Monday, September 17 (continued)
After we get off the bus, I start tooling around on the ECV, heading back to our building. My husband starts herding me towards the path down by the Sassagoula River. Ahhh, how romantic, I think ... he wants to go down by the river and sit for a while!
Not so! We get to the river path, and he looks at his watch and goes, "I want to go over to Riverside and check the place out." Ummm, really? So I say to him, "Why do we have to go over there our first night? Can't that wait? I want to see French Quarter at night before we go exploring over there."
"NO! It CAN'T wait!" he practically shouted. "We have to HURRY!" Meanwhile, he reaches over and cranks the ECV back up to "rabbit" and says, "In fact, we have to RUN!"
So off we go again at top speed. We reach the bridge between the two resorts and I hear him mumble under his breath "we're half way there". I asked him how he knew that if he'd never been there before. He mumbled that he had asked someone at French Quarter. Yeah, right!
Meanwhile, he's basically at a slow run trying to keep up with me on the ECV. I ask him where he wants to go (since he obviously had something in mind) and he said, "Just keep rolling until I tell you to stop." He was being so gruff I was very nearly ready to just turn around and roll myself back over to French Quarter without him!
We rounded the corner by the surrey bike rentals and I thought AHA! THIS is my surprise! I slow down, only to realize the rental shop was locked up tight - they had stopped renting bicycles hours ago.
"KEEP GOING!" was my husband's stern command from behind me.
By now, I was furious!
"WHY DO YOU HAVE TO KEEP YELLING AT ME?!?" I asked him. And then, I see it ... my surprise is waiting right there ...
He was taking me on a horse-drawn carriage ride.
I turned around and looked at my husband, and all the feelings of anger melted away. There he was sweaty, and red-faced from trying to keep up with me and make it to our 8:00 p.m. reservation. He ran ahead of me and asked the driver if we were too late - turned out if we had been 5 minutes more, she would have taken one of the people waiting without a reservation.
No wonder he was so antsy about not being able to get the boat back to French Quarter. No wonder he got so ticked off when the driver made another round through DTD. Now everything was making sense. Now I knew why we had to be in such a hurry.
Turns out, my husband had originally scheduled this ride for 8:30, but had rescheduled it for 8:00 to try and catch the sunset. Unfortunately, 8:00 was still too late for sunset on this evening.
Getting into the carriage was a challenge on the crutches, I'm not going to lie. But soon he and I were settled into the comfy bench seat behind our two drivers, and were on our way for a romantic carriage ride.
Doug was our horse, and he was in no hurry to go anywhere! The drivers had to keep reminding him to "step-up". We asked what that meant, and they explained basically it's telling him to get moving! They told us if we had any questions at all to feel free to ask.
We plodded along at a slow pace, past Riverside and French Quarter down by the Sassagoula River. It was so romantic - all the buildings were beautifully lit. Many people waved to us as we went by, and many women looked wistfully at their husbands as if to say, "That could be us!"
Halfway through this romantic ride, my husband turned to me and slipped a ring on my right hand. It was a sterling silver silhouette of a Mickey head. "Hope you are enjoying your surprise!" he said slyly. Oh I was, I definitely was!!
Like all good things, the ride was over all too soon. Before I knew it, we were headed back over to French Quarter. We stopped in the food court and picked up
a snack (click for review), then headed back to our room to retire for the night.
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Up next ... Day 2! Go Away, Rain!
Seriously, he was pushing, pushing, PUSHING me to go faster! You'll find out why in just a minute ... 
This is great stuff. 
Too bad it had to be so stressful and rushed before!! 
I can just picture it too! Me and DBF would have been the same way! Freaking out getting in a horrible mood, snapped at eachother, thinking we were going to miss it and then the whole thing would be ruined!! Glad you guys made it in time and everything was magical!! 
At least 
I remember you saying you had been at AK that day - it's so open there from what I remember, not many places to get in out of the rain.
This place is HUGE. It's like a small village. We were greeted by a friendly, "Welcome Home!" by the gate guard and explained why we were there. He directed us to the check-in building.
In the three days we were here, we completely fell in love with the place. We love the decor, we love the layout, we loved everything about it!
I'm glad to hear things worked out in that you got upgraded to a deluxe - SSR is my home resort (I recently bought DVC)...we walked over on that very rainy Tuesday when we were done at Disney Quest to catch the bus to DTD - the resort is so beautiful! I can't wait to stay one day. Can't wait to see your pictures.
