Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy. - uptd w/pics p2 post 20

[Tasmen]

First off, the cast of characters:

DH (30) -- Self professed and proud Star Wars geek boi. If it's Star Wars, he'll love it. This trip also would be his first trip to the World. I have taken him to Disneyland a couple times but never the Disney World.

Me (35) -- Self professed Disneyana lovah. I've wanted to go back to Disney World for years and years but due to certain financial constraints that weren't lifted until last year, I was never really able to afford to go. I had gone once before back in 1981 pre-Epcot with my family. We had stayed at the Poly and I remember loving it. I've gone on lots and lots of trips to Disneyland, but it never seemed like quite the same thing. I wanted to be completely immersed in everything Disney and that meant one trip to the World was required.

Details:

I went ahead and booked Poly Concierge for this trip and even went platinum on the package. I realize some believe that's a huge waste of money, but for us, the convenience and special perks we'd get with the package made it worth it to us. Plus, we figured we would splurge away on our first real trip together to Disney World. We never really had a big honeymoon so we treated this trip like it would be just that -- a 5th anniversary trip and honeymoon we never had.

5/15 - Tuesday
This is the day we leave on the trip I've been playing for over six months. To say that I was excited as an understatement. We didn't leave until almost midnight (go go red eye flight), but that didn't matter to me. This was the first day of my vacation.

I woke up that morning and went to work. I had warned my boss not to expect much productivity out of me that particular day. I had mental impediments going on. My mind was already on vacation even if my body was still in Seattle.

The day draaaaaagged on and on but eventually 3 'I'm so out of here' o'clock hit and I bolted out the door and sped walked the 4 blocks to my parking garage.

I got home in record time thanks to my super speedy vroom vroom skills o' driving (Tangent: there are a lot o' type things in my universe. I apology now of that is o'nnoying) and proceeded to pack the last few things that had to be packed.

The cats could tell something was afoot. Sweet baby Tasmen (yes, my avatar is the name of my cat -- I can admit I have a problem when it comes to kitties. I am obsessed.) kept giving me evil 'you better not leave me, woman' eyes. See, this cat has a way about her. I know she doesn't have real thoughts. But sometimes it really does seem like she is channeling some kind of baby Stuey personality. Some day she'll rule over all us humans and make us pay. She will make me dance for her and eat kibble all the time rather than yummy wet food.

Anyway, to summarize, the cat knew we were leaving. I had to keep an eye on our luggage to make sure she didn't try to come along with us on the trip or give us a special bon voyage spraying of kitty 'champagne' to help us enjoy our trip more. Thankfully, none of the kitties did anything quite so insidious.

The DH wasn't off work until 8:30 that night so I had to drive (again like a woman possessed) to pick him up and get him home so that he could change into park/traveling clothing and make sure he had all his stuff packed and ready to go. We rushed so much that we ended up sitting around waiting on the car to arrive to take us to the airport. You want to talk about the longest 20 minutes ever. But eventually, we were on our way to the airport and I could barely stand it. I just knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep on the plane.

Next up -- we arrive at the airport and enjoy some $3 more for a double fun at an airport bar.

 

[Momof2princess]

Great Start
Can't wait to read all about your trip.

Ohh and Airport Bars...what fun

 

[NewCrew42]

Can't wait!

Mother MAY I read your trip report?

 

[roberrl187]

Great start.

 

[Tasmen]

Previously on "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy. - 5yr anniversary Trip", the narrator and her DH prepared to leave on their much anticipated WDW trip. Nearly vibrating off the interior of the town car taking her to the airport, our narrator waits eagerly to arrive at the airport...



The moment has finally arrived. We pull into Seatac and now it's time to go check into our flight. We manage to organize our 6 (Yes, 6 -- 2 suitcases, a garment bag, 2 carry ons and a duffel bag filled with shoes. Not only do I have a kitty problem, I have a shoe problem too.) pieces of luggage and lug them to the AA desk to check in for our flight. Check in went rather smoothly and off we went to security.

