Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A Pirate's Life For Me!

We were up bright and early this morning and drove over to Fort Wilderness, our normal home away from home. We parked in the visitors' lot and boarded an internal bus that took us to the visitor center, where we walked to the Trail's End Restaurant for a hearty breakfast, including Mickey waffles-Mel's favorite.

We even had our favorite waiter, Ken, serve us. He has just celebrated his 28th year of service with Disney, 19 at Fort Wilderness. When he started, there were only 1 park, 3 hotels and Fort Wilderness. He had to be a teenager when he started because he doesn't age or Disney is that good that he is stress free.

Speaking of working at Disney, that is a thought that has passed us by. Yesterday, I had planned for us to go to the Casting Center that is Human Resources in other worlds. After lunch, Mel and I discussed this opportunity long and hard. Mel, on his own, reached his conclusion that we can't afford to work at Disney, that it was time for him to go home, buckle down and get back to work. How he could reach that conclusion without information is beyond me. My only comment was "I want to hear no complaining about how much you hate the winter, commuting, or the state of Illinois, in general." He grumbled something under his breath. It may not have been kind. But we went off and had a wonderful day at MGM. I include this in the blog so there is a record of this conversation for future reference. Don't you hate people who do that?
With breakfast out of the way, we walked to the boat dock and took the commuter boat to the Magic Kingdom. Above is a photo of one of the best loved pirates of the ride.

The current theme of the Magic Kingdom is "Pirates of the Carribean." The ride has been updated to include Captain Jack Sparrow. I managed to capture his visages as added to the ride. It is amazing what they can do with Animatronics these days. You'll need to enlarge these photos to see Captain Jack's expressions. Our grandsons were so into the movie, the ride and all things Jack Sparrow. It was a great way for grandpa and grandsons to bond. Even Mom Michelle got into the spirit by buying a t-shirt that says, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." During their visit, the pirate code was invoked-Anyone dragging behind will be left behind. This code was mainly applied to me, until little Daniel piped up, "You better not leave Grandma behind or she's going to beat you." Now, I have never beat anyone, but then Daniel had it right. I am so happy that someone is willing to stick up for Grandma.

We visited Adventureland, Frontierland, the Hall of Presidents and Haunted Mansion. Then, we headed for Fantasyland, my favorite. We fast-passed Peter Pan, then did Philharmagic twice. We decided to head back at 4 p.m. as we had been in the park for 5 hours. That seems to be our limit. We hit 5 hours and we are shot. But we never hurry away. We meandered in and out of stores, admiring art work and sculptures. Fascinating stuff! We found new places in the kingdom that are tucked away here and there. Always so much to see. Finally, we boarded the boat and returned to Fort Wilderness and caught a bus back to the parking lot.

From Fort Wilderness, we decided to go to Downtown Disney to see a movie. By the time we arrived, it was too late to see any of the movies that we wanted to see. So, we decided to have dinner at Planet Hollywood. We have never eaten there before. Very high energy but the food was great. By the time that we were finished, we still had another hour to go before movies would start. So, we packed it in for the night. Sometimes it is nice to have a little down time.