An Alphabetical, (Flower and) Garden Variety TR- V is for: Vida la Tucson! TR COMPLETE! (3/14)

[Steppesister]

It looks like it was a very rough travel day. You must have been exhausted from all the moving around. I think I would have been laying on the floor, too. It is too bad that you forgot your charger but at least you had the cord. It's nice that the hotel rooms have the USB ports so that you charge your phone that way.

It really was. I was anticipating that and did my best to plan for it. but man, it sure took a lot out of me. I forget crap all the time. It's a special talent!! And yes, the cord is very important. You'll get to see that particular loss on the next trip, not to spoil or anything.

 

[Steppesister]

Just reading about your travel day gives me sympathy pains. I'm glad you had the time to go slow.

I really am too! I anticipated the extra time I'd need and tried to pace myself. I guess it was just pain that wore me out so badly. More to come on this...

 

[pkondz]

You seem to be the only one that catches those little zingers.

Really? And here I thought I tended to miss those!

Oh, HUH!! I hadn't thought of that! Too bad gov't agencies can't... oh wait.

I can take it or leave it. I'd have been just as happy with a bubbly waster, but I guess I feel a little weird going into a place like that and NOT ordering something.

I'm never bothered by that. If I just want a non-alcoholic bevvie, then that's what I'm gonna get.

Or me. I think you get up earlier for your early shifts, but I am often up at 5 or even 4:30 for mine as well. More often than I'd like, but there's that pesky idiot category.

I don't get up earlier than 5am, usually. But I'm frequently working until 11pm the night before. Makes it tough.

 

[Hubie]

Boy do we agree that there is a mental health crisis, but not just for our youth. Look at what's going on with shootings and on flights in this country. I can understand why people are having mental problems though. We feel like we lost a year and a half of our lives. We were, however, fortunate being retired enabling us to just hunker down. We only had to leave our house to get gas and groceries. Also, where we live in WI, we can walk outside without coming into close contact with anybody. We never had to wear a mask outside. We did, however, terribly miss seeing our family, having coffee/eating out with friends, gym classes, and of course travel. We had to cancel a May 2020 DCL Trans Atlantic Cruise, but fortunately we got all of our money back, including for the flight to Miami and flight back from Barcelona.

Now being vaccinated, things are starting to look up. But I fear the future may never be the same. There are so many outstanding problems facing the world today. Glad you were able to take your trip and good luck on your move.

 

[Steppesister]

Really? And here I thought I tended to miss those!

No, you are one of the ones who reads a bit more carefully and picks them out.

I'm never bothered by that. If I just want a non-alcoholic bevvie, then that's what I'm gonna get.

I guess you're right, but well, it was nearly enough to 5:00 and I WAS on vacation.

I don't get up earlier than 5am, usually. But I'm frequently working until 11pm the night before. Makes it tough.

6 hours of sleep is NOT ENOUGH!!! Life is already far too short and I don't want to make my demise come any sooner with a gross lack of sleep.

 

[Steppesister]

Boy do we agree that there is a mental health crisis, but not just for our youth. Look at what's going on with shootings and on flights in this country. I can understand why people are having mental problems though. We feel like we lost a year and a half of our lives. We were, however, fortunate being retired enabling us to just hunker down. We only had to leave our house to get gas and groceries. Also, where we live in WI, we can walk outside without coming into close contact with anybody. We never had to wear a mask outside. We did, however, terribly miss seeing our family, having coffee/eating out with friends, gym classes, and of course travel. We had to cancel a May 2020 DCL Trans Atlantic Cruise, but fortunately we got all of our money back, including for the flight to Miami and flight back from Barcelona.

Now being vaccinated, things are starting to look up. But I fear the future may never be the same. There are so many outstanding problems facing the world today. Glad you were able to take your trip and good luck on your move.

Perhaps in some ways, the pandemic just served to show humanity's general depravity and loss of humanness. Our temporary losses were indeed great but I do fear for the longer-term losses that, as you too fear, are far, far more reaching. My heart grieves.

I hope you get to travel on that Cruise someday soon as we begin to pick up the pieces of our lives and move forward!

 

[pkondz]

6 hours of sleep is NOT ENOUGH!!! Life is already far too short and I don't want to make my demise come any sooner with a gross lack of sleep.

Tell me about it.

