Valentine’s Day at WDW – a Comedy of Errors
So, we were dead broke but my Love sold a drawing on Friday. With money for gas and a burger at the park, we decided to get out of Dodge for the day and use our passes to WDW. The Magic Kingdom was open until 11pm, so we got off to a bit of a late start, leaving about 12:30pm. Normally, it only takes us about an hour and a half to get there, which would still leave more then enough time to spend the day together there. But, instead, we had a comedy of errors for the history books…
We take the interstate to pick up the other interstate for our trip to Orlando. Problem was that the merge lanes were completely backed up. We had no idea why. We thought perhaps there was something going on in that area so we stuck it out and inched our way through the traffic. Make our way through the worst of it, finding no explanation of what the hold up was and get going once it opens up into three lanes. Cruising along, we shrug it off and enjoy the fact that while we’re already behind schedule – it’s taken us an hour so far of our normal hour and a half trip – we’ve got open highway and shouldn’t have any more problem or delay.
Yeah. We were wrong.
The road eventually narrows back down to two lanes. What you have to realize is that there is one and only one route to take to get to Orlando and that’s I-4. It’s been under construction pretty much for as long as Florida has been a state. They worked for well over ten years to complete an expanded section of three lanes and they’ve started working on pretty much all the rest of it (to bring it up to three lanes as well). Once we got past the completed point, we hit a stoppage again. Traffic crawled to a halt. This is where we spent another two and a half hours.
Now, remember, quick drive to Orlando. 1 ½ hours. We left at 12:30pm. Should have gotten there about 2pm. Instead, we didn’t walk into the gates until 4pm. That was a grand total of three and a half hours of “driving” down an interstate who’s posted speed limit averages between 65-70mph. (In a car who’s a/c doesn’t work while it was raining the whole drive plus not moving fast enough equals inability to roll down windows without getting soaked from the rain.)
But before we even made it to the gates, we made it into the WDW property. Deciding we wanted to hit MGM for the heck of it before Magic Kingdom, we go to that parking lot. At 4pm on a day when MGM closes at 7pm, there weren’t any lot attendants directing you where to park. So we’re driving along through the lot, following the car in front of us. Passing row after row we just don’t know where to turn (all the lanes went the wrong way, leaving us to keep winding down past all the rows). The car in front of us keeps right on going and so do we – right out the exit. Drove through the whole lot and right out the other side. Dammit. So we pull out into the maze of roadways on the 47 square miles of Disney property and manage to make a U-turn. Go back through the MGM gate and just find a damned parking spot.
Of course, it’s really far away from the gates. And the tram just pulled away and there aren’t anymore in sight, let alone people wanting to ride it. So we open our umbrellas and trudge through the rain and puddles all the way up to the entrance. Go on the Animation Tour out of morbid curiosity (since Eisner is an ass and closed the Feature Animation Department in Florida, firing the creative people behind Mulan and Lilo & Stitch which were both made there and which is an entry in and of itself and I’ll get to at another time) Then realized we were starving. It was going on 5pm at this point and neither of us had eaten yet for the day.
Now, you’ve got to realize something for this next part. My Love is utterly and completely in love – and one might even say addicted – to WDW hamburgers. Don’t ask, I don’t get it. I think they’re ok, but something about them just makes his entire day. When we went the weekend before with our friend Rand, we ended up eating at the Rainforest Café and so he didn’t get a chance to have one of his burgers. Needless to say, having been teased the week before, he was dying for one right about then.
So we look on the map to check out the places which serve burgers and meander over to the ABC Commissary. He gets his burger and I order a kid’s meal of chicken nuggets. First off, his burger comes with all the toppings rather then having a toppings bar like they do at MK and Epcot. So he has to take the lettuce and such off. Then, it’s not the same burger. It’s dried out and the cheese isn’t even melted on it and he’s just miserable. Hungry, he eats it, but not happily. Meanwhile, my nuggets are scorched. They taste like coal. Dried out also, they’re just inedible. I wolf down my fries and disgruntled, we head back out into the rainy park.
We wander the “One Man’s Dream” exhibit and movie (which is about the life and times of Walt Disney), get mad that it’s narrated by Eisner again and move on. By this point, the rain’s coming down even harder. We dash into a couple shops, and he has his highlight of the night: he finds a shirt which has the Tramp from Lady and Tramp on the back. (This is one of his favorite Disney flicks.) I had stashed about half enough to pay for it so I could get him something as a surprise while we were there so I used that and a little extra so he could get it. I don’t have any money to get him a birthday present on Wednesday, so at the very least, he ended up getting something after all and something he liked.
