"The Calm Before The Storm" Tour (Part 22)

[2BoysMum&Dad]

In my hand-written notes I made at the end of Friday 23rd July, I spookily gave the day’s report the heading “The Calm Before The Storm”, only because it was the day before we flew out to Florida and didn’t think at the time it was really a very good or apt title. I have decided to name all the parts of my trip report “The Calm Before The Storm Tour”, in honour of the climax of our trip - Hurricane Charley which gave us an extra day in Florida.

Friday 13th August (Charley Day)

THE CAST

Sergeant Major Zoe “You WILL enjoy yourselves”
DH Trevor “I am NOT going to like this”
Birthday Boy Michael (aged 10 to 11)
“Why” to everything Piers (aged 8 and a bit)

We’d seen a large sign up yesterday just before we arrived at the Kennedy Space Center with some sort of hurricane warning, but I dismissed this at the time thinking it was the Americans over-acting again. Silly me, this is hurricane country

Last night, the little red light on our room ‘phone was flashing. The ‘phone message said that the parks were likely to be closing at 12pm on Friday (today) and they would keep us informed of any changes and when the parks would reopen. We had another ‘phone call this morning saying the parks would be closing at 1pm. We wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom this morning and Epcot this afternoon. I still hadn’t visited all the countries and was desperately hoping the whole time that this hurricane was just a big fuss about a strong wind and we’d still get to Epcot later.

I was up quite early this morning and decided to do a quick visit to the pool and beach area with the camcorder and camera before we head off anywhere. As I wandered about, I noticed how well organised CBR were getting themselves for the predicted high winds later. All rubbish bins were tethered to their benches and later in the day, all the sunbeds were stacked up and tied down.

So, breakfast in the room and then a change to our routine – a ride on a Disney bus! I was determined to try a Disney bus at least once and this would be our last chance, so off to the bus stop. We waited probably around 20 minutes or so before a Magic Kingdom bus came along and we were off.

The weather was eerily calm, hardly a flutter of breeze noticeable. We had a nice ride to MK on the bus which drops you off right by the park. None of this mucking about with various transport systems if you go by car. Here’s a great picture of the Contemporary with a monorail just leaving. It’s unusual because you wouldn’t get a shot like this unless you were sitting in the front of a bus. Cars (general public) do not use this road, so unless you are in the right place at the right time ...... Let’s just say I was rather pleased with myself for getting this picture!

So, as we get off the bus, I get my camcorder out and start recording. I get it out again inside the park and then notice my tape had finished! After a few choice words, I am about to consider finding a locker in which to leave the camcorder when Trevor notices the camera center (opposite the “City Hall”). We debate whether they are likely to have tapes suitable for an old machine like ours (it’s about ten years old and takes Hi8 tapes) and decide we cannot loose anything by looking. Great, they do so we buy a pack of two (we didn’t need two, but they didn’t sell single tapes). Although our problem is solved, it was still rather frustrating as Trevor had bought some tapes on special offer back home in England which we’d packed and brought with us.

So we’re back on track and head up to the steam train station and I video the train nearly running over a cat! We got on the train and I videoed most of the ride. Off by Splash Mountain and I videoed the kids getting wet on the bridge as the Splash Mountain “boats” whooshed down the drop. Wandered about a bit and then got back on the train.

As you can tell, we didn’t really have a plan for the park today and the atmosphere in the park felt surreal. As we walked around, we noticed things like the swinging “shop” type signs had been secured with rope and half way through the morning anything moveable was being packed up and moved away into storage or secured in some way. And, the weather seemed no different to any other day.

We got back on the steam train and got off at Mickey’s Toontown Fair, walked through to Fantasyland to see what the lines were like for Peter Pan. A bit too long, probably worse because anyone there had only until lunchtime to do this attraction and they had stopped issuing fast passes. We carried on walking and went to do the Haunted Mansion (Piers’s idea). We had done this before on an earlier visit, we all enjoyed it last time. This time, we really got value for money because it stopped near the end – halfway through the graveyard section where the ghosts pop up from behind gravestones – we must have been there for a good five minutes.

Now we decided to head off to Tomorrowland because on our first visit Piers wanted to do the Astro Obiter but we didn’t get the chance. I saw some characters heading up towards the castle and told the others to carry on while I do a bit of videoing of them and the castle. A case of being in the right place at the right time again because Mickey and Minnie emerged at that moment. I assumed this is a regular event – a “photoshoot”. Mickey and Minnie say how great it was meeting everyone and signing autographs in the park this morning and they are now here for people to take photographs and they do a lot of over-acting poses with a group of other Disney Characters. I then go off to find the others in the queue for the Astro Orbiter. Michael comes over to me as he doesn’t want to do it. The queue is quite long, about a 30 minute wait, but Piers really wants to do it, so we have no choice. Michael and I have a coke from the “Lunching Pad” which is situated directly under the Astro Obiter. As we sit there drinking, I noticed the window serving hatches are being closed and C.M.s are wheeling away vending carts.

