Ding.
Hi. How are yall? Goin up?
In our quest to locate the room, we had gone around the world and back again. Apparently my internal GPS was just as useless inside AKL as it was on I-75.
But somewhere along the way, we had finally managed to stumble upon an elevator. It was our ticket to ride. We were beyond ready to get up to the fourth floor to check out our room. Because it was so calling our name. But before we hopped on the elevator, I wanted to make sure it was going up. And since my first question was met with blank stares and awkward silence, I felt inclined to ask the group of people standing in the elevator my question again.
Are you going up?
My words were greeted, once again, by silence and polite smiles. What's up with that? I was on the verge of asking them if the cat got their tongue when I got it. Apparently they didnt speak English. Either that or they just didnt feel like talking to me.
One or the other.
So I point my little finger up to the heavens and questioningly (its a word) raise my eyebrows.
Body language. Its the
universal language.
It worked because they quickly point their little fingers downward and then one of the girls smiles timidly and says No, down. Well, at least one of them can speak English. Guess I was wrong. Or at least half wrong. Cause Im never fully wrong. Just ask my husband.
Anyway, I smile back at them, tell them okay and step back to wait for another elevator. The kids whine as they realize were not getting on that one. The room is starting to raise its voice.
As the doors close and we say goodbye to the cute group of teens with a serious lack of communication skills, I push the up arrow again.
Ding.
Wow. That was quick.
The doors part and in an instant, were face to face with the smiling teens again.
Theres a little confused laughter and then an awkward silence. Half of them stare at the floor, trying desperately to avoid eye contact as they shuffle their feet. The other half of the group stares straight up at the interesting and cool ceiling tiles. They look everywhere but straight forward.
Long time no see I joke. Just to break the ice. Who knows if they understood me. To this day I still dont know if more than one of them spoke English but you cant blame a girl for trying.
The doors finally close. I wait a few minutes to give them enough time to take off to wherever it is theyre going and then push the up arrow again.
Ding.
Doors part. Its them again.
My son says What in the
world?!
I hear a few nervous laughs and I throw out a So.. do you come here often? Again with the avoiding of the eyes. At this point, I cant help but laugh. The doors finally and mercifully close.
And once again, I wait. The kids are both giggling and shaking their heads. The boy tells the girl When that door opens, I
better not see them again! The girl agrees by simply saying Yeeeeah..
The thought occurs to me that we could already be checking out the view and jumping on the beds if we werent being elevator stalked by Menudo and their fan club.
I wait for a sufficient amount of minutes to pass. Surely by now they've taken off downstairs and I won't be messing them up by pushing the button, I think to myself.
I hit it and hold my breath.
Ding.
And guess who it is.
I stick my head in and yell Peek a boo I see you!
At this point we all collapse into a fit of laughter. As entertaining as this little twisted game of hide and seek is, I'm tired of playing. I say to heck with it and get on the elevator. They say to heck with it and get off. We bid our non speaking friends farewell. Again. They were all laughing and scouring the hallway for another elevator that
wasnt possessed as the doors closed behind them.
I hit the button marked 4 and we were on our way.
Ding.
I was almost afraid to look but a quick check of the illuminated numbers above my head told me we were in the right place.
Hmm. Wonder why it worked for me and not them. Wonder if it could have anything to do with the fact that I took some action. Grabbed the bull by the horns. Stepped up to the plate. Made it happen.
You know, actually pushed one of the freakin buttons to tell the elevator where to go.
A half hour and a few million steps after we'd left the lobby, we finally arrive at our room. Bellman #2 is already there when we arrive. Hes been waiting on us. Probably for quite a while. We walk up, he calls us by name, smiles at me, cracks a joke, and calls me maam.
Thats right. They dont have that at a moderate, baby.
He notices we approach him from the opposite direction. Meaning, he figures out we went the long way around. Ya think? He proceeds to give me directions on how to get to our room quicker the next time. He tells me to walk up about ten feet.
I trust Deuce even though Ive only known him for five minutes so I do as he suggests.
He then yells Sucker!, grabs my camera bag, and runs in the opposite direction as fast as he can.
