First off, I'd like to say that my thoughts go to all the people on the East Coast affected by Hurricane Sandy. Living on the Gulf Coast, we've had our share of tropical storms and hurricanes and I know from experience that the mayhem is not over after the hurricane leaves town. Thank God, we've never lost a home due to a hurricane but they can do some damage and the aftermaths I find to be more traumatic than the storm itself.
The hurricane which taught me that was Hurricane Ike a few years back. We were in the last 15% to get their electricity back. It took 2 weeks. Well, 15 days to be exact. It was no picnic, and even our animals were having a hard time of it. (Hurricane aftermaths around here are miserable because it's so hot and humid. It wouldn't have been so bad if the temps were cool).
All this coverage on Hurricane Sandy has made me look back on our own storms, particularly of Ike. Hurricane Ike did horrible damage in the Galveston areas. We were really lucky compared to them, as the hurricane itself didn't do much damage at our house. When we were without electricity for those 2 weeks (almost had to cancel our Disney trip), we heard on the radio just how bad it was there but it wasn't until I saw THESE photos of the devastation that I understood. The craziest photos I saw were later, of an alligator on the road and then a Texas longhorn wandering a debris-littered stretch of beach. People so often forget about the animals during these hurricanes.
There are a lot of amazing videos of Ike on YouTube, but here are just a few. (It's no secret that I'm a weather nut, so showing only these videos was a little difficult to manage. I'm pathetic that way).
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I hope to not experience another one anytime soon. As I said, around here it's the aftermath - having no air conditioning for weeks on end - that isn't fun. I know this sounds dramatic, but it really did feel like the world had forgotten us and that it would be several months before the electricity was turned back on. The information you hear on the radio, and then from word-of-mouth never matches up. What was so frustrating for us was that half of our neighborhood got their electricity back within a few days, while the other half - including us - had to wait 2 weeks.
So.... I know it's Halloween and it's supposed to be a fun day that brings back the nostalgia of being a kid again... and while you should still have a great holiday this evening, just please remember those on the East Coast who have lost everything.
I have to wish a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my aunt!
That's right, being born on Halloween. How fun is that?! There are a lot of October birthdays in our family, many which share their birthdays. (For instance, my brother shares a birthday with his cousin. Of course, this sharing of birthdays in this family is common not only in October).
Did you hear the HUGE announcement last night? Thanks to $4.05 billion dollars (that makes my head spin) Disney now owns Lucasfilm, including Industrial Light and Magic, Skywalker Sound and Lucas Arts. They even own the Indiana Jones Franchise.
On the one hand, I'm shocked Lucas did this.
If you know his personality, hearing this news gives you a serious moment. Yet on the other hand, I'm not surprised seeing how Lucas's favorite place is Disney World and that over the years he and Disney have had a positive working relationship with The Hollywood Studios theme park.
But wait, there's more news to share. And to me it's GREAT! Yesterday morning, we lived in a world where there was no hope ever of there being any new Star Wars films, but now they've announced there will be a new Star Wars film released in 2014!!!! They plan on making Episodes 7, 8 and 9.
And SW naysayers, please don't whine to me about how much you hated the prequels. While they certainly weren't perfect, you have to remember that they are first and foremost meant to be campy children's/family movies, and a lot of people out there accept that and still enjoy them. I was... AM...still extremely PO-ed that Lucas took liberties in changing when Padme's death occurred. I still think this is inexcusable, but in the end no one can argue with the hard fact that this man has changed how movies are created. He's the mastermind behind all that technological advancement that we see in movies today. The man is a true innovator, just like Walt Disney, so I think him "selling out" as some folks are saying was actually a great idea.
And I've discovered that people - especially die hard Star Wars fans - are very unforgiving and critical of Lucas. I can understand being upset over certain things in the prequels, and of Lucas refusing to put the original trilogy on dvd before he made all those updates. (I'm in the same camp, by the way. In a lot of ways I actually prefer the original/unchanged trilogy.. especially the end of ROTJ. I hated how they changed the music and replaced Older Anakin with Young Anakin).
