Since I shared all the magical details of our vacation with you, I thought I should tell you about Day 6! This was our travel day home, but I did plan for a very special breakfast at Chef Mickey before we left. This restaurant is inside of the Contemporary Hotel (so you don't need a park ticket to eat there) and it's supposed to be a short Monorail ride away from our hotel...
We had early reservations - 8:45am - which should have given us plenty of time to eat and get back to the hotel to catch the Magical Express bus to the airport at 11:10 for our 2:20 flight. We got on the monorail nice and early. Immediately after we got on, we noticed that it was making very strange sounds. Squeaking. When it stopped at the Magic Kingdom they made an announcement that it needed to stop for routine maintenance. 30 minutes later we were still sitting on the monorail waiting and were now late for our breakfast reservation. When the monorail operator walked by our cabin I asked him how much longer this was going to take. He explained that they were waiting for someone to come and give it the all clear. However if we wanted, we could take the walking path to The Contemporary...it was only a seven minute walk.
Yeah 7 minutes not so much...
Because at this point we had already turned in our rental stroller before we left the Polynesian and the kids were walking...
And it was hot! And far...
But I wasn't missing this breakfast! We finally made it over 30 minutes late for our reservation. The hostess who checked us in was very nasty about our being late despite being assured by the monorail operator that all restaurants get notified when they breakdown because it makes everyone late for their reservations.
After we got seated, (which took another 15 minutes despite a restaurant full of empty tables because the monorail was broken) the girls and I waited to speak to the chef while everyone else got their food. The chef was great and walked me through the whole buffet to tell me what was and wasn't safe for Lacie. The only thing that wasn't safe was the yogurt and granola toppings...but let's be honest, she just wanted Mickey waffles and bacon!
While we were eating, Mickey and friends came to our table!
We saw Goofy!
And John and Matt got to recreate this picture from 1987!
We saw Minnie and Mickey! They were hands down Paisley's favorite characters of the entire trip!
We saw Donald Duck, who we hand't met yet!
And Pluto!
After breakfast, which would have been delicious if we weren't racing through it so we could get back to our hotel on time, we hopped on the monorail which had started running again about halfway through our breakfast (it runs right above you through the inside of The Contemporary Hotel)!
We got back to our room and threw everything in our suitcases and hopped on the Magical Express Bus. We got to the airport at the correct time 2 hours before our scheduled 2:20pm flight! We made it through security with no issues and headed to our gate to wait.
The girls pulled their suitcases again!
I called my Dad to let him know what time we were leaving so he could pick us up in Newark. As I'm telling him that our flight is on time, I look at at the board to see that it is now not taking off until 4:30pm.
About five minutes later they delayed the flight again - now we wouldn't be taking off until 5:30pm.
That's 5 hours in the airport with 3 kids under the age of 5.
Wonderful.
And every flight after ours was getting cancelled.
At this point I was terrified that we were going to be spending a night in some airport hotel...
Somehow we managed to pass the time. Jet Blue gave us food vouchers and my children ate fast food for the first time in their entire lives. Burger King french fries and chicken nuggets. I wish I had pictures of their faces - they loved it. It's never happening again.
John and I got a Starbucks! Thank the Lord for Starbucks!
I have to say that Lacie and Blakely were pretty good throughout this entire ordeal!
When we finally boarded our plane, I breathed a sigh of relief that we were actually going home!
In an effort to see good in even a bad day, the delayed flight had my girls so tired that they fell asleep before we were even in the air! And they stayed asleep until the last 30 minutes of the flight!
We got off the plane around 8pm. Everyone walked ahead towards the baggage claim area. I waited at the gate for our stroller, which we gate checked. When the man handling all the gate checked items brought me my stroller. It was soaking wet. And broken. As in the entire wheel was broken off. Thanks Jet Blue. We will never ever fly on your airlines again. In case you're wondering, that is an extremely expensive stroller. I filed a claim immediately. And I've called 3 times. No one from Jet Blue has resolved this issue yet. They haven't even been remotely helpful or friendly.
I would say up until this very last day, we had the perfect vacation! John just informed me that even my typing sounds angry. Maybe one day we will be able to look back at this and laugh, but that day isn't here yet!
Even in light of our last day, the rest of our vacation was full of happy memories that we will always have! If you want to read about all of the wonderful and magical details of our vacation, you can do that here:
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