Everything now at the Magic Kingdom was well strapped down or put into storage. Rides were still in operation but that didn’t last much longer. We noticed the queue for Buzz Lightyear was short and we made a dash for that when Piers and Trevor came off the Astro Orbiter. There was a reason why the queue was short, of course. They were not allowing anyone else to join it. The time was approaching 1pm and the park was closing. There was an announcement saying we would get free access to any Disney park another day as compensation for them closing early today. Unfortunately not much use for us.

It was strange, very strange, exiting the park with everyone else in the middle of the day. A very strange sight, seeing the park being emptied during daylight. All advice you get about how to plan your day to avoid crowds cannot be considered now. There was no way to avoid the crowds needing to get onto Disney transport. We all had to leave and there was no point us leaving the park a little earlier to avoid the crush as the park was being closed too early anyway! Of course, this being the Magic Kingdom, it didn’t matter on which mode of transport you arrived as you need Disney transport to get to either your hotel or your car anyway. We head towards the bus stops.

Although the crowds were bad, they could have been far worse. Today, Disney were only allowing Disney hotel guests into the parks and I discovered later that the Animal Kingdom was closed all day. MK still felt very busy to me, but I think others have said it wasn’t too bad for MK. While we were waiting for the bus, I was fascinated by the conversations of others around us. There was an American woman behind us with a friend of hers and was talking to a man (who seemed to be on his own). She was explaining how she’d been to WDW twice a year for twenty years and in all that time had never managed to eat at “Cindy’s” Royal Table. When she was in the park this morning, the C.M.s from the Royal Table were virtually dragging people in from the park streets! Obviously what had happened was a lot of non Disney residents had booked a meal and were unable to come. The queue for a bus to CBR (and all the other Disney hotels of course) was very long and we eventually got back to our room at 2pm. Our replacement birthday card from Mickey has arrived for Michael. Thanks Mickey!

We then had a brilliant idea, why not go and have lunch in Downtown Disney! There’s no weather problem at the moment, calm and hardly a breeze. I still didn’t believe there was a hurricane on it’s way! So we get in the car and head out of CBR. My only worry was that everyone else who’d been chucked out of a Disney park today might have the same idea about where to go for lunch.

As we drive along the CBR roads, it’s drizzling slightly. By the time we’re on the main road to DTD, the rain is so heavy we can’t see where we’re going. We can see about 20 yards for a split second with each swipe of the windscreen wipers. This is hopeless! There’s not much opportunity to turn around until you are virtually at DTD anyway. As we get closer, we notice the first entrance into the car park is coned off. They are all coned off and DTD is obviously closed. This is hopeless, we can hardly see where we’re going and in danger of ending up in a serious accident! Luckily, there aren’t many cars on the road (most people have got more sense) and those who are, are driving slowly and carefully. Back to CBR, very carefully.

There is another red flashing light on our room ‘phone. It’s a message from the front desk which must have been left before we headed off to DTD. In fact, it was left shortly after we had left for the Magic Kingdom this morning. The message explained which parks were open today and which were closed including DTD. If only we’d noticed this before heading off, would have saved us the stress of driving in such conditions! This rain storm was extremely heavy but could have been just one of the regular rain storms you get in Florida this time of the year anyway.

I finally accept that I am not going to get to visit Epcot again and the countries we’ve missed So I add this to my mental long list of “must do next time”.

I decide it would be a good idea to try contacting our holiday rep about plans for tomorrow. If there were any problems with flights, we wanted to know about it. As far as he was aware, there were no problems. Flights were still scheduled to fly out tomorrow and he would contact us again if this information changes. That put my mind at ease. But little did I know ..........

Seems like we’ll have to go and find some hot food in Old Port Royale at CBR instead. We still had a small supply of food in the room, enough for breakfast. The rain had stopped by now and we headed for OPR. We took the camera and camcorder for our last proper chance to record parts of the resort. I also said we’d better take the rain ponchos with us. Trevor didn’t think we’d necessarily need them, but I packed them anyway.

As we pass the pool area, Trevor took some pictures of the pool and I do a bit of camcordering. Here’s one of Trevor’s pictures of the evacuated pool with me on the right doing my thing with the camcorder.

