Day 1
When I was just entering the
sliding doors to my resorts entrance,
the scooter company called. They are nearby. I arrange for
them to meet me in a ½ hr or so. That should
give me enough time to be checked in, and have my things in my room. So far so good.
I use the online checkin line. Just two groups in
front of me.
The person who checks me in goes oh 50. I thought she is talking the section, I
can deal with that. But she meant my age :-(. When I was
doing the online check in, they asked if I was celebrating anything. I placed my 50th birthday. I ask what section I am going for. You see, I placed a request for 70’s. I had someone call yesterday to confirm my
request, they have it. So what do I
get??? The 80’s L I ask if I can be
switched. They check, she makes a
call. In the past, they just had to
encode a new Key to the World Card. Now
they need to transfer the RFID information from the old to new room. Here we had a slight communications problem,
even though I prefer 70’s over 50’s, but both are acceptable. The beginning of the conversation made it
sound like I only wanted the 50’s. I
think, ok, I will be closer to a pool, so 50’s will do. Part of the check in process is the use of
the RFID system, which needs a PIN number.
Not sure if I remembered which number I used, no problem, I chose
another one easy to remember. But I was
typing the number on the numerical keypad too fast, especially when confirming
the PIN number. So I take it a little
slower and I am set to go.
I am in the furthest building
facing the parking lot. At least I have access to the room with my key to the
world card. I don’t have to walk back to
have anything fixed, as I heard others have to do. The room is pretty far then what I am used
to, but I have a scooter, which is prefect timing as the scooter rental people
call me, they are at the entrance of Pop waiting for me. So I walk over to the entrance, get the
scooter and I drive it back to my room.
I am back in the room and I plug the scooter in to charge. It should be fully charged, but I normally
don’t take it the first day anyway.
Before heading to
Its now
Entering Animal Kingdom with
the Magic Band doesn’t work. After
several tried, I use my key to the world card.
I am directed over to guest services to try and correct the problem, but
I wont worry about wasting time since my KTTW card works. No big loss if the Magic Band doesn’t. Vacation time is valuable time, not to be
wasted dealing with technical issues like this.
I actually use the Magic Band
to pay for my meal, so things are looking up.
I order the Chicken and rib meal, with a large soda, and chocolate cake
for dessert.
They don’t provide lids for
the soda cups here, so while I am walking, I am also bathing my hand in
soda. In the upper right corner of the
tray is a hand out that they give out telling you not to feed the birds. Its in a puddle of
soda. Notice how much you don’t see in
the cup of soda? J Flame Tree BBQ only has outdoor
seating areas. This makes me nervous, as
I start to walk down stairs without holding onto anything, holding my tray of
food in both hands. I am concerned my
ankle might give away, but I don’t fall down the stairs. I grab loads of napkins and utensils before
sitting down. You have to be careful of
outdoor seating areas as the birds are always ready to go after a tray of food
that doesn’t have anyone near them. I am
eyeing a bird, looking at my food too much.
But no bird attacks and about
a dozen napkins later….
My traditional first onsite
meal is consumed. I am happy.
My cell phone alert goes off,
telling me I have a Fastpass + for Safari, so I start
to walk around for that after eating, and washing my hands from all that messy
food I just eaten.
I get to Kilmanjaro
Safai a couple of minutes early, so I check out a
souvenir store. At the appropriate time I use the Magic Band to enter the Fastpass queue. Even
though I scanned my Magic Band to enter the Fastpass
queue, before I enter the normal queue, I had to scan it again. I will be hearing this allot. On the Magic Band is the 3 circle Mickey
image. There is another 3 circle Mickey
image on the Fast pass machine in the queue.
What they will be telling us… ‘place mickey to
mickey’ which when I do, the light around the 3
circle Mickey turns green, meaning I am good to go.
First, as you just watched,
someone has watched Up too many times.
But besides that, this was a better then normal interesting ride. First a female Rhino protecting a baby Rhino
challenged a male Rhino who was going towards them. The male Rhino backed up and away from the
female. A ostrich sat down in the road
in front of another vehicle in front of us.
