January 15th, 2018

How was your weekend?  I know for some of you it's still the weekend which is always a treat!

​Our weekend started on Friday.  We woke to a chilly, breezy, overcast day with a distinct  threat of rain , looked at each other and said, "It's a perfect day to go......to Disney!"  (You thought I was going to say go to the beach didn't you? Come on admit it.)  So yes, we played hookey.  And are totally unapologetic about it.  Come on, if you already lived at the beach, as we do, and lived only two hours from Disney, wouldn't it at least be tempting?

"What?",  you say, "Again?"  you say? "How much Disney does one person need?" I hear you ask.  Well here is the thing.

​As Florida residents we get a discounted rate on Disney tickets and at the time when we bought them, last year, the best dealio was the annual ticket.  It allowed to go any time we wanted, as many times as we wanted, to any parks or multiple parks.  We do not pay for parking any of those times and get discounts on Disney hotels and some restaurants and at some of the shops.  So the plan was to "get our money's worth".

​And each time we have gone this year, we centered the visit around one particular park.  This time,  The Magic Kingdom itself.  And it really was the perfect day to go.  We have avoided this park for the most part for several reasons.  It is always the busiest part, the screaming kidiest part and since it has the most rides, the longest line part.  But on this rainy, windy, chilly gloomy day, not so much!  Not so say that there were no people at all, oh there were people, gobs of people, just not the absolute CRUSH that the kingdom usual features (and we avoid)

​We had a good time and did way more rides than usual because there are more rides that I can actual go on without getting so dizzy that I have to lay down.  In fact, we went on a few rides that I have never (lifetime never) been on before.  Like the racecars at the speedway!  Woohoo!  Tim drove and he really doesn't like it when I take his photo :)

We also did things we have done before like The Haunted Mansion and The Swiss Family Treehouse.  We had a great day and a good time and only got a little bit wet.  After a little bit of a mix up (their app was clearly having some issues) we even had a fairly good meal before heading home.  There are still a few rides in the park that we want to go on but haven't so I'm reasonably certain that we have one more Disney trip in us before our Annual Pass expires.  So yes, I am a Disney Fan.

​That said, I am always a little disoriented there.  Maybe it's the sheer volume of people. Or the almost overwhelming amount of things to hear to smell so see to touch to taste All Of The Time. Or the choices, my goodness the number of choices you have to make every second. "Oh I want to do this, no that, no the other".   Or maybe it's the amount of wait time that is involved that requires Constant Planning.  There is no longer the option of just "winging' it.  Everything had to be planned and arranged ahead of time, meals, rides, shows and I don't find that especially restful.  I really really really do not like the app that is how you  manage that sort of organization and we know how much I do enjoy organization and tidiness!   The app defies me at every turn. I do not find it Sam-intuitive one single bit. And as I said before, it was having issues. Even Tim had a few struggles and he is my Go-To guy when it comes to technology.

​Perhaps if I hadn't had the experience of going to Disney as a kid where you really could just walk through the gate with your book of tickets and stand in a reasonably long line before moving on to whatever you wished to do next, and eat at a mealtime that made sense and not get crushed trying to move around inside a shop and things didn't have to be planned two weeks in advance.  Hey, I can be spontaneous sometimes. Just not at Disney. 

If we wanted to eat sitting down in a Disney restaurant (and we did because frankly their fastfood sucks) we should have made a reservation at least a week earlier.  But, we didn't know we were going to be there a week earlier, y'see the dilemma. So around lunch time we started checking their restaurants on the little app.  Again I had to turn that task over to Tim because I couldn't make it work right...argh!!!!  Every single place to eat (and there are a lot of them) had a minimum two hours wait, some had no openings at all.  Tim booked a reservation for us, it said confirmed and we went off to find other things to do (read other lines to wait in) for the interim.  With bellies growling we moved on.  A little before our reservation we walked to the food place.  Finally got to the lady at the desk and guess what, they had NO record of our reservation.  Tim checked his phone. There was no confirmation email. Dang!  There must have been a glitch between the app saying..."confirmed'...and it sending the email.  Oh well, what you gonna do?

​Well in our case we went to yet another restaurant and waited there about another half hour (thirty minutes hungrier) and finally around 3 o'clock had lunch.  Well at that point it more like linner or dunch...some combination of lunch and dinner. Which is fine but still.......   

​Anyway, we still continue to learn how to properly "Disney" nowadays as we do this.  We learn more every time. Eventually we will be Disney visit rockstars.  

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