The West Coast wasn't good enough - Day 1
Cast Members -
Cinderelley - Helping Barksy out with his newest endeavor
Tamika - My coworker extraordinaire who became Barksy's fairy godmother
Barksy - Starting his own travel blog
We met up at the airport pretty early. I showed Tamika what to do with the Magical Express luggage tags, dropped our baggage off at the outside check in, got our boarding tickets and headed off to find some breakfast. Breakfast was ok. We were tired from working the night before, so anything to fill our tummies would do.
We made it through security without anyone being patted down which was surprising. I'm usually pulled aside. After we quickly put our shoes back on, we found our gate and settled in to wait. Boarding was quick and easy, and we quickly pushed off from the gate. The captain came on and said there was some sort of delay. We weren't sure what the problem was, because we had started dozing off. The delay didn't bother us any, because we were fast asleep before we took off. As far as I know, the flight was uneventful.
We landed late and headed out to the Magical Express. We hadn't received our MagicBands, so I pulled up our info on my phone. We were shown which line to stand in, and we waited. I bumped our Marrakesh ADR back, since we had landed late. I also released our DHS fastpasses, since it was too late in the evening to do anything productive there. I did manage to grab a fastpass for Spaceship Earth since we were going to be at Epcot for dinner.
We waited for quite a while considering the bus was just sitting out there. Then I found out that we would be stopping at several resorts. Hoping for the best, we started recording the Magical Express ride for Barksy's blog. I remember being excited about the Magical Express video. This one was just kinda boring - no cartoons or anything fun. We sat in the very first row, so that we could record it as we went under the entrance sign. Tamika was very excited that the bus driver even slowed down for us to get a good shot. He was kind and took a picture with her also.
We were the last drop off, so I bumped our Marrakesh ADR back again. I had done the online check in, but we still had to go to the front desk. The MagicBands we had ordered weren't there, so they gave us plain gray ones. The cast member said she would look into it and leave a message in our room. We never got a message about it.
The Christmas decorations were beautiful, and we excitedly looked around as we walked to our room. I never realized how big the Yacht Club was until we had to walk to our room. Once we were inside it though, the smell was heavenly. Working in the medical field really makes you appreciate good smells. ;). We were on the second floor and our balcony over looked the water. If we leaned out ever so slightly, we could see the Boardwalk off to our right. The only drawback was a very large cockroach that Tamika found in the bathroom. I picked it up on a piece of paper and tossed it off of the balcony into the bushes below.
We were short on time, so we dumped our carry on stuff and hurried out. We grabbed a cab and headed to Epcot. We barely made it onto Spaceship Earth by the tip of our tongues. Tamika was blown away by the details in the ride. After we returned to our time on Earth, we went to guest services to activate my DAS. I had tried to bump our ADR back again when I knew we weren't going to be able to make it. It told me I had to call the restaurant directly to change the time, so I gave up on eating there.
The cast member at guest services did a great job though. He activated my DAS, got "Queen" Tamika a first visit button and a button for me saying that I was celebrating her first visit. He gave us a return time for Soarin'. He also called Marrakesh and let them know that we were going to be late. They said "no problem". We hurried around the lake and arrived within 15 minutes of our last ADR time. I was surprised at how fast we booked it over there.
Tamika loved this dinner. She had a good view of the belly dancer. I was starving and just wolfed down my meal. I have seen the belly dancer before, so I wasn't as excited about it as she was.
After dinner we wandered through the Morocco shops. Then we went back to France to see about getting a slushie drink. They were out of the one I like, so we skipped them and continued visiting the countries around the lake. I got 99% of my Christmas shopping done that night. Tamika doesn't like fireworks, so we skipped the nighttime show.
We were running short on time before our Soarin' return time, so we skipped, China, Norway and Mexico. There wasn't really a line for Soarin', probably due to everyone watching the show. We got into the first row, which was awesome for Tamika's first ride. She was blown away by the ride and declared it her favorite ride ever even with me interrupting it every so often to tell her to smell. I just kind've laughed and made up my mind to some how get her on Flight of Passage even though we hadn't planned on going to Animal Kingdom.
We hurried out of the park after Soarin' to beat the rush of people who would be leaving after the nighttime show. We couldn't find the bus stop for the Yacht Club, so I just grabbed another taxi. We were still tired, and I didn't feel like dealing with it.
Our room still smelled spectacular. The lady I get my Disney scented candles from has a candle that was supposed to smell like the lobbies of the deluxe resorts. I decided I was going to buy one to see if it really did smell like the Yacht Club.
Tamika went to take a shower. I went out to enjoy the balcony, but there was a spider on it. I went back in and relaxed while watching the resort tv channel. I noted that DHS would be opening at 8 am the next day. That wouldn't work with our Crystal Palace ADR. We had planned on spending our last day at Epcot, but since we had done it tonight, I changed our fastpasses to DHS ones on our last day.
Tamika got out of the shower and asked why I wasn't on the balcony like I had planned on. I explained the spider situation, and she went out and killed it. Ah, I had my balcony back. I didn't sit out there very long though, because I was tired. I slept pretty hard until about 4 am. Then I kept waking up in anticipation of our wake up call. It wasn't nearly as fun as when Stitch used to do it though. "Wakey Wakey. No Sleepy Sleepy".
