[color=#0]Well, my wife and I decided to go to WDW for a long weekend. We made reservations at the AKL on 9/21/05 and drove down on 9/22/05. The Love Bugs are out now, so I put a few extra coats of wax on the front of the car. It worked perfectly! We ran through some rain showers on I-75 and the Florida Turnpike so by the time we got to WDW, the Love Bugs were all washed away.[/color]
Driving down was not too bad, just the usual assortment of freaks that decide to drive 70 MPH in the left lane. They're easy to dodge. I reported the most egregious to the FHP via cell phone for obstructing traffic and heard on the scanner that 3 of them had indeed been stopped by FHP. Two got verbals but one guy had a revoked DL, so he made a trip to the cross bar motel. I keep *347 (FHP) permanently as a one touch number in my cell phone book.
I parked in the main parking lot at the AKL and went inside with my wife to register. Registration was quick and I went outside to get our bags. As I opened up the trunk of my car, a man came over to me with a set of jumper cables in his hand and asked me if I would jump off his vehicle. I took a quick look at the cable set he had and noticed they were very low grade and inexpensive cables. I told him that I was willing to give him a jump but only if I used my own set of cables. I moved my car over to his vehicle (2004 Toyota Camry) and I pulled out my jumper cables (4 gauge, 16 feet long).
Before I connected the cables, I used a screwdriver to pop off the caps on his battery. I noticed that all 6 cells were low on water and 1 cell was almost completely dry. I keep a gallon of distilled water in my trunk, so I filled up each of his battery cells to the proper level and then jumped his car off. I told him to let his car run at high idle for about 20 minutes to charge up the battery. He and his wife were also guests at the AKL, so I gave him my room number and told him to give me a call if he needed any additional help. I then got our bags and headed for our room!
After we changed clothes and freshened up, we decided we wanted to go to The Mara for dinner. Just a word for those of you that don't know, my wife and I do not eat big meals. We normally eat about 5 or 6 small meals per day. An apple is a good lunch for us! Just as we were about to walk out the door, our room phone rang. We knew our children or family would call via cell phone, so we were a little puzzled about getting a call. It was the guy I had given the help with his car. He invited us to dinner at Jiko! I explained to him that my wife and I are not big eaters (i.e. we could split an appetizer and still have leftovers) but he insisted. I told him my wife had a headache, so perhaps another time. Thank goodness, he relented.
My wife and I decided to go to DTD and eat at The Earl of Sandwich. We got The Original and split it and I drank a little of The Earl's Grey Lemonade and my wife drank the rest. It was all very good! When you place your order at The Earl of Sandwich and pay, they give you a number and you find a seat and wait until your number is called to pick up your order. It's a good system except that on this trip, some little lady with a small voice was announcing the numbers and no one could hear her! She had 8 orders stacked up and kept yelling them out but her voice was so small even the people directly in front of her couldn't hear her. I started to call out the numbers for her. "213, 214, 216, 217, 215, 218...." Within a few seconds, all the orders had been picked up. The poor lady just wasn't cut out to call out numbers in a loud restaurant!
Another detail about paying for our meal. We had our AKL room key cards set up for all payments while on property. However, I still had some Disney Dollars left over from 2 trips ago that I wanted to spend first. It was $20.00 worth. I gave the Disney Dollars to the lady at the register and she looked back at me and said (with a sarcastic smirk), "Is this real money?" I told her to show it to her manager. After some "examination", my Disney Dollars were approved for my purchase. Those were the last of my Disney Dollars. I plan to never buy them again.
Darn! I forgot to tell you about our drive over to DTD from AKL. Since we had our car, we drove rather than take the bus. Nice drive. I noticed the Hess stations selling gas for $2.58 on 9/22/05. Glad I filled up off property at a BP for $2.48! That reminds me. We got two "free" $25.00 BP gift cards prior to going down to WDW, so our gas was "free". The cards were part of a Winn Dixie promotion. I still have some money left over on one of them. Sorry for the ramble.
After our meal, we strolled around the east side of DTD and checked out some of the jip joints. We then bought several items at World of Disney and decided to go back to AKL. The drive back to AKL was normal and without incident. When we parked at the AKL, I was rather peckish for an orange and some Spanish peanuts. Due to previous planning, I had both commodities in the trunk of my car. I retrieved them and headed for the room. We watched a little TV to see the progress of hurricane Rita and then went to sleep promptly at midnight!
Here is the message I got from my "team" just before midnight on the 22nd;
"The "Team" who is here at the New Orleans Airport this weekend. So we'll be likely leaving too but will probably be able to get another assignment. We just had a rain band come through... Hurricane Rita seems like a bad one & it recently jogged more towards us here in New Orleans. At least the Airport seems like a good place to ride it out. We are in Kenner, actually, & away from the levees & probably far enough from Lake Ponchitrain... Fun & games...."
