Crowds, two parks, flowers, lots of food and a plane ride home

Our last day had dawned! We had planned on having an early breakfast at the Contemporary at The Wave. But with Tom having suffered from too much sun the day before we decided to sleep in a bit instead. So we got up shortly after 7am and started to pack up the rest of our stuff, when at 7.30 there was a knock at the door. Our first thought was that it could only be Tina as no one else knew where we stayed.

Imagine our surprise when we opened the door and there was Mousekeeping in front of the door, asking if we were ready to leave yet! No, we are NOT ready yet to leave, now, we will take some time until we are ready to vacate the room. We were finally ready to head out the door at around 9am. All our stuff was loaded into the car, one last walk around the room and a walk over to the lake before we finally walked over to the car, got in and off we went. We had cancelled our reservation at The Wave, as Tom just didn’t feel like it, but since we needed to have some breakfast we drove over to the Polynesian to find out if we could have breakfast at the Kona Café. Car parked we headed up to the check in desk where there was a long line. Once at the front of the line we asked and without a reservation we were told it would be around an hour’s wait. Thanks but no thanks, so we went over to the Monorail to ride it over to the Grand Floridian, to find out if we could try our luck at the Grand Floridian Café.

When we walked outside that a Monorail was already inside the station and the Cast Member there even opened the gates for us again to still get on. One more stop later we got off again and went downstairs to the Grand Floridian Café. We asked about a table for two and were told that it would be a 15 minute wait. That was really okay with us and we took our buzzer and went over to the stores to do some window shopping. We had not even seen half of the tiny shop when the buzzer went off. So we made our way back to the check-in desk, where a friendly Cast Member was already waiting for us to take us to our table. We were seated at a small table next to a huge family with very well behaved children. Our server was quick to visit our table and we both placed our drinks orders, some Coffee for Tom and some tea for me. Thankfully in a resort like the Grand Floridian, you get a choice of tea and I chose my favourite, Earl Grey Tea. While our server went to fetch our drinks we had a good look at the menu and made our mind up about what to order. I love everything and anything citrus and they offer a Seasonal Citrus Salad, so we ordered one to start us, or mostly my meal off. Tom ordered the Eggs Benedict - Two Poached Eggs on a Toasted English Muffin, Canadian Bacon, and Hollandaise Sauce served with Asparagus. I wanted to try the Lobster Eggs Benedict - Two Poached Eggs, Lobster Bread Pudding, Asparagus, and Hollandaise Sauce.

I had read about them some time before and the idea of having lobster for breakfast sounded just too tempting. Both breakfasts lived up to our expectations. Since Tom still wasn’t feeling all well we took our time and once we had finished our meal, we paid our bill and used the elevator to get up to the Monorail. We always spend our last day at the Magic Kingdom and that is what we wanted to do. The next Monorail was there in just a few minutes and we were on our way to the Magic Kingdom in no time. When we arrived there we were shocked. There were large crowds of people, both at the security check and at the turnstiles. But nevertheless we wanted to try any way. We joined a queue for the security check and were through it within a few minutes, then it was on to join another queue in front of the turnstiles.

While on the ride we talked about how we would spend the next 4 hours and we didn’t see much to do there, so why not get back on the Monorail and ride it over to Epcot. So this is what we did. We made our way back to the exit, vowing to be back to properly say goodbye to the castle. There were not many people leaving the Magic Kingdom at that time, so the ride back to the Ticket and Transportation Center was a quiet one.

We changed Monorails and within a short time we were at Epcot. There were crowds too. The line for Spaceship Earth snaked around both sides of the ride. But when we got up to the fountain we saw that they had added quite a few more topiaries for the Flower and Garden Festival. So we knew we were on a mission to find as many as we could and to take as many photos as possible.

They had added a few new topiaries, around the fountain, Winnie the Pooh and his playful friends were towards the bridge that leads to World Showcase and after a visit to MouseGear, we decided to take a leisurely stroll around World Showcase before having to get back to the Magic Kingdom, to bid our final goodbyes. We walked to our left and walked right into Mexico.

We visited the Pavillion again, had a good look around the market inside and watched the artists paint a few more animals before we headed to their neighbours, Norway. Looking around we did not find anything new, so off to China we went. We thought about getting some lunch there, but the little restaurant was packed, so we just moved on. We crossed the bridge over to Germany and there were new topiaries.

