Because of the time I took on the phone, I didn't get to the ASMU food court till after 9, by which time it was mobbed. I was in no mood to wait, so instead I hopped into my car and went to Downtown Disney for a quick breakfast at McDonalds. The Mickey-Dees at Downtown Disney is pretty good, as McDonalds' go, and I have never minded grabbing a quick bite there once in a while. I also loved the huge LCD menu boards and the soda dispensers that play sound effects every few minutes, but I was devastated to see that those LCD menu boards have been removed and replaced with boring old plastic menu boards. What a disappointment!
After breakfast, I wandered around the outside of the Lego store taking lots of pictures of the various new Lego creations. I loved the t-rex in front, which turned its head and roared every few minutes, and the wonderful crab, shark, and goldfish beside the lagoon. The crab reminded me of home; Baltimore is sometimes called Crabtown, because the Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab is a favorite food in the Baltimore region.
I browsed through both the Lego store and the World of Disney. I was looking for something specific at WOD - something with a 2005 logo on it that could be scanned and used as the background of this trip report. The search was difficult, because although the 2005 logo was on a lot of stuff, I needed something that was A) Small enough to fit on my scanner, and B) Not prismatic or highly reflective. I wound up with a metal license plate, which would just fit on my scanner, and a window cling of the Happiest Celebration on Earth design.
The reason I was skipping the parks and taking it easy this morning was that I had a mini-meet on the schedule for noon at Tubbi's Buffeteria in the Dolphin. And once I had bought my logo stuff, I looked at my watch and found that it was time for me go, so I returned to my rental car and drove away from Downtown Disney. But I didn't drive directly to the Dolphin; instead I drove to the Boardwalk and parked in the self-parking lot. You see, the Swan and Dolphin had recently started charging people, even their own Guests, a $7 per day fee for self-parking; this fact, combined with my natural frugality (read: cheapskate), forced me to seek alternate vehicular storage opportunities.
The first person to arrive was someone who had said she wasn't even coming - MargaretJ! Sitting there in my booth, watching the hallway, I saw her walk up and wave to me, and after a brief hug I got the scoop: her son, Matt, and brother, Danny, were riding some stuff in the parks today that she didn't care for, so she decided to hang out at the pool in the morning and then join us for lunch at Tubbi's.
After 12, the rest of the group arrived in dribs and drabs. First up was Bonny (MommyToMJM on Tagrel.com and the DIS Boards) and her husband Andrew and their charming daughter Marjorie (TheOneAndOnlyMJM, as her name badge read). Tagging along with them was Karen (Rosebud on Tagrel and Kathi and Brian's Clubhouse). Soon after, Lou-Ann and Rich (Lou-Ann and Rich on several boards) arrived, and they were followed later by Linda (LuvMeDisney on Tagrel and K&B's Clubhouse) and her kids Maverick, Samantha, and Brady, her sister-in-law Shiela, and niece Andrea. And no, I didn't remember all those names; I had to look them up on the sheet I used to print out the name badges.
Last to arrive was JudyS of the DIS Boards; I was very happy to see her, because most of the DISers who had signed up for the meet had been forced to cancel at the last minutes due to various scheduling conflicts, but Judy turned out to be a wonderful addition to the group. She was a little nervous, as this was her first mini-meet, but soon was chatting with everyone and seemed to be comfortable and having a good time.
As our group spread out among the tables at Tubbi's, several of us went to service area and got lunch. Bonny, in particular, needed something special, because she had recently had oral surgery and was still on a soft diet, so Andrew spoke to someone in the kitchen and had no trouble procuring an entire meal of foods soft enough for her to eat. The rest of us ate off the menu; I got a turkey sandwich and jumbo-sized Arizona iced tea, a favorite of mine because A) It comes in big cans, B) It's much cheaper than soda or other brands of iced tea, and C) It tastes great. I had hoped to try something off the hot menu, but since the day was shaping up to be a scorcher, and I was not terribly hungry yet after my late breakfast, I settled for a sandwich. Next time I eat at Tubbi's (and believe me, I WILL eat there again!), I will make sure I go in hungry.
We ate and talked for well over an hour, as is the usual pattern of a mini-meet. I had met MargaretJ and Karen in the past, but the rest of the group I had known only online, so I had a great time getting to know people I already knew, if that makes any sense. I was also pleased with the choice of Tubbi's as a meeting place; not only was the food very good and the selection extensive, but the location was great, the cafeteria setting was perfect for a group meet without the rigid structure of a sit-down restaurant, and the employees we met, from the kitchen staff to the ladies at the registers to the lady who was cleaning up the dining room, were all happy, friendly, cheerful folks who not only seemed good at their jobs, but seemed to like their jobs.
