Mary is a little busy with her site and getting ready for yet another trip to Disney World. Business, she says! Ha!

I'd like to add a few comments here about things she's already mentioned in her account of this trip. Although she's tried to present me in a good light, I feel that in a few cases I have to set the record straight.

First, as usual I did absolutely nothing when it came to putting the whole family trip/reunion together. Mary did everything. That's why I married her. We have a clear division of responsibilities in our marriage. She makes all the plans and arrangements for travel and researches everything. I watch TV and occasionally read a book. She makes lists of everything we'll need and washes all the clothes we'll be taking. I develop a thirst and get a frosty, cold beer to have while watching TV. She makes all the reservations for meals and hotels. I decide that some pretzels will go well with that beer.

Oh, and I carry the luggage -- well, at least I will if it isn't too heavy or when I can't find a luggage cart to handle it. On occasion I've also been known to throw a couple of snacks in my carry-on bag for the trip.

A good marriage is something you have to really work at, but if possible one should try and get the other partner to do all the work. It's a system that seems to work for me. Your mileage may vary, however.

So putting all that behind us, let's see what Mary left out of the first part of the report, shall we? First, with regards to the rental car. Arriving later in the day seems to reduce the choices available. It appeared that all the cars in National's Emerald Aisle were the same model -- or at least they were similar enough that differences weren't clearly apparent.

Anyway, the first thing we did was to make sure that the car we selected had cup holders. These are very important and as we discovered on a trip to Ohio last October, there are actually rental cars out there that do not have cup holders! We're not exactly sure what kind of car we rented that lacked such an essential amenity, but we think it was a Buick. The horror has clouded our memories to an extent, so it might have been an Olds - well, in any case it was something that we wouldn't normally be caught dead driving as those are for old people and we still cling to the illusion that we're still hip and cool. Or something.

I digress. Anyhow we got our land yacht and sashayed to the Hotel Royal Plaza. Quite a nice hotel it was too. Though it contained my family. First strike against it. I argued with Mary on this issue but she was adamant that a family get-together actually meant that we had to stay in the same hotel as the rest of the family. I love her dearly but she has the strangest ideas. So we confronted the family. They were all there, sitting in the restaurant. Waiting for us with knives sharpened and venom dripping fangs. Oh, and the parents were there also.

Dramatis Personae

My sister Suzanne (or Suzy, or Susi, or Sue or Something - she's changed it pretty much every year of her life so I'm not always up on the current naming conventions. Rumor has it that she changes it frequently to confuse the authorities so they won't be able to serve her with warrants). A tough as a brick nurse with a heart of gold, or was it a soft mushy nurse with a heart like flint? I guess it depends on whether or not she's withholding your medication today.

She is married to Bill. A slightly menacing shaven headed good ol' country boy from the bayou. Not the sort you want to meet while canoeing down the river in the backcountry if you know what I mean, wink, wink (banjo twangs in the background). He and I share a common interest in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Therefore our respective wives spent the entire trip trying to keep us apart so we wouldn't go find a bar somewhere and hole up for several days talking about game mechanics, stats, and stuff like that.

Their children are Molly (9), a sweet child whose primary career choice in life is to be a princess, and Cooper (7), Minion of Satan, though his duties are largely ceremonial.

Also along for the ride was Coleen, my youngest brother's ex-wife, the sweetest person in the whole world, and her children: Sidney (8), she of the blinding bright platinum hair, and Eric (10), probable future target of outraged fathers over a three-state area.

Coleen's mother, Kathy and her sister Carmel were unbelievable. They babysat some nights and then went to the parks from opening to closing. They win the 'Show up the Younger People' Award hands down.

Kym and her friend Karen from New Orleans, friends of Sue's, were a ball of laughs. Kym's child is Alex (8), who I think might be suffering from narcolepsy. She was able to fall asleep everywhere. Possibly including standing up in line. A useful skill to have.

My brother Stephen couldn't make the trip and sent his daughters instead while he frolicked with his lady friend at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. He assured us that he didn't want to deprive them of the chance to visit Disney World with the rest of the family and that the fact that he was partying hard while they were gone was done only to assuage the grief he felt in missing this once in a lifetime opportunity.

His girls are Caroline (14) and Leigh (12), who are much too responsible for their ages and pretty much kept all the younger ones under control during the trip, with the possible exception of the Minion of Satan mentioned previously. Mary and I agreed that these two were keepers.

