Apr 19, 2007

Wolfgang Puck Express

Here's what we ate at the Wolfgang Puck Express:

Tomato Basil Garlic Linguini



Cobb Salad with Salmon (and Creme Brulee for dessert)

Departure



Today has been the longest day EVER, but oddly enough, I don’t feel that tired. This makes me think that I must only receive four and a half hours of quality sleep regularly. Heck, I guess we could have gone to the Magic Kingdom’s extra magic hours! Except for a few things….

First, I really am tired and will be extra tired tomorrow if I don’t get at least seven hours of sleep tonight.

Second, we needed to get back to POP to pick up our fridge from the most recent person in the refrigerator swap that Porkchop signed us up for. We also had to buy breakfast items in the food court for the week (soymilk and bananas for me, powdered donuts for Porkchop).

Third, we cut our Disney Quest time short after Porkhop became sick during the virtual reality game. She has very sensitive equilibrium, and the stupid game made her break out into a sweat and feel generally yucky.

Before the VR game, I managed to beat a handful of 8-year-olds on the Daytona USA racing game. Yes, victory is mine!



Here are other highlights from our day:

  • The enchanted phone call that I received from Mickey Mouse at 6:45 this morning. Porkchop arranged this a couple of months ago, and last night she programmed the phone number into my cell phone so that “Mickey Mouse” appeared on my caller ID. So tricky! Anyway, it was quite funny to receive a call from Mickey while we were waiting for our flight.

  • The yummy salmon cobb salad from the Wolfgang Puck Express at Downtown Disney. I think I’ll be quite surprised by the food selections that Disney has to offer now. From what I recall from my 1997 trip, I was lucky to shell out $8 for a measly baked potato with broccoli-cheese sauce at Epcot. I was vegetarian at the time, but food choices overall seemed a bit meager.

  • Buying two pins at Downtown Disney. Yes, I voluntarily selected two pins for my lanyard! One is Spring 2007 with Flower and Thumper (my favorite Bambi characters when I was a kid). The other is Tax Day 2007 with Stitch at a calculator. Because I’m nerdy like that. Tax Day.

  • The awesome gift basket waiting in our hotel room when we finally returned to POP after a 45-minute bus wait. Porkchop told me that she had arranged for the delivery of a 12-pack of water, so I was expecting something in our room. However, I didn’t expect the water to be accompanied by dark chocolate-covered espresso beans, English Breakfast tea (in a decorative tin), pretzels, snack mix, gummy characters, and a plush Stitch. Fun! I feel bad for not arranging anything for Porkchop. I just didn’t know these services exist. Murrr!


Off to bed! We have a big day planned at Epcot tomorrow! Hopefully Porkchop won’t get motion sick!

Wake Up Call

The past few months, I’ve had this game I like to play called “Pretend-we’re-at-Disney-World”. The game mostly consists of me and Carrie lying on the bed pretending to be asleep. I make a noise like a phone ringing and then reenact the typical Mickey Mouse wake-up call. Rubbing my eyes sleepily, I roll over and give Carrie a few quick shoves.

“Wake up,” I say. “It’s 4:30 in the morning and time to get ready to go to the Magic Kingdom.”

It’s at this point that Carrie breaks out of the role-playing and snaps at me…

I am NOT getting up at 4:30 in the morning while we’re at Disney World.

Finally, all those hours of preparatory role-playing paid off. When the alarm really did go off at 4:30 this morning, we jumped out of bed and were on our way.

In my pre-trip fantasy about this morning, I imagined a long lonely walk to the bus stop, where we would wait alone in the cold darkness for an empty bus to pull up and whisk us away to the MetroLink train.

In reality, the walk was loud with the sounds of rolling baggage on pavement. The bus stop was shared with a couple of other people and the bus was crammed so full of people that I wondered if we’d even be able to squeeze on with our luggage. The train ride was spent in separate seats. And when we arrived at the airport, I sprinted ahead of Carrie, my eyes set ahead on the ticket counter.

During my brisk walk through the terminal, I turned and caught sight of Carrie lagging behind and had to stop and laugh at myself. I’ve waited so long for this trip to get here that I figure I’d better slow down and actually take the time to enjoy it.