Normally, going through security for us means I get all my stuff through the machines and then proceed to stand around waiting on the slowest man alive (read: my DH) to put back on his shoes and gather all his various items. But no, not this time. This time I get singled out and win my first 'Year of a million dreams' prize -- a personalized bag search. Lucky me! I had naturally overstuffed my rolling laptop bag. After all my personal items had been splayed out across the table and sprinkled with a little airport security pixie dust (no explosives here! move along!), I got the great joy of restuffing everything back into the bag. And not one to let a chance to ding me go by, the DH was sure to stand there and smirk at me while he waited on me for a change.

After a few minutes of careful reorganizing, we were on our way to our gate. But first we needed to make a pit stop. It was airport lounge time. My friends and I have had this mantra in the past -- friends don't let friends fly the sober skies. Now keep in mind, we've never actually gotten 'lit' before getting on a flight, but we most certainly have gotten comfortably numb

The DH was starving as he hadn't eaten dinner yet. We ordered him up some nice fried snacks and our lovely $3 more for a double night caps. Mine was gone before you could blink an eye. $3 more for a double really just means $3 more out of your pocket and more mixer in your stomach. Either way, I'm a sucker for the deal and shell out for another drink. I know I had to have looked strange too. I was sitting there, drinking my drink extremely quickly while sniffing the innards of my Disney docs envelope. My fellow Mayers (shout out to the crew) have made me obsessed with that fresh and plastic smell. I even made the DH smell the smell of Disney docs. He thought I was rather strange -- won't be the first time and most certainly won't be the last.

As we were nearing our boarding time, we paid our bill and headed to the gate. Now it was just a matter of waiting for them to call our particular group to board. And be assured, as soon as we were called, my butt was up and rushing to the podium to get on the plane. It was time to hurry up and not sleep.

See, I did not manage to sleep on either flight. It didn't matter that I used miles to upgrade us to first class so that I might have a more comfortable seat and thus get some sleep. Nope. I simply could not sleep no matter how hard I tried. The DH? He can fall asleep anywhere at anytime. He's fallen asleep at a table during brunch before. I kid you not. Somewhere on the net there is a picture of him with a plate of eggs in front of him, his eyes closed and his mouth wide open as he naps at a table in a restaurant. I really do hate his ability to nap like a cat at the drop of a hat (heeee..rhyming is fun). These flights were definitely one of those times. I just had to hope that the minute we arrived at the World, I'd be hit with the second wind of all second winds instead of being a walking, talking, zombie creature from the no sleep lagoon.

On the next episode of "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy. - 5yr anniversary Trip", our dear travelers arrive at their final destination , venture off to Epcot and come face to face with one grey goose of the lemon slurpee variety.

 

[EllyLovesDisney]

Yay Tas! A trip report!
I can't wait to read all about your trip ( and see if I am in the background of any of your pictures )

 

[DisneyObsessive]

enjoying the report so far! looking forward to more!

 

[Tasmen]

Sorry for the delay. I came home from WDW to find my computer had gone on vacation and simply would not power on. This has left me with really only computer access while at work.

Last I left off, we had landed at MCO. I simply could not stop smiling. No way, no how were you going to rip a smile off my lips. Newp. We had 'arrived'. Carry-ons in tow, we caught a little rid on the airport monorail to the main terminal and down to the DME desk. It took us a few minutes to figure out we were supposed to go downstairs from baggage claim, but we eventually found our way.

The line to check in was about 15 people deep but moved extremely quickly. Go go Disney and their ability to 'people move'. It took about 10 minutes or so and we were on our bus to the Poly (and some of those other deluxe resorts).

The DH immediately fell asleep (jerk!) and I sat there quietly waiting to get to our final destination. I have to admit I am not a cryer or at least I haven't been in the past. But it seems once you hit 35, some kind of crying gene starts to exert its dominance. The minute the video on the bus started, I felt my eyes well up. Sap = me

I do manage to get control of my tear ducts about the time we get to the main gates. Oh geeze..here we go again. Trickle trickle little eye. At least these were tears of joy.

