After the late night and failing to really pack when I did get back to the room, I got a later start to the day, but after packing and checking out of the hotel, I was back at Perkin’s in crossroads at 8:30. During breakfast I checked twitter and saw that the construction walls had come down in Storybook circus, so that was my initial target for the day. Leaving crossroads and being a cheep skate, I headed into WDW via the Downtown Disney hotel boulevard, and headed via the back road (Golden Oaks, Fort Wilderness) to the Magic Kingdom area, which brings you out on the road that goes past the Polynesian, and then you head back towards world drive but just before you get to the dual carriageway you can do a U-Turn and are heading into the parking lot without going through the booths, so how was I supposed to pay……
Parking at this time (10am) was in Simba and after the tram and ferry I was back in the Magic Kingdom and headed back to the Circus area.
Some of the walls were down, the play area was open but didn’t have the water flowing.
The 2nd Dumbo spinner was in sight but again was not operating.
Feeling a little to old for Dumbo and the great goofini, I headed to The mad tea party, not to ride, but to finally find the plaque placed there in honour of Randy Pausch, you know Randy, if not then have a hunt on line for “The Last Lecture” a wondefull tail of someone who dying from cancer decided that that was the time to show how he had achived his childhood dreams if not exactly how he had planned them.
But now as the queues had started to get longer in the park, I made a decision I would not ride any ride today but experience a different day in the park, so spent some time wandering tomorrowland looking for pins and chatting to cast members and push.
After a while I headed over to the Sorcerers of the magic kingdom training location behind Ye Old Christmas shop, and after a short bit of training I was wandering around Liberty Square and Frontierland fighting the villians of the game, well mainly waiting in short queues to fight the villains. It is a fun little game and the windows are well hidden bar the queues of people waiting to play.
As it was now midday and I did plan on heading back to airport around 1pm so that I could catch the England match before my flight, The sorcerers game had suggested that if I wanted to continue I would next need to visit Main street and as that is on the way out I started to head that way, through the cut-through from Frontierland to Adventureland, at which point I noticed the Tiki room and that it had been updated last year (after my last visit) back to the classic version. So breaking the a day without rides, I got in the line
The new / old version is very similar to the Disneyland version, but is a nice way to spend a few minutes especially in the heat of the summer, but after the corny songs and jokes it was time to head to Main Street, I found the first window and after waiting for the 2 kids to play, I tried to enter the portal but was denied, I tried again and again was denied, both times with a video of Merlin explaining that I was in the wrong place, a helpful teenager pointed out that I had the wrong window but as that right one had a small queue, I called it a day and headed toward the exit via the Confectionary, where I picked up some fudge to bring home and a caramel apple to eat on the way.
The trip back was uneventful, It’s not the quickest route, but I headed down Osceola parkway and boggy creek road as there is a petrol station just 5 miles from the airport so with the full tank of gas the car was returned to Avis and I was in the terminal. A quick trip to the bathroom to change from theme park outfit of shorts and T-shirt to flight clothes of clean jeans and a baggy shirt.
I tried to use the auto-checkin desks for American airlines as they were handling my flight down to Miami, but it was only allowing me 1 piece of luggage, and I had (with the various shopping) ended up with 2 as I had upgraded the flight home to World traveller plus and had been told that that was my limit. So I got in the queue the woman at the desk was also certain that I could only take 1 bag unless I paid $60 for the 2nd one which was only a small backpack. I held firm and produced my itinerary from the paper work which stated 2 bags. That seemed to help, so always have all the paperwork you can. And I was finally checked in.
I headed to Chilli’s for lunch and as I thought that they would show the match and thinking I would have missed the first half was surprised to see it was only just started. I later found out that the rain had delayed the previous match and it all was delayed. Match over and with nice food in my belly and win against Sweden, I headed through security, spoke to my wife to let her know I was on my way and then got to the gate to find that the flight was delayed.
Weather in Miami had meant that the plane had not yet left to come to Orlando, but even with the gate crew knowing nothing, there is free wifi in the departure gates and if you can find a column maybe even free power, so a quick check on the web and I could find that AA was expecting us to be only about 1.5 hours delayed, as the flight was just about to leave Miami.
So 1 hour later than planned I was on the plan heading down to Miami, now this is a very quick flight 45mins of so in the air, but another plane was in our gate when we landed so as AA are cheap and didn’t want to spend money on having ground crew open another gate we waited for 45 mins for the plane to finally move, so now instead of having 4 hours to find a some dinner and relax before the flight to Heathrow I now had 40mins, which was spent walking very briskly from the AA gate to the BA one, just stopping briefly to grab some Coke and water for the flight.
The BA Flight was fine and bar lack of sleep, though I did get a few minutes of dozing, we landed on time and as I am registered with IRIS I had no issues with queues at immigration, and I was waiting for my bags, which didn’t arrive in the 1st wave and as there was a delay before the next set and needing the loo, I headed towards the baggage information desk just to confirm if they had made that mad dash the previous night, to be told “we don’t know” as AA don’t update the information at Miami. How can they not know if bags were on or not a flight?
Well you may guess where this is heading and yes after all the other bags had come out I headed back to state that there was no sign of my luggage. The Women at baggage services was very helpful and took all my details stating that they hoped that my bags just missed the flight so in that case they will arrive tomorrow morning and the courier firm they used will call me to arrange delivery at a time convenient to me including the next day which was a Sunday.
Postscript.
Well next day didn’t work out quite how BA described, the courier did call and expected me to be home in 10 mins, which was difficult as we had gone out for a birthday lunch in a pub 40mins away. But after a few calls and me almost losing my temper with them, the actual courier offered to deliver the bags on his way home. So at 7pm on Sunday I was reunited with my luggage.
