I woke up early and got the dogs out and walked. I happen to pull out my National Car Rental confirmation to double check the time and I saw that I was supposed to pick the car up YESTERDAY!! I have no idea why I would make it Friday, when I knew I had a lunch reservation yesterday. I called them right away and they gave me the number to their desk at The Dolphin Hotel. He said do not worry, they hold the cars for 24 hrs anyways. I was so relieved! I was supposed to have a 3 day rental with coupon for a free day but I was thinking maybe it will just be a two day w/o coupon now.
We walked over to the boat dock to get a boat, which was waiting, over to Magic Kingdom and then hop on a Dolphin bus from there. It looked like the clouds were going to burst over the Magic Kingdom any minute. We walked over to the buses and a man asked us where we were heading. I said Dolphin Hotel and he said “leaving already?” I said well we are picking up a rental car there. He said let me get you a bus then. So he radioed for one for us. We waited at the stop. We kept seeing buses that had strange letters on the front like DHCS or DHWL. They always started with DH. I walked over to that same man and said what does DHCS mean? He said DH stands for DEAD HEAD and the last two letters are the abbreviation for the hotel. He said from opening til around 11, they send empty buses to see how many people are going back at that time. So he can dispatch one of those empty buses so people are not waiting long. Very shortly a Boardwalk bus came and he walked over to ask him to take us to Dolphin and he motioned us to come over. So we had our own private bus, just us two, to the Dolphin!
We had a small wait at the National Counter and then they put another person on the counter and we were waited on. They could not have been nicer here. I told her, I will keep the 3 day rental with coupon if it’s cheaper or I can return in two days, it did not matter. My coupon was for a free weekend day with min. 3 day stay, one day has to be a Saturday. She told me she would waive the 3 day requirement and still give us a free day! So I got a two day rental for $43! Sounds like a bargain to me!
We walked out with our key to the valet area and a man came right up to go get our car. I reached in my wallet for money and realized, I brought the wrong purse and had no cash for a tip! Joe said he did not have any either; I wanted to crawl in a hole! Within a minute, the man came back with our car, he was so nice and fast. I asked his name and if he was working on Monday and he said he was. I explained I did not have cash on me now but I will be back on Monday and find him. He seemed appreciative and I promise I will not forget about him!
We drove the car back; we got a silver HHR. As long as the car does not smell like smoke, I don’t care what kind of car it is. I picked up my purse where I had the cash and we headed off to Publix. I had a couple coupons for free smoothies at McDonalds so we stopped in there first and then realized we should probably eat while we were there. What a difference in prices compared to Disney!
We then went around the corner to Publix and got the things we needed. It didn’t seem like we needed that much, but of course, we left with all kinds of junk. As we drove back to Disney property, the clouds were getting lower and darker. It was raining a little bit by the time we got back here and looked like it had already rained a good bit while we were away. We put everything away and I decided to lay down and take a nap. Joe took Cassie to the dog park and Sandie laid down with me. It seemed like he was gone 5 minutes but he said it was half an hour. I got up and took Sandie for a nice long walk so she would be tired too.
We weren’t sure what we wanted to do for dinner. I suggested Caseys for hot dogs so we put dogs away in their crate and headed over to the Magic Kingdom and headed straight for Caseys. We got our food and ate outside to soak up the Main Street atmosphere.
After eating, we wanted to cool off and ride Pirates. We had a rowdy boat and they were all singing the pirates YO HO song; it was funny cause they were all adults! We then got fast passes for Big Thunder Mountain and it was only 45 minutes away. We walked over to Philharmagic via Fantasyland and walked right in to a show about to start. There were some foreign people who sat down in the middle and a CM came over and told them to move down; they acted like they didn’t understand her until she motioned GET UP and pointed to the last chair; they finally did move. We kept walking towards Tomorrowland and road Wedway which was pretty busy! We picked up some Buzz fastpasses and all wanted some frozen cokes from The Lunching Pad and sat at a table for a little bit.
It was time for Big Thunder, so we rode the trail from toon town all the way back around to Frontierland. The funniest thing happened in the Big Thunder Fast pass line. Jake noticed a dad and two sons with Flyer shirts on. Just as he noticed them, the dad noticed Joe’s steeler shirt. I said to the one little boy in line “hey, do you know you have a FLYERS shirt on?” He looked funny and shook his head yes. The dad said to me DON”T EVEN START! HE said he already noticed the Steeler shirt! Joe said hey I have a couple CROSBY shirts for your kids if you want. He said he wouldn’t wear a Crosby shirt if he were DEAD! LOL! We ended up in the same train as them and when we got off the ride, he tapped Jake on the back. Wheeewww, that was a close one. Jake was mad he had his Boston Red Sox shirt instead of his Crosby one.
We walked back to Buzz via the castle hub and through the parade crowds. Buzz was only a 20 minute stand by but it looked longer. We walked pretty much straight through the fast pass line. We all got our own separate car. I had a pitiful score of 3300. I have never scored that low. I swear my gun was broke. Jake had a high score of 276,800 HE SAID, lol.
We headed out down Main Street. Everyone was coming IN as we were going out. We walked right out to a waiting boat; what luck! I was sitting on the boat and happened to look up and there was a HUGE spider web above me! I moved up a row when I saw that!
It feels good to be back relaxing and cool. It amazes me how fast time goes down here.