Don, Mary's brother, is an employee and minion of the Anti-Christ, Bill Gates. He is an uber geek and I grovel at his feet in admiration of his vast and all encompassing knowledge of all things geeky. He and Mary spent much of the trip comparing 3D camera sizes and capabilities. Some sort of compensation going on there I'm sure.

Don's wife, Sarah is a real sweety and former children's librarian. I've always had a soft spot for librarians (and this little fantasy about them where… no, possibly not a good time for that). She is Don's minder and keeps him from walking into traffic while he's fiddling with his camera.

Don and Sarah's children are Roland, whose reading comprehension at age 5 probably exceeds mine, and Malcolm (2), who might have the biggest eyes ever. I mean we're talking freaky large - I feel like he's looking through me with X-ray vision or something.

My Dad. What can I say about him? Well, Mary told me that this was a family web site so it really cuts down on most of my comments. Remember Lou Grant from the Mary Tyler Moore show? Well, Dad would make him cry like a little baby. Oh, and he likes to eat babies too.

Carol, my Dad's lady friend. Still getting used to this whole Dad dating concept. It's a bit unsettling. And Carol doesn't help - she's much too nice for him and needs to be told the truth before it's too late! I thought it was quite a bit to heap on her with all the family and stuff, but she held up like a trouper.

Okay now that I've given a shout out to everyone you're all famous. Now get off my back!

So to continue with the actual trip report. For dinner at the Giraffe Café the first night I had buffalo wings and salad. I find that one can eat really fatty and unhealthy stuff if one balances it by ordering something good for you like salad. It's not actually necessary to eat the healthy stuff, the fact that you have it on the table is usually enough to get most of the beneficial effects. The wings were all right though they could have used more sauce. The salad looked nice.

One comment on the suite at the hotel. A surprising omission considering the size of the suite was a table and chairs. If someone wanted to eat in the room they would have to use the coffee table which is a little low to be truly comfortable. Didn't matter much to us, as we weren't planning on in-room dining, but it is something to keep in mind.

After reading Mary's account of the first day at Epcot, I felt that I needed to set the record straight. From her report it sounds like my Dad and I just lazed around the pub while we sent the women to get the car. Well, actually, that's pretty much how it happened. I had another pint of Boddington's while he had another bourbon and water. We then ambled over to the boat dock outside the rear entrance to Epcot and waited for the boat. Fortunately even though we were under cover I had the foresight to have packed two raincoats in my backpack. So even though we weren't really exposed to the rain we were both well equipped for wet weather. I suppose I could have offered one of the raincoats to Mary before she and Carol left to get the car, but I was pondering which ale to order next at the pub and the thought pretty much never crossed my mind. Planning ahead - that's the ticket.

As Mary recounts, dinner at V&A's was excellent, other than the less than stellar service. One note - after we arrived back home and got the next credit card bill we found we had been double billed. Interestingly enough the second charge was not exactly the same as the first - it was off by a few dollars and some odd cents. Not sure what was going on there but we quickly disallowed the charge with Amex.

Monday, March 3

Still stuffed after the feast the night before, we made our way past the hotel coffee shop and hitched a ride on one of the buses to MGM. The front of the park was surprisingly packed but the rest of the park was not especially crowded. We snatched a quick ride on Tower of Terror and then grabbed a couple of FASTPASSes for Rock n Roller Coaster.

We met Mary's brother Don and his wife and kids for lunch at the Prime Time Café. I had never actually eaten there before. We got in before they had actually started seating anyone and enjoyed a bit of banter with the waitresses, who are all in character as 'Mom'. Mom doesn't like to see elbows on the table and makes you set the table too. Pretty enjoyable place, though it is a bit loud - guess noise just reverberates off all those formica table tops.

We started with the trout dip, which was tasty and rich, and an order of onion rings, which aren't really rings, but more like onion threads. Those were so-so. I made the mistake of getting the recommendation of 'Mom' - a chili dusted chicken breast sandwich. It wasn't bad but I had briefly considered getting the pot roast and regretted not doing so afterwards. It looked pretty good. Mary had the turkey sandwich with cranberry mayonnaise. She insists on doing things like this even though I continually point out that mixing fruit with meat is sacrilegious. She liked it fairly well, even though it was an abomination in eyes of the Great Grill Cook in the sky. Don and Sarah had the meatloaf, which they said was okay.

