Disney 2010: Day 7

We woke up to this monster:

We started the day somewhat sure we aren’t going home, but still hoping that the storm would pass quickly and we could get out of here.

Our first stop for the day was Animal Kingdom where we had some “cleanup” to do.  We had missed the Kilamonjaro Safari and the Finding Nemo show on our first cruise through,  so we came back to do them.  While we were at Animal Kingdom we also finally caught a glimpse of the “Tree Lady” who I’ve been looking for but never seen.  It’s very cool to watch how she slowly walks around on those stilts and raises long poles above her head to mimic trees that are around her.  When she covers her face, you would never know she wasn’t a real tree.

And look what else we found!  He’s only been here for three weeks (which is still a lot longer than the newborn monkey we saw — 3 days old).

From Animal Kingdom, we took a bus to the Ticket and Transportation Center, and then a ferry from there to Magic Kingdom to finish up our shopping.  We left Magic Kingdom just as the rain started. But not before we saw these HUGE rice krispies treats in the Main Street Confectionary.  They’re $50 each.

I called our friend Pam to send her hugs over the wires since she was supposed to be getting married on Saturday.  All is well — they and their officiant are staying overnight at the resort where the wedding is, so they’re getting married no matter what.  But she mentioned that she had heard that flights were being canceled already.  I called Airtran and sat on hold for 35 minutes and was told ours was not canceled.  20 minutes later in our room (where we found a puppy towel animal) I got an email that our flight is canceled.  UGH.  Right now we’re rebooked for a flight home at 6:30pm on MONDAY; and that’s the first one I could get. So the plan of the moment is to:

• Pick up a rental car at the Disney Car Care Center
• Check out of Animal Kingdom Kidani Village and check in at the La Quinta downtown
• Meet up with Lee to see the shuttle launch from the NASA employee guest area (super cool!)
• Do whatever on Sunday afternoon and Monday
• Fly out Monday night and then recover at home on Tuesday

I did laundry at the resort while I was arranging the car and new flight info, and making phone calls to let everyone and their mother know what’s up.  With all of that done, we had a wonderful evening to look forward to at “Jiko: The Cooking Place” at the Jambo House side of the resort.  We had decided to do a really nice dinner for our last night down here, and this restaurant took 2 table service credits.  It was definitely worth both of them.  When we arrived at the resort, they were still doing free family portraits, so we stopped by and had pictures taken before dinner.  I’m not going to bother going into all of the details of dinner.  Just know that we ate ostrich, shrimp, lamb, goat cheeses, and had these for dessert:

John’s was a Lemon White-Chocolate Mousse with Sour Cream Ice Cream.  Mine was a trio of choclate goodness — a Flourless Chocolate Cake, White Chocolate Ice Cream, and Chocolate Mousse.  They also brought this tasty Pistachio Creme Brulee as a gift for our anniversary.  The drawings on both my plate and the “gift” plate are actually chocolate that’s been painted on.  “Shangilia”, on the plate below, means “Congratulations” in Swahili.  They also gave us a card with anniversary good wishes written in 6 African dialects.

For anyone who is keeping score, here is our current family of towel animals that we’ve found in our room… they wanted a group portrait.

When we went to bed, we were looking at this.  Oh my.

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