Day 7 - December 14th
Magic Kingdom
Breakfast - Boardwalk Room Service
Lunch - Columbia Harbour House
Dinner - Beaches and Cream

So by the time we got through security and the ticket booths it was about 9:15am and we headed straight through the Rose Garden area and up and through the seemingly never-open Tomorrowland Noodle Station. We figured that we'd take a walk through Tomorrowland to get to Fantasyland.

Our first stop in Fantasyland would be Winnie the Pooh. None of us have ever been on this ride so we were all excited - including Amelia who was excited to do the "Pooh ride!" She loved it. Ernie was indifferent because he ended up eating throughout the entire ride! I love those dark rides for that very reason. :)  After the ride we picked up a fast pass to maybe use later. This ended up being a favorite ride of Amelia's. We thought we'd keep our stroller in that stroller parking area and just walk around Fantasyland from ride to ride at that point. We wanted to ride Dumbo next but the line was too long already. The next few rides we hit were Mickey's Philharmagic, Snow White, Peter Pan and It's a Small World.

We had a magic moment in Mickey's Philharmagic when Amelia reached out for Ariel's jewels. It was something EB and I had been talking about and waiting for for a very long time! We were both misty eyed!The only ride she seemed indifferent about was It's a Small World. She wasn't afraid as much as she was bored. We are secretly relieved about that! Sorry to all the IASW fans out there! And the Snow White ride was a little too dark for her. If she asks to go on it in the future we'll comply, but otherwise we won't be planning that ride again for a few more years.

Our first ride of the day!	Amelia and EB at the Winnie the Pooh ride.
	A nice guy offered to take a family picture of us outside the Pooh ride. Can you believe that is all the pictures I took at the Magic Kingdom this day? At the end of this day I was really surprised and vowed to not be such a slacker with picture taking from this point on.

After all of that excitement, we were getting hungry for lunch. Our favorite lunch spot, Columbia Harbour House, was soon opening so we made our way to Liberty Square. We ordered our favorites: vegetarian chili, french fries, hummus sandwiches and fried fish for Amelia. We all heartily ate and enjoyed every last bite. This is a great lunch spot!

Since we had done a lot of what we wanted to do this morning we decided to head out of the park for some quiet time in our villa. On our way out we walked through Adventureland in hopes of walking right on Pirates before we left for the day. The line was too long, so we thought we'd try The Tiki Room instead. Amelia liked it well enough and I was able to feed Ernie a bit more. Afterwards, Amelia was getting tired so we stopped at Aloha Isle to get my favorite snack - a Dole whip float - and Amelia an ice cream. We ate our treats as we walked out of the Magic Kingdom. We really had a WONDERFUL morning. Getting to the park so early is really the best strategy for us at this point in our lives. And for the most part we are all morning people in our house anyway.

We exited the Magic Kingdom and made our way to the Boardwalk bus stop. The bus was already there loading passengers so we really got lucky with the bus ride on the way back to our resort that very hot afternoon. We were the first stop and about 15 minutes after boarding the bus we were back at the Boardwalk.

I am trying to remember what we did that afternoon but I'm pretty sure it was filled with movie watching and coloring by Amelia. Eating and sleeping for Ernie. I know I had some work to do so this time worked out well for me being able to do some work, monitor the weather, call Delta to inquire about switching our flights, etc. The weather forecast was not looking good for Sunday and we were now afraid that we'd get stuck in Atlanta unable to get a flight into Avoca because of the storm. I had some issues with Delta agents telling me something other than what the policy was on their website. I called them a couple of times and each time they told me I'd have to pay fees to change our flight. Although their website clearly said I get a one-time change at no cost if I am trying to avoid flying into this storm. I let it go for that day and figured I'd try again later tonight or tomorrow.

We spent quite a bit of time in our villa, got some laundry done and our plan that evening was to head to MGM in hopes of meeting up with some friends to see Fantasmic! Around 4:30 we headed out of our villa and over to Beaches and Cream to get some dinner. Amelia was exhausted and unruly at this point because she didn't nap that afternoon back at our room. She was also getting a cold so we gave her some Tylenol Cold medicine and we think this really started to work on her. By the time dessert came to our table at Beaches and Cream, she was fighting to keep her eyes open. Just like the night prior, she almost fell asleep in her dessert. We laid her in the stroller and to our surprise with the aide of her binky and blanket, she fell sound asleep!