Just about the time I finished eating, a couple of late-comers arrived: Chris (Cshore) and her daughter Ali (AliKat), direct from their recent trip to Disneyland. And they didn't come empty-handed - they handed out Disneyland park maps and HCOE postcards to everyone, which just about made my day, because I love maps. They were both wearing gold Disneyland HCOE mouse ears, which we noticed were different from the WDW version, and Disneyland HCOE Guest of Honor badges, which were also different from the WDW versions. As much as I had liked the WDW versions when I saw them in the various gift shops, I liked the Disneyland versions better.
During the entire meet, Marjorie had been playing with Linda's kids, particularly Maverick, who, it turned out, was very good with younger kids and had no trouble keeping an eye on her.
Just before the group broke up, we all posed for a bunch of pictures, which we roped one of the Tubbi's employees into snapping for us. We broke up and went our separate ways about 1:15.
Star Wars Weekend events were still in full swing, so I stopped into the Sounds Dangerous theater and got a picture with Jedi Mickey, went to the Star Tours area, rode the ride, and bought a lightsaber at the cart outside Backlot Express. There weren't any characters appearing there at the moment, and the plaza was extremely crowded due to the Jedi Academy show, so I headed off to Mickey Avenue and got a new picture taken with Jango Fett and Zam Wesell.
Wow, was it hot today. And it was humid. And MGM was crowded. Since I already had a pretty good bunch of pictures with the characters, I decided to leave the Star Wars areas and try Rock and Roller Coaster. On the way, I made a detour to the Five and Dime to buy one of those HCOE Guest of Honor badges I had been seeing all weekend.
The Happiest Celebration on Earth, which commemorates Disneyland's 50th anniversary, has been expanded to include all DIsney theme parks, world-wide. WDW, in particular, had a huge variety of HCOE-themed merchandise, not to mention the decorations on Cinderella's castle and four new attractions brought in (copied, really) from other Disney theme parks - a show called Cinderellabration from Tokyo Disneyland played in the Magic Kingdom; Soarin' Over California, from Disney's California Adventure, had been built in Epcot and was simply called Soarin'; the Lights, Motors, Action! Auto Stunt Show from Disneyland Paris had been re-created in MGM; and Lucky the Dinosaur, the first un-tethered, free-walking audio-animatronic, had been temporarily brought in from Disneyland to appear in Disney's Animal Kingdom.
But right now I was concerned with some of that merchandise I mentioned. In gift shops throughout WDW I had been seeing new Guest of Honor (GOH) badges with the HCOE logo; they were silver and very pretty, so I had decided to get one for myself to join the old-style red GOH badge I had from a visit to WDW back in about 1996 or so. Although the badges are now sold all over WDW, they can only be engraved in three locations: Disney's Days of Christmas in Downtown Disney, Uptown Jewelers in Magic Kingdom, and Celebrity Five and Dime in MGM. Since I was in MGM, I decided to get one of those badges and have my name engraved on it; and since it was a very hot day and I was exhausted and dehydrated already, I picked up a Powerade after I left the badge for engraving. I sat in a shady spot next to Rosie's All-American Cafe to drink my Powerade, and struck up a photo conversation with a guy who was sitting nearby waiting for his girlfriend to meet him; he was carrying a Canon EOS Rebel G, the same 35mm camera I own, so we talked about ways to get good shots with that camera at WDW, an area in which I am fairly well versed.
Dinner. I was hungry, so I decided to try Hollywood and Vine's buffet for dinner, since I had never eaten there. But they were so booked up tonight that they were not accepting walk-ups. Looking around me at the crowds, I figured that all of the MGM restaurants would be similarly booked up, so I left MGM and took the boat back to Swan and Dolphin with the idea of trying out Fresh. But once again, I struck out - Fresh was only open for lunch. Okay, I give up; I went to Epcot and got fish and chips from the Yorkshire County Fish Shop in the UK.
I walked the rest of the way through World Showcase, taking pictures along the way, and stopped briefly outside the exit from Ice Station Cool to make notes, then rode Spaceship Earth. By then I was feeling a little tired, so I decided to go back to ASMU for a nap.
But after the long walk back to my car, which was still parked at the Boardwalk, I was so tired that when I got to ASMU my short nap turned into 2-1/2 hours, and my stomach started to turn flips when I woke. Why? I had made a fatal mistake: when I got my fish and chips at Epcot, I put tartar sauce on the fish. Where did I get the sauce? From the rack outside, of course, and therein lay the mistake - you see, mayonnaise products do not tend to keep well in direct sunlight and 90-degree temperatures, and if one were to eat such a tainted product, one's stomach would protest, as did mine.
Fortunately, I had not eaten much tartar sauce, so all I got was a little nausea, but it was enough to make me cancel the rest of my plans for the evening and stay in to watch TV.
I wound up going to sleep around 11:30.