Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Plan for Today:
Magic Kingdom
Fairytale Lunch at Cinderella’s Royal Table
Possibly Animal Kingdom for extra magic hour (something we’ve never done)

How the day really went:
This trip turns into... so where are we really staying?

Because we really aren’t comfortable with double beds at this stage of our life, we slept in separate beds last evening. Gene wakes me at 7. While I go shower, Gene calls guest services once again. He explains our situation once again and states the person who promised to call back yesterday never did. They say Gene hung up on the woman he was speaking with! He says even if they got disconnected, she had already taken our room number and could easily have called us back. Still, they say there is only one king bed to be had on property and that one is located at the Poly. We can have that room if we want to pay an additional $1300 for the remainder of our stay. That’s not in the budget! Gene asks about the queen bed rooms at Coronado Springs. Bingo! We can move into a standard room with 2 queens at Coronado for $5 additional per night. They tell Gene they would have done more to help us but a third party is involved here (our travel agent) so Disney will not take responsibility for the mistake. They say they can see that the king bed reservation dropped off when the change was made to an annual pass discount. They give Gene a code to use when we check in at Coronado and they will make the arrangements for us to leave here and check in there assuring that a room will be immediately available. To be sure, we try to call Coronado directly but, when we ask the woman who answers the phone to transfer us, she says she is the person we will need to speak with and, no, a room will not be available immediately. We will need to check our luggage with bell services and pre-register. We can access our room later.

We never unpacked last night so it doesn’t take very long to get our bags together. We pack with the thought that our room will not be available until later in the day. In addition to our luggage, we had also bought juice, water and some other items which makes lugging everything back to the car a chore. Once the car is loaded, I head to the front desk to check out of Port Orleans French Quarter. The woman I speak with at the front desk talks with someone else (probably a supervisor) who is clearly familiar with why we are leaving. She asks if Coronado is ready for us and I say they are. She picks up the phone, makes a call and then says, “Ma-am, they don’t have any king beds available at Coronado.” I say I know that but they do have 2-queen beds available. She seems rather irritated though I'm not sure why.

Gene is waiting out front in the car. I hop in and we made the short drive over to Coronado. While we have a car pass from French Quarter sitting on our windshield, we inform the security guard we are checking in at Coronado. Of course, we are not on his list of folks registering today but, after producing a photo id, he allows us to proceed to the registration desk.

We park and go in. No-one is in line and we are assisted immediately. When we explain we are checking in and have been provided by a code from guest relations, she runs off to speak to someone else (probably a supervisor). She comes back and asks for my cell number. She says they are working on it and don’t have any king beds. We again say we understand that and know we’ll have queens. She goes off again. After about 15 minutes, we are registered and assigned Room 7621 in the Ranchos area – bus stop 4 and, bonus, the room is available now!

After parking the car in the designated lot, we drag some of our luggage with us and locate room 7621. Oh oh! Hanging on the door is someone else’s quick checkout information. Don’t tell me someone is still in the room? I knock several times – loudly. I certainly don’t want to create an embarrassing situation. No-one answers.

Through the window, Gene can ascertain that no-one is in the room. We enter. The room has clearly already been serviced. We can only figure that the other family had a very early check-out and left before the final information was hung on the door. Whew! We ‘re home!

It’s coming up on 10 a.m. now so we drop our luggage in the room and head to the bus stop. We see buses for all the other possible destinations and a second one for Hollywood studios before a Magic Kingdom bus finally arrives.

It looks very busy at the entrance but it’s really not overly crowded. There, however, are work in progress signs everywhere – up and down Main Street, in Fantasyland, and over Liberty Tree Tavern. I’ve never seen so many buildings covered up all at once!

Our first stop is the Main Street Bakery. It’s close to 10:30 and we are hungry! I get an apple turnover and Gene a cinnamon bun. We have water with us so don’t buy any additional beverages. That hits the spot!

We head towards Splash Mountain. Along the way, we walk by Pirates so head in. Everyone entering the ride ahead of us is taking the left lane. I think that may be the only side open but find the right is open as well so we go that way. People are in line on the left hand side. We walk straight to the ride and are seated in the first row.

Although we intended to get a fast pass for Splash Mountain, the standby line is only ten minutes and it actually takes exactly that before we’re boarding our boat. Fortunately, we don’t get very wet. Big Thunder has a 20 minutes stand-by line so we obtain a fast pass here. We then head to Tom Sawyer Island. Although I look around, I do not see any paint brushes. I’m sure they’ve already been found since we’ve arrived so late.

Returning to Frontierland, we head for Big Thunder Mountain and turn in our fast passes. We’re seated in the front row. We visit Big Al at Country Bears; walk right into the Hall of Presidents and check out the Liberty Square Riverboat but it will be almost ½ hour before it’s next voyage. Instead, we walk right into Haunted Mansion. It’s now only 10 minutes until the next River Cruise but, wait, it’s only 20 minutes until our lunch reservation. A river cruise will need to wait.

To be continued...