The best laid plans (Day 5)

[agotta]

This morning was our last day at the parks. Our plan was to have breakfast at Boma, head to the Disney-MGM Studios, back to the hotel for a late afternoon nap and packing and then to Magic Kingdom for late night (till midnight). We started off running late again. We were lucky enough to be just waived in by security, no 3-hour pass for us!! Unfortunately it wouldn’t make a bit of difference since we wouldn’t be there for 3 hours. We dropped Dave and Monica off at the entrance and I told them wait just inside the doors. Monica joked, no we are going to find a table and start without you!

Kevin and I parked the car and headed inside. The Animal Kingdom Lodge was so beautiful. Kevin and I decided we have to stay there someday. We walked inside and low and behold, Dave and Monica weren’t there. I looked around for them a little while Kevin took pictures. After about 5 or 10 minutes of still not finding them, Kevin headed down to the restaurant. I insisted that they couldn’t be there; they assured me they would wait inside. Well of course Dave and Monica were downstairs.

Breakfast was amazing and we love FRUNCH!!! We stuffed ourselves silly, with the boys definitely making up for what Monica and I couldn’t!! We had a great waiter that really caught on that the boys needed a Frunch refill every 2 minutes J

After breakfast, we waddled out to the car and swung back around to pick up Dave and Monica. We were finally off to the Studios and the boys couldn’t be more excited. Our little movie buffs in their natural habitat. We had missed park open, which I was secretly excited about, but the lines were still pretty long to get in. Once we were in we took a right down Sunset Blvd headed for that famous tower! We grabbed fast passes for Rock n’ Roller Coaster and hopped right in the stand-by line. The wait was only 10 minutes and before we knew it we were at the CM stand. Of course right at that moment he stopped the line and I guess I must have made some smart alecky comment about him stopping the line with us.

I wish I could remember his name, but I can’t so we will call him Bill. Bill gave me one of those, you-don’t-want-to-mess-with-me looks. So he told me if I could answer a couple questions, he wouldn’t embarrass me.

Bill – “How to you spell silk?”
Amanda – “S-I-L-K”
Bill – “What?? I said SILK.”
Amanda (second guessing herself) – “S-I-L-K?”
Bill – “Oh wow, are you sure?”
Kevin (whispering to Amanda) – “You had it right, just say it again.”
Amanda – “S-I-L-K”
(Bill talking asking the questions faster now)
Bill - “How do you spell boast?”
Amanda – “B-O-A-S-T”
Bill – “How do you spell roast?”
Amanda – “R-O-A-S-T”
Bill – “What do you put in a toaster?”
Amanda – “Toast”

Yes I fell for one of the dumbest, most obvious jokes of all time!! So Bill pulled me in front of the entire coaster line and asked for everyone’s attention. He then pronounced that I was scared to ride the coaster and asked for everyone to say aaawwww!! He then told me I had to stand in the corner. While in the corner, with everyone taking pictures of me, he started asking with DH questions. DH informed him that he and I met while on the college program working right there at the MGM Studios! Oh would he have a field day with this!! He then asked for everyone’s attention again and told our story, again everyone together…aaawwww! So now it was time to test DH. Quick when is her birthday?? Now, DH was thinking 12/10, but wanted to say December, but 12 was the first number on his mind…December 12th…WRONG!!! Now you go stand in the corner. Of course we had to snap some pictures. What fun! I love CM’s like that!

So we were finally on Rock n’ Roller Coaster! What fun!! DH and I love that ride so much, has to be the best ride at MGM. After riding coaster, we ran over and got in stand-by for Tower of Terror. Now, I hate Tower, and haven’t ridden it since the latest update. Tower scared me even when it used to be only 1 or 2 drops. The line was about 25 minutes, but went pretty fast. Dave was under the impression that you actually stood in the elevator. One too many commercials for Dave… Now, I knew that there would be more drops and more unexpected drops but are you kidding me!!?!? That was awful! Of course everyone else loved it! That was my ONE Tower ride for the entire trip.

