The Moist Exhausting Free Trip Ever - Link to Part II Thread pg. 244

[englishrose47]

Wowsa - Those are some fabulous pictures from the aquarium. NICE!

I love the Minnie charm. I have a fake Pandora and I found a Mickey Ears charm, but I would love to collect more. However, since it is a FAKE pandora I am not willing to spend much $ on my charms, but that is so darn cute!

Thanks for posting your opinion of CSR. When I stayed there last year (after Kidani), I expected to really like it better than all the other mods, but I didn't. I kept thinking it was because I stayed there AFTER Kidani (which was not a smart move). But I have to agree with you. There is some really special about POR. I stayed there on my first on site trip and I think it will always be my favorite for that reason. I am also a little partial to POFQ for the night before a DVC trip because its so compact and easy to get around.

If I was ever persuaded to stay somewhere other than POP !!POFQ would be my choice because it is compact !!! Also the boat to DTD sounds great!!!!

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

mmm fish, i wonder which one would make the best fish filets.

 

[glennbo123]

If I was ever persuaded to stay somewhere other than POP !!POFQ would be my choice because it is compact !!! Also the boat to DTD sounds great!!!!

Good choice, the boat is a great "plus" for the resorts that have access to it.

mmm fish, i wonder which one would make the best fish filets.

That's a great question...I have no idea. Mmmm, sushi.

 

[pjbeagle]

So has Judy gone back to school yet? It's day number 2 for my kids.

 

[glennbo123]

So has Judy gone back to school yet? It's day number 2 for my kids.

Hey PJ! No, not yet. Teachers start the end of next week, and then the first day of school for students will be Monday, the 30th. Then the "hecticity" will begin again.

 

[Believeinfairytales]

What a lovely charm you bought for Judy. I know she loved it!

I also like the fishy pictures you posted. You are quite good with you camera. Those pictures look very professional.

 

[glennbo123]

What a lovely charm you bought for Judy. I know she loved it!

I also like the fishy pictures you posted. You are quite good with you camera. Those pictures look very professional.

Thank you.

Oh, the camera does most of the work. I usually just put it on automatic. Although at the aquarium I had to play around with how long the shutter was open to make sure it had enough light.

 

[rentayenta]

I hate back to school, I really do. It's the hectic mornings where the biggest goal is trying to get everyone out of the door on time sans tears.

 

[carissanboys]

Very cool pictures of the aquarium. I lived outside of Baltimore for a total of 6 years and never did make it there. Two of my boys went on school trips, but not me. We bought a membership to our aquarium down here whe we moved last year and it just expired. We loved hanging out.

 

[glennbo123]

I hate back to school, I really do. It's the hectic mornings where the biggest goal is trying to get everyone out of the door on time sans tears.

Our mornings aren't usually too bad. Except now that Judy's teaching, I get the joy of walking the dog and making sure James makes it onto the bus. It's more our evenings that are hectic -- band practices, lessons to get kids to, Christian Service Brigade (like scouts), and all of the other activities.

Very cool pictures of the aquarium. I lived outside of Baltimore for a total of 6 years and never did make it there. Two of my boys went on school trips, but not me. We bought a membership to our aquarium down here whe we moved last year and it just expired. We loved hanging out.

Thank you. It's a shame you never got there. When we lived in North Carolina we loved going to the Fort Fisher Aquarium (even though it's only a fraction of the size of Baltimore's) because of all of the classes and activities that they had -- crabbing, clamming, fishing, salt water marsh tours, surfing. Lauren even had her 5th birthday party there.

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

Then the "hecticity" will begin again.

nice use of the "made up" word...and in a sentence that makes sense.

 

[glennbo123]

nice use of the "made up" word...and in a sentence that makes sense.

Unfortunately, there's lots of opportunity to use that word.

 

[glennbo123]

A new update...

 

[glennbo123]

is on its way...

 

[glennbo123]

very shortly.

 

[glennbo123]

Day 3 - Part 1

We awoke on Monday, June 14th, and donned our red PChef shirts. Today was “t-shirt day” for all of the PChef people, and there were exclusive morning extra magic hours (7-9 am) for the PChef’ers at the Magic Kingdom. That’s just what we needed after our action-packed, moist and exhausting Day 2 – an early-morning Day 3. We must have still been riding a Disney high because I don’t remember it being too difficult to get everyone roused that morning. We probably did struggle though, and I’ve just forgotten about it.

