Our Very Merry DISNEYmoon Celebration - 12/19/2011 - Day 11

[brivers222]

Previously on OVMDC
http://www.intercot.com/discussion/s...d.php?t=188465

Agenda: Check-out and Epcots goodbyes

Photos to go along with story: http://photobucket.com/DISNEYmoon11

The alarm awoke us earlier than it had previously... And unlike the last 10 days, today we would have to find a way to pack all of the stuff we had collected into our suit cases. I did mention at the very beginning that this would be my undergarments final desitination, to die an honorable death in the WDW incenerators. Well, it was today that they realized this was a reality. My luggage was light 10 pairs of socks, 10 t-shirts and 10 boxer shorts. During the night a final bill was dropped off under our door and with it came the reality that we would not only be leaving but we actually had to pay money haha. It was nice though that somehow we managed to escape 2 days of Valet charges.

I managed to get all the stuff into my suit case, which felt heavier then when i arrived. Thank god we have 70lbs! i also found a nice way to pack all the shampoo, conditioner, body wash and lotion collected over the last 10days into my suitcase. We did one last check of the room to verify we were not missing anything. it was then that we realized we forgot to grab our photo with the "not so" belle from Akerhus last night. Oh well, i really didn't like that picture anyways. Usually I was good at taking a picture of the EVNT code so that I could enter it into photopass but I was a little sidetracked with a gal in blue, red and yellow

We said our final goodbyes and carted our luggage down the hall to the elevator one final time. I am not one to pay someone (tip) to carry my luggage if i am able to. So i didn't mind taking our luggage out to our car especially since we parked closer than where the valet actually has our car parked.

I purpose made a Les Chefs reservation at 12:30pm in hope to catch chef Remy during his 12:50pm rounds. Once our bags were packed i grabbed my camera and set off to France. I didn't feel like lugging my camera bag around and since it was sunny this wasn't a problem at all. As a little game I started taking a photo documentary of our walk to France, every minute or so i would snap a picture. Once at France we checked in and waited for only about 5mins before we were seated by the windows up front. While waiting for our food i spotted Remy off in the distance. This was the first time i had ever seen him as I made a point to stay away from all discussion or pictures of him (outside of what times he would appear) He is so totally awesome! he came over to our table and was asking the CM (can't remember his name) about me. The CM said, "No remy he is not a mouse, just cleverly made to look like one with those ears on... he is really a human!" haha cute! To me it seemed like he was on a cycle of responses and squeeks that the CM could pawn off as an answer to any relevant question. That was until a group was celebrating a birthday behind him with the waiters singing... Remy stopped what he was doing, turned to look at them and started squeeking along to the words!!

Then there was a boy in a wheelchair behind me that Remy spent some extra time with. Remy must have asked the CM if he could do a little jig because the CM said, "sure remy it your time!!" Music started playing and he rocked out to "You Can't Touch This" but only this was called "REMY TIME"... I should have video in the picture folder above! That was quite and expirence and I will from now on plan to eat at Les Chefs when Remy is making his rounds.

But I know you are all wondering abou the food here! I must start by saying this is a restaurant that is on our MUST DO list every trip so i might be a bit biased. This was the first time having lunch here so I jumped at the chance to try the mouth watering ham and cheese sandwhich. I really enjoyed this, very flavorful. It was great in combination with the French Onion soup and Creme Brulee. YO! had her staple the Mac 'N Cheese started off with the Cheese Plate and the followed up by the Sorbet assortment. While we dined at signature resturants a lot this trip, I still think Les Chefs is in the same ball park!

After Lunch we had a little bit of time before we had to head back to the car so we made our way around the World Showcase again... Belle was out with the Beast but the line was way to long to warrant meeting them so I just took some pictures... Then the dreaded LOW BATTERY light came on my camera. Normally i wouldn't care, but today i left my bag in the car and the spare battery with it! So this was it, a real final day, with a real battery dying. I knew I wanted to go to Germany as a last attempt to meet Snow by her well. As we approached the line was starting to form for the next grouping (roughly 15mins later) so I cleared it with YO! to stay and wait. In line we meet several people whom we struck up conversations about everything and then started talking about "Once Upon A Time" seems like all disney fans like that show... I know we love it! We met with snow white, i managed to get another hug and my camera made it through! Just barely, it died shortly after one last pictures of the crowds starting to pick up. It was December 19th afterall and Xmas was only 6days away.