Okay, Im kidding. He didnt really do that.
But I did walk up about ten feet and I did get a surprise.
I was looking out over the lobby. It was right there beside our room the whole time. We didnt have to walk all the way around. We did all that for nothing.
I had two thoughts pop into my head simultaneously.
One was that Im an idiot with no sense of direction. And the other was that I was seriously happy. Because how awesome is that? Not only did we get a free upgrade, but we also got a seriously sweet location. I was lovin the AKL and we hadnt even seen the room yet.
I thank him for passing on that little tidbit of info and we all head into the room.
Our little family has been known to put on quite a display when we first check out a hotel room. Please refer to the chest bumping incident at the LaQuinta if you doubt my word. But we had company this time. Nice company. So we had to play it cool until he left. And thats a very difficult thing to do when there is hand carved furniture and cool light fixtures that just beg to be gawked at and made a fuss over.
I catch the kids tracing their fingers over the designs carved into the cool as all get out armoire. I do the same thing when Deuce turns his head. I yearn to jump on the beds but resist the urge.
And then from out of nowhere, the silence is shatterered as the boy tells dignity to go play in his own yard.
He cant hold back any longer and yells at the top of his lungs, BASKETS! LOOK! OH M GOSH! Look at those COOL BASKETS!
You just cant make this stuff up.
Here we are with a fake African savannah on the other side of our balcony and the thing that pumps the boy up is a trio of baskets hanging on the wall.
Deuce is hard at it and I feel like I should at least help him unload all the junk we brought. I start to take a few bags off the cart and he stops me. He tells me hes got it and that I should just go enjoy the baskets.
I realize at this point that maybe he works for tips. Cause I hadnt thought of that before. Even though we did bring livestock.
Or did we?
But back to Deuce and the tip.
Oh crap. The tip.
And thats when it hits me.
My husband has the cash. Dangit. I had already given Sweaty Boy the tip and didnt have anything left for Deuce. Never figured thered be a Deuce. At any rate, here he is, being all nice and courteous and I have nothing for him.
I know I have to tip the man something.
I discreetly check my purse for something, anything, that might be of value.
I always carry Tic Tacs and Dentyne Ice with me. That could work. I find one of the boys Hot Wheels cars. I decide against that because Deuce doesnt look like hes into Hot Wheels anymore. Wouldnt wanna insult him. As I dig around in my purse a little more, my hand brushes against something hard and cool to the touch. Now what could that be? Ah yes, my gold medal. Never leave home without it. Well, Deuce is definitely not gettin his hands on that bad boy. I fought way too hard for that puppy to just give it away to the first bellman that unloads a luggage cart for me. Although it would have gone nicely with his outfit. I finally decide on a couple of coupons for a free Chick Fil A sandwich with the purchase of a Kids Meal. That should do the trick. Cause thats good stuff right there. I was really looking forward to using that myself but desperate times call for desperate measures.
I remind myself that its more blessed to give than to receive as I grab the coupons and a handful of Tic Tacs.
I turn around to find DH walking in the door.
Finally. And right on cue.
That boy has no idea how close he came to getting his first Tic Tac Tip.
As Deuce finishes up, we walk out onto the balcony.
We check out the wildlife.
The kids absolutely lose their minds when we spot a couple of giraffes off to the right of our balcony.
And then there's this guy. I'm not quite sure what he was ticked off about but he didn't seem very happy.
Did you know AKL even has snakes on their savannah? Now you do. Nice to know they're keepin' it real.
Yes, they even have snakes there. Which is kind of odd to me. But the boys thought it was pretty cool.
Then DH tells me Hey, check that out.
He points to a sign posted on the balcony. Its a warning of sorts. The gist of the message is that they have cameras trained on the balconies at all times. For the safety of the animals. They do not allow you to feed them and I guess they monitor the balconies to make sure everyone is a good citizen in that regard. Anyway, the message goes on to remind everyone to basically be careful and to close the curtains for privacy when needed.
Because Big Mickey is watching.
In other words, if you dont want it to flash across some little security dudes monitor, dont put it out there. We laugh as we imagine what incident(s) must have led to the posting of that warning. Because you know there always
has to be an incident that leads to the posting of The Warning.
