When we got back to our room at 9:30, our early wake up time was definitely on our minds. Backstage Magic tour was the next day, and we could not be late! So when I saw that we had a message, I was happy to learn upon listening that we were to meet at 8:45, an hour later than I thought. Phew!
We woke up excited for our day long tour. Breakfast was bagels on the balcony again.
As you can see, we ended up enjoying this space, despite the view!
Next, it was out to the bus stop to make our way to Epcot. We wanted to be down there by 8am, but we were just a teensy bit late and it was 8:10 when we finally got to the bus stop.
We waited patiently, with hardly anyone else there and figured that we had just missed a bus. No worries, we had some time. More folks started filling in around us, and lots of buses for other resorts came by. I was slowly but surely starting to freak out, and began eying the cabs across the driveway. When it got to be past 8:30 (we had to be at Epcot for 8:45!), I knew we wouldnt make it. It would take that long just to load the
ECVs that were now waiting. Ben and I fled to the cab stand and were quickly on our way.
The combination of my discomfort in cabs (I cant explain it, just have never liked riding in cabs) and concern that we would be late made me look like this:
But we did end up at Epcot just a bit before 8:45, so I relaxed a little. Until Ben handed the cabby his credit card to pay the $17 fare. The guy swiped it (the wrong way), then told Ben it wouldnt work. Minutes were creeping by here
suddenly a woman came up to the cab to ask how much the fare would be to Universal. Oddly, she opened the door and sat in the passenger seat while asking. At this point Ben told the cabby that the CC had better start working because we have no cash. Suddenly he remembered how to swipe the card and it magically worked :/ We wasted more precious moments while Ben tried to get a receipt.
I was well and truly losing it, but we were able to finally leave the cab and rushed over to the meeting area. This is not a cheap tour, and it was pre-paid
we would not have been ok if we missed it!
Incidentally, as we were waiting to depart, we saw the group of people we had been waiting with at the bus stop at Kidani. So I guess we would have made it after all
Once we got our name tags, we had a few minutes to take some breaths and calm down after our transportation snafu (thats #2 if you are counting
)
This is me still feeling a little stressed...
And us actually settling down a bit.
Finally, we headed off to the Cruise Line bus that would take us around all day.
In the interest of not giving away too much, Ill keep this very non-specific: we had a jam-packed day with stops backstage in all the parks, plus a couple other places. We saw all kinds of magic-making and learned some interesting things about WDW.
Lunch was halfway through the day here:
And we fell in love with this place! We most definitely will be back here sometime. The food was delicious, the setting was wonderful, and dessert was an amazing cobbler that we could eat pounds of. Also, this was our first time at the Wilderness Lodge and we really thought it was a beautiful resort!
This was one of the few places we were able to take pictures, so we did. Heres a few:
The last stop of the tour had us back at AK to watch the parade from a roped off area. We would never ever have stopped to watch this, but we ended up enjoying it.
The CM with this puppet was so fun- she was making her giraffe interact with the light giraffes!
This was another awesome CM! She greeted us all by name (cause we were wearing our tour tags)
After the parade, we got back on the bus and headed back to Epcot.
We got these pins to commemorate the tour:
So, what did we think? It was a lot of fun, and we were both very happy that we did it. But
our tour guide was kind of lacking. He was very fun, and good at interacting with everyone on the tour. However, his level of WDW knowledge as a whole was not terribly high. For example: when we got off the bus for lunch, a guest asked where we were. The guide said he was having a mental block, and didnt answer her right then. But when he did, he told her we were at Ft. Wilderness, and Wilderness Lodge was the campground further on. So he got that backwards. There were other questions that were asked (often by Ben
) that he either couldnt answer, or just never got back to.
Dont get me wrong- we had a lot of fun and saw all kinds of parts of WDW that were both super impressive and very surreal. I would absolutely recommend the tour, as long as you can spare an entire day from your vacation!
Once our tour was done, it was time to head back to Kidani for a rest and some chores. More on that coming later...
) Frozen cappuccinos? Yum!
Kim Possible looks like fun, I'm definitely doing a mission or 2 in October! I love the PP pics, we never do fun poses like that, I guess the photographers think we look boring or something! 
When I took the boat from POR to DTD, I thought I would die of boredom, I get so anxious! I just want to get there now!!! 
At least you guys enjoyed yourselves and you got to see some neat behind the scenes things. 
