Once again, it is so hard to believe that our adventure in WDW is over. I don’t understand how time goes so fast when we are there. Even though this was our longest trip ever, it still flew by. We returned home around midnight on Saturday and I’ve been getting back to reality and catching up on reading other TR’s before beginning my own.
Just in case you may not know us…
Me: Mary/mom
Ross – Dad AKA Grumpy, but was acting more like Sleepy on this trip. (And yes – those Crocs came along with him.)
Julia – DD Sweet 16 this trip
Hope – My 9 year old princess whose diagnoses of Autism usually lends itself to some interesting tidbits for my TR’s.
Trip details:
September 6th – 8th at Art Of Animation (Room only)
September 8th – 22nd Pop Century (MYW Package Free Dining)
Yep- that’s a LONG trip – our longest EVER. Still it managed to fly by in the blink of an eye.
If you’re not familiar with my crazy crew or you need to catch up, feel free to check out my pre trip report here:
Day 17: Saturday September 22th
Our final day was upon us. How crazy is it that after such a long trip we wouldn’t be happy to be going home, but no, it felt like the time flew by and no one wanted to be waiting for our TE later in the day.
But we still had some time left…
Our plans for this day were a little different for us than in the past. Remember, the girls and I went to a park before Ross arrived, so he still had a park entry for the day. He said he want to go tp AK and Epcot for the day. I really thought he was joking, but no, he was completely serious. And since we were still at the point of being on each other’s nerves, I thought it was a brilliant idea.
We woke up on the very late side for check out day. While Ross showered, I packed up the rest of our checked luggage and then we walked it down and checked in for our flight. Ross had left his MB on the dresser when I was packing and I thought it was an extra one so I packed in our checked luggage, which meant Ross had to go and get a new MB for the day in addition to a duplicate of my MB since he would need that to get his food. (His band still never allowed him to charge or redeem dining credits.)
The girls and I were originally going to BB and to play golf, but Hope said she didn’t want to go to BB. She said she wanted to “take a tour” of POP – which means she wanted to walk around the entire hotel and take pictures. She also wanted to swim at POP since we really never did except for a couple of hours one day.
Julia didn’t seem to care about not going to BB; I think all of us were exhausted by now and the thought of just hanging around seemed appealing to a certain extent. However, Julia did want to play golf, so we all compromised.
After our checked luggage was set and Ross was on his way to AK, the girls and went to the food court and had our last meal of Mickey waffles.
Our final day was upon us. How crazy is it that after such a long trip we wouldn’t be happy to be going home, but no, it felt like the time flew by and no one wanted to be waiting for our TE later in the day.
But we still had some time left…
Our plans for this day were a little different for us than in the past. Remember, the girls and I went to a park before Ross arrived, so he still had a park entry for the day. He said he want to go tp AK and Epcot for the day. I really thought he was joking, but no, he was completely serious. And since we were still at the point of being on each other’s nerves, I thought it was a brilliant idea.
We woke up on the very late side for check out day. While Ross showered, I packed up the rest of our checked luggage and then we walked it down and checked in for our flight. Ross had left his MB on the dresser when I was packing and I thought it was an extra one so I packed in our checked luggage, which meant Ross had to go and get a new MB for the day in addition to a duplicate of my MB since he would need that to get his food. (His band still never allowed him to charge or redeem dining credits.)
The girls and I were originally going to BB and to play golf, but Hope said she didn’t want to go to BB. She said she wanted to “take a tour” of POP – which means she wanted to walk around the entire hotel and take pictures. She also wanted to swim at POP since we really never did except for a couple of hours one day.
Julia didn’t seem to care about not going to BB; I think all of us were exhausted by now and the thought of just hanging around seemed appealing to a certain extent. However, Julia did want to play golf, so we all compromised.
After our checked luggage was set and Ross was on his way to AK, the girls and went to the food court and had our last meal of Mickey waffles.
