Another Week Is Over

I'm glad the weekend is here. This hasn't been a particularly hard week or an unusually long week, but I'm glad it's over nonetheless. It was my first week back to work after another vacation and I've been sick for the whole thing. That's reason enough to welcome the weekend, don't you think?

I'm feeling the best I've felt all week, though that's not saying a lot. I still don't feel 100% and it's bothering me. I've been sick for a week and a half, which is a week and a half longer than I usually like being sick. I've gone through my entire run of antibiotics, so from here on out I'm on my own. I'm hoping a good weekend of lounging and goofing off will help my body get back to where it should be.

Easing back into work was much less painful than I anticipated. Sure, my desk was piled high with work waiting for me, but it wasn't anything too agonizing. I had lots to do this week and managed to keep very busy, which helped the week fly by. And I, for the most part, concentrated on nothing but work. When I don't feel good, I don't feel sociable. I want the whole world to be dead. I don't want anyone bothering me. So I put all of my attention into work and before I knew it, it was tonight!

At dinner tonight, Ken got up to use the restroom so I grabbed my phone to check email. I was very excited to find a message in there saying that the contest I had entered at Towleroad ended in my favor. You are looking at the winner of the brand spanking new Rufus Wainwright CD/DVD Milwaukee At Last!!! I'm psyched! I would have run out to buy it earlier this week, but being sick has kept me in, which turned out to be a very good thing. The notification said it's been dropped in the mail so I should have it in a couple of days, depending on where it was mailed from.

So, last week I was in Orlando, enjoying my annual pilgrimage to the House of the Mouse. The last few years, the Orlando trip has kind of been different since I now know people there. It used to be a week in the parks, just Ken and I. Now it's some solo time, some time with others in the parks and outside. This year's trip was probably my favorite Disney run in the last ten years. I ran myself into the ground, but I had the best time doing it. I got a chance to spend some time alone (trips to both Epcot and Magic Kingdom all on my own), some time with just Ken, and time with just about everyone I know in the area.

The trip almost didn't turn out to be so good based on our first day there. The day itself started out on the right foot. We got to Orlando and to my surprise, Ken had rented a stretch limo to cart us off to the hotel.
We get to the hotel to check in and that's when things started to go downhill. We were told the room wasn't ready yet. Really, not a problem. It was 11am and check in isn't officially until 4pm anyway. Sure, we've always been able to get into the room right away in the past, but whatever. The woman checking us in gives us the total for the room and goes to put it on the credit card. She tells us the card has been declined. Ken starts to panic. He asks her to try again and again it is declined. And again. He asks me for another credit card, but there's the problem. I only brought the one. The same one as him. I cleaned out my wallet the week before. So did he. He asks a manager if he can use the phone to call the credit card company. After being on hold for a while, he gets through and finds out the card has been frozen for fraudulent activity. The fraudulent activity, it turns out, was the woman checking us in running the card through multiple times with the wrong expiration date. She manually entered the information and got the expiration date wrong. After a short conversation, the issue was resolved and we were back on track.

We rent a car every year we're in Florida, usually at the airport. Ken found a better deal renting on Disney property at the Car Care Center. That's why we had the limo. After we're checked in and Ken had a second to start to calm down, he called the Car Care Center for a shuttle. When he called them, the woman on the other end said "Ken? Well, we've been waiting for you" with an attitude. This, too, started to freak him out. The shuttle was going to take 20 to 30 minutes to arrive.

In the meantime, we decided to go buy our park tickets. Since the room wasn't going to be ready until later, we would go get the rental and then head over to the Magic Kingdom. We are waited on by a different cast member. He asks us for our room keys, since they will double as the park passes. I explain to him that we can't get into our room yet. He says that it's not a problem, but he needs the keys to add the park admissions to. I again say that we don't have room keys since the room isn't ready. He repeats that the keys and the park passes are the same thing. Now I'm starting to get frustrated because he's not understanding that I don't have room keys yet. He finally excuses himself to go talk to a manager. A few minutes later he comes back with our room keys. Apparently, the keys should have been given to us earlier, but they weren't. Joy. A simple two minute transaction finally got straightened out fifteen minutes later. At least it killed almost enough time for the shuttle to arrive.

