Walt Disney World Day Five: And so it goes

Just to warn you now: I am not in a very good mood. I will try to be in a better mood but please don't tell me that I have to get over it. I planned this trip for a very long time. I spent a lot of money on this trip. I dotted my i's, I crossed my t's. I did everything that was in my power to do. There will be cheerful things in these reports but I need my time to be upset.

Yesterday (Saturday, Day Five) was our first No Parks day. Because our park hoppers were only good for 8 days, we knew we would have two of these.

Our original plan included swimming but the weather seriously turned. Not only was it cold but windy, too. I thought about using our coupons for free miniature golf but we hoped it might warm up enough to go swimming in the afternoon and we wanted to get some laundry washed early in the day.

The nice thing about ipods with movies and games on them is that they keep 11-year-olds entertained. We planted Mr. Genius at the laundry room to babysit our clothes while we ran the loads of laundry and hung out in our room with the little boys. Of course, I forgot to start one of the dryers so we ended up taking longer than we'd originally planned but eventually we finished and it was nice to get so much laundry done at the same time, even if it did cost $2 per cycle on both the washers and the dryers. (Buying the detergent and softener at Target last week helped on that end of the budget.)

We walked around our resort a bit to wait for the last load to dry, then we shoved it into a duffle bag (it was only underwear and socks,) and drove out to Downtown Disney for lunch to one of the restaurants I have heard so much about from friends over the years: Earl of Sandwich. On Friday and Saturday some group was hosting dragon races on the water near Downtown Disney so there was a decent-sized crowd but without a lot of plans, we had no problems with a leisurely lunch. The restaurant had a large queue but the line was outside the queue and ran more than the length of the queue!

We hopped in!

Fortunately the cashiers moved quickly and the distance between ordering and paying gave the kitchen the time to prepare our sandwiches! Mr. Genius and I both ordered Caprese sandwichs, Doc ordered an Italian, Sweet But Sneaky asked for a turkey with cheddar and I wanted Captain Stubborn to order a grilled cheese sandwich but he insisted on a pb&j. Of course.

One lovely thing about this location, rather than insist we order an entree and dessert, they gave us the option of dessert OR a side. We planned on purchasing chips and macaroni salad, but instead Doc and I skipped our desserts! The signature drink at Earl of Sandwich seems to be their Earl Grey Lemonade. Picture an Arnold Palmer made with Earl Grey Iced Tea. It was very tasty. I don't know that I could drink a lot of it but it was lovely. I needed it very cold, too.

After lunch, we wandered through Downtown Disney a bit. We found a Christmas shop and purchased some souvenirs. Doc and I had some mad money from a relative. We used some of it to buy a set of Walt Disney World ornaments based on the "Four Parks, One World" theme. There are icons from each of the four parks represented in the set. We also purchased little Cinderella's Castle ornaments that say "Walt Disney World" for each of our boys.

While Doc paid, the boys and I wandered into a kitchen store. Mr. Genius was carrying my camera and at one point he dropped it. (I do not know how he dropped it so please do not ask me. How do you DROP a camera bag? He wasn't DOING anything.) Unfortunately, although it was in the bag, something must have happened to the lens because the camera no longer works when the lens is set to the wide-angle range. It will not auto-focus nor take a picture in that range.

I will just stop now. The bad luck that we have had with lenses since we purchased this camera is un-flipping-believable. I have been SO careful with this camera. That is what stings me the most. I was doing everything properly to protect this camera. I had it carefully in the camera bag. I cannot comprehend what is happening with this camera lens, over and over again.

Eventually, we returned to our hotel room and packed a duffle bag with the boys' swimsuits. It was getting a bit warmer and they really wanted to go swimming with the swanies at their hotel (their pool would be much fancier than ours.) By the time we gathered at the Animal Kingdom Kidani Village, it was too cold to swim, so we watched the animals! Just as we arrived, some of the animal keepers pulled into the grassy area behind the swanies' room to leave hay for the animals of the Animal Kingdom park. In the area off their balcony, we watched giraffes, ostriches and a type of antelope. The animals came pretty close to their room and it was fun to see!

