Day 1, Part 3
We decided to pull up to the lobby to get a luggage cart to unload everything into. The plan was to go to the room and call Bell Services to have them bring everything up, and then go to Hollywood Studios for our dinner reservation. Dad stayed in the car as April continued napping, and DS and I went up to the room. We were in Tokelau on the second floor, facing the other DVC resorts, not far from the elevator. We always request Tokelau and so far have always gotten our request. It’s our favorite building in terms of location and views for the standard view studios.
Before we went up, I asked if we could have the groceries that had been delivered by Instacart, since there were some items we wanted to take to Hollywood Studios. After a couple of checks, the CMs told me there were no groceries for me back there! Which was confusing because I had definitely put the right address into the app. They acted extremely perplexed and were pretty much telling me I would have to contact Instacart and that I was SOL with them. I finally asked them if I could go in and check myself and they said yes. The CM brought me in and showed me a clipboard with all the names and pretty much said, “See, your name’s not on here?”
I found my name right on the list. I had repeated it to him several times. It’s not an uncommon name, either.
Then he looked around all confused like the order was nowhere to be found. I saw it right in front of me and pointed to it. Sigh.
I brought up the grocery bags to the room and then called Bell Services for the rest of the luggage.
They told us it would take awhile to get our luggage up, so we decided to wait until we got back to Hollywood Studios to retrieve it. If we’d known it would take awhile, I would have just brought the cart up myself. By that point I had also discovered some things were missing from the grocery order, but they were all things that would be perishable so I was thinking they were probably being stored in a fridge. I wasn’t sure since when we’d stayed at BRV earlier in the year we were told Bell Services doesn’t refrigerate stuff due to liability concerns but it was the only explanation I could think of. I asked if they could check and see if our remaining bags were in the fridge and they said yes. So that was fine and I decided we’d just get them later since we were quickly approaching our ADR time.
We went back to the car and drove over to Hollywood Studios. Since we’d paid for preferred parking earlier in the day, we were able to take advantage of it here as well, which was nice. Soon enough, we were in our second park!
Our ADR tonight was at my sister’s favorite restaurant, the 50’s Prime Time Cafe. It’s definitely one of my favorites as well. I think we arrived in front of the restaurant pretty much right at our ADR time. I checked us in via the app and we went into the lobby to wait.
Soon enough, they were calling our name.
If you’ve never been to Prime Time, it’s set up with the idea that you’re eating in a kitchen from a 50’s sitcom and all the waiters and waitresses are your parents or cousins or aunts or uncles or whatever; basically you’re the kids and they’re the grown-ups. It’s a ton of fun. Of course, the average kitchen isn’t big enough for multiple tables, so the dining area is divided into what I can only describe as a labyrinth of near identical kitchens. Many tables, including ours, have a TV next to them playing clips from various old sitcoms.
The room we were seated in was pretty small, with only three tables. I prefer to be more central to the action but our waiter made it a ton of fun.
The food at Prime Time is pretty standard American fare. My sister ordered the chicken pot pie (and was not aware until it was delivered that it was the “deconstructed” variety, with the pastry on top of the fillings). My dad ordered the pot roast and I ordered the fried chicken, with the intent that we would share the two. Honestly, I got full pretty quick but I really love the pot roast, so we would have either just shared one pot roast and maybe gotten an appetizer or just each gotten our own. I don’t love the fried chicken. I did get the Coke with real cherry syrup (as opposed to just a cherry coke) and I really love that they still have this option.
April got a side of mac and cheese, and my dad noted that she was basically inhaling it without chewing. Remember that, because it’s a surprise tool that could "help" us later.
She got a bit fussy towards the end of the meal, but overall we had a nice time. I think when she gets a bit older and can appreciate the shenanigans she’ll get a kick out of it; she’s developing the sort of personality that I can see being amenable to a place like this. But for now, she’ll just eat some mac and cheese. We were also seated next to a window, so she had to play with the blinds a lot. Toddlers!
While we were at dinner, I got us a return time for Runaway Railway, with the intent for us to decide after dinner if we wanted to use it. I know it’s not my dad’s favorite ride; he feels like it jostles him around too much, but DS hadn’t gone on it I believe and I think it’s fun. When we finished our meal, we decided to go redeem it. My dad grumbled a bit but got over it quickly.
