I believe you’re also noted for your politeness! So it makes sense!
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Another great trip report @kadmgs! Amazing detail! I don’t know how you remember with such detail. Must be my age…but I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night let alone a month later. Looking forward to Epcot!!
I’ve always been curious about Whispering Canyon. We have two favourite signature restaurants. Jiko, closely followed by Artist Point. If you haven’t already - add Artist Point to your next trip to Wilderness Lodge, you’ll be glad you did!
Interesting to hear your experience with DAS. I have always contemplated asking about it as my son and I both have peripheral neuropathy conditions and standing is the issue. We’re ok as long as we’re moving (mostly). But we had always heard we would be denied and told to get scooters (which I am pretty proud of the fact that I do not need just yet - the time is coming, but I’m holding off as long as possible). We’ve actually skipped rides because the thought of waiting in the queue is just awful - and don’t even get me started on trying to stand on the slanted floors waiting for shows to start (like Frozen Sing a Long or Muppets 3D). I don’t know why Disney would rather force more people into scooters than accommodate for conditions like this.
Thank you all for your military service! My husband is a retired Army officer and we both are high school history teachers! I’m loving your foodie posts. We had the option of staying at Shades of Green or in WDW. I chose the Boardwalk Inn. Couldn’t pass up the military price for our disney dream vacay!
Where in Hawaii was your wife stationed? I spent three years at the NSA Hawaii site in Kunia by Schofield Barracks. My daughter was born at Tripler Army Medical Center…aka…the giant pink hospital.
Wow, @kadmgs you didn’t disappoint! What a great report. Lots of info about AK items and places that I’ve never tried, so more to investigate - woot!
We’ve never done the full-monte dining package that you both had, but it looks like fun. We may try it on a future trip, as we really enjoy the Disney food experience while on vacation.
I might as well ask, because I have a feeling that you’ve been to the CALIFORNIA GRILL before, or maybe one of the readers to this entry has… particularly for brunch. We’ve got brunch reservations at CG on a Sunday (doesn’t start until 10:30, so it’s going to cut into our park time 
). However, the menu looks really great for that meal, and it’s on a day when we’re going to be at MK in the morning anyway.
Do you (or anyone reading) think that CG is worth the (2) dining table credits each for Brunch?
(Also - do you think we can leave our car at the Contemporary resort if we do dine there, walk over to MK, and then come back for our car mid-day? I believe they are going to try to valet park our car if we have dining reservations at the CG… not sure if I should let them, or just park ourselves and walk over and back mid-day).
Wow, that’s a lot - thanks for your review, loved it!
~ Josie ~
aka @imaginette
Thanks!!
Thank you for the report, I’m really enjoying it! I’m glad to hear the atmosphere at Wilderness Lodge/Whispering Canyon doesn’t disappoint, DD and I have a breakfast reservation there in November and I can’t wait to see it for the first time, all decked out for Christmas.
Love the food reviews!
@Disneydaddio Thanks! I’m trained in regurgitation of information aka I have a masters in History. My job is to literally tell stories all day. I’ve always been a storyteller, but not in a bad way. I even competed as a child in storytelling. They put us in a room and read us a story. We then had to go one by one in front of a judge or panel of judges and re-tell the story. I’m also a planner when it comes to WDW trips. I use Google sheets to create a spreadsheet of each day, where we have reservations, how many DDP credits each meal/day will be, and what our FPs are for the day. While I’m writing this report, I have that spreadsheet pulled up as well as the menu from the restaurant on Allears.net. It’s a great site to get the detailed menu with prices that Disney doesn’t include on their site. Therefore, I’m not doing it completely from memory. However, I do have a good memory. My friends jokingly call me a walking encyclopedia. We haven’t eaten at Artist Point, yet, but it’s on the “list.”
@FindMeAFishingSpot My wife is the same way about the scooter. She knows eventually that it will happen, but she’s not there yet. My advise is to request the DAS and tell them your neuropathy condition can cause anxiety for both you and your son, therefore your disability is both mobility and cognitive. Even if you haven’t been diagnosed officially with anxiety, from what you said it seems your condition causes anxiety when considering what to ride/see. They cannot ask you to prove your disability per ADA. If they do, you have a case for a lawsuit per ADA. In short, you and your son need the DAS because of anxiety, not mobility. Neither of you are able to enjoy the parks to their fullest because of your condition and you should be able to use it. It’s not like your wanting it because your just to lazy to stand in line.
