I never noticed that, hmmm,,,,,
Welp... I think I'm a titch late for the funfest that is Neeb.
Sooo is this a trip report?
I kinda need to keep up better, huh?
Carry On. Edu-tain the masses!
Hi Wendy! Nice to almost see you. Doing another drive by I see.
Ahem, apparently the free dining along with the economy has really put a hurting on ol Uni down the street, so tinker I must.
We have now subtracted a CBR day and added 3 nights at Royal Pacific, checking in on the 20th. I have been warned that THIS HAD BETTER BE IT!
THis is now shaping up to be probably the biggest trip of our lives, hopefully the best too. By all rights, I should be able to just start the Santa Fe and let it take us there, this will be the ninth time to Florida for it.
Anyway.......
After lunch with the Winkers, I was still seething a bit from Smidgy's " Stubbed his toe" line. As we exited Germany, I was all for running to catch up to the Winkers clan and ripping off my shoe and showing them what "just a stubbed toe " looks like, but I couldn't see them and we wanted to get back to the pool.
It was not until we were back later in the day that some karma came back to Diane, she realized she had forgotten her jacket in the Biergarten. While I changed she spent the next half hour trying any number that employees thought would help trying to track down the forgotten wrap, to no avail.
Then, realizing that we probably were'nt going to get help for a DVC room from our friend, I tried the DIsney rezzie line again, also to no avail.
Unless I wanted a water view at Grand Floridian for 480 a night!
"Does that come with a mint on the pillow for both of us?"
"NO? Well forget it then, I don't want it!"
It had warmed up to the upper seventies by now, and we got lucky finding a couple of lawn chairs in between the clown and the hot tub.
There were about 5 people in the hot tub, all talking and I just slipped in opposite them, wondering why there weren't any bubble action going on.
Suddenly Diane leaned over behind me and told me she had to go back to the room and get something, and Oh, should I press the button on the post to start it up on my way past? I told her sure.
This was almost a re-enactment of the time we were in St. Augustine, and with a tub full of people Smidgy waited until the moment I got in the tub with a bunch of other strangers that she pressed the button to start it up. Ha ha, a lot of laughs at my expense.
This time when it started, it was like a miracle, nobody had seen such a thing!
"Whoa, wow, WHAT is happening?" And they looked up and seemed to see me for the first time. The line was just sitting there, I knew for sure the laughs were about to come.
"OH, sorry." Spoken in my best Pumba voice.
ANd they just looked at me.
Then one by one got out of the tub.
Geesh!
Diane came back, and we lied there building up a good sweat before we went in the pool, I wanted to try the slide again. When I told her I was going for it, she suddenly said "Hold on, they are saying something."
I couldn't hear what was said, but Diane did. Apparently, this is what is known as a "code brown", meaning the pool has inexplicably become contaminated. From what I saw, you couldn't have gotten the people to move faster if you had yelled "Shark!"
It looked like the Normandy invasion with folks trying to get out of the water. I can't blame them, If I had heard the message half way down the slide I probably would have gone over the side!
Then I DID get to hear a conversation that I rather wished I hadn't. It was of the type that really gets my blood boiling, well, ok, at least ticks me off.
Evidently, the code brown perpetrator was identified, and it was a 3 year old in a soaked, hanging diaper. Yes, just diaper, not the special ones made for pools. And a cast member was telling the mother that they have to wear special training diapers that prevent this. Ok, so far, makes sense.
Uh uh, good ol mom was indignant. "What's the big deal? SO WHAT? One ittle poopie and everybody gets all upset! "
And then the line that really gets to me; "I THOUGHT DISNEY WAS FOR KIDS!"
Had to bite my tongue, and Diane's too.
Sorry, Disney is for everybody, especially folks that pay a fortune to be there, so don't even try to give me that "Disney is just for kids" line. A simple precaution is all that it would have taken to prevent the pool from having to shut down for the next 45 minutes, and I'm sorry, with most people's Disney schedules, 45 minutes can be a long time!
In the past I have tried to bend over backwards for helping kids out, kids not my own. Given up prime fireworks viewing spots, given free fastpasses, let kids go in front of me in line, given up seats on the bus, and so on. Even once held a strangers kid on my shoulders to watch Illuminations. That's fine.
