Jessica Johnson - November 2006

When we'd taken our 3 night cruise last October, we'd rebooked onboard for a 7 night for this year. It was another group trip- though some of our friends weren't able to join us in the end. Chris and I had been looking forward to this trip for quite a while, and we were both excited to go.

Of course- as the trip approached, I found that I had a huge list of things to do, and not nearly enough time to get them done. A further challenge was added when my father came into town for the last two nights before the trip. And that's how I found myself finishing up packing at 4 am. Daddy was leaving that morning- so I was back up by 6 to see him off, and then collapsed again to get some more rest before Chris and I got up and lugged everything to the car for the trip to Florida at about 10 am.

The trip down went fairly smoothly, and even pretty quickly. We were staying with Deb, at her FL house, for the first night, so that was our first stop when we got to town. The plans were for us all to head to Epcot and meet up with the Forresters, to do the Food & Wine Festival, but Deb had been having some computer issues that day, so she ended up staying back at the house :o(

Chris and I headed over to Epcot and found the Forresters getting beer at the stand by Canada. We decided it was past time for food- so began our trip around the world, stopping at each booth to see what we wanted to get. Chris started with pierogies and kielbasa, and I tried the Maple Custard. From there, we continued on around to Mexico, and sampled a big variety of things. I was thrilled to see that they had bastilla in Morocco! When we'd finished our trip around the world, we found a spot to watch Illuminations and hung out until after the show. Then we decided to go to the Beach Club to get a drink, and found ourselves in the Martha's Vineyard Lounge. But, there was some sort of private event going on next door in Ariel's, and the line at the bar was usually 20 people deep, so we ended up hanging out there for a while, and then headed outside and hung out by the pool for a while before we headed back to Deb's for the night.

We had to be up fairly early (for me, anyway) the next morning. For some reason, though, my eyes popped open at 7 am, when I didn't have to be up until 9. In any event, I was ready to head over to Pop Century, and Deb, Chris and I set off to get to Pam and Steve's room for 10 am. Deb, Pam and I had to take our CTA test, and today was the day. We spend the next few hours working on that- and once we were finished, we piled into Pam and Steve's car and set off for Epcot. When we got to the park and got inside, we called Tom and Carla to see what they were up to. They were at the New Zealand booth, so we made our way over to where they were, stopping along the way to get some more goodies, of course.

All of us hung out for a while, talking and catching up, and then Tom and Carla decided to continue through the World Showcase while the rest of us made our way into Future World, to check out the new Nemo ride. As we approached the Seas with Nemo and Friends, we checked out the changes they've made to the pavilion. Chris loved the seagulls from Nemo that are now on the sign, and after taking a video clip of them, we joined the line.

The queue for the ride is pretty cute- it's designed to make you feel as if you're getting closer to the water, and then are underwater. It's a long queue, lots of back and forth through it, but it does seem to pass pretty quickly, and there's definitely plenty of visual interest through out the line. Finally, you approach the loading area, where they tell you about 200 times that you can not use flash photography on the ride, and then you load into your clam mobile. The clam mobiles are your ride vehicles- kind of like the doom buggies at the Haunted Mansion. I'd guess you could possibly fit 3 people if one of them was a small child, but 2 adults fit fine.

As Chris will tell you, the Living Seas has never been my favorite place to be, because fish make me squicky, but I did want to see the new ride, and check out the changes. I'm not one who enjoys aquariums or anything along those lines, and the ride was great for me. You're taken through the story of Finding Nemo, and you do see into the tanks at times, and can see the fish, but because of the way they project the characters into the tanks, the "real" fish end up seeming almost like they're fake. So, this was perfect for me, and then when you get off the ride, you can check out the fish in the tanks for others who'd prefer to see the real ones ;o) The effects on the ride were great, and it was really cute. I'm very glad that we were finally able to check this one out.

After Nemo, we made our way back into the World Showcase, and continued around on our quest to try new foods. Hanna wanted to do the ride in Mexico, so we headed into the welcome darkness of the temple to do that. Oddly enough, when we were getting off the ride, there was a line for it, which I haven't seen in years! Our timing was good, though, and soon we were back on our way.

