Day 7: My Name is Earl... of Sandwich

  Orlando, Florida, United States
Friday, July 28, 2006

01 - Hanging Out Around the House

Today I woke up at 10:00 but I was exhausted so I fell back asleep until 12:00.  It was the latest I had slept all week and I definitely needed it.  I took a shower and got dressed right away, and as I was doing my makeup in my room I watched Saved by the Bell on TBS.  Mike and I had been watching it a lot this vacation so it became a new tradition.  I have never watched as much Saved by the Bell in my life as I did on this trip!  Now whenever I see it on at home I get sad and miss Orlando!  Anyway, I was done getting ready by 1:30.  When I went into the living room I saw that mom and dad were sitting out by the pool.  I had some Smart Start cereal and a piece of carrot cake for breakfast, and then I went outside to take a few pictures of mom and dad in the backyard.  No one was able to go in the pool this morning since no one had come to fix the levels yet.  We had paid extra to stay in a home with a private pool and now we couldn't even go in it.  Unreal.

03 - Hanging Out Around the House

For the rest of the morning we all hung out in the living room and watched TV.  Mike and I watched music videos on FUSE and then he watched Attack of the Show and X-Play which he had taped on the G4 channel the night before.  I spent the time taking pictures of everyone and just hanging out around the house.  At 2:30 mom, Mike and I decided to play an early game of California Rummy.  We had just been sitting around the house all day and we wanted to do something.  Mike wound up winning this game, and I made sure to be a big sore loser about it!  I was just doing it to be a pain, though, and we laughed about it after.  I then read "The Great Gatsby" in my room and got ready to leave for Downtown Disney.  It had been raining on and off all day, so when we left for Downtown Disney at 4:45 we hoped that the rain would stay away.  We drove through Disney property and were at Downtown Disney by 5:05.  It was pretty crowded and we had to park all the way at the end of the Marketplace lot, but we had no problems getting in.

22 - Earl of Sandwich

We wanted to eat at Earl of Sandwich and I knew that it was popular and small, so we headed over there right away.  It was pretty crowded but we were able to find a few empty tables.  I had printed out the menu a few weeks beforehand so we all knew what we wanted.  Mike saved our table while mom, dad and I went to order and I was surprised by how everything was served here.  There was one long counter and you had to place your order at the beginning of it.  Then you had to move down the counter, picking up bags of chips or anything else you wanted as you went.  If you ordered a salad, you would stop halfway down the line at the salad station for your salad to be made in front of you.  Then you continued down to the end of the line where you would get your fountain soda cups and pay for everything.  On your receipt would be a number and you had to wait at the end of the line for your number to be called, and then you could pick up your sandwiches.  I guess it was run just like how a lot of food courts are run, but for a crowded place it was very organized.

25 - Earl of Sandwich

Mom and I got the Chinese Chicken Salad to share and we had to pick up a box of lettuce at the counter when we placed our order.  We then brought it to a girl farther down the counter and she emptied the box out into a big bowl, added salad dressing and all of the fixings before putting it back in the box.  I thought it was great that they did it that way because we knew that everything was fresh.  We had ordered three sandwiches, the salad, a baked potato and four drinks so we went to the end of the counter and paid and then went to get our drinks while we waited for our order number to be called.  I got my Cherry Coke and Mike's Sprite before our number was called only five minutes after we paid.  Dad went to get our food while mom and I finished getting the drinks and then we all went to sit and saw that they had given us an extra sandwich instead of a baked potato.  It was fine with us, now mom and I could have our own sandwiches.  We weren't hungry for our own sandwiches plus the salad, which is why we hadn't ordered an extra sandwich in the first place, but it was still good.

23 - Earl of Sandwich

Mom and I both got the Tuna Melt with albacore tuna and melted Swiss cheese, and we shared the Chinese Chicken Salad which consisted of grilled chicken, Chinese greens, crispy wantons, and soy and fresh ginger dressing.  Dad got the Full Montagu which consisted of roast beef, turkey, cheddar and Swiss cheese, romaine lettuce, tomatoes and mustard with a bag of Jalapeno chips, and Mike got the Florentine which was made of grilled chicken, creamed spinach, mushrooms and Parmesan cheese.  The food was all absolutely delicious!  All of the sandwiches were toasted and some of the best sandwiches we've ever had.  I loved how all of the opened sandwiches were placed on a conveyor belt behind the counter and they would all go through a special toaster.  It made the sandwiches really crispy and crunchy, and a million times better than a regular sandwich.  I always get tuna melts at the delis around here and they're great, but this was the greatest tuna melt of all time!  For $4.99 each they really couldn't be beat, plus one of our sandwiches was only a dollar since we were charged for a baked potato.  The salad was especially delicious; the mix of the salad, wantons and ginger dressing was the greatest.  The best part of our meal was the fact that it only cost $30!  It was a great deal and Earl of Sandwich quickly became a must-visit restaurant.

30 - Downtown Disney Marketplace

When we were done eating we ran into the bathroom and then went over to the Once Upon a Toy store.  We hadn't been in there last year since we weren't interested in any toys, but I've been collecting Disney DVD's and this was the home of their largest collection.  The store was really cute; they had tons and tons of toys!  Some of the more unique items were a set of Wilderness Lodge Lincoln Logs and a miniature monorail set complete with the Contemporary and Polynesian Resorts.  It was really cool.  There was also a huge collection of "Pirates of the Caribbean" merchandise surrounded by figures of the characters from the movie.