The final day of the conference started like the previous ones, and at 8:30 I found myself in a session on using Windows 8 in a Virtual desktop implementation. This was not what I was expecting and so after about 10 mins I walked out and went to find something else, that else was a session on writing Management packs for SCOM. The day continued with a geek’s guide to Windows Server 2012, a great look from a non-Microsoft employee on the best features coming soon.
After Lunch was a session on Kanban, which is an interesting management technique from Japan, it is similar to lean which is being implemented at work, but seems to concentrate on limited flow of pieces of work, but showing that by limiting how much people are working on you get more items actually flowing through a department.
A short break with some more football was followed by 1 last session on Windows 8, and then it was time for the last session. For me that was a session on the new version of App-V and how that can be automated using PowerShell, with each command being less that the size of a tweet (140 characters).
And with that the conference was over, which is a strange sensation as it does just close, parts of the show floor were blocked off and the people just seem to wander away. So I joined them and went to walk back to see that the rains had come back, so I headed to the bus stops and grabbed the bus to the Rosen Plaza, which is next door to the Rosen Inn. The journey took longer that my walk as it had to also visit a couple of other hotels further up I-Drive. Back at the hotel I sorted myself out for the after show party, which this year was at Islands of Adventure.
After a while I headed back to the bus stop with the rain still falling lightly and waiting there was a shuttle bus and within a few minutes we were off. The trip was fine until just before we entered Universal when the number of busses that Microsoft were sending was causing gridlock and it took 20 mins to get from the entrance sign to actually parked in the bus station. But once off the bus, you could see that this was going to be a different night, as there were people handing out Universal poncho’s to everyone getting off the busses. I had been careful to not bring a bag today, so was quickly through the security check and heading down to City Walk and heading left to Islands.
Once into the park, there were carts giving out drinks both Beer and soft drinks, I grabbed a coke zero as drinking before the hard rides of IoA could be a bad idea. My first target for this evening was to finally meet with another attendee that I had been talking to online before the conference and we had planned to trade some pins, I had a London Olympic one and he had a Nashville one. We had exchanged telephone numbers and quick found each other easily. He was there with his Son and as we agreed that the first stop was going to be Harry Potter and the forbidden journey, so headed there together, through Seuss landing and the lost continent and arrived at Wizarding world by the main entrance to Hogwarts.
Now I must admit I have never read a single harry potter book, or even watched any of the movies. I may have seen the odd clip but that would be the limit of my exposure before arriving, But from the first moment you see Hogsmead, WOW just WOW. The details of the village are great and it looks like a small English village in the snow and only the guests look out of place. We wandered through the village and got to the entrance to the main ride. It was still showing a 30 min wait, but as more and more attendees were pilling in the park I thought it could get longer, we quickly checked the trail seats as I am on the tall size (6ft6) and my colleague was wide so wanted to be sure we could fit before queuing.
The queue was interesting and held the time well, the estimates were correct as it was about 30 mins and we started to queue in the conservatory area. I loved the moving/talking pictures and not knowing who these people were did not make much difference.
Then we got to the ride, and we have a new best ride on the planet, OK so not knowing the stories meant I didn’t understand who all the characters were, but the actual vehicle motion and the transitions between film sections and animatronics were brilliant. Just as a physical ride it is a good rollercoaster, but add in the dark ride elements and it takes it into a different league. I don’t even think that I have the vocabulary to do this ride justice, so I would just suggested that you ride it, unless like my wife you suffer from motion sickness as this is a full scale rollercoaster disguised as a dark ride.
After the ride in the store I said goodbye to my new friend and headed off on my own, now the night had falled whilst on the ride and hogsmead now had that low lighting you get in small villages and towns, a quick ride on the “flight of the hippogriff” was followed by food. Now as Microsoft had hired the whole of the park, the eateries were all free serving. I headed to the Three Broomsticks and had Shepherd’s pie followed by Strawberry Peanut butter ice cream, which is a very weird flavour but does work in some strange way. This was washed down by a frozen Butterbeer, very nice and sweet and I loved the foam on top.
As I was leaving the Three broomsticks, I bumped into a South African Jeane who I had been chatting to over the football during the past week and we decided to hang around together, mainly it seemed because I knew the park, well I had been once before in 2005. We rode the dragon challenge, which is a great ride, but sad that the 2nd track was not running as the intertwining is so much part of the ride when I last rode it as Fire and Ice. That done and still looking for high speed action, we headed to marvel island, past Jurassic park.
As we got into the Marvel section, we saw that the walk around characters were also out this evening
First stop in the island was Spiderman, until an hour or so ago, my favourite ride in all of Orlando. Even now it is still a great ride but pales when you compare it to Forbidden journey, the queue was not too long, but one of the differences with this being a private party was that the area that is normally left to collect the 3D glasses was now where empty bottles were being stacked and the cast member was having to hand them out as you boarded the ride.
After Spiderman was the hulk, bit more a queue here and the whole final part of the queue was also having bottles placed on the side, I assume that Universal allow for the extra cleaning bill when they hire out a theme park and allow the consumption of free alchol, but even with it following freely I didn’t really notice anyone who was totally drunk. The Hulk is a beast of a roller coaster and I did worry at one point as my friend was no longer wearing glasses at the end but he had them in his hand and had to grab them during the ride as they were going to fly off, so a warning, mine seemed fine but I do wear them tight.
After the ride, we grabbed some of these free drinks and headed back to Harry Potter for another go on Forbidden journey, as the rest of the rides held little interest at 10:30 at night. The ride was a great as the first time and indeed I could spend more time looking at how it operated knowing the basic story of the ride. After the ride my friend decided that calling south Africa (6 hours ahead) was a good idea to sort out what he was going to get from the gift shop, so with that I left him there and after a quick pop into the store in Toon Lagoon for a Betty Boop top for my wife, I headed out of the park, passed the band playing on the main stage.