Thanks to Lucas selling his rights to Disney, however, maybe now we actually have some hope of those originals being released. I certainly hope they will. I can't imagine them being so ridiculous as to not, as clearly there's A LOT of money for them to make in doing so. The classic, diehard fans have been extremely vocal about this and I agree with them 1,000%!
And ahem.... remember how I mentioned people sharing birthdays in this family? Well, I don't share mine with anyone but I DO share it with the plaided one himself, George Lucas.
That's always been the only good thing about my birthday.
I'm going to have to take A LOT of photos of our decorations tonight. Halloween is a big deal around our house. People tell us that they come to our house every year just to see the decorations and take pictures in our yard.
They do the same at Christmas, but decorating for Halloween is the most fun!
We did get rid of a lot of our Halloween stuff last year, but I still think it's going to look great. There are a few things we wanted to add at the last minute - we seem to do this every year - but unfortunately the people that are supposed to be delivering our new mattress and box springs today are running late. We caught them in a lie about their delivery start time. They were SUPPOSED to be here from 8 - Noon.
I really despise when people think only their time is valuable and not their customer's. And this isn't free delivery either. They're being paid for a service which they aren't upholding on their end.
So folks... beware of having anything from SAMS Warehouse delivered. The head hancho my mother spoke to was very nice, and Mom said she could tell the guy was really upset, but their delivery people need a firm kick in the pants. Thanks to this particular experience - and one in the past which we've ignored - we're through with them. Even when the mattress was ordered at the store, the manager working the cashier first asked us to STAND IN LINE A SECOND TIME for him to ring up the order.
This was one l-o-n-g line, too. Thankfully, his brain registered that he was about to lose a sale because he rang it up himself anyway.
Boy have I rambled today, but in my defense I'm not feeling well and I'm stuck at the house waiting for the delivery guys to show not show up... when there are errands to run. So other than needing to run errands and not being able to, there's not much to do since last night was when I did the last of the re-organizing in my bedroom, the guest bedroom and my bathroom cabinets.
Although I am seriously thinking of putting up the Christmas Village early. We have people spending the night the day before Thanksgiving, and it takes such a long time to put up all our decorations. I can't have them here and NOT have our Christmas tree and village up. And our tree takes so long to decorate. We have so many ornaments, so our tree is always a popular spectacle around here. It's worth it in the end, but putting it up is such a chore. I think climbing Mount Everest without oxygen would be easier.
UPDATE:
After waiting longer than the 4 hour window, putting off errands, and having to keep the animals in one of the rooms with us so that they'll already be together once that doorbell rang and the breaking-the-sound-barrier-barking-fest began.... the delivery guys FINALLY arrived close to 2:30 in the afternoon. They take the box springs and mattress up the stairs (no set up involved with their fee), and they leave only for us to discover that they DELIVERED THE WRONG MATTRESS!
Ugh!!!! How could the people that load the truck do that? It isn't like SAMS has a lot of mattress brands to choose from. To my knowledge, they only have something like 2 or 3. Can they read English? Apparently, these people are exactly like our mailman that's always delivering the wrong mail. They're probably related.
It really is Halloween, because steam is coming out my ears and I can feel horns growing on my head.
And now for more Halloween goodies! I never did use all my Halloween-themed headers, so I guess I'm trying to make it up to myself through videos.
I hear that Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party is sold out for tonight. I wish I was there right now! Would you know I dreamed about Disney the other day? It was so simple, too. I was with my mother and brother, and at Aloha Isle I was trying the Pineapple Float instead of the Pineapple Dole Whip.
See? The rumors are right. Those drinks/ice cream alone are part of the whole Disney Experience. They really are that delicious!
And now I'm thinking of their cheese fries, too. Make it stop!
All these soft openings this week at Disney World, for the new Fantasyland, are making me miss Disney so much. Not only that, but if Mom and I were going back this year we would be there RIGHT NOW!
Most of our Disney trips used to take place during either Spring Break or Summer, but our first visit to Walt Disney World in October was back in 2008. (We went for Mom's birthday, which is October 19th). We loved it so much that we returned for Mom's birthday again in 2009. We've even decided that from now on we'll always go in October.
