AlexandNessa
<font color=red>Proud Redhead<br><font color=green
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2003
- Messages
- 5,407
8-½ month engagement: over
Wedding: over
Relaxation and romance: desperately needed
We had a destination wedding. We transported 60 of our closest friends and family from various parts of the country and made them go to Kennebunk, Maine if they wanted to see us tie the proverbial knot. We rented an entire Inn for all our guests to stay. It was a wicked fun wedding weekend, with lots to do and eat
and drink 
for our guests from Thursday through Saturday, and then some.
We hadnt planned on much of a honeymoon. Wed already had a Universal trip in January/February, and wed done a 10-day Mexican Riviera cruise in April. We are also going to Hawaii in October for my brothers wedding.
But, the problem with destination weddings?
Many of those 60 close friends and family dont leave on the Sunday after your wedding like you hope, and you hardly get any time to yourselves to enjoy your newfound wedded bliss.
Well, you can enjoy your wedded bliss, but its not polite to do that in front of other people.
Enter an unexpected 5-day weekend from work, APs burning holes in our pockets, an APH special at the RPR of stay 3 nights, get the 4th night free, and $178 in Delta credits. Mix them all together and you get a mini-moon!
Jealous of all our extensive traveling?
Dont be.
We live in squalor.
Seriously.
But, we wanted some time to ourselves, our APs were about to expire, and we wanted to go home. This would be our 3rd stay at RPR Club in a year. (Again, squalor. Seriously.) We like the staff there, and the club lounge is such a convenience. The RPR Club staff were there right after our engagement, and I had written them before this stay and told them the wedding was a blast, wished they could have been there, and we were looking forward to seeing them on our honeymoon.
Well, not all of our honeymoon, but we were still looking forward to seeing some friendly, familiar faces.
They wrote back and said they remembered us, congratulations, and to bring a wedding picture.
I brought a CD holding 104.
Mike was embarrassed that I did that and wouldnt let me show them.
Becoming hard and fast friends with the club staff has its advantages.
The pregnant one is Shannan. She's due in January. If you see her soon, tell her Mike and Jodie say, "BIG HELLO!"
We werent exactly treated to a nice view (our room looked out on I4 from all directions, since they were pretty full for Labor Day weekend), but the club staff did treat us to sparkling wine, chocolate covered strawberries, and a whole can of whipped cream.
I ate almost the whole canister of whipped cream by myself.
I shouldnt have done that.
This was **not** the view from our room:
Anyway, our days at Universal pretty much consist of the following:
Jodie gets up and makes herself half-presentable for public viewing. (Only half-presentable since I consider the lounge staff hard and fast friends. Anyone else I will likely never see again. Except for one time when we met someone we work with. But that was OK. He retired a month later.)
Jodie goes to breakfast in the club lounge.
Jodie puts on bathing suit (in room, not club lounge), leaves Mike sleeping, gets a book, and plops her fat butt down on a deck chair at the pool.
Mike gets up, makes himself presentable for public viewing by donning a baseball hat, and comes down to the pool for his morning cigarette and soda.
Mike takes his shower (in the room. Not in the pool.)
Jodie returns to take her shower (again in the room. Not in the pool. Never in the pool).
Off to the parks for a few hours.
Back to the club lounge for beer oclock (5 to 7 pm).
Off to City Walk for drinks, entertainment, and dinner.
Hopefully, walking on 2 feet back to the room for the night.
Repeat.
So, Ill just give highlights and you can view our pics to see the rest (I'll post some more pics in a separate window).
We were determined to do One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish this trip. We decided to put it off until our water ride day.
We all have water ride days, dont we? Thats where you skip washing your hair in the morning, put on half bathing suit/half regular clothes, and head to IOA with the sole purpose of riding only water rides. Get drenched. Waddle home and hope for no chaffing. Shower and head back out.
The problem was water ride day was not on our first day. And Mike could never remember the name of 1F2F/RFBF, but he also could not stop talking about it, as it had now become a requisite part of said water ride day.
Fat Fish, Thin Fish.
What?
You know, Nice Fish, Snotty Fish.
Four Fish, Five Fish?
Anwyay
Spiderman is my favorite ride.
Anywhere. Ever. This trip we happily walked through the Express Line, and I giddily said to my better half, Mike, was Peter Parker the one who picked the peck of pickled peppers?
Hmmm. Noooooo.
Ok then. I am used to this. I often find myself more entertaining than others find me.
Throughout our stay, the Spidey Signal would not be working. I missed that. I shouldve asked what was up, but never did.
