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Survivor Longa-Walka-Hallway
Episode IX  

Off the Island

There was a vote.

We all decided to go.

We were leaving the island.

In a decade of trips to Disney World, we had never been to an off property attraction, unless you consider a trips to Goodings as an attraction. We don’t go to Goodings anymore but when we did the prices were fairly close to theme park admissions, they had huge lines and you could ride around in shopping carts but I still don’t think that counts.

We hadn’t been voted off the island. It was more like winning reward and taking the whole tribe. We were going to see Sea World.

We were a little concerned that this violated a pledge we had made for Bobby at Whispering Canyon, “…. and I promise to never, never, never ever, go to Sea World.”

However we figure it wasn’t binding because: a) he was joking around b) management lost Bobby’s scroll c) it was about time we got off property d) we weren’t actually paying Sea World.

We have a good friend who works at Sea World. She used to work at Morocco in Epcot. We met her when Kelley was using one of our Epcot books. She is our original favorite Moroccan and we were afraid her visa would expire, but she got married. Her husband is a Sea World guy, well Epcot’s loss is Sea Worlds gain.

She works customer service and listens to a lot of, “Shamo got me wet and even though you warned me he would, about a million times, I still want to complain.”

Anyway we met her just outside the park and she gave us passes, parking vouchers and was our tour guide all day. (Except for when there was a job fair and she cut out for an hour to try to get out of, “Shamo got me wet and even though you warned me he would, about a million times, I still want to complain,” duty.)

I think that after a while, shoveling out the Clydesdales stalls would seem better to me.

Clydesdales - They even have a place where you can get your picture taken with one of them in its stall. I can just here people when they get home “ … and here I am on vacation standing with a huge horse in it stall!” Kind of makes Delaney picture with a trash can seem fairly sanitary, in my opinion. Although those monster horses had the cleanest stalls I have ever seen, they must have a speedy mucking crew.

They weren't as fast as WDW with the barf, I saw a patch sitting as we were walking around. The sanitation guy must have been on Clydesdales do-do duty. I think the time it takes to clean up barf should become the industry standard measure of Theme Park sanitation, the Sanitation Performance Incident Time - Upchuck Pickup or SPIT UP. (Maybe I should copyright that....)

So anyway Seloua was showing us around. We rode the MONSTER roller coaster Kraken, very nice and the flumy thing and I got my feat soaked. (Hey where do I complain – the water is wet!) The boys rode Kraken again but I was dizzy enough and had wet feet.

Joe, Seloua’s husband, was getting new job orientation; he is now safety guy for a section for the park. Safety guy and he invites us in his first day, must be trying to get fired or something.  We tried to behave. He stopped by to say hi and would catch up with us later.

We strolled around to the Penguins, and took some pictures. My feet were cold from being wet and I wondered how penguin feet don’t freeze off.  

Connor decided he wanted to try a climbing wall they had, so did Blair. With them trying, Kelley decided she did too. There were three guys working and no customers so what the heck.

Seloua flashed the employee discount card and up the kids went. Good thing Joe wasn’t around, Kelley while making it to the top, was a little scared and loud. Blair did fine but climbing with sandals wasn’t the best traction. Hey dude your feet dried out mine are still wet, where do I complain? Connor climes like a monkey up and down twice before Kelley makes it up once. All there noise attracted a crowd and a line formed to climb.

Hey we are happy to be shills.

Seloua took us to see a show with pet type animals in it. We have pets, two beagles so I know what pets can do. These weren’t pets they were freaks. They did all kinds of cool stuff with almost all kinds of animals. Dogs, cats, ducks, weasels, mice… after it was all over, I noticed no beagles.

Beagles are WAY too stupid to do any of that stuff. Beagles can do four things.

1. Sleep, they gotta get 22 hours of beauty sleep a day. It doesn’t do much for the beauty IMHO.

2. Eat, they are always ready to eat, they will even wake up for it.

3. Bark, how so much noise comes out of such a small dog I have no idea.

4. Poop, sometimes even outside.

They don’t do tricks, unless getting into the trash counts as a trick. These Sea World animals are freaks.

We went to see Shamo. I wanted to get close and get pictures of the kids getting soaked. Seloua wouldn’t hear of it, my camera was too nice. Seems she hears a lot of, “Shamo got my camera wet and even though you warned me he would, about a million times, I still want to complain,”

OK she was right. They warned us about a million times that Shamo can splash a bit of water.

My feet would have gotten even more wet, as impossible as that seems.

Sea World was very cool other than the wet feet. We patted sting rays and dolphins. Watched shows dog, no ponies but some seriously huge horses. Connor sat for a sketching to help shill in customers to the artist. We are getting good at that, it was a nice picture but the Emperor is smart enough not to get sucked into buying art I don’t have walls for.

We said goodbye to Seleoa and Joe but not for long. They would be joining us in a few hours as our guests at the Illumniations party.

Back at BWV we did the requisite blood test and insulin dosing. Delaney’s numbers were moving well the correct direction. Kim checked the internet while I was cooking.

