A Day Away From Our Week Away Day 8 Heading Home

I have thought about making it myself, but I know my limitations. Just shopping for the 20 items would take a couple of hours.

INGREDIENTS

10ounces (5 medium)tomatillos, husked and rinsed
1 1/3 cup (about 6 1/2 ounces) sesame seeds
1cuprich-tasting pork lard or vegetable oil, plus a little more if necessary
6ounces (about 12 medium) dried mulato chiles, stemmed, seeded and torn into large flat pieces
3ounces (6 medium)dried ancho chiles, stemmed, seeded and torn into large flat pieces
3ounces (10 medium)dried pasilla chiles, stemmed, seeded and torn into large flat pieces
8 garlic cloves, peeled
1cup (about 4 ounces) unskinned almonds
1cup (about 4 ounces) raisins
1teaspooncinnamon, preferably freshly ground Mexican canela
1/2teaspoon black pepper, preferably freshly ground
1/2teaspoon anise, preferably freshly ground
1/4teaspoon cloves, preferably freshly ground
2slices firm white bread, darkly toasted and broken into several pieces
2ounces (about 2/3 of a 3.3-ounce tablet)Mexican chocolate, roughly chopped
3quarts chicken broth
Salt
1/3 to 1/2cup sugar

It was spectacular.

Day Five: We Finally Do Some Food & Wine

We left the resort with a plan for doing EPCOT and experiencing F&W. We decided to begin with a good breakfast, so we headed towards The Wave. Some friends that we had assisted in planning their first trip returned and raved about the breakfast buffet at The Wave. They insisted that we try it. Now we have eaten a late night meal at there and enjoyed it. Enjoyed it a lot. So breakfast at The Wave became a morning ADR. As we were on the bus to MK, I was having second thoughts and nearly cancelled. It just seemed like a ways out of our way, when we could have just had breakfast at the resort and headed to EPCOT. Reluctantly, we went. And we were glad we did. Once we arrived at MK, we walked to Contemporary. I love walking under the monorail and seeing the resort in the distance, getting closer as we approach. It is a true Disney moment for me.

The morning was great, not for the food, which was good, but for the rest of our morning. Neither of us wanted the buffet, so we just ordered a basic breakfast (maybe subconsciously saving room for F&W). Food was good and the service was excellent. This may have been because the place was nearly empty when we arrived. It did fill up nicely by the time we left. As we started up the escalator to the monorail, my wife commented on how much she liked the place and how she enjoyed our stay there. It did bring back some memories of our anniversary trip 5 years ago. I think we would both love to stay there again. We decided to walk around. We people watched little kids coming and going to Chef Mickey's. We watched activities out on Bay Lake. We did a long walk through the gift shops. And my favorite part, we took the time and really studied the Mary Blair mural. It is beautiful from a distance, but when you get up close and take in the work involved, you realize what a treasure it is. Finally we headed off for the monorail.

It would be a quick trip to the TTC and switch trains to Epcot. As we started moving, I had an idea. We stayed on past the TTC and went to the Grand Floridian. Since we had such a nice time walking around the Contemporary, I thought we would do the same at GF. We had never set foot inside the place in our many trips. It was a good decision as we enjoyed walking around. A large wedding party was having photos taken in the lobby, so we stood upstairs and watched that for awhile. Then we took our time just wandering through the sights and shops. It was a cool way to kill an hour, although we did decide that there were other places we would stay before GF. Not sure why, but we put several places ahead of it on our 'where to stay next time list'.

We decided to skip the monorail and get on a very empty bus to EPCOT.

More To Follow

The couple that suggested that we have breakfast there, did so because there was a Sweet Potato Hash on the menu and they know that I always order hash for breakfast when it is available. This would explain my love of The Samoan at Kona. It is a pulled pork hash.
Anyway, the Sweet Potato Hash was not on the current menu. Our server did go ask if they could prepare it but unfortunately, they could not.

