When it comes to checking in, for some reason we either get Ghandi behind the counter, or Nurse Ratchet.
There is never any middle ground.
But no matter who, 95 % of the time we score a good room, at least, a good room for us, and our needs.
Today, we got Ghandi/Liberace/Frodo.
A little guy, peculiar, and very friendly.
As he took care of business he kept up a running dialogue the entire time.
When Diane told him briefly our troubles getting there and we drove all the way form near Chicago and "Please, oh please don't give us a parking lot view, he barely
skipped a beat.
"Ok my Chick-a-go folks, I had a room in Jamaica, where you requested, but You can see the parking lot from the room, would you like me to search for another?"
"Yes, please" she responded, and he did.
Then he showed us his alternative.
We briefly discussed his replacement room and accepted it.
Meanwhile he still has not stopped talking and told us his parents are
DVC owners and he's glad he's behind the counter here instead of
working baggage cuz as you can see I'm not very strong and since there's no elevators here the guys that take
the bags up must be really strong and they all have big muscles and I like guys with big muscles and as you can tell that's just not my speed and ,,,,,,,.
Good 'ol Brian, but he gave us an interesting room!
We went back outside, and since we need to wait for the room to be ready, we couldn't have our lubbage brought up yet. There's a Lubbage window counter right outside there,
and after telling them our situation, they told us we can
call when we get in the room and someone will meet us
later in the parking lot.
We drive over to the Martinique section where our room is going to be in.
I find a good parking spot near the building he said we'd be in and we start going through the "Get all the stuff we need to sit by the quiet pool until our room is ready," routine.
Now, an astute observer from old reports knows just what is going to happen right about now, and they would be correct!
Even my trip reports are getting predictable.
Diane's cell phone rings.
"Extra extra, Soup's on, Come and get it, Be there or be square," our room is ready.
Room number 2457.
We brought the stuff we had picked out for the pool and a couple of other things we could carry and went in search of the room. Turns out we couldn't have picked a better parking spot, just head right up the stairs in front of the car and go to the end of the hall, that's our room.
Doesn't sound good, does it? Parking lot for sure.
Once there, Smidgy got on the phone and call labbage and went
to meet them by the car. ( Yeah, my mind can never decide whether it wants to use luggage or baggage so it always comes out in combination form.)
I looked around for a couple minutes, then went into the bathroom to
change into my suit, one more peek at the sky confirmed that almost all the clouds were gone now.
By the way, remember I predicted a quarter after one ETA? But thought I could beat it a bit?
We pulled into the Custom House at ten to one.
After thinking about this and rechecking the date on pictues, I know I'm an
hour off. I had originally said we'd be there quarter after 12, we got there about ten to 12.
Here's the reason I know this:
I've got the digital Kodak "impossible share", and also my Canon "maybe shot" with me. I had just recently changed the batteries in the Kodak, which means I had to reset the time, too. Anybody remember last trip report where for most of it the dates stamped were around a year behind?
Well, this camera reads in military time, and sometimes when setting it I choose the wrong "12".
So, at noon for the first part of the trip that's when the day would change to the next day.
This really makes it difficult when writing the report and trying to remember what happened on what day.
"Holy cow, we just had dinner at 8 in the morning!"
And one morning the sun rose and created a stunning "dawn" right when Magic Kingdom closed for the Halloween Party.
Anyway:
By the time I got out of the bathroom, they had already brought up the stuff and she had already tipped, Conan, the Bellhop.
I never did get to see his muscles and I forgot to ask her.
As Smidgy is doing stuff, I grab the digital camera and step outside
for the room view picture I always take.
But first:
A little bit about the area:
Martinique is the grouping next to Old Port Royale, the main center of the resort that you will be walking to, a lot.
There are 2 buildings along the promenade by the lake, and one building behind these two, these are "preferred rooms" and cost more cuz they are closest to the main pool and food court and stores.
On the other side of building 3 is the pool with building 4 behind it, and next to the pool on the other side are buildings 5 and 6.
6 is almost in the Barbados section, or the Banderas section for you Antonio fans.
We are in building 4, second floor, and once again we chalk up gold with a highly desired corner room. We also
could not get closer to the food court and main without paying the upgrade.
For those that don't know or never really thought about it, only the mods have corner rooms, per se.
What makes them so wanted is that often they are right by a staircase, but the
main reason is they always seem much bigger due
to the fact they also have a large, side window. This is almost always
where the table and chairs are located and it's
so much more pleasant to sit there looking outside.
In all the Value resorts a corner room means just that, it's the last room in the line but nothing is different about it on the inside and the wall on the outside is just that, a blank wall.
And corner rooms don't mean anything as far as I know in Deluxe resorts because they all have indoor corridors, not positive on that though, maybe some at the Poly or GF have an extra window on the side but I doubt it.
But this room is an enigma, as far as views go, it's got it all, so I decide to put the camera in
video mode and turn it on right outside the room.
Once again, not sure how this will work here, but
you need to have the sound on to hear my lovely voice in the narration, and click on
the picture to start it, I believe.
