Written In hotel room (9/27/2006 at 6:39 AM or so).

So we woke up bright and early on Tuesday September 26th and went down to the Maya grill for a breakfast buffet.

Written In hotel room (9/27/2006 at 9:54 PM or so).

It was decent, but no real standouts. I remember thinking that the sausage gravy for the biscuits and gravy was pretty weak (not enough sausage and the gravy wasn't near thick enough). Also that It'd be really nice if I could get some butter, rather then spread (70% vegetable oil), but that's just me.

After breakfast, we walked back to our room, got slathered in sunscreen and headed towards our bus stop (#2 of 4 at our resort) and waited to be picked up fro going to the Disney MGM park.

The bus ride there was a short one, and soon we were waiting in line to get into the park. Being that I've never been to the park before, I was confused as to how we get our tickets. Apparently our tickets are the same as our room keys, which makes sense, considering on it it says that the card is your key to the world...

So after being let into the park, they then proceeded to make you wait on the first street until it was time to actually go. There was a big mass of people, and with a 3, 2, 1, Action! they let us into the rest of the park.

We headed to the Tower of Terror first. In hopes to either get right in, or get the first "fast pass" of the day. We ended up getting right in. Our wait was pretty short and unlike some places (ex. Adventureland in Des Moines) they sort of dress up their lines so you have something to look at, other then the back of the person in front of you. We were quickly setup for our ride, and went through the intro and then proceeded to drop twice and then be told that there was a problem with the ride and that we would be shortly exiting the ride. Certainly not a great start to the day.

They slowly drove the car (I guess it was a car?) back to an area and then walked on the insides, took an elevator and were immediately put on the front of the line and actually got to ride the ride.

It was fun. They said at the beginning of the ride line area that the climbs and drops of the Tower of Terror had been randomized, so that the ride would never be the same twice, which was kind of cool.

We headed right next door to the Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster, which was...pretty fun. Also, short line, little wait. Fun ride, lots of Aerosmith (could do without that, even though it did go with the ride).

We made our way around the park, missing a few things (back lot tour), and enjoying a few others (car stunt show was pretty cool), and getting rained out on another one (Indiana Jones got about 60% done before the rain stopped 'em), and feeling that one was very dated (Star Tours).

We ate lunch at another dining meal on the Disney dining. This was in no way equivalent to the meal that we had at the Maya Grill. Not even by a long shot (even though it cost the same against our dining plan). I've had better turkey sandwiches at mediocre deli style places. The only highlight of the meal was the actually seeing of the preview for Plan 9 from Outer Space. It also again, pointed out the flaw in the Disney Dining plan. If you are not that hungry, you feel like you are wasting money...Seeing the bill before the Disney Dining, I couldn't believe how much they were charging for this mediocre meal....even if it was in a theme park.

We wandered around for a bit after the rain, but Shannon was getting tired, so we decided to head back to the resort, for a nap. I typed, Shannon napped. So it all worked out in the wash. We ate dinner at the Pepper Market...which was...well...lets just say that my fajitas were not even close to the best that I've had...or even what I'm used to having. I don't know...smaller cuts of meat, maybe steak instead of some random cut of beef, is that too much to ask? How about separating my tortillas from my mean so they're not all soggy by the time I want to use them...Maybe I'm just being picky though.

We headed back to the bus stop. And back to the MGM park. It was quite the wait before we got a ride. We had planned to ride the tower of terror again or maybe the rockin' roller coaster, but by the time we got there it was about time to go in for their show. It involves lasers, and lights and projectors and live action and water. It was neat to watch, I took many pictures of it.

Slowly, afterwards, we headed out of the park, stopping at the shops (to miss the first way to the busses) and then back to the resort.

We decided to head out to the main pool this evening, which is a much longer walk. We thought that maybe the water slide would be open, but since there were no life guards, there was no waterslide. After cooling off in the pool, we headed back to our room, showered and called it a night.

We took 326 photos on the second day.