WDW May 2021 Day 3

Monday was C's bday and also our check-out day, so we packed up in the morning, dropped our backpacks off at bell services, and took a lyft over to Wilderness Lodge. We had breakfast at Whispering Canyon. Historically, we have loved this restaurant, even though the last time we ate there we weren't particularly wowed by their vegetarian skillet that is offered at dinner. Well, our faith in this place has been restored because not only was breakfast amazing, but our server was one of the best we've ever had at any WDW restaurant! He was so kind and accommodating, making vegetarian suggestions and substitutions without us even asking, and of course his personality was very entertaining, as is the case for all of the servers there! It was a such a great experience! We spent some time at the resort after breakfast and happened upon a mama duck with her babies, which obviously required me to take about 100 photos of them because they were so adorable!

From Wilderness Lodge, we took a lyft to Disney Springs and had the absolute worst driver imaginable. He did not understand the directions his GPS was providing and C ended up navigating and tell him where to turn. He was blasting religious music the entire drive. He kept slamming on the gas, then slamming on the brake, then swerving back and forth - overall just a very dangerous driver. When we finally got out at Disney Springs, he handing us religious literature! As I wrote a few posts back, I'm not a fan of lyft and we now only use it over uber because it is affiliated with our travel credit card. This driver did nothing to improve my opinion. I had some choice words for him once we finally got away from him and threw his literature into the first available trash can. I hope lyft takes comments and concerns from customers seriously because he should not be a driver for them!

I'd read online that this year's pride/rainbow items would be released the first week of May and I was delighted to find a bunch of stuff at Disney Springs! I've really tried over the last several years to not just buy stuff because it's cute, but I have a hard time saying no to cute rainbow things!

there was no way I was leaving without this bag

We took the bus back to Riviera and spent the rest of our afternoon at the resort before taking the Magical Express to the airport. We had an empty middle seat between us for the flight home, which was great, and after we landed, we drove to my mom's to pick up Ginny before driving home. While it was not as long a trip as we would have liked, we had an amazing time!

the airport was empty at the
beginning of our trip
and it was empty at the end!

Final thoughts about WDW, since things are obviously operating differently than normal...

- queues for attractions are spaced out and most people did a really good job of keeping their distance; while I did give some backward glances to people who were a bit too close for my liking, I only had to say something twice when people were right behind us with no distancing whatsoever

- it was not fun to wear masks due to the heat and the only time you could take them off was if you were stationary and actively eating or drinking

- the crowds were not too terrible at MK and people were better about following the rules; we found Epcot much more crowded and the enforcement of masks and social distancing seriously lacking there

- line spacing was evident everywhere - at the parks, in shops, at the resorts, and at the transportation stations

- seating on buses and monorails is numbered and assigned, and there are dividers up between sections

- each family/party rides in its own gondola on the SkyLiner (this policy should continue even when things return to normal operations!)

- something that seemed ridiculous to me were all of the temperature checkpoints; I was happy to read earlier this week that they were going to phase them out

- we really miss having annual passes - this was the most planning we've had to do for a trip and to be perfectly honest, we did not love it

- not having annual passes meant buying two-day tickets, which is very pricey and came with pressure to do everything over those two days; I honestly cannot remember the last time we opened and closed a park two days in a row and anytime WDW wants to resume annual pass sales would be great

- WDW has been working on reducing plastic usage so the fountain drink cups don't have lids; I'd read a suggestion online to bring silicone coffee cup lids, and they worked beautifully

- we brought a stash of our own straws and utensils that were extremely useful; the metal ones pictured are from Final and they fold up into convenient small carrying cases (we also use these for our car picnics all the time!)

Things are a little different, but the magic remains!

Happy Tails to you!