Mary got an Electric Soda. This is a regular soda in a kids' plastic drinking cup, but it comes with a plastic ice cube that has a light in it that can be turned on or off by tapping it on a table top - or any other hard surface that makes a satisfying 'thwack' noise. By the time we left the restaurant the sound of all the children smacking the ice cubes on the tables was deafening. We passed most of the rest of our family at another table and Mary gave her ice cube to one of the kids. This of course caused a great hue and cry as all the other children demanded their own electric ice cubes. We cackled evilly and were on our way.

We went to the Rock n Roller Coaster after lunch and Mary kindly gave her FASTPASS to Don, who had never been on the coaster and wouldn't normally be able to go, because his wife doesn't like roller coasters. Still, even with this obvious character deficiency I can see why he married her (cause she's like a librarian and ... No. not now). We then wandered over to the playground based on the 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids' movie set, which is pretty cute. Kids like it a lot.

After this it was time for yours truly to go back to the hotel for his nap. Ah, naps. The best invention ever.

My nap took quite a bit longer than I expected and we hadn't really planned on doing much more so we decided to take it easy and just hang in the hotel for the evening. We had quite a bit of beer and soda left so we decided to go and get some snacks and have everyone come back over for some more carousing that evening. We popped over to Goodings and got some cheese and snacks and a couple more bottles of wine. And a six pack of good beer (Heineken) for me.

Dinner in the Giraffe Café again. I settled for a dinner salad 'cause between dinner at V&A's the previous night and the very substantial lunch at MGM, I wasn't up to my usual trencherman performance. A sign of aging I guess. The salad was adequate though they did put strips of American cheese on it which is something I think should be given criminal penalties. Mary's Asian Chicken salad was quite nice and every time her back was turned I snatched a little more of it.

Tuesday, March 4

After Monday's hectic schedule we decided to tone it down a bit. Mustn't exhaust ourselves. We wandered over to Animal Kingdom, not 'cause we were particularly interested in going to the park but so that we could spend more time with Mary's brother and his wife. It had been a couple of years since we last saw them, whereas we last got together with all the members of my side of the family during Christmas.

Interestingly enough we saw more animals on the Kilmanjaro Safari than I remembered seeing on previous trips. One mini-rant: I wish Disney would get rid of the lame poacher plot on the Safari. It's silly and stupid and the cast members obviously feel the same way, as every time we've been on the attraction they've just been going through the motions. Kill this already.

We hit several of the walkthrough exhibits also, and the kids enjoyed these quite a bit. After spending the morning looking at animals looking at people looking at animals, we left Animal Kingdom behind and went back to the hotel and picked up my Dad for a quick jaunt over to Epcot and the Chefs de France. We've always liked this restaurant and try and get in one meal there on every trip.

This visit was a disappointment. I ordered the crepes with chicken. Now every time I've had chicken crepes they've had a cream based sauce. For some reason they decided to throw out convention and went with a tomato infused sauce, which was lackluster. And the crepes were apparently made with buckwheat and resembled tortillas more then crepes. They were actually crunchy. Quite strange.

Mary's vegetarian plate apparently has replaced the vegetable gratin that we have had here several times and enjoyed a lot. The new version was dressed with a lackluster tomato sauce that was too salty. The appetizer plate with various pates, coldcuts and cheeses went a long way to dispelling the disappointment of the main dishes. At least this hasn't changed. As it stands now we'd recommend trying the charcuturie plate and a beer for a light midday repast and skip the entrees until they get back on track.

To cap off the day we decided to go back to the hotel and spend the afternoon napping, reading and in my case drinking additional cold, frosty slightly alcoholic beverages. We roused ourselves in the evening to go to Pleasure Island.

As usual we made a beeline for Adventurer's Club, where we met my dad and my sister and sister-in-law. Their first trip. Dad thought it was silly, so he got the point. The women liked it a bunch.

As it was getting late, we decided to grab a bite to eat. Unfortunately the choices in Pleasure Island are pretty limited - basically sausages I believe. We went out to Downtown Disney and the women wanted to try Planet Hollywood. This was my first visit to one, although there is one here in San Diego. But the two times we actually tried to get in to our local Planet Hollywood, they told us there was a 20 minute wait. When I glanced in and saw that fully half the tables were empty, we always walked away. Restaurants that play games like this are on my 'Do Not Patronize' list. But the choice wasn't mine this time.