Day Five We finally Do Some Food & Wine

Leaving Grand Floridian, we boarded the monorail and headed to EPCOT. As we came off the ramp and headed towards bag check, curiosity got to my wife. We were walking past a K-9 and his handler when she stopped to ask him (the handler, not the dog) a question. She asked why each park we had visited had a K-9 vehicle with the hood up. He explained that the K-9 unit is a team of two dogs. While one is patrolling, the other is resting in the air-conditioned vehicle. Because of the high outside temps, they raise the hood to keep the car from overheating. Mystery answered.

Despite this friendly chat with the officer (I'm guessing her "aren't you cute" was directed at the K-9 and not the handler). she was 'randomly chosen' to walk through the metal detector. Maybe she gets picked because she's always giggling as we approach.

We started our visit with a stop at Art of Disney. It's a favorite place to browse. Leaving there we needed to make a quick stop at MouseGears. We came out the side and planned on walking down to see what the wait time on Test Track was. We had a FastPass for it later in the day, but wouldn't have minded riding it twice as we had not been on it since the last update. The wait was too long, but Mission Space was only 10 minutes. So we got in line. A dozen visits, with more time spent at EPCOT than any where else, and we had never been on it. We did the Green version and enjoyed it. We grabbed our F&W Passport and started knocking off our 'must-try' items.

Some of our favorites were:

Belgium Beer-braised Beef served with Smoked Gouda Mashed Potatoes
Australia Grilled Sweet and Spicy Bush Berry Shrimp with Pineapple, Pepper, Onion and Snap Peas
Canada "Le Cellier" Wild Mushroom Beef Filet Mignon with Truffle-Butter Sauce
Canada Canadian cheddar cheese soup served with a pretzel roll
China Sichuan Spicy Chicken
Farm Fresh Loaded Mac 'n' Cheese with Nueske's(r) Pepper Bacon, Cheddar Cheese, Peppers and Green Onions
(OK. If someone from the FDA is reading this, you need to make this dish part of the daily food requirements. Find a place for it on that little pyramid. Fruits, vegetables, protein, Loaded Mac 'n' Cheese with Nueske's(r) Pepper Bacon, Cheddar Cheese, Peppers and Green Onions.) Hands down the best thing we tried.
Ireland Irish Cheese Selection Plate: Irish Cheddar, Dubliner and Irish Porter
Japan Spicy Sushi Roll: Tuna and Salmon with Kazan Volcano Sauce
Korea Korean-style BBQ Beef with Steamed Rice and Cucumber Kimchi "

Wow. Now that I type all of that, we visited more places than I thought. There were also a few beverages that we sampled. In between all of that we did a couple of other things. We had a FastPass for Test Track ( I am undecided on the new version), We also had a FP for Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival. We went in not knowing anything about it, and were bowled over by the 3 Shorts. For just a throw-away FP, and a place to cool off, it was one of our highlights of the trip. Try it if you love Shorts, PIXAR or Classic Disney animation.

It was approaching 6:00, we were full (both food and beverage) so we headed back. When we got to the room, she looked at the resort map and realized that the laundry was at the pool right beside our building. We had burned through clothes a little faster than normal (because of the heat), so we set off to throw a couple of loads in and relax by the pool. I got her to sit on the edge of the pool and put her legs in to try and help with the issue she was having with the back of her calves. She had developed a discoloration under the skin of her calves. It did not hurt, it did not itch, just bright purple coloring under the skin. I know some felt it was heat rash, but it was not. Heat rash is usually in skin folds or under clothing and include blisters, spots on the skin surface. Googling her symptoms, we determined it was a harmless condition brought on by lots of exercise/walking in high temperatures. Golfers often get it. The cool water seemed to lessen the intensity of the color a bit. Note: This discoloration took about two weeks to disappear.

We wrapped up laundry, dropped it off at the room. We were going to head to Disney Springs for a snack and a cocktail, but decided neither of us wanted either. So we made it an earlier night.

Up Next Day Six Does Sanaa translate to 'OH NO, It's happening again?'

Day Six Does Sanaa translate to 'OH NO, It's happening again?'

Sanaa day!

If you read our trip report from our last visit, you know that Sanaa was going to be our special meal of the trip. You would also know that a run-in with some Disney Villains had left us on a Disney bus for over two hours and that by the time we got there, we turned right around and returned home. So today, 3 years and one week later, we would finally get to eat at Sanaa.

