This weekend was our final Disney volunteering weekend of the season; we won't be back until November for the Wine & Dine.
As we normally do, we left around 9 and hit Circle K for sodas. The kiddo forgot her hairbrush at home, so we returned back for that, then picked up some donuts and got on the interstate. We ate lunch at Arby's before heading over to ESPN WWoS.
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| We're so far away you can't even SEE the place! |
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| They moved the photo ops to a better (less traffic-inducing) area |
Our first stop was to pick up our credentials for the 10k and half-marathon races, then we signed in for our Expo shift. We were lucky enough to get assigned to Shirt Exchange again, yay!
We hung out in the lounge and munched on snacks until our team leader, Amy, came in to get us around 1:45.
New this year is the rule that there will be NO FOOD or DRINKS (besides water) on the Expo Floor. We were all given a bottle of Dasani when we checked in; we weren't allowed to use anything else besides that bottle.
We were set up at Shirt Exchange with two other volunteers, elderly folks we've worked with before. Sadly, the gentleman is rarely friendly, and not very good at his job. Also sad - there weren't a lot of sizes this time around. Shirt Exchange works on a "one in, one out" system. I can only give out a shirt if I have it. I can't 'just go get one' from the other shirt table. I can't 'see if there's any in the back' because there aren't. And when we're low on shirts, it makes exchanging very hard. Today was going to suck.
The Kiddo and I took our lunch break together, and I grabbed a pretzel and drink from Wetzel's Pretzels before going to the volunteer lounge. Because of the pretzel, I didn't eat much of my lunch, so - not thinking of the new rules - I brought my lunch with me and tucked it under the table (as I've done many times before). Team Leader Tom saw it and made me move it. Oops!
Of course, Old Dude smuggled his back in, smirking about how I got in trouble and that he basically got one over on Tom... jerk.
Another rule of Shirt Exchange is that, to be fair to all participants, we cannot "hold" a shirt for someone, if it comes in after they leave the table. Many times, a runner will come by looking for a Large shirt, but we don't have any. If another Large comes in, we cannot hold that shirt for him and call him, or wait for him to come back for it. There is no "line" so to speak. You come, you check, you leave. Well, Old Dude decided he didn't like those rules and I caught him hoarding like 5 shirts at one point! Shirts that were in high demand with other runners, that we'd had to turn away because we didn't have the size they wanted. So, I had to tell Amy, what he was doing. I hate being a tattle-tale, but that's crap; don't do that! He hated me even more after that, I think. Raise your hand if you think that I gave a damn.
As expected, it was a really crappy day, having to say NO a lot more than we said YES to exchangers. Finally, around 7, Amy checked us out and we headed to WaWa for dinner and then checked in at Red Lion Inn, where we scored a ground floor room. We unpacked, ate our snack-dinner, tweeted and chilled out until it was bedtime.
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| Red Lion Hotel room - 2 Queens |
We had no shift to go to on Saturday because we'd been wait-listed, so I didn't have an alarm set. I didn't get up until around 8. I stayed in bed, with my Pepsi from last night, while I Twittered. I woke up the family around 9 and we were out the door by 9:30. I had made some FastPasses+ for today, so our first stop was going to be Big Thunder Mountain at the Magic Kingdom.
Driving into MK, there was a lot of construction going on. I wonder what that's all about? We had to park in the Villains lot, so we already knew... it's gonna be BUSY in the parks today! We also experienced the new and improved security measures.
Everyone now has to go through bag checks and metal detectors. Luckily, there was a No Bag Line (at least at the tram stop), but I still had to take everything out of my pockets (like at the airport). Kind of frustrating because it takes me forever to get everything back where I want it. But hey... the mirage of security, right?
We got in line for the Express Monorail, and while we were standing there, I pointed out that we should get on the Resort Monorail, it might be quicker. Hubby thought we were already in that line, but after about 5 minutes, I pointed out how wrong he was, ducked under a rope and went over to the Resort line.
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| So. Many. Bodies. |
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| That's like 3 boats worth of bodies |
We ended up arriving at the park at about the same time people in front of us in the original Express line arrived, so the time was the same,
but we were sitting down in air conditioning rather than standing and sweating!
Once at the park, there is no additional security measures for us to walk through (remember, bag check used to be here), so we headed directly to the tapstiles. Because of crowds, we'd missed our first FastPass, so we headed over to Pirates, our next FastPass.
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| Original FastPass+ |
Ironically, Pirates was down, and we were able to use our Pirates FastPass anywhere... so we went back over to Big Thunder!
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| Email about Pirates Closure (Pt 1)... |
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| Email (Pt 2) - What we could swap for |
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| BACK to Big Thunder |
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| One of my favorite views |
After that, we headed to Columbia Harbour House for lunch, but wow! The line was out the door, almost to the Liberty Square/Fantasyland overhang! We threw around other ideas, like Tomorrowland Terrace, but the Kiddo (and I) really wanted shrimp, and Hubby vetoed because Tomorrowland Terrace doesn't have air conditioning.
Luckily, the line was moving quickly, so the Kiddo went upstairs to scout out a table while Hubby and I picked up the food. As always, it was tasty, and our table was close enough to an outlet that we could charge our phones.
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| The good "fat and round" shrimp, not the "wide and flat" shrimp |
Once we finished lunch, we went over and rode Haunted Mansion, then went over to PeopleMover. Yeah, the line for PM is all the way over to the spaceship store! Gonna skip that ride, too. We headed to the front of the park and made a pit stop at the Emporium to finally get my Humphrey mug (the Kiddo got a new Lion King mug, too) and then took the monorail back to the TTC.