We pull into the Wilderness Lodge first and I take my first WDW picture.



I probably should have taken a picture of something more special like the Magic Kingdom gates or something. But no, I like me some greeny bison.

The rest of the ride to the Poly was uneventful (read: I managed not to cry).

Off the bus we go and a few minutes later we are in the concierge building doing the check in thang. Our room was not ready just yet but we did get our keys to the kingdom, a bunch of other paperwork, leis and a nice greeting by a fellow Diser and Mayer (You know who you are! )

Here is the DH outside the Poly while we were waiting to be escorted by to the concierge check in.



Our plans for the day had us at Epcot. We had a 2pm adr at Coral Reef. A short walk got us to the Epcot monorail.

Let me stop here to say that one of the things I loved most about the Poly was the utter convenience in its location. I cannot even fathom staying somewhere else at this point. We loved being directly on the monorail for the Magic Kingdom and other monorail resorts. We never had to wait long for a bus when we did need a bus. And it really is a short and nice walk to the Epcot monorail. I'll stop my pro Poly spiel there (for the time being ).

Our monorail arrived. As we walked on, we got our first wiff of that special 'monorail smell'. Mmmmm, swampy fresh. I think the World is the only place in the well World that I would find that smell in anyway slightly appealing.



We have arrived and apparently we weren't the only ones in awe. My camera went a little wonky too at the first sight of Spaceship Earth. This would be the first of many 'odd' pictures my camera would take.

Once we managed to pick our jaws off the ground, we got trucking over to Test Track. I was determined to have this ride be one of the first things we rode. The DH is a speed freak. He looooooves his thrill rides especially if they go super fast. I just knew he would love this ride. Unfortunately, when we got to the ride, there was a 40 minute stand by line. We grabbed some fastpasses and went over to Mission Space instead.

We were not about to start out our trip flying the dizzy and pukey spacely skies so we opted for the green weenie please don't mock us ride. I realize I just wrote in the previous paragraph that the DH loves thrills. Yes, he loves thrills. However, he does not like spills of the oral kind and had no desire at all to spin around in a human centrifuge.

We found the ride pretty fun but it easily go put into our 'ride it once and we are happy' category of ride. We wouldn't be coming back to it during this trip. What we probably found even more fun was the area after the ride. We made a little 'from space' postcard and sent it off to my friend who is very much into all things 'space'. We couldn't stop the giggling while we made it. It's the small things like this that we seem to enjoy the most at times.

Strangely, by the time we got out of Mission Space, it was time for our Fast Track FP. A hop, skip and a jump (yes, there really was a hop, skip and a jump -- I was tearlessly happy) and we got ourselves into the queue for Fast Track. The ride definitely did deliver. Vrooom vrooom.

It was around 1 at this time and I knew we needed to make our way over to Coral Reef to make it in time for our ADR. I took a route that I knew would have us go by Club Cool. I had a plan. I was going to walk by the place an d say nothing. I would instead let the DH notice it and make a comment. And as I predicted, he did.

DH: "What is that place?"
Me: "Club Cool. They have sodas from all around the world and such to taste."
DH: "Oh, that's neat."
Me: "They are free. Are you thirsty?"
DH: "Yeah, a little. Want to go in there?"
Me: "Sure, I guess. We have a little time."

The seeds had been planted. I'm sure some of you can easily imagine what I had in mind.

We walk inside and I point to all the machines. I tell the DH that the soda I had heard most about was the Beverly. It was supposed to be pretty good or something. Of course, I wasn't thirsty and was trying to drink less soda so I wasn't going to partake.

The DH goes and gets his little cup FULL of beverly. I quickly grab my camera and get it ready. Some strange man ALMOST ruined my prank too by telling the DH he may not want so much of that drink. Thankfully, the DH was having one of those 'there but not there to hear you' moments and didn't hear the man's warnings.

