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Mark Goldhaber -- February 2003 -- Walt Disney World (OKWR)Here we go again. Hot on the heels of my November 2002 trip report, it’s another long-winded exercise in creative writing. Make yourself comfortable. This may take some time. Here we goooo..... off to Neverland! Cast Members
As you may (or, more probably, may not) remember, when we planned our November 2002 trip, we also ended up planning our February and October 2003 trips. (I have mentioned that I love being a DVC member, right?) This trip, we’ve got Hope’s parents with us for the first 3-1/2 days. They’ll be meeting us at or near the Old Key West Resort (OKWR) on the day we arrive (2/8), and departing after a late character breakfast on Tuesday (2/11). Hope’s folks spend the month of February in Florida every year to get away from the cold, so they’ll drive over from Port Richey to meet us, then they’re heading to Key West afterwards before returning to Port Richey. We’ve still got our annual passes (APs) that we activated in November, we ordered two advance 5-day Park Hopper Plus passes, and we still have two leftover Park Hoppers that each have one remaining day. We’ll use the old hoppers and the new passes for Hope’s folks this trip and my mother and stepfather in October. (The plus features will be used for Hope and I to get into the water parks, as we have standard APs, not Premium. At Disney Club advance purchase discount, the 5-day PHP passes were $503.08 including shipping. We will be staying from February 8 to February 16 at OKWR. We’ve got a 2BR lock-off unit for the first three nights, and a 1BR for the rest. We should be able to keep the 1BR half of the unit without moving when my in-laws leave. We’ve asked for a handicap-accessible first-floor room near Hospitality House, as we need it for Hope’s dad. Flights were to be booked as soon as Southwest (our new preferred carrier) opened up booking for February. I booked a minivan from Dollar ($408.09 including all fees for 9 days), though I planned to watch for more sales right up until departure. We booked our Southwest flights in September for $771 roundtrip from Albany, and in January we got a rate of $309.50 from Alamo. Now that Alamo is in the airport, we’ll give them a chance again. I signed up for QuickSilver (and Dollar’s FastLane, just in case) to speed up the time on line, after November's long wait. The Day Before What a difference a healthy boy makes! After having Joshua stay home the day before departure the last two trips (one Disney, one not) due to encroaching illness, to make sure that he wasn’t sick on the trip, he was well enough to go to day care today. While I took him to music class and then day care, Hope got started on the packing. After dropping him, I took care of the last-minute errands. By the time that I picked up Joshua, got his glasses fixed, and picked up KFC for dinner (his choice), Hope had already finished packing. Of course, we took more luggage than usual, since Hope did not use her usual packing method. Since the TSA has been opening luggage, and possibly taking everything out, Hope didn’t want to pack stuff inside of stuff inside of stuff to speed things up if the luggage was searched. Instead of staying up all night packing, sleep was had by all (to varying degrees – I still had some computer work to do). Day 1 - "I'll take you next, sir." Well, Hope was up at 4:00, I followed at around 4:30, and we did the final preparations. Hope got Joshua dressed and let him go back to sleep for a short while. We loaded the car, then woke Joshua back up and got him out. We were on the road at 5:15, with the thermometer showing 6 degrees. We got to the airport and got a pretty good parking spot. We prepared ourselves for another luggage cart fiasco. Hope sent me, since she felt that she was bad luck. When I got to the cart dispenser, it was full and there was a loose cart next to it. Bonus! The kickback for returning it was scant payback for all the money that we’ve lost in those machines, but it still felt good to actually get money for using a cart. We were really concerned about the luggage check, due to our luck with check-ins. However, the TSA folks were polite to a fault, very nice, very understanding, and very careful not to give the impression that they were doing anything with your belongings except their job. Somebody must have taken a page from the Disney playbook, whereby if you want people to listen to you against their better instincts, you should show the ultimate in politeness and respect for them. The luggage check and Southwest check-in were accomplished rapidly, and we were done by 6:00. We headed upstairs to the security gate, and went through with hardly a hitch there as well. The bag with the foil pouches of Joshua’s medicine wasn’t even hand-checked, and in fact the only piece that had any hand checking was my laptop, which was swabbed and released. Our luck has been amazing so far today. My stomach was still rumbly from the oil in/on the chicken last night (one of many reasons that I don’t like KFC), so when Hope made the McDonald’s run for breakfast, she got me a bagel with cream cheese instead of my usual greasy treat for those rare occasions that we have McDonalds for breakfast. It wasn’t outstanding, but it felt good in my stomach. Hope did Joshua’s asthma treatments and we gave him his other medicines while waiting for the boarding call. Note: there are electrical outlets built in to the phone bank in Terminal C at Albany International. (Ha! Add a flight or two to Canada and Albany County Airport becomes Albany International Airport! I will say, however, that the reconstruction that went with the new name is fabulous.) While we had received boarding passes in the A group, we still took advantage of pre-boarding to get some extra time to install his car seat. The flight passed uneventfully, with the only item of note being that they gave us Snackwells cookies instead of the traditional Southwest peanuts. While my taste buds were disappointed, it was probably a good thing in light of Joshua’s reaction to the peanuts last time. (See, now you have to go back and read my last marathon trip report. Synergy in action!) As we were taxiing in to the terminal at MCO, the pilot said that we had brought the bad weather down with us and it was only 56 degrees out. All we could think of was “It was 6 degrees in Albany. We’ll take it!” Anyway, we got in on time and headed to baggage claim. While we were on the shuttle from airside to landside, Joshua said goodbye to every airplane he could see. Everybody in the shuttle car was giggling or at least smiling each time Joshua said “Goodbye, plane!” We got to the baggage claim well before the bags started coming out, and had no problems getting a luggage cart. Luck is holding! We got all our bags, though we were just about the last bags off of the plane. We headed for the new Alamo desk at the airport, the left half of the old National space. Now that ANC has decided to have Alamo be their leisure-oriented company and National their business-oriented brand, and Alamo is the official rental car of Disney, they needed to be on-airport. Since space is limited, splitting their former National space between the two is a reasonable method to get Alamo on airport without having to worry about additional space leasing. Since we were last getting out of baggage claim, everybody else was in line before us. I looked for a special Quicksilver line, and there was none. This bothered me, so I went around to the side of the queuing area and asked the nearest clerk whether there was a separate Quicksilver line. He looked at me and said “I’ll take you next, sir.” Wow! I just skipped about a half-hour to an hour worth of line! More bonus! True to his word, he took me next. Somehow, the $10 off coupon that Alamo’s web site had accepted on the reservation wasn’t going through his terminal. It kept saying that it was not valid for the car class that I was renting. I showed him the Internet pricing on the printout that I had brought with me, and he added in a $10 discount manually. We were out quickly and heading across the road and upstairs to the Alamo/National car lot. We picked a dark blue Grand Caravan and loaded up. Once we had accomplished this, we had a very long wait to get out of the garage. One of the security guards said that it was due to the Daytona crowds. We got out of the airport and onto the Greeneway to head for Lake Buena Vista ($2), Joshua dropping off to nap shortly after we hit highway speed. As we approached the corner of 535 and 536, we got a call on Hope’s cell phone from her folks to tell us that they were waiting for us at OKWR. We told them that we were minutes away. We got to the resort at 1:00, and I went to check in and fetch Hope’s parents. We were given rooms 2715 and 2716, which were already available! We weren’t right across from Hospitality House, but the rooms were indeed handicapped accessible. Hope’s folks followed us to the room, and we unloaded the cars. (Joshua was carried in with the first load, as he was still asleep.) While Hope's folks needed the accessible room, we didn't. However, I had forgotten that, when one room is accessible, both rooms are accessible. I mentally prepared myself for a week with the zero-entry, tub-footprint shower with folding seat instead of the usual spacious glass-doored stall. We unpacked a little until Joshua got up at 2:30, around the time that they get up from nap at day care (when he sleeps there, which is less and less often). We were all hungry, so we headed off to Olivia’s. We had a nice late lunch ($59.44 after DVC discount and tip) and then headed out to Downtown Disney. First stop was the Lego play area, where Joshua ran around and made some cars to send down the track. While he was doing this, I ran over to the Disney’s Days of Christmas store to find a new engraved Guest of Honor badge, since my old 1996 VIP Guest badge is missing somewhere. Side note on the badges: they can be fun for adults to wear (though not as many Cast Members notice them as before), but they're also good for kids. Even better, we wrote my name and cell phone number on the back of Joshua’s Tigger name badge in permanent marker. Joshua knows to show the back of the badge to a Cast Member (someone else wearing a badge) in the unlikely event that he gets separated from us. As I was finally checking out (oddly long lines for the sparse crowd at Downtown Disney), Hope called and said that they were heading for the playground next to Disney Pin Traders. When I finished, I headed over and saw them as they approached the playground. Joshua saw the miniature train ride and decided that he wanted to ride it. Tokens were $1 apiece. Joshua had a huge grin on his face while riding. I think he was starting to get bored toward the end, but we got the smiles that we wanted, and now the first ride of the trip was out of the way. Hopefully, this will let him relax about the lines when we get to the parks. We next let him go to the playground while most of us took turns going to the restroom. Our next stop was Once Upon a Toy, where Joshua used 4 Special Things (see last trip report for a description of the Joshua Incentive Program) to get the Contemporary for his monorail layout. We had it shipped home. He also used two more Special Things to get the plastic ride vehicles for Test Track and Star Tours. After that, it was off to the little carousel ($2 each for Joshua and Hope, who had to ride due to children not being able to ride alone if they’re under 42 inches). Instead of just taking a stationary seat as usual, Joshua decided to sit in the spinning car. He spun the car the entire ride. I just hope that this means that he’s going to be able to ride the teacups without freaking out about spinning. After that, it was time for quick