@rrees My wife said thank you for your support! I’m sure your husband has found many of the techniques he used as an officer to “motivate” his soldiers carry over to the classroom. There are days where I’m a drill sgt. and there are days I’m hearding cats. I’m sure you both feel the same way. However, I love my job. Only winning the lottery where I could travel all the time would take me from it.
@shelmach She was at Schofield and lived in Helemano. Small world!
@imaginette Thanks! We haven’t eaten at California Grill, but it’s on the “list.” We have friends that absolutely love it. We are considering going there for lunch when we are at MK the day before Thanksgiving. We drove to the Yacht Club, Wilderness Lodge, and Boardwalk this last time. As long as you have a dinner reservation, you can park at the resort. They didn’t make us valet at any of the resorts. We parked in self parking each time. The guard at the guard shack scanned my magic band to verify our reservation and welcomed us to the resort. You can valet if you choose, but we didn’t need to. My guess is that they would never know how long you were actually in the resort. I don’t see why you couldn’t leave your car there and walk over to MK for a while. Our plan at Thanksgiving is to eat at GF for lunch one afternoon and then ride the monorail to the other resorts to see their decorations. We will park at GF. Unless they constantly run plates through the front desk’s system, they aren’t going to know you aren’t staying there. The signs as you enter specifically state parking is for guests with dining reservations as well as resort guests.
@cowanfamily4 You’re welcome!
@potternut2001 Thanks! We can’t wait to see it, either. We have a breakfast reservation there the day before Thanksgiving. Even though we weren’t that impressed with lunch, we are willing to give it a shot at breakfast if for any other reason than to get into the resort to see the decorations.
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Quite a report. Looking forward to more.
@bswan26 Thanks! I know I can get long winded at times, so I appreciate it.
On with the show…
Thank you to everyone who has read this so far and a special thanks to all the positive feedback.
Day Three- EPCOT and LOTS of Food!
Our day began with us driving over to the Grand Floridian for the Supercalifragilistic Breakfast. This was our first time inside the Grand Floridian. We have a friend who raves about the GF and we were like, what’s the big deal. We aren’t paying $400+ a night when we can pay less than $150 at Shades or at a moderate. Well, we get it now. To say the hotel is beautiful is an understatement. It is definitely on our “list” now. Hopefully we can score a deal using the salute to service discount. The character breakfast is in the 1900 Park Fare restaurant. It’s themed after a turn of the century fair. The room is very bright and victorian with carousel horses around the room. When we arrived, we immediately spotted the Mad Hatter and Alice. The Mad Hatter was hilarious and was excellent at interacting with the kids seated near us. Once we “met” the both of them, we headed to the buffet. I was impressed with the selection of breakfast items available. The hickory smoked ham was delicious. The corned beef hash was simple, but good. The potatoes O’Brien had great flavor and didn’t need additional salt which says a lot because most of the time potatoes need salt. The eggs benedict had good flavor, but of course my egg was overcooked. If you can get an eggs benedict that’s not overcooked off of a buffet, you’ve won the lottery. We both felt like the buffet was worth it. As we ate, Pooh and Mary Poppins started making their rounds. My wife was wearing a Mary “practically perfect in every way” silhouette tee, so they had a great conversation about it. After we finished with breakfast, we headed to the back of the dining room to get our picture with Tigger. We had to wait a little bit because Tigger needed a break. We chatted with the photographer while we waited. I said even Tigger needs a potty break and she said probably a carb re-load break because Tigger bounces the entire time. She said it was actually probably a Monster break. Ha! Tigger soon returned and bounced the entire time we took pictures with him. We then headed to the lobby of the hotel to check out the chocolate eggs on display. They are absolutely amazing. We headed back to POFQ to park the car and hop on the bus for EPCOT.
