Believe it or not, the french lady was interesting. She wasn't a tourist, she was a CM who had lived in Orlando for 12 years, had won her visa in the Lottery and was getting ready to take her citizenship test.
AKA : my dream.
I've entered the visa lottery every year since 1999.
Clearly, someone up there does
not want me to come "home"
We spent almost an hour chatting with her, then it was time to go and check in our new resort : Coronado Springs ! Our first time there.
Our first good suprise, the bus to CSR was nearly empty. And only took 10mns to bring us to the resort.
The CM at the checkin desk was nice enough. I asked if we were in the same building and he told us we had connecting rooms. I didn't know if I shoud be thankful for that or not. Probably not! But we had gotten the building I had requested, Casitas 5.
First off, we were all thirsty so we stopped by Pepper Market to buy us all mugs. Jessica then announced she wanted a "snack". We had an ADR at Whispering Canyon that night - Jess's first choice, but a "snack" couldn't hurt right ?
The "snack" turned out to be a double cheeseburger and fries.
I should have known what would happen.
Coronado Springs is SO pretty !!!
I knew we were going to love it here.
Grumpy changed into her bathing suit as soon as we got in the room and headed to the pool. Jessica and Alex, of course, took a nap.
Our ADR was somewhere around 5.30, and I assumed we'd need a cab to take us to Wilderness Lodge if we wanted to be on time. Grumpy came back from the pool about an hour later, and we went to wake the girls up.
"Do we
have to go to dinner ? I'm not hungry, but so tired. I could use a couple hours' more sleep."
To be honest, I wasn't dying to go to WCC either. The lunch at Coral Reef had been more than filling. Yet at the same time, I knew we'd have fun at WCC if we all went together. When we're a party of 2 they always stick us in the back room and we miss all the fun.
But I gave in. Okay, no Whispering Canyon. We could just go to MK around 7 to find a spot for Spectro and Wishes.
"Magic Kingdom
again ?? What for ? We did all those rides already. I'm not that crazy about fireworks."
We hadn't done a third of the park. And miss WISHES ??? What the heck was she talking about now???
"Wishes is so beautiful.Even better than Illuminations and you loved that."
"You said we'd have to stand. I'm way too tired to do that now. I think I just want to hang out here tonight."
What could I say to that ? She'd done
three rides at Epcot. Technically she had not even set a foot in World Showcase.
"Can someone please tell me why I bothered to plan this trip at all ? Every time I made a reservation I asked you, do you want to do this, is it too much, do you think you'll be able to handle that... and you kept saying yes yes yes no problem and here we are now not doing a third of what we could be doing!"
She just shrugged. She was tired. She couldn't help it. I was rushing them all too much.
"You guys do whatever you want tonight... by yourselves. You got tickets to Disney Quest, so if you want to do that take the bus to Downtown Disney West Side. The bus stop is right out here after the parking lot. See ya."
Grumpy & I ended up going to Downtown Disney too. I didn't have the heart to go to Magic Kingdom tonight. We shopped a little bit - okay, a lot - at World of Disney. Stupid me bought a bunch of pirate gear for us all to wear at the Pirate & Princess party in a couple days.
We had a nice dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express,shopped some more. I finally bought treats at Goofy's Candy Co. Marshmallows covered in chocolate and sprinkles, and the cutest Mickey sugar cookie.
At some point - it was about 8.30pm - Alex called and asked me where the bus stop was and how they could come back from Pleasure Island after it closed. I was glad that they were at least going out somewhere, even if it wasn't with us.
Grumpy & I just walked around DTD looking at the stores, took our sweet time, vented, and were back at CSR a bit after midnight.
I could hear Jess snore through the wall.