stops in Gourmet Pantry (Mickey ice cube tray, for orange juice pops) and Disney’s Wonderful World of Memories (stickers), then we walked back to the car along the walkway behind the stores, so that Joshua wouldn’t get distracted by the displays. We headed back to the room to give Joshua his evening asthma treatments. While Hope was doing the treatments, I called Dining to get a PS for dinner that night. While our first choice of Cape May Café was booked, we were able to get into Spoodles at a reasonable hour. After we were done with the treatments, we headed for the Boardwalk. We had a wonderful dinner ($121.02) and walked along the Boardwalk to the Bakery. Hope’s parents bought dessert to go for the grownups, and we headed out of the resort. On our way out, we saw an entertainer balancing all kinds of stuff on his chin in the lobby. After enjoying his performance for a little while, we walked out the front door into a saxophone quartet in baseball uniforms. Of course we couldn't deprive Music Boy of the opportunity to watch them. With alto, tenor, baritone, and bass saxes, the performance had an almost barbershop feel at times. Joshua loved it, and the rest of us enjoyed it, too. Those guys are good. We finally departed the resort and headed back to the rooms. We got Joshua settled in with Grandma and Grandpa, then headed out for Winn-Dixie. We did a lightning shop and got out of there quick for about $54 after about $4.50 savings from the Winn-Dixie card that we got last trip, and for about 50% less than the same merchandise would probably cost at Gooding’s. We went back, finished unpacking, and then we had dessert in bed. High points: Finding a free luggage cart in Albany, pleasant TSA staff, cutting the line in Orlando with Quicksilver, having our room ready at 1:00, dinner at Spoodles, seeing family Low points: Not much. It was a pretty great day all around. Day 2 - "Because I love you and I don't want you to die" Somehow, we got everybody up, fed, and out by 9:00, and we were entering the gates of the Magic Kingdom by 9:30, having passed through bag check with the video bag, the tote bag, and the Backpack of Many Zippers (see my last trip report for more on the history of the backpack). We’ve got the bag check routine down to a science with all of these bags. While on the monorail from the TTC, Joshua had a great time calling out every landmark that he saw, from the Contemporary to the buses to Cinderella Castle. We split up inside the Magic Kingdom entrance. Grandma and Grandpa went to rent Grandpa’s ECV, Hope went to get a locker to stash the tote bag, and I took Joshua into the park. In front of Tony’s we saw Aladdin, Goofy’s son Max, Cruella, Governor Ratcliffe, and Meeko. Joshua went over to Meeko, gave him a hug, and danced with him uninterrupted for a good couple of minutes. The other characters were mobbed, but Joshua had Meeko all to himself. It was some good, quality character time. When they had finished dancing and hugged again, we moved on and found the heart with the paw prints in front of Tony’s, then headed down Main Street toward Fantasyland. The Castle was blocked off due to preparations for the Cinderella’s Surprise Celebration show, so we took the path past the Rose Garden and the Enchanted Grove around the back way to Pooh. We had about a 10-minute wait (15 minutes was posted), and Joshua loved the ride without being scared at all (a big improvement from last trip). One handicapped note: those who can walk are mainstreamed into the regular queue. My father-in-law went through the queue with his “assistant” (as he calls his crutch) after parking his ECV. Next, we headed over to it’s a small world (handicapped entrance through the exit), and Grandpa parked his ECV at the landing and walked onto the handicap-accessible boat. The boat has a zero-entry walk- or wheel-on, and he was able to walk on with his crutch and sit down (with assistance), so we were all able to be at the same level as we enjoyed the ride, even if there was a big aisle between a lot of single seats. Hope noticed that a number of dolls were missing, but I was impressed with how much clearer the sound seemed. Maybe my ears were clogged the last trip or something, but the audio on a number of rides sounded much better today. The wait for the zero-entry boat was about 5-10 minutes. After we got off the ride, I discovered that stuffing my Palm and its case into my pocket on the ride was a Bad Idea, as something had gotten pressed and the Palm had gone into a continual reboot mode. The only way to clear it was to reset it, which lost all data back to my last backup on Thursday night. You think I would have learned from the last trip to at least back up every night while at WDW. At least I hadn’t written much of the trip report yet. While I did a restore of the Palm from the backup card, Hope took Joshua with her to the Princesses’ room across the way to change his pants. When we were all done, we went over to Peter Pan’s Flight, where handicapped entry was through the Fastpass queue. The posted wait was 10 minutes (wow!), so they weren’t giving the handicapped return passes. Unfortunately, the attendant didn’t slow the ride down. I don't think that they can stop it without resetting the whole ride. (Without it going "101" for all of you Disney terminology geeks) She didn’t give clear instructions to my mother-in-law, and if I hadn’t yelled at her to move up and get in, she wouldn’t have been able to ride with my father-in-law. As it was, we all barely made it onto the boats before reaching the end of the belt. Getting off wasn’t much better, as the ride was not slowed again. However, Grandpa did indeed survive, and he did enjoy the ride tremendously. Next, it was time for a break. Joshua was not going to make it to our 12:35 Priority Seating at the Crystal Palace without some assistance. We stopped at Pinocchio’s Village Haus for some fries (for Joshua), coffee (for Grandma and Grandpa), and hot chocolate (for the three not drinking coffee). We relaxed a bit, Grandpa and I made a restroom run, and then we headed for a quick ride on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority by way of the wishing well near the castle. Grandpa again had a little difficulty with the moving platform, but this was a bit easier as the Cast Members there told him what to expect, and the platform was moving slower. We all made it into the car with plenty of time to spare, and had a nice ride around Tomorrowland. Next, we headed off to lunch. The Crystal Palace looks wonderful. The new rehab has the place looking clean, bright, and warm, with pink and blue pastel colors (coral and turquoise?) on the walls and ceiling, respectively, with yellow trim. The food was interesting and wonderful, and the characters were great. In particular, we had a great time with Pooh. When he stopped by, Joshua had just finished drawing a picture of the Great Unknown from the "Pooh’s Grand Adventure." video. He proudly showed it to Pooh and described everything in it. Pooh gestured to the picture and then to himself. We at first thought that he was asking where he was in the picture, so Joshua drew Pooh in there. Then we realized that Pooh was asking if the drawing was for him. Joshua wrote his name on the drawing, gave it to Pooh, and they had a nice hug. Pooh carried the drawing around the dining room with him, and we later saw him giving it to the Zoo Crew handler to put aside for him (we assume). Eeyore was by a couple of times, as was Piglet. Tigger made a quick stop (while I was in the restroom), and that was all we saw of Tigger. But we loved the food, loved the character interaction, and it was definitely worth the money ($99.28 with big tip for Scott for some extra help) for us. After lunch, we listened to the pianist outside Casey’s for a few minutes. Next, Joshua wanted to see the arcade in Tomorrowland, and Hope and I wanted to ride Space Mountain. Grandma took Joshua around the arcade while Grandpa held up the wall with his ECV. Hope and I pretty much walked right onto the ride, and met up with them in the arcade. Joshua was enjoying the race car game and the Disney version of Dance Dance Revolution with the games in demo mode. At that age, they can’t really tell that it’s supposed to be doing anything else, so they think they’re playing. Nice for the budget. Joshua got a kick out of posing for a picture in the Space Mountain ride vehicle at the entrance to the arcade. Next, Joshua wanted to drive on the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway. I went on with him for a nice, jarring ride as we kept slamming into the guide rail between the wheels. I tried to help Joshua steer so that we wouldn’t bump so much, but he was having none of it. We had a great time going around the track and Joshua was very proud of himself when we finished. I haven’t mentioned yet that it was going between a drizzle and a downpour ever since we got off the TTA before lunch, have I? Even though we got wet on the Speedway, it was still lots of fun. Next, we walked over to Toontown, and Grandma and Grandpa walked through and played with Joshua while Hope and I headed for the rest of the mountain range. We got to Splash Mountain and I had to take a picture of the sign. Splash with a 5-minute wait???? Unheard of! Actually, it turned out to be a complete walk-on! Next, we went over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and it was a walk-on, too! After calling Grandma’s cell phone to make sure that they were all right and give them meeting instructions, we rode the Haunted Mansion for good measure (another walk-on, without even stopping in the foyer with the Portrait of Dorian Gray). We walked back and met the others at Starlight Ray’s, where they were sitting in the front row as Joshua was enjoying Sonny Eclipse’s performance. According to Grandma, they walked through Minnie and Mickey’s houses, Donald’s boat, and played briefly in Toon Park (until Grandma decided that Joshua’s clothing was getting too wet from the puddles) before heading into County Bounty. Joshua entertained many by sitting on the floor with his Magic Kingdom map spread out, pointing out where everything was. Grandma bought him a toy bus (talking with us on the cell phone while conducting the transaction). Since she was distracted, she handed him the bag while completing the transaction. When she turned around, the bag was over his head. The cashier offered to take the bag back and just leave her with the bus and the receipt. Grandma gratefully accepted. When Joshua whined and asked why she was taking the bag away, the cashier said “Because I love you and I don’t want you to die.” He was quiet and absorbed the message. Score one for the cashier! He then proceeded to charm everyone again by sitting on the floor and playing with the bus. From Cosmic Ray’s, Hope and I took Joshua to the Jungle Cruise, and told her folks to meet us in front of Casey’s, then we’d head out and stop at the room before going to dinner. Joshua wanted to stop and look at the Magic Carpets of Aladdin first, but we still couldn’t persuade him to try them. We had a moderately OK cruise with Captain Orlando, so I built off his last joke and commented that Sally did an OK job guiding us on Space Mountain. When we met up with Grandma and Grandpa at Casey’s, they were just starting to eat hot dogs. Hope yelled at them for eating before dinner. Our running joke is that she’s an equal-opportunity picker. She’s always picking on someone. (Just kidding, hon!) While they were eating, I followed a family of ducks into Casey’s, and before I could chase them, one of them left a “gift” on the floor, so I let one of the Cast Members working there know. From her reaction, this is not a new problem. After Grandma and Grandpa finished, the men went on a return mission (Grandpa for the ECV, Joshua and I for the locker