We had planned this day as our Animal Kingdom day, so we would be a short bus ride away from AKL and our eagerly awaited meal.

We slept in until about 8:30 and discussed what to do for breakfast. We decided to find a place for an early lunch so that we would be hungry when we got to Sanaa. After a lot of talking, we decided to walk to Disney Springs and get something quick there. As we walked, we discussed some possibilities. But as we started to cross the bridge, we saw the boat to Port Orleans loading.(Actually, there was only one other person waiting). I suggested that we take the boat to one of the resorts and eat quick service there. And so we set sail for PORS, with a stop at POFQ. Now we had stayed at French Quarter previously, so we decided to stay on board to Riverside.

We walked around the resort for a bit and headed into the Riverside Mill. We ordered lunch (Roast Beef Melt for her, Muffaletta for me). Both were better than expected, and we sat and looked over Sanaa's menu while we ate.

A smooth bus ride to Animal Kingdom had us arriving at the park around 1:00pm. We had brought a bag with a change of top for here and shirt for me, so that we could look somewhat presentable for our dinner. So we grabbed a locker and put those inside.We had a FastPass for the 2:00pm Lion King show. We had enjoyed this a couple of times years ago and were looking forward to seeing it in it's new home. She also wanted to see Winged Encounter and of course, Flights of Wonder. She is, as previously mentioned a bird nut. We grabbed a daily schedule and there was no mention of Winged Encounters, so we headed to the Tree of Life, found where the Encounter takes place and also found a CM who looked up the show times. Armed with this information, we developed our plan. 2:00 Lion King. 3:00 Flights of Wonder and a dash to Winged Encounters at 3:30.

Now we both love this park, and have no problem spending a day and a half there, but my wife will always make the same comment about the park. And that is, that they designed the walkways too narrow and that there are several congestion points that always bogs things down and makes for a claustrophobic slow down. And this would happen today. We decided to head toward Lion King and get in line early for our 2:00 show. As we walked down the way towards the theater, the 1:00 was letting out and the congestion became very tight. We stood on a curb off to the side and let the leaving people leave. We got in line under a wonderful fan and settled in for a 15 minute wait. A young man's voice came over the speaker. Somewhat out of breath, he announced that the 1:00 Lion King show was cancelled due to technical difficulties. He repeated the message a couple of times. Everyone laughed because we know that the 1:00 show had just ended and the crowd had left. Everyone stayed in line. After a few minutes a woman came on and informed us that our show was cancelled and FastPasses would be honored at shows the rest of the day, but she was unsure if the 3:00 would be performed. We headed out, got caught in the congestion of those leaving and those arriving and made our way to the Tree of Life. We would now be able to make the 2:30 Winged Encounter show.

We staked out a spot and waited for the start of the show. Winged Encounters is a 3-4 minute feeding of 20 or so, large, colorful macaws. The birds fly in from the back of the park, land and are fed by three CM's. The lead CM provides info about the birds and answers any questions that the crowd might have. As things wrap, the CM tells everyone to get cameras ready because their departure is pretty spectacular. The birds all leave at once, flying down the walkway to the surprise of a whole bunch of unsuspecting people. Impressive.

With that out of the way, we headed back to Flights of Wonder. We grabbed a margarita while we waited to get in and grabbed our usual seats. Right side, third row. The show hasn't changed much over the years, but we (she) enjoy it.

As the show wrapped up, we waited in our seats for the crowd to disperse. When about half the crowd had left, the CM that had led the show made an announcement. They were going to have a training session with a bird and they would like to do it with a small audience present. So the Bird Nut and I sat back down to watch the training session. The bird knew all of the behaviors, but had never done them with people watching. So we got see how they worked with the birds and she (the bird nut) was in heaven. If you asked her what her Disney dream job was, she was watching it.

