I need to have a talk with Mickey and Stitch.
As I sit here at my computer and recall the events surrounding our last full day in the World, I am reminded of just how
early The Odd Couple called us on Friday morning.
This particular morning we didn't jump out of bed two minutes before the wake up call just so we could be ready when the phone rang like before. This particular morning, we actually cringe at the sound of the phone.
We wake up and we are all still very tired. Puffy eyes tired. Achy bones tired.
We had been out late the night before at Epicot’s EMH
(note to self:cross it off the list for the next trip) and had been going all week at full speed ahead.
Today was our last day. We would be pulling out the next morning and heading back to reality.
Hold the phone.
Last day? How can
that be? It’s been a week already? Say it ain’t so!
It seems like just yesterday we were pulling up to POR in our minivan with
M-I-C-K-E-Y-
M-O-U-S-E blastin’ through the speakers and DD screaming her cute little head off at the mere sight of a Disney bus.
Well, I guess it’s true what they say. Time flies when you’re having fun. And nowhere else on earth does time fly like it does at Disney.
But it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. We still have a little get up and go left in us. We still have today. Glorious today. And we plan on squeezing every little last drop of fun out of it that we can.
Yep, we’ll be busy for sure. We hop right up and run around like little Duracell bunnies with puffy eyes and achy bones.
I swing my damp towel around and shape it into a deadly weapon. I pop DH on the tail with it in order to make the slug move faster.
You know, it's all about Carpe Diem. Get Up Offa That Thang and all that. There’ll be plenty of time for sleep when we get home.
We get dressed and head down to the food court. Yes, we know the crowds will be insane down there this time of morning, but we have extra counter service credits left over. We are detemined that we will be using all of our Dining Plan credits even if it means we have to stuff food into our already overpacked suitcases and take it with us.
Well, maybe except the mashed potatoes. Cause everybody knows
those don't travel well. Come to think of it, maybe we'll skip the rotisserie chicken too. Yeah, that's definitely off limits for packing.
But everything else is fair game. Pack it up people. We're takin' it with us. Because, you know, unlike
some people, we actually
did have to pay for our Dining Plan, remember?
There’ll be no wasting of the credits in this household. Nope. Ain't gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.
We get our Mickey waffles and are pleasantly surprised to find that the crowds are not quite as bad this morning as they were the other day. Of course, our group is smaller in that there are only just the four of us this morning as well.
You know, we’ll do anything to cut down the mad crazy crowd at the food court. Yes, we'll even ditch our friends.
Kidding. We had planned on splitting up the first part of the day and we will be hooking back up with them later on before our meal at Restaurant Akershus.
We can go anywhere our hearts desire again today.
We had never been to Blizzard Beach before. It has water. There are slides there. Lazy river anyone? Okay, that's it. Done. We're goin'. Did I mention how much we love water parks? No? Well, we do. Because we are water lovin' people. Just give us a pool to splash around in and we're good for like, hours.
We catch a bus over to the fake frozen playground and get ready to have some fun.
As we make our way into Blizzard Beach and find our locker, I am hit with the realization that lots and lots of men really seem to
love wearing Speedos. And I’m not talking Antonio Banderas look a likes here either people. Maybe on him it might be okay.
Maybe. Okay, borderline, because they really
are gross.
Lemme stop right here and clue in all you men out there who think you look hot wearing a teeny tiny piece of stretchy fabric that barely covers your, ahem,
assets. And yes, I think you know who you are.
Speedos are not attractive.
There. I said it. They're not attractive in the least. Especially if you are over the age of...say....sixty and have back hair.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Back hair I mean. It happens. But I’m just sayin’.
You know, wear some boxers or some of those cool long surfer type shorts to the water parks. Heck, wear Bermuda shorts. Those are back in now. I’m sure those would look great. But when it comes to Speedos, just say no. If you think you probably don’t need to wear them, chances are, you don’t. Just have a little consideration for your fellow man is all I’m sayin’.
Okay. I’m done. Movin on.
We find our locker and proceed to stuff our overpacked bag in there. DH has to get some hip behind it to get the door closed, but it’s all good. He got it. He’s the man. The Mack Daddy. The Go To Guy.
Would you believe that out of all the unnecessary stuff that I brought, I forgot to bring the sunscreen?
Now that’s funny right there, I don’t care who you are.
