Well I’m sat at MCO waiting for our flight, and thought that I could do a bit of offline blogging to kill a bit of time. According to the computer there are a number of unsecured wireless networks here, but I’m not sure about connecting to any of them, so thought that I would stay offline and then cut and paste this in when we get home.
The whole process of checking out of hotel and checking in to flight has gone smoothly. I called the front desk at the hotel yesterday evening and confirmed that we would like the express check out facility, which meant that our bill was delivered to the room this morning, automatically charged to our credit card, and there was no need to go to reception. We even get to keep our key cards as a souvenir! My chief nerd status was confirmed when I checked the bill against my records and was only $1 out - caused by misremembering the cost of wine and crème brulee from a cart in Epcot when we were waiting for Illuminations.
We’d also checked yesterday with Virgin and discovered that the Downtown Disney check in facility is not operating at the moment. In a way, I actually think that this has worked out better, although I suppose that it does mean that we needed to be at the airport a little earlier than would otherwise have been the case. On the plus side, there was no need to rush to leave the hotel this morning. The check out policy is a refreshingly late 11am, and we made it out of the door at about half past ten. Jake didn’t get to sleep very early last night, and so it was good not to have to rush him (or ourselves) up and out this morning.
We called down to the front desk and arranged for someone to come and collect our bags and to bring our car round. One of the things that I dislike most about travelling is the luggage, and it has been extremely pleasant today. We’ve hardly touched our bags since we packed them in our rooms. They were collected at the hotel and loaded into the car for us, there was a porter waiting at the rental car drop off point to take them when we got to the airport, and there was even another porter to move them from the check in desk to the security scanner. Marvellous!
I’ve also really appreciated the valet parking privileges that come with being a DVC member. We get free valet parking at all of the DVC resorts, and it has been so nice just to drive up to the front door of the hotel at the end of each day, and to have our car brought round for us when we’ve gone out. Normally it costs $10 per day for valet parking, so that has been a perk worth having. I hope that I’ve been tipping at about the going rate - I’ve been handing over $2 each time we’ve picked up our car.
By being annual passholders, DVC members, and “Tables In Wonderland” cardholders we’ve actually saved a fairly large amount of money during the holiday. I know that each of them comes with large, larger, or enormous outlays in the first place, but it’s nice to see some of the benefits coming back our way. By no means an exhaustive list, we’ve benefited from:
- $25 off buying the TIW card in the first place
- Approx. $100 off the meals we had at Jiko and at Le Cellier
- Free valet parking every day rather than paying $10 per day
- Free high speed internet access every day rather than paying $10 per day
- $10 off Lego Batman sets in the Lego store
- $16 off our big shop at World of Disney
- $5 of CD purchases at the Virgin store
- $30 off crazy golf at Winter Summerland.
All good stuff, and even better is the fact that we will have all of the same discounts available to us when we return in February without having to pay another penny, and we will be able to get another week of use from our annual passes.
Back to today, and having loaded up at the hotel this morning, and being very glad that we had spread our luggage over 4 bags on the way out when we could have managed with three (otherwise it would have been three holidays in a row where we bought another bag to get everything home) we set off for the Magic Kingdom, munching biscuits and granola bars from our remaining groceries on the way. Our maid will have had a fairly good haul today, as we couldn’t manage to finish off all of our food. The most annoying is the fact that when we went to Publix, the smallest pack of coffee filters we could find was 200, and we must have just left about 190 of them behind. I was only half joking when I suggested we put them in a bag and bring them back in February, but at about $1 per pack, it doesn’t really seem worth it.
Driving up World Drive, we decided to be sneaky again and not park in the main car park, but to park at the Contemporary Resort which is much closer to the Magic Kingdom. The only challenge with doing this is spinning a yarn to the security attendants to get them to let you in. My story (may I be forgiven) was that we were going to be having an early dinner at the California Grill and that we had decided to come and have a look at the resort and then go to MK for lunch. The security attendant was all for getting us to go back to the main parking lot, but through persistence we managed to get her to issue us with a three hour parking pass. This was good enough for us, as when we got into the car park there was a fair amount of space, and we figured that we would only be a bit more than three hours anyway.
I don’t have a good track record with the parking attendants at the Contemporary Resort. Last time, when we really were coming for dinner at the California Grill, they asked to see some ID when we arrived (as well as our parking pass from our resort and our room card) and I didn’t have any with me. I then got a stern lecture from the attendant about how it was illegal not to have your driving licence with you at all times in America - retired police officer methinks! I was annoyed at the time, but in fairness, I’ve had it in my bum bag all throughout this holiday!
We parked near to the Bay Lake Towers construction site. The construction of the main building looks to be nearly complete, and I presume that they are onto fit out now, although they still have a way to go with the connecting bridge. When we were talking with Nikki last week, she said that about 20% of the rooms will have views over the Magic Kingdom, so it will be possible to watch the fireworks from your own balcony. Apparently one of the TV channels will have the music playing so it will be possible to watch with the right music playing in your room!
We had a very quick look around the shops in the Contemporary, but then it was onto the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. The resort monorail runs clockwise around Seven Seas Lagoon, so we had stops at the TTC, the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian before arriving at the park.
Walking down Main Street, it was clear that a show was about to begin on the castle stage, so we watched the Dream Along with Mickey show (well Jake watched all of it apart from the parts with the Princes and Princesses) before deciding what ride to do first. The original plan had been to go to MK in order to ride on Big Thunder Mountain, but Jake decided that he’d save that one for next time, and off we went to Tomorrowland for a ride on Buzz Lightyear, where the wait was posted as 15 minutes but seemed to be less to me. Jake rode with me again, and Nicky went on her own, and did a good job of discounting her score before revealing it to Jake in the interests of family harmony.