When we entered we were surprisingly told it would only take a minute to be seated. The music volume in the lobby was very loud, so I asked if there were any tables where the music wasn't quite as loud. This earned me a smirk in reply. Again surprisingly we were seated in some sort of booth that had walls cutting out most of the noise in the main dining room.

To be truthful I can't remember what we had. We just pretty much picked one of each item on the appetizer list and shared those. And for the final surprise of the night - it wasn't bad. Not bad at all. Much better than I expected. I guess I was ready for the quality of food I've eaten at Hard Rock Café but this was much better. Of course fully half the stuff was fried, so we knew that we'd have at least the breading to nibble on.

Would I recommend Planet Hollywood to others? Nope - not unless you like relentlessly pounding music and snotty hostesses. And for the money the food wasn't that great. It certainly doesn't inspire me to go back and try the one in San Diego. But overall, you can do worse.

Wednesday, March 5

A Magic Kingdom day. Beautiful weather to go with it too. What more could we want? Well, spending it by ourselves was my suggestion, but that was vetoed and we spent the day with the New Orleans side of our clan instead.

We hit most of the cool rides in Frontierland and Adventureland. Mary got her Pirates of the Caribbean fix in, so she's good for another couple of months. The seven kids we had in tow had been ingesting large quantities of sugary products and were accordingly bouncing off the walls, trash cans and slow moving people. The older girls were doing an admirable job of minding the younger ones while the adults talked and ignored their antics. We tried to do the same, but since we don't have children, we're not inured to the sight of our youngest boy walking along the top of the fence lining the queue to Big Thunder Mountain. Watching the kids was often more breathtaking than the rides.

We all settled on lunch at Pecos Bill's in Frontierland, mainly because we were standing beside it when we decided to stop for lunch. It was pretty typical counter service fare. Most of the kids selected chili cheese fries for their meal, a choice I envied, but Mary gave me the Glare so I settled on a balanced meal. Well, it was balanced insofar as there was lettuce on the cheeseburger. Mary pointed out that it was not what she thought of as balanced, and I countered that as Pecos Bill's didn't serve beer, it was as balanced as I was going to get.

After lunch we made a quick stop at Haunted Mansion and then we took the oldest girls, Caroline & Leigh, back to the hotel to get their stuff. Then it was off to the airport to send them back to New Orleans and the loving arms of their father. Mardi Gras was over, so I'm sure he probably missed them by that point.

After dropping the girls at the airport, we took a quick shower and changed for the highlight of the trip - the Hoop-Dee-Doo-Revue. This was not my idea - actually it's the complete opposite of my idea, which would have involved a nice quiet bar somewhere with frosty cold brewed beverage goodness and salty snacks. But the combined clan wanted to try this and Mary convinced me that sometimes the greater good requires the sacrifice of the one. I made that up, as long as I'm going to have to go to this thing I'm going to use corny Star Trek dialogue to deal with it. Mary just told me to quit whining and whacked me on the head with a rolled up paper.

So we drive over to the Fort Wilderness campgrounds. I hadn't actually been over there before, other than a bike ride over to the Outpost once from Wilderness Lodge. We finally figured out where to park (would it be so hard to put up a big sign that says - Park Here for Buses to Hoop-Dee-Doo-Revue?).

Our bus driver was quite chatty. He regaled us with tales of wives leaving their husbands and handing him $200 tips and warned me several times to be careful to treat my wife well or she'd be leaving me too. And possibly handing him large wads of cash for causing her to see that she'd settled when she married me and that she could have done much better. All of which is true of course, but she didn't need encouragement. Every time I tried to get a word in edgewise I got an elbow in the ribs, so obviously Mary was eating it up.

We managed to make it to Pioneer Hall without Mary deciding to leave me, so I seem to have dodged the bullet on that one. This was our second comedian bus driver of the trip. One of the Downtown Disney hotel bus drivers a couple of days earlier was doing this whole stream-of-consciousness thing that was either amusing or scary, depending on your point of view. I was of the opinion that he was trying out some new material before the next Open Mic night at the local Comedy Store. It was better than the alternative possibility, which is that someone gave one of those guys who stand on street corners and talk to themselves a shower and a commercial bus license.

