ABD Spirit of America - Day 8, Williamsburg to OKC; summary

Friday, October 17, 2008 – Day 8 –Williamsburg to OKC

Pictures to be added later.....

Breakfast was in the hotel this time – typical breakfast buffet fare with an omelet station – Rhys’ favorite. We returned to the room to gather the rest of our belongings and headed down to the lobby to meet everyone for the first run to the airport at 8:30. Other Adventurers who had later flights were on the 2nd motor coach run to Richmond at about 10 am. It was pouring rain outside – the first wet day in the whole week that we’d been here. Many Adventurers marveled at how Disney was able to arrange such good weather for us this last week.

We said goodbye to Maria at the hotel and settled in for the 45 minute drive to Richmond watching the rest of National Treasure on the way down. Gary had fixed the video monitors on our SDACMC. At the airport, we said our final goodbyes to Milca and hoped to catch her sometime working the front service center at Hollywood Studios.

In summary, it was a fabulous week. There were many pros and few cons to our trips. There was a little bit of family dissent with the earlier family photo ops with complaints that it was taking too long with 40 Adventurers and that we were doing a lot of waiting while pictures were being taken one by one. IMO, with the time saved with pre-check in, pre-ordering of our meals, and pre-purchasing of our tour tickets, we more than made up for the waiting around that we did while pictures were being taken. To their credit, Maria and Milca did a marvelous job with taking them and were always gracious about taking pictures with our own cameras as well. The only other “likes” that I have would be larger beds – we were not used to sleeping on double beds. Most of the time when we travel, I book a room with a queen or king and pull-out sofa bed for the kids. I’m not sure if this was even a possibility at each hotel but it would have been nicer.
I was a little worried because I had not booked a thing for this trip – a first for me. Going into a trip with free time and no dinner reservations made me uncomfortable but from what I had read, it didn’t seem to be a problem and I would now agree. In Philadelphia, we checked with the concierge who recommended Bookbinders for seafood and in Washington DC we again used the concierge who recommended the Trattu. Both restaurants were very good and we’re pretty critical about good food and wine. A few more random thoughts….no cup holders on the motor coach. It was great having the table in the back of the SDACMC for the kids but I still wonder how many things were left behind and what kind of condition the back of the bus was in after it was all said and done.

We had a really nice group of people with us on our Adventure. Could it be because everyone on this trip was, to some degree, a Disney fan which selects out for nicer people in general? Everyone was courteous and, unlike some other group tours that we’ve done, everyone was very attentive to our set meeting times. At some of the restaurants where we ate together as a group (City Tavern, B Smith’s), the food service was a bit off – inattentiveness, forgotten orders or requests, some waiters had abrupt personalities. We speculated that perhaps pre-paid gratuities was not such a good thing.

I really came to appreciate and understand the free time that we were given allowing us to explore some things in more detail that others might not be interested in. I was also impressed with how flexible Maria, Milca, and Gary were picking up and dropping off different groups, allowing some families/couples to go out on their own if they wished to, and, in particular, how accommodating they were to Deborah who was having some difficulty keeping up while walking and doing a lot stairs. It was a lot to keep track of but we never left anyone behind. There were other options for portions of the tour such as the scavenger hunt in Philadelphia, the National Zoo (some opted to go back to the Smithsonian museums instead), and offering a guided bus tour instead of riding the bikes. Snacks were also a little TOO plentiful, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the kids eat so much junk food in one week. Heck, I ate way more junk food than I have in a long time as well because it was JUST THERE, iykwim.

As mentioned earlier, I wish that I had taken some more dressy outfits to wear. I was envisioning just what Disney would have considered “resort wear” but would have changed into something nicer for a few of the places that we went to including Café Promenade and B Smith’s.
Finally, I had read on the DIS boards that bloggers who had taken this trip were sworn to secrecy about certain aspects of their trip - surprises that their Guides and ABD had arranged or given to them. We were never advised to keep anything secret so I've included just about every detail that I can think of and have blogged as I normally do.