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| Our group of 7 |
We've done a few Walt Disney World trips now, and have learned that nothing is perfect, not even at WDW. Our group consisted of 5 WDW veterans, and 2 first timers (well, practically first timers). The group put their trust in my knowledge and experience to be the "man with the plan".
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| Would you trust this guy with your WDW trip planning? |
Sometimes it's Disney's fault when something goes awry. Sometimes it's our fault, and we realize that we are in the middle of one of those "oops moments".
There were a few of these events on our last trip:
1. The Room Key:
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| Disney's Contemporary Resort |
Upon our arrival at The Contemporary Resort, we checked in, and we headed to our room. When we got there, we did not know how to use the key card reader! We were looking for a place to "slide" the magnetic strip card, but there was no such place. Eventually we figured out that you don't slide the card into this type of door, but rather, just touch the magnetic strip to the reader. We did this, and it flashed RED!
We tried all 5 of our cards, and they all flashed red. I went to the elevator lobby, used the house phone to call down to the front desk and explained the situation. They said that they would try something from there, and if it did not work, they would send someone up to let us into the room until they got it straightened out.
After a little while, they told us to try the key, so a member of our group went to the room and tried their key... it worked! It was a rocky start to the trip, but it did get fixed and we were into our room ready to rest up for a big day of touring in the morning.
2. Where is our Magical Express Luggage?
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| The walkway connects Bay Lake Tower with The Contemporary Resort |
About 5 hours later, it was getting late, and concern was beginning to set in with our Daughter. I kept defending Disney's honor, but finally became a little concerned myself and made a call down to the bell services to ask about our luggage.
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| Disney's Bay Lake Tower |
I noticed that the message button was blinking on our phone, so I hit it and listened to the message...
explaining that bell services made an attempt to deliver our luggage to our room, but The "DO NOT DISTURB" sign was hanging on the door, so they did not attempt delivery!
MY BAD! Yes, I was the one who hanged the Do Not Disturb sign on our door! So I called them, and explained what happened. The same gentleman that left the message was the one who answered, and he just laughed and said "no problem", "things like this happen all the time" - and that he'd have everything sent right up. Like I said, sometimes it's Disney's fault... sometimes it's ours. We got to bed kinda' late on our arrival night.
3. THE AMERICAN ADVENTURE (...almost)
We had some friends with us, and told them about Epcot's American Adventure. We felt it was a "must see" for them, and made sure to be there for one of the showtimes during the day. We were seated, enjoying the presentation when about 15 minutes into it, we realized that we could HEAR the voices, but there were no audio-animatronics on the stage! A few minutes later the curtains closed, and the cast member brought up the house lights, and gave the "We are sorry, but due to technical difficulties..." Spiel. We were disappointed. Our friends liked what they got to see of the show, but I wish they could have seen the whole thing. That final scene with Ben Franklin & Mark Twain in the torch at the top of the Statue of Liberty is a classic. Oh Well...Things happen.
4. THE EPCOT BUS (...from The Contemporary)
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| Disney Transport Bus at Animal Kingdom |
On our Epcot day, I had it all planned out. Our friends (2) were staying at Kidani Village, and we (5) were at Bay Lake Tower. I filled them in on the importance of "rope drop" when visiting the parks. Especially if you want to ride Soarin'. I had them be at Epcot as close to 8:30am as possible, and we would meet them there. We went to the bus stop at the Contemporary and were ready to roll. The Animal Kingdom bus pulled up and about 2/3 of the people waiting got on that bus. I said "Good, most of these folks aren't going to epcot!". Then a Disney Hollywood Studios bus came and the bus stop got practically empty. It was looking good. We waited as a few more buses came and went. Time was ticking away, and I started to get a little worried. Where was the epcot bus?
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| Monorail to the rescue! |
Then it hit me... We are on the monorail line, maybe there isn't a bus to epcot! I ran to the next bus that pulled up and asked the driver if there was a bus to Epcot. The funny thing is THE BUS DRIVER DIDN'T KNOW and started to call HQ to find out! As he was calling, a couple that was sitting on the bus told me that there was no bus to epcot from the contemporary, and that we would have to get on the monorail and then transfer at the TTC to the Epcot monorail! I goofed again! We headed up to the monorail, hopped on, transferred at the TTC and finally made our arrival at Epcot. Our Daughter had called our 2 friends who were waiting patiently on a bench by Spaceship Earth, and explained what was up. As the monorail made it's way through Epcot, we could see them sitting on that bench waiting for us. We made our way in, and I made a fast-pass run for Soarin'. I felt a little bad about this happening, but it all worked out good. With Fast-Passes in hand, we had a bite to eat at Sunshine Seasons. We were able to do a walk-up booking for The Behind the Seeds Tour, and the timing was perfect for Soarin'. We then hopped on Living with the Land, and met up with our Daughter's family to continue our tour of Epcot. Yup, I goofed again... but it all worked out pretty good. I didn't do a good job of planning the way to get to Epcot, but it did feel good to at least have enough WDW smarts to make a "plan B" on the Fly!
5. BRER RABBIT GETS A CELL PHONE!
One of our friends that was with us really wanted to take a ride on Splash Mountain, and since I had 4 Fast Passes burning a hole in my pocket, we were on our way and riding in the time that it took to walk from where we were to the boarding area.
After the ride, as we were unloading, I hear my Wife say.... "Oh NO!", I turn around and she says "I dropped my cell phone". It seems she had it tucked into the tight little pants pocket above the regular pocket, and as she was getting out of the log vehicle, it worked it's way up and popped right out of her pocket, into the narrow space between the log and the dock - maybe 1 foot wide! A perfect shot right into the drink! I immediately told the nearest Cast Member, and they stopped the ride to take a look and see if there was any way to retrieve the phone.
I looked around and saw the line of people waiting to board, many had that "What happened?" expression on their faces. The CM's made a valiant effort to retrieve the phone, but it was nowhere to be found, and even if we had pulled it out of the waterway, it would have been ruined. So we felt bad for about 5 minutes, as I teased my poor Wife for "throwing things into Splash Mountain". It was an ancient relic of a cellphone anyway, that looked like a miniature walkie-talkie. I guess it's time to upgrade! I just hope Brer Rabbit doesn't use up all of our minutes!
