We are definitely getting used to this place and weather, although perhaps the fact that our time remaining is short is emphasising that feeling further. Our depth of feeling for this place became even greater as we drove into Celebration Town Centre. We realised that we hadn’t spent enough time here as we had been so busy elsewhere and then started to list all the things that we hadn’t got round to doing this trip. I think it may take several more trips until we ever come to a time when we are bored for a moment.
Today we had left Barry asleep in the villa as we had arranged to meet with our neighbours from home Gill & Alan outside Starbucks. It was lovely to catch up with them, albeit a bit bizarre so far from home. They had already been here for a month and still had another 2 weeks to go. We were envious. We were astonished that they have been here many times for many weeks at a time and had never visited Disney World. Not only that but they had never visited a Starbucks ever. Karen loved being able to pass on some of the great free things to do in Disney without actually visiting the parks.
The time spent with Gill & Alan flew by agreeably but after a couple of hours we had to leave to pick Barry up from the villa.
After a quick lunch we drove to the Grand Floridian Hotel for a wander around. This place is very plush and expensive. We stood awhile near the pool watching the rich people at leisure. Then after realising we could hire boats from here for our next trip we found a cafe that allowed uncouth poor visitors like ourselves to purchase leftovers/crumbs from the elite peoples plates. Karen had a Blueberry Muffin whilst Barry had the famous Mickey Mouse ice cream. We sat with these and some drinks outside for a while. We chatted on for sometime before heading into the Hotel lobby to look at their Christmas decorations. The centre piece was a full sized Gingerbread House which serves as a shop for staff to sell Gingerbread from. The amount of ingredients used was staggering.
After this we drove back to the villa stopping off for Barry to have a quick whizz round Walmart. Disappointingly he didn’t find anything he liked/wanted. We would have been quicker in the shop but for the fact we lost Karen as usual
for a while.
After about an hour back in the Villa, we went out for dinner at Joes Crab Shack. Barry had never been, Neil is never keen and we had $50 credit with them that needed to be spent. The credit had come from an offer that clicked in from our last visit and that I had registered that Karen’s ‘birthday’ was in November. Unsurprisingly we all had fish although mine came with a Steak. I shared some of the Steak with Barry along with some of the Snow Crab claws on my plate as he had never tried them before. We both agreed they were great. The bill was very reasonable with the $50 taken off.
We then headed back to Disney Springs for Barry to look for some gifts to take back (no clues), and for us all to walk the Christmas Tree trail when it was dark and the lights were all on. Disney Springs was not that busy which made it easier to walk around. Barry made some purchases and then we went to the Tree Trail. It was lovely at night. Santa was there again looking resplendent. We had a slow walk back to the car and got back to the Villa about 11pm.
Another lovely day, and another surprising number of steps. Not that Karen mentioned that her feet hurt at all, because as she kept telling us she is not a grumpy person!
