Trip Report Completed: SUCCESS!! I did NOT get locked out of our room naked again! Boardwalk Villas June 2015

Hey all!

Well, I am back. Sigh.

Yep, I'm playing a good game of "last week at this time".

Last week at this time, I was on the veranda of the California Grill watching Wishes. (It is 10:11 as I type this)

Tonight, I am sitting in my sweltering 90+ degree apartment in NYC procrastinating putting my air conditioner in the window. Does anyone have a time machine I can borrow? I prefer last week instead.

We had a really absolutely amazing trip, and there is not too much drama in it, so I hope I can make this interesting somehow.

Before I start, let me address the elephant in the room about getting locked out of the room naked.

Yes, that happened. In 2013. Luckily, no photographic evidence exists, but what happened is that it was a day with a lot of cocktails. We saved and sprung for concierge, and the wine up there was flowing like the River Jordan.

We went back to the room and I hurled all my clothes off and threw myself into the bed.

Cut to several hours later.

I woke up. The room was pitch black. I had no idea where I was, or, to clarify, my mind was not yet awake at 100% functionality. I stumbled through the darkness toward the bathroom, following a pattern that matched my own NYC apartment. Unfortunately, there is a different pattern at Disney hotels, and I quickly opened a door and said "woaaahhh - noooo!!!!" - and as soon as I said that, the door behind me slammed shut, and I was locked out of the room, naked.

It was such a ridiculous, surreal situation. There was nothing to be done, so I just huddled there by the door like Gollum and eventually Phil came back to the room.Let's just say that I was in the doghouse for the rest of the trip.

But that is soooo 2013. There is no getting locked out naked in 2015. So, onward!

June 4, 2015:

Our plane was on time! No issues.

Phil had to go buy some reading materials, which left me some time to take a non-selfie-stick-selfie

Soon we were in the sky. I made Phil do a selfie with me against his will.

Yeah, well, no one looks that good when you do a selfie. Anyway, we flew the friendly skies to Orlando and when we got there, Quicksilvertours was freaking incredible. They picked us up, gave us a 30 minute grocery stop, and then deposited us at the Boardwalk Villas.

We had done pre-check in. We had a standard view one-bedroom Boardwalk villa. I did not expect anything but that, but when we got there, a check in hostess grabbed us and spent 20 minutes on a phone and then told us "Good news! You have been upgraded to a renovated room!!"

Hurray!!

And so here is the video of the renovated room. I am sorry that my phone ran out of gas toward the end, so this ends unexpectedly:




I cannot believe the room we got. I never wanted to leave. But we had to. So we went and explored the pool:

Here is Phil, looking very happy:

and here I am:
What the heck was I thinking wearing an orange tee-shirt - -- ----this theme will come up again and again:

Well, it was time to go to a few fast passes in EPCOT before going to our $300 dinner at the California Grill.

Let me back up briefly.

We are NOT rich at all. The results of the Boardwalk stay is the result of saving for about a year, and as for California Grill, I figured out that we were not getting out of there for under $300, so we put $20 a week in an envelope until it reached $300 and then we had it! That might seem a bit tragic to some, but it made the California Grill amazing for us rather than a situation where we were trying to figure out how to pay.

So anyway, prior to the trip, I went shopping for some new Disney clothes, and anyone who knows me knows that i am fashion incompetent. But I specifically was looking for a California Grill outfit.

Everyone here always complains about badly dressed people so I wanted to do what I could to make sure i was dressed for a fireworks dinner in the clouds.

The day before the trip, I went shopping, and I somehow thought this shirt was good.

wow, this looked great on the mannequin but on me, it looks like Carrie White exploded!!

Here is the tasteful outfit

that Phil decided to wear:


So on we go. We rode a few rides in the future section of EPCOT and then it was time for our $300 dinner at California Grill:

Cali was just great. Here is Phil standing in front of 10,000,000 bottles of wine as you

walk in:

Well, it just said I'm not allowed to upload anymore files to this message (limit of 10) so I'll get back to this soon.

