Sigh. Last day.

A vehicle you *don't* want to see at your bus stop.

We were up this morning at 8:45, after deciding late the night before that as much as we’d love one final TSM ride, we just weren’t up for the morning dash, and Fast Passes would be useless since they would likely have a return time that fell after our departure from WDW. Instead we ate another Mickey waffle, drank our coffee/hot chocolate mix, and mused that maybe going to a park on our last day was a bad idea: we were just so sad.  In any case, we finished packing, checked our luggage and obtained our boarding passes, and then returned to our room to make sure we hadn’t left anything behind.  We grabbed our carry-on luggage and checked it with Bell Services before leaving for the bus stop, where we found a Hollywood Studios bus had broken down, its lift immobilized with a scooter still on board. A giant bus tow truck came out, as did two replacement buses and voila! The original bus was fixed. This was good, as the broken-down bus was blocking the entire bus stop, and thus no one could get through until the broken bus was gone.

In any case, we hopped on a very full Epcot bus, where we found very large crowds, not altogether

Retro Epcot logo...a nod to WDW's upcoming 40th anniversary?

unexpected on a Saturday during Food and Wine.  Our first stop was Mouse Gears, where I hoped to find a vintage, very soft cotton Mickey shirt that I had seen somewhere during our trip, but I of course could not remember where.  Alas, no luck at Mouse Gears, but CP found a Pluto shirt, so all was not lost.  Then it was off to Club Cool for some soda and sticky feet, plus one last check of the International Gateway stores to look for my shirt. Again, no luck. Although we originally had chosen Epcot this morning because we wanted a Kaki Gori (we kept forgetting during the week), we decided it was too hot, too crowded to go trudging around the World Showcase.

Dragon boat racing at DTD.

Feeling defeated and sad about our imminent departure, we headed out to the bus stop and caught another bus to Saratoga Springs, where we departed at Congress Park to walk to DTD. On our way, we stopped to watch the dragon boat races that were taking place on the water, and then headed to Once Upon a Toy to buy more Toy Story buddy packs (having bought one we loved the night before at the Emporium).  After a bathroom break we then hit World of Disney, where I found my beloved shirt! We then walked through Pleasure Island and the DTD West Side (according to my notes of this day: “sad, smoky, and tacky”).  On our walk back to the Marketplace, CP was blessed with good luck (read: pooped on by a bird, luckily I had brought Shout wipes!), and we watched the exciting final moments of another dragon boat race as we headed toward Earl of Sandwich. As it was around 1pm, it was mobbed, so instead we decided to try Wolfgang Puck Express.

Delicious...until the hair.

Our hearts of romaine salad was great, the margherita pizza was pretty decent, but our crème brulee came complete with a long black hair, and our server had disappeared earlier, never to be seen again. Blech.

Following vacation protocol that clearly states the need for daily if not hourly dessert consumption, we tossed aside the crème brulee and headed to Goofy’s Candy Company, where we procured the following delicious treat:

Hello, sweet mother.

We took it to go and headed to an ATM to get cash to tip bell services, and then remembered we hadn’t been back to Art of Disney to purchase any prints from the Art on Demand kiosk.  Art of Disney was, however, completely mobbed, and a bunch of kids were enjoying randomly pressing the kiosk buttons far too much for us to get in and actually use it to order prints. Business card in hand to call and order later, we headed back to the bus (driven by a woman with a death wish) and were in the AKL lobby by 3:30.  CP magically repacked our carryons to fit all of our new purchases, and by 4:05, we were on the (Not So) Magical Express bus, headed to the airport.  After a quick stop at Pop Century, we were gone.

JFK airport at night.

Our return to Connecticut was largely uneventful: we had a gate change at MCO, but still had plenty of time to shop at Lush and Borders and eat our Goofy’s snack before boarding.  A group of TSA agents sat playing cards in the corner. All was quiet. Our flight, blessedly uneventful; we sat next to an off-duty Southwest flight attendant who was perhaps more enamored with our JetBlue flight than we were. After some confusion with finding our bags (they were on a belt that said…Aruba.), we were on our  airport shuttle and home by 12am.

Home and sad.