Hi and welcome to Day 8 ~ Sat. August 23rd ~ the halfway point of our trip 
After the lounge visit last night we returned to the room and found that the housekeeper had done the turndown and left a pillow gift on Noel's bed. In Toronto I had bought a pile of DVD's for Noel's DVD player as she didn't have any. They were on sale 2 for 22.00Canadian which is about 7.00USD each.. I sent them Fedex to the hotel and every night there will be one left on her bed. Last night was "The Black Stallion" and tonights was "The Road to El Dorado"
This morning we had a light breakfast in the concierge lounge because I had reservations for lunch at the Sci Fi diner at 11:55am and I wanted to make sure we were hungry. The concierge lounge had a great assortment of pastries, krispie kreme donuts, croissants, breads and bagels for toasting, fruit, cold cereal, muffins and oatmeal. It was hard not to over eat but I only let Noel have some cereal and I had half a toasted bagel.
We took the ferry for the first time from the Beach Club to MGM, they are larger then I imagined, just a quick stop at the Swan/Dolphin and we were there. Today we had along our "pal Mickey" when we were walking through the gates into MGM he went nuts shaking - he was so excited. Mickey told us all about Hollywood Blvd and that we should go to Star Tours as there was no wait. We decided not to take Mickeys advice and head to The Tower of Terror... on the way there he told us different things ocassionally and cracked a joke here or there. If you miss what he says you just have to squeeze his hand and he repeats it. Some of his jokes are pretty funny, some are real groaners.
Tower of Terror had a 60 minute wait so we grabbed a fast pass and went to the Rock n' roller coaster. The wait at RnR was 50 minutes but it went much quicker.. especially with Pal Mickey to play with
After RnR as we were leaving Mickey said "I think we broke the law back there... the law of gravity" lol.
Next was Tower of Terror and it was great with the fast pass... almost like Universal. On the way out Pal Mickey informed us that he left his stomach on the 5th floor, earlier he had told us the history of the Hotel.
By now it was time for lunch at the Sci Fi Diner... I got lost on the way over and we were about 10 minutes late when we arrived, no problem they still honoured our PS and we were seated right away. This is such a fun place, all those corny movie clips.. Noel was laughing her head off. The waiter brougt our drinks and placed mine in front of me and then said and "heres the drink for the birthday girl".. Huh? It's not her birhtday... I wasn't sure that was what he said as it was loud in there and Noel never noticed.
We had our lunch... Noel had the space mush (mac & cheese) and I had the shrimp & asiago penne pasta and I was so full.. it was really good.. We skipped desserts and headed out to the Back Lot Tour.. there was about a 30 minute wait and it felt like forever, the part with the water racing down the canyon was pretty cool. After Backlot we were perfectly timed to go to Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Play It. On the walk over Pal Mickey told us to stop and meet a character in this little building, we poked our heads in and sure enough Sorcerer Mickey was there with no line up so we had a visit and a photo.
WWTBAM was just accepting for the next show so we headed in and got 2nd row seats... I was in the top 10 twice (3 & 5) but never made it to the hot seat - Noel was impressed to see her mother's seat number on the top ten list.
I had promised to let Noel play in the Honey I shrunk the kids playground so I bought a drink and sat while she played for a half hour. We were heading over to Star Tours when Pal Mickey told us to go to Muppets 3D as there was no wait... cool. So we did muppets first and then went to Star Tours - on the way out Mickey said that the pilot on star tours flys like Goofy drives... he is a regular riot always ready with a joke when you need him and you can play games with him too.
We came out of star tours to lightning a pouring rain (again) torrential downpour actually so we ducked back into Startours again for another go. When we came out again it was even worse there were tons of people in the gift shop trying to stay dry - it was unbeleivable outside and the whole street was a river. Mickey told us it was time for the parade... but I suspect Mickey doesn't know about rain delays. We stayed in the star tours gift shop for a while and Noel bought some storm trooper PEZ, but the rain was not letting up - in fact it looked even worse. Again I was forced to buy some ponchos - for those keeping track this is our 3rd set in 8 days - I obviously have more dollars then sense but there was no way around it - we needed them this time.
