Day 22: A Gala Feast With Cinderella and Friends

  Orlando, Florida, United States
Friday, August 11, 2006

01 - Hanging Out in the House

I woke up at 10:00 this morning for our last full day in Orlando.  I was so depressed!  This vacation had just flown by which I guess could be expected.  Vacations always fly by too damn fast; I hate that!  When I went into the living room I saw that mom and dad were sitting out by the pool one last time and I had some cereal for breakfast.  I then hung out in the living room and watched TV all morning.  After watching "The Price is Right" at 11:00 I took a shower and got dressed.  The morning was pretty uneventful.  Mom packed hers, dad's and mike's stuff and we all just hung out.  I watched TV in my room and got all of my toiletries together.  I would still need them the next morning but I wanted to make sure that everything would fit in my toiletry bags.  Then I just hung out and waited to leave for the Grand Floridian.  The only thing keeping me from being completely depressed was the fact that we still had 1900 Park Fare to look forward to, a restaurant that I had wanted to go to for the longest time.

07 - Hanging Out in the House

When I had made the priority seating for 1900 Park Fare I had wanted to get a 5:30 seating.  We didn't want to eat too late because we wanted to make it an early night since we had to get up early the next morning to begin our long drive back to Brooklyn.  Since I was calling on short notice, though, the only good time they have available was 4:50.  It was early but we usually eat dinner at around 5:00 when we're home so it wasn't a big deal.  At 4:00 we all stood in the living room and set up a family shot to take of the four of us with Oreo.  It's become a tradition to take a family picture on our last day of a vacation.  Before the camera actually worked right we got some pretty funny practice pictures!  With our picture taking done, we left the house at 4:10 and headed towards Walt Disney World.

16 - 1900 Park Fare

When we got to Disney we made our way over to the Magic Kingdom resort area and then over to the Grand Floridian.  We went back through the parking gates even though we knew that the parking lot was across the street and that it was unguarded.  We weren't given a parking pass or anything so we could have bypassed the gates and went right to the parking lot.  Oh well, you live you learn.  By 4:40 we were making our way over to 1900 Park Fare which was located right near the entrance to the Grand Floridian lobby.  Dad and Mike gave our name in at the podium while mom and I ran to the bathroom, and by the time we were out we were being seated.  We had the first dinner seating of the day and the restaurant was empty, it was great.  We weren't seated in the main dining room but in a small room at the front of the restaurant.  This wound up being a good spot since we were away from most of the crowds when the restaurant got more crowded later on.

22 - 1900 Park Fare

Our waitress arrived a few minutes after we were seated.  We placed our drink orders and then went up to the buffet.  None of the characters were out yet so I wasn't afraid of missing any of them.  I started with some salad with honey mustard dressing, Caesar salad, pasta salad, vegetable spring rolls and corn bread.  The salad was delicious!  Everyone else also started with appetizers, getting soup, salad and different breads.  A few minutes after we got back to the table our first character showed up... Prince Charming!  He was very friendly and he asked us all about our trip.  Only mom, Mike and I had been at the table at the time and Mike took a picture of Prince Charming and I.  He took it from sitting down and looking up at us, though, so it came out horrible.  A few minutes later Perla came around to our table and she was so cute!  She kept making kissing noises at mom and I, and she made mom get in the picture.  Soon after Perla arrived Cinderella did as well.  She wasn't very friendly, though.  We just took a picture, in which she told Michael to bend his arm so she could loop hers through his, and then she left.

23 - 1900 Park Fare

After Cinderella mom and dad made their way back up to the buffet.  Mike wasn't feeling well (shocker) so he didn't get any more food, and I was waiting for more characters.  None of them were in the area, though, so I went up to the buffet to get some more food.  This was some of the best food that we had on the entire trip!  The marinated turkey, salmon with cape butter sauce, apple chutney stuffed pork loin with apple glaze, Portobello raviolis with pesto cream, and salmon with dill cream sauce were all absolutely delicious!  Everything was fresh, hot and really tasted amazing.  Halfway through our main course Suzy showed up and she was nice but nothing special.  I took a picture with her and then she was on her way.  Then Perla came back and this time went up to Michael, making more kissing noises.  I then said, "Mike, you have to get in a picture!"  He hates taking pictures with the characters to I had to sneak attack him!  I took a picture of Mike with Perla.  The whole time Perla was making kissing noises at Michael and then she made the shape of a heart with her hands and pointed to Michael.  It was hysterical!

26 - 1900 Park Fare

Then we were ready for dessert.  Well, mom, dad and I were.  Mike still wasn't eating.  Mom and dad went up to the buffet but I saw that Prince Charming was coming around and I wanted to get a better picture with him.  I asked him for another picture to which he replied, "Of course!" and Mike stood up to take the picture this time.  Right before I was going to meet mom and dad at the dessert buffet our waitress came up to me and asked which anniversary she and dad were celebrating. I  told her it was there twentieth and she went back into the kitchen.  I met mom and dad at the buffet and they were already finished getting their deserts.  Dad went back to the table to sit down but mom waited on the long ice cream line for me while I went to get a brownie.  I then took mom's spot on line and covered my brownie in ice cream and M&Ms.

