The Eat Me! Drink Me! Off With Your Heads! Merry UnBirthday Tour! - UPDATED 12/4 About This Page:

[mojjo]

See, now you've gone and done it. You've set the standards so high for the TR that there's no way you could have had as much fun as it looked like you did.

[lindawdw]

Great picture. I love all your costumes! Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite Disney movies! Can't wait to hear all about your trip Matt.

[wvugrrrl]

"The time has come, my little friends,
to talk of other things;
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,
of cabbages and kings.
And why the sea is boiling hot,
and whether pigs have wigs."

So maybe not all that, but I think it is about time to get this TR started. So without any further delay:

Saturday, Oct. 24th
I started my day with about 2 hours of sleep. I went out with a friend the night before, for sort of a going away party, and didn't make it home until about 3 am. Then, I saw that Matt had just posted a FaceBook update, so you know I had to call him up! After he begged off the phone, I put myself to bed, only to be woken up a few short hours later by Travis coming home early from work around 6 am, and the dog going INSANE at this information. He quickly fell into bed, where we both proceeded to stare at the ceiling for a half-hour. After tossing and turning constantly, Trav said, "You might as well get up. You're like a kid on Christmas morning." To which I replied, "ONLY because we're going to Disney World!!!!" I also had some packing to finish, and some leftover housework to do, so we both got up and got crackin'.

We left the house around 10:30, and dropped the dog off with some friends. After a stop at Wal-Mart for some travel-size shampoos (seriously, you should've seen the size of the bottles Trav was trying to pack ), and some gas, we were on our way! (And by on our way, I mean, we started the 3 HOUR drive to Dallas. Worst. )

WVU was playing Connecticut while we were driving, and we managed to find it on Sirius, so we listened to that on the drive. We also talked a great deal, until we realized that between the general noise of interstate driving in a small car, and the incessant chatter on the radio, that we were actually going hoarse because we were screaming at each other. (We made a conscientious effort to just listen to the radio after that.) Trav was still going strong on no sleep, thanks to his handy friend, RedBull.


I amused myself taking pictures of...myself...


For most of the trip, the Connecticut game had been pretty back and forth, but just as we entered heavy Dallas-city traffic, it became a real nail-biter. We were in bumper-to-bumper construction, screaming at the radio, the players, high-fiving, (and probably looking like fools). We ended up winning the game (and avoided wrecking the car), parked at Love Field's long-term parking, and quickly made our way through bag-check.

We had a short wait before A-group Boarding began, so I uploaded some photos onto the computer, and pondered such questions as, "Why do people begin standing at the Southwest boarding lines before they've even begun to call for A-group Boarding?" (And then they have the NERVE to give you a dirty look like you're "cutting" in front of them to stand by your number when boarding is finally announced! )

After everyone was settled in their seats, the plane took off at 4 pm, made a stop in Houston to let everyone off, picked up enough people to fill the plane again, and took off for MCO. The flight was uneventful but always seems so long, but finally we landed in Orlando at 9pm and had to wait for everyone to get off the plane.


Finally, we made our way down to baggage, where Joey had been waiting for us (since 6:45), kind of looking like this:

Let's GOOOO Mountaineers!

all around, and then Trav bolted to pick up our rental, while Joey and I waited for the bags to come off the carousel. BTW, I didn't think anyone took evening flights, but our flight was full , and Trav said the line at the rental counter was absolutely horrendous . So apparently everyone DOES fly at night!

Soon enough, our bags came around, and Trav called to say he was on his way in a minivan. That was a first - we'd never rented a van before - and Trav was also pretty ticked at Alamo for FORCING him to buy the insurance, even though our own car insurance AND one of our credit cards BOTH cover rental car damage. He pulled up to the curb in a lime green Toyota minivan that was covered in dings and scratches, and immediately christened, "The Algae-Eater." The name was fitting because all week, Travis wanted to drive it into a lake.

We had talked to Matt and Bethany about meeting up at DTD after our flight landed, but because it'd taken so long to get the van, he said they were going to turn in, which was completely understandable. However, we still had a first-night tradition to get to - Earl of Sandwich and DTD Pin Traders - before they closed at 11:30, so the race was on to get there ASAP!

