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Saturday – October 30, 2004 - Rod Stewart & Truffles
We’re up at 3:40, an un-godly hour. For some reason, I had
difficulty drifting off last night and I’m working on about
3 hours of sleep. We get caffeined and showered, say goodbye to
Stephen and Gunnar and hit the road about 5:10. It’s an uneventful
trip to the airport. We park inside the garage and wheel our luggage
to the Southwest counter. Sue and Wayne are already there, having
dropped off Kristin and Matt for a flight that was earlier than
ours. They take a look at my shorts and laugh. Wearing shorts in
the Northeast in late October is pretty rare. We’ll see who’s
laughing later.
We get in line but discover that the Southwest counter doesn’t
open until 6:00AM on weekends so we have about a 15-minute wait.
Eventually, we’re checked in and get our ‘A’ boarding
passes. We hoof it upstairs and grab some coffee, then settle in
until boarding.
At around 7:10 they begin the boarding process so we get in line
with the other ‘A’s. Wayne calls our attention to a
guy getting coffee at the shop across from our gate. He’s
a dead ringer for Rod Stewart – spiked blond hair with dark
roots, pronounced nose, etc. He’s even dressed like Rod. My
guess is that, somewhere along the way, someone told him he looked
like Rod so he’s been grooming and dressing to perpetuate
the myth. Just in front of us, there’s a guy with the world’s
worst comb over. His hair is parted just above his ear – and
the part dips in the back, cuts across the back about an inch above
his neck, and continues up and over the other ear. And all this
is combed up and over his head. If I ever go bald, and I pray I
don’t, shoot me if I ever do this.
We grab aisle and window seats across the aisle from each other.
The flight leaves a bit late at 7:37 but we make good time and actually
land early at 10:00. Unfortunately, there’s another plane
at our gate so we have to chill for about 10 minutes before we can
dock.
We catch the monorail to the main terminal (my favorite thing)
and head to Baggage Claim where our Tiffany driver, Mike, greets
us. He indicates that our luggage is already on the carousel –
that’s a first. I find our first bag immediately and the second
one is about 15 seconds behind. Wayne grabs theirs and we’re
on our way. We head outside and wait a quick 2-minutes for Mike
to get the car and we’re off to Disney World.
In about 15 minutes, I catch my first sight of purple road signs
(my favorite thing). Mike drops us at the CBR and I check us in.
As expected, the rooms are not ready yet. I’m told by the
Front Desk CM that they’re near each other but not adjoining
or connecting. We take our bags to Bell Services where we’re
told to bring them outside and look for someone in a blue shirt.
We finally find a young girl that puts our bags on a wheeled cart
and gives me a receipt. She refuses my offer of a tip with “Save
it for the bellman”.
We decide to head to Epcot so we walk to the nearby bus stop and
wait about 5 minutes. Barb and I need to buy our APs so we head
to the Guest Relations windows where the line is about 8-10 deep.
I’m not sure if you can buy APs at the regular ticket windows
(found out later that you can) and I try to send Barb over there
to find out. She looks and there are no APs listed on the price
list. The lines over there are similar length but they seem to be
moving much more quickly. We wait, and as I reach number 2 in line,
a CM comes from a door around the corner of the building. He asks
if he can help and I tell him that we’re looking to purchase
APs. He takes us out of line and around the corner where he completes
the transaction by shuttling in and out with our IDs, credit card,
etc. We finally get our 2 passes ($807.28) and it’s Mickey
for Barb and Minnie for me. I really wish they were reversed but
they come out of the system in a random order. By the way, it seems,
from eavesdropping, that most of the folks in line at Guest Relations
are registering a complaint. One woman even had a Security Guard
with her.
I had tried to send Sue and Wayne for a ride on Spaceship Earth
(SE) while they waited but they just said they’d camp out
by the entrance. We went through the security tables for a quick
check. Does anyone else feel that the security tables at Epcot are
too close to the turnstiles? We entered our new tickets and biometrically
scanned our fingers and we were in. One observation – I think
the Leave a Legacy thing is growing on me. We usually stay at the
Boardwalk so we almost always use the IG entrance and I don’t
get to see much of these things. I still think I prefer the trees
and flowers but I don’t find these monoliths as disturbing
as I used to.
We consider a ride on SE but there’s a line wrapped around
the right side. We’ll hit it later. We stroll through Future
World (FW) and just take in the sights (my favorite thing). It’s
so nice to be back.
We decide on a counter-clockwise trek around World Showcase (WS)
and the first booth we see is Florida. If I remember correctly,
at the 2002 F&W they offered something with alligator. This
time it was a Shrimp Roll for each of us (about $100). Wayne gave
it an 8 on our scale while the rest of us scored it a 7. We ate
at a small bar table near the kiosk. It’s sunny and mid-80s.
Wayne is now muttering that he should have worn shorts. Har, har,
har.
Now for something to wash down the Shrimp Roll… we find
the Eastern Europe booth and grab 4 Pilsner Urquells (about $100).
