2BoysMum&Dad
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
In my hand-written notes I made at the end of Friday 23rd July, I spookily gave the days report the heading The Calm Before The Storm, only because it was the day before we flew out to Florida and didnt 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.
Monday 26th July (A "Day Off"!)
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 all seemed to get more sleep last night, despite Trevor and I both having a bit of a broken night. We were all awake and up by 8am and made our way to Old Port Royale at CBR for breakfast. My meal consisted of a pot of strawberry yoghurt which I dumped over a plastic pre-packed fruit selection, quite nice. Followed up by a cinnamon Danish pastry. I wouldnt normally have a fizzy drink for breakfast, but as refills cost nothing, I had a diet coke in my CBR mug. Michael and Piers had coke in theirs (theyd better not get a taste for fizzy drinks for breakfast!). Trevor and the boys all also had a Danish pastry and Trevor also had a strawberry yoghurt. Trevor had a caffeine free coffee in his refillable mug. We had a look around the shop (the Calyspo Trading Post), bought some stamps and postcards and some sherbert tube things for the kids (for consuming at a later time and bought with their pocket money).
I noticed a group of payphones round the corner, just before the entrance to the restrooms. One seems to have a screen on it. With closer inspection YES its an internet payphone!
I can now see what my credit card will be used for mainly during the next three weeks! Must check it our properly later when I have time.
We had to take things slowly until 11am (check out time for anyone leaving) so I could then contact Custom House to see if they had any vacancies in the Jamaica 45 building. Unfortunately, because the length of our stay, they were unable to move us at the moment. Shouldnt have booked a holiday for three weeks! Actually, maybe I should, glad we did. Best option would be to wait until next Saturday and try front desk again then.
Time to discuss plans for the rest of the day and some food shopping is of paramount importance at some stage before we come back to the hotel again this evening. Told Trevor that theres supposed to be some good eating places in Downtown Disney and we should head for there now, do a spot of shopping or window shopping (of the souvenir sort) and have a meal. At the first signpost for DTD, we turned in and parked close to Disney Quest. Trevor wondered whether Cirque de Soleil was worth a visit at some stage (saw it next to Disney Quest and had seen adverts for it on various taxis). I said Id heard mixed reviews about the place, but generally sounds like a good night out. Didnt get the chance to visit there in the end. We walked around a bit, looking in various shops loved the magnet shop, bought some for ourselves and the in-laws. We then had lunch in Wolfgang Puck, the outside of which confused me a bit because there were several different menus for seemingly different places and very different kinds of food. Anyway, it was good, but we only had boring food (sorry mcsue & muppet!). I had a basic caesar salad, Trevor had a cheeseburger and fries and the boys and pepperoni pizza.
Most of the restaurants we visited gave us activity sheets and crayons to help keep the boys happy while we waited for the food to turn up. These normally included word searches, mazes and/or a picture to colour. This particular activity sheet gave Trevor and I a bit of a laugh every now and then when the boys came dangerously close to unwittingly writing something unsuitable! In one corner was written the words Wolfgang Puck and you were asked to make as many words as possible using any of the letters! ......... Ill move on before I get into trouble from the moderators!
Food eaten and paid for, off towards the Marketplace end of DTD. We decided not to venture that far when we saw how much more there was to DTD as we still needed to visit Florida Mall and Walmart to stock up on a supply of food for future breakfasts and snacks. Besides which, we would be back here for the DIBB meet on 2nd August of course.
We got to the Florida Mall with no problem, passing SeaWorld and International Drive on the way. Yet another huge car park and realised the importance of making a note of exactly where we parked our car before entering the building. We had a voucher to claim a book of money off coupons and spent the next half an hour or so trying to find the Guest Services desk. Florida Mall is HUGE and the internal signs are hopeless! Finally found the place, which turned out to be more of a stall in the middle of one of the walkways and we had passed it at least once without noticing! Trevor decided he needed to buy a pair of trainers and we followed him around a couple of shoe shops before getting bored. We told him wed go to the toy shop next to JC Penny and wait for him there. We had selected some items we wanted to buy (including a beach shovel set and bubble making machine, neither of which we used at all!) and then waited an age or two, but no sign of Trevor. The mall was very busy and I took the dodgy decision to try tracking him down! DUH! I didnt have my credit card with me, so had to leave the items we wanted to buy with the cashier in the shop and we retraced our steps. No sign of Trevor. We walked back to the toy shop yes, he was coming out looking for us! All back into the toy shop again to pay for the stuff.
We were all quite tired by now and had sore feet, so gave up the idea of looking at clothes in JC Penny. I had previously bought some nice clothes for me in this shop in Houston and in Pennsylvania and had looked forward to having a browse here too. But never mind, there should be time to come back again for another visit (wouldnt there?!!).
We left the building through JC Penny, the same shop we entered by, but couldnt find the car. Yes youve guessed it, there is more than one JC Penny entrance of course!
Theres not much worse than trying to find your car in an oversized car park when its very hot, you are tired, got sore feet (could feel a blister festering) and there are heavy rain clouds looming. It didnt actually take us too long to find the car and stopped off at Wal-mart along the same road on the way back towards the I-4.
