Day 1-After working all day at the office, I arrive home at 2:30 ready to hit the road and guess what---Mr. iwannabeminnie is nowhere to be found. Not to worry, there are still a few things that need to be wrapped up. The dog and cat need to be boarded, the makeup case needs to be filled, the dishwasher unloaded. After 45 minutes I decide to give the missing a call. He is at one of the rentals repairing a leaking pipe. At about 5:30, Mr. Plumber shows up covered from head to toe in dirt. He jumps into the shower while I finish his last minute packing and by 6:00 we are on the road.
We arrive in Columbus, OH around 8:30. Yes, I said Columbus. You try getting a flight out of Indianapolis the week of Memorial Day. The hotel at the airport (Comfort Suites) was very nice. We had grabbed some Taco Bell in St. Mary's and stopped at a CVS near the airport so we were set for munchies. We tossed a bag of popcorn in the microwave, watched a little TV and turned in early. After all, the alarm clock was going off at 4:00 am.
Day 2-Yep, that's the alarm clock and it is 4:00. Mr. iwannabeminnie gets up and gets into the shower and I turn over and go back to sleep. Ten minutes later a squeaky clean man is poking me and telling me to get up. It doesn't take much to get me going, after all in just a few short hours I will be at WDW.
Our flight leaves at 6:00 so at 5:00 am we are catching the shuttle to the airport. It's a good thing we grabbed munchies, because the hotel was not serving breakfast yet at 5:00 am. We board our plane, the flight is uneventful and we arrive in due course at MCO. Magical Express was no problem as we have become pros at it by now.
We arrived at Port Orleans Riverside and checked in. My brother-in-law had been there earlier and checked his family in, checked his luggage and had headed back to the airport to return his rental car and to meet my sister and niece's plane. (He had arrived the prior week. He has a branch office in Orlando and was doing some work there.) When we checked in we asked that we be near Deanna and Jeff, so they did some rearranging and gave us connecting rooms. The down side was that we switched from a king sized bed to two fulls. We did sleep in separate beds for the entire week, Mr. iwannabeminnie being a taller person who need his space.
While we were waiting for Deanna, Jeff, and Christie to arrive we roamed the grounds and checked out the gift shop. I would definitely stay at Port Orleans Riverside again. We had requested a mansions room, but didn't get it. It was okay though. The bayou rooms were just fine.
The Magical Express bus FINALLY arrives bearing relatives. We dump their supplies, claim Jeff's luggage and take it all to our room since theirs wasn't ready yet. Then we head for the food court and some lunch. We had some pizza, some chicken quesadillas, some salad, some cheesecake, cookies, and carrot cake. We put all the food in the middle of the table and shared. That way we got to taste everything.
After lunch we head over to Epcot. We start touring World Showcase in Canada (Christie's choice). Christie got to see Mary Poppins in Great Britain and we were all thrilled. None of us had ever met Mary before.
Our tour of World Showcase continued pretty much as you might expect it. By dinner time we were in Morocco and had reservations for Restaruant Marrakesh. As some of you may already be aware, we had purchased the dining plan just for Deanna, Jeff, and Christie. We had used the "free" dining plan in October and WAY over ate. So the plan was to use the three meals to feed the five of us. We ordered the beef brewat roll, chicken bastilla, and Jasmina Salad for our appetizers. We ordered the lamb, lemon chicken, and beef kebob for our entrees and the pastry assortment for dessert. The food was okay. The service stunk. We got stuck in a corner next to the kitchen and the waiter acted as if he couldn't care less if we were there or not. When we told him we were using three meals to feed the five of us he became even less inclined to serve us. No extra tip for him!
After dinner we continued our tour. Christie became enamoured by Hidden Mickey's and we used Steve's book to locate all of them. We came out of The American Adventure about 10 minutes before Illuminations started and found a great place for viewing.
After Illuminations I whipped out a surprise. While we were in one of the shops in Canada Deanna and Jeff were talking to each other about the fact that it was their anniversary (21 years) and they were debating on splurging on a particular item. The cast member in the store asked me about it and I assured her that it was indeed their anniversary. She supplied me with a front of the line pass for Soarin' for the five of us. So we head over to Soarin' and take the back stage route to the front of the line. We all loved Soarin'. I think it might be my new favorite ride.
After Soarin' we headed for "home" and to bed. It was after 10:00 and we had all (except Jeff) started out very early that morning.
