The Last Few Hours At Disney
Dining Plan Balance -$9.63 - $112.78 = -$122.41
After breakfast (and my honey’s mandatory post breakfast cigarette), we headed straight for Test Track. The park had just opened and the wait time posted was already 20 minutes. Once we had designed our car, the line stopped moving. The ride was down. We waited for a few minutes. Jamie said that he needed to find a restroom so he left Madilyn and me in line. We waited a few more minutes and did end up getting to ride. Unfortunately, there was no photopass photo of this ride.
We headed towards the back exit and caught a boat back to The Boardwalk. Maddy changed into some more comfortable clothes and we finished packing. We weren’t in a real rush so we took our time packing and enjoyed a few last minutes out on the balcony. We carried our carry-on bags to bell services and our checked bags to the airline check in desk. That desk was literally right below our room! We received our boarding passes (Early Bird Check In was totally worth it for us!) there as well and were told that the bus would be taking us to airport at 3:00 for our 6:30 flight.
We took a boat back to Epcot and spent a good bit of time exploring parts of the World Showcase we had missed the night before. Madilyn started coloring a Duffy in England and worked on it through several countries. I know that she had it stamped in England, France, Morocco, and Germany. I wanted to meet Aladdin and Jasmine in Morocco, but the line was really long and moving very slowly so we didn’t meet them this trip, either. I used our last two snack credits in Germany for cookies which I ended up giving to my parents when we got home. In Norway, Jamie was sweet enough to offer to buy me a bottle of Laila. I love the way that perfume smells so I took him up on the offer. Now I get to smell like Epcot every day!
We were heading to Soarin’ for our first FP+ experience of the day, but were side tracked by a certain bear. Disney did a really great job marketing this guy while we were there. There was a movie about him on every night and the book that followed the same story line was widely available.
Duffy liked the Duffy fan Maddy had colored.
We rode Soarin’ and headed to Mission Space for our next FP+ experience. We all really love both of these!
It was time for us to head back to The Boardwalk and catch our bus to the airport. We were walking through The World Showcase when a wall opened and out came Minnie, Pluto, Brier Bear, Stitch, and Pooh. I had heard of Characterpalooza in Hollywood Studios, but I wasn’t aware that this happens in Epcot! I didn’t take out my camera as we really needed to head back to the room, but since Maddy was one of the only kids in the immediate area, she was able to get hugs from Minnie and Pluto. It was a really nice farewell to Disney!
We refilled our mugs at Boardwalk Bakery. Neither they nor Seashore Sweets would swap out our remaining three quick service credits for snacks. They said we could buy a meal, but we weren’t really hungry. We were hoping to get some sweets to take home with us, though. I sent Disney customer relations a letter after we got home addressing the very magical and not so magical experiences on our trip. A few days later, I received a phone call from an extremely nice cast member. She gave me some non-expiring fast passes for a future trip and a $15 refund for each unused quick service credit.
We collected our carry-on luggage from bell services and waited about fifteen minutes for the Magic Express bus to pick us up. Unlike the bus that brought us to Disney (which only had about six people on board), this bus was pretty full. We took the fake-o-rail back across the airport.
The line to get through security was pretty long, but moved quickly. I was concerned about my new perfume which was in my purse, but no one said anything about it. Once we made it through security, Jamie got a Mountain Dew and I got a mocha frappuccino from Starbucks.
Maddy enjoyed looking out the window at our ride home.
My grandmother called to check on us just before we were called to board the plane. Our flight home was pleasant and uneventful. I do love the attitudes of Southwest’s flight crew. They were really fun to be around! For example: “In the even that you do need to put on your oxygen mask, start with your own mask then move to the child with the highest earning potential!” Hillarious!
Once we landed in Birmingham, we grabbed our bags, took the shuttle back to the parking lot, and headed home. We did stop at Chick-Fil-A in Tuscaloosa.