Our last day at Disney World was kind of tragic, in all manner of ways. What a fitting ending to a wonderful vacation, right? The first characters we spotted on our way to the World Showcase in EC were Jasmine and Aladdin. They were so much fun and engaged us more than any other character except for Ariel. They were hilarious and Aladdin got really upset and corrected me when I referred to Jasmine as his girlfriend. Obviously, I forgot that they married!
While waiting in line to meet them, my camera lens met a very unfortunate end. It was hanging on the back of the stroller (where it had been all week with no issue), when Tax threw herself onto the ground and the stroller fell backwards. Onto concrete. Where my camera lens took the brunt of the fall. The camera center in EC had no real camera replacement parts, so we were forced to rely on Disney photographers and my trusty iPhone to finish out our trip. That marks disaster number one.
Mom & I refused to eat one more hamburger, so while Josh & Poppy took the girls off to the American Pavilion for lunch, Gran & I ate all by ourselves in France. I had Quiche Lorraine, chocolate mousse and a loaf of French bread. It tasted even better child-free!
After several more hours, we hopped the monorail for dinner at Chef Mickey’s restaurant at the Contemporary Resort. I have to admit, I was a little underwhelmed. The food was fine and the atmosphere was great, but for the money we spent, I wish we had tried something else. Character dining is expensive and we had seen these characters so many times by this point, that the girls were nearly as excited. Except when it came to Mickey & Minnie. Even I was excited to see them!
The most tragic part of losing my camera before evening, is that this is the only night we stayed in MK until dark. The girls hadn’t seen the castle all lit up and we hadn’t watched any fireworks yet. I hated not being able to get any pictures of them and the phone just doesn’t do it justice. The castle was beautiful, especially decorated for Christmas and the light show was spectacular. We waited on the curb for several hours, but we took turns walking and souvenir shopping until the parade came through. The Main Street Electric Parade is so cool and each of the floats are lit up with thousands of lights! We got lots of attention – the characters loved our girls and since the National Championship game was only days away and SD was wearing his ball cap, we got a TON of Roll Tides from Disney characters. Who knew the princes and the White Rabbit were such big fans?!
The last tragedy of the evening came in the form of rain. It pretty much poured while we waited on Wishes (the fireworks show) and not only did we get soaked, even in our ponchos, but Tinkerbell couldn’t fly out of the castle in the rain?! At this point in the evening, I shouldn’t have cared, Sophie had been asleep in her stroller for hours and Ella was cranky and ready for bed. By the time we got back to the monorail station, she was napping on her daddy’s head!