Wayne and I gave these an 8 but the girls felt they were a little
too strong tasting – so they graded a 6 on the wimpy, girly
scale.
We were all a bit hungry so we decided it was time for lunch.
We wandered up to Le Cellier. We were still carrying our Urquells
and thought it would be bad form to walk in with them so we grabbed
a bench outside the restaurant and sipped. Once we finished the
beer, we went inside and were seated immediately in the Manitoba
room. I had read that each room is decorated in a fashion befitting
its Province so I asked our hostess what distinguished one from
the other. She essentially said “Nothing”. She did indicate
that the employees knew the layout – which tables belonged
to which Province and it provided a reference point for them. I
also imposed on her to take a photo of the 4 of us at the table.
She kindly obliged.
I had a Labatt’s (2 actually) while Wayne had something lighter
(not in my notes) and, I think, Barb had coffee and Sue an iced
tea. Sue and I went with the Cheddar Cheese soup (my favorite thing)
while Barb and Wayne had the Beef and Barley. Thumbs up all around.
We also demolished the breadsticks. We weren’t extremely hungry
so we shared entrees - Barb and I split a Vancouver Chicken Sandwich
while Sue and Wayne shared the Steak Burger. We all rated lunch
a solid 9. The cost was about $100.
We left Le Cellier and strolled past the UK and over the bridge
to France. There was the usual France kiosk dispensing wine and
some other French glop but… behind it was nothing. This was
the spot, in 2002, where they had the small kiosk that sold Cognac
and Chocolate Truffles (my favorite thing, really). Yes, those amazingly
tasty, melt in your mouth little slices of heaven that Sue and I
would give our first-borns, pink slips, and retirement funds for.
NO CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES! I have now declared the 2004 Food and Wine
Festival a miserable failure. Get me Eisner on the phone.
Sobbing uncontrollably, we traveled the rest of the way around
WS. We weren’t hungry or thirsty so we just perused menus
and made mental notes for later. Once back to the front of the park,
we noticed that SE was a walk-on, so we did. I’m wondering
what percentage of our trips begins with SE as our first ride. I
bet it’s over 80%. We did notice that Universe of Energy was
closed while they remove the signing (is it Exxon that dropped its
sponsorship?). Anyway, it was open again later in the week.
It’s time to head back to CBR so we exit Epcot and grab
a bus after about a 5-minute wait. We got off at Old Port Royale
(OPR) and while the others used the rest rooms, I used the house
phone to check on our rooms. Ours was ready but Sue and Wayne’s
was not. We were in Aruba, which is a short walk across the bridge
from OPR. We decided to grab a drink and a table at the Banana Cabana
by the main pool and we just sat and chilled for a while. After
finishing our drinks, we walked across and found our room (5104)
and called for the luggage. A bit later, we called and got Sue and
Wayne’s room (5150). We were on the ground floor while they
were in a separate wing of the building on the second floor. For
some reason, this really upset Barb. She had made the reservation
and requested that the rooms be near each other but, apparently,
different floors in different wings of the same building did not
meet her criteria. She called the Front Desk and tried to get other
accommodations made but was told they were near capacity and that
was the best they could do. No one else thought it was a big deal
but I think Barb felt guilty, as the room reserver, that Sue and
Wayne were banished to the outer reaches of Mongolia. In reality,
theirs was a very nice room with a view across Barefoot Bay.
We decided not to unpack anything and just work out of one suitcase
because we’d be moving in the morning. It was sunny and 88
degrees so a swim was in order. We met by the Aruba pool and spent
an hour swimming, sitting and chatting. While we were at a table,
I noticed a guy from New Jersey getting in the pool. How did I know
he was from Jersey? I didn’t, but it’s a good guess.
As we learned later, most (all?) of NJ has the end of this week
off for a Teachers’ Conference and Tuesday off for Election
Day. Someone else also said that teachers were on strike which lengthened
the time off. The end result was that WDW was *loaded* with families
from NJ. At various attractions, someone would mention NJ and 80%
of the audience would applaud – we were definitely outnumbered.
Anyway, back to the guy. How did I know he was from NJ? He looked
like a ‘wise guy’ and if you’ve spent as much
time in NYC or NJ as I have, you’d know exactly what I mean.
He had tons of body hair, a gold watch, several gold bracelets on
his wrist, gold chokers around his neck (lets him know where to
stop shaving).
Suitably cooled from the swim, and eerily disturbed by the nipple
rings, we head back to the rooms for showers and a change. The others
now don shorts after having spent the better part of the day envious
of my forethought. Our plan was to grab a quick, and light, dinner
in the CBR food court and then head to Epcot. I noticed a number
of small changes in the food court since our last visit in 1999.
The beverage island has moved, making room for a central checkout.
The Captain’s Table restaurant has been moved and reincarnated
as Shutters. The bakery at the far right of the food court is no
longer there. If I were staying here for a longer time, that would
be a major loss. Their coffee and muffins was a staple for me.
