Mindflipper's Trip from August 23, 2013

[Amy]

Do they give free FPs out at WDW through their twitter feeds? They do at DLR, they basically say where they are and anyone who comes up to them gets a pass until they run out.

Oooo, which twitter feed should I add before we head to DL this December?

[Wizzard419]

I thought it was November?! You're now back on the list!

Anyway, for DCA
https://twitter.com/DCAToday
and DLR
https://twitter.com/Disneyland

They send the lower paid monkeys out into the park for various giveaways, so if you have a smart phone it is good to follow them. Unrelated, I am shocked at how much you can save by following stores you frequent on social media.

[mindflipper]

And now back to the Trip Report...

Sadly, this day started with a half day of work (boo!) and then after lunch departing to Orlando. I had done the on-line check in the night before, but when we arrived, they said their system did not show I had done that. So I went through the whole thing again and giving the credit card for charging and setting up the pins for the MagicBands. The room was on the sixth floor (two floors above concourse floor and on the opposite side of the monorails).



And here's the view from the balcony of our room:



Beautiful day, eh? Well, this particular week had been plagued with afternoon thunderstorms. Sadly, work didn't leave me alone so I had to handle some on my laptop before going down to explore the concourse area. 3 of 5 elevators were down and were being blamed due to bad weather. It was also the explanation for why there was no TV feed as well. If a thunderstorm could do that, will the hotel fall down completely if it gets hit by a Tropical Depression? But on the bright side the gift shop somehow knew I was coming because they had cookies specially made for me:



Nice to be honored during my visit. Here's some pics inside the Contemporary:




We had dinner at the WAVE restaurant on the first floor:



The food was good, and the dining experience would had been better if a guest had shown up, thanks to a PM snafu with the subsonic website (yes, Len90, i'm still placing the blame there). After dinner, we caught the fireworks from the stairwell balcony on our floor:







And after that, we also got the Electric Water Pageant from the balcony of our room:



We turned in early that night as we were getting up early in the morning, and none of Disney Transportation would be working for us in the morning...

...to be continued...

[boilerbabe]

Loving the pics so far mindflipper!!! You had an awesome view from your room! Sorry you experienced technical difficulties! I just love the water pageant, haven't been able to watch it from a balcony since our honeymoon in '06 when we were upgraded to Club Level at the Poly! We had the honor of staying in the Hawaii longhouse with a MK view! You really can't beat watching the water pageant from your balcony!

I like the pillows in your room, I might have tried to shove one of those in my luggage!!! J/K!!!!

[Boilerdude]

I love the pics!!! And the pillows look like a wheel of cheese. Yummmmmmm, cheese.

[Amy]

I thought it was November?! You're now back on the list!

Anyway, for DCA
https://twitter.com/DCAToday
and DLR
https://twitter.com/Disneyland

They send the lower paid monkeys out into the park for various giveaways, so if you have a smart phone it is good to follow them. Unrelated, I am shocked at how much you can save by following stores you frequent on social media.

Thanks! And I'm hoping it means it is a good thing to be on the list??

[Amy]

I love the pics!!! And the pillows look like a wheel of cheese. Yummmmmmm, cheese.

Scary, I thought the same thing!
Love the cookies mindflipper ~ those look like your kind of snack!!
That is pretty neat that you were able to see both the fireworks and the water pageant from your hotel

[cy1229]

Loving the pics, Mindflipper! I've always wanted to spend a night or two in the Contemporary tower. We stayed at BLT and that was kind of like staying there, but not quite.

Going way back in your report to the Duffy storytime... I never even turn the TV on while at Disney. They could take the TV out of our room and we would never miss it. Do you guys really watch TV when you're there? In fact, I only watch TV in a hotel when I'm traveling alone for business.

[Amy]

Loving the pics, Mindflipper! I've always wanted to spend a night or two in the Contemporary tower. We stayed at BLT and that was kind of like staying there, but not quite.

Going way back in your report to the Duffy storytime... I never even turn the TV on while at Disney. They could take the TV out of our room and we would never miss it. Do you guys really watch TV when you're there? In fact, I only watch TV in a hotel when I'm traveling alone for business.

I don't know about mindflipper, but we turn on the tv in the morning for the weather forecast. Once that has cycled through a few times I might flip channels while waiting for Figment to be ready to go. I believe the Disney informational channel is the default when you turn the tv on, so you see that Duffy bedtime story link whether you want to or not
Much like sleeping, we can watch tv when we are at home, not at the parks!

[boilerbabe]

Bdude has to turn the t.v. on. He cannot miss his Sportscenter! We leave it on the Resort Channel while getting ready in the a.m. and then watch a little at night before turning in, otherwise, who cares about the t.v.! We're in Disney!!!

[dstrawn9889]

get him an android phone, and put the espn app on it... then unplug the tv

[Boilerdude]

Have one, not the same

[mindflipper]

The reason I wanted to have the TV that night was to find out what the weather was to be like the next day. I like to work on more than just one forecast and sometimes the internet forecasts aren't that great. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't feel like it in the morning, given we were getting up before the crack of dawn.

[mindflipper]

Sorry you experienced technical difficulties!

There's more to technical difficulties with the MagicBands. After doing the online check-in, and then doing it all over again upon arrival, it still didn't work. I tried to purchase something at the Fantasia gift shop on the Concourse and the MagicBand still didn't work. The gift shop cashier recommended I go back down to reception and have them re-do all over again and then come back up to complete the purchase. Really? "Yeh.....no" was my response. Just pulled out the wallet and paid it that way. So good luck to those of you who wish to link up your MagicBand for making purchases. Hoepfully, because of complaints from those in the test phase, maybe they will find and fix the bugs. Maybe.

[mindflipper]

I love the pics!!! And the pillows look like a wheel of cheese. Yummmmmmm, cheese.

Nope, not cheese. You must live too close to Wisconsin. One of the four yellow round pillows actually has a rough sketch of Mickey's head on it. It doesn't show up well on the pic. But unlike the Yacht Club room from my previous trip report, there wasn't much hidden mickeys to be found in the decor.