When Krista and I were both ready to head out, we walked to the bus stop to catch a bus to the Animal Kingdom. Once through the turnstiles, we made our way over to Dinosaur. Since there was no line, I wound up going on Primeval Whirl. I really enjoy going on this wild mouse roller coaster, but I only go on it if there is no line. We also took a ride on Triceratops Spin.
We then headed over to Expedition Everest. We grabbed a fast pass, and got in the standby line. Krista had never ridden in the front row, so we wound up riding in the front row. If you’ve never ridden in the front row on this ride, I highly recommend it. You get a fantastic view the first time the coaster stops.
Expedition Everest
After using our fast passes for a second ride on Expedition Everest, we grabbed more fast passes, and made our way over to Anandupar Local Food Cafes for lunch. I ordered the egg rolls and chicken fried rice. Krista got the egg rolls and I shared my rice with her. The egg rolls here are really good--very crispy with a lot of flavor--as my friend Diane discovered last year, these are egg rolls that Jesus would love and approve of. The chicken fried rice was very good as well, but they cut back on the amount of chicken they put in it.
After lunch, Krista decided to wander around a bit and take pictures while I used our fast passes for Expedition Everest. We decided that we would met up back at Bay Lake Tower later in the afternoon. I wound up riding Expedition Everest six more times.
Sometimes it’s fun to go on rides or explore the parks by yourself because you never know who you will meet along the way, and I met some interesting people on Expedition Everest during my ride-a-thon. When I sat down on one ride, the man sitting next to me put out his hand and said, “Hello. I’m Laroux from Pennsylvania.” We chatted a bit as the ride began to start, and he introduced me to his family sitting in the row behind us.
On another ride, I was seated next to a nice British guy, who also introduced me to his family sitting in the row behind us. This man was a hoot on the ride--he laughed, smiled, and shouted throughout the ride. When we got off the ride, I told him that I was part of his family now, so he had to buy me lunch. He just laughed and said, “As long as we have a budget lunch.”
I then headed out of the park, and caught a bus back to Bay Lake Tower. When I got to the room, there was a message letting me know that my package of stuff I bought at the Magic Kingdom the day before had arrived. I dropped my things off in the room. I headed to the elevators, and wound up riding in the elevator with a cast member named Vanessa, whom I would later discover was the front desk manager for the Contemporary (more on that later).
I made my way to the gift shop to pick up my package, and stopped at the Contempo Café to get an ice cream. I was in the main Contemporary building for about 20 minutes or so before I headed back to Bay Lake Tower. I went to the south bank of elevators, and surprise, surprise, my key didn’t work. The elevator started to go down, and I wound up on the first floor again, so I got off the elevator, and made my way to the north elevators.
The first elevator wouldn’t take my key, so I pressed a button to send it away, and pressed the button to call another elevator. I stepped on the elevator, and tried again to get my key to work. Once again, it did not work. I was about to get off the elevator, when the doors shut and it started going up. I continued to try to get my key to work, turning the key every which way.
The elevator stopped on a floor, and a mousekeeper named Grimalda and a maintenance man named Jose stepped on. Jose noticed me shoving my key into the slot, and I told him that I couldn’t get the key to work. He took it from me, and tried, but couldn’t get it to work. He used his access key to get me to the 16th floor, which is also where he was heading.
As we got off the elevator, Jose asked me, “Are you in room 8609?” I told him that was my room, and he told me that Grimalda was our mousekeeper and hadn’t been able to get into the room. Jose tried Grimalda’s key, then my key, then his access key, and none of them worked. He thought the lock needed to be reprogrammed, so he called the maintenance supervisor to send another maintenance man up with a programmer. Jose told me that someone would be right up, and suggested that I go sit in the elevator lobby.
So, off to the elevator lobby I went. And I waited. And waited. And waited some more. I walked back to my room to see if anyone had come from another direction, and I saw Grimalda sitting on the ground outside my room. I asked if anyone had come, and she told me not yet.
I made my way back to the elevator lobby. After a half hour of waiting, I picked up the house phone and called to see if they could find out when the maintenance man would be there. The first cast member I spoke with connected me with Thelma at the front desk of the Contemporary. After being on hold for close to ten minutes, Thelma came back and told me that the front desk would send a runner up to look into it. At that exact moment, maintenance man Angel showed up, so I let Thelma know she could call off the runner.
