Cast:
Rawry: Thats me! 43
Mitchy Mama: My partner in Disney 39/40
Devo: The oldest son 16/17
JoJo: The middle child 13
Sissy: Her Highness 5
MeMe: Mother in Law ????
The day that wouldnt end.
Wednesday, June 11th / Officially Day 1
The alarm was supposed to go off at 3:00 and we were going to be out the door by 4:00. This is what I told everyone. In reality I knew that if we left by 4:30 we would hit everything perfectly. Mitchy MaMa is not known for her punctuality, so I always tell her that we need to leave 30 minutes before we actually do. Somewhere along the line in the past 20 years I think she has figured that out though. I keep telling her that she is going to be late for her own funeral. I of course had hardly slept. Way to excited. I didnt lie down until almost midnight to start with and by 2:00 Im just laying there waiting on the alarm to go off. I finally get up just a little before 3:00 and start to get everyone moving. We quickly dress and start that last minute frenzy of throwing toothbrushes, deodorant, and all of the last minute items into the carryon bag. Everything else was already sitting by the garage door ready to be loaded into the van. I have the kids scurrying around unplugging any non-essential items. I dont know why I do this. I think my dad beat it into me as a little kid. Lightning could hit and all of these items would explode into a giant fireball burning the house to the ground. Yet, somehow if we unplug everything, none of these tragedies will happen. Dont know if thats true or not but our house has been hit by lightning twice and it does do its share of damage to anything plugged in, so I guess its better safe than sorry. Now things go down hill at a frenzied pace.
I run down in the mechanical room in the basement to turn the hot water heater down to vacation setting. Flip on the light and theres water on the floor. Search around quickly to find the source, and its coming up through the floor drain. Actually it had come up through the drain and has now receded leaving a little mess a few feet in all directions. Great .. Its 3:45 in the morning, Ive got plumbing problems and a plane to catch in a couple of hours. My mind and heart are racing with possibilities and consequences. Talk about an instant panic attack! I quickly call upon all of my intellectual ability and diagnose the problem as a clog from the kitchen sink has lodged itself so that water from the kitchen is coming back up in the basement. Actually it has done this before so it didnt require that much thought. Luckily it looks like no water had seeped into the downstairs bedroom or family room. It seems that all of the other drains seem to be flowing so I grudgingly determine it can wait until we get back home. There is that bit of doubt though. What if the problem is more severe that what my initial observation is? What if it rains while we are gone and for some reason water leaks into the basement. It will have no place to go. What if the sump pump kicks in and the water comes right back up the drain. I could have a swimming pool in my basement when we return. All of our stuff down there would be ruined. What if a pipe bursts and completely fills the basement with water. The pool table, the computer, everything in the cedar closet, carpeting, all of Devos stuff would be destroyed. As it turns out this will haunt me through the whole trip and it will take several days until it is not the foremost thing on my mind. I had not made plans for any of our neighbors to have access to the house while we were gone but was beginning to wish I did.. I paid the girl next door to mow, water, pick up papers, etc.. but didnt leave anyone a key to get inside and monitor things. In the future, this will be taken care of, but for now all I can do is hope for the best and pray.
Run back upstairs, turn the a/c up to about 85 degrees. Spill my guts about the sewer and try to get some reassurance. Of course, I dont get any. My whole family thinks Im a worry wart. We finish loading up the van and at 4:30 we are on our way. We scoot right along and arrive at the airport satellite parking by 5:10. We unload everything and are quickly picked up by a shuttle van. Get to the terminal, check in and are given our boarding passes. If I could change anything about Southwest, it would be their boarding process. I dont mind that there are no seat assignments, but just have everyone line up in order. If you get your boarding pass first, then you get on the plane first. If you are the 75th person to receive your boarding pass, then you are the 75th person on the plane. Seems like a reasonable idea but instead its a mad rush to try and get through that tiny gate.
There are amazingly few places to get something to eat at the Kansas City airport. In fact, on this morning at around 6:00 a.m., there is exactly one stand open for business. Pizza Hut for breakfast? It doesnt get much better than this. Actually it was not that bad. Kind of a breakfast sandwich with pizza dough for the bread. Your choice of ham, sausage, or bacon with egg. Everyone ate but me. My stomach was still in knots from this mornings activities and I was not the least bit interested in food. I did try a bite, but that was more than enough.
