AdrienneK & the Krock Pots - October 12-23, 2009 - All-Star Music (Family Suite)

[Mrs Mouse]

Originally Posted by cstephens

MINUS POINTS big time for this. To me, who's a wine novice, someone who's going to recommend a wine, much less REALLY recommend a wine, better know big time what they're talking about from personal experience. It would be stupid of me to tell someone how amazing a particular wine is when it's something I've never had and instead is something that the husband likes.

I completely agree with cstephens. It would be one thing if the guy had admitted from the beginning that he didn't drink, but that everyone he knew that had tried the wine had loved it. But to sell the wine like that and then admit after the fact that he was not a wine drinker, just rubs me the wrong way. That's like a vegetarian recommending lamb. It just doesn't make sense.

I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed the rest of your meal, even if the experience wasn't perfect. Your descriptions of everyone's meals were terrific - everything sounds so delicious!

Again, thanks so much for your trip report. I've loved every minute of it!

[adriennek]

Originally Posted by MammaSilva

What point would it have made for them to call the server on the fact that they know the dessert wine was not from the region he claimed? I mean really? He already proved his ignorance by gushing on a wine that while adequate was so not outstanding to people who actually KNOW wines...

Ok, I swear I'm moving on after this comment BUT... In retrospect... I would like to think that someone there at the restaurant knew about wine. If I had been SC, and I had a guest saying, "Hi, I'm from a state that is known for it's wine and I consider myself an experienced wine drinker..." I'd say "I'm SO glad to hear that! I'm going to send over my friend the wine expert to help you pick out something special."

Or something like that. Maybe the wine expert wasn't working that night. Maybe they don't keep one on staff - maybe that's a California thing.

But, see, in my experience at fine restaurants, a wine guy could've probably talked me into the wine flight, even with my aversion to Merlot, because he could've convinced me that the Washington State Merlot would pair well.

The Wine Guys (and Gals) at Napa Rose serve me wine I don't usually "like" - and I end up enjoying them in pairings.

ok, I'm off the horse. Really!

Adrienne

[adriennek]

Originally Posted by Mrs Mouse

I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed the rest of your meal, even if the experience wasn't perfect. Your descriptions of everyone's meals were terrific - everything sounds so delicious!

Again, thanks so much for your trip report. I've loved every minute of it!

Thank YOU!

We're coming nearish to the end. Sort of.

Adrienne

[cstephens]

OK, I checked our bottle - Magicale is a "product of Italy".

Originally Posted by MammaSilva

In my world...if I were going to leap off the Sushi plank into the water...CStephens would be my first stop for advice and suggestions for a newbie

I'm not usually into sharing my sushi, but with you, I would.

[derail]Took 2 of my nephews to sushi one night some time ago. Younger one had never had sushi and isn't big on seafood, unlike the rest of our entire family, but I figured he come still come along and have teriyaki or tempura. Well, he surprised me and said he wanted to try the sushi. He loved everything I had him try, all raw stuff. He doesn't normally like cooked shrimp. But he *loved* the sweet shrimp - which would be raw shrimp. [/derail]

Originally Posted by adriennek

But, see, in my experience at fine restaurants, a wine guy could've probably talked me into the wine flight, even with my aversion to Merlot, because he could've convinced me that the Washington State Merlot would pair well.

The Wine Guys (and Gals) at Napa Rose serve me wine I don't usually "like" - and I end up enjoying them in pairings.

And at Napa Rose, if it's *really* something you don't like, you can ask and they might be able to substitute something else. One of the wine flights on a Vintner's Menu was chardonnay, which the husband hates. He told them how much he hated it and asked if there was something else he could get instead. They offered a sauvignon blanc, which is a favorite of his. He was very happy.

[adriennek]

Originally Posted by cstephens

OK, I checked our bottle - Magicale is a "product of Italy".

We were right! Thanks for double checking. Yeah, it's an Italian grape. Banfi is Italian, too.

Adrienne

[adriennek]

Thursday, October 22, 2009

This was the final countdown day. We had figured out exactly what we had left to do at MK before heading to Epcot – where, again, we knew EXACTLY what we HAD to do.

On hitting Epcot at lunchtime, we went straight to lunch. Well, almost. I HAD to stop for that picture with Marie in France but then we went to Morocco for counter service lunch.

