Blood in the Refrigerator...A Confusing But Fun Kidani Trip New 2/17

[appleorchard]

So now that our pre-Disney trip moment has been immortalized on film, we can leave.

Bonnie gets one last hug from everyone.

Ben gets one more hug from everyone.

And we're off!

Our trip to the airport was completely uneventful. The plane was on time. The kids and I ate Chinese for lunch.

Good thing the whole trip wasn't this dull.

We got on board and everyone got plugged in, electronically speaking, as soon as we reached 10,000 feet. I watched a movie. M played with his Kindle Fire. E read a book--an abridged version of Black Beauty.

I read it over her shoulder, while watching a movie at the same time. Harry Potter.

I already know what happens. In both stories.

DH took a nap.

We got to Orlando without incident. I'm an RN and I have to write phrases like this all the time in my notes. Arrived without incident. Transported without incident. Shift ended without incident.

Without incident is good.

We took the obligatory pictures... in front of the faux monorail...



That's M's Minecraft shirt. He wears it constantly. He explained to me, in excrutiating detail, about one of his games, on the way to Epcot one night. Then he said to me (right before I fell off the seat in a stupor) "You're the only one who will listen to me talk about Minecraft, Grandma."

So I was glad I hadn't passed out from ennui. Just in case M reads this. I don't think he knows what ennui is.

in front of Goofy....

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And finally, in front of the Magical Express.



Yes, E holds up Baby Simba in almost every picture we have.

Hopefully, you haven't fallen into a stupor yet or died from ennui over the pictures of these faceless, nameless children.

Cause we're finally at Kidani Village! I have a picture of that too, but I'll spare you.

I did online check-in here, for the very last time I swear. They make you go sit in a chair and then they want to hand you the packet and just walk away.

It never, ever works out that way.

I always request a room near the lobby, because DH has walking issues. So I want to know exactly where the room is before we trek a thousand miles down the hall. Plus, I knew this would be complicated, because we were changing rooms in two days and then had to get new keys on the last day, too. So I wanted to make they got all that.

I should have saved myself the trouble, since nothing you say in the lobby at check-in ever seems to get past the ears of the first desk clerk.

So, since I have all these issues, why did I do online check-in? I have no idea.

We had the most clueless check-in person. She became one of our biggest problems two days later, but today, she was just an annoyance. She was like a blank canvas. No matter what I said, she just stood there with a blank look. It was quite disconcerting.

And, of course, we didn't get a room close to the lobby. Since it was just for two days, I figured we'd get whatever was left over. It was in the fourth bead down, so it could have been worse--that was just halfway.

I tried to be gracious about it, I really did. But I never quite succeed. I always have to make some snide remark about my DH passing out halfway down the hall, or something else to make the check-in CM feel bad.

As if.

But we finally made it to our room, and E was blown away by the balcony. and the animals. and the animals in front of the balcony. Especially the cute bunny.

Yeah, that was her favorite.



You can see how excited E is by the way she's standing. She even put Simba down!

They have bears in their yard in Connecticut. I guess it's hard to impress this kid.

Next up-- our long, long, not fun night in Downtown Disney.

 

[Backstage_Gal]

Another entertaining update, thanks!
If I might make one suggestion though, could you indicate in you title when you update? Otherwise people think that just another person responded.

Thanks, and keep up the great updates!

 

[blueiis99]

I have been chuckling all day over the husband segment. You MUST laugh a lot in you family.

 

[appleorchard]

Another entertaining update, thanks!
If I might make one suggestion though, could you indicate in you title when you update? Otherwise people think that just another person responded.

Thanks, and keep up the great updates!

Ohhh, I really want to update the title, but I can't figure out how to do it! When I try, it cuts me off and won't let me put in enough letters. Suggestions??

I have been chuckling all day over the husband segment. You MUST laugh a lot in you family.

Well, SOME of us do lol. If you know any engineers-- humor isn't their forte.

 

[Backstage_Gal]

Ohhh, I really want to update the title, but I can't figure out how to do it! When I try, it cuts me off and won't let me put in enough letters. Suggestions??

I'd like to offer help, but I have never done it, sorry. Hopefully someone else can help.

 

[Enchantress01]

That's M's Minecraft shirt. He wears it constantly. He explained to me, in excrutiating detail, about one of his games, on the way to Epcot one night. Then he said to me (right before I fell off the seat in a stupor) "You're the only one who will listen to me talk about Minecraft, Grandma."

So I was glad I hadn't passed out from ennui. Just in case M reads this. I don't think he knows what ennui is.

