In Which Cinderannie Says Goodbye
I’m home again now – but you all knew that. Even if there are mysterious strangers lurk-reading, they still could have figured it out from my days count down several posts ago. Hello, probably non-existent lurking reader. This post is dedicated to you. And to everyone else who has been reading this blog for all these months and putting up with my sporadic and often very lengthy posting.
Perhaps part of me doesn’t want to go back and write about – and thereby relive – the last weeks of my stay at Disney, because I am quite content to be home, and fear that to remember will be to miss. I do miss certain things. They come in flashes – the Winnie the Pooh ride, Minnie’s House, Frontierland and Adventureland at night, the three o’clock parade… just momentary memories and missings. But I miss nothing the way I missed home while I was there.
My last week at Disney was a glorious time. I managed to give away a great many shifts, so that my second-to-last week was spent packing and my last week was spent playing. I planned to cram as many last rides as possible into the last few days. Friday was my departure day, and I had given away my Wednesday and Thursday shifts. Gloriously, my manager offered me an early release halfway through Monday, so I went to Animal Kingdom and was able to have a last ride on Everest – two, actually – and my one and only ride on Kali River Rapids. After that I went home and nearly completed my packing.
Tuesday was my last day of work, a day of many farewells. Everyone was sad to see me go and wished me well – Goofy insisted emphatically that I should stay there, and even shed tears on my behalf, wiping them dramatically from his eyes. [ Oh, here comes the missing: there was one thing that I didn’t get to do in my last week that I wanted to do – go and see Minnie and Mickey at their house. This was due to a change in plans that was definitely for the best (I’ll get to that later) but I do wish I could have told them goodbye. I miss them. ] I said goodbye to so many people, who were sad to say goodbye and expected me to be sad, but I was so glad to be going home. It reminded me of Reepicheep in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – “He tried to be sad for their sakes, but he was quivering with happiness.”
On Wednesday, I went to Epcot and Hollywood Studios, to do all my last things and say goodbye and ride last rides. It was fun. I got to ride Rock’n’Roller coaster in the front at the end of the night. I was at first by myself and was going to imagine Thad next to me but then a large man came and sat by me instead. The next day was to be my final day in the Magic Kingdom.
When I got home that night, I was missing Thad and rather wished I had invited him to come for the last day so he could spend a day at the parks with me and ride back with me . But it was rather late at night now and anyway where would he sleep? Overnight guests aren’t allowed at the apartments. And he wouldn’t be able to get a flight, not now. Yet I felt I couldn’t rest if I didn’t try, so I texted my mother something along the lines of, “Is it very expensive to book flights less than 24 hours in advance?” She replied instantly with, “Do you want Thad to come?” We texted, then called, back and forth for quite a while. My dad was on his computer in the foreign country he was on a trip to, looking for airline flights. My mom called my grandmother to see if she could see if Thad could spend the night with friends of theirs who lived in the area. In a whirlwind, we had it all figured out and settled. He would arrive at the Orlando airport at 12:05pm the next day.
I was rather late picking him up – first I had to bring books back to the library and couldn’t find the library because the map showed it in the wrong place, then I got stuck in perfectly horrible traffic. Fortunately, Thad was too glad to be in Florida to mind very much. As we drove, we discussed our plans. I had made reservations at Liberty Tree for us at 2:45. He wanted to do Mission Space and Spaceship Earth and Rock’n’Roller coaster.
We did a lot of dashing about that day, mad rushing to do things before then ended. We went to Magic Kingdom first and I don’t know what we did and then to Epcot for Mission Space, then back to Magic Kingdom and just barely made our reservations. Actually, we would have missed them except that I had already arranged with Ben that he would be our server and he very kindly served us even though really the restaurant was closing.
That was a lovely dinner. Thad had a bacon cheeseburger and I had my last meal of William Penn Pasta. We had planned to share an Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake – the best dessert ever. But then Joseph, one of the chefs, came out to us, and was taking our dessert orders, and was asking Thad what he wanted. Thad kept saying he didn’t want any dessert, but Joseph kept offering him more and more options, saying, “Come on, I’m giving you free dessert here!”