Doc really wanted another Oktoberfest beer from Germany so I sent him off to get beer while I ordered lunch.

The disappointing thing about the Moroccan restaurants is that they assume that children do not want authentic cuisine. I’m sure there are children who prefer traditional American dishes. If my kids wanted that, I’d go get that for them somewhere else. Like I’ve said before, my kids regularly eat ethnic cuisines and I don’t just mean Mexican food. We take them out for Thai, Chinese, South American, other Asian, etc, etc foods regularly.

I think the little boys had cheeseburgers. When I finished ordering, the cashier seemed rather happy. I asked her if I did an ok job ordering and she said I ordered the best dishes on the menu, in her opinion!

M and I ordered lamb schwarma which came with couscous salad, hummus and tabouleh. I expected something like pita bread but we actually got something more like a hunk of a big loaf of bread. I don’t know how to describe it, sorry. It was ok but I wanted to focus on the meat and salads not fill up on the bread. I have a great recipe for tabbouleh at home that I make on occasion and I’ve been known to buy it at the grocery store deli, but for some reason, M had never tasted it before. He liked it all very much. I think he was even a bit surprised how much he liked it.

Doc ordered three Mediterranean sliders – three small pitas, one with lamb, one chicken and one falafel, with lettuce and tomato. His sides were a lentil salad, tabbouleh and hummus. They were also good. I have noticed that I want to like falafel but I just generally… don’t. Is there something about falafel that I’m missing? Is it always dry or do I just manage to not ever really find good falafel? The slider was ok. I wouldn’t say that I DISliked it, I just can’t say that it was “yummy.” It wasn’t the driest I’ve ever had or the crustiest I’ve ever seen.

The only dessert they offered us was baklava made with walnuts. There was a counter that seemed to be attached to the quick-service that had other desserts but they only offered baklava. Well, we’re allergic to walnuts. (It’s actually a fairly common allergy.) The cashier said we could just ask for extra beverages instead. The servers were rather annoyed that we didn’t want the baklava. I would have gladly taken it if it didn’t have walnuts… Eventually we got drinks, instead. I asked for two milks and three water bottles. The CMs at the pick up area of the counter seemed rather annoyed that we weren't getting the baklava. I explained the walnut allergy and what the cashier said and I thought I was polite, but they still seemed annoyed. Well, I would have preferred the opportunity to try the baklava but pain wasn't worth it.

Because we did not have dessert, when we left lunch, we decided to burn up some snack credits – in France! It was raining so we moved quickly. M and Cman selected chocolate mousse. Or what am I supposed to be calling it? Shocolate Mousse? Sman wanted chocolate cake. I saw another chocolate chip pastry that I had tasted at Cape May and had been good. But Doc found my favorite thing after I’d ordered the pastry – Napoleon!

We knew we had more dessert than we could eat but it was snack credits and this was our last full day in the parks so we didn’t care. I mostly ate the Napoleon because, well, I love them and this one was really really really good. It didn’t have that hard sugary icing on top of it that a lot of Napoleons have. Yummmmmm.

After lunch we caught up with Andrwe and Jennifer in Future World and then returned to World Showcase. I know we did some eating at Food & Wine. Jennifer had another scallop. M wanted a spanakopita so I gave him his key to the world to go get one. We were trying to limit our snacks because we had big plans for dinner: Le Cellier!

We checked in at the LC hostess desk and proceeded down to the restaurant. This was the longest ADR wait of our trip. The wait was well over 30 minutes, even with our ADR. At first we stood outside – for about half an hour. Finally I saw seats available in the waiting area inside.

Once inside the hosts decided to try to entertain us with trivia.

Uhm, Disney trivia? Do they know that we’ve worked MouseAdventure twice a year for almost 10 years? Do they know that I won a resin partner’s statue at a trivia event at a Creative Advisory Council meeting? Sign Us UP!

The question I remember was to name 17 fully-animated Disney movies with one word titles. The room was working on the list for awhile when one woman said “Fantasia.” The host said “Yes! Fantasia!” and added it to his list.

Uhm, excuse me? Fantasia has live-action. It’s not fully animated… He agreed it wasn’t fully animated. It sort of went downhill from there in that no one had any more guesses and we seemed rather done with the game.

