It's been a while since.....Part Two
Today was one of THE MOST magical moments we have ever experienced at WDW (second to our wedding, of course)!
We we decide to head for the studios today after enjoying breakfast room service....quite pricy, but good nonetheless....Ben had the omelet and I had the Belgian waffle. Then I didn't pay attention to the bill, and the delivery person got double tipped. I did not realize that room service automatically added the gratuity onto the bill. I even told him I added his tip into the bill, and he didn't say a single word about it being double. Lucky him that day!
We go to the bus stop and are just sitting there waiting when this family approaches. The kids are wearing lanyards with many pins and the Mom is admiring our monorail collection. I have 11 of the 12, still looking for Coral; Ben has 8. The lady states she likes our collection and wanted to know how I got them all. I told her that I have traded with CMs for some and Ebay for the others. She exclaims she thinks she has one in her collection. She pulls out hands full of pins and starts looking. She had one and gave it to Ben. I tried to trade something with her, but she refused (nicely). We chit-chat a bit about pins and ebay and then she walks away. Her husband is on a scooter waiting for the same bus we are. She reapproaches and starts talking about the kids and their pin collection. Then she walks away again. She reapporaches with two hands full of pins and hands us each a pile and says that these should bring us luck with our collecting and wishes us more luck. I didn't know what to say, other than Thank you. She then starts telling me about the children with her. She and her husband have grown children with a grandchild with special needs, and they were there at WDW somewhere. The two children with her were adopted special needs (although you wouldn't know it to see them) and they were enjoying what they could for the trip as her husband, still on the scooter, had just been diagnosed with stage IV cancer. By this time, I am streaming tears down my cheeks hanging on every word she says. The kids are wonderful, the husband wanted to be sure that they enjoyed what they could before his passing...I couldn't stop crying. I told her she was an angel for adopting these children and she asked us to pray for her and her family...asking for the husbnad to have a painless end to his cancer. I'm not sure what possessed her to just unload this information on me, but I'm glad she did. Things like this make you realize that bad day you are having isn't so bad when you think about what others may be going through. I immediately put out a prayer request to my friends, and I silently prayed for her on my own. We borded the bus after her husband was situated, and we headed for Jambo house. When the bus stopped, the woman approached one last time and handed me another couple of pins and thanked us for the prayers. Again, I'm still crying at this point and the others on the bus keep looking at me in concern. I say something to Ben to get a laugh, and this seems to help stop the tears. This was such a moving experience for us. I just couldn't believe, with all this woman was going through, she wanted us to have success in our pin collecting. I was just speechless. I never got the woman's name, and unfortunately never saw her again during this trip, but I prayed for her many times over.
We get to the Studios and we admire goodies in all the shops. We stop on Sunset Blvd, because we love the shops there, and find a set of matching watches that we fall in love with. They are Citizen Eco Drive Stainless Steel Mickey Mouse Watches...they have a black face and they are beautiful. We weren't quite ready to purchase, because we wanted to see all options. The CM states that they are selling out quickly (of course, they tell you this so you will buy them before they are gone). We don't purchase today, but we will keep looking, just to be sure they are the ones we want. Can't buy first thing, gotta look around.
We go to RnRC and meet one strange situation. Instead of entering the RnRC courtyard, we were met outside the archway by several CMs, we though it was down, but there were many people inside the courtyard. There were roped off areas for FP return (which the FP machines were located in the same area as the ToT FP machines) another one for entering with a card that the CM distributes. The card was given to the people as they enter the courtyard. There were "Bingo" numbers on them such as, B9, and you took the card and entered the courtyard to partake in some interactive actiities. When your number is called, you then enter the waiting line. Kind of weird. The single riders were admitted in without a card as you entered into the FP return, but just went up the regular SRL queue. We didn't wait around to see this in action, but it looked like it kept the folks from standing in that painful hour long line to ride. We were in and out of there in 20 minutes total.
We head for ToT and we ride, the stand-by was 20 minutes, but we waited only 10 minutes. Ben, of course, takes the "motion sickness" exit and we meet at the bottom.
