It was a vacation
Jan. 17th, 2005 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sraunSaturday, January 8th, we flew down to Orlando. Thursday, January 13th, we flew back. Saturday, January 15th, we hosted a Minn-StF meeting. (Yes, I did take off Friday the 14th - I needed it for recovery!)
We played "catch and release time-share sales" as part of our vacation - got a bunch of free passes to Universal Studios and Disney, and cheap hotel stays.
We caught a 6:30AM AirTran flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta. After a short (less than an hour) layover in Atlanta, we caught our flight to Orlando, arriving shortly after 1PM local time. We get a cab to the Radisson Plaza 1000 (our first hotel) [1], check in at the Welcome Center to confirm our time for the sales pitch on Sunday, and then check into the hotel and have dinner. Crashed relatively early - we are not used to being awake before 10AM on weekends!
We catch the (free) shuttle to our first time-share sales presentation starting at 8:30. Neat resort, neat concept, doesn't fit our life-style at this time. We spend our vacation time going to conventions - a time-share would be vacation time doing something in addition to that, and we don't have the resources to pull it off at this time. We get the free ride back to the hotel, and then catch a cab to the Universal Studio park for the afternoon. Wander around for the afternoon and early evening - some shopping, a number of rides (the T2 3D ride, Twister Aftermath, Shrek 4D), and watched the Betelgeuse vs. the Ghostbusters show.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
drewan, rvrjoe775 & lsanderson - we were thinking of you all through the performance. If you ever get to Universal Studios, check and see if it's still running!
We catch a cab to our second time-share sales pitch - Westgate Resorts, starting at 10:30. This was the shortest one - Irene said it was much fun to watch me enthuse about SF conventions at the sales-droids - their eyes glazed over so cutely. The Westgate claims to 1.1 miles from the Disney Main Gate - OK, that translates to 1.1 miles from the Westgate entrance to the first place on Disney property where you have to pick a road to go to whichever chunk of Disney you want to go to. It's more like 3 miles from parking lot to parking lot, and is not walkable! This is where I got the most interesting bit of trivia - Disney bought 47 square miles (at ~$200/acre) in the 60's. They have so far developed six square miles. They've got some room left for future expansion.
We took a cab over to EPCOT for lunch through sunset - we gave out before the big fireworks / laser show at 9PM. We didn't actually go on any of the EPCOT rides - we did the Nations presentations walking around the lagoon. That's where we got our Morrocan Lamp:
(For scale - you can see Irene's hands holding it up.)
Irene's been wanting one for years - we've got a good place to put one (over the stairs to the second floor). We got to see it lit, and went for it. Now we'll have to electrify it and hang it. We also got the rest of our souvenirs here - I got some boxes of character mints, Irene got a sun visor that Stitch had taken a bite out of that says "Here comes trouble" (she'd left her hat at the hotel, we're going to give to AJ), and she also got a little glass cup with feet - literally. I think it looks like the bottom half of Elmer Fudd. (Yes, I know that's the wrong franchise - that's still what it looks like.)
Cab back to the hotel, have their buffet, crash for the night. Oh, yeah - we had the buffet each of the three nights we were at the Ramada. It was OK - there was nothing on the menu that was more tempting, we had two 'get one meal free' coupons, and there were no other convenient options. See [1]
We moved to an Amerisuites in Kissimee - my Aunt Paula and Aunt Lynn came and picked us up at the Ramada, took us to the new hotel, treated us to lunch and dropped us off at Downtown Disney. We had a nice conversation over lunch - turns out one of Paula's kids has problems similar to Jake's, only more so. We commiserated.
Downtown Disney was mostly shopping - we stopped in at Cirque du Soleil to see how much La Nouba tickets would cost. $60-93 each - we passed. Didn't find anything we couldn't live without - we did have a largish snack at the Earl of Sandwich. We went back to the hotel about 3, Irene crashed for four or five hours, we had dinner, and then went to bed for the night.
Off to our third time-share sales pitch - another 8:30 start. This was the middle one in length - the sales droid had laid the groundwork to off-set our 'it doesn't fit our lifestyle' argument. After the sales pitch, we were planning on going back to EPCOT - unfortunately, Irene had to fall over.[2] I spent the day playing with my laptop, getting caught up on LJ and e-mail. Dinner was what we call American Dim Sum - we had Uno's deliver, we ordered three appetizers (their warm Shrimp & Crab dip, boneless buffalo wings, and something that was similar to a french bread pizza).