By this point, I needed coffee so we headed to Fountain View for Starbucks. Yes, I have a problem. The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem. We missed our FP at Nemo, but that was planned. We wanted a Frozen FP, but we also wanted to ride Soarin’ and Test Track. I scheduled FP’s that weren’t priorities early to be able to try and get one for Soarin’ or Test Track before I found out about the DAS. Therefore, we had two FP’s that were a “waste” sorta. We walked over to get a DAS return time for TT and it was 45 minutes. We had a FP for the meet and greet with Mickey and Friends, so we said why not. It only took about about 15 mins start to finish. The little girl in me was really excited to see Mickey. I was a Mickey kid. My room was decorated with various mickey art including a framed t-shirt I got for my third birthday. It’s still on the wall in my room at my dad’s even though we redecorated my room when I was in college. I even have a “Happy 50th Birthday, Mickey!” trash can from 1978 that I got for my 3rd birthday in 1979. That birthday was all Mickey. Anyway, I was really excited to see him. By the time we finished the meet and greet, we got an email that Test Track was down and we could use the return time on another ride or wait for it to come back up. We walked over to Test Track to see how long they thought it would be down and they said at least an hour, so we headed to Soarin’. We were in the FP line behind a 10 year old boys soccer team from Brazil. They were funny. We encountered a ton of tour groups from Brazil and almost all of them were teenage girls. I was very proud of myself. I only had to use my teacher voice on one group and that was at Universal. I directed my “correction” at their guide. It wasn’t their fault he had them meet up in the exit of Dragon Challenge, blocking the way for people to be able to access the disability entrance. The teachers reading this will tell you it is a struggle for us at times not to make kids behave in public. I have to “put on blinders” at times. After Soarin’, we headed to FEA. We hadn’t been on it before and we love the movie, so we were excited to see if it was worth the hype. We really like the new animatronics with the video faces. The ride was going well until we got into the room with the yeti and we stopped. It broke… We had to be escorted out a set of back steps. We got the behind the scenes tour we didn’t want, especially when there was a firetruck in the parking lot. They gave us a FP to come back when it was up again or use on another ride. By then it was time for lunch.
Lunch was at Via Napoli. We had heard/read it was the best pizza in WDW and it did not disappoint. This was the only meal that was a non buffet/character meal that we each ordered our own meal. I read on multiple sites that they would not allow you to share if you were on the DDP, so we didn’t even ask. It worked out fine. For our apps, I ordered the salame e provolone and she ordered the prosciutto e melone. We split it up so we both got a little bit of each. It was a perfectly light start to our meal. The melon could have been a little more ripe, but it still had a good cantaloupe flavor. For our entrees we ordered the Insalate Pollo and the Capricciosa pizza. The server stated because the two entrees came out of two different stations in the kitchen, they wouldn’t come out at the same time. We said that was actually perfect because we we going to share them both. The salad was very good. The citrus vinaigrette was nice and light and didn’t mask the flavors of all the goodies in the salad. Also, the salad was not over dressed. I even ate stuff like cucumber and celery that I don’t like because it was chopped small and hid under the almonds and chicken. We finished what we wanted of the salad and had a few minutes before the pizza arrived. A food runner came up with a pizza, but it wasn’t ours. He seemed shocked it was wrong, but apologized and immediately got a manager. The kitchen made the wrong pizza. They corrected it and it was fine. We weren’t in a hurry and it gave us a little more time between courses which was nice. The manager came over and apologized. We both said it was no problem that we wanted a little extra time between courses. The correct pizza arrived and it was delicious. I’m not a fan of eggplant, but this was great. You could tell they took the time to develop a nice flavor in both it and the mushrooms by marinating them prior to putting them on the pizza. The individual pizza is definitely big enough for two people to share. A table near us ordered the mezzo metro pizza. Holy cow! That pizza is huge! For dessert, I ordered the pistachio gelato and my wife got the tiramisu. I’m a sucker for pistachio gelato and she loves tiramisu, so it was perfect. Both were excellent and not too heavy. Of course, by that point I could only eat about 3 bites. This meal really was a great way to celebrate my surgery anniversary. I know it sounds crazy to celebrate having 70% of your stomach removed by eating a big meal, but the recovery process was long and hard. It was worth it, though since I’ve lost 85 lbs. What now is a “big meal” is 3 bites of the app. 5 bites of salad. One slice of pizza and 3 bites of gelato. Anyway, we highly recommend Via Napoli for a meal in EPCOT.
