Ok, it's been tooo long since the last update and I am very sorry!
Ok, so....those of you that guessed that we did NOT make our 7:45 ADR for Cape May Cafe were......
yea. SO RIGHT. There was just no way. We were so exhausted. My internal clock woke me up at 7:20 and I had enough of a mind to call the ressie line and cancel our ressie for 4- hopefully tha was enough time to satisfy any walk-up that was crazy enough to try for that morning. The CM was laughing at me because my voice was like a frog and I said, "The halloween party is a lot of fun. A lot." and told me to get some sleep!
Which I did. We all slept in until 9:30!!
DH said, with a groan, "I've got a WICKED magic hangover."
So the plan for this day was to hit up the infamous Wal-mart that I've heard about on the DIS. The one with the "huge" WDW merchandise section that trumps any Disney apparel and merchandise of any Wal-mart in the US.
Also to hit up Character Outlet at Lake Buena Vista Factory Shops. The discontinued and hugely underpriced authentic WDW merchandise.
Next, was Gatorland. Good for a couple hours of entertainment. Hoping to let the kids wrestle an alligator.
Dinner was Arabian Nights. A dinner show spectacular highlighting horses, magic, romance, and a 3-course meal. Better reviews than the Pirate Show in Orlando and I get to use utensils!
So how close did we follow this schedule? Well, with the dropping of Cape May right off the bat, we got a pretty late start. After a breakfast of cereal in the room, coffee in hand, we headed out to the Kissimmee Wal-mart about 11. I'm thinking we got the wrong Wal-mart. Either that- or these other DIS-ers are easily pleased. I picked up two kitchen towels and the kids got 1 tee shirt each. I didn't see anything that said WDW '08 that I liked enough to buy. I didn't see any Disney apparel that was any better than what I can find in my local Wal-mart, or on Clearance at the local Hot Topic.
Disappointed, and pinching myself as I viewed the 88cent Mickey & Minnie ponchos on our way through check-out, we headed to
LBVFS for the Character Outlet! Yay! I picked this particular Disney outlet due to the fact that there was a Character Outlet near
DisneyLAND that I'd planned on hitting when our original plans were to go to CA. So, I wanted to preserve something of our original trip, y'know?
LBVFS was a decent stop. First we went to the Food Court. They had AWESOME pizza that was HUGE. Jim and I each got a slice and got the kids one to split. We all got small refillable fountain drinks. I think we spent $13 for the four of us. It was nice to see non-Disney prices for the first time in 2 days.
We got ice cream after we ate from there. It was awful. If you go there- DON"T GET THE ICE CREAM! The texture was like sandpaper. Ugh.
We went to the KB-Toy outlet. I don't remember what Ebin got. Rachael got a bear that you stuff yourself. "Annika Bear" would stay with us the rest of the day after I put her together in the car.
The Hard Rock outlet store had AWESOME prices. Unfortuneately, I'm not into that stuff. The pins were like, $1.50. Worth a stop if you're a fan of Hard Rock.
We stopped into the Ecko outlet 'cuz DH wanted to look at hats. He didn't like the choices but they had great prices as well. And a giant rhino in the window. The kids wanted to take it home. It WAS pretty cool. Rhino's are Rachael's favorite zoo animal.
And Rach w/her bear, after I spent, like, 20 minutes stuffing the dang thing:
On to my destination! Character Outlet! Right away Rachael spotted a Mickey Mouse umbrella she wanted. She's been needing an umbrella back home so SCORE! $4.00. I picked up two "Studio 28" by Disney shirts. A long-sleeve Alice in wonderland for $3.99. A Mary Poppins hoodie zip-up for $12.99 (reg. price was formerly $29.99) Picked up some cute bowls, a souvenir book from WDW circa 2001 or 2001-ish (I love that kinda stuff- I'm uber dork) for $5.99, some scrapbooking stickers for less than anyplace back home (wish I'd bought more!) In total I spent $50. I kicked myself for forgetting my $5 off coupon w/every purchase over $45 in the car.
It was totally worth the stop. There were a TON of Minnie/Mickey golf polo shirts, if that's your thing. $10. Lots more menswear then womens. Lots more infants then children clothing. Next trip, I'll try a different outlet. There's 3 and I think the one in Orlando Premium is the one highly recommended by Froders? Also the guidebooks all say the flea markets are AWESOME to get current or recent park items.
By this time, it was about 2:30, I think. Arabian Nights check in started at 4:30. Pre-show at 5. Dinner at 6.
With 2 hours to kill, DH suggested finding the
Lego store! We'd stayed mostly toward one end of DtD when we'd gone two nights earlier, so we hadn't seen it. We saw the T-Rex Cafe and rued the fact it wouldn't be open for a couple days, our arrival-to-home day, in fact.
The kids loved the 'sculptures' made of Legos. They played just a little bit with the outdoor station, but not very long. They liked looking in all the little windows w/the Legos inside. The guy w/the TV in his torso was pretty cool. Rach didn't get anything- she couldn't care less about Legos- even the pink ones. Ebin got a teeny character keychain. Somebody's girlfriend? From Star Wars maybe? I have no idea. I'm totally unhip to that stuff.
I do have to say though- how the heck did someone build the Taj Mahal? Seriously?
With a pose w/the bronze Hamburgler outside McD's, we bid farewell to DtD for the final time this trip. The kids dont' even know who that is but they just had to have a pic w/the guy.
Next Up: Are Arabian Nights like Arabian Days?