When I was planning the trip, I planned for today to be an “Epcot day” because we knew how busy the Magic Kingdom would be today with all of the PChef’ers descending upon the park in addition to all of the unsuspecting park guests who would be there. But with the lure of 2 hours of EMH thrown in, we made the call to take advantage of the EMH, and then at park opening time we’d head over to Epcot as originally planned.

While we were getting dressed and brushing our teeth and all of that good stuff, Judy called her friend “N”, another PChef consultant on the trip, who was in the room next door. Actually, her family’s even larger than ours, so they had 2 rooms beside us. She had wanted to meet-up with us at breakfast and go to the Magic Kingdom with us. Unfortunately, we were about ready to go to breakfast, but they were just starting to peek one eye out from under the covers, apparently. She asked Judy to save them some seats.

We’d had trouble connecting with “N” and family so far, even though we were in the room next door. We saw them briefly on either our first or second day; enough time to say ‘hi’ and chat for a moment, but that was it. They had gotten a super-early start the day before and were gone before we got started, but today they were having trouble getting going. (With the exclusive extra magic hours, they picked the wrong day to sleep-in in my opinion, but who am I to tell people what to do?)

Anyway, we made our way down to the Coronado Springs convention center to enjoy the breakfast that PChef was graciously paying for. The banquet hall where our breakfast was held was a huge room that can actually be cordoned-off into four separate, smaller banquet halls, but it was fully opened-up today. It was a sea of red shirts, and I don’t even know how many buffet lines were set up (all identical, of course), but it easily had to be double-digits.

When we first walked in.

And a shot from the other end of the room. Oh, I should tell you – this was only one of the resorts that had PChef people, although most of them were here. There were also people at the Contemporary and at the Grand Floridian, who had earned higher levels of the trip for selling and recruiting more.

Some of the buffet items. I didn’t realize that Marlene was zeroing-in on the blueberries, but pictures don’t lie.

Ah yes, we get past the fruit and move on to my favorite part of the buffet line….potatoes, eggs, and bacon!

And of course Mickey waffles! Somewhere in there is my first-ever Mickey waffle, but I can’t tell which one. I know it was lightly-browned and shaped like Mickey.

Okay, maybe we were having a little more trouble getting going than I previously described.

In the middle of this sea of red you can see the beverage table, which had fresh-squeezed Florida orange juice, some other drinks, and of course, coffee.

My breakfast, which consisted of O.J. and coffee, taters, scrambled eggs, bacon, Mickey waffle, and some delicious coffee cake.

We split-up to two tables in an attempt to hold some seats for “N” and her family.

Judy called “N” to see if they were close to arriving but the answer was “5 more minutes”. They have several small children to get ready in the morning, so I can understand, but they did ask us to hold seats. We finished eating and they still hadn’t arrived. I said to Judy that once they got here we’d say hello, but then we’d leave. The extra magic hours were about to begin and we were still sitting in the banquet hall. Time’s a-wastin’!

They did finally arrive not too long after we finished eating. Fortunately, they said that they figured we’d be ready to go by the time they got there, so our exit was relatively painless after we said ‘good morning’ to all the kids. We left the banquet hall at 7 am and Judy started to walk in the direction of the bus stop near the lobby. It was a good thing I was with her because I figured we wouldn’t be taking Disney transportation. Instead, I walked us further along in the convention center until we saw that they were directing us to board some PChef-chartered buses. We hopped on a bus and arrived at the Magic Kingdom at 7:25.

After bag-check and going through the turnstiles, we had our first sight of Main Street on this trip. PChef’ers sure know what “t shirt day” means.

And closer to the hub.

Then, our first order of business, well, after a short bathroom break, was Space Mountain. Since it was being refurbished during our trip last year, we hadn’t ridden it since 2005, and we needed to rectify that situation right away. We got in line and soon arrived at the video games that were added to the Standby line. We enjoyed playing those, and of course James especially loved them since he’s a huge videogame freak. Actually, the line moved too fast, and people started to pass us as we played games. As soon as we noticed that though, we abandoned the games and kept moving. Soon we got to the part of the queue where the line splits left and right and you’re getting close to the boarding area. James had a sudden case of panic and said that he didn’t want to go on. Once again there was no talking him out of it, so we gave him a cell phone, directed him to the “fraidy cat” door, and told him to meet us in the gift shop at the end of the ride.

