Part 15: Day 7 - Waking up in The Boardwalk.... MGM..... waiting for JoJo..... and do we finally make it to Fantasmic?
Monday October 30th, 2006
Waking up in the Boardwalk was a new and wonderful feeling. Especially on a Monday morning. Mondays in this house are usually greeted with a collective groan. It's not that anything bad happens on a Monday. Not really. It's just that, as it happens, much of Garth's (and some of Wayne's) extra-curricular stuff (mostly music) falls on a Monday. So it's a long tough day for him and, in turn, for all of us. On top of that, of course, Mondays are, in general, a bit sucky anyway. Everyone knows that! So that knowledge of our typical real-life Mondays made waking up in this beautiful villa all the more sweet! I'm all for escapism and this was the deluxe escapism package. The king bed was wonderfully comfy and the bedroom, this early in the morning, was flooded with light. Something I adored about our villa (did I mention it was a villa? In The Boardwalk? In Disney World? Onsite? A
one bedroom villa? Did I?
) was the *two* (yes, count then,
TWO) sets of patio doors leading to the one balcony. I don't recall using the bedroom one much actually (other than the times I purposely walked through it just for the sake of walking through it and not actually out of any need to get anywhere) but knowing it was there, leading directly to the balcony was terrific.
So, tired but happy, I woke with a smile on my face. I resisted the urge to snuggle under the blankets and go back to sleep (as I do every single day of my life - resist that is!) and I took in the beauty of our accommodation and rejoiced in the knowledge that we were only 6 days into our holiday and had 10 days to go!! Take *that* REAL life. ESCAPISM life is still kicking REAL life's butt at this stage and it feels gooooooooood!!!!!!
As it happened, I was the last to wake up. DH had already started breakfast and the boys and Alice were eating cereal and pancakes. Alice was having porridge. Aren't I a special, wonderful mother for getting my daughter to eat porridge? Is there a prize I am due or that I missed out on?
Well, truth be told, I could never get my boys to eat the stuff and it's a sheer fluke that she likes it and really, the little measly bits and pieces she eats for lunch and dinner means that that porridge might be the only nutrition she gets some days. So cancel that award. My shortcomings are too plentiful to qualify.
But how great it was to be able to eat breakfast in our hotel room without balancing plastic bowls on our laps and sharing the one spoon we'd picked up along the way, having forgotten to pack any, all in the constant hope of saving money (which is, I think we've established by now, essential).
I got started on packing our things for the day which, by now, I'm an old hand at. The boys had been assigned a drawer each under the TV for their pins, toys, books, stickers, money and nick-nacks they had picked up along the way. Much ado was made of the fact that I had inadvertently put some of Wayne's stuff in Garth's drawer and vice-versa and, therefore, would of course infect and pollute the other's
but we solved that particular crisis and they successfully packed what they needed too.
I resisted (though it was very very hard) the urge to hop in the jacuzzi and had a shower instead and even that was wonderfully spacious and beautiful with a proper shower door and lovely tiles, instead of that ol' curtain in the All Stars or, indeed, that ol' curtain in our own main bathroom at home.
As happened often throughout this holiday, there was always that
conflict in my mind between wanting to make the most of our Disney hotel and wanting to make the most of the parks. But never was the conflict to strong than this morning in The Boardwalk. Such a lovely place - so many attractive tempting stores, the atmosphere, the smell of coffee outside the Bakery, the imagined ambience of sitting on those benches along the front of the boardwalk looking over Crescent Lake....... to leave this place seemed so wrong on many levels. Who knows when, if ever, we'd get back to such a lovely hotel? But then again, doesn't most of the magic of somewhere like The Boardwalk exist *because* it's so close to the parks, because it's slap bang in the middle of the most magical place on earth? Why, of course. So, with that thought in mind, MGM beckoned and so we set off.
We dragged all our stuff down the lift. At this point, we had whittled down out daily luggage to so much less than that first day at Animal Kingdom. Because it grows. You know it does. The *stuff* you bring with you to the parks, tidy and organised as it might be when the day starts, it multiplies, breeds, I dunno, something happens to it so that two hours into your day you're dragging jackets, sun cream, toys, cameras, bags etc. etc. strung over, across and under every limb until you wonder (yet again) why you can't be normal and carefree like all the other non-laden down families passing you by.
I mentioned in my last chapter that I never truly got the hang of the layout of this resort. Wayne had it sussed immediately but, as for me, I could never tell when we were at the back (which is actually the front of the hotel but on the boardwalk itself) or at the front (which is where you'd pull up in a car and check in but you can't see the boardwalk). So, chatting merrily, we found ourselves at the pool. Then looked left and right, scratched our heads and wondered where to go from there. Once more, I feel unique insofar as, at no point in our time at The Boardwalk did we notice anyone else looking perplexed about their whereabouts.
So DH and I must have looked like the idiots we felt because three men who were tending to the landscaping asked us if we needed help. I asked which way was it to MGM and the eldest of them (the boss I think) directed us to the pathway - you know the one with the big sign saying
"MGM" and the big arrow pointing that way?
I told him we were interested in getting the boat and his good manners prevented him from saying what was obviously written all over this face (which was "how could you possibly not
see the boat dock out front" (or is it out back??)). Instead, he said "oh it's at the other side, but it's easy to get confused". Oh God, help us in our limited intelligence.
At this stage, Wayne is mortified because he knew the way all along but DH and I were too busy talking to take in what he had been saying. So, having thanked the man profusely and muttered excuses like 'jetlag' and 'busy with baby' and 'not from America' (like if you were from America you'd automatically know your way around every single hotel in the U.S. sooo much better than a foreigner
) we headed back to go through the archway to the boardwalk side. I looked back and he was instructing his junior (who was about 18) to go and help us "in case they get lost again". Oh God!!!!! So the kid ran after us and insisted on escorting us to the dock. I said it was okay but he said it was no problem and I got the feeling that he didn't want to disobey his boss or, more likely, didn't want our deaths as we walked straight into the lake in our stupidity, on his conscience. So he escorted us to the oh-so-obvious-now-that-we-see-it boat dock, showed us a map near it in case we got lost again, asked us if we were okay now (**cringe**) and set us on our way. Amazingly enough, we managed the 20 steps to board the boat! There was one already waiting and we got on, seated ourselves and prepared for our first ever boat ride to MGM and the magic that lay ahead.
Some photos we took en route....
UP NEXT: More of the same 
As for remembering it after so long, I always fear that I won't remember things at all but as I type it comes back to me *usually*. Frankly though, I am a bit regretful that I didn't write it sooner as I know there are bound to be bits that I have forgotten. I look at the photos (and right now I'm looking for our receipts!) and they jog a lot of memories and certainly help with the sequence of events. What I find easiest to remember is the mood people were in on any given day, be it a happy, upbeat mood or, in the rarest circumstance (ahem!! 
) a bad mood. lol!
As for DH's name (lol!) - it's Diarmuid. Have a think about how it might be pronounced and then scroll down a bit............
I'm soooo glad you got a nice room with a water view! Isn't is great having the full kitchen, and the jacuzzi tub?!? It's funny, I did the same math in my head, adding up how much money we saved by buying our own bottled water instead of getting water in the parks! LOL! 
Wow! You really have been to WDW a lot!! Is that 15 different years in your sig? How amazing!!! 
