GoofyMom's Even Greater American Road Trip - 2008 - Updated 11/14 - Page 15 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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This morning, Dan called down to Luggage Services (I think) and found out there was a complimentary wheelchair available. If you are lucky, you can borrow a chair from the hotel for the duration of your stay. The problem is, that a lot of people do this and it can be hard to get one. He went down right away and picked it up. The hotel ones are in pretty nasty condition compared to the ones you rent at the parks, but it did what it was meant to do – which was help me enjoy my Disney trip with a lot less pain.
Early in the morning, there were hot air balloons in the sky. I grabbed my camera and played:
Normal settings
The reason why I love my camera and it’s zoom!
Today was Sue’s birthday! So we had some celebrating to do! First up was breakfast at Spoodles. Angie met us and we all headed to Bill’s truck to drive over to the Boardwalk. On the way to the truck, we all noticed this dude:
Then we were off to the Boardwalk area. We met up with Sue, Steve, Roy and Linda again. We were seated at a nice big table right in front of the kitchen area. We all enjoyed a wonderful breakfast and then Sue opened her gifts. And of course, we had made sure the CMs knew it was her birthday…
Do you think her wish came true?
After Sue opened her birthday gifts, we had plans to go to DHS for the morning. Bill, Jan and Abby went back to move the truck over to the park; Sue and Steve caught a Friendship to the park; and Angie, Dan and I took the footpath. I think that's the reason why we tour so well together... we don't mind splitting up and doing our own thing with whoever wants to do it with us.
We all met up at DHS again. There were Streetmosphere actors out and they were awesome!!
This one had an issue with her pet flying squirrel.
The squirrel didn’t appear too full of life, and since Steve is a paramedic trainer, he decided she needed to learn CPR to try to help her poor pet. And it was incredibly funny!
I’m so sorry this one is over-exposed because it’s showing her doing the chest compressions. The THIRTY chest compressions! Which lead to this photo:
“I can’t believe he wants me to flippin’ poke this thing 30 times!”
Mouth to mouth
Undercover Cop
LizardCop
Abby checking Bill’s earrings out…
Bill, Jan, Abby, Dan & I went to the Backlot Express and had lunch with Terri (DrDolphin) and her hunny Chris. It was Terri’s birthday also, so it was fun to be able to share some of her special day with her. Dan and Jan were off to ToT and RNRC to meet up with Sue, Steve and Angie. Bill, Abby, Terri, Chris and I hung out in the Playhouse Disney area for a little bit and Abby got her picture taken with… was it Handy Manny? Anyway, then we were off to the RNRC area. Terri got a birthday ice cream compliments of the CM who noticed her birthday badge.
Terri and Chris had an appointment at the spa (lucky!!) so they left, and the riders came back from RNRC. We had an ADR at WCC to head to. Which I will get to in the next update!
No pictures to add here, Donna hit the high spots.
It was a good morning and Sue really enjoyed her breakfast!!!
And it's always a pleasure seeing Terri, and we've finally met Chris!!! They're a fun couple.
And yes, Donna, it was Handy Manny that we saw. Whenever we go to DHS, Abby starts asking for JoJo. While she likes JoJo, it's really Goliath she's after. We found this out back in Feb, when she made such a big fuss to see JoJo, then gave him a quick hug and burried her face in Goliath... It was a great picture, and she asks for JoJo every time we're at DHS.... No JoJo this trip, but she was happy with Manny.....
What a great morning! And it's great that you got the wheelchair from the hotel. Now you can enjoy more of WDW pain free!!!
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Tanya
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We had an ADR at WCC for Sue’s birthday dinner. But first we stopped at the Territorial Lounge for a cocktail primer. We goofed around there for a while, and then headed over to the restaurant to check in for our ADR. We had a little time to kill in the lobby, first.
We were seated near the podium (once again, they stick the PassPorters in the corner – thinking that we might behave and not cause any *ahem* situations… ) . We had a great server who had no idea what kind of characters she was dealing with, but was very able to keep up! I wish I could remember her name, but all it says on our receipt is Hillbilly J. So I guess that’s what I’ll call her.
Bill had slurped back his iced tea real quick, so while he was gone with Abby on a diaper-changing mission, our CM brought him a larger refill so she wouldn’t have to make so many trips.
Jan dropped her fork and she needed it for her salad appetizer, and since I had ordered nachos and didn’t need a fork, she “borrowed” mine. Then she told our server that I needed a new fork. Well. Sure. Pick on the cripple time. Hillbilly J said that she would get me a fork that I wouldn’t ever be able to lose. Yeah, we all know where this is heading, right?
I can’t remember all the fun we had because it just all blurred together. At one point, we needed ketchup for Dan’s and my French fries. ‘Nuff said about that.
There was napkin waving.
We all had a great time…
Steve
Sue
Bill
Jan…
Jan? Hm. It’s really hard to get a picture of her!