More to Follow

Day 6 Continued

At the completion of the training, we exited the theater and headed left. I was reading the daily schedule to see where we wanted to head next. We still had our unused Lion King FastPass and a Kilimanjaro Safari FastPass for a little later. I suggested we go watch the Nemo show, since it had been quite awhile since we had seen it. I said I remember the boys were very young the last time we went. She made the comment that she couldn't recall seeing it. There were a lot of people in the FastPass line (likely a lot were using their Lion King FP for this show), but almost no one in the stand-by line, so we jumped in that one. Soon we were winding our way down to the side entrance, where we waited a good 20 minutes before they opened the doors. Based on how many people were seated as we walked in, we guessed a whole lot of people used FPs. We got very nice seats near the center, right near the cross aisle, where several of the actors enter. Once we were seated, I asked if she remembered it now. Nothing.
We both enjoyed the show and the chance to cool off. It really is a good presentation and it was fun to watch some nearby little ones sit mesmerized by the sights and sounds. As we headed out of the theater, I asked again if she remember anything. Again no.

Getting in and out of the show had taken longer than planned, so it was decision time. Go right and head to the safari or go left and head out. We could get to AKL early and explore Kidani (we had never been there) for an hour. We chose to grab our change of clothes and leave.

We exited the park and walked to the sign that tells you which side of the bus stops to go to and which number is the stop for the resort you were heading to. We were pointed to the right, and losing bus stop lottery, we were headed to #10 the last bus stop on that side. We walked past numbers 1 and 2, where there were a couple of people waiting. A bus was just pulling out of number 3, and pulling into number 4. As we continued our walk, each stop had a handful of people waiting.Then #10 came into view and it was packed. I again heard my wife say, 'this can't be good'. As we joined the long and winding line, a bus supervisor was telling everyone to relax, that a bus was due in a minute or two. Someone in the line suggested that there should be more than one bus, because we all weren't going to fit on one. The supervisor turned and walked away, never to be seen again. 20 minutes later, still no bus.

Finally, after 25 minutes (and watching each other stop have at least two and in some cases three buses arrive and depart) an AKL bus pulled up. We didn't make the bus.The family in front of us started to board and were told to get back in line, the bus was full. So we began another wait. I looked at the time (why did I do that) and said to my wife, 'Not again'. While we waited for another bus, we heard sirens. My wife commented that in all of our trips, she couldn't recall ever hearing a siren while at Disney. We saw police cars, ambulances, fire trucks racing on the highway in the distance. (Can you see where this is going?) We waited another 25 minutes before a bus showed up. Our extra hour to explore was gone We boarded the bus and after everyone we could fit was shoehorned in, we pulled out. Out the driveway, onto the street we rolled along. I checked the time again, we should be there with a minute or two to spare. Now I wasn't worried about eating as this was an earlier reservation than last time. Our ADR 3 years ago was late in the evening and there was no way we could show up 2-1/2 hours late and expect to be fed. This time, we were going to eat. The bus pulled onto the entrance ramp to the highway and stopped. 30 seconds later, it moved a foot or two and stopped. Again, I looked at the time (stop doing that) and shook my head.

Foot by foot, we crept along, most of the time not moving. After a torturous amount of time, we could see the red flashing lights filling the bus, getting brighter as we got closer. The first emergency vehicles that we saw were Disney Transportation. Then, fire trucks blocking lanes. Then police cars and ambulances. Finally we saw a couple of crunched cars and a Disney bus. They were all in a place off the road that they were not supposed to be in. As we pulled even, the bus picked up speed and we were on our way. (I tried afterwards to find out about the accident but I never did see anything. I was concerned because on our return ride more than two hours later, there were still emergency vehicles there).

More to follow

Day 6 Concluded

Once past the accident scene, the bus made good time getting to AKL. Now came the clown-car process of people getting off the bus. With the bus fully loaded and half the people getting off at Kidani and the other staying on to Jambo House, everyone was doing the stand up, sit-down, I'm leaving, I'm not, shuffle. We got off and took a deep breath. Not just because we had finally made it, but also because that was one tightly packed bus.

