DAY 5 Continued: Tuesday November 8th
When I left off, we had just finished up a longer than expected character breakfast at Chef Mickey's and returned to the resort for a nap.
This is when our day started to go downhill. We had planned our Owner's Update with Wyndham this day since it wouldn't keep us from missing any park time, and we'd leave with a $100 Amex gift card to use for the rest of the trip. Then we were going to hit the pool for a little while before heading to Epcot for our dinner ADR.
We were woken up at about 12:30 by a representative from Wyndham calling the room to remind us of our 12:45 appointment. It woke DH and I up, but not DS, so we got the honor of doing that. I HATE waking that boy up when he is napping so well! But of course, both DH and I had to be present for the Update, so we bit the bullet and woke him up. We brought his milk & food with us because we knew he'd be getting hungry soon, and headed down to the 1st floor for our meeting.
Of course it started off innocently enough. They always do! But then they start going through our folder, and asking us about changes we have made in the past, asking "Why on earth would you do that?" and then delving into "For only $xxx we can change that back for you!" When we declined that, then came the hard sell to upgrade to VIP status. We kept telling them we weren't ready to upgrade yet, and that we were not parting with any of our money, but neither us or rambunctious DS was working as a deterrent. The guy working with us then got flat out rude and said if we didn't see the value in their upgrade offer, then we must not see a value in the whole thing at all.
In all it took over an hour and a half to get ourselves out of there, after being made to feel like idiots who didn't know what we were doing. Not at ALL worth the $100 reimbursement, which is why I think next time, we will decline the update and just do our next one when we actually are ready to upgrade or make a change in our contract. Just absolutely not worth the hassle!
By the time we got back to the room, there was no way we'd have a chance to get down to the pool and then bathe before heading back to the park. So again on a trip to Bonnet Creek, we have NEVER used the pool! I am vowing to rectify this next time by not planning 2 ADRs on our rest day, and not doing the owner's update. Then we will be forced to RELAX on our rest day!! So instead, DS played and had a snack while DH and I hung out around the room for a little bit. A little before 3, we got our stuff together for the evening and headed downstairs to the car.
As soon as we get outside, we realize it's raining. I ran up to the room to grab the ponchos, and by the time I got back down to the car, it wasn't raining anymore! Which was nice, I guess, but a waste of time to go get those ponchos.
Finally, we were on our way to Epcot!
We arrived in the park around 3:30 pm, so just enough time to head over and try out the Visa Meet & Greet again to see if we could meet some different characters than the day before. But first, we stopped for the obligatory Photopass picture in front of Spaceship Earth!
We went over to Innoventions and had a little longer of a wait than we had experienced the day before, but not bad at all! There were about 3 families in front of us, then it was our turn. We went behind the curtain, and saw we would be meeting Minnie & Goofy again! We were a little disappointed, but DS could care less. He was just as excited as ever!
The photographer kind of tried to rush us through, but the characters were very interactive with us. Goofy pointed to my Anniversary pin and asked us how many years we were celebrating, and Minnie asked how old DS was and gave him plenty of kisses!
Once we finished up there, we made our way over to the World Showcase. As we were walking over to Italy for our ADR, we stopped in Germany so I could use the restroom. There was a line for a stall, and as I got up to the front of the line, an obviously intoxicated woman came out of the stall, got way too close to me reeking of alcohol, and said, "WOO HOO I feel so much better! That's a GREAT stall!" Seriously?
Know your limits, people!!
Looking over to Future World
We finally got over to the Italy pavilion and checked in at 4:20 for our 4:30 ADR at Via Napoli. I was so excited to try this place!!
We were seated less than 5 minutes after checking in, and our waiter came right over. He was very sweet, but difficult to understand at times. He took our drink order and brought out a cup of water and a kids menu for DS even though we told him DS didn't need anything. It was nice of him, and kept DS entertained while we waited for our food!
We put in our order, and DH played around with the settings on the camera. Some of the pictures were goofy, and this one was our favorite. We call it: T-Rex Arms!
We got our pizzas, and I made sure we took some pictures. DH used a fancy setting for his pepperoni pizza.
I just took an average joe picture of my 4 cheese white pizza.
It was DELICIOUS! Definitely a must do place for our adults only weekend in Disney next month. Just seeing that picture has me craving that pizza right now!
DH ate all of his, but I had 1/4 left that I took to go. We tried giving DS a bite of pizza, and he immediately spit it out. We assumed he must have been switched at birth, since both of us love pizza!
But alas, he was not, since he has since devoured a couple slices of pizza like it was going away forever.
We stopped in Germany to check out the caramel shop, but didn't buy anything because we were still stuffed from dinner. We checked out Norway to see the wait time at Maelstrom, but it just wasn't worth the 25 minute wait. So instead, we decided to head back over to Future World. We stopped on the bridge to get our picture taken.
Living With the Land had a wait time of 0 minutes, so that's where we went next.
We walked right onto a boat with only a few other guests aboard with us. I don't think I have ever ridden this ride, or if I did, it was a looooong time ago, so it felt all new to me! DS sat quietly through the dark parts of the ride at the beginning, but by the time we got to the greenhouse, he was having more fun smiling at the British couple behind us who were happy to play with DS.
Once we got off the ride, we decided to head back to the resort. Our last picture of the night was this shot DH took of Spaceship Earth as the sun started to set.
We wandered through Mouse Gears again, and spotted a cute Santa cookie & milk tray that I began to covet but we didn't get it. We actually ended up not buying anything. Our last stop was the camera shop to get our free 5x7 portrait. We picked a group photo from our Visa M&G with the 1st Visit banner. When the CM pulled up all of the photos on our card, the first 2 were just some scary ghost thing that none of us could figure out what it was! As DH and I thought about it, we realized it was the shots from our very first afternoon at MK when we took pictures in front of the buggy at Haunted Mansion, and all that was showing up was the ghost addition instead of our pictures. I submitted a claim to Photopass to recover them, but never heard back. But at least we knew the pics were missing so we could take our picture again there next time we were in MK.
We got back to the resort by about 6:30, and we fed DS, bathed him, and got him to bed by 7:30. We were so tired, we knocked out ourselves at 8:30. This was the night DS woke up screaming hysterically at 9:00 and nothing would comfort him. We even tried taking him in bed with us, but he was just inconsolable. We put some Orajel on his gums, and finally I started singing to him and he went back to sleep. Never did figure out what was wrong, but luckily that was the only night it happened.
UP NEXT: The wonderful thing about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things!
I guess I should have taken her with me on the trip! I avoid confrontation. People are just so oblivious.
I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! I know we did, and I'm so blessed!
Probably a good plan to skip that part next time. Your time and that abuse probably wasn't worth $100.
