Once we arrived back at the Wilderness Lodge and the kids were off to Neverland, I decided Id go ahead and start organizing for that certain unpleasantness that must unfortunately take place at the end of every Disney vacation
check out.
The Check Out envelope had arrived during the day and it was mocking me with its dream dissolving reality
I didnt the like the obnoxious way it was sitting on the table
so I shoved it into the nearly empty bad but extremely fun and delicious vacation food drawer. So THERE! Try mocking me from a dark drawer you
VACATION RUINER!!!
*ahem*
I sorted and packed for about an hour. I had the lists of clothing we had brought with us, one for each of us. So I sorted all the clothing into piles and then checked everything off as it was folded and put into the bags. Lists make me feel organized. When I have the lists I dont need to *check* on things constantly. I used to have a problem with that
checking and re-checking
stupid things like checking to make sure I didnt leave the cap off of my cherry chapstick
it would bother me so much that Id have to make sure just ONE more time that I didnt forget to put the cap on the chapstick
Id get out of BED at night
in the middle of the night
just to check.
What?
Is that weird?
*ahem*
Anyhow
lists help me not be such a freak
And medication.
*ahem*
I was just about done when I found that I could not account for a pair of Sallys High School Musical socks and a pink tank top!
After a fruitless search of the room, I raced down the hall to the laundry room to see if I locate the rogue and wandering laundry!
Luckily Sallys I Love Troy socks and the pink tank were neatly folded and sitting on the counter.
Nice people at Disney! Thank you phantom clothing folder!!!
There happened to be a couple of ladies also in the laundry room doing some late night laundry and one of them asked the other if it was possible to get into Liberty Tree Tavern as a walk up
The other woman said,
I cant believe I know this
but there is this HUGE website on line called the DisBoards
(she pronounced it DISS-boards, Im not judging
it just made me wonder if others said DISS over DIZ
)and apparently you cant get into the Table Service places without a reservation. There are just pages and PAGES of Disney information! If I hadn't found that board when I did, we wouldn't have been able to get reservations at ANY of the sit down restaurants!!
I had to laugh as I identified myself as a Disboard member!
Then I sat myself down and had a nice little chitty chat with these lovely women about the Disboards. I told them about the Trip Reports board and they were both amazed that such a board existed.
You mean people actually sit down and write about their trips?
They do indeed!
Heres a shout out to Diane and Elaine!!!
I finally had to get myself back to the room so I could get into bed. I was so exhausted I could have curled up right there in the laundry room
but I thought that would be weird.
So I said good-bye to my laundry room friends and headed back down the hall.
Once everything was packed and organized and ready to go, and clothes were laid out for the morning, I was able to climb into bed next to my sleeping husband. My last thought was
Tonga Toast for breakfast tomorrow!!
It was a good way to drift off to sleep!
The morning arrived all too quickly...thanks in part to Teddy waking up at around 4:30 with tummy problems. Poor baby. I ended up giving Teddy a bath at 5ish, getting a bottle of Pedialyte into him, tucking him back into bed and *praying* he would sleep for a bit longer. (Pedialyte made our lives SO much easier when they started making the "singles" bottles. We never go anywhere without Pedialyte singles packs!) Teddy's dehydration issues can be scary and they moved swiftly, Teddy will go from seemingly fine to unconscious inside of 20 minutes! Pedialyte heads all that off at the pass!!
Thankfully Teddy went right back to sleep and didn't wake up again. Unfortunately I was awake and that was that. So I took a shower and power planned for the day!
Everybody else was able to enjoy Stitch waking them up one more time!
Sally was just as annoyed with him on this morning as she had been on the first.
Everyone was up and moving pretty quickly though. All except dear Teddy.
He was sleeping like a rock.
which was good.
I let him be.
I got Sally showered and moving and then figured I'd better wake Teddy. We'd need to shake a tail feather to make our ADR on time!
I gave Teddy a little shake and told him it was time to GET MOVING!! NO SLEEPING!!
I got a sleepy smile and I have a headache.
Which is NOT good.
I asked Jay to throw me another bottle of pedialyte.
I opened it up and handed it to Teddy and told him to drink it up.
Teddy knows full well what headaches and dehydration mean, so he was more than willing to cooperate. Hes not a big fan of IVs. Me either buddy!
So while Teddy hydrated and Sally got dressed and Jay was in the shower, I decided to get on with the death march of check out.
It actually went really quickly.
Which was nice.
We arranged to have Bell Services keep our bags while we were at Magic Kingdom for the morning. Our car was picking us up at Wilderness Lodge at 4:30 pm. So we had a good amount of time get those last day things done!