We entered Kidani (beautiful by the way) and located the restaurant and were greeted by a wonderful hostess with a spectacular smile named....named.... for the life of me I can't recall her name. I've looked in my notes, I've asked my wife, nothing. And I feel bad about it, because she was so good. She gave us a warm greeting with a smile out of a toothpaste commercial. She listened to our story about being late, she engaged in conversation, all the while smiling and looking at her computer. She handed us a pager and told us it would be a few minutes. Yeah! We were going to get to look around after all. We decided to make a quick restroom stop and then start wandering. While coming out of the restroom, the pager went off. Wandering would wait, we were hungry. The Smile (I can't tell you how upset I am that I can't recall her name) brought us to our table, told us who our server would be and again welcomed us to Sanaa. She was great.

We started looking at the menu. Not the food menu, the cocktail menu. My wife said she was nervous. Nervous that the experience wouldn't/couldn't live up to our anticipation.

Our server approached and introduced herself. The lovely, cheerful Bernadette would be taking care of us. Every once in awhile you experience a blending, a harmony with a server that makes dinner all the more enjoyable. That happened with Bernadette. She asked if we would like to order a beverage, wine perhaps and my wife interrupted. She said "Bernadette, we have to tell you a story." And she proceeded to tell about the failed attempt to dine here 3 years ago. She told her about the bus wait today, about the accident on the highway. And she concluded by saying, "We will order a cocktail, and we would like to enjoy that cocktail and some conversation, and when we are done, we will order another and our food. I will have a Mint Julep". (Yes, that's right. I not only am married to a wonderful woman, a wonderful mother to our children, a great provider for our family, I am married to a whiskey-lovin' woman. I am so lucky).

Bernadette laughed and smiled at the story and the order, then turned to me. I ordered a favorite bourbon and two ice cubes. She came around the table, put her hand on my shoulder, smiled and said, "It sounds like you've had a rough day, why don't I make that a double with four ice cubes?" How could/why would I possibly refuse?

She brought our drinks, told us to take our time and wave her down when we were ready to order. Then she leaned in and promised to make this evening the best dining experience we had on our trip. She kept her promise.

We signaled that we were ready for food. She came over and I saw her nod to the food runner. He appeared two minutes later with fresh cocktails. She smiled and said 'I promised'. We knew we would start with the bread service. She suggested the full service (all 9 accompaniments ) and we agreed. And what a great choice. The presentation is amazing and the flavors were spectacular. It is something not to be missed. I do wish the they would mark the nine accompaniments in some fashion. It is hard to keep all nine straight. Do not miss this.

For our entrees, we both ordered the Potjie Inspired. For this you get smaller portions of two of the entree selections. We thought this made sense as a way of trying four different items. She ordered the Butter Chicken and the Seasoned Vegetables, I ordered the Braised Beef and let Bernadette pick the fourth. She picked the Spicy Shrimp. They were all delicious. As you can probably tell, we like bold flavors and Sanaa came through. If it said Coriander Chutney, you tasted coriander. If it said Spicy Shrimp, it was spicy. No whispers of flavor here, and we liked that.

Bernadette stopped by to chat and the runner came by with two cocktails. Then Bernadette put in front of us a Dessert Trio. She said that we had waited so long and worked so hard to get there, that dessert was on them.

In case you haven't picked up on it, we loved this place. I've spent the last five years saying that Jiko was the best meal we have had at Disney. This was right up there. And if you throw in breakfast and dinner at Boma, AKL has some very impressive dining options.

We gave Bernadette a hug and thanked her for a wonderful evening. On the way out, my wife stopped the manager to tell him that the meal was great but Bernadette made it special. We waved good-bye to The Smile and headed out to explore Kidani.

After a half hour of walking around, we headed out to grab a bus back but decided since it was dark out and a little cooler, we would walk to Jambo House. As we walked in, she remarked that she loved staying there. And it was one of our best trips with the boys. We walked around for awhile and then went into the gift shop. It is her favorite WDW shop. We spent at least 45 minutes there. We talked about a nightcap at Victoria Falls Lounge but decided to grab a bus to the Springs and have a nightcap with Tommy at Dockside.

As we pulled into the Springs bus station, we were greeted by big raindrops and lots of lightning, so we grabbed a bus to SSR and called it a night.

