SPVMCP-2005 radpXThurs Dec 1st

Sean & Pamela's Very Merry
Christmas Party 2005
RADP-X
10 years of radp (rec.arts.disney.parks)

01 December 2005 Thursday we were up til 2am or so. Pamela mistakenly thought when Sean said they'd be heading out around 430am that was when the alarm would go off. NOPE! 430am they needed to have the rental checked in and on their way to LAX to wait for the flight out. So was she ever surprised while working on some last minute packing things, Sean's alarm went off around 230am or so! No sleep for you!

No matter how much organizing and list making the weeks and days leading up to a trip like this you seem to always have something like this going on the previous night..

cats laying on luggage

alexander & kiki cat staking claims on their own cushy part of the garment bag.

Suffice to say we were dragging most the day. Sleep was difficult if found at all. The flight while uneventful, was without a lot of decent sleep. The first half there were no nuts because of an allergy. So we were served nuts later on the 2nd half of the direct flight, (whoever it was allergic to nuts disembarked in Houston). After the thrucount it was hoped we'd be able to sleep but that flight was short and we landed after a couple sodas into MCO about 330pm, local time.

The car rental was fairly painless. The place we rented from, allowed one to drag your stuff out from the baggage claim (we traveled 'lite' on the way in so nothing to claim other than a sore back and a cranky meeko). Sean picked out a Saturn Vue. Very pretty, and roomy too. We figure something like this you never know when the extra storage or seating won't come in handy. It is after all RADP. =)

After we got our car, packed it up, headed out and on the toll road we got WDW fairly easily. Our cameras were in the back of the car so no photos of our arrival.

Check in at Pop Century was pretty painless. We had our vouchers for our Premium Annual Passes. We were advised we would need to get those activated at a park gate. Then for the will call tickets, the concierge printed up our MVMCP tix for that night and explained that if we got there in a timely fashion we'd be able to get our armbands and we'd be fine. So rush to our room over in the 80s. (we'd requested 70s 4th floor parking view, but so had everyone else visiting that week we're guessing.. Pop Warner was coming to town). We got 4th floor courtyard/parking view. so that was pretty good nonetheless. Still convenient but not too convenient. Also there was no pool noise or little feet running around over our heads. We still had the toilets from heck.. but they weren't nearly as bad, and you only had to deal with the ones going off in the rooms around you).

We unpacked as quick as we could and headed out for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. Meeko had her crankyhat on. She hasn't slept, she wasn't sure how much she could keep up with Sean & everyone, and she was hungry.. On top of it all, the digital camera we brought has been acting a little funny lately... and it took the most inopportune time to foul up for the trip. Suffice to say, some of the photos posted on our TR are going to be nice, some are going to be horrible.. and many events just won't be photographed (like the majority of the MiniGolf meet, as well a good chunk of the MK day.. and uh.. Trails End breakfast.. and .. so on.. ) Some photos will have strange lines running through them.. and that's where the digital whatnot (Sean knows better what was/is wrong with the camera) acted up. So please forgive the poor quality and we'll see how far we can get with this thingy.

First off.. we were running late. We knew we'd be missing the LaughingPlace.com meet that Doobie & Rebekah had set up for around 4pm in Epcot. We were getting our rental car about then.. *maybe* if we were lucky. We hoped to meet up with them and any other LP folks later, but no such luck.(didn't bring the address book & unfortunately don't have a ph# to call!) Anyway, we gave up on a lot of the MVMCP meets earlier after a lot of Whiny Meeko and decided to go for the noodle station we'd heard about.

It was closed. (weekdays 11-3pm only so we missed it by a lot).

We waited til 7pm then.. Since we didn't have PS or ADR? we stood in line with the hordes for Cosmic Rays. You ever have one of those days when nothing is working out? You either wish you hadn't bothered to show up at all, or why you didn't just go the extra mile back to Frontierland to see about the wildest cheeseburger bar in the wilderness?? Yeah, that was us. That was Meeko.. wishing we'd just put up with me complaining as we went to Pecos Bill instead. Pecos BIll has never done us wrong. They have the best fixings bar in the WORLD. We don't just mean WDW.. it's better than anything at DLR too. It's what you compare all other Disney quickserve locations to. That's a lot to live up to. Pecos Bill has been able to do that for us. Can't say for this time as we didn't eat there. We ate at Cosmic Rays.

Worst experience EVER. Seriously. Sean has some choice words for the place. Let's just move on for now. It's late.

So that was awful.. and yeah.. we kind of left some of the food which is a shame because you know, we were hungry. Meeko made up for it by eating 2sugar cookies and a couple of the little cups of cocoa we found on the way. We watched chip n dale do the hampster dance or something. They danced all night. Seriously.

Later on we met in the rose garden and chatted with a whole lot of radp pals we haven't seen in ages, (we as mentioned were unable to attend for RADP-9) so we had 2yrs of catching up to do and much more than that in some cases! We watched the fireworks there and then later we saw the holiday parade. Not to mention Chip & Dale still dancing over in Fantasyland. =)

The best photos of the meets were taken by other people. Between the iffy photos our camera took of the fireworks and the all out not wanting to work thing, we don't seem to have any pix of us or our buddies of that night.

Here are the ones we have: (more coming soon as we edit them and a table maybe)

right before the fireworks.. from the rose garden

sean Alison & meeko from Jack's gallery

here's we are w/Alison.. one of the many super neat photos that Jack took with his camera at the meet. The photo is smaller and credit is given on the image's lower right corner. Please look for that sort of thing ok? These photos belong to the people that took them. In the case of this one, that would be Jack. =)