Off to the airport for an 11 something flight - we got there shortly before 10 and used the skycap to check in. He got us on a different flight - it left an hour earlier, and was direct instead of through Atlanta! We got to the Minneapolis airport five hours early! This did kind of screw up our transportation plans - we were planning on having Don & Margo (WANOLJ) pick us up and go out to dinner, but they were both at work. Ah, well - we caught a cab home, and then went out to dinner with them later. We got some TiVo catch-up in the intervening 3-4 hours.
The four-foots came home about 9:30 - they were very happy to see us! The note from their host family was typical - I'm not certain it's possible for people who like small dogs to not fall in love with ours. I showered and went off to the chiropractor, then came home. Irene crashed again [2], so I did more computer and TiVo. She came to about dinner time, we did American Dim Sum again - Artichoke dip and stromboli from Fat Lorenzo's. I was middling distressed when LJ disappeared in the middle of reading some entries - kept coming back every 15 minutes or so until status.livejournal.org let me know what was up.
Go up early (8:30!), got out the door to a fast-food breakfast (it's our bribe to actually get us moving!), and went grocery shopping. We were drastically short on supplies for the Minn-StF Meeting! People started showing up about 2:30 (there was a Minicon meeting at the start of the Minn-StF meeting), and the last person left shortly after midnight. Somewhere in there I found out that LJ was kind of back up, but I'm on filetmignon, so I wasn't back up until 9PM local time. No LJ for me on Saturday!
I did laundry, caught up on LJ and e-mail, and we watched TiVo. Irene fell unconscious for about three hours in the afternoon. (I told you she was on permanent disability!)
[1] This rapidly became our biggest lesson learned - Orlando is Suburbia. You have to have a car to get anywhere. If / when we go again, we're renting a car. It won't be any more expensive than catching cabs and shuttles, and will vastly increase our options in terms of where and when we go anywhere.
[2] This is the second lesson learned - every third day of a vacation will have nothing planned for it. Doing otherwise guarantees Irene have at least a day, if not a day-and-a-half, of 'dead day' - this is unavoidable down time, and is one of the big contributors to her being on permanent Federal disability.
Still need to get some more grocery shopping in - we need two weeks worth of general supplies - and also some clothes shopping. I left my black leather belt in Orlando, and I'm having the regular 'all my shirts die at once', so it's time to buy more.
We played "catch and release time-share sales" as part of our vacation - got a bunch of free passes to Universal Studios and Disney, and cheap hotel stays.
Saturday, January 8th
We caught a 6:30AM AirTran flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta. After a short (less than an hour) layover in Atlanta, we caught our flight to Orlando, arriving shortly after 1PM local time. We get a cab to the Radisson Plaza 1000 (our first hotel) [1], check in at the Welcome Center to confirm our time for the sales pitch on Sunday, and then check into the hotel and have dinner. Crashed relatively early - we are not used to being awake before 10AM on weekends!
Sunday, January 9th
We catch the (free) shuttle to our first time-share sales presentation starting at 8:30. Neat resort, neat concept, doesn't fit our life-style at this time. We spend our vacation time going to conventions - a time-share would be vacation time doing something in addition to that, and we don't have the resources to pull it off at this time. We get the free ride back to the hotel, and then catch a cab to the Universal Studio park for the afternoon. Wander around for the afternoon and early evening - some shopping, a number of rides (the T2 3D ride, Twister Aftermath, Shrek 4D), and watched the Betelgeuse vs. the Ghostbusters show.
drewan, rvrjoe775 & lsanderson - we were thinking of you all through the performance. If you ever get to Universal Studios, check and see if it's still running!Monday, January 10th
We catch a cab to our second time-share sales pitch - Westgate Resorts, starting at 10:30. This was the shortest one - Irene said it was much fun to watch me enthuse about SF conventions at the sales-droids - their eyes glazed over so cutely. The Westgate claims to 1.1 miles from the Disney Main Gate - OK, that translates to 1.1 miles from the Westgate entrance to the first place on Disney property where you have to pick a road to go to whichever chunk of Disney you want to go to. It's more like 3 miles from parking lot to parking lot, and is not walkable! This is where I got the most interesting bit of trivia - Disney bought 47 square miles (at ~$200/acre) in the 60's. They have so far developed six square miles. They've got some room left for future expansion.
We took a cab over to EPCOT for lunch through sunset - we gave out before the big fireworks / laser show at 9PM. We didn't actually go on any of the EPCOT rides - we did the Nations presentations walking around the lagoon. That's where we got our Morrocan Lamp:
(For scale - you can see Irene's hands holding it up.)