key) while the women went shopping (Hope looking for dry sneakers that would fit Joshua, Grandma looking for a tote bag). The ladies had no luck. Hope found some Buzz sneakers, but they only had three pairs of size 7 left (way too small), and that was it. Oh, well. We took the ferry back to the TTC, and then returned to the room. Joshua fell asleep on the ride back. Hope put Joshua’s sneakers in the dryer with a couple of towels. It was kind of noisy, but it still couldn’t wake him up. When he finally woke up (or, rather, we woke him up), we did his asthma treatments and other meds and then saddled up for the drive over to Jungle Jim’s for dinner. Jim’s is a restaurant whose menu contains about two dozen different kinds of burgers (which can also be made with chicken breasts or Gardenburgers). I had a coupon for a free appetizer with two adult entrees, so we had the fried cheese bricks. Very good sticks, with Japanese bread crumbs. We all had a little (except Grandpa, who can’t have cheese). Joshua wanted a plain chicken breast with fries so we custom-ordered that, since the only chicken on the kids’ menu was fried chicken slabs. Hope had a half-rack of baby back ribs, Grandma had a chicken fajita, and Grandpa and I had the honey and barbecue sandwich (Grandpa with beef and no cheese, me with chicken and with cheese). Grandma had some coffee, and we called it quits ($64.76 with tax & tip). Everyone agreed that the food was really good. We headed back to the room and got everybody to sleep. I fell asleep while working on the trip report. High points: Joshua and Meeko dancing, food and character interaction (especially Pooh) at Crystal Palace, Grandpa finally getting to enjoy some rides, Joshua "driving" on the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway, being able to run off and enjoy some thrill rides, minimal-to-no waits on E-ticket rides, Jungle Jim's Low points: Cast Member at Peter Pan not slowing the ride or giving my in-laws sufficient instruction, my Palm resetting (even though I didn't lose much) Day 3 - "Cockatoo? Gotta look that up!" We fell a little more behind this morning, leaving the room around 9:30 and getting to the Animal Kingdom by 10:00. Handicapped parking is a bit of a walk, but probably not much longer than the lengthy walk from handicapped parking to the TTC at the Magic Kingdom parking lot. (My father-in-law refuses to use the courtesy wheelchair from the lot to the park entrance.) Through bag check and into the park, we headed to rent Grandpa’s ECV at Garden Gate Gifts. When the man working the line saw Grandpa and his “assistant,” he sent him directly to the next cashier. It was very nice of the Cast Member to let him ahead of the able-bodied waiting for strollers. We took our time going through the Oasis, looking at all of the different animals. We headed next for the Boneyard, where we let Joshua run around and work off a bit of energy. While he was playing, I grabbed Fastpasses for Primeval Whirl, even though the posted wait was 10 minutes. After he was done in the Boneyard and we took him to look at Primeval Whirl to see what it looked like, we took him to Restaurantosaurus where I changed him and then left him with Grandma and Grandpa while Hope and I went over to Primeval Whirl. As it turned out, the lines were so short that our Fastpasses put us at the same place as if we had just walked on. So after riding the left side once, we just walked on to ride the right side. Both sides were a bit different, and we had some really wicked spins going on the right side. The only problem with this ride is that, while it was a fun wild mouse style coaster, the whole theming of the Chester and Hester area is way too out of character with the whole rest of the park. As we were about to board the right side, it started raining. We got a bit wet on the ride, and got a lot more wet as we walked back to Restaurantosaurus. (You know, it’s getting tiresome typing that, so I’m just going to call it “McD’s” from here on in.) When we got back to McD’s, Joshua and the grandparents were sitting under an umbrella out front, with the ECV and the stroller under another umbrella. Everybody ducked inside, and we found a table to sit at. While we were gone, Grandma and Grandpa had gotten Joshua a Chicken McNugget Happy Meal, so he was happy with that, and also was perfectly fine with just sitting and drawing. Hope had a migraine coming on and needed caffeine immediately, so I got her a Coke and some fries, and we sat inside and stayed dry for a while. McD's is quite spacious. Despite the huge number of people seeking refuge from the rain, there still appeared to be sufficient seats for all. While there, Joshua told us that he had to go to the bathroom, so I took him and he made it in time. We all told him that he did a good job and that he should keep it up. We’ll see. Finally, the rain started letting up a bit, so we left McD’s and headed for Asia. Joshua didn’t want to go. He said that he didn’t want to leave Dinoland because he wanted to play the carnival games, then he said that he didn’t want to see the animals, then he complained about something else, then he said that he wanted to ride in the stroller. We just thought that he was a little tired. He got in the stroller on the Discovery Island side of the bridge, and rode up to the souvenir stand near the temple of monkeys. At this point, we realized that all of the whining wasn't due to fatigue, but to him needing an asthma treatment (the humidity was probably getting to him). We gave him an inhaler/chamber treatment while chatting with the souvenir stand attendant, who had come down from Colorado a month earlier and was already finding 68-degree weather chilly. After the treatment, he perked up immediately, wanted out of the stroller, and was happy about seeing the animals. Amazing what a correct diagnosis can do. We all loved the Maharajah Jungle Trek. Everybody thought the tapir was cool. The tigers were absolutely gorgeous, and they were just sitting there as if they were posing for pictures. Hope said that their expressions were kind of like “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Joshua thought that they were really cool. He was OK with the bats despite Hope and my concerns, though we didn’t spend a whole lot of time there (but they did make for great Monty Pythonesque fruit bat jokes with me and Grandma). He wasn’t impressed by the blackbuck or Eld’s deer. The aviary was a treat for all. Grandpa is a big bird lover, so he got a major kick out of it. All in all, an enjoyable time. Joshua was now starting to itch for his daily popcorn requirement, so we told him that we’d get him some at the next popcorn stand that we saw. We walked from Asia to Africa, and came upon said popcorn stand at the intersection leading to Discovery Island and Harambe. While Hope and Joshua stopped to buy the popcorn (and, it turns out, a churro), Hope’s folks and I headed for Pizzafari. We parked the stroller and ECV and waited for the others. When they arrived, we went in and found a quiet room to sit in. (Since it was after 1:00, it was pretty easy.) Grandpa and I went for the food, and we all had some pizza and beverages ($36.71). When we were done, we headed out of the park (stopping to look at the rest of the animals at the Oasis). Hope and I discussed how, in light of their effort to engage small children in the park, the Playhouse Disney character of Stanley (who learns about animals in his Great Big Book of Everything) would be a fitting addition. Speaking of Stanley, on the Playhouse Disney music CD, they’ve got a recording of the Great Big Book of Everything song, and at the very end the Henry character says “Cockatoo? Gotta look that up!” We always get a kick out of singing along in the car and giving the line with Henry (he’s got a very funny voice). Joshua still wasn’t sure about what a cockatoo was, so when we came across one in the Oasis, I had to pick Joshua up to give him a closer look. (And, of course, we did the Henry line. Over and over and over again.) By this time, it had really cleared up and was a beautiful day for the first time since our arrival. As we left the park, we ran into Baloo and King Louie. Joshua got some good one-on-one time with them and danced with each of them. Next, we headed to the Studios. The handicapped parking is a bit closer here. We arrived just in time to catch about the last third of the Stars and Motor Cars Parade. Because of the crowds already jamming the sidewalks by the Crossroads of the World, I put Joshua on my shoulders to see the parade. Joshua loved this, and shouted out the names of all of the characters as they passed, while alternately pulling my hair and drumming on my head. After surviving this, we all headed up Hollywood Boulevard toward the ride tip board. At the board, Joshua was engaged by Cast Member Jenni, who chatted up a storm with him while Hope and her folks worked out details. We all walked up to the Hat (see rant in previous trip report, I don’t want to get worked up again), where we left Joshua with Grandma and Grandpa, who were going to let him play with the 100 Years of Magic kiosks for a while, then head over to the Playhouse Disney show. Hope and I headed back down Hollywood Boulevard to Sunset Boulevard and the thrill rides. We rode Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster (RNRC) followed by the Tower of Terror. Both were pretty much walk-ons. Then we rode RNRC again, this time with about a 10-minute wait. We were headed back along Sunset Boulevard when we got a call from Grandma that they had just gotten out of the show. Poifect timing! After we rendezvoused, we decided to hit Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream (Joshua’s choice) and then leave the park. We agreed that it would be a good night to eat at Cape May Café, so I called WDW-DINE on my cell phone and made a PS for 7:50. We all enjoyed the One Man’s Dream exhibit and movie, and it looked like Joshua was really absorbed by it. He really took in a lot of what I pointed out to him in the exhibit area (and was completely bored by the rest). Joshua ran out of gas at that point, and decided to ride the stroller out of the park. As we were walking out, we ran into Jenni at the ride board again, and she and Joshua chatted for a while again. We caught up with Hope and her parents, returned the ECV, and walked to the car. The ride back to OKWR was short and uneventful. We gave Joshua his treatments and meds, got back in the car, and headed for the Beach Club. I dropped everybody off by the porte cochere and parked the car in the handicapped area. By the time that I walked back to the hotel, they were on their way into the dining room. We really enjoyed Cape May back in November, and we had another great time tonight. The food was excellent, the service by Durland was great, and we had a lot of fun (and a lot of food!). I was disappointed to learn that the Disney Vacation Club discount had been discontinued as of 12/31/02, so we had to pay full price ($127.84, including tax and nice tip). Darn! (Still worth it, though.) After dinner, we talked Joshua into going out to the beach to watch the high fireworks from Illuminations. Joshua and I stood in the middle of the sand, while Hope and her folks stayed on the walkway. Thanks to the buildings being in the way, the sound wasn’t too loud, and we really enjoyed the fireworks. Joshua even decided that maybe we should go watch Illuminations from inside Epcot so that we could hear the music “but still not get too close.” We told him that we couldn’t be too far and still see the low-level effects that he was curious about (the flames, etc.) so we’d find a good spot that was a bit away from the lagoon but where we could still see. We’re thinking probably the terrace outside the Japan pavilion. We walked back to the car and drove