Saturday, March 25, 2006
02:30 ~
While I don't normally like to read things on the screen, I'm considering subscribing to Baen's Universe.
Tell me what you think.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
19:34 ~
Disney Trip Friday Addendum #2
I forgot that after we did the stunt show, we went to the Sci-Fi Cafe or whatever it's called. We had reservations and showed up like 20-30 minutes late for them. It's laid out like a drive-in. We ate in two different cars. I was sitting next to Todd and Tricia and Asher were in the back seat. The rest were in another car. They play old clips, like some drive-in refreshment commercials that I saw at an actual drive-in, and movie trailers and things. They seemed to be on about a 20 minute loop, so we saw the same thing two or three times.
I had tortilla chips in spinach and artichoke dip. They were good and I couldn't stop eating them. Which was good, because the entree wasn't that hot. It was a giant portobello mushroom and potatos and other veggies. It wasn't flavored anything I like, so I couldn't even eat all the potatoes in it. Dessert was a chocolate thing. Very good.
The restaurant was very empty by the time we finished, because of the Fantasmic show at 7. Mom thought we'd leave the restaurant in time to make it. And we would have, if we'd arrived on time for our reservations. She thought we could leave 5 minutes before and make it. Well, you can't. The rest of us had better sense and so we didn't rush out of there.
And that's when we did Muppets.
So if you're looking to use up a table service meal and don't have reservations, know you can eat in MGM around the time of Fantasmic, because that's where everyone else is. Good time to ride other rides too. Just be sure to see Fantasmic yourself at some point.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
20:49 ~
Disney Trip Friday Addendum
I forgot we also did the Muppet 3D. That was pretty funny. That was the best 3D show. I would like to do it again to study all the props in the waiting room and see the full video before the movie. The gift shop was closed when we got out though. :(
18:58 ~
Disney Trip Friday
Leaving after everyone else worked well the day before, so I did it again. I also had thoughts of doing Epcot's Magic Hours later. Plus I didn't like the idea of eating at the restaurant that you get told to eat all your vegetables. So I went to MGM later on and discovered that it's loud. ESPN was there blaring right in the middle of the park, which didn't help, but just all the crowd noise was too much for me to hear people on Dad's cell phone. Even ducking into a bathroom didn't help much.
Met up with them at a different bathroom altogether. First thing we did was make some souvenir pennies. We discovered that's the cheapest souvenir you're going to get. 51 cents a penny. Todd says it's illegal to do it and it's probably not your penny, but pressed copper. Never did work out which was the case.
Then we went to do Narnia. You step through a giant wardrobe into a room full of snow. If only it were real snow or it was at least cold if not wet. It was a hot day. The White Witch came out and said something, I don't even remember what. Then we watched what amounted to a trailer or something. Then winter started to thaw, or something. Then we saw some props.
Then it was nearly time for the parade. Yet another parade. This one was a motorcade, so we had to do it.
Either going to the parade or coming back, I think, we saw the outside of the Great Movie Ride which has handprints in the cement. Briefly looked for Julie Andrews with no luck.
Then we went on the backlot tour thing. Much the same things as they used to have. Until we got to the end and there was this red thing I recognized, but couldn't place. She finally got around to telling us it was from Hitchhiker's when we'd already gone so far past I couldn't get a good shot. Hmf!
There were more props at the end of this.
Then we went to the car stunt show, imported from Disneyland Paris. So the set was all French and stuff. Vroom, vroom.
Then the park was closing, so we prepared to leave. I was thinking about going to Epcot for its Magic Hours, but we kind of wanted to know what would be open and what wouldn't. This took way too long to find out and wasn't very helpful even when we did. The guy had printed something off the computer that wasn't too descriptive.
Dad and I went. I wasn't up to too much walking and we were supposed to be doing World Showcase the next day, so I had my thoughts focussed on what I hadn't done yet in Future World. Innoventions was closed, so I couldn't Email or make a robot. We were thinking about Mission: Space. Neither of us had done it. Dad chickened out when they did and I was still in the hotel room when they did it. I thought we should warm up with something. He hadn't done Test Track either and neither had I, but the wait time was pretty long. Considering it was Magic Hours and all! World of Energy was a good idea, but it was closed. The Life Pavilion or whatever it is was completely closed, not just for the Magic Hours. So we were stuck with Mission: Space.