I took this picture while I was checking out b/c it was the oddest pairing I think I've ever seen...an armadillo fixin to smooch a frog...odd, but very cute! Armadillos remind me of home!
When I got back to the room, Teddy was sitting on our bed fresh from ANOTHER bath and drinking his pedialyte. Jay said Teddy had seemed really sluggish and unresponsive, so Jay dunked Teddy into another bath to wake him up some more. He was one clean kid! Jay and I were both worried that Teddy was going to need a trip to the doctor. Not a fun way to end our trip. But he seemed o-kay-ish right now. He was awake and drinking his pedialyte and munching on Cheerios. So we'd just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best!
It was nearing 8:15. We had our ADR for Kona Café set for 9:30.
Due to Teddy 's bath, Jay was late getting into the shower! He was going to have to MOVE IT!!!
Sally was the lone picture of calm and goodness! AND she had a cold Diet Coke ready for me when I walked in the door!
Gotta love that girl! She knows her step mama well! She was also dressed and ready to go! Bonus points for Sal!!! I pulled her hair up and did a braid for her and declared her finished!
Jay and I went over the game plan through the bathroom door while the kids watched Stacy. I kept throwing reminders to Teddy to take the next step in his attempt to get dressed.
The conversation went like this:
Jay: So after breakfast, if Teddy is feeling okay, should we try to hit Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain?
Me: yeah that sounds
Teddy now put your SHIRT on please
good to me. I think Teddy just needs to get his blood pumping a bit. I know that Sally wanted to ride Thunder Mountain once more.
Jay: Are we just going to do lunch at one of the counter service places?
Me: Yeah I was thinking
Teddy, shirt ON right now please
Columbia Harbor House maybe? Something with air
Okay Teddy, now put the other arm in
conditioning.
Poor Teddy. He was on slow motion so his ability to get dressed in a normal time frame was non existent. I helped him get the rest of the way dressed for fear that we'd NEVER get out of here otherwise!
Finally everyone was clothed and ready to get a move on in a timely manner!
It was time to bid our final good-bye to our Disney home. Teddy hugged the bunk beds on his way out!
Both kids waved a good-bye to our back yard ducks!
We headed down the dock and hopped on the boat. We were going to catch the monorail to the Poly!!!
I was excited to see the Polynesian! Id never been over there and Id heard such wonderful things about it. Not to mention the joy that is Tonga Toast at the Kona Café
and the COFFEE!!! I love good coffee. Its hard to find on property at Disney. Ive heard Disney coffee described as brown swill on a number of occasions. But the coffee at Kona is legendary!! YAY!! More caffeine for ME!!!
Teddy seemed a little perked up after his pedialyte, but he wasnt quite his normal bouncy self. I had back up bottles of pedialyte in my bag. I intended to flood him throughout the day!!!
As we hopped onto the monorail, we all had to comment one last time on how it smelled like a barn. Were creatures of habit.
Upon arrival at the Poly, we were greeted at the door with an Aloha from a friendly CM!
Teddy responded with Ohana!
Teddy is pretty fluent in Disney!
We all thought that the greenery at the Poly was just beautiful!!
Sally took this one!
The lobby elicited a lot of "WOW!" from Teddy! The kids were both pretty enthralled with the "jungle inside"!
Love the orchids!!!
We had some time before our ADR, so after ooohing and ahhhing over the greenery, we browsed a bit at Trader Jacks!
Yall know how I love to browse!!
The kids both had a quite a bit of their Disney money left to spend, a lot more than I had thought they would at this stage. So when they both found something they thought was pretty neat, I reminded them that they had Disney money just BEGGING to be spent!
Sally got a little back pack with a stuffed Pluto inside it
Plutos feet were sticking out the bottom of the backpack. It was pretty cute. This would be Sallys second Pluto lovey purchase of the trip! Sally is a DOG person!
Teddy found a tub-o-aliens. It was literally a tub of about 30 of the little green aliens from Toy Story. Teddy LOVES those aliens! Hes played with those things a TON over this year. They are bath toys and sometimes they serve as townspeople in a
Lego Town or a Lincoln Logs settlement. They were well worth the money!
Finally it was time to head over to The Kona Café!!! Which was good, b/c my tummy was rumbly!
We checked in at the podium and we were seated promptly! Coffee was immediately produced for my enjoyment.
Oh the heaven of Kona Coffee.
If a person could marry coffee
this would be my man!
Sally and Teddy both ordered Mickey Pam-cakes as Teddy calls them, and a fruit cup. Much to Teddys delight (not really) I produced another bottle of pedialyte for him to enjoy along with his orange juice! He was still looking pale and Jay and I didn't want to take any chances! He doesnt hate the stuff, but its not his favorite drink in the world. He was a good boy though and managed a good bit of it.
