Holiday Hootennanies with Scarlett and the Fam Damily! Day Two, Part 4, Updated 4/25 About This Page:

[tammyd_rn]

You would have to give my husband the kinky look as well because he was looking over my shoulder as I was reading your update. Wanting to know where that was at and if we had an ADR for there.

Great update and pics. Look forward to your next update.

[Starla4436]

mmmmm Le Cellier looked yummy...I got the smores for desert when i went last trip just because i saw someone had got it on there tip in a TR...I had mad smore envy...it is really fun to play with.

[PrincessSharon]

Mmmm. Sounds like a fantastic meal at Le Cellier (and y'all would be too much fun to dine with ) When I dine with my fam damily, the food photos always have bites taken out of them. But I guess just by looking at us, you can tell how we're practically starving. More! And I'm so proud of you for keeping up with your TR so well lately

[Caldercup]

Ruh... roh.... The CP is "hazardous?" But... but... you weren't sitting with a bunch of ninnies who laughed (LAUGHED) at Ol' Flame Head, were you?

Heeee!

Great update - loved all the "food porn!" (That's what I call Nigella and Giada on the Food Network.)
EIleen

[jpod523]

i haven't posted in forever! the update. i have yet to try le cellier, but that food looks amazing. i love steak and i can't wait to try that infamous cheddar cheese soup!!

[KandJluvdisney]

great update scarlett
yummy meal at le cellier - we love it there too
can't wait to hear about the cp
hurry back with more

[lindawdw]

I'm lovin this update Scarlett! Your family is so cute together. I enjoyed seeing your food pics of your meals at LeCellier too!

[BelmontBelle]

Le Cellier looks so good! I'm glad everyone enjoyed their meals. The pics of you and MacKenzie sipping your drinks are too cute , you look so much alike! Can't wait to hear about the CP.

[goofysdtr]

Great update! I'm hungry now!

[RobDVC]

Sorry to hear about the missing camera case.
Pretty cool that the CM gave Epcot fastpasses to your sister for her inconvenience.
That is one yummy looking meal!

[Snooky the Disney Mom]

Golden FP's at Epcot--how cool was that! Bummer about them wasting time waiting for Pooh, though. My brother & family had a similar situation with the Incredibles, but didn't luck out with the FP's.

[DELG8TOR]

How about an update?

[MinnieMary]

[Disney_Scarlett]

I'm so sorry for the delay! Life has turned itself upside down, but I feel too guilty for not updating my TR that I haven't caught up on all the other fabulous TRs going on. So thanks for the motivation in the form of your own writing to get me moving! I'll try my best to be more diligent!

Upon exiting Le Cellier, we made our way to the American Gardens Theatre for the 8:15 showing of the Candlelight Processional. I would compare this experience with fish trying to swim upstream – it seemed as if everyone else in the park was walking the opposite direction we were (I think the middle showing of the CP had just let out). We actually passed by the line waiting to get into the theatre, as it was so long, we were sure that it wasn’t for the CP. However, it was, so we backtracked and got in line. Knowing that we had guaranteed seating because of the CP package, I wasn’t too worried about the line, though. Shortly after we got our place in queue, a cast member came by to check all of our CP Package stickers. A couple of us were still holding ours, and had not actually stuck them to our clothing, but he instructed us to all stick them to ourselves. These stickers are pretty big – Maeve’s basically took up her whole shirt!

We didn’t have to wait too long before they started seating everyone. We were escorted to the right side of the theatre, about halfway up. I saw that there were plenty of seats more to the middle, and I’m not sure why we weren’t taken there (maybe they were reserved for something in particular), but it was okay. We sat near the end of the row on the outside, so we could easily see the lagoon beside and beyond the theatre.

We didn’t have to wait very long until the program got started. This was my first time seeing the CP, and I looove it. My church does a huge cantata every year that my parents and the one-and-only-musically-inclined-sister participate in, and it’s one of my favorite parts of the holiday season. The CP is like a cantata on steroids, and yes, more is better! I was hoping for Andie McDowell to be our narrator (she’s an NC native and lives here still) but I think when we originally booked the CP, Neil Patrick Harris was supposed to be our narrator. However, it quickly changed to Steven Curtis Chapman (what is it with these guys and their triple-names?). I was really excited about NPH, as I love him as Barney on How I Met Your Mother, but SCC was excellent as well. He has an excellent speaking, and of course, singing, voice and he sang along to most of the music.

I swear, y’all, I can’t take my family anywhere though, and I’m partly (if not mostly) to blame for that. We’re sitting there, enjoying the first numbers, when of course, Flame Head comes rolling out, and I’m just as guilty as 2/3 of the CLT – I could hardly suppress my laughter. Krista quickly caught on to what I was laughing at and the only reason why we stifled giggles was because Mama was sitting on the other side of her and kept giving us The Look (and Mama has the worst Look ever – It has been known to bring small children to tears within seconds of being under It’s spell).