Here’s the ladies’ ride picture. Oh, this picture can give you a sense of one of Marlene’s hidden talents. Without speaking a word, she can do an awesome impression of Violet Parr (the daughter on “The Incredibles”). She just hangs her hair in front of half her face, and she looks exactly like her.

Me and the two guys who won the “ride Space Mountain with Glennbo” lottery. You can see how excited they are to have won.

This ride ROCKS! I’ve read some mixed reviews, but we loved it. It wasn’t too bumpy for us…just a fun ride.

The exit is kind of cool now too. You get to wave to yourself on a closed-circuit TV. Here’s Lauren waving, and I have no idea what Marlene was doing. I’ll have more pictures of this later in the trip report.

We found James in the gift shop and walked outside. Earlier in the morning James’ goal for our short time at the Magic Kingdom was to drive the Tomorrowland Speedway cars. Now, he had changed his mind and wanted to go on the Astro Orbiter. I couldn’t believe this kid – he wouldn’t go on Space Mountain, but now he wanted to ride this thing that spun around 40 feet off the ground, or whatever it is. Marlene offered to go with him, so the rest of us decided to pull up some bench and wait for them.

After we sat down, we remembered that we had a coupon from PChef for 2 free beverages for each of us but they had to be used today, at Magic Kingdom, before 9 o’clock. I guess I can see how they’d like them used before all of the other guests entered the park, but having to use them before 9 o’clock wasn’t the most convenient thing in the world. It’s not exactly the time when you’re in need of a drink. Well, they were free. We found a cast member and asked where they could be redeemed. She pointed us to a shop near Cosmic Ray’s, and Judy and Lauren went to get the beverages while I stayed at the bench in case Marlene and James came back. A little while later Judy and Lauren came back, each with an armful of water bottles and a couple of fountain drinks. We loaded them into my backpack (well, not the fountain drinks), which now felt like I was carrying around a sack of gold, only not as valuable. Oh well. I can’t turn down free stuff, and water does come in handy on hot days like this.

After a pretty long wait, James and Marlene finally returned from the Astro Orbiter. While in line, a cast member had come through and given James a handwritten fastpass for Buzz Lightyear, for use after 9 am. Well, nuts. I had planned to be heading to Epcot by 9. We decided to stick with our plan, and we were able to convince James that we’d come back later in the day to use it. And speaking of our original plan, it was now about 8:40 am, so we decided to start leaving the park to make our way over to Epcot. We weren’t able to accomplish nearly as much as I had hoped during our extra magic hours.

As we approached the hub we saw a Photopass photographer, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to get some pictures in front of the castle with relatively few people in the background.

First, he took a few with my camera.

And then our Photopass pictures from the occasion. Why, oh why, was James making that “duh” expression?

As we finished up, we saw “N” and her family who had just gotten to the park. They got in line for the Photopass guy and we said, “We’re heading to Epcot” and started down Main Street.

Main Street wasn’t nearly as crowded as it had been around 7:30.

Oh, in this picture of Main Street, along the left side, up near Casey’s, you can see how when they are refurbishing a building they cover it with material that has a building printed on it, so it doesn’t detract so much from the overall appearance. I was impressed by that, although I don’t think I ever took a closer picture to show you.

Then we got to the front and saw all of the people waiting to enter the park.

I must say, it was kind of fun to see the look on these peoples’ faces as we left the park. They thought they were first at rope-drop and here we were leaving because we’d already ridden all the rides (okay, maybe it was only two) and gotten our fill. I know, I’m bad. But we were just the first red-shirted people they were going to encounter that day. They had no idea what they were in for.


Up next: Our second casualty
Link to next update

 

[englishrose47]

Sounds like a RED shirt sorta Day !!!!!

 

[dd50]

Wow, so many red shirts. I can just imagine the look on peoples faces as you were leaving.

 

[onelilspark]

That must have been something to be on the other side of rope drop!

 

[All7OfUs]

Hi Glenn!

Hey, I've managed to grab a bit of online time here, and had to make my way over to read your latest update! That's a lot of red!!

And a lot of Judy's- 14 in fact, (I'm pretty sure!) I don't even know if ya'll are playing this game anymore.

I think I want to ride the putt-putt cars too. Just one of those no-namers I'm aiming for this trip. But James seemed to be changing his mind like I changed diapers a few years back. Tis ok, you're allowed to do that in Disney- even on the Glennbo Plan, right?