Friday, December 31, 2021- Home Again on New Year's Eve

    Our trip home started with breakfast at the Old Port Royale lobby area.  We woke up and Julie got our bags packed.  Before 8:30 we were ready to catch the shuttle to the lobby area and left our pirate rooms in Trinidad one last time.  We were hauling all of our stuff with us and checked our bags in with the bellhops while we ate breakfast.  Somehow, Scott dropped Julie's new white fleece from LL Bean that she had only just gotten for Christmas from Anna, and had to spend a while looking for it while the others got their food.  It was eventually found by someone at the front desk in the hotel's lost and found.

     The pool in the Old Port Royale area is very big and pirate themed, with walls that look like an old Spanish fort with cannons extending over the pool.  There's a play area for small children, and Julie planned it so that Abby would have some time to play this morning.  They children's play area is also pirate themed, with slides that look like a wrecked pirate ship and a huge bucket that dumps a load of water when it fills up every few minutes.  Abby didn't like the bucket dump, but she was having a ball being in the water.  While they were swimming, Scott bought Julie a pastel Disney World sweatshirt to change into and also bought a calendar in order to use the pages in a scrapbook.  Julie planned time so that she could look in the gift shop too.

    At 11:15, we were ready for the Magical Express bus to take us to the airport.  This is the very last day of this free service for resort guests.  Starting tomorrow, guests will have to pay extra for a bus from Mears or some other private company.  The Magical Express signs have all been taken down and replaced with a generic "Airport shuttle" sign.  We did see a decorated Magical Express bus drop some new arrivals off, but when our bus came to take us, it was a plain undecorated white bus.  Grandma had given us some pins of the Magical Express bus that they had gotten on their last trip here.  We will use those to remember our trip on the very last day of the service.

    The airport and plane ride back were rather uneventful.  The plane was a little late getting to our gate, but we were back in Buffalo by 5:30.  Abby was restless for the first half of the flight, but finally settled down to sleep for the second half of it.  It was now in the 40s and after dark, but the skies were overcast again.  John was in the lot to pick his folks up and we made our way to our car, with a stop at Burger King for Emma and Mighty Taco for Julie and Scott. 

    Noodles was happy to see us when we got home.  He had spent the past few days with Anna.  She was in near constant contact with us, texting us to complain that he was peeing all over her apartment.  She was frustrated, but Noodles was stressed.  Both of them would be happy to be rid of the other now.

    Abby was thrilled to be home and was grinning as she settled down in the living room to play with her Christmas toys.  It is New Year's Eve, but none of us were able to keep ourselves awake for the ball drop (or more likely, the fireworks at Disney, which were being live streamed on YouTube).   The fireworks in the neighborhood woke Scott up briefly, but that's was all.  [Correction: Emma did make it up to midnight, but we didn't know that until she got up around 11:00 AM.]  

    We asked Emma how she rated this trip, since it was for her graduation, after all.  She gave it a nine out of ten.  Her two regrets were that she wasn't able to go back to Disney Springs for more shopping and we didn't get to finish the countries in Epcot.  We know that Julie's parents had a good time because they kept saying so, and we know that they couldn't have done it on their own.  We had a good time too, though it was a slower moving couple of days, with Abby and Julie's parents along and the large holiday crowds to contend with.  Julie has said several times that this will probably be the last time that we try to marathon all four parks, and that we will pick and choose a little more next time.  We will see when that time comes.  For now, we've got to recover from this trip and other destinations to plan for in the new year, 2022.