A little blurry, but a picture of the CP in all it's glory:



The lights dimmed as I went to take a piture of the tree - of course. That's when I put my camera up.



We settled down and had gone back to being mature adults, enjoying lovely Christmas-time music, when an overwhelming smell of gasoline came upon us. I am assuming that it had something to do with the preparations of Illuminations in the lagoon right beside us, but it was quite distracting. At first, I thought it was just me (as in, it was just me that was aware of the smell, NOT just me producing the smell ), as no one else seemed to notice it. I was literally sitting there thinking, “Dang, it’s like someone’s filling up the John Deere right beside us,” when Krista sat up straight and loudly proclaimed, “WHERE IS THAT GASOLINE SMELL COMING FROM? WHAT ARE WE, SITTING IN THE SHED OR SOMETHIN’?” I am fully aware that this is one of those “you had to be there” moments, but at that second, I totally lost it and had to put my head between my knees to gain composure again.

It was a few minutes before I could focus back on the music and processional, as even Mama had fell into giggles at that point. Everyone had finally gotten their attention back on the lovely performance going on in front of us when all of the sudden, one of the chorale members in the front fainted. Luckily, some of her fellow singers caught her and helped to lower her down to the floor. Everything kept going on as normal – no doubt that Steven Curtis Chapman or 90% of the rest of the choir had any idea what was going on. The fainting-girl laid on the floor with another performer or two sitting with her, and it was a couple of minutes before some stage-hands in black snuck onto the stage and helped her out. She seemed to be walking at this point (with some assistance) and I sincerely hope she just locked her knees or something and was okay.

Soon we were nearing the end of the program and it was time for the audience participation part. We all sang along happily enough, although none of us could compete with a man sitting in the row behind us. He had a beautiful, deep baritone voice and I kept sneaking glances behind me to catch a look at the guy who was putting us all to shame. After we were done singing, I whispered to Mama something about how the guy behind us needed to be up on stage singing. She looked at me with a surprised face and said, “Oh! I thought that was a speaker behind us! I didn’t know it was a real man!” After the program, she told the guy how much she enjoyed his voice.

About halfway through the program, Mackenzie had fallen asleep in Krista’s lap. She was obviously pooped (her younger sister, however, was still going strong!). The funny thing was that every time the audience would start clapping after each number, she would wake up juuuust enough to clap along and then fall back asleep immediately. We all got a good chuckle at watching her applaud politely to the music that she had obviously not heard a note of. That’s typical Mackenzie: “Must…be…appropriate...at…all…times…”

After the CP was over (which, despite all the distractions, we thoroughly enjoyed and would definitely do again), we made our way with the masses out of the theatre. Krista and Jeff went off to find their strollers that they had left parked in a designated area, and Mama, Dad and I headed towards the exit, as I was in a little bit of a hurry to leave – I wanted to try to make the end of the Adventurer’s Club meet, which meant dealing with the not-so-fun park-to-DTD transportation.

We made our way to the front of the park by going around the Mexico-side of the World Showcase. Before leaving, I wanted to pop into Guest Services to see if anyone had turned in my lost hoodie from the night before. There was only one person in front of me, who was already being waited on by a CM behind the counter, and there was another CM back there as well, that was preoccupied with some task. I stood behind the fella being helped and while I was waiting, a lady came in and walked past me to the other CM, catching his attention with an, “Excuse me, excuse me – I was just in here and…” I wasn’t paying enough attention to remember what her deal was, as I really didn’t even look over her way. She was finished in about five seconds and as she walked past me, she snottily said to me, “Chill out, I wasn’t trying to cut in front of you.” Seeing as I had hardly even noticed her at all, I literally did one of those look-behind-me-to-make-sure-she’s-talking-to-me and said, “Are you talking to me?” She just looked at me, and I rolled my eyes and said, “Ma’am, I hardly noticed you until right now.” As I turned away from her (my favorite way to dismiss a rude someone), her expression changed and I think she realized she had just made a horse’s butt out of herself and she stormed out. Considering that I had barely saw that lady, and definitely didn’t make any faces or anything towards her, I didn’t appreciate her telling me to chill out, when, in fact, I was the definition of chilled out until she inserted herself into my personal space, thankyouverymuch.

Anyway. The CM looked for my sweatshirt and while they did have an almost-identical one in their box ‘o lost stuff, it wasn’t mine. Worth a shot anyway! On my way out, I ran into Krista coming in – she was stopping by to see if they could switch the date on the Golden Fastpasses she had received that day – we didn’t have time to use them between dinner and the CP. I went ahead out the door, and where Mama, Dad, Jeff and the girls waited, and we all waited for Krista for a few minutes until she came out, new Golden Fastpasses in hand. The CM had made them good for the rest of the week and we were on the way to the bus stop.

