[Ears42]

Day Two Continued: Germany, The Rose and Crown and the Candlelight Processional.

Ok, so where were we. . . .

After enjoying out time in Italy, “are they ever going to finish the rehab here?” we stroll to Germany. Katie wanted to stop and watch the miniature railroad, but the older men admiring the trains wouldn’t make room for her, so we wondered into the toy store. BIG MISTAKE. [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] Mr. Engle the doll maker was in the store this day making dolls to order. Katie loves dolls and these are really beautiful, quality dolls but very, very pricey. But, it was her birthday and she did have her own money to spend, so after a very serious discussion with her about it being a “look at” not a “play with” doll, and explaining to her that she would be spending all of her money and wouldn’t be able to buy anything else all week, we made a doll. Mr. Engle was very nice, he took Katie by the hand, helped her pick out the face, the hair, the dress. He signed the doll's body and wrote “Happy Birthday Katie” on it. It is a beautiful doll and it looks like Katie. During the process we attracted quite a crowd and when the doll was finished and presented to Katie they clapped, and Katie bowed. I did get 15% off because I had the Candlelight Processional discount, but I still spent over $100 on a doll. They wanted to ship it home for us but Katie wouldn’t hear of that so we arranged to pick it up at the end of the day as we left the park, Katie went back and thanked Mr. Engle and hugged him, and I started worrying about how I was going to explain to my DH how and why I spent $100 on a doll two weeks before Christmas. As a side note, Katie loves this doll and has been very good with it. It’s on a shelf in her room and we take it down each night so that she can play with it for 10 minutes. It doesn’t have a name yet, it has actually had several names but none have stuck.

It was now about 3:45 and people were already lining up for the Candlelight processional at 5:00 p.m. We had PS for 4:30 at the Rose and Crown so we decided to head back towards the UK. We got to the restaurant around 4:15 and had a few minutes wait before our PS. Katie was getting cranky and I could tell dinner was not going to be enjoyable. Again, as a party of two we got an awful table, on a corner right in front of the door, that let a very cool breeze in every time someone opened the door. We sat down and Katie wanted to sit in my lap. We ordered and before my salad arrived she was sound asleep. The Candlelight Processional package included soup or salad, entree, and dessert. I had a green salad, the rosemary chicken with mashers, very tasty and the English Trifle for dessert. [img]graemlins/yuma.gif[/img] It was all very good but I can’t honestly say I enjoyed it because I was holding a sleeping four year old during the entire meal. She of course woke up as I finished my dessert.

We headed back towards the USA pavilion and I was surprised that we ended up in line somewhere in Japan for the Candlelight Processional. I’m not sure that anyone who didn’t book the dinner package got seats. Everyone around us had dinner package tickets.

If you have never seen the Candlelight Processional and you are in Disney while it is being performed, you have to see this performance.

I do not have the words to describe the beauty and majesty of the Candlelight Processional. It is so moving, I get chills just thinking about it. The young voices, the orchestra, its amazing. James Avery (the dad/uncle from the 90’s TV series Fresh Prince), a much thinner James Avery, I might add, was our orator. He had a marvelous voice for reading the Christmas Story and you could tell he was truly enjoying himself. He was singing with the choirs. This was the one thing I really wanted to do, to make it really feel like Christmas, and I wasn’t sure that Katie would enjoy or sit still for the whole performance, but she was enthralled. This is just so beautiful. I will definitely plan another trip around this event.

By this time we had been going for hours and we were beat. We headed to the front of the park, with plans to come back to Epcot another day and finish Katie’s passport and do some of Future world, to catch the bus back to VWL. We unfortunately did not get back to Epcot because of the weather, more on this later. We stopped to pick up our Santa pictures, they were just too cute, and I had to buy them, and headed to the bus stop.

We made it back to the lodge without Katie falling asleep on the bus, thank goodness because I would have not been able to get Katie, the new doll, the stroller, the backpack, etc, etc, etc off of the bus if she were asleep. We went to the desk, got our room, had the luggage brought up and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Next Installment: Katie’s 4th Birthday, Chef Mickey’s and Rain or “When is the Ark going to float by us?”