I hop in line at one of those kiosks to pay an exorbitant amount for a smidgen of sunscreen when I had a brand new bottle back at the room feeling lonely and wondering where all of its friends were.
I slather us down with SPF 80 cause that’s all they had left and we’re off.
We take the kids over to the kiddie area. DH gets on the kiddie slides with them and it’s a really cute Kodak moment. Sorry, but I didn’t take my digital in there. Only had the disposable and I’m just a little too lazy to scan them in right now. But trust me, they’re really good. They are. Cute, cute pics.
We quickly tire of the kiddie section and decide to head out in search of some real fun.
We head over to the chair lift. It was pretty cool. I was paired up with DS. He (We) was (were) a little nervous looking down from the top. We couldn’t get that darn seat to stop swinging.
DS: Stop swinging, Mom.
Me: I’m not swinging, son.
DS: Yes you are. Ohhhhhhhhhh m'Gosh. Look how high we are…
Me: Allright, knock it off. You’re swinging.
It was pretty cool though. We get up to the top and head off for the family raft ride.
We love this ride. It is an absolute must do for any family at BB. It’s much longer than the one at TL. They take your picture at the end and like a sucker, I bought it. Yeah, the redneck thing didn’t work this time. They were one step ahead of me.
Dangit.
From there, we head back up the mountain a few more times for the same ride. Then we trudge back up the mountain again for the Toboggan Racers. The chair lift was pretty far away so we just thought we’d run up the mountain on foot and it would be faster than walking all the way over and waiting our turn for the chair lift.
We’ll pay for this bright idea later on. And I’d like stop right here and point the finger at DH for this one. It was all his fault. I claim no responsibility. It was his bright idea, trudging up that huge mountain over and over. With the kids. On our last day. After the late night at Epcot EMH, which BTW, we will never do again. Did I mention that? Anyway, it took us sooooo much longer to walk up that hill than it did for us to come down on the rides. See, that's the thing about the water parks. You can't really compare them because they both have their own "thing". You seem to do a lot more walking at BB than at TL, but I think we like the rides better at BB. But then again, TL has Crush n Gusher, which you can't beat with a stick. And the wave pool. But BB's family raft ride is much better than TL's. See, it's like six of one and a half dozen of another. They both have their good points and their not so good points. But we love 'em both. If you get a chance, go to both and then you can decide which one you like better.
Okay, back to Toboggan Racers.
I think this was the most fun we had that day at BB. In case you don’t know which one this is, it’s the really tall curvy slide with eight different rows. I hate to even make this comparison, but it’s like one of those slides they have at the fair, only the one at Blizzard Beach has obviously been takin’ some serious steroids. Up to eight people lay down on a mat head first and race down the slides. It goes really fast and you kind of lose your stomach when you go over the curves. It’s TONS of fun. We were a little unsure about DD riding because she is so little and this thing was really tall, but the nice CM assured us that there was no height requirement and that she would more than likely love it.
We hesitantly put her on her mat and the CM holds onto her mat from behind while I position myself in my lane. My thinking was that we would go down side by side so if she got into trouble, I would be there to help her out.
Going ninety miles an hour head first down a two hundred and fifty foot curvy hill. Yep, I’d be right there to grab her. That was my thought process anyway.
Everyone else gets sitchated and the CM announces that we’re off.
I have to give DD a little push to get her going, and then I push off. The boys took off at the first utterance of anything sounding remotely like “Go”. The CM's brain had just given her mouth orders to make the “Guh” sound when DH and the boy shot out of there at the speed of sound. Darn testosterone.
Considering the fact that DD weighs
slightly less than I do,
she takes off like a shot.
I hear her screams fade as she gets further and further away from me by the second. I didn’t take my eyes off her the whole time and prayed that she wouldn’t come flying off the slide and get hurt. Of course she didn’t. She was fine. She comes to a stop at the end about twenty feet from where she is supposed to end up. She has a dazed and confused look on her face. I have to run back and help her up. As soon as I make it back to her, she jumps up with a grin from ear to ear and starts jumping up and down and chanting “Again, again, again!!!”
We head back up and do it all over again and again and again. We had a blast. The whole family loved it. Each time we do the same ritual. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls. If you’ve never ridden it, what are you waiting for? Book it and get your tail there.
