September 8, 2006
Well, as I said before, I was spending a vacation with my wife at the most Magical Place on Earth.
Today actually started yesterday. After putting in 10 hours at work, Nancy and I took Belle back to the hospital that did her surgery to be boarded while we are at Disney. We just told her that she’s going on a spa trip for awhile. Once we had Belle safe and secure in the care of the loving nurses of Gulf Coast Vetrinarian Hospital, I needed to go to a doctor’s appointment. That took forever because as we all know, doctor’s never see you at the appointed time. By the time we got home, the sun was setting.
I quickly mowed my lawn which will most likely look like a jungle when I get home despite the fact that it got a trim before my departure. Then I had to rearrange the garage so my Toyota Tundra could fit inside. I didn’t want to leave my nice truck outside as bait to would-be car thieves. Then we had to go drop Coco off at grandma’s house for her 10 days of only-child living.
By the time all this got done, it was late, but we still had to clean the house and finish packing. Since we are going to be gone we needed to make sure the house was show ready.
This meant we went to bed around midnight and had to get up at 4:00AM to catch a 7:45AM flight (damn homeland security and their need to check my bags with a fine tooth comb). I set the alarm and went to bed. Somehow, when the alarm went off, I must’ve turned it off and rolled over. This is an extreme rarity for me. I’m always a slave to my alarm clock. Fortunately, I woke up at 4:25 AM and noticed the problem. We got up and I got dressed and loaded the luggage in the car while Nancy got ready. We were out of the house quickly and we still got the airport at my predetermined time.
You see, it takes a lot of math to factor a wakeup time. I knew IAH was saying that you had to be there 1.5 hours before loading. Since loading was at 7:15AM that meant I had to be at the airport at 5:45AM. Then I knew it takes about 30 minutes to get from the off-site covered parking to the airport. THat means I had to be at the parking lot at 5:15AM. I knew it takes 45 minutes to get from my house to the parking lot. Which means that I had to leave the house by 4:30 AM. Now the tricky part, figuring the Nancy-factor. I know on a normal day it takes 45 minutes for her to shower, perform her skin maintance regime and eat breakfast. This time she already showered before going to bed, wasn’t going to eat breakfast, so I had to guess. I gave her 30 minutes, that’s why I said a 4:00AM wakeup. Fortunately, it took her less than 30 minutes to get ready and it took less than 45 minutes to get to the airport. So we got to do ALOT of sitting and waiting
The flight was not without it’s drama. While sitting in our seats waiting for everyone else to board, the usual log-jam formed as people put all their carry-ons in the overhead compartments ignoring the unwritten rule of only one bag per person. Well, one lady was standing there waiting for the non-english speaking people to get into their appropriate seats. Apparently, this passanger didn’t care that the seating arrangements were breaking up this latino family and felt they should’ve thought of that when they booked their flight. She was very vocal about getting the aisle seat she paid for. Well while all this was going on, a person of asiatic descent and most likely still lives in the region, since he also spoke little or no english decides that he was going to do the kind and courteous thing of moving through the log jam like Emmitt Smith on Super Bowl Sunday. When he pushed passed this vocal lady, she told him to f-off and shoved the crap out of him. That caused some tension because the poor fellow (not really because he was being most rude) almost hit the floor.
Needless to say, all those in shouting distance of this lass was glad when the flight attendant announced the destruction of all cell phones. Not really, but I’m sure that’s what people think is being asked of them to turn it off. That was the only thing that shut this lady up because we were getting to listen to her recant over and over again the details of “Shove-Gate 2006″.
Besides that, all was fine with our flight. We landed in Orlando without incident.
We had decided to forgo the free Magical Express shuttle service from Orlando to our resort which came with free baggage delivery and went with a towncar. Some of the Disney-themed forums I visit made it clear that it could take awhile to get to your resort based on where you were on the drop-off schedule since the busses went to all resorts.