It's funny and makes me feel old that kids don't know what these things are... I was looking at the icons on the laptop while we were there... and thought.. woah, these are out of date!
As we were doing our tour, Ross was entering AK – or at least trying to. Remember he had to get a new MB since I packed his away? Well, apparently it wasn’t set correctly, so when he arrived at AK, he got a blue Mickey – and I got a text about it!
He ended up having to wait about a half hour at guest services for them to rectify the problem. He said he told them how I packed up his MB and sent it off to the airline without him realizing it. However, he did get it fixed and he had to slinky dog dash to FOP since that was his first FP and now he was late for it. I call it payback for his turtle walk in HS with us! Lol When he got there, he got another blue Mickey – because he was late, however, the CM was nice and let him through.
As Ross was flying with the ducks, (as @Rista1313 would say), we returned to our room one last time to get our stuff. We brought our carry-on to bell services and then called for a Lyft to take us to Winter Summerland. Ross need not know.
Our driver was nice, but couldn’t really speak English that well which can make for a little awkward ride. Nonetheless, we arrived safe and sound only to find that there was a wait to play. This was new to me, we had never experienced a wait time. We chose the course with the shorter wait, which was winter. Originally, we wanted to play both courses, but we were informed again that we could only play one a day as part of the water parks and more feature (or whatever the title is these days), which really makes no sense to me.
Julia had an ice cream sandwich while we waited. It was blazing HOT so I also picked up a bottle of water for us to share. Hope is not a big water fan – it still can make her choke a little, but she manages.
When it was our turn, we discovered we were playing behind a HUGE family. There were like nine people in the group including some little kids who were taking FOREVER to play the holes. I think the heat and the last day blues were getting to me because I usually have much more patience. But when it takes a little kid 27 stokes to get the ball in and then he has a fit because his brother got it in 19 and the parents let him do it over – well you get the idea… I was beside myself.
I prepared Hope that we were going to skip a hole – which is tricky sometimes because skipping things and going out of order is difficult for her, but my patience was gone. Once I had her prepared, I asked the family if we could just go ahead of them – and they said no. Ummm…. Really? I was a little taken aback. Then someone else in the group came over, I guess they really didn’t speak English that well and didn’t understand what I was asking. Anyhoo, the girls and I went past them and continued on at a much faster pace. Julia managed to lose her ball somewhere along the way – she just has a talent I will never understand. Lol
While the girls and I were melting on our golfing adventure, Ross was having his own enjoyment. He began his day at AK. I had gotten him FPs for FOP, Kali Rapids and EE. After he had his fill there, he hopped to Epcot to eat around the world one more time. I got a text from him at one point asking me to make him a FP for TT or another EPCOT attraction, but there was nothing available that he wanted to do, so he was content with just eating.
When we were done, I offered to walk into BB to get some mini doughnuts and frozen lemonade, but the girls just wanted to swim so I called a Lyft to come and take us back to POP.
Our driver back was really nice and we had a great conversation. Turns out he was originally from NY and moved to Florida a few years back. He offered to take us to the airport later in the day. I was so tempted to ask him how much it would be, but I knew even the thought of taking a Lyft to MCO would put Ross into palpitations.
Back at POP, we headed right for the pools, and of course Hope wanted to swim in each one; so we started with the computer pool, then the bowling pin pool and finally ended up in Hippy Dippy.
It wasn’t the “last” day I had planned, but it was actually really nice and enjoyable. It would nice not to have to worry about getting a bus back to the resort or fearing missing the TE, so I was really able to relax – something I NEVER do on our last day of WDW. It was a satisfying feeling not to have to worry about any shenanigans. Little did I know what was happing over at EPCOT…
When Ross returned to POP, I was sitting by the pool watching the kids, and when he walked over to me, I knew from the look on his face something was up.
