I was laying back and letting the others decide what to do. Not particularly sure why I was doing that. If you wanted to know that question, you should have asked it earlier when this trip was fresher in my mind. I guess that will teach you now won't it?
Star Tours was the sight of what we will call the first incident. It was the smallest incident hardly worthy of the name, but that is what we will call it as I can't think of anything else.
You will recall that Chase was some cause for concern while this trip was still in it's planning stages. He was the one that, it was feared, would not be able to ride anything due to sheer terror. Happily, this had not been the case so far. I say so far, because that was the case now. We had warned him that the car really would not be moving anywhere and would only be tilting back and forward to make you feel like you were moving. He, however, was having none of that. How stupid did we think he actually was, I'm sure his 5 year old mind was thinking? Could we not obviously see that we were plunging to our immediate deaths in the hanger bay of a star port? Actually I'm probably giving him a little too much credit here. What his 5 year old mind was probably thinking was "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH". He had a death grip on the arm rests and was telling me repeatedly,"It's goin' too fast on me, it's goin' too fast on me." I calmly reassured him that it wasn't really moving, but as I have already stated, he thought this was so much bunk. As it turned out, he finished the ride with a white knuckle grip on the seat, his head down, and his eyes shut tighter than Fort Knox. He was none the worse for wear, but we thought that this was a good time for something a bit more tame.
We had previously gotten fastpasses to the Ariel show, but it was for a previous show. We had foregone this show for lunch earlier, at the Commisary, but thought we would see if the CM at the gate would let us use them for the show that would soon commence. This was the sight of what we will call the second incident. I will not pretend to know exactly what happened here, I will merely present it to you, gentle reader. As I stated earlier, Trent was the only one who wanted to see the Pink Ranger. The only one no one else would have any reason at all to be the slightest bit interested in that Pink hussy. Oh I didn't see you there dear. Yes, I'm almost through kisses. The problem is that he had not, in fact gotten up to the Pink Ranger before she and her fellow crime fighters were called away on their next mission, which was, I'm guessing to get out of those ridiculous suits. His mother had promised him that we would come back later and see her. The catch is this, on the way to see Ariel, we happened to pass close enough to where the Rangers were gathered for him to hear the music..not sure how he managed that as it was barely louder than 10 jet engines enclosed in a bathroom stall. When we headed, not in their direction, but in fact, away from them he became perturbed. I was blissfully ignorant of that fact as this was one of the only times during the week that he was not riding on my shoulders. Not complaining here, I truly did not mind at all. It was the least I could do for the countless times he has risked life and limb to save humanity as Spiderman. What do you think I am a cad? So when we arrive, the rest of the party makes their way to the standby line for Ariel. Everyone seemed ok with this. I went to the CM at the fastpass return entrance and asked her if it would be ok for us to use these passes for this show. She said this would be fine and so I gladly called the rest of the herd over to go into the fastpass entrance. When she arrived with Trent, Kristie said something to the effect of,"Why are we doing this?" I explained that we were going to bypass the long line and go in now. She proceeded to say that she wasn't going to do that, she was going to take Trent back to see the Pink Ranger. Ok. Weren't you just going to stand in a much longer line to do what I have gotten you in to do without the line? I don't understand women. Actually I think she had just had enough of the discourse with Trent on the pros and cons of returning to see the Pink Ranger and had decided to give in. Either way, she left with him and we followed my silly idea of going in without a line to see Ariel.
When we were seated and the show began, Chase asked me, as seriously as he could, "We're not really under water are we?" I admit that I was still a little peeved at Kristie's reaction to my well meaning plan, but what I thought here was,"Are you breathing? Well then I guess we're not under water." What I actually said was, "No Chase, we're not under water" and patted him on the shoulder. Does that make me a bad person? The thought not the pat on the shoulder.