“Strawberry shortcake? Brownie? Or how ‘bout some ice cream? Would you like some ice cream?”
“Sure, okay, I’ll take some ice cream,” said Thad finally.
In a little while Joseph and Ben returned, with my toffee cake – and a dessert for Thad – three or four scoops of vanilla ice cream in a Liberty Tree mug, drizzled with lots of chocolate syrup, and whipped cream and a cherry on top. This dessert is not on the menu – I should know. It was made extra-specially for Thad. He licked the whipped cream off the cherry, and was going to set it aside, when he got a strange look on his face. I watched him in puzzlement as he put the cherry back in his mouth and bit it off the stem. Then he ate it with an expression of surprised, delighted ecstasy.
“I can’t believe that all theses years I’ve been giving away my cherries!” he cried despairingly.
After that we went back to Epcot to ride Spaceship Earth, and then to Hollywood Studios. There, for the first time, I rode Tower of Terror. I was scared out of my mind. But it turned out to not be nearly as bad as I expected! It was actually really fun! I was missing out, just like Thad with the cherries. Then we rode Rock’n’Roller coaster. We got to ride in the very front. It was glorious. When we came off, it was three minutes to park close, so we ran like maniacs back around to the front to go again. We were on the very last round to go. So I rode on the last Rock’n’Roller coaster of my last night at Disney.
Then we went back to the Magic Kingdom. We were on the Monorail as Wishes was going, which was pretty cool. (I have seen those fireworks so many times that not getting to see them from the ground didn’t distress me much.) I even caught a glimpse of Tinkerbelle flying.
Once we were inside the park, we watched the end of Wishes, then dashed for Space Mountain. We had about forty-five minutes until the park closed, and we wanted to hit Space, Splash, and Peter Pan’s flight. Yikes. After we rode Space Mountain – I got to be in front, I always forget how scary it is – we tried to buy freeze-dried ice cream for Bram but they didn’t have any and went to check the back and they took a long time and then I got sent to two different places and no one had any and the whole time I’m thinking “Auuugh, we have no time for this!” Finally someone said they had it at the Emporium at the front of the park which would be open after park close, so we dashed off to Peter Pan’s flight. Fortunately, they took our fast passes, which were long since expired. It was now less than twenty minutes to park close. I took in one last time the loveliness of Neverland. It was 10:53 when we got off the ride, and we ran like crazy people – Thad carried his flip flops – toward Splash Mountain. If only we could make it!
We made it, at 10:56. Four minutes to spare. So if anyone ever wondered, you can make it from the exit of Peter Pan’s Flight to the entrance of Splash Mountain in three minutes flat at a dead run. We were both panting and gasping. It was a lovely last ride. Splash Mountain is definitely one of my very favorite rides.
We caught some of my favorite parts of Spectromagic on the way back to Main Street. I knew I wanted to be in front of the castle at midnight for the “Kiss Goodnight,” the farewell at the park close every evening.
In between we managed to buy the presents I still needed to get, but the person had to go in the back for the freeze dried ice cream and I feared I would miss it. There was another one at 12:30, so it wouldn’t be too dreadful, but I did want to get back to the apartment sooner rather than later so that I could get a little sleep before we left early in the morning.
It was 12:01 – I stepped outside, looking for Thad; I had been separated from him in the crowded store. There he was.
“Has it gone?” I asked.
“I’ve been out here since five till and I haven’t seen anything,” he answered. I was still a bit stressed because I still had my WDW ID card and needed to turn it in. It was supposed to go to my work location, but that was quite thoroughly closed by now, so I planned to give it to one of the custodial managers who knew me. The park duty manager said that Heather should be coming from The West (Frontierland and Adventureland) [ oh there goes another pang of missing…] any minute, so I was relieved. She would have to come right past where I was. Just as I saw her coming, the Kiss Goodnight began. I could catch up with her when it was over. It must have been five minutes past midnight. It was as though it had waited until I was ready.