Angie
Dan
Bill, making sure Steve got a shot of his “good side”
Of course, being that it was Sue’s birthday dinner, Hillbilly J called her fellow servers over to help sing Happy Birthday as they brought Sue her birthday cake. Our server had been able to give back as good as she got, so it really should have come as no surprise that she had a little trick up her sleeve with Sue’s cake. There’s video galore of this, but I’m not sure there’s any still pictures, so I'll try to describe it:
Hillbilly J announced to the whole restaurant that it was Sue’s 16th birthday. All the servers that could get away, came over to start singing Happy Birthday to her. Very very badly, I might add. However, that cake must’ve looked too inviting because they had barely started singing when they each produced a fork and helped themselves! We were all and at this point! However, they did make up for eating Sue’s cake and produced a nice un-sampled piece for her.
Sue, still cracking up
Sue’s real birthday cake
Hillbilly J
After all that fun and with full bellies, we headed over to MK to watch Spectro Magic and Wishes. When we got there, Spectro was just starting so we watched it from the Firehall area. After it finished, we headed into the Emporium so we wouldn’t be following the parade down Main Street.
We tried on hats and did a little shopping. Abby tried on the Sorcerer's Mickey hat and looked at me just long enough for me to get this lucky shot.
We ended up in Fantasyland, but I don’t think we did anything there other than look for some of the flashing skull lights that the carts were selling. Wouldn’t you know it, they were so popular that the carts were all sold out of them. Wishes started and we headed to the little kitchen shop dividing Fantasyland and Liberty Square because Abby really doesn’t like the booms. We noticed the roofs are sprayed down during the fireworks show. We ended the evening victoriously finding a cart that had some of the skulls for sale, so Bill picked up a couple more. He says he’s going to stick them in his police car on the window that divides him from the bad guys in the back seat. I’d sure like to be a fly on the ceiling of his car when some drunk redneck is getting a free ride to jail for the night….
Anyway, we left MK and headed back to POP because it was bedtime!
The weather today was… hot and sunny, just the way I like it! The best thing today was… hanging out with friends at WDW The worst thing today was… I don’t think there really was a worst thing today. Other than maybe Abby not really enjoying the fireworks The funniest thing today… it was one big long laughfest, but I think it had to be Sue’s birthday song at WCC that cracked us all up the most
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Today was our Traditional Farewell Breakfast. Sue & Steve and Bill & Jan were going home today. Every time we are in WDW together, we eat our last breakfast together at Maya Grill. Our ADR was for 7:50. I always get really bummed out with goodbyes, so....
Bill goofing around and trying to make me forget we were going to be saying goodbye to them later
As always, we had a great farewell breakfast with The Gang. This time it wasn’t so hard saying goodbye to Sue and Steve, because we knew we were going to see each other in a few days. They had to leave for the airport right after we ate so after the good bye hugs with them Bill, Jan, Abby, Angie, Dan & I went to DTD for a little retail therapy. Seems to be another Last Day Tradition….
I bought a box of Mr Potato Head parts for my Mr Potato Head that I had standing on our room window ledge. The fill-a-box deal is $19 + tax, in case anybody is wondering. And it’s not easy to do when you are in a wheelchair, in case anybody is wondering that too. The floor is carpeted and there are little kids running everywhere!
Anyway, after a lengthy shopping spree covering several stores, we were unbelievably getting hungry again! So we went to the Wolfgang Puck’s Express. I hadn’t been in it since they remodelled it, and I thought they’d done a pretty good job, although it was squishy getting a wheelchair in and we couldn’t bring Abby’s stroller in at all. And somewhere around here, we got a text from Sue & Steve saying they had landed safely. I had been a little concerned about their flight because of the weather from Hurricane Kyle, but it didn’t seem to affect it.
All this was leading up to my most dreaded moment of the entire trip…. We had to go back to POP to say goodbye to Bill, Jan and Abby. I’ll just say it wasn’t pretty and leave it at that. After I watched the three of them walk out of the building I beelined it to Petals Pool Bar to handle my sadness in the most adult way I could think of. Yeah. Alcohol. Hey, I said adult, not mature. There’s a difference. I started a tab and decided to try a Hula Hoop. Yummy. Goes down quickly too. Dan got his bathing suit on and decided to go for a swim. By the time I had just started Hula Hoop #3, I got a text from Bill saying they were laying bets on whether I was drunk yet. Do they know me or what?! Fortunately, being at WDW has a way of easing the sadness a little, and I settled up my tab after that drink.
Borrowing some of Mr Potato Head’s features while I waited for Dan
We headed up to our room to clean up some, and then we loaded the wheelchair into the van and drove to Epcot. We learned a valuable tip in the Epcot parking lot. We didn’t have a handicap tag for our vehicle, but we discovered that if you talk to the CM and you have a wheelchair, you can ask them to direct you to the Medical parking area which is *just* behind the Handicapped parking area. That was really helpful to Dan, especially in the evening returning to the van after pushing me around in the chair all day!
We went to the Electric Umbrella and grabbed a couple salads – I didn’t like mine at all. It was the Island Chicken Salad. And they only had Ranch Dressing or Italian Dressing. Neither of which really compliment a salad with pineapple and mango pieces in it as far as I’m concerned. I asked if they had a vinaigrette available, but nopers. After managing to eat enough to ward off the hunger pains, I tossed the rest and we went on a quest to find Angie. She had plans to meet a friend in Epcot, so we were hoping to get together with them. They were hanging out in WS though, and we wanted to ride Space Ship Earth and see the Canadian movie, both of which have been changed since the last time Dan was at WDW.
