Our first day here.

We arrived at the hotel at 12:30am to an utterly ghosty hotel, a sleepy front desk clerk and a beautiful, balmy night.

I think we only slept 5 hous, we were too excited to sleep and were on the road at 8am. Off to Kennedy Space Center!

On the way there we saw our first wild gator. Sucker was biiiig!

I think the combo of lack of sleep and over tired excitement made us leave the e-tickets on the bed back at the hotel. Surprisingly we didnt have a meltdown fight in the parking lot because we had hope in the form of a PDF of the receipt I had put on my iPad. Yay technology! I was going to find great irony if the ticket kiosk could not accept an electronic version of our ticket purchase at the home of America’s greatest technical achievement. But they accepted it and we avoided having to drive back to the hotel, fuming.

I have to say that being there really overstimulated my nerd gland. I frikkin’ loved every minute of it!

And SharkBoy managed to fall asleep within 30 seconds of the start of Star Trek Live… A new record!

Here are some pics… The last is just curious, and has nothing to do with science.

In August of 2011, SharkBoy and I are going on a religious jihad. We will don our specially blessed yarmulkes with big plastic ears attached and crawl on our knees to the front doors of DISNEYLAND! Specifically, we’re making our visit to the D23 Expo – the official Disney Fan Club get together.

After purchasing our Expo tickets, we started to look into hotels. If you’ve never been to the park in Anaheim, it’s a bit of a trip down Kitschy Lane. When the park opened, Disney himself said that he wished he had bought up all the land around the park because there were some really dodgy hotels/motels opening up around the property. He thought these eyesores were cheapening the experience.

Now, we’ve been to The Land before, on a two day whirlwind trip, and I recall that there seemed to be a ton of weird hotels outside the park – the most memorable was the Alpine Inn, with its fake snow and icicles in balmy California. Unfortunately there ain’t no room at the Inn (it’s on the same “block” as The Land – convenient!) so we started to look at other hotels.

When we look at hotels, we usually cross reference them through Google Earth, the hotel website itself and TripAdvisor. I can hear you cringe from here. Taking in advice from some stranger off the internet is like asking Jeffrey Dhamler over for dinner. But if you’re careful you can read between the lines.

Note this fine example for the Tropicana Hotel, directly across from the Land’s entrance:

Took my family for a trip to Disneyland so that we could heal from family problems. Looking forward to being in our “happy” place. Spent 8 days at this hotel and had nothing but problems the whole time we were there. It started on the day we checked in and just went downhill from there.

“Family problems”? Sounds like they were projecting Mom and Dad’s utter hate for each other onto the hotel.

Or this poor lady’s violation within her sheets at the Anaheim Camelot (yes it looks like a castle):

Long Black hairs on all the sheets and blankets- gross ! Since I am fussy about bedding, I had my own and just put my own on the beds. Then I left a note telling the housekeeping not to change bedding. They didn’t speak English, tossed out the note and put my bedding on the floor to put theirs back on. You could not pay me to stay there again !

Wait… she brings her own bedding with her?  That sounds a tad bit anal to me. I’m surprised she didn’t complain about the birds chirping outside her window in the morning.

And staying on the Castle theme: one from The Castle Inn:

…
5. hair dryer did not work – shower curtain and tub looked like a crime scene
6. a room on our floor caught on fire at 4am and the hotel staff did not evacuate guests despite smoke and flames coming from the rooms bathroom. They were more worried about having to give a refund than the guests safety.
7. Night front desk clerk looked and acted like he had a hangover.
8. it is a longer walk from Disneyland than you think. especially at 11pm.
9. the pool is freezing and is the size of a goldfish bowl.
10. dark, scary hotel with people smoking outside that look like meth heads.

Okay so there were flames shooting out from under a bathroom door in a room not occupied by our psychic reviewer. Check. And the night clerk looked tired. Check. And smokers look like Meth Heads. Check check check!

I think we’re going to get a tent and hang out under one of the underpasses.

Does This Tramp Make My Room Look Big?

Resorts! There are so many in and around Walt Disney World! And I’m here to tell you exactly which one to stay in.

Wait, what? Well actually I’ve only stayed in one. The same one for both trips.

Okay I’m not an expert, I admit it, I can’t say which one is better that the other. Nor can I offer cross category reviews based on room types. But I will tell you why it’s better to stay “on property” than in a cheap motel off the I4.

Remember when I said that Disney is shockingly expensive? It’s no lie. A decent room in one of Disney’s value resorts, in off peak times will still cost you somewhere in the vicinity of $1500CA for two, for a week. If you want to stay in one of the “Big 5”, namely the resorts that have been around the longest? Expect somewhere around $4000CA/week.

So the draw to stay off property and drive in can seem like a deal. However there are a few perks that trade off that cheaper cost in terms of convenience, vacation experiences and time.

Transportation: Other than the ultra-cool monorail, or water taxis from some resorts, Disney has an extensive free bus system for resort guests that criss-cross all the parks. While you may have to wait a few minutes for a particular bus or it might stop at one or two other stops before your destination, they’re pretty frequent and reliable. One thing though, you may want to either leave whatever park you may be visiting a few minutes before the last firework goes off, or gird your loins with extra patience because at the end of the night, buses can get a bit busy. All front desk concierges can offer schedules and routes.

