Our first day began with a 7:00 am flight, which arrived in Orlando at 9:00 am. Our twin daughters took Magical Express with all our bags, and my Mr. Mouse and I headed to pick up our rental car. It was a Ford Taurus, a hybrid. Our personal car is a Ford C-Max which is also a hybrid. We had not been notified that our room was ready, so we headed to Magic Kingdom to meet up with another of our daughters and her family. FM has really bad knees, and uses her own personal scooter, also known as an ECV. It was the first problem of the day. Although we knew that the scooter was fully charged, it had no power. As my granny would say, it's "get up and go had got up and went". I've never liked the TTC; but when Mr. Mouse has to push the scooter to get it up the ramps, it makes me irritable. We had a pleasant day with the three girls, the two grandkids, and Jimmy (the son-in-law who is a natural born comedian. No matter what the problem, Jimmy finds a way to brighten the day. We all had lunch together at Columbia Harbour House, one of my favorite places to eat in Magic Kingdom. We visited the Hall of Presidents, air conditioned and as the girls say, a great day to take a a nap. And then we walked across the street to the handicapped viewing area to watch the 3:00 parade. We met Gaston, posed for photos and got autographs. We went to see Philharmagic, one of my favorite shows. As I'm writing this, I just realized that I didn't get to the Big Top Souvenir store, another of my favorites. Not only do they have great souvenirs, but they sell incredible caramel apples and fudge.
Mr. Mouse, the twins and I had reservations for dinner at Be Our Guest. Usually when we eat there, we are seated in the West Wing, but this year we ate for the first time in the grand ballroom.
We were seated down near the windows at the end of the room, and you could sit and watch it snowing in the windows. It was very beautiful, but also very noisy. We didn't eat too much because we were scheduled for the Wishes Fireworks Dessert Party. We arrived around 8 p.m. and were welcomed with a champagne flute of apple cider. So far, so good. The tables were beautiful -
but they were soo close together. Once I was at the table, Mr. Mouse had to move my scooter out of the way, and my chair was tight against the rope that separated the dining area from the food restocking area. In order for the people at the table next to us to get up to go to the buffet, Mr. Mouse had to stand up and slide his chair in to give them room to pass. The desserts were mediocre at best. The cannoli were soggy on the bottom, the chocolate covered strawberries were mushy in the middle, and the canteloupe was hard. Without the scooter, I had to depend on the rest of my party to get my desserts. The selection of beverages were also limited. I chose milk, because I couldn't see having hot chocolate in 90 degree weather. And for this we paid $50/person! The view of the fireworks was amazing, but I don't think it was worth the $200 for the four of us. The dessert party was probably the biggest disappointment of our trip.
We had reserved a room with a roll in shower. We got back to our room after the dessert party to find that our room did not have a roll in shower. We had been up since 3:15 that morning, and I didn't feel like fighting for a shower, so I adapted the Scarlett O'Hara attitude. I'll think about it tomorrow.
Tomorrow - Day 2