to OKWR. Joshua kept asking questions in the car, “Why? Why? Why?” until I made a comment to Hope about the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Data builds Lal (see last trip report for details, again) and Joshua asked about why I said that. Then, it suddenly got quiet from the car seat as we turned onto Community Drive. When we got to the parking lot at building 27, sure enough, he was asleep. We got him tucked in, and then I worked on the trip report and checked email for work and home. I got to bed pretty late. High points: The Cast Member at Stroller/ECV Rental, Primeval Whirl, the animals on the jungle trek (especially the tigers), Stars and Motor Cars parade, Cast Member Jenni at the Studios tip board, getting to do more thrill rides (with hardly any wait), dinner at Cape May Cafe, Illuminations fireworks from the beach with Joshua Low points: Theming at Chester and Hester's, no more DVC discount at Cape May Cafe Day 4 - "If you've got a question, raise your hand" We got up and dressed, and while Hope’s folks did a final laundry and Joshua watched Playhouse Disney on TV, I ran over to Hospitality House to check out of the 2BR, and check back into our room as a 1BR. It was a pleasant little walk over from building 27, and everything went smoothly. When I got back, it was time to leave for the Contemporary. We drove over and were directed to the handicapped parking, which was directly across from the porte cochere. We went up to Chef Mickey’s on the fourth floor. Hope did her usual minor fume about being forced to take a picture before being granted admittance to the restaurant, but posed with the rest of us anyway. While we waited for our table, I took Joshua over to visit with Goofy, who was stationed out in the open space near the buffet and the waiting area. After a fairly short wait, we were seen to our table and told to go up to the buffet as soon as we were ready. Please take note: DO NOT GO UP TO THE BUFFET BEFORE YOUR SERVER VISITS THE TABLE. We all went up for food, and when we returned, we found five glasses of orange juice on the table. Hope was very upset, as less than half of our party wanted orange juice, but we all needed water and additional beverages, and there was very little available space on the table for the extra glasses. Our relationship with our server did not recover from that. We had a couple of further miscommunications, and things were just generally awry. We still had fun and enjoyed the food and the character interaction, but were a bit disappointed with the server. Breakfast for five was $89.96 with tax and moderate tip. Also, as Hope put it, “the problem with that forced picture is that it always comes out so good, and you end up buying it anyway.” The combination of the photo coming out good and us not having another picture of the five of us on the trip spurred us to buy it once again ($26.63 for two framed photos and two magnets). Handicapped note: the handicapped restroom is on the far side of the fourth floor from Chef Mickey’s, as opposed to the regular restroom, which is just down a flight of stairs from the eating area. Of course, today the handicapped restroom on the fourth floor was out of order, so Grandpa had to go down to the second floor on the elevator to go. After breakfast, we all went back downstairs and drove back to OKWR the back way past Fort Wilderness, Dixie Landings — er, Port Orleans Riverside — and Port Orleans French Quarter. Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed the scenery and the extra conversation time. When we got back, they packed up their laundry and their photo from breakfast, we all said goodbye, and they took off from the Old Key West Resort headed for the real Key West. Joshua decided that he wanted to see Illuminations tonight, so we hung out around the room for a little downtime. Joshua watched a video and did some drawing, Hope did some reading, and I downloaded photos from the digital camera and caught up on the trip report. We didn’t want to leave the room too soon, since we wanted Joshua to be able to stay awake until Illuminations started at 9:00. I tried to get a 7:00 PS at Le Cellier, but they didn’t have anything early enough for us to make it to Japan before 9:00. We ended up getting a 6:45 at Alfredo’s. We finally left and got to Epcot at 2:30. We parked in Amaze 36, which was close enough to walk in. We headed for The Land, and went down to the food court. I got Joshua a PB&J sandwich while Hope gave him an inhaler/chamber asthma treatment, since he had started showing signs of an oncoming attack. He perked up after that, and chowed down on his sandwich. Hope and I had sandwiches from the barbecue stand. ($21.48 for the three of us.) When we finished, we headed for Living with the Land, which Joshua enjoyed. I still miss the old song and show elements from the Listen to the Land days. Next, we headed for Innoventions West. We had lots of fun, including Joshua convincing me to play Disney Dance Dance Revolution with him. I completely lost track of where I was on the pad and did horribly, but that was OK, we enjoyed playing and dancing together. Our plan for the remainder of the day was getting to OrisiRisi for the 5:40 performance, catching the 6:10 Tapestry of Dreams parade, dinner at Alfredo’s, and Illuminations from the terrace at Japan. As we walked around the lagoon, we kept asking Joshua if he had to go to the bathroom, or if he wanted to stop at one of the Kidcot Fun Stops. He was so focused on OrisiRisi that he didn’t want to do anything except get there. The inevitable accident occurred about 10 minutes before the performance. We raced over to the bathrooms on the far side of Germany, him screaming all the way that he didn’t want to miss OrisiRisi, and us telling him that we had warned him. Somehow, we managed to get back just as they were entering the drum circle. Joshua and I quickly chose drums while Hope watched and photographed, and we had a good time with them. This time, they told a cute story about why turtles are bald. After the performance, we let Joshua pick out one musical instrument to take home. We had promised him before the show, but we had to interrupt his search for the instrument for the potty run. After we bought his new double-belled instrument, we headed toward Italy, at which point Joshua decided that he wanted to find a Kidcot Fun Stop. We found the spot in Italy, and Joshua drew a little on a mask until the music started for the parade. We watched the parade, and Joshua was amazed by the puppets. Of course, however, his favorites were the drum floats. During the parade, Joshua had the rest of his accident that he held in to try to get to OrisiRisi faster. When the parade was over, Hope changed him in the bathroom at Alfredo’s before we went in to eat. Hope had the calamari appetizer and the Trittico di Pasta (lasagna, Fettuccini Alfredo, and Gnocci Pomodoro) combination. I had a Caesar salad and the fettuccini and shrimp Fra Diavolo, and Joshua had the kids’ lasagna ($92.31 including tax and tip). Joshua had started coughing mid-afternoon, and it had been getting progressively worse. After dinner, he started complaining that his tummy was rumbly. He went to the bathroom with Hope and returned dinner the hard way, after which he felt a little better. After that, Hope gave him another inhaler/chamber treatment. By the time they were done, the 7:45 Tapestry parade had finished passing, so we walked slowly toward Japan with Joshua in the stroller. He was pretty worn out, and I wasn’t sure whether he would last until 9:00. We got to Japan and took the elevator up to the second floor. In order to get out to the balcony, we had to carry the stroller down a short flight of stairs inside the building before going out and around to the lagoon side. We sat around just past the lagoon-side stairway for a long while, resting and waiting for Illuminations to start. Through sheer force of will, Joshua stayed awake until 9:00. He asked for his headphones to dull the sound right at the beginning, but once they were on he loved the show. A couple of years back, we discovered that Joshua was sensitive to loud noises and was avoiding certain attractions solely due to the sound volume, so we bought a $10 pair of industrial headphones at Home Depot, and life is now much happier. Throughout the long walk back around the lagoon, Joshua kept asking questions and asking questions and asking questions about the show. We had trouble hearing his questions from the stroller with all of the loud music and other noise, so we told him that, if he wanted us to know that he was asking us something, he should raise his hand so that we could stop the stroller and lean down to him to hear his question. His hand went up about every minute or two. Finally, by the time we reached Canada, we told him that it was time to rest, and he could ask one more question when we got to the big fountain. It sort of worked. He kept up a running stream of commentary, but we were able to ignore it with impunity until we got to the fountain. We answered a couple more questions, and then told him we were walking again. It was much quieter walking through Future World While we walked, Hope and I discussed how much we didn’t like the darn wand. Joshua told us that he liked the wand. We told him that he was entitled to his own opinion, but we thought that Spaceship Earth looked a lot better before they built the wand, and he had never seen it without the wand so he couldn’t know what we were talking about. It was kind of disconcerting to be having this kind of conversation with a four-year-old, but I guess we need to get used to it. He’s going to have lots of opinions that differ from ours. ::sigh:: We finished walking to the car and drove home. Joshua fell asleep around the time that we hit Bonnet Creek Parkway. We brought everything (and everyone) inside, set up the sleeper sofa for Joshua, put him in it, did his standard nebulizer treatment, and Hope and I collapsed as well. Crowds have been extremely light this week. Today, they were about as light as I’ve ever seen them. It wasn’t quite fire-a-cannon-along-World-Showcase-Promenade-and-not-hit-anyone light, but it was really sparse. During the parade, there were large gaps along the parade route with nobody there, and the crowds weren’t even two deep over the rest of the route. The only attraction with a wait time on the board at Epcot was Test Track, and that was only 35 minutes. (Although, when we passed by Norway, there did appear to be a long line for the Maelstrom.) The only ride on Sunday at the Magic Kingdom with any substantial wait was Peter Pan’s Flight. Everything else was between a walk-on and a five-minute wait. High points: OrisiRisi, dinner at Alfredo's, laughing about Joshua raising his hand every two minutes around World Showcase Low points: Communication difficulties with our server at Chef Mickey's, Joshua getting nauseous after dinner, saying goodbye to family Day 5 - "Volcano!" It’s official. Joshua has a cold. I’m not feeling all that well, either. My sinuses are dripping into my throat and making it sore. We decided to make today a down day, with just doing little excursions and coming back to rest in between. We had some breakfast and let Joshua watch Playhouse Disney on the TV while Hope napped and I caught up the trip report. We’re figuring on mini-golf and maybe a boat ride or something. At about 12:30, we walked over to Olivia’s. Joshua had a PB&J and a fruit cup, while Hope and I had burgers. Claire showed more energy and speed than we’ve been used to at Olivia’s. We were quite surprised. With tax, tip, and DVC discount, it was $38.45. After lunch, we browsed through the Conch Flats General Store for a while. I admired a shirt that I had first seen in November, but still decided against it. $52 for a polo shirt with no available discounts