Once at Magic Kingdom there was this old guy hobbling down the street, leaning on his companion for support as he was obviously in extreme pain, and they took up a viewing location behind the ropes with a half hour to go until Spectro came by. With only five minutes to go, a huge family came along the path, about 8 of them and only two kids, and just ducked under the rope and tried to force me back. After Diane and I and a couple other folks let out a big "HEY!" a woman said, "They're just kids, they need to be in front."
I said "Fine, kids stay, you go!"
She tried to argue with Smidgy, uh uh, that's not gonna work, and I saw a guy looking a little sheepish about the whole thing and I pushed the point, "Ready when you are".
I'm sure the woman's face was burning red, but they ducked back out and moved on, the people around us just did a soft clap.
That's another thing that can frost me, when parents use there kids as a "disabled" kind of access to what ever they want.
Ok, I'm done.
No, I didn't go and inspect the pool, I don't need to see it to believe it.
Didn't need to see Bill Murray do his Caddyshack impression and dive in and pull up a snickers bar. But funny that I've never seen this happen at a value resort before.
I put it out of my mind and just lay back in the chair, we thought about going to the quiet pool but we were all settled in now.
Evidently the excitement wasn't over.
As I lay there, just staring into space, Diane lay next to me, staring at the inside of her eyelids.
I had my glasses off, but thought I saw something way up in the sky, nothing to pay attention to though. Guess Smidgy should have.
She sat bolt upright, shocked look on her face, followed by a giant EWWWW!"
I threw on my glasses, looked up and could see a squadron of birds, not sure what kind, flying in the V formation disappearing in the distance.
This was not a single bomb drop, but more of a strafing run. If they had started a half second earlier it would have gotten me too.
She had a big splotch on the back of her hand, on her thigh, in between her legs on the lounger, on the magazine in between chairs by the next woman, and on her chair also. But only Smidgy took a direct hit.
I said the only thing I could think of as Smidgy and the other woman were jumping about, yelling.
"Wow!"
Of course I thought it was pretty funny, and using a towel and the poolside shower she cleaned up herself and the chair.
I tried to offer support;
"Could be worse, you know what they say about "A turd in the hand is worth two..."
"I GET IT!"
"Want me to get the pool cleanup crew over here too?" "Not sure they are equipped to handle to code browns in one hour though. "
Then when all was back to normal, I looked at the sky and softly said:
"Ha, nice job, stubbed my toe indeed!"
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Intermission
Something that just struck me as cute, even though I wasn't there.
Son Todd stopped in where Diane works the other night with grandson Jackson. They have done this a few times before and Diane loves it when they do. Luckily they were slow at the time and she got their order and placed it, then came back and sat down and talked with them.
And Jackson kept looking at her more and more with a big question mark on his face. Finally, she asked what's wrong.
"Aren't you going to go and start making my dinner?"
yeah, I dunno, just strikes me funny, all the time he thinks she then goes in the kitchen and makes all the orders she takes.
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In the room she is back on the phone trying to track down her jacket. She did get a hold of our friend about the DVC room, yes, they have plenty of points to spare, but so far nothing available on such short notice.
Yep, I knew it. It's Presidents week coming up.
The jacket search went into the next day, finally she was told to go to the TTC on thursday, go directly to lost and found and don't pass go, and they will have it there.
Maybe.
But it's still Monday night, and after a couple of cocktails and a Sunny D for the road we went back to Epcot. We really didn't do much, the foot wasn't up for more walking than was absolutely necessary and the furthest we made it was to do Test Track at night. If you haven't done it at night before it's pretty cool, better then the day version.
Then we just headed back into Showcase by Mexico and wandered in and out of pavillions all the way to the Gateway, where we planned on watching Illuminations.
Lately I've been trying to get a better appreciation for all the smaller things that most people don't take time to notice, especially in World Showcase.
Standing in front of Mexico, gazing at the pyramid Diane broke the silence and said, "It's Mayan, you know."
I responded with, "Well, nice of you to let them use it. "
Ok, that didn't really take place, just checking to see if your paying attention.
