2015: Day 1 - Arrival & Introduction

(A cartoon dog in a suit steps up to a podium and adjusts his glasses)

Oh, hello there! It's that time again - we're at Walt Disney World (or WDW, for you old pros) for 11 (!!!) days. We're taking a break from our careers as breakdancing guidance councillors who let kids know that real men use hugs not drugs for nice long vacation in Central Florida. I didn't get to sleep until after 11 the night before leaving and woke up at 4 am on departure day and had a hard time getting back to sleep because both cats realized I was up when I went to the bathroom and ran in there demanding I pay attention to them. As a result, this trip report may be a little bit more loopy than usual.

(curtain raises)

We got to the airport and went through security (held up only by the TSA agents telling us we were the most cool, powerful and attractive people at the airport) and had a uneventful flight to Florida. 
A slightly interesting (translation: not interesting at all but I'm putting it in anyway) note I spotted in the men's room at the Albany airport - a passive-aggressive little plaque next to the hot air dryer stating that using a hot air dryer saves the earth and is more hygienic than using paper towels. "Huh, that's really interesting!" I thought, grabbing a handful of paper towels.

Once we got to Florida we used Disney's hassle-reducing service known as the Magical Express, where you put luggage tags on your checked luggage, and they pick it up and deliver it to your room for you. All you need to do is get off the plane, find the Magical Express area, use your Magicband (more on this later), and you're driven right to your resort.

Before we left the airport, we saw a Pinkberry ("Huh. Look, a Pinkberry") and I went to the bathroom and saw a sign saying that, sure, use those paper towels over there if you don't mind thousands of acres of rainforest being destroyed just so you can avoid using a perfectly good hot air hand dryer, it's fine. "Huh, that's astounding!" I thought, grabbing two handfuls of paper towels.

Yes, I know this is a picture of the Polynesian before we got to the Polynesian, but I have a LOT of Polynesian pictures to fit in here.

** HUSBAND TIP **

If your wife says something sweet like there's nowhere she'd rather be and nobody she'd rather be there with, "you too" is not a great answer, but it is much better than "I agree on the place, but I'm afraid that you're honestly my second pick to Samus Aran, because she has the incredible power of super-bombs and the magma-defying Varia Suit".

Don't say this thing either.

We're in the "Aotearoa" building with a nice view out on the garden from our balcony. The monorail comes right to our resort, and you can see it pass by from our room, which means I'm going to have to remember to close the blinds before someone sees my epidermis.

As a quick refresher, there's six total parks at Disney World: The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Downtown Disney (not really a park so much as a giant shopping center), and two water parks we never go to. This is for a few reasons; if want to cool off we'd probably just hop in the pool instead of getting on a bus and riding to a place with giant waterslides, and neither one of us really likes being seen in our bathing suit (Katie has one from Lane Bryant that makes her look great but apparently isn't super comfortable, and I don't like to reveal the second mouth in my chest that's always talking about David Tennant.)

David Tennant sans makeup

Today since we're both a little fatigued we just went to the Animal Kingdom for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, a big jungle-themed restaurant full of anamatronic animals. (There's also a huge aquarium you can walk under. We saw a fish on his side parked over a bubbler, but before I could get a picture of it the hostess came up and yelled KATIE HAAAAA-MERRRRRR!!! because our table was ready.)

Katie wore both pairs of glasses and her novelty pipe for most of the trip.

As it turns out with our deluxe dining plan, we have a life-ending 66 table service meals, each one being a appetizer, entree, desert, and non-alcoholic drink. I guess we'll end up walking it off. We both got the South China Chicken Salad, which I remember from last trip. We also got replacement Rainforest Cafe jugs. I'm very particular about these - they have to be 32-36 oz with a snap lid (NO TWIST ONS). Rainforest Cafe is the only place I've been able to find these, so we had to get two. NO, the 64 oz. Dunkin Donuts mugs aren't the same. They're too big, MOM. Sheesh.

After our huge salads and desert (mango sorbet for Katie and a root beer float for me) we were pretty stuffed, so we headed back to the resort. First, though, I went to the bathroom and saw a sign yelling "Only stupid little babies who hate Mother Earth use these paper towels for chumps instead of this amazing Dyson hot air dryer!"
"Huh, that's amazing!" I thought, grabbing two big handfuls of paper towels.

CAPTION: SALAD BIG

THINGS I LEARNED FROM A MOM TALKING TO HER SON ON THE BUS RIDE HOME FROM ANIMAL KINGDOM:

Space Mountain is "Mount Everest" (not sure I heard this right), and if you go there you will have "a booger explosion" (I'm sure I heard this right).

I also saw a kid sitting there with a really funny expression of tired concentration on his face and I kind of wanted to take a picture, but that would probably be a little creepy. ("Why, yes, I did just take a picture of your son. It's for my tripreports! I have a whole bit where they want me to use a hot air dryer but I just use paper towels!")

That's about it for today, although I wanted to talk about the magic bands a little bit. These are wristbands that basically take care of everything you need at Disney - it's your room key and credit card in one; you use it to pay for meals (on the meal plan or linked to your credit card), open your room, get into the parks, and set up your fast-passes. The way Disney has these set up is amazing; as soon as we used our magicbands at the Magical Express kiosk, Katie got an email from the resort letting us know our room wasn't quite ready yet. Disney really is its own little world with these, far away from the little bit of Central Florida your bus (excuse me, motor coach) drives through, the slightly skeezy Central Florida where you can get "Hong Kong Cuisine" and "MASSAGE" in the same strip mall. (And that's not a bad thing, although my legs could use a MASSAGE after all this walking. Oof!)

TOMORROW: Our first foray to the Magical Kingdom ends on a cliffhanger as Katie becomes the Purple Ranger and uses her mighty zord to foil Lord Sledge's evil plans. (ED. NOTE: This joke was written when Power Rangers Dino Charge season 1 was on the air and is now terribly dated; of course it turns out the Purple Ranger was Miss Kendall, and Lord Sledge was defeated when the Red Ranger crashed his ship into Earth. Please feel free to change "Purple Ranger" to "Silver Ranger" and "Lord Sledge" to "Heckle" as appropriate. THANKSSSS)

Found this in my photo roll