HaleyB
I am not a robot
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2003
- Messages
- 6,912
Not so much a savings...
(slightly late free dining trip report)
Part 17, I think, in which we finally eat at Coral Reef.
(slightly late free dining trip report)
Part 17, I think, in which we finally eat at Coral Reef.
Our cast:
Me- HaleyB. Disney fanatic with a DISboards addiction.
Steve- Mr. Silly. Disney fan with a tendancy to lurk on the DISboards.
Max- Likes to see his name in print. Loves Disney. Likes to hear funny DISboard stories.
Sophia- Little Disney fanatic in the makeing. I am sure she will have a user ID here soon.
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When we last left our fearless family they were in the lobby of the Coral Reef. Lets check back and see how this dinner worked out.
I have mixed up on my part numbering again, I think. So I am just going to call this part 17... Oct. 5th, 2005.
Here begins part the 17th.
Now.
Right below this.
I lied.
Just a little white lie.
(I hope bicker doesn't read this) j/k sort of...
Ok
Let's get this TR going
Here begins the next installment
Right now
below
Actually it is right below this.
really
here goes...
Holy moly (hee hee, I like that phrase so I borrowed it from someone). It was a sea of people. Not the kind of sea we came to see at all.
They had overbooked. Yikes.
So I check in, and I ask for a table on a lower level if possible. I even say we do not mind waiting a little longer for it. While checking in I hear several people get turned away, they didnt have ressies and the place was booked for the night. Then we wait the long wait. Maybe 30 minutes or so, seemed like a long wait. Tour Guide Mike has us spoiled.
When we get called another family of four gets called at the same time. I thik it might have been Zzub.
They are getting our table, I think, as I watch them being seated on the first level in a booth. We are the first table on the top level. Expansive view, but not close up. Oh well. No one but me knows I asked for close up so no one but me minds.
I dont really mind much, we always sit in the back. Maybe we look rowdy.
Our server seems a bit hurried. It is a full house and they have a full waiting room so I think he was a bit hurried, and harassed, and harried. But he notices we have a food allergy and brings out a chef.
Sadly it is not our Aussie friend from last year.
We work out something for Max to eat and all is well. I had the crab cakes and they were very good. Steve had whatever vegetarian option there was. It was not memorable.
Sophia ordered pizza I think, and I think she was ok with it. Max picked at his grilled chicken. Dessert saved the day. Sophia had the kids build your own Sunday and loved it. Max had a Rice Dream ice-cream build your own Sunday, but it was less impressive than Sophia's because all he could have were the sprinkles.
I had the Wave. It is yummy. It is perfect. It is beautiful and good. I think Steve had something else, I wasnt much paying attention since I had a chocolate dream come true in front of me. In case you are wondering, I liked it.
Service was extremely slow, and the timing of the meal was horrible. Good thing we have mellow kids because we sat at our table for over two hours.
I think this is the biggest flaw in the dining plan (for us) it just takes up too much time. The biggest tactical error I made on this trip was to plan lots of dinners for our sit down meals. We found they disrupted our touring plans. They also took too dang long. The other flaw for us was that we kept buying other stuff. Because we had so many free meals we decided to do a few signature meals and then paid for a few meals out of pocket to cover the days we borrowed credits from. Bad idea. It meant that we had a TS meal every single day and two on one of our days. We also had lots of left over CS meals on our last day. We would have been much better off using the CS credits and having a few days with no table service meals.
As many of you know I am in the middle of planning our next free dining trip. This lesson is not easily learned. I find myself tempted to do a sit down meal everyday. There are so many great options. I currently have one day without a TS meal planned out of 11. I need to cut one more and it is really hard to decide which one.
Ok so has that meal felt like two hours yet? It was.
Two hours, that is.
So we paid our bill (still makes me smile) and tried to decide what to do next. Sophia wants to ride Soarin (over California). again.
It was 8:30 and Future World was empty. I thought to myself, self, we could run over, ride Soarin and still see most of Illuminations...
However self was a bit off on her time estimate. Plus the wait time for Soarin is way off. Standby says 10 minutes. It was more like 25.
We are stuck in line. We have no choice, so we go ahead and enjoy the ride. I do love this ride. Illuminations has started already when we get out of The Land.
