Jim quickly gets ready, and we meet up with Jenny, Kevin, my mom and dad in the lobby. Everyone on Jims side of the family was doing something else, but we were going to meet up with them later for dinner. We walk to epcot and towards Italy, taking some pictures along the way.
We stop for a picture in japan
some American topiaries
Me and Jim get to Italy, and see our coordinator on the Isola. I had never seen a picture of her before and I swear she looked exactly like I pictured her, it was weird! Me and Jim kind of stand out with our wedding ears on, so she waves to us, and we go over the bridge, she gives us a hug, and we look around at the isola. The wall was really ugly, but it wasnt as bad as I thought it might be.
Some other pictures from our site visit;
We walk around the island and I mull things over and think about our options. If we move the focal point of the altar away from the fountain and towards Spaceship earth (the big epcot golf ball) , the wall wouldnt be that noticeable and it wouldnt show up in the pictures. The funny thing about this option is, its how I originally had imagined the ceremony when I chose the isola, but I remembered back a year ago when we were discussing it, the coordinator had mentioned that by facing that way the sun would be in our eyes. So I ask her will the sun be in our eyes if we face the altar in this direction and she thinks about it and says she was pretty sure we would be okay by that time of the morning.
the view from the isola
Five more Disney employees come and introduce themselves to me and Jim. They were the behind-the scenes people that were in charge of setting up and decorating, I think. They bounced some more ideas around about what we could do. I liked the idea of facing spaceship earth and having our altar frame it. I wasnt 100% happy with the idea, but I was warming up to it more and more. Before we decide on anything the coordinator wants me to see the Italy courtyard and see if wed rather have it there, so we all walk over there together.
We get to the courtyard and the coordinator tells me where the altar would be set up in this scenario. Its pretty but its not at all what I wanted. It felt enclosed and like it was in the shadows, I wanted the ceremony to be bright and airy. I told her I thought the isola would be better, ugly construction wall and all, and ask my mom and jenny for their opinions. They both whole-heartedly agree with me. Its funny though, I completely forgot to ask Jim his opinion even though hes standing next to me the whole time. (He later made fun of me for it).
So we decide on the isola. Me, Jim, and the coordinator step aside to talk over details and scheduling. I ask if she can have a wheelchair or ECV for my dad in italy, since hed be coming over in the limo with us, and she said she would make sure to have something there for him in case he started having a hard time breathing. I asked the coordinator if anyone's ever tripped and fell down the stairs over the bridge, which was a concern of mine, and she said "we haven't lost a bride yet!".. She gave us her pager number and some other numbers to reach her in case there were any emergencies, and I said "like if Jim decides to break up with me the day before the wedding?" and laughed.. we talk some more about some other details and she says she'll see us a little later, and jim adds "unless I decide to break up with mary before the wedding", and she jokingly pretends to get mad at jim and tells him to be nice. Done discussing all the details, we say goodbye (wed be seeing her in the morning at the rehearsal) and head back to the hotel.
On the way back, we notice a sign by the theatre in the American adventure that says the Nelson Twins were performing. Hey I guess that is who we saw in the airport, how funny!! Jim is excited and we start trying to remember some of their songs, like after the rain. Ahhh good old glam. We stop for a cinnamon pretzel on the way, I hadnt seen those in years and used to love them!! We get one for Jenny too and go sit down in front of Japan to eat our snacks. Jim calls his friend Corey and tells him about the Nelson twins playing there. I call Jenny and tell her I bought her a pretzel, I thought she was back at the hotel but she was actually in Morocco, so we walk over to her. Her and my mom were pouring water on their heads to stay cool and seemed to be in a silly mood. Then they head back while me and Jim linger a bit in the world showcase.
It really was the nelson twins!
jim buying a cinnamon pretzel
our view as we ate our pretzel
jim calls corey to tell him about the nelson twins
mom and jenny pouring water over their heads to stay cool
10 minutes later, me and jim are heading out and are walking over the bridge right past France, and we see my dad on his ECV, completely stopped, all by himself. Confused, we go over to him and ask whats going on. He complains that the battery died on his ECV and Jenny & mom went to the hotel for the charger. That didnt make a heck of a lot of sense to me, where were they going to charge it, why didnt they just push it? Dad says the brake is stuck. Im like there must be a brake release somewhere, that would be ridiculous not to have a brake release, so after a minute of searching, me and jim find the brake release, release it, and start pushing my dad in the
scooter out of epcot. I call my mom and Jenny to tell them we have it under control, they had only gotten as far as the exit so they wait for us.