After lunch, we wandered around the world showcase. Watched them move the barges out into the lagoon for Illuminations. While in France, we grabbed a snack at Boulangerie. The heat and walking was starting to take a toll on both of us, so she sat outside at one of the little tables while I went in and ordered. I got the roule lard & fromage aka the bacon and cheese roll and the napoleon. I wanted a savory and a sweet. They were both lovely. The roll was filling without being super heavy. It had a nice distribution of gruyere and bacon lardons throughout. The bread was airy like a sourdough, but the roll was made like a cinnamon roll. The napoleon was sweet, but nicely balanced. One critique would be that the puff pastry was difficult to cut. You could it had been sitting long enough for it to absorb moisture from the pastry cream. Great use of 2 snack credits. We checked MDE to see if FEA was back up and it was, so we headed over there. We finally got to finish the ride and it was fun. We were starting to get tired and had an 8:25 reservation at Akershus. We decided we would see if they could take us earlier. The girl told us to come back at 7:15 since it was just the two of us. By this point, my wife was really fatigued. 12 years of ruck marches and 3 deployments do a number on the knees and ankles. Her’s were screaming by this point, so we did a little people watching from one of the benches along the lagoon in China. We headed back over to Norway about 7 and sure enough, they were able to get us in. I wasn’t very hungry, but we wanted to see what it was all about. When we entered, we were greeted by a really nice CM that was trying to get a large family to get closer to Belle for a picture. We waited our turn and then we got our time with her. We were then seated and our server explained how it all worked. We ordered our entrees and then went to the salad bar. We both really liked the dill shrimp and orzo salad. What can I say, it was a typical salad bar. Some of it was good, some was skippable. The peel and eat cold boiled shrimp were good and the cocktail sauce was made exactly like I like it… just simply ketchup, creamy horseradish, and lemon juice. For our entrees, I ordered the grilled pork chop and my wife had the red wine-braised beef. Both entrees were okay. They both had potential, but needed seasoning specifically salt. The princesses all came by while we were eating. They seemed rushed even with the tables that had kids at them. I will say Ariel did well at interacting with us. She asked if our earrings were fish hooks. My wife said of course that she had made them this morning. Dessert again was okay. Not a fan of rice pudding. The apple cake was good and got the rest of it to go. Didn’t end up eating it, though. Overall, glad we got to experience Akershus, but we won’t do it again unless we are with friends who have a little girl. After dinner, we headed back to POFQ because we knew the next day was going to be a long one at Magic Kingdom starting with RD. We saw Illuminations back in March and didn’t want to stay for it again. I saw it as a kid in 1988 and it hadn’t changed much since then. Definitely time for it to be re-vamped or replaced, especially with what they’ve done with Happily Ever After. Hopefully with all the changes coming to EPCOT within the next few years, this will be a part of it. Day Four brings us to Magic Kingdom and an unexpected change of plans. 
Thanks for sticking with me and reading this much. By the way, I apologize for the places were I’ve left out words, especially yesterday. I was very tired. 
TBC
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Thanks so much for all of this detail - it’s helping me imagine our own upcoming trip better!
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I love epcot but totally agree that illuminations needs changing/revamping
Started watching it this last holiday bit it’s had its day and we walked away halfway through
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I’m really enjoying your trip report!
My DH is active duty and we use the military salute every year. The first year we stayed at GF. If you get the opportunity DO NOT pass it up. It is a amazing. Quick GF tip (YMMV) that was our first big Disney trip. DH was supposed to be home in early Oct and it was planned for mid Nov (I’ve been doing this military wife thing long enough to know better then to plan for anything right away) sure enough, he got extended until 2 days before our trip. I faxed the GF and requested a quiet room because of the mother of all Jet Lags coming from the Middle East. They surprised us at the bus, made us family of the day, upgraded us to a Club Level Suite and fussed on DH the entire trip. He needed it. He was completely worn out and beat down from that deployment and that made such a difference for him. Anyway, that wasn’t as quick a tip as I thought. My tip was tell GF about your DW before you go if you ever stay there. I got the impression they don’t get as many military people at their resort and they were super sweet about it. You might get some magic too!
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@135dna You’re welcome! I read multiple trip reports before our trips trying to make sure we had the best experience. I’m glad I can help other families do the same. One piece of advice would be that you can have an awesome plan, but be ready for things to change unexpectedly because it might happen as you will see in my next installment.
@Disneydaddio Thanks!
@interested I know for some what we’ve said is sacrilege because they want to keep the nostalgia of it all, but I really find it boring.