It was time for our fast passes at Rock n’ Roller Coaster so we head back for one my time around. After that we grabbed Tower fast passes and headed off toward Who Wants to be Millionaire PLAY IT! On the way we stopped to have our picture taken. We started to chit chat with the CM, DH wanted to see if we could get in to Lights! Motors! Action. The CM recommended that we grab fast passes and we could get in at 1 p.m. After talking with her for a couple minutes, it turns out that she met her husband on the College Program too!! Awww! We are everywhere!!

We were a little early for Who Wants to be Millionaire PLAY IT! So we just took a break for 10 minutes or so while DH ran to the back of the park to grab LMA fast passes. Once inside we were lucky enough to get tickets to sit in the fastest finger seats down front. Now anyone who has been knows that fastest finger seat tickets don’t really mean anything here, since everyone plays, but still how cool!! Who Wants to be Millionaire PLAY IT! was fun and everyone got up on the leaderboard but me L. DH was #1 toward the end. Afterwards we headed over to Lights! Motors! Action! Wow was it packed!! That wheelchair helped us out once again, and we bypassed the line to head around the back of the stadium. While back there I ran into my old manager from GMR. I love running into old friends!!

Well the show was awesome, you have to see it. We recommend sitting below the glass, you can see so much more, but we had great seats, right in the center. Between waiting for the show to start and actually watching the show it was already after 1 and we had planned on leaving at 2 to grab a quick nap and start packing. Well there was so much left to do so we suggested to Dave and Monica that we skip the nap, take a long lunch and just continue with the parks. We knew they would be exhausted if they had to get up early with us and since their flight was until noon we told them about Mears. They said that sounded good and would give them a chance to sleep in.

After the show, we headed to Muppets, DH’s old stomping grounds. The show was great, the only bad thing is because we were in the back row handicap seats, we missed seeing the Swedish Chef L Dave had a great time watching this woman try and park her ECV. She crashed into the seats, then into the wall, then into the seats again.

Muppets was great, but were getting hungry. After some wandering around, we decided on Mama Melrose’s for lunch. Now this is my favorite at the Studios, and this trip DH had vetoed me saying we always do it. Oh well!! The food was great as usual. Monica, Kevin and I split a carafe of Sangria and 2 flatbread pizzas. Dave decided on something small, just a Caesar salad. But when the waiter asked if he wanted chicken, he said sure!! Well we all enjoyed the food, Dave’s salad looked amazing, it even came with bruchetta.

Everything was great until the bill came. The three of us figured out how much everything was to split and then Monica added Dave’s salad. Well here come the fireworks. Dave thought he ordered a $3.99 salad, but once he agreed to the chicken it turned into a meal and the salad now was $12.99. Well of course Dave wasn’t happy about that and started ranting and raving about money. Come on! We are at Disney… of course it is expensive!! We won’t even mention his $6 glass of beer. Moving on…

Now that lunch was finished we had 2 more attractions to see and then they all wanted to go on Tower one more time. Star Tours was first and everyone (except for DH of course) agreed that we shouldn’t have eaten lunch first! Next was GMR. The line was pretty long, by GMR’s standards. The queue started outside and then went inside. Once inside we got to skip the queue again because of the wheelchair. The ride was good, but not great. I hate the new script and our drive and gangster weren’t great actors. It was nice to be back and I realized how much I miss being there.

I was ready to go, but of course we had to go to Tower one more time!! I waited in the gift shop while everyone rode, and they loved it. On our way out we had to stop and see if we could find an adult-sized Incredibles T-shirt. There wasn’t one so we started walking toward the car. That is when I found out that Dave was going back to the hotel. That’s right, he is leaving his wife and going back to NAP!! Fine, we can have fun without him. We gave him instructions on how to take the bus back and we were off to Magic Kingdom.

