Disney World 2015, day 3: Walmart / Magic Kingdom Park

[pyesetz]

[Today begins with the discovery that I cannot find my keyring (none of the keys are in use here in Florida) and ends with the discovery of the keyring in the “receipts” pouch of my suitcase, where it should have been all along (and presumably actually *was* there all along, despite my inability to find it).]

W. Osceola Parkway.  $1 in tolls, which Google did not mention in their driving directions.  It is an unattended tollbooth that accepts only coins.  Thankfully we had brought enough leftover US coinage with us from Canada to be permitted off this highway.  (Presumably, if we hadn’t, the only other option would be to pay whatever Alamo feels like charging for the scofflaw fine from the tollbooth’s video camera.)

Walmart (Kissimmee FL, 12:15pm).  Buy two TracFone® cellular telephones, so we can split up at the theme parks.  We have to buy disposable phones because Wifey’s fliphone offers only Canadian service and has no SIM card to swap out, while Kid #1’s smartphone is locked to a Canadian vendor and is too difficult/expensive to unlock for use with an American SIM card.  Each TracFone costs $9.84, but then the cheapest airtime for them is $24.94 for 200 minutes usable within 150 days.  Total with 7% tax = $74.43 for a pair of phones that should still be usable during our next trip to Massachusetts.
      The Walmart salesclerk performs the initial phone activation for us, which takes about ten minutes per phone.  The second phone has a slight scratch on the screen, so she insists on exchanging it for a third phone, which requires waiting for authorization to cancel an activation, which takes even more time.  But the phones are small and thin and functional, and offer a cute “echoing” effect when you have one of them call the other while holding them next to each other.

Walmart (12:48pm).  $62.05 for foods we wish to have in the room (because the resort’s free food is *so* far away in the adjacent building, and doesn’t offer things like canned tuna and Cheerios).

Walmart parking lot.  I remember having my own keys when getting the key-fob for the rental car, so perhaps I left them in one of the other cars we tried out in the lot?  The rental-car paperwork has no local phone-contact number, so I call Alamo’s national number and spend some time on hold, but don’t get through to anyone before the family starts to get overheated in the car.  (It’s yet another 90°F day.)

Our room (1:45pm).  The box we had shipped via UPS finally arrives!  We had paid $114.76 to have it arrive here before we left Canada and greet us upon arrival, but it was delayed at Customs.  We unpack our Walmart groceries but there is no time to unpack the UPS box from Canada.  The trip to Walmart took so much longer than expected that now we need to rearrange our FastPass™ appointment times at the park.  This requires use of the MyDisneyExperience app, which is installed only on Kid #1’s smartphone.

Magic Kingdom Park (2:45pm).  Being the oldest part of the Walt Disney World complex, the Magic Kingdom is one of the few things around here whose name doesn’t begin with “Disney’s” or some variation on that.  (Construction for Walt Disney World began almost 50 years ago; in the meantime it has become unfashionable to use apostrophes in business names.)  Because we are arriving so late, many people have already left for the day, so we are able to find an empty parking space up by the Transportation & Ticket Center so we can skip the tram and actually walk in to the monorail station.  It takes an *HOUR* to get from our hotel to Main Street USA, even though we never leave the sprawling Disney property (which covers 43 square miles).
      Attractions visited today: Walt Disney Railroad, Enchanted Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, Splash Mountain (except Wifey), Big Thunder Mountain (except Wifey), Country Bear Jamboree (except me), Pecos Bill’s (lunch, 2:59pm), Hall of Presidents (Wifey only), Haunted Mansion, Columbia Harbor House (dinner, 8:14pm), Mickey’s PhilHarmagic, It’s a Small World (Wifey only), and Peter Pan’s Flight.
      There were no out-of-pocket expenses at the park.  It seems Disney has finally gotten the hang of what the phrase “all-inclusive resort” is supposed to mean.  I’m not sure why they decided to hand out receipts showing “$0.00” as the price for dining-plan purchases — shouldn’t they list their regular price and then a giant discount at the bottom to cancel it all out?  That’s how it looks at the register.
      Kid #2 doesn’t like travel and has been mopey for the entire trip so far.  But Big Thunder Mountain brings a smile to his face!  He also likes getting soaked in the front seat of Splash Mountain.  We go on both of those rides twice each, once via FastPass™ and once via the stand-by lines.

Landscape of Flavors (11:01pm).  Snack for Wifey.

Our room.  Kid #2 takes a shower.  He gets some water in his right ear (or was it Splash Mountain?).  Now he can’t hear anything in that ear.  I give him ibuprofen, but it doesn’t help.