September Soiree Part XI Day 7 Woo Hoo Bonus Day with Courtney
Cast:
Heather (Me)
Ron (DH)
Matt (DS)
Emily (DD#3)
Hallie (DD#4)
Supporting Cast:
Courtney (DD#1)
Jason (DFSIL)
Saturday, 9/21/13
Today we will be celebrating Ron's birthday, one day early so that Courtney and Jason can celebrate with us. We are very excited to get this extra day with them, but the only downside is that Jason is not feeling well. I don't know why, but he always seems to catch a cold when we visit. Anyway, due to this little setback, they are moving pretty slowly this AM, so they will join us a little later than expected. It's all good though as we are not moving that particularly fast this AM either, but we pull ourselves together and get ourselves to MK reasonably early.
Emily has been begging to try the Sorcerer's game, so now seems like a good time since we will be waiting for the others to arrive. We sign up and since I tell them I do not care where we will be playing, we are assigned to Adventureland. I have only signed Emily and myself up, so while we head to the first portal, the others get in line to meet Tinkerbell. As we approach the first portal a very excited man runs up and asks us if we mind if he goes first. I let him go as he seems a lot more anxious to play than we are. After he finishes, he tells us that he has a lot of extra cards and proceeds to give us a bunch. After our turn, we are directed to the next portal at Tortuga Tavern. When we get there, the screen is not working. We can hear the audio, but no video, so we do not know where to go next. I ask a CM working at POTC what I can do and she directs me to a kiosk in Liberty Square. First I must go back for the others. When we return it is just about our turn to meet Tinkerbell. Afterwards, Emily wants to try Swiss Family Treehouse. We have only done this once, back on our first trip in 1999, so obviously Emily or Hallie has never done it. We oblige and then Ron takes the girls on Aladdin's Magic Carpets. Too bad Jungle Cruise is down for refurbishment or we would have ridden. Hallie is now begging for another ride on BTMR and since Jason does not ride this or Splash Mt. anyway, we agree now would be the best time to ride. It was a walk on for both so we split up with Hallie and Ron tackling BTMR and the rest of us did Splash.
We decided to go find that kiosk for the Sorcerer game in Liberty Square. While I got in line, the rest lined up to meet Tiana, right across the pathway. They re-assigned us to Fantasyland and just as it was our turn with Tiana, Courtney called to say that they were on the Ferryboat. Matt grabbed some funnel cake and then we met them by Crystal Palace.
Over to Tomorrowland we went. We were going to start Jason off easy and see Carousel of Progress, but it was down. Instead we rode the Peoplemover and Buzz. By the time we finished, CoP was back open again so we saw it. Even though Jason's favorite ride in MK is Space Mt., he decided he was just not up to it. Instead, he volunteered to take Hallie on the Speedway, her ride of choice. The rest of us rode Space Mt. with vouchers that Courtney and Jason had received when they were visiting with Jason's mother a few weeks ago.
When we met up, everyone was feeling a bit hungry, so we crossed over and had a nice lunch at Columbia Harbor House. As per Hallie's request, all the girls and Jason ride the carousel. Fantasyland is now like a zoo. These are the first crowds we have seen all week. Oh, and by the way, Emily gave up on that game as soon as Courtney had arrived and we never even tried another portal. We needed to get out of the crowds in Fantasyland, so it was over to ride POTC and then to the exit to catch a monorail to Epcot.
At Epcot, the crowds were not nearly as bad, so that was a good thing. Also I should mention that since Courtney and Jason's passes had worked at the FP+ kiosk the other day, they were able to sign up at My Disney Experience and we were able to become friends so we could link tickets. it was now time for our FP+ at Soarin' so we went straight there and then it was time for Ron's birthday dinner at Rose and Crown. We were a little disappointed that the menu had changed, but we all still found something and it was all yummy. The staff was all super friendly, particularly a hostess that Jason and I had a nice chat with while waiting for the others in the restroom. She had only been there 2 weeks, but was loving it. This is the first tie in 5 years that Courtney was able to celebrate with Ron, so today was very special to him.
After dinner we have FP+ scheduled for Test Track, but decide to cancel it in lieu of just wandering around the WS. Ron and I got one last celebratory margarita in Mexico as a nightcap. It was getting close to 8:00 PM so we knew that Courtney and Jason would have to get going soon. I knew the girls would be particularly sad, OK all of us, so I asked Courtney if they could do one last ride before leaving. Spaceship earth it was and then we headed back to the monorail. AT the TTC, hugs were exchanged and goodbyes until Christmas were said. Courtney and Jason headed for the tram. Since I needed to get back to the room to pack and the girls were still looking for that night swim, I decided to just get a cab from there. Back at the room, everyone else went for that swim and I had the extremely unpleasant task of packing. First though, I had to stop in the gift shop to purchase new luggage to replace the bag that had broken upon check in. At least we will still have one last day in the parks before the dreaded drive home begins tomorrow evening.