He’d announced that we would have a chance to stump him and I said I was waiting for MY turn. He decided to give me my chance and I asked “What was the first attraction that opened after Walt died?”

Yeah, that was pretty hard for the WDW crowd. I told them that it’s an attraction that’s at both WDW and DL. I reminded them then that DL has lands that WDW does not have and it wasn’t necessarily in the same land in both parks.

Now, see, to me? That was a HUGE hint. That narrowed it down to TWO attractions and one of them had already been guessed.

But then, I’m a Disneyland AP so it was maybe not fair.

One lady got REALLY excited because she thought FOR SURE she knew the answer. I saw her trying to tell her husband with charades and hints (It’s the ride I always MAKE you go on.) No, honey, that ride is in Fantasyland on both coasts. And its façade is seriously better in Anaheim…

Eventually I had to name a character from the attraction’s movie to get them to figure it out so I figure I won the stumping.

We were seated in the dining room at a half-table-half-booth for six and promptly our very delightfully perky server arrived and announced “Hi, I’m Courtney! I’ll be your Canadian for the evening!”

Ok, her tip just doubled with that one line. How cute is SHE? I love perky people. We understand each other. Usually. Sometimes not. But I was in the zone so on this occasion, I was amused.

Courtney actually told us where she was from in Canada and described where that was geographically. Now, I could see some people thinking “I don’t need to know that, just take my order and get me my food.” Hellll-LO! This is Epcot. The whole idea of World Showcase is to be an international get-to-know-you kind of experience. Of course this is relevant! I loved knowing a little bit about her. All week I had been hearing people speak with accents but we really did not have a lot of time to interact with them as they helped us and then moved on to the next guest in line. Getting to learn a little about Courtney really enhanced the Canadian experience, in my opinion.

M did not understand WHY I wanted him to order the fixed menu prime rib which included the cheddar cheese soup and dessert. He did not think he WANTED the soup and I kept saying “Look, your dad and I want to eat it, you want the prime rib ANYWAY, you don’t have to eat the soup, you can give it to US.” Finally he said “OH! We’re going to work the system! I get it!”

Yes, M. THANK you.

Courtney had endorsed another appetizer course on the menu – a tomato and cucumber salad thing with vinegar and bleu cheese crumbles. It really did sound good so I ordered that, too.

Apparently, Canadians, unlike Pacific Northwesterners, don’t mind serving California wines. Now, this was really the first time in two weeks that we had looked at a wine menu but the nice thing about Le Cellier’s menu was that it offered half-carafes of their wines. This was going to be perfect for us that night! The menu listed a wine from the Lasseter Family Vineyard but did not say what exactly it was. We asked Courtney to find out for us. She returned to say that the bartender was surprised it was still on the menu as they had been out of this wine for quite some time. We later learned from Doc’s iphone that it was a red blend, mostly merlot, so it was just as well that they were out. We ordered a Cab from Napa- Alexander Valley.

Our first courses came: The little boys’ entrees came with soup or carrots, celery and ranch dip. I removed the celery from Cman’s plate at his insistance and Sman ordered soup. Doc had about half of M’s soup and I had half of the tomato salad before we traded plates. The tomato dish was really good. The bleu cheese crumbles made the dish. They were small enough that the flavor of the cheese did not overwhelm the rest of the ingredients. It was just enough to provide the salty bite that tomatoes need.

Don’t look at me like that. It’s TRUE.

As I was finishing the soup, our entrees arrived and I set it to the side. I asked M to please taste the soup he thought he would not like. Of course, he liked it. I told him that when he finished his prime rib, he could have the rest of the soup.

I have to say that I was surprised by the presentation of the prime rib. It came with the horseradish sauce poured all over the meat. Now, I love horseradish with my meat but I like to put it on myself and determine how much I want in a bite. My son and others I know do not like horseradish sauce. At all. I started to panic a little bit – I would have sent the meat back to the kitchen if I had to but M is not known for handling disappointments well. Fortunately, he remained calm and we scraped the horseradish sauce off of the meat. I asked him to taste the meat and see if he could eat it. He said it was fine so we did not send it back. I would have been much happier had our Canadian had asked us ahead of time “The meat comes with the horseradish sauce on it, is that all right?” I don’t remember there being anything on the menu to say that it was presented this way, although I could be wrong.