 

[Steppesister]

C is for: Come On Up to Our Room!​

You might think that my room was ready, but that, Dear Reader, would be just silly. And I knew it wouldn't be ready a long time before I arrived. But never fear! My friends are dear and their generosity is at times overwhelming and, because of one of them, I had a plan! Mary Ellen had made many of my arrangements for the trip including booking our room and tickets. It saved me many hours of phone calls and laptop time for which I am very grateful. When I told her my flight info a few weeks before, she was concerned. She knew of my (at the time) upcoming surgery and, as a nurse practitioner herself, she wanted to make sure I was well-cared for. Unexpectedly, she offered to have me crash in her and Denny’s room after I landed to sleep some of the stupor off. I hope you all have a friend or two so generous and kind. The world needs more people like her.


But wait, there’s more!


When I firmed up plans with MEK those few weeks before the trip, I offered to pay for her breakfast at the Trattoria where she and her party were headed to that morning. “No, that’s really sweet, but we’re going to take care of you. What time’s your flight again?”

“6:30.”

“Great, I’ll see you at the airport!”

Say what?! Yep, she really is that kind.

That morning our flight once again was ahead of schedule and instead of 6:30, it landed at 6:00. “Hey, we're just heading to baggage.” “OH $HIT!! I just checked the app, and…. Well, I’ll be there when I can, just heading out from Boardwalk now!” Because she’s a coffee addict she did make sure to mention that she would make time for a K-Cup first. You might be thinking we had to stand around and wait for a long time. If that is the case, you need to refer to Chapters 1 and 2. Yes, my friends, it did indeed take me almost 30 minutes to shuffle my way to the pick up area after waiting for my walker, enlisting others to hoist and heft my bags, and using elevators to get from Point A to Point B. I never thought about how jerky the Fake o’Rail really is until I had to stand on it in a compromised state. In the end, we (Kari and I) only waited about 5 minutes before a very sleepy MEK showed up. “Sorry!! I just didn’t expect you to arrive quite this early!”

Kari hadn’t wanted to join the gang gathering at Trattoria, so we dropped her off at AoA while I dropped dead in MEK and Denny’s room at BWV after breakfast. While I did sleep some on the flight, you all know well the kind of “sleep” one gets on a plane. I was hungry. I hurt all over, so much that I felt a bit ill; no amount of Disney adrenaline was going to do its magic until I found some real estate on a mattress with a fair amount of REM involved. But first, BREAKFAST!!

Here is the view I saw a LOT of most of this trip. Well until my mom got there. But that’s a week from that point in time. For now… I saw a lot of behinds.

​

Know how many cracks the boardwalk has in it? I felt every single one.

ETA: Which was a hilarious way to unintentionally word that when I wrote this. I'm leaving it because I'm immature enough to be giggling at that. You get this unedited version.

Alison (@franandaj) can tell you how it feels to hit them at human-falling-miles-an-hour too.

Slow doesn’t even begin to describe things. At least until I got my scooter, but not yet. For now, it was me, myself, and Roll-y. We got to the Boardwalk and pushing my suitcase on the carpet down the forever-long-hallway took just short of a century. Finally, I made it and I got all of my crap dumped off (which was SUBSTANTIALLY less than what I usually pack) and we headed back down and out to the Boardwalk side. All I can say is, I needed some pain pills. Too bad I didn’t bring very many.

Yep, you heard that right. I didn’t pack enough. Like I threw in 5 or so tabs thinking they’d be for emergencies.


Yes, I’m an idiot.


There I said it.


It honestly was a combination of “I’ll be fine with mostly Tylenol; it’s been 2 weeks.” and “I’ll set the bottle out and decide at the last minute”, then sauntered (gingerly!) making my way out the door. I guess it’s one of those painful “hindsight” moments with colossal consequences. Luckily, I’d packed a bit of my sleep aid and some Tylenol in addition to the few oxy, but clearly what I had packed wasn’t going to be enough. Ah well. Maybe breakfast would help.

I’ve been to Trattoria a couple times for dinner and the best I can give it is a solid, MEH. Not great, not inedible. When MEK said that’s where they were going though, I joined in, grateful they like me enough to include me. It wasn’t busy at all, with maybe 1/3 of the un-socially-distanced tables full. Love the open kitchen as always.

​

My appetite wasn’t up to its usual Disney par; nevertheless, I ordered the heaviest breakfast on the menu- Poached Eggs, Fennel Sausage, Creamy Polenta, Pomodoro Sauce, Parmesan and Toasted Crostini $13.00. I ate maybe ¼ of it.

