Oct 31 - man about disney

Not quite true -- there were five of us.

We arrived at Disney a little after 10am, setup our season passes and headed in.  The World Showcase wasn't open yet so we went to the Imagination pavilion and watched the 3D Michael Jackson movie -- Captain EO.  It was actually good.  I don't remember ever seeing it before.

Heading onwards, we stopped to watch a juggler / acrobat at the French pavilion and there were Jason, Lo and Kim.  Soon it was time for lunch and we headed to the Japanese pavilion and our reservation there.  Over lunch we were talking about passes etc. and it seems that there's this dining pass for $100 that gets you a) free parking and b) 20% off food in the restaurants.  Well, that pays for itself so we went to the Guest Relations booth at the secondary entrance and arranged for that.  In doing so, we had to exit the park and come back in again, which isn't a big deal.  We put the pass in Sandy's name because she's at Disney more than me or at least I never go without her and thus there was no need to pay for a spousal pass, which is another $50.

We setup a couple of fastpass times, one for Spaceship Earth and the other for Test Track.  We wandered a little together and then Sandy and I headed to Spaceship Earth.  After that we decided to wait in queue for Test Track, advertised at a 50 minute wait.  Well, in 37 minutes we were actually through the ride so the actual wait time was minimal, since part of the ride is this design-a-car thing that takes some time as well. 

A couple of coffees etc. later and we watched a rock concert outside of the British pavilion and then axe throwing etc. outside of Canada, checked shirts and all.  Jason et al found us there and we went to The Land early for our dinner reservations, where Lorraine and Sandy cajoled them into combining our 3 person and 2 person reservations.  The Garden Grill has family style dining, all you can eat, and it was quite good.  The aforementioned pass can cover up to 10 people so I paid for the group of us and Jason will pay me back later.  Between dinner and parking reimbursement for the day, it's almost paid for itself already !

Oh yes, the parking.  The intent of the parking reimbursement is for you to be able to park free while you come to the park for dinner.  If you enter before 5pm and stay for longer than three hours, there's no need for reimbursement; it's free on the way in.  However, that time is calculated from your computer-recorded entry to the park ... which was now set at 1:40 since we'd been out to guest relations ... and then mid afternoon we were at the guest relations by the front entrance (by Spaceship Earth) and thus were in the park less than three hours.  It's kind of a flaw in their logic that you can come for the day, exit and enter, eat dinner (or lunch, in this case) and then claim the parking, but hey, you could just as easily head to another park at that point or whatever, so it works.  The best use of the parking thing is actually to come late in the day for dinner.  After 5pm you simply don't pay for parking on the way in, so it's straightforward.  We just accidentally recalculated our entry time.  If you're way at the other end of the park it's not worth your while to walk to the entrance simply to exit and enter.

Illuminations was good as usual.  Jason et al had a fastpass location to watch; we found a good viewing point by the Canadian pavilion; our usual spot.  We waited almost an hour -- the display was at 10pm -- and were rolling home by 10:30, home at 11:50.  A good day all around. 

Jason would have done well getting the season pass, in hindsight.  His would be more expensive than ours, since he's not a resident, but still a better deal than not BECAUSE you can only get the dining pass with a season pass.  Put the two together and it really bites into the cost of eating at Disney when you're spending five days there ... and ... since he tends to come down more than once per year, it's a great deal.  Next time down they'll probably do that.  Even if only one of them gets the season pass, it can then be combined with the dining ticket.

I had A/C problems when I got home.   This is something that has occurred before where the compressor / outside unit is running but the inside fan is not. It runs and runs and runs, to no avail.  After messing about for a while I turned off the A/C for about fifteen minutes, turned it on again and the Master Bedroom started cooling down.  I have to talk to my guy about what causes that.

Today it's cool.  I'm going to do some garage work, likely ride tomorrow.

Onward !