It is extremely cold by now and we bundle up in many layers. We catch a bus to Epcot simply because it comes along first and we plan to ride the monorail from Epcot to the Poly, which we do. Its dark by the time we reach the resort and the torches are lit throughout the tropical gardens. What a wonderful atmosphere they create! We go to the wrong boat dock initially but soon locate Allie & Neil. Unfortunately their children arent feeling too special and because it is so cold Allie thought it was a good idea to leave them at home with her mum. A very wise decision, as it turned out!
There was no sign of the boat and we were slightly concerned as it was getting close to Wishes. There had been some sort of snafu but in the end they found us a boat and sent it over from Fort Wilderness. The upshot was that it was a Birthday Boat! It was festooned with balloons and complete with cake and drinks. Unfortunately they werent hot though and already we were all feeling extremely chilly! The boat refused to start for quite a few attempts and when it finally did we had to head straight to the middle of the lake in order to get a spot for Wishes. What an incredible view you get here! You really see the entire panorama of fireworks and at one point a firework goes off that draws the Evil Queens face! How on earth do they do that? We had not seen that in the park. Even better, one of the boats around us (clearly an upmarket vessel) had the music and narration piped in so we could hear everything. A wonderful experience.
We had a scream at the back of the boat; I laughed practically the entire time (particularly when Allie kept being attacked by the Birthday Balloons) but let me tell you it was absolutely freezing. I think Disney usually supply blankets for this but there were none on this boat (maybe this had something to do with the boat being a late entrant into the nights activities?) but happily I had brought some from ASMo (ssssh, dont tell anyone! We did put them back). We donated the blankets to the front end of the boat, as Allie, Neil and I were somewhat sheltered at the back. We had a nice tour around Seven Seas Lagoon with some information from the driver (though I got the impression he didnt do it very often as Allie & I seemed to know stuff he didnt). Problem was, it was simply absolutely freezing. Wed lost all feeling in our extremities! You probably think Im jesting but really Im not, it was extraordinarily cold. We wondered if Disney had ever had a hypothermia case brought against them