To cope with my "homesickness" for the happiest place on Earth I've decided it's time to preserve my old Disney report from our 2008 trip. It's taken from my old blog, so I'll just copy/paste snippets of it below. (We returned in 2009, too. I can't recall if I wrote about that trip though. That's the trip where I got sick for the last 2 days... and then had a terrible cough for 2 months. No joke, 2 months. I'm pretty sure I caught it on the plane).
Anyway, this will not be an entertaining report with awesome video to match so read at your own risk. Even the digital camera we had back then was pretty bad. I'm really only including this here on this recent blog to preserve it for myself.
~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~
Oct 17-21, 2008
So our trip is officially over. It was planned for 6 months and almost had to be canceled twice, but early afternoon on October 17th my shoes stepped on Main Street USA! This was my 10th trip. (The last time I was there was back in 2002). This time it was just Mom and myself at The Happiest Place on Earth; that magical place where Disney staff are called "Cast Members," and when you're asked to sign the bill they ask for your "autograph" and not a signature. So cute!
The 19th was her birthday (the night of Mickey's Halloween Party), so the entire trip she got to wear a special birthday button. She received LOTS of birthday wishes from the Cast Members. One night, at the Pirates ride, we got an entire boat to ourselves! She received a free popcorn every time she ordered some, received a birthday cupcake during our dinner before Fantasmic, was surprised with birthday balloons and a card signed by Mickey and the rest of the gang, received a phone call from Goofy inside one of the shops on Main Street (I missed this, as I was filming the marching band outside), and received a free Tinkerbell Disney pin.
What's really strange is that when we entered the park one evening, I saw another cast member doing pin trading. I decided to trade for the Captain Hook pin, but then saw a Tinkerbell one. I almost traded for the Tink one, but I could hear Mom telling me - "No, Hook! You have to get Hook!" So I got Hook, and it's a good thing too because Mom's free pin that she was given for her birthday just an hour later was THE SAME TINK PIN I almost traded for.
In Hollywood Studios, one of the "celebrities" riding down Hollywood Blvd. in a motorcar shouted - "Happy Birthday, Peggy!" After that, whenever there was a show going on she'd hide her birthday button.
And my brother and his wife arranged for a little birthday cake to be sent to the room. It was such a sweet thing that they did, and the cake was really good. The sprinkles on it were Mickey Mouse shaped. It was so exciting entering the room, tired and sore, only to be greeted by birthday balloons, chocolate cake and a card signed by Mickey and the gang. That afternoon it was dessert first, lunch second. No complaints here!
It was so much fun seeing the additions to POTC. Seeing that Davy Jones waterfall right before the big drop was so cool! We rode The Haunted Mansion A LOT, too. A couple times we got on the ride with no wait at all. (Tip: When the park first opens, take the train to Frontier Land and then head straight for HM. Everyone's up front then, so if you start at the back you'll get on HM without problem). One time, when you exit the gallery and enter the boarding area of the ride, the butler was standing right behind me. When I turned, we were face-to-face. (Unfortunately, I wasn't spooked by it b/c I saw him in the corner of my eye first). But I love when they do that, and always wonder how they can keep such a straight face and act all scary-like and somber. When my sister was a teenager, one of the butler's did that to her. He spoke like Dracula and said, "Will you marry me?" I love those guys! The cast member standing behind me that time is in the video below:
This show was amazing. There were parts of it that were awesome, but I think I enjoyed the atmosphere even more. The kids in the audience would become so excited once their favorite Disney character came along. One little girl shouted "There's Belle!" and then sighed and oow-ed and aww-ed. When Belle and the Beast's lighted float turned the corner, she shouted "Good Job, Belle!" It was so adorable!!!!! And the two little boys in the row ahead of us were always whooping and hollering, and when Mickey was almost attacked by that giant cobra and was acting so frightened, some little boy kept shouting at Mickey to "Look out! Look out!" And in the finale, when Mickey is at the top of the mountain, but the next second is at the bottom, the kids behind me said - "Whoaaa." That show felt so real to the little ones. I loved feeling their excitement.
