Early to rise, late to bed...

So when I set my alarm for 5:45 Saturday morning, it was really with good intentions. I gladly hopped out of bed, plugged in my hot rollers, and flipped on the lights to start packing my bags. For some reason, I had gotten a little too used to rising early and being by myself in our house while my family slept quietly in their bedrooms. Unfortunately for them, a small hotel room offers little means of escape from my frantic schedule.

So, you can imagine their dismay when I announced at 6 that it was time to rise & shine so that we can hit the road to Disney early. After much grumbling, we were packed and in the car just after 7. The road to Disney was free of traffic and had minimal construction. The only difficulty came as we neared the park, and found that the maps in our travel guide and road atlas did not agree, driving Chuck quite crazy. Nonetheless, we made it to there in great time & were in the Port Orleans lobby by 9.




One thing that wasn't apparent to me then, but is quite clear now is how uncrowded this place is. To prepare for this trip, I checked out three different tour books from the library and bought a fourth for the trip; all made clear that Spring Break was one of the worst times to visit. So, imagine my surprise during check-in when the clerk told us that our room was ready if we wanted to take care of our bags. We had intended to pick up our passes for the park tickets and meal plans, and I had been certain that we'd be carrying our bags in the dark of evening after spending the day riding rides. We drove to our building and found the parking lot virtually empty. We quickly got settled then headed out to our first park: Epcot.

Since Chuck was spending only one day with us, we decided to hit the park that was most interesting to him. We made it to Epcot around 11am and had no trouble getting through the minimal line. We decided to stick with Future World, since Sylvain and I had luau tickets for later in the afternoon, leaving Chuck to explore the World Showcase on his own. Sylvain and I have dinner reservations for Monday in that part of Epcot anyways and I knew that Sylvain wouldn't want to see walk thru there twice.

Our first ride was Mission: Space. After much confusion as to which entrance to go into (Fast Pass was a foreign concept), we were greeted by a "cast member" who told us that she was giving out "Magical Moments" and asked us to follow her. She led us through the Fast pass line and put us at the very front of the crowd. Wow! And on our first ride! The ride was fine despite many warnings about motion sickness (and prominently placed vomit bags). Once we were done with the ride, Sylvain and Chuck left me at a bench to get Fast Passes for the Test Track ride. I needed to sit for a moment because I was feeling dizzy. The guys ate cereal while on the road, but I had stupidly only had a couple pieces of string cheese. Next, we had lunch at the Electric Umbrella (mostly because it was between Mission: Space and our next ride), though I now wished we'd have waited and ate at the food court in "The Land". I had the chicken ceaser salad (romain, shredded paremesan, and chunks of chicken), Chuck had the double cheeseburger and fries, and Sylvain had the chicken nuggets and fries (both standard food service fare).

After lunch, we saw the "Honey, I shrunk the audience show"; this was the first of many shows we've seen, making me wonder just what the actor's contracts look like whenever they sign-on to do a Disney movie. Are the "extras" to contribute to the resort shows built in or do they work that out if the movie is a success and there's enough juice in the idea to be wrung out as an attraction. Sylvain thought it was pretty lame; Chuck and I didn't mind, but we grew up with those movies and were familiar with the incompetent scientist bit.

We next headed over to "The Land" and rode on "Soaring" and took the "Living with the Land" tour. By the end of all that, it was time for Sylvain and I to hop onto the monorail and head over to the Polynesian resort for our luau.





The luau was fun and the open beer/wine bar was nice. Since Sylvain had barbeque ribs the night before in Lake City, he opted to have only our table's helping of chicken. I had some of the ribs, but tried to stay good by having more salad instead. Sylvain saw one of these large monkey headed drink mugs go by on a tray and really wanted one. The only way to get one was to order the fruity rum drink that came in it, and being the doting mom that I am, I had to oblige.



[If you're a friend on Facebook, I've posted several luau photos there, so be sure to check 'em out. All other readers, sorry, but I'll link over photos once I'm on a real computer and not the blackberry....]

After the luau, we took the monorail back to Epcot to meet up with Chuck. We got to ride in the front of both trains (we had a change-over). He was waiting for us by the Morroccan attractions, and we took a quick detour for Sylvain to ride the Test Track while on the way to Chuck. I hung out at the exit and texted with Nestelynn, who was giving me play by play of the MSU game since I was having some technical difficulty with the live web feed.

Chuck picked a decent spot to watch the Illuminations fireworks, though I must say that the laser light show part of it was disappointing. We didn't hang out in the park for much longer after the show and headed for our room. Chuck and Sylvain went for a swim, while I took a much appreciated shower & went to sleep.