Later in the day, Mike (once again) asked when we were having water ride day. He was anxious to ride .
He hit me.
I thought hed remembered the actual name for One Fish, Two Fish.
Nope.
Peter Piper!!
What?
Peter Piper was the one who picked the peck of pickled peppers!
Seriously?
Well you asked about 2 hours ago. Its not Peter Parker. It was Peter Piper.
Feeling incredibly guilty that my much better half had actually been thinking about this for 2 hours at my bequest, I continued
Are you **sure** it wasnt Peter Parker who picked the peck of pickled peppers?
Derp!! He hates it when I do that.
So whats that ride again? Scientology Fish, Jewish Fish
Pretty Fish, Handsome Fish.
Tuna Fish, Jelly Fish.
A Suess expert my better half is not. Thats Ok. I didnt marry him for his Suess prowess.
We finally had water ride day on Sunday. We rode in the order of least wet to most wet. So, we started on Cranky Fish, Happy Fish.
Sorry to the family we ran over trying to get a Blue Fish. You see, the instructions tell you what to do for Red Fishes and Blue Fishes, but I am not quite bright enough to figure out what to do if youre stuck in a Yellow Fish, so I didnt want that one.
Thats OK, I think. The 4 year old and mom we beat out for the blue fish looked like they wanted to get wet anyway.
I think.
In all seriousness, we arrived at the Blue Fish the same time they did and offered it up to them, but they just moved on to the Yellow Fish.
Phew.
That was a close one.
Anyway, the way we play Banana Fish, Apple Fish is simple.
I tell Mike when to go up and down and he steers.
For a pair of 30-somethings, this may seem pathetic to you, but if youll remember as I already mentioned, at least I find myself amusing.
Mike took a shot of the ride so he could remember the name next time:
Next in line for least wet water ride was JRPA. We were in the same row as a father taking his young daughter who was just tall enough to ride for the first time. As you probably know, everyone in the same row shares a lap bar. This means the bar only goes down as far as the fattest person in the row.
We hate that.
Especially when we are now the fat people in the row.
I was afraid the little girl was going to fall out.
She kept asking her dad if there was a hill at the end.
He would say, Just a little one.
I said a silent prayer that her father wasnt the hands up for safety type.
He wasnt.
She was safe.
I promised God Id loose a good 15 pounds.
Next we did Ripsaw Falls. Why do I always feel like I do that time I accidentally ate a shroom every time I ride that? We stuck Mike in the back, and I was more drenched than he was.
Only one thing left to do: Popeye and Blutos Bilge Rat Barges.
We were just about to reach the ride attendant who would tell us what barge to get in. Just then, two people cut in front of us. Hmphh, but OK. Until the ride attendant asked how many, and the cutter said,
16 PEOPLE.
I may slightly exaggerate some things. Yes.
This is not one of them.
These two women cut in front of us and tried to ride with
16 PEOPLE.
So, we were stuck riding with 6 members of a Brazilian tour group.
Two of which were old ladies who each wore rain ponchos, pulled plastic kerchiefs over their hair, donned water proof shoes, put their purses in plastic bags and held them tightly on their laps for fear we might steal them if they put them in the centralized bin, and then gasped and moaned every time water came into the barge.
Since they hadnt spoken a single word of English, Mike and I blatantly looked at each other and asked, Whats the point of riding this then?
They seemed to be oblivious.
Even if they understood us, we didnt care.
Did you hear they cut the line with
16 PEOPLE?!
We called it a day after the water rides and headed back to the RPR.
Our night only got a bit worse from there. After the safety and haven of Beer OClock in the club lounge, we headed to Pat OBriens, which was packed in the piano bar section. We settled into the outside bar since we pretty much had it to ourselves.
Until she came along.
She looked all of 16.
She didnt have ID.
She was trying to get the bartender to serve her anyway by pleading that she had two kids.
The bartender told her she needed ID anyway.
She said she mothered two kids and called her friend over to prove it.
I looked at the bartender and said, Sorry for you.
She thought I was talking about her.
She raised her voice at me and said, HEY! Unless you have kids, you have NOTHING!!!
Now, about 58 things that are between me and God raced through my head, all of which I will have to answer for on my death bed.
What I did manage to do was raise my glass to her and say, I dont agree with that, but two kids? Good for you.
The bartender gave her a beer and told her it would be a good idea to join up with her other friends at the other end of the bar. To us, he apologized and said for the record he didnt agree with her.
It didnt matter. She left a bad taste in my mouth. Who did she think she was?
How did she know that Mike and I werent desperately trying to have kids and couldnt?
