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Day Four, Wednesday 12/1/04 </font>
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Part 1 - Pirate Cruise </font>
Even though we got to bed late last night, we still set the alarm for 8:00am. Savannah was scheduled to go on the Pirate Cruise over at the Grand Floridian at 10:00am and had to be checked in around 9:30am. We stayed in bed until the last possible second
and rushed over to GF after refilling our mugs with coffee. Lee dropped Savannah & I off at the front entrance while he went to park the car. Luckily we had stayed at GF last year so I knew exactly where to go to get to the Marina. I got Savannah checked in and she got her nametag and a really cute Pirate headband with Mickey ears to wear. She was very crabby and not very excited at all to go on the cruise. I kept trying to tell her how much fun she would have, but she was still whining a lot. They gave all the parents pagers and told them that if there was a problem they would page us. When the boat pulled away with all the kids on it, Savannah did not look happy. In fact, she looked like a prisoner being sent off to jail
Lee & I had a bad feeling about it so we stayed there by the Marina and sat on some benches. Around 10:20am, a woman and her young daughter rushed past us and went up to the Marina counter. Apparently the little girl was signed up for the pirate cruise but the boat had left 10 minutes ago. I could tell from the woman's body language that she was very upset and was arguing with the people at the counter. Since the boat had just left, the people working there agreed to put the little girl on another boat and ferry her out to where the pirate boat was. I thought that was very nice of them, considering the woman was over 30 minutes late. As the boat that dropped her off returned to the dock we could see the woman who had been with the kids on the pirate boat sitting in back and it looked like she had a child sitting next to her. We knew instantly without even seeing her that it was Savannah. Lee had even predicted that when the boat returned he bet Savannah would be on it and he was right. As they got off the boat the woman saw us standing there and said "Thank God, we were just about to page you. Savannah has been crying since the moment we left the dock."
When I asked Savannah what was wrong she said she doesn't like pirates and all the other kids making loud pirate noises scared her. I think it also had to do with her not getting enough sleep last night. Since Savannah didn't get to participate in the cruise I asked the woman about getting a refund. She said she would check into it and sure enough when I checked the bank a few days later, they had refunded my money. I thought that was very nice of them to do that.
We walked back over to the GF lobby and took some pictures of the grounds, Christmas decorations, and the giant gingerbread house.
Christmas Tree in Lobby
Gingerbread House
We had made plans last night to meet Josh & Kelly at MGM once the pirate cruise was over. We called them on their cell phone and they had decided to sleep in this morning after the late night last night. They were just getting up and about and probably wouldn't be at MGM until around 11:30am. Since we had some time to kill we decided to jump on the monorail and head over to Magic Kingdom for an hour. The first place we went was Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe on the way to Frontierland. Kelly had noticed a Christmas ornament there last night that she wanted to buy but the line was very long and she didn't want to wait. I went in the shop and got the ornament for her. It was a white Christmas ball with Mickey & Minnie dressed like a bride & groom standing on top. Since Josh & Kelly were on their honeymoon, I had their ornament personalized with their names and their wedding date. While we waited for the personalizing to get done, we took Savannah on Splash Mountain and BTMRR again. We walked back over and picked up the ornament and headed back on the monorail to GF to get our car and drive over to MGM.
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Coming up......Day Four, Part Two - "But Mommy, I AM tall enough!" </font>