February 2017 at Port Orleans French Quarter

Tusker House was soooooo good! You won't regret a reservation there!

Friday, February 10th

Recap of the Day:

Last day. Wah wah. We started the morning pretty early so that we could get packed up, complete airline check in and drop off our luggage, and still make it to Epcot in plenty of time for rope drop. Things went smoothly until we got to airline check in. Now generally they only ask to see one person in your party's ID at the resort for airline check in, and thank goodness it was me up at the counter or I might have not realized this until we got to the airport but....my ID was missing. Oh crap.

Last place I had remembered having it was when I got a drink outside of Expedition Everest while it was Jon's turn in the single rider line. We tore apart the stroller and the suitcase of dirty laundry to see if it was in the pockets of either of the pair of shorts we had worn, or maybe had fallen out of the pocket into the suitcase. No such luck. While Jon continued searching, I ran up to the front desk to see if I could get a phone number for Animal Kingdom guest services. The lady at the front desk told me that it would have been moved to their centralized lost and found by this point, but they didn't open until 9am so I would have to wait until then. After another 15 minutes of panicking, searching, and calling Southwest and TSA to figure out what I would need to do in order to get on the flight without my ID (filling out a bunch of paperwork and having some other form of identification, even a prescription, it turns out will get you through security) we decided that there was not much else we could do at this point and so we should just continue on with the rest of our last day and make the best of it.

We called for an Uber since we were running so behind now and we arrived at Epcot within a few minutes of rope drop. As we got out of the car, I got ahold of Disney Lost and Found and, after a few minutes of looking through the office, the cast member reported to me that they had indeed had my ID turned in. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! So it all worked out in the end but why oh why must our departure days always be so drama ridden?

We entered the park and headed straight to Joy and Sadness where we waited only a few minutes before having an absolutely awesome meet and greet. I was shocked at how much time they spent with her and honestly, I was the one to finally cut it off since I knew we had a breakfast reservation to get to. My favorite part was when we told them that Penny was from Minnesota which they went nuts for and gave her lots of hugs. Joy and Sadness also took her around the room to play with the memories and the control panel. It was a great meet.

We trekked back through International Gateway to Captain's Grille at Yacht Club where we had a relaxing breakfast. I had the shrimp and pepper jack cheese grits (with poached eggs, wilted spinach, and roasted tomatillo salsa) which was very good, and Penny and Jon both did the buffet. I had heard that the buffet here is awesome but we were pretty underwhelmed by it. There was nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary, just a pretty standard breakfast buffet. Maybe something has changed?

Back into World Showcase we took some pictures at one of the International Festival of the Arts setups and then we explored France for a bit while we waited for the rest of World Showcase to open.

By the time we were done looking around and taking a bathroom break, however, we had to restructure our plan a little bit and head back to Canada because I had heard rumor that there would be a Character Training at 11:20. We hung out by the pin booth outside of World ShowPlace while 11:20 came and went, trying to play it cool and not be too obvious about what we were waiting for. At about 11:25, we saw a bunch of movement and feet approaching the gates and finally they swung open to reveal a bunch of awesome characters! Smee, Brer Bear, Stitch, Donald, Captain Hook, Mickey, Goofy, Pooh, Eeyore, and Gideon were all posed in a line and then when they broke off, Captain Hook walked right up to Penny and grabbed her hand, leading her to the back of the walkway. Penny still talks about seeing the feet and the shadows before all her friends came out.

We met with Captain Hook for a bit, and then ran back up to the front of the walkway to catch Smee and Gideon and then Brer Bear. Penny desperately wanted to meet Stitch after Hook and Smee, but I knew that Gideon and Brer Bear were rarer and wanted to make sure we got them first. Unfortunately by the time that we were finishing up with Brer Bear, Stitch's line had closed and Penny was bummed. I assured her that we are going to O'hana breakfast the next time we are in Disney World and that we would for sure see him there, but I still felt really bad.

It was nearing 11:40 now and we had a Frozen Ever After FastPass open that ended at 12:05 and I had heard rumblings of another Character Training back by the America pavilion at 12:00 that we wanted to try and hit. So we raced over to Frozen, were on the ride within 5 minutes, got off, and raced back to America by 12:01. Penny liked Frozen Ever After much more this time around.

The America Character Training started a few minutes late as well so we got there just in time to sit on the curb for a couple of minutes and catch our breath before we saw movement behind the gates again. This set included Mickey, Goofy, Pluto, Donald, Chip, Dale, Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and.....STITCH! Not anyone super rare this time, but we were glad that Penny was going to get to meet Stitch after all. This time Mickey headed straight for Penny and walked her back to the gates for pictures. It was so magical and we got some great shots of them together.

We met with Pluto for a couple minutes and then I hopped in line for Stitch while Penny met with Pooh. Stitch was fantastic and totally worth the run back to America. Penny was so excited!

Snow White had a meet coming up in Germany that Penny had been asking to do, so Penny and I went and got in line while we sent Jon over to Liberty Inn to grab some chicken nuggets for Penny for lunch, which she ate while we were in line. Jon got a picture at another International Festival of the Arts booth by himself on the way back. He said he had wanted to be pretending to feed George Washington but the PhotoPass guy didn't approve.