Leaving the park I popped into Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville for a T-Shirt for me and then it was the bus back to the hotel
By now the morning routine was in full swing, showers, calls, breakfast at the OCCC in time to make the first sessions of the day starting at 8:30am. Even after last night’s late night I was alert (ish) and in the first session of the day, on the upcoming Windows 8 and how it works on different hardware platforms, virtual, laptops, tablets.
Second session was on User Experience Virtualisation or a major improvement to roaming profiles for administrators but only once we have migrated to Windows 7.
After a break for lunch and some football the afternoon sessions were on Orchestrator, a great technology for automating out routine IT processes, and some tricks on getting windows to boot quicker, and that the boot time is measured in cups of coffee.
This day actually shot passed and after learning a lot it was over. The plan before I flew out was to go and see Yee Ha Bob at Port Orleans tonight, but after last night’s late late night and the expectation that tomorrow would also be a late one, that didn’t seem like a good idea. So taking the chance to get an early night, I walked back to the hotel from the OCCC trying to decide where I wanted to eat that night. As the lunch at the conference had not been the most healthy today, that gave me the idea that Sweet Tomatoes would be a good bet, a big salad would help to make me feel like I was trying to be healthy. Now the one I knew is in Crossroads, but as I tried to find it in the GPS I noticed that was a closer one at South Kirkman Rd so I headed to that one, oops. As I drove up the road I got to where the GPS said it was but no sign, but there was a strip type mall on my right so I assumed it was in there, but where was the entrance, and with that I was passed it. Now the good thing about GPS is that if it does not think you have arrived it just re-routes you, so after a slight detour through Universal’s back roads I found myself back at the strip mall and found the entrance on International drive.
Sweet Tomatoes are right in the far corner and must have just not had a sign facing the road as I drove past. For those that have never been Sweet Tomatoes is a make your own salad place, you go down a long line of leaves, and vegetables, fruit, cheeses and dressings and pile this on your plate to make a salad just for you.
After the salad I did add a soup a south-western corn chowder (delicious) and there was a strawberry festival going on so I had to try the strawberry corn bread and the strawberry and apple cobbler, even with a slice of cheesecake still back in the hotel. All these extras are included in the single price you pay for the salad. They also have baked potatoes and ice cream. Suitably fed and sleepy I headed back to the hotel for that cheesecake and an early night, After a couple of episodes of law and order: SVU as I got distracted, and the night was not quite as early as I had hoped, but once you start watching you need to know who did it.
I was still waking early and after the morning routine I headed off to the OCCC, having a chat with my wife during the walk. At least at that time of the morning (around 7:30am) the air was cool and the walk was comfortable, sidewalks all the way and an over bridge to cross I-drive.
Today also started with a keynote, mainly around the features of Windows 8, and then it was time for a session on IPv6, and a workshop on running windows servers on the Azure platform. But today the sessions and labs were secondary to the evening’s entertainment. So after the conference wound down for the day, I headed back to the hotel and had a short rest before driving up to the Polynesian hotel, where I had a dinner reservation at Kona. I checked in at the podium, and headed to the Tambu lounge, where I ordered a Lapu Lapu but had to pop back downstairs to go to the ATM as I was starting to run out of cash.
The Lapu Lapu is a mixture of Rum, Rum and fruit juices and has a great taste, but is on the strong side so beware, after a short while of sitting and sipping, looking at the castle from my seat at the bar. The buzzer went off and I took my drink and headed back to Kona.
It only took a moment to order as I had already looked on line a few times at the menu so I had what I wanted in my mind before I even left the UK. I was last here for dinner in 2008 when I headed over for the Goofy Race and a half challenge (or my mid-life crisis as my wife calls it), and we both loved the pineapple bread with macadamia nut butter, now sadly the pineapple bread is no more, replaced by a good light white loaf, but the butter is still as good as I remembered, whipped butter with chunks of nuts included. Starters was the pot stickers which are served with a great sauce and chopsticks, it was wonderful and tasty, quite light and went down well with the bread and butter.
For mains I had gone with the new York teriyaki strip steak, served with mashed potato and broccoli (which was the 3rd time in 2 days that broccoli had been the green veg, as it had been the only option at lunch that day), but this was sprouting variation and by far the best of the bunch.
During the meal I started chatting to the father on the table next to me, they were from Pennsylvania and it was a large table of him, his wife, his parents, his 2 children and another family with a young girl. So 9 in total on his table and 1 on mine, but as is the way with large tables although I arrived after them, my plates arrived first.
Once the meal was over I decided that I would forgo a dessert as I had an idea that today’s dessert would be a dole whip, but not down at captain cooks, no I would head to the Magic Kingdom as it was only 9pm and the park was open till midnight today. So after paying and saying goodbye to my neighbour I headed for the monorail.
The journey was quick and I had not brought a bag this evening so avoided the bag check and head through to Town Square, first stop was City Hall to get my birthday button. Even at 42 there is something nice to have people wish you a happy birthday, and then I headed up Main Street just as the Main street electrical parade was leaving the hub, and wow what a crowd this evening, The park was solid, The only other time it had felt this full was on our Christmas trip and that was the Saturday night before Christmas. So the walk was slow, and by the time I go to the end of Main street and it became so solid that it was not really possible to walk anymore, so that’s where I stopped as the announcements started for Magic, Memories and You which would be starting in 10 mins, so it was a short wait before the show.
Now this was the first time for me to see the show on Cinderella’s castle, having only seen the Disneyland version before. The WDW version is better as it was able to hide the castle at times, and the new summertime section was fun, but I do wonder if it could just use generic photo’s as I did not hear a single voice noticing that they were on the castle?
After the show finished it was only a few moments before wishes started and that is a great show and one to get the emotions flowing.
