Tab and Greg's "Awesome" Trip: Day One Pt.2

[Tabetha]

Cast:
Tabetha: Disney fan who came to the "World" late in life, and am now making up for it! This is my second trip on property, last year we stayed at Pop Centruy with my sister.
Greg: Disney fan who has been to the "World" pretty much every year for the last 15 years. Has seen it all, and is starting to see a little tarnish on the magic. Has been his lifelong dream to stay at the Polynesian.

We've been dating for over a year now, and this is our first "alone trip"!

02/13/05 Day One, Part 2: Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we….oh. Yes. Yes we are.

We’re in Orlando! The forces of nature could not keep us away!
We emerge triumphant from MCO, and settle into our towncar – Greg is impressed. This is a far cry from the Mears Shuttle we took last year, and is deemed “awesome”. We relax and watch the rest of the “Not Disney” World go by. I muffle a little sigh as we pass the fancy outlet mall. We won’t be making it off property this trip, and I’m 99.99% ok with that. But… Coach… What can I say? I dig a nice purse or two.

We pull into the Polynesian’s guest drop off, and while Greg pays the driver, I make arrangements with Mr. Luggage. He asks if we’re honeymooners, and I quickly jerk my head around to see if Greg’s heard. Don’t scare him! I want to keep him!
I hand off our luggage to Mr. Bigmouth, and we’re finally free!

We walk up the walkway sloooowly, taking a moment to enjoy the fountains and foliage outside the front doors. Greg keeps sputtering “awesome”, he can’t believe he’s finally staying at the Polynesian. He’s loved this resort from childhood, when they’d (I’m sorry everyone) come and use the pool when they stayed at Ft. Wilderness. He’s really excited, and I’m loving it. Personally, I’m just excited to be staying at a Deluxe la de dah monorail resort! I’m gonna drink out of a pineapple!
We spend a moment enjoying the landscaping, and head to check in. There’s no one in line, and we’re checked in lickety split. We had requested Samoa, Volcano Pool side, but that’s not quite how it worked out. We got Rapa Nui, room 2115. I was disappointed for a split second, but then recalled from Tikiman’s website that we were in for a newer longhouse, and super convenient access to the TTC. AND we wouldn’t have to listen to some kid yelling “Mommy, watch me!” all day when we were trying to nap. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate kids, and I do think that Mommy should watch. I just don’t need to hear about it. That’s your alone, family time. Enjoy it.

We gathered our reams of information packets, give the front desk Greg’s credit card for room charges, and are informed that there’s a message from Ft Wilderness’ Hoop De Doo Musical Review. I crossed my fingers, hoping the guy would have to sing the message. No dice. It’s just a reminder that we can pick our tickets at guest services. We put on our leis, and go to pick up our tickets from Guest Services. They want to talk to me about my “special menu”, and give me some food choices. I’m primarily vegetarian, but will eat fish in a protein pinch. Tonight, I pick the grilled fish. Just seemed more “Hoop De Doo-ey” than pasta primavera or whatever else he’d mentioned.
Tickets in hand, and a thorough reminder that we could fold the tickets as many times as we wanted, just don’t tear the bottom portion off (Leading a tired me to repeat back to the wonderfully helpful CM: “Foldy Ok, Tear-y Bad, got it”.), we wander over to Captain Cook’s so I can get a refillable mug. I know I may not get “my money’s worth” out of it, being so far from the GCH, but I don’t care. I like the mugs. I fill up with Diet Coke, hand off my heavy computer case to Greg and we wander the grounds.
The pool is really cool, and Greg’s excited about the waterslide. We ask at the poolside bar about drinking out of pineapples, and after the bartender’s done making fun of Greg for a) his GI Joe t-shirt, b) his Canadian accent and c) my still wearing a jacket (what? It’s a smart corduroy blazer!), the she informs us that the pineapple drinks can be purchased upstairs at the Tambu Lounge. Duly noted! We continue to walk.
As we talk about what to do for the rest of the day leading up to our 9:30 HDDMR reservations, I decide that now is a good time to mention my first surprise. I had booked us an 8PM Carriage Ride through Ft. Wilderness, which is I had wanted to find champagne in the ratzle-fratzle duty free.

We love our room. It’s big – and has a lovely balcony which I think will be perfect for enjoying a morning coffee, or room service breakfast. Theoretically, anyway. Greg collapses onto one of the two queen beds, “Cool, we each have our own bed!”, and goes into “need to relax” mode. I acquiesce, knowing we’re in for a long day/night, and pore over the room service menu, “look babe, strawberry turndown service!” “Awesome”, park hours and EMH info. It is at this point that I realize that the Magic Kingdom is open till 1AM that night. My head explodes. Now THIS is awesome. The EMH evenings are really more our style. Neither of us are likely to be up for an 8AM park opening.

My torture was finally over, it was time to head to the parks! We saddle up and head to the Magic Kingdom. You’ll have to forgive me, the afternoon blurred together. I can tell you that our visit that afternoon definitely included a trip to Space Mountain, Mickey's Philharmagic, and a delicious meal at Columbia Harbour house – Greg had the Chowder and ½ sandwich (tuna) and I had a whole tuna sandwich and a little bag of carrots. Absolutely fantastic. I wondered if maybe it was just because this was technically our first meal of the day, but a later visit proved that CHH just plain Rizzocks the Hizzouse. We agree that we should have a nap, like the babies we are. On the way back to the Poly, we stop in the general store and I show Greg the Olde Tyme phone with it’s party line conversation. Greg had never seen it, and we both enjoyed it. It was the first of many times that week that we thanked Walt and his Imagineers for going that extra mile, and creating those special details that set Disneyworld apart. Score one for the Disney novice, and thank you DISboards!

