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.
Thursday 29th July (Another 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)
Another day off a description which was to become a bit of a joke! I dont think I ever got to bed before 10.30pm for the whole holiday, but normally nearer 11pm. We always had a busy day every day and I normally need my sleep when at home, back in the UK. Anyone got any suggestions for a relaxing holiday to recover from this one!
We had an unhurried but busy morning, starting off with breakfast in the room (like most mornings). Decided we had better unpack the suitcases properly this morning and do something about the mountain of paperwork lying about as (believe it or not) we hadnt really had time to sort it all our properly until now! We had a ton of paper lying around ranging from theme park maps to other peoples trip reports. At 10.30am this morning, our thoughts were with Earthbound as he boarded his plane at Gatwick.
Up until now, I havent covered the subject of Mousekeeping envelopes! As many of you may know, its customary to leave a tip for the maid who does your room. Many people leave a tip at the end of their holiday for their room maid, but we preferred to leave a tip every day so we knew whoever did our room that day would get the tip. General opinion is to leave $1 per adult per room. I had made some fancy looking labels which I stuck to small brown envelopes, just the right size for a couple of folded dollar bills. Each envelope had a picture of Mickey Mouse and the words Thank You and For Our Maid written in English and Spanish, and the word Mousekeeping. On the other side of the envelope I had stuck another picture of Mickey with the date. On our first morning, we left the envelope on our table but when we returned it was still there. The next morning I came across our maid before leaving for the Magic Kingdom. She was very nice and always interested in how we were. I told her that I had left an envelope for her yesterday containing a little something, suggesting she must have missed it and I had left todays (& yesterdays) envelope for her today ... saying that they had pictures of Mickey Mouse on them so she couldnt miss them. From then on she was thrilled to received these envelopes, saying nobody had ever done that before!
This morning, we came across the maid again. She was so excited about these special envelopes I had made and told me about how she had been collecting them, taking them home and showing her family! It made my day!
Off to Wal-mart, first visit to the one on the 192 and is open 24 hours a day. We were always amazed at the range of products they sell under one roof. Anyone could live quite happily for years without ever visiting anywhere else! Today we bought t-shirts, shorts, swimming costumes, scissors, long purple floaty things for the swimming pool (less than $2 each!), nail clippers and waterproof shoes for Trevor. All the while, we left Michael and Piers playing their Gameboys on the bench next to the changing rooms. One of the staff members commented on several occasions to Trevor and I how well behaved they were and wanted to know what our trick was! She obviously doesnt know what they are really like! As a treat for being so good, we took them to McDonalds in Wal-mart after loading the car with the shopping.
After McDonalds we tried finding the photographic department. I knew it had to be around somewhere and assumed it would have to be along the front of the shop (like many large British supermarkets), but no sign so I had to ask. It turned out to be virtually in the centre of the store (the place was so huge that we hadnt come across it before). One of their self-service machines wasnt working properly and then spotted a Kodak machine at the other end of the counter. This worked, no problems, but did take forever to process the pictures, I had 99 on the memory card of my digital camera and I must have been standing there for at least half an hour while I did the deed and got the pictures transferred onto a CD as well. Trevor kept an eye on the pictures popping out while I headed off towards the kids to see if they were still OK (back on the bench again with their Gameboys again). On route, I heard a message coming out over the tannoy asking for Trevor & Zoe to go to the garden centre. This got me worried! The first thing that sprung to mind was that the kids had wandered over there and pulled all the shelving units over! Then I was puzzled because I saw the kids still sat quietly on the bench and I knew Trevor was still watching the photographs plop out of the Kodak machine! Michael and Piers said they hadnt told anyone our names, so my next thought was that maybe a DIBBer had spotted me then lost sight of me and put out a message for us! Did anyone put out a message for us at Wal-mart on 29th July?!! If you did, sorry as I assumed this was highly unlikely and there must be another Trevor and Zoe in the store!
Time to head back to CBR. Trevor and I ate some of our food supplies for our lunch (the kids having eaten at McDonalds). We then got ready to go swimming in the main resort swimming pool, taking our refillable mugs and the receipt for some stuff we had bought at Epcot yesterday and had arranged to be delivered to CBR; the collection point in CBR being the Calypso Trading Post.
We tried out the new purple floats and the kids wore their new swimming trunks we bought today. I was constantly on the look out for barrysprot36 and his family, but as I didnt know what they looked like, this was a bit of a pointless exercise! I only knew that Joshy would probably be in his wheelchair. After an hour or so in the pool, we dried ourselves down a bit and headed into the main building to fill our mugs. I went into the Calypso Trading Post to pick up the Epcot package and then we headed off back to Aruba 54. We got properly dried off, dressed and drove off to Citywalk Universal Studios answer to Downtown Disney. I fancied a meal at the themed NASCAR restaurant (close to the entrance of Universal Studios) and we had a good table up on the raised area overlooking the line of cars outside. Citywalk is brilliantly lit up at night, really quite amazing and full of life. We were there til quite late (from around 9pm to 10.30pm) and there were still a lot of young children around. NASCAR is a brilliantly themed restaurant with good food. I had the cheesesticks for starters and catfish for my main course. Trevor also had the catfish but had a massive pile of nachos covered in cheese for his starters (with dips), more than enough for a main course!
This picture was taken the following morning when we returned to visit U.S.
I was very pleased with myself that wed decided to do Citywalk this evening, it was a good way to prepare ourselves for a proper visit to Universal Studios tomorrow. Back to CBR and bed well bed for the holiday makers and copious note writing for me a.k.a. the familys holiday rep.!!
Join me tomorrow for a day at Universal Studios.
