I tried to post this once, but it seems to be lost in cyber-space!

June 30, 2001

We all arrived at the Contemporary by 4:45 and I checked our group of 35 people in at the desk.

We were seated in a "private" room off to the back left of the serving station- with a view of the MK and no one but us! They had 2 HUGE round tables and 4 or 5 smaller ones. We gave our drink orders and began to get some food. I love the food here- everything from the salads to the desserts has always been excellent. Everyone was agreeing with me that this was a great place to eat. The characters started coming around and we posed for pictures. Some of the boys had wanted to get their Disney YES t-shirts signed and wore them to the dinner. But we found out fairly quickly that the characters aren’t allowed to sign clothing that you are wearing! We were pretty disappointed, but they got their hats signed instead.

About midway into my main course one of the adult chaperones brought Minnie Mouse into the room and made an announcement. I think he was talking about how much fun we all had during the week and about how I had put it all together (he's the one who started calling me Minnie Mouse way back when we began planning this trip!)

All of a sudden I was being PUBLICLY introduced to Minnie and he had everyone standing and clapping for me!! (I am terribly embarrassed when stuff like this happens )
Minnie and I (in my Minnie headband )hugged and had some pictures taken, and then she (and one of the Chef Mickey CM's) handed me 2 big packages!! They were full of little Minnie gifts and trinkets all the adults had picked up during the course of the week I had to stand and unwrap about 15 or 20 little packages. I got pens & pencils, magnets, notepaper, bookmarks, a towel, photo frames, and more and 2 beautiful Mickey & Minnie Christmas candleholders!

Well, I could barely see anything I was opening- the tears were welling up in my eyes and I was doing my best not to break down totally! And every adult was standing in a line videotaping or photographing this production. The senior scout presented me with an adorable Minnie card signed by everyone!

Meanwhile, Minnie Mouse remained right by my side throughout the whole thing! She helped with the paper and kept things from falling off the table. My last gift in the box was a cute Minnie t-shirt- which I asked her to sign (since I wasn't wearing it). Then my husband came up with ANOTHER box and had Minnie sign the box. Inside were 2 beautiful Mickey head necklaces I had been admiring earlier in the week! WOW Everything was finally unwrapped and Minnie gave me one more big HUG and left just as we were finishing another napkin twirl!

I finally got to sit down and collect myself. What a surprise that was!! I REALLY had NO idea they were planning anything at all... what a shocker! I am very uneasy being the center of attention - but it WAS fun, and I appreciated the planning they put into it. The boys were all smiling and looking at my treasures.

Now, I still had to eat dinner!! But we all got our fill of yummy parmesan mashed potatoes and they had wonderful salmon that night. Everything was terrific. The kids were enjoying the dessert bar.

And I had one more reason to call attention to our group- our birthday boy from yesterday really didn’t ever get recognized by the whole group. So I had planned to have a cupcake brought out and we all sang to him!

We finished up and left the restaurant at about 7:15. The table the younger guys sat at was an unbelievable disaster. So we left our server an extra hefty tip for her patience and complete attention during our wonderful meal!

No more parks, we have to go back to the campsite and pack We took the launch back to Fort Wilderness and did one last reflection service on the beach. Everyone had LOYTS of "roses", and very few "thorns" as we reflected on the time we had spent together. We all had SOOO many things to be thankful for at the end of this week.

We got our packing done fairly quickly and still had time for volleyball and swimming. Wake-up is at 6:00am so we all got to sleep by 10:30 or 11:00 tonight.

It is hitting us that we have come to the end of a perfect week, and tomorrow we will all be home. Sigh...

Only one more report... the trip home.


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Linda aka: wendy*darling
Intercot Staff: Disney & Orlando Dining
[email protected]

DVC owners at the Wilderness Lodge Villas
WDW:
4/92 (MK day trip only); 9/93 (Poly); 10/96 (DL & BC); 6/98 (YC); 2/00 (Contemporary); 12/00 (BWI); 6/01(FW tent camping with the Boy Scouts!!)
Next trip: June 2002 (ASMovies and VWL)

[This message has been edited by wendy*darling (edited August 03, 2001).]