Orlando Trip The Non-Park-Hopper Way Day 3

[tweetylori]

Orlando Trip 7/17/04-7/25/04

Cast of Characters:

Me: 44, travel researcher & planner
DH: bearer of free passes, listener of travel researcher & planner
DS: 15, almost 16…game addict
DSS: 13…Stepson’s first visit to Orlando!



DAYS 3 …DisneyQuest (RUDE adults)


When I last left off, the weary Men In Black warriors were sleeping off the effects of 13 hours of IOA and US. We were all happy to have a day off from the parks, so we slept in, missing the hotel free breakfast. It was early-lunch time when we got moving, with DisneyQuest as our destination. None of us had ever been in it before. Thanks to Disboards, I finally knew what it was, since I had walked by it a number of times at Downtown Disney. Also thanks to the board, I had hooked up to a link where I pre-bought tickets for each of us at $23.50 per person, saving about $10 a piece, or $40 overall. I called the company to find out where they were to pick up the tickets, and found out they were within a few miles of our hotel.

Starving, we hit Chevy’s first (ahhhh, the Breakfast of Champions…Mexican food!) We sure ate a LOT. DS had a tostada salad, DH a big “saucy rito” (burrito), and DSS & I had combo plates, plus lots of chips & delicious salsa, three soft drinks and one glad of wine (the Drink of Vacationing Champions)…and the bill was just $48.42. (tip not included). I’d just like to see us get all that at the Mexican Restaurant in Epcot for that price! (or be as good). We don’t like to eat at places that we can go to at home when we’re on vacation, so Chevy’s fit the criteria, and made for an excellent breakfast/lunch place.

Off to pick up DisneyQuest discount tickets. A cinch. Just had to sign for them. And we were off for our first DisneyQuest adventure, pleased with ourselves for picking such a rainy day to be inside. Hah! We, obviously, were not the only ones so pleased with themselves. The place was PACKED. After the nifty elevator ride to the third floor, we all decided to separate, have some individual fun and meet back by the elevators in an hour. The guys all disappeared. I walked around and around and couldn’t see a single free machine to play anywhere. Finally saw DH and we went over to the five pinball tables to wait our turn. We watched folks play some games, and then a table opened up. Found out fast it opened up because it was no longer working. By now we had been at DisneyQuest for 45 min. and not played a thing. Finally, another one opened and we played a couple games together. Then the one next to it opened up and my DH got his own machine, and I got mine for a couple fun games, when POOF! Out of nowhere appears the Wicked Witch of the West. Garbed in shorts and a fanny pack, hands on hips, she shrieked that “the sign says to give others a chance to play!” My husband turns around and says to Wicked Witch (a grown woman, this was not a child) “And we WILL”. I added that this was the first game we had even gotten to play since we’d been there. Meanwhile, DSS shows up needing a restroom, so DH goes off with him, leaving me alone with the Wicked Witch. It was quite aggravating, and unfortunately, I’m not the type to not let things like that get to me. She was saying things like “well, how long are you going to be? A half hour?” I tried to ignore her, but she was so annoying that I just left too. How can someone enjoy doing something that they’ve bullied their way into? By now I was supposed to meet up with the guys, so I parked it on a bench by the elevators. And waited. And waited, watching elevator-full after elevator-full of people arrive to the already crowded building. Why do they not LIMIT the number of folks inside???

After a long wait, I wandered around and finally found each guy, all of which had “forgotten” about us meeting up. Oh well, didn’t matter. I needed the sit-down time. So I told them all that I’d be up one level (having discovered the comfy-looking chairs with computers in front of them). I go up, get a Diet Pepsi, and of course, there’s no where open to sit with computers. Lots of people are sleeping up there in front of them with the remains of their meals scattered around them (can’t get up and use a trash can?). Anyway, eventually a seat by a computer opened up (I had patiently waited my turn no where near them, so as not to hound anyone). Sat down and quickly discovered that with my short arms and the computer firmly implanted into the table at a distance from the chair, that this would be a lean-forward-and-stretch event. But hey, I wasn’t on my feet, and I could at least play a few Yahoo games (I love word racer and mah-jong), and check my email and see what was happening on some of the trip reports I was following here.

I couldn’t figure out how to get to the internet on the darn thing. A few minutes go by and my family appears. Yup. Caught trying to play internet games (they were not surprised). My DS was kind enough to point out where I needed to click, and they went off to leave me to my internet. It was SLOOOWWWW. Very slow connection. I finally got yahoo up, and a woman sits down across from me and says that she’d like my place when I’m done. At least she was polite, but now I knew someone was looking over my shoulder and waiting for me to hurry up. Mind you there are tons of other people that have been there forever, but I’m the one that they’re gonna wait for. The one that just got on the thing! Why me again?

Anyway, I was able to get to yahoo, but it wouldn’t load any games, so I tried to check my aol email account. Nope. That wouldn’t load either. Typed in disboards. Success! That came up, and I was able to read a couple trip reports, but it wouldn’t let me post anything. That did it. I gave up. Gave the woman the computer and walked off. Found DH and DSS and waited with them while they fought with swords in a comic book. We found DS and all of us went down to stand in line to wait for the raft ride. After a bit of a wait, we jumped on and oared all the way and partially back! Farther than any of the folks we had seen before us. It was fun. We split up again, and DS and I played a few sports games together, I think it was called SportsJam. And a table game with long tubes that lit up. I soon learned that it only took my DS once or twice to play something before he had it down pat and could whip my butt. So my whipping opportunities had to come with sheer luck before that. That was a fun bonding-experience. I’m not normally the video-arcade kind of person.