The kids dived into their food before I could get a picture and I figured nobody would want to see a picture of mangled pam-cakes.
I ordered the Tonga Toast. I was ready for a sweetness overload! I was NOT disappointed!! Absolutely Heaven on a plate...of course I'd gone way over my sugar quota for like...the WEEK...but it was SO worth it!!
Tonga Toast in its pristine condition...isn't it pretty?
The yumminess within!
Jay was starving and grouchy so he ordered The Big Kahuna!
He was very happy with his TROUGH of food
We all thoroughly enjoyed our final vacation meal at Kona Café. It was a great way to start the day. Everybody had a happy full tummy and I was buzzing with my caffeine/sugar high!
After leaving the café we decided to wander around just a bit more. We were surprised to find that the Poly is not all one building the way The Wilderness Lodge is, so we couldnt see as much as we thought we could. We certainly could have figured out how to see more of the resort, but we didnt have all that much time
so the Bou Tiki shop would have to do!
While Jay and Teddy took a quick break to powder their noses, Sally and I wandered and browsed. I love the Island theme here! Id had a Hawaiin roommate one year in college and Id loved her laid back Island Style. I learned to call flip flops slippers
she even taught her haole (me) roommate some pidgin!! (sort of the language of the locals). I loved living with her! She was a kick. She was very beautiful and men frequently and rudely stared at her. Her response to the staring was to say What? I owe you money?
This was usually enough to stop the staring.
I had originally thought this phrase was unique to Julie...until I heard some of her fellow Hawaiins use it on occasion!
Hi Julie!!!
Anyhow
random story...back to the task at hand!!!
As we browsed, Sally found a Buzz Lightyear Jibbit and asked if she could buy it for Teddy b/c he wasnt feeling well.
Sally has such a kind heart.
I found a Stitch Jibbit (is Jibbit the singular form of Jibbitz?
let's pretend it is!) to go along with the one Sally picked out and a couple of Princesses for Sally just b/c it was our last day and I felt like spending money on overpriced shoe ornaments!
As I was paying for the Jibbitz the CM at the cash register asked where we were from. I told him and it turned out that he was from New Jersey originally too. I asked him how he liked working for Disney and living in Florida.
His response was less than enthusiastic. He said he that Orlando had some dangerous areas and one had to very careful where they went at night. He then went on to tell me that the murder rate in Florida was higher than anywhere else in the states.
wow...I thought New Jersey held that distinction
*ahem*
Sally was standing close by and I really didnt want her to hear about the dark side of working for Disney so I asked if she could find me a shirt with Donald AND Daisy on it. Sally LOVES to have a mission so she dashed off in search of the Ducks on a shirt! (I was pretty sure Donald and Daisy were not on any shirts in this shop, but I knew shed search with gusto whether she found one or not!)
I was actually very interested to hear the CMs take on Disney as an employer. I was glad that Jay wasnt around to hear it though!! He might just change his mind about "retirement" plans to move to Florida and work for Disney!
I thanked the CM for his information and went off to find Sally
who had not been able to find the shirt I had asked for.
Oh well.
*ahem*
Teddy was delighted at the Jibbitz we picked out for him. Sally even tolerated his exuberant hug!
He looked a little better
not as pale. He was skipping around, which is always a good sign.
It was time to head to the Magic Kingdom.
The monorail arrived at the platform just a minute or so after we did!
last picture of the Poly greenery!
We hopped on the monorail and we were at our destination in no time at all!
I gotta tell y'all...I can see why people shell out the cash to stay at the monorail resorts! If Sally and Teddy had been little bitty still, the convenience of the monorail alone would have been worth the extra cost! Jay wholeheartedly agreed! (I'll just tuck that little tidbit away for when/if I have a baby of my own...but Honey, YOU agreed that the Poly was worth the extra cost...remember?
)
Up next: Departure day Part II
Anyway, I digress...this TR is just the best thing I have read in a long time.
) that you have another trip scheduled this summer. Hope you have a great time and I can't wait to hear about it. You've inspired me to actually consider writing my own TR when we get back 
Fresh Tex-mex cuisine, Home made tortillas, Melt in your mouth Barbecue, and decadent Pecan Pie 
As for snow, we call snow shovels grain scoops.
to you and yours.
Yes life is slower in the south, even in my city which is bigger then G.Boro( and we have the army guys flying,,um I mean driving , around here. Tastycakes I seem to remember those from when I lived in NY eons ago. As for moving here Cammie, oh ya, I agree once he gets used to strangers saying hi and the slower pace I think he will love the south.
I really hope that you will write a new one for your August trip!