OK, were not, but she didnt know that.
We left to go back to the safety of the RPR so Mike could order room service.
Other nights were better, and we found ourselves at Margaritaville quite a bit. The first time we were there in the afternoon on our way back to Beer OClock. There, Jerry gave us a wedding shot.
I am not a shot person. But this was good. He wouldnt tell us what was in it, but it had pretty colors of blue and red.
The next time we were there, we had our favorite server, Hank. Wed had Hank before, and he remembered us from our last trip. I asked him the name of the Margarita he had them make me the last time we were there. It was the Perfect Margarita. Its not on the menu; you have to ask for it. He actually remembered that I dont take salt on my margaritas. Wow!
Here's a pic of Hank, me, and Mike:
We also ate at Nascar Café and Pat OBriens and had drinks at the HRC.
On our last night, we had drinks at Margaritaville again, and they had a pretty good band. At one point, the band came onto the floor and played while they sat with a table of ladies. One of the ladies began rubbing the lead guitarists back and running her fingers through his hair.
He looked a little freaked.
I was a little scheeved myself.
We tried to take a picture, but didn't get it till the guitarist went back on stage:
The girl in the pink tank was the one getting a little too friendly with the blond guitarist on stage.
Maybe they actually knew each other, but I told Mike I couldnt watch it anymore and we left. We wanted to call it an early night since wed have to be up early to ride the front row of Dueling Dragons before we left anyway. We had wanted to do it earlier in our trip, but it had broken down while we were in line for the front row of Ice, and we decided not to wait since they couldnt give us an ETR.
The next morning we got up.
First Fire.
I was fine.
Really.
Not scared. No white-knuckle grip.
Mike yelled at me to open my eyes on the way up before take off.
I hate the chug, chug, chug as you go up, among other things.
It makes me feel better to keep my eyes closed.
I didnt open them like he told me to.
He called me a sissy.
I didnt care.
We immediately went to the front row of Ice next.
I kept my eyes open like a big girl.
Never lost the white-knuckle grip though.
This time I just about wet my pants during the near miss.
Later, Mike admitted that he was a bit shaky too on that one.
Funny. I had always thought that Fire was better before. This time it was definitely Ice that had more edge. Definitely Ice. Always on Sundays, never on Mondays.
Wedding: over
Relaxation and romance: desperately needed
We had a destination wedding. We transported 60 of our closest friends and family from various parts of the country and made them go to Kennebunk, Maine if they wanted to see us tie the proverbial knot. We rented an entire Inn for all our guests to stay. It was a wicked fun wedding weekend, with lots to do and eat
and drink for our guests from Thursday through Saturday, and then some. We hadnt planned on much of a honeymoon. Wed already had a Universal trip in January/February, and wed done a 10-day Mexican Riviera cruise in April. We are also going to Hawaii in October for my brothers wedding.
But, the problem with destination weddings?
Many of those 60 close friends and family dont leave on the Sunday after your wedding like you hope, and you hardly get any time to yourselves to enjoy your newfound wedded bliss.
Well, you can enjoy your wedded bliss, but its not polite to do that in front of other people.
Enter an unexpected 5-day weekend from work, APs burning holes in our pockets, an APH special at the RPR of stay 3 nights, get the 4th night free, and $178 in Delta credits. Mix them all together and you get a mini-moon!
Jealous of all our extensive traveling?
Dont be.
We live in squalor.
Seriously.
But, we wanted some time to ourselves, our APs were about to expire, and we wanted to go home. This would be our 3rd stay at RPR Club in a year. (Again, squalor. Seriously.) We like the staff there, and the club lounge is such a convenience. The RPR Club staff were there right after our engagement, and I had written them before this stay and told them the wedding was a blast, wished they could have been there, and we were looking forward to seeing them on our honeymoon.
Well, not all of our honeymoon, but we were still looking forward to seeing some friendly, familiar faces.
They wrote back and said they remembered us, congratulations, and to bring a wedding picture.
I brought a CD holding 104.
Mike was embarrassed that I did that and wouldnt let me show them.
Becoming hard and fast friends with the club staff has its advantages.
The pregnant one is Shannan. She's due in January. If you see her soon, tell her Mike and Jodie say, "BIG HELLO!"
We werent exactly treated to a nice view (our room looked out on I4 from all directions, since they were pretty full for Labor Day weekend), but the club staff did treat us to sparkling wine, chocolate covered strawberries, and a whole can of whipped cream.
I ate almost the whole canister of whipped cream by myself.
I shouldnt have done that.