Coming soon - dancing in an empty Boardwalk dance-hall, a pretty underwhelming Trader Sams, a Rebel Hangar that had no rebels in it, an Ohana that was awesome, and a drink around the world that was as awesome as always.

 

[sheriffwoody]

Another question that's been bugging me since this trip report began: is referring to "gay days" actually frowned upon on this board? Do you really have to merely make allusions to red shirts? What is this, the 50's?

I wondered this too.

As to the gay thing, they are a bit wacky about that on here.

I can't say I'm surprised though considering the word f.a.n.n.y is censored And don't even try to talk about the Dick Van Show

 

[gsrjedi]

Great report. Can't wait to read the rest

 

[ScarletBegonias]

"Over my dead liver-less body!" OMG. DYING.

This might be my favorite trip report of all time!!!

 

[Misterdcp]

I'm LOVING this TR. One of those most entertaining I've ever read! Can't wait to read more!

 

[MinnieM123]

The funniest thing was when you two were having drinks at the Canada pavilion, and you wrote that you went over the falls to drink them. (Actually you said you went over to the falls to drink them.) But I had read your line very quickly, (even before seeing the picture), and I burst out laughing thinking that the two of you were drunk and fell into the waterfall on the side of the Canada pavilion! Whatever gave me that quick thought, I'll never know. Anyway, glad that didn't happen!!

 

[BuddyThomas]

I burst out laughing thinking that the two of you were drunk and fell into the waterfall on the side of the Canada pavilion!

That would have made BuzzKillington very happy.

 

[Tuvalu]

The funniest thing was when you two were having drinks at the Canada pavilion, and you wrote that you went over the falls to drink them. (Actually you said you went over to the falls to drink them.) But I had read your line very quickly, (even before seeing the picture), and I burst out laughing thinking that the two of you were drunk and fell into the waterfall on the side of the Canada pavilion! Whatever gave me that quick thought, I'll never know. Anyway, glad that didn't happen!!

OMG @MinnieM123, I thought the same thing!!

@BuddyThomas too bad you passed out during the Star Wars fireworks. They were awesome!

 

[BuddyThomas]

Part 8 - Blizzard Beach, Via Napoli, and more

So, have you noticed how they no longer have Mickey doing wake up calls? Wasn't that fun when it happened? Mickey would call and tell you it was time to wake up because there was some "big doin's going on". Well this year at the Boardwalk, every time we did a wake up call, it was just a ringing phone at the requested time, and then a boring generic message that a wake up call had been requested.

I don't get that at all. The Mickey thing was a lot of fun. Maybe they are still doing that at other resorts? Or was it just considered too fun overall and cut?

Anyway, I mention this because, as anyone here who has read the previous chapters can guess, we slept through our wake up call this morning!!!!!

At least there was no real hangover involved, believe it or not, and for that, I thank all the water we drank before we went to bed. I've read about all sorts of hangover cures, but the only one that ever works for me is to drink lots and lots and lots of water before you go to bed. Lots of water = zero hangover.

I believe we finally rolled into consciousness at about 11:30 AM, and I think Phil's Kitchen Kabaret was serving up the veggie omelettes again today for breakfast because it was our last day and we had some food to use up.

And then it was time to head to Blizzard Beach.

Now listen - this was not my choice. I would have much rather have gone to Animal Kingdom or at least back to Magic Kingdom or anything else at all, but Phil had insisted that he had to go to Blizzard Beach because he had never been there before and this had to be a trip of "firsts".

Okay. The time has come. Lemme tell you something about Phil. He is not really into the whole Disney thing, even though you cannot tell from the big grins he has in every picture. He would much rather go to Las Vegas, the Bahamas, or basically, anywhere else. He "tolerates" it because, as he puts it, "Disney is the only thing you love as much as me". But his whole thing on this trip is that we had to do only things that we had never done before. I respect that. But still, I'm not the biggest water park person in the world.