Once the fireworks had stopped, the whole park seemed to want to leave, and I was almost carted away with them, but I did manage to slide off to the right and headed past the Crystal Palace and into Adventureland. First stop was Aloha Isle, as even after 10pm it was still warm, so it was time for a Dole Whip Float. Pineapple juice topped with pineapple dole whip, delicious and cooling. First ride was through the archway, the Haunted Mansion. This always was a good attraction and with the updates last year it raised its game. The interactive queue actually seemed longer than the basic one, but also seemed to not be working totally, there seemed to not have bubbles in the bath, but maybe that is just turned off late at night.
The ride was fine, and I do love the new interactive hitch-hiking ghosts at the end, but I did get the balloon again. After the ride I headed back towards Adventureland, stopping to chat with Cast Members on the way and look for pin trades, I also noticed the new Sorcerer’s of the magic kingdom window just by the archway, it seemed to be an interesting game and I would try to have a go when I returned on Friday.
Next stop was the Jungle Cruise and we had Jennifer as our tour guide tonight, she was great hitting all the puns, but there were also a lot of the boat who had ridden before so some jokes were pre-empted. This was followed by Pirates of the Caribbean and then as I wandered up toward Splash Mountain the end of the path was roped off and the Main Street Electrical parade had made its way back up from Town Square again. I now think that I have seen MSEP more times than Spectromagic now and would like to see them swap back, but I am always a sucker for a parade.
Once the parade had finally finished it was almost midnight, so I did just have a wander through the stores, first was the Frontier trading post, for a few more pins, then Ye Old Christmas Shop where I got a Wall-E and Eve decoration, but the staff there seemed to not want to serve me as there were only 2 tills working and both seemed to have guests with very complex orders that were taking forever. But I did finally get the ornament and headed back down the Main Street stores, having a look in the Emporium and jewellers for some additional items but still failing to find what I was looking for. As I left I headed down for the resort monorail and headed back to the Polynesian which was empty by the time I arrived, I found the car and headed back to the hotel for a few hours’ sleep before the conference continued tomorrow.
My body was getting more used to the time zone as it only
woke me at 5:30am this morning, and after the morning routine I headed over to
the OCCC, the full main hall was open today and the sheer scale of the event
was apparent, and as I could see the crowds of people by registration I was so
glad that I had done that yesterday. I head straight to the breakfast section,
feeding 16,000 people in an hour or so is an organisational master class, we
are directed to 1 of 2 sides and slowly placed into 1 of 20 or so queues to
buffet tables all having the same handful of items, with a completely separate
section for people with dietary issues.
First up after breakfast was the Keynote, and with nothing
else really open at that point, just about everyone tries to attend.
After the keynote and with little interest in the Foundation
sessions, I headed to the hands on Labs, these 100+ computers are all setup to
access any of a few 100 Hands on Labs, where you get to play with various
technologies and can either follow the instructions to the letter or just use
them as a guide and play around with the technology and try to make it more
like a personal real world example. As it got close to midday, I headed back to
the food area for a quick lunch, before heading to the Alumni lounge which had
setup a couple of TV screens with the England match. As I got there it was
about 20mins in, still 0-0 and no sound, after a few minutes and with a what
can then do attitude and long arms, I reached across the bar and turned the
sound on so we could actually hear the commentary. After the match I spent the
afternoon in sessions on Windows Deployment.
Monday evening was the welcome expo reception where the
various vendors try to get you interested in being called about their products
by providing free food and drink, and give-aways. Now I get enough of these
calls during my normal working week and after 1 bottle of beer I had had enough
and walked back to the hotel, getting straight in the car and driving to the
Premier Outlet mall at Vineland
This was not a shopping trip but I did have a look around
the Disney Character warehouse, and picked up a sleeve for my phone with a
subtle mickey embossed on it, but from any distance it is just a black sleeve,
just a way to hide a Disney obsession in plain sight. After a bit of window shopping,
I headed to the Outback I had seen as I drove into the mall. There was a long
queue, but the advantage of being a solo was that I could just grab a seat at
the bar and order there. Dinner was a Blooming burger, with sweet potato fries
and broccoli, with a never ending coke, whilst watching the Red Sox lose to the
Marlins in the baseball, even getting it moved to a new screen when the put the
Ice hockey Stanley cup finals on the main screen, but at least the bar crew
changed a screen for me, more than they did in ESPN.
After the meal, I headed back to the hotel had half of one
of the cheesecakes then got an early night as tomorrow was going to be a long
day.
Again I awoke early in the morning 4am, but at least not with constant waking throughout the night. After trying to sleep for the next hour I gave up and turned on the TV, to a showing of Phineas and Ferb, which does seem very early.
Showered and dressed and having been able to make a Skype video call home (so much better to see as well as just hear), I headed off to find breakfast, having seen on line that there was a Denny’s just around the corner, that was my target, I almost missed it but as it was still so early (7:30am) I was able to slam on breaks and turn right off of I-Drive in to the car park. Breakfast was fine and hearty and I was ready to go.
Now the original plan for today was a trip to the magic kingdom, but after having a look at crowd schedules and opening hours I decided to go to Epcot today and would pop to MK later in the week. And so I was off to the Epcot parking lot arriving at Journey row 6 just at 8:50am. So I only got to the gates after the park had opened and headed straight to Soarin’.
Soarin’ is one of my absolute favourite rides in the world, now I know that the film I starting to get a bit crackly and they seem to have dirt and hairs in the projector most of the time. But I still love the feeling of flying and being absorbed into the world. After the ride I grabbed a Fast Pass for later in the day, as 1 ride on Soarin’ is never enough for a trip, and headed to the Seas pavilion.
At the Sea’s I didn’t go through the ride entrance instead entering through the gift shop and heading to see when the next showing of Turtle Talk was expected, and just missed one as they had just sealed off the entrance to the theatre so instead of waiting in that area I did have a wander around the other lower floor level exhibits.