Up Next: Day Seven Our last full day

Between Sanaa, Frontera Cocina, Food & Wine and the place we ate on Day 7, we dined quite well.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Go hungry.

PS I hope you get Bernadette.

She was right.

And therefore, I was wrong.

She hadn't seen Finding Nemo The Musical.

Since we have been back home, we have talked about why she didn't recall seeing the show when the kids were young. If I could recall it so vividly (I could show you where we sat, because it was top row, end of the aisle), why couldn't she.

We never split up when the guys were young, so how could I recall it and not her.

Then, out of the blue, she realized the reason. So she was right. She and Son the Younger had not seen it.

To the best of our recollection, it was on a trip when the guys were 5 and 7. We had arrived, checked in an gone straight to a park. We returned and went right to sleep, only to be awakened by Son the Younger clutching his ear and sobbing. We loaded him up on Tylenol administered a properly measured dose of Tylenol and had him fall back to sleep on a warm towel.

I went down in the morning and spoke to someone about our options:
1) ER We were 99% sure of what the problem was (he had a couple of pretty good ear infections before) so this seemed like overkill.
2) We could have a doctor visit in the room. Overkill.
3) Cab it to a nearby walk-in clinic.

The decision was made that she and STY would go to the clinic, while Son the Older and I hung around the resort.

She called about an hour later and said that they were on the list, but it would be awhile. We should go have breakfast and she would call when they were done. When we were finishing breakfast she called and said that they were next in line.

Another call to tell us it was an ear infection and that they were at the pharmacy across the street, but it would be 45 minutes, so there were going to get breakfast (STY was hungry, because STY is always hungry, a trait that continues to this day) and we should head to the park and they would meet us there.

It was AK day so STO and I set off. We walked around for awhile and passing the Nemo theater decided to watch the show as a way to kill time until they got there.
So just the two of us saw it,

She was right.

Day 7 Our Last Full Day

It's funny.

As a family, the last full day was a harried, park-hopping dash to get everyone's last-minute stuff accomplished. It was a frantic race for one last ride, one more favorite food or snack and a search for the special item you saw in a store on day one.

As an older couple, this wasn't the case. We were in no hurry. I had deliberately left the day open (except for our 8:30pm dinner plans). No ADR's, No FastPasses, No idea where we would go. We had done 6 days at a pretty good pace and were looking forward to a relaxing final day.

We got up, started to get ready and talked about where we would head. After some discussion, and probably not surprisingly, we decided to go to EPCOT. While we were getting ready, we decided to do a little packing. Since we had done some laundry, we used one suitcase for clean and one for dirty. With that task underway, we grabbed our backpack, took the eviction notice off our front door and headed to the bus stop.

Entering EPCOT, we wandered through Leave a Legacy to see if we could find the boys tile without having to ask for the location. We could not and gave up after several minutes. We always think we know the location, we never do. The line for Spaceship Earth was rather short so we jumped in line.

(Quick Story One of the days on this trip we were on the monorail heading to EPCOT and a woman was seated with two children boy about 4, girl about 6. As we did the circle through EPCOT, a gentleman standing nearby, told the young kid to look out the window at 'The Golf Ball'. He mentioned to the kid that it was a ride. The kid said "I know that but we don't go on it. Mom says people only go in there to cool off or take a nap. We came here to have fun, not learn stuff." Everyone giggled, except the mother, who shook her head and hoped the doors would open soon.)

We made our way back to World Showcase and decided to go counter-clockwise for a change. We visited each country with longer visits in the UK, France, Japan, China, Germany and Mexico.

UK because we love the shops and gardens.
France for Ice Cream at L'Artisan des Glaces.
Japan and China because we always spent time in there with the boys. They would spend hours looking through there.
Germany for Karamel-Kuche.
Mexico for Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros.

While circling, we grabbed a few F&W items and a couple of beverages. However, except for our planned dining experiences, we ate very little. We just weren't hungry.
The crowds started to increase later in the afternoon, so we moved out of World Showcase. We did another ride on Test Track and Soarin', grabbed some Beverly (It's growing on her), popped into MouseGears and did our traditional 'final ride of the trip' on Spaceship Earth.

