Day 3 we got up and my husband loaded up the car. My son and I hit the gift shop for some vinyls we had seen that we could not live without (gotta love the Disney (signatures, pins, vinyls...) collections obsessions!!!) We decided to do Epcot since we could just take the boat from the dock at the Yacht Club. I checked us out of our room and asked if they could call POR and put a note on our ressie requesting a Mansion not the Bayou. The young lady behind the desk pulled up our reservation and said the room was ready and she even printed me keys to our POR room!! Talk about an easy breezy check in!! I had already done the online check in for both reservations so that made it simple for everyone! My son did some pin trading in the lobby and even got his father to go back out to the car to find a Woody character pin we had to trade with the cast member in the lobby whose name was Woody!

We hoped a boat over to Epcot. We managed to ride Test Track, Soaring, Living with the Land, Green Mission Space, window shop at the Pin Station, buy vinyls at Mouse Gears, taste some colas at club Cool, visit the Disney Art store, do the Piggy Bank Game and Sum of all Thrills (X3) and have lunch at the Land. The storm clouds started to roll in so we decided to head to POR and check out or room. We hopped the boat to Yacht Club, jumped in our car and drove to POR.

Our room was in Parterre Place and was very easy to access on the 2nd floor top of the steps from the parking lot. This suited us perfectly because we use our car to get around Disney! I was pretty good this year and cut way back on my packing but still took too many clothes, I did not totally unpack which made packing back up very simple. And loading and unloading too! We relaxed for about an hour then put on our suits and headed to the pool. It was very relaxing. Later we decided to get a bite to eat and then get a good night's sleep.

Day 4 already!!! We got up early and headed out to Animal Kingdom. Today we were on a mission to find a cast member friend we met years ago in Magic Kingdom.
BACKSTORY:His name is Bill and he was my son William's first pin trade back in 2004! He and William hit it off and became fast friends. Bill found out that William liked Captain Hook, before we left Disney World on that vacation we were called by the front desk and told we had a package waiting. Inside the package was a special Captain Hook pin, a signed picture of Captian Hook and a pirate hat that said "Captain William" with a note saying he hoped we had a great vacation, your friend Bill! Needless to say that was some mighty powerful pixie dust as we were leaving from a vacation!!! When I got home I wrote a letter to Disney (Lee Cockerell) about Bill and his kindness. The next year when we returned to Disney we looked for Bill at Magic Kingdom and he told us we had made him famous (apparently with the letter). Now it is not a vacation at WDW unless we get to spend some time with Bill. We usually get together on his day off and he comes to the park to hang out with us and have lunch, we look forward to this as much as anything!
Anyhow, Bill had asked to transfer from Magic Kingdom to Animal Kingdom and had made the switch after our vacation last year so we did not know exactly where to find him in the park so this was our treasure hunt!!! (I have Bill's cell phone number but we like to surprise him) We looked high and low at Animal Kingdom and we asked a TON of cast members. Finally, when we got to the trading store in Africa a cast member immediately knew who we meant and another cast member went to check his schedule. Turns out he was off that day and the next so we decided we would have to call him. Besides having fun on our treasure hunt for Bill we managed to seeing Finding Nemo, The Festival of The Lion King, rode the Safari and we were all supposed to ride Expedition Everest but I chickened out so my son and husband went. Then we headed back to POR and hit the pool because it was beastly hot!!!

While at the pool we called Bill and he suggested we meet at Epcot tomorrow. After swimming we decided to venture to downtown Disney.
That place was packed full! There were hardly any parking spaces and the stores were crowded beyond belief!! We made a trip through The World of Disney and were saddened to see the Villain's room full of jewelry and things not very villainy! We made a few pin trrades and then headed outside and took great pictures of Jack Sparrow and the skelton pirates in the windows. The close ups of Jack were to be able to get all the beads and doodads he now wears in his hair for the most recent movie. We visited the Pin Store, The Art of Disney and D street to feed my vinylmation obsession!!! Then we hit the hotel to get some rest tomorrow is early opening at Epcot!!!!