It was 5:30pm now and almost time for our PS at PrimeTime Cafe. We braved the rain and swam over to the Indiana Jones Giftshop where Noel bought some 5.00 kit that she has to carve out an egyptian artifact. Mickey asked us to go back to star tours and we both told him to shut up LOL
Prime Time Cafe was hopping - I guess a huge rainstorm at dinner time makes for alot of walk in traffic. Fortunately we were seated right way and had Aunt Karen as our server... thank god we did not get the guy in the next section - he was really hard on his patrons. On the card that the "mom" sat on our table with our name on it also had noted "Noel's BD" with yellow highlighter over it... huh?? It is NOT Noel's birthday - her birthday in is in December - I have no idea where that came from - the concierge booked the PS's not me - and I never said anything about a birthday. When Noel went to the bathroom I told the waitress it was not her birthday and not to do anything special.
For a drink I ordered a root beer float - I haven't had one of those since I was a kid and it was delicious. Noel had the Buzz Light Juice which is cherry sprite with a glowing icecube. For dinner I had the new york steak & mushrooms with mashed potatoes (they were excellent) and Noel had the chicken nuggets and fries. We did not order appetizers as we wanted the 'smores for dessert which did not disappoint but what a sticky mess!
The Dad at the table next to us ended up in the corner and it was pretty funny, I hid my geenbeans under my napkin and Noel ratted me out - but Aunt Karen let me away with it as I was wearing a dress and didnt look slobby like the other patrons. After dinner the sun was out and as it was 7:15pm - we were done and headed back to the ferry. We stopped at the lounge for my nightly baileys and Noel asked for a coke - we brought our drinks back to the room and decided to make it an early night.
When we opened the door - yikes, there was Happy Birthday Balloons and a cake with party hats and blowers on the bed... Noel said - "what is going on"? i said - maybe its your half birthday and we lit the candle and sang happy half birthday to you... weird.
Boy my feet hurt tonight - we did way more walking then I intended today. Originally I was planning to leave at 11:30am and start the day with lunch at SciFi - but Noel did not want to go to the pool this morning - she is afraid of the deep sections of the pool - she wanted to go straight to the park instead. I will have to get her something for the pool so she is not afraid.
Well - that is the end of day 8... tomorrow is another big day, we have a "Gifts of a Lifetime" scavenger hunt in the morning at World Showcase, the Ice Cream Social at 3:30pm and dinner at the Coral Reef. Going by how I feel at this moment - I want to do the hunt and head back to the hotel and forget everything else.... we shall see...
Until then... Good Night from the Beach Club.
After the lounge visit last night we returned to the room and found that the housekeeper had done the turndown and left a pillow gift on Noel's bed. In Toronto I had bought a pile of DVD's for Noel's DVD player as she didn't have any. They were on sale 2 for 22.00Canadian which is about 7.00USD each.. I sent them Fedex to the hotel and every night there will be one left on her bed. Last night was "The Black Stallion" and tonights was "The Road to El Dorado"
This morning we had a light breakfast in the concierge lounge because I had reservations for lunch at the Sci Fi diner at 11:55am and I wanted to make sure we were hungry. The concierge lounge had a great assortment of pastries, krispie kreme donuts, croissants, breads and bagels for toasting, fruit, cold cereal, muffins and oatmeal. It was hard not to over eat but I only let Noel have some cereal and I had half a toasted bagel.
We took the ferry for the first time from the Beach Club to MGM, they are larger then I imagined, just a quick stop at the Swan/Dolphin and we were there. Today we had along our "pal Mickey" when we were walking through the gates into MGM he went nuts shaking - he was so excited. Mickey told us all about Hollywood Blvd and that we should go to Star Tours as there was no wait. We decided not to take Mickeys advice and head to The Tower of Terror... on the way there he told us different things ocassionally and cracked a joke here or there. If you miss what he says you just have to squeeze his hand and he repeats it. Some of his jokes are pretty funny, some are real groaners.
Tower of Terror had a 60 minute wait so we grabbed a fast pass and went to the Rock n' roller coaster. The wait at RnR was 50 minutes but it went much quicker.. especially with Pal Mickey to play with
After RnR as we were leaving Mickey said "I think we broke the law back there... the law of gravity" lol.Next was Tower of Terror and it was great with the fast pass... almost like Universal. On the way out Pal Mickey informed us that he left his stomach on the 5th floor, earlier he had told us the history of the Hotel.
By now it was time for lunch at the Sci Fi Diner... I got lost on the way over and we were about 10 minutes late when we arrived, no problem they still honoured our PS and we were seated right away. This is such a fun place, all those corny movie clips.. Noel was laughing her head off. The waiter brougt our drinks and placed mine in front of me and then said and "heres the drink for the birthday girl".. Huh? It's not her birhtday... I wasn't sure that was what he said as it was loud in there and Noel never noticed.
