"The Calm Before The Storm" Tour (Part 5)

[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.

Tuesday 27th July (WE MEET MICKEY!!)

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 are slowly getting used to local time and awake a bit later this morning. It was obviously of high importance to Michael where everyone was going to sleep during the whole three weeks and on arrival on Saturday he claimed the bed nearest the door, then asked Piers which side he wanted to sleep. I then had horrible visions of them mucking about at bed time every night and never going to sleep. My original plans involved one of the boys sleeping with me and the other with Trevor. But, like the plane trip, they were fine the whole time – except last night! Piers wouldn’t settle properly and was keeping Michael awake, so Trevor swapped with Piers and he was fell asleep not too long after that.

I set the alarm on my mobile ‘phone and Trevor’s portable alarm clock for 6am (can’t be too careful if you have a date with Mickey!). My aim was to be out of the room by 7.30am. I had made an 8am p.s. booking at Restaurantosaurus several weeks ago for our Character Breakfast which came “free” with our WDW passes. This is in the Animal Kingdom which on Tuesdays is not an E.E. day. So, booking the breakfast for 8am was brilliant – only those who had booked a character breakfast were being allowed into the park, so it was very uncrowded. We really could have done with allowing a lot more time to get there as we were around 20 minutes late. This didn’t seem to matter to the restaurant staff, we were ticked off their list and asked to take a seat for a moment until our names were called. We asked our waiter what our character breakfast ticket entitled us to eat, “everything” he said, “brilliant” we thought! It was a typical American “all you can eat” buffet style meal and an opportunity to pig-out, hopefully lasting us for most of the day. Trevor and I made the most of this and ate a bit of everything. Piers had six pancakes and Michael had some crispy American bacon plus a small assortment of various other bits and pieces. We are always disappointed when the kids don’t appreciate the importance of filling your face for free!

While we ate, we were advised that some characters would soon be joining us and to get our cameras and autograph books ready. I am sure he included Minnie’s name, but she wasn’t there, must have been busy at another park that morning or something!

Does anyone else hate photographs of themselves as much as I do?! At least I have proof that I met Mickey Mouse (oh, and I suppose the boys can say that too of course! ) Trevor also took photographs of us with Donald, Goofy and Pluto. There was no way he was going to have his photograph taken with any Disney character but happy enough to take photos of us. We didn’t do the autograph book thing, it would have added a total of around 24 hours of queuing to the holiday and the boys really weren’t that bothered about doing it. They wanted to use the penny press in the corner of the restaurant before we left. We also weren’t addicted to collecting pressed pennies, but the boys found it fun to get a few during the holiday.

We wondered off and came across Triceratops Spin, a bit of fun. Piers was keen to do this again, but we wanted to move on, knowing there was lots more to do and the park would become fairly crowded soon so he was outvoted!

We failed to pick up a map on the way into the park (with the rush to get to our Character Breakfast and Mickey!), but managed to find a small stall holder with a supply. Just before reaching him and the bird show, we came across the construction of a new attraction .......

Walking around AK seemed to tire us out more than MK, but that might just have been because we hadn’t got a map and we didn’t know where we were going for the first couple of hours! We saw the bird show next called “Flights of Wonder” which we thought was excellent. As with some other shows we saw elsewhere, there was a walk on part by an actor who was supposedly “scared” of birds. The CM bird trainers showed her how great they are, what they can do and why they are so important in the scheme of life.

This bird singing into the microphone was great!

... and a lovely Eagle ....

We decided not to go on the Kali River Rapids as people coming off looked absolutely soaked and we didn’t fancy getting drenched just yet! We went to “Africa” next and got Fast Passes for the Kilimanjaro Safari and went into the Mombasa Marketplace for some retail therapy while we were waiting. Trevor actually bought a Disney t-shirt and I asked if he was feeling well! Saying that, it is quite a tasteful one of some animals and only has the word “Disney” in a discrete corner! The Safari was sort of amuzing – very hammed up by the driver! They use recorded messages on the safari trucks which were presumably supposed to sound like radio conversations coming through from “base”.