THIS is why I love your TRs!

Reminds me of my daughter. She explains everything until I'm screaming "STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S GOOD IN THE WORLD, PLEASE STOP!!!" (o.k., not really. I only scream in cyberspace) There's no point in discouraging the little dear. But you better believe I'm thinking it. Ugghhh! I always get the good listener thing too. And now with grandkids in tow, I'm sure to pass out from ennui.
Appleorhchard, you get the gold star for patience!

Great pics too. Your balcony looks huge! The view must have been amazing.

Looking forward to more of your adventures!

 

[appleorchard]

THIS is why I love your TRs!

Reminds me of my daughter. She explains everything until I'm screaming "STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S GOOD IN THE WORLD, PLEASE STOP!!!" (o.k., not really. I only scream in cyberspace) There's no point in discouraging the little dear. But you better believe I'm thinking it. Ugghhh! I always get the good listener thing too. And now with grandkids in tow, I'm sure to pass out from ennui.
Appleorhchard, you get the gold star for patience!

Great pics too. Your balcony looks huge! The view must have been amazing.

Looking forward to more of your adventures!

Well, I can tell you I never had the patience for my kid's stories that I have for my darling grandchildren's!

That balcony ran the full length of both the one bedroom and the two bedroom. It was humungous. E didn't want to change rooms because she didn't want to leave the balcony, until I assured her the 2 BR would be even bigger!

 

[appleorchard]

Here I am, back in the Philadelphia airport. In a US Airway waiting area.

Philly is their hub.

There are no seats with electrical outlets in this whole section.

Amazing.

Just another reason why I really hate this airport. No hooks in the bathrooms, no electrical outlets anywhere.

So, back to Orlando and memories.

DTD was not our best night. For several reasons.

We went to Portabellos for dinner. This was DH's idea and I knew it wasn't a good one.

Last time we were there, both the food and service were lackluster. And it was slow-- very slow. But we had to go to DTD to activate the military tickets.

And replace DH's AP. You know, the one he lost.

Or so we think.

I really don't like DTD. There, I confessed. It's always mobbed and honestly, it has no Disney feel to me whatsoever. It takes forever to get there on any bus.

But DH likes to eat there. So we go.

We were going to have dinner at Boma, but I chickened out. Not because of my culinary palate- but because of the children.

Dear things.

See, we love Jiko. Love it. So we had raved about it so many times that our son the foodie couldn't wait to take his family there on their last trip.

Well, they hated it.

I can't say exactly why. I don't think it was the food. I think it was stress, first day jitters, and a host of other issues that can make a meal seem less than stellar.

So I, with great trepidation, had made reservations at Boma, which has similarly flavored food, because the kids had assured me, several times, that they hated Jiko.

And I chickened out at the last minute and changed the reservation.

We weren't sure what to do the first night. When you get in at 4:30, there's not much time to do anything.

So DTD won by default.

We got there after about three hours on the bus-- an exaggeration, but not by much, and after assuring the children that Portabellos had both pizza and steak, we started off.

But first, we had to stop and activate the military tickets, which always takes awhile, because they have to laboriously write everyone's name on the tickets and record everyone's vital statistics in the computer.

So it was getting late, and we decided to replace DH's AP after dinner.

I'll gloss over the details of Portabellos, except to say that the dinner was fine -- E had steak, M had pizza -- but the service was about the worst we've ever had, anywhere. So bad that DH and I both complained, separately, to management about it. DH wrote a long note on the bill. I talked directly to the manager.

And by the time we got out of there, many hours later, it was really late. So we hotfooted it-- well, DH never hotfoots it anywhere, but the rest of us did -- to replace his AP.

And they had no record of it.

Well.

The last AP they had for him expired several months ago. Huh. The plot thickens.

I guess that's why he threw it out.

Fortunately, I had the handy-dandy AP order form with me, so I showed it to them.

And it had never been activated.

Wow. I guess I'm not as on top of Disney stuff as I thought I was.

I guess DH isn't as careless as I accused him of being.

I guess it's time to board my plane. Sorry no pictures, but we weren't in a picture-taking mood by the end of this night.

Since I'll be visiting my mom for a week, updates might be sparse, since she tends to monopolize my time lol

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=48657795#post48657795 Next chapter

 

[Enchantress01]

Well, I can tell you I never had the patience for my kid's stories that I have for my darling grandchildren's!

Me too. Don't get me wrong, my daughter's smart and sweet. It must be because I don't hear the grandkids all day that I can take it. But kids, just give me the abridged version, paleeeeease!!!!