Wayne and I disagree on something. He maintains that the look
of the ‘shops’ is different. He doesn’t recall
the upper facade giving the impression that they’re separate
buildings on a city street. I maintain (and I’m reasonably
certain) that these were always there. We’ll need to check
an older video to confirm.
Barb and I grab Chefs Salads and water, Wayne gets a Prime Rib sandwich
and Sue goes very light with a fruit cup. While eating, we get into
another of those conversations about old Disney TV shows. Can you
remember the Disney serials? Spin and Marty were part of the Mickey
Mouse Club. There were a number of others (Davy Crockett, Nine Lives
of Elfago Bacca, Swamp Fox, Andy Burnett, etc.) that were run, as
anthologies, on the weekly show. The first mini-series? I’m
a guy that has trouble remembering the names of my co-workers but
I can sing the theme song from any of these. Not to brag, but I
also know the words to the Bonanza theme. We spent some time quizzing
each other (mainly Wayne and I) and we disagreed when I said that
the Swamp Fox was played by Leslie Neilsen – although Wayne
later recanted, indicating he was thinking of the Scarecrow of Romney
Marsh. I need to check IMDB.com to make sure I was right.
Time to head back to Epcot so we grab a bus and make our way back
to WS. World Showcase in the evening (my favorite thing). Is there
anything better than the dim lighting on the promenade, the background
music that seems to be there only when you want to hear it, the
glistening lagoon, the flickering torches, etc.? We’re looking
for Ireland and a Whiskey Flan and O’Mara’s Cream. WS
is very crowded and Ireland has a line that’s 20 deep so we
keep walking. We stop at Australia where Sue and I get a Chocolate
Macadamia Nut Tartlet (about $100). There’s no chocolate that
I can taste so I give it a 7. Sue gives it an 8 because, as she
puts it, “It is, after all, dessert”. Next stop is Piedmont
– which I thought is a California city but turns out to be
an Italian province. Here I opt for the Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut
cake while Sue gets a Chocolate Bonet (about $100). Can you tell
who the chocolate lovers are in this group. Each gets a solid 9.
I also had a white wine here (Principessa Perlante) while Wayne
had a red (L’ Ardi Dolcetto D’acqui). He rated his a
7 but I only gave a 5 – tempered by the fact that I have a
strong preference for red wine and drink white only occasionally.
As we walked clockwise around WS, we came upon the American Pavilion
where Survivor was ending their show. We heard the final strains
of ‘Eye of the Tiger’ which, I think was there one and
only hit. As I perused the list of entertainers for the F&W,
there were a number I would have liked to have seen: Beach Boys,
Starship, Kool and the Gang, Eddie Money, etc. We catch one night
of Survivor and the rest with Blake Shelton. I don’t want
to upset and C&W fans, but I didn’t even know who Blake
Shelton was.
This is our luck. We’ve taken a number of trips to Atlantic
City. As you drive in on the Expressway, you pass numerous billboards
announcing who’s appearing. For every trip, last week and
next week read like a Who’s Who of entertainment: the Beatles
reunion, Wayne Newton, MeatLoaf, George Carlin, Celine Dion, Bill
Cosby, etc. The week we were there? Nancy Sinatra’s boots,
Charo, and Shecky Marigami, the Japanese ventriloquist.
We strolled around WS making our way back to Canada where a second
surprise greeted us. The Beaver Tails kiosk was closed! I know it’s
shut down in the afternoon but this is 7:30 in the evening. Wayne
was brokenhearted. First, no truffles… now, no Beaver Tails.
Sell my stock.
We decided that we were all tired – 3:40 wakeups can do
that – and we could catch Illuminations – Reflections
of Earth (IROE) later in the week after we had moved to the Boardwalk.
We strolled out through a very un-crowded FW, stopping to take in
a fountain show, to the bus stops.
At the CBR stop, we met up with Kristin and Matt. They gave us
the horror story of their trip. They were flying United because
Matt had some miles to use for free tickets. Their flight was supposed
to leave an hour before ours but ended up leaving over an hour late
– due to fog in Washington. When they finally got to Washington,
they had missed their connecting flight and had to wait for another.
They finally hit MCO 3 hours later than planned but did say that
United had treated them well. They also indicated they rode Mission:Space
(M:S) with a 5-minute wait and loved it. Matt said it was basically
a walk-on at 4:30-5:00.
We rode back and all stopped at OPR to grab some sodas and juices.
Then it was back to Aruba for some TV and very welcome sleep.
With apologies to Peter King… Things I Think I Think
I think I’m spoiled. CBR is a fine resort and I used to
love it there but it no longer holds a candle to the DVC resorts.
I think I really miss the Boardwalk and that short walk back from
Epcot.
I think the F&W has gone downhill. No truffles? And no beaver
tails?
I think the F&W is very crowded but, being the weekend, it may
be a large local crowd.
Day 2...
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