Talking about car trouble in car parks we did have one experience in Pennsylvania which was worse. We were on holiday there in August 2001, staying with an English friend who has moved to that area. They were having a heat wave at the time and temperatures were often in the high 90s or low 100s. On one of these particularly hot days, we emerged from a shopping mall to discover we had a flat tyre. Trevor changed the tyre in the scorching heat while the boys and I watched baking our brains out and, of course, on the concrete it feels far worse.
Anyway, back to Florida. We somehow managed to get to Wal-mart without it raining. We dashed in and did a quicker than planned shopping spree because we really just wanted to collapse back in our room at CBR, but still managed to grab a few t-shirts and shorts for the kids and boxer-shorts for Trevor. A bit of intensive retail therapy was in order in the near future, Wal-mart had everything you could possibly want and was very cheap.
The clouds were still doing strange things ahead and we had had some interesting lightning shows since leaving Florida Mall. As we drove along, we could see where it was raining on the road ahead of us a wall of water only a couple of hundred yards away and we were heading straight for it! eeeeeeeeek! Yes, it was heavy rain alright! So much so, we managed to miss our turning and ended up somewhere further south than we should have been and ended up on a toll road. Never mind, we were still heading in the right direction and the toll wasnt much money.
Got back to CBR safely, unloaded the car and unpacked my large soft-sided cool bag Id bought from Homebase a few weeks ago. You can get polystyrene boxes very cheaply from Wal-mart for approximately $1.50 which would be perfectly good. I half-filled some freezer bags with ice from the ice machine down the corridor, tied a knot in the top of each and placed them in the cool bag with the chilled food including some Philadelphia cheese, light sour cream and margarine. Didnt bother with any milk as we wouldnt bother with cereal. We ate some Danish pastries and fresh fruit for tea. It was still chucking it down with rain outside, it was 8.45pm, and I could now also hear some loud bangs. It turned out to be Epcot (I assumed) doing a firework display (wasnt it a bit early for illuminations?).
As I write these hand-written notes on the round table in the corner of our room, the boys are still playing their Gameboys quietly in bed and Trevor was trying to read a book but seems to have fallen asleep with the book across his face! Either that or his eyesight has suddenly got worse! Time taken to write my notes this evening = one hour. (Time taken to convert my scrawl into a coherent typed report = several hours, constantly interrupted by the kids and Trevor coming home from work!).
Nighty night everyone. Tomorrow Character breakfast at Restaurantosaurus and a day in the Animal Kingdom (well, that's the plan anyhow!).
Monday 26th July (A "Day Off"!)
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 all seemed to get more sleep last night, despite Trevor and I both having a bit of a broken night. We were all awake and up by 8am and made our way to Old Port Royale at CBR for breakfast. My meal consisted of a pot of strawberry yoghurt which I dumped over a plastic pre-packed fruit selection, quite nice. Followed up by a cinnamon Danish pastry. I wouldnt normally have a fizzy drink for breakfast, but as refills cost nothing, I had a diet coke in my CBR mug. Michael and Piers had coke in theirs (theyd better not get a taste for fizzy drinks for breakfast!). Trevor and the boys all also had a Danish pastry and Trevor also had a strawberry yoghurt. Trevor had a caffeine free coffee in his refillable mug. We had a look around the shop (the Calyspo Trading Post), bought some stamps and postcards and some sherbert tube things for the kids (for consuming at a later time and bought with their pocket money).
I noticed a group of payphones round the corner, just before the entrance to the restrooms. One seems to have a screen on it. With closer inspection YES its an internet payphone!
I can now see what my credit card will be used for mainly during the next three weeks! Must check it our properly later when I have time.We had to take things slowly until 11am (check out time for anyone leaving) so I could then contact Custom House to see if they had any vacancies in the Jamaica 45 building. Unfortunately, because the length of our stay, they were unable to move us at the moment. Shouldnt have booked a holiday for three weeks! Actually, maybe I should, glad we did. Best option would be to wait until next Saturday and try front desk again then.
Time to discuss plans for the rest of the day and some food shopping is of paramount importance at some stage before we come back to the hotel again this evening. Told Trevor that theres supposed to be some good eating places in Downtown Disney and we should head for there now, do a spot of shopping or window shopping (of the souvenir sort) and have a meal. At the first signpost for DTD, we turned in and parked close to Disney Quest. Trevor wondered whether Cirque de Soleil was worth a visit at some stage (saw it next to Disney Quest and had seen adverts for it on various taxis). I said Id heard mixed reviews about the place, but generally sounds like a good night out. Didnt get the chance to visit there in the end. We walked around a bit, looking in various shops loved the magnet shop, bought some for ourselves and the in-laws. We then had lunch in Wolfgang Puck, the outside of which confused me a bit because there were several different menus for seemingly different places and very different kinds of food. Anyway, it was good, but we only had boring food (sorry mcsue & muppet!). I had a basic caesar salad, Trevor had a cheeseburger and fries and the boys and pepperoni pizza.