So I apologize but the rest if from memory. I realize I have been harping on the +1 TS credit we have extra but in reality we also had +15 Snack credits as well. i really wanted more than one Mickey Ear but I just wasn't feeling the snacks at all haha. So we decided to spend the last part of our trip paying it forward. We found an ice cream cart right outside of Mexico enroute to Future world. I noticed a Japanese family of 8 around the cart and the dad was reaching into his pocket and pulling out cash... NOT TODAY SIR! I ran up to them, thinking back not the best way to approach random acts of kindness lol) and said, "sir, you and your family pick out a snack each, its on me!" After a little bit of blank stares and saying no thank you, I insisted that we were leaving in few minutes and had a ton of credits to spare and it would be my pleasure to buy them stuff. He finally gave in and I bought them 8 snacks (saving him at least $30)... Another family behind them was also paying cash so i bought them all an ice cream as well... leaving 2 credits for us to get a popcorn and a pop over in Canada.

I still had 1TS credit left and it was beginning to look hopeless because it was hard to find one person let alone a spot to actually use it. As luck would have it I spotted a young lady by herself getting in line at the Yorkshire Fish and Chips... she had a $20 in her hands. I ran up to her (once again not the most NON-CREEPY approach looking back) and said, "ma'am are you by yourself??" to which she replied hesitantly, "yes" "oh excellent, put your money away, I want to buy your lunch!" haha i took another moment to explain that we were leaving on a plane back home in 2 hours and had this credit to spare. So I walked with her to the checkout and used my card. After she was all set I bid her farewell and to have a wonderful trip. Mission accomplished all TS credits and Snacks were used via the Deluxe Dining Plan... 60 dining credits and 40 snack credits haha

The ride to MCO seemed a lot easier as we just hopped on I4 and took that to i think 528. I was worried about the whole returning of rental car situation, let alone trying to find my way around MCO... I will just say that returning a rental car was SO EASY. We followed the arrows to the Alamo location and pulled in behind the last person to arrive. An attendant came out to greet us and scanned the barcode on the car. We were literally back inside MCO in about 10mins tops. I am still leary about using the kiosks to get our boarding passes so we went up to the desk associated with first class delta skymiles. Much to my amazement both our bags were still under 50lbs and YO!s even had a few cookbooks in there and other gifts we bought. Next up was the lines to go through TSA. oh man, in all my packing I forgot that i needed to wear a part of shorts not requiring a belt because that had to be removed. Well i anxiously took off my belt (the one thing holding my shorts up!) and proceeded to pull them up so high and push out my stomach. I must have looked weird but if they made me put my hands over my head in the body scan, my shorts were dropping! Oddly enough we didn't do the body scan and after about 25mins in line we were on our final Monorail ride out to the boarding gate.

YO! had been fighting off a cold the last few days so she was coughing a bit. While we were sitting a family came up to us and the mother refused to sit next to YO! the husband asked why and she proceeded to quietly cough and make an eye jesture at YO! haha yeah like we didn't see that. Sorry hunny but you will be sucking in the same air as us for 2-1/2 hours, maybe you should just sit in the seat and be comfortable. But she did not. So in about 10 minutes first class could board so we got up and left. I looked back and saw her place her young child in YO!s former seat and then she sat down in the chair she refused to sit in but 1min earlier. HAHA too funny. While walking to our seats we paused for a brief moment which allowed me time to sit in the economy seats... It was tight, but I fit. So my panicing for seat size was probably unwarranted. None-the-less i don't regret first class at all. Especially after sipping on my free Runway Runner

continued in first comment below....

[brivers222]

...Continued from the original post....