But okay. Here we come.

We waited a million years (or actually millions of seconds that felt like a million years) for the bus, and it finally came and we were off. This water park is a very short drive from Boardwalk, which was a great surprise, and then we were finally in the park.

Oh.

I have to tell you something very sad.

I did not bring my phone to the park, so there are no pictures in this report! I was afraid that I would accidentally dump it into a wave pool or something, and my job would not have been happy with that at all.

But since I do not have any pictures of Phil and I arriving at Blizzard Beach, please to enjoy this shot of a cute dog on a Slip 'n Slide!

Alllrighty then.

So anyway, we thought it was going to be completely dead at this park. After all, who the heck goes to a water park on a Monday in early June before schools are out? I would think - no one!!

But it was MOBBED!!!!! We could not believe it. And did not know what to do. Because each line to each slide was like 45 minutes or longer in wait times, and....um...no.....we were not into that.

So we decided to go in the wave pool.

But of course, I have no pictures of that. So please to enjoy this picture of dogs in a wave pool (what the?!?!?!?!?)

I have no ideas where this is, but seriously, what the?!?!

Anyway, the wave pool at Blizzard Beach was fun, but then it was time to do a few water slides after all. We figured that we might as well just take that sky-way thing up to the mountain and wait in some lines up there to at least get down one or two slides. I found this pic, and this is what we rode. Very fun.

Then it was time to go down some slides. I do not have any pictures of us going down these slides, so please to enjoy this picture of a dog having fun on a slide.

Okay then.

So, because our livers were not quite destroyed yet, it was time for a drink.

We went here and had a couple of extremely weak frozen margaritas.

Why is it so deserted in this stock web pic? Spooky.

Then we went in the lazy river for a round trip.....since I do not have any pictures of this, please to enjoy a photo of Phil and I ridiculously dressed as Michael and John from Peter Pan at Mickey's Not So Scary party in 2013:

Yeah, this report has officially jumped the shark.

So, after the lazy river, we decided it was high time the get the @@#$#$@%% out of there before our skin was burned to death, and that is just what we did.

Coming soon, I will tell you all about Via Napoli, and then, unfortunately, that's kind of the end of the trip.

 

[BuddyThomas]

PART - THE END

So this is pretty much it, you guys.

We got back from Blizzard Beach, had a quick dip in the pool, and then headed back to EPCOT.

Here is Phil and guess what he felt he was entitled to right after drink around the world day:

Uh. huh. Again, I am not innocent either. I had the same in my non picture taking hand.

Now I need your help.

What is this???

They had this all gated off and all of a sudden while we were waiting for our Via Napoli reservation, they herded like 100 or more people into this pen and they all attacked this dessert thing like they were vultures. I am guessing this was some sort of Illuminations dessert party but I have not read anything about that so just asking.

Moving on - We finally got our buzzer called for Via Napoli.

I have to tell you something about this before we go there. Phil and I are really ridiculous pizza snobs- but that is only because we have discovered what we feel is the most amazing pizza in the world, and that is Salvatores in Port Washington, NY (Long Island). This pizza is absolutely, unbelievably, insanely incredible, and Phil and I can be found there pretty much every Saturday night. So if anyone wants to assassinate us for this trip report (BuzzKillington????) that is where you will find us. Hopefully you will let us live, though, and continue to ingest pizza as long as our arteries will tolerate it.

So okay, here we are in Via Napoli:

And so we ordered a large pie with mushrooms and diced tomatoes (the menu's description, not ours):

Here is the pizza that arrived:

So, the diced tomatoes, listed on the menu, were really just cherry tomatoes that were cut into halves. There was very little sauce on the pie, and when our very nice waiter followed up and asked if everything was okay, we asked for some extra sauce on the side, and he basically looked at us like we had three heads, went away, and never came back until the check was presented. Grrrrr.

