It’s time for my all-time favorite type of post: the trip report! See all the posts in my 2022 Wine & Dine Half Marathon trip report. Onward!
To paraphrase the bard: parting with Walt Disney World is such sweet sorrow. Particularly sorrowful and sweet, for us, for reasons that will become apparent.
The sorrowful: not only was it only last day of the trip, we had no park time planned. The good news, however, was that gave us all the more reason to sleep in after our late night at the Wine & Dine After Party. Well, Erika and I did; Becky had a date with a Disney Cruise Line ship and rolled out early. Some people have all the luck! We waved her a fond farewell from our beds, then slowly dressed and packed for ourselves.
After checking our bags at bell services, we had but one mission: Disney Springs! The bus showed up for us almost immediately, and we were there by 11am.
Not early enough, though, as our target was Gideon’s Bakehouse* and the line was already wrapped around the building, ending somewhere in the vicinity of the entrance to Morimoto Asia if you can believe it. Indeed, we were the last people to get in line before they cut it off in favor of the virtual queue. Last time I came on a Monday there was minimal wait, but I guess we all got the bright idea to buy cookies at once.
* This is the sweet bit, if that was not already apparent.
We debated stepping out of line and joining the virtual queue ourselves, but as the Mears bus to the airport was picking us up fairly early we elected to play it safe and stay where we were. (The staff member at the door later validated our decision, stating that the estimated wait time was up to 2 hours and we might not have made it in time. I choose to believe her. 😂)
Ultimately it was a little over an hour before we were finally permitted into the shop, but as always I think it was totally worth it. The cookies are, obviously, fabulous, but the atmosphere and artistic style plays right into my aesthetic. In addition to cookies, I also had to add to my Gideon’s t-shirt collection. You know me and my black cat stuff.
Sadly, this excursion took up most of our Disney Springs time, and while we may have been able to visit one or two more places, we chose NOT to trust the Disney bus system and instead left ourselves plenty of time to get back to the resort. Naturally this means a bus showed up for us in very reasonable time, but as I remain deeply suspicious of Murphy’s Law I can’t say we made the wrong choice.
This did mean we had some time to kill at Art of Animation, so we made one more pit stop in the gift shop. I still hadn’t used my $15 race gift card, and as it expired in a week or so I figured I might as well. I wound up selecting a 50th Anniversary mug featuring the Partners statue, plus some gummy worms for the road (which have been rebranded to Stitch’s girlfriend instead of Goofy, which, hmmm. Same worms though).
And then that, alas and alack, was that; the Mears bus to Orlando International tolled for me. Picking us up like four hours before our flight was kind of ridiculous, but what can ya do. When it’s time to leave, it’s time to leave. At least there’s always the Disney gift shops at the airport to look forward to. I mean, I GUESS.
I can thank my lucky stars for this: I always know I’ll be back soon enough.
Here ends the trip report proper, although you’ll need to come back for my final Snack Roundup food reviews. And of course I want to thank the ever knowledgeable Becky and my stalwart Doctor Who-style companion, Erika, who puts up with my whackadoodle ways with equanimity and grace. I had an absolutely amazing time, and I am so grateful to find a little corner of the universe, and people inside of it, in which I can be myself. I guess WDW really is magic! 😅
Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Twitter @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!