Sman enjoyed his steak. Doc and I each ordered the mushroom-topped beef tenderloin. It was very good but wow, that was a lot of food!

Now, at some point during our meal, another party was seated in the table to my right. They were a couple from St. Louis and they were very nice. I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in myself because we struck up conversations and I spent more time talking to them after awhile than really paying attention to my family. I missed tasting M’s dessert. In fact, the only reason I have a picture of the dessert is that our Canadian heard me lamenting that I had no photo of it and she went back to the kitchen and brought out a plate for me photograph. (See how sweet she was?)

Doc had the S’more dessert (which I also did not taste, although I’m sure he offered. I was rather full and not feeling up to sampling the s’mores. Why did I forget to taste the mousse??) M had the famous Le Cellier mousse. I ordered the maple crème brulee which was very good. (How can you go wrong with maple crème brulee??)

I can understand why people would be disappointed at how “loud” and popular Le Cellier has become. We never would have gone to LC without the Dining Plan. It was good and I am glad we had the opportunity, but had we paid out of pocket for the meal, we would not have eaten there on this trip because there were other restaurants that were higher on my priority list.

Friday, October 23, 2009

For our final meal at Walt Disney World, we had ADRs for breakfast at the Kona Café. Finally, after all these years on the internet, from USENET to the World Wide Web, I would have TONGA TOAST!!!

We made this reservation with Andrwe and Jennifer. I tried to make it late enough that we would have time to finish packing before breakfast but I think that I had convinced myself at the time that we might have time to go back to our room after breakfast and pick up our luggage. By Friday morning, I knew we would not have time to come back before check-out and so we had to get everything packed and into the mini-van before heading to breakfast. At least we had the van to shove it into!

We arrived at the Polynesian and I had Doc drop me off so I could meet Andrwe and Jennifer who were already at the restaurant. I (wrongly) assumed that the first parking lot we saw would lead me to the restaurant. OOPS. No. So I booked it through the resort to find the main building. Along the way I had to listen to a woman talking to her children about what they would ride at the Magic Kingdom that day. She and her daughter were trying to tell her son that he was going to have to get over his anxiety and ride Space Mountain. Uhm, lady? Space is closed for a big rehab… I decided not to tell her.

I found Kona Café and joined Andrwe and Jen while we waited for Doc and the boys to catch up. Soon they were there and we were ordering our drinks from our enthusiastic waitress. She saw Doc’s birthday button and told him that at his age, he was just a baby – the lady at the next table was celebrating her 103rd birthday!!!

Doc and I ordered one order of Tonga Toast and one ham and cheese omelet to share with our French-press Kona coffee. Our table was very close to the entrance of the restaurant and we could see the other guests as they were arriving and waiting to be seated. And with this we had our second unexpected running into someone experience! A player from one of my favorite MouseAdventure teams was arriving to have breakfast with his sister! AVP later told me that he now lives in Florida so seeing him there should not have been as much of a surprise as I thought it was, but I don’t care. I thought it was funny. And of course, he’ll see everyone at MouseAdventure at Epcot!

The Tonga Toast was just as good as advertised. After I was about two-thirds of the way through my half I thought “oh, I could eat a full one of these!” By the time I finished my half, I was so glad I did not have to! Boy, that’s a lot of sweet! But it was, indeed, very good! I think I’m glad we didn’t stay at the Polynesian. I’d probably find a way to eat way too many of those during my stay.

At the end of our meal, our waitress decided to wish Doc a happy birthday. She brought over a dessert and even had a card she wrote in for him! (Personally, I thought that was a very sweet touch.) We sang Happy Birthday to him and Andrwe was just very very glad he did not have on his birthday button.

But then. He did it. He got up to go to the restroom. And our, ahem, enthusiastic server, saw his button on the jacket hanging off his chair. “What? It’s his birthday, TOO? I didn’t get him a dessert!”

No, no, no! Please. Don’t! He really doesn’t want it.

And I quote… “I don’t care what he wants! I WANT!”

Oh.No.

So sure enough, she arrived shortly with a dessert plate for Andrwe and a card, too. Fortunately, she did NOT make us sing. And she told Andrwe not to blame us.

