Disney Trip - Part 3 --The Gecko

Day 2 --we see a gecko -a bright green Geico Gecko --in the corner of the room on the wall. This is something to show all the kids --who think it's real cool. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere, so we left it alone.

But two nights before we left, I was on the phone again, asking front desk if the vouchers had arrived and they still had not. We learned later that they were in the package department at the Dolphin. So later, while we were on our way to Clearwater Beach, someone finally transfers me to the package room at the Dolphin, where they do indeed have our mail from AAA. And I got them to agree to deliver them to the front desk at the Swan which is joined to the dolphin by a bridge, because we weren't going to get back before the package room would close and we needed the vouchers by the next day or else. But that night when I was still tracking the vouchers, I just hung up from the front desk when this gecko skittered from one shoulder to the other in front of me and down my arm and behind the night stand. I screamed. My daughter told my son-in-law next door that she thought it was some drunk in the hall --and her husband said, "No, I think that was your mother!" So she came in and brought two cups and chased the gecko along the wall behind the love seat in our room but couldn't get it. So I called the front desk and then housekeeping or security or somebody --who sent up a guy with a spray can.

I looked at it and said, "What are you going to do with THAT!?" He said in a foreign accent, "This is what we use to get the roaches and ants." I said, "Well, we don't want to be fumigated with poisen --and it's not a bug. It's a lizard." He seemed puzzled. I said, "You know, green, a lizard. About 6 inches long in total." He said, " A lizard? Green?" Yes, a lizard.

So he takes out his pen light and shines around and next thing I know, the exterminator man is on our bed --which was turned down by the cleaning staff --and pawing over our pillows and says, yes, he sees it. And Jon says, "You'll need a vacuum sweeper. Just let him get it tomorrow, Barb."

"Nothing doing. I'm not letting this guy slither over me in the night! Been there, done that!"

So the exterminator leaves and Jon leaves on some errand after grumbling about having the roach man on our bedding. I pull up the spread, take off the pillows. And Enrico comes back with a shop vac and a long dirty looking hose to drag over our bed. But he gets one of our towels and tells me to call up housekeeping if I need more. He says, "You still have 3 towels." And he spreads it on the bed and puts the shop vac on it after I explained that my husband was a little creeped out about the idea of the equipment being on the bed.

So Enrico puts his left hand on the hose --and his right hand on the switch and tries to turn the switch on at the same time he's trying to make contact with the gecko --so it races back and forth --Enrico spots it every time and goes back and forth, back and forth --and he's getting frustrated, I can tell--and embarrassed at his lack of success. I've told him a couple of times that I think he should turn on the sweeper first --and then zap the gecko. He says, No, that will scare him --the feel of the air. I said, No, Enrico, just try it. It's a vacuum --it doesn't blow air on it but sucks him in! As you get close enough, he won't have a chance against the suction. And at this point, I could see the gecko --by the electic outlets behind me where I was sitting on the love seat. So I said, do it --turn it on first --try it! and so, looking skeptical, the exterminator follows my directions and sure enough! Zaps the critter.

And that's the end of the gecko story. And sadly the end of the gecko, I assume.

Enrico said this was a first for him. How did I know!?

"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

Disney Trip - Part 2 --The Voucher Fiasco

We try to register at the hotel and give them the papers we have from AAA who helped us with a "Disney package" that may have been worth a little discount on Disney tickets but little else. The hotel said they give no discounts to AAA. Anyway, they said, these were not the "vouchers" they needed. I didn't know anything about "vouchers." So after much running around by front desk folks, they sent us up to our rooms. They said if they didn't get the vouchers, showing we had already paid through AAA, we would be charged again and have to have AAA reimburse us. I would later learn that the AAA travel agent believed she had called both me and my daughter to tell us we needed to stop by for our Disney packages. And I suppose she did, but it sure fell off my radar and out of my memory--and my daughter said she didn't think she was told either --and she has a 'steel trap' mind, compared to me. I noted to AAA that I did remember that the airport ticket gal called me to tell me my plane reservations were confirmed --and to remind me to pick up the tickets --and again to try to sell me extra insurance --and to remind me of what time the plane left. And another gal called to have me pay for my AAA membership which expired in March.

Finally in our rooms, we look out the windows and note that we have a balcony but are looking on to a flat roof and the roof of a round restaurant, part of the hotel. Not a good view. I said to Antonio, the Bell Captain who took us to our room, "You know we asked for rooms with a view and had reservations." He said, "Call the front desk; I'll wait." (IN fact, we chose this hotel because they said they could get rooms with a view --whereas the Wild Animal Kingdom Lodge, where our daughter first wanted to stay, only had rooms looking on a parking lot --so we felt we had made a hotel choice on the basis of getting a view and therefore should get one.)

