Fall 2018 Theme Park Trip-plans and planning

Looking back it's been two years since my last post. Time to fix that.

Well, I have another big trip coming up and am totally ecstatic about it. I am about to get a full month off from work. I've been working to make sure there is another person in the office that knows my skills. I'm one that I'm not afraid to share everything that I know.

Travel plans include Dollywood and Pigeon Forge area attractions, going to Boston to visit family. Heading to Cedar Point to the East Coast coaster capital. Time in Florida will include Universal Orlando and Halloween Horror Nights, the Disney parks including Food and Wine Festival and Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, Legoland, Florida Zipline Coaster, Star Flyer, and Fun Spots. In California the West Coast Legoland there in the San Diego area and their SeaWorld plus Belmont Park in the "extreme south" are the plans. Traveling north to Anaheim and the Disneyland resort including Mickey's Halloween Party, Knott's Berry and Scary Farms, Santa Monica Pier, Universal Hollywood, Six Flags Magic Mountain the West Coast coaster capital...possibly their Halloween event and then the Warner Bros Studio Tour and their Halloween event. So Heartland, East Coast, Mid West, the South and West Coast will be covered on this trip.  I am so appreciative that I have the ability to do this.

Along the way I plan to meet up with a number of people. Some are coaster buddies, some are Disney pals, others are college friends and some are former co-workers and podcasters. So while I may be traveling solo, I won't be doing everything as a single.

Surprisingly enough, when I was trying to make the travel arrangements, I wanted to maybe do trains between say Sandusky, OH and Knoxville, TN or Knoxville, TN and Orlando, FL as a way to see the country. Those options weren't viable due to how far away trains stations were from starting or ending points needing buses. I looked at maybe buses outright, but the amount of time and transfers were rather awkward and cumbersome. Luckily I was able to make the flight arrangements through one carrier, United, although several legs will be with code share partners. Learned that it is difficult to try to book a trip with more than five legs to the trip. All totaled, I have nine segments. The first leg I have to travel from Honolulu to Newark which is a ten hour flight and then back up to Knoxville. Blissfully the LAX to HNL flight is six hours.

In my big 2010 trip, I had business cards that I gave out for people going above and beyond in their work. Back then, I gave them a card recognizing them for their effort, took their pic, blogged about them and their actions

and then made sure I wrote back to the companies involved to give the person credit. While I don't have the cards ready to go yet, I plan on doing that again this trip. It's really easy to fall into the negative and those cards helped keep me looking for the positive.

During my fall 2016 trip, I lost my wallet while riding Mako at SeaWorld Orlando the day before I was to fly to LAX. Still haven't heard back from SeaWorld if they dredged the pond where it dropped  and recovered it with the $700 still inside. If I ever get that back, really need to make sure to make big noise about that! But with losing my ID, I want to make sure on this trip that I have backups like maybe making sure that I bring my passport and not keeping all the money on my person. Also I need to make sure that I follow my procedures and not rush when I get on a coaster to make sure that I have everything really secured.

One of the other challenges that I have is with the rental car portions. I have a valid drivers license, but don't own a car in Hawaii. When I rent I must do the responsible action have have some insurance and the costs add up quickly. So the RAC company would look at say Friday noon to Monday 6am as just three days, the insurance company says it's four so on those transfer days, I'm having to pay for insurance twice. Plus the insurance itself isn't cheap with charges that have been 15-25% of the daily rental rate.  But, it's something that I have to do since I don't have my own policy.

I use Flickr instead of Instagram. When I would post to Flickr, it would automatically post to Twitter and then a bit later to Facebook. Something has happened to the interface and that no longer happens.  If you want to see pics during the trip, goto flickr.com/frikitiki. For quick updates I'm @coconutwireless on twitter.

If you have comments or questions, let me know. The fall 2018 Coaster Trip begins on September 20th!

DC2CERUMA - Day 1

Today 4/21 is the official end of Day 1 of the Disney Coast to Coast-er Universally Magic Adventure.

Took the shuttle to LAX from the Holiday Inn. I froze! According to the news, it was 48 degrees and me with shorts and flimsy shirt over a tank top. Brrrr.