We waffled, we talked to the guy out front. We finally went for it.
I didn't like the G's and I think if it had gone on much longer, I might've passed out. I missed my first cue. I was the Commander. So, good thing for those backup computers. I got my second cue though. Afterward, mostly I felt like I couldn't walk straight. I wasn't up to a) looking at computer screens, b) riding any more rides, c) eating anything at that point. So that just left a gift shop. So we did one of those. Dad bought a couple pins, I think. Then we called it a night.
We got back to learn T and T had gone over to Epcot after dropping the kids off.
Then sleep.
02:15 ~
Disney Trip Photos
I've grabbed the photos off the camera, downloaded Picasa because I'd heard good things about it, installed a photo album, and spent way too much time getting them in there and captioned. I'm a day behind where I've written in my blog, but there's a lot of pictures!
It's at http://www.flaminggeeks.com/jellyn/photos/. Contact me for the login info.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
17:02 ~
Disney Trip Thursday
I've about had it with early mornings at this point, so I stay behind while everyone else leaves. I make plans to meet them for our reservations, somewhere around 1, I think it was. So I slept some more, I think, took a shower, watched some Japanese tv. The Japanese channel was lame most of the time. Like the most boring PBS ever. But one day I managed to catch an anime about the Three Musketeers. Where's the game shows, dangit?!
So eventually I headed off to Epcot. My target was the Living Seas and the restaurant there, so I swung through Innovations uh... East, I think. I failed to find the internet computers at that time. I was very close, but missed them. In retrospect, I should've spent more time poking around there. Sent a postcard or something.
We had lunch at the seafood place. Party of 8, 6 of whom are vegetarians. Clearly we did not go there for the food. We got a good seat where everyone could see the tank. Mom wanted to talk to the chef about special options, because little A can't eat wheat and milk. But he wasn't on the dining plan anyway, so we weren't about to pay for his meal. The chef didn't come up with anything for the vegetarians except what was on the menu anyway. So I was not feeling daring at this point. Not when the vegetarian option mentioned 'goat cheese'. I went for mushroom soup, adult portion of pasta with cheese (not goat cheese! Tasted like Velveeta). The bread we got was pretty good too, I dipped it in the mushroom soup to cut the taste some. And I also put some of the soup on the pasta. Both Ts got the vegetarian option and were not thrilled. Especially at the goat cheese. So I definitely went the smart way there. For dessert I got the chocolate whatever, which had some liquor in it. Maybe it had a positive effect, or no effect.
We did the Living Seas after that and I was surprised! I had these vague memories and none of them came to fruition. There's a tank which a diver appeared in, only no one did. And there was a ride in there, wasn't there? Totally ripped out. No tunnel with a view overhead of sharks and fishies. :( But Crush's show was totally awesome, dude. H got to ask a question and I think she asked if it was squishy inside his shell. I would go do that show again. I would also totally want that job.
We saw part of a feeding demonstration and all of a dolphin learning demonstration. We also saw them feed manatees, but that was more boring. They weren't there to look at long. There were lots of Finding Nemo themed things. And lots of Finding Nemo fish. Nemo and Dorie and who knows who else. Dad took a picture of jellyfish and is using it as his wallpaper now.
I bought my first shirt. The XL seemed really large, so I think I ended up with the L, which was also slightly cheaper.
I think The Land was next. Nobody wanted to do the boring hydroponics ride but me, so we didn't. Nobody wanted to do the Lion King movie thing, so we didn't. We did do Soarin'. If you have a kid who can't ride, you get Fastpasses for the people who wait it out with the kid. That would've been the scariest ride I did, except for something I did later. Definitely do not do it if you're afraid of heights. Mom and Dad sat out with the kid while the rest of us went. As we were strapping in, our car was swinging back and forth. We got yelled at. Then someone kept doing it and we got yelled at again. That was fun.