When we got to the gate, I double-checked with the CM on when and where we could get our bracelets for EMH. She said anytime after 6 at City Hall. Now this is not what I remember, but we went anyway. Of course after waiting for 10 minutes in line, we were told after 7 p.m. at these locations…I knew it!! It was almost 6 p.m. by now and Monica and I had been craving those chipwiches from the Main St. Bakery. They were so yummy; unfortunately the cookie was a little stale. Still good though! We noticed quite a few people crowded around the castle so we went to check it out and noticed we were just in time for Cinderellabration!! I heard that some people liked it and others thought it was ok. Well we loved it! I cried through the whole thing (see a pattern?) After the show, Kevin ran to get FP for Splash Mountain and we would meet up at Jungle Cruise. Well the tip board was wrong (big shock!) and the stand-by time was 55 minutes!! DOH!! So we waited for Kevin to show up. Of course they were out of FP’s for both Splash and BTMR. We decided that since we get backdoored to BTMR anyway, we would ride just once more!

Haunted Mansion was next and the three of us squeezed into a doombuggy (wer were backdoored here too!) It was so much fun and I love telling people some of the ghost stories I have learned. It wasn’t quite time for Wishes yet, but the right time for it’s a small world. They did a beautiful job refurbishing that ride. We didn’t have to wait in line long, apparently it is still not very handicap accessible (can you say ‘skip the queue’? J) The ride was fun and just when we were about to get off, Dave calls and says he will be there at 9. So we make our way toward the castle and it’s blocked while they prepare for Wishes!! How dumb of us! So we turn around and motor toward Liberty Square. We make it with about 5 minutes to spare.

I am surprised with how many people sit on the ground in front of the Castle. I could only imagine if there was a fire or an emergency! They would have all been trampled! Dave calls again and can’t seem to find us. He finally does and Wishes is about to start. I ask Dave if he got his bracelet and he said what bracelet? This really upset me because we had talked about the bracelet and now he had to go and get one with the millions of other people who would be headed back toward the entrance. Great!

Now Kevin and I have seen Wishes three different times from outside the Magic Kingdom but never inside. It was quite windy and Tinkerbelle didn’t get to fly L but the show was still awesome!

Afterwards we were heading to Pinocchio’s as we thought they would be open for EMH and we sent Dave to get his bracelet. We arrived at Pinocchio’s and realized they were closed. It looked like Cosmic Rays was our best bet. Monica called Dave to tell him, and he asked how does he get there from Country Bears…now how the heck did he end up in Frontierland?? Oh god! We finally all meet up at Cosmic Rays and I get my food super fast, unfortunately no one else does (Exceptionally slow service!) Finally Kevin’s food is ready and we head outside to eat. By the time we finish, Monica is just showing up…by herself. Whatever! Finally Dave shows up and Kevin and I are just waiting for them to finish. It is almost 10 and we are talking about what to do next. Dave suggests that we go off by ourselves and meet up at midnight. Well this is just the topping on the cake. I feel like we have bent over backwards to show them around Disney, even giving them a place to stay and now he wants us to meet up later? Basically just to give them a ride back. Well, I just look at him and say “That is just PERFECT!!” and walk out. Kevin catches up with me and calms me down a little.

We decided we weren’t going to let Dave ruin our good time and take off for PhilharMagic. This is one of our new favorites and we had such a good time. By the time we are done it has gotten kind of chilly and Splash Mountain was the only thing left on our list. So instead we take a slow walk through Liberty Square and toward Main St. We wander through some of the shop and end up at the Confectionary. MMMM! I love the way that store smells! We grab a box of white chocolate covered Mickey pretzels and sit on the curb outside to enjoy them. It was so nice to just enjoy Cinderella Castle all lit up!! We still had quite a while so we venture into the Exposition Hall. We had a lot of fun taking pictures in the back and looking around at the scrap booking stuff.

It was just about time to meet up with Dave and Monica and once we did we were off to the monorail. We were exhausted and headed for the car, thinking Dave and Monica were right behind us. Of course they got lost on the way to the parking lot…from the monorail! We finally find them and head back to the hotel. It was a long day and I head straight for bed while the boys unload their pictures onto Dave’s laptop. Tomorrow morning is our cruise and we can’t wait!!

Pre-Trip Report
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Recap