Rounding on seven, we trudge back out through the rain and even deeper puddles to the car. We exit out and try to follow the signs to get to MK next. Turns out we miss a turn and end up driving out of the property. Come Back Real Soon! the sign says. Bah. It’s a divided road with ZERO breaks and no place to turn around. We end up driving several miles away before finally coming to a break where we can U-turn and come several miles back just to get to MK. Ugh.
We get into the MK parking lot. Problem is that it’s still raining and we end up in the wrong lane (again) and go past the turn off for the parking and instead head towards the gas station. Luckily there was circle-back right there so we got back into the parking lot without more hassle.
Park no problem (someone was actually directing). Tram ride no problem. Get to the ticketing center and there is a virtual flood of people leaving. Cool. Monorail is packed full but they all get out to leave when we’re waiting to get on. My Love and I get the car to ourselves and I snuggle against him for the couple-minute ride over to the entrance. It was the best part of the night for me. Such a nice calm after so much stress.
MK is where things FINALLY start to pick up for us and our comedy of errors finally wanes. We have a nice time, getting to do all our favorite things like Philharmagic, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, ride the People Mover in Tomorrowland, catch the last two minutes or so of the Spectro Magic Parade, catch all of the amazingly impressive, Wishes fireworks show (which went off at 9pm – we didn’t realize until they announced it, but under our umbrellas right in front of the Castle, we got to see it anyway), and yes, we even stopped so my Love could get his long denied WDW burger. We sat at an outside table across from the Castle. The rain had stopped but no one was out there with us. I sipped my hot cocoa (it had gotten cool, but not uncomfortably slow) and he enjoyed his burger and we just sat at about 10pm and relaxed for a bit taking in the lovely view. It was the second best part of the night.
Afterwards we hit a few more rides, I traded a duplicate pin for one from a cast member of the girl from the Rhapsody in Blue segment of Fantasia 2000 (my first trade! Now I want to get some more pins I don’t care about just so I can trade them!), we nosed around a few stores and called it a night about 11:30pm.
Smooth sailing home, we got in a little after 1am.
So the day had all the elements of things gone wrong. Everything that just could have been a frustration, was. Despite the extremely irritating drive out there, the length of time it took us, the rain, my residual getting-over-my-cold runny nose, the disappointing food/rides in MGM and our continual problems with driving around the property, we actually had a pretty nice day. When it came right down to it, we still got to spend the day together and that’s what counted.
Do you believe in Miracles?
Sunday we got together with our friend Rand and caught a matinee of the movie, Miracle. (The story of the gold-medal winning 1980 USA hockey team.) The theater was packed but the movie was excellent. Coming in at about 2 hours 15 minutes, I enjoyed it all. Hockey, a great true story, the pride of overcoming impossible odds – the movie had everything. Despite knowing they won, it was still very well done; you were with them, rooting and cheering and fighting through each moment of the game. I really came out of it feeling even more respect for those guys and what they managed to achieve. If you have any interest in hockey, the Olympics, teams coming together, the sad state of affairs of the world in 1980, or just underdog tales, I’d recommend it. I think just about everyone would enjoy it.
Monday, Monday, Monday…
Today – well, technically since I’ve been writing this for about a half hour now it WAS Monday when I started this – I took a shower, called my mom (her computer’s working again – no clue what she did to it to make it break or work and I’m not asking too many questions!), Love’s mom (about his birthday), my friend Joolo (who I hadn’t talked to in forever because he’s busy with his new girlfriend. OooOOoh….) and I cleaned up the house. My Love’s mom came by to see him since she had the day off today (he didn’t) around 5:20pm, so I wanted the place to look nice. She also wanted to drop off his birthday gift (a gift certificate to Pearl’s). She didn’t stay long because she can’t see well to drive at night. He rested a bit, I made us some food and we watched a little tv together. Generally, just a quite – but typical – weeknight evening for us.
Tomorrow (today technically, Tuesday), a bunch of friends are coming over to hang out as a birthday party for my Love. He took his birthday off, so he can sleep in on Wednesday. Should be nice; haven’t seen several of our friends in a couple weeks.
Well. If you got through all that, my compliments. *laughs* But it was just too much of a story not to tell. Anyway, that was my weekend and my 2004 Valentine’s Day At WDW. I think this has been more then long enough so here I’ll call it a night. Ta for now.
~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream
at 2/17/2004 12:40:42 AM ~
~