Worse yet, Max realizes he left his Pokemon Origami book at the Coral Reef.
Max is a wonderful child, but ever since he was born we have chanted the same thing to him. Equanimity. He is easy going, kind, happy more often than not, a real trooper, and he puts up with a lot of abuse from his baby sister. However if he gets knocked off his center he has a hard time getting back on it. He sometimes takes life's knocks pretty hard. Max is our special boy. He had horrible colic as an infant. Later he had elusive medical issues (most of which were the result of his food allergies, in the end). He was the happiest most sunshiny boy as a baby and toddler. Loved to be held and loved to cuddle. Pure golden sunshine, so long as he was not in pain. He didnt like to sleep much. But his colic and food allergies caused him to be in pain sometimes, and when he was he was inconsolable. Steve would pace with him for hours, trying to calm him down. It was very sa(i)d.
We have finally gotten a pretty good handle on Maxs allergies and such. He still lacks equanimity. He tends towards the dramatic, really.
In a really round about way, what I am saying here is that the disappearance of Maxs Pokemon origami book is a potential problem. Even if we replace it Max will be upset and most likely very hard on himself for losing it. It could put him off his center, and it might take days for him to find it again.
I also have a peculiar fixation on my kids not losing things. One of my clearest childhood memories is of going to WDW with my family the second time (I was pretty young the first time). Epcot had just opened. My Dad had been waiting for years. We went the first summer it was open. We drove. From Buffalo, New York. Long drive with four kids. My parents had a totally radical station wagon with the wood side panels. The seats folded down and we put sleeping bags on the floor and played around back there for this trip. This is way before the seat belt craze changed everything (for the better, but it was fun to spread out in our sleeping bags for long trips). Anyway we were each allowed to pick one thing to bring home. I picked a doll/purse. It was an American Indian woman with a papoose on her back, all dressed in furs, there was a little zipper area where you could put stuff. I can still picture it. It was the bees knees, the most ut, it was IT for me. I was worried about it on the drive home, because the inside of the station wagon was chaos. So I stuck way back in the corner where I thought it would be safe. I was, maybe 7. So way back in the corner by the tailgate that opened all the way seemed like a good spot. Except we stopped for gas or lunch or something and my Mom needed something out of the luggage, so she opened the tailgate. My doll must have fallen out.
What is worse is, no one seemed to notice or care that I had lost my prize. They did not turn the car around to see if they could recover my doll. It had been awhile since that stop, I guess. But I was SURE my Mother would let me pick something else out. Let me get something at one of those road side touristy stores on the way home. And I was so sure she would I never said a word about it. Which is a flaw of mine. I pretty much never say anything when I am disappointed or want something. I passed this flaw onto my children to a certain extent and while I try very hard to tell them they should speak up, and that it is ok to speak up for themselves, I still have trouble doing it myself. And children learn what they see. So I am particularly sensitive about lost items. Nothing gets lost on my watch. Except my keys, but that is another thing. Nothing that belongs to my kids gets lost on my watch, if I can help it.
Ok, enough with all the flashbacks. Sorry 'bout that.
So we run, or, um, walk with purpose, I mean, to the Coral Reef in hopes of finding Maxs book. We are a hope filled bunch.
On the way I assure him that Disney has a great lost and found system (while all the while planing a secret trip to Japan to pick up another copy, Disneys lost and found system takes way too much effort for a $6 book). Little did we know that we would have a run in with Disney lost and found in a few days.
So we make it to the Coral Reef and sprint for the check in desk. We are just in time. They did find it, and have it still. It was just about to be sent into that no mans land known as Disney lost and found. We are victorious so of course we do a little victory dance. Or maybe we dont, but we are happy.
Unfortunately we miss Illuminations. Worse still we see just enough of it over the greenery that blocks our view for Sophia to realize she missed something. On the bright side, it gives her something to look forward to for next time. Because there is always a next time when you are talking about WDW.
The show is just ending and we are no fools. We high tail it for the buses. We walk quickly with purpose. We might possibly even do a little run-walking. We beat the thronging masses and make it onto one of the first buses. Max and Sophia get to stand up and surf the aisle, so they are happy. All is well in our Disney World.
And then we sleep. The good, deep, refreshing sleep I like to call Disney Sleep.
)
!