31 - Downtown Disney Marketplace

I went over to the DVD collection and I was in Heaven!  I've been collecting all of my favorite movies on DVD, including the Disney movies that I love so much.  I even joined the Disney Movie Club a few months before we left so I was really creating a huge collection.  Once Upon a Toy had a really big collection of DVDs out, plus a catalogue full of all the DVD's that they had in the back.  I had been planning on getting five since I had the money for that many, but the movies wound up being $25 each instead of the $20 that I had originally thought.  I had enough money for five movies at that price as long as I didn't get the $25 photo album that I had wanted.  I picked out a few different movies and put a few back before deciding on The Lady and the Tramp, Pocahontas, Lilo and Stitch, Alice in Wonderland and Bambi.  My DVD's came to $130, and the girl at the counter told me that all of the movies I had bought had recently gone back into the Disney vault and when the DVDs ran out, that was it.  I was glad I was able to get them, even thought I knew I could probably get them for cheaper at Target.

33 - Downtown Disney Marketplace

We then took a picture by the big Mr. Potato Head in front of the World of Toys store before we headed into Ghirardelli.  They were giving out free samples of caramel chocolate so mom, dad and I got one and it was delicious.  I still like Hershey's better but it was good.  Mike wanted to go into the Arribas Bros store to see if they had the big glass Scorpion that he had wanted last year so we headed inside.  They had a lot of nice Swarovski crystals and blown glass pieces, but no Scorpion's so we left.  Right before we left mom ran into Basin, a bath and body works store, and I got a picture of her as she was leaving.  Mike and I wanted to leave after that, but mom and dad wanted to walk all the way though Downtown Disney to the West Side.  We really didn't want to go but we went.  When we walked past the front of the World of Disney store the big Stitch statue on top of the store was spitting water at everyone and it was so cute!  All the kids in the area had a blast running through the stream.  We continued on past the Lego statues in front of the Lego store and then we made our way passed Fulton's Crab House on our way to Pleasure Island.

40 - Downtown Disney West Side

Pleasure Island wasn't that crowded since it was early on a Thursday night.  We stopped at Raglan Road, the new Irish Pub, when we first entered Pleasure Island to look at the menu.  The menu looked good but we had just eaten and we were planning on eating at Finnegan's, the Irish pub at Universal Studios, in a few days.  When we got to the West Side it was crowded but not too bad.  We went into Magnetron, the big magnet store that mom had liked last year.  They had been running a sale where you could get five magnets for $10 but that promotion wasn't available this year.  They had four magnets for $10 but they were all ugly and plain.  Mom picked out two big claw magnets and a Rocky Horror magnet that I wanted all for $10, but wound up putting them all back.  Then she picked out five small magnets for $10 but put those back too and left with nothing.

46 - Downtown Disney's Pleasure Island

We then went next door to the Candy Cauldron.  They had the hugest, most delicious looking candy apples but we were all still full from dinner.  Mom was going to fill a bag with jelly beans but she decided to wait until we went to Universal Studios since she gets a discount there.  I took a picture of the Evil Queen from Snow White as her fabulous self and then as the old woman that she turned herself into to trick Snow White.  That was a really cool statue.  Mom bought Alison a Winnie the Pooh Pez dispenser before we left.  For our walk back to the car we walked along the outside pathway near the parking lot since Downtown Disney was getting really crowded.  It was a long walk and was very hot and humid so I wasn't in the best mood, and my shoes were hurting my feet which made things even worse.  We made it back to the car by 6:45 and were on 192 twenty minutes later.

47 - Driving Back to the House

We stopped in the shopping center that had the Manhattan's Best Coffee store and the gift shop that I had got my mug in a few days before and we all headed inside to look around.  As I was walking through the clothes I scratched my leg really bad on one of the clothes racks and started bleeding.  It hurt so bad!  Mike started screaming that I should sue, haha!  We walked around for a few more minutes and mom wound up getting a brown bracelet and she bought me a $2 Ariel pen.  We then went next door to the Manhattan's Best Coffee Shop to see if they had gotten any Italian Cheesecake in for Mike.  Mom had been there a few days before to check and the guy working there remembered her.  They still didn't have any in, but he assured us that they would get some in this weekend or he would go to get it himself.  Haha!

49 - Oreo Getting a Bath

We headed back to Crescent Lakes and were at the house by 7:05.  Mom gave Oreo a bath and it was really cute!  She looked like a little rat and kept trying to get out of the bathtub.  I took a few pictures and some video, and then Oreo ran around like a mad dog as she was drying off.  I took some video of her running around in the living room, and then I taped the backyard and saw that dad was in the hot tub.  I didn't even know he was out there so it was funny!  At 9:00 we watched So You Think You Can Dance and were sad to see that Alison and Ryan were eliminated.  I had thought Alison had a good chance of winning, and Ryan was from Brooklyn but I knew he would be eliminated soon.  It was his time to go.  When the show was over dad watched the World Series of Pop Culture on VH1 while mom, Mike and I played California rummy.  Mike won again which I wasn't happy about!

77 - Hanging Out Around the House

At midnight I took a shower since I didn't want to deal with blowing my hair the next day, I would just let it dry overnight.  I then read "The Great Gatsby" in my room and was exhausted, but I just couldn't fall asleep.  I eventually fell asleep at 1:30.