Irene's been wanting one for years - we've got a good place to put one (over the stairs to the second floor). We got to see it lit, and went for it. Now we'll have to electrify it and hang it. We also got the rest of our souvenirs here - I got some boxes of character mints, Irene got a sun visor that Stitch had taken a bite out of that says "Here comes trouble" (she'd left her hat at the hotel, we're going to give to AJ), and she also got a little glass cup with feet - literally. I think it looks like the bottom half of Elmer Fudd. (Yes, I know that's the wrong franchise - that's still what it looks like.)
Cab back to the hotel, have their buffet, crash for the night. Oh, yeah - we had the buffet each of the three nights we were at the Ramada. It was OK - there was nothing on the menu that was more tempting, we had two 'get one meal free' coupons, and there were no other convenient options. See [1]
Tuesday, January 11th
We moved to an Amerisuites in Kissimee - my Aunt Paula and Aunt Lynn came and picked us up at the Ramada, took us to the new hotel, treated us to lunch and dropped us off at Downtown Disney. We had a nice conversation over lunch - turns out one of Paula's kids has problems similar to Jake's, only more so. We commiserated.
Downtown Disney was mostly shopping - we stopped in at Cirque du Soleil to see how much La Nouba tickets would cost. $60-93 each - we passed. Didn't find anything we couldn't live without - we did have a largish snack at the Earl of Sandwich. We went back to the hotel about 3, Irene crashed for four or five hours, we had dinner, and then went to bed for the night.
Wednesday, January 12th
Off to our third time-share sales pitch - another 8:30 start. This was the middle one in length - the sales droid had laid the groundwork to off-set our 'it doesn't fit our lifestyle' argument. After the sales pitch, we were planning on going back to EPCOT - unfortunately, Irene had to fall over.[2] I spent the day playing with my laptop, getting caught up on LJ and e-mail. Dinner was what we call American Dim Sum - we had Uno's deliver, we ordered three appetizers (their warm Shrimp & Crab dip, boneless buffalo wings, and something that was similar to a french bread pizza).
Thursday, January 13th
Off to the airport for an 11 something flight - we got there shortly before 10 and used the skycap to check in. He got us on a different flight - it left an hour earlier, and was direct instead of through Atlanta! We got to the Minneapolis airport five hours early! This did kind of screw up our transportation plans - we were planning on having Don & Margo (WANOLJ) pick us up and go out to dinner, but they were both at work. Ah, well - we caught a cab home, and then went out to dinner with them later. We got some TiVo catch-up in the intervening 3-4 hours.
Friday, January 14th
The four-foots came home about 9:30 - they were very happy to see us! The note from their host family was typical - I'm not certain it's possible for people who like small dogs to not fall in love with ours. I showered and went off to the chiropractor, then came home. Irene crashed again [2], so I did more computer and TiVo. She came to about dinner time, we did American Dim Sum again - Artichoke dip and stromboli from Fat Lorenzo's. I was middling distressed when LJ disappeared in the middle of reading some entries - kept coming back every 15 minutes or so until status.livejournal.org let me know what was up.
Saturday, January 15th
Go up early (8:30!), got out the door to a fast-food breakfast (it's our bribe to actually get us moving!), and went grocery shopping. We were drastically short on supplies for the Minn-StF Meeting! People started showing up about 2:30 (there was a Minicon meeting at the start of the Minn-StF meeting), and the last person left shortly after midnight. Somewhere in there I found out that LJ was kind of back up, but I'm on filetmignon, so I wasn't back up until 9PM local time. No LJ for me on Saturday!
Sunday, January 16th
I did laundry, caught up on LJ and e-mail, and we watched TiVo. Irene fell unconscious for about three hours in the afternoon. (I told you she was on permanent disability!)
Footnotes
[1] This rapidly became our biggest lesson learned - Orlando is Suburbia. You have to have a car to get anywhere. If / when we go again, we're renting a car. It won't be any more expensive than catching cabs and shuttles, and will vastly increase our options in terms of where and when we go anywhere.
[2] This is the second lesson learned - every third day of a vacation will have nothing planned for it. Doing otherwise guarantees Irene have at least a day, if not a day-and-a-half, of 'dead day' - this is unavoidable down time, and is one of the big contributors to her being on permanent Federal disability.
Still need to get some more grocery shopping in - we need two weeks worth of general supplies - and also some clothes shopping. I left my black leather belt in Orlando, and I'm having the regular 'all my shirts die at once', so it's time to buy more.
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Date: 2005-01-19 06:39 pm (UTC):P
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Date: 2005-01-19 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 11:10 pm (UTC)I'm glad you enjoyed the trip.