Spring Break 2011

Andrew’s Spring Break started on Friday afternoon and runs all this week. Unfortunately, I don’t get Spring Break from work. If I did, I would be with Susan and Andrew at the Worldmark Kingstown Reef in Orlando rather than home alone tonight.

Yesterday we packed our things and drove to Orlando. We got a late start, but we weren’t in a rush. We took a longer, more scenic route to avoid the tolls. Since I had to come home, we drove in separate cars. The drive was going well until Susan stopped for a railroad crossing. I pulled over to wait, but she never drove by. After several minutes, I decided to drive on and meet her at the resort. I arrived first, then checked her location on Google Latitude. It said she was 0.4 miles north. Sure enough, she pulled in a minute later.

After checking in, we went to our room and made ourselves comfortable. We were caught off guard to find the master bedroom had a queen size bed while the guest room had a king size bed. We quickly decided to let Andrew have the master bedroom, complete with mini kitchen and refrigerator.

Since we don’t have cable T.V. at home, we find it hard to resist the lure of all those channels when we’re away from home. We quickly got started watching the Cake Boss on TLC and stayed up watching episode after episode until 11:30 PM.

Today was my day to decide what to do, since I had to leave. I decided that I really wanted to see the inside of the Wilderness Lodge. We’ve rode past it many times on our free bus rides from Downtown Disney to the Grand Floridian to ride the monorail, back in my unemployed glory days. It is a fantastic building, done up in a Pacific Northwest mountain lodge style that reminds me of the great lodges of the Canadian railroad or those found in our western National Parks. The lobby is seven stories tall with twin rock chimneys near the entrance and another in the far back corner. There’s a totem pole standing the full height on one side. There are native American headdresses in cases all around. In the back, a spring bubbles up in the floor and runs out of the building, forming the Silver Creek. The creek winds through the trees and flowers, and eventually drops over Silver Creek Falls.

After touring the lodge, we walked to the boat ramp and caught a boat around the lake to the Contemporary, then around to the Wilderness Campground. Andrew played at the playground for a few minutes, then we caught the boat back to the Wilderness Lodge.

We rented a Quadricycle (a four wheeled, two person power bicycle) and went for a nice, hot ride out to the Triple Circle D stables and back. Who knew there were stables at Disney? Along the way, Andrew sat between us and tried his best to steer us along the trail. Eventually, he got bored and moved into the front basket, where he had a great unimpeded view. After our ride, we caught another boat, but this time we got off at the Magic Kingdom. When we arrived, the parade was just getting started. I picked up Andrew and we raced through the crowd to get ahead of the parade to cross the street and get to Frontierland. Once there, Susan and I enjoyed a pineapple juice float, while Andrew downed an orange soda float by himself. He managed to give himself a brain freeze and spill part of it on his shoe in the process.

I wanted to ride the Jungle Cruise, but the line was too long. Instead we found some remote control boats. I spent all my money on floats, so we couldn't buy tokens, but a very nice lady gave Andrew two tokens to drive a boat. He stuck the tokens in remote number 7 before we could actually locate the boat and I started working the controls. I couldn’t find any boats reacting to my inputs. Finally, Susan spotted a boat upside down near the edge of the enclosed area, just out of reach. Sure enough, its propeller was responding directly to my inputs. Susan reported the problem to a Disney crewmember, who gave her another pair of tokens. With those, Andrew masterfully crashed his boat into all the obstacles.

By this time, I needed to get back to the car so I could get home at a reasonable hour. Andrew wanted to go back a different way, so we caught the monorail to the Contemporary, then took the boat back to Wilderness Lodge.

Back at the resort, Susan started dinner while Andrew and I went for a quick dip in the pool. My poor feet enjoyed the nice cool water after a long day in sandals.

I will be rejoining Spring Break already in progress on Thursday night.