I realize everyone is looking for castle photos and the resolution to what went horribly wrong last year at the Magic Kingdom. Well, I had to wait months and months for answers. You all get to wait one more week. Like last week’s article, I felt like I had to hold off on publishing this one until the issue was resolved.
Now that we were back at the resort, and the excitement and adrenaline was wearing off, I was left with overwhelming disappointment. Realizing I hadn’t gotten even half the Castle photos I had wanted, I had a knot in my stomach, and I really just wanted to go back to bed.
But we had a breakfast reservation, and they charge you if you cancel, so we changed and headed for Cape May Café for the character breakfast. We were seated almost immediately, and went to get full plates of food.
There was just one problem. I had zero appetite.
Minnie was the first character to stop by, and I managed to put on a happy face for her. I will never not love meeting Disney characters. She even stopped a server walking by to take a picture of us together, because the one flaw of character dining is that you take your own photos so it’s hard to get photos together.
Soon after Minnie left, Donald came by, and I had eaten less than half of my plate at this point, while Jay was ready for seconds. We also managed to score help for a photo together with him as well.
I finally just gave up on trying to eat. I was just trying to choke down the horrible feelings I was left with. I was sad, angry, and I felt lied to. I felt robbed. I had paid $2,500 plus, to have constructions workers laugh at me in my wedding dress, and I just couldn’t hide it anymore.
Then Daisy Duck walks up.
So, in case anyone is new here, a little backstory about me and my hatred of Daisy Duck. I love Duffy Bear almost as much as I love Jay. My favorite anything in the entire world is a sweet little bear, who I used to be able to go see at Epcot whenever I was sad. Until October 2015, when Daisy Duck kicked Duffy out of his meet and greet spot at World Showcase, and my beloved bear was banished to DVC and RunDisney events. I have hated Daisy ever since.
Now Daisy has no idea I hate her, so she walks up to see us for pictures, and I get up to take them, all the same, because I’m not going to be rude. Daisy pointed at the castle on my dress, and she started miming the construction cranes.
My face fell.
Well, now Daisy wasn’t leaving until she got me to smile again, no matter how badly I wanted her to. So, she gets down on the floor and starts pretending to shine my shoes, and I laughed for real this time.
As soon as she left, I looked at Jay and I burst into tears, because this duck that I hate so much cared more about us being happy than any Cast Member we had encountered since we got off the boat. (Excluding our wonderful photographers of course, but I mean actively working Cast Members.)
The last thing on earth I wanted was to ruin some family’s breakfast because there was a girl crying three tables over, so I fled to the bathroom, and Jay tried to find someone to help us get out of there. We wound up walking over to a closed bar, and sitting down with the restaurant manager, who was a very sweet woman named Taylor, who we relayed the whole story to, and she sent us on our way, without charging us for the meal I hadn’t eaten. She also made a point of telling me that whatever brand make-up I was using was amazing, because it had not budged one bit with all my tears.
We went back to the room and hung up the “Do Not Disturb” sign, since housekeeping hadn’t come through yet, and took a nap for a couple hours. Once we woke up, I gave up on my hair surviving until we had to meet our friends that night, and we went back to the pool to try out the water slide. I managed to keep my head above water for the most part and the eyeliner continued to survive. It was a chilly day so we spent most of the afternoon in the hot tub, until we needed to get changed for dinner.
I had taken the “Do Not Disturb” sign down and called the front desk to request housekeeping, now that we were out for a bit. We came back to Duffy playing with the flowers.
We had a 5:00 pm reservation for dinner at Trattoria al Forna, which was an Italian restaurant I thought Jay would like, before we were scheduled to meet our friends for the Celebration at 7:00 pm. I had originally planned on us getting all dressed up again, and I just didn’t have the energy, physically or emotionally, after the day we had. So, we threw on our matching “Captain” and “Sailor” Spirit Jerseys, and off we went. I also made a post in the Facebook event warning everyone about the reduced dress code.
They seated us right away in the mostly empty restaurant, since it had just opened for the evening, and I had a hard time figuring out where to put Duffy, since we were at a table for two. I’m too used to tables for bigger groups, and there’s usually room for him in an empty seat!
Our server was a woman named Andrea, and she was an absolute delight. She commented on our spirit jerseys, and asked if we’d just gotten off a cruise.
“Actually, we just got married on one!”
“THAT’S AMAZING!”
She was so wonderful and excited, and everything a Disney server should be. We talked to her about the wedding and the disappointing day we’d had, and we both told her how much we appreciated her, because everyone else we’d interacted with around the Boardwalk had been so indifferent about everything.
We started with the bread and we ordered, and I should have taken her warning about the pepper flakes more seriously, because my food was so much spicier than I expected. But Jay couldn’t have been happier with his lasagna, and that’s really all that matters.
I still didn’t have a big appetite, so combined with how spicy my food was, I only ate about half of it. I went to the restroom and came back to find Andrea waiting with the dessert menus. While she went off to get a box for the rest of my food, we looked them over, and I just didn’t see anything that sounded good enough to spend more money on, when I knew I’d never finish it. So, when she came back with the box, we just told her we’d pass and asked for the check.
I was a little surprised she’d been so encouraging about dessert that it was almost pushy, but I didn’t say anything. It made sense a few minutes later.
Andrea and her manager brought out a dessert platter with a sampling of small portions of all the desserts, with “Congratulations Chelsea & Jason!” written on it, in white chocolate, with two flutes of champagne. That’s why she wanted us to pick a dessert. Since we hadn’t picked, she’d just brought us a little of everything.
Jay and I looked at each other, and I could see he was also trying not to cry.
The manager asked if she could take our picture, and we both hurriedly wiped away the tears, to smile for the camera. Then we ate every bit of the wonderful desserts. They should honestly put a sampler platter like that on the menu, because it was so great that there was so much variety, you never got tired of one flavor.
We thanked Andrea profusely, and I left what might the largest tip I’ve ever left a Disney server. Then we headed over to the Boardwalk Village Green area, where we were set to meet our friends for the Celebration.