I don’t remember exactly what it says. It’s just the man’s voice who does many announcement things, I think he’s from the Mickey Mouse club, he has a sort of warm friendly voice – and he says something like I hope you had a wonderful time, and all your dreams come true. And Mickey says, “See ya real soon!” Goodnight, Mickey.
Thad and I meandered down Main Street. “I see why you wanted to see that,” he said. I caught up with Heather and gave her my ID.
Finally we left and got on the monorail. The ride back to the Ticket and Transportation Center, the drive to where Thad would sleep, and then on to the apartment.
The drive back home was fairly uneventful, other than my car starting to misfire. We spent only one night in a hotel – my goal was to reach home by suppertime on Saturday.
All the way, it seemed I watched time go backwards as it changed from eternal summer into spring. I nearly started crying when I crossed the Michigan border.
I made it in time for supper, arriving at about 5:30pm. It was so good to be there, and we had supper – I don’t remember now what it was, but it was good.
For the first few days of being home I felt really strange – as though I had a different personality and couldn’t find my old one. But I seemed to gather pieces of it back everywhere I went, to church and to my friend’s house and with my siblings, and it has long since been back entirely.
I don’t know what will happen next in my life. I'm done being Cinderannie - who will I be next? I am excited to have such openness ahead of me. I don’t think that I’ll ever have a career with Walt Disney World – Florida is just not home to me, and I don’t think it ever could be. But Disney will always have a special place in my heart, and though Florida might not be, the Magic Kingdom will always be home. I’ll go back and visit, someday, and perhaps someday I’ll be a seasonal employee to take advantage of the free admission – that’s the one thing I shall miss most; the freedom of wandering around the parks, just living there, every turn familiar and dear.
Thank you, everyone who has read this and been with me, supporting, encouraging, and enjoying. It was so good to have you along. So many lovely things happened. This chapter is done, a new one is starting.
Goodbye, Mickey! See you real soon!
Perhaps part of me doesn’t want to go back and write about – and thereby relive – the last weeks of my stay at Disney, because I am quite content to be home, and fear that to remember will be to miss. I do miss certain things. They come in flashes – the Winnie the Pooh ride, Minnie’s House, Frontierland and Adventureland at night, the three o’clock parade… just momentary memories and missings. But I miss nothing the way I missed home while I was there.
My last week at Disney was a glorious time. I managed to give away a great many shifts, so that my second-to-last week was spent packing and my last week was spent playing. I planned to cram as many last rides as possible into the last few days. Friday was my departure day, and I had given away my Wednesday and Thursday shifts. Gloriously, my manager offered me an early release halfway through Monday, so I went to Animal Kingdom and was able to have a last ride on Everest – two, actually – and my one and only ride on Kali River Rapids. After that I went home and nearly completed my packing.
Tuesday was my last day of work, a day of many farewells. Everyone was sad to see me go and wished me well – Goofy insisted emphatically that I should stay there, and even shed tears on my behalf, wiping them dramatically from his eyes. [ Oh, here comes the missing: there was one thing that I didn’t get to do in my last week that I wanted to do – go and see Minnie and Mickey at their house. This was due to a change in plans that was definitely for the best (I’ll get to that later) but I do wish I could have told them goodbye. I miss them. ] I said goodbye to so many people, who were sad to say goodbye and expected me to be sad, but I was so glad to be going home. It reminded me of Reepicheep in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – “He tried to be sad for their sakes, but he was quivering with happiness.”
On Wednesday, I went to Epcot and Hollywood Studios, to do all my last things and say goodbye and ride last rides. It was fun. I got to ride Rock’n’Roller coaster in the front at the end of the night. I was at first by myself and was going to imagine Thad next to me but then a large man came and sat by me instead. The next day was to be my final day in the Magic Kingdom.
