Wednesday, August 7

No parks for us this morning. On the docket instead was breakfast at Boma, a meal so good I wolfed it down before taking any pictures. But you’ve been to Boma, right? Yes? Good. Moving on.

Oh! Before we move on, let’s pause for a moment to reflect on the fact that once again, my MagicBand was rejected for room charge. After breakfast, I stopped by the resort MyMagic+ service center, where I was assured that my account looked “great,” and the problem wasn’t with my Band. Likely it was a system issue, a holdover from the touch-to-pay downtime that had befallen WDW on Monday into Tuesday. One Cast Member theorized that certain touch-to-pay devices were malfunctioning, and that I should try my Band for payment again later. Okay.

Stuffed to the gills, we headed to Downtown Disney, both to check out what merchandise was new (answer: really none of it, unless you count the Halloween merch that comes out earlier and earlier each year), and also to stop at the Lego store to see if CP could find this. CP herself is a librarian, and was inspired by this incredible post to pick up a Lego librarian of her own. Like most Vinylmation, however, Lego mini figures are sold in mystery packaging only, so at the suggestion of a staffer, CP spent some time feeling up tiny packages of Legos to see if she could identify a librarian inside. She couldn’t. But we bought three of them anyway, and – surprise, surprise – none of them were the Lego librarian.

After wandering around DTD for a bit and finding it a little…boring?….we hopped on a boat and head over to Port Orleans, a resort we’ve never before visited. It was seriously soupy outside, and even the breeze on the boat didn’t help much to cool us down. But I always love a boat ride, and it really is a pretty ride over to Port Orleans.

As I remarked that morning on Twitter, it was on that Port Orleans boat ride that I realized MagicBands are really uncomfortable in the heat. Heavy and sweaty in a way that leaves you constantly aware of it. I wear a Jawbone UP in my daily life and never have this problem. It’s gross.

Anyway, soon enough French Quarter was in sight. We stayed on the boat, electing instead to exit at Riverside and walk over to POFQ (weather gluttons for punishment we are, apparently). A few things we saw along the way:

Fair warning; it’s going to get a little text-heavy from here on out.

I think I’ve admitted before that I am a Deluxe resort snob. If I can’t stay at a Deluxe, I’d sometimes rather stay off-property at a nice resort, which is inevitably cheaper than staying on-property, even at a Moderate. Earlier this year, we stayed at Coronado Springs on a whim (and then on another whim for me), and then returned for a follow-up visit. We liked it quite a bit, CP more so than I. Riverside is a place I think I could seriously get behind in a way that might rival my love of the Deluxes. It is just beautiful. I don’t love the quick service area, but what resort has a beautiful quick service restaurant? The grounds and the themeing really spoke to me. French Quarter is nice, and on the one hand I like its smaller footprint, but I’m thinking we might actually give Riverside a try on an upcoming trip.

Hot and hungry, we returned to Downtown Disney and to Earl of Sandwich for lunch. Where – guess what – my MagicBand once again did not work. Between that frustration, the ridiculously long line, and the screaming children, I couldn’t bear eating there, so we got our sandwiches and went back to AKL, where we picnicked in the car with the air conditioning on. (Bad liberals!) Hot and tired, we decided to stop by the pool for a few minutes to stick our feet in, taking a nice break to check e-mail/Twitter while cooling off…a little. With four thousand people in it on a 95 degree day, the pool was really lukewarm at best. Psychologically, though, it helped.

Then it was back to the MyMagic+ service center for me to inquire about the persistent room charge issue. Once again, I was assured there was nothing wrong with my MagicBand, they weren’t sure, but it was likely a system issue, and yes, don’t worry that one of your Bands works while the other doesn’t.

There really wasn’t much time to worry about this, though, since we were headed over to the Magic Kingdom to use our FP+s and have dinner at Be Our Guest. I honestly wasn’t wowed with Be Our Guest after our first visit there in February, but CP loves the experience of eating there and really wanted me to see if I could get us a reservation. It took me until nearly the day before our trip, but I did indeed get one. But for a minute or two, I wasn’t sure we’d get to eat at Be Our Guest, since – wait for it – OUR BANDS WOULDN’T WORK. AGAIN.

As had happened the day before, once the Mickey readers at the turnstiles turned blue, Guest Relations CMs rushed over. Also as with the day before, two people scanned our bands on their iPads, to no avail. Unlike the day before, however, we were now ushered by a Cast Member through the train station tunnel and into Guest Relations, where we were delivered to two Cast Members wearing official MyMagic+ uniforms. (I’d later call these folks the MyMagic+ Police. You will have fun. AND LIKE IT!) They had us recount our story, and then had us log into my MDE account on one of the iPad kiosks now stationed in Guest Relations. Essentially the CM was making sure that I had done my due diligence of linking our APs to my account. We had. He had me try a few more things in MDE, and then excused himself to the back room.