Mom and I had dinner reservations before Fantasmic. It was Hollywood and Vine. Well, their "buffet" was A JOKE. I even heard some woman at our hotel complaining about it to someone over the phone. These were expensive reservations and the "buffet" was not a buffet in the slightest. There was hardly any food at all, and not much at all to choose from. I mean HARDLY ANYTHING to choose from. Also, the reservations were supposed to aid in securing you a seat for Fantasmic afterward. Well, we saw people that didn't even make reservations entering the stadium the same time as us. Mom was really put off by that. I was too. They're advertising one thing, but it's a lie. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Disney and will always go back, but having been a visitor since the 1980's I can definitely see that Disney isn't on the top of their game like they used to be. And while the parks are still clean, they're not nearly as clean as they used to be. (Everything freshly painted, replanting flowers at 2 am, and once so little as a popcorn kernel drops to the ground someone is there to sweep it up immediately). Little things like that are becoming scarcer, so I fear for how it will be a decade or so from now.
Odd note about an experience before Fantasmic: We were lined up to enter the stadium when a cop there told us we couldn't sit down on that empty bench across from us b/c it was an exiting area for people leaving The Beauty and The Beast stage show.
Err.... okay, that makes absolutely no sense.
Well, it made sense later. It was just a really bad lie made up on the spot. Someone left a large black backpack over there, and they were taking precautions. A few minutes later a bomb sniffing dog was sent to check it out. It turned out to be nothing, but I am more than a little unnerved that if they suspected it might be a bomb to nuke us all to Kingdom Come... why allow people and their children to stand just a few feet away from it? I guess they were trying to avoid a panic, but come on... if lives are possibly at stake, let us decide for ourselves whether we want to risk being obliterated by a bomb or not. And another thing... we were speaking to this very nice family while in line. One lady was in a wheelchair, and they had gotten there ahead of the crowd, but when it came time to enter the stadium they wouldn't allow her to enter through the Handicap lane. I felt really sorry for her, because that was just wrong. She was even first in line.
Again, this really is not the norm for Disney but I have to remind myself that even WDW isn't perfect all the time. Still, overall they're pretty darn close to perfect! I can't imagine life without Disney trips even once every decade.
Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party was A BLAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I strongly urge all Disney fans to make reservations for MNSSHP at least once in their lifetime. The parks were much more crowded than I expected for October. (So crowded that our hotel was completely booked and - for the time ever - when we arrived that first day, our room wasn't going to be ready until 3 - 5 pm). I expected the Halloween party crowd to me monstrous. Surprising to me, the crowd dwindled down a lot for that. We didn't even have to fight for a good seat to the "Boo To You" parade and "Hallowishes" fireworks. If we had wanted front row seats, we could have obtained them very easily. Even without rushing to find the perfect seat for the fireworks, we found one. We sat at the courtyard in front of Cinderella's Castle, right there on that circular bench. I had pinched a nerve in my back this trip, so even though the seat wasn't made for back support, I was grateful.
My Disney Miracle: They say a person averages 5 - 7 miles of walking a day per each park. (So with a Park Hopper pass, that's A LOT of miles). Out of all the members in my family, I have always been the one to suffer the most with blisters on my feet every Disney trip. They were so bad that oftentimes I'd have to go back to the hotel to "recover" a bit. But during this, my 10th trip....... NOT ONE BLISTER, thanks to my new pair of 'New Balance' shoes! I'm telling ya, it was a miracle!!!! Of course, I still had the pinched nerve in my back but at least my feet did well. The pain in my legs and ankles weren't too bad either. (Poor Mom is the one that suffered with blisters this time Switching to her tennis shoes that second day was what did it).
But back to the Halloween party.... the parade was fun, but OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Hallowishes fireworks is even more amazing in person. They were the best I've seen at Disney World, EVER! It was just perfect. Before the parade and fireworks, there was dancing at Ariel's Grotto. There were a lot of little children dancing with their Daddy's. Mom and I fell in love with a father-son duo, both dressed in full Cowboy gear. The dad even had two six-shooters at his side! A lot of people dressed up, not just the kids. The most common costumes that night were Pirate costumes. We saw A LOT of pirates. Even a Hon Solo, and get this - a man (with a mustache) dressed as Snow White. Lol!