The Fastpass was good for 3 people! Mom and Dad did it, but I don't think anyone did it with them. Then apparently we were given a mission to get Fastpasses for Honey, I Shrunk the Audience while they were sitll Soarin'.
We went over there, and you didn't need a Fastpass. The next show wasn't for awhile, so we thought we'd do Imagination. So we did. Then was the best gift shop Evah. But we didn't have much time to poke and Dad had the Disney card which he was earning points on by using. So we went back out and it was like 2 minutes to the next Honey show. Mom and Dad could be spotted, but.. we just missed it. So they did Imagination with B who'd already done it. The Kodak picture dude got B and Dad in a photo and they got to keep it. Dad totally threw him with the 'twinkle in his eye' from his cataract surgery. The guy wanted to know if anti-redeye would help or not, but nobody knew.
The size Figment I wanted was only available in ballerina, spaceman, and.. something else I didn't like. I would've got spaceman, but it was so.. shiny and smooth and totally ruined the plushie aspect. So I got the next larger size. And a shirt.
Then we were just in time for the next Honey, but H was chickening out and Mom stayed with her. When it was Mom who wanted to do the thing in the first place. This is the part where Kodak sucked.
We stood (you can't sit on the floor!) on this slanted floor for a 'movie'. It was a 10 or 15 minute Kodak commercial. Not so bad if we'd been able to sit. :P You can sit on the stage at the front, but we were afraid that meant you were volunteering for something later. It doesn't. It's safe. So if you want to sit for this commercial, take them up on it.
It was another 3D movie and I'm not a fan of this series of movies. Skippable, in my opinion, especially to avoid the commercial. Boo, Kodak, shame on you!
I think we might've done the Spaceship after this. Very long ride, but very short (no) line. The ride stopped at one point, and I soon realized it was the point at the highest part of the golf ball. Skeeeeeeeery! :)
I think we headed for a good spot to view IllumiNations at this point. We secured a fairly good spot. You'd think they'd arrange more seating though, seriously! The boys were sent off to secure food. Dad failed to and got in trouble. He didn't realize that any food was better than none and he should've made some decision. For some reason they ended up all the way in England to get it. While we were technically in the World Showcase at this point, we were down near the gift shop and slightly more towards Mexico.
It was cool, etc, etc, then we left. I forget if I ate anything in the food court that night. It was so late that I expect not. So let me try..
Tally for Day 4:
Table Service - 3
Snacks - 1
Counter Service - 3
But those numbers may be off and the snack may be one I never ate. I'll try another tally at the end.
16:48 ~
More Credit Card Foo
So I had a Capital One card from 7 years ago that I never activated. I called and got a chick with an accent, which wasn't so much of a problem as it was hard to hear her. The on hold music was much louder! And then I got a dude who was much easier to hear. Anyway, she said my card had been activated. But at least the account was Restricted. Because I hadn't used it for so many months or whatever, then it couldn't be used. So that's good. They're issuing me a new card and unrestricting the account. The APR is better than my MBNA cards, but the main reason for liking them is there's no foreign transaction fee! I said that's probably good for their business and he said business had doubled recently, so it may be I'm right! He said good business was good for everyone's APR too.
So, go with Capital One!
It's not a rewards card, but the only rewards card I have is crap anyway. Once it converted from B&N to CrapPoints.
I'll have to figure out how to log in online and stuff once I get my new card.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
02:17 ~
We interrupt your irregularly scheduled Disney report to tell you why credit cards suck.
1) All the reasons people already know why they suck.
2) Foreign transaction fees.