I make a mental note to heed the Balcony Warning of Wisdom.
And to not let the kids pee off the balcony.
We come back inside and Deuce tells us what animals we can expect to see on our savannah. He lets us know that although all savannahs have giraffes, the one that we are on doesnt have zebras or some of the other bigger animals. He suggests that we ask the front desk to move us to another savannah with bigger wildlife around Monday or Tuesday when the resort will be a little less crowded.
We thank him for his knowledge and help and tip him nicely when he finishes.
As soon as we hear the door close behind him, we all look at each other.
Its on now. We skip around the room excitedly. We take pictures and touch everything. The boy kicks his shoes off and rubs his feet on the carpet. We say Cool! Come look at this! about ten times each.
The kids fall in love with the bunk beds. It was love at first sight.
Okay, yeah I know I got more of our bed in that shot than I did the bunk beds but I couldn't help it. I was just a little distracted by that mosquito net. I've never had a mosquito net over my bed before. And I was hoping it was just for decoration. But check out those lights.
The girl notices that they each have their own cool little light above their heads. She is amazed by the bunkbed light. Guess shes got a little bit of her Mama in her. She then stares a hole through it and proceeds to turn it on and off about ten times. Just to see if it works.
We check out everything in the room and are sufficiently impressed. We love the bathroom.
Youd think wed never seen granite countertops and nice faucets before.
There's even towel animals waiting for us on the back of the toilet. How cool is that? We just checked in and they already have towel animals waiting.
Mama like.
We get everything unpacked and then decide to head down to The Mara to grab some lunch. We take the beach bag with us because after we eat lunch, we plan on grabbing a bus over to Typhoon Lagoon for some fun in the sun.
We head out the door, hang a right towards the lobby and make our way down to the Mara.
The first thing we notice when we get there is that they now have all Snack Options for the Dinning Plan clearly marked. That was new since last year. Pretty cool. Of course, the kids see the big bags of Cheetos and want that for their meal. With a side of Cheetos and Cheetos for dessert. We hop in line and order something other than Cheetos.
It takes a few minutes to get our food because they have to cook my chicken pizza and melt DHs Smoked Turkey melt. As were waiting on our food, we strike up a conversation with another family. We find out its their last day. If they were feeling the slightest case of Disneyfreude, they sure didnt show it. They were really nice. Turns out theyd been there all week and inform us that this was the exact perfect time for us to come, that the lines have been really short all week.
I get a really weird case of déjà vu.
I ask them if theyre from Georgia, by any chance. And if they like to lie to people just to get their hopes up.
Okay, I didnt ask them that last part but I wanted to.
Anywho, they seem to be nice folks.
They excitedly give us the 4-1-1 on stuff that we already know about. Stuff that we knew about four years ago. Im sure yall probably come across this from time to time. And I always get a little bit of a kick out of it. For about two minutes anyway. I mean, I dont want to come off as a know it all but theres only so many times I can nod politely and say Oh, yeah. Really?
It takes all of about three minutes for me to break.
I cant pretend any longer. I hold up my carpel tunneled right hand and point my arthritic index finger at them. And then I tell them My hand didnt always look like this, you know. It used to be pretty. But that was before I discovered the DIS. And allearsnet. Now I spend night and day researching facts about Disneyworld. Facts that are so minute and trivial that it would make your head spin. And maybe feel a little sorry for me. So yes, I know about Extra Magic Hour. And yes, I know they have busses that take you to the parks. I know they have character meals and I even know they have a Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom. And what the name of it is. So step back, Jack. You have no idea who you're dealing with".
Okay maybe I didn't really say all that. But I so wanted to.
Your foods ready, the lady at the counter announces. Except she said it with a really thick accent.
"Food's ready." I cheerily tell DH. I was thankful for the diversion and grab my tray with my one good hand.
I dont know what it is about eating your first meal of the trip, especially when youre on the dining plan. Even though it was just counter service and it was just sandwiches and a pizza, we were really excited about our meal. Maybe because it was free. If we had been paying for it, it might not have been such a magical moment.