The swallow:


The taste:


And that is why he loves me.

Next time: Coral Reef, more Epcot, and we get to see our room

 

[seacrestpromo]

Great storytelling Tasmen! Can't wait for the next chapter!

 

[Mouse511]

 

[tinawv]

What a great start. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[MellaWDWnut]

Lovin' the trip report!

 

[MellaWDWnut]

Where is Club Cool? i haven't heard of this place.

 

[TKDisneylover]

Hey Tasmen!

I just found your trip report and definitely have enjoyed the first segment. I would love to hear if you conquered "drinking around the world"! Looking forward to hearing more about the Poly too!

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Tasmen]

Where is Club Cool? i haven't heard of this place.

I suck for just now getting back to this report. It's in Epcot. Don't ask me the exact location because I'm by far not an Epcot expert.

I'll be updating again later today....I hope. I've been suffering from a serious case of Montezuma's Work Revenge: The Reckoning. So much work -- so little time.

 

[abbybeth]

just found your TR, so far so good! I totally get you on the cats.... I have one of my own and she's such a sassy little thing - and she absolutely knows when I'm going someone and if she's going to be required to accompany me! She has a lot going on behind those eyes of hers!

 

[TKDisneylover]

Looking forward to hearing more about your trip!

 

[anna_chronistic]

on your 5 year anniversary! I'm loving your trip report, but that was a mean (if funny) joke to play on your DH! Hmm, I may have to steal your idea for my family's vacation during Free Dining.
"Try the Bevarly; I've heard it's good."
I'll make sure to have my camera ready, too!

 

[SnoopyDancer]

Tas, congrats on your anniversary too! I wanted to get my husband to try the Beverly when we were there, but they didn't have any. Since it was our 10th anniversary and first trip, we splurged and did a split stay at AKL and the Poly concierge. I became a Poly lover on that trip--it's so convenient and makes me feel like I'm in Hawaii.

I can't wait to read more of your report!

 

[Tasmen]

*comes up from the work drowning waters* Time to do another update!

Where I last left off, I had tormented the DH with the luscious, delectable and refreshing taste of a cool glass of Beverly.

After my brief cameo as the Marquise de Soda, I grabbed the DH's hand and said, "Let's mowzy". Ok, I really didn't say that, but you get the idea. We had to get to the living seas. Nemo and our Coral Reef lunch awaited us.

I was extremely happy to see Nemo was pretty much a walk on ride. I was afraid we were going to run into the line of all lines. Yay for that not happening. In fact, most of the week we were there, lines were wonderously short if not non-existent. I don't think that we waited in a line longer than 20 minutes. I definitely would go back that time of year again.

Ahem, but back to the story at hand -- Nemo. This is one cute ride. The whole time we were on the ride, we kept saying how the 'Treasures' would love it.

The 'Treasures' are my mom and her sisters. We are call to them that because we are supposed to treasure them. They go by T1-4, my mom being T3. Some might say they are crazy. I just say they are eccentric. They are southern and no one is really crazy down South!

We found the animated cartoon inside the water effect to be really neat. Took us a few to figure out how they did it. Yay for imagineering.

I had apparently timed everything just right because as we walked out of the ride, it was time for our Coral Reef adr. Now let me say I was really excited about this one. I love animals even the fishy kind. Though I suppose you could say I love the fishy kind even more when they are in my belly. Yum

I won't get into the great details about our meal as I do intend to post a dining review of the entire trip at some point (let me tie a string around my finger right now so that I don't forget). I will say that I was very happy with what we were served. Also, I had been warned that the alcohol at the world was going to be rather pricy. For us, it was not. We are used to Seattle prices and those at the World matched Seattle prices if not being a little cheaper. And there was much rejoicing!

After lunch we had a mission and that mission was to invade France and partake of the delightful frozen concoction I read about on these very boards -- the Grey Goose Lemon Slurpee.