I walked back to my room with Angel, and once again, he tried my key, Grimalda’s key, and his access key, and none of them worked. He tried his programmer, but the battery was dead, as he had just used it on four other doors. He called one of his colleagues to come up with another programmer, but that guy said he was on a plumbing call. Angel told him that he should call the plumbers to do that, as it wasn’t their job, and again asked him to get the programmer, as I was waiting to get into my room.
Angel told me that the other maintenance man wasn’t going to listen to him, so he called down to the maintenance supervisor, and asked that he have the other maintenance man bring up the programmer. Angel tried his programmer repeatedly to try to get in the room, but it just wasn’t working.
Angel thought that he might be able to get me in through the connecting door in the one bedroom, and knocked on the door, but there was no answer (at least not yet). So, I waited with Grimalda and Angel, chatting with them about Disney, Boston, and other random things.
Eventually, Wilfredo showed up with the second programmer, and that one would not work either. Sometime in the 20 minutes it took me to the package, my door lock has a major malfunction that would now require the master key to gain access to my room. Angel called down to the maintenance supervisor, and asked him to bring the master key up.
While we were waiting for the master key, I heard someone say, “Just a minute.” The man in the one bedroom unit next to mine opened to door, about 10 minutes after Angel had knocked one. And let me just say, I wish that this man had never opened the door. This man opened the door wearing only a pair of shorts, and let me just say that he had the scariest pair of man boobs I have ever seen in my live. They were flat against his stomach, and at least eight inches long. When I relayed this story to Krista later in the afternoon, I told her that I was kind of worried that I would have nightmares about the man boobs staying in the next room sliding underneath the connecting door to attack us. Angel apologized to Mr. Man Boobs for knocking, and told him that he didn’t need access to his room anymore. I think Angel was afraid to enter the man boobs lair.
So, here it was, over an hour after I left my room to go get my package, and I was still locked outside of my room. And here I stood chatting with Angel, Wilfredo, and Grimalda as we waited for the maintenance supervisor to come up with the master key.
As we waited, Vanessa, the front desk manager I had ridden in the elevator with on my way to get my package with strolled over to us. She started to say, “I heard there is a problem…this is your room?” I said, “Yes, and can you believe that I have been standing here waiting to get into my room since about 20 minutes after I saw you.” Her name was Vanessa. Vanessa had some keys with her, but alas, she didn’t have the correct key to get into my room either.
Vanessa was very nice, and offered me food or drink, and asked if I wanted to wait in the lounge. I told her I had invested an hour of time into this, and I wanted to see it through at this point. So, here I was, in the hallway with Vanessa, and Angel, and Wilfredo, and Grimalda. It was really becoming quite the party!
About ten minutes later, Grant, the maintenance manager, showed up with the master key. Only to realize that he didn’t have the correct key either. So, off he went, back to wherever they kept the master key.
At one point, another manager walked by our little group, and simply said, “You have everything under control here?” And we all told him yes.
After another ten minutes, Grant came back with the master key that would finally get us all into my room. It took over 90 minutes from the time the first maintenance call went out until I was finally able to get back into my room. If I had known it would take that long, I wouldn’t have waited there, but I had been assured that someone would be right away to take care of the issue. Then, it just reached a point where I just wanted to see it through to the end. It reached a point where the situation could be the punchline to a joke:
How many cast members does it take to open a door at a Disney Resort? 10, one to fix the door look, and 9 others to stand around and try to figure out what they need to do.
Grimalda quickly took care of my trash and towels while Angel replaced the door lock. Vanessa gave me a $50 credit to my account to make up for the time lost standing in the hallway waiting for access to my room.
Now that I was finally back in the room, I began packing up my things, as we would be leaving the next day, and I was hoping to be at the Magic Kingdom early the next morning. I filled Krista in on all the crazy details of my key adventure, including the scary man boobs.
When I was packed, we headed over to the Magic Kingdom, where we would be attending Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. We had a bit of time before our dinner reservations at Tony’s Town Square, so we headed over to the Mickey Mouse meet and greet in Town Square. We only had to wait about 15 minutes to meet Mickey and Minnie.