​

Someone else got the breakfast pizza which is what I WISHED I'd gotten.

​

My condition was a mood-killer. But sleep should help. The others were quite chatty- some of you might remember Danielle Voss from the Boards? It was her, and her mom, and a friend of hers. Everyone was super welcoming and sweet and, while I was enjoying myself, I was grateful when I paid the bill and it was time to head upstairs to tuck into a bed. Which I did. MEK bid me goodbye for their own plans at a park and gave me instructions to leave the key and head out whenever I wanted. I don’t remember anything else until 3:00 or something. I took a quick shower (LOL! quick is so relative!) and shortly after they came back. I enjoyed the view for a few minutes too!

(What a room!)​

They offered to drive me over to AoA which was SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPER nice. Like. Super. Because any minimizing of luggage handling was probably in my best interest, I accepted. We hugged goodbye and parted ways and I headed to luggage services where my scooter was waiting…. I’ll leave off here with some good news and some bad news….. I mean what could possibly go wrong?!

I apologize for the lack of photos in this chapter! It does get MUCH better!! Promise! This day I was a little preoccupied and tired.

Next up: D is for: Dinner at Downtown Disney!

 

[Malia78]

Meanwhile...Kari opted out of breakfast and graciously accepted the early drop off at Art of Animation. The lobby was pretty empty at that hour and she was immediately welcomed at the desk. After some friendly chatter and story swapping, the cast member surprised her with some delightful news...Tinkerbell had just finished a fly by blanketing us with a generous amount of pixie dust--an upgrade to a Nemo suite available right now!!

Not one to turn her nose up at that offer, Kari accepted and walked right back to bell services with a room number. Plenty of time to leisurely unpack, take a rest and hit up Epcot for some food the rest of the afternoon.

Back to your regularly scheduled Steppe report...

 

[Steppesister]

Meanwhile...Kari opted out of breakfast and graciously accepted the early drop off at Art of Animation. The lobby was pretty empty at that hour and she was immediately welcomed at the desk. After some friendly chatter and story swapping, the cast member surprised her with some delightful news...Tinkerbell had just finished a fly by blanketing us with a generous amount of pixie dust--an upgrade to a Nemo suite available right now!!

Not one to turn her nose up at that offer, Kari accepted and walked right back to bell services with a room number. Plenty of time to leisurely unpack, take a rest and hit up Epcot for some food the rest of the afternoon.

Back to your regularly scheduled Steppe report...

YES!!! I"m sooooooooooooooo glad you chimed in and shared our good news!! You texted me at some point, but I think (?) I didn't see it until I woke up? Maybe? Or during breakfast? Either way, it was good news. Mostly. But I'll get to that... I was sad you didn't join us, but it did turn out well and we didn't have that atrocious walk from the next zip code every time from the Little Mermaid room.

 

[CruellaNY]

Well I don't think anyone would disagree that you earned that Mimosa flight and wine- although you kinda earned it after the fact lol. Like knew there was more to come

Now see Trattoria is actually our fave breakfast on property! But if I were in your shoes (or roller) on that particular day I probably wouldn't have been overly excited about the meal, I'd just be thinking of bed after!

and the most “exhilarating” pat down I’ve had in a while.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Mary Ellen had made many of my arrangements for the trip including booking our room and tickets. It saved me many hours of phone calls and laptop time for which I am very grateful. When I told her my flight info a few weeks before, she was concerned. She knew of my (at the time) upcoming surgery and, as a nurse practitioner herself, she wanted to make sure I was well-cared for. Unexpectedly, she offered to have me crash in her and Denny’s room after I landed to sleep some of the stupor off.

Mary Ellen went above and beyond for you. I don't know what you would have done if she hadn't offered to pick you up and give you a place to crash.

 

[cajunfan]

People (me) often over-estimate their strength and pain level tolerance after surgery. It truly just zaps you. Glad you finally had some good rest and hopefully the good news well out weighs any bad news.

Can't wait to read more!

 

[Steppesister]

Well I don't think anyone would disagree that you earned that Mimosa flight and wine- although you kinda earned it after the fact lol. Like knew there was more to come

Oh there's so much more. :/

Now see Trattoria is actually our fave breakfast on property! But if I were in your shoes (or roller) on that particular day I probably wouldn't have been overly excited about the meal, I'd just be thinking of bed after!