With that complete, we headed back to get cleaned up for dinner.

More to follow. Dinner at Turf Club

Day 7 Dinner at Turf Club

Sorry for the delay. I've been swamped with work for the holiday season.

We made it back to SSR to get cleaned up for our highly anticipated dinner at Turf Club. While getting ready we did a little more packing. We were probably 95% packed, which was good because we had a pretty early wake up.

Our ADR was for 8:45. I made it late so that we could have a relaxing final meal. It was highly anticipated because we were looking for a more traditional special dinner. When you look back at what we ate, there was a lot of unique dining.
F&W, Sanaa, Frontera, Morimoto,etc. It was going to be nice to visit a new-to-us restaurant that receives such positive reviews on this site. The place was enjoyable, the food was great, the service was excellent. There was just one little issue.

Carol, our wonderful server, greeted us cordially and asked if we would like something from the bar. As my wife was about to order, there was a shriek from a a couple of tables behind us. It was a small child. Not laughing, not crying, not in discomfort, just shrieking.

After the second shriek, I told Carol we were definitely going to need a drink, and probably a few. I ordered a Manhattan and my wife a Mint Julep and we told Carol that we were going to (Shriek) enjoy these and would order in a while. My wife had a view of the room and she commented on how many small children were there at 9:00. I had a view of the hostess stand and at 9:10 there seven children under 6 waiting to be seated. Just something we didn't expect at a place like this. I will admit that with the exception of the Shrieker, all were well behaved.

Carol returned and we ordered another round of (shriek) drinks and The Turf Club's Signature Grilled Romaine Salad to share. I must have made a face at the shriek that Carol noticed, because I saw her speaking with the manager. Soon the manager, Brianna, came over to chat with us. She engaged us in a conversation about our hometown, her hometown and of all things, baseball. She is a big fan of the game and our local team had just beat up on her local team. Clearly she was trying to distract us from the noise, but even she flinched at one of the shrieks.

The salad was delicious and when we finished it was time to order entrees. The wife ordered the Crispy Fried Chicken and asked Carol for a recommendation. She suggested two items and I told her to bring me her favorite. What she brought was a pork tenderloin special that was outstanding. Both meals were top-shelf. We enjoyed them completely.

Brianna checked in while we were eating to see how everything was, and to whisper that the shrieker was getting ready to leave.

Carol stopped to ask if we would be having dessert. We decided on the Manhattan and the Mint Julep.

It was a great meal, with great CM's taking care of us. I will definitely go back, but it may have lost it's hidden gem status. As we were leaving there was a line waiting to get in.

A slow, leisurely walk back to the room and we called it a day.

Up Next Day 8 Homeward Bound

Day 8 Heading Home

In a word, uneventful.

We needed to have our bags down at Airline Check-In by 7:00 am, so we were up at 6:00.

We took our time getting ready and doing our last minute packing. I figured if I called Bell Services about 20 minutes ahead of when we needed to check in, that would give them time to come get our bags and get us down there.

I called at 6:40. The phone was answered in 1 ring. The gentleman asked if we were ready now and when I responded yes, he said that someone would be there shortly. We sat down, turned on the TV to check weather back home and prepared to wait. There was a knock on the door at 6:42. Thankfully we were really ready. He grabbed our bags, put them in the cart, we jumped in, and we were on our way by 6:45.

He brought us and our bags to check-in, introduced us to the person checking us in and we were tagged, ticketed and reminded of our DME pickup time by 7:00. Very efficient.

We went to the front desk to check our final bill and then headed to Artist's Palette for a bit of breakfast and a couple of cups of coffee. When we finished we took a walk around the resort as the morning temperatures were comfortable.
We enjoyed SSR, but preferred our stay at OKW a few years back.

DME arrived on time and we were on our way to MCO. Security was busy but quick and the airport was it's usual Saturday morning crowded. We had a smooth quiet flight and were back in the house in less than 3-1/2 hours from take-off. Quite uneventful.

It is unlikely that we will make a return in 2017. We have tentatively talked about a return in 2018.

Thanks for reading.