However, complaints aside, this is very good pizza. It might not be exactly what you are used to or what you expect, but it is quality pizza and I am glad we went there.

So then, we headed back to the Boardwalk Villas for the last time. Here is our grainy shot of the Dance Hall as we approached:

And on our way back to the room, Phil decided to have a conversation with a chair:

And, that's pretty much it, folks. If you want, here is the depressing morning picture while we waited for our car service to arrive the next day:

But I am not complaining about anything. This was a truly amazing trip that came together only because of a number of unexpected things, including an unexpected bonus at work, and a couple of other things too boring to discuss. There was great weather, we got upgraded to the most amazing suite ever, and it did NOT have an energy efficient air conditioner --------and although the parks were was a little more crowded than I was expecting, it was still incredibly fun. I cannot possibly imagine when we would ever be able to get back and do Disney the way we did it here, but one never knows, and so I have hopes to be back before too long.

As an epilogue, I might just add that this little guy was not too happy that we left him alone for five days - He had a cat sitter, but he did not appreciate it at all, and when I went to pet him, he slashed me right across the arm - clearly, he did not appreciate being left alone with a cat sitter while we were riding Space Mountain:

As you can see, he's a drunk too!




In the meantime, thank you to each and every one of you who has read this crazy report. As a playwright who has not written a play in quite a few years, your likes here have actually inspired me more than I was expecting, and maybe I will finally get to work on a new play. Again, I really appreciate all the great comments.

Have a great rest of 2015 everyone, and I am sure I will see you on other threads until the next trip.

 

[Raven66]

I enjoyed reading your trip report a lot. It was entertaining and very funny. You all look like you had a wonderful trip. Our cats always scream at us when we get back. Just following us around the house giving us grief. And if we were there that whole time we would have been ignored by them so WTH? haha

 

[catmom46]

It's over??? Maybe you could crowdfund another trip so we can all enjoy another TR sooner rather than later! Or write the next great (gay) American play. (gasp! I said the g-word!)

However it happens, I do hope it won't take long for you and Phil to make it back out there. Although I'm sure your livers wouldn't mind the break. Oh wait, I forgot they've run off…

Anyway, thanks so much for such a fabulous TR and yes, we will see you on the other threads! Bravo!

P.S. It definitely looks like your kitty is shooting you death daggers from his eyes in that pic. Chilling.

 

[Figgy1]

It's over??? Maybe you could crowdfund another trip so we can all enjoy another TR sooner rather than later! Or write the next great (gay) American play. (gasp! I said the g-word!)

However it happens, I do hope it won't take long for you and Phil to make it back out there. Although I'm sure your livers wouldn't mind the break. Oh wait, I forgot they've run off…

Anyway, thanks so much for such a fabulous TR and yes, we will see you on the other threads! Bravo!

P.S. It definitely looks like your kitty is shooting you death daggers from his eyes in that pic. Chilling.

What she said!

 

[Figgy1]

Thank you for an amazing TR it was almost a s good as being there! I am so going to miss the anticipation of the next chapter and hearing a bout the state of your livers! BTW how are they doing now that you're home? Until next time xoxoxo Figgy

 

[DVCPluto]

Fun report! Thanks for sharing!!

Our cat cries non-stop when we return after a trip. But, I'll take that over being slashed. Yikes! Hope he's forgiven you.

 

[LisaBelle]

So sad your TR has come to an end. The belly laughs and escape from the real world were much needed right now. Thanks for sharing and I hope you and Phil are able to return to WDW soon!

 

[sheriffwoody]

Thanks for writing this! It was fun to live vicariously through the two of you.

 

[Doc Disney]

I think that picture of Phil with Aurora is my favorite picture I have ever seen!!! Thank you so much for sharing your TR! I loved it!!!

 

[LAKid53]

PART TWO

Sorry for the delay, everyone. I've been swamped at work.