is a bit much at the moment. Joshua used one Special Thing to purchase a miniature Buzz Lightyear pinball game, and Hope got a Stars and Stripes Mickey head antenna ball to replace the faded and wearing one she has back home. We walked back to the room at about 2:00. We took care of some laundry, gave Joshua an asthma treatment, and Hope did a small craft project with Joshua, since he’s been asking to do one all day, then headed off to Winter Summerland to play some miniature golf (with 50% Annual Passholder discount). It was a very cute course. We played the Winter side (Joshua’s choice). Being the golfer in the family, I won by a large margin (shooting 40 on the par-56 course), but the most important thing was we all had lots of fun, and we were all happy with how we played. (But I won! Too competitive? Yeah. So?) Joshua wanted to play the Summer side next (I did too, but I didn’t say it), but Hope needed a little rest because now she was starting to feel unwell. We went back to the room and Hope lay down for a half-hour while Joshua drew and played with his die-cast ride vehicles and I worked on the trip report. I gave Joshua his other evening asthma treatment, we changed his pull-up (no sense courting danger while he’s sick), and we walked over to Turtle Krawl to catch the Trumbo Ferry to Downtown Disney. We made it to the dock as the ferry was pulling up, and we were guests number 8, 9, and 10 for the 12-passenger ferry. Right after we got in line, a group of 5 walked up behind us. I guess we just made it. We had a relaxing 20-minute ride down the Sassagoula River to Downtown Disney. When we went ashore from the pier, we went right to Rainforest Café to get our name in. We were given a return time of 50 minutes, which seemed pretty good. Since Joshua was hungry and wouldn’t make it another hour without help, we stopped at the Gourmet Pantry and split a large heart-shaped sugar cookie three ways. From there, we gave Joshua the choice of one store to go to while we waited. He chose Once Upon a Toy. Joshua really wanted to get the collection of Bear in the Big Blue House mini-plush characterss with furnishings from their favorite room in the house, and also more ride vehicles. Since he only had four Special Things left to spend, we suggested that he just get his favorite character and leave some for ride vehicles. He thought that was a good idea. He picked Pip and Pop with the bathtub (we were not surprised) and chose the Jungle Cruise boat and the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin Omnimover vehicle. I found the Walt Disney: The Man Behind The Myth DVD, which I haven’t even been able to find on Amazon.com (they only have the VHS). When we completed the purchase, it was time to head back to Rainforest Café. We got called just about exactly 50 minutes from when we put our name in. I was shocked, as it’s usually a bit longer than the estimate, in my experience. (Your mileage may vary.) We went in and had to wait a bit longer to get the Elephant Room instead of the Gorilla Room, since Joshua is a bit frightened of gorillas. We ended up getting seated against the wall between the rooms, with obscured views of both the elephants and the gorillas. We sat Joshua with his back to the gorillas, and didn't tell him that they were in view. Probably the best we could ask for. Hope had the Monsoon Grill, I had the Hong Kong Stir Fry with shrimp, and Joshua had the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. Ever since I had mentioned the volcano dessert (during the peak of Joshua’s volcano fixation), he had been looking forward to having a Sparkling Volcano when we ate at Rainforest. When our dinners were delivered, I asked our server Lester if he could get us a copy of the ingredients list for the ice cream used in making the dessert so that we could see if contained carrageenan, since that’s Joshua’s major food allergy. (See last trip report for more on this.) We have found that carrageenan can be found in about 99.9% of soft ice cream (we haven't seen any without it yet, but we can't discount the possibility), and about 60-70% of scooped ice cream. Lester had the manager come over to confirm what we were looking for. The manager (sorry, didn’t get his name) went in the kitchen to check the ingredients list. The ice cream did indeed have carrageenan, but the manager offered to make us a volcano without the ice cream at a reduced price. We gratefully accepted. We explained to Joshua what was happening and why the dessert would not look like the one in the picture, and he was fine with it. He knows what carrageenan does to him, so when we explain the situation, he understands and is willing to deal with whatever the best alternative is. Sometimes, it is indeed a blessing that he’s so smart. Lester brought the volcano (with accompanying “Volcano!” shouts from passing wait staff), and Joshua’s eyes got big. He was so excited to see the volcano with the tall silver-fringed wooden skewer sticking up out of the top of it. It ended up appearing on the bill as Chocolate Diablo Cake for $5.99 instead of the Sparkling Volcano at $12.99. Very nice of them. (And it was the volcano’s brownie cake, not the Diablo Cake.) Dinner was $75.56 with tax and nice tip for Lester. On the way out, Joshua decided that he wanted a pressed penny with the Rainforest Café logo and the gorilla on it. (I’m not sure why he likes getting toys and souvenirs with stuff that scares him on it, but if it makes him feel good, I’m all for it.) We went to the ferry dock, but the ferry had stopped running earlier than the advertised 9:40, so we had to double back to the bus stop. Once we got there, buses from virtually every other Disney resort came and went, with some resorts making two appearances. Finally, about 15 or so minutes later, the bus for OKWR showed up. When the bus got to Pleasure Island, our driver said goodnight and went to get off the bus. Someone in the back asked who was going to drive us back to the resort. I said that we were looking for volunteers. The bus driver pointed to me. I told him to wait a minute while I got my name tag out, and pulled my Guest of Honor badge out of my fanny pack. The bus driver started laughing and told me “You cut that out!” Hope called me a troublemaker. Everyone had a laugh while we waited for the new driver to come aboard and get set up. While we were waiting, Joshua quietly fell asleep. The bus dropped us right next to our building at the Peninsular Road bus stop, and we got everything into the room, made Joshua’s bed, got him in, and wound down. Hope and I discussed possible scenarios for tomorrow depending on how Joshua’s cold was doing, and I finished updating the trip report and doing the budget numbers. I tried to dial in to check email, but ran into a problem. I’ll have to try again tomorrow night. That helped me to get to bed not too late. High points: Claire at Olivia's, Trumbo Ferry ride, Joshua's reaction to the Sparkling Volcano, the sense of humor of the bus driver going off-duty at the Pleasure Island stop Low points: Joshua's cold, no return Trumbo Ferry Day 6 - "See those trees over there? If you keep watching, one of them will move." Well, Joshua was still sick this morning, and Hope wanted to keep him in. She didn’t want to see anything more at Epcot this trip, and neither did Joshua, so she suggested that I go over myself during the morning, and we’d all go to the Animal Kingdom around 2:00, so that Joshua wouldn’t have a long day. Since Hope wasn’t feeling 100 percent either, I waited until around 10:45 or so to make sure that they were OK. I arrived at the Epcot parking lot at around 11:00 and parked in Journey 8. Two hours after park open, and they’re still only parking in the eighth row. Since everyone was inside the first row of trees, they weren’t running any trams. I breezed through bag check with only my fanny pack (a tiny fraction of our usual family supplies) and headed through Innoventions East to get to Mission:Space. The pavilion looks really great, and they’re down to the last barricade right at the pavilion’s entrance. I got some really nice photos and headed for World Showcase. I cut across the pathway by the old Odyssey Restaurant and walked around the lagoon clockwise. Since World Showcase had just opened, I wasn’t surprised that there was hardly anybody there. By the time I got around to the America Gardens Theater at about 11:30, I think that I could see maybe half a dozen people walking around, including Cast Members. I quickly called into work to make sure that there were no crises, and also to have my fellow administrator clear up the dial-in problem that I had last night. I finished up in time to go in and see the flag from the World Trade Center before the 11:45 Voices of Liberty performance. For some reason, I had been under the impression that the flag on display was “the” WTC flag that was at the Olympics and other major events. It turns out that it was “a” WTC flag. It was an eerie feeling to see it, but it lacked the emotional oomph that I expected when I thought that it would be “the” flag that the firemen raised. Anyway, it was nice to hear the Voices again, after missing them my last two visits. When they invited everybody to sit on the floor, I was the only adult, joined by several children. I guess people didn’t want to get their shorts dirty or something. As usual, I correctly guessed the girl that they would select during “Skip to My Lou.” She really didn’t want to have anything to do with them, but it was a funny exchange nonetheless. After the performance, I went outside and chatted with the CM at the entrance for a while, then watched the 12:00 performance of the Spirit of America Fife and Drum Corps, followed by the 12:15 Voices of Liberty performance. This time, they did several of my favorite numbers, including “This Land is Your Land” and “Oh, Susanna”. Again, I correctly guessed who “Susanna” would be (sitting right next to me). I debated checking out American Vybe, since I hadn’t seen them before, but I really wanted to see the main show, and I didn’t have time to see both. I went upstairs for the 12:30 show, and it was nice to see the show again. I'm glad to see that they didn’t mess with this attraction. I always get strong feelings during the “One Wore Blue and One Wore Grey” number, but I noticed that the only time that I teared up this time was at the parts of the closing montage showing the space program. I’m wondering how long it will be before they add WTC and Columbia images to the montage. Also, even though I’ve seen the “war wagon” from below, I’m still amazed at how they manage to get all of those characters and set pieces on and off the stage in such a short time and how tightly they were synched with the film behind them. After the show, I decided to check the shop to see if they still carried the Liberty Voices CD that I chose not to buy last April. Apparently, they don’t. Now, I’m kicking myself. I’ll have to check the web to see if I can find where to buy it. At this point, I needed to get back to OKWR on time to get Hope and Joshua for our trip to the Animal Kingdom. However, since they were planning to have lunch while I was out, I needed to get a quick lunch myself before leaving the park. I considered Tangierine Café, but I decided that I didn’t have time for a meal that I couldn't eat while walking. Little did I know. I ended up deciding to just get a hot dog from the Electric Umbrella on my way out. When I got there, lines were long but I was able to order within a couple of minutes. Then, I got to wait. And wait. And wait. There were some major problems behind the counter, and orders were coming out at a snail’s pace. While chatting with the cashier (as that's where I got stuck), I found out that there were a number of issues combining to create a problem. They were expecting much smaller