While we were watching the Indiana Jones show, Luke was receiving text messages that his mom, sister and aunt had arrived at Old Key West and were planning on heading over to Disney Springs. Once we finished eating, we all left Hollywood Studios. Luke went back to OKW, then took the boat to the Springs to meet up with them. Apparently while we were eating at 50’s Prime Time, Jill, Laura and Cathy were eating at Paradiso 37. (I’ll introduce the three of them a little later).
Dad and I went in a different direction, and hopped on a boat to Epcot. We entered through the International Gateway, and spent a bit of time looking around the World Showcase.
I checked wait times on the app, and led Dad over to Mission Space. It was only about a 10 minute wait for the green side before we were circling the Earth in our spaceship.
Luke was texting me, after taking a bus back to Old Key West and a brief stop in our room (I think he brushed his teeth and changed his socks?) – he caught the boat to Disney Springs. He actually had the entire boat to himself, and sent me this picture –
He met up with his family, and I think they browsed a few stores before heading back to the resort?
Next up for my Dad and I back at Epcot was a Fastpass I had grabbed while we were sitting at the Indiana Jones show waiting for it to start – Test Track! As we approached the ride, Dad looked at me and said “you’re taking me on
that? It’s going pretty fast, isn’t it?”. I convinced him he would be fine, and he ended up really enjoying it!
After this, we decided it was time to head back to the hotel to get ready for the evening, so we caught a bus back to OKW. We stopped at the main lobby, Dad had to check in to his own room for the rest of the week (he had originally booked a room from Saturday to Saturday, but then we had difficulty finding a flight that day, so he flew in on Friday. By this point, OKW was all booked up due to Marathon Weekend, so we had added him to our room reservation for one night). They gave him his room number and new Magicbands, and then bell services told us to hop in their golf cart. All of Dad’s bags were in our room, which was in a different building than his room so I thought it was great of them to help us move them.
Of course, we get to Dad’s room and his Magicband won’t work. I texted Luke, he was in the next building over with his mom, aunt and sister, so he came over to stand with Dad’s stuff while the bell services guy took Dad back to the front lobby. I ran back to our room to quickly get changed and ready for the evening. Once Dad got back, I helped him move everything into his room, he quickly got ready and the two of us headed out. By this point, Luke had gone back to Disney Springs with his family.
I called an Uber for Dad and I, and we headed off to Orlando to see our first ever NBA game! Neither one of us are huge basketball fans, and we don’t live in NBA markets (there’s only one team in all of Canada, the Toronto Raptors), but we are both huge sports fans in general. The Orlando Magic on their own isn’t enough to make me excited enough to go to a game, but Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers happened to be in town that night, so I couldn’t pass up that opportunity. Luke was actually really sad he wasn’t coming with us, but he had to be up at a ridiculous hour the next day for the full marathon.
The Uber ride felt like it took forever, we hit some traffic at one point that slowed us right down. We eventually made it, and our driver let us know that the arena was not in the greatest neighbourhood – we should head straight back to Disney property as soon as the game ended. When we arrived, I immediately started to get out of the car, but my Dad was so confused- I had forgot that this was his first experience ever with Uber (he lives in a really small town that doesn’t even have normal taxi services). He started pulling his wallet out, because we “still had to pay the man, but where’s the meter to tell us how much this ride cost?”. The Uber driver started laughing as I explained how it worked, that everything was done through the app, and the ride would be automatically charged to my credit card on file. As we were walking towards the arena, Dad was trying to give me money – “that must have cost at least $60 or $70, we drove for over half an hour”. Needless to say, he was completely shocked and discovered a new love for Uber when I showed him that our ride had only cost $24…
These tickets were my Dad’s Christmas present from me, but we were still in the nosebleeds – tickets were expensive thanks to Lebron being in town. We stopped to grab food from some place called Gringos Locos inside Anway Centre – I took a picture of the name, but no pictures of our food. Dad actually paid for my food, so I didn’t include this in the food budget for Luke and I.
When we reached our seats, there were people sitting in them. I tripled checked to make sure I was in the right spot before I asked them to move – their seats were two rows back so I don’t know why they thought our seats were that much better? Two rows doesn’t make much of a difference when you’re practically at the ceiling already? They seemed a little put-out that I asked them to move out of the seats I had paid for…
Anyways, the game started, and Dad and I enjoyed it. It’s still not my favourite sport, but I’m really glad I can now say I’ve been to a game live. I actually got really into the NBA the next year, it was quite an exciting time to be Canadian and see the Raptors win the championship!
During half time, a lady on a unicycle rode around the court while balancing bowls on her feet/head. I googled her, apparently she’s really popular for NBA half-time – Dad and I were entertained!
At some point, back on Disney property, Luke and his family had found themselves at Amorette’s. The four of them decided to split these two delicious desserts – the Key Lime Cheesecake and the Mickey Mousse. I have no idea who paid for these, so they didn’t get counted in our food budget. I’ve had the Mickey Mousse before, and it’s very good. According to Luke, that key lime cheesecake is amazing.
Back at the game, I was texting my Maid of Honour, Ashley – she was at the game with her husband, but they had splurged on seats in row 12 at center court. I was also texting one of Luke’s best friends (and groomswoman), Lisa – she was at the game with her husband as well. All four of them had flown in that day (and on the same flight, although they hadn’t met before), and they were all staying at All Star Music for the night. There was talk about the 6 of us taking an Uber together after the game and possibly heading to Disney Springs, but Ashley decided she just wanted to go to sleep, it had been a long day of travel. Lisa and her husband Trevor were interested though, so after the game my Dad and I met up with them. My Dad immediately took a liking to Trevor, and the two of them talked about their shared love for the Toronto Maple Leafs for the entire drive haha.
Dad was once again amazed at Uber – Lisa had a $25 promo code so our ride back to Disney Springs cost $0.12 or something silly like that. It actually took us awhile to get an Uber after the game, we ordered one but the guy didn’t understand where we were. None of us were familiar with where we were, but we had followed a large crowd to what appeared to be a fairly major intersection. We were watching the little car on the app, and it seemed like the driver kept making wrong turns… eventually he found us and we made it to Disney Springs.
We were dropped off at the far end of the Springs by the now-defunct Cirque du Soleil. We decided we wanted a drink and a small snack, and since no one had any suggestions I led us to Homecomin’.
Evening Eats
By the time we finished eating, it was late and we were all tired. We walked over to the bus stops, where Lisa and Trevor caught the All Star Music bus (their hotel just for the one night, before moving over to Old Key West the next day), and Dad and I hopped on the Old Key West bus. Dad and I were in different buildings, but I had talked to the front desk and every single one of our friends/family staying at OKW were in the Old Turtle Pond area. It was so nice to all use the same bus stop!
By the time I got into my room, Luke had been asleep for hours – he had a very early wakeup coming!
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I laugh like an idiot every. single. time.
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