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Oh, what a day it's been!
First of all after checking into the hotel on Tuesday, I hooked up with the other teachers from my school for dinner and drinks. It was a beautiful night, so we hung around outside talking and watched the fireworks.
It was a little after 11 PM when I got back to my room and turned on the TV. That was the first I heard about the little boy and the alligator at one of the other Disney Resorts. It was so sad! Orlando seems to be having a real run of bad luck.
Then, around midnight, I had just gotten into bed when the whole building started to shake. I'm not kidding! It was kind of scary! Of course, I ran to the window to look out while I was trying to decide if someone was pounding on my door or the people in the net room had just completely lost their minds. Turns out there were yet another set of fireworks going off!
These weren't normal fireworks though. First of off, why would Disney be setting off fireworks at midnight on a random Tuesday night? They also lasted longer than the normal firework shows. The story we ended up being given was that they had decided to "test" the new firework show they'll be doing as part of their new Star Wars display.
Seriously, what idiot came up with the idea of testing fireworks at midnight for a place that has families with young children everywhere? Can't you just hear that conversation.....
"Hey, I know! Why don't we test the fireworks at midnight? Everyone will be asleep and they'll have no idea what we're doing. They'll be so surprised when we do the show for real!"
When I woke up on Wednesday morning I hopped in the shower and was then very disappointed to realize that there was no hairdryer in my room. I didn't bring mine from home, because what hotel room doesn't have a hairdryer?!?
Guess who decided that they just had to accept the fact that they were going to have a couple of really bad hair days?
Guess who realized that there was a hairdryer hanging in a bag clearly marked "HAIRDRYER" in the closet area right before she walked out the door?
This girl, that's who!
I met up with the other teachers from my school for our free breakfast before we split up for our different workshop sessions. Mine was really good! The morning was going great and then we stopped for our mid morning break.
I was standing outside the restroom waiting for one of my friends when I saw someone else heading in. Someone I didn't expect to see at all! Someone I was happy and yet still very unhappy to see all at the same time. Someone that is distantly involved with the news I'm waiting to hear. Someone I didn't want anywhere near the people I came to this conference with.
You know how it is when you see someone somewhere you aren't expecting to and then you aren't sure if it was really them or not? Well, that's what it was like. We both said hello to each other, but kept going. After I got back into my session, I had to pull out my phone and send a text...
Are you in Orlando? Was that you I just saw in the hallway?
I was right! It was who I thought it was! We both ended up walking out of our sessions to talk in the hallway for a few minutes. It was cool.....and awkward.
The rest of the morning was uneventful. Lunch was good and we had some time to walk around after eating. We were just about to head back to our session when another teacher sent us a group text message...
Just got word that they may be evacuating the building
We stopped right where we were! More text messages were exchanged as we all waited to see if anyone was able to get more information. We really didn't learn much.
Another teacher and I decided to try walking outside because it looked like there were lots of people out there. We made it through the first set of doors before a hotel employee told us to please go back into the building.
I asked a lady that was standing close to the door if she knew what was going on. She told me that alarms were going off in one of the buildings. Then she pointed to the area that we had been denied entrance to and said, "I'm here and my child is over there and they won't let me get to her."
We ended up going back to our session where we eventually learned that the fire department had been at the hotel because a contractor working in one of the buildings had accidentally set off the alarm.
During our afternoon break, we were able to walk outside where we saw and heard two grown ladies yelling at each other. We actually saw one of them grab the other before they took their argument back inside the building. We could hear them as they continued to yell at each other.
When we went back inside the building most of their fight had died down, but there were lots of hotel employees keeping an eye on them.
We walked back toward our conference room and passed another exit/entrance. There were also lots of hotel employees and one uniformed security guard around this door. We didn't stop to see what was wrong, but we did see the security guard walking slowly around a white van that was parked outside the door.
Later, we learned that no one knew why the van was parked there and that the police had been called. They showed up with the bomb sniffing dogs to check it out.
Disney's Coronado Springs Resort is NOT a boring place!
It was comforting to know that they were on top of everything though!
Can't wait to see what day two of this conference brings!
