Monday, March 17, 2008

Part Two

What a sad sad little lobster......
If you have not noticed yet we at the Williams home take our food eating very seriously. In most cases our much needed R&R is food centered. Ok and maybe a little wine too... on with the show I hope I don't have too many tangents. So our adventures at Disneyworld soon wrapped up and onto the Disney Cruise we went.

I must speak of the Disney cruise if I may. Ok so let’s start with the concierge level. Not sure how much more this cost in the room category only Jerry knows but the only advantage we saw to this extra expense was that when we checked into the dock we had a separate line, or no line if you will. Then we were ushered to an area where we could make reservations of any kind. That and a daily fruit selection or cookie was it. Nothing to be had here.

Rooms great were with an add on room- good (scale 1-5) 4. Food quality below average (scale 1-5) 2. Ok--- first day needed some lunch and ended up on beach blanket blah blah… food here is inedible. I am not kidding this is not Jill being a pain in the ass this was BAD!!!! At this point- the beginning I was hunkering down for a long painful 4 days. But then wait a light at the end of the tunnel….. That nights at dinner on the wine list—by the glass--- Cakebread Chardonnay. Ok people I can deal with this situation when I can have cakebread chardonnay. It is true I can overlook many things and bad food is a big one but I can. First night dinner at Palo’s adults only. It is their nice dinner (so fancy) We dropped the kids at the oceaneer club and off to palo’s we go. The server that night was from Bosnia and quite fabulous. I was trying to figure a way to bring him home in my suitcase. He could be the new William’s house manager. Ok I am getting ahead of myself.

The jaunt to Nassau was great we toured around the island and ended up at Atlantis for lunch. I will return to the Bahamas. I like this place. Dining room night #2- holy shit those are the words that come to mind. Loud screaming babies. Ok I am really trying to have compassion here. My babies have screamed bloody murder on many occasions. But the symphony of babies screaming was a lot. Ok not enough that a glass of cakebread could not take away. Maybe they could have a screaming babies section and then every body else. Just a thought. The show that night after dinner was fabulous. Characters, music and princesses. The only thing. The next day was the Disney island castaway cay. I liked just getting off the boat and being on the beach in 5 minutes. That was good. We get settled on the beach. Wishing the concierge fairies would surface again and show us the way to the roped off concierge area. But no this does not occur. We are left to our own resources.

The next thing we know at waters edge the girls are having there photos taken 100 times actually according to Sam it was 99 times. But this was something to be minimized. Maybe it was just little girls in bathing suits posing that got to us. The next thing we know we are told that it will rain hard in 30 minutes and we see these dark looming clouds close by. We decide it is lunch time and we pack it up. Little did we know that rain to follow would be of a torrential nature. We actually had to laugh because it was so crazy. We waited the storm and then got on the ship earlier than usual because of the storm. This was the last day and basically the end of the trip and we were all pretty tired so a couple hours of sun we were all good.



Thursday, March 13, 2008

Williams.....Orlando.......Springbreak 2008

Sunday morning a flight direct flight to Orlando. Landing in the evening arriving at the lovely Dolphin hotel much to Mr Williams chagrin. As the room was old and run-down but no options for change were available. But we were on Disney property so we did Disney world and then bolted to the womb- The ritz carlton. From there we went to Sea world and Universal studios. Prior to leaving the dolphin we enjoyed the fabulous restaurant Shula’s. For those that don’t know Shula’s It is named after the Miami dolphin coach and he has a fabulous restaurant.

I enjoyed for the first time a 28 ounce lobster tail. You say really how big is this? Well when I spent the better part of my college serving Australian lobster tail at the oyster bar and they were on a good day 12-14 oz. And frankly those were huge. I struggle to even come close to those days. Well my friends I have been screwed for life for this lobster tail at Shula’s was 28 OZ.. shit. I needed a photo of this and did take one.. See attached.

Disney world one side bar. The rides we are all use to at Disneyworld may take you multiple parks to get to at Disneyworld. Matterhorn- No Indiana jones so this could very well be screw job #10. Isn’t the $75 per person we are paying enough? No they need another entrance fee.

Fast forward to The ritz-carlton what were we thinking to begin with. Our family dynamics are changing every day. With Alex, the resident teenager we struggle or chuckle when he still is recognized as a child. When he gets handed the child menu we quickly ask for him to get the adult version- or we just share our own. But tonight at the grill in the hotel Alex requests his beverage. I believe a coke (rated PG in our house) with what appears to be a shot glass sippy cup. Small and with a large bendy straw. Much to Alex’s horror. Jerry and I laughed our asses off and Alex took his steak knife or maybe it was his fork high and brought it down.

(see photo #2) This was the same night as Maine Lobster SNAFU. Clearly you can compare the two lobster photo’s and see for yourself. The tiny lobster however at the bargain price $52 was exactly half the size of a fork? The photo does not lie nor distort. Shula’s 28 oz was double the cost of the Ritz---- but really the shula’s lobster fed three of us. Maybe 4 if you count what Jerry ate. We sometimes want to use our blob (this is not a typo) to critique our travel experiences. Sometime people assume that when you stay at 5 star properties you don’t get the crazy service stories. But this is clearly not the case. When we blob or blog whichever, about our travel experiences you must know that we are grateful to be able to travel in magnitude that we travel in. I mean please do we really have the nerve to bitch about the level of service at the Ritz or the Four Seasons? Well you are right we are very grateful that we can travel in the level that we do. But we do and we do a lot and we should have expectations when you are coughing up the dough per night to stay here. We have a few of our favorites. Like when staying at the Parker in Palm Springs and being told to go get our own damn drinks. Thats up there. The trips not quite over yet so more to come....