Breakfast in the morning is served based on your dinner
seating the night before, and that meant that first dinner seating has their
breakfast at 6:45. (Or as Stanislav said, “Do not worry, we have coffee.”) It
was quite a shock to wake up at 6 AM and see that we were already in port.
Yeah, it was disappointing to see the dock outside our window. I can’t believe
that a week before I had taken a picture from the window so I would never
forget that view. Now I just wanted it to go away!
Our breakfast was in the Enchanted Garden, which was really
nice as it was right near our room, so we had less distance to cover with out
bags. Breakfast was good, and we got hugs from the servers on our way out. We
grabbed our CD of pictures and then it was time to head off the ship. It was
very strange how quiet everything was, probably because the second breakfast
seating folks weren’t up yet. Still, there was no sense staying on board, and
we hoped to beat the line to customs.
We walked down to customs, and were immediately greeted by a
porter who helped us find our seven bags. Yes, seven bags. We came on board
with five, I think. We didn’t buy much, so I have no clue how we got that many
bags filled, especially since we didn’t have many diapers left compared with
what we started. The porter loaded them all up and took us over to the customs
checkpoint. He looked at our form and asked us about what food we were bringing
back to the country. We said Gouda cheese, and he said he needed to call a
supervisor. (Gulp. Are we in trouble?) She said that it was a hard cheese, so
we were okay. Apparently raw milk cheese and some soft cheeses are a no-no. The
only other question she had was about how much something like that costs, as
she has someone going on vacation and she wanted them to buy some for a
souvenir, so she needed to know how much money to send with them.
The porter took us over to our car and helped us load the
bags, meanwhile telling us about Tropical Storm Beryl, which was heading this
way. Somehow we missed TS Alberto. Hearing him talk about it all, we realized
just how out of connection with the rest of the world we were. Ah, I miss that.
Bags all loaded and we were ready to go, pay our parking fee, and head out.
Yep, with our parking stub. Yep…which we put….uh….
My brain really wasn’t working, but eventually we found it
and were finally on our way. (Note to self, next time leave it in the car as
planned instead of taking it on board.) We drove back to Orlando, running in to
some dense fog along the way.
Even though it was a joy to go through the arches and into
Disney, it was still sad not to be on the ship. Yes, this is the first time
I’ve been sad to get to Disney.
We headed to our hotel (Old Key West resort) and checked in.
Of course the room wouldn’t be ready for a while, so we decided to venture out
and find a bank to replenish cash supplies and a grocery store to replenish
snacks and drinks. Lily fell asleep en route, so I ran into the store. We were
in the Doctor Phillips area, which is one area I had thought might be a good
option for relocation. A few minutes into driving around, we realized that it
was a little too yuppie-centric for us. (I don’t know if we decided that before
or after we saw the bakery for dogs, though.)
We headed to Downtown Disney and grabbed lunch at Fresh A
Peel (one of our faves). It was incredibly odd to pay for food instead of just
walking away with it. It also seemed that the drinks (non-alcoholic) were
horribly high priced compared to the cost of specialty drinks on board. Yes,
there’s something to be said about prepaid vacations! We did a little bit of
shopping and then headed back to the resort. Old Key West didn’t appear to have
a zero-entry pool, so swimming wasn’t going to be an easy option for us, plus
Lily and I sounded like walking dead, so we headed in to the Community Hall. (Originally
we had hoped to meet up with friends that afternoon, but didn’t want to risk
spreading our germs to them, so we were at a loss of what to do.) Erwin and I
caught up on our social networking sites and Lily colored some pictures while
we waited. The room was ready shortly thereafter, and we headed back to it.
The first thing that struck me about the one bedroom at Old
Key West was that the place is HUGE. This is the original DVC property, and I
guess they wanted to make a good impression. Especially after being on ship all
week, the place was like a cavern! Because we were all running low on clothes
at this point, we dumped almost everything out of our suitcases on the floor in
the living room and started laundry. So
yes, nice room and we made a huge mess with everything piled up there. (I
thought that since we were staying such a short time, we wouldn’t have
Mousekeeping come in because it was a DVC property, but because we were staying
on cash, they came in to service the room in the morning and saw our huge pile
of stuff. Oops. We also didn’t tip until the second morning because I totally
forgot about them. Double oops.)
That night, we had reservations for dinner at Olivia’s at
Old Key West. The food was pretty good, but it was a nice quiet place after our
noisy meals the week before. I hadn’t noticed any effects from being off the
ship until we sat down to dinner, and then we felt it. No idea why…but it is
what it is.
After dinner, we headed over to Epcot for the evening.
Crowds were pretty high (well, it was Memorial Day weekend). There was a 10-minute
wait for Spaceship Earth, but we did it because it’s tradition! We also did
Lily’s favorite ride (Living with the Land) and then did the Gran Fiesta Tour
ride in Mexico. Lily enjoyed that because, in her words, “Donald’s funny!” We
then headed to our secret spot for Illuminations, and I grabbed snacks for us.
That involved hitting multiple places between Germany and the U.S. as it is
getting harder to find Smartwater, and I wanted to get Lily some milk and “yums”
(rice krispie treats). I got back with about 5 minutes to spare and we watched
the fireworks. Last winter, Lily screamed and cried during the show, but this
time she enjoyed watching it—more or less. When the show was over, we asked how
she enjoyed the show and she just said “Home. Now.” She fell asleep before we
got to the front of the park, so we did a quick shopping run through MouseGear
and then headed back to the resort. She had a busy day tomorrow, so a good
night’s sleep was in order. We checked on T.S. Beryl and then called it a night
ourselves. It was still up in the air (literally) if it was going to be bad
enough of a storm such that we would be trapped at Disney for another day. Part
of me wanted that, but a good part of me was pretty vacationed out at this
point. And yes, I miss the movement of the ship, but thankfully I was tired
enough I got to sleep right away.
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