After enjoying our pizza, we had a bit of a rest in our room before heading to Hollywood Studios one last time. This was our last night at Disney World! Waaaaaah!!!
It was also our last night in America - we were flying back to Australia the next day! Which was sad because our holiday was over, but happy because we would get to see our lovely cat, Annie, again!
Anyway, that night we had an early dinner ADR at...
Mama Melrose!
We'd booked the Fantasmic package for the night, which guaranteed us reserved seats at Fantasmic after our dinner. We were happy we'd done so, since Fantasmic was only on 2 nights a week now. Crazy!
I was looking forward to Mama Melrose - mostly for the Penne ala Vodka! Penne pasta and vodka in the same dish!? That's got my name written all over it!!!
Our ADR was for 4.30pm, and we arrived at Mama Melrose at 4.25pm to check in. Remember that time. It's important!
We checked in and were told to wait in the little check-in area. It was chaos in there. LOTS of people, all trying to check in. It was crowded and there were kids crying and it was noisy and unpleasant! I remember looking at DH and thinking, "Oh-oh. This might be bad." It just didn't seem a nice, friendly Disney restaurant!
We waited for 15 minutes to be called, which was okay since Fantasmic wasn't until 7pm that night. We still had plenty of time. Right?! Wrong!!
The CM who called our names pulled us aside, looking grumpy. Basically, this was the conversation -
CM: "Because you checked in late, I'm worried you're not going to be able to eat and get to Fantasmic on time."
Us: "Pardon? We checked in 5 minutes early!"
CM: "Our records say you checked in at 4.31pm. You might not have enough time to eat and get to Fantasmic now."
Us: "But it's only 4.40! Fantasmic isn't on until 7pm!"
CM: "But they want you to go there at 5.30, to claim your seat, otherwise they'll give your seat away."
Us: "But we booked the Fantasmic package. Aren't they reserved seats?"
CM: "Not really, no. They only give seats to people who get there early."
Us: "But if an hour isn't enough time to eat and get to Fantasmic on time, why would you allow people to make reservations for 4.30pm?"
CM: "If you were here on time, it would have been okay. But you checked in late."
Us: "We checked in early!!!!!!!!"
CM: "No, you checked in at 4.31pm."
Oohhhhhh, my goodness. Basically we went around and around in circles.
DH was bamboozled by the whole thing, and I was really cross. We didn't check in late at all. And even if we did check in at 4.31pm, that's ONE MINUTE late!!!! How ridiculous!!
I was really disappointed with the whole thing. For lots of reasons...
1) Why would they allow 4.30pm reservations if an hour wasn't enough time to eat and get to Fantasmic?
2) Why are they called "reserved" seats if they give them away if you don't arrive an hour and a half early?
3) Most importantly, the CM was speaking to us like we were idiots. She made me feel like a naughty 6 year old girl who was caught telling a lie. Grrrrr.
Anyway, after eventually giving up on trying to convince her that we didn't check in late, she gave us two options - We sit down and eat really quickly, or we go somewhere else.
So we went somewhere else.
I was SO cross. But cross with me doesn't come out as yelling. Cross with me comes out as tears. I had tears in my eyes and I was just floored by this whole thing! So eventually I said, "Fine, we'll leave. Bye." And dragged DH out with me. Hee. Poor DH.
We stormed out of stinkin' Mama Melrose and starting walking anywhere but near there. One minute later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the nasty CM!! She had followed us out of the restaurant, because she felt bad! Ha! So she should! She apologised for the confusion and gave us the Fantasmic reserved seating tickets anyway.
Oh. Well that was kind of nice. She was half forgiven. But only half.
Anyway, DH and I sat down and sorted out what to do. We were stranded in Hollywood Studios with nowhere to eat! This had never happened to me before! I was so organised with my ADRs! I was in a bit of a fluster, actually. We eventually decided to hang out for a while and do some rides, before going to Fantasmic, then we'd have Room Service from In-Room Dining later, back at our resort. We were so over restaurants by then, and thought another meal on our bed in our pyjamas was just what we needed!
So that was Mama Melrose!! Not quite what we'd hoped for. I never did get to have my Penne ala Vodka!!!
We didn't end up using our Fantasmic reserved seats anyway. The reserved section is right over on the side of the theater, and we found great seats right in the center of the theater.
After Fantasmic though, we popped into a big store (which I'm not sure of the name of, sorry!) to use some of our squillion snack credits we had left over. They sold lots of Goofy's Candy Co. type snacks - fudge, candy apples, etc... We bought these little beauties!
From left to right - DH's Smores Fudge thingy, my Gingerbread man, and my Mint Chocolate fudge! YUM!! These were fabulous! Rich and chocolatey and full of goodness.
On the way back to our room at Wilderness Lodge, we also popped into the WL Mercantile store to use the rest of our snack credits! Look at our goodies for the long plane ride home...!
Oh my goodness, that's a lot of snacks! There's pretzels, peanuts, cashews, dried apricots, coconut patties, chocolate peppermint bar, a Snickers, and a long lollipop! And we still had a couple of snack credits left over to buy bottled water in the morning. Heheehee. Craziness!!
My favourites out of all those snacks were definitely the coconut patties and the chocolate peppermint bar. They were delicious!!
Next up... Our last Disney dinner -
WL In-Room Dining!