This was **not** the view from our room:
Anyway, our days at Universal pretty much consist of the following:
Jodie gets up and makes herself half-presentable for public viewing. (Only half-presentable since I consider the lounge staff hard and fast friends. Anyone else I will likely never see again. Except for one time when we met someone we work with. But that was OK. He retired a month later.)
Jodie goes to breakfast in the club lounge.
Jodie puts on bathing suit (in room, not club lounge), leaves Mike sleeping, gets a book, and plops her fat butt down on a deck chair at the pool.
Mike gets up, makes himself presentable for public viewing by donning a baseball hat, and comes down to the pool for his morning cigarette and soda.
Mike takes his shower (in the room. Not in the pool.)
Jodie returns to take her shower (again in the room. Not in the pool. Never in the pool).
Off to the parks for a few hours.
Back to the club lounge for beer oclock (5 to 7 pm).
Off to City Walk for drinks, entertainment, and dinner.
Hopefully, walking on 2 feet back to the room for the night.
Repeat.
So, Ill just give highlights and you can view our pics to see the rest (I'll post some more pics in a separate window).
We were determined to do One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish this trip. We decided to put it off until our water ride day.
We all have water ride days, dont we? Thats where you skip washing your hair in the morning, put on half bathing suit/half regular clothes, and head to IOA with the sole purpose of riding only water rides. Get drenched. Waddle home and hope for no chaffing. Shower and head back out.
The problem was water ride day was not on our first day. And Mike could never remember the name of 1F2F/RFBF, but he also could not stop talking about it, as it had now become a requisite part of said water ride day.
Fat Fish, Thin Fish.
What?
You know, Nice Fish, Snotty Fish.
Four Fish, Five Fish?
Anwyay
Spiderman is my favorite ride.
Anywhere. Ever. This trip we happily walked through the Express Line, and I giddily said to my better half, Mike, was Peter Parker the one who picked the peck of pickled peppers?Hmmm. Noooooo.
Ok then. I am used to this. I often find myself more entertaining than others find me.
Throughout our stay, the Spidey Signal would not be working. I missed that. I shouldve asked what was up, but never did.
Later in the day, Mike (once again) asked when we were having water ride day. He was anxious to ride .
He hit me.
I thought hed remembered the actual name for One Fish, Two Fish.
Nope.
Peter Piper!!
What?
Peter Piper was the one who picked the peck of pickled peppers!
Seriously?
Well you asked about 2 hours ago. Its not Peter Parker. It was Peter Piper.
Feeling incredibly guilty that my much better half had actually been thinking about this for 2 hours at my bequest, I continued
Are you **sure** it wasnt Peter Parker who picked the peck of pickled peppers?
Derp!! He hates it when I do that.
So whats that ride again? Scientology Fish, Jewish Fish
Pretty Fish, Handsome Fish.
Tuna Fish, Jelly Fish.
A Suess expert my better half is not. Thats Ok. I didnt marry him for his Suess prowess.
We finally had water ride day on Sunday. We rode in the order of least wet to most wet. So, we started on Cranky Fish, Happy Fish.
Sorry to the family we ran over trying to get a Blue Fish. You see, the instructions tell you what to do for Red Fishes and Blue Fishes, but I am not quite bright enough to figure out what to do if youre stuck in a Yellow Fish, so I didnt want that one.
Thats OK, I think. The 4 year old and mom we beat out for the blue fish looked like they wanted to get wet anyway.
I think.
In all seriousness, we arrived at the Blue Fish the same time they did and offered it up to them, but they just moved on to the Yellow Fish.
Phew.
That was a close one.
Anyway, the way we play Banana Fish, Apple Fish is simple.
I tell Mike when to go up and down and he steers.
For a pair of 30-somethings, this may seem pathetic to you, but if youll remember as I already mentioned, at least I find myself amusing.
Mike took a shot of the ride so he could remember the name next time:
Next in line for least wet water ride was JRPA. We were in the same row as a father taking his young daughter who was just tall enough to ride for the first time. As you probably know, everyone in the same row shares a lap bar. This means the bar only goes down as far as the fattest person in the row.
We hate that.
Especially when we are now the fat people in the row.
I was afraid the little girl was going to fall out.
She kept asking her dad if there was a hill at the end.
He would say, Just a little one.
I said a silent prayer that her father wasnt the hands up for safety type.
He wasnt.
She was safe.
I promised God Id loose a good 15 pounds.
Next we did Ripsaw Falls. Why do I always feel like I do that time I accidentally ate a shroom every time I ride that? We stuck Mike in the back, and I was more drenched than he was.
