Conference Adventures at Disney Part 3 of 3

I went back to the bar and celebrated my good fortune with wings and a mojito for a late dinner. “A mojito?” Don asked. “That’s what I like about you. You’re unpredictable.” I tipped him $5.

After dinner I took another back to my room, along with a slice of key lime pie. Feeling generous, I tipped him again. 

At nine, Scott and I synced an episode of Longmire on our iPads and with my phone transmitting sound from the TV at home, I sipped around mulled mint leaves. We talked about the hurricane.

“You have your Leatherman tool?” He asked. It had been a Christmas present.

“It’s not actually that useful in a hurricane,” I told him.

“We’ll see.” Scott had an unshakeable belief in the necessity of carrying a multi-tool.

“Do you have your headlamp?” Another Christmas present.

“No,” I admitted.

“You’ll regret that,” he said with a sigh. My husband lost his vision to glaucoma, but it didn’t interfere with his ability to go trekking in the Annapurna region of Nepal, ride a tandem bicycle from the Pacific to the Atlantic, work a full-time professional job, or anything else he put his mind to.

“Sighted people are useless in the dark.” He was right about that. I should have brought my headlamp.

“What’s in your pack?” He asked. I had a small backpack sitting in front of the door in case I had to evacuate quickly, or in the dark. 

“Bottled water, Oreos, Valium, and my wallet. I’ll put in my phone when I go to bed.” 

“Put in your charger, too,” he advised.

“Good thinking,” I said.

“Don’t you have any nuts, or protein bars?” he asked.

“I chose Oreos,” I asserted. Milk’s favorite cookie was definitely called for in this situation.

He laughed. “That is so you.” That was the truth. “Try to get a sandwich out of the fridge if you have to bug out. You don’t know how long it will be until you get real food.”

“I will,” I assured him. 

“How’s your room?” 

“The toilet backs up. Twice so far.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Maintenance has been pretty quick but I don’t know what will happen when the storm hits. There are bathrooms in the conference area, but that’s eight floors away.”

“That sucks,” he said.

“It does.”

“At least you have enough clean underwear,” he said. My husband may be a cynic, but he knows how to cheer me up in any situation.

“I could be a prepper,” I agreed. There was a pause and Longmire situated his cowboy hat back on his head on my iPad.

We said our “love you’s” and planned to check in again in the morning.

The hurricane was expected between 4 am and 10 am. I took a shower and braided my wet hair down my back to get it out of my way. I decided to sleep in my clothes. I woke up before the sun and went down to the lobby to see the hurricane first-hand. 

The palm trees were whipping back and forth in the eerie light of the streetlamps. A Chinese tourist group was doing Tai-Chi in the expanse of the entranceway. They brought a degree of calm to the atmosphere of worry as other hotel guests stood by the windows and pointed at the growing frenzy outdoors. The Chinese tourists had come halfway around the world to experience Disney and instead were caught in a natural disaster. Still, they carried on. I counted the hours until the bar opened. 11. I took a Valium.

The TV in the lobby reported on coastal damage and the fact that hundreds of thousands of people were without power. The pools that just two days before were a beckoning October miracle to my Midwestern sense of Autumn were a mess of debris: palm leaves, children’s toys, trash. The rain came down in messy, disorganized wallops.

Hurricane Matthew was a Category 3 by the time it made landfall. While Orlando experienced power outages, powerful winds, and flooding, the storm had cooled in intensity before it reached so far inland. There were 47 U.S. deaths attributed to the storm, which resulted in mass evacuations and an emergency declared in parts of four states. The flooding reached into Virginia. I couldn’t imagine the fortitude it required to survive the threat of devastation year after year.

Scott and I talked again as soon as the storm passed. To help with the lingering anxiety, he recommended a treatment at the hotel spa. I scheduled a manicure for late in the afternoon, but first went back to bed for a much needed nap. Hurricanes are exhausting, even in a hotel. When I woke up at 2:30, I was beginning to feel better. The sky was clearing and with it, my mood. I gave the spa attendant a 50% tip and thanked her for working during an emergency. Like all of the other hotel employees, she seemed to take the storm in stride. When the bar opened at 4:30, I went in search of company. I’d finished my book and what I really needed were other people. I struck up a conversation with a couple who had traveled from Atlanta for a long weekend and gotten trapped. The three of us hit if off. We ordered drinks with fruit wedged on the glasses and appetizers late into the night.

The next morning I used my leatherman tool to open the coffee packet, the only use I’d found for it during Hurricane Matthew. My flight out was confirmed and I packed up my belongings, thinking about my experience in Disney Springs. I wasn’t at all happy with the hotel’s hurricane policies. When they’d threatened to throw me out, I was thrown into a period of considerable anxiety. On top of the hurricane, it had left a very bad taste in my mouth. What’s more, I’d discovered it was all unnecessary. They held special rooms aside for people with special circumstances–like an irate uncle.

I went downstairs with my suitcase and considered my options. I looked at  my bill. Three nights. One meal charged to the room from the hotel restaurant. A bar tab of $150.

“Y’know,” I began. “When I learned that the airport was closed and I needed to extend my stay, you threatened to throw me out. That was a really lousy thing to do to someone sheltering from the storm.” I made eye contact. “I want you to make it right.”

Kim replied promptly and courteously. “We can take a night off your tab.”

I felt the conversation tilting my way. “That doesn’t do me a lot of good. I’m here on business and my employer is paying the cost of the room. I want you to take care of my bar bill.” I paused. “That was the best part of my stay, and it would really mean something to me.”

Kim hesitated. “The bar is independent,” she said. “I’ll have to check on whether we can do that for you.”

At Disney Quality Service training they teach you to think about complaints this way: “This isn’t my fault, but it is my problem.” I had made my bar bill Kim’s problem. It was going to stay that way until we had a resolution.

She left the front counter and disappeared behind closed doors for a good ten minutes. A line formed behind me. When she re-appeared, she looked relieved. “We’d be happy to take care of your bar tab,” she said.

“Thank you, Kim,” I replied.

I stepped away from the counter and turned a corner into the hallway to catch my breath in a moment of semi-privacy. That’s what negotiating to win feels like, I thought. I smiled broadly. 

Disney had delivered on their guarantee of magical moments, after all.