As was described to us, the gentleman who was to be our driver was in the baggage claim area holding a sign with my name on it. I really felt important 
He stood with me while I got my luggage and helped me haul it outside where he told us to wait while he got the car. While this was going on I was telling Nancy that the towncar would be just as good as a limo because we were originally planning on getting a limo since this is also our honeymoon. But a limo was an add’l $100 on top of what a towncar cost.
As we were standing on the curb we see our driver pulling up with not a towncar but a nice long white strech limo. He gets out and Nancy and I told him I thought we had a towncar. He looked at us, smiled, and said, “Surprise!”. Somehow we got bumped but I don’t know who is responsible.
Since Nancy has never been in a limo, this was a real treat for her. When we got to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, I swear we saw people looking at us getting out of the limo wondering who we were.
Amazingly, our room was already ready for us at 11:30AM. We were taken straight to our room on the concierge floor. We decided to go whole-hog on this trip and booked the Platinum Package with a concierge level room. Basically, everything but the basic snacks from the carts is pre-paid like on a cruise. We just have to tip the housekeeping (or as they call it at Disney….Mousekeeping).
Once we dropped off our bags, we decided to go to the Animal Kingdom since it was close, it closed at 5 and allowed us time to prepare for my special Birthday dinner at Victoria & Alberts (the AAA 5 Diamond restaurant at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort).
Since we hadn’t eaten all day we decided to hit up the Rainforest Cafe since it was near the entrance and it was available to us on the Platinum Package meal plan (from what the waitress told us, that’s the only meal plan it was on). I must say, it’s harder for me to order a meal when price is of no object than when it is. I’m cheap, so I usually order a nice cheap burger, sandwich, or chicken fingers. I decided to go with the shrimp sampler and Nancy had the chicken and ribs. The highlight was the volcanoe cake for dessert.
We really enjoyed our food and left thoroughly stuffed.
The Animal Kingdom is host to one of Walt Disney World’s newest rides, Expedition Everest. After we ate, we decided we needed to check that one off the list and since it was a new ride and lines were to be expected, we felt we should do it first. We made haste to Asia to get in line. It wasn’t hard to find it. At the Animal Kingdom, signage was excellent, but you almost didn’t need that to find Everest since you couldn’t miss the giant mountain piercing the horizon.
When we got to the ride, there wasn’t the line running outside the staging area like we expected and the sign informed us the wait was 15 minutes. We were stoked because 15 minutes is alot more tolerable than an hour. Well, despite the sign saying 15 minutes, there really wasn’t a line. We walked right up to the ride vehicle.
Everest was awesome!!!! Nancy and I were really amped up about this ride. Disney did alot of promotion for it thorugh some TV specials and we were really looking forward to this attraction. We were not disappointed. We were so stoked we got right back on after getting off the ride. This time, I was asked to carry a red plastic card on a lanyard. I was told that they time how long it takes to get from being handed to me to being handed to the person on the other end of the line. The ride was as fun the second time as the first.
After two rounds on Expedition Everest we felt we should try to do something else. We decided the Dinosaur would be fun. Once again, no wait. Just right onto the ride vehicle. This ride was a classic Disney dark ride, but was really, really bumpy and alot of what I call the shock factor. Dinosaurs suddenly appear in your face making alot of noise. I probably wouldn’t choose to ride this one again, but I wouldn’t protest if someone else did.
After Dinosaur we made a mad dash to a restroom. When I came out I found Chip and Dale having fun with my wife. They were wanting to know where her husband was. You see, we were both wearing pins denoting that it was our honeymoon. I have a lot of respect for the Cast Members who wear the costumes every day. I was standing there in shorts and a short sleeved shirt and I was drenched in sweat. They had a lot more material draped on them and no real way to get a breathe of fresh air.
At this time we needed to head back to the resort to get ready for dinner. We made our way back to the busses and stopped at shops on the way.