Anyway, we left Ariel and set out to play Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Kristie had rejoined us by this time and we filed in to play. We started off with the obligitory fastest finger question. I had already told my crew that it was pointless to try to answer the question, as someone would just hit the buttons in random order and beat you anyway. The question was, Put the states of these cities in alphabetical order. We were given the cities and were supposed to determine the states and then put those in order. True to my teachings, our crew merely pushed buttons. They showed the fastest correct answer. It was not one of our team. But number two was. Who was that? Let's see...seat 78...that's...Trent. Trent? 3 year old Trent? Wow. Although I guess upon further reflection I should have guessed that would be the case. He obviously cheated and used his Spidey senses. I will admit that this was not my best showing. I have made it into the hot seat on two separate occasions, but the best I could muster on this showing was 7th on the list. Kristie was 4th and Jennifer was 10th. Three out of 10 in our group not too shabby. We are a smart bunch. Our intellect is only surpassed by our obvious humility. We are the most humble people you could ever be blessed enough to meet. Really.
We ate supper, although I'm not at all sure now where we did. Again, if you had wanted to know this, you should have asked earlier timing people. After eating, we headed into the amphitheater to see Fantasmic! Am I the only one that thinks the ! at the end of Fantasmic! is a little conceited. Maybe they have an off night every once in a while and it's only Fantasmic. Or even worse, they don't get to complete the show and it becomes Fantasmic, Mabye some people don't really get the plot and to them it's Fantasmic?
I'll wait while you catch up. Not because you're slow, just because I lacked the good judgment to let that little jest go.
While we watched the show, Deston sat on my knee. He was enjoying the show immensely, dancing along to the music while sitting there. Dancing and dancing. Even when the music stopped he was still dancing. Hmm .my curiousity got the better of me and I asked him if he had to go to the bathroom. He did. We got back in time to see Malificent in all her dragonly glory. The kids loved the show, so I guess, that night you could reasonably say it was Fantasmic!
I'll stop now, I promise.
When the show was over we experienced the third and final incident of the day. This was the largest one in my opinion. When the show was over, our crew, led by Bryan, bolted for the exit. That is, if you can call walking slightly slower than a rock bolting. When there was room to maneuver, Bryan bolted in earnest. We were passing people faster than Tony Stewart on Sunday. It was then that I decided to do the group a favor and impart some of my Disney knowledge. The girls had to go to the bathroom anyway, so I stopped long enough for them to do this. When Bryan realized this, he had to come back and wait for them to get out. He was a bit shall we say miffed, that we were just standing there. I told him that we would do just as good, if not better, by waiting til the crowd thinned out a little bit before we tried to get out of the park. He, like his son on Star Tours, thought this was so much bunk. When the girls got back from the bathroom, we sat there for about 10 minutes when Kristie chimed in that we had let too many people get in front of us. My patience had run a bit thin by this time and I said ,"Then let's go." Bryan then informed me that it was too late now. We wouldn't get back to the room for at least two hours. They decided to head out anyway. The whole walk from the bathroom to the bus, Bryan had a look on his face that screamed how silly it was that we had waited those few precious minutes. When we got to the bus, there was no line. Yes, you heard me correctly, no line. Not one person. A bus was there, but no other people. I was vindicated. Vindicated, but not about to say anything.
I want to end this particular report by clearing up something. I don't dislike my in-laws at all. I think this was just the day when we had been together more than normal and were wearing a bit thin. We did not have any other "incidents" for the rest of the trip. I guess it's best that we got them all out in one day. As in-laws go, I could do MUCH worse.
I joke about my wife too, that she's hard to get up in the morning and when she's unhappy that life is bad for me. What? I hadn't said anything about that? Well let me tell you *Ducks the smack* Ha ha fool me once, and all that.
Seriously, I love my wife more than life itself. I really feel bad that I have had to spend large chunks of the past year at work. I'm sure she knows that I would rather be at home, I have told her as much. But that is little comfort when you are at home alone. So I guess that is why I love to come to Disney World so much. My wife loves it here and she, and I, can let that inner child come out to play. When we ride Small World and she points out all the points of interest to me, I smile. When she beats me at Buzz Lightyear only when I let her of course, she gloats unmercifully and I smile. When we spin on the teacups and she holds up her hands and just giggles, I smile. And when we are 80 years old and we are walking down the halls of a nursing home somewhere, I'll hold her hand and smile. I guess the setting is not nearly so important to me as the company.