We hit a few more rides and slides and then decide to get some lunch. We grab a few burgers and sit down to eat.
Once we sat down, we were done for. It was like all of our remaining energy just drained right out of our bodies. We were like zombies. We were zombies with puffy eyes and achy bones.
All of the walking up the mountain and the late night the night before had taken its toll. We were absolutely, positively whupped. We decide to head back to POR for some rest.
We make it back to our resort. And then we decide we can rest later and head straight for the pool. We rested on the bus anyway, right? That counts. Doesn’t it? Okay, we had yet to try out the POR pool, so we had to go. It was our last shot. Last day, last chance kind of thing.
We make our way to Ole Man Island. We have to walk over the bridge to get there. We stop and check to see if the wasp’s nest from yesterday had been taken care of. We find no sign of it anywhere.
Then and there, we conclude that Disney truly is the bomb. As if we didn’t know that already.
We get to the pool and DD heads straight for the waterslide. Yeah, we’ve been at BB all day long and we immediately come back to hit the hotel swimming pool. And it’s called Ole Man Island at that. How redneck are we? We have a good time anyway. DD and I must have gone down that water slide fifty times that afternoon. As soon as we splashed down, she wanted to go up again. She came down head first a couple of times. Well, apparently, head first is an illegal position in the Olympic Waterslide Event.
The child got DQ’d.
Okay, not really, she just got the whistle blown at her. Really loud.
The whistle startles her, but she is four after all. I'm quite sure she didn't really 'get' it. In her mind, I’m sure it went something like this… 'Whewwww, having fun with Mommy, I like the waterslide, yay, here I go, lemme flip over and have lots of big fun, big splash, oh no, crazy scary ugly lady blowing a loud whistle at something, don’t like her, she's mean and ugly, gotta get away, back up the steps with Mom, yay, ready to have lots of big fun again, this is fun, and I gotta flip over again on the slide cause it's fun'
Yeah, the concept is somewhat lost on her. Being the daredevil that she is, she only sees thing two ways: fun or not fun. Head first is fun. The other way, not so much fun.
Yeah, we fear we may have some trouble with this one in another twelve years or so.
DH then proceeds to blow the whistle at me when I come down.
“You can’t let her do that. She’s not supposed to come down like that!” he says. He then gives Crazy Whistle Lady a wink and a head bob as if to say “I got this.”
“What, what happened? What were we talking about?” I shoot back.
Okay, yeah, I saw her and yeah, I got on to her for flipping around halfway down the slide, but really, buddy boy, let’s see you do any better. I can only put her into position and tell her to sit straight up the whole way down. Once she’s out of my hands, she’s on her own.
Instead of starting off in an illegal position and struggling to straighten it up by the time her fanny hit the water like ZZUB’s crew, she started off in the approved position and was doing everything in her power to wind up in a much more fun, illegal position by the time she made it down. Poor thing got caught everytime. Yep, the concept was lost on her. She just knew head first was much more fun, illegal or not.
We were eventually kicked out of the Olympic Waterslide Event for failure to comply with legal positioning standards.
Okay, not really. We just got tired again and headed back to the room to rest.
We had a character meal on slate for late that afternoon and needed to lay down and rest for a little bit before our big night. You know, to unpuff the eyes and rest the bones.
Our ADR was for 4:50 at Restaurant Akershus in Epicot. I had to make the ADR early to allow us enough time to make it back over to MK for
MNSSHP that night. We were really looking forward to the meal.
Several months before DW, in the middle of our planning craze, DD had announced that she wanted to be Belle for the Halloween party. Fine by me. She’d be a Princess. It was Disney related. It worked.
I had gone to great pains to find just the perfect Belle dress for DD for MNSSHP. You know, you have to find just the right shade of yellow, because some of those Belle dresses on ebay can be pretty hideous. Pleated gold lame? I think not. Anyway, she wanted to be Belle and of course she had to DINE with Belle while she was dressed up as Belle, didn’t she? I agree as I envision the photo op. Of course, then I run it by the others and they agree as well. DS wanted to be Anakin Skywalker for the party. He was cool with the Akershus character meal idea because frankly, until they offer a Star Wars character meal, he can’t dine with any of his heroes anyway. He resigns himself to eat with more Princesses. He's a good sport. Did I mention that? He really is.