@LetItGo Thanks and thank you for all you do as a military wife. I know it’s not easy, especially during deployments. My wife and I didn’t get together until after she had been out for a few years. Therefore, I didn’t have to deal with what you deal with. I have had the joy of dealing with the VA…ugh! Thanks for the tip about the GF. We will definitely do that when we stay there. Right now for our November trip, we will be at CSR. I would love to upgrade to GF if we can. Gotta see if they have availability and if the budget can absorb it. 
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I apologize now if the second half of this day grosses you out… 
Day Four- Magic Kingdom and an unexpected change of plans
Day four was going to be a very full day. We planned to open and close Magic Kingdom as well as celebrate our anniversary at Cinderella’s Royal Table. Once we got back to our room the night before, I could see the toll our day at EPCOT had taken on both of us, especially my wife. I fully expected it to be me that needed to take things slow and needed extra recovery time from the heat. However, I found that I was handling it much better than I anticipated, but she was not. Therefore, we decided to not rope drop MK. We left our room that morning about 8 and ate breakfast at Sassagoula Floatworks & Food Factory aka the food court at POFQ. We shared the Big Easy breakfast platter. It was not good. The scrambled eggs were liquid eggs. The only thing that was decent were the breakfast potatoes. If you are staying at POFQ, don’t eat here unless you have to do so. I would rather drive to McDonald’s and eat there than eat at POFQ. Oh, and I don’t eat at McDonald’s.
Anyway, after we finished there, we headed to the bus to go to MK. The bus had just pulled up and was loading a ECV, so we were able to get right on. We got to the park relatively quickly and headed straight for Main Street Bakery for Starbucks. Yes, yes, I know, but we had snack credits to use. While in line, we got an email that Space Mountain was down and our FP could be used on another ride except for SDMT. I was actually glad because the last thing I wanted to do was suck down an iced coffee while speed walking over to SM because our window was about to close. We knew it was going to be relatively hot, so we packed lighter shirts to wear once we got some pictures in our matching shirts. We got our mandatory castle shots and walked up on the Merida meet and greet with a short line. Jumped on that and then headed to change. DW changed into a tank top and we knew that even with her tanline from sleeveless golf shirts that she would need sunscreen on her back. Took care of that or so we thought… and headed out. We got a DAS return time for SDMT and went around to see if we could catch photopass photographers there in Fantasyland. We had just read the Chip & Co. post about all the magic shots in MK and wanted to get as many as we could. We found the one in front of Rapunzel’s restrooms with Pascal. We got the one in front of Beast’s castle with Lumiere, but we couldn’t find the one with Chip. We then got the one with Sebastian. Gaston was out, so we hopped in line to meet him. He was funny of course and said I could replace LeFou as his henchman since LeFou had seemed to have disappeared and I was wearing his favorite color, red. We then went over and met Ariel in her grotto. She did an excellent job of interacting with the little girl in front of us. The little girl had an Ariel doll, so Ariel picked her dinglehopper and started combing the doll’s hair. The little girl was in awe. The mom had to literally drag the little girl away. It was really cute. After that it was time to head back to SDMT. It was great as usual, but it did stall on the climb out of the mine. That was interesting for sure, especially after our experience on FEA the day before. I had time to look to see if there were stairs to get us out of there if need be and there were, but we didn’t need them as the ride started up again. For some reason, our magic bands were not detected by the photopass sensor so we didn’t get our pictures from it. I was disappointed. Oh well, there’s always next time. After SDMT, it was time for lunch.
Lunch was Be Our Guest. We had dinner there back in March, but this was our first experience with their quick service. We ordered ahead of time and I recommend doing this. We went through a completely separate line and it was quick and painless. It took a little time to get our food, so I can definitely see it taking at least an hour and a half to eat lunch if you don’t pre-order. We ordered the french dip. It was good. I was disappointed it didn’t come with creamy horseradish, but the au jus it did come with had good flavor. It was plenty for us to share. I understand why people say BOG is the best quick service option in MK because you get to see inside the restaurant without the dinner prices. If you’re on the QS DP or the reg. DP, I would definitely try and get a reservation for breakfast or lunch.
