August 11 - Keys to the Kingdom

Wow, long day yet again. We were up fairly early and off to McD's to pickup breakfast and then pickup Brynna at Vista at 8:30. Traffic sucked on the way to the Magic Kingdom but we finally got there, got a tram, got a monorail and after a quick bag search, were in the park. Met up at City Hall with our tour coordinator for our “Keys to the Kingdom” tour where we were given nametags, backstage pass lanyards, bottled water and a headset to listen to our guide, Sean. It definitely came in handy when we were in a throng of people and trying to hear him.
Our tour took almost 5 hours. We started out on Main Street and were offered many tidbits of information and secrets. We got on the Jungle Cruise, Pirates and Haunted Mansion, all with narration by our guide which was cool. We went backstage at Splash and saw the giant water reservoir. Saw the parade floats all ready to go out later in the day, for both parades. Had a nice relaxing lunch at Columbia Harbour House, it was included in our tour. We finally got down to the utilidors, and although it was very cool, they are very messy! Well, not exactly messy but it's definitely where the work goes on, as opposed to the “show” that happens up above. All in all I'm glad we took the tour, it was a lot of fun. We were even given a special “key” pin to commemorate our tour.

After we poked around the shops on Main Street a bit as Gary wanted to purchase “Edna” from the Incredibles so we did that. Then we finally got back to the car and popped back to the resort so Brynna could shower and Gary could have a swim. Then Brynna and I went to Walmart to load her up with groceries for the next few weeks. Got back to Vista, unloaded them, then went to pickup Gary. We had decided against our trip the Hard Rock, perhaps we'll do that in December. Instead we went to Downtown Disney and saw Zoom, followed by a quick dinner at the House of Blues. They make a mean blackened chicken burger.

Now we're back at our room and pretty much everything is packed up and ready to go. Tomorrow will be a flurry of heading to Cast Connections one last time. Then Brynna wants to get back to her place to purchase tickets for James Blunt at 1 pm. Then we'll go have lunch, take her to work, then head to the airport. Hopefully security won't be too much of a challenge...