When I got home that night, I was missing Thad and rather wished I had invited him to come for the last day so he could spend a day at the parks with me and ride back with me . But it was rather late at night now and anyway where would he sleep? Overnight guests aren’t allowed at the apartments. And he wouldn’t be able to get a flight, not now. Yet I felt I couldn’t rest if I didn’t try, so I texted my mother something along the lines of, “Is it very expensive to book flights less than 24 hours in advance?” She replied instantly with, “Do you want Thad to come?” We texted, then called, back and forth for quite a while. My dad was on his computer in the foreign country he was on a trip to, looking for airline flights. My mom called my grandmother to see if she could see if Thad could spend the night with friends of theirs who lived in the area. In a whirlwind, we had it all figured out and settled. He would arrive at the Orlando airport at 12:05pm the next day.
I was rather late picking him up – first I had to bring books back to the library and couldn’t find the library because the map showed it in the wrong place, then I got stuck in perfectly horrible traffic. Fortunately, Thad was too glad to be in Florida to mind very much. As we drove, we discussed our plans. I had made reservations at Liberty Tree for us at 2:45. He wanted to do Mission Space and Spaceship Earth and Rock’n’Roller coaster.
We did a lot of dashing about that day, mad rushing to do things before then ended. We went to Magic Kingdom first and I don’t know what we did and then to Epcot for Mission Space, then back to Magic Kingdom and just barely made our reservations. Actually, we would have missed them except that I had already arranged with Ben that he would be our server and he very kindly served us even though really the restaurant was closing.
That was a lovely dinner. Thad had a bacon cheeseburger and I had my last meal of William Penn Pasta. We had planned to share an Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake – the best dessert ever. But then Joseph, one of the chefs, came out to us, and was taking our dessert orders, and was asking Thad what he wanted. Thad kept saying he didn’t want any dessert, but Joseph kept offering him more and more options, saying, “Come on, I’m giving you free dessert here!”
“Strawberry shortcake? Brownie? Or how ‘bout some ice cream? Would you like some ice cream?”
“Sure, okay, I’ll take some ice cream,” said Thad finally.
In a little while Joseph and Ben returned, with my toffee cake – and a dessert for Thad – three or four scoops of vanilla ice cream in a Liberty Tree mug, drizzled with lots of chocolate syrup, and whipped cream and a cherry on top. This dessert is not on the menu – I should know. It was made extra-specially for Thad. He licked the whipped cream off the cherry, and was going to set it aside, when he got a strange look on his face. I watched him in puzzlement as he put the cherry back in his mouth and bit it off the stem. Then he ate it with an expression of surprised, delighted ecstasy.
“I can’t believe that all theses years I’ve been giving away my cherries!” he cried despairingly.
After that we went back to Epcot to ride Spaceship Earth, and then to Hollywood Studios. There, for the first time, I rode Tower of Terror. I was scared out of my mind. But it turned out to not be nearly as bad as I expected! It was actually really fun! I was missing out, just like Thad with the cherries. Then we rode Rock’n’Roller coaster. We got to ride in the very front. It was glorious. When we came off, it was three minutes to park close, so we ran like maniacs back around to the front to go again. We were on the very last round to go. So I rode on the last Rock’n’Roller coaster of my last night at Disney.
Then we went back to the Magic Kingdom. We were on the Monorail as Wishes was going, which was pretty cool. (I have seen those fireworks so many times that not getting to see them from the ground didn’t distress me much.) I even caught a glimpse of Tinkerbelle flying.