Luckily we made it there with time to spare, practically ran to EOS, and stopped dead in our tracks - when what to my wandering eyes should appear?!

It was the Holiday Sandwich! You may remember talk from our Honeymoon TR about how this special, holiday-only sandwich at the Earl was like manna from Heaven. Well, I'm not sure what holiday EOS was celebrating this time, and it didn't even matter! Joey and I did a victory dance (and may have wet our pants in joy! ).

Nomnomnom!


While we were eating, Joey called one of his friends from camp who is a CM at Epcot. Handley joined us at EOS, as we were finishing up, and had us with stories about working for the Mouse (and stupid guest tricks! ) We also managed to get into the Pin Traders store before it closed, where I managed to get my greedy paws on the Candy Corn Vinylmation:

and Joey managed to snag a few pins. All too soon, though, tiredness hit us like a sack of bricks. So, around midnight, we made our way over to Kissimee, and checked ourselves into the Ramada Orlando Celebration Hotel & Conference Center (which is actually nowhere near Celebration), and flopped down onto our beds. The room itself was pretty decent:





and the rate was good (Thanks Priceline!), but at that point, were too tired to appreciate anything but our pillows.

Coming up on my half of the TR: Checking Out/Checking In, A View That Can't Be Beat, Lost Luggage, The Monorail as a Designated Driver, and Tantrums Avoided!

[Sandra Bostwick]

Wasn't there a holiday sandwich in Friends?

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Molly!

[MattUGA]

Friday October 23rd was the day before our trip and completely FUBAR. After work, Allie and Lindsay went to their grandmother’s house while we rushed home to grab Audrey’s gear for her long vacation with Bethany’s parents in Montgomery, AL which is about 2 ¼ hours from our house. We had made plans weeks before for Bethany’s mom to meet us about an hour from our house. She told us earlier in the day to call her when we leave. So, as we left, we called and no answer. Well, that’s pretty typical so we called back around 20 minutes later and finally got her. At this point the day got worse when she said “Okay that means you’ll be here in about 2 hours.” Uh what?? She wasn’t meeting us? She claimed to have totally forgotten the discussion we had. Don’t get me started. Anyways, Bethany has a certain way with her mom. It usually involves getting enraged at her mom’s ability to forget everything they plan. Haha. Her Mom and Dad say they’ll get in the car and meet us thankfully. Well, instead of driving just an hour, we ended up having to drive almost 1 ¾ hours which when doubled meant that we wouldn’t be getting home until 8:30 at the earliest. And that wasn’t happening because we still had to drive to somewhere and find me a vest for my costume. We were pretty cranky at this point but we headed to the nearest Target. We knew we had to make my costume look okay. Joey, Molly and Travis were bringing their A game! Eventually, we found the vest and some tights for Bethany and started to drive back home.

I think we got home about 9:45 and Bethany needed to finish her master’s degree research proposal. Bethany had been working non-stop on this proposal for weeks. I think her paper ended up being about 30 typed pages and she was worn out. We still had some packing to do though. I actually helped a lot in the packing department for once since she was so busy. We finally got to bed around 12:30am so we could take about a 3 ½ hour nap before our morning wakeup call.

Around 3:30am, my Blackberry starts blowing up with messages. Due to the amount of messages, I was actually awakened by it. So, I see that I have about 3 texts and 9 FB messages. I’m not going to say how many were from Molly (coughcough 6 cough cough) but I got on Facebook to see what was up. Well, I saw that she was up and excited about going to WDW so I replied to the message. Quickly after my response she called! I can’t remember the last time I’ve gotten a phone call from a lady that late at night! Haha After a short conversation, I loaded the car and woke Bethany up. Now Bethany isn’t a morning person. Not in the slightest. Normally she tolerates my morning personality but at some point I must have been a bit too push because she shot me a glare that scared me a bit. So I went back to loading the car and gave her some space so she wouldn’t kill me. Minutes later she was perfectly fine and we had got in the car and taken off. We left around 4:30 AM and proceeded on the drive to Orlando.