Didn't it used to be the Rapunzel one? I don't know if the menu is the same from when it was a character breakfast? I guess for me it was a couple things: the restaurant always seems a bit loud and I just don't love the decor, but the bigger issue was how I was feeling and I just wasn't in the mood to eat, to the food probably didn't taste as good as I would have to me in normal circumstances. The polenta was super bland and really needed some cheese or something cooked into it. If I was staying the BW, I WOULD go get that pizza and have it to go and take it to my room though and eat it on a balcony.

 

[Steppesister]

Mary Ellen went above and beyond for you. I don't know what you would have done if she hadn't offered to pick you up and give you a place to crash.

OH she sure did! She and I get along so well and have so much fun together.

My plan before I talked with her was to go find a lounge chair by the pool and just stack some towels on it and try to sleep. I think that would have worked ok. Hmmm, now that I think about it, the pools don't open until 10:00, so I guess just a bench in the lobby?

 

[Steppesister]

People (me) often over-estimate their strength and pain level tolerance after surgery. It truly just zaps you. Glad you finally had some good rest and hopefully the good news well out weighs any bad news.

I do for sure. I went back to work at 4 weeks. Most definitely should have taken 5 or 6 but $$$$. It's astounding how much it took out of me, but by 3 weeks, I really turned the corner and things were better by a lot each day.

Can't wait to read more!

It's so great you're here and commenting.

 

[CruellaNY]

Didn't it used to be the Rapunzel one? I don't know if the menu is the same from when it was a character breakfast? I guess for me it was a couple things: the restaurant always seems a bit loud and I just don't love the decor, but the bigger issue was how I was feeling and I just wasn't in the mood to eat, to the food probably didn't taste as good as I would have to me in normal circumstances. The polenta was super bland and really needed some cheese or something cooked into it. If I was staying the BW, I WOULD go get that pizza and have it to go and take it to my room though and eat it on a balcony.

OK the BW pizza is the one thing all 4 of us have sworn we will never ever ever eat again if our lives' depend on it lol!
It did used to be Rapunzel; and I think some of the food is the same like the pancakes but they've just un-characterized the dish names. We always get the pancakes which are super duper fluffy and the omelet minus the Sunday gravy and they are fantastic as are their Mimosas.

However once characters are back we won't be so by then I hope Boma is open which was our previously favorite breakfast on property pre-COVID!

 

[disneyAndi14]

Unexpectedly, she offered to have me crash in her and Denny’s room after I landed to sleep some of the stupor off. I hope you all have a friend or two so generous and kind. The world needs more people like her.

Ahh this was so nice I was wondering how you were going to sleep in the lobby on a couch, yikes.

Great, I’ll see you at the airport!”

Say what?! Yep, she really is that kin

Wow that was so nice for you

Yes, my friends, it did indeed take me almost 30 minutes to shuffle my way to the pick up area after waiting for my walker, enlisting others to hoist and heft my bags, and using elevators to get from Point A to Point B

Ouch!

Yep, you heard that right. I didn’t pack enough. Like I threw in 5 or so tabs thinking they’d be for emergencies.

Oh no that stinks! You need those Pills on a trip.

My appetite wasn’t up to its usual Disney par; nevertheless, I ordered the heaviest breakfast on the menu- Poached Eggs, Fennel Sausage, Creamy Polenta, Pomodoro Sauce, Parmesan and Toasted Crostini $13.00. I ate maybe ¼ of it.

That looks really good. I can understand no having much of an appetite, pain kills that!
I’m so glad you got some sleep on a bed, and wow your room was ready early after all.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Chapter LINKS:

A is for: Again?! But Are You Sure?!

B is for: Believe Me, It Wasn't Fun

C is for: Come On Up to Our Room!

I made it over! And thankfully you are only up to C! Time to now catch up on reading my A, B, C's!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

I chose to get a Little Mermaid room at AoA, cuz “cheap”.

Cheap is good!!!! I think I would stay in any room on Disney property at this point!

Luckily, the gate wasn’t too terribly far, and yet the next gate over would have been too far. Heh. I remember I had to go down an elevator, through some long halls, all the way to some other terminal, and I literally know for a fact I could not have done with it without that walker.

Airports really are huge! Glad you survived travel day. Travel days can be exhausted no matter what.

Can't wait to hear all about the trip.