Day 4 - Part 3
With rain chasing us out of Typhoon Lagoon, we headed for the bus stop. We watched plenty of other resort buses pass by, and then when ours finally arrived, we had to wait in a huge line of cars and buses trying to leave Typhoon Lagoon. I hadn’t seen that much congestion since…I don’t know, fill in your own joke here…Barbara Streisand caught a head cold? What can you come up with?
When we got back to Coronado Springs, my family headed back to the room to shower, change clothes, and rest up, and I went over to the lobby concierge desk. I had to get a new room key and also make sure that nobody had found my key at Typhoon Lagoon and gone on a little spending spree. A bunch of “free” visits to the snack bar could add up, you know. With the room key situation taken care of, I went back to the room and got ready for our evening activities as well.
At 5:30 we started walking over to the convention center to line up for the buses that would take us to Hollywood Studios. At some point during the walk over, the kids learned that we wouldn’t be getting to the park until 7 pm, and they complained, wondering why we were going over so early. But we’d learned from our 2005 Disney trip with PChef that you have to line up early or else you’re going to be at the end of a verrrrry long line of people to get on the buses, and you’ll end up getting to the park late. When we got to the place to line-up, there were only about 10 people in front of us.
By about 6:10, the line behind us looked like this.
It’s kind of hard to see towards the back in that picture. Here, I’ll hold the camera up for you.
And actually at the wall you can see way in the back there, the hallway takes a turn to the right, and then to the left again, going back towards the Pepper Market. So, who knows where the end of the line was.
Probably around 6:30 or so, the people in charge said they wanted us to move forward and line up nearer the door. There was a table directly in front of us, so we had to pick whether to go right or left. Judy asked me which way to go, and I said, “right”. As we went through, they were giving out some light-up necklace thingees that had "PChef something-or-other" on them. Well the lady on the right side was having trouble keeping all of the necklaces untangled and a bunch of people went through on the left side while we stood there wondering how long it was going to take her to hand those things out. We got through and now had about 20 people in front of us. (Never follow me in a line…I always pick wrong at the grocery store too.)
Remember the “Great Rope Fiasco” back in the “Hoopla in Hyperspace” chapter of this trip report? Well, something similar happened here so I guess I’ll call it “The Great Line Fiasco” (although it wasn’t nearly as bad). We had gone past the table, gotten our light-up necklace thingee, and walked a few feet to a line that started at the door out to where the buses were. The people in charge wanted to fill-up that space more so they asked that the line extend past the door and circle-back on itself, kind of like a fishhook shape. There were no ropes or anything to keep people in line, so you can imagine what happened when we started going out to the buses. The people who were 200th in line were close to the door and couldn’t see the point of walking in a circle through the lobby area, so just sort of merged (ie. budged, crowded) in with the people who were 20th. No, make that 26th. I didn’t let anybody get in front of us, we’d been waiting patiently for too long.
Then we went out and were directed to a bus and we boarded. A little while later the buses started to roll, and they were passing us on the right as we sat there. Doh! Fortunately, our bus driver wasn’t timid, and as soon as there was a small break in the traffic, he pulled into line. We were probably about the sixth bus to leave. As we turned and could see the parking lot, it was just a mass of buses. I couldn’t even begin to guess at how many there were.
I imagine they made sure that the consultants who earned the higher levels of the trip (those who earned stays at the Grand Floridian and the Contemporary) arrive at the park first, as another “bonus”. We arrived a few minutes after 7 pm, and were directed around the back, near Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. I thought it was strange, since we walked in through the front gate back in 2005.
Here are some pictures of the parking lot as we drove in.
Then we were directed toward an open gate, and we entered the park near the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster fastpass machines.
You can’t see them here, but on each side of the gate were coolers full of cans of pop and bottles of water. We each grabbed one as we went by. Oh, and they also had free rain ponchos, which we snagged.
People on stilts (“Stiltmosphere”?) greeted us.
As we continued in there were some other Streetmosphere people dressed-up as Rocker Dudes.
They were really funny. They told James to cram as many Cokes in his pockets as he could.
We decided to get on Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster first and try to beat the rush. Marlene didn’t want to go on so we gave her a cell phone and she went to wait for us in the gift shop. James wanted to try it, but got scared when we got to the boarding area, so he took the “chicken-out door” and went to find Marlene. The rest of us enjoyed another ride on RnRC.
We left Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and thought that we’d better turn our attention to getting some food because back in 2005 when there were buffet tables set up on Sunset Boulevard, they didn’t keep them set up for the whole evening. We walked out to Sunset and saw that there were tables, but they only had cupcakes on them. Instead of a buffet, we could get food from any of the vendors.
So we walked over to Rosie’s All American Café.
I got a burger, fries, sweet tea, and chocolate cake. James was with me and got a cheese burger, fries, chocolate cake, and root beer, which he loves. The ladies got a couple of burgers and an order of chicken nuggets. But the best thing was this…here, check out this picture of the receipts that I took after we got home.
You don't see an amount due of "0" every day at Disney.
We found a table to chow down. Near the pole, at the center of the table, you can see the light-up necklace thingees we got.
James’ grub.
Lauren and her mustard art.
I think this next picture must have been my food. You know what really impressed me? The chocolate cake. It doesn’t look all that appetizing the way it’s packaged, but it was quite delish.
After we ate we walked up Sunset Boulevard, grabbing a cupcake on the way. (Yes, I had a cupcake after eating chocolate cake. I like cake, what can I say?) Then we got up to the movie theater and had our PChef star pose for a picture in front of the marquee.
At a stage, set up in the center of the park, there was a celebration of the company’s founder’s birthday. (She's the one on the left.)
They were having trouble with the sound when we were passing by, but we were on our way for our last assault on Toy Story Mania anyway. I paused as we entered the standby line to take a picture of the giant baseboards heading into “Andy’s room”. I think they're a really neat addition to the theming. Judy couldn’t believe I was taking a picture of the wall, as you can see by her look of dismay in this picture.
Going through the line I knew that this was it. My last attempt to beat jenbear’s score of 179,200. While in line, I looked like a football player before kickoff. I was limbering up my arm, spinning it in windmill fashion. I stretched my neck muscles by tilting my head from side to side. I jumped in place for a little bit. To psych myself up I chest-bumped James. Well, it may have been more of a belly-to-head bump. But when the dust settled, my score was…
Continued in next post
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If you MUST know, I shaved just today. But being that winter is setting in, it may be the last time for a while. Just warning you.
Spending that much money to be kicked out of the site too many times to count and then having to call to complete the order in the time frame they give you. S-T-R-E-S-S-F-U-L I tell ya.
Playing Hookie today !! Only going in to do timesheets !!Weeell we'll see how that goes !!
. I need a smilie holding up a white flag - cuz I surrender.....I can't figure it out 