crowds based on the week’s trending (I saw as many people waiting at the Umbrella as I did in my whole walk back through World Showcase), some trainees working today, only one of the two sides of the kitchen were working, and a number of people had called in sick, requiring a number of “Rescue Rangers” to come in from other locations to help out without having a complete handle on how the Umbrella’s operation worked. Thanks to this confluence of events, I had a 20-minute-plus wait from the time that I paid for my food until the time that I received it. Needless to say, I was both perturbed and worried about being late. I ate my hot dog while walking out of the park. The walk to J-8 was pretty quick, and I was just approaching the car when Hope called me. I told her I was on my way back. She told me that she’d give Joshua an asthma treatment and be ready when I arrived. When I got to the room, she was just getting him corralled to start the treatment. Not a good sign. When I had left for Epcot, they had played in the room for a little while before taking a stroll to Turtle Krawl. They had lunch at Good’s to Go, then went into Community Hall. They played ping pong for a while, then Joshua asked Hope to show him how to play chess. She tried to give him a general overview of the rules, and he seemed pretty interested. Hope was just starting to get him out of there when they ran into Jenny, our skipper on the Trumbo Ferry last night. She had a little conversation with Joshua and gave him a sticker. When there was a lull in the conversation, Hope took advantage to get him started on the way back to the room. When they got back, they worked on arts and crafts projects for a while until she called me in the parking lot. It took a while to get the treatment set up and get Joshua corralled to give it to him. After the treatment, Joshua decided that he was too tired to go to the Animal Kingdom, even in a stroller. We decided to hang out, maybe go to the pool area and playground for a little while, then have dinner at Boma. I called and got a 6:40 PS for Boma while we were hanging out. We ended up not leaving for Turtle Krawl until almost 4:30. When we got there, Hope went for a swim while I watched Joshua in the playground. At around 5:15 or so, Hope decided that she had had enough, and we gathered up Joshua and headed back to the room. We got Joshua changed and gave him his other asthma treatment, then put him in the car and headed for the Animal Kingdom Lodge (AKL). He fell asleep on the way (of course). We arrived at the AKL around 6:20, put Joshua in the stroller, and decided to take a walk around the resort and check out some of the overlooks before checking in at Boma. We took the elevator down, went outside between Jiko and Boma, and checked out the area between the Zebra and Giraffe Trails and the Uzima Savannah. We had just finished when it was time to check in at Boma. We’ll have to save the other overlooks for another time. (Since the sun had just set, there wasn’t a lot to see at the moment.) Hope spotted a giraffe, but I was having trouble seeing it. She said, “See those trees over there? If you keep watching, one of them will move.” Eventually, I saw it. It looked like it might have been a baby or at least an adolescent. After checking in at Boma, we had about a 20-minute wait or so. We were finally seated, and were able to park Joshua in the stroller on the side of the table out of the traffic pattern. Hope and I took turns at the buffet, and had all sorts of delicious and interesting foods and desserts. While we enjoyed the much-touted Zebra Domes, we didn't find them as spectacular as most people apparently do, maybe because we're not coffee drinkers so that mocha flavor wasn't as exciting. Since Joshua hadn’t woken up by the time that we were getting dessert, we asked our server Terry whether we could have a box to take some food back for him in case he woke up. He said that he could, but asked that we not bring the box up to the buffet, but rather bring a plate of food back to the table and transfer it to the box so as not to incite a riot. We agreed to be discreet. Hope put together a small plate for Joshua, and we finished our dessert. When Terry brought our check, we were surprised that he had not charged us for Joshua. We offered to pay for him, since we were taking food for him, but Terry said that since there wasn’t a lot of food in the box not to worry about it. Dinner was $58.60 including tax and a very nice tip for Terry. Joshua started waking up as we approached the car, and started getting whiny (which is not unusual when he’s sick and/or needs another asthma treatment). We calmed him down, and he dozed off again while we drove back. While stopped at a traffic light on the way back, the Illuminations fireworks sounded with some loud bangs, which woke Joshua back up. He was very cranky for the rest of the trip back, then started calming down while he was carried back to the room. He stayed awake long enough to eat some of the food, get into pajamas, and have his medicines. He said that he wanted to watch a video, and Hope said that if he was still awake after his treatment, then he could watch it in bed. He then proceeded to go to sleep during the asthma treatment. Unfortunately, the medicine kicked in about 20-30 minutes later, and he woke up, complaining that he didn’t get a chance to watch his video. We let him lie down in the bed and put the video on. He lay quietly while it was on, but then got antsy afterwards, and I had a lot of trouble getting him back to sleep. I finally got him to go out, so I dialed into work, resolved a few problems, and got to bed. High points: Checking out Mission:Space, having World Showcase to myself for a while, the Voices of Liberty, the food at Boma, Terry not charging us for the box of food for Joshua Low points: Joshua still being sick, the wait at Electric Umbrella Day 7 - "Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Wah." "WAHOO!!" Well, Joshua was feeling a bit better this morning, so we decided to try to do whatever we missed at the Animal Kingdom. We left the resort at 10:30, got halfway to the Animal Kingdom before we realized that we’d probably need to have the nebulizer with us, turned around, and headed back to the resort to get it. We left again at about 11:10. We got to the Animal Kingdom, parking in Peacock 5 (nice and close in), got quickly through the bag check, and made a fast stop at the restrooms before heading for Africa. We were surprised at the size of the crowds. It seemed as if everybody that we’d seen the entire week up to this time was at the Animal Kingdom. We got to Kilimanjaro Safari at 11:55. Standby wait was 35 minutes, and Fastpass return was 12:35-1:35. Pretty easy decision. Fastpasses in hand, we went to Tusker House to grab some lunch. We bought the meal coupon deal for the three of us ($31.92 including tax), which included coupons for lunch (good for an entree and a beverage), a bottled beverage, and ice cream or popcorn. We immediately used the meal coupons. Lunch was a $23.48 value. Combined with our later coupon uses for a bottle of Coke ($2.50), two bottles of water ($2.50 each), an ice cream ($2.50), a frozen banana ($2.50), and a box of popcorn ($2.75), we ended up paying $31.92 for $46.17 worth of food. Not bad. Not bad at all. At Tusker House, Hope and I had the fried chicken sandwiches (wonderful) while Joshua had a PB&J sandwich (Smucker’s Uncrustable). While we ate, a musician playing a nindanda (it looked like an long-necked African guitar-type instrument) strolled by, stopping to chat with those interested. Joshua asked him what the instrument was called (which was how we found out). I’m waiting for him to ask us to buy him one. After eating, we walked out of Tusker House to find that Kobake, a drumming group, was setting up across the way from Tusker House, in front of the entrance to the courtyard near the Dawa Bar. We knew that Joshua would want to see this, so we headed over. They selected a number of guests to participate in the performance, including Joshua. The leader lined them all up in a semicircle and showed them a number of moves that they were supposed to do in sequence. Then they started drumming, and the leader led them all through the steps. Everybody enjoyed themselves, especially Joshua. At the end, all of the drummers moved out in front of the dancing guests and did some amazing dancing while still keeping the beat on the drums. Great show! After the show was over, we headed to the safari. Lots of animals were out today, so it was a really good trip. The lions were lyin’ down on the job (remember, the bigger the groan, the better the pun), but most of the rest of the animals were out and about. We saw hippos (all asleep), a rhino, giraffes, elephants, bongos, Thompson’s gazelles (“Tommies”), scimitar-horned oryxes, Nile crocodiles, lots of different birds, and other animals. A zebra gave us a great view of his butt as we drove by. Is that a compliment or an insult? On our return to civilization, we headed back toward the front of the park. We arrived at Camp Minnie-Mickey about 15 minutes before the next showing of Festival of the Lion King. We sat about a third of the way up in the Lion section. Hope and Joshua were glad that they didn’t have to try to make the warthog sound again. We enjoyed the show again tremendously, as always. Next, we headed back to Pizzafari, where Hope and I took turns in the restroom, with the one not in the restroom giving Joshua an asthma treatment with the nebulizer plugged in to an outlet next to the pay phones by the rest rooms. One of the custodial Cast Members had someone bring a chair for us to sit in. (Joshua was sitting in the stroller and we had been crouching in front of him.) Rest stop and treatment completed, we headed back to Africa because Joshua wanted to see Rafiki’s Planet Watch. He also wanted some ice cream, so we stopped at the ODV cart, where we noticed that they were now promoting Hood ice cream. We re-checked the ingredients list on the Mickey Premium Bar, and sure enough, it had carrageenan. It figures that they'd change ice cream brands and mess us up! After checking all of the offerings, it appeared that the only thing there that we could really offer him was the frozen chocolate-coated banana, which he grudgingly accepted and ate a token amount. I got an ice cream for me, but walked behind the stroller so that Joshua couldn't see it. We had a nice ride out on the Wildlife Express, and then a nice walk to Conservation Station. Joshua liked the remote-control cameras into the animal areas. We saw the mermaid environmentalist puppet/movie, but were not excited. Joshua was pretty interested in the veterinary clinic, looking intently at each exhibit that I pointed out. I'm not sure what his reaction would have been if there were actually an animal on the operating table. We went to the Affection Section, and Joshua enjoyed petting and brushing the goats. We left before the environmental allergens tripped an asthma attack, making sure that we did a thorough job at the hand washing station.. Hope got a Coke using a coupon and we caught the Wildlife Express back to Harambe, arriving just as the last of the parade was leaving town. We had enough time to get Joshua changed and rest for a few minutes before the parade returned. Joshua didn’t have as many characters come up to him as last time, but he was also eating a bag of chips during the parade, so that may have had something to do with it. It might have also been that the parade was just yards from getting off stage by the time they got to us, and they might have been just racing for the exit. We enjoyed the parade, then headed back for a quick walk through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. We walked through, saw a bunch of animals, including meerkats and