Orbitz's pesky emails informing me I had a 50% off hotels bonus and the fact that I hadn't used my Disney pass in a while pushed me into booking an overnight stay in the Disney area. Plus, I had also bought a ticket to a showing of a play at an Orlando area theater, but that account is for the next post.
I drove up directly to Hollywood Studios and after a refreshing 22oz. Stone Delicious IPA at the Baseline Taphouse, I made a beeline to the brand-new Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. Strolled around a bit then got into the single riders line for the Millennium Falcon ride. The stand-by wait time was posted as 55 minutes but I got on in about 10! I heard someone else in line say that this was the best single riders line in the park. I'd go so far as to say the best anywhere! Where else can you slash the wait time to one fifth?
I was given the role of an engineer. I think I was the only one of the two engineers on-board to snag an energy pod. Yay! But frankly, I'd prefer a passenger-like experience. It was distracting from the visuals of the well-done cinema surrounding us too much. And, if you ask me, the visuals were the main draw. The motion of the simulator was quite tame. Star Tours, just a stone's throw away, is much more jarring. My guess? Less jarring means more easily maintained mechanics equaling less breakdowns.
Oh look, here's a chance encounter with a certain wookie and his human friend who were greeting us "travelers." Bright Suns, Chewy! Bright Suns.
Hungry and not thrilled about the eatery options here, I decided to skip anything else in the park, drove over to my booked hotel area and popped into a tourist-priced Publix to grab a footlong sub and other munchies to take to my room. No adult beverages though. I felt the one beer was enough and didn't even feel a bit compelled to grab my usual hotel room provisions of a six and two. Maybe it's a side-effect of this recent med change?
I'd pre-booked at the ironically named Celebration Suites in Kissimmee. When I entered my room, it felt not quite so celebratory. For $45 a night (plus a "resort" fee of $13) what should have I expected? I mean they made a movie called "The Florida Project" about these sprawling hotel complexes on Route 192 in Kissimmee and the kind of people who run, book and even live here. The room was absolutely huge...almost as big as my mobile home...with living room, full kitchen and a bedroom...plus balcony. But the condition... Well, let's just say it had seen better days. And it was a slum back then. So now it was just a dilapidated, smelly, rundown slum. Live and learn. At least it wasn't the Hotel Capri.
I kinda exaggerate a bit. The beds were comfy and clean, the suite was well stocked with the basics and, most importantly, there were no bugs.
Sweet beds aside, I got very little sleep, probably due to the new meds I'm on, but I pressed on and muscled through. Checked out and made my way to a nearby Cracker Barrel for breakfast. I think this is the first time I'd been to a Cracker Barrel. As expected, very "down-home" country feel and hearty fixin's. Had the "Old Timers" breakfast. Eggs, grits, sausage, hash-brown casserole, biscuits and gravy. Not bad but surprisingly I've had better biscuits and gravy. These were a smidge under-done and the gravy was just a white flour slurry with virtually no sausage taste.
Hit Epcot by 10 am and although it was the Food and Wine Festival, that breakfast did me in for the day...wasn't hungry again until early evening so I only grabbed a double espresso, desperate for that caffeine running on only 4 hours of sleep. Walking was surprisingly good. Tiny bit of an ache from the spurs and as long as I kept an even and steady (albeit snail-like) pace, I needed only occasional seated rests. At one point, I noticed some people seemed a tad perturbed by having to slow their pace if I were ahead of them so I started making my tongue click "echolocation" sounds to give them something to ponder. "Was that guy blind and using echolocation like a bat to navigate his way through the crowd?" So I imagined some people wondering. IRL though, I'm sure no one noticed.
Rode "The Seas" and "The Land" and later used my Fast Pass for "Soarin'." Strolled through the World Showcase to Canada and England. I noticed that the festival kiosks are now built up as real little shacks likely to stay in place throughout the year. Makes sense as they've been moving towards year-round, or nearly so, festivals anyway. It also allows for permanent venues for a slew of other countries in addition to the larger traditional ones.
Outside of the resort entrance between France and England, I hopped onto the brand new Skyliner and rode a car solo, smoothly gliding about a hundred feet or so over a couple Disney Property resorts to a switching station where I would have been able to then go on to Hollywood Studios but that part was closed. And, get this, I'm typing this up a day later and only now found out about the fact that there had been a collision of some cars on the line a couple weeks ago causing peeps to be stuck up in the air for hours! OMG! I'm kinda glad I hadn't known about this. In fact, while I was on it, I kept reassuring myself that it was perfectly safe since it was brand, spankin' new. What could go wrong? So now this explains why the leg to Hollywood Studios was down (perhaps since I swear I saw it running the day before while at Hollywood Studios). It also could explain why I found the system quite underused. No one save a handful of us seemed to be riding. In any case, I made my way back to Epcot incident-free.
I sat to watch a really rousing French-Canadian folk-rock band at the sawmill-themed bandstand in the Canada pavilion. Hit me in the feels for my ancestral roots. Je me souviens!
By 4 pm I trudged my sweat-soaked, slightly-sunburned bulk to the tram stop but since I was parked in Discovery I decided to valiantly push on. I felt very tired and my muscles were screaming but I knew I could benefit from this rare vigorous exercise. Six hours, not a bad visit I must say.
Though I wasn't staying another night, I was committed to staying in the area for the evening so I ate dinner at a nearby Chinese buffet and moved on to the venue in my next post.