3) I realized the day after my payment was due that I hadn't paid it. I thought I'd done so before I left for the trip. They slapped me with a 39$ late fee. For not giving them 15 freaking dollars the day before. So I delved a little and it appears that the late fee is assessed as follows:
Based on the balance amount of the account on the business day after the due date, it's 15$ for 100$ or less balance, 29$ up to 250$ I believe it is and then 39$ after that. My balance was obviously over the threshhold for 39$, but not by much. My balance that was due was on the low end of the middle range. Apart from the insanity of the amount of the late fee charges, think for a moment about how they're assessed. Not only are they charging you based on the balance you didn't pay on, but they give you an extra three weeks or so to rack up a greater balance and charge you based on that. So theoretically your balance could be 1$ and if you didn't pay it on time, they'll slap you with 39$ for not paying that one buck if you've since charged 249.01$ to your card.
I'm so sorry I didn't pay you your dollar on time, Mr. MBNA-BoA, here's 39$ to make up for it!
01:22 ~
Disney Trip Wednesday Addendum
Oh yea, there was another walking tour of animals thing. There were tigers and bats and birds. The bats weren't behind glass or anything, so we had to ask how come they don't come in through the very large holes. Apparently they physically can't. I didn't quite understand the explanation. It wasn't just wingspan, but had to do with the way they walk.
00:56 ~
Disney Trip Wednesday
So we had a breakfast reservation at 8:40 at Breakfastosaurus in Animal Kingdom. The park opened at 9. We called to ask when we should leave to make sure to get there on time. We got told that they like you to be early, then they'll seat you early. So we should catch the first bus at 7am. So that was our goal. So we got to wait for the bus like fifteen minutes. It probably left the bus depot (wherever that is) at 7am. Or maybe it hit the first All Stars resort then. We get to the park before 8am and even with all the walking from the bus to the main entrance, we're waiting. Fortunately they let us all in when they started letting people in and not just people with 8am reservations.
We do get in early. In fact, we're told we're the first table the characters will visit when they come out. I went up to the buffet and we saw all four characters right after that all in a row. My food got cold. This is where I lost my pen when I donated it to the autograph cause. This was way too early to be eating a buffet breakfast, but score, they had Krispy Kreme glazed donuts. I stole some, which subsequently got squished under water bottles, but still tasted the same. (I had some baggies with me.) Other easily portable foods are bananas and individual cereal bowls.
We finished before the park opened and got to stand around waiting for it to open. If you're familiar with the park layout, we were like down and to the right. We wanted to go to the Safari, which is up and to the left. Being in the park early did us very little good. By the time we were let through, we had the whole park to walk and everyone at the front gate had a head start (not just because they were closer, but I think they let them through first before it was relayed by radio that the park was open). We still made fairly good time and didn't have to wait long at the safari.
I started to not feel well at this point. We ate fairly late the day before, my sleep schedule had been abruptly switched, and then we'd eaten at 8 in the frelling morning! So we did the Safari. La la la. Saw animals.
Then little A had peed on T's lap, so there was a wait while she went to fix that up. The bathrooms turned out to be further away than they appeared. Other T decided to go get a stroller. You have to get those at the front of the park, which was as far away as we could be. After well over half an hour of everyone waiting around, they all went into a walking tour of animal thingee while I sat in the shade. I came very close to sleeping.
I'm not sure what we did directly after that, but we went to the Lion King show. While waiting in line, B pushed H and H's camera hit a rock and broke open. Fun. The show was pretty cool. Again, shade, sitting down. :)
Was Bug's Life in this park? Oh yes, I think so. It's a 3D show. And apparently scary for kids. Little A chickened out first, followed by H. Which took out T and Mom with them when they left. They each got little bug toys for chickening out though!
Not sure what else we did before this next part. We got fastpasses for the water ride. Then there was talk of food. It was practically impossible to find anyplace to sit at this point, in the shade or not. We finally ended up in a court of tables by some table sniping. We never did acquire enough chairs. There was a wooden roof structure thing over some of the chairs and it had rafters. Rafters with birds. While we were waiting for the food gatherers, one pooped on Mom's arm. Everyone figured that would be the one thing everyone remembered. But I failed to get a picture of it.
I didn't eat anything, but I had a juice box. After that, I started feeling weird. But we went on the water ride and got wet. Very wet. Some went right in my ear. And when they tell you there's waterproof compartments on the raft for your things, don't believe them! They weren't quite big enough for backpacks of any bulk and the flaps didn't latch and one flipped open while we were riding. As for the ride itself, Great Escape's is better.