We then stopped by the Cuisine Classique booth where I requested to change our last quick service meal into three snack credits in order to get the Braised Beef Short Rib (with Parsnip Puree, Broccolini, Baby Tomatoes and Aged Balsamic), Seared Red Snapper (with braised Ratatouille and Lemon-Thyme Beurre Blanc), and the Port Wine Poached Pear (with vanilla panna cotta and pistachio crumbs). For some reason the cast members were really struggling with the conversion so after a long wait, lots of cancelled transactions, and a building queue behind me, they finally just ended up giving them to us for free though it didn't really matter as we never ended up using that quick service credit anyways. Maybe it was because we were still full from breakfast, but we both thought the braised beef and the red snapper were just ok, but the pear was a surprise winner for us and was quite lovely.

We snapped some more International Festival of the Arts pictures, grabbed the Pan-Seared Scallop (with Chorizo, Roasted Red Pepepr Coulis, and a Parmesan Crisp) from Artist's Table, swung by France so that I could finish up my wine tour from the other day, and stopped in the Canada gift shop to pick up some pajama pants for a friend. Then we wearily went to our last food booth, Pop Eats, were we got the Shrimp Ceviche (with lime mint foam), Sous Vide Venison (with butternut squash puree, pomegranate reduction, pickled turnip, and juniper berry powder), and the Popping Bubbles Cocktail that almost immediately popped itself all over my shirt The shrimp ceviche was ok but very small and I really hate mint so was not a big fan. We both hated the venison (something on it had a really odd, tingling effect...maybe the powder?) but the popping bubbles cocktail was both strong and delicious.

We headed to the Imagination pavilion to use our Figment FastPass and I was really feeling the combination of those two wine samples and the cocktail so I was in high spirits and Figment was much more enjoyable than usual Penny played in the music area which is always one of her favorite things to do, I picked up a Figment shirt that I had been admiring on another girl at the bus stop a few days ago, and then we decided we better head out since we still needed to make it over to the TTC to get my ID before the Tragical Express transport. Penny ended up pooping on the big potty on our quick bathroom break though so we had to stop at Mouse Gears to make good on all the bribery we'd been feeding her over the past week to try and get her to go! I ended up grabbing the Pirates of the Caribbean ear hat ornament that I had wanted (you know, to commemorate the puking in front of us ) and Penny picked out a Kion stuffed animal from Lion Guard and a small Stitch that has a snap bracelet in his arms so that he can grab onto things. By this time we really needed to book it out to get back on time, so unfortunately we missed meeting JoAnn, riding Spaceship Earth, and riding The Three Caballeros this trip, all of which I find totally inexcusable and I was super bummed about. There's always next time I guess

We caught the monorail to the TTC, had my ID safely back in my hands a few minutes later, then took a monorail to the Magic Kingdom to catch a bus back to French Quarter. Penny had fallen asleep in the stroller a few minutes into the first monorail ride, so she was one sleepy chica on the bus ride back.

We thought we were running late for our Tragical Express, but turns out we were confused on the time (can't blame us after all the excitement at check in that morning) and we actually made it there just before they bus was going to depart, snagging the last two seats. The rest of the journey home was thankfully uneventful. We made it through security in record time (there was almost no one in line! I've never seen it that empty in MCO security before ), grabbed some Chipotle for dinner, and then Jon and I took turns trying to sleep on the flight to St. Louis. We had a fairly quick layover, boarded a nearly empty flight, and Penny and I both passed out on the way back to Minneapolis.

Highs of the day: Some FANTASTIC character meets with Joy and Sadness and at the Character Training. This totally made our last day not so depressing and completely made up for some of the bummer moments of the day. Also, Penny finally going #2 on a Disney potty! By the way, we've nipped this in the bud and are hoping for a lot less potty related issues in November

Lows of the day: Losing my ID (and the panic that followed), disappointing International Festival of the Arts food (especially since it was all amazing the first day), and missing JoAnn/Spaceship Earth/Three Caballeros

All in all it was a really fantastic trip! We got so many character meets in which is always Penny's favorite part, and Disney with Penny just keeps getting better and better as she gets older. We really loved Port Orleans French Quarter and having a rest day in the middle of our trip was a total game changer for us. Despite some crappy service, we had some really amazing food on this trip, too. Now we're eagerly counting down the days to our November trip and our first annual pass!

Yay November!

We stumbled across a character training at World Show Place in December 2015 and had no idea what it was, so since then I've done some reading and research so that we can hopefully not-so-accidently stumble upon them more often And nope, we had no idea about the eggs benedict or omelets...maybe that would have made a difference. Like I said, my breakfast from the menu was very good, we were just underwhelmed with the buffet offerings. I prefer The Wave for some more unique items. Though that's kind of hypocritical to say because I could really be happy with just a buffet of bagels, lox, and cream cheese and those are on pretty much every breakfast buffet in Disney

Thanks, I know right? I see Jon in her personality a lot but she looks exactly like my childhood photos!