Into OPR and get a large pepperoni pizza between the four of us. Trevor had to queue up for what seemed like an eternity to get the pizza, it seemed like all the residents of CBR were there and it was extremely busy. It really was very crowded and a lot of people were still wearing their rain ponchos. There was a great communal spirit and buzz about the place, as well as being rather steamy with evaporating rain water floating off people. We were treated with visits from Pluto and Chip ‘n’ Dale characters. I assumed other resorts were getting the same treatment as a sort of compensation for the parks being closed.

While we were there, another heavy rain storm started. This was BAD, very windy with very very very heavy rain. I thought this must be the hurricane, but no – this apparently wasn’t the hurricane yet, it just looked like it should be. This storm could be seen as a leading edge just in front of hurricane Charley on the satelite pictures (which I saw on the t.v. later). There was no point trying to return to our room at this stage; despite this fact, a few other people were trying and turning into very drowned rats. A few soggy people turned up at the building every now and then and looked a little wet to say the least! It must have been around 4pm by now. I recorded around a minute or two’s worth of videoing of the storm from the undercover area outside the food court seating area.

My last chance to use the resort’s internet payphone, which I had previously vowed never to use again as I found it too stressful! But we had nothing else to do and we didn’t want to venture out until the rain subsided a bit. So, the DIBB here I come! I managed to post four messages, three in a thread about the hurricane. (I have just had just had another look at the thread now and it looks like I wasn’t on there long enough to see a posting by someone else saying a lot of flights had been cancelled. This might have been useful if I had seen it.)

The rain subsided quite a bit and we decided we’d better make our way back to our room while we have the opportunity. Ponchos on and we head back, but before we get back the rain starts again. The t.v. stays on now (weather channels) for the remainder of the evening while we pack our bags ready to head back to Sanford airport tomorrow morning. We get another message on the room ‘phone saying OPR will be closing at 6pm tonight. Later we get another message saying it would reopen as a special arrangement from 11.30pm until around 1am (I think).

Michael and Piers get a bit worried about the weather, mostly as a result of the reports on the t.v. and ask lots of questions. But they also seem quite excited in a strange sort of way. We all keep popping out of the room at various stages (in between packing and t.v. watching) to get a proper view of the storm as it gets nearer and flies overhead. It was interesting seeing the wind apparently change directions as it passes over. It really took your breath away if you stood in the right place in one of the open corridors between parts of our building and was difficult to stand straight, hardly surprising really. It really was weird watching reports on the t.v. about an event that was happening outside our room door. Michael was planning where he should shelter should the building collapse – under the sink units and Piers should be safe lying in the bath. He wasn’t sure where Mummy & Daddy should shelter, but spent some time thinking about that. Isn’t it nice having caring children!

It was a nightmare packing. I previously thought packing to go home should be far easier than packing before the holiday. Unfortunately, it proved almost as much of a nightmare! There were a small number of things that weren’t worth taking home with us. We’d bought cheap long purple “floaties” from Wal-mart which we never planned to bring home with us anyway. They really were very very cheap and really not worth the worry, besides which – how do you pack them? I had also bought a battery operated “millions of bubbles” machine and a spare bottle of bubble mixture. We ended up never using it on holiday (but it has been used at home since). The extra bottle was extra weight and Trevor made the “executive” decision that we weren’t taking it, much to the upset of Michael. We explained to Michael that it really wasn’t worth packing as it’s the sort of thing we can easily buy at home. This didn’t cheer Michael up much but accepted our decision. I think the only other things we left were spare leaflets and maps, but we still managed to come home with half a ton of paper stuff!

More popping out of the room for hurricane watching. It’s always a disaster or other dramatic event that gets otherwise shy people talking – especially if they are English. It seemed most of the occupants of CBR were English. It really was strange to hear an American accent. Up until today, we didn’t speak to any other resident in our building unless we were in the swimming pool and suddenly we find ourselves getting quite friendly with several room neighbours and having a good old chin wag. Lots of people are out taking photographs and some CBR employees totally clad in yellow waterproofs were suffering the weather – full blown hurricane weather – digging in the dirt near our building just along from our room. The small lawn and plant beds below us tended to get a little water logged when it rains hard. The rain amount of rain this afternoon and evening were providing worry for ground floor residents and there was a danger that some of the rooms might get flooded.

Back to our room for a final attempt to get our belongings packed in the correct bags before we decide to call it a night. We don’t succeed, but we don’t have to be out of the room until 11am tomorrow morning, so with an early start we should be ok. The storm had passed before we got our heads on pillows and we wondered what we’d find in the morning......... watch this space!