The evening ended on a little bit of a downer to me, by the time we got to the gateway bridge it was packed, we ended up standing in the middle with a bunch of teenagers that were just there to make noise, not watch the show.
Tuesday, the days are just flying by now. The weather has improved, we really want just two more days in the trip, but nothing we can do about it. She even suggested we go back to the Knight's Inn in Kissimmee and just hang around the pool for a couple days, but I just couldn't do that. That would be like walking the green mile all over again after check out.
One thing we have never done, and one that we planned on doing this trip was to take the walkway by the Swan over to DHS.
Well, we still haven't done that!
We spent the morning by the pool, got to by upchucked by the clown again into what I hoped was bright, clear, DISINFECTED waters.
Every once in a while, I'd jerk my head up to the sky, just to make Smidgy nervous.
Great fun!
About two we headed over to the ferry to DHS. And I came face to face with another idiot. Yes, I should have known better, but I had to ask what the next stop on the route was going to be.
"Excuse me, can you tell me...."
"Welcome to the Crescent Lake ferry, serving Disney Hollywood Studios, the Boardwalk Inn and Villas, Disney''s Swan and Dolphin, the Yacht and Beach Club, and, um,,,,ummm,,,,,,"
"Epcot?"
"OH, yeah, that's it. Snort. "
The closer I looked, it looked like it could be the first guy I talked to here, his older brother. So I bypassed him, didn't say a word and just went up to the boat and asked the captain; "Dolphin next, then DHS?"
"Yep."
Geesh, it's that easy!
We got there a little later then we hoped to, I really wanted to do Toy Story again, but not enough to leave the pool early. And fastpasses were all gone, with a wait of an hour for standby. Ok, we'll give the new Block Party Bash parade a try.
I have to admit, the enthusiasm was there, but I was less then enthralled. It's not a parade by the usual definition, it would stop at the front of the park for 125 minutes, go through all there numbers there, then proceed and stop in front of Echo lake and repeat. That's pretty much it as far as the parade part goes.
Oh, tons of singing and Pixar characters, and everybody falling all over themselves trying to get the best pictures, self included.
Finally, after a long wait, my favorite, Boo, came around to our side of the path.
I had a clear shot, focus, click, and when the Red Sea filled in again in front of me, I glanced at the camera and saw not one, but TWO people got in the frame I thought was secure. But at least you can still see Boo in there.
The rest of the day was a not-so-funny comedy of errors. We misread the tiny print on the times guide and arrived at the INdy stunt show missing the audience selections and the entire first set. I didn't want to stay then cuz the beginning is my favorite part so we started heading over to Lights , Motors Action before we realized we just missed the beginning of that one two.
I was able to get a fastpass for TOT, and in the meantime we watched Beauty and the Beast again.
I also don't remember if they were doing a Fantasmic that night or not, but with the time you have to invest in that show, with no guarantee they won't cancel it due to weather, we have been passing it up recently.
Around 7 we left and went back to the room for cocktails. I suggested going over to the Swan for some karaoke that used to start at nine, and about 8:15 we headed over there, only to find it doesn't start until nine thirty. The place was absolutely empty, and trying to keep an eye on money as the trip is winding down, I didn't want to sit there drinking and paying Swan prices, so we went back to the room again for a while.
Apparently, as we were walking back and forth, and back, and forth, the International Harvesters in conjunction with Caterpillar and John Deere and whatever other animals you can think of convention showed up. We got back there at 9:45 and it was mobbed with yuppies everywhere. The waiting list to get up and sing was already an hour, so it was time to do the "back" thing again. Or is it "forth?"
Coming up, Wednsday, explorers day.
. And congrats to both of you that some of your worries may now be lifted. Also, great news about the trip...looks like we'll miss you guys by about a week...unless you end up extending again 
The 4 days at the CBR!! If you need any ideas on how to fill the time - just let us know!! 
I am going to miss you by 4 stinking days
. oh, we are thinking they might let us use our mini-golf voucher a few days erarly, since we we be staying on disney property.... hye! what happened to "relaxing"?
At least now people won't think you're making all this stuff up. 