We walked and walked some more. Animal Kingdom seemed to be all walking. There were some apes we failed to notice earlier and we stopped to take some pictures. Then we continued. This is where we lost B. A couple of us had seen her turn to join us when we kept walking, but apparently she did not go through with the action. She continued to chat up the 'cast member' who was talking about the apes.
This is when we saw our first wristband distribution station for Magic Hours, but we didn't get any. We figured we would have enough of the park by closing time. And I think most of us were thinking the magic hours were only one hour. Which hardly seemed worth anything. Turns out it was three. Whatever.
B, T, and T rode the new mountain roller coaster ride with the yeti. It wasn't officially open, but in testing. The rest of us just sort of continued on. We finally found the interesting part of the park, but none of us were too interested at that point. Kitty rides and games and a couple things. Then there was a dinosaur ride. I still wasn't feeling well, so I skipped that. Dad's the only one who did it. I was kind of assuming we'd be back to this park for a few hours and I could do what I skipped, but we never did.
Then we're headed to find a spot for the parade. Apparently some of us had not learned our lesson about parades. On a bridge with a good view of the mountain roller coaster ride, we saw a train car had gotten stuck on the huge incline. Very glad I didn't ride it at that point! We called T-tachi on the cell phone, but they'd just got off it a bit before, so escaped the stoppage.
So some more standing around waiting for a parade, though thankfully not quite as much waiting and not quite as hot.
Then we fought the crowd, rejoined the others, and headed out of the park.
I think this was the evening I had a plate full of sides: mac and cheese and potatoes. The kids got to go swimming I think.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
14:08 ~
Disney Trip Tuesday
We got going pretty early, but ended up behind the schedule Mom had devised. So instead of eating in the hotel food court, we just grabbed our 'snack' for the day. Well, some of us did. I got an apple I never did eat. I know Mom got a bagel or something, which cost her actual money. The dining plan is working real well so far!
We went to Magic Kingdom. Of note, that day was Mardi Gras. Downtown Disney was having a Parti Gras and I was sort of interested in going. Never did get there. But a chick from Louisiana gave Mom and I beads anyway, which was the main point of going to Parti Gras, right? :) (I didn't have to flash for them. Good thing, cuz they would've kicked me out of the park and probably off the resort.)
So we got on the bus. All the bus rides blurred together, so I don't have much to say about it. There's a cool McDonalds we kept passing. It was nothing compared to all the cool buildings in the touristy part of Orlando, but we never saw that. We also didn't do SeaWorld, any of Universal (I just had a weird dream about Universal..), or the Space Center. Though the pilot claimed we could see it from the plane as we came in.
Anyway.. Magic Kingdom. Bag check. Card through slot, fingers in slot. I really don't know about that finger thing. Sometimes the light never seemed to stop flashing or didn't process or go through or whatever until a 'cast member' clicked a thing to let me through.
We immediately got on the train (after some pictures) and headed to.. Frontierland, I think it was. The first thing we rode was Thunder Mountain and even Mom rode it! Little A couldn't. We passed Splash Mountain because we thought it was too early and too cold. There were some weird white birds near there and near the McDonalds fry stand. There was also this high-pitched noise. T thought it was the birds. It may've been. Tested your hearing. It may've been the water wheel on Splash Mountain, but.. dunno.
Then we did Pirates of the Carribbean. And spent a lot of time in the gift shop and the bathrooms just outside there. H got one of those hair wraps. T said it was only 1.50$! So she was going to pay for it out of her money. But that was the per inch price. Also turns out if people had read all the documentation with all our special cards and AAA stuff and whatnot, she could've gotten a free charm on it.
I scoured that gift shop for something cool, but the shirts seemed either expensive or only in kid version.
The order we did other things is a bit blurred. But we rode that jungle safari thingee and while waiting to dock, our boat person said that that day was the last day Pirates was going to be open. They're closing it to redo it more like the movies (bleh) and it will open around the time the next movie comes out in the summer. So then I was glad we did Magic Kingdom the first day and more inclined to get a Pirates souvenir.
