Part 11- December 11, 2001

Happy Birthday To Me!

Mickey called us at 8am to wake up.  Ugh!  It was a necessary evil, though, because we had an 8:30 PS for Whispering Canyon Cafe.  We ordered the breakfast skillet, and Nate told our waiter that it was my birthday, which led to me having to ride a stick horse around the restaurant while everyone sang Happy Birthday!  Then the waiter, Kirby, brought me a fabulous birthday cake, which included gummy worms.  Yum!  Of course, since it was still before 9am, it was a little early for cake, so I boxed it up for later.  The waiter pronounced "You've got to blow out those candles, this is a wood building!" as he sat the cake down. 

Nate was leaving for home today, so I saw him off, and then waited for my boyfriend Rich, who was showing up at 11.  We decided to go out to the Magic Kingdom, where we did Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Splash Mtn, Jungle Cruise, and then lunch at Pinnochio's Village Haus (How many times have I been there this trip?!)  Unfortunately, the balcony was closed again, so we had to eat with the commoners.  Unfair!

We did Buzz, where Rich managed to score 300,000 points in one shot, and therefore totally kicked my butt!  Stupid scores!

I wanted Rich to see the fireworks from the Polynesian beach, but we were just a tiny bit late, and ended up having to watch them from the MK monorail station, because the monorail wasn't allowed to run during the fireworks.  Somehow the monorail station isn't quite as romantic as the beach!

I have practically no notes for today, so let's just skip on to...

December 12,  2001

I woke up around 10am, and Rich and I ordered room service breakfast, and then went out to the bus stop to go to Epcot.  However, my stomach was really hurting (too much chocolate cake recently, maybe?), so I went back up to the room to nap until about 3:30, when I finally felt good enough to leave.  We took the Crockett bus to the TTC, because I wanted Rich to see how cool the monorail ride to Epcot was.  We rode Spaceship Earth, and stopped in Innoventions West to do the internet postcard.  Thanks to Nate and his awesome Spaceship Earth soda mug, my notes for today said "Get balls in Epcot!", so we stopped at the drink cart in Mexico to do just that!  We wandered around World Showcase, and Rich bought me the Starry Night mug I'd had my eye on in France for my birthday.  It's so cute!  We had wanted to have dinner at Le Cellier, but when we stopped by at 8pm, there was an hour wait, which meant we would miss Illuminations, so we decided to skip dinner in favor of fireworks.

  As you can tell by how brief this is, I don't have notes again!  I obviously get really lazy after being on vacation for so long!  I always think I'll just remember, but then I end up getting lazy, and not finishing the trip report until over 3 years later, and I have NO idea what I did!   So, let's skip forward again to...

December 13, 2001

Woke up at 10am, and packed up my stuff to go home :(  We decided to spend a few hours at Downtown Disney, since I had a ton of time before my flight, so we put my bags in his car, since I had to check out of the room, and went out to Marketplace.  I should probably be banned from the Christmas ornament store there, because I ended up spending almost $80!  Luckily, I got 10% off, so it was more like $72.  Still!  We got amazing smoothies from a kiosk that I don't remember (Forth-Thirst street, maybe?), and just wandered around for a while before going back to WL.  I was getting really sick of "vacation" food, and wanted something plain and boring, so I bought a hunk of cheese and some crackers in the gift shop, and picked up a plastic knife from Forks, and had a little "picnic" of cheese and crackers up on the 6th floor sitting area.  At 3:45, my Tiffany Towncar driver was there, so it was time to leave, so I said goodbye to Rich and Disney.  I could have kicked the driver for pointing out when we were leaving Disney property.  Thanks for rubbing it in!

And so ends my first "solo" trip to WDW.  It only took me three and a half years to get around to finishing my trip report, which I'm sure would have been much better if I had done more than the first 7 days back then!  Either way, this is what it's become, and it's finally finished!