OK..here's the last day in our trip report. I've been putting off writing this because it means that the whole trip is totally over. Silly, I know. Ahh well, we're looking forward to next year!
Wednesday January 14th.
I was feeling really sad about missing our cruise, but I do think that we did the right thing in canceling it. It was just too darn cold! With the baby in my belly, I really didn’t want to get sick, so I was more cautious than usual.
Wednesday was bright and sunny! Woohoo! It's only get up to around 65, but that is certainly better than it was on Tuesday.
So, a few tidbits about AKV and CL. The 6th floor is DVC villas for DVC members staying on CL only. The 5th floor around the main lobby area is DVC villas, non-CL. There are also some non-DVC rooms scattered around there as well. I think that the non-DVC CL is also on the 5th and 4th floors, but I could be totally wrong.
Our non-CL villa and our CL villa are identical, except that the CL bathroom has two sinks. Otherwise, they are the same size and layout.
Pause because I had to get another blueberry muffin from the lounge.
Mmm..oatmeal, fresh fruit and a mini-blueberry muffin for breakfast dessert.
Oh..and about Jiko. Do try Jiko and don't let the idea of African food intimidate you. DW and I are foodies and love to try new things, so we get excited about a wide variety of foods. However, at the table next to us was a man who described himself to the server as "a plain, boring food person". *chuckle* The server was very helpful in assisting this man in finding menu items that would please him, just as much as the spicy curry I had, pleased me. There's something there for everyone and if there isn't something on the menu that appeals to you, they have no problem in making substitutions.
The other neat thing I found by accident is that I could tap into the free wireless from the Wide World of Sports from our CL room. WOO! DVC members get free wired internet access, but it the connection is in the bedroom. This way I could be in the living room or on the balcony and be online, while my DW rested in the bedroom.
I'd been trying to ignore the fact that we're flying back to California the next day but I checked our flight status so I could guestimate what time we'll get picked up by ME because we didn’t get our ME tag on our door for some reason. Then, I tossed a load of laundry in so that we didn’t have to pack dirty clothes and we finally headed off to the parks!
How long will we stay in the parks today? Will we freeze or thaw out? Just how much fun can two people cram into their last day at WDW?
Woo! It was a very fun day. We started off by going to DHS to play The Game, otherwise known as TSMM. We finally found our favorite CM, Kimbi, who works at TSMM. She’s so fun and energetic and really is the ideal of what a Disney CM should be.
Kimbi!
We chatted with her for awhile and got caught up on her life and she on ours. She’s just so wonderful. If you are going to DHS sometime soon, look for Kimbi and say hi for us. We stopped at Guest Relations and filled out a positive comment card for her.
Of course we rode TSMM and finally both of us broke 200k! WOOHOO! We had watched the hint video on YouTube and it really helped. That game is so much fun.
We headed over to ABC Commissary for lunch, a CS we hadn’t eaten at before. I got the Asian salad, fruit salad and milk.
mmm..veggies
DW got the fish-n-chips, fruit salad and a Sprite.
She had originally ordered the chocolate mousse for dessert, but changed her mind and asked for the fruit.
The CM gave us both!
My salad was good, but a surprisingly small portion. It’s completely vegetarian, which was fine with me, but a bit surprising as I’m used to Asian salads having chicken in them. DW’s fish was the usual battered, fried fish. Good, but nothing special.
We decided to save our fruit for lunch tomorrow on the airplane, so headed out of DHS and back to AKV so we could put them in our fridge. Yes, the only thing we did at DHS was play TSMM….about 3 times!
After putting the fruit in the fridge and taking a few moments of downtime, we grabbed a bus to Downtown Disney. We had 8 snack credits to use on goodies to take home. We went to Goofy’s Candy Company and got several packaged snacks, plus DW got a rice crispy treat that was almost as big as her head! I can’t believe how big that thing was.
Tasty treats
DW also fulfilled her pin addiction and bought several mystery pins at the pin store. I’m very surprised that they don’t have a presidential inauguration pin for the inauguration next week! They have a Ground Hog’s day pin, but no presidential inauguration pin?
We bought a baggie of Disney catnip cat toys for our kitties and some dog toys for the person who our dog is staying with while we’re out of down. We wandered around Downtown Disney for a bit, but I’m not a big browser type shopper and DW was feeling pretty tired, so we left after about an hour and caught a bus to WLV to get back to MK.
Yeay! MK! My favorite park! It was nearly completely empty when we arrived.
We got there at 3:30, so just in time to see the end of the parade. No matter how many times I see the Dreams Come True Parade, I still love it. I wonder when the new Celebrations parade is going to start. Of course, they eventually have to take down the Year of a Million Dreams swag that is all over WDW!
We were lucky enough to catch a train right as the parade ended and got to stand in the back of the 5th car. The conductor was really funny “No eating, sleeping or smoking on the train.” A couple parents were letting their very young children hang their heads outside of the railing and the conductor was very explicit in pointing out which children were in danger of getting their heads knocked by tree limbs! *giggle*
We rode around to Frontier land and then got off to get a Dole Whip. Mmm..nummy. Here’s one for you Bawb!
Have they always been hollow?
After sharing the Dole Whip Float goodness, we went to the Jungle Cruise. I could not believe the line for the Jungle Cruise! It was all the way up the ramp to the main pathway by the Magic Carpets! The rest of the park was pretty quiet, but things were hopping at the Jungle Cruise. We wanted to hear the pigmy’s yell “I Love Disco”, but sadly we didn’t hear it. I’ve heard it once, but not consistently.