So I did, and they took a while to offer us something else. We had 2 rooms, adjoining and she said the adjoining room request was honored before our request for a view and she didn't know if she could find both together --but she managed. Meanwhile, we learned Antonio was Italian, did not admit to being Mafia, played guitar and bass in a band that performed around Orlando, was single still in his early 40's, had gone with a girl for 6 years but they broke up, etc. etc. He was very friendly, gregarious, and pleasant --waiting to move us again. We only had 4 bags since we sent many things in the van with our son-in-law and daughter and grandsons. But they were heavy bags on a cart so we hung on to our bell captain until settled.

As for me, I scheduled a "scooter" as I could never keep up or walk the distances of a Disney day. So I had a scooter delivered to the hotel by a company called "Walker Medical" --or "Mobility" or something. Which was actually a dollar cheaper than getting the scooters at Disney--and those could only be used at the park, whereas my rental was useful for me in the hotel, on the boardwalk which went to the swim area, the Hollywood Disney/MGm and Epcot.

We eventually got to the new rooms with a view of the Disney Dolphin Hotel and the lagoons around it --the board walk --all in the Disney Epcot Resort Area. We were in he Swan Hotel that faces the Dolphin. There were huge dolphins and swans on the top of the respective hotels --both were a green stucco with a peach stucco wave pattern and a pattern made of different style windows, some with balconies and some without. These new rooms for us didn't have balconies or the full length windows, but we settled. The view was great though the windows were dirty on the outside.

Next installment: the Gecko

"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

Home Again, Home Again--Back from Disney --Part 1

Part I --the Credit Card Fiasco

We get on the plane and my husband realizes he has neither of his 2 credit cards. So we call Rob --who looks high and low in the house and can't find them. So after we get established in our hotel, I call Rob again and he goes to one of the cars at home as instructed by Jon, and sure enough, there it is. Between the seats.

But what about the other card? I call the bank. The 800 number. I finally get a live person and they want to know my password. I tell them what I think it is --but it isn't. I try another that it might be. They say they can't tell me if there has been any unwarranted activity on the card since I don't remember my password. All I want to know is where the card was last used to see if we recognize the purchases. Because if we don't, we had better cancel the card as someone else is using it! Sthe guy offers to put a hold on the card. I said, "no, no --wait until we look some more." And then I wondered, how can they put a hold on a card they aren't sure is mine! Boy, that would really tick somebody off, if any old stranger can do that! They seemed to believe I was me for cancellation purposes but not to tell me the recent expenditures so I could verify if his card was being mis-used.

During our plane ride, we had told Rob to call a couple of places where Jon knew he had shopped. He did. No luck. So I call the bank again, and get a different live person. This gal puts me through the rigmarole again and I ask for her supervisor --we finally go two supervisor/managers "up" --to talk to an intelligent person. And we tell him about our checking account and a recent check we wrote. NOW he's willing to talk to us, having seen that check in our records. (Although if someone had stolen our check book, they would have that info.) But he understood that the info we were asking for wouldn't be useful to a thief of our card. We wanted to know where the card had been used, so we could tell if we should try to cancel the card or not. The irony is that they were willing to stop action on the card without proving that we were US by a password -- --and then later, they wouldn't even do THAT! realizing that it was illogical to let someone cancel a card if they didn't know the password. But then I said, "Now, supposing our card really IS stolen and people are spending up the wazoo on it and you won't let me cancel the card!! because i can't remember a password.

The remedy they had was for us to go into a branch bank --except we were in Florida and our banks are in Ohio --and it was Saturday afternoon and our own branch bank was closed so we couldn't phone them.

But now Jon remembers that he went to the Rite Aid for an Rx. So we call there and the guy remembers that Jon came in. He said sometimes they put the credit card in the medicine bag when the customer comes through the drive-thru as Jon did. Sure enough, Rob found the 2nd card in the script bag at home in the kitchen. Jon had not opened it as he didn't need to pack this Rx for the trip.

But in the meantime, many phone calls were made --the bank was no help --until we talked to a 4th person who had some independent initiative to understand that all we wanted to know was if our card was being used to buy things back home or somewhere where we weren't.

Next installment: the AAA Voucher Fiasco

"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible