We'd planned on meeting for a late-ish dinner on Friday night since we took different flights to Orlando. Unfortunately, three of us got caught in Atlanta for several hours due to rain storms and so were lucky to get to the hotel and to our rooms by midnight on Friday. Lots of planes were delayed in Atlanta and there doesn't seem to be enough chairs at the gates in Atlanta for passengers waiting at the best of times, so we were standing around for nearly three hours. Long travel day and an early start time for the conference the next morning!
After the conference on Saturday, we caught the Disney buses to Downtown Disney and got off at the Marketplace. Lots of restaurants and stores there, along with shows and a ton of things to do. We hadn't made dinner reservations anywhere but decided to go to Cap'n Jack's Restaurant after I saw them advertising crab cakes which I love and everyone humored me-- isn't it great to be a princess? Waits at restaurants tend to be several hours without reservations if you can get in at all, so a word to the wise would be to
Make Reservations! We were able to get in but had a wait of two hours or so. Decided to kill time by taking a boat over to the West Side of Downtown Disney and then walking back. The pager went off right about when we had walked thru the West Side and Pleasure Island and had gotten back to the Marketplace area. Perfect timing.
While looking at the menu at Cap'n Jacks, I actually considered ordering something else but decided not to because we were there because I wanted crab cakes so I ordered them... and they were good. If I were to use my star rating system on Cap'n Jacks, I would give it a 3+ Star rating. Not that a lot of people reading this blog will be going to Disney World soon.. but you never know. The food was good and the company was good too.
On Tuesday night, most of the group went to see the Cirque du Soleil show on the West Side. I didn't have the phone with me when arrangements were being made to get tickets and so decided not to go and sit by myself-- ironic since I entertain myself quite well and don't generally mind sitting on my own. In fact, several friends and I used that as our strategy to get good seats at the Capital Theater for years with our season tickets. I've seen several Cirque du Soleil shows recently though and so Catherine and I came over later, shopped for a while, and then met them for dinner. I made reservations at the House of Blues for dinner after having learned a lesson about the importance of making reservations (which apparently I didn't learn real well as you'll read more about later). But on Tuesday night, it worked great! I really enjoyed this restaurant-- kind of a Southern, soul food establishment with a personable and engaging waiter and nice atmosphere. I had a fried shrimp po'boy served with sweet potato fries and it was really good. There was a dessert on the menu-- a banana bread pudding (with a much fancier name than that)-- which sounded awesome but I wasn't hungry enough to order it. Sad, but true. Even without the dessert, I'd give this restaurant a 4-star review and recommend it to others.
We were able to hit the Magic Kingdom later in the afternoon one day. I had warned the others that I was taking my camera and was more interested in taking pictures than riding lots of rides. Even though I planned to do my own thing, I didn't plan on losing the entire group at the entrance gate. How anti-social is that? I went one way because I had my camera bag that needed to be checked and I never saw the group again for the rest of the day! They went another way and one had a problem with his ticket and so I lost them. After entering the park, I waited for 30 minutes or so right inside the entrance but the parade was starting and it was packed! Not a good time for finding people... I enjoyed watching the parade though and remember marching in it on a high school band trip when we marched in the Orange Bowl parade. Fun going to the Magic Kingdom with 300 other kids! I had also gone with my family when I was 10 and so there were a few familiar rides that I wanted to find while I was there.
What I really wanted to do most though was to practice taking pictures using some of the tips that I learned in the photography workshop that I went to the week before the trip. My goal was to not use the auto-settings on the camera at all and try to get good pictures from just the manual settings alone. I was pleased with how a lot of the pictures turned out-- and very pleased that I never used the auto settings.
After the parade, I wandered over to Adventureland to ride the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean. I got a FastPass for the Jungle Cruise and then waited in line at Pirates. Looking back, I did it all wrong... because once you have a FastPass you can't get another one until after the time on your FastPass is up (and the line at the Jungle Cruise really wasn't all that long-- maybe an hour). A good rule of thumb for next time would be to not get a FastPass if the wait is only an hour. After riding Pirates I went to FrontierLand to decide whether I wanted to ride on Splash Mountain or the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Both of them had lines that were way longer than an hour, and it would have been better to get the pass for one of these rides. By the time I got back to them after riding the Jungle Cruise, the FastPasses were for after 9:00 at night which was when we had planned to meet and eat dinner. The thing that amazed me was that others in our group were able to ride a TON of rides, and many of them multiple times.
We talk a lot about personality styles at work as a means to learn how to interact better with each other and to avoid personalizing comments or actions that aren't meant to be taken that way. I'm predominantly an Analytical-- a style that wasn't that useful in the Magic Kingdom because it took me forever to wander around, gather information, and then plot out my perfect strategy and my strategy turned out to be all wrong! Not easy for an Analytical to take since we like to make sure that things are done right. And then there was the "a ha" moment on the plane coming back where a better strategy came to me. Too little too late! Now the Dominants in the group just ran from one attraction to another and were able to do a lot more. I think the crowds must have just parted for them. I'm sure that they had a plan too... and whatever plan they had worked a lot better.
Early in the evening, after wandering around some more, I decided that I was tired of crowds and lines and went back to the hotel rather than meeting for a late dinner. Ended up being a good decision because I was exhausted anyway and was able to go to bed earlier than the rest of the week. I know.. sounds a little boring.. but I actually did have fun and wouldn't mind going back to the Magic Kingdom on a day when the crowds were a little smaller.
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