Amelia patiently waiting for her grilled cheese sandwich.	A view of the staff and counter at Beaches and Cream.
Amelia digging into her Mickey Mouse sundae - pre pass out. But...	Amelia soon started to give in to her tiredness. Poor thing!

We thought perhaps she'd wake up at some point so we figured we'd still head towards Fantasmic! If she was still asleep when we got there we'd mosey around MGM, catch the Osborne Lights and try to meet up with our friends after the 6:30 show. Well, by 7pm she was still sound asleep, we had already caught some of the Osborne Light Show and we were getting bored. We ditched MGM and thought since both EB and I were still awake and Ernie was sound asleep in our carrier on me, we'd walk over to Epcot instead. We were disappointed not meeting up with our friends, but after a phone call to them we thought we'd try again at Magic Kingdom the next morning.

Out of MGM we went and took a nice stroll toward Epcot. Along the way we walked the Boardwalk and ran into my Mom and Jeff. They were having pizza so we stopped and chatted with them for a while. They were leaving for home the next morning so they'd definitely get home before the storm started in Northeastern PA. After about 20 minutes of catching up with them EB, the kids and I headed out toward Epcot. Our only goal in Epcot at this point was to get EB some sushi in Japan and get out before Illuminations began. It happened to be an Extra Magic Hour evening therfore it was crowded to say the very least. We wouldn't have wanted to stay anyway because of the crowd level. This just solidified us wanting to be in the parks earlier in the morning instead of evening. Less crowds to deal with.

EB scored his sushi and we sat for a bit in a quiet spot in the Japanese pavilion courtyard. Both kids were still asleep and it was a really nice end to a very busy and fun-filled day.

EB scored his much anticipated sushi at the Japanese pavilion. He reported that it was really tasty! You can also see Amelia passed out in the stroller!

We headed out of Epcot around 8:30 and got back to our villa. Amelia woke up when we got into our room but we ended up getting her to sleep without as much fuss as previous evenings. Again, I did some work, checked out the weather, flight times, etc.

We needed to make a decision regarding our Sunday flight home. I thought perhaps we could try to get home the next day (Saturday) instead and saw one flight available. I thought I would try my luck with Delta again and this time I got a knowledgeable employee! I told her our predicament and asked if we could get on the afternoon flight the next day. She said she would be able to book it for us but the flight from Atlanta to Avoca she could not assign any seats to us (this means they were overbooking this small flight). I asked what would happen if we got to Atlanta and couldn't get seats. It meant we'd be stuck in Atlanta waiting for another flight. I looked at the other flights later that evening and not only were they much later in the evening, but the rest of them didn't go straight from Atlanta to our home airport. They had an additional stop in between. Neither EB nor I wanted to take that risk so our only option was to take our chance with Sunday or to wait until Monday. With the risk being so high on Sunday we decided to stay an extra day and fly home on Monday instead. With new flights scheduled, we now had to extend our van rental by a day, try to find a place to stay for an extra night (best case scenario would be to get an extension in our villa at the Boardwalk) and to find someone to watch our two greyhounds one extra day.

EB got the dog sitting covered and because we had an early morning ahead of us the next day, I vowed to take care of the rest of it on Saturday. Ok, I'm stressed out at this point but keep telling myself that it will work out.

There was fun to be had in the next couple of days and we were going to attempt to get to Magic Kingdom for opening!

Up next: Extending our stay, a hot day at Magic Kingdom and dinner at Jiko!

~DAY 8~

INDEX ~ PRETRIP ~ AFTERTHOUGHTS
ºOº DAY 1 ~ DAY 2 ~ DAY 3 ~ DAY 4  ~ DAY 5  ~ DAY 6  ~ DAY 7 ~ DAY 8 ~ DAY 9 ~ DAY 10   ºOº
Email me at cruisindisney@adelphia.net

Other Trip reports completed:
September 2005
May 2006
Upcoming: September 2008