They had to get a roving vehicle to scare away the ostrich.
Here is the video
After safari, I walked around
till my fastpass plus was good for kali.
Watch the video and watch to
see what wave gets me soaked.
Walking away from Kali,
crossing the bridge, you can even see how rough the waters
looks.
I see dark clouds in the sky,
there is a storm coming. They shut down ride after I got off. Not sure what
to do. Maybe tough to be a bug. But I am more then slightly wet, my
clothes are pretty soaked. Don't want to sit in ac. But I go with its tough to be a bug. It does start to rain, but not too heavy as I
wind my way around the tree of life
It rained pretty good while
inside tough. The paths leading back out from around the Tree of Life were full
of puddles. I head to the park exit and the bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge
to have dinner at Boma.
I make it to Animal Kingdom
Lodge plenty early. I try to sit down,
relax, look around, but finally give up and go to Boma
and ask, I have a 6:30 adr, its now 5:30, can I check
in this early? I see the place is pretty
empty. They say sure, hand me a buzzer,
and in less then 5 minutes, I am sitting at my usual table….
……close to the pool J I was going to say something,
with all those empty tables I the middle
of the place, why am I sitting all the way in the back?? But the tables are pretty full around me, so
I sit.
I get my usual Kool Slaw, salad to start with. I go with some meat from
the carving board, and what I think its mashed sweet potato. I try some other dishes like sometype of meat casserole thingie,
but I mainly stick with kool slaw, carving board meat
and mashed sweet potato. And what meal
would be complete without desserts??
Think that is the only
dessert I had?? If you do.. got
a bridge in
While I can still walk (haha), I pay the bill and head to the buses at the lodge.
Not sure what else to
do. I look at the times guide on My Disney Experience. Mk closes at 7. Epcot at 9. I decided
to let fate have me go next, by playing bus roulette. Whatever is the first bus that comes, I will
head there. I like to head to Downtown
Disney. I win J a bus for dtd was at the bus stop.
One of those things that are
hardly known about or remembered is the fact that there used to be a train at
After walking around DTD for
a bit, checking out pins to buy, I head back to my resort. Long day. I stop by the food court and get my
refillable mug. I decide on a florescent
orange for this years color. I tried to
use the magic band to get the mug, which is part of the dining plan, but it
didn’t work, the key to the world card did.
They need to activate the mug
by placing it on some type of electronic sensor. They asked how long I am
staying, I could have told them 20 days, they don’t know. Its the honor system. So I told them the truth 10
days. They programmed the mug, so I
should be able to use it, which I do. I
have a drink and make the ‘long’ walk back to my room.
Remember the room
refrigerator situation?? That I called in around
Getting into my room, my
magic band worked, but it didn’t work to get into the theme parks, so I will
need to use my key to the world card. No
problem.
I break out my laptop and I
find two new thing about the free wifi.
You no longer have to ok that terms and conditions page first anymore, It just works. And in my room I am getting full bars on the wifi signal.
During the day, I tried
looking for the new theme park music CD at the Pop Century gift shop or the toy
store at DTD, no luck. Will look more during the week.
I am sure somewhere on site has it.
Each of my last couple of
visits, they have purchase plans at the gift shops. Depending on how much you
spend, they have itms you can purchase as supposedly
reduced price They have two current purchase plans,
spend $25, you can buy a beachtowel, spend $40, can
buy a sorcery mickey watch. Other stores has instead of the beach towel a mesh bag. I like the beach towel better.
The pin store at DTD had some
nice retro Epcot pins, going to ask my friend Sam her opinion. Since I am
a Disney Visa holder, I can get a special monsters inc pin. They have a
nicer one for annual passholders. But I cant
get that one, not a ap holder. Got time to work
this out.
Well, just had something not
too good happen, I started to smell cigarettes smoke in my room. I went
outside and smelt it too. If this is going to be a nightly event, I am
not putting up with mysterious smoking. They have this whole place wired
up for video, let them find the person and evict them.
Hopefully be in a better mode
tomorrow ;) Bed time. All my electronics are being charged.