Suddenly, I heard the shattering of a wooden door. I could hear my captors leap into action, attempting to repel the unseen invader that had forced his way into my prison. They put up an awful fight, but in the end they were no match for the paragon of truth, justice, and the American way.
The gag and blindfold were removed and I looked up to learn the identity of my savior. I saw nothing. I looked lower nothing lower lower. Ahh there he was. Spiderman, the three foot tall version was standing there grinning at me.
His look turns serious as he says to me, "Get back to da twip weport, now!"
At least that is how it would have gone in a perfect world. In all actuality, the chair to which I have been bound is ergonomically designed and my captors pay me a paltry salary biweekly. The savior who set me again to writing the trip report was not, in fact, Spiderman, but my guilty conscience. But the first story was better.
Now, you may want to go back and catch yourself up on the story thus far. It has been awhile since my last installment, so I understand if you don't remember who the players are. I am a horrible trip report host. I admit it. That is the first step. So get off my back already sheesh some people.
While those who are catching up are umm catching up. I will ask the remainder of you a question. Why is it that when you make the unforgivable mistake, the biggest blunder known to man, the penultimate of errors (agreeing to a salary position), that your work week goes from 40 hours to 400? I can understand that the "man" want to get his money's worth, but come on people. Let a guy breathe here. It's not like the "man" works any overtime noooo his is the first happy butt on the elevator when the day is done. It's not like he can add anything useful to the meetings that have to be attended every day you know the ones where you sit for 4 hours and discuss something that is not remotely connected to your job description and then have to spend the next 4 hours trying to get finished the 16 hours of work that they expect from you in a day. It's not like they can sit down at a **** desk and have a **** meeting with **** helpful input to determine a **** reasonable schedule to complete the **** useless project that they gave you in the first place when . *SMACK* .*sniff* I'm sorry you had to see that, and I will refrain from relapsing in the future.
I see those who went for the refresher are back with us. Trust me, you didn't miss anything. Don't say a word vettechick!
Anyway, where were we? Ahh yes, part 4, in which our intrepid group of adventurers brave the Hollywood of the 20's, aka. MGM.
We got up and breakfasted on the usual poptarts and waffles, and headed to the bus. Upon arrival, our first order of business was to head to the first annual crime fighters' conference. That must have been what it was what else can you call a meeting between Spiderman and the Power Rangers?
When we arrived at the meeting place, there was not another soul to be seen. It was really a little freaky. The only other time we have seen a WDW theme park that crowdless was when Ivan was on his way.
As the designated time drew near, however, the people came out of the woodwork. I guess you just can't keep a newsworthy event of these proportions from leaking to the press. It was quickly determined that there would be no way that all of the kids would be able to get to all of the Rangers before they had to leave. The Rangers, not the kids. The kids were there for another 2 days.
We each took a kid and headed to a ranger. Deston and I went to the White DinoThunder Ranger. Deston has reached that age where it is not enough to see the Power Rangers, you must see the RIGHT Power Rangers. As the white one was the only DinoThunder team member present, that was the only one he wanted to see. The other two saw the Red Ranger, and the Blue Ranger as well. No one but Trent wanted to see the Pink Ranger. Give them a few years and they will be more interested in her than the others. I know I was. *SMACK* OUCH you misunderstand me dear! I was merely in awe of her obviously superior assets. *SMACK* OUCH skills I said skills her obviously superior crime fighting skills.
Moving right along. We headed from here to have a wonderful chat with Bear in his Big Blue House. Now this is something that my lovely wife and I have had no previous experience with. Bear live, that is Bear on TV, my wife was subjected to on many an occasion while babysitting Deston for her sister when he was younger. Not a bad show, all-in-all. Not one that I would have seen without the kids, mind you, but good none the less.
From here we made our way to Endor for a trip with the Star Tours company. Now before I go further, I want you all to know that this particular series of attraction visitation was not my doing. I would not go from one side of the park to the other back and forth all day it wastes too much time. Today, however, I was laying back and letting the others decide what to do. Not particularly sure why I was doing that. If you wanted to know that question, you should have asked it earlier when this trip was fresher in my mind. I guess that will teach you now won't it?
