Night-train
<font color=006666>Doomed<br><font color=660066>Kn
- Joined
- May 12, 2004
- Messages
- 1,815
My notes for today are rather sparse and dont go into details such as waking up time, what we had for breakfast, etc, etc, and my photos for that day dont help too much either! I seem to recall we possibly had a cereal breakfast in our room before heading over to the main pool for a couple of hours. I love this area early in the morning, especially when there isnt a lot of activity going on around you. Our task for today is to pay a visit to Wide World Of Sports after lunch, followed by a lengthy drive up I-4 to Orlando proper to pick up our tickets for the Green Day gig from the TD Waterhouse Centre box office. But for now we just chill out by the pool while the going is good.
DW stretches out on a lounger and laps up the morning sun while myself and DD spend most of the time in the water. Strangely the pool area doesnt get anywhere near being busy and we pretty much have the place to ourselves with the exception of maybe a dozen other people. Come lunchtime DW goes to the food court and returns with a couple of Philly Cheese-steak sandwiches for us and I think a burger for DD. Then we dry off and go back to our room to change. The drive to WWOS only takes a few minutes and again we are surprised to find the place virtually empty. An American couple who are just leaving ask me to take their photo underneath the big globe, and in return they do the same for us.
We stop to take a look in a store outside the main gate where DD gets a bracelet and some charms then we climb the steps to the gate. The CM on duty looks a very lonely figure. Apart from him and ourselves there is only one other person in sight. He tells us the place really only comes alive if there is an event on in the ballpark or if the All Star Café is screening a major sporting event. We thank Mike, for that was his name, and wander off inside. The first place we came to was the sporting goods store which was closed! So we leave that and find ourselves at the top of the steps overlooking the baseball park.
We take a few pics and then set off to tour the complex. It really is a huge place, probably emphasised by the fact that it was so empty! We see the odd gardener/grounds man doing their bit and way off in a far away corner a high school baseball is busy training.
It doesnt take too long to find ourselves back where we started and I decide to get a couple more pics of the baseball park. DW takes DD to get a drink from a nearby machine whilst I get my pics. As we are about to leave another CM approaches us and starts chatting. On spotting my Dolphins jersey she tells us about her son who competed in the Olympics in Atlanta and who was also on the team roster for the St Louis Rams football team. Then she asks us if wed like to down to the dugout and have our picture taken there, to which the answer is a very definite yes! And here we are;
We chat for a while more and I tell her Im not a huge baseball fan but I do follow the fortunes of the Florida Marlins. She says In that case, youll want to meet Mike, the CM at the turnstile. I said wed already met when we came in. Didnt you notice his ring? she asks. I said I hadnt, was there something I was missing here? She then tells me that Mike is Mike Sherman, aka The Shermanator. He was bat-boy for the Florida Marlins when they won the World Series in 2003 and hes wearing his winners ring!! We head out to the turnstiles and hes still there, so I jokingly demand to know why he didnt tell me about it when I came in. Couldnt he tell from my jersey I would be interested in Miami based team? Then he produces this huge lump of gold and diamonds;
Aint that something???? I ask him how much its worth. Around $45,000 he replies, as if Id just asked him the price of an ice-cream! $45,000!!!!!!!!!!!! Thats only the one were allowed to wear in public he goes on. We get another one, an official one and its worth around $80,000. It stays in a safe deposit box in the bank. And he says all this with such an air of nonchalance! All I can do is thank him for letting us get so close to it, and it never even occurs to me to ask him to let me put it on until weve left and are halfway up I-4! DOH!!!!! But what a highlight to our visit!! Definitely not something you come across every day!
Our trip to Orlando itself is pretty uneventful by comparison and we find the TD Waterhouse Centre quite easily. We park across the road and take the chance to get a couple of pics. This is the home of the Orlando Magic basketball team, but the regular season has finished and the Magic didnt make the play-offs so theres little chance of coming across any of the team while were here.
This is another very impressive building, absolutely huge and very imposing when you stand at the bottom of the steps leading up to the main entrance. Again there is hardly anyone around, and we are the only ones at the box office. I thought there would be more since the Green Day gig was only 2 days away. However, we get our tickets and experience that little blip of excitement you always get when you actually hold them in your hand, regardless of what the event is. That sorted, its time to head back towards the Kissimmee/ Lake Buena Vista area before the rush hour starts. I do NOT want to get caught up in that! Traffic is quite heavy on the West-bound route as it is, and some roadworks thrown in means it takes nearly an hour to cover the return journey, whereas we made it going up in 30 minutes! Once back on familiar ground we decide to go to Ponderosa opposite Old Town for dinner and pig out on the buffet. Great stuff! A couple of hours browsing the stores at Downtown Disney is the closing chapter of todays escapades, and we pick up some bathroom fittings for our planned Disney bathroom at home. We get a Mickey hands towel rail, Mickey hand soap dispenser, Mickey hand toothbrush holder and one or two other things to fit in with the proposed theme. DD comes away from the Lego store with a huge tub of bricks, wheels, windows and doors to add to her set and we add a couple more photos to our ever growing collection.