DD had been talking about eating with Belle for months. And every time she talked about it, her voice went into that really shrill, high pitched tone. The girl was primed. Psyched. She was ready to get her Belle dinner guest freak on.
Before long, we are primped and primed and ready to go. Although DS will be Anakin for MNSSHP, he chooses not to draw any extra attention to himself at the Princess meal and decides to change afterwards. We carry his costume with us and meet up with our friends once again. There are plenty of oooohs and aaaahs to go around as we look the girls over and compliment how pretty they all look. DS is the stud of the group once again.
We hop on a bus to Epicot. We realize this will be our last trip to our lil’ Epicot for the week. We are somewhat sad but still happy because, after all, we
are on the bus. And we
are still going there. This one last time. The only thing I wanted to do in the park besides our meal was hop on Soarin for one last go round if possible.
You know, since we missed out on all that Extra Magic the other night and all.
We head straight for the Land.
Good Googly Moogly, it’s crowded.
Friday night + the start of F&W+ the first night of MNSSHP=
We make it to the Standby entrance of Soarin only to find that there is a forty minute wait.
Nope, no way to ride it
and make the ADR. Crap. Oh well. At least I have the CD.
We have some time to kill so we make our way around World Showcase one last time.
We can’t get over how crowded it is here tonight. We are constantly bobbing and weaving through the crowd. We notice lots of peeps enjoying the Food and Wine. The food always look so good at those carts. I’m half tempted to blow off the meal and just eat our way around the World. But then I look down at my sweet Belle. I have to say she really does look like Belle. I even fixed her hair like Belle’s, you know, half up and half down. Lots of people noticed it. They’d compliment her and she’d just do the cute little shoulder shrug and sway.
I went to a lot of trouble finding that dress and practicing the hair do till it looked just like Belle's. I even made gold glitter shoes to match her outfit. Well, okay, not from scratch. I may be good, but I ain’t
that good.
I couldn’t find any gold glitter shoes online or anywhere else so I just bought a cheap pair of slip ons from Wal Mart and several cans of spray on gold glitter in the craft department. I won’t tell you how long it took me to get them right, but it was the better half of a week. You have to spray one coat at a time and then let it completely dry before putting the next one on. I’d work on them a little each day after I got off work. After the glitter part was finished, I had to put a protective layer on over all of it. It wasn’t fun but they turned out perfect. You should have seen the look on DD's face when the shoes were finished. The girl was on cloud nine.
As we stroll around the park, I look down at my daughter.
She is skipping through the World, singing Beauty and the Beast to herself and wearing the biggest Perma Grin imaginable as she envisions her dinner date with the princesses. She looks every bit the princess herself and I realize in that moment that it was all worth it. All the planning, all the making of the glitter shoes, it was all worth it just to see the look on her face and hear her sweet joyful little voice sing as she imagined finally being able to taste
her Dole Whip.
We make our way to Norway. No time to ride that ride of rides tonight. We’ve got an ADR to keep.
We arrive and check in at the podium for Restaurant Akershus. The restaurant has not opened yet. Typical. We end up having to wait about fifteen minutes for it to open.
The place was madness. Pure chaos. Everywhere we looked, there were little Belles and Ariels and Sleeping Beauties and Snow Whites. And they were all whining. And tired.
One little girl comes up to my Belle and proceeds to stare a hole through her face from six inches away. DD meets her gaze for a little bit, and then becomes uncomfortable when the girl won’t stop staring.
“
I’m going to eat with Belle
right now” the little girl mockingly informs DD with a head bob that just screams attitude. My daughter pipes up and cheerfully tells the girl that she is too. She then smiles at the girl sweetly, and I know that in DD's mind, she thinks she has just made a friend. Oh, to be forever innocent. The sweaty little girl then proceeds to look my child up and down with disgust. Literally up and down. She scrutinizes the glitter shoes. She memorizes every detail on the dress. And then again with the boring a hole through the face from six inches away. I've never seen a child that young act that way. Teens, yes. But a five year old?
DD then looks to me for help. Her eyes say to me “Hey, can ya help a sistah out?” Before I even have time to react, DS steps up to the plate.