Only one thing left to do: Popeye and Blutos Bilge Rat Barges.
We were just about to reach the ride attendant who would tell us what barge to get in. Just then, two people cut in front of us. Hmphh, but OK. Until the ride attendant asked how many, and the cutter said,
16 PEOPLE.
I may slightly exaggerate some things. Yes.
This is not one of them.
These two women cut in front of us and tried to ride with
16 PEOPLE.
So, we were stuck riding with 6 members of a Brazilian tour group.
Two of which were old ladies who each wore rain ponchos, pulled plastic kerchiefs over their hair, donned water proof shoes, put their purses in plastic bags and held them tightly on their laps for fear we might steal them if they put them in the centralized bin, and then gasped and moaned every time water came into the barge.
Since they hadnt spoken a single word of English, Mike and I blatantly looked at each other and asked, Whats the point of riding this then?
They seemed to be oblivious.
Even if they understood us, we didnt care.
Did you hear they cut the line with
16 PEOPLE?!
We called it a day after the water rides and headed back to the RPR.
Our night only got a bit worse from there. After the safety and haven of Beer OClock in the club lounge, we headed to Pat OBriens, which was packed in the piano bar section. We settled into the outside bar since we pretty much had it to ourselves.
Until she came along.
She looked all of 16.
She didnt have ID.
She was trying to get the bartender to serve her anyway by pleading that she had two kids.
The bartender told her she needed ID anyway.
She said she mothered two kids and called her friend over to prove it.
I looked at the bartender and said, Sorry for you.
She thought I was talking about her.
She raised her voice at me and said, HEY! Unless you have kids, you have NOTHING!!!
Now, about 58 things that are between me and God raced through my head, all of which I will have to answer for on my death bed.
What I did manage to do was raise my glass to her and say, I dont agree with that, but two kids? Good for you.
The bartender gave her a beer and told her it would be a good idea to join up with her other friends at the other end of the bar. To us, he apologized and said for the record he didnt agree with her.
It didnt matter. She left a bad taste in my mouth. Who did she think she was?
How did she know that Mike and I werent desperately trying to have kids and couldnt?
OK, were not, but she didnt know that.
We left to go back to the safety of the RPR so Mike could order room service.
Other nights were better, and we found ourselves at Margaritaville quite a bit. The first time we were there in the afternoon on our way back to Beer OClock. There, Jerry gave us a wedding shot.
I am not a shot person. But this was good. He wouldnt tell us what was in it, but it had pretty colors of blue and red.
The next time we were there, we had our favorite server, Hank. Wed had Hank before, and he remembered us from our last trip. I asked him the name of the Margarita he had them make me the last time we were there. It was the Perfect Margarita. Its not on the menu; you have to ask for it. He actually remembered that I dont take salt on my margaritas. Wow!
Here's a pic of Hank, me, and Mike:
We also ate at Nascar Café and Pat OBriens and had drinks at the HRC.
On our last night, we had drinks at Margaritaville again, and they had a pretty good band. At one point, the band came onto the floor and played while they sat with a table of ladies. One of the ladies began rubbing the lead guitarists back and running her fingers through his hair.
He looked a little freaked.
I was a little scheeved myself.
We tried to take a picture, but didn't get it till the guitarist went back on stage:
The girl in the pink tank was the one getting a little too friendly with the blond guitarist on stage.
Maybe they actually knew each other, but I told Mike I couldnt watch it anymore and we left. We wanted to call it an early night since wed have to be up early to ride the front row of Dueling Dragons before we left anyway. We had wanted to do it earlier in our trip, but it had broken down while we were in line for the front row of Ice, and we decided not to wait since they couldnt give us an ETR.
The next morning we got up.
First Fire.
I was fine.
Really.
Not scared. No white-knuckle grip.
Mike yelled at me to open my eyes on the way up before take off.
I hate the chug, chug, chug as you go up, among other things.
It makes me feel better to keep my eyes closed.
I didnt open them like he told me to.
He called me a sissy.
I didnt care.
We immediately went to the front row of Ice next.
I kept my eyes open like a big girl.
Never lost the white-knuckle grip though.
This time I just about wet my pants during the near miss.
Later, Mike admitted that he was a bit shaky too on that one.
Funny. I had always thought that Fire was better before. This time it was definitely Ice that had more edge. Definitely Ice. Always on Sundays, never on Mondays.
If we go back just once next year, it will be worth it to renew. We're sure got our money's worth with those B1G1 year free APs! We made 4 trips on those, 3 of which saved us bundles on the room at the RPR! 