hippos. A few of the members of the gorilla family were out, with the father hanging out down by the glass. The bachelors, however, had all just gone inside to eat. We headed for the front of the park, since it was closing time. While we were walking to the front, Joshua got upset that he didn’t get to see the bats again. We told him that we were sorry, but that he needed to make his wishes known sooner. We couldn’t have gone to the Maharajah Jungle Trek again unless he had told us, and we would have made arrangements to get over there. Now the park was closing, so we couldn't go back there. Hopefully, he’ll learn from this. He may have, because after we walked out of the park and got the tram to the Peacock section, while walking a ways to the car, he gave us a complete rundown of what he wanted to do over the next day or so. While we were walking out we redeemed our final coupons for a couple of bottles of water and a popcorn for Joshua. We drove straight from Animal Kingdom to the Wilderness Lodge, since we wouldn’t have time to stop anywhere. When we got there, Hope gave Joshua his other evening nebulizer treatment (plugging it into an outlet in the floor in the middle of the lobby), then we let him go up to play with the Lincoln Logs in the waiting area for Whispering Canyon. Despite being told that there would be a little bit of a wait, it seemed as if we were called right around our PS time. We were seated near the entrance to the front serving alcove, but the traffic level didn’t really bother us. Our waiter, Charlie Horse, did a great job of keeping everything coming in a timely manner. I had the soup du jour (shrimp and lobster bisque, yum!) and the St. Louis Ribs. Hope had the Gold Rush Nachos and the meatloaf. Joshua kept saying that he wanted meatloaf (and there was no kids’ portion of the meatloaf available), so Hope gave him some of hers and ordered a corn cob and a fruit cup to supplement it. The biscuits and cornbread were also excellent. Right as we were requesting our bill, it was Charlie's turn to tell a bad joke to the whole restaurant. We may have unintentionally jumped his punchline. Sorry, Charlie. Dinner was $64.39, including nice tip for Charlie. On the way back to the room, we stopped by Winn-Dixie to get some more pull-ups, since Joshua uses them when he's sick, and we were starting to run out. We got him changed, did an asthma treatment, then got him into pajamas and into bed. I stayed up to work on the trip report, then I went in to bed, too. High points: Animal Kingdom meal deal — a real money saver, a great safari, a great dinner at Whispering Canyon Low points: Joshua's meltdown over not seeing the bats and flying fox again, carrageenan in the Mickey Premium Bars Day 8 - "It's the Post-Fireworks.... Mess." Well, Joshua was coughing all night, despite being at the maximum dosage of asthma meds that we could give him. It was time to go to Centra Care and get him checked out to make sure that he didn’t have an ear infection or something else that would make it difficult for him to fly out tomorrow. We rested in the room a bit in the morning, left for Centra Care around 11:00, and checked in and waited for a while once we got there. We were there long enough for the Disney Channel showing of Mary Poppins to go from her measuring the children when we walked in to them returning from the tea party on Uncle Albert’s ceiling, plus all of the commercials in between. (I didn't look at my watch, so that's the only measure of wait time I have.) We got in and, after a quick once-over by the nurse, were promptly seen by Dr. Ritucci. He said that there was no sign of ear or sinus infections, but gave us a prescription for a decongestant/antihistamine to try to clear Joshua up. He seemed to be very knowledgeable, not even showing surprise when we listed some of Joshua's less common medicines, but he almost seemed dismissive of our concerns, which is something that we're not used to. Hope took Joshua out to the car while I paid ($125, need to submit to HMO for reimbursement), then we headed over to the nearby Eckerd to get the prescription filled. The integration between all of the chains snapped up by Eckerd is still going slowly. The Florida stores still can not access patient records from the New York stores. While the prescription was being filled, we went next door to Giordano’s to get pizza for lunch. We ended up ordering a chicken parmesan sandwich for me, an individual stuffed spinach pizza for Hope, and a small cheese pizza for Joshua, me, Hope, and leftovers ($26 including tax, tip, and discount from the Vacation Guide found in the Centra Care waiting room). The food was pretty good (though not the kind of pizza that we’re used to in New York), but it was very slow going. It took us about an hour and a half for a pizza lunch. That’s a bit excessive by any standards. Joshua was very tired, between not really resting last night and all the coughing today, so we decided to take an indirect route back to Old Key West. Joshua talked quite a bit as we drove down 535 to International Drive South, but quieted down once we turned onto the mostly nondescript byway. Once we turned onto 192, however, there was much more to see. Joshua, who was nearly asleep, spotted a water park, and talked about that for a couple of minutes before we told him to take some quiet time again. He was quiet again by the time we hit the main entry sign at the entrance to Walt Disney World. By the time we got back to Old Key West, he was asleep. We carried him in and laid him down on the sofa to rest. Hope started laying stuff out to prepare for packing, and I worked on the trip report and dialed in to check email and the weather report for back home, since I fell asleep before doing so last night. We discussed possible plans for our last night and morning, but a lot depends on how Joshua is feeling, and what he wants to do. One possibility is that we’ll all go to the Magic Kingdom tomorrow, while another possibility is that they will stay at the resort while I go to the park and take care of some photos I wanted to take and rides I wanted to ride. We’ll see how it works out. Joshua woke back up at around 4:30. We let him get himself back together, did evening meds and treatments, and headed out for the Magic Kingdom at around 5:30. When we got to the MK parking lot, they were directing everybody to the front of the lot. When we got up to the front, there was nobody directing traffic and we were left to find our own parking spots. We drove down the first aisle (Happy 38?) and got a spot right across from the tramway tunnel. Hope jokingly complained that I never get good enough parking spots. We walked through the tunnel to the TTC, and took the monorail to the park. Of course, being the Saturday night of a three-day weekend, the Magic Kingdom was mobbed. We got through security pretty quickly, but it was slow going up Main Street. Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin had just returned from rehab that morning, so that was our first destination to get Fastpasses with an 8:00-9:00 return time, then we were off to Toontown. Joshua really wanted a pair of Mickey antennae. I usually refer to them as deely boppers. Hope referred to them as bee bobbers. Whatever your preference, Joshua wanted the blue Mickey-head antennae. While Hope got those for him, I headed for Minnie's House for some pictures that I wanted to take for a proposed MousePlanet article. Unfortunately, the painting in her living room of Goofy about to fly his plane into the water tower was not on its easel. I'm guessing that something happened to it, and they were fixing it up. Joshua was feeling tired, so we headed off to Cosmic Ray's for some chicken, and took the stroller up the ramp into the restaurant with us. Joshua perked up a little bit after eating, but we were still a little concerned about him. After dinner, rather than walk the long way around the restaurant in order to take the stroller back down the ramp, we just picked it up and carried it down the steps so that we could take the short route to the walkway between the Hub and Tomorrowland. We had promised Joshua that we would watch the fireworks from right under where Tinkerbell flies, and that's what we were going to do. Joshua and I camped out and had to defend our territory from encroachers a couple of times before Hope returned from finding dessert, but we watched Tink fly, then we moved over a little bit for a better view of the fireworks themselves. When the fireworks were over, we headed over to Buzz to use the Fastpasses, along with half of the park. The Fastpass line was tremendous. Joshua decided that he was too tired to ride, so it looked like Hope and I were going to take turns. Hope let me go first, while she sat with Joshua at the seating area near the Lunching Pad. It took me 20 minutes or more just to get to the building entrance on the Fastpass queue. There were many people who were trying to cut in front, and were shocked to find out that the entire line was for Fastpass. When someone asked why the line was so long, I explained that everybody with a Fastpass time from 7:50 to 8:25 were all queueing up at the same time now that the fireworks were over. "It's the post-fireworks... mess." Thankfully, at the front of the line, they were just running most of the Fastpass folks through the queue and holding most of the standby queue to allow the Fastpass line to clear. As soon as I got into the loading area, the ride had an E-stop and we all got to wait while they reset the ride. Somebody said that it had been like that all day. Sounds like a rough rehab. I called Hope's cell to let her know what was going on and see if she needed me to come out without riding. I got her voicemail, so I figured (correctly, it turns out) that she couldn't hear the ring in the crowd. With the ride down for rehab, I expected to see everything nice and freshly painted. I was quite surprised to note peeling paint on the ride vehicles and a faded sign over the ride track entrance. Finally, the ride started back up, and I was able to board. I scored 139,500, good enough for Planetary Pilot, but not my best. I went out to meet Hope, who had had quite enough by then, thank you. She decided not to ride so that we could race out of the park before the late Spectro started. Hope began evasive maneuvers toward the front of the park with me and the stroller in her tailwind. We made it out of the park a couple of minutes before the parade started, and decided to take the ferry. It looked like either two ferries or four monorails, and we didn't want to take Joshua out of the stroller. We got on the second ferry and got a spot right by the exit rope. After docking, we walked out to the car, again complaining about how we really need to park closer. Despite feeling lousy, Joshua didn’t fall asleep along the way. He ended up playing with his toys for a while before we got him to bed. Hope packed most of the rest of the stuff, and I gave up on keeping the trip report up to date and just packed most of the electronics gear and other loose papers. The folio arrived on our door handle before we went to bed, so I checked it over for accuracy and determined that we didn’t need to make any adjustments in the morning and we could just leave when we were ready. Since I hadn’t gotten all of the rest of the Main Street window photos and info that I had wanted to get for another MousePlanet article, Hope offered that I could run over to the Magic Kingdom in the morning while she finished packing, and when I got back, we’d load up the car and head wherever we were going for the day. I gratefully agreed. We gave it up for the night and collapsed into bed. High points: Another walk-in parking spot, Joshua's face while watching Tink fly Low points: Having to go to Centra Care again, the wait at Giordano's, the