You see, he has been watching from the sidelines. He and his sister may fight like cats and dogs but they love each other dearly. They share something together that is unbreakable. I know because that is how my brother and sister and I are. We fought constantly growing up but would fight Goliath in a heartbeat for each other. DS steps up and puts his arm around his little sister’s shoulders. He towers over the little girl with flaming green eyes and then proceeds to stare
her down. “That’s my sister you know” he informs her. “And she is going to eat with Belle tonight too. And she ate with Mickey and Minnie the other night. And guess what else? She even ate with Cinderella too.
Just so ya know.”
Then he adds “
BOOYA” at the end to drive the point home.
The little girl’s mom finally gathers her up to go inside and the child begins to scream bloody murder at the top of her lungs. She kicks and screams and does her best to turn her body into a weapon. The mom can hardly control her. Yep, she’s got attitude for days. My children look at me with wide eyes and I know exactly what they're thinking. Quick.. somebody call Super Nanny!
Our name is finally called. We make our way into the restaurant where we are greeted by a photo op with Ariel. They explain that she will not be making her way around to the table tonight, and that each child may visit with her up front before the meal.
Guess the new legs aren’t working out all that well for her.
After the meet and greet with Ariel, we are shown to our table. We are all seated at a big round table in one of the side rooms. We check out the menu and then visit the cold buffet. It looks really gross but is actually pretty good. Well, you know, for caramelized goat cheese and cold fish. We determine that we like the cold buffet better than the entrees. They were pretty bad. Shame. DH and I had eaten here on our honeymoon, back before it became a princess hangout, and we really liked it then. Not so much now. It was much better in the old days.
About the time we order our entrees, we notice a CM enter our room. He stands in the doorway and cases the joint. He then reports back to someone on one of those Secret Service walkie talkie things. It's all very top secret. Very important stuff going on there in Norway. We conclude there must be dignitaries nearby. Or at least, a princess or two. At that point, he turns and explains that Cinderella will not be joining us tonight. She had a prior commitment. He then proceeds to inform us that the Princesses will be out shortly and that our room will be the last to be seen.
We read his nametag because we’re nosy like that. His name is Mike.
Okay, yeah, we get it. He’s the bodyguard. The secret service of Norway, if you will. He talks some more on his walkie talkie. We overhear some discussion about ETAs and Cinderella and her prior commitments. Mike stays right there for the whole meal. Yep, in the middle of the doorway. He was in position. He was the Princesses’ Go To Guy. Their Mack Daddy. And Mack Daddy Mike did not waver. He stood in the doorway the entire meal, right by our table. He would occasionally throw in some small talk here and there. DD slid out of her chair once and Mack Daddy Mike was on the case. Yes, he was dependable and ever present. Just over our shoulders dependable. Right beside our table ever present. Gotta love Mack Daddy Mike.
The princesses finally enter the establishment. They make their way around the room one by one. Sleeping Beauty was first. Oh, forgive me.
Princess Aurora was first. She was very sweet.
Princess Aurora was followed by ...dum da da duuuuuummmmmm....Belle.
DD was very cute and very shy with Belle. DH swears that this was the same Belle that I took a picture with on our honeymoon. Okay, that was ten years ago, so I say no. But he says yes.
Here's the Belle from back then...
And here's a closeup of Belle at Restaurant Akershus...
IIIIIIII don't know. DH is convinced though.
Anyway, we just loved our Belle. She spent a pretty good amount of time with the kids. She was very sweet with DD. The only gripe I have with this place, well okay, other than the food, is that I wish Belle would wear her ball gown to this dinner. She just looks very village-y and not so much princess-y in the blue getup. Anyway, DD had stars in her eyes yet again and it was priceless.
On the other hand, DS wanted nothing to do with the Princesses. He buried his head in his plate and turned beet red on several occasions. Poor guy.
After Belle, Alice made her way around. She stops dead in her tracks when she gets to our table and makes a big deal about the kids’ costumes. She notices DD is carrying a long stem red rose. She asks DD if the beast gave her the rose. DD clams up and only looks at Alice with her big blue eyes.
I attempt to break the silence by joking “ Actually no, it came from Wal Mart.”
Alice looked a little offended and explained that she didn’t know what that meant. Could it be that Wal Mart was some far off distant kingdom? She wasn’t aware that the Beast ruled over a kingdom by the name of Wal Mart.
Yeah, yeah. Whatever.
After Alice, the men were treated to the G rated peep show called Jasmine.