When checking in I had some hassles because of the luggage transfer. The check-in screen said to see the rep. The rep said put in ZERO for bags. Didn’t sound right, but I did and proceeded to the gate. Passed the United Customer Service and I asked Dee for help. She was pleasant, but wasn’t willing to go the extra mile to locate the bag. United said they didn’t have it and Delta now says they didn’t either. At the gate I asked P Melnyk for help and she said she couldn’t. So I got on the plane without knowing where my luggage was located.

Upon arrival in Orlando I took the shuttle to the main building. After exiting the train and while trying to get my bearing I see a familiar face. I call out “Tom” and this person lifts up his head. It was my manager when I worked at Sprint. Tom had moved a number of years ago from Hawaii up to Seattle. He was in Orlando for a conference. How weird is that! Two old co-workers on two different flights.

In the main building, I went to the United counter and the lady there was great.

She took ownership of the problem and tried a couple different options. She was the first person I awarded my customer service card to during the trip. Although she didn’t have a resolution she wanted to help. I really appreciated that! Something that I did learn is that if you use DME and your bag is lost, it does add a layer of complexity when trying to resolve the issue. I took her picture but didn’t want to give her name although I spied the name on her name tag.

Over at the Delta office, different story. The person there could have cared less and said there was nothing that she could do. It’s now 4:30, spent an hour trying to locate luggage with no luck. Responses on twitter and face book are things like bummer, crap, sucks, and that sucks. My feelings exactly! Get on Disney’s Magical Express and head over to Pop. I’m sorry, I miss the place and got misty eyed heading over to property.

Between the lines at DME and Pop, I finally have everything including the blank video tapes that I ordered and had delivered to the resort. The shipping is cheaper and I didn’t have to worry about that weight in my bag! It’s almost 6pm which at the Pop Century Resorts means it’s time to HUSTLE! Only 3 people came out and danced. Towards the end of the session a fourth person joined in. FUN!

This is my third trip to WDW since moving to Hawaii. Each time I have stayed at Pop AND I got assigned to the 50’s building again. I’m on the back side facing the water. It’s a nice view. The red light was flashing on the phone when I entered the room. The first message was letting me know the UPS package was at the front desk. The second was from United. The winner of my first customer service card gave a follow up call. Apparently Delta changed the tag on the bag so no one could find it under the tag that I had.

It did make it on the plane and DME will be dropping it off later tonight. YEAH!!!!

With the late arrival, I decided that I’ll head over to Riverside at Port Orleans and see good ol’ Yehaa Bob Jackson. Since there is no direct bus from Pop, I took the bus to Downtown Disney and then took the boat over. Unfortunately I discovered I was in the wrong line. SO, lesson to pass on, the boat to Riverside and French Quarter is by Captain Jacks in the Marketplace and not by Pleasure Island.

I happened to get a seat near the front on the side of the short dividing wall closer to Bob. After he did his intro he was going around and finding out where people are from. He pointed at me and gave a funny look and asked me. When I said Honolulu, I could see the light bulb go off and he said my name. He remembers me hosting him for the DPN Westfest event back in 2008. I also received a twitter from Sean and Pam saying there were in the place. I stood up and called out their name. They moved from the back up to my table in the front. AND Trace, yes, I told Bob hi from you and Lisa and he told me about your connection. AWESOMENESS to be ensured on that deal! My waitress Hollie was very good and kept my diet coke refilled throughout the night!

Sean and Pam gave me a ride back to Pop Century. I was lucky because I’m not sure how I would have gotten back. When I entered my room, my bag was there! Yeah, now I have the power strip so I can recharge all the batteries. This is my first time here with a data phone that can do texting. I charged the battery in full this morning. I haven’t done a whole lot and when I got back to the room, the phone was dead. There have been some errors on messages so I’m thinking the signal for this phone isn’t the best. It’s something that I need to keep an eye on as I don’t have a spare phone battery.

So, was the day perfect? By no means, BUT, I am at Walt Disney World and very grateful that I’m back. Day two will include going to Animal Kingdom on the anniversary of the opening of the park. I’m excited!