Again Turtle talk is a great show and we had some interesting children who didn’t get stage fright so asked questions and go some good interaction with Crush. My only issue was I had taken a seat on the right hand side (near the exit doors) and at least 5 different families decided to leave and each time the doors stay open for a while with all the noise from the queue to the Nemo ride coming into the theatre, which is a bit distracting. None of the children being taken out seemed to be crying so I do wonder why they were leaving?
As I left the Seas pavilion, the heat had already started to build for the day, so the walk to Spaceship earth was done via Innoventions West. Today was going to have to be highlights of Future world day, as I wanted to leave just after lunch to get to the convention centre for registration. There seemed to be nothing new in Innoventions West, and I still can’t quite understand why people play video games in Epcot, what a waste of time.
Today was also getting more crowded than I was expecting and there was a 20 min queue for Spaceship Earth, but no trip to Epcot is complete without a ride. Especially for that final revile when you get to see Earth, I also have a soft spot for the globe at the end when your picture is moved from one of the oceans to the city you said you were from at the start of the ride. Try somewhere strange next time you ride.
Leaving the ride and after a quick wander through MouseGears, I came across the Jamminators, a group of cast members that look like janitors but do a great percussion set on steel dustbins, the only problem was it was in the full glare of the sun rather than some shade, but I did manage to impress them by being able to clap my hands under my leg.
With Test Track closed and not wanting to be the Engineer yet again on Mission Space, the only attraction on this side of the park was Ellen’s Energy Adventure, but as I have mentioned it was hot so 45 mins in the Air-conditioning seemed like a good idea, especially as I still have about 1 hour till my fast pass time for Soarin’.
After the ride, I headed back over towards the Land pavilion, and as I passed under/through Innoventions East I noticed that they had larger Mickey Crocs (the ones with the mickey shaped holes) here so after 5 years I was finally able to find a pair that fit me (I have size 12 feet) as on all previous visits the largest size I could normally find was a size 10, so if you have large feet they now seem to be doing Mickey Croc’s that could fit.
So a final ride on Soarin’ was followed by lunch in Sunshine Seasons, I went for the Chicken and Cashew stir fry
Which was nice a filling, and so just at 1:30pm started to head back towards the exit, but as I got to the central hub I remembered that there was a new house of the future in Innoventions West, so made a quick pop in there. It now is much more what can be purchased now and was just like a show home at the Ideal home show, but with a guide. There seemed to be nothing that innovative in it, but maybe that is also some differences between the UK and US markets for houses. But we did find the hidden mickey in the foliage.
And with that I left the park just after 2pm and got back in the car and drove back to the hotel. A quick skype chat with home followed (have I said how much I like being able to video chat across the world – what a great invention – and for free, if you can find internet access). Then was the 20 mins walk from the hotel to the Orange County convention centre (OCCC from now on), which in the heat was not a great idea, by the time I got there I was so hot and sweaty and the Aircon as I entered came as a great relief.
Registration was a breeze, helped by the fact that on the Sunday there were very few of us checking in, which was my plan as I could see from the space allocated that it would be chaos there tomorrow morning. After registration, I got my bag, water bottle and T-Shirt, and started to try and get some barings as the hall seemed different from my memory. This is probably due to there being a temporary wall in place for that day, whilst they finished the other side of the hall.
Even though I had been to TechEd before I still attended the 101 class at 4pm as I always felt that I may be missing something during my attendance. The session was great and gave a good overview of the non-session activities that can be done to get the most out of the event. One of the presenters was from a group called TheKrewe and talked mainly about making connections and friends during the week, I was already aware of them as had tried to sign up for the welcome meet that night, but had been put on the wait list, but as he was talking my phone buzzed and I got the email saying that a slot had opened up and did I want to register to attend. Serendipity in action.
After the session and with most of the venue still closed, I headed back to the hotel. The KREWE welcome event was at 8pm at “Howl at the Moon” on I-Drive, and checking twitter I noticed that one of the other attendees I had started following on twitter was already there stuffing goodie bags for the event, which did make me feel that at least I sort of knew 1 person at the event. After a short while it was time to make the 20 min walk up I-Drive to “Howl at the Moon”, stopping at the Subway for a quick sandwich dinner. I got to the venue just before 8pm and just as it started to rain, but they were already letting people in, so I was checked in and given the goodie bag of logo’d stuff. The venue is a duelling piano bar, the drinks and some food was free, and after a wander around getting my bearings I decided to try and find my acquaintance, which I achived by asking the guy who had done the talk earlier, as with people on twitter you can have chatted but never seen each other. And when I introduced myself I was totally ignored, just a quick oh hello and then he wandered off.
So here I was in a bar full of people who seemed to know each other knowing no-one, a stranger in a strange land. I had a couple of drinks and listened to the music for a while and then decided to just call it a night and head back. But mother nature had other ideas, as I got to the door the rain was still coming down and as I was trying to decide if it was light enough to walk back anyway (no umbrella this evening) the weather made up my mind, but getting heavier and heavier very quickly and then the first lightning strike and thunderclap. Ok I will have another drink.
I found a quiet spot at the bar just by the entrance about 3 meters inside with my back to the door, I was joined there by a guy in leathers and various piercings and we had a chat about IT and the event and the 10,000 hours rule (that is that there this no such thing as natural ability but just practice and if you can practice for 10,000 hours you will be great at something, I remembered that there is a man trying this with golf, he has given up his job and is practicing 10 hours a day for 3 years to see if he can get on the pro-tours.) Whilst we were talking the storm was getting worse and worse, at one point the rain and wind combined to actually wet us and the bar staff through the door. I have never seen anything like this and as the other plan for tonight had been to go to see Illuminations, I felt a little better as that surely would have been cancelled.
After about an hour the thunder and lightning seemed to have gone and the rain had eased up so I made a run (well quick walk) for it, getting back to the hotel I was drenched but exhausted so fell straight to sleep. Tomorrow would be a working day.