Jenny seems to be in primadonna mode again and is stressed out and seems to be embarrassed about jim pushing the ECV. Im like just go back to the hotel, ms. Primadonna and she splashes some water on me. Im like hey! Youre lucky youre pregnant! But decide that even if shes pregnant I can still flick her in the arm. Were so nice to each other. Jenny goes off to the hotel by herself, not wanting to deal with the ECV thing. Jim and I continue to take turns pushing or steering the ECV. Going uphill isnt that bad, but all of a sudden theres a big downhill drop, and Jims trying his hardest to slow down the scooter as it accelerates downhill, but it was a little bit out of control. Noone got hurt, but all of a sudden the brake release is broken. What the heck! No matter what we do we cant release the brake, and cant seem to push it any further..
We try a few different things, but nothing works, meanwhile my dad is starting to get frustrated and my mom is getting stressed out and neither of them are helping matters. If I hold up the brake release, then we can push the scooter, so I start doing that and my mom tells me not to hurt my back and that shell push it. Im like, ummm no! They arent exactly in the best health and I have it under control. I tell them just to go back to the hotel room and that me and Jim will take care of it and not to worry. Of course just letting me take care of it would be too easy so they stick around and continue to make things stressful when it would have been just fine.
All of a sudden we hear thunder and see lightning. Just great, there we are pushing a huge piece of metal around in a thunder storm. We get to the front of the Beach Club, and I say why dont we take it to the lobby in the beach club instead of pushing it all the way to the yacht club? Im sure one of the cast members can find a way to help us or something, and it will get us out of the thunder storm. Of course that makes too much sense and my dad insists we take it to the yacht club.
We push it another minute and then Kevin comes to help. Hes really good at fixing cars and pretty much a mechanic, so he takes off the base of the scooter and starts trying to fix it. Meanwhile the lightning is getting closer and the thunder is getting louder. I am getting ANGRY, the beach club is RIGHT THERE, why dont we just take it there!! Everyone is telling me to settle down and just chill
Grrrr!!! What do I know, Im just a girl I guess.
After Kevin realizes he cant do anything to fix it, we start to push it to the beach club. Yep. Thank you. We take it to the front entrance to the beach club, and I call the company to come pick it up (the company drops and picks up the scooters from the front of Disney hotels so it shouldnt have been a problem).
Im calling them while walking back to the yacht club with my mom to get the receipt and the power cord for the thing. I get ahold of someone in the company and politely explain the situation to him. And he says, in a really condescending voice well what probably happened, maam, is that you had it in neutral. Im like ummm, no, the battery died and we had push it a mile, and then the brake release broke and I almost broke my back pushing it the rest of the way, thats what happened, it had nothing to do with being in neutral. Stupid jerk. He asks to speak to someone whos by the scooter so I give him Jims cell phone number. Right as we get to the yacht club it starts to rain really hard, I mean it was pouring buckets!!
A few minutes later I call Jim and ask what was going on with that guy, and jim tells me that the guy was a jerk and kept telling them to do this or that with the circuit breaker, but nothing he was telling them to do was working, so he FINALLy agrees to come replace the thing. At this point Im in my moms hotel room looking for the receipt, but Jim says we wont need any of that, that they would just drop off a new scooter in a few hours for us, and that the concierge at the beach club said we could leave it with them and they would take care of it. Ahhh, god bless Disney Cast members!!
In the meantime, noone knows where my dad is. My mom had told him to go back to the room, but he wasnt there, and he wasnt with Jim or Kevin. So I go out searching for him. I quickly speedwalk through the lobby of the yacht club. A cast member asks if I would fill out a survey, and I say something like sorry I would but Im in the middle of a situation, and she apologized and looked worried. I felt bad, I didnt mean to scare her! (Later in the day I walked by the same lady and apologized about it)
After a few minutes of running around the hotel room, I see my dad outside the back entrance of the yacht club trying to use a cell phone. He was under an awning, but it was still a thunder storm and raining cats & dogs outside so why he was standing outside trying to use the cell phone was a mystery to me. I tell him moms looking for him and he was supposed to go back to the hotel room, and he was like well I didnt have a room key! and Im like well most people of room keys to their hotel room. I was going to tell him to go back to the room, but then I think I better actually walk him there myself to make sure he gets there and doesnt get lost or something. I have to admit I was being pretty condescending to him while doing so, but this whole thing had just taken an hour and a half and was very frustrating. I was being a little snotty about the whole thing since if everyone had just listened to me it would have taken half the time. We got back to the room, and my mom tells him he gave him a key. He looks through his pocket, and sure enough there was a room key. I lay down on my moms bed and just close my eyes. Jim calls and says he ran into his dad in the lobby when he was checking in. I know I should go say Hi, but I cant seem to want to get up, so I tell jim I need to de-stress and would be there in a little while. Even though it was kind of stressful, i was still in a good mood and was already laughing about the whole thing. This whole thing was just not on the itinerary for the day lol.
Coming up: dinner with jim's family in canada, illuminations, and seeing my best friend again for the first time in four years