24 - 1900 Park Fare

When we got back to the table our waitress was standing around and dad was wearing a crown.  Our waitress then handed mom a tiara and she presented them both with an anniversary cupcake topped with a little Mickey chocolate.  How nice!  We sang Happy Anniversary before mom and dad blew out the candle.  They wore those crowns the rest of the time we were at the Grand Floridian, it was so funny!  Mom and dad were also presented with two placemats, each of which featured the pictures and autographs of the 1900 Park Fare characters and said, "My Special Day at 1900 Park Fare."  They were so cute!

29 - 1900 Park Fare

We all ate our delicious deserts, including the anniversary cupcake, before getting the check.  With tax and tip the bill came to $150.  That wasn't too bad for all the food we got.  The quality of the food had been outstanding, the service had been superb, and the characters had been a blast... especially Perla!  It was the absolute perfect way to end our Orlando vacation.  I was really feeling the magic.  We paid and then headed out into the restaurant's lobby.  The Fairy Godmother was there with no one around her so I went to take a picture.  She gave me a huge hug and talked non-stop!  She asked me if I had seen her beautiful God-daughter with her handsome prince, and then asked me if I was having a magical time.  I definitely was!  The Fairy Godmother was great and really topped off our restaurant experience perfectly.  Two thumbs way, way up for 1900 Park Fare!

31 - 1900 Park Fare

We made our way out into the Grand Floridian lobby and there was an orchestra playing instrumental versions of some of the best Disney songs.  It was pure magic and so romantic.  We walked around the Grand Floridian lobby, listening to the music and just taking in the atmosphere.  It had shaped into a great night.  I was having such a great time and feeling so much of the Disney magic that I had looked for the entire trip that I was really, really sad to be leaving the next day.  I just kept thinking about what we were leaving behind, and I hated not knowing when we would be back.  It was gorgeous out so we walked outside to the Grand Floridian beach.  It was petty empty out there so we just took a leisurely stroll before stopping on an overlook that looked out to the Wedding Pavilion, the Contemporary Resort and the Polynesian Resort.  There was a nice boat with a Grand Floridian sail right near where we were standing so dad took a picture of mom and I in front of it.  It was unbelievably hot out, though, and the sun was shining in our faces so the picture came out really funny!  They were setting up tables for some kind of function in the courtyard and everything looked really pretty.  I wonder what was going on.

34 - Grand Floridian

After a few minutes we went back into the Grand Floridian lobby and made our way out to the front of the resort.  I again saw the Mary Poppins topiary and this time I saw that there was a pathway leading to it.  I wanted to get a few pictures so we made our way back there and discovered that it was the carriage and stroller area for people eating in 1900 Park Fare.  I took a few pictures of the Mary Poppins topiary and of the surrounding area before we made our way back to the car.  At 6:30 I snapped a picture of the "See You Real Soon!" sign as we made our way off of Disney property for our last time this trip.  I was in such a good mood and was so excited to be where I was, that it sucked that it was already time to leave.  Throughout the entire trip I had been saying that this would be our last Orlando vacation for a while.  We had seen, done and experienced all that we wanted to within the past two years, and now it was time to move on and find new places to love.

37 - Grand Floridian

On our drive back to the house, though, the reality that this could be our last trip to Disney and Universal Studios for a few years really hit me.  I was so sad!  I started stammering out the benefits of an Orlando vacation - houses were a hundred times cheaper to rent here than anywhere else in the world since there were so many of them, the Disney and Universal parks are always adding new things to do and see so it never get old, there is so much to do already that there's still a lot we haven't gotten to see and experience, and without being able to fly with the dog what better place to go was there than Orlando?!  Mom wholeheartedly agreed but Mike told me that we weren't coming back and dad said that he didn't want to come back for a while.  We'll see what happens...

56 - Grand Floridian

Back at the house we cleaned up the rest of our stuff and dad loaded up the car except for our toiletry and overnight bags for the next day.  Surprisingly (and amazingly) everything fit in the trunk, including all the souvenirs we had bought.  We had brought the roof bag with us for just in case but it turns out we didn't have to use it.  Nice!  We then all hung out in the house and watched TV before mom, Mike and I played our last few games of California Rummy for the trip.  We wind up only playing California Rummy on vacation so we decided that this would be the end of our tournament.  With a record of winning four games more than me and six games more than mom, Mike won the tournament.  Congrats!  We then all got to bed early.  As I took my makeup off I listened to all of the New York-related songs I had on my MP3 player and tried to imagine that we were from Florida and would be going on vacation to New York City tomorrow!  It didn't really work, though, and I'll admit I started crying.  I just wasn't ready to leave!  I dried my eyes and sat in bed watching TV for a while before I set my alarm for 4:00 the next morning and I fell asleep by 11:30.