I had a classic first night, time zone sleep, so after going
to sleep at 10, I woke up at 12, 2, 3, 4, and finally gave up at 5am and headed
to the shower. After pottering around the hotel room and trying to call home,
but failing as my wife was out and about, I got in the car and headed for breakfast
and the park as this would be the only full park day and it was the last Saturday
of Star Wars weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. After some thinking I
decided to head to Perkins at Crossroads just outside of Downtown Disney for
breakfast. As I parked up it finally dawned on me that I still had no cash, as
that last dollar bills had been spent on the tolls getting through from the
Airport to the hotel. So I asked the woman at Perkin’s as to where the nearest
ATM was as it was not 7am and I had some time to get to the studios for 8am.
There is actually a drive through Bank of America ATM in crossroads, by the
Pizza Uno if you need it. Breakfast was a farmers Omelette with breakfast potatoes.
After food, I finally managed to get a call through to my wife and we had a
quick chat, and I was off to the studios. The route was back onto I4 and then
via the 192 into the main entrance to the Studios.
I parked up at 5 minutes to 8, having realised that I was
not going to quite make it into the studio at rope drop as I still needed to
get my tickets exchanged from a A4 email to an actual ticket. Parking was in
Television 18 and I walked to the entrance rather than the tram. Guest Services
did not have a queue so it only took a few minutes to get the ticket, I had
purchased a 5 day park hopper through the conventionEARS site which offers
discounts (and afternoon only tickets) for people who are at a convention,
including those at off-site venues (like the Orange County Convention Centre).
While I was waiting for those minutes I was entertained by
the Stormtroopers on the roof of the entrance way discussing the guest entering
the studios.
I finally made it into the studios at 8:10 and joined the
route march through the park to Toy Story Mania, this is a great ride and I
decided to get the FastPass first, the queues for the fast passes had died down
but that was also shown by the fact that my pass was for 10:30. The main queue
was already showing 60 minutes so I retraced my steps and head to the Tower of
Terror.
There was no wait for the Tower and I could walk straight
on, followed by Rock and Roller coaster, which I used the single rider line and
with a sneek move in the pre-show (stand at the back left of the single rider
zone to be right by the door when it opens) this only had a short wait before I
was shooting around the Hollywood landmarks. And that staying with the story
set up in the studio pre-show is why I prefer this version to the one in Paris,
but Aerosmith are getting really old and I do wonder why they can’t change the
film bit and change the band.
Leaving the coaster and with still 1.5 hours till Toy Story,
I headed to Darth’s mall for some star wars souvenirs. The entrance was at the
right most side of the Rock and rollercoaster entrance area.
Inside the large Marquee were rows and rows of T-Shirts,
picture, paintings and other merchanise. As this was the last week the dated logo’d
items were 30% off, I managed to find some T-shirts for my niece and nephew,
and some major pins for me.
There were also areas for guests to get photo’s with
characters and whilst I was there we had a visit from C-3P0 and R2-D2.
After the money was handed over I did ask them to ship the
items to the front of the park. Why carry a bag of stuff around all day, when
Disney will take your money early and then move the bag to the front of the
park to collect later.
On leaving as it still was not time for Toy Story Mania, a
ride on the great movie ride was slotted in, especially as I had not ridden in
ages. The queue took a full loop of the trailers and it looked like I was going
to have to wait even longer, until at the last minute a cast member came back
calling for couples, and even though he got a couple to slot into the ride
vehicles my indicating that I was a solo traveller, allowed him to find me a
slot in the front vehicle. Our guide was Jenny and this was also my first ride
when we were taken hostage in the gangster scene, rather than the Western which
is where we normally seemed to have ridden.
The ride is fun, but some of the movie references are
getting a bit on the old side now and hearing these 20 year old Cast members
mentioning that James Cagney is their personal favourite does just feel wrong.
Finally it was time for Toy Story, and for the first time
that I had ridden it there was a queue almost immediately after you get in the
door even for the fast pass line, it took a good 10-15 mins to get to the
glasses point, where it became obvious that Disney were now trying to ensure
that people do not queue on the stairs to the ride vehicles as that part of the
queue was empty and I was soon standing on Number 6 and boarding the vehicle.
My score was 170,900 which is not too bad, and was good
enough to be the best in the whole vehicle, but well short of the best of the
month.
I was using Touring Plans’ lines application to see how that
would fit in the various rides and attractions I wanted to do, so with very little
spare time I was sent to Light’s Motor’s Action, and arrived with just a few
minutes to spare, having grabbed some water and Doritos to deal with the
increasing hunger as it was now 11am.
The show is a fun way to spend some time, but it is a bit
slow and the setups seemed to take longer than any of the actual stunts, also
we had a slight issue with the fire so that the filmed bit did not match up
with the live action, showing that the filmed segments are not what you have
just seen, but were re-used each day.
After the show and some park wandering, and with the heat
getting hotter and hotter, I pop into the Writers stop for some air
conditioning and a Carrot Cake Cookie, which is a must try if you have never
had one. 2 very soft Carrot cake Cookies, with a icing sandwiched between them,
they fall apart and was gone before I walked the end of the ABC Commisionary.
It was starting to get toward the Star Wars Parade, so I
headed over to Hollywood Boulevard/Echo Lake to try and find a spot, but as I
got close I found that Peevy’s Polar Pipeline was one of the places doing
specials for Star Wars Weekends, where I could get a frozen slushy drink (I got
a mix of Cherry and Coke) but in an R2-D2 Stein.
And Oh in that heat did the drink go down well. But the
crowds lining Hollywood Boulevard were solid from the curb to the buildings.