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| Humphrey and Lion King mugs (mine's better...) |
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| Reverse side of Humphrey and Lion King mugs (mine is definitely better...) |
Once at the car, we all came to the conclusion that we needed something sweet, so we headed over to the Boardwalk to try out the new Ample Hills Creamery. I got Lemon Sky, Hubby got Peppermint Pattie and the Kiddo got Vanilla. All of them were really tasty, and large portions, but at $20... the price was kind of steep. Since we were in the area, I hit the Boardwalk Bakery for a Cheesecake brownie, then we headed back to the hotel (we got dinner at Wawa a few hours later).
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| Menu Board 1 |
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| Menu Board 2 |
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| Peppermint Pattie, Lemon Sky, and Vanilla Bean |
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| Can't beat the view (even if it's hotter than hell out here) |
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| WaWa's Chicken Finger with Mac & Cheese Bowl. It was meh. |
On Sunday, we were up super-early, by 2:30, packing and checking out
at the hotel. After breakfast from WaWa, we headed towards ESPN.
Unfortunately, due to a lot of roadwork and a sleepy human navigator
(me), I ended up stuck in runner traffic and went all the way to the
Magic Kingdom! There was a very lovely security guy who let me pull a
U-Turn and we ended up at ESPN a little later than I'd hoped.
We
checked in at the volunteer tent and got stuck with tee shirts that
were only a Large (they ran out of the bigger sizes). But, holy shit! It
fit!! I was able to shove all of this into a LARGE! We also grabbed
our snack box and bottle of water and piled on to the bus. Oh, cool, our
bus has WiFi. It didn't have a great driver - they kept getting stuck
in weird areas, or taking wrong turns!
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| Volunteer Check-In is quiet |
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| Buses with WiFi? Still so cool |
As with all
Water Stops, there were two Team Leaders. One is supposedly for the
Water people and one is supposedly for the PowerAde people, but we're
always treated as ONE large team (which is annoying, because PowerAde
people take a lot longer, and inevitably, Water people are called to
assist the PowerAde people finish their job).
The three
of us grabbed a table, with the two of them placing empty cups while I
unpacked the liters of water. At some point - as always happens - Hubby
started getting pissy. We never work well together at water stops! He
said that the Kiddo and I weren't being logical with how we were doing
things, and just stopped working with us altogether and only filled up
his side of the table's cups, then accused US of not working as a
team... yeah, I HATE working at water stops.
At about
the same time, I'd begun doing a second table (because if I'd gone over
to do cups with them, I would have been in their way...) and he comes
over to tell me that I should stop doing that table because it's not
"ours" and I should help finish our table first. Ugh... Eventually, he
finished filling "his side" of the table, and then stalks off to help
other people! Like, really, what the hell? The kiddo and I are used to
this, so we just let it roll off our backs and finish the task, then
move on to filling the second table.
Our Team Leader
wasn't very helpful... many tables only had two layers of water because
no one instructed them that they are required to do three layers. We
were still filling cups with water when ACTUAL runners (not just Wheels
and Elites) came though. I was so pissed, because we should have been
ready and waiting when the first wheelchair athlete came through. But
then again, because of shitty team leaders and inept drivers, we only
had ONE hour to do all the tables to begin with.
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| Still filling bottles... |
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| We should NOT still be filling when runners are already there! |
Hubby
and The Kiddo stayed with the first table, while I stayed with the
second table that I filled, near the end of the line of tables (also
known as "Shit, I should get another cup of water" table).
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| Get you some watah! |
The
first hour of any race is pretty boring, because those people are
trying to be fast and make a PR, so many of them don't stop, or don't
interact with volunteers. Once the speedy folks clear out, though,
that's when the fun happens! It gets a lot busier and the runners are
having a lot more fun. We all began calling to runners using bad Star
Wars puns and jokes, like:
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Darth Water
o
I am your Last
Hope… for water
o
Imported Water
o
Melted Hoth
Water
o
I didn’t have
to fight a taunton for this water
o
Water you
doing? You need to drink!
o
And so on…
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| The Last Wilderness Explorer (Star Wars + Up! mash-up) |
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| A very nice-lookin' Han Solo (love those tights, man!) |
Once
all the runners came though, we loaded up on the bus, then checked out
at the Volunteer Tent. Back in the car, we decided that we should hit up
Long John Silver's for lunch. We drove all the way out there, only to
discover that they were freakin' CLOSED! Dude, what's up with the
shitty LJS' in Orlando?
So,
to hell with them, we went to Wendy's. I got the 4 for $4 deal, with a
Junior Bacon Cheeseburger (the bun was cold), nuggets (which were
overcooked), fries and a soda. I also added a cup of cheese, like I used
to do when I worked at Wendy's at the mall... it was NOT the same at
all. Much less cheese (a condiment cup of cheese, vs a ladle-ful in a
chili cup we used to sell), and not nearly as thick and tasty. Lesson
learned!
While eating lunch, I noticed a super
classy, modified Hyundai in the Waffle House parking lot next door with a
vinyl across the back window that said "Send Nudes." It was way too
funny for some reason, so there's my blog title!
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| Nudes you send. Now I want. |
While the Kiddo took a potty break, Hubby
pulled up the weather. It looked like rain was going to show up in about
2 hours, and since the Kiddo didn't want to go to Epcot anyway (she's
really "over" Disney right now), we skipped it.
On the way home, we hit up the Russel
Stover Outlet - there was a LOT of Easter Candy left (since it was last
week), and got home by 4. I took a nap on the couch and ate dinner in
bed (my leftover volunteer lunch from Friday, some chips and candy), and
I was asleep by 9!
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| The haul between the three of us |
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| Milk chocolate eggs, Dark chocolate eggs, chocolate bars, caramels, and bunnies |
Volunteering at Disney is NOT the walk in
the park that many people think it is. Yeah, there's downtime, but when
you're working, you're WORKING! I always say I need a vacation after
this!