One issue I’ve been having on some rides with April lately is she often wants to sit on my lap. Different rides have different rules for this and I *believe* it’s okay on MMRR, but she has to be facing forward. Well, she definitely didn’t want to do that. She wanted to hug me tight. I think they were about to kick me off when I finally got her to sit facing forward on one of my knees and they put the lap bar down. Honestly, as soon as we were out of sight of the CMs, she turned back around. A lot of attractions seem to be making her nervous these days. I think the days of being able to just drag her on any attraction are over, and may be for awhile
But anyway we all survived MMRR, it was a real nail-biter but we did it. We exited the Chinese theater and got the stroller, and saw that a bunch of people were waiting around for the first projection show so we decided to stick around and watch it as it started pretty much immediately. I guess HS has two projection shows, one for live action movies and one for animated movies? Anyway, this was for the live action movies and we decided to head out after and skipped the one for animated movies. Interesting that they separate them like that. I guess when you own *checks notes* all the movies in existence you need to find a way to separate them for nighttime spectaculars. What a burden!
Anyway, in the parking lot I found this hidden Mickey! You think it’s a sign of something? An AC leak, perhaps.
Our drive back to the Poly was uneventful. Rather than wait for Bell Services to bring our luggage, Dad and I elected to go down to the lobby to get it ourselves, while DS watched April. As we made our way down, I got a call from a lady who worked for FEMA. I had opened a case with them shortly before the trip since at the time, we figured we were SOL insurance wise (that has since changed, because even though we don’t have flood insurance, our adjuster was able to trace the water to a leak in our chimney, which means the repairs are covered).
She asked if she could come by the next day and I asked if it could wait until next week, but she told me that once FEMA assigns you a case worker, they need to come within 48 hours of contacting you or you need to start the application all over again. Not sure what the reason for that is, but okay. I asked if she could come Friday instead and at first made arrangements for her to come around noon, but then realized that would interfere with our ADR for that day and called her back and asked if we could reschedule for 9. Remember that detail.
We got the luggage, remaining grocery bags, and my sister’s
scooter that she had rented through Scooter Bug. My dad drove the scooter back to Tokelau and I was put in charge of the luggage. Before I left the GCH, I decided to go over to Trader Sam’s to see if there was a wait for one person. It was about 60 minutes and by this point it was already 10, so I went ahead and put my name in, figuring by that point, April should be asleep, right? RIGHT???
I went back to Tokelau and up the elevator. As I exited, my sister tried to call me, and when I answered, all I could hear was April crying. Uh-oh. I hung up and went into the room.
Yeah, so remember all that mac and cheese April had swallowed whole at dinner? Turns out that moments before I entered the room, she barfed all of it right up. Lesson learned, kids. Chew your dang food!
DS said she started getting fussy and sad right before the puking, but after we got her cleaned up she was in much better spirits, so it did seem like the swallowing food whole was what did it.
Well, needless to say, that pretty much derailed my plans for the evening. I got April cleaned up, bathed, and ready for bed, and at some point during that ordeal I got a text that Trader Sam’s was ready for me. I didn’t see an option to cancel my spot so I just ignored it. Sorry, Sam!
My hope was that April would sleep in the murphy bed under the TV, I would take the large murphy, and my dad and sister wanted the regular queen bed. One issue, though, is the fact that a studio is really just a regular hotel room. In a one-bedroom villa, I have the luxury of being able to put April down to bed in a separate room while the rest of the family goes about their business in the main part of the villa. Here, there was really no way she was going to fall asleep with the rest of us milling about, even with the lights off, and she especially didn’t want to sleep in her own bed knowing that I had a big fancy bed all to myself just mere feet away from her, in her line of sight, no less! Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking.
There were a couple of moments where it looked like she *might* fall asleep in the twin bed on her own, but it really was never going to happen. Add in the chaos of needing to call housekeeping for new sheets and all and we were just in for it. She was also hungry again, having barfed up her entire dinner. She asked for cereal puffs so I gave her a brand new jar of them, which she ate pretty much all of while the rest of us got ready for bed. At some point, my dad gave her this vintage Donald Duck bank he'd gotten at a garage sale.
In fact, she really didn’t want to sleep at all. There was just too much excitement going on! I get it. But I also really needed some time to relax. So eventually DS settled into the queen bed and watched something on her phone, while April just sat contentedly in the big pulldown watching Disney Jr and eating puffs. Dad and I sat on the balcony with the curtains open so I could check in on April and he and I could chat and chill. By the time she finally passed out, it was about 1 in the freaking morning.
Day 2, coming up next!
Hope you were happy with your Poly room.
