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Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Vacation Diaries - Day Three, So Magical!


I was up ridiculously early this morning and I don't know why. At 5:30 am I was up, used the bathroom and found myself wide awake. By six I gave up all hope of dozing and got dressed and headed out to the beach for my morning walk. It was still dark out! I called Frank and spoke to him and Michael for a little while and headed back to the room around 7:00. I showered first and then went about waking up mom and Karen. For once we were all in agreement - we wanted to be at the Magic Kingdom when it opened. So we all got ready and hopped the boat at 8:30 and were at the entrance to the Kingdom by 8:50.



We split up at this point because Karen and I were going on Space Mountain and no one else wanted to. Here's where it gets fun: We weaved our way up to the front of the crowd and all the way to the right. We were right behind the rope. When the Disney Cast Member was taking it down during the opening countdown, Karen and I were the first ones in to the park! We ran and laughed ourselves silly all the way down Main Street - constantly checking over our shoulders to see if the crowd was gaining on us! We took a short-cut through to Tomorrowland and found that to still be roped off. So we're standing there, gasping for air and chatting with the Cast Members - who were all wishing me a happy 21st birthday (I love them!) and I told them that my birthday/Year of a Million Dreams Wish was to be first on Space Mountain. And you know what? Cast Member Pedro came over and lifted the ropes for me and Karen and escorted us down to Space Mountain, gave us each two fast-passes to come back later, and sent us in to the ride! I was in the first seat on the first car in the mountain! Dream number two accomplished!



After that, we walked over and rode Buzz Lightyear - which we walked right on to - and then headed back to Main Street for breakfast at our favorite little bakery. We did stop and get our pictures taken first, though. The plan was to meet up with the group at 10:00 to ride It's a Small World (my mom's favorite), which we did, and then we went on to the Haunted Mansion. It was time to split up again so that Karen and I could do the other two mountains - Splash and Big Thunder - while the others rode the Walt Disney World Railroad. We got a great picture of us on Splash Mountain. We met up at Pirates, got some more group photos and it all broke down from there. In a big way.



We couldn't all agree on a place to eat lunch. Honestly, I was still full from breakfast and so was Karen. My mom didn't want to eat at the burger place my aunt and cousin did, either. My period started and they were all just annoying the crap out of me so we did a three-way split. Aunt and cousin went to the burger place, mom and Karen went back to the hotel to sun themselves and I wandered around Magic Kingdom by myself (again, singing "One is the Loneliest Number" in my head). I got some great shots of me alone, however, in front of the castle. Why? Because I kept control of the Photopass card! Ha, ha!! After about an hour, I got horrendous cramps and decided to head back to the hotel and get out of the heat. I think it was around 95 degrees out that day with 98% humidity. Ick! So I took the boat back to the hotel and once back at the room, I decided to just sit and enjoy the A/C for a while. Everyone else went out to the pool for cocktails.

About an hour later, I was hungry so I went out to see if my sister wanted to grab a bite with me at the food court. She was too busy preparing more cocktails for everyone and so I went without her and brought my meal back to the room. When I got back, mom was there resting and enjoying the A/C, too. I had this great little Italian Sandwhich on focaccia bread with salami, provolone, ham and turkey, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pesto. Very nice. It came with a cucumber salad and I got some veggies and dip to go with it too, and a bottled water. All in all, very yummy. After I ate, I went over to the gift shop to pick up our packages that were delivered. Seriously at this point, I'm just trying to kill time because dinner wasn't until 7:00 and it was just too hot for me outside.

At around 4:00, everyone finally got on board with getting out of the sun and coming in to relax. I left the room to check out some of the other shops in the resort and noticed a guy lying on the floor near the end of our hall. I see him and all I can think is "Huh, that's odd" and went on my way. When I got back 45 minutes later, Karen and Jess were out in the hall with Karen attempting to draw on this guys face because he's still lying there! I'm like "Did you call anyone?" And they're like "Yes, we're waiting for security". Karen really wanted to draw angry eyebrows and a mustache on him, but she didn't. Security came, hotel management came and finally the EMS came and took this guy away - who, by the way, never woke up during all of this commotion! Last we heard, he was still in the hospital. Now everyone started to get ready for our dinner at O'Hana's.



Aunt Robyn and Jess took the boat over, mom and I took the Monorail, and Karen decided to meet us over there because I think she wanted some 'alone time' to talk to her boyfriend. Dinner was nice, they changed the menu since we were there last and we had a nice quiet corner table. We dined on field greens salad with a honey lime dressing, pork dumplings with three different dipping sauces, honey bbq chicken wings, broccoli, asian noodles (lo mein), grilled pork, turkey, beef and shrimp and loaves of pineapple coconut bread. It was all really, really good. We skipped dessert because we were all so full and headed down the the Polynesian's beach to watch the Magic Kingdom's fireworks. I got some great pictures even though we were so far away.



Mom and I once again took the monorail back to the hotel while aunt and cousin rode the boat. Back at the hotel, mom and I grabbed our departing flight info and went down to the concierge desk to print out our boarding passes. Eventually, we met up with everyone again back at the hotel. Jess decided to go back to the room while the rest of us went for cocktails on the second floor of the Floridian in the Mintzer Lounge - I had my one and only alcoholic drink there. There were a bunch of conventioners there and one group was all Chinese and Karen was sitting next to me ad-libbing what she thought they were saying. I almost peed in my pants. Sorry, TMI, I know, but it was just that funny!



Her craziness continued back at the room and I was laughing so hard that I could not breathe! We finally calmed down enough to start packing and I could not believe that the trip was almost over! I got about 90% of mine done and I was completely exhausted. I crawled back in to the daybed - Yes, I had to sleep in it ALL THREE NIGHTS - and fell instantly asleep. In all fairness, I did choose to sleep in the daybed all three nights because the other two kept complaining how warm they were in their beds (and not in a good way) while I had stayed cool and comfortable in the daybed. So while I would have enjoyed having a queen sized bed to myself, the daybed was actually fine.

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