I will admit we really didn't take a lot of time to soak in the ambiance of the different worlds we passed through on our way to France. I know this makes me a Disney heathen to some. We honestly thought we'd have time to come back later on in the trip and look around (more on that later..).

I did get this good picture of the 'golf ball' on the way to France though.

As we entered France and saw the stand, I swear I heard angels singing. I love my vodka. Love love love love it. Mix it with lemon and some sugar and we have a trifecta of yum.

The woman at the register must have thought me insane. I absolutely tigger bounced up to her and quickly ordered our frosty treats. Cash exchanges hands (btw: I was extremely relieved too that I had managed to remember to bring cash. Warning folks, the stand only takes cash) and we get our drinks.

Let me say...YUM and ow. I drank mine with such vigor that a serious brain freeze set in. I should have known better. It was revenge of the Beverly! The DH had a laugh or ten at my expense. Thankfully, he was never in possession of the camera so my own drinking pains never were photographically documented.

We say some empty seats next to the railing and went to have a sit. There were some 'locals', I call them that because they told us they were from there, drinking it up and having a little party. Apparently they had called in 'sick' to work and decided to have a round of drinking around the world. Start the day in England and end it in Mexico with a glass of tequila in one hand and your sombrero in the other. It definitely did sound like something that could be fun but we had other plans.

Oh and we also learned that apparently each country in the World Showcase has it's own song. They even brought their iPod with them to play said song in each world. France and Huey Lewis apparently go hand in hand as does Right Said Fred and England. I suppose this is good stuff to know for our next trip

Two drinks each later (our last drinks in 'go cups' -- aka not the martini glasses but regular cups) we bid our adieus to the 'locals' and made our way to one of the boats that could take us back to Future World. We were hot and ready to go back to our hotel room which was finally ready.

More lovely monorail smelling and a short walk from the monorail to the Hawaii building and we were finally ready to see our room. We didn't know if we were going to be magically upgraded or not to a lagoon view. I wasn't counting on it, but it sure would be nice if we got down to our room and saw it on the left side of the hallway instead of the right. Alas, it was on the right. But that was ok. I was just happy to be at the World.

It was especially ok when we walked into our room and saw all of our luggage there and 2 gift baskets. The gift basket I had bought the DH through Memories by Sarah

and a little surprise from Jeffrey at the Poly IPO were awaiting us.

NOTE: I blew at taking good pictures the first few days. I didn't really hit my camera mojo until much later on in the trip. For this I apologize.

Everything just looked wonderful. And most importantly? Air conditioning, how I love thee.

We didn't have to do another thing until 8pm that night and our Jiko adr. I will spare you the details of the great unpacking and napping of May 2007 and just say that time passed, clothing got put away and someone snored that wasn't me.

Fast forward --> Jiko. We hopped a cab at the Poly for our trip to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We left early enough so that we could look around the lodge. We came >< close to staying at the AKL. We were extremely conflicted. Our love for animals and the idea of walking out on our balcony and seeing them jaunting around eventually lost out on our innate laziness and desire to be on the monorail. We did, however, love what we saw of the lodge while walking around. I can see why people love it so.

We ended up being a little early for our Jiko adr but they were able to seat us. Another yummy meal. So far WDW dining is 2 - 0. This is a good sign. I love Disneyland. I've gone there many many times in my life having lived in LA. However, one thing I have never really liked about DL is the food. It's edible for the most part, but with the exception of the one time we ate at Napa Rose, I wouldn't say it was 'ooooooo' worthy. So far everything we had in our one day at WDW was just that 'oooooooooooo' so good.

After dinner, we caught another cab and went back to the Poly. These were the last cabs we took all week. Originally, I thought we'd take cabs to AKL and Downtown Disney so that we wouldn't end up sitting around waiting on buses. The money we spent on cabs our first night changed my mind. It was going to be bus from there on out.

Next posting: Zippity Dooo Dah! Zippity Yay! My oh my it's a Magic Kingdom day!