Most of the restaurants we visited gave us activity sheets and crayons to help keep the boys happy while we waited for the food to turn up. These normally included word searches, mazes and/or a picture to colour. This particular activity sheet gave Trevor and I a bit of a laugh every now and then when the boys came dangerously close to unwittingly writing something unsuitable! In one corner was written the words Wolfgang Puck and you were asked to make as many words as possible using any of the letters! ......... Ill move on before I get into trouble from the moderators!
Food eaten and paid for, off towards the Marketplace end of DTD. We decided not to venture that far when we saw how much more there was to DTD as we still needed to visit Florida Mall and Walmart to stock up on a supply of food for future breakfasts and snacks. Besides which, we would be back here for the DIBB meet on 2nd August of course.
We got to the Florida Mall with no problem, passing SeaWorld and International Drive on the way. Yet another huge car park and realised the importance of making a note of exactly where we parked our car before entering the building. We had a voucher to claim a book of money off coupons and spent the next half an hour or so trying to find the Guest Services desk. Florida Mall is HUGE and the internal signs are hopeless! Finally found the place, which turned out to be more of a stall in the middle of one of the walkways and we had passed it at least once without noticing! Trevor decided he needed to buy a pair of trainers and we followed him around a couple of shoe shops before getting bored. We told him wed go to the toy shop next to JC Penny and wait for him there. We had selected some items we wanted to buy (including a beach shovel set and bubble making machine, neither of which we used at all!) and then waited an age or two, but no sign of Trevor. The mall was very busy and I took the dodgy decision to try tracking him down! DUH! I didnt have my credit card with me, so had to leave the items we wanted to buy with the cashier in the shop and we retraced our steps. No sign of Trevor. We walked back to the toy shop yes, he was coming out looking for us! All back into the toy shop again to pay for the stuff.
We were all quite tired by now and had sore feet, so gave up the idea of looking at clothes in JC Penny. I had previously bought some nice clothes for me in this shop in Houston and in Pennsylvania and had looked forward to having a browse here too. But never mind, there should be time to come back again for another visit (wouldnt there?!!).
We left the building through JC Penny, the same shop we entered by, but couldnt find the car. Yes youve guessed it, there is more than one JC Penny entrance of course!
Theres not much worse than trying to find your car in an oversized car park when its very hot, you are tired, got sore feet (could feel a blister festering) and there are heavy rain clouds looming. It didnt actually take us too long to find the car and stopped off at Wal-mart along the same road on the way back towards the I-4.Talking about car trouble in car parks we did have one experience in Pennsylvania which was worse. We were on holiday there in August 2001, staying with an English friend who has moved to that area. They were having a heat wave at the time and temperatures were often in the high 90s or low 100s. On one of these particularly hot days, we emerged from a shopping mall to discover we had a flat tyre. Trevor changed the tyre in the scorching heat while the boys and I watched baking our brains out and, of course, on the concrete it feels far worse.
Anyway, back to Florida. We somehow managed to get to Wal-mart without it raining. We dashed in and did a quicker than planned shopping spree because we really just wanted to collapse back in our room at CBR, but still managed to grab a few t-shirts and shorts for the kids and boxer-shorts for Trevor. A bit of intensive retail therapy was in order in the near future, Wal-mart had everything you could possibly want and was very cheap.
The clouds were still doing strange things ahead and we had had some interesting lightning shows since leaving Florida Mall. As we drove along, we could see where it was raining on the road ahead of us a wall of water only a couple of hundred yards away and we were heading straight for it! eeeeeeeeek! Yes, it was heavy rain alright! So much so, we managed to miss our turning and ended up somewhere further south than we should have been and ended up on a toll road. Never mind, we were still heading in the right direction and the toll wasnt much money.
Got back to CBR safely, unloaded the car and unpacked my large soft-sided cool bag Id bought from Homebase a few weeks ago. You can get polystyrene boxes very cheaply from Wal-mart for approximately $1.50 which would be perfectly good. I half-filled some freezer bags with ice from the ice machine down the corridor, tied a knot in the top of each and placed them in the cool bag with the chilled food including some Philadelphia cheese, light sour cream and margarine. Didnt bother with any milk as we wouldnt bother with cereal. We ate some Danish pastries and fresh fruit for tea. It was still chucking it down with rain outside, it was 8.45pm, and I could now also hear some loud bangs. It turned out to be Epcot (I assumed) doing a firework display (wasnt it a bit early for illuminations?).
As I write these hand-written notes on the round table in the corner of our room, the boys are still playing their Gameboys quietly in bed and Trevor was trying to read a book but seems to have fallen asleep with the book across his face! Either that or his eyesight has suddenly got worse! Time taken to write my notes this evening = one hour. (Time taken to convert my scrawl into a coherent typed report = several hours, constantly interrupted by the kids and Trevor coming home from work!).
Nighty night everyone. Tomorrow Character breakfast at Restaurantosaurus and a day in the Animal Kingdom (well, that's the plan anyhow!).
