Big Sandy Bottom 2006 World Tour

Well, we're back! I bet you didn't even know we were gone, did ya? That's okay, I am going to subject you to a full trip report anyway, so here goes:

Big Sandy Bottom World Tour, July 29-August 7 2006
Part 1

THE PLOT:
A wild and wacky family of four travel from California to Disneyworld for 10. Solid. Days. of togetherness.

THE CAST:
Eric, age 36. "The Saint." Easy going man surrounded by temperamental divas.
Occupation: Despite numerous attempts by this family to determine exactly what Eric does for a living, he has never been able to adequately provide a job description. Thus, we must go with the assessment made by Nina Jacobsen: "Eric is a spy."
Pet Peeve: Being the last person in a restaurant, theatre or virtually anywhere people gather.
Catchprases: "Stop flirting with the waiter." "You know, at my office people actually seek out my opinion and value it."

Siobhan, age 42. "The Dictator." Extreme travel planner, Disney commando.
Occupation: Mom, City Clerk for small northern Californian town. (yes, a real grown up job. Whod've thunk it?)
Pet Peeve: Bickering children.
Catchphrases: "Will you two knock it off?" "We have 12:00 ADR's at Boma in the AKL. Let's get a FP for RNRC, hit TOT and then catch DT at the TTC." "Drink some water."

Ivy, age 20. "Emo Kid."
Occupation: Student, Hobbit stalker, D & D and Werewolf character.
Pet Peeve: Olivia
Catchphrases: "But I'm not thirsty!"

Olivia, age 15. "Jar-Jar." "Porta Poppy"
Occupation: Student, Professional Backpack Model, Smartass.
Pet Peeve: Ivy
Catchphrase: "I have to pee."

So even though this trip was sort of last minute, (we only decided in late May to go to Disneyworld), I still managed to plan this vacation to within an inch of its life. Personally, I don't see a problem with overplanning a vacation. I figure you can always adjust and be flexible if need be, but it helps to have a plan. Especially since we were heading to Florida at the peak of the summer season, with its crazy crowds and unbearable weather. My family thought that perhaps I was a little too intense in my planning activities, but I just want to state for the record: At no time did I actually monitor anyone's urine color to assess hydration levels. I merely provided instructions on how to do so.

I spent many hours trolling the internet, looking for information and advice for our trip. During this time, I basically lived at the following sites:

http://www.mousesavers.com All the information you'll ever need on Disney discounts.
http://www.wdwinfo.com/#blue-dishome This is where the true Disney lunatics I mean fanatics live. Here you will find endless posts on fascinating topics like : Bed bugs at Disney hotels, benefits/drawbacks of taking an afternoon break, line strategies, crowd levels and the evils of pool-hopping. It is here that I began to lose touch with reality, or at least all perspective. I visited this site, oh maybe 40 or 50 times a day. It is on the DIS board that I learned about Crocs (must-have shoes for Disneyworld), ADR's (advanced dining reservations), and the existence of a mysterious man called Tour Guide Mike. (http://www.tourguidemike.com/index.asp) who, for a small fee, will provide you with a step-by-step, minute-by-minute plan for touring the parks.

So by the time we left for Orlando, here's what I had done:

• Paid Tour Guide Mike his $19.95. This was a wise purchase, his advice was totally correct.
• Purchased our Park Hoppers through a service called http://www.ticketmania.com . Actually I only purchased hoppers for Eric, Ivy and Olivia in advance. In order to secure a discounted hotel rate, I would need to purchase an annual passport when we arrived at Disneyworld.
• Purchased a pair of Crocs shoes. I have to say, these are the ugliest shoes I've ever owned, possibly the ugliest shoes ever made. Imagine my surprise when Olivia, our little trend watcher, informed me that Crocs were in fact all the rage. I was skeptical, but it turns out she was right.
• Also purchased an alternate pair of shoes, sandals made by Reefs. In yet another example of me being so cool that even when I'm not TRYING to be cool, I still AM the coolest, the sandals I picked out with no real thought whatsoever are in fact the most popular sandals on the market, according to Money Magazine. (No, silly, I don't read it, Eric does.) They proved to be extremely comfortable and although they weren't much to look at, these shoes have a secret weapon, one I wasn't even aware of when I purchased them. The bottom of these sandals have a functioning bottle opener embedded in them. That's right, in order to open a bottle of beer, one can just hook the bottle top into the opener on the soles and presto! open bottle! How handy is that? As it turns out, not very, since we're not exactly big drinkers. But the idea that I COULD open a beer bottle with my shoes if I had wanted to...wow.

• Made ADR's (Advanced Dining Reservations, remember) at five different places.
• Purchased tickets for Cirque du Soleil.
• Ordered a week's worth of groceries and arranged for them to be delivered to our hotel room upon our arrival.
• Created a trip binder with 17 (!) tabs. Every bit of information I needed for our trip was in this binder. Airline info, Disney's "Magical" Express (everything Disney is "magical") luggage tags, hotel information, lists of all our ADR's. A section for each day of our trip, with park hours, parade times and recommended parks to visit or avoid that day (courtesy of Tour Guide Mike). You name it, it was in the binder. One sign of how completely I'd lost my mind is the response from the hotel clerk when I pulled our reservation confirmations from the clear pocket folder, behind the tab helpfully labeled "hotel info." "You have a vacation binder?" she asked, incredulously. "I've never seen anything like that before!" What? You mean to tell me that not everyone travels with a 2" binder and a 35-step daily touring plan to maximize your ability to secure fastpasses and avoid long lines? I know, I was shocked too.
• Read the Unofficial Guide to Disneyworld cover to cover three times. Earmarked and highlighted pages for future quick reference.
• Compiled a three-page packing check list for each traveler. These lists covered everything, from government-issued ID's to moleskin for blisters.
• In addition to the 9-day reservation at our primary hotel (Disney's Old Key West, a 950 square foot one-bedroom unit with a fabulous spa tub and balcony complete with ceiling fan), I secured a room at Disney's Pop Century Resort for our arrival evening, as I didn't want to pay the extra $$$ for a hotel room that we'd be in for about 7 hours total.