Soon it was time to go through security and wait for our plane to board. Place all of our items, including shoes in the little bin, shove them in the x-ray machine and then have us x-rayed as well. I have enough metal in my knee that with the new sensitive settings, I just knew the machine would beep. Its a pain getting old but I guess its better than the alternative. Luckily I passed on the first try and am not subjected to any body searches. Our flight boarded on time with only a small amount of stampeding. We quickly got settled and were soon on our way. We had a quick stop in Nashville to drop off a few people, and pick up some lucky people who were also headed on their pilgrimage. We arrived in Orlando right on time. We were now in the land of palm trees and the mouse. I was ready for that joy to sweep over me, but it wasnt there yet. Still too much worry on my mind.
Bob from YourRide was there waiting for us when we got to baggage claim. Our bags came quickly and we headed out to the van. Bob was great and we began our journey. We stopped off at the Publix next to Universal and quickly began filling the cart with items we new we couldnt live without for the next 10 days. Only healthy snacks I kept telling everyone, yet once we got to the check out line all we had was Diet Coke, Water, Potato Chips, Cookies, Crackers, and Beef Jerky. You know, just the staples. We also bought a big Styrofoam cooler which would be our refrigerator while we were gone. Loaded back in the van and soon arrived at the Hard Rock Hotel. Bell Services quickly loaded our bags on a cart while we went in to check in. It was now about 1:00 and our room wasnt ready yet. Part of being a Loews member is you get to choose a welcoming gift. We had the choice of beer (my personal favorite), a fruit basket, wine, or cookies and milk. Since we had just bought a bunch of cookies, I vetoed those. Im not a big wine drinker and neither is my wife so it was down to the fruit or the beer. After some pleading, begging and groveling, she decided to let me have the beer. Next we headed off to CityWalk and grab something to eat while we waited on our room and for MeMe to arrive. After all I skipped breakfast, and we had crossed at least like 8 different states since anyone had eaten last. Having never been here before, we didnt exactly know how to get anywhere yet. We did eventually find the boat dock and decided to take it rather than attempting to walk. The boat eventually came and we had a short ride to CityWalk.
The Nascar Café was the first restaurant that we came to and we decided to go ahead and grab some lunch there since it didnt look to busy. Nobody in my family is a big racing fan but the restaurant was a lot of fun. A number of race cars are parked outside as well as suspended from the ceiling in the restaurant. Lots of big screens showing videos of racing bloopers while you eat. After we got seated the kids ran off to check out the arcade. I could already feel all of the quarters being sucked from my pockets. A few minutes later I heard this vaguely familiar voice come over the speaker in the restaurant and announce Gentlemen, Start your engines. I know Ive heard that voice before, but I just couldnt place it. As soon as that was said though, the cars overhead started up and their tires started spinning and the race was on. That was kind of cool I thought and went on for quite awhile. Shortly thereafter the kids returned from their exploration. Devo asked if I heard him over the speakers. I knew that voice sounded familiar! He said one of the hostesses asked him if he would like to start the cars, and being such a shy kid he jumped at the offer. They also gave each kid about twenty tokens for the arcade as part of their treat. Now the magic is starting to come, like it or not. Lunch was very good. I used my fan club card and got a 10% discount. Got to take advantage of those things wherever you can.
Decided to walk back to the hotel to see if MeMe had arrived yet and to check and see if our room was ready. It was a much shorter walk back than taking the boat. The walkway was landscaped very nicely and had lots of curves which made for an interesting hike. Once back we found that our room was ready but my mother in law had not yet arrived. We went ahead and had our luggage brought to the room. The bellhop even volunteered to go and fill our cooler with ice. While I unpacked, everyone else went downstairs to wait for MeMe. Not quite sure how I got stuck with this job, but before I had the chance to object -- they were gone. Before I had completed the unpacking, they all came back with MeMe in tow. We had requested connecting rooms. Our room was to have two queen beds and hers was to have a king bed. The plan was that Sissy would share a room with grandma and the boys would campout with us. Well it turned out that her room also had two queen beds, so JoJo ended up staying with grandma as well. The rooms were very nice and comfortable. We had a excellent view of the parking lot in the distance, but if you looked above that we also got to see both Universal and Islands of Adventure. On top of the Universal sign there was a giant inflatable Shrek. I had almost forgotten that it was opening soon. Not bad at all I thought. MeMe took some time unpacking and finally around 5:00 we headed off to Islands of Adventure. On this particular night it was suppose to close at 7:00 because some company was having a big party there, but the boys were determined to get a couple of rides in before the park closed. They were not about to let another day pass without riding the Hulk.