Eventually the other Cast Member returned, and explained that he had been on the phone with the IT team to see if they could troubleshoot our issues from the back office. We gave him a bit more information to relay to the IT team, and he disappeared again. When he returned for a second time – and we’ve now been in Guest Relations for nearly half an hour – he relayed that our park media issues should be fixed, and that the IT team was still investigating why I couldn’t room charge on my Band. (I brought this up while at GR because…why not? If we’re here already….)

Given our lengthy Guest Relations delay, I assumed we had missed the window for our first FP+ time. Upon opening the MDE app, however, I noticed that the system had pushed our hour back by ten minutes; instead of having a reservation from 5:00pm-6:00pm, it was now from 5:10pm-6:10PM. Hey, there’s a feature of FP+ I actually like! So with that break we indeed were able to get a ride in on Haunted Mansion before dinner. I hate myself for using a FastPass on HM (the attraction shouldn’t even have such a thing), but getting to skip the interactive queue elements made me happy.

After HM, it was dinnertime. We had a short wait outside before our reservation, and then were ushered into the dead center of the ballroom. If you ever thought for a moment that dining in such an open space would feel a little like eating in a really fancy cafeteria, sitting where we sat would confirm your thinking. Our server appeared and was very friendly. We placed orders for wine and a salad to split, and I excused myself to the restroom.

While in the stall, minding my own business, these two ladies start yelling to one another across the restroom. IT WASN’T THE POOL, one of them says. YOU’RE SURE? says woman #2. IT’S HIS GAG REFLEX replies the first woman. Hmm…this doesn’t sound good. REALLY. HE JUST HAS THIS OVERACTIVE GAG REFLEX, woman one says again.

And wouldn’t you know it, I exit the stall to find the two women covered from neck to hip in vomit. One woman is busily cleaning vomit off of the toddler in question. I’m also noticing a smell. I get the hell out of there. I have a pretty strong stomach, but this pierced my armor.

I returned to our table, feeling a bit green but determined to enjoy our meal. Which would have been possible were the food not absolutely disgusting. And while I like my fair share of high-end meals, I certainly wouldn’t kick a good diner meal out of bed. Quality is quality, wherever you’re eating. Most meals have their redemptive qualities. This one was bordering on inedible. Truly.

As a recovering vegetarian there are few things I enjoy as much as a good steak. On our last visit, CP had the steak and thought it was really pretty good, hence my choice. One bite in and I could feel my own gag reflex activating. Gristle. Fat. Like gnawing on the underside of a blubbery whale. I went in for a second bite….same thing. I’m not a person who sends food back – or even considers it, really – but I seriously thought about grabbing our server and getting this steak away from me. As I thought it over, I picked at the vegetables…which were doused in oil. Gross. Eventually I found that a third of the steak was edible, so I concentrated on that, the fries, and my wine. Really the fries and the wine were the only highlights to this meal.

When our server returned to the table, he looked a little alarmed to see my uneaten steak. When he asked me if I was done, I should have told him how bad it was. Instead, I defaulted to Midwestern pleasantries and stammered about how full I was, since it was a “big steak.” He got a confused look in his eyes, and then told me “well, the menu SAID it was a 10 ounce steak, you know.” Indeed. No dessert for us….we were out of there.

I may do a separate review of Be Our Guest, but for now let’s just say that it leaves me aghast. The setting is beautiful, but the mediocre food served at ridiculously high prices in no way warrants the continued popularity of this restaurant. I know we are done with BOG, at least for dinner.

Feeling somewhat dyspeptic, we left Be Our Guest and headed to Big Thunder to use one of our remaining FP+ reservations. We had a later FP+ for Jungle Cruise, but didn’t feeling like waiting around for it – in fact, CP wasn’t feeling too good after our disgusting dinner. So instead we hopped into the line for POTC, where I was dismayed to find that half the queue was now a FP+ return line. This has left POTC with longer lines in a claustrophobic queue, an experience I couldn’t say either one of us enjoyed. A sad MyMagic+ casualty. Eventually we wandered out, back to the bus, and to bed – one must be well-rested to stand at Guest Relations all day.

MyMagic+ Problems Today: 3. RFID key card and MagicBand wouldn’t work for room charge. Both of our MagicBands wouldn’t work for park entry.  Trips to front desk/guest relations: 3. Total trips to front desk/guest relations to date: 6.

FastPass Plus Reservations Used: 2/4. We used FP+ before and after dinner, but in this heat and with these crowds, neither one of us felt like sticking around to use the last two.

Up next: MyMagic+ drives me to drink – milkshakes and other things.