Time for lunch by now, so we went to Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café. Jake and I had the bacon double cheeseburger - we’ve had enough of these over the course of our holiday to sink a battleship. Nicky was obviously all cheeseburger -ed out and so had a turkey and bacon wrap. It was fairly full inside, so we sat at one of the outside tables and got pestered by the birds.
After lunch Nicky went over to Adventureland to the Pirates shop, as we’d been told at Arribas yesterday that they had some of the charms that she was looking for. The rest of us stayed in Tomorrowland and went on TTA. Jake and I shared a “car” and so did Nanny and Grandad. I took a photo of Nanny and Grandad recreating the picture taken on a previous holiday where it looked as though I was strangling Nanny (I was actually hugging her because it was cold, but it didn’t come out looking like that!)
Jake was keen to ride on the Indy Speedway again, having enjoyed it when we went to the Halloween party. This ride is known for having a slow-moving line, and when we went in it was posted as 30 minutes, but again it was much shorter - probably a little less than twenty. Jake noticed that he is tall enough to ride by himself, but in the end decided that we should go together. I agreed not to touch the controls - pedal or steering wheel, and to let Jake do it all by himself. We only nudged the car in front once, just as we were coming back in at the end, and I think that Jake now definitely has the confidence to go by himself when we come back in February. I think that he wants us to ride in separate lanes so that we can race next time!
Whilst we’d been in the queue for the Indy Speedway, Nicky had returned so had passed the radio back to us. This meant that when we got off we could wander towards Main Street and radio to find out where the others were. We met up with them in front of the castle and walked through it to Sir Mickey’s on the other side to look for a scarf. Nicky had bought a scarf earlier in the day, but it had been the last one in the shop and Margaret wanted one the same, so we were on a hunt, but to not avail at that point.
We decided that there was time for one more ride, and Pirates of the Caribbean was voted for, so off we went to Adventureland for one final time, before making our way back down Main Street, me going into photo taking overdrive as we headed for the exit and the resort monorail which took us directly back to the Contemporary hotel.
Time for another look in the Contemporary shops, and this time we were successful in finding the scarf. Jake chose a mystery pin set in which you get two pins for $12, but you don’t know which ones out of a selection of ten or twelve, until you open the pack. After some deliberation between the ride-themed ones and the good vs. evil characters ones, we went for the rides, and Jake got pins of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and of Expedition Everest.
Unable to prolong it any further, we made our way back to the car. We’d only outstayed our welcome by twenty minutes or so. Even though we arrived at a few minutes past eleven, our parking pass said 11:30 as our arrival time, and it was about ten to three now. Not that it made any difference. No-one checked our pass on the way out, and as always it was simply a case of driving up to the barrier which then opened automatically.
We drove back down towards World Drive, and I had forgotten that the rode sends you off to the left past Fort Wilderness and thought that it was necessary to make a left turn, so I ended up driving up to the entrance to the Wilderness Lodge hotel and had to make a u-turn. Getting back on the road we found our way fine, and drove past Port Orleans for old times sake (!) and then left onto Vacation Club Way to go past Saratoga Springs, where we will be staying in February.
Leaving the world, we stopped for some petrol before getting onto I-4. The payment machine at the pump wouldn't take my credit card, as it wanted me to put in my zip code, which obviously I don't have. John went in to ask, and they said that we could fill up and then pay. We tried that, but the pump wouldn't dispense, so after pressing the call button we got a fairly terse answer through the speaker that we did need to pay first after all. This time I went inside, and was asked how much petrol I was going to put in, to which I answered that I had no idea, as it was a rental car and we needed to fill it up before taking it back. So, I had to leave $40 of cash with the cashier, go back and fill up (which turned out to be just over $34) and then go back in again to collect my change. What a performance!
Whilst we'd been driving down from the Magic Kingdom, Nicky had phoned Virgin to check on flight times, which I meant to do before we left the hotel in the morning. Unfortunately it turned out that there was a 2 hour delay on our flight. Had we found this out earlier, we might have stayed a bit longer in the park, but we decided to stick with our plans and go to the airport, as we hadn't checked in and we wanted to make sure that we got the seats that we wanted.
Returned the car at the airport with no problems. As always it is dead easy, as they have a hand held scanner which checks you back in and provides your receipt - $294 for 8 days of minivan hire seems like a good deal to me.
It was here that we commandeered a porter to take our bags to the check in desk. Check in was similarly quick and easy, and we settled in to the seating area at the airport and took turns to have a wander around the shops. (It was around this time that I started typing this entry. By now it's actually Friday evening and I'm back home!) Last minute airport purchases included a book for Jake and a Universal (Bart Simpson) pin, as well as some hand cream from L-Occitane for Nicky.
We had dinner from Nathan's in the food court, which is next door to McDonald's and had a considerably shorter line. Food was good (fish 'n' chips, nuggets, chicken sandwich ...) and we followed it with a trip to Krispy Kreme for a quick donut. Donuts there are considerably cheaper than in the UK outlets - 99c for a single donut or $9.99 for a dozen.
Soon afterwards (after a last minute hunt in the shops for some flight socks for Margaret) we went through security, and onto the train to Gate 83. I think that we all managed at least some sleep on the plane on the way home, and as always, the longest wait was to collect our bags from the baggage reclaim at Gatwick.
According to the counter, only 107 days until we're back for a week at Saratoga Springs!