And so ends another day. Back to ASMo and ready for bed. We have a big day at Magic Kingdom tomorrow, starting off with breakfast at Crystal Palace with Scottish Maleficent and her family so an early rise is on the cards. I set the wake-up call for 6am, hoping that just once we could have someone other than Mickey and Stitch disturbing the peace. We shall see . . .
Happy trails folks!
DW stretches out on a lounger and laps up the morning sun while myself and DD spend most of the time in the water. Strangely the pool area doesnt get anywhere near being busy and we pretty much have the place to ourselves with the exception of maybe a dozen other people. Come lunchtime DW goes to the food court and returns with a couple of Philly Cheese-steak sandwiches for us and I think a burger for DD. Then we dry off and go back to our room to change. The drive to WWOS only takes a few minutes and again we are surprised to find the place virtually empty. An American couple who are just leaving ask me to take their photo underneath the big globe, and in return they do the same for us.
We stop to take a look in a store outside the main gate where DD gets a bracelet and some charms then we climb the steps to the gate. The CM on duty looks a very lonely figure. Apart from him and ourselves there is only one other person in sight. He tells us the place really only comes alive if there is an event on in the ballpark or if the All Star Café is screening a major sporting event. We thank Mike, for that was his name, and wander off inside. The first place we came to was the sporting goods store which was closed! So we leave that and find ourselves at the top of the steps overlooking the baseball park.
We take a few pics and then set off to tour the complex. It really is a huge place, probably emphasised by the fact that it was so empty! We see the odd gardener/grounds man doing their bit and way off in a far away corner a high school baseball is busy training.
It doesnt take too long to find ourselves back where we started and I decide to get a couple more pics of the baseball park. DW takes DD to get a drink from a nearby machine whilst I get my pics. As we are about to leave another CM approaches us and starts chatting. On spotting my Dolphins jersey she tells us about her son who competed in the Olympics in Atlanta and who was also on the team roster for the St Louis Rams football team. Then she asks us if wed like to down to the dugout and have our picture taken there, to which the answer is a very definite yes! And here we are;
We chat for a while more and I tell her Im not a huge baseball fan but I do follow the fortunes of the Florida Marlins. She says In that case, youll want to meet Mike, the CM at the turnstile. I said wed already met when we came in. Didnt you notice his ring? she asks. I said I hadnt, was there something I was missing here? She then tells me that Mike is Mike Sherman, aka The Shermanator. He was bat-boy for the Florida Marlins when they won the World Series in 2003 and hes wearing his winners ring!! We head out to the turnstiles and hes still there, so I jokingly demand to know why he didnt tell me about it when I came in. Couldnt he tell from my jersey I would be interested in Miami based team? Then he produces this huge lump of gold and diamonds;
Aint that something???? I ask him how much its worth. Around $45,000 he replies, as if Id just asked him the price of an ice-cream! $45,000!!!!!!!!!!!! Thats only the one were allowed to wear in public he goes on. We get another one, an official one and its worth around $80,000. It stays in a safe deposit box in the bank. And he says all this with such an air of nonchalance! All I can do is thank him for letting us get so close to it, and it never even occurs to me to ask him to let me put it on until weve left and are halfway up I-4! DOH!!!!! But what a highlight to our visit!! Definitely not something you come across every day!
Our trip to Orlando itself is pretty uneventful by comparison and we find the TD Waterhouse Centre quite easily. We park across the road and take the chance to get a couple of pics. This is the home of the Orlando Magic basketball team, but the regular season has finished and the Magic didnt make the play-offs so theres little chance of coming across any of the team while were here.
This is another very impressive building, absolutely huge and very imposing when you stand at the bottom of the steps leading up to the main entrance. Again there is hardly anyone around, and we are the only ones at the box office. I thought there would be more since the Green Day gig was only 2 days away. However, we get our tickets and experience that little blip of excitement you always get when you actually hold them in your hand, regardless of what the event is. That sorted, its time to head back towards the Kissimmee/ Lake Buena Vista area before the rush hour starts. I do NOT want to get caught up in that! Traffic is quite heavy on the West-bound route as it is, and some roadworks thrown in means it takes nearly an hour to cover the return journey, whereas we made it going up in 30 minutes! Once back on familiar ground we decide to go to Ponderosa opposite Old Town for dinner and pig out on the buffet. Great stuff! A couple of hours browsing the stores at Downtown Disney is the closing chapter of todays escapades, and we pick up some bathroom fittings for our planned Disney bathroom at home. We get a Mickey hands towel rail, Mickey hand soap dispenser, Mickey hand toothbrush holder and one or two other things to fit in with the proposed theme. DD comes away from the Lego store with a huge tub of bricks, wheels, windows and doors to add to her set and we add a couple more photos to our ever growing collection.
And so ends another day. Back to ASMo and ready for bed. We have a big day at Magic Kingdom tomorrow, starting off with breakfast at Crystal Palace with Scottish Maleficent and her family so an early rise is on the cards. I set the wake-up call for 6am, hoping that just once we could have someone other than Mickey and Stitch disturbing the peace. We shall see . . .
Happy trails folks!