No, I don't believe this video is going to go viral over on u-tube.
This view only worked out cool because of the corner room effect. Right out the regular window by the door is a wooded view, walking a few rooms down where the trees parted is the parking lot view, and the other side of our corner is the pool view.
Plus, the stairs down to the pool were right around the corner and down a bit.
Plus, plus, Right around the corner before the stairs is the ice machine room, I counted a total of 15 steps from our door to the ice machine.
This is from 'inside' our room looking out from our bonus window:
Let's see what else I can find from by our room;
I was now like a little kid, no way in the world am I going to waste desperately needed sunshine time putting away clothes and stuff, besides, this leg of the trip is only for 3 nights, I'm not even going to unpack everything, just what I'll probably use. If I don't unpack enough underwear, I'll just use Smidgy's.
(just to see if you're paying attention)
I grabbed my Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, a towel, my sunglasses and told her she knows where she can find me.
She had a pile of clothes in her hands, took two steps towards the dresser, turned around and took two steps back to the suitcase on her bed, then turned around again to the dresser and finally threw down the clothes on the bed and ran into the bathroom to put on her suit.
Before I went down the stairs I walked around a bit to get a better lay of the land.
The pool area was just the way I like 'em, pretty much empty;
I'd lie there and try to read, but I just couldn't sit still.
We grabbed a table and pulled up a couple of lungers next to it.
But my mind was still racing from all the resent events and I wanted to talk, walk around, look around, explore, and then most of all I wanted a drink!
It was so convenient to run up to our room from the pool, I went and fetched us a couple of beers, never letting go of the camera.
Uh oh, pause for a second.
Boy, Ol' Siggy would have a field day with me on two different occasions just a couple of sentences ago.
First:
No, not lungers, but do you think I just may have smoking on my mind? And it doesn't really matter if it's from when this all
took place, or how I"m feeling as I'm writing the trip report, does it?
But I can kind of hear Michael Biehn go to Val Kilmer in Tombstone, "Ok Lunger, let's do it!"
Two very underrated actors back in the day in my mind.
But then I was thinking about the "resent events" that brought us here.
Yes, you think I just might "resent" the recent events that came and went from whence we spent avoiding dents,,,,
After giving her one of the beers, I took a picture of our room looking up from the pool, again, ours is the corner on the left.
Did I mention ours is the corner room up there on the left?
But I still couldn't really relax and just be comfortable.
Sure, my brain was understandably still spinning, and one reason was my tailbone was still hurting a lot, but it was more to it than that.
Then it occurred to me that a lot of this is going to be this
way for the duration of the trip.
For one thing;
I'm not that big on having to be in the pool.
I am usually happy just to be by it, reading, soaking up the
sunshine and just plain soaking up the atmosphere until I end up really soaking in sweat that I go in. (aren't you glad I shared that with you?) Do they have a "Code Sweat"?
I'm a decent enough swimmer but I never know how to entertain myself in the water, I'd rather read so I go in just to cool off.
Which brings me to another issue:
Since my new eye problems started since our last trip,
it has gotten to be much more difficult for me to read, a lot of the time it's almost a chore now.
Especially if I try to look up from my book or newspaper at something else and then try to go back to reading, the re-focusing can take a while, it's not an automatic thing anymore.
Then, there's one more thing that I just mentioned:
In the past, whenever I got antsy I'd walk over to the designated smoking area,
it was something to do, and sometimes I'd strike up a conversation with
some strangers, for some reason it felt like I was accomplishing something. Before I got the hearing aids, I used to dread it cuz I wouldn't hear them.
But now It's really cool, I no longer run away from situations that used to terrify me because I couldn't hear.
And I go and ruin it all by quitting smoking!
No, it's not the same now, without smoking.
Even if I did walk over there, I don't want to smell it, I'll only want one,
and you look and feel like a perv hanging around a smoking area
when you aren't a smoker.
Yep, I had a feeling things were going to be a lot different this trip, I just
underestimated the smoking stimuli I was going to encounter.
And from the beer I brought down for Smidgy, she was now
under the same pressures she told me. She's always been a "drinking" smoker, really only smoked when she was drinking.
(Here's the part where if I were a snarky husband I would include: "so she smokes 24 hours a day" but I'm not a snarky husband)
As for me, I was always a "breathing" smoker, I only really smoked when I was breathing, so I smoked 24 hours a day.
(ok, so I AM a snarky husband, I'm just snarky to myself.)
More pictures, I grabbed the camera again.
I believe this was from out in front by the main promenade.
The Barefoot Bay lake thins down right here before it opens up again to either the left or right.
Looks a lot like French Quarter right here, doesn't it?
Now I'm just going in one side of the pool and out the other:
This is the part you won't like, this will be the last
chuck from the Photobuck, the Bears are about to start or
did already.
see you all real soon, neb
if I have those facts wrong forgive me it has been over a year since my last visit *sigh*
So I'm at work (If it's midnight, I must be working... but no more midnights after this for 6 months!) ... what's your excuse for being up this late?
I had hoped I left that behind after "shool".
Especially when many working folks are off for the holiday and I am envious.
