Disney Diary - Day 9

Our little princess
August 31, 2008

Day 9, our last day began at 6am. We had packed most everything the night before but had to pack the last of it in the morning to accommodate packing toothbrushes, hygiene supplies, pjs and the like. As soon as we were all done dressing, showering and packing we took everything down to bell services and checked it with them. Since checkout at the hotel is 11am, and our plane wasn’t leaving til 7:20p, and we planned to go to Magic Kingdom during the day, this worked out nicely. We kept one carry-on bag with us that had our ponchos, some snack food, our sunscreen, the camera and a few other essentials I’m forgetting right now.

So this was the day of the much-anticipated Cinderella breakfast in the castle. Katie was very excited. She got to wear her Cinderella dress and meet all the princesses. Her excitement however did not inspire good behavior. She was a real bear by the last day of the trip and although she did not have a major meltdown, she was cranky extraordinaire. It was almost comical to watch her whining at us, and then smile and hug the princesses a moment later. I just chalked it up to the long trip and lack of sleep and we rolled with it for the most part. She did have to sit a time out or two later in the day (yes, we do timeout even in public if necessary) for the attitude, but we all survived unscathed (mostly). I do wish we could have done the Cinderella breakfast earlier in the trip because I think she would have had a better attitude all around. The way the reservation system is set up though, getting the reservation I wanted was much easier for the end of the trip rather than the beginning. They take reservations 180 days out, but if you are staying onsite, you can book reservations for your whole trip 180 days out from the first day of your trip. So since I was actually booking 189 days out for the breakfast, there weren’t as many people trying to book for that day yet (their 180 day mark hadn’t happened yet) so I could get in for the first breakfast seating on that day, but would have had to settle for mid morning on another day which would have screwed up our touring plans.

Anyway, here are some pics of Katie and the princesses. Sorry, you'll have to tilt your head, for some reason blogger won't let me turn them. We also got a 5 x 7 one of Katie and Cindy that was included in the breakfast. I don’t have it digitally, and my scanner is being cranky so unfortunately you don’t get to see it. Sean kept saying he liked Jasmine the best. Hmmm.. wonder why. He better watch it or I’ll start showing my navel to everyone too. That might be kinda scary though… but I digress.

Here is a pic of the food in case you are interested. Definitely do not pay for this meal for just the food. Nothing was bad, but it definitely was not worth the price tag. I’m glad we had the chance to eat in the castle, but I’m pretty much over that now and if we ever do another princess meal we’ll probably do the one at Grand Floridian or the one in Norway at Epcot. Better bang for your buck with regard to the food, and I’m told Ariel sometimes appears at the one in Norway, which is Katie’s favorite princess anyway.

So after breakfast we decided to do as many of our favorite rides as we could. We did Space Mountain, Dumbo, Carousel, Buzz Lightyear, Peter Pan, Mad Tea Party, and the Indy Cars (probably not in that order – I don’t remember). I do remember that both Peter Pan and Buzz broke down while we were on them. I think Disney was protesting our intent to leave, but Sean just rolled his eyes at me when I said so.

As I mentioned earlier Katie was kinda cranky during all of this and we had a few time outs on benches while we waited for her to decide to adjust the attitude. During one of these incidents a cast member that was empting the trash cans saw Katie’s scowly face and came over to talk to her and tell her how much fun she was gonna have and call her a princess, etc. etc. I appreciate what he was trying to do, but in my opinion there was way too much of this at Disney. It happened to us several other times during the trip. Pretty much anytime we were trying to discipline her, someone would come up to try to make her happy. I have nothing against her being happy, but sheesh – sometimes when a kid is acting up they last thing they need is a CM undermining the parents timeout with “happy time” – I don’t feel I’m explaining that right, and I probably sound like the worst scrooge ever, but it just seemed impossible to get her to take us seriously with everyone seeming to line up to make her happy 24/7. We were trying to teach her she gets to do the “happy time” when she is behaving, not no matter what – and oh if you pout we’ll just try harder to make you happy.

We ate lunch at Peco’s Bills which was a complete zoo by the time we decided to eat. We waited a little longer than usual and didn’t start hunting for where we were going to eat until almost 12:30. Since we just did Pirates again, and were in the general area and hadn’t tried it yet, we headed for Peco’s Bills. The food was good and I’m sure the atmosphere would have been fun if you could have moved in there. Probably would have much nicer things to say about it if we had come an hour earlier or so. As it was we had to circle the place with our tray trying not to bump into anyone and finally we snagged a table as some other family was getting up. There was a live performance that was just finishing up – so people were probably crowding in for that. We left there feeling harried.

After lunch we were already pretty tired. We walked around some feeling sad that it was almost over and I was already starting to feel nervous about the plane ride home. I don’t remember whether we did any more rides except that I know we did the train ride all around the park one more time before we headed back out of the park and rode the boat back to Wilderness Lodge at about 3pm. We had to get on the bus for the airport at 4:30p and we cashed in a few more snack credits at the roaring fork so that we’d have some snack foods to take with us on the plane. We sat in the lobby of Wilderness Lodge for a little bit too and watched some old-time mickey mouse cartoons, while we waited for our bus to come. This was a great veg-out activity for Katie, who really, really needed the down-time.

We got on the bus uneventfully, and checked in for our flight, also uneventfully. Once we were checked we meandered toward our gate thinking we had plenty of time left (It was only 6:15ish – flight leaves at 7:20p). I was shocked when they started boarding the plane at 6:35p! We waited until the last possible call to get on because I knew Katie would have trouble keeping entertained while we were just sitting there, but we were still on the plane by about 6:50p. So we sat for a half an hour at the gate before we moved, and it was really hard to entertain her. Mostly because we couldn't put the tray table down for her to do the coloring or puzzles that I brought. Instead I read to her, and finally we did take off and she fell asleep as soon as it began to get dark in the cabin - probably a half hour into the actual flight.

That is about all there is to tell, uneventful flight, baggage pick up and 30 min. drive home. A nice vacation I'd say. :)