Star Tours was the sight of what we will call the first incident. It was the smallest incident hardly worthy of the name, but that is what we will call it as I can't think of anything else.
You will recall that Chase was some cause for concern while this trip was still in it's planning stages. He was the one that, it was feared, would not be able to ride anything due to sheer terror. Happily, this had not been the case so far. I say so far, because that was the case now. We had warned him that the car really would not be moving anywhere and would only be tilting back and forward to make you feel like you were moving. He, however, was having none of that. How stupid did we think he actually was, I'm sure his 5 year old mind was thinking? Could we not obviously see that we were plunging to our immediate deaths in the hanger bay of a star port? Actually I'm probably giving him a little too much credit here. What his 5 year old mind was probably thinking was "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH". He had a death grip on the arm rests and was telling me repeatedly,"It's goin' too fast on me, it's goin' too fast on me." I calmly reassured him that it wasn't really moving, but as I have already stated, he thought this was so much bunk. As it turned out, he finished the ride with a white knuckle grip on the seat, his head down, and his eyes shut tighter than Fort Knox. He was none the worse for wear, but we thought that this was a good time for something a bit more tame.
We had previously gotten fastpasses to the Ariel show, but it was for a previous show. We had foregone this show for lunch earlier, at the Commisary, but thought we would see if the CM at the gate would let us use them for the show that would soon commence. This was the sight of what we will call the second incident. I will not pretend to know exactly what happened here, I will merely present it to you, gentle reader. As I stated earlier, Trent was the only one who wanted to see the Pink Ranger. The only one no one else would have any reason at all to be the slightest bit interested in that Pink hussy. Oh I didn't see you there dear. Yes, I'm almost through kisses. The problem is that he had not, in fact gotten up to the Pink Ranger before she and her fellow crime fighters were called away on their next mission, which was, I'm guessing to get out of those ridiculous suits. His mother had promised him that we would come back later and see her. The catch is this, on the way to see Ariel, we happened to pass close enough to where the Rangers were gathered for him to hear the music..not sure how he managed that as it was barely louder than 10 jet engines enclosed in a bathroom stall. When we headed, not in their direction, but in fact, away from them he became perturbed. I was blissfully ignorant of that fact as this was one of the only times during the week that he was not riding on my shoulders. Not complaining here, I truly did not mind at all. It was the least I could do for the countless times he has risked life and limb to save humanity as Spiderman. What do you think I am a cad? So when we arrive, the rest of the party makes their way to the standby line for Ariel. Everyone seemed ok with this. I went to the CM at the fastpass return entrance and asked her if it would be ok for us to use these passes for this show. She said this would be fine and so I gladly called the rest of the herd over to go into the fastpass entrance. When she arrived with Trent, Kristie said something to the effect of,"Why are we doing this?" I explained that we were going to bypass the long line and go in now. She proceeded to say that she wasn't going to do that, she was going to take Trent back to see the Pink Ranger. Ok. Weren't you just going to stand in a much longer line to do what I have gotten you in to do without the line? I don't understand women. Actually I think she had just had enough of the discourse with Trent on the pros and cons of returning to see the Pink Ranger and had decided to give in. Either way, she left with him and we followed my silly idea of going in without a line to see Ariel.
When we were seated and the show began, Chase asked me, as seriously as he could, "We're not really under water are we?" I admit that I was still a little peeved at Kristie's reaction to my well meaning plan, but what I thought here was,"Are you breathing? Well then I guess we're not under water." What I actually said was, "No Chase, we're not under water" and patted him on the shoulder. Does that make me a bad person? The thought not the pat on the shoulder.