We later went on a tour of the Kidani Village building and on the other side, we saw even more animals. Over there, a mountain species of zebra mingled with giraffe and another animal (it looked like an antelope type animal but was not the same animal we saw in the first area,) also eating. In this location, the zebra was defending his feeding area by backing into and even kicking at the young giraffes who tried to get close. We enjoyed watching them. The cast member standing by told some guests that zebras are always unfriendly. I told them that at the Wild Animal Park, they do not let the zebras mingle with the other animals because they do not "play well with others."

Soon it was time to go to dinner! We had reservations at a well-liked restaurant: Whispering Canyon.

The Whispering Canyon servers really get a kick out of messing with their guests. We had a group of 11 for this dinner. In addition to the swanies, our friend Cathy joined us for dinner. Cathy lives in New Orleans and came to WDW this weekend to enjoy the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot. We did not have any time to spend with Cathy in the parks, which she totally respected and understood, but it was easy to add her on to our reservation and get some time together eating a dinner that we already had planned.

On checking in, Mrs. Swanie let the staff know that we wanted our families to get the total Whispering Canyon treatment. Our server, Rafael did NOT disappoint.

• Rafael admonished Mr. Genius to take his hat off, boy!

• Rafael asked SBS how old he was. When SBS answered, Rafael told him to stand up, now! When SBS stood up, Rafael sat down his SBS's seat to finish taking everyone's drink orders.

• At about this time, the kids all got up to grab hobby-horses and ride them around the restaurant with all the other children in the restaurant.

• When the drinks arrived, Rafael through straws at our table, all over our table. He did the same with the cocktail napkins.

• The drinks were served in Bell jars. When Cathy very quickly drank her diet Coke and asked for a refill, Rafael returned with a 3 quart sized Bell jar of diet Coke and two straws stuck into each other.

• When SBS dropped his fork and Rafael saw this, he returned with a 3- to 4-foot fork! (The black fork was hard to get in a picture with all the dark backgrounds around us. This picture with CS was the best picture I have. CS is at least 44" tall but not 48" yet.)

• One of the kids' favorite events: CS ordered a cheeseburger and fries. When CS asked for ketchup, Rafael YELLED for the ketchup. A group of about 3-4 children brought at least 17 bottles of ketchup to our table! Later, when another table needed ketchup, it was our children's turn to take allllllll of that ketchup to their table! Even later, when the table behind ours needed to deliver the ketchup, the mom of that table asked our kids to help because she had fewer kids to transport it all.

• Rafael brought candles in Doc's cake for Doc's birthday. Unfortunately, Doc was animatedly saying something and threw his hand up, bumping the cake plate. The cake fell sideways and part of the cake even fell on the floor. Doesn't that sound like something I would do? It really was Doc! Mr. & Mrs. Swanie and Cathy saw it happen! Rafael put a candle on my cake (the same flavor) instead and we went on with the show. When we all finished singing Happy Birthday off key (well, in our natural voices,) as loud as we could, WITH the cha-cha-chas, Rafael picked up the plate with the remaining cake, picked it up with his fingers, and started eating! We loved that one! Later we saw a group of CM's singing Happy Birthday to another guest and when they were shortly into the song, they stopped singing and started eating his cake instead! Too funny!

• One thing I really enjoyed was that Rafael was giving his attitude to CS but CS took it very good-naturedly. He seemed to appreciate that Rafael was trying to have fun, not be mean or teasing in a mean way. CS just looked at him and smiled. Rafael would yell at CS to talk to him (Rafael,) which we all know, CS chose not to do, but CS did just look at Rafael and laugh instead as if to say "Ha Ha, you can't make me and I know it!"

• SBS took a very long time to eat his dinner, which is not unusual in our lives. Every time Rafael came by he harassed SBS about taking his plate.

There is so much more that I am probably forgetting but we had a great time and Rafael seemed to have a good time with our group, too. The food is western barbecue themed. Mrs. Swanie, Miss Genius and I ordered the bottomless skillet which came with salad, cole slaw and corn bread, enough to share with the adults at the table. It was very good, especially the pulled pork and the brisket. We ordered extra meat but Rafael brought just a bit. I know someone who asked for more ribs and received a giant mountain of ribs at his table. Rafael spared us that prank!

At the end of the night, Cathy came to see our room and Doc's costume for the Halloween party and Doc drove her back to the Beach Club because when you have a rental van, that is so convenient!