Meanwhile DH and DSS show up and we take DS up so the three of them could do the sword-comic thing together. Of course DS wins. DH and DSS take off to go build their own roller coaster, and we each go our own way. I found one video game open. It was some samurai-fighting thing, so I gave it a whirl, feeling only a bit ridiculous. Kicked a couple ugly guys’ butts! Wandered off, and found a couple kids playing a shooting game. It had lots of rounds to it. Next to them a couple adult men were playing. It really looked fun. I got a kick out of watching them. The boy playing with the girl, turned around and asked me if I’d like to play. Sure! What a polite child! I found that to be true with all the kids at DQ…it was the adults that were rude! So the girl and I finished off the game she had been playing with the boy, and started a game of our own. Meanwhile, two adult women had taken over the one next to us and were on their second full game. We hadn’t even finished the one game before my family appears behind me.So here comes a Mom with her little tyke. Let me guess. They just got here and little tyke said he wants to play this game, so Mom thinks: “I’ll show dear son how the world works. Let’s not wander off and find an available game, let’s harass someone who’s already playing”. So why ME, again? No one’s saying a word to the two women next to us that were now starting their third full game. Gritting my teeth I said, “We’re almost done”. (I was beating young girl despite the fact that she had the gun right up against the game). All of a sudden I hear a man behind me say “MY son is gonna play NEXT”. Then I hear my husband say: “Don’t talk to my son like that!” Uh-Oh. Distracted, I lost that round. Darn it! The audacity of that man! My stepson was standing quietly behind me watching me play ONE game. He wasn’t waiting to play, he was waiting patiently for me to finish so we could all leave. It takes a LOT to for DH to get upset. And the rudeness of this man was more than he could take. Fortunately nothing escalated, because the nasty family (turned out it was a husband –wife and their precious little darlings) who were both teaching their children the same bad attitude. Force your way into whatever you want to do! Be rude to people!

By now, we’d had all the DisneyQuest fun we could stand. All of us agreed that it would have been a MUCH more fun place if it hadn’t been so crowded. Out we go. DH and DSS, being music fanatics, had to go to the Fender guitar store, and I wanted to go to the neat artsy-type place,, HoyPoloi Gallery to look for little tiny glass animals that I had bought before. DS is stuck with deciding which is the lesser of two evils, and decides that would be me and the small animals. He helps me pick some out, and we leave with 9 precious adorably-cute ones including a worm, an octopus, and a monkey. Love them!

Oddly enough, we’re a little bit hungry. The only meal we’d had all day was the Chevy’s one. Although a big-one that was. So we decide to go to Wolfgang Puck. The first time my husband & I went to Orlando together (before we were married), was the first time my husband had ever been there. It was the trip where I introduced him to Wolfgang Puck’s crème brulee trio. We intended to share that first time this time with our kids.

It was about 7pm on a Monday night. We had been at DQ for about 6 hours. We had no wait to get in. We were seated near the back of the restaurant and everyone’s food I passed by looked awesome. We ordered our usual drinks…Diet Coke for DH and DSS, Sprite for DS, and Chardonnay for me. We decided to share some items, starting with spinach dip. They brought us some bread and butter while we were waiting, although I made sure to have someone else try the butter first. A couple years ago DH and I were in Vegas and decided to have lunch at Wolfgang’s restaurant in the Forum Shoppes, Spago. They brought us bread and butter, and I slathered on the butter, took a big bite, and almost lost it! It was goat cheese. I HATE goat cheese. It tastes like I just bit into the butt of a goat. From then on that’s all I could taste of that meal. I felt that waiter should’ve warned us. So, after the guys reassured me it was butter, I tried some. The spinach dip was delicious and didn’t take long to polish off. We followed that up with a sausage pizza that also had broccoli rabe and olives on it. We asked for the olives on the side, because DS doesn’t like them and we were sharing. They must not have understood because the pizza came out with chopped black olives on it, and more whole ones on the side. Oh well, more of that one for the rest of us. The pizzas were quite good. Typical Wolfgang-Puck style. Now for the dessert! One crème brulee sampler and one carrot cake to share. The crème brulee was as wonderful as I remembered. Three small cups of vanilla, chocolate, and butterscotch. The kids liked them too. And the carrot cake was great, but doesn’t quite rate up there with the ultimate carrot cake of all time…The Cheesecake Factory one. So…this meal that included three glasses of nice chardonnay (gee, who drank three glasses???) totaled $78.44 before tip. Not bad for the quality we got. With the receipt we could’ve gotten 10% off our next meal at Fulton’s Crab House or Portobello Yacht Club within the next 5 days, but never got there. We had other places to go, things to see!

Back to the hotel for a little reading, and out we were for our early morning wakeup. Up next…The Magic Kingdom and the now-infamous duck!

 

[LYNSUE]

I totally feel the same way about goat cheese. Haaaate it! Every once in a while they sneak it in at a Mexican resturant, so I'm always cautious there.

 

[Minniespal]

Great report ~ Thanx for sharing.