The night before I had spent 5 snack credits at the ASMu gift shop purchasing Mickey Rice Krispie Treats. I found out then that we still had snack credits left so after breakfast I decided to try the Poly gift shop for the little boxes of animal cracker like cookies. They were out of the snack credit size. We said our good-byes to Andrwe and Jen, left the Poly and followed Andrwe & Jen through Lost and Found one LAST time to check on my glasses. They found Andrwe’s hat that he didn’t know exactly where he lost it somewhere in Epcot but not my glasses.

(Don’t get me wrong – I’m very happy that Andrwe found his hat. But I’m still very bitter about my eyeglasses. Can you tell?)

On our way out of the WDW area, we ran back to All Star Music to get some more pictures of the Resort and I found some boxes of cookies for the last of our snack credits there.

[Nikara]

This is an awesome review! It definitely makes me want to go back to WDW soon! Sounds like everyone had an amazing time.

[cstephens]

Originally Posted by adriennek

The servers were rather annoyed that we didn’t want the baklava. I would have gladly taken it if it didn’t have walnuts… Eventually we got drinks, instead. I asked for two milks and three water bottles. The CMs at the pick up area of the counter seemed rather annoyed that we weren't getting the baklava. I explained the walnut allergy and what the cashier said and I thought I was polite, but they still seemed annoyed.

I don't get why the CMs were annoyed that you weren't having the baklava. I mean, I can understand if they really liked it and were disappointed that you weren't having it, but that's a different issue. And when you said you COULDN'T have it because of allergies, that should have settled it right then and there. I'm actually not all that fond of baklava - it's been too sweet for me the couple times I've had it - so I would have tried to turn it down just because I wasn't interested.

Originally Posted by adriennek

Courtney actually told us where she was from in Canada and described where that was geographically.

That was actually one of the things that I really liked about Le Cellier, that the servers were actually from Canada and would tell us things both about where they were from and what province we were seated in. On our first visit, we ended up with a tiny little table that straddled two provinces, so our server told us about both of them.

[adriennek]

I know this is a Disney website but this part of our trip was very important to us and so I hope that it would be interesting to others. I know many people here might be interested in also visiting the Space Center.

Ok, I have to tell the backstory about this experience. My father has worked for a number of years in the Space industry. This story would get a lot better if I gave out details about his career, but I’m not going to. It’s not my story to tell. He’s really good at what he does and he’s known in his industry, outside of his industry, no one’s ever heard of him.

At one point in his career, my father worked with a particular astronaut. (Working in the Space industry, he’s met a few astronauts in his day.) This man is incredibly accomplished and amazing and as of about six months before our trip, he was scheduled to be THE astronaut of the day at Kennedy Space Center.

Holy.Moly. This, for me and my family, was a big deal. My sons know of him. They have seen him on television shows. They have heard stories about him. They know he worked with their grandpa. And let’s face it, their grandfather worked in the space industry, another grandfather is a physician, their aunt is a physician and their father has a doctorate in analytical chemistry who is a huge fan of Disney theme parks and animation: They’re geeks and the apples just didn’t fall very far off the tree. They love science and space. They DVR Mythbusters and study the names in the credits of Pixar movies. They watch the extras the DVDs.

Meeting this guy would be a VERY big deal.

One to two weeks before we left on our trip, we made reservations to eat lunch with the astronaut on our visit. I get really anxious about things like this – I wanted to know that we would have an opportunity to actually talk to him and meet him so Doc and I bought the tickets – and his name was still on the schedule!

The night before we left on our trip, I could not sleep. It was about 12:30 or 1:00 am and we had to be awake for our flight at 3:30 am. I realized I had not packed some special items. I ran downstairs and started digging through my Creative Memories Power Sort Boxes for a picture of my dad from about the time he worked with the astronaut. I didn’t get to bed that night until 1:30 after having put the picture in a ziplock baggie in my carry-on. When we got up to leave, Doc went into his collection of space memorabilia. At the time that my dad worked with this astronaut, Doc and I were already dating and my dad knew that Doc had this collection. He brought Doc some items specific to the project that they worked on, not otherwise available to the general public. One was small enough to slide into the ziplock baggie and so we did.

On Sunday, October 18, we piled into the rental van with a baggie of quarters for toll roads and my "special baggie" in my purse, and headed east to Kennedy Space Center. It took about 50 minutes to an hour to drive to the Visitor’s Center from ASMu. Besides my kids, this was a huge deal to my husband. He had waited his own lifetime to visit the Space Center. We’d hoped for a shuttle launch during our trip but that had been postponed months ago.