Our Jasmine really was very pretty. She was really sweet with the kids too. We all liked her. Some more than others, but you get the picture.
After Jasmine leaves our table, we turn our attention back to our food.
Then from out of the blue we hear a piercing rebel yell.
“
Whhhhheeeeeewwwwww Heeeewwwwwwww!!!!!!!”
We all look around to make sure it's not one of us. Oh thank God, it’s not.
One of the Moms from the next table over had obviously had just a
tad too much Wine and not enough Food at the Food and Wine Festival.
Her pretty little girl was sitting patiently at the table in her Princess Aurora getup while Mama was taking herself a lil' pic with Jasmine.
Only, it wasn’t your typical picture.
The woman had literally taken her tank top and tucked the bottom of it into the bottom of her bra. She then pushed her skirt down to expose even more of her ample middle section. You know, I guess in her drunk mind, she was makin’ her a Jasmine outfit too.
She then took her drink, held it up in one hand and grabbed Jasmine with the other and was yelling and making all sorts of hip thrusts and what not while she held onto Jasmine for dear life.
Poor Jasmine. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights. She didn’t know quite what to do.
The word spectacle immediately comes to mind.
Well, Drunk Chick didn’t know who she was dealing with. The ever present Mike gets on his walkie talkie and from out of nowhere Disney security is on her like white on rice.
They wrestle her to the ground, confiscate her camera and rip the film from it.
Kidding.
But Mike really did call somebody. And security really did descend upon her. They made her take her shirt out of her bra and publicly shamed her into behaving like a 40ish year old woman again.
A rather sheepish 40ish year old woman.
She was told under no uncertain terms that she could not act like that at a character meal. She was welcome to take a picture with Jasmine but she would need to straighten her clothes and put down the drink first.
It really was pretty funny.
What’d I tell ya? Mike is the Mack Daddy. The bodyguard. He is there to protect the half dressed Princess from Drunk Chicks that indulge way too much at the F&W Festival and want to be half dressed right along with her. You go Mike. He’s one of those Real American Heroes they sing about on the radio.
After dinner, I take DS into the bathroom and have him change into Anakin Skywalker. He is very cute. Lest you think I spent all of my attention crafting DD’s outfit and not his, lemme tell ya, he was lookin pretty hot as Anakin. Well, as hot as a seven year old can look anyway. I took great pains picking out his costume too. We even got the little Jedi hair braid clip for him. He had the total package. Lightsaber, hair braid, yep, he was indeed Anakin Skywalker through and through. Well, you know, without the penchant for the dark side.
Once he is dressed, I hand him the costume bag with the clothes he had just taken off in it and tell him to hold onto it and go back out. He is to give the bag to his Dad and wait for me and his sister to come out.
Sounds simple enough, right? You understood it, didn’t you?
Well, somewhere along the line, our wires got crossed. See, I know what I said. It was perfectly clear to me. But to him, it must have come out a little more jumbled.
Apparently, he thought I said “
Blah, blah, blah, take this bag with your brand new twenty three dollar Test Track shirt and brand new shoes and shorts and go set it down wherever you think you stand the best chance of never seeing it again. And then walk away from it and tell me you never had it in your hands when I ask you where the heck it is…
blah, blah, blah.”
That must have been what he
thought I said, because that’s exactly what he did.
We call out a search party for the missing bag.
DHFW just sits back and laughs.
Up Next: The Song That Burrows its Way into Your Brain, The Ordeal with the Flashing Necklaces, and Splash III: Is That Your Final Answer?
Yeah, it was a long day. Lots of stuff goin' on. Carpe Diem and all.
I think. That is how I am going to interpret it. He said it in front of the kids, so he couldn't have been kidding. I was thinking 'free food' was the ticket, but it turns out it was Epcot, sweet little Epicot, that did it. Now I just need to nail down some dates and think about ADR's, cause OMGosh, I'm going to WDW! And OMGosh we are already in the 6 month ADR window, I think.
I have laughed my head off reading these things!! Ok, time for you to start planning another trip and write a pre-trip report for us all! 
Navarre is really pretty too. We did notice that there was a lot more beach errosion this trip than in the past. The whole South has just taken a beating the last few years. Let's cross our fingers and pray for an uneventful hurricane season this year. 
but I think your trip report deserved it.