We walked to the park and got our tickets from the kiosk. I had pre-ordered the tickets so all I had to do was enter a code and swipe my credit card and the tickets started shooting out. I was really looking forward to trying the Express Pass with our hotel keys. Make no mistake; this perk alone is worth staying on-site. In less than two hours we rode, Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish, Caroseussel, Dueling Dragons, Flying Unicorn (twice), Jurassic Park River Adventure, Spiderman (twice), and Hulk. All of this while some of the standby lines were 60 minutes. Sissy was tall enough to ride everything but the big coasters.
After leaving we decided to stop off at the Hard Rock Café for a bite of dinner. The line appeared quite lengthy as is usually the case here. I heard them tell the group in front of us a 45 to 60 minute wait. We showed them our hotel keys and were seated immediately. This front of the line thing even works at the restaurants! Of course the rest of my family thinks Ive got this whole thing planned this way. Man, do I have them fooled. We ordered and the food came pretty quickly. It was just so-so in my opinion. Maybe I was just too tired to enjoy it. There was lots of singing and dancing going on by the wait staff. At one point there was a waitress standing on top of each side of our booth singing along with the Village People to YMCA. Several congo lines were going around the restaurant that the kids got involved in also. I thought the environment was great. Everyone else thought it was too loud. Bunch of party poopers! Again, use the Fan Club card for that discount!!
Hiked on back to the hotel room, opened the door and - - - - there it was in all of its glory. A tub filled with ice and several Bud Lights nestled in chilling nicely. Sitting right next to the beer was a big bowl full of peanuts. I bowed a couple of times. Said an Im not worthy and opened the first of those bad boys. A nice end to a very, very long day.
Rawry: Thats me! 43
Mitchy Mama: My partner in Disney 39/40
Devo: The oldest son 16/17
JoJo: The middle child 13
Sissy: Her Highness 5
MeMe: Mother in Law ????
The day that wouldnt end.
Wednesday, June 11th / Officially Day 1
The alarm was supposed to go off at 3:00 and we were going to be out the door by 4:00. This is what I told everyone. In reality I knew that if we left by 4:30 we would hit everything perfectly. Mitchy MaMa is not known for her punctuality, so I always tell her that we need to leave 30 minutes before we actually do. Somewhere along the line in the past 20 years I think she has figured that out though. I keep telling her that she is going to be late for her own funeral. I of course had hardly slept. Way to excited. I didnt lie down until almost midnight to start with and by 2:00 Im just laying there waiting on the alarm to go off. I finally get up just a little before 3:00 and start to get everyone moving. We quickly dress and start that last minute frenzy of throwing toothbrushes, deodorant, and all of the last minute items into the carryon bag. Everything else was already sitting by the garage door ready to be loaded into the van. I have the kids scurrying around unplugging any non-essential items. I dont know why I do this. I think my dad beat it into me as a little kid. Lightning could hit and all of these items would explode into a giant fireball burning the house to the ground. Yet, somehow if we unplug everything, none of these tragedies will happen. Dont know if thats true or not but our house has been hit by lightning twice and it does do its share of damage to anything plugged in, so I guess its better safe than sorry. Now things go down hill at a frenzied pace.