Finally! A ride! Now, can you believe I have been in WDW for 4 days and not been on a ride yet?!! And I have still managed to have a lot of fun!! The reason was because although I love the rides, I really didn’t want to take a chance on jarring my pelvis any more. But we figured SSE was gentle enough, so we went to join the queue. There was a CM at the end of the queue who said nuh uh to that though, and sent us over to the special entrance for wheelchairs. Hm. I didn’t even know that door was there! So we went over and learned all about how they do the disabled riders. I had to give my name to a CM and tell her how many were in our party. They asked if I was able to transfer from the chair and walk, which I was able to do, albeit very slowly. In fact, there were people there that I actually wondered why they were there. One man had a cane, and a teen aged girl was using it instead. Seriously. As in it was his cane, but she took it with them on the ride and then she “used” it exiting the ride. Then she handed the cane back to him when the CM appeared. It was ridiculous. Anyway. In the grand scheme of the world I guess it doesn’t really matter, but I just wonder at some people.
So back to SSE. They called my name, and we made our way up the ramp. Thank goodness for the handrails, because after sitting in the chair for a couple of days, my muscles were weak and I really wasn’t able to move that quickly. I was pretty nervous because they didn’t stop the conveyer as I got in the vehicle, but we made it just before it got to the end. And then we were off to discover man’s progress from the beginning of time.
We chose the Space in the Future option and here’s what we got:
Note to self: Next time take off cowboy hat before they take your photo!
At the end of the ride, there’s the big play area where you can do the interactive things, but we decided to bypass that. We grabbed my chair and headed to Canada to watch the new Martin Short O Canada movie. I had seen it before on a previous trip and enjoyed it just as much this time. Which is a lot more than I could ever say about the old O Canada movie. We got to Off Kilter’s stage just before a performance was due to start, so we parked it and waited. We called Angie who said they had fastpasses for Soarin that they wanted to use, but they stopped to listen to a couple of songs with us. We made arrangements to meet in Japan to watch IllumiNations from the restaurant’s balcony.
That is the only place we had any issues with accessibility, trying to get up to the balcony. There’s an elevator to get into the restaurant, but we had to collapse the chair and I had to walk down some steps to get outside. The CM told us there was no other option. So if you absolutely can’t walk, or if you are in a scooter, good luck to ya!
The little sand tranquility garden in Japan.
We had a good view and you could feel the heat from the show up on the balcony. It had been Angie’s friend Jack (who is a CM in MK) who suggested we watch the show from there. Good suggestion!
We said goodnight to Jack and found out his work schedule for tomorrow. We planned to stop in an visit him for a couple minutes. Then Angie, Dan and I headed to the van. We decided to get some nightcaps, so we drove to POFQ and found a table in Scat Cat’s. I ordered the specialty drink – a Magical Star. I don’t remember what was in it, but I do remember it was good and tasted like a 2nd one. There was some guy in the bar watching a football game on tv, and he was R*o*W*d*Y!!!! So we decided it had been a pretty long day and we packed it up and headed back to POP.
The weather today was... hot, overcast and humid The best thing today was... relaxing with a Hula Hoop at Petals Pool Bar The worst thing today was... saying goodbye to Bill, Jan and Abby. We thought we weren't going to see each other until next May (luckily that's changed now!) The funniest thing today was... go back and look at the first picture of this update... Today we tried... watching IllumiNations from the balcony at Japan and the result was... it was a good view, but not exactly wheelchair accessible The most magical moment today was... we exchanged some gifts with each other and they all mean a lot
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They're a fun couple.
We goofed around there for a while, and then headed over to the restaurant to check in for our ADR. We had a little time to kill in the lobby, first.
and 
We noticed the roofs are sprayed down during the fireworks show. We ended the evening victoriously finding a cart that had some of the skulls for sale, so Bill picked up a couple more. He says he’s going to stick them in his police car on the window that divides him from the bad guys in the back seat. I’d sure like to be a fly on the ceiling of his car when some drunk redneck is getting a free ride to jail for the night…. 
The floor is carpeted and there are little kids running everywhere! 
I’ll just say it wasn’t pretty and leave it at that. After I watched the three of them walk out of the building I beelined it to Petals Pool Bar to handle my sadness in the most adult way I could think of. Yeah. Alcohol. Hey, I said adult, not mature. There’s a difference. 
Dan got his bathing suit on and decided to go for a swim. By the time I had just started Hula Hoop #3, I got a text from Bill saying they were laying bets on whether I was drunk yet. Do they know me or what?! 
Fortunately, being at WDW has a way of easing the sadness a little, and I settled up my tab after that drink. 
We got to Off Kilter’s stage just before a performance was due to start, so we parked it and waited. We called Angie who said they had fastpasses for Soarin that they wanted to use, but they stopped to listen to a couple of songs with us. We made arrangements to meet in Japan to watch IllumiNations from the restaurant’s balcony.
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