We arrived at the Space Center and checked in with the ticket booths to see if we needed to do anything with the vouchers we’d printed online. The lady in the booth advised us to go on the bus tour of the Center after the lunch.

We went through the lobby, collected maps of the center and proceeded out to the complex. We decided to first head to the Space Shuttle Launch Simulator. On the way we noticed a big electronic billboard inviting visitors to MEET AN ASTRONAUT at 11:00 and 4:00. Up on the screen was a picture of a guy I didn’t recognize and a name I did not recognize. He had a full head of hair. Our astronaut is completely bald, has been for years. I showed the sign to Doc and he said “Don’t worry, that’s the meet and greet astronaut. We’re going to the lunch.”

Can we all just roll our eyes at Doc now, please? I thought I was bad!

I said “That makes no sense whatsoever, Doc. Why would they have TWO astronauts here today?” He did not answer…

We put our bags and cameras in lockers for a 25 cent deposit. Cman was too short for the simulator so he and I wore special lanyards to alert the staff that we would not be riding the simulator. The did offer a rider switch option but everything leading up to the simulator really made it sound rough and I did not really have a desire to try it. The build up from the signs and videos was intense enough that Sman was rather anxious, actually. He wanted to not ride it but we pulled the parent card and made him. I was feeling a bit worried but Doc was pretty persistent so I let him. Sometimes I just tell myself that I worry too much and I need to let Doc do his thing as the dad. Usually I’m right in those situations.

As Doc and the big boys waited for the simulator, they pulled those of us not riding off to the side – we actually went pretty far into the “experience”. We sat in a small little area (very small! Cman and I actually sat on the floor because there were not enough seats for everyone and we were the youngest two people there except for one pregnant woman.) We could watch monitors showing the scene that was showing inside the simulator as well as cameras focused on the riders in the simulator. Cman and I could watch Doc, M and Sman’s reactions from within the simulator. They reported that it really wasn’t that rough. Oh well, that’s ok.

Next we walked through a full-size model of a Space Shuttle called “Explorer”. Sman tried to make a bet with me. He was convinced that Explorer was THE original Space Shuttle. At the time, I could not remember the name of the original SS but I knew it was NOT Explorer. Doc, of course, remembered that it was Enterprise. I chose not to take the money from my son. WHEN are they going to learn that the only time I EVER make bets is when I KNOW I’m right?

The disappointing part about the walk through was that it was life size but it did not have all of the actual parts – I don’t know how to explain this. We could see where the astronauts sit for the launch and the little room below where the extra astronauts sit for a big launch, but there were walls missing and where we walked would have elements that were missing. I wanted to SEE what it’s REALLY like. This was a very stripped down version of the shuttle. (I realize it would be very expensive to have an actual “Working” shuttle but even more “model” pieces would have been nice – they had something much more expansive in the International Space Station section of the tour but we’ll get to that later…)

Our next stop was the IMAX theater. At this point I have to give the Space Center huge props. So many times when we’ve been to museums, we’ve paid a price for admission and then we have been nickeled and dimed for the experiences inside. Pay extra to see the IMAX movie, pay extra for the rides, etc. Not at Kennedy. The price of the ticket was not inexpensive, but the ticket was good for two days and included the three-stop bus tour and the IMAX movies and ride simulator were free of charge.

At the theater we watched a Tom Hanks movie, Magnificent Desolation, about the Apollo missions and moon walks. (Tom Hanks produced and narrated the movie, hence I call it “a Tom Hanks movie.”) It was a good film.

We had some time before our much anticipated lunch. We walked through a Rocket garden and the boys sat in models of Mercury and Apollo capsules. We missed the Genesis model on our way to the lunch. The doors opened for the conference room and we showed our tickets to the person at the door. Another young lady directed us to a table. When everyone had been seated (there were a number of tables empty on the back side of the room,) the young lady who had directed us to our table began to direct tables one by one to the buffet line.

As my family walked to the line, the doors in the back of the room opened and a man in an astronaut jumpsuit walked in with two others wearing NASA name badges.

The man in the suit had a full head of hair.

He was most definitely

NOT

OUR

ASTRONAUT.