I run down in the mechanical room in the basement to turn the hot water heater down to vacation setting. Flip on the light and theres water on the floor. Search around quickly to find the source, and its coming up through the floor drain. Actually it had come up through the drain and has now receded leaving a little mess a few feet in all directions. Great .. Its 3:45 in the morning, Ive got plumbing problems and a plane to catch in a couple of hours. My mind and heart are racing with possibilities and consequences. Talk about an instant panic attack! I quickly call upon all of my intellectual ability and diagnose the problem as a clog from the kitchen sink has lodged itself so that water from the kitchen is coming back up in the basement. Actually it has done this before so it didnt require that much thought. Luckily it looks like no water had seeped into the downstairs bedroom or family room. It seems that all of the other drains seem to be flowing so I grudgingly determine it can wait until we get back home. There is that bit of doubt though. What if the problem is more severe that what my initial observation is? What if it rains while we are gone and for some reason water leaks into the basement. It will have no place to go. What if the sump pump kicks in and the water comes right back up the drain. I could have a swimming pool in my basement when we return. All of our stuff down there would be ruined. What if a pipe bursts and completely fills the basement with water. The pool table, the computer, everything in the cedar closet, carpeting, all of Devos stuff would be destroyed. As it turns out this will haunt me through the whole trip and it will take several days until it is not the foremost thing on my mind. I had not made plans for any of our neighbors to have access to the house while we were gone but was beginning to wish I did.. I paid the girl next door to mow, water, pick up papers, etc.. but didnt leave anyone a key to get inside and monitor things. In the future, this will be taken care of, but for now all I can do is hope for the best and pray.
Run back upstairs, turn the a/c up to about 85 degrees. Spill my guts about the sewer and try to get some reassurance. Of course, I dont get any. My whole family thinks Im a worry wart. We finish loading up the van and at 4:30 we are on our way. We scoot right along and arrive at the airport satellite parking by 5:10. We unload everything and are quickly picked up by a shuttle van. Get to the terminal, check in and are given our boarding passes. If I could change anything about Southwest, it would be their boarding process. I dont mind that there are no seat assignments, but just have everyone line up in order. If you get your boarding pass first, then you get on the plane first. If you are the 75th person to receive your boarding pass, then you are the 75th person on the plane. Seems like a reasonable idea but instead its a mad rush to try and get through that tiny gate.
There are amazingly few places to get something to eat at the Kansas City airport. In fact, on this morning at around 6:00 a.m., there is exactly one stand open for business. Pizza Hut for breakfast? It doesnt get much better than this. Actually it was not that bad. Kind of a breakfast sandwich with pizza dough for the bread. Your choice of ham, sausage, or bacon with egg. Everyone ate but me. My stomach was still in knots from this mornings activities and I was not the least bit interested in food. I did try a bite, but that was more than enough.
Soon it was time to go through security and wait for our plane to board. Place all of our items, including shoes in the little bin, shove them in the x-ray machine and then have us x-rayed as well. I have enough metal in my knee that with the new sensitive settings, I just knew the machine would beep. Its a pain getting old but I guess its better than the alternative. Luckily I passed on the first try and am not subjected to any body searches. Our flight boarded on time with only a small amount of stampeding. We quickly got settled and were soon on our way. We had a quick stop in Nashville to drop off a few people, and pick up some lucky people who were also headed on their pilgrimage. We arrived in Orlando right on time. We were now in the land of palm trees and the mouse. I was ready for that joy to sweep over me, but it wasnt there yet. Still too much worry on my mind.
Bob from YourRide was there waiting for us when we got to baggage claim. Our bags came quickly and we headed out to the van. Bob was great and we began our journey. We stopped off at the Publix next to Universal and quickly began filling the cart with items we new we couldnt live without for the next 10 days. Only healthy snacks I kept telling everyone, yet once we got to the check out line all we had was Diet Coke, Water, Potato Chips, Cookies, Crackers, and Beef Jerky. You know, just the staples. We also bought a big Styrofoam cooler which would be our refrigerator while we were gone. Loaded back in the van and soon arrived at the Hard Rock Hotel. Bell Services quickly loaded our bags on a cart while we went in to check in. It was now about 1:00 and our room wasnt ready yet. Part of being a Loews member is you get to choose a welcoming gift. We had the choice of beer (my personal favorite), a fruit basket, wine, or cookies and milk. Since we had just bought a bunch of cookies, I vetoed those. Im not a big wine drinker and neither is my wife so it was down to the fruit or the beer. After some pleading, begging and groveling, she decided to let me have the beer. Next we headed off to CityWalk and grab something to eat while we waited on our room and for MeMe to arrive. After all I skipped breakfast, and we had crossed at least like 8 different states since anyone had eaten last. Having never been here before, we didnt exactly know how to get anywhere yet. We did eventually find the boat dock and decided to take it rather than attempting to walk. The boat eventually came and we had a short ride to CityWalk.