What to say about the Revue? Well, I was pleasantly surprised. We had reservations for the 7:15 show, so if memory serves we went in around 7:00 pm. Got my beer right off the bat and this smoothed the remainder of the evening. The food, while nothing special, was plentiful and fairly tasty. It started with a mixed salad with vinaigrette served in a bucket. Now this is something I think we should see more of. I've always thought that food served in buckets was a culinary trend whose time has come. Mary disagrees with me of course; I think it's a guy thing. The main course was all the barbequed chicken and ribs you could eat and eat I did. The dessert was strawberry shortcake, which I had to loosen a few belt notches to fit in.

The show was corny as hell, but the performers were enthusiastic and energetic. The kids liked it a lot and they got washboards to bang on to accompany the music partway through the show. Nothing enhances a show for kids more than audience participation, especially when it's something they can bang. There was a little bit of ageism on display as I didn't get anything to bang on and my tablemates were loathe to share their cool washboards. All in all I'd say it was a fun experience. Now that I've done it I can safely skate out of any repeat performances in the future.

Thursday, March 6

We said adieu to Hotel Royal Plaza. We had enjoyed our stay quite a bit, but now it was time to move on to Universal Orlando and the Portofino Bay Hotel. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our room was already available at 10:00 am, so we were able to unpack before we headed out to the parks.

The hotel was pretty impressive overall - easily up to the standard of the deluxe Disney resort hotels. It's designed to resemble a coastal village in Italy and is full of little details like Fiats and Vespas parked around the lakefront and such.

It seemed to us that something was lacking insofar as the ambiance was concerned and it finally occurred to us the last day. They'd spent a good bit of time and money to make it look like an Italian seaside village but it was lifeless. The whole time we were there we saw only a few people wandering around the large lakeside plaza that the hotel is built around. I think it might look less lonely if they'd put a small bar and tables with awnings right next to the water. As it is, most of the people at the hotel tended to skirt around this huge open area so they could stay in the shade.

The hotel has an impressive number of eateries - always a plus for yours truly. There's a very upscale restaurant, Delfino Riviera, that we didn't try; a mid-range dinner place called Mama Della's; a coffee shop type of restaurant, the Trattoria del Porto, which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner; and a deli for sandwiches. There is also a pizzeria next to the biggest pool and an ice cream shop (gelateria) that Mary kept inexplicably veering towards every time we walked close to it. Mary's theory was that there was some sort of local variation in the gravitational field nearby. My theory is that Mary is a human dowsing rod who can find ice cream in the middle of a desert.

The rooms were comfortable and roughly the same size as say, the Wilderness Lodge. Most rooms have some sort of view from the looks of it, either of the lake that the hotel surrounds or of one of the pools. Usual amenities in the rooms and the mini-bar did stock Peroni beer, which I like a lot, at a very reasonable price. I immediately popped one, settled myself on the bed and let Mary check out the rest of the room on her own.

Now refreshed, we were off to Universal Studios to meet up with several of the New Orleans denizens again. Most of them had hit Universal the first day they were in Florida, since they arrived a day early, so this day was aimed at hitting stuff they'd missed the first day. On our way to meet them we ran across Spongebob Squarepants and I whined until Mary took my picture with him. I was the only adult in line and I think the character's escort thought I was a poser, because he asked me how I liked Patrick. Silly boy, I knew who Patrick was, and easily evaded his attempts to show me up.

We met up with Suzi, Bill and their kids and did some shows like Twister and Terminator 2. Then we hit Mel's Diner for lunch and I took the opportunity to finally get those chili cheese fries that I'd missed a day earlier. Mary's back was turned when I ordered and by the time she realized what I'd done, it was too late. I cackled and ran over and crouched in a corner and gobbled it all up.

I got a chance to talk at length with Bill, my brother-in-law, which was pretty much the only time that I got to talk to an adult male during the entire trip. Not counting Mary's brother Don, of course, but normally he and Mary would be talking about 3D cameras or such and I'd be left out of the conversation 'cause my geek credentials just didn't measure up. Yes, Mary is much more knowledgeable about cameras, computers and home electronics then I am, as I decided at an early age to devote myself to the study of beer. And fried foods. I'm very knowledgeable about fried foods. I ought to go on Jeopardy.

Afterwards we hit some more attractions including Men in Black: Alien Attack (lots of fun - kind of a more elaborate version of Buzz Lightyear at Disney), Back to the Future (similar to Star Tours, but with different theming, obviously) and the Make-up Effects show, which we'd skipped in the past 'cause it sounded lame. It turned out to be a really fun show. I would do this one again in a minute. Don't miss it - it's quite funny.

