They didn't tell us that the clocks went forward one hour last night so we missed our 9.30 am bus to River Country completely and had to get one at around 11 am instead.
I thought they might have issued a bulletin to all guests in the hotel at the very least, after all they have a telephone message system in place.
It works like this:
If you have any messages a red light on the telephone flashes. To get your messages you have to switch the TV on and, with the remote control, select a menu option which will then display your messages.
Now, call me old fashioned but if I have any telephone messages then I don't expect to have to turn the television on. I expect, in my own simple way, to get the telephone message by lifting up the telephone, but no, I have to go to the TV to see what the telephone has to say for me. I've tried watching TV on the telephone but that doesn't seem to be an option open to me.
Must remember to suggest that though on my hotel survey form.
This isn't the end of it though. Once you've checked your messages, to stop the damn light on the telephone from flashing, you have to dial a special number which then cancels the light but it all seems to have a mind of it's own. I've lost count of the times we've seen the light flashing, gone and switched on the TV which has then told us that we don't have any messages.
I think it's because the telephone doesn't like the TV very much, after all the TV gets most of the attention in the room so the telephone does it's best to be as awkward as possible and to annoy the TV whenever it can.
Either that or the telephone operator is on drugs.
Where was I? Oh yes, River Country. The whole area is a Disney park consisting of two distinct entities. There's Discovery Island, while the rest of the park is a sort of beach resort built around a man made beach and lagoon with various water attractions. Discovery Island was a quite impressive wild life park and it was nice to see animals and birds in their own tropical environment with space to roam.
Even on the beach, as with all Disney parks, music plays continuously from carefully camouflaged speakers, Disney characters roam the beach and the whole atmosphere is one of fun, fun, fun. I saw one woman asleep on her sun lounger being approached by Goofy who sat on the sand beside her and began to pat her head.
Now the people inside these suits can't see anything worth shit at the best of times and I would think that Goofy thought that the woman was awake. She opened one sleepy eye, saw this big thing sitting next to her, screamed blue murder and sat up with a start. She calmed down eventually but I'm sure her eye kept twitching for the rest of the day.
There is a new Disney park, The Animal Kingdom, opening here on April 22nd and by all accounts it's going to be the jewel in Disney's crown. The only trouble is, April 22nd is after we return home. Pauline, however, has noticed that people staying in Disney hotels are being given the opportunity to visit The Animal Kingdom before it's official opening date under a special preview arrangement.
Now just think how empty a Disney park could be if, instead of it being open to everybody in the world, it was only open to guests of Disney hotels in Florida. It seemed a terrible shame for us to have come all this way and not be able to see the latest and newest Disney park so Pauline decided and I agreed, that we should try and book into a Disney hotel for one night, take up the Animal Kingdom visit option and then return to our existing hotel the next night and for the rest of our holiday.
Let's do it!
While at River Country, Pauline booked us into Disney's All Star Music Resort Hotel for one night. We returned from River Country during the late afternoon/early evening, packed our toothbrushes and a change of clothes and ordered a taxi.
We were tired from our day out on the beach and were looking forward to a quick ride to our one night hotel, an early night and Animal Kingdom the next day.
What could go wrong?
We waited and waited.....and waited for the taxi to arrive. Ten minutes, twenty, thirty minutes went by when all of a sudden a man in the hotel foyer said to us, "Taxi?".
We said, "Yes, to the All Star Music Resort Hotel?"
He said, "OK".
We followed him outside to his cab, an unmarked car, and listened as he spoke to us in broken English with a Spanish accent. Once inside the car I thought things were not quite right as he got onto his radio and said, "Made the pickup. I'm at the hotel. Do I turn right or left out of the hotel?" After repeating this non stop for all of five minutes with no response, a crackling voice suddenly replied, "Turn left".
The driver turned left and immediately got back onto his radio and said, "Where do I head for now?"
Turning to us he said with a grin, "I've only been in the job for three days and without this (gesturing to the radio) we won't get anywhere".
"That's nice", I said smiling back at him and giving Pauline a worried look.
"OK", crackled the radio, "Follow the signs to Disney World but don't go to The Magic Kingdom, take the right turnoff before then."
"Ten four", said the driver as he ignored the right turnoff and headed straight for The Magic Kingdom.
"I think you should have gone right there", said Pauline.
"Oh, you know where we're going?" said the driver hopefully.
"No, we just saw the sign", we said.
The driver got back onto the radio.
"I'm heading for The Magic Kingdom".
"You shouldn't be", crackled the radio back, "Where are you now?"
"Still heading for Magic Kingdom".
Jesus Christ, I thought, what the hell is going on.
"OK", crackled the radio again, "Look out for a sign that says, 'What the fuck are you playing at you dozy simpleton', and follow that.
It didn't really but I wished it had.
Suddenly there was a choice between a right or left turn. The driver had no idea and back at base they're getting no constructive information from this driver from hell except for, " Is it right or left?"
Meanwhile, Pauline and I are in the back of the car screaming at the radio, "We're at the intersection of two roads, one goes right to Disney Resort Hotels, the other goes left to the edge of the world where we'll all fall off! Bearing in mind that we wanted to get to The Disney Resort Hotels, we think we should go right"
"Go right", crackles the radio.
"Ten four", said the cretin at the wheel.
We eventually arrived at the hotel, got ripped off for a fare of $18.00 and scrambled out of the cab as fast as we could only to be presented with a queue of people snaking backwards and forwards in front of the check in desk. The time was now 8.30 pm and we still had to check in, arrange the Animal Kingdom trip and try to get to bed for an early start the following day. It took over an hour to check in.
Thirty minutes queuing and thirty minutes being registered on a computer system with a response time as slow as our bloody taxi driver's brain.
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