We went back to Splash Mountain at some point, to find the ride was stopped and people stuck on it. So either we should've done it earlier, or it was good we didn't. I wouldn't want to be stuck on a ride our first morning out!
Some of us walked up the Swiss Family Treehouse. If someone had warned me how many stairs there were and told me my parents were going to chicken out, I would've left the backpack with them! Some good views from there though. Mom chickened out because of the wobbly bridge. So she says.
Some people did the kiddie flying carpet ride, the teacups, the carousel. We didn't do Peter Pan because the line was long.
Mickey's Philharmagic was our first foray into the 3D show things. It was pretty cool. I also think it was one I'd never done before. Which makes a nice change.
Some of us stood in line to meet Aladdin. He was everyone's first autograph and photo op. He had this incredibly cheesy grin that he did like a facial tic. Cheesy Grin Tourrette's.
We went to lunch earlier than our reservation, but got in pretty quickly. It was a character buffet. The buffet was pretty good. Some interesting food I wouldn't normally order, but I was willing to try. Quite a lot of vegetarian stuff. Though mostly I ate the kid's buffet mac and cheese offering. I also stashed away some food for later. I highly recommend buffets -- as much food as you want, variety, fairly good vegetarian options, and you can squirrel away food for later. I do not recommend character meals. Every character comes to your table, and there's usually about 4 of them. So every 5-10 minutes we were interrupted by a character. More autographs. More photos. A couple of times I escaped up to the buffet while this was going on.
This is when people did the carousel. Mom and I weren't interested in walking up that way, so we went off a bit to the left to a nice spot on the bridge with shade and benches. We thought it was the perfect spot to watch the parade. And indeed it was. It was VIP reserved seating and we got kicked out. So we ended up sitting on a hot curb to save space for people. This about did me in. I had to move back to sit on the cool pavement and shade of the water fountain kiosk thingee. We had a long wait for the parade. Parades suck.
I'm not sure where we went after this. We ended up in Ariel's Grotto. People stood in line.. a long line.. for a stupid Dumbo ride. Dude, Great Escape had that Dumbo ride forever. Though I guess they don't anymore. It wasn't much different from the flying carpet ride. Pointless. Meanwhile other people stood in line to talk to Ariel. At least I got to sit in the shade while all this line-standing was going on.
We went to Tomorrowland not long after this, I think. I skipped Space Mountain because I remembered it shook me around when I rode it and I just didn't like it. I talked people into the People Mover, which is renamed by some sponsor or something. Whatever. It was more interesting than I thought. Faster than I thought, some good views, and some fun behind-the-scenes things of the other rides in that area.
My score for Buzz Lightyear sucked. I blame the gun. It was broken. Honest. I would've rode again, but my thumb hurt! Then we did Stitch, some of us. Little A couldn't do it and Mom stayed with him. With the bars that come down over your shoulders, I started to get a bit worried. It looked like it might be one where they lift you up high and then drop you. B's restraints didn't come all the way down and this was a bit worrisome. Waving at the flashlight-wielding 'cast member' who came and fixed it. Turns out we needn't have worried so much. It was kind of interesting. Kind of gross.
We talked certain party members into Carousel of Progress. It's cool, and you can sit, and while it may be rather long and silly, I knew the last bit would be amusing. Did you know they have laser discs in the future? And really lame VR games. And voice recognition stoves that are incredibly unsafely programmed! Oh yea, and dogs that live like a hundred years.
We ate somewhere around here for our counter service meal.
(Speaking of Progress.. I just had to pause to find the right spot in the tape for Dad. Because apparently 'one hour in' is a difficult concept. I could've sworn the thing was queued up right to start with. I told him to use the freaking counter, but he claimed it never shows up for him. There's like 3 buttons dealing with the counter on the remote. So I rewound it, hit counter reset, and advanced it an hour. It even compensated for being an 8 hour tape.)