Once we were inside the park, we watched the end of Wishes, then dashed for Space Mountain. We had about forty-five minutes until the park closed, and we wanted to hit Space, Splash, and Peter Pan’s flight. Yikes. After we rode Space Mountain – I got to be in front, I always forget how scary it is – we tried to buy freeze-dried ice cream for Bram but they didn’t have any and went to check the back and they took a long time and then I got sent to two different places and no one had any and the whole time I’m thinking “Auuugh, we have no time for this!” Finally someone said they had it at the Emporium at the front of the park which would be open after park close, so we dashed off to Peter Pan’s flight. Fortunately, they took our fast passes, which were long since expired. It was now less than twenty minutes to park close. I took in one last time the loveliness of Neverland. It was 10:53 when we got off the ride, and we ran like crazy people – Thad carried his flip flops – toward Splash Mountain. If only we could make it!
We made it, at 10:56. Four minutes to spare. So if anyone ever wondered, you can make it from the exit of Peter Pan’s Flight to the entrance of Splash Mountain in three minutes flat at a dead run. We were both panting and gasping. It was a lovely last ride. Splash Mountain is definitely one of my very favorite rides.
We caught some of my favorite parts of Spectromagic on the way back to Main Street. I knew I wanted to be in front of the castle at midnight for the “Kiss Goodnight,” the farewell at the park close every evening.
In between we managed to buy the presents I still needed to get, but the person had to go in the back for the freeze dried ice cream and I feared I would miss it. There was another one at 12:30, so it wouldn’t be too dreadful, but I did want to get back to the apartment sooner rather than later so that I could get a little sleep before we left early in the morning.
It was 12:01 – I stepped outside, looking for Thad; I had been separated from him in the crowded store. There he was.
“Has it gone?” I asked.
“I’ve been out here since five till and I haven’t seen anything,” he answered. I was still a bit stressed because I still had my WDW ID card and needed to turn it in. It was supposed to go to my work location, but that was quite thoroughly closed by now, so I planned to give it to one of the custodial managers who knew me. The park duty manager said that Heather should be coming from The West (Frontierland and Adventureland) [ oh there goes another pang of missing…] any minute, so I was relieved. She would have to come right past where I was. Just as I saw her coming, the Kiss Goodnight began. I could catch up with her when it was over. It must have been five minutes past midnight. It was as though it had waited until I was ready.
I don’t remember exactly what it says. It’s just the man’s voice who does many announcement things, I think he’s from the Mickey Mouse club, he has a sort of warm friendly voice – and he says something like I hope you had a wonderful time, and all your dreams come true. And Mickey says, “See ya real soon!” Goodnight, Mickey.
Thad and I meandered down Main Street. “I see why you wanted to see that,” he said. I caught up with Heather and gave her my ID.
Finally we left and got on the monorail. The ride back to the Ticket and Transportation Center, the drive to where Thad would sleep, and then on to the apartment.
The drive back home was fairly uneventful, other than my car starting to misfire. We spent only one night in a hotel – my goal was to reach home by suppertime on Saturday.
All the way, it seemed I watched time go backwards as it changed from eternal summer into spring. I nearly started crying when I crossed the Michigan border.
I made it in time for supper, arriving at about 5:30pm. It was so good to be there, and we had supper – I don’t remember now what it was, but it was good.
For the first few days of being home I felt really strange – as though I had a different personality and couldn’t find my old one. But I seemed to gather pieces of it back everywhere I went, to church and to my friend’s house and with my siblings, and it has long since been back entirely.
I don’t know what will happen next in my life. I'm done being Cinderannie - who will I be next? I am excited to have such openness ahead of me. I don’t think that I’ll ever have a career with Walt Disney World – Florida is just not home to me, and I don’t think it ever could be. But Disney will always have a special place in my heart, and though Florida might not be, the Magic Kingdom will always be home. I’ll go back and visit, someday, and perhaps someday I’ll be a seasonal employee to take advantage of the free admission – that’s the one thing I shall miss most; the freedom of wandering around the parks, just living there, every turn familiar and dear.
Thank you, everyone who has read this and been with me, supporting, encouraging, and enjoying. It was so good to have you along. So many lovely things happened. This chapter is done, a new one is starting.
Goodbye, Mickey! See you real soon!
posted by ransomedhandmaiden @ 11:46 AM
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