After lunch, we headed over to see if Space Mountain was back up and it was, so we hopped in line for it. Once we got off SM, it was time for our Splash Mountain FP so we headed to Frontierland. The heat was really starting to ramp up, so we were glad for the opportunity for some wet relief. We both got a little wet, her more so than me. We needed to stay in Frontierland or Adventureland because we had a FP for BTMR in an hour, so we headed over to get a return time for Jungle Cruise. We had a 4:30 reservation to eat at Skipper Canteen, so I wanted to ride it before we ate there. We had a 30 minute return time. It was miserably hot by this point, so we got in line for the Tiki room. It was a little relief. Before the trip, we bought a metal CamelBak vacuum insulated bottle just like this… https://www.amazon.com/CamelBak-Vacuum-Insulated-Stainless-Bottle/dp/B015DK1RK8?th=1&psc=1 Boy, are we glad we did! Definitely worth the 30 bucks. It kept ice for 10 hours even in the Florida heat. We filled it with powerade at the hotel and had already drank it, so we used a snack credit and bought a large fountain drink powerade to re-fill it. We also got a cup of ice to add to the bottle. The large filled the bottle plus some. If you are going to WDW and it’s going to be warm/as hot as the surface of the sun, I highly recommend purchasing this camelbak or something like it. After we watched the tiki birds, we headed back to Jungle Cruise. We were the last ones onto the boat, so we had to sit in the exit… in the sun… with no relief… ugh. We get off and I could tell she was dying. I said let’s do this… Let’s cancel our reservation at Skipper. Go ride BTMR, hop on the train to get back to the front of the park. Go back to the room, clean up, rest a little, then come back to MK in time for dinner at CRT. You would have thought I had just given her a million dollars. She was so happy. So, we head over to Skipper and cancelled stating she was not feeling well. Man, if I had known how much this was actually foreshadowing… We then go ride BTMR and get on the train to head to the Main Street Station. As we are about to pull out of Frontierland, I hear a lady ask one of the CMs on the platform how long the train would be stopped in Fantasyland. It peaked my interest because I really just wanted to get out of MK for a while. She said because of Festival of Fantasy it would be 30 mins. UGH!!! I decide we should get off in Fantasyland to get a return time for SDMT that would use when we get back before dinner. We get off the train and oh my lord! I don’t know how anyone doesn’t lose their mind in the circus area even when they have small children. There is a reason I’m not an elementary teacher. We walked very quickly to get out of there and away from the hundreds of SCREAMING children. Saw two little boys slugging the crap outta each other and the mom just standing there telling them to stop. Needless to say, you could tell it was time for rest or naps for most of those kids. I don’t have kids, but I know 3 o’clock is the witching hour for many a toddler who has not had a nap yet. Anyway, we got our return time for SDMT and headed to the front of the park. We knew we would have to deal with the parade crowd, so we went through Tomorrowland and across by the Plaza restaurant. We were able to walk ahead of the front of the parade and get out. It didn’t take long for the bus to pick us up and get back to POFQ. We needed to eat something at this point, so we went back to Sassagoula and got a chicken sandwich. It was terrible. Dry and flavorless. Ugh! While waiting for the sandwich, DW said she wasn’t feeling so hot so I told her to go get our drinks and sit. I would wait on the food. We had stopped by the room to drop the backpack and grab our mugs. The smell in the restaurant was getting to her. We ate and headed back to the room. Her stomach was still a little upset, but we both thought it was the heat. We both showered and tried to rest a little.
(Warning: This next paragraph involves puking… Sorry if it grosses you out, but I want people to see how amazing the CMs responded to her needs.)