One of the changes since the last time I had been to star wars weekends was
that the celebrities only do a very short parade route, from near the park
entrance to the hat at the end of Hollywood boulevard, whereas last time it
then turned left and headed all the way to Star Tours which allowed the crowds
to spread out more. In the end I had to take a place just opposite American
Idol, so could only just see the Celebrities and the Disney Characters dressed
in Star Wars outfits, but I did have the 501st do a full walk past.
As I now had picked up some more pins, a tree decoration and
off course the R2D2 Stein, I decided to pop back to the car to drop these off
before my next appointment. On exiting the gate I did see a guest that had
produced their own outfit to attend Star Wars Weekends
So a wander back to the car, and another chat home and I
headed back towards the ABC Sound Stage (aka Sounds Dangerous) where I had an
appointment at 2pm for CARBON FREEZE ME.
Inside the Stage, they had setup a mixture of a
reconstruction of the Carbonite freezing chamber from Empire Strikes Back and the
actual technology they needed to get a full 3D image of my head/face to place
on an 8 inch replica of the Han Solo in Carbonite. At this point I have still
yet to see it as it would only be delivered in a few weeks and Disney in their
ultimate wisdom wanted to charge $10 to deliver in the USA but $75 to send to
the UK, so a quick call to a friend and the shipping address was moved to Washington
DC.
By now the heat was overwhelming and the lack of a full
lunch meant that I needed Aircon and food, so decided that as the studios were
solid, and the European championships were on, it was time to leave the park
again, get a friendship boat and head to the Boardwalk for the ESPN zone.
Just be aware that as this was a weekend and the place had
more Europeans in it than Americans, the European championship was not
important enough to get on the big screen and get audio commentary, no that was
a baseball match, but we did have the 2nd largest screen and I
managed to get a seat at the bar and ordered a nice salad and a never ending
coke.
I get there just as the Germany v Portugal match was
starting, and as I finished the salad the rain started, so it was just sensible
to keep sipping coke and watching the match till the rain stopped.
Finally as the match finished the rain looked like it was
easing up, so I decided it was time to wander back to the park whilst chatting
to my Wife before she went to bed, but how wrong I was on the rain. Almost as
soon as I walked outside the rain restarted and got heavier and heavier. By the
time I got as far as the piers at the boardwalk, it was so heavy that I took
refuge under the structure where they rent out the surrey bikes and had to just
wait it out for about 20 mins before it started to calm down and then stop.
Disney seems to delay restarting the boats after a storm, so nothing to it but
to walk back. The Walk is not that far along the side of the boardwalk resort,
but after the storms it was underwater in places, so I had to tread gently to
not end up with soaked feet.
Back in the park, I had missed the 2 chat shows that are
laid on as part of the Star Wars weekends, and I had grabbed a fast pass for
Star Tours before I had left for lunch, but the window for using it had passed,
I was going to have a go and try to use it over an hour after its slot, but as
I got to star Tours the fast pass queue was out of the show building, and the
standby was at 60 mins. So I just grabbed another Fast Pass (for 7pm less than
90mins away – so why are people in the standby line?)
A quick watch of MuppetVision 3D, was followed by a wander
into the Animation Academy, where I waited a few minutes for the next drawing
class, wow what a little gem of an attraction, We sit in a class room, with an
instructor. We get a pencil and a light table (a table with a light built in
not an un-heavy table). We were given a choice of characters to draw with a
vote for the guests to decide. And Tigger was chosen, which I was glad off as
you can guess from my avatar. The instructor took his time and explained the
basics. “You can only draw a circle from your shoulder not the elbow or wrist
as it is the only one of those joints that actually moves in a circle.”, “Draw
lightly”. The end result was a quite passable image of Tigger, which did surprise
me as I am not that good at drawing, but this will be on my plan for future
visits to the studios.
It was now time to head back across the studios to Star
Tours and as I headed passed the hat I noticed that the crowds were already
gathering for the last Star Wars Show of the day the “Hyperspace Hoopla”, so I
knew I had to be quick. The new Star Tours is such a better show, and this time
I finally got to ride the Pod Race, which I had not done on previous rides. And
after a very quick glance around Tatooine traders, it was back to the hat to
get a spot for the show as I had heard it was entertaining. And Oh is it silly,
the presenters are annoying but the actual show is entertaining. The Highlight
this year was the “Good Guys” including Chewbacca dancing to LMFAO’s I’m Sexy
and I know it.
But the whole show is worth watching but again it needs more
space and I wonder if they could move it into the Beauty and Beast stage at
some point.
The Show went from 8 till 8:30 so not really enough time to
get to Epcot for illuminations so Fantasmic was going to be the hope for
tonight, there were going to be 2 shows, but I did decide to go for the earlier
one at 9pm. So along with a large number of the other people who had also just
seen the Hoopla, I headed down Sunset Boulevard. One of the advantages of being
a solo travelier is that I move at my speed, and don’t have to wait for anyone
else, which was lucky as by the time I got to the Fantasmic arena they were
already loading the last section and even that was almost full, but I did get a
seat about halfway down and about 10 people spaces from the far left hand
staircase.
The Show was as good as ever but by the end I was starting
to feel tired and hungry, so headed out the far exit that goes right back to
the entrance to the park. It is a slight shame that no one has ever thought to
theme this walk but it does give the impression that it was a last minute idea
to bring people via backstage to help clear the arena. I collected the bag of
Star wars merchandise that I had purchases almost 12 hours ago and was now at
the collection point, and headed off to the car. One of the targets for this trip
was to get a “NICE” Tinkerbelle chain and a leather wallet for me. So I decided
that I would head back to the hotel via Downtown Disney to try at the “World of
Disney” store for these. But first I popped into Earl of Sandwich for dinner,
an All American (minus the tomato) and a cherry coke.
The a little wander around Pin Traders for some trading, accessories
and another mystery box, where I got the Jessica Rabbit – “I not bad, I’m just
drawn to chocolate” pin, the one I most wanted. But I drew a blank in the World
of Disney, no chain, and they don’t do any wallets, where have all the nice
adult stuff gone?