We had our lunch... Noel had the space mush (mac & cheese) and I had the shrimp & asiago penne pasta and I was so full.. it was really good.. We skipped desserts and headed out to the Back Lot Tour.. there was about a 30 minute wait and it felt like forever, the part with the water racing down the canyon was pretty cool. After Backlot we were perfectly timed to go to Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Play It. On the walk over Pal Mickey told us to stop and meet a character in this little building, we poked our heads in and sure enough Sorcerer Mickey was there with no line up so we had a visit and a photo.
WWTBAM was just accepting for the next show so we headed in and got 2nd row seats... I was in the top 10 twice (3 & 5) but never made it to the hot seat - Noel was impressed to see her mother's seat number on the top ten list.
I had promised to let Noel play in the Honey I shrunk the kids playground so I bought a drink and sat while she played for a half hour. We were heading over to Star Tours when Pal Mickey told us to go to Muppets 3D as there was no wait... cool. So we did muppets first and then went to Star Tours - on the way out Mickey said that the pilot on star tours flys like Goofy drives... he is a regular riot always ready with a joke when you need him and you can play games with him too.
We came out of star tours to lightning a pouring rain (again) torrential downpour actually so we ducked back into Startours again for another go. When we came out again it was even worse there were tons of people in the gift shop trying to stay dry - it was unbeleivable outside and the whole street was a river. Mickey told us it was time for the parade... but I suspect Mickey doesn't know about rain delays. We stayed in the star tours gift shop for a while and Noel bought some storm trooper PEZ, but the rain was not letting up - in fact it looked even worse. Again I was forced to buy some ponchos - for those keeping track this is our 3rd set in 8 days - I obviously have more dollars then sense but there was no way around it - we needed them this time.
It was 5:30pm now and almost time for our PS at PrimeTime Cafe. We braved the rain and swam over to the Indiana Jones Giftshop where Noel bought some 5.00 kit that she has to carve out an egyptian artifact. Mickey asked us to go back to star tours and we both told him to shut up LOL
Prime Time Cafe was hopping - I guess a huge rainstorm at dinner time makes for alot of walk in traffic. Fortunately we were seated right way and had Aunt Karen as our server... thank god we did not get the guy in the next section - he was really hard on his patrons. On the card that the "mom" sat on our table with our name on it also had noted "Noel's BD" with yellow highlighter over it... huh?? It is NOT Noel's birthday - her birthday in is in December - I have no idea where that came from - the concierge booked the PS's not me - and I never said anything about a birthday. When Noel went to the bathroom I told the waitress it was not her birthday and not to do anything special.
For a drink I ordered a root beer float - I haven't had one of those since I was a kid and it was delicious. Noel had the Buzz Light Juice which is cherry sprite with a glowing icecube. For dinner I had the new york steak & mushrooms with mashed potatoes (they were excellent) and Noel had the chicken nuggets and fries. We did not order appetizers as we wanted the 'smores for dessert which did not disappoint but what a sticky mess!
The Dad at the table next to us ended up in the corner and it was pretty funny, I hid my geenbeans under my napkin and Noel ratted me out - but Aunt Karen let me away with it as I was wearing a dress and didnt look slobby like the other patrons. After dinner the sun was out and as it was 7:15pm - we were done and headed back to the ferry. We stopped at the lounge for my nightly baileys and Noel asked for a coke - we brought our drinks back to the room and decided to make it an early night.
When we opened the door - yikes, there was Happy Birthday Balloons and a cake with party hats and blowers on the bed... Noel said - "what is going on"? i said - maybe its your half birthday and we lit the candle and sang happy half birthday to you... weird.
Boy my feet hurt tonight - we did way more walking then I intended today. Originally I was planning to leave at 11:30am and start the day with lunch at SciFi - but Noel did not want to go to the pool this morning - she is afraid of the deep sections of the pool - she wanted to go straight to the park instead. I will have to get her something for the pool so she is not afraid.
Well - that is the end of day 8... tomorrow is another big day, we have a "Gifts of a Lifetime" scavenger hunt in the morning at World Showcase, the Ice Cream Social at 3:30pm and dinner at the Coral Reef. Going by how I feel at this moment - I want to do the hunt and head back to the hotel and forget everything else.... we shall see...
Until then... Good Night from the Beach Club.
I'm guessing Noel will be the "birthday girl" at all of your PS. Better to laugh about it than explain over and over that it's not her birthday.