SnowWhite and the seven dwarfs. We waited our turn to take some photos and then moved towards the shops. Since we had enjoyed the caramel popcorn so much earlier in the week we picked up a small bag of it and a  piece of the caramel and marshmallow roll. The caramel popcorn got stowed away and we saved the roll for dessert. But first we needed to find some lunch. We’re both not huge fans of the German restaurants, so we walked on. Italy doesn't have a Counter Service Restaurant, so we had to walk past it. The Liberty Inn in the World Showcase America had a new designer burger. Tom still didn’t feel perfectly alright so we decided to share an Angus burger topped with smoked ham, bacon, smoked Gouda cheese, red onion, tomato, pickle, lettuce and mustard aioli sauce. The burger itself was nice and tasty but the bun was dry and fell apart as soon as you picked it up. There was more than enough for both of us to share and instead of dessert I tried the Caramel-Marshmallow Roll I had bought at the Karamell Kueche.It was very good, but very sweet. Once we had finished our meal we walked back outside and continued our walk around the world, by snapping more photos of new topiaries that had been put up. There was Aladdin on a flying carpet in Morocco and the enchanted characters from Beauty and the Beast in France. Over in Britain we found Peter Pan and Captain Hook and their favourite crocodile.

Time was running out, since we wanted to go back to the Magic Kingdom, so we continued on towards Spaceship Earth, hoping that maybe the line would be short and we would be able to ride it. No such luck, the line was pretty long and so we said goodbye to Epcot and headed over to the Monorail. Tronorail was just pulling out and we slowly crept up the walkway to the loading area. We found a spot to wait for the next one and waited, and waited and waited some more.

Finally the next Monorail pulled in, we grabbed a seat and off we went. At the Ticket and Transportation Center we changed Monorails and soon were on our way to the Magic Kingdom. We usually spend our last day at the Magic Kingdom, so we wanted to end our trip with our traditional last park of a vacation. There were long lines at the security checks and again long lines at the turnstiles as well. It was getting pretty late for us, but we wanted to at least walk along Main Street before heading to the airport. So we walked along Main Street and found some Photopass photographers to snap a few last pictures of us. When we were up at the Partners statue we asked a nice Photopass girl to take our photo and she did and we got into a little conversation and mentioned that we were on our way home.

But she did not let us go without a few fun shots and after we were done with those, we headed back to the exit, waved goodbye to the castle, walked under the railway station and left the park. We hopped on the next Monorail over to the Polynesian where are car was still parked. Once we were there, we walked around the resort one last time, used the bathroom and off we went outside to the car.

Once we were there, we walked around the resort one last time, used the bathroom and off we went outside to the car. One more stop before it was really time for the drive to the airport. Every trip our last stop is Downtown Disney for one last meal at Wolfgang Puck’s Express. So when we entered the parking lot we were shocked as it said both parking areas close to World of Disney were full. Well, we tried anyway and really found a space to park our car pretty close to “Once Upon A Toy”. In no time we were on our way over to Wolfgang Puck’s. I always have pizza that last day, but Tom didn’t trust his stomach, so he decided to have some salad. He tried the Chinois Chicken Salad, a very generous helping of crispy wontons, cashews, ginger and sesame honey dressing. I went with one of my all time favourites,  the Four Cheese Pesto Pizza, mozzarella, fontina, parmesan and goat cheese, topped with pesto and a lot of torn basil. So good. Tom opted out of dessert, so we only ordered one of their wonderful Crème Brulees! Once we had finished our meal it was really time to say goodbye to Walt Disney World and hit the road to get back to the airport.

The ride there was pretty uneventful and we soon arrived at the Dollar car return. We unloaded the car, put everything on a cart and off we went. The line at the Lufthansa counter was not too long and within 20 minutes we had made it to a check-in desk. We had done the online check in but since we didn’t have access to a printer we still needed our boarding passes. Once we held them in hand we walked around the airport, looked through some of the shops, avoided the airport Krispy Kreme seller and finally went through the security check. Once inside we used the little Monorail to get to our departure gate, but before we actually arrived there, we stopped at one of the shops to pick up neck cushions. We had never used any before, but since we have trouble sleeping why not try those. The seller there offered us a huge bag to put in all our other little stuff and we happily accepted and made our way over to the departure gate. We had to wait for a while and while we sat there we used our computer and went online to say goodbye to our American friends. A half hour before departure the gate opened and we were allowed to board. Again our seat was in the last but one row as we just wanted to be in a two seat row instead of a three seat row. For quite some time the row behind us stayed empty but shortly before we left an older couple got in the seats. They were very excited about their past trip and told everyone about it. Now the man got up a lot of times before we even started to rearrange his belongings which were in the same compartment as ours. Once we were airborne we decided not to wait for dinner, but to go to sleep right away. We kept our seats upright so the people behind us would be able to easily have their dinner and put them back once they were done. So after having taken some sleeping aid, we closed our eyes and dozed off. When I woke up most of the people were asleep and the cabin was dark. I woke up because the man behind us was checking the overhead locker again. I put my seat back, closed my eyes and went off to dreamland again.