Spicy Dragons & Dinosaurs

8:05 Monday morning and Julia is still asleep. We were up to all hours last night, exploring around our lagoon where Boardwalk and other hotels are planted. We found a beach to roast marshmallows, found another series of restaurants in the non-Disney, on-property hotels, and enjoyed the street performers on the boardwalk. And that was the end of the day, after Cheshire left for the airport and we had a long staying in at our room.

Yesterday was our out-of-park day, and I thought that it would be a quiet day. The only thing I planned was lunch at the T-Rex Cafe and a gentle walk through Downtown Disney. Downtown Disney is attached to (or is a part of) Pleasure Island -- that notorious place that turned boys into donkeys in Pinocchio. The whole place -- all of Downtown Disney -- fulfills the Pinocchio vision rather well. Much too noisy, too many stores and food places, and too many adults and children consuming. It was incredibly stimulating -- too much so -- and although we had fun, it was not the down day that I hoped for.

We did have a lovely early morning by the pool -- one of the pools really and the one that was supposed to be the noisy pool. Given the early morning and the coolish weather, there were only a few people there and only a few kids swimming. Julia went in and splashed around which is a good change from last summer's refusal to swim (Still don't know what that was about). We ate breakfast and sunned for a little while before going to the room to wash and prepare ourselves for the T-rex cafe.

And so, now it is time once again to complain about the transportation at Disney World. A person without a car must rely on the buses. The buses don't come often enough, they are all locals, and there is this peculiar plan that it is almost "impossible" to travel from resort to resort or park to park. All travel is planned to be from resort to park and vise-versa. My thought is that it is to keep people from traveling easily to the more expensive resorts, to keep them from going to multiple places in one day, and to frustrate everyone. We heard many people on the buses complaining, so, it was not just us. The solution seems to be to take your own car from one parking lot to another which is impossible when you don't have a car (which is also encouraged and makes sense at this sort of all-inclusive resort) and a little crazy to have to re-park over and over (are there multiple charges for parking during one day? I have no idea.).

We wound up taking a taxi from our hotel to Downtown Disney -- we got out to the bus stop with more than an hour before our lunch reservation, but found out that we had just missed the bus and another was not due for 20 minutes, and 20 minutes seems to mean at least 30, maybe 40. The wait plus the ride might kill our reservation, and we had Cheshire's departure to keep in mind which was hours away but just hours, not days. Mind you, I had read about the faulty transportation system so that figured into our frustration as well.

Just to finish up my bitching about buses, when we were leaving Downtown Disney, we took the bus back to the hotel only to discover that our hotel was the last stop on a very long bus ride. Cheshire pushed us to get off the bus at one of the hotels relatively close to us and an extremely kind bell hop showed us a short cut to our hotel. I am sure there are these short cuts all over Disney, and that employees are discouraged from revealing them. This does get under my skin.

But we did make our reservation, actually, went in early. The T-Rex cafe is loud beyond all measure -- real dinosaurs might not have made as much noise, certainly meteor showers did not happen every 15 minutes. Over stimulation is a tame way to describe it all. Julia was scared and she was in heaven -- both at the same time. We had delicious food and Julia even ate some of it but I wonder if she tasted anything. There was way too much to see and hear.

After lunch, we went to Build a Dinosaur -- a Build A Bear subsidiary. I had been planning to take Julia here since I found out about it, and the experience was more than satisfying. Lizzy the T-rex will have her own photo display here. We shopped a bit -- I still don't quite understand the fascination with all things Disney although I admit to thinking, albeit briefly, about disney dishtowels and potholders. The magic is absorbed and goes straight from the skin to the brain.

Today is our last full day here. I will wake Julia up soon -- oh, I hope the rash subsides today. She was by turn itchy and swollen on all different parts of her body yesterday. I don't know how much the benedryl is contributing to the lie in. She held up pretty well, sometimes snuggling close to me so as not to scratch as much, wanting to please Cheshire and myself and our directions not to scratch, but I am sure it bothered her a great deal.

There is a movie on the beach tonight -- a resort over from ours. If we are back from the Animal Kingdom and ready for more action, we will spend the evening doing that.

I am feeling very far from Wisconsin and a real life right now. Inspired by my conference but floating pretty free of responsibilities. Very nice indeed for a little longer.