It's only a five or ten minute drive over to get the rental. We walk in, Ken gives his name and the woman from the phone earlier starts in with him. "We've been waiting for you. You have five reservations." We didn't have five reservations, but they had us down for five. Ken tries to explain to her that he only has one, but she insists there are five. It says so on her sheet. We head over to a computer to try to get that straightened out (only to find out we have ONE reservation). The paperwork is completed kind of quickly and we're led out to the rental. I don't know cars, so I can't tell you what it is we got, but it's like an SUV of some sort. And it was dirty. Inside and out. And beaten to shit. There was a huge dent and gouge on the back of it. Before Ken was willing to take it, he wanted them to note the dent and gouge. The woman with the attitude said they don't note that stuff. Ken said that was fine, but he wanted it noted anyway. And she refused. The more she refused, the hotter he got. Finally a manager comes over and Ken explains the situation again. He said they don't note that stuff. Now Ken's pissed. He also points out that besides the damage, the car looks like it hasn't been washed in months, there are big stains on the upholstery, the car is a mess. The manager decides that Ken should get a different car. He doesn't want one, he just wants the damage noted so we can get on the road. Well, needless to say, thirty minutes later, we're in a new car and finally on our way. By this point in the day, nothing has really done right and Ken is in the worst mood ever. He's pissed, he's got a monstrous headache and he's miserable. He misses the first turn for Magic Kingdom. Then the second. Then the third. He finally makes the turn and is heading back, speeding right through a speed trap. Luckily the cop didn't care.

We decided to park at the Polynesian to grab a bite to eat before going to the park. We both got a salad for lunch. I started eating mine while Ken typed away furiously on his phone. The new car we rented had a big dent and scratch in the back. While I was eating, he was emailing a picture of the damage to the manager he dealt with earlier.
As soon as he finished, he started to eat. Only to find that his salad had absolutely no dressing on it. I got up to go get some when he snapped at me to sit back down. He ate his salad dry. Ugh.

Before heading over to the park, he needed to stop and get an aspirin. His headache was not migraine level. We go up to the gift shop and they only sell aspirin in full bottles, not single serving packs. Of course.

We finally made it to the park and we had a good time. At last. We poked around for a few hours until I received a text message saying our room was ready. So we headed back to the hotel.

It was nice to get into the room. It was your standard Disney hotel room, but who cares. We were in.
As I poked around, something started bothering me. We couldn't get in until almost 4 o'clock because the room wasn't ready. It was clear to me that this wasn't true as I checked out the room. It looked to me like the room hadn't been occupied in weeks. There was quite a bit of settled dust on the table, the entertainment center and the nightstands. There was also what look like a bit of smeared toothpaste on the bathroom floor. But we were in and with the way the day had been going, I wasn't going to tempt fate.

I noticed Ken was looking around as if he was looking for something specific. Then he got out his phone and started making phone calls. Apparently he ordered flowers (from the cats) for us. He paid extra to make sure they were delivered early and in the room waiting for us. There were no flowers. The front desk knew nothing of flowers. The company he ordered them from started giving him the run around. He ultimately got a "we'll call you when we figure out where they are" from them. He asked when that might be and they told him they didn't know. To this day we're still waiting to hear from them. But, the flowers showed up about an hour later.

We spent a little bit of time in the room before heading out to dinner. We drove to Downtown Disney to eat at House of Blues. We both had a good time, Ken found a waiter there to be his new boyfriend (he was nice from behind, not so much from the front) and we enjoyed our meal.

After dinner, we went for a walk through Downtown Disney. I needed to walk off what I just ate. But the more we walked, the more sick Ken felt. It was to the point that we were at the opposite end of Downtown from where we parked and Ken thought he was going to vomit. I've never seen him walk that far that quickly to get back to the car. I think it was just the stress of the worst first day of vacation that did it to him, but he's convinced he ate something bad. So we get back to the hotel, Ken is ready for bed and it's only 8:30. Happy first day of vacation. I changed my clothes and headed down to the pool. Ken followed me, but didn't go in the pool. I swam for a little bit and then headed back up to the room to read and then sleep. It was a very long day. We'd been up since about 4am.

Thankfully the rest of the week didn't suck. I'll post some pictures and gab a little about it next time.