Blah Blah Blah six hours later, we pulled into Downtown Disney so we could do some shopping and eating. We wanted to grab lunch at Earl of Sandwich but the line was at least 49 people deep so we tried Wolfgang Puck Express for the first time. Bethany and I split a roast beef sandwich that Bethany rated just slightly lower than the first time I kissed her (ahem.. wise guys… that means HEAVENLY) haha I hope she doesn’t read this!



Around noon we decided to drive over to Pop Century and check on our room. The online check-in service is amazing because I got to bypass a line about 100 people deep and got my room key immediately. We yet again got a room in the 60’s but it gave us a great view of the Legendary Years empty buildings so we were happy. At this point we were crashing a bit ….



So we laid down a bit. We couldn’t sleep much and got maybe an hour nap in before we headed out the door to EPCOT and the Passporter meet starting at 4. When we got to the entrance to the park, it took me a couple of minutes to realize we were right behind Maria, Ben, and Sheri! Now, I’m terrible with passporter user names. Haha so I’m going to stick with real names as much as possible. So I really really hope I don’t forget anybody but I seem to know for a fact we met when we got there: Maria and Ben, Sheri (Skateycat), Amy and her mom, Stephanie and her husband. I know I talked to about 6 other people but I can't remember the names. I am quite sorry about that!!!

I left Bethany with the group so I could go buy a F&W wristband. On the way there, I passed Princess Sharon as she was making her way to the meet. After awhile, I was excited to see Cam, Luke and Stefanie show up! The vaunted Norris charm didn’t take long to make Stefanie realize I was awesome. Of course, it only took me seconds to realize how great she was! We talked about pins and such and it was so great to meet the family.








At some point, Bethany’s blood sugar level dropped a lot so I rushed and grabbed her something from one of the booths. She was still feeling bad so told the gang bye and went off towards Mexico to try and find Bethany something else to eat and find her a place with air conditioning. Did I mention it was so hot? We sat in the Mexican pavilion for awhile until Bethany felt better then we proceeded around WS and we took a couple of cute pics in Germany.




Earlier, Maria and Ben mentioned they had a Biergarten reservation which was great since Bethany and I had a reservation there too! We texted back and forth as Maria and Ben were checking on Bethany. She was feeling better and so we decided that we’d definitely meet up for dinner. Sheri came along and we got our reservations combined! This was our first time at the Biergarten and it was great to say the least. The best part wasn’t the food or the 1 liter BEERS. It was the great friends we had met and the great conversations we all had.







After dinner, we shopped some ( I think), and then talked some more.

Maria had the smart idea of leaving before Illuminations started. I hadn’t noticed it that much previously but the amount of obnoxious, drunk guys at the park was crazy. I saw so many guys screaming at each other and almost fights that I was glad to get out of there as soon as possible. It was like almost every damn fraternity in the region emptied into EPCOT.

The bus ride back to Pop was long and tiring since we had to stand up the entire time. The darkness of the bus made the complete lack of sleep over the past week catch up with us. We got back to the room and tried to stay awake because we knew Molly, Travis, and Joey were landing. The longer it took to get the rental car, the more we couldn’t fight it. Frankly we hated not seeing them but we couldn’t stay awake. So, we both made plans to see them on Sunday and we drifted away to sleep…


Next stop: DHS and the Gang Gets Back Together Again.

[PamelaK]

Yay!! The TR has started.

[rhinohunter]

Great first day for everyone. I am sure it was fun meeting with all of the PPers. Your experience at Alamo certainly was strange. Never heard of mandatory insurance before. The EOS fare sure looks good.

[B.M.]

Great start guys!

[chezp]

Great start everyone!

[BeckiO5]

Great start Molly & Matt!

[Starla4436]

Great start guys!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Matt!

[Luvsun]

Just read the whole thing from the beginning!
You guys are a hoot!
I can only imagine the silly shenanigans that took place with all of you together!
Love the picture of all of you in your MNSSHP garb!
So glad you got to meet up with a large group of fun PPs Matt and Bethany!
I can't wait for more of this very entertaining TR!!!

[ilovedisney247]

Great start everybody! Can't wait to read the rest!