Anyway, we left Ariel and set out to play Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Kristie had rejoined us by this time and we filed in to play. We started off with the obligitory fastest finger question. I had already told my crew that it was pointless to try to answer the question, as someone would just hit the buttons in random order and beat you anyway. The question was, Put the states of these cities in alphabetical order. We were given the cities and were supposed to determine the states and then put those in order. True to my teachings, our crew merely pushed buttons. They showed the fastest correct answer. It was not one of our team. But number two was. Who was that? Let's see...seat 78...that's...Trent. Trent? 3 year old Trent? Wow. Although I guess upon further reflection I should have guessed that would be the case. He obviously cheated and used his Spidey senses. I will admit that this was not my best showing. I have made it into the hot seat on two separate occasions, but the best I could muster on this showing was 7th on the list. Kristie was 4th and Jennifer was 10th. Three out of 10 in our group not too shabby. We are a smart bunch. Our intellect is only surpassed by our obvious humility. We are the most humble people you could ever be blessed enough to meet. Really.
We ate supper, although I'm not at all sure now where we did. Again, if you had wanted to know this, you should have asked earlier timing people. After eating, we headed into the amphitheater to see Fantasmic! Am I the only one that thinks the ! at the end of Fantasmic! is a little conceited. Maybe they have an off night every once in a while and it's only Fantasmic. Or even worse, they don't get to complete the show and it becomes Fantasmic, Mabye some people don't really get the plot and to them it's Fantasmic?
I'll wait while you catch up. Not because you're slow, just because I lacked the good judgment to let that little jest go.
While we watched the show, Deston sat on my knee. He was enjoying the show immensely, dancing along to the music while sitting there. Dancing and dancing. Even when the music stopped he was still dancing. Hmm .my curiousity got the better of me and I asked him if he had to go to the bathroom. He did. We got back in time to see Malificent in all her dragonly glory. The kids loved the show, so I guess, that night you could reasonably say it was Fantasmic!
I'll stop now, I promise.
When the show was over we experienced the third and final incident of the day. This was the largest one in my opinion. When the show was over, our crew, led by Bryan, bolted for the exit. That is, if you can call walking slightly slower than a rock bolting. When there was room to maneuver, Bryan bolted in earnest. We were passing people faster than Tony Stewart on Sunday. It was then that I decided to do the group a favor and impart some of my Disney knowledge. The girls had to go to the bathroom anyway, so I stopped long enough for them to do this. When Bryan realized this, he had to come back and wait for them to get out. He was a bit shall we say miffed, that we were just standing there. I told him that we would do just as good, if not better, by waiting til the crowd thinned out a little bit before we tried to get out of the park. He, like his son on Star Tours, thought this was so much bunk. When the girls got back from the bathroom, we sat there for about 10 minutes when Kristie chimed in that we had let too many people get in front of us. My patience had run a bit thin by this time and I said ,"Then let's go." Bryan then informed me that it was too late now. We wouldn't get back to the room for at least two hours. They decided to head out anyway. The whole walk from the bathroom to the bus, Bryan had a look on his face that screamed how silly it was that we had waited those few precious minutes. When we got to the bus, there was no line. Yes, you heard me correctly, no line. Not one person. A bus was there, but no other people. I was vindicated. Vindicated, but not about to say anything.
I want to end this particular report by clearing up something. I don't dislike my in-laws at all. I think this was just the day when we had been together more than normal and were wearing a bit thin. We did not have any other "incidents" for the rest of the trip. I guess it's best that we got them all out in one day. As in-laws go, I could do MUCH worse.
I joke about my wife too, that she's hard to get up in the morning and when she's unhappy that life is bad for me. What? I hadn't said anything about that? Well let me tell you *Ducks the smack* Ha ha fool me once, and all that.
Seriously, I love my wife more than life itself. I really feel bad that I have had to spend large chunks of the past year at work. I'm sure she knows that I would rather be at home, I have told her as much. But that is little comfort when you are at home alone. So I guess that is why I love to come to Disney World so much. My wife loves it here and she, and I, can let that inner child come out to play. When we ride Small World and she points out all the points of interest to me, I smile. When she beats me at Buzz Lightyear only when I let her of course, she gloats unmercifully and I smile. When we spin on the teacups and she holds up her hands and just giggles, I smile. And when we are 80 years old and we are walking down the halls of a nursing home somewhere, I'll hold her hand and smile. I guess the setting is not nearly so important to me as the company.