While we’re on it, buses from the airport to your Disney resort are free. If you’re American and travelling on a participating airline, you don’t even have to wait for your luggage off the carousel. Disney tags it and bags it and has it at your room after a couple hours after you check in (make sure your carry on luggage is packed with what you’ll need for that time without your bags). I’ve never used it but I hear it’s a really high energy party on the coach from the airport to your hotel – everyone excited and bouncing off the walls. As opposed to depressed when the buses take you back to the airport at the end of your stay.

Got a car? Consider doing a little of both – driving and public transportation. While parking for resort guests is free at all resorts AND parks, it can get pretty congested mid-day and end of night. That being said, I strongly suggest driving if you’re going to close a park (see video link above). The roads and signage are pretty self explanatory but you need a navigator to read the signs. We got lost a few times looking at weenies that peeked up out over park boundaries.

Time in the Parks: Speaking of which, resort guests may get early entrance or later hours in the parks – they’re called Extra Magic Hours. Depending on the weekday or the park, you can get bonus extra fun time! You really do notice the difference when the park opens to the general public, so it’s nice to get in there and get some extra photos, or an early ride or rack up your FastPass on one of your favorite rides, before the place fills up.

Charging to Your Room. I don’t know if this is a plus or a danger but your room key is a muti-purpose tool. It gets you into your room (der!!), into the parks and their charge account. You can buy anything in the World and have it shipped back to your room free of charge, so you’re not hanging onto a Jafar Snow Globe while on Space Mountain. Yeah, shopping can be dangerous, especially if you like tchotchkes.

That’s pretty much the whole monetary reason why to stay on property. There is also the emotional. If you’re on property you’re going to be treated like a god. Okay… you hear horror stories of bad service and things that go wrong, even at Disney, but they really do excel in customer service. If you do come across one grumpy cast member (and you will, don’t be fooled) I can guarantee that you will encounter 6 others who are having an honest-to-Walt magical day. At a chain hotel outside The World, it’s a crap shoot. It’s your gamble.

Back in 1989, my boyfriend at the time, Paul, and I decided to fly down Florida to see my Dad. At the time my father was a butler for a woman who would winter in West Palm Beach and he offered a bed for a few days. We decided to hit EPCOT for one of the days we were down there.

It was the worst travel decision I have ever made.

We arrived at Florida without a hitch. The night before we went to the car rental agency whose name I didn’t “nationally” recognize but was dirt cheap. I didn’t care. I was going to EPCOT!

You see, I grew up in a family of 5 kids. The possibility of my parents wrangling us unruly rug rats all together and make the trip to Florida was extremely remote. While I heard stories of how awesome the park rides were from lucky kids in the playground I would have to be satisfied with watching Disney’s Wonderful World of Color on CBC, and remotely marvel at the shots of the parks in the fancy title sequence. I yearned

The morning of our big day we got up real early and jumped into the car. The trip would take us close to 5 hours to get to EPCOT along the interstate. While we weren’t going to make it for rope drop, we’d be there before the mid day rush, no problem.

Somewhere along the way, something dragged itself out of the swamp and decided to lay across the warm highway cement. We never really saw what it was, but we felt it as our front passenger side wheel ran over it and it flew up into the engine compartment, where it dislodged something important. The engine started to run like it had cancerous asthma. We limped into EPCOT’s massive parking lot and Paul called the rental company. After a shouting match ensued, the company said they would replace the car but someone had to be at the front gates of the park to meet the representative, driven in from some suburb of Orlando.

We went into the park but didn’t do anything for fear of missing the agent and be stranded at EPCOT. After the fourth hour went by and we had had our 5th snarkfest at each other (of course after the second hour we resolved ourselves not to leave the spot we were in), the rep showed up with a mechanic and a replacement car. After an hour, keys and car were exchanged. We headed back into the park.

By this time it was early afternoon and the place was packed. Rides and pavilions were experiencing an hour’s wait to get in. We wandered some more and decided that we should choose one ride at least.

We made the obvious choice: the iconic Spaceship Earth it was!

If you know your early EPCOT history, Spaceship Earth was notorious for breaking down, which was part of its charm I guess. We got half way up into the sphere and of course, klunk… we stopped. For 45 minutes. We were stopped in front of a teenage girl who lived in an underwater research facility who was fixing her jet ski while video conferencing her boyfriend somewhere on dry land. In retrospect today, I hope to god she had a good data plan. The last 15 minutes, the audio and animatronics just shut off and we sat in the dark. Then, we moved forward in the dark. I never saw the original ride in its entirety.

After a large argument as we exited the sphere, we confided to each other that the day couldn’t get any worse and we had to battle traffic on the way home. We decided to go home early.

About 2 hours from West Palm, the replacement car started to shudder. And shudder. We stopped by the side of the road and let it cool. After getting home the two of us were barely talking to each other.

You can see how my view of Disney was directly and indirectly turned sour.

However, my first moments inside Magic Kingdom erased all the bad –

But that’s another blog post…