By now it was almost 11pm and my body was shattered, so into
the car and back via the I4 to the hotel and to bed.
Living in North West London, Heathrow is an easy airport to
get to but of course all Orlando flights leave from Gatwick. So it was an early
start 5am when the alarms go off and after the normal morning routine and some
last minute packing. We were on the road at 7am and heading for the M25 car
park. As this was the end of the half term week, traffic was not too bad and
around 8:30 we were parking up at the North Terminal Gatwick. Check-In had been
done the day before at work, so it was quickly to the bag drop, and off to
Costa for a goodbye drink.
This was to be a solo trip so after the drink, my wife and I
said our goodbyes and I wandered back through the security, with still 2 hours
till take off. I was directed towards the smaller right hand side security
check which was nice and empty and I always have a plan, so all metal had
already been moved to the rucksack or jacket pockets, and wearing slip on shoes
I was quickly through into the new departure lounge. A quick trip to boots to
get some water for the flight (I dehydrate badly so always try to fly with at
least 1.5 litres in bottles without having to keep dealing with the flight
crew. I found a seat near a departure board, and as this was the last Weekend
of Star Wars Weekends, I had been trying to re-watch all the Movies in release
order, the original trilogy had been done before the jubilee, but I was still
only 2/3 of the way through Episode 1, but this pause gave me time to finish
this. At that time the flight was shown as boarding so headed down (literally
as it was down the circular ramp) to the gate.
At the gate it was the classic check everyone in and then
places them in a holding pen, before boarding the plane. Waiting here the
phones were turned off and I got chatting to a nice couple who were off for a 3
week trip but whose daughter was on a Virgin flight and they were slightly
anxious to meet up with her once we landed at MCO. Boarding went OK, I was the
first to my aisle seat, so allowed a single female into the window seat and
waited to see if the middle seat was going to be filled. After a short wait the
doors were shut so it looked like we would have a spare seat between the two
strangers, which does give solo travellers some nice extra space. During the
flight I found out that my seat partner for the flight was a South African
beauty therapist who was off to work on a Carnival ship for 9 months and before
getting on the Orlando flight had arrived that morning from Cape Town, which is
way too much time in a plane for me.
The flight landed just behind the Virgin 747 but we did get
a nearer gate to the immigration hall so as we disembarqued the passengers from
the Virgin flight were streaming past and we all merged in to the flow. This
mass of passengers overwhelmed the immigration officals and the queues were
longer that I can ever remember at MCO, it took about 45mins or walking up and
down the queue route before getting to the official. But once there it was the
quick right hand, right thumb, left hand, left thumb, photo routine and I was
through to baggage reclaim. Bag had
already arrived and was rotating around. And I was through to the Monorail,
when I could finally try to get my phone to work and a quick call home to say I
had arrived safely.
The main terminal building seemed incredibly hot, but was
probably me just adjusting to the heat over in Florida in June. I headed down
to the Avis desk to pick up the hire car, and after the usual big push to get
me to buy more insurance (this time I was certain I was insured enough so
managed to get them to let me take the car without any more money needing to be
paid). Off to the parking garage to find my chariot for the week, and after
some confusion as Budget and Avis share aisles but not signage. I found the red
Kia and wondered why the desk clerk thought I might need a larger car as even
though I had booked the smallest class of car, this was a 4 door saloon, with a
large boot that could take 3 large suitcases, more than enough for me and 1
suitcase.
GPS on my phone was setup and the mount stuck to the
windscreen and I was off to I-Drive and the Rosen Inn at Pointe Orlando, my
base for the next week. The drive was uneventful, but as I had headed left in
the terminal to the car hire I did have to do most of a loop of the Airport
before I could leave by the north exit (a very minor first, as we have always
headed south before). The only confusion was the GPS seemed to only show exits
at the last minute.
The Rosen Inn is a great little hotel in a classic motel
style external hallways, but the room was spacious and clean and that all I
really wanted, check in was simple and I was given a yellow tag to hang on the
car rearview mirror to indicate I was a guest and could get into the parking
areas. My room was found at the south most end of the hotel in the block I had
requested via email a few days before, Block F room 3412.
After a dump of bags and a text home Dinner became the main
objective. I also had to try and pick up some vitamins for a friend who used to
live in Florida, so decided to try the Super Target up by Millennia as I would
then pop to the cheesecake factory for the first meal. Super Target was a waste
as it did not have what I needed (DHEA) and the Cheesecake Factory was a 1 hour
wait for a table (for 1) and the bar area was slammed, but it was 7:30 on a
Friday night by this point, so 2 cheesecakes were purchases to go, as I did
have a nice empty fridge in the room. A Hershey’s Chocolate cheesecake and a
Reese’s peanut butter cup swirl. So I got back in the car and headed to the
hotel, dropped of the cheesecakes and walked over the road to Pointe Orlando (having
grabbed an umbrella as the evening rain had arrived.
I finally worked out why the GPS had been so strange as it
was in 2D mode rather than 3D but trying to switch Co-Pilot wanted a paid
upgrade so this had to wait till I got back to the hotel, but for £10 extra (so
I had spent £13 in total) it still seems like great value.
I have never been to Hooters and decided that that would be
a good bet for a quick dinner and a beer, and I was right. I had a nice table
with a view of the TV showing USA v Anguilla football match, my server was Ivonne
and was the bright and bubbly person I was expecting to work at Hooters. Dinner
was 2 large Stella’s some boneless chicken wings and Tater Tots. A distinct
lack of vegetables or greenery but I thought I could survive 1 meal of this sort.
After eating the lateness of my body clock started to tug at
me, so walked back to the hotel in the much heavier rain and after a quick
unpack, teeth brushed, and alarm set I fell asleep.