Ok, so yeah, I started to cry. It wasn’t like a baby crying and bawling, it was just you know, the tears were welling up and I was swallowing back. If you don’t know why, go back to the top of this post and re-read the back story.

I approached one of the two “plain clothesed” people and said “Uhm, wasn’t this other guy supposed to be here today?” The lady sort of took a deep breath and said that yes, he was scheduled but had to cancel. But he’d be back Thanksgiving weekend.

I maintained. I told her that we would be back in California for Thanksgiving. I gave her some of our backstory about the other astronaut. She listened with very kind eyes. She said that she would get some signed lithos for the boys and share THE astronaut’s e-mail address with me. She said that he’s very good about answering e-mails.

We went through the buffet and took our food to our seats. The best part about the buffet here was that there were pitchers of water and iced tea on the tables – but there were cans of soda on a table in the back of the room. Diet Pepsi! I’m not a person who won’t drink Diet Coke but after a week of Coke-Only WDW, it was nice to have a DP. Or maybe I had two…

The astronaut talked for awhile and I did think that some of his stories were a bit interesting and not necessarily information that I have heard elsewhere on documentaries and such. At some point the woman who spoke with me earlier came and asked me to hang back after lunch was over because she didn’t want to give me things in front of a lot of other people. At another point I was speaking with the other “Astronaut Handler” and found out that his son worked for a government agency with which I know my father works and we talked about that agency for a bit. He told me a very interesting story about his son and his daughter-in-law and their jobs.

When the lunch was over, we stood back and were the last people out of the room. As we exited, everyone had the chance to pose for a photo with the astronaut. We could purchase a package of 5 copies of the picture for $28 but they also took pictures with our personal cameras, too. The woman gave me a few of the signed lithos which we later found for sale in the gift shop, unsigned. I have to admit that I have not yet e-mailed the astronaut. I’m having anxiety about not wanting to be disappointed a second time. That’s the way I roll.

Having finished lunch, we started the bus tour of the Center. I really did not understand clearly how this part of the Center worked. If we had actually met our astronaut, I would have been fine. But. For as much as lunch cost and as much time as it took out of our day, in the middle of our day, it really did cost us time to tour the center. The marketing for the Center presents the tour as a 2-hour bus tour. This was rather misleading.

The last bus of the day leaves the main center at about 2:15 and we were, fortunately, on a bus a bit before that. But the bus is not entirely the “tour”. The bus system has three planned stops within the Space Center. At each of these stops are locations to visit. Two of them actually have movies to watch (mandatory to proceed further,) and then they have museum displays to visit. Two of the stops even have food and gift shops.

From the first stop, we could see the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the launch pad. Actually, technically, we saw the scaffolding around the shuttle and the rocket boosters poking out over the top of the scaffolding. We saw where the shuttle crawler is usually parked when it’s not sitting under a shuttle on the launch pad.

The second stop focused on the Apollo space program. The first part was a short movie introducing the displays inside the building. The second part was a room that contained actual computers and desks used during the launch of Apollo 8 with a movie and effects recreating the Apollo 8/Saturn rocket countdown and launch.

Finally we left that room and saw an actual Saturn rocket on its side. Inside this building there was a small museum, a lunar rover and a moon rock that visitors could touch. (It was a very small piece of rock!)

Unfortunately, we had been warned that the last bus to the last stop on the trip would be departing at a certain time so we rushed a bit more than we would have liked through these exhibits, although the boys all touched the moon rock!

At our last stop, we watched a movie about the International Space Station. I have to admit that this was probably my favorite part of the tour. Because it was a weekend day, we did not get to see any employees in action but we were able to go to a room with windows, overlooking the clean room that NASA uses to assemble and check out each piece of the ISS before it is packed into a Shuttle and delivered to the ISS! We saw actually pieces of the ISS in the process of being prepared to move to space.

In the exhibit room, there were ISS modules that we could walk through. We saw sleeping and bathroom areas. We also saw what a scientific lab are looks like. One thing that was interesting to me is that, because there is no gravity in space, there really is no “up” and “down”. With storage at a premium in the tight quarters of the ISS, the floors and ceilings have drawers in them! I never quite “got” how astronauts sleep standing up in the space shuttle but seeing how they take advantage of the lack of up and down on the ISS, it sort of clicked for me. (I know, you science people are all rolling your eyes at me. I can handle it.)