Thursday 29th July (Another 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)
Another day off a description which was to become a bit of a joke! I dont think I ever got to bed before 10.30pm for the whole holiday, but normally nearer 11pm. We always had a busy day every day and I normally need my sleep when at home, back in the UK. Anyone got any suggestions for a relaxing holiday to recover from this one!
We had an unhurried but busy morning, starting off with breakfast in the room (like most mornings). Decided we had better unpack the suitcases properly this morning and do something about the mountain of paperwork lying about as (believe it or not) we hadnt really had time to sort it all our properly until now! We had a ton of paper lying around ranging from theme park maps to other peoples trip reports. At 10.30am this morning, our thoughts were with Earthbound as he boarded his plane at Gatwick.
Up until now, I havent covered the subject of Mousekeeping envelopes! As many of you may know, its customary to leave a tip for the maid who does your room. Many people leave a tip at the end of their holiday for their room maid, but we preferred to leave a tip every day so we knew whoever did our room that day would get the tip. General opinion is to leave $1 per adult per room. I had made some fancy looking labels which I stuck to small brown envelopes, just the right size for a couple of folded dollar bills. Each envelope had a picture of Mickey Mouse and the words Thank You and For Our Maid written in English and Spanish, and the word Mousekeeping. On the other side of the envelope I had stuck another picture of Mickey with the date. On our first morning, we left the envelope on our table but when we returned it was still there. The next morning I came across our maid before leaving for the Magic Kingdom. She was very nice and always interested in how we were. I told her that I had left an envelope for her yesterday containing a little something, suggesting she must have missed it and I had left todays (& yesterdays) envelope for her today ... saying that they had pictures of Mickey Mouse on them so she couldnt miss them. From then on she was thrilled to received these envelopes, saying nobody had ever done that before!
This morning, we came across the maid again. She was so excited about these special envelopes I had made and told me about how she had been collecting them, taking them home and showing her family! It made my day!
Off to Wal-mart, first visit to the one on the 192 and is open 24 hours a day. We were always amazed at the range of products they sell under one roof. Anyone could live quite happily for years without ever visiting anywhere else! Today we bought t-shirts, shorts, swimming costumes, scissors, long purple floaty things for the swimming pool (less than $2 each!), nail clippers and waterproof shoes for Trevor. All the while, we left Michael and Piers playing their Gameboys on the bench next to the changing rooms. One of the staff members commented on several occasions to Trevor and I how well behaved they were and wanted to know what our trick was! She obviously doesnt know what they are really like! As a treat for being so good, we took them to McDonalds in Wal-mart after loading the car with the shopping.
After McDonalds we tried finding the photographic department. I knew it had to be around somewhere and assumed it would have to be along the front of the shop (like many large British supermarkets), but no sign so I had to ask. It turned out to be virtually in the centre of the store (the place was so huge that we hadnt come across it before). One of their self-service machines wasnt working properly and then spotted a Kodak machine at the other end of the counter. This worked, no problems, but did take forever to process the pictures, I had 99 on the memory card of my digital camera and I must have been standing there for at least half an hour while I did the deed and got the pictures transferred onto a CD as well. Trevor kept an eye on the pictures popping out while I headed off towards the kids to see if they were still OK (back on the bench again with their Gameboys again). On route, I heard a message coming out over the tannoy asking for Trevor & Zoe to go to the garden centre. This got me worried! The first thing that sprung to mind was that the kids had wandered over there and pulled all the shelving units over! Then I was puzzled because I saw the kids still sat quietly on the bench and I knew Trevor was still watching the photographs plop out of the Kodak machine! Michael and Piers said they hadnt told anyone our names, so my next thought was that maybe a DIBBer had spotted me then lost sight of me and put out a message for us! Did anyone put out a message for us at Wal-mart on 29th July?!! If you did, sorry as I assumed this was highly unlikely and there must be another Trevor and Zoe in the store!
Time to head back to CBR. Trevor and I ate some of our food supplies for our lunch (the kids having eaten at McDonalds). We then got ready to go swimming in the main resort swimming pool, taking our refillable mugs and the receipt for some stuff we had bought at Epcot yesterday and had arranged to be delivered to CBR; the collection point in CBR being the Calypso Trading Post.
We tried out the new purple floats and the kids wore their new swimming trunks we bought today. I was constantly on the look out for barrysprot36 and his family, but as I didnt know what they looked like, this was a bit of a pointless exercise! I only knew that Joshy would probably be in his wheelchair. After an hour or so in the pool, we dried ourselves down a bit and headed into the main building to fill our mugs. I went into the Calypso Trading Post to pick up the Epcot package and then we headed off back to Aruba 54. We got properly dried off, dressed and drove off to Citywalk Universal Studios answer to Downtown Disney. I fancied a meal at the themed NASCAR restaurant (close to the entrance of Universal Studios) and we had a good table up on the raised area overlooking the line of cars outside. Citywalk is brilliantly lit up at night, really quite amazing and full of life. We were there til quite late (from around 9pm to 10.30pm) and there were still a lot of young children around. NASCAR is a brilliantly themed restaurant with good food. I had the cheesesticks for starters and catfish for my main course. Trevor also had the catfish but had a massive pile of nachos covered in cheese for his starters (with dips), more than enough for a main course!
This picture was taken the following morning when we returned to visit U.S.
I was very pleased with myself that wed decided to do Citywalk this evening, it was a good way to prepare ourselves for a proper visit to Universal Studios tomorrow. Back to CBR and bed well bed for the holiday makers and copious note writing for me a.k.a. the familys holiday rep.!!
Join me tomorrow for a day at Universal Studios.
