When I last left off, we had finished our day at Animal Kingdom, and were heading back to the Wilderness Lodge. We planned to grab some lunch and have a bit of a relax before going to Hollywood Studios for our very last night at Disney World! Nooooooo!!!
We arrived back to our room to find another towel animal!! Woohoo!! Look who we got this time...
A little dog! So cute!!
Our animal family joined together for one big group photo! Chip and Dale snuck in there too, the cheeky things...
I don't know what we did this time to get so many towel animals, but we were very lucky! When we stayed at Pop in 2006, we didn't get any!
We wandered down to Roaring Fork to grab some lunch. We weren't very hungry, but thought we'd better use some more food credits! We shared a pepperoni flatbread and a cupcake, which we took back and ate on our balcony. Yum!!
This is the life...
We intended to do some packing that afternoon too, but instead, we went for a lazy wander around the resort to explore one last time. I took some of my favourite photos of our trip then... of Conan slowly wandering down the walkway to the boats. I often try to take photos of him when he doesn't know, but these ones actually worked. I like them! He looks very contemplative! Aww!
It was soon time to hit the road and head to Hollywood Studios for our last night! Which of course, was very sad because it meant our trip was nearly over. Not only was it our last night at Disney, but it was also our last night in America! Boooooo! We'd had such a fun holiday... but exhausting too!! I have to admit, we weren't totally sad. We were also excited to get home and see Annie!!
Here I am at Hollywood Studios... hooraaaay! I like to call this my, "I'm too tired to pose" pose. Hee.
We had an ADR at Mama Melrose to get to, so we headed that way straight away.
Now, I wrote a lot our Mama Melrose adventures that evening in my dining report. I'm going to copy and paste a section from that over to here, since I'll be writing pretty much the exact same thing!! So if you've already read my dining report, you might want to skip the next little bit...
We'd booked the Mama Melrose Fantasmic package for the night, which guaranteed us reserved seats at Fantasmic after our dinner. We were happy we'd done so, since Fantasmic was only on 2 nights a week now. Crazy!
I was looking forward to Mama Melrose - mostly for the Penne ala Vodka! Penne pasta and vodka in the same dish!? That's got my name written all over it!!!
Our ADR was for 4.30pm, and we arrived at Mama Melrose at 4.25pm to check in. Remember that time. It's important!
We checked in and were told to wait in the little check-in area. It was chaos in there. LOTS of people, all trying to check in. It was crowded and there were kids crying and it was noisy and unpleasant! I remember looking at Conan and thinking, "Oh-oh. This might be bad." It just didn't seem a nice, friendly Disney restaurant!
We waited for 15 minutes to be called, which was okay since Fantasmic wasn't until 7pm that night. We still had plenty of time. Right?! Wrong!!
The CM who called our names pulled us aside, looking grumpy. Basically, this was the conversation -
CM: "Because you checked in late, I'm worried you're not going to be able to eat and get to Fantasmic on time."
Us: "Pardon? We checked in 5 minutes early!"
CM: "Our records say you checked in at 4.31pm. You might not have enough time to eat and get to Fantasmic now."
Us: "But it's only 4.40! Fantasmic isn't on until 7pm!"
CM: "But they want you to go there at 5.30, to claim your seat, otherwise they'll give your seat away."
Us: "But we booked the Fantasmic package. Aren't they reserved seats?"
CM: "Not really, no. They only give seats to people who get there early."
Us: "But if an hour isn't enough time to eat and get to Fantasmic on time, why would you allow people to make reservations for 4.30pm?"
CM: "If you were here on time, it would have been okay. But you checked in late."
Us: "We checked in early!!!!!!!!"
CM: "No, you checked in at 4.31pm."
Oohhhhhh, my goodness. Basically we went around and around in circles.
Conan was bamboozled by the whole thing, and I was really cross. We didn't check in late at all. And even if we did check in at 4.31pm, that's ONE MINUTE late!!!! How ridiculous!!
I was really disappointed with the whole thing. For lots of reasons...
1) Why would they allow 4.30pm reservations if an hour wasn't enough time to eat and get to Fantasmic?
2) Why are they called "reserved" seats if they give them away if you don't arrive an hour and a half early?
3) Most importantly, the CM was speaking to us like we were idiots. She made me feel like a naughty 6 year old girl who was telling a lie. Grrrrr.
Anyway, after eventually giving up on trying to convince her that we didn't check in late, she gave us two options - We sit down and eat really quickly, or we go somewhere else.
So we went somewhere else.
I was SO cross. But cross with me doesn't come out as yelling. Cross with me comes out as tears. I had tears in my eyes and I was just floored by this whole thing! So eventually I said, "Fine, we'll leave. Bye." And dragged Conan out with me. Hee. Poor Conan!
We stormed out of stinkin' Mama Melrose and starting walking anywhere but near there. One minute later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the nasty CM!! She had followed us out of the restaurant, because she felt bad! Ha! So she should! She apologised for the confusion and gave us the Fantasmic reserved seating tickets anyway.
Oh. Well that was kind of nice. She was half forgiven. But only half.
Anyway, Conan and I sat down and sorted out what to do. We were stranded in Hollywood Studios with nowhere to eat! This had never happened to me before! I was always so organised with my ADRs! I was in a bit of a fluster, actually. We eventually decided to hang out for a while and do some rides, before going to Fantasmic, then we'd have Room Service from In-Room Dining later, back at our resort. We were pretty much over restaurants by then, and thought another meal on our bed in our pyjamas was just what we needed!
So that was Mama Melrose!! Not quite what we'd hoped for. I never did get to have my Penne ala Vodka!!!
Continued in the next post...