The Nascar Café was the first restaurant that we came to and we decided to go ahead and grab some lunch there since it didnt look to busy. Nobody in my family is a big racing fan but the restaurant was a lot of fun. A number of race cars are parked outside as well as suspended from the ceiling in the restaurant. Lots of big screens showing videos of racing bloopers while you eat. After we got seated the kids ran off to check out the arcade. I could already feel all of the quarters being sucked from my pockets. A few minutes later I heard this vaguely familiar voice come over the speaker in the restaurant and announce Gentlemen, Start your engines. I know Ive heard that voice before, but I just couldnt place it. As soon as that was said though, the cars overhead started up and their tires started spinning and the race was on. That was kind of cool I thought and went on for quite awhile. Shortly thereafter the kids returned from their exploration. Devo asked if I heard him over the speakers. I knew that voice sounded familiar! He said one of the hostesses asked him if he would like to start the cars, and being such a shy kid he jumped at the offer. They also gave each kid about twenty tokens for the arcade as part of their treat. Now the magic is starting to come, like it or not. Lunch was very good. I used my fan club card and got a 10% discount. Got to take advantage of those things wherever you can.
Decided to walk back to the hotel to see if MeMe had arrived yet and to check and see if our room was ready. It was a much shorter walk back than taking the boat. The walkway was landscaped very nicely and had lots of curves which made for an interesting hike. Once back we found that our room was ready but my mother in law had not yet arrived. We went ahead and had our luggage brought to the room. The bellhop even volunteered to go and fill our cooler with ice. While I unpacked, everyone else went downstairs to wait for MeMe. Not quite sure how I got stuck with this job, but before I had the chance to object -- they were gone. Before I had completed the unpacking, they all came back with MeMe in tow. We had requested connecting rooms. Our room was to have two queen beds and hers was to have a king bed. The plan was that Sissy would share a room with grandma and the boys would campout with us. Well it turned out that her room also had two queen beds, so JoJo ended up staying with grandma as well. The rooms were very nice and comfortable. We had a excellent view of the parking lot in the distance, but if you looked above that we also got to see both Universal and Islands of Adventure. On top of the Universal sign there was a giant inflatable Shrek. I had almost forgotten that it was opening soon. Not bad at all I thought. MeMe took some time unpacking and finally around 5:00 we headed off to Islands of Adventure. On this particular night it was suppose to close at 7:00 because some company was having a big party there, but the boys were determined to get a couple of rides in before the park closed. They were not about to let another day pass without riding the Hulk.
We walked to the park and got our tickets from the kiosk. I had pre-ordered the tickets so all I had to do was enter a code and swipe my credit card and the tickets started shooting out. I was really looking forward to trying the Express Pass with our hotel keys. Make no mistake; this perk alone is worth staying on-site. In less than two hours we rode, Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish, Caroseussel, Dueling Dragons, Flying Unicorn (twice), Jurassic Park River Adventure, Spiderman (twice), and Hulk. All of this while some of the standby lines were 60 minutes. Sissy was tall enough to ride everything but the big coasters.
After leaving we decided to stop off at the Hard Rock Café for a bite of dinner. The line appeared quite lengthy as is usually the case here. I heard them tell the group in front of us a 45 to 60 minute wait. We showed them our hotel keys and were seated immediately. This front of the line thing even works at the restaurants! Of course the rest of my family thinks Ive got this whole thing planned this way. Man, do I have them fooled. We ordered and the food came pretty quickly. It was just so-so in my opinion. Maybe I was just too tired to enjoy it. There was lots of singing and dancing going on by the wait staff. At one point there was a waitress standing on top of each side of our booth singing along with the Village People to YMCA. Several congo lines were going around the restaurant that the kids got involved in also. I thought the environment was great. Everyone else thought it was too loud. Bunch of party poopers! Again, use the Fan Club card for that discount!!
Hiked on back to the hotel room, opened the door and - - - - there it was in all of its glory. A tub filled with ice and several Bud Lights nestled in chilling nicely. Sitting right next to the beer was a big bowl full of peanuts. I bowed a couple of times. Said an Im not worthy and opened the first of those bad boys. A nice end to a very, very long day.