We then headed to Tony’s for dinner. We were seated pretty quickly. It had been a while since I had eaten here, so it was nice to try it again. It’s really pretty in the restaurant. I ordered a garden salad, which was served with a tasty house Italian dressing. For my entrée, I ordered the lasagna, which was very good, but not anywhere near as good as the lasagna at Tutto Italia.
After dinner, we browsed through some of the shops on Main Street and headed over to Tomorrowland, where we defeated Zurg and the aliens on Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. We also went to the Carousel of Progress and Space Mountain.
Not only am I a two-time Acadamy Award Winner,
I am also a two-time Mickey Award Winner!
As party time approached, we started to make our way to Fantasyland. The line was short for the Tomorrowland Speedway, so we decided to take a ride. When it came to the point where it split into two lines, we decided to go to the lane on the left, which ended up being a mistake. They were feeding two rows of cars from the line on the right, and only one line of cars on the line on the left. We were still on the ride pretty quickly, but not nearly as fast as we would have if we went to the other line.
We then headed over and took a ride on the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Since I am a little kid, I had to play with the interactive features in the queue. I never really enjoy this ride, though. I’m still bitter that they took Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride out for this.
We did some trick or treating around Fantasyland, and took a ride on Snow White’s Scary Adventures since there was no line. We then went to another trick or treating area, where they were handed out incredibly delicious caramel apple filled Werther’s Originals. We went back to that trick or treating spot many times during our trip.
We headed over to the Haunted Mansion. What’s a trip to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party without taking a ride on the Haunted Mansion. I really enjoy the new hitchhiking ghosts at the end.
Before heading over to it’s a small world, we wound up grabbing some more Werther’s Originals. Yummy. After riding it’s a small world, we grabbed more Werther’s Orginals. We must have trick or treated there a half dozen times.
We trick or treated our way towards Adventureland. As we stood in line at one station, I commented that the party seemed really crowded. The person in front of me told me she didn’t think it was crowded at all. As we chatted, she told me that she was a cast member with central reservations, and it was cast member discount night, so lots of cast members were there. Some cast members were even given free tickets to attend the event. As the night wore on, I noticed packs of young adults who you could tell were part of the college program.
We headed over to Pirates of Caribbean, and although the line said five minutes, we realized that it was a lot longer than that when we got inside. The fireworks were scheduled to start in about 20 minutes, so we decided to skip Pirates so we wouldn’t miss the fireworks.
We walked towards the castle, and joined the masses waiting for the fireworks to start. We wound up choosing a spot against a railing on the spoke leading towards Adventureland. Our view was slightly obstructed by a tree, but at least we had something to lean on.
Hallowishes
We then went to find a spot to watch the parade. We wound up choosing a spot in Liberty Square opposite the stockades. We were right at a rope and had a railing to lean on. It was right before the parade takes the turn to head towards the hub. It wound up being a nice spot, as there was no room for anyone to try to squish in front of us. We were really early for the parade, but the time went by pretty quickly as I chatted with a nice family from Canada.
The parade was a lot of fun, and we got some yummy Mickey Mouse lollipops. I really love the gravediggers, and seeing all of the characters in their costumes. And of course, it’s pretty neat to see the headless horseman ride by.
Headless Horseman
Boo To You Parade, Part 1
Boo To You Parade Part 2
And speaking of costumes, I am always amazed by some of the costumes that guests wear to the party. We saw one guy dressed in an elaborate scarecrow costume, and another guy dressed like the pope, complete with flowing robes and a pope hat. Our favorite costumes were worn by a family that poked fun at all of the things that wind up being heated topics on the DIS boards. They wore t-shirts that read “Tour Group Leader,” “Refillable Mug User,” “Pop Warner Hoodlum,” “Resort Pool Hopper,” and “Cheer Team Brat.” They were simple costumes, but really funny.
After the parade, we headed over to Frontierland, where we went on Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain. We took one more ride on the Haunted Mansion. Before we left the park, I wound up buying myself a special souvenir. I had been debating buying it throughout the trip, but finally made the decision to buy it. Yes, I just had to buy myself my very own Crack Whore Mickey stuffed Animal. Tongue hanging out of his mouth, dirty hands, bloodshot eyes, hair all messed up, dishevled clothes. This wasn't the Mickey that we all know and love. This was a darker Mickey with an edge.
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