The counter service meal I had was a veggie wrap. It wasn't bad, but I picked out onions and peppers. It came with a pasta salad and I started to learn that cold things made my tooth hurt more than anything else. I think I got a carrot cake for dessert and took it back with me. It was round. Which I just realized is why when I got a carrot cake later at the food court, it had a carrot in frosting on it that I totally didn't remember from the other one. Duh.
Then we escaped the park before the fireworks started. We had an early breakfast the next day.
14:06 ~
Disney Monday Trip Addendum
I forgot to mention the flight attendant on the second flight looked like a guy from Airline. Since we were on Southwest, it was entirely possible. I had Dad ask because he was closer to the aisle. He asked the guy if he was in Airline the movie. Which made me think of Airport, but.. not. But the guy denied it all anyway. I was going to take a picture, but he never showed up when I had my camera out.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
22:31 ~
Disney Trip Monday 27th
I didn't take notes. So we'll see how much I can remember and how motivated I am to keep going on this.
We got up way too early. Then we waited around for T's dad to show. He was told to leave his house at the time we were planning to leave. He gave half of us a ride, but charged for gas. Speaking of gas, other T didn't think to get some until we'd passed some stations and I made a random comment about price. So we ended up doing a U turn and circling around, passing two stations to go way back to get some. Off to a great start.
Once at the airport, we waited on the observation deck a long while. There wasn't much to observe.
I thought the ringing in my ears might be affected by the plane or something, but it was all good. Of course we got to board first and sit whereever. This latter a concept that boggles the mind of my family. Little A (there's no big A, but whatever) puked on the descent. All over. I didn't look. Fortunately I was a couple rows behind him.
Our next flight was a couple hours after, but because my parents can't follow signs and directions to gates, they actually asked at the first gate they came to where the gate was. And they happened to score. We could get on the earlier flight for nothing. So we only waited maybe 10 minutes.
So we actually got to Florida while it was still daylight. Once there, we were met by scary Disney people, one of whom had a giant hand. There had to be a dozen of them just to point you where you needed to go. As if you couldn't follow directions and signs.
Bus ride had a commercial, I mean, video. It started out by talking about how we were on our way back from Disney to the airport. Trippy.
We stayed at All Star Movies, which, it turns out, is the last stop on every bus we were to take from that point on. The checkin desk had a huge mural behind it which was supposed to have hidden Mickeys in it. If it does, we didn't see any, but it did at least keep us occupied.
We were put into Love Bug, which is as far as you can get from the front desk, gift shop, food court, and pool as you can get. Walk, walk, walk, walk. At least it was fairly quiet back there though. But it would've been way cooler to stay in Fantasia with the giant hat.
People'd been talking about going to a park that night, but all we did was eat in the food court. So here's where I discuss the Disney Dining Plan.
For 35$ a day for adults, you get 1 snack, 1 counter service, and 1 table service. Apparently you have to buy them for every day you have a park ticket. For some reason, we had 7 day park tickets. We only used 6. So we had a lot of meals to eat. The snack was a piece of fruit, a bag of chips, a novelty ice cream, a bottle of water, or something like that. While I could get a Powerade, I couldn't get a juice. Unless I wanted a dinky orange juice. That sort of sucked.
The counter service is anything cafeteria-style. One entree and a side if it comes with a side, one dessert, and one drink. The hotel only has snacks and counter service. That first night, I got stuffed shells with a salad and chocolate cake.
I didn't sleep too well. I wasn't switched around yet and was in a room with snorers. No kids though. The room seemed a bit small. Partly because our floor space was taken up by a fridge and by the door to the adjoining room. Oh yea, our luggage arrived at something like 10 or 11, because it was on the later flight. Dad was intending to stay awake for it to show up, because he didn't want to answer the door in pajamas or something. I have no idea. But he fell asleep anyway.
Watched some of Deal or No Deal, Apprentice, and Medium, but not with any great attention and I fell asleep a couple times in there.
Um.. I think that's it. Oh, first flight had peanuts, the second flight had peanuts and a psuedo-chex mix. That was good.