25th Wedding Anniversary Celebration without kids - Day 8
Wednesday August 4, 2010
Well it's the day that everyone regrets, last day, time to go home, although we are excited to get back home and see our kids, who are also traveling back to Pennsylvania from Virginia via bus today. They will be home by 7:30pm while our flight is not due to land until 9:30pm (so we thought).
I was up early and went for one last walk around the POP grounds. On our door was an envelope for the resort check in and when I looked in it there were 2 luggage tags for SW. Great, only problem was that we each had 2 bags to check so we needed 4 tags. During my walk I stopped by the airline check in desk and explained tat we needed 2 more luggage tags. They said no problem, just bring down your bags and we will print 2 more tags out.
Well no problem turned out to be a problem, after 30 minutes they were still not able to get 2 more luggage tags to print out, so only 2 pieces of luggage could be sent to the airport. We would have to take the other 2 as carry ons, or try to check them when we got to the airport. Well when we packed the luggage we weren't paying attention to what items (liquids) where in each, not planning we would have to possibly take them through security as a carry on, and so much for the time saving convenience of not having to deal with luggage at the airport.
So we threw the other 2 pieces into the storage room and headed out to Epcot. We were there plenty early and waited until 8:45 when they lets us in and up to the rope near Innoventions. Right before the rope drop Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto and Donald came out and greeted us. As the rope dropped we headed towards Test Track, I got a FP for later, and we went through the standby line. We didn't even get to do the preshow as the pushed us straight through right into line. We were the next ones to board when the ride stopped. In less than 10 minutes it was back running and off we went.
Next was a ride on Mission Space Orange (less intense), and then back to TT to use our FP. We had 10:30 seating at the Akerhaus Princess Breakfast Buffett as DW likes to make scrapbooks of all our trips and had always wanted to have a princess page but with boys that was going to be tough. I volunteered to do it for her as I knew I was going to get a good breakfast out of it too.
We entered and got our complimentary picture (it was FREE) taken with Belle and then were seated. It has been many years since we were here and the last time I remember them bringing all the food to your table but now they actually have a buffet set up with fruit, muffins, danish, and some Norwegian fish. Then they serve you a platter of food at your table of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and cheesy potato casserole (mmmm), and they will bring more of any or all of them.
I had pictures taken with Aurora, Snow White, Cinderella and Ariel, they were all very happy to have a prince to pose with and DW is happy she can have her princesses' scrapbook page.
It was only 11:30 and the WS was empty so since we were in Norway we took a trip on the Maelstrom and then backtracked to Mexico for a romantic ride on the Gran Fiesta Tour. When the cast member saw our anniversary pins he gave us a boat to ourselves. Gracias!!
Then back to Italy we went to catch Sergio the juggler's show. While waiting we looked at the new Napoli Pizza Restaurant that was open for the first time today. If we would have known they were opening we may have had lunch here, but not after a large breakfast, maybe next time.
As we were passing by the American adventure the Spirit of America Fife & Drum group were performing. It surprised me as they were playing the National Anthem how many people just walked right on by without taking a moment to stop and honor the country.
At this point we kept looking at our watches as we knew our time was running out quickly and we had time to do a few more things. DW wanted to see O' Canada, so we worked it so that as we hit the UK the World Showcase Players were just starting to gather people for "King Arthur and the Holy Grail" -- Grail, Grail, Grail, Woo. The man they picked to play King Arthur had already had a few too many pints as when he stepped into the cart to sit upon his throne he missed it and fell down. Then again when the show ended and he stood to take a bow he fell again.
Onto the last show for the trip and it was O' Canada and O Boy how we wished we had skipped this. Upon entering the theater we discovered that the air conditioning was not working and then the fact that you have to stand through the whole show, it was all we could do to make it through it.
We still had time to do one more thing but after that we just wanted to get back to the POP and grab some drinks and get cooled off before leaving for the airport. We picked up our 2 bags from Bell Services and headed into the food court. We had clothes to change into since we were so sweaty and hot.
We still had 1 quick service food credit and 2 snack credits to use, so we got a pizza, salad, drink and ice cream bar, I ate the pizza and DW ate the salad and ice cream bar, then for the snacks she wanted some grapes for the plane and I had been wanting an ice cream sundae all week and I finally got it.
Our Magical Express pickup was scheduled for 4:45, so we headed outside around 4:30 and there was a bus there, the cast member form bell services told us we could get on it if we didn't mind getting to the airport early, well the driver had a different opinion as he said we couldn't do that, so we had a seat on the bench and waited until 5:00 when our bus finally showed up.
By 5:30 we were waiting in a long line at the SW counter to check our 2 bags. When we got to the self service kiosk we put in our number, hit the button to check 2 bags and got luggage tags with no problem. Still can't figure out why they couldn't do it that easy at the hotel. As the woman placed the tags on our luggage she told us that our flight showed a 50 minute delayed status but she didn't know why.
Just what you want to have, more time to waste at the airport. As if we hadn't seen enough we checked out the Disney store, the Sea World store and the Universal Store, then sat in the food court for a while, checking the flight status board every 10 minutes. No change - still delayed. Finally we decided that we better get through security, what a zoo, lines were 30-40 people deep. It took 30 minutes to get through.
Once we got to the gate we found out why the flight was delayed. Our plane that was to take us back to Pittsburgh was coming from Pittsburgh and they had a huge storm in the late afternoon so the plane that was supposed to leave there at 4:30 did not leave until 7:30 and didn't arrive in Orlando until 9:15. We tried calling neighbors and were getting no answers and then tried their cell phones and found out the power was off so our boys would be coming home to a dark house. About 8:00 we got a call form them that they were home safe, still no power and they said they would be fine in a dark house until we got home, after all "you know mom, we're Boy Scouts, we can handle the dark.
We finally took off for home at 9:45 and arrived in Pittsburgh at 11:45, at that time of night it still took 40 minutes to get our luggage as there were still a lot of delayed flights landing, we arrived home at 1am to a dark house but two very excited kids to see us. They talked our ear off for the next hour telling us about their trip and showing us what they brought home, until we finally had to say lets get some sleep and we will talk more in the morning. It was not until 7:30pm the next day that our power finally came back on so we had plenty of time to sit and reminisce about our separate vacations.
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