Sorry about Portabello's, especially since they did have the menu you needed. As you said, it is hard to please everyone's taste and there are so many factors that can change the experience each time. We have only tried Fulton's at DTD. The food and view were amazing! No pizza but other choices for the kiddies.

So smart of you to bring the AP order form! My family laughs at my copies until something happens and we fly through the lines, disasters averted. Another Gold star Appleorchard!

 

[appleorchard]

Hope to get another chapter up tonight, after my mom settles down lol

 

[appleorchard]

I could shoot myself. I just finished this entire segment and then erased it.

It's never as fun to write things the second time.

But anyway.

After we bought all our tickets and the debacle at Portabellos, DH was tired. So we put him on the bus and let him go home, to our Kidani room at the end of the long, long hallway.

The kids and I set out on a quest.

No, not Disney Quest. Poor M never got there, even though it was on his Disney bucket list.

This was M's quest. Cue the sappy music. M was looking for a Mother's day present for his mom-- a Donald mug to replace the one she broke last year. They gave DH a similar Mickey mug, so I knew what we were looking for.

He was going to use all his Disney spending money on a present for his mom. Everybody say, "Awwwwwwww."

On the way to World of Disney, we passed Portabellos, which inspired much animated conversation about how terrible it was. In fact, at the end of the trip, the Portabellos experience made both kids' "worst parts of the trip" list.

Maybe we should have stuck with Boma.

Both kids and all the adults rated the trip overall as an "A", though. Which was much better than our son rated our first trip, which he deemed a C+.

You can imagine my reaction to this evaluation. I was depressed for weeks. I felt like I had failed, although he assured me it was his son's reactions -- M wouldn't ride on hardly anything -- and not my meticulous planning that resulted in the low rating.

I still bring his evaluation out and terrorize him with it every once in a while.

So, back to our quest. World of Disney let us down. So did the kitchen store. I assured M we would comb the Disney stores until we found a Donald mug.

Yeah, I had to eat my words. But all still ended well. You'll see in a few days.

The kids and I dragged ourselves to the bus stop and mercifully got on an uncrowded bus-- a rare thing at DTD around closing time. E was asleep before the bus left the bus stop.

We made her go through the gift shop with us anyway when we got back to Kidani, looking for a Donald mug.

I had to wrestle with the sofabed and pullout chair when we got back. Our suitcases had also arrived, so I had to semi-unpack. We were only going to be in this room for two nights, so we didn't want to get too entrenched.

I had to call down to Maintenance when M discovered their sink drain wouldn't open. He came up fast and fixed it in 2 seconds.

Then I had to call Housekeeping to bring up another pillow.

Then I called Bell Services for something. I forget what. But it must have been important.

Everyone brought everything up that I needed quickly, thanks goodness.

Both kids were asleep seconds after I opened the beds. I think they put their pajamas on. Maybe.

I know I did. I don't sleep in my clothes.

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Here's what the living room at Kidani looks like.

DH was already asleep, of course.

I was awake for awhile, rating the day. Lol.

Every day with my grandchildren is an A+ to me.

 

[blueiis99]

Rofl. Thanks for the update. This is my bedtime story for the night, and I know I'll be still chuckling all the way to the office tomorrow.
I love your stories!!

 

[Backstage_Gal]

Thanks for the updates. Sorry Portobello was such a miss.
For future reference, the CM's in the merchandise stores can check the entire inventory on property to check for items (not that it helped you any then)
Enjoy the time with your mom!

 

[appleorchard]

Rofl. Thanks for the update. This is my bedtime story for the night, and I know I'll be still chuckling all the way to the office tomorrow.
I love your stories!!

I'm so glad! It's so nice when things that seem awful at the time seem funny later. This really was a good trip-- I was so happy to go with the kids after 6 years that I would have rated the trip an A no matter what happened lol. My poor son has regretted ever rating the last trip, I really do hold it over his head.

Thanks for the updates. Sorry Portobello was such a miss.
For future reference, the CM's in the merchandise stores can check the entire inventory on property to check for items (not that it helped you any then)
Enjoy the time with your mom!

Oh, that's good to know! It did give us a focus in the stores, which was nice, rather than just aimlessly wandering through them, although we did that too, of course.

 

[Mommy Poppins]

Loving your trip report! Can't wait for more!

 

[Li Li]

Hi AO! I figured out how to update original title. You go to your first post, hit edit and then click on option for advanced, or go advanced. That gets you to where you can edit the title. Then just save changes.