Apparently, he was at EPCOT, in his glory, consuming the last of our meal credits – well almost all of them. Somewhere between the filet mignon in Canada and the ice cream macaroon sandwich in France, he noticed something on the ground. As he walked by, he scooped it up and as he walked, he looked to see what it was. It was a small pouch and when he opened it up, he discovered about $450.00 in cash, a Disney Chase credit card, a Disney Rewards Redemption Card and a license of the owner, who was a woman from NJ.
He said he paused for a moment to see if he saw anyone frantically searching around – but no. He said he saw a bunch of people walk right by it on the ground without even giving it a second glance. Immediately, he said two angels hopped on his shoulders, one with a halo and the other with devil horns, both with Mickey ears. The one was saying, “You have to find the owner!” while the other was taunting him to take the money and run! He confessed he did think about how many filet mignons he could buy with the $, or a nice deposit on a future trip or more stuff for the girls. But he’s not kidding me – it’s not in him.
He left EPCOT and when he got back to POP he went to the front desk and showed them the license and asked if they could tell him if the woman was staying on property. They wouldn’t give him any info other than confirming that yes- she was a guest and staying on property. He then asked if they could contact her immediately because she was having a very bad day. He gave them her wallet and they promised they would take care of it and make sure she got it back.
I asked him why he didn’t return it at EPCOT and he said he didn’t know what to do at first. He wanted to make sure it got back to her and knew he also had to get back to POP, so he said he did his thinking on the way back.
If it hadn’t been our last day, we both agreed that we would have tried to personally find the woman and return it to her, but since we only had a couple of hours left, we put our trust in the CM’s and hoped the money found its way back to her.
I conceded that he had the more adventurous day and we called the girls out of the pool to dry off and have a bite to eat before we left.
Hope who is usually, not too picky when it comes to food decided she really wanted chicken and French fries. Well don’t you know, the kitchen was having some kind of issue and that entire section was closed! I was able to get her some mac & cheese, but she wasn’t too happy about it. Julia got pizza, which she said wasn’t that great and I wasn’t to thrilled with my chicken. I think we were probably too sad to really enjoy food.
We still had about 7 snack credits left, so I sent Ross to the gift shop to get candy. I have always hated having to do that at the last minute because it would always be stressful and he was happy because he says I never get the kind of candy he likes. Lol
Soon enough our TE arrived and we boarded.
When we got to security, I tried to move us through as quickly as possible I grabbed our stuff and made sure the girls were good. That’s when I noticed Ross was no longer behind me. I looked around only to see him being frisked by security. He shook his head at me and threw up his hands. We have no idea what the problem is…
Once we were on the monorail to the gates, I realized that we were missing one of our bags! In all the commotion, I didn’t notice and I thought I had everything. Ross took the girls and went to the gate while I rode back to security. I described the bag but no one seemed to have it. Then I saw it – it was flagged to be checked, but no one said anything to me as we were walking through. I waited until a guard brought it over to me and searched it. It was the bag with all the Disney candy! I heard that some people were having problems with that. The guard grunted, “It’s the candy!” and then returned the bag to me and I was off to the gate.
Things were surprisingly uneventful after that except that our flight was delayed about an hour but I forget why. We boarded the plane and had a decent flight home except that the plane seemed to be going really fast on the dissent. Julia’s ears were bothering her a bit – but nothing too terrible.
I am happy to report that NO one threw up at the airport and Ross and I both had our house keys, so no worries there. Soon we were home safe and sound.
And there you have it… another truly wonderful vacation.
Thanks so much to all of you who have followed along, given such kind comments, and have been so patient for me to finish. It’s so much fun to relive the journey with all of you.
We are returning in September (God willing) and I hope to have my pre-trip up really soon – like maybe tonight? lol
Oh man that was a lot of adventure on the last day! I definitely was on the edge of my seat a few times. But I also loved this report, and am glad the next one is right around the corner!
PS - I can’t be the only one who thought Crocs were going to be involved in that last day Epcot adventure, can I??