After surviving the wilds of the World Famous Jungle Cruise, we headed towards the Country Bears, with a stop at the Frontier Land Trading Post for more pins for Imdazi. The Country Bears sound great after their refurb this fall. You can actually hear them as they don’t sound muffled anymore. We always sing along with the Country Bears, which does tend to annoy the other guests. *grin*
The smell of sautéed mushrooms and fried onions was leaking into the Country Bears from Pesco Bill’s next door, so we used up our last snack credit on some French fries and loaded up on goodness at the fixin’s bar. That is a great snack and with all of the veggies at the fixin’s bar, you can really make your own salad!
We wandered through Fantasy Land because I wanted to ride Peter Pan, but it wasn’t in operation. We asked the CM standing at the entrance what was wrong with the ride and she said “It broke”. Just like that. She did give us Princess and Prince of the Day Stickers. DW said that Peter Pan was lost in Neverland and a CM nearby laughed and said that they haven’t been able to find him and they’ve been looking all day!. Now, there’s a more magical answer to what is wrong with the ride.
So, leaving Peter Pan to his adventures, we continued to wander through Fantasy Land and decided to ride the merry-go-round. I also noticed a huge crane behind the castle with the entire back of the castle blocked off. What the heck is that for? It was really weird to see the huge crane towering over the castle. Just something wrong with that.
Now, riding a merry-go-round is not something I would advise any other 5+ month pregnant woman to do. I used to be able to swing my leg up and over a real live horse without thinking about it. Now, trying to heft myself up onto a stationary plastic horse was a bit too much. Thankfully DW was there to give me a boost. Getting down was quite amusing as well.
We stopped and said hello to Pooh Bear at the Winnie the Pooh Ride and escaped the wind, rain and huffalumps. Poor Pooh had a rough day, thankfully he had a big pot of honey at the end to help him feel better. Have you ever noticed that the store after the ride doesn’t sell huffalumps?
We noticed a crane parked right next to the Castle to take down the Christmas overlay. It looked so odd! I wish that there was some way to have Disney Magic take down all the lights overnight so that the crane wouldn’t be there.
By this time it was 6pm and we had a 6:40 reservation at the Kona Café, so we had to leave the Magic Kingdom. This is the part of the trip I absolutely hate, the last stroll down Main Street. It’s just so sad to leave MK for the last time each trip. Last trip I knew I was coming back in three months, so it wasn’t so hard. This time, it will be a little over a year before we’ll return, so I teared up a bit as we left MK.
We decided to take the monorail over to the Poly. Well, at least that was the plan, but the monorail train that arrived just as we got to the top of the ramp, sat there empty for about 3 minutes and then was taken out of service. The next train was stopped on the tracks by the GF, so we headed back down the ramp and took the ferry. It was really cold on the ferry, which made me relieved that we had canceled our fireworks cruise last night. Tonight wasn’t nearly as cold, but the wind from the lake was breath takingly cold.
We were about 5 minutes late for our ADR at the Kona Café, no biggie and we were seated nearly immediately. I had been looking forward to this meal and was hoping that DW would really like it. One thing that completely surprised me was how hectic and loud the area by Kona and Ohana is. Wow! The place was jammed with people and everyone seemed crabby and overwhelmed. Even after we were seated, the noise level was really high.
No sushi for me, but I had to check out the new sushi bar. I cannot wait to have sushi again! It all looked soooooo good.
Mmm…nom nom nom
The big loaf of pineapple bread with macadamia nut butter was really good.
We ordered the crab cake appetizer to share and DW ordered the Tuna Oscar and I ordered the Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi Mahi. Well, 30 minutes after we ordered, our entrees came out to our table. We hadn’t even gotten our appetizer yet! So, we went our entrees back and waited another 15 minutes for our appetizer. The crab cakes were really good and the salad that came with them was crispy and fresh.
Then, we sat and waited another 20 minutes, watching the clock get closer to 8pm, fireworks time. DW finally encouraged me to head down to the beach to see the fireworks, while she talked with the manager about our disappointing meal. She asked for him to comp the crab cakes and cancel the rest of our order. It wasn’t our server’s fault, but obviously something was not going right in the kitchen. Bummer.
We got down to the beach in time to snuggle on a lounge chair front and center of the castle. It was a perfect spot! The fireworks are awesome from the Poly beach. You really get a whole new perspective on how big the fireworks are and how they frame the castle, from that distance. Wishes is just so great to watch, especially with someone you love snuggling with you.
I took a couple of pictures of Wishes, but none of them turned out. My camera hates night time shots. In a way, that was ok because I just enjoyed the moment and the wonderfulness that is Wishes.
To get back to AKV, we caught the monorail at the Poly to MK and we got to ride up front in the monorail. Woohoo! That’s always a treat. We got to the MK bus stop, just as an AKV bus was pulling up. Can’t beat that for timing. We managed to get back to AKV at 9pm, just in time for cookies and cheesecake at the CL lounge.
We still hadn’t gotten our ME info, so we stopped at the CL desk and talked to a very nice CM who remembered us from our trip in June! She’s now 4 months pregnant, so we shared stories of cruddy maternity clothes and how unfashionable they are. I’m just impressed that she remembered us. We got things figured out with ME as well. Our bus was scheduled at 12:30 the next day, so we planned on bringing our luggage down in the morning and figure out what we’re going to do from there. It's going to be a long day as we don't get into San Francisco airport until 9pm PST, whichis midnight Disney World time.
Thanks everyone for reading along this trip report. Of course, questions are always welcome!
I was planning on sleeping late, since we didn't have to get ME until 12:30. However, for some bizzare reason, DW was up early! What the heck! She wakes up early on the last day of our Disney vacation? 
Ohh well. 
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