House Hunting, Disney World
and All That Jazz!
by Roberta - September 2001

I am awake at 6:10 a.m. I quickly get dressed and go for coffee. I plan to have breakfast on the balcony while I write this down and watch the animals. That is what I am doing now at 7:45. It is actually chilly… barely 60 degrees. The one thing about this hotel that I wish they would change is the location of the fast food restaurant. What a hike! They need to remedy that. Oh and the marathon to the elevators, another lengthy stroll. As soon as the first light lit the sky the animals became active. I am not in the area the sun is hitting directly which I am grateful for. I do some videoing and watch the CM's place food around the savannah. The animals are everywhere!

At 11 a.m. I am heading out to see more homes and towns with another real estate agent, Lisa Reed. Our destination is Clermont, which is where she lives. Last night I talked to a CM in the store here. She also recommended Clermont and she lives there too. Perhaps this will be the town I'm looking for.

If I was moving anywhere else but Port Orleans today, I would have been very tempted to stay at the AKL for another night. One bad thing about this hotel is, if you're an animal lover, you wouldn't want to leave to do anything else. I still have some rides I haven't done and as fantastic as the AKL is, PO is still my favorite hotel. It has a quiet beauty that I haven't found equaled in any of the other Disney hotels I've stayed at. When I get back from house hunting, I am going to try and do MGM and EPCOT or maybe just MGM.

Lisa arrives just after 11 a.m. I have spent the last hour touring around the lodge and watching a Disney commercial being filmed by the front entrance of the hotel.

We head off towards Davenport again and I am struck by the lack of contour to the land. Then we begin to head away from that area and to the north. Our main destination is Clermont where Lisa lives. Did we take a wrong turn?? I can't believe what I'm seeing. There are actual hills! The houses have big trees and the lakes are everywhere. Now this is more like it. We go to several homes in 2 different communities and then stop at an over 55 development. The price there is out of our range. Well not the price of the homes but the community fees. $200+ a month! For that tidy sum you have access to everything from a weight room to a pool, arts and crafts to computers. However, their rules and regulations state a maximum of 2 pets per household. I am not even close on that. The place reminds me of a TV show I saw once… The Twilight Zone or Outer Limits. One of those, I forget. It was the story of a man and his dog, both of who had passed on. They were walking down this beautiful road and came to the gates of Heaven. An angel told the man he had lived an exemplary life and was welcome to come in. "Of course", he said "You'll have to leave your dog outside". The man only thought about it a second and told the angel that he guessed he'd keep going down the road. As he and the dog walked away, the angel turned into Satan. Mostly that's the way I felt about senior city.

We then drove through the town of Clermont, which I absolutely loved. There were older homes here and they were well kept. I told Lisa to start sending me info on this type of living arrangement. After a little more touring around the countryside, I was back at the AKL at 2:30 to pick up my scooter and transfer to PO. I made super fast bus connections from there to the AK and then to PO. Check in was fast and I was in my room by 3:30 eating a very late lunch. I was famished. I settled into the room and then decided to go to MGM and try and get the free Internet pins. I also decided to walk around the park. Sometimes driving the scooter is more of a pain than walking. I walked MGM several times never getting beyond The Great Movie Ride. Luckily the ToT is right near the front so that made things easy.

After riding the ToT twice, I headed over to the pin station. Besides the interactive pins that I picked up for myself and a few others, I got one of the limited edition pins that were released today. There were 5 but one was totally sold out already. They each have a symbol of Walt's life. The one I got was The Visionary. I got a free pin for each of the interactive pins but was not able to find the MK one anywhere. I will bring one of the extra AK ones that I bought to the MK tomorrow. You can exchange them as long as the pin hasn't been open.

I left MGM and went to DTD. My husband loves Ghiradelli's chocolates so after checking TDS for the MK pin (none there either) I bought him some. Then I wandered through several other stores, got a sandwich at the Gourmet Pantry and topped that off with a hot fudge sundae at Ghiradelli's. I will be dieting all winter!!

By now the sun has set. It was down right cold! After a moderate wait for the bus, it finally arrived. I spent the time talking to a nice woman who was there with her husband and young son. The bus has the heat on. I tell her about the TheMouseForLess group and she says she's going to check it out. Both of us agree that there has been a loss of innocence at the parks since the events of 9/11. I am back in the room by 9 p.m. and out like a light by 10.

Day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11