And the weather... some days it was very HOT, but there were 2 nights - one of which was the night of the Halloween party - that the weather was actually cold! It took 10 trips for me to be able to pack jeans and a light sweater to Disney World. That chilly weather made MNSSHP even more festive.
As for the hotel we stayed in, that would be The Wilderness Lodge. My mother has stayed there before, but that was about a decade ago. This hotel is BEAUTIFUL and so relaxing and so massive, but I have to say that while the room was nice the bathroom was not. I was very disappointed with that because again... this isn't typical of Disney. This was a first for us. Their housekeeping was s-l-o-w, too. As in we'll come back from the parks to rest a bit, but their carts are all out in the hallway and we see them working. No biggie, right? We'll just go downstairs and grab a free drink to cool off - free b/c of the mugs you can purchase at your hotel - then head back on up to the room.
WRONG! We waited downstairs once for easily two hours, and still they hadn't gotten to our room. All we needed was for them to clean the bathroom and leave more towels. We wanted to rest in our room for a bit, but that didn't happen many times.
Now, the rest of the staff was perfection. They were so friendly. On our second night there, Mom felt so silly but she couldn't help herself. The air conditioner in our room was so quiet that she couldn't sleep without the noise. (That first night she slept with the television on). So she requested a fan. Funnily enough, the lady at the desk said it's a very common request and that a brand new box fan would be sent up immediately. I thought Mom was going to hug and kiss the lady when it arrived.
Okay, so I am really tired...
... and don't possess the energy to type up everything, so here's the link to my Disney pictures and videos that I uploaded to Photobucket. The video on our big video camera was much better, so until I find a dvd ripper these vids will have to suffice.
CLICK HERE for Pics and Vids of my Disney Trip. Be sure to zoom in on the pictures to view them in their full size. Also, some sections are 2 pages long, but the link to click on that second page is way at the bottom... so be sure to scroll down on some of the pages to see if there's more.
I'll likely come back here - or on the "Ramblings" section - to ramble about Disney pin trading. I think I'm becoming obsessed with that like everyone else now. I even bought a lanyard to wear while there, and let me tell ya-- I felt so hip wearing that thing. I would see other tourists wearing their cool lanyards, and I'd be like - "These are my people. I fit in here."
Another side note: Continental Airlines was AWESOME! The flight to Orlando was late, but still we got there much earlier than expected. I've always known it to take around 2 hours and 15 minutes, but this time we flew from Houston to Orlando in about 1 hour 47 minutes! Never in my life have I arrived by plane so quickly.
I'll post more later.
- Those awesome Disney mugs where you can get free refills at your hotel. Many times I would get hot chocolate. Hot chocolate tastes soooo much better inside a Disney mug when at Disney World. It's true, I swear it!
- No blisters! Yippee!!!
- Birthday surprises for Mom. Oddly enough, the bigger surprises came on her actual birthday. Before that, it was just a lot of "Happy Birthday's."
- Living on burgers and fish. The menu is pretty limited at WDW these days, but the burgers and fries were really good.
- Horrible back pain.
- Three horrid trips to Epcot, but no biggie... lesson learned. We're done with Epcot. We arrived there early, and nothing was open! I've never been to Disney and seen the rides and shops not open until after 11 am.
- Finally riding Soarin' at Epcot, but only because my brother was so incredibly upset that we didn't ride it yet. The ride was fun, I admit, but I'd never stand in a 2 hour line for it. The film was grainy, but it's worth it if you can get into a line that's no more than 40 minutes long.
- Seeing "Push," the talking trashcan in person. We stumbled into him in Tomorrow Land. I wanted to hang around so he would sing 'Happy Birthday' to Mom, but she skedaddled inside the gift shop before that could happen. You can't imagine how excited the kids get around this thing. It's really cute, but the guy doing the voice was really close to everyone. I spotted him immediately.
moment. Yet on the other hand, I'm not surprised seeing how Lucas's favorite place is Disney World and that over the years he and Disney have had a positive working relationship with The Hollywood Studios theme park.