The bus drivers reported lots of alligators had been out during the day but by the time we were on the buses, we only saw two or three near the roads.

On returning we boarded one of the last buses to leave the ISS. Our time was running short before the Center would leave and the boys each had spending money earmarked for the Space Center gift shop. M and Doc selected t-shirts, Doc and Sman picked up some patches, Sman wanted a Space Shuttle plush and Cman… I don’t remember what he picked out – it was a small toy, I believe. Doc bought the patch commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing because it was appropriate. I selected a cute Christmas tree ornament with Santa with something NASA built – I can’t remember what it looked like now. It’s still in a bag. I have a few weeks before we need to use it.

After we left the Space Center, I realized that I missed out on a really great gift opportunity for family and friends at home. When we left for home, we stopped at the Kennedy Space Center store at MCO and purchased a few of the reusable shopping bags. Once we came home, I thought of even more people who needed them and the price was very convenient so I called Kennedy and had them ship me a pile of the bags. I realize that we can all get inexpensive shopping bags at our grocery stores but these bags have a nice sturdy bottom to them and have the NASA and KSC logos on them so they are special.

I understand now why the ticket to Kennedy is good for two days because it was a bit difficult to see everything, although we would have done a lot better without a chunk of the middle of the day lost to eating lunch. I think it would have been hard, even as much as we love Space stuff in our family, to drive out to Kennedy twice.

Personally, I know that a lot of people do not seem to understand the level of expectation I had for the Kennedy Space Center. There are tidbits not included in this version of the story even. It’s ok that not everyone “gets it.” I’m still working on it.

[MammaSilva]

Love the report...even tho I followed the blog I see more detail in things on the TR...but I am still very sad for you and my angels that he cancelled and you got a sub...without any advance warning to ask for a refund or change plans

[Mermaid]

Okay, just caught this TR and it is great! I'm not done yet but what is it with Dinosaur? We also had a bad experience with a group from that same unnamed country. While in line we hear "Marco, Marco" and these girls are waving Marco down the stairs (which was all of 20 people- why they just didn't wait for Marco is beyond me). So, he does the "excuse me, excuse me" and catches up. Well, there was also some sort of seating drama and we ended up on the same car as them. I should have asked to wait for another car. I had a bad feeling, but I brushed it off. So, we get in. Marco's group was in the front row, another family was in the middle and we were in the back. Well, Marco takes a picture of the whole ride. I mean- Every. Single. Thing. The ride stops at some point and the people in the middle yell at him to stop. He acts confused and they are pointing at the camera saying "No Pictures." So, we start going again and one of the girls grabs the camera from him and purposely flashes it at the back of the car.

So, Marco continues to take a picture of every Dino, rock and bush. The car stops again right at the "moment of impact" so it sort oif ruined the climax of the ride. Marco is totally confused as to why it has stopped. The family tells him it is because of all the flashing. I think they actually thought it was- or at least they were very convincing. We get back to the exit and the family asked a CM about the stopping. It turned out they were loading more cars onto the track. When we got to the picture- It's blurry but it says it all-



Even my usually non-confrontational husband said "Hey "jerk" (censored). Why don't you take a picture of yourself taking a picture?" It was seriously ridiculous- but pretty funny like 20 minutes later!

[MrsGrumpy]

I just finished reading post #58, and now I wish I would've tried a little harder for an ADR at Whispering Canyon!

Lovin' your trip report!

[candles71]

I just finally finished reading it all. ( My eyes would start to cross) I really enjoyed your report and I especially loved the format.
I totally get the diappointment at Kennedy.
I was going to disagree with you (duck and cover) as Columbia was the first. But I did some goggling and I will agree it depends on your point of view. Enterprise did come before Columbia BUT it was incapable of Space flight. The Columbia was the first Space flight shuttle. All I know is my dad's plaque says first for the Columbia..
The "walk through" shuttle probably is missing things still considered classified. I remember climbing up on an F16 (at a fair) and my dad saying "oh the such and such display from company x" should be right there in that empty spot. I am thinking its the same type of situation.
We have already established I am not a wine snob. I know what I like and I am willing to try new things, but to say You don't drink after gushing.... IDIOT.
I am so happy you and your family had a great time and one day I may get to the other side myself, so I was taking notes.