Before I go any further, there are a few points I wanted to mention that I didn't talk about in the initial report:

1. The weather overall for this trip was absolutely, unbelievably amazing. The temperatures were very hot during each mid-day, but I was very pleasantly amazed by how nice and cool and breezy and non-humid it was late afternoons and nights. I was expecting to sweat to death and that just did not happen at all. There were two monster storms, one of which I videoed and will post here later, but overall, it was just great.

2. Our newly renovated Boardwalk Villa did NOT have an energy efficient air conditioner!! To which I say, HURRAY!!! This was my pet peeve at Yacht Club a few years ago. The air in that place would shut off it it did not sense any movement, which meant that we woke up in a pool of sweat every night at 3AM. This new Villa had an old fashioned air conditioner, and we were able to keep it on high freeze for the entire trip.

So anyway, onward with the rest of the trip, beginning where we left off, when we were about to be seated at California Grill. They gave us one of those beeper things with all the flashing lights, and we decided to try to belly up to the barView attachment 97147 while we were waiting. Unfortunately, there was no room at the inn:

Luckily, just as we were about to squeeze in and have a drink, our buzzer went off, and it was time for our $300 dinner!!!

Let's just say that it was a really wonderful experience overall. We did not get put at the best table. In fact, if you look at the below picture of Phil eating a sushi appetizer, you will see my delightful view of the service kitchen:

View attachment 97148

But hey, who cares when the food is this good? I had the gnocchi, and as you can see, I hated it.

View attachment 97149

Ugh,. That shirt! I feel like I was at the prom and got a bucket of pig blood dumped on me. What was I thinking? Luckily, we had a lot of wine at Cali Grill, and so I had forgotten that I was wearing the pig blood shirt. Here is just some of the wine we had:

View attachment 97150

I got tired of Phil taking pictures of my insane shirt, so this happened:

View attachment 97151


And then, it was time for Wishes. Look, I'm a big cheese ball, and I have to admit that I could not believe that I was actually in the California Grill watching Wishes. Phil could care less, but if I am going to be honest, I think I shed a tear or two during wishes, especially since the weather was so stunningly and unexpectedly beautiful. Anyway, since I refused to let my tear stained cheesy face and blood stained Carrie White shirt be photographed, here is Phil enjoying Wishes. Please note his gigantic glass of wine:

View attachment 97152


This was one of the most incredible nights of my life. And we were just getting started. Of course, as soon as the fireworks ended, almost everyone left the California Grill, and we were faced with our usual dilemma: Being the last ones in the restaurant.

Phil and I have a curse. No matter what time we go to dinner, we are always the last people in the restaurant. Which I hate. Because I was a waiter for many years, and I hate the feeling that the staff is just tapping their foot waiting for you to leave. I did not think we could possibly have closed down the California Grill, but we could have, and we did!!

View attachment 97153

Ugghhhhhhh, that shirt!. I am going to burn it as soon as I log off. Anyway, we wandered around Cali for a while after dinner, which, by the way, clocked in (with 20% tip) at $296.00 instead of my projected $300 (hurray! We saved four bucks!!). Then we got in a cab and headed back to Boardwalk.

It was after 11PM when we got back, but we were far from done. Now was time for Atlantic Dance Palace and Jellyrolls, which I will get to in the next post.

And that $4 would have gone towards the purchase of a Mickey Ice Cream....

 

[LAKid53]

The. Best. Trip. Report. Ever. And you win the Oscar for the Best Crazy/Stupid Thing I Did At Disney for locking yourself naked out of your hotel room in the wee hours. Fear of locking myself out of an unfamiliar hotel room, naked or otherwise, is why I now travel with a nightlight. Also prevents that semi-comatose run-in with furniture....

You guys are a blast! and I want to ditch my group and travel with you. But not sure I could keep up with Phil and his dancing skills, lol.

 

[meganwdw]

Hands down, my favorite trip report!!! I have laughed and giggled at all your shenanigans!!! Thanks so much for sharing!