About 5:30, we headed back to MK. Our dinner reservation was at 7:20 and we wanted to ride SDMT before we ate. We decided to not take the big backpack back with us, but use a little drawl sack style one we had. We filled the camelbak with water. I threw a washcloth from the room in the bag, why I don’t know… and we headed out. We got to the bus stop and a bus was loading 2 ECV’s. There was a student group waiting to board as well. Needless to say, the bus was packed and we had to stand. It was fine or at least I thought. One of the students offered me his seat, but I declined because I didn’t mind standing. I was wearing the backpack and we weren’t far from the hotel when my wife asked for the water bottle. I could tell by her look that she wasn’t feeling well. I asked her if she needed to sit that the kid had offered me his seat and he would probably give it to her. She said no. (Damn Marine hardheadedness.) I said ok. She drank on the water, but by the time we got to World Drive, she knew she was about to be sick. Thank goodness there was nothing in the backpack except that washcloth because it was about to be a puke bag. She asked the kid if she could sit and he hopped right up. They were police explorers, so I knew he would recognize a person in need. Sure enough, she wasn’t seated for 2 minutes before she got sick. I don’t know where she developed the ability to puke quietly, but she did and thank goodness because the last thing we wanted was the chain reaction that sometimes occurs. We got off the bus and headed to the gate. We didn’t realize there were restrooms there by the bus depot. We were trying to get to first aid, but knew security would need to search the bag. They sent us to the restrooms back by the busses to wash out the bag. She gets it washed out and has to sit on the bench outside the restroom for a moment to try and collect herself. We when walk back to security because by this point we know we aren’t making it back into the park. She tells the guard at the no bags line what happened and that she needs help. What she/we meant was that we needed to get back to our resort without having to get back on the bus. We thought she had motion sickness. He has her sit down on the umbrella base that was more like a box while he tried to find his supervisor. They end up calling the paramedics. The head of Guest Relations for MK comes over. She’s fighting with everything she has not to get sick again. A female guard brings her a wet towel to put on her neck and it helps. The paramedics check her out and determine its heat related motion sickness. Jeff, head of GR, gets our reservation at CRT cancelled for us because I couldn’t get through. He also gets a CM from GR to drive us back to POFQ. The paramedics give us a vomit bag that was amazing because she used it as soon as she heard someone was taking us back. Anyway, she didn’t get sick again after that, but we asked for another bag just in case. Elsa, the CM from GR, pulls up in a white traverse, not one of the “Minnie” vans mind you, but just like it on the inside. The Minnie vans made their appearance the next day, literally. Elsa and I chat on the way back to the resort while DW prays in the back seat that she doesn’t get sick again. Come to find out, Elsa’s from Houston and went to high school with my cousin. Again, small world. Jeff called our resort to let them know what happened. When we get back to the room, there’s already a message from the front desk checking on DW. Jeff calls to let us know he was able to get the reservation at CRT cancelled. He also tried to get us another reservation for Monday night and put a complimentary 1 day hopper on our magic bands so we could go back to MK since we were missing our anniversary dinner. Monday was going to be a pool/resort day for us since we only had a 4 day hopper. Needless to say, they went above and beyond to take care of her and us.
We get back to the room and I get her settled in bed. I go get her some sprite and myself dinner to go. I then torture her, unknowingly, with my fried chicken. It was actually really good, but I didn’t realize how much it would smell up the room. I should have known, but by that point I wasn’t able to think. It had been a stressful couple of hours. I ended up having to throw away the to go box in the trash can by the elevator. She was freezing out from under the blankets, but was hot under them. It was obvious she was running fever. It finally dawned on me what was going on when she got up to go the bathroom and I got a good look at her. She was sunburned! I mean cooked on her forehead and chest. The tank top was cut lower than her golf shirts and the straps cut in further. She hadn’t worn her visor like she had been and even her scalp was burned. She had sun poisoning. I’m the one with the fair complexion who usually cooks like a lobster in the sun, but I was fine. She can spend hours on the golf course and not burn. It was so strange. Nevertheless, she was dealing with sun poisoning. I told her what was happening and she wasn’t sure I was correct, but I was. I gave her two advil because they are anti-inflammatories and headed back down to Sassagoula to get her some ginger ale. I had grabbed her some crackers when I went down before and she was struggling to get them down, mainly because they were stale AF. Again, don’t eat at Sassagoula. Anyway, the advil kicked in, she drank the ginger ale, and the fever broke.
The day definitely didn’t turn out how we had planned, but it really was ironic. We can laugh about it now. Maybe on our third anniversary we will actually get to celebrate. On our first, she was taking care of me because I had just gotten home from surgery. Now, I’m taking care of her… Hopefully, the third time’s the charm. Jeff wasn’t able to get us in at CRT on Monday, but it’s ok. We have a reservation for it when we go back in November. Day five takes to Hollywood Studios on a very modified plan.
Thanks for reading and I hope I didn’t gross you out too much.
TBC
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So sorry DW was ill, but I’m glad she was taken care of.
We really enjoyed the food at POFQ, sorry you had bad experiences.
Poor dear! It’s a shame your anniversary was such a rough day, but taking care of each other is what it’s all about. 
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There is something about the Florida sun that is different, I don’t know what it is, but it’s worse than anywhere else I’ve ever been.