The "Save my Sanity" Trip Report

[Maleficent13]

I'll do this all on one thread so it won't get lost!

Pre-trip:

The Players:

Mal: me
LocaBelle: my best bud

Day 0:

This was a spur of the moment trip I planned about a month ago after getting a postcard with some great rates in the mail. It's been killer at work and I need some space to get my thoughts in order. What better place than WDW? So I corraled my bud and we set off on Wednesday, 10/6/04 after work. Our flight was direct, due to land in Orlando at 8:49pm.

It was actually about half an hour early. After grabbing our luggage, we headed down to the Budget rental counter, where I had reserved a compact car. This did not look promising. The line was astronomically long, and there was a whole mass of people sitting beside the line looking disgruntled. I took my spot, clutching my reminder confirmation email I had received from Budget just the day before, and began to wait.

Soon the rumor began circulating down the line that there were no cars to be had. The disgruntled looking people sitting to the left of the line were those who had already made it to the counter and were now waiting for these cars to show up. From where, I was uncertain. The lady in front of me, who quite frankly, seemed to me to be the picture perfect definition of a "battle-axe", was complaining at length about having a reservation. I made a joke about how "anyone can take a reservation; it's the holding of the reservation that's the important part". No one was amused but me. Apparently not a lot of Seinfeld fans in the Budget rental line.

We finally made it up to the counter and Luis proceeded to check us in. He was very friendly and said he was very sorry. I told him he looked stressed and he said his job had been horrible for the last couple weeks. I sympathized, we joked some more, and he told me to take my place among the disgruntled left. I did.

Perhaps because I was the one person NOT screaming at the counter people, Loca and I only had to wait about 10 minutes for a car. We trotted out, picked up our Hyundai (sp) Accent, and sped off to All Star Music.

All went very smoothly; found the hotel no problem. Check in was a breeze. Got back in the car and all heck broke loose. I could NOT find Jazz 9 building. I drove all over that darned lot for 15 minutes. Finally, Loca took over the navigations and we got to the room. It was on the third floor, overlooking the quiet pool. It was a great location and it was very quiet. I was happy. By this time it was 11:30 and we collapsed in exhausted heaps on our beds.

 

[Maleficent13]

Today was Magic Kingdom day. We were up and out of the room by 11am (hey, this was no commando vaca!!). We headed to the MK by car, and headed for the guest services line to trade in one of Loca's cast member passes (I have an annual pass). Behind us in line was a gentleman (and I use this word loosely) and his wife. We were in line approx. 15 minutes. During this time, this guy never shut up. He was chastizing his wife for having an attitude, for not being appreciative, for not being communicative, for not being respectiful, for a whole slew of horrible offenses. He didn't care that the whole line was listening to him. I turned around once and saw him leaning over her, like a teacher to a student, lecturing her. The look on her face was one of pained patience. She never said a word. I would have. It was all I could do not too. If that'd be my hubby, he'd have had to walk home.

Finally, we got the ticket, got through the turnstiles and we were there!! Food was an absolute necessity at this point, so we headed to Columbia Harbor House. One Captain's special and one #3 obtained, we headed upstairs to the room which overlooks the Haunted Mansion and ate and people watched.

After lunch, we went on HM, Pirates, the Carousel, the WEDWay, Carousel of Progress, and a few others. We just sort of wandered around wherever the mood struck us. Is it just me, or have they speeded up the dialogue in CoP? It seemed really fast.

After a while it was getting pretty crowded, so we left and headed to MGM. This is Loca's fave park. Honestly, I can't remember what we did that day, other than the GMR. I know I bought a necklace at that little stand outside Indiana Jones, though, because I had to pay for it at another cashier, and I had to break a $100. The CM who I asked if that was okay, gave us a long spiel about how that was fine at 5pm (which is what time it was) but not a 9am. We then had to hear the story of the person who wanted change for a $500 traveler's check at 9am one day and they had to go to five different registers to get it. The CM was very jolly, and guffawed a lot during the story. It was cute.

We headed over to DD for dinner, wanting to try Rainforest Cafe. Um, not to be, as the wait for no PS was 2 hours. We ended up at Planet Hollywood with a 10 minute wait. Food was good and by that time we were beat. We headed back to the room about 10pm and crashed. (We do get more energetic I promise!)

More as I have time!

 

[Maleficent13]

Off to Epcot today. We decided to head to the Beach Club and have lunch at Beaches and Cream and then head to the International Gateway.

