November 4 – 14, 2020 day 11 – Should have been Wine and Dine races

Saturday 11/14/20

I was awake just before a way too early alarm but I let it go off one more time. Ah, reminded me of the Disney days of old, getting up practically in the middle of the night for an early park opening! Oh how I miss it! Showered and finished up the last minute packing and the last of the donuts in the room before taking our bags to bell services for the morning. We leisurely walked around the still quiet resort and was on the bus to MK at 6:45 for a posted 8:00 opening! We were second in line at the touchpoints! It was to be a day of doing whatever we wanted, some of our favorites. We had decided to rope drop Splash since we didn’t know if we would ever get to ride it again with the announced change (although it looks like we’ll be good for at least March). We were first in line but it took FOREVER to get going due to the morning testing they kept doing and doing and doing. Mental note, don’t rope drop Splash first, do at least one other attraction first. We didn’t get going until 8:20. We did get the front row and the pic came through, yea! And oh my gosh, what a huge splash! Way over our heads! It was actually like going under water! Thank goodness for ponchos! From there we headed over to Jingle Cruise at 8:50, with a posted 25 minute wait. It wound up being just 15, with the queue outside the ride! Not bad! We had a really good skipper too! After our cruise we went over to HM which was pretty much a walk on, and then to Under the Sea, which was also a walk on. It was nice to not hurry! We headed to Tomorrowland and saw CoP one more time with a very short wait. We checked out the Space Mountain shop and then went to Sleepy Hollow for our final snack of the waffles of the trip. They were so good as always! We watched a couple cavalcades go through and decided to go for one more ride of the trip and see the happy haunts of HM. The line started way back pretty much to Frontierland and was listed at 20 at 11:20. It wound up being about 12 to 15 minutes. So nice! We hardly ever stopped moving. It was a perfect ending ride to the trip! We crossed over by the Castle and stopped at the Cinderella wishing well where we found Lucifer and the mice around the base. Had never really taken the time to really explore that! We could tell it was Saturday, the local crowds were really building! We browsed a couple shops and stopped at the tree up front for some photos before heading out. The bus arrived in short order but it was a driver switch so it took just a bit to get going. We did get the BB-8 wrap! Back at Pop we filled our mug, gathered our luggage and didn’t have too much of a wait for Tragical Express. MCO was still eerily quiet. We grabbed some Chick-Fil-A, ate, and walked right up to TSA and through luggage screening. We took off about 5 minutes early and landed 20 minutes early! Nice and easy flight. The kids picked us up shortly after getting our checked bag and we were home in good order.

Final thoughts: It was so good to see Heather and Ryan and Robyn and her family again! Having adjoining rooms with Heather and Ryan just made it so much more special! And all of us being at the same resort was so nice! It made it so much better and easier to see Robyn more than in the past. Making new friends is always great too! It was our longest trip yet and we truly got to do everything that was up and running at the parks that we wanted, most things twice or more! The masks weren’t as bad as we thought they were going to be. Would we have preferred to not have to wear them? Absolutely! But Disney does what they feel is best. And compliance was so much better than at any store here. If there was any trepidation that was soon put to rest. I felt much safer there than any Kroger, Target, or Walmart here in our city. The CM’s were very diligent at making sure everyone they saw was properly wearing a mask.

A lot of things were noticeably missing, including but not limited to: character meet and greets, live shows and entertainment, parade, park hopping (somewhat resolved now), fireworks and nighttime entertainment, food choices, not having to mobile order everywhere. I truly hope they bring those all back someday. We hated having to mobile order all the time. We would always charge to the room and that option is not available. Plus some of our best CM interaction has been with the food service workers and you just don’t get that with mobile order. We would spend a good amount of time talking with the CM’s especially at Pop when deciding what we wanted at the bays and such. The cavalcades were neat. They were no substitute for meet and greets or a real parade but it was nice of Disney to figure something out. And it was really neat to see the Toy Soldiers without a Christmas party! I will say that was very cool! The wait times were really nice! We hadn’t experienced lower crowd levels like that in years it seems! That was an advantage to going at this time! Next up, March 6th through the 13th! Not quite as long but still should be able to do what we want to do!

Steps: 19,355
Miles: 8.72