Back at the Poly, I insist that I needed my Lapu Lapu. My body ached to drink out of a pineapple. We ordered two (yikes, pricey!) and sat down to “watch golf” in the lounge. And when I say “we watched golf”, I mean Greg watched golf. I daydreamed and people watched. And got a wee bit tipsy. Those Lapu Lapus are loaded loaded with the hooch! We stumbled back to the room, set a wake up call for 7pm and promptly fell hard asleep (thank you Lapu Lapu) in our respective queen sized beds.

Stitch called promptly at 7, “no more sleeping!”, and we gradually headed over to the TTC and Ft. Wilderness. The carriage ride was lovely. Very relaxing, and just the thing we needed to decompress. We had an hour to kill before the HDDMR, so we walked to the dock, walked to the old entrance to River Country (Greg was doing some reminiscing) and we finally found the arcade. I blew away some Egyptian thingys, and Greg drove one Crazy Taxi all over San Fransisco. We’re nutty like that.

We checked in with the HDDMR gang, and got our photo taken - we struck an American Gothic pose which we later deemed “awesome” and bought the package. When we were seated at HDDMR, it turns out we were front row, centre. Yikes. Greg and I are both actors, so this is the last place we would have chosen to sit. The hall was only about a third full, lower level only, so the crowd was a little more subdued. But we had a great time at the show, only occasionally thinking “yeah, buddy. I feel you. I know what that’s like…”. We both really enjoyed the food – Greg really like the fried chicken, but passed on the ribs, and we both could have done without the strawberry shortcake. Why so hard? But the sangria kept us happy, and Greg really went to town on the washboard.

Back to the Magic Kingdom! We race in, excited to go on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The park was so empty! Awesome! On the way to FrontierLand, I realize that we were supposed to get a wristband. I tell Greg we’ll have to find out where to get them, but he tells me not to worry about it, we won’t need it.
“But the pamphlet said we need wristbands! They won’t let us ride without a wristband. We should stop and find a wristband!”
“Stop saying wristband! We’ll be fine. We’ll just show them our resort cards.”

Well. We get to BTMRR, and whaddya know.
“Wristbands?”
“Yeah, we don’t have them. Look, we’re resort guests, though.”
“You need a wristband. You can get them at Pirates of the Carribean.”
I’m not going to say I told you so, I ‘m not going to say I told you so….

“Hello Mister Pirate, can we have a wristband?”
“We don’t give them out here.” The helpful pirate makes a couple of phone calls. “You can get them at Town Hall – but you can go on the ride now if you want…”
We get on POTC and almost fall asleep.

“Hello Mister Man in Town Hall, can we have a wristband?”
“We don’t give them out here, they’re giving them out at the front gate”
The nice man at Town Hall saw us wilt. We told him we’d been sent all over the place, and he gave us a front of the line pass. We tuck it away for a busy day and get our wristbands. We make sure to get them from the same guy who let us blow by while he chatted with the security guard. The security guard was pleased that they were turning people away who didn’t have wristbands. Well, fella, if you hadn’t been blabbering to this CM manning this turnstile, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and we wouldn’t have wasted an hour running around the park, would we? Well, we didn’t actually say that. We’re Canadian.

We enjoyed a virtually empty park and went on BTMRR three times in a row, twice without even getting off the ride. I had misread the park info, and I didn’t realize that so many other rides were open that night, so we missed some opportunities there, but as Greg pointed out, we wouldn’t have even known the park was open late if I hadn’t read at least SOME of the info, so no real loss.

We head back to the resort, exhausted, and each fall asleep in our own queen beds. Luxury. Awesome.

Day Zero: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=746706
Day One, Part One http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=747729

 

[melanieewr]

Really, really like your writing style...so creative and fun to read! You'll have to read my report from October...I bet the queen bed story is pretty similar!

Can't wait to read more...

 

[Tabetha]

Thanks! I'm having a lot of fun writing these!

I'll do a search for your October report, I really thought Greg was kidding when he said "we can each have our own bed", but it felt really nice to stretch out that night.

 

[boucheresq]

my dh and I did the same thing -we sleep on a King at home, so the beds at Pop were not something my 6'3", 250 lb dh was willing to share.

 

[Tabetha]

I'm glad to know we aren't the only ones to be drawn to the siren call of our own queen sized bed. For a while there, I thought we were bonkers - we go all this way for a romantic vacation, and we end up sleeping like Desi and Lucy!

 

[vettechick99]

We ordered two (yikes, pricey!) and sat down to “watch golf” in the lounge. And when I say “we watched golf”, I mean Greg watched golf.

This reminds me of our trip when I feigned interest in football and downed pina coladas left and right. Who needs football as entertainment when there are two of every person?

Those Lapu Lapus are loaded loaded with the hooch!

I agree with the other poster...your style of writing and choice of words crack me up.



I'm off to read the rest! Thanks for posting!