Walt Disney World Vacation '08 - Day 1 Part 4

We made it back to our resort in plenty of time to be able to make it to Chef Mickey's for dinner. Now, we thought our Longhouse was closer to the TTC (transportation and ticket center) than it was to the Great Ceremonial house. However, since we were at the Polynesian and needed to get to the Contemporary Resort, it made more sense to get the monorail from the 2nd floor of the Poly than to get the monorail from the TTC. Does anyone listen to me? NOOOOO, of course not! Why would they? I mean, I only mentioned that if we got the monorail at the TTC, we'd have to make a stop at the Poly, then the Grand Floridian Resort, then the Magic Kingdom and THEN the Contemporary. Why not get it AT the Poly and avoid a stop?
Okay, whatever, I didn't want to continue arguing, so we trudge down to the TTC and let me just say, the walk wasn't any shorter, in my opinion. Don't forget, I have grandma on a scooter and mom with a bone spur in her heel, walking at a snail's pace. No, not her fault, but you can just imagine how long it took us to walk places. We get the monorail and by this time it's close to 5pm. Monorail stops at the Poly, where we WERE! Monorail stops at the Grand Floridian. Between the GF and MK, the monorail stops because it must wait for clearance to continue on as a safety precaution. So we wait, between the GF and the MK stops. By now I know we're going to be late for our reservation.

Here's me on the monorail, realizing we're going to be late.

The monorail stops at the MK and then continues on, stopping between the MK and Contemporary for the same reason, waiting for clearance. Finally, we get in to the Contemporary. For those of you who don't know, the monorail actually drives IN to the Contemporary Resort so just because we were in doesn't mean we were IN.

Here's a photo I found of the monorail exiting the Contemporary:

I also found someone else's video on YouTube of the monorail entering the Contemporary. Check it out! Monorail in Contemporary

Okay, back to the drama. We stop in the Contemporary and then the monorail shuts down. Yes, completely shuts off. Out go the lights, off goes the air, silence... We sat there a good 5 minutes before everything came back on and the doors finally opened. Yea, now we're freaking late, no doubt about that. I race to the elevator and get my fat ass down to where Chef Mickey's is and go straight to the podium and tell them we've just arrived. Thankfully, all was well and we would still be seated. Whew. So I get in the line that's there and wait my turn. Yes, even if you have a reservation you must still get in line and wait.
Now, let's remember that I have 3 kids, ages 5, 2 1/2 and 18 months old, who just spent an entire day at MK with lots of excitement and not too much food. We picked all day long but this meal was our first sit down meal for the day. Yea, I had cranky kids Dante.
We all felt rushed and flustered and tensions were a bit high from the stress of actually getting to the damn restaurant. We are finally next to be seated. Or are we? Nope! Not yet, first we have to have our picture taken, usually with Mickey but he wasn't there yet (WTF?!) however we still had to have our photo taken, with a plate. Yes, a PLATE.

CJ was bitching under his breath, my mom and grandma avoided it all together.

So, here's the *lovely* photo:

After the photo I complained to my mom, reminding her it was supposed to be a FAMILY photo and she responded with the fact that my grandma didn't want to be in the picture.

As I'm sure you can tell, we were all in a shitty mood by this time and the kids were on their way to meltdown, well, Dante definitely was.
Dante was so whiny and defiant within minutes of us sitting down that CJ actually announced that he was leaving with Dante and going back to the Poly, it was that bad. Personally, I was relieved because I couldn't stand the situation and seeing Dante spiral out of control was affecting all of us.
Shortly after they left we got to see some characters.

Donald Duck:

Minnie:

Now, believe me when I tell you Wyatt was very afraid of the characters. He'd scream at them and then say *bub bye!* and wave. In the photo above, Minnie came up behind him and scared the hell out of him and he screamed.

I actually have video of Wyatt screaming at Mickey!

If you can't see the video, here is the link:
Wyatt Video
By this point CJ and Dante had returned. He had decided to remove Dante from the situation for a while. (Read= he couldn't figure out how to get back on the monorail, LOL)
It was nice to have them back. They were there for the videos we took of Wyatt and then the characters came back around and Dante got to meet them.

Donald Duck:

Goofy:

Mickey!

After dinner we went back to the resort. We were all tired and personally I had had enough for one day. CJ and I wanted to hit the pool in the late evening but that never happened. Seems no one really wanted to watch the kids...so we just went back to the room and called it a night.

The next day was plans for Epcot.
To be continued...