Friday, December 2, 2011

Disney 2011--Days 8 and 9

Our final day at Disney had--until we discovered Dakin's fear of characters--one final breakfast with Mickey.  So not going to happen.  We cancelled it and headed to EPCOT instead.  



EPCOT was lovely.  We got to see a real cranberry bog, complete with man in hipwaders--thank you, Ocean Spray.  We also got to visit France (and I got to speak French with a REAL French person for the first time in I don't know how long--FYI I majored in French, so I miss it) and some other countries.  They were having the International Food Festival, so we more or less ate our way around the world.  We did, however, skip the other section of EPCOT, as the small one was getting tired and, despite having promised to go on a ride, flatly refused to do so once we got to the park.  Oh well...we had fun walking around the world!


We came home in the early afternoon only to discover that our hotel had been taken over by TREKKIES.  I kid you not.  We couldn't even park in the handicap section--it was all full of Trekkie mobiles.  ANYWAY. 


For our final night at Disney, we decided to go down to the Benihana that was in our hotel, and ended up seated next to two people dressed in Star Trek regalia.  Interesting dinner conversation...thankfully Daddy and I are both pretty big Sci-Fi nerds (though not so much with Star Trek) that we could carry on a decent dinner conversation.  Dakin oscillated between thinking the guy cooking our food in front of us was really cool to trying to hide from him. To the sweet chef's credit, he made a Mickey head out of fried rice for him and a zucchini and onion train. 


Leaving the trekkies behind, we headed one last time over to Downtown Disney for a few last minute purchases.  It was crowded as heck, so we didn't stay long, but it was a nice way to end the night. 


Next morning up bright and early to the airport, where we were greeted by our very own TSA team to help us (I had called and chatted with the TSA Director at MCO).  Say what you will about the TSA, but we were treated very nicely in all our interactions with them...this team helped us through check-in, security, and stayed with us all the way to the gate.  Unfortunately, our experience with American Airlines was more or less the polar opposite of what we had experienced on the way out, so I have nothing good to say about them. 

The only cool thing on the flight home was that we flew parallel to the coast--Dakin (sitting on my lap again) and I got to see the Gulf Coast all the way from Florida to Texas.  It was amazing!

Of course, once we landed all heck broke loose.  WALKING OUT OF THE PLANE--I mean, two steps outside of the plane door--Dakin's circuit fell off and broke.  Oh yay.  So we had to bag him all the way to the luggage claim, which was fun for him but not for us, and the spare we had in the luggage didn't work great either.  So I worried all the way home until we could get a new one on.


And that, folks, is almost all of our trip!  I do have one more entry I want to make--about some very special friends we got to see while in Florida.  


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