Day 1 - Saturday - Travel
Travel-wise, everything went perfectly. Every flight on-time, no problems with security like I usually have. (Why is it that I am always "selected" to be patted down, frisked and treated like a criminal at airports?)

The high point for me today was my new suitcase. Beautiful color, shiny finish. I could tell as I wheeled it around the airport that everyone was admiring it. I think it's the most beautiful suitcase ever.

On the plane, Ivy, Olivia and I watched three episodes of "Veronica Mars" with subtitles because the volume on Ivy's laptop doesn't work. (have I mentioned yet that you must watch this show? Yes, I have. But it bears repeating "Veronica Mars" is the best show on TV.)

We arrived in Orlando at 9:30 p.m., and hopped onto Disney's "Magical" Express bus. This is a new service provided by Disney, where you check your luggage at your originating airport and they transport your luggage directly to your hotel room so you can skip the baggage claim and, presumably, get to Disneyworld as quickly as possible so you can spend more money. While I wouldn't exactly call the service "magical", it was a nice service and the bus ride to Pop Century was fun-"Aladdin" was playing on the tv and the seats were comfy.

Our arrival and check-in at Pop Century was uneventful, other than being mocked by the aforementioned desk clerk. If I had to sum up the resort in one word, it would be "tacky." That's okay, though, I like tacky and we were only staying one night so who cares. It's basically a motel (Disney classifies the Pop Century as a "value resort" and I suppose, in Disney-relative terms anyway, it is a value. Rooms can be had here for as little as $59 a night, if you have the right information (which of course I did due to my intensive research and preparation,) but the theming is truly bizarre. Unless you don't find giant cell phones and bowling pins bizarre. You say potato, I say potahtoe and all that. Our room was in the 80's section and the pool was the shape of a computer, with an enormous keyboard deck. Decorations on the buildings included Pacman ghosts and phrases popular in the 80's, like "tubular" and "totally awesome." The place was crawling with people, even the swimming pool was packed and remember, by this time it was almost midnight. The room itself was unimpressive but completely functional, two double beds, a table, a tv and a bathroom. Our luggage hadn't "magically" arrived at our room yet and we were starving so we walked to the food court, only to discover that it closed at midnight and the only "food" available was kettle corn, chocolate covered pretzels and Gatorade. Not my first meal choice, but as I said, we were starving and beggars can't be choosers.

We headed back to the room, gawking at the weird stuff around us. Here's a couple of pictures, to give you an idea of this resort's decor:

Yes, that's Eric holding hands with Mr. Potato Head

We got back to the room, our luggage arrived, and here's where it all fell apart. My months of planning, my obsessive attention to detail, all of it-down the drain. Remember the 3-page packing list? The moleskin, the sunscreen, the bug spray, the Afrin (somebody might get a stuffy nose!), the neosporin, the comfortable shoes, etc. ad nauseum? All those items-definitely in our luggage. NOT in my luggage: my glasses and contact lenses. Yup, I remembered to pack advil, shaving cream and aloe vera gel. But the very items I need to see, to function? My EYES? Nope. All I had were the extremely old, worn way past their 2 week lifespan pair of contacts currently in my eyes. Which were feeling really dry, now that I thought of it. In fact, everytime I blinked, I could feel the contacts sort of sticking to my eyeball.

In case you think I am being overly dramatic (and why would you? I never am,) I should mention that my eyesight is EXTREMELY poor. My contact lens prescription is -12.00. Without contacts or glasses, my vision is pretty much limited to that located less than 1 inch from my face.

So what do I do now? I freak out, that's what I do now. If I lose or tear a contact, I'm blind. I can't go in the pool, because if I get water splashed in my eyes, my contacts will float out and I'm blind. My new vacations plan-stay in the room for 9 days while everyone else has fun, learning to maneuver my way around the furniture, Helen Keller-style. I guess I could read the whole time, I like to do that. But I'd have to read with a book immediately pressed to my face, which isn't all that relaxing.

Options, what are my options? When I calm down long enough to think, I decide I'll use Ivy's laptop to order contacts online through 1-800-Contacts and have them delivered Fedex to the hotel. Which would be an excellent plan, except that Ivy casually mentions that her dataport seems to be broken and her only internet access has to be wireless. Which would be okay, except that apparently Disney doesn't HAVE wireless on property, or if they do we weren't able to access it. Okay, Plan B: I will phone 1-800-contacts in the a.m., handle it that way. In the meantime, I'll just be extra careful, take good care of the pathetic remnant contact lenses I have. Which would be a lot easier, if I had only bothered to pack: CONTACT LENS SOLUTION and a CONTACT LENS CASE! I call the front desk and the helpful woman assures me that yes, the resort shop carries the necessary supplies. Which would be a big relief, except of course the shop is closed now and won't open till 9:00 a.m.

I briefly contemplate staying up all night, but I know that really won't help anything. It's difficult to attempt to preserve your only pair of contact lenses when your only overnight storage solution involves plastic drinking glasses and tap water, but I don't really have a choice.

I climb into bed, a humbled and sad vacation planner. My family tries to cheer me up, but I eat my dinner of chocolate pretzels in tears. My only solace is that in the morning I will be unable to see the chocolate stained sheets.