In the late afternoon we repaired back to the hotel since I needed to check out how well the bed functioned for mid-afternoon naps. The pace was demanding but I was able to bear up under the load. As was the bed.

For dinner we drove back to Disney and went to one of our favorite restaurants in the Greater Orlando area - Artist Point in the Wilderness Lodge. We have always had wonderful meals here, so we took my Dad with us to partake in the culinary wonders that this venue has to offer. And I was mildly disappointed. It wasn't that the food was poor and neither was the service. It just seemed that we were there on an off night and the cuisine just wasn't up to par. We still enjoyed it though I missed that little special spark of something we've always experienced before.

As usual Mary had the smoked wild mushroom bisque. I chose this also, which is unusual. We usually try to get different things so we can taste more stuff. Not when we can have this soup, though, and it was up to the usual high standards. We also both got the buffalo steak and mine was a little dry and somewhat tough. Still better than fully 90% of the beef steaks I've had in restaurants, but not quite up to standard. All in all, a visit to the Wilderness Lodge is always welcome, so we didn't come away disappointed. Mary's opinion was different and she thought it was as wonderful as always, so maybe it was just me having a bad night.

Now for my little rant. While we were eating we noticed a couple with two small children seated close to us. After enjoying their delicious repast, Mr. and Mrs. Oblivious dawdled over their coffee and dessert while their little bundles of joy ran frantically through the length and breadth of the restaurant, narrowly missing crashing full tilt into servers carrying heavy trays several times. This lasted for a good 20 minutes with nary a sign of care on the part of the parents. Helloo, McFly! If a server trips and drops a tray loaded with heavy crockery on little Timmy's head, it won't be their fault - it'll be yours. If you bring small children to a table service restaurant, why not do the staff and your fellow diners a favor and lasso your little Satan spawn to the seats till it's time to leave? We'll thank you and I'm pretty sure the staff will thank you. Rant over.

Friday, March 7

The buffet breakfast at the Trattoria del Porto was pretty good - and it should be, for what they charge per person. I'm not much of a breakfast person myself, but I enjoyed this one. I usually like to spend mornings with an IV of coffee and don't like having food sponge up any of the precious, precious caffeine. Anyway, the buffet had all kinds of pastries, omelets to order, every kind of hot meat and potato dish one would expect, etc. Coffee was included -- juice (which we ordered) was not. Our total bill was nearly $43 for two. Ouch.

I spent most of the day writing up notes and exploring the rest of the hotel while Mary was off attending some meetings. It was quite relaxing; my only disappointment was that there is a great looking bar (Bar American) in the main building off the lobby that was unaccountably closed till 4:00 pm. I was saddened and dismayed and disappointed and dejected and kinda thirsty.

Since Mary was having lunch with her meeting companions I had to fend for myself. Fortunately there was at least one eatery I hadn't tried that looked promising. I grabbed myself a good pannini from the deli along with a couple of Peroni beers. Have I mentioned that I like Peroni beer? It's quite nice. So anyhow, I was able to hold up against the feelings of abandonment and managed to make it through the day.

For dinner we hit Mama Della's, mainly because at this point I was on a roll and wanted to experience eating in three different restaurants in the same hotel on the same day. I am happy to report that my mission was completed successfully with no ill effects other than a feeling of pressure around the waistline. Loosening the belt to its last notch soon relieved the discomfort. I'd love to tell you what we had for dinner but unfortunately my notes have disappeared. Probably something with pasta, I'm guessing. I do remember thinking it was fairly good, and a lot less expensive than the upscale restaurant that we gave a pass on.

After dinner we walked around the hotel a little and as we were passing the ice cream place Mary succumbed to the draw of the gravitational anomaly located there. We found that the only way we could escape was to buy some gelato for Mary (I abstained and made every attempt to gather to myself the praise that someone with my willpower was due). She said it was good. I pointed out that I was good. She gave me the Glare and I subsided, sinking slowly into the lake, silently.

Saturday, March 8

We had a late afternoon flight scheduled, so we contemplated spending the morning in Islands of Adventure. However, Mary was feeling pretty under the weather and I was pretty theme parked out by this point, so instead we wandered around to the other hotels to check them out instead. I liked the Hard Rock Hotel all right, though it wasn't really my taste. I liked the South Pacific-themed Royal Pacific Resort quite a bit more. I'm not a huge fan of Disney's Polynesian, but I found that I liked this hotel well enough to consider staying there next time we travel to Orlando and hit Universal.

