 Up and at 'em early
again
today. It's off to Epcot for the Princess Storybook
Breakfast in Norway. The park opens at 9am, but we have a 8:30
breakfast reservation so we get there around 8am. By 8:05 or so
they check our bags and let us in. As we walk through the
International Gateway store we arrive to applause from the
CM's. Today they are having a magical moment for the first
into the store. We receive a nice certificate and 4 fast passes
for Test Track! Wow! Perfect!  What a
great pixie dust way to start the day! There are 4 CM's
there so we give each one an appreciation card. They really
seemed to like them a lot.
 It was lots of fun, and now its off through the UK,
Canada and Mexico
on our way to Norway. I love going early and walking through
World Showcase while it is still closed. Great photo ops, and so
peaceful. A few CM's working along the way, but nothing
major. Soon enough we ar rive
at Norway and checkin for the
breakfast. After a few minutes our name is called and we head
inside. This has changed since our last visit. Now they
have Belle all decked out in her yellow ball gown and they take your
picture before the breakfast. Its not photopass, you have to buy
a package if you want the picture. We just took our own picture
of the girls with Belle and passed on the package. I think it was
around $30 or so.
Then we were seated and started off with drinks, fruit and cinnamon
buns. All very good. After that they brought out the
breakfast platter (no longer in a skillet) with scrambled eggs, bacon,
sausage, delicious  potatoes and biscuits. They will refill the
platter with whatever you like. We were almost done eating before
the princesses even started coming around. We saw Jasmine, Snow
White, Mulan and Aurora at the table. They were typically quick
in their visits, but very nice and friendly. The girls still love
seeing them, and I think it was good that the princesses came later
because they actually ate a bit of breakfast this time! ;-)
After Aurora went past us we gathered up our things and headed
out. Brinn and I headed to the Land to get Soarin' fast passes,
while Kristen and Maddy went to wait near Test Track. The Land
was VERY busy with people heading to Soarin', but we still got decent
return times of just after 10am. BACK we go to Test Track and
Brinn and I have now had our exercise for the day! ;-)
 We find Kristen and
Maddy and go to the fastpass return line to use our
special pass from the morning. Nice! Very soon we are
on the ride and its great as always. Everyone really enjoys this
attraction! We decide to skip Mission Space today, and head
across the park. After a shopping stop at Mouse Gear we walk
through Station Cool, or whatever they call it now. Without the
big cave entrance I almost missed it! Loved the various sodas and
still hate beverly. Poor Maddy - Told her she loved Beverly
(which she did a couple years back!) and she took a big swig. The
face was priceless, but alas - no camera! :-D She does NOT
like it anymore! LOL
 On out the back, and
into the back entrance for the Character
Connection. This is a nice big area with a bunch of characters
and few crowds. We saw Goofy, Mary Poppins and Belle (blue dress)
right away, and then in the main area (with organized lines and
backgrounds) were Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto and Chip and Dale
together. Very nice. Photopass photographers were with each
character (the organized ones) but you could take your own pictures as
always.
After working our way through there it was time for our Fast Pass
return at Soarin. We headed over and even the FP line was a bit
long. Around a 15 or 20 minute wait total and we were Soarin'
again! We all love this one, and hope to do it again before we
leave. We'll see!
After that it was getting REALLY hot and we decided to do Figment and
then head back. Figment was a walkon (as always) and then we
grabbed some ice cream for the walk back. Found out that they
keep the ice cream SO frozen using dry ice in the coolers. The CM
even warned Madison to let her popcycle melt a touch before putting her
tongue on it. The rest of us had the tollhouse cookie ice cream
sandwiches and we all enjoyed them very much.
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Back to the room for
some
pool time. We got ready and headed down to Storm along bay.
No rain
today, so we enjoyed lots of fun pool time and a late lunch at Beaches
and Cream. I headed back to the room to relax and work on the
trip
report while the girls swam until early evening! A nice relaxing
night
with no park plans. We got ready around 7pm and walked over to
the
Boardwalk. 
Decided to grab pizza at the
Spoodles walkup window because the pizza
slices were marked with the Disney Dining plan snack symbol.
While
trying to pay the CM says we have to use counter service and can't use
the snack options. I ask for a manager and Jaime arrives and says
the
same thing. Hmmmm…… NOT right, but we use it as a counter service
and
get drinks and a brownie we don't even want (we had already done
B&C and dessert was NOT anything we wanted right now).
After eating and throwing away most of the brownies
(bummer - because
they were VERY good!) the girls went shopping and I headed into the
BoardWalk to get a Dining Plan guide. NEVER one to just let
things go
I was NOT happy to 'waste' 4 counter service meals. As I
expected the
plan showed that symbol as marking snack options. So I WAS
right.
Back to the restaurant to talk to Jaime again and while she was VERY
nice, she DID nothing. I was very polite, took her name and said
I'd
talk with Concierge at the Beach Club. Back to the stores to find
the
girls shopping away. 
We finished up at the Boardwalk and headed around the
lake to the Yacht
Club. Kristen wanted to shop at the YC and BC stores, so I headed
back
to the Beach Club. I stopped at the Concierge desk and talked
with
Stephanie and Aja. Both were nice, but not much help with the
Dining
plan options. They disappear out back for about 15 minutes and
finally
return. Basically, everyone wanted to blame everyone else!
What I
wanted was to use 4 snack options and pay for 2 waters - our original
plans. No can do, but we'll get a manager and waste MORE of
your
vacation time if you like. I decline, and say they can have a
manager
call me, but I've wasted enough time on Disney's mistake. No one
wants
to take responsibility, and I'm NOT happy with it. I head back to
the
room. About 15 minutes later I get a call. I think it was
Stepanie
again and the 4 charges have been removed from our dining plan. I
ask
her to please charge 4 snack options and charge 2 bottles of water to
our account. But she says she can't do that and to not worry
about
it. Fine. Thanks. 
Anyway - not a great ending to the day, but a good
learning experience
I guess. I know a lot of people would just let things like this
go,
and if I had been busier I would have been one of them! But I'm
glad I
followed through although it would have been nice to hear someone
actually apologize for the mistake and even acknowledge that it WAS
one! Oh well - on to better things!