Yecats solo trip rpt - 11/19/03 Day 5 (part 3) what's up with mousekeeping?

[yecats]

Day 5 (Part 3) - Tuesday, November 18, 2003

CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Yecats - Me, myself and I.
Me is Single, 33 (however, other two personalities - myself is about 10 years old and an advid SM freak and the I personality may be about 60 years especially after getting off of the ToT).

Also on board is my new Canon ZR65 Digital Videocamera nicknamed: Handycam, as it was always in my hand.


PLAN FOR THE DAY:
1. Should I return to Epcot? (Part 1)
2. Lunch at the Garden Grill (Part 1)
3. Monorail to Magic Kingdom (Part 2)
4. Mickey's 75th Birthday (Part 2)
5. Cinderella's Royal Table (Part 2)
6. Watching Wishes from Monorail
7. Time to wash laundry
8. Kids flying at Ole Man Island
9. First Mousekeeping note of the week

TIPl
Why not watch Wishes from a different vantage point outside of the Kingdom while visiting one of the Monorail Disney resort.

I had decided before hand that I was going to take the Monorail over to The Contemporary to watch Wishes from the observation area on the 4th Floor. Caught the Monorail to the Contemporary and went out to the Observation Deck as I only had a few minutes to wait for Wishes to begin. Boy oh boy there was already a crowd of about 30 people waiting there. I walked around to see what would work for filming without having heads and bodies in the way. Anyway I was looking up at people who were standing in those open stairwells on the 9th and 10th floor. Bright Idea - climb the stairs to the 6th floor and stand in the open stairwell to film. So I did exactly that. Essentially I was standing directly over the entrance that the Monorails use. I was there by myself with absolutely nothing but the MK in front of me.

At about 7:03, the music began out on the observation deck and then the fireworks began. The new show is very nice and certainly longer. Did I just see a firework that exploded into a Mickey hat with ears? I don't know if anyone else noticed this but I noticed this watching Wishes and even my mom noticed some (without me mentioning anything to her) when she watched my tape at home. Some of the fireworks looked they formed the letter M and one or two looked like they formed a Mickey hat with the ears. My mom even thought one looked mildly like a character. Odd I know but we both thought we saw things. Maybe were just crazy Disney fans but you never really know with Disney.

Anyway, I decided to take the Monorail to the TTC and then onto Epcot. Once back at Epcot, walked to bus to take me back to PORS and truly missed most of that crowd.

Finally, time to do some laundry. I am almost out of clothing. I had packed 5 sets of shorts and pants with several different tops and two sweater/coats. As I was changing clothes some nights (some nights were cold), I only had 2 pairs of pants and tops left and one more day of underwear. So tonight I have to do laundry. Went to room, put on bathing suit and grabbed my bag of laundry, and a ton of change that I had accumulated over the past 5 days. I had brought laundry tablets from home so grabbed those and off I went to the quiet pool between Magnolia Terrace and Acadian House.

I placed my laundry in the machine with $2.00 of change and started the laundry. When I walked out of the building a family with 2 young girls had come to do the same thing. Mom loaded the laundry while dad went swimming with the girls. I decided to go in the quiet pool. Now it was about 62 degrees and was going to go down to about 52 degrees tonight. Began to step down in the pool and boy was it cool. I thought the quiet pools were supposed to be heated – guess there not. I didn’t understand how those 2 girls weren’t cold in that pool. Anyway, after 10 minutes of the cold pool I decided to go back to my room for the next 20 minutes and fix my bag for everything I needed for tomorrow.

TIP:
During cold weather, swim at the main heated pool.

When I was there I noticed that Mousekeeping hadn't emptied my trash. Now since I moved in Saturday, I have been leaving $3.00 each day in those cute mousekeeping envelopes. Up until this point, I would return to my room to find the bed made, towels left, soap and shampoo in place, new bag for ice and a stuffed animal I purchased in different positions upon my return. Well this is the night that it truly stopped. Now I had an empty water bottle, empty pretzel bag and a candy bar wrapper. No big deal, I can empty my own trash and was sure that it was a mere overlook. (Stay tuned it got ugly by week's end).

Anyway, bag ready to go for tomorrow so I headed back to the laundry to place my clothes in the dryer. $2.00 later and I decided to walk over to Ole Man Island to swim in the heated pool. As I was swimming around, Illuminations started at Epcot and I could watch the fireworks from the pool. After a few minutes went and sat in the hot tub and boiled, but it felt so good on aching legs and feet. After several more minutes, headed back to check on my clothing.

Now there is a sign in the laundry that says machine drys for 30 minutes. Well it had been 50 minutes since I put my clothes in the dryer and it was still running and still hot. Anyway my clothes were done, folded and time to go back to the room. Put clothes up, took shower and time to dream about tomorrow.

RECAP:
Watching Wishes from Contemporary -
Doing laundry on vacation -
Swimming in cold pool -
Swimming in heated pool and watching fireworks -
Having to empty own trash -

Stay tuned for Day 6 - had to have rain eventually as that is how you know your in Florida.

 

[yecats]

The part about the kids flying at Ole Man Island. Anyway around 8:00 at night is when the water going down the pools slide is turned off and that is when the lifeguards go home. Well the kids can't slide down the pool when the water is off so they got pretty creative. One kid grabbed a food tray (you know the brown ones from the food court), climbed up the slide as the main steps up were blocked off and then sat on food tray and FLEW down the slide. Once you see one do it, they all have to do it. Zoom, zoom, zoom and away they went. Some parents didn't think twice about their kids doing this, other parents went nuts when they realized there kids were doing this. Of well, where there is a will there is a way.

Good night.

 

[Dolphin_Girl008]

Thanks for posting your trip report, yecats!

 

[Minniespal]

Wonderful trip report ~ Thanx for sharing.

 

[DouglasF]

My parents would have been one of the ones freaking out about the food trays being used as a slide. I can hear my mother now, "Your rear was not meant for that food tray!"

That's great that you managed to get "Wishes" on videotape. Did you have many heads in your way?

 

[yecats]

Hi Douglas,

If I would've used a food tray to slide down the slide, my mother would've said don't come running to me when your hurt. I guess I would've had to admit what I've done to a CM or someone else's parent.

I have absolutely no ones head in front of me when I taped Wishes. Best view is from 6th floor (where I was standing alone) or any floor above that at the Contemporary while everyone else was standing on the observation deck on 4. Before I walked out of the MK to film Wishes, the families who had been lined up on Main Street for the parade continued to reserve many of their places for the fireworks. Others (multitudes) were in the shops which were hard to maneuver around. The Main Street Square area was completly full of families waiting around for Wishes to begin as well. I really loved the fact that I got out of MK to watch it. I've been in those crowds who leave all at the same time and then sit at the bus stop with lousy attitudes because they have been in a park all day with kids. I never miss seeing that.