New baby elephant which was reported on the DIBB a few weeks ago ......

When we came out, we had some “ice creams”. Trevor and Michael had the frozen strawberry lollies and Piers and I had the frozen bananas which are exactly what they say – a frozen banana on a stick and covered in a layer of chocolate and nuts. Piers then got upset because he thought it was a banana shaped ordinary ice cream so Trevor had to swap! We didn’t let Piers forget this for the rest of the holiday D) suggesting he would like one of these whenever we saw them.

Next stop – Fast Pass station for “It’s A Bugs Life” and we had time for lunch at the Safari BBQ while we were waiting for our timeslot. The Fast Pass system in this case didn’t seem to save us much time as we still waited half an hour in the queue and holding area. We were constantly told to shuffle forward to let more people in and it got very boring. It really was a great 3D film with lots of real effects which enhanced the impact of the show. When we got out, we were tired and wanted a break from the park. It was only about 3pm but had already seemed like a long day, well – we had been here since just after 8am.

As soon as we arrived back at CBR, the heavens opened and the rain really chucked it down. Michael and Piers wanted to swim in our Aruba pool and I was desperate to try out the internet payphone (getting severe DIBB withdrawl symptoms you understand!). The machine was easy to use, you just swipe your credit card down the side (no need for a PIN), or you can enter cash if you like. I typed in www.theDIBB.co.uk in the URL address line and a sight for saw eyes flashed up! Unfortunately, the machine didn’t like the website very much (must have a word with Disney!!) and I wasn’t able to post any messages in threads. Earthbound spotted me quickly and sent me a pm. After several attempts, I managed to reply and send him another message. The main problem, was the browser which kept refreshing back to the previous screen. James_Essex also spotted me and sent me a pm, I managed to reply without any problems this time. I used the car to get to the main building (where the internet machine was) but still got totally drenched by the rain. I really didn’t mind as I would do nearly anything for the DIBB! When I got back to the room, we all went swimming in the pool (Trevor, Michael and Piers waited for me). The rain didn’t totally subside but it didn’t matter, it wasn’t heavy anymore.

Time for “tea” in our room using food supplies from Wal-mart. We then decided it would be great to do something interesting (like a show or something) before bedtime so we went to DTD to have a look at Disney Quest. Obviously not exactly a show but very interesting for first time DQ visitors and computer games freaks like us. It’s brilliant to be able to have as many goes at Pacman or Space Invaders as you like without being broke at the end of it! We had a go at the Buzz Lightyear ride, Trevor and Michael in one “car” and Piers and me in another. This is a relatively slow loading ride and the operators were in no great hurry to keep things moving. They often didn’t prime the next group while the previous group were playing, waiting until the last group had finished. This slowed things up enormously. Trevor had problems with his vehicle as the canon was jammed. Piers and me handn’t worked out that you had to turn a silver handle on the side of the canon when it was loaded (despite this being part of the instructions! ) so none of us actually got to shoot anybody! Trevor and Michael got to have another go almost immediately as the chap took pity on them when Trevor explained about the canon jamming. This was the perfect opportunity for Piers and me to have a look around the 3rd floor where there’s a load of computers, but unfortunately they were all being used and there seemed to be a lot of people hanging around waiting for one to become available.

As I wrote these notes this evening, 2Boys&Dad are asleep and it’s up to me again to refresh the supply of ice in our cool box. Nighty night everyone. ZzZzZzZz. Tomorrow = scheduled day in Epcot.

Just editing this report to add a p.s.! P.S. = Thought of Barry & Caron a lot today (a.k.a. "barrysprot36") as I knew they would be arriving at CBR. Kept gazing towards Martinique from across the lake for the rest of the holiday wondering if they were looking for me! - they had been put in Jamaica and we never found each other!)