We were at Beaches and Cream promptly at 11am, and were the first people in the door. We had cheeseburgers and fries. Loca had a chocolate shake, I had a lime rickey. Everything was delicious. Unfortunately, my lime rickey tasted more of seltzer than anything, but our waitress fixed that very quickly! No room for dessert though; those burgers are huge!

Off to the International Gateway, where we ran into the sweetest CM at the ticket booth. Loca purchased a one day ticket (as we were not planning to hop that day and wanted to save the hopping tickets). He started flirting with her as soon as she got up to the booth. When he took her credit card, he asked to see her ID as well, and when she gave it to him she thanking him for checking her ID. His response was "I've been checking everything since you walked up here!" He asked for her phone number for the computer, and when she gave it to him, he said he loved his job, because where else could an old guy like him get a pretty young thing's phone number just by asking. She was blushing all over herself. It was cute!

We headed into the park and as we approached the British pavilion, the street show was just starting. "My Unfair Lady". We stopped to watch and it was hysterical. At the end of the show, they announced they'd be doing the "Holy Grail" in half an hour, and so we came back and watched that too!

We spent the day strolling from country to country, checking out the Food and Wine Fest. We also hit Imagination (Loca'd never seen it; I wish she could have seen the original) and the Living with the Land boat ride. I think that is my favorite; I love touring those greenhouses.

By this time it was about 6, and we were hungry again. We retrieved the car and headed to OKW to have dinner at Olivia's. (OKW is my home DVC, and I love Olivia's!). I talked Loca into the shrimp alfredo by promising I would eat her shrimp if she didn't like it. Didn't have to though; she liked it! I had the same, actually.

After dinner we rolled ourselves back to the car and headed to the room to change. We were heading to JellyRolls for the evening. We arrived about 9pm, and it was packed. We were lucky enough to get a table about 3 rows back, and sat down. To my disappointment, Scotty wasn't on that night, and neither was Christian. They're my two faves. But Drew and Ray were there, and they rocked. Best moment of the evening was Ray rapping out Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" (too funny). We stayed until past 1am. I think Loca would have stayed longer, but I'm old and I was tired! By the time we got back to the room it was about 2am and once again we collapsed.

 

[Annie&Hallie'sMom]

Shame on you for no commando! You should be up at 5 AM like me to be first one line! Oh wait, if you did that then the parks would be more crowded at that hour...Never mind!

Seriously, sounds like you packed a lot into your trip!

 

[Maleficent13]

Saturday I awakened at about 7am to a very strange sound. At first I was disoriented, and couldn't figure out what was going on. After a minute or two to wake up, I realized what it was. Apparently, we had gotten new neighbors the previous day. My headboard must have right on the other side of the wall from the bathroom in the next room. What I was hearing was someone peeing!!! All I can say is, have you ever seen the scene in "A League of Their Own" where Tom Hanks is going in the locker room? He had nothing on my new neighbor! Talk about distance and volume!! After that I was too amused to go back to sleep, so I made enough noise to wake up Loca and we got underway.

Today we decided to take the day off from the parks and just see everything else. We drove over to the Grand Floridian and had lunch at the Grand Floridian Cafe. We both had the "Grand Sandwich". It's an open faced ham and turkey sandwich on foccia bread with a cheese sauce on top and lots of crispy onion straws. Yummy! Once again our waiter was smitten with Loca (she had all kinds of play this vaca!).

After an enormous lunch, we hit the monorail and headed to the Contemporary and rented watermice. There was pretty much no one on the lakes, and we stayed out an hour just racing along and splashing each other. We headed in when we decided we had baked ourselves enough (my nose is still red). We browsed in the shops there, and then continued on to the Poly. Ended up at the Tambu lounge and had a Blue Hawaiian and a Kahlua and Cream. It was quiet and very relaxing. I think we ended up sitting there for an hour never realizing how much time had passed.

Went back to the GF to pick up the car and headed to DD. We shopped for a couple hours and decided to see if we could get into the Rainforest Cafe. I knew it was Saturday but it was only 5pm and I thought we had a chance. As we were standing in line, a CM came up and asked how many we had. I said two, and he said it would be an hour and a half for inside, but if we wanted to sit outside we could be seated now. We opted for outside, and it was great! We were right on the water and watched the sights. A big turtle swam right up to us and hung out for a while. We shared a pizza and a pasta dish I can't remember the name of but it was tomato based with italian sausage in it. Stuffed and happy, we continued shopping until about 9pm and then our late night/early rising caught up with us and we decided to go back and chill at the room.

 

[Angelrose]

Sounds like you two are having a great time and very relaxing. Can't wait for more.

 

[Minniespal]

Great reports ~ Thanx for sharing.