The take off was smooth and i tried my best to see WDW but couldn't decipher it at all. The played the same shows back home as they did flying down. Silent to me as I didn't bother plugging in my supplied ear buds. Dinner was served about 1/2 way through the flight. Some sort of turkey and ham sub. Much better than the breakfast i admit, but totally not up to WDW Deluxe Dining standards! The ride was a bit bumpy but we were informed to put our trays and seats in the upright position to prepare for decent. Poor YO!s ears were hurting from the cold and the change in altitude so we had her sipping on her drink and i think she was chewing gum. We were in full decent mode, landing gears were going down then all of the sudden we heard a thud, some grinding vibration and the plane started to accend again. I am guessing that the strange sounds were the landing gears going back up. The captain came over the PA and said that we had to abort landing because of air traffic congestion. So we circled around for 10mins. It wasn't until i talked to my parents a few days later who were tracking me that they said they were worried for a second... Our speed dropped and then we started accending again and picking up speed, turning around and going all the way back to the Michigan/Ohio border. Wow that was a circle all right! The 2nd attempt went off smoother and we were on the ground heading to our baggage claim. It was nice to see that our limo driver was there waiting with a RIVERS FAMILY sign... Classy last touch. We all went over to the baggage claim and waited for the luggage. at MCO ours came off first being first class. Not the case back home. Mine came off and then we waited and waited and waited for YO!s i was getting ready to pull up my iphone app and track it, but i wasn't as concerened as she was. I forgot that her luggage had ALL of our xmas gifts and stuff... ugh. But it did eventually come out. It was a brisk 20-degrees in Detroit and I was wearing shorts and light jacket lol.. thankfully the limo was parked close. Along the way we happened to look up and see fireworks at 9:55pm... WHAT? did we really not leave WDW... are we still there?!?! Happens to be that Henry Ford Village was having their Holiday Night Fireworks. A nice touch to end our trip filled with fireworks. It wasn't much longer until we were opening the garage door to a much excited Octavius "GusGus" man we all missed eachother. Gussy Slept on our bed the whole night and has been very lovey ever since then... This was the first time I had left him for longer than 6days since I got him at 6weeks old from the humane society.

So that ends our DISNEYmoon, we spent the next few days unpacking and then about a week later i received a manilla envelope from WDW DPI... I didn't think i ordered the photopass yet, but I never did pre-order before maybe they just send it. No, it was too thin... I opened it up and to my shock, it was our picture from Akershus with Belle. WDW tracked us down and sent it back home. what an end!

Okay there is a second encore.... About a week after that we received a letter from WDW, i was thinking this was my first ever PIN CODE!!! haha I need to stop thinking. It ended up being a nicely printed card signed by all of the fab five thanking us for spending our Honeymoon with them!

And with that the lights come on slowly and the crowd is asked to leave the building... the show is over!


I will try to sum up my thoughts and post a final review post... Until then thank you for your time!

[faline]

What a wonderful way to celebrate!

Ending at home with fireworks there was a perfect finale to the trip!

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

I have loved reading your reports ... thanks for sharing!

[brivers222]

You are very welcome. I wish i could have done them faster but traveling during holidays really slowed me down haha.

Glad you liked them

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

Thanks for the report, nice buying those snacks for everyone

[mouseketeer mom]

Extremely entertaining reports, I especially liked the food reviews and info from all of the great places you tried. I am also curious about your love of Snow White! Thanks so much for taking your time to make these great reports!

[brivers222]

haha i can't really explain my love for her. I have been attracted to her as my favorite princess since i was a child. Perhaps its because I am red/green color blind and her bright colors is something that is very noticable to me.

Either way, its a healthy "love" of her haha

[yjgirl32]

Great reports- loved reading them. Thanks for sharing.

[mouseketeer mom]

Remy is so cute in your photos! I haven't been able to figure out what times he is out...do you know the times?

[brivers222]

Monday-thru-Saturday at 12:30, 1:40, 2:50 & 5:20pm

So far right on schedule too.

[mouseketeer mom]

Monday-thru-Saturday at 12:30, 1:40, 2:50 & 5:20pm

So far right on schedule too.

Awww, man. We have 6:20 ressies, so probs won't get to see him.

[brivers222]

arrive at 6 and see if you can get seated early. we got seated 30mins early for the ressies that we actually made it early too. Les Chefs was one of the early ones.