We had to wait a little while for a bus, but it wasn’t too bad. While we were waiting, I noticed a lady walking around in her socks with her shoes in her hand. I know that feeling! We loaded onto the bus and made the short ride back to OKW. Upon departing, I let the rest of the fam damily make their way back to the rooms while I took a spot on a bench and waited for a DTD bus.

After almost 25 minutes of waiting for a bus, I committed the Cardinal Sin of Waiting – I left my post. I went to see if the boat to DTD was running, and found that no, it had stopped running for the evening. So, I made my way back to the bus stop, and while I can’t be sure, I think I missed the DTD bus while I had stepped away, as I waited another 20 minutes or so before giving up. It was getting so late that at this point, if I got a bus to DTD, I would hardly get to the AC before the meet would be over. I moped my pouty self back to the room and sent text messages of apology to the CLT about missing the Adventurer’s Club meet. I was really hoping to be able to see them again and also meet all the other fabulous Passporters there. After reading others’ trip reports, I know I missed out on a hilarious time, which makes it all the more frustrating – arggghh! Foiled again by the park-to-DTD transportation system.

I found the parental units relaxing in the room, watching TV, and I got myself ready for bed. I had just finished changing when there came an urgent knock at the door. You know how you can tell when someone is just knocking and when someone is knocking in a way that says, “Open the door right now, I’m running from the cops.” With an alarmed look on my face, I peeked out the door and saw Krista standing there. I opened the door wider and Krista ran in, almost knocking me over in the process. She hurried over to my bed, laughing wildly, and dumped an armful of hotel-coffee packages on the bed, and screamed, “I STOLE THE COFFEE!”

I could only stare at her open-mouthed as she shrieked hysterically. I turned slowly to Mama and said, “Well, Krista’s finally lost it. She’s officially out of her gourd.”

Breathlessly, Krista tried to explain, probably because she saw me dialing the mental institution on my cell behind my back (actually, in my family, we have it on speed dial). Apparently, Mama and Dad had mentioned that they would like to have some more coffee packs for our in-room coffee maker, and after getting off the bus, Krista had offered to go to the front desk and ask for some (I had not heard this exchange, so I didn’t even get the coffee reference when Krista came bursting in). On her way down the stairs of our building, she noticed the door to a service room standing slightly open, and a light was on. She stopped and peeked her head in the door – supposedly thinking that a housekeeper might be in there that could get Krista the coffee and save her a trip to the main building – I think she was really just checking out the joint, surveying the goods. No one was in the room, but she did lay eyes on entire boxes full of the products provided in the rooms – shampoo, toilet paper and of course, coffee. After taking a careful glance around to make sure no one was coming, she ran in, grabbed multiple handfuls of coffee packages, and ran out again, not stopping until she got to our room and then disposed of the stolen materials on my bed. I ran over to the pile of coffee and started throwing it onto Mama and Dad’s bed, yelling out in mock horror, “Don’t involve me in your shenanigans! I want no part of your illegal behavior! Oh God, I’ve touched it now! My fingerprints will be on it! I’m ruined! How dare you!”

I should say that the funniest part of this whole thing to me was Krista’s absolute delight in doing something a little wrong. Krista has never exactly been one to walk on the wild side, so her treating the stolen coffee like it was hot car stereo equipment cracked me up. In college, one of my friends had an affinity for “borrowing” things like funny road signs and putting them on his wall in his dorm room – I never saw hotel coffee up there, though.

After we all calmed down, Krista made her way back to the Miller’s room and after setting a wake-up call for 7:00 am, the parentals and I turned in for the night.

When Krista got back to her room, she found two sleeping angels, and took two of the cutest pictures ever :



The weather today was sunny and warm – low to mid 70’s during the day.
The best thing today was Would it be bad to say the French Toast Loaf? Actually the entire morning at MK was magical, and our meal at Le Cellier was “best” too.
The worst thing today was missing the Adventurer’s Club meet – yes, even over the self-setting alarm clock!
The funniest thing today was I have so many choices…Krista’s stolen coffee has to tie with the Family Fun Day Parade.
Today we tried the Candlelight Processional
And the result was even with all our distractions, it was a perfect holiday show, and something worth doing again.
The most magical moment today was savoring the opening ceremony at the MK – sheer joy!


Up next: Morning at Epcot!

[Caldercup]

Oh, I'm so glad that Ol' Flame Head was outshone in the "hilarity department" by the smell of someone topping off the John Deere/IllumiNations Globe!

So glad you decided to join the class again, Miss Scarlett. I hope you will continue participating.

Love ya, mean it!
Eileen

PS - I think the phrase "thankyouverymuch" is one of my very favorite trip report sayings.