Once we get our food on the trays, we move over to the cooler to peruse and make our selections in the (free) drinks and deserts category.
And thats when I spot it.
Ahhh yeah. Zebra Domes, baby.
A nice little container of chocolate goodness. Yellow to go.
Just look how many are in that sucker. Its three of them along with two Chocolate Mousse Crunches. Not that I could ever eat all of it but still. I know a deal when I see it. I hope it counts as a legal desert on the dinning plan. And why wouldnt it? Its a desert, right? Its not like its lobster. Its a Zebra Dome. Its not out of my league. Surely I can have it.
Right?
I turn to Georgia Whos Been Here All Week and casually ask him if he knows if theyre letting the Value size container of Zebra Domes count as a desert on the dining plan.
He tells me to go ask my little imaginary friends in my little computer.
Kidding.
He actually gives me a sheepish knowing smile.
He knows about the Zebra Domes. He knows because he and his wife have had this conversation all week. His wife said she thought it would count as desert. Apparently he disagreed and forbid his wife to even TRY to get the Zebra Domes as a desert. I guess Georgia thought it was out of his league, this big ole box of chocolate delight. He had been there all week and apparently didnt even bother to try.
I have no more use for this guy.
I plop it down on my tray and head up front. I watch as the CM looks over our choices. And gives us the green light.
We got the Zebra Domes through security.
We find a table, spread out, and dig in. We are surprised at how hungry we are. Just as a little heads up for anybody thats planning on going to AKL anytime soon. By this I mean Nicole Marie. Listen to me. Skip the chicken pizza. Dont waste a credit on it. It was seriously nasty. But I will tell you that there have been more than a couple of times since weve returned from our trip that I have had a pretty strong craving for a Smoked Turkey Melt with just a smidge of Sundried Tomato dip on it. Now that was a good sandwich. It would seriously blow a cheesesteak out of the water. It was awesome.
While we are eating, we notice a little family sitting next to us. I don't recall how the conversation started, but we found out this was their first trip there. They were really nice. That was the second family we'd met since checking in. That was kind of the theme with us this year. We met people. Lots of people. And strangely enough, every single family we met was from the South except for one. So as we finish up our lunch and talk to the North Carolina family, I feel a tap on my shoulder.
I look up to find a woman standing there holding a container of cheesecake and a Diet Coke in her hands.
Do you want these? she asks.
She tells me she and her family have to go catch a plane and they were trying to use up all of their meal credits. They couldnt bare to let them go to waste since they
were free but they just couldnt eat everything. So she pushes the food in our face and asks if we want it.
I look at our little table. Between the four of us, our table is covered with food. Food that I know we wont be able to finish. Its just too much. But its the dining plan, dangit. And were entitled to it. Because just like this lady who refused to let the Mouse have a couple of his credits back, were bound and determined to get the most bang for our buck.
Plus its cheesecake. And who doesnt like cheesecake?
But before I can respond, I hear DH step up.
Thats very nice and we appreciate it but no thank you DH tells her with a polite smile.
I kick him under the table.
You dont say no to cheesecake, man! I tell him with my eyes.
We whisper back and forth for a minute and then he turns to the woman and says Okay. If youre trying to get rid of it, well take it off your hands. Thank you. That was very nice of you.
The nice but total and complete stranger hands him the items.
As DH slides the container across the table towards me, he murmurs under his breath, Hope you enjoy your Anthrax Cheesecake.
My husband is a very trusting and naïve individual. Yeah right. And KFed can rap.
We finish up our meal and head out back to check out the pool. Its pretty cool. My husband reminds me that its the biggest resort pool on property and that it has a zero entry section. His Disney geek was showin.
We had been to Boma before in years past and had taken the kids out back to the Savannah to look at the animals but we had never checked out the pool area at this resort before. I was taken aback at how pretty everything was. The landscaping was gorgeous and we were surprised to find a little waterfall behind Boma.
We stroll around a little longer, and then we finally decide its time. We're ready for some fun. Wave pool style.
We decide to head out front and grab a bus to Typhoon Lagoon.
And that was our first mistake.
Up Next: The longest bus ride in the history of Disneyworld