Post-Fireworks Mess, peeling paint on Buzz the day it returned from rehab Day 9 - "Would it be possible for me to borrow that book?" We got up early, and I was out the door around 7:45, with orders to be back by 10:00. The MK bus had already passed the stop at Peninsular Road, so I made double-time harch over to Hospitality House to catch it at the last stop. While waiting for the bus, I met a nice family from Clifton Park (a short drive from home) that had just arrived yesterday. We had a nice conversation on the way to the park about DVC, the weather back home, and travel planning. Once in the park, I made a beeline for City Hall to try to get information on the windows behind the grillwork over Uptown Jewelers, where I couldn't see what was written. They weren’t sure, so they went back and brought out The Book. There is a book that they use for answering all questions about the windows on Main Street! I knew that the Cast Member I talked to in November was stonewalling me! I sweet-talked the Cast Member into letting me use the book to verify the information in my Palm (and copy any missing information, too). I had to keep it at the counter, but they let me use it until I was done. Looking back, I realized that I should have just used my digital camera to take pictures of the pages. It would have been so much quicker, and it would have saved me a great deal of writer’s cramp. Oh, well. I noticed that a lot of the information in the book was out of date, and it was missing a lot of information. Somebody there really needs to update it. After I finished, I checked to see what I was still missing in the way of listings, and quickly ran to recheck the windows. The windows over Casey’s facing the castle were particularly difficult for me to read, since I had to be pretty far away to see over the awnings, and the zoom on my camera wasn’t that strong. After finishing up, I raced back to the park entrance, fighting the crowds. The park opening ceremony took place while I was in City Hall, so the crowds were still streaming down Main Street. (By the way, did you ever notice that, while it’s Town Square, it’s City Hall? Is it me, or does that strike anyone else as a logical disconnect?) Anyway, while everyone looked at me funny for leaving the park while everyone else was still arriving, I raced out to the bus depot. While a number of buses dropped people off at the Old Key West stop, none were picking people up. I was planning to call Hope as soon as I was on a bus, but she called me while I was still waiting. I acknowledged that I was in big trouble, and told her that I was trying to get back. Finally, a bus picked up the five of us waiting there, and we headed for OKWR. I ended up being the third stop, and I got into the room around 10:45. However, thanks to Hope's packing and preparation, once I arrived it didn’t take very long to load the car, and we were still out of there by the 11:00 check-out time. Joshua was feeling mildly better, and had decided that he really wanted to play the Summer course at Winter Summerland, so we headed over there. The predicted rain was still holding off, so we were able to play a nice round of mini-golf and have fun. Hope and I shot higher than on the Winter course, while Joshua took advantage of there being fewer steep hills and lowered his score. I still won, but it only mattered to my competitiveness, and I just reassured myself quietly after tabulating the scores. (Yay, me!) Our next stop was Downtown Disney for a final sweep. Our first stop was for lunch at the Gourmet Pantry, since we were all getting a little hungry. We noted afterwards that it probably would have been easier for me to put all of our sandwiches, drinks, and chips into one of the shopping baskets that they have there instead of trying to balance it all on the way to the cashier. (They have some cardboard trays at the register, but not near the sandwich display.) They did not have PB&J in the display, but they made it special for Joshua at our request, because he was very adamant that that was what he wanted to eat.. It took about 5-10 minutes for it to come out of the kitchen. After our lunch, we headed over to World of Disney, where we got chocolate for our offices and watches for Joshua and me. (We had promised Joshua a Disney watch. I needed to replace one of my watches, since I had shattered the crystal on it.) Otherwise, we didn't see much else of interest. (Sad, isn't it?) We decided to get a snack before changing and heading for the airport. We went back to the Gourmet Pantry and got a brownie and a white chocolate chip cookie for nibbling on the way to -- and at -- the airport. We made pit stops in the bathroom, and I changed into jeans for the trip home. Jeans in 80-degree weather! Man, were they uncomfortable! But, since we didn’t have room for spare clothing in our carry-ons, we needed to put the shorts into our checked luggage. As I got out of the bathroom and we headed for the car, the skies opened up. We were soaked by the time we got to the car. Hope stowed the last of the purchases in the checked luggage (under the protection of the rear gate of the minivan) while I got the snacks and myself settled into the front seat. The jeans were getting more uncomfortable by the minute. Once we hit the road, it was a quick trip to the Citgo on the way to the Greeneway. Joshua napped off even before we got there. A quick fill-up, and we were on the road for another quick trip to the airport on the Greeneway ($2 again). Once we got to the airport, we were able to check in at curbside. We were advised by one of the guys sitting there that we needed to keep the gate open with at least one bag visibly still in the car to keep from getting ticketed for not being in the process of unloading in the unloading zone. I put all of the checked luggage on the sidewalk next to the car, leaving the carry-ons in the back. Hope sat half-out of the car so that she could watch all of the luggage and the back of the car while I got in line for the skycaps. When it was my turn, I had to wait for the skycap to find a luggage cart, then he came over and put the cases on the cart. He expressed concern about the heavy bag being over the 70 pound limit, and we told him that Hope couldn’t lift the bag if it was over 70 pounds. We estimated it at 64. He didn’t believe us and brought it over to the scale. 64 pounds. Amateur. Side note on the heavy luggage. We usually travel a bit heavy. This is largely due to Joshua's medicine, extra changes of clothes, and toys. We cut down a bit this trip by taking clothes for about 1/2 to 2/3 of the trip, counting on a mid-trip laundry to get us to the end. However, for this trip we also needed a variety of clothing due to the uncertain temperatures for the duration of the trip. We have decided that, next time, we'll bring clothing for 1/3 to 1/2 of the trip and plan on two laundries. We shouldn't need as many extra changes of clothing for Joshua by then, too. Also, with eight months between trips, we'll probably need to replace some souvenir shirts by then. We'll see how many pack mules are required to haul the bags for the October trip. After leaving our luggage and getting our boarding passes (Southwest screens the luggage back-of-house in Orlando, so we didn’t watch them doing the open-it-up thing), we drove another loop around the airport to drop the car at Alamo in the garage. We unloaded everything, Joshua waking up in the process. By then, the rain had almost stopped. We took the elevator down to the tunnel, leaving the 80-degree weather behind. On the other side of the tunnel, we went up the elevator, got through security easily, rode the shuttle to airside, and were at our gate with plenty of time to spare. Hope gave Joshua his asthma treatments as it approached 5:00 (note: there are some electrical outlets along the window wall of the gate area if you need them), and I went to McDonald’s to get us dinner for the flight. While we were waiting, it became apparent that the flight was seriously overbooked. They were offering nice incentives to stay over. I was tempted, but with Joshua still feeling pretty lousy and all of us tired, we figured we were just better off going home and having a day to rest before heading back to work and school on Tuesday. The plane was really late due to the blizzard around Baltimore. Then, when it was on final approach, it had to pull up and circle for some reason. By the time it pulled into the gate, it was 6:20. (We were scheduled to depart at 6:00.) By the time they ran everybody off the plane, cleaned the plane, ran everybody on the plane, and pulled away from the gate, it was 6:50. It was a pleasant, uneventful flight, though, and we landed in Albany at 9:00, only about 20 minutes late. After we collected our luggage, Hope waited in the terminal with Joshua while I maneuvered the luggage boat — er, cart — with the huge pile of bags back to the elevator upstairs, across the bridge to the garage, and to the car. I loaded the car while starting to warm it up. I cursed the weather, as it was 2 degrees out. A 78-degree drop in a matter of hours is not a pleasant thing. After packing the car, I went to return the cart, but the cart return was full. I left it loose, thinking that it was kind of a nice bookend to finding one loose when we got to the airport last week. I drove out, paid using the E-ZPass tag, and went back to the terminal to pick up Hope and Joshua at the door. We got home around 10:15. We quickly got Joshua into bed, unloaded the car, unpacked essentials, and fell deeply asleep. High points: The nice chat with the family from Clifton Park, getting access to The Book!, knowing how much our suitcase weighed before it hit the scale, the easy drop-off at Alamo, the karma of leaving a free cart after starting the trip with a free cart Low points: C-c-c-cold!!! The Day After - "What's with the snow?' We woke up, and it was snowing. But we couldn’t rest, as we needed to check out a possible new day care center for Joshua, since he was no longer challenged by the activities at his current center, and he was getting bored. The center that we were considering was open, we had the day off, and we were going to take advantage of it, dammit! We got out pretty quickly, took the tour, and left pretty well convinced that we were going to move him. By the time we left there, it was approaching full-scale blizzard, and it was indeed full-scale by the time we reached home. We decided that hiding in the house and resting was a very good plan, and we didn’t worry about the snow until the next morning. Boy, did we want to be back in warm weather! Oh, well. Only 8 more months until we go back to WDW! The Good
The Bad
The Ugly
And, since I can’t end on a low note…. The Magical
The Budget We had budgeted the trip at about $3,800. (Not including the annual passes, which were purchased for the previous trip.) We managed to bring it in at $3,360. Not including the prepaid airfare and park passes, we had an outlay of about $2,080 in Orlando, including the rental car. That’s about $1,400 less than last trip. A lot of that was due to not needing to go hog-wild over souvenirs again, and some of it was due to being a bit more frugal in our choices. Coming Attractions October 10-18, 2003, (likely at Boardwalk Villas) with my mother and stepfather joining us from the 10th through the 13th. If you’ve read this all the way through, I give you my thanks (and my astonishment at your stamina!). I hope you enjoyed my take on the World, and that you took away some new knowledge or way of looking at things. (Or if not, at least the vicarious thrill of being along on somebody else’s trip to WDW. That’s one of my favorite things about trip reports!) Have a Magical Day! Mark Goldhaber mark@mouseplanet.com Mail a Comment to Mark Goldhaber |
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