Lunch was taken at Emeril's in Citywalk. Man, I cannot describe how very disappointing this was. And I'll admit that since it's a theme restaurant with his name on it I wasn't really expecting anywhere near the same quality of food that I might expect from his place in New Orleans. What we had didn't even measure up to our average visit to Chili's.

Note from Mary: I started my meal with a Bloody Mary. Compared with Bloody Marys in New Orleans -- or for that matter, most of the known universe -- it was puny. Really, really small. I actually laughed when they set it down, wondering if it was a joke. It wasn't very good, either - watery and surprisingly tasteless. Mike had lemonade. You thought it would be beer, didn't you? Gotcha! We each had a soup - one had the soup of the day and one had the gumbo of the day. They were both only average and portions were small.

I had a beef filet with a Worchestershire sauce and sweet potato cake and green beans. The beef was badly overcooked and I had it taken back. The second order was cooked correctly but the beef was very tough and the sauce was insipid and off-putting. The sweet potato cake was a gelatinous mess and the only flavor that came through was sweet. The green beans were probably the worst part of the meal. I'm all for light steaming of vegetables and like them crisp and crunchy. These had obviously been waved over the steam from a teakettle. They were almost completely raw, and extremely tough.

Mary's dish, the daily chef's special, was just as awful. It was an Asian-inspired spinach salad with ahi tuna steaks -- except the "steaks" were two tiny medallions about two inches in diameter and not terribly thick. Although they were prepared fairly well and rare enough in the center, the portion size was way too small for the price.

Note from Mary: I also absolutely hated the salad dressing, which had a curdled texture and tasted very strongly of fish sauce, an Asian ingredient with a strong fermented fish base that should be used with great care and discretion. I like fish sauce in small quantities, but every time I think about that dressing I want to gag. I ate the two little pieces of fish, toyed with the salad - which by the way also looked extremely unappetizing -- and gave up. I should have sent it back, but since Mike had already sent his absolutely awful steak back, I felt kind of embarrassed about doing so. In hindsight, it's Emeril's that should have been embarrassed to serve such a horrible meal. I will add that I tasted all of Mike's food and I totally agree with him that it stunk.

One final complaint: the servers perform this choreographed bit where they bring all the dishes for a course to a table and then all of them place them in front of the diners and remove the cover with a flourish at the same time. It's silly and it's lame.

Needless to say this was quite a disappointment for Mary, as she enjoys Emeril's cooking show a lot. If the guy is going to put his name on a restaurant he ought to make sure that the cooking is up to par. As it stands any current theme restaurant could do as well or most of the time better than the meal we ate. At least Bennigan's and Chili's don't have any pretensions and the food is better at half the price. I would recommend that people avoid wasting their money and skip this place.

So that was it. Although our trip ended on a bit of a sour note, we managed to gather ourselves together and pop off to the airport for the trip home. Our dog was eagerly awaiting our return and I was pretty sure I'd remembered to leave a few brews in the fridge for a post-trip refreshment.

Conclusions

Mary has posted elsewhere about having large group gatherings at Disney World. I'll second her recommendations. It's probably easiest if everyone decides on what they want to do and goes their separate ways, and then arranges to meet up for meals or other events. We found cell phones made this much easier than it would have been in the past.

Trying to herd 20+ people anywhere is just a nightmare waiting to happen, especially if there are lots of children involved. We found that the more children together in one spot, the more unruly the individual child became. Smaller groups were much calmer and less stressful.

Hotel Royal Plaza was a damn good value. I'm undecided about Portofino Bay at this point. I liked it, but am not sure of the cost effectiveness of the choice. Next time we go I would like to check out the less expensive Royal Pacific Resort and see what it's like. From what we could see, I think we would enjoy it, and the slightly lower cost might make this a better option.

We experienced a little backsliding in the quality of the food in some restaurants. It's difficult to make a determination if this is systematic or just an off day. Hopefully it's the latter. We still enjoyed most of the meals we had and would certainly patronize many of the restaurants mentioned herein again.

Now, time to go and see if there are any crisp, cold refreshments in the fridge. I've done my part and it's time to go back to my slothful ways. I wonder what's on TV?