Thursday, June 5, 2008

Day 2, Part 1 - Flat Brody takes a Pick-A-Number DISUnplugged Podcast Trip!!!

Day 2, Part 1 - Look Out Rope, Here We Come!!!

Is it 6:15 already??? And what is that obnoxious mumbling noise?!?!?

Yes my friends, we had scheduled a wake up call with Stitch and Mickey.

And as all good DISers know, the person sleeping closest to the phone is responsible for pushing the speaker button when the call comes. I have Mom well trained.

Although you know the wake up call is coming and what to expect ..... it is still just a garbled bunch of noise no matter how much I hear it. What exactly does Stitch say anyway?

Since I had taken my shower before I went to sleep, I had a few extra minutes. So, I got up and fixed my morning diet coke. Mom is more traditional and prefers coffee in the morning but she decided to forgo bringing her coffee maker since we were moving to the Swan soon and she thought she could survive 2 mornings without her coffee. Me on the other hand had to have my diet coke and thankfully it is easier to pack a few cans than coffee.

While Mom was in the shower I got breakfast ready. Neither of us are eat breakfast out kinda people, so we brought yogurt, granola and fruit with us to make yogurt parfaits. It is a hearty no cook breakfast and just enough to keep up your strength until lunch time. And it is pretty healthy to boot so you don’t feel so bad eating a Mickey Bar later in the day.

Although I didn’t get much sleep - thanks for letting me down Rosa Regale - I still had a little bit of adrenaline left over to propel me forward. So I got to it getting ready with the whole teeth brushing, face washing, putting on makeup and deodorant and sunblock, and doing your hair thing. Luckily, I don’t really care what I look like too much at Disney World since I usually have on sunglasses and hats most of the time so this didn’t take all that long.

And wouldn’t you know that I was ready and we were walking out of the door at 7:30 a.m. Woooohooooo!!!!! I think Mom was a little surprised.

Mom and I are usually not bus people but I knew that if we were going to make it to the rope drop we were going to need to eliminate the whole parking-tram-monorail thing and get dropped off right next to the gates of the MK. So we avoided the walk by the pool bar and through the lobby and instead took a little short cut from the Touchdown building through the tiny parking lot and around some bushes directly to the waiting bus. A bunch of Mousekeepers on a golf cart even waved to us and told us to have a good day.

The bus gods were with us because the MK bus was just finishing loading as we approached and the bus driver saw us fast walking towards him. We were the last people loaded on the bus and there were even seats available.

Flat Brody truly enjoyed his first bus ride.

As we approached the MK, I did the "we’re almost there!!!" seat dance of joy. I love all of the WDW Parks but the MK reminds me of my childhood the most since it was the only park around until I was in high school.

Let me just take this time to give all of you stroller toting families out there an admonition - when you get off the bus, move away from the bus door before you start the put the stroller back together process. I won’t go into details since I think you can guess what happened. But this may just be one of my new pet peeves.

It is time to start the trek to our first day of fun. It isn’t all that far from the bus drop off area to the security line but it does seem to take longer than it should. What can I say, I am impatient and when I want to be some place I want to be there NOW!!

When we made it to the entrance area it was 7:54 a.m. and the lines for the bag checks were about 30 people deep. The rope drop show was going on and people were walking in the right direction but there attention was diverted up towards the train station watching the singing and dancing. I think this caused people to slow things down a little bit.

But what to do?!?! I still needed to go to Guest Relations to turn in my AP Voucher to get my AP and the line just wasn't moving fast enough for me.It wasn’t like we were in a great big hurry but my inner Disney commando started to go crazy and in my head I was strategically planning on how to get through security, get my AP, and get through the turnstiles in the quickest amount of time.

It was like an internal struggle about whether I should give in to my commando demons or not. Back and forth I went about whether to go with the feeling or stay calm and rational. My brain was working overtime - which is saying a lot since it still wasn’t 8 o’clock in the morning yet.

I just have to say it is a good thing I am not schizophrenic or we would have been in serious trouble.

I took a deep breath and turned to Mom and handed her my bag saying "I’m going to go ahead through the no bag entrance and go to Guest Relations so I can get my AP. You take both bags and go through the bag check and we’ll meet in the middle." And I was off. I do think she muttered "okay" as I walked off.

It was hard to control my inner Disney Commando but I think I handle it quite well given my adrenaline levels. And as luck would have it there was an open window at Guest Relations. I got my AP with no problems and as I walked back to the middle Mom was just walking up trying to figure out where exactly the middle was.

Whew!!! I can put my inner Disney Commando back into the ugly depths of my brain from whence it came. (I don’t think it comes out again on this trip. But we’ll have to see as I work my way through my notes and memories to make sure.)

Mom and I both made it through the turnstiles without incident. They did have the finger scanners on and I thought I had heard from several different sources that they weren’t using them at the MK anymore. That rumor had either not occurred yet or was totally false. You know that Disney rumor mill - very unreliable.

We didn’t see a lot of the rope drop festivities but we felt like we achieved our goal. And we were both excited to get to Fantasyland. But not so excited that we missed Flat Brody’s first MK moment.

Flat Brody sees the MK for the first time.

Next installment: Mom needs coffee STAT!!

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