When we got to China, I really wanted to see the Terra Cotta Warrior display that opened recently. I drug everyone else in to see them, and it was pretty impressive. I have to admit that I only knew what they were because they were on a previous season of The Amazing Race, but even seeing the few, short ones they had set up was impressive. I couldn't imagine seeing more than 7,000 of them, life sized, no less. Chris took some pictures of them, and then counted how many there were (which I promptly forgot), and then we headed back out to check out the shops. As we were leaving the shops, we ran into Mulan, so Hanna got a picture with her before we continued on our way. We found the drawbridge up, though, so stopped and watched the acrobats until it went down.

Then, we headed off to Germany, and then continued on through the other countries. Eventually, though, it was time for us to head back, because Chris and I had to get to the port, and we were going to be meeting Tom and Carla for dinner. So, we headed back to the car, and gathered up our stuff from Pam and Steve's room. Then we headed back to Deb's house to drop her off, and to gather the rest of our stuff. The previous night, we'd made a stop at Walgreen's, and gotten two cases of bottled water, which we'd filled a carry on with. In addition to that, we had two suitcases, a garment bag, and two laptop bags.

Once the car was loaded, we were on our way to Cocoa Beach, where we were staying for the night. When we'd done our cruise in Oct of 2005, we'd booked a night at the Inn at Cocoa Beach because we wanted to get there the night before, and because they offer a park and cruise package. It turns out that we fell in love with the property, so were really looking forward to our stay there this year.

The Inn is a classic motel that has been updated into a bed and breakfast sort of property. There are two "wings" to the Inn, one is a traditional motel style, the other is a tower, with deluxe rooms. Nearly all the rooms feature an ocean view, though. The one downside to this property is that it is B&B style, so the rooms really only sleep 2. The deluxe rooms can hold 3, as there is a sofa, but it is a regular sofa, not a pull out. The Inn offers a variety of activities, and includes a wine and cheese reception each evening, and a breakfast each morning. We weren't going to make it for the wine and cheese, but were looking forward to the breakfast the next day.

We arrived at the Inn, and headed into the lobby to check in, where we were greeted by the two small dogs who live there. (There are also two birds as well) Check-in went fairly quickly, and we were assigned to room 107. We headed back outside and lugged our stuff into the room. The previous year, we'd been upgraded to the tower, so this was our first stay in a standard room. The standard rooms are smaller than the deluxe, but it was still adorable.

When you first walk in the door, there is a closet to your immediate left. Then the room opens out from there. On the right hand wall, you'll find a small desk, and then the armoire holding the tv. The far wall is a sliding door, covered with floor to ceiling drapes. In this particular room, the valance was built as a sort of shelf, so there were a few decorative items scattered across the top of it. The bed was on the left side of the room, and was large and comfy. The bathroom was fairly small, and the vanity was outside of it, sort of like a wet bar. All in all, a great little room. However, when we first got into it, we discovered a towel laying on the bed, and a half empty Pepsi can on the table with the ice bucket and glasses.

Since we were two doors down from the lobby, Chris ducked back to let them know about the issues. The guy from the front desk came down and assured us that the towel was clean (he smelled it), and he took the can of soda out with him. Chris and I sort of shrugged, and then we headed back out to meet up with Carla and Tom, and from there we drove to Florida Seafood, where we were having dinner.

Chris loves this place for their garlic bread, so he got that while I got chicken fingers. They have really good fritters instead of bread, and at the end of the meal, they bring sorbet. The food is always good, and we had fun at dinner, and then headed back to the Inn. Chris and I had to make another stop at Walgreens for stuff we'd forgotten (I wanted to get some extra sunblock, etc), and then we got settled in for the night. Before bed, I decided to take a shower, and then ran into some other problems. Apparently the Inn has some water issues- I'm not sure if it's hard water or what, but there was a greenish buildup on the shower head. The tub didn't drain quite as well as I'd hoped- while washing my hair, I actually had Chris reach in the tub to open the drain, thinking it was closed. It wasn't though. But- I mentioned this to the front desk when we left, and they put it on a list to be repaired, so I'm sure that's an issue that has been fixed since then.

After the shower, it was time for bed- after all, we had a big day coming up!

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