Suddenly something was seriously wrong.!

I counted the kids.  4 - I didn’t leave one at Sea World.
I checked for smoke. Nope - I am not burning anything.

Wonder what is wrong? And I am fairly happy ‘cause it isn’t looking like my fault.

Kimball has found, on one of the boards out of England, that the artists at Disney Studios we made a scroll for didn’t get it. In fact the manager never told the guy about it. The Emperor was exceedingly not pleased. (However he still didn’t burn dinner or leave a kid at Sea World.)

We had an illuminations party to throw and Kimball was not going to be late. This latest piece of news would get the full attention of the Z.I.A. early tomorrow morning. However if things were as they looked someone was going to get a royal, no make that Imperial, tongue lashing.

We got over to Epcot early and had some PhotoPass pictures taken. We were confident that these wouldn’t get lost as we would be paying for them. The boys wanted to ride hurl-a-whirl (a.k.a. Mission Space.) We sent them in to ride on there own, Kimabll and I weren’t going to a party dizzy. Well I mean motion sick; we are often a little dizzy.

The boys waited for a while and showing a level of self preservation I didn't know they possessed, bailed out when it looked like they would make us later for the party.

We got over to the check-in place for the party and there was a good crowd. We had a few minutes and I felt the need for a beer. Epcot has a rule that the bartender must see anyone they are serving (I know these things.) Kim wants a beer too, but is in charge of the party, so I need a stand in.

CarolA steps up and we stroll over to the Rose and Crown with KathyTX. I wanted a Guinness so Carol and I went in to fight the bar crowd. I had a pleasant chat with Carol and we were back with the beers just after they let people in. Carol chatted with Kim, I went in to check things out.

It looked great tables and chairs in a nice little arc. Nice size crowd. I saw Joe and Seloua and went to say hi and thanks for the Sea World adventure. Kim came over to say that Robin and company had fallen asleep but she had them on the run. Carol stopped Kim and I and gave us each a Christmas present. Framed and signed prints of our favorite WDW landmarks. Kim’s the castle at MK mine the Rose and Crown. Very nice, LYMI Carol.

These were even better seats for Illuminations than the cruise with Buz & Mattsmom last night. Our buddy Jeff was tied up with another crew of Illuminations cruisers, so the kids took him a sundae.

The party was way cool but all too short. We are going to have to work on that next time.

Connor spent a lot of time with Bryan who told him all about an insulin pump. Bryan is cool. When Connor was diagnosed he posted a story about being in school and selling used needles as squirters, so naturally the boys had to try it. You cut the needle off with toenail clippers and dam is they don’t squirt great. Apparently there was some serious high school detention involved for Bryan but it was a great story. Connor is very interested in a pump. Big thanks to Bryan for being the older wiser (ok not a lot of wisdom in the squirter story but it is fun) diabetic.

Later we would keep poor Bryan up with a little loud gathering at Suite’s. Sorry. On the plus side he said something. That shut us up some and probably kept all the other neighbors from calling the front desk and having the DVC police come chew us out.

They were probably already looking for me anyway.

You see I took the kids back to get settled at BWV. After blood checks, Kelley would baby sit (watch TV) and I would walk back over to Suite's Suite for the after hours party. Good plan, poor execution. You know the signs that say card key access after 11:00pm? They aint kidding. I couldn't get in. Kelly had my cell so she could call Kim if she needed help, so I couldn't. I was out of luck.

So I loitered around and followed in other BCV members. I was just behind them with my similar - looking - but - will - not - open - the - door - I - tried - already - BWV - card out.  I got in just in time, I am sure DVC security had me on surveillance cameras and had scrambled the rapid deployment forces to apprehend me. They were probably still looking for me when the Little Mermaid incident took place and were not able to be scrambled to get Del.  - Ya owe me buddy.

The plan for tomorrow is a MGM / Millionaire meet. We would be getting there early to get to the bottom of the second missing scroll incident.

Heads were going to roll.

Love Ya / Mean It and BadShoe.com Pins

Tony, Delaney, Connor - Love Ya / Mean It

Robin & Del, Kimball & Bennet (aka Delswife & Scuba Steve, Zurgswife & Zurg) are proud to announce two unique limited edition trading pins to benefit research to help find cures for Juvenile Diabetes and Muscular Dystrophy.

We love going to Disney World and writing funny trip reports, after all it is how we became friends.  We care just as much or more about helping these two great causes. All the profits from pin sales will go to JDRF and MDA because, well, Robin thought it would be a fun idea.

So if you enjoy the trip reports please chip in and buy a pin or two. Pins are $10.00 each including shipping and handling (North America.) Send an email to pins@badshoe.com with how many pins you would like and we will get the pins rolling. The BadShoe.com pins have sold out. Existing orders are being filled but we can't take anymore BadShoe.com pin orders, sorry. There still Love Ya /  Mean it Pins (there were more to start.) 

If you feel inspired click either MDA or JDRF's logo or both and make additional contributions.