 

[appleorchard]

E was already up when I rolled out of bed in the morning. She was out admiring the cow looking things with the long horns. I thought they would be a little boring compared to giraffes and zebras, but she really loved them.

In fact, the thing she disliked most about her parent's arriving (heh heh) was our room change and the fact that we no longer saw the cow-thingy's in the morning.

She said they really had interesting personalities. Who knew.



E watching her fascinating cow-thingy's.



So today, our first full day, we had our APs, finally straightened out. And we had the kids' military tickets, but we weren't using them, because we were a day short of tickets for our five-day stay.

So we bought them each a non-hopper one day ticket. We figured we'd be at Epcot all day anyway, and we were-- from morning until night.

The weather was really nice, for May. Usually when we go in May, it's blistering hot. I remember two years ago going with my sister and seriously almost passing out after walking up the steps to the O Canada! movie. I had to lie down on one of the benches inside the waiting area and hold my feet up in the air to get blood to my head. What a sight that must have been.

And yet, not one Disney security person appeared out of nowhere to make sure I was okay. Imagine that.

So THIS May, the weather was in the low 80s. Not the high 90s, like it normally is for us.

We loved it, for two reasons.

1.We didn't almost pass out.

2. The kids weren't bugging us every five minutes to go back to the hotel and swim.

Well, there's only place to head for first thing in the morning in Epcot, so that's where we went.

We left DH in the dust, getting his scooter. Yes, we rent the park scooter, even though it costs us twice as much as renting offsite, because of the hassle of getting the scooter on and off the buses.

Getting a scooter always takes a long, long time, so we all hot-footed it to Soarin', got fastpasses and -- reluctantly, I did this -- got in line without him.

I don't like doing this. I know people do it all the time-- and I did it here-- but I don't feel right about getting in line without my "party" all being there. But, because I love Soarin', and couldn't wait to ride it with the kids, I did it anyway.

The line wasn't that long. We waited for DH at the corner, because I didn't want him to think we'd gone in without him. We let about 10 people go by us while waiting for him. Honestly, it wasn't much faster than just waiting at the entrance for him.

The kids loved Soarin'. We all did. E covered her ears during the fireworks, but that was ok.

We did Living with the Land and razzed M about being too scared to go on it when he was 5 because he was scared of the thunder. And the dark at the beginning. Poor M.

We killed a little time doing something, then rode Soarin' with our FPs before heading over to Test Track, which was closed for renos the last time the kids rode it.

M hated it when he was 5. He hated the hot, cold and stinky rooms, and I had to promise him over and over that they no longer existed. I had lots of time to do this, because the ride was excruciating long and stopped for what seemed like hours at a time. Just as it has every other time I've ever ridden TT, which is why DH and I do it single rider.

Poor E's card didn't work in the design a car section. And, unlike the last time I was there, there were no CM's in the room to help. So she just watched M, which is what she's had to do about half of her life, anyway.

M's car did really well-- he's a natural engineer.

Both kids said they liked it, but -- tellingly-- didn't want to get FP for it later.

They loved the real cars, though -- just like J, we could hardly get them out of there. I don't understand it -- we have cars at home. What is it about these cars?

Of course, we don't let them crank the steering wheels and jump from the front to back seats in OUR cars.

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You can tell they're both having a great time destroying these cars

We took a spin into outer space after this, although we couldn't persuade the kids to try the Orange side. They love the Green, though, and maybe that's best all around.

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We went back to the age of the dinosaurs with Ellen, which E especially liked. And after that, it was time for some refreshments.

We had ice cream bars, but they weren't my main goal.

I wanted to get M into Club Cool and mess with his little mind.

He fell right for it. Here's his reaction.

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I felt a little bad afterwards, though. He said to me,
"Grandma, did you actually try to trick me on purpose?" I felt like I'd betrayed his trust. Poor kid.

The face he made was worth it, though lol.

Next chapter:http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=48739860#post48739860

 

[appleorchard]

Hi AO! I figured out how to update original title. You go to your first post, hit edit and then click on option for advanced, or go advanced. That gets you to where you can edit the title. Then just save changes.

It, worked, kinda-- but I had to abbreviate the title to do it. Weird. But thanks!

 

[wiigirl]

Awesome update!

 

[shalom]

Glad you had a moderate May. Last time we went it was HOT HOT HOT -- however, we weren't doing the Disney parks, and I couldn't want the resort grounds much anyhow because I got a blister a few days in at SeaWorld, so it worked out okay.

We like Downtown Disney, but we usually go earlier in the day when it isn't so crowded, which I think makes a big difference.