Driving down was not too bad, just the usual assortment of freaks that decide to drive 70 MPH in the left lane. They're easy to dodge. I reported the most egregious to the FHP via cell phone for obstructing traffic and heard on the scanner that 3 of them had indeed been stopped by FHP. Two got verbals but one guy had a revoked DL, so he made a trip to the cross bar motel. I keep *347 (FHP) permanently as a one touch number in my cell phone book.
I parked in the main parking lot at the AKL and went inside with my wife to register. Registration was quick and I went outside to get our bags. As I opened up the trunk of my car, a man came over to me with a set of jumper cables in his hand and asked me if I would jump off his vehicle. I took a quick look at the cable set he had and noticed they were very low grade and inexpensive cables. I told him that I was willing to give him a jump but only if I used my own set of cables. I moved my car over to his vehicle (2004 Toyota Camry) and I pulled out my jumper cables (4 gauge, 16 feet long).
Before I connected the cables, I used a screwdriver to pop off the caps on his battery. I noticed that all 6 cells were low on water and 1 cell was almost completely dry. I keep a gallon of distilled water in my trunk, so I filled up each of his battery cells to the proper level and then jumped his car off. I told him to let his car run at high idle for about 20 minutes to charge up the battery. He and his wife were also guests at the AKL, so I gave him my room number and told him to give me a call if he needed any additional help. I then got our bags and headed for our room!
After we changed clothes and freshened up, we decided we wanted to go to The Mara for dinner. Just a word for those of you that don't know, my wife and I do not eat big meals. We normally eat about 5 or 6 small meals per day. An apple is a good lunch for us! Just as we were about to walk out the door, our room phone rang. We knew our children or family would call via cell phone, so we were a little puzzled about getting a call. It was the guy I had given the help with his car. He invited us to dinner at Jiko! I explained to him that my wife and I are not big eaters (i.e. we could split an appetizer and still have leftovers) but he insisted. I told him my wife had a headache, so perhaps another time. Thank goodness, he relented.
My wife and I decided to go to DTD and eat at The Earl of Sandwich. We got The Original and split it and I drank a little of The Earl's Grey Lemonade and my wife drank the rest. It was all very good! When you place your order at The Earl of Sandwich and pay, they give you a number and you find a seat and wait until your number is called to pick up your order. It's a good system except that on this trip, some little lady with a small voice was announcing the numbers and no one could hear her! She had 8 orders stacked up and kept yelling them out but her voice was so small even the people directly in front of her couldn't hear her. I started to call out the numbers for her. "213, 214, 216, 217, 215, 218...." Within a few seconds, all the orders had been picked up. The poor lady just wasn't cut out to call out numbers in a loud restaurant!
Another detail about paying for our meal. We had our AKL room key cards set up for all payments while on property. However, I still had some Disney Dollars left over from 2 trips ago that I wanted to spend first. It was $20.00 worth. I gave the Disney Dollars to the lady at the register and she looked back at me and said (with a sarcastic smirk), "Is this real money?" I told her to show it to her manager. After some "examination", my Disney Dollars were approved for my purchase. Those were the last of my Disney Dollars. I plan to never buy them again.
Darn! I forgot to tell you about our drive over to DTD from AKL. Since we had our car, we drove rather than take the bus. Nice drive. I noticed the Hess stations selling gas for $2.58 on 9/22/05. Glad I filled up off property at a BP for $2.48! That reminds me. We got two "free" $25.00 BP gift cards prior to going down to WDW, so our gas was "free". The cards were part of a Winn Dixie promotion. I still have some money left over on one of them. Sorry for the ramble.
After our meal, we strolled around the east side of DTD and checked out some of the jip joints. We then bought several items at World of Disney and decided to go back to AKL. The drive back to AKL was normal and without incident. When we parked at the AKL, I was rather peckish for an orange and some Spanish peanuts. Due to previous planning, I had both commodities in the trunk of my car. I retrieved them and headed for the room. We watched a little TV to see the progress of hurricane Rita and then went to sleep promptly at midnight!
Here is the message I got from my "team" just before midnight on the 22nd;
"The "Team" who is here at the New Orleans Airport this weekend. So we'll be likely leaving too but will probably be able to get another assignment. We just had a rain band come through... Hurricane Rita seems like a bad one & it recently jogged more towards us here in New Orleans. At least the Airport seems like a good place to ride it out. We are in Kenner, actually, & away from the levees & probably far enough from Lake Ponchitrain... Fun & games...."
