Finally the day came when Carol could “legally” wear her “Happy Birthday” button.
We decided to try something different today so we went to the dock to take the Riverboat Cruise to Downtown Disney, as mentioned on the WDW Today channel in our hotel room.

The CM who was driving the boat asked us where we wanted to go. We actually wanted to go to Downtown Disney. He said, “Well obviously you didn’t read the schedule because the next boat that goes to Downtown Disney leaves in an hour. I’m going to Riverside.”
I almost said, “Well obviously you didn’t read the fine print in your Disney Employee’s Guide as to how to address guests but I’ll make sure that your supervisor won’t forget to remind you to refresh your memory on your customer skills.”
Of course I didn’t say that but would it have hurt him too much to say, “Well folks the next boat to Downtown Disney won’t be here for about an hour but I’d be happy to take you to Riverside.”
Not only that, you think with Carol wearing her birthday button he would have been a bit more dare I say, “cast memberlike?”
We decided to take the boat to Riverside and checked out the General Store.

We decided to walk back to POFQ and drive to Downtown Disney.
We were spending the morning doing our “official shopping” to get a few gifts for friends, and use our 10% discount from our Annual Passes.
We found a few things but not as much as we have in the past.
By the way, I’m amazed at the success of the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique.

Next month a second one will open in Cinderella Castle.
We finished our shopping and came back to POFQ to drop off our stuff and grab a little bite to eat. It was that time in the trip when all guests begin to say, “Y’know, I’m not that hungry, but I need a little something.”
After our quickie lunch we headed off to the Magic Kingdom.
We had not really hit Fantasyland yet on this trip so we headed straight for Peter Pan and walked right on thanks to some special Attraction Re-entry passes given to us by a friend.
It was another warm day so we were looking for any relief”¦and it came in the Carrousel of Progress.
Look for that abstract painting of Mickey as the Sorcerer’s apprentice in the last scene.
We rode the Tomorrowland Transit Authority a few times and then checked out a few shops for some Disney Halloween pins. Carol likes to be the Disney pin teacher at her school and likes to wear a different Disney Halloween pin every year.
We were meeting friends”¦I’ll keep it a secret for now”¦at the Contemporary for dinner.
We took the monorail over to the resort and walked around.
Wow, things were happening.
Take a look at the activity we saw just beginning on the fourth floor.



Some new shops are going in and you may have seen the artist renditions in Jack Spence’s report earlier this week.
We met up with our dear friends Steve and Vickie Barrett and had a wonderful dinner at the California Grill.
How’s this for a view of the sunset?

The California Grill folks came over and took our photo because of Carol’s birthday.

The folks at CG also gave Carol a special birthday dessert.

We had some very high quality time with Steve and Vickie. We had hoped they could stay to watch Wishes with us both both had an early morning and they also had a fairly long drive home. See you at Mousefest guys, if not sooner.
Another view from the CG

We went out on the observation deck to watch Wishes.
The photos I took do not do Wishes justice simply because of the angle from which we watched the nighttime spectacular. Remember that during Wishes there are several sets of fireworks being fired”¦.those around the castle and those from a barge well in the rear of Magic Kingdom. The best angle to watch Wishes is from directly in front of the castle on Main Street USA.
So Carol had a nice birthday.

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