Christmas Parade Number Two

The end of today’s evening was as enjoyable as the beginning of the day, and maybe even more so. Just up the street from our ‘Camp Cracker Barrel’ (We have a fifth wheel parked near us now, but its empty- the owners are spending a week in the Wyndham Resort just behind us) is the RV Resort ‘Sherwood Forest’.

Just as we were beginning to clear the supper dishes Mona said, ‘Look out here!’ and through the front windows we saw the beginning of a parade of highly and creatively decorated golf carts.  It was the annual Christmas Parade of the snowbirds of Sherwood Forest. And there were about 50 of them!

Mona says that if we were camped in a park for a while I’d be doing this stuff.  So maybe its not all financial, the reason she says she enjoys dry camping and the                                                 rent free life!

But lets get back to the beginning of our day.

Its Saturday, two weeks before Christmas, and we decide to head for the hottest shopping venue in WDW, Downtown Disney. Not to shop, just to people watch and window walk.  But first we have to catch the ferry.

Yes, the ferries that run every twenty minutes up and down the river (creek, really) between the Port Orleans Resorts, past the Saratoga Springs Resort, and to the three Downtown Disney Ferry landings.

 

Port Orleans features a section of housing units that look a bit like deep south plantation houses, and a section that bears some resemblance to row homes in New Orleans. But all of them are pretty, and wonderfully landscaped, and along this lovely creek (river) they are so enjoyable to walk through.

The ferry takes us past the Saratoga Springs Treehouses, which may be rented starting at $330.00 a night. They are complete vacation villas about ten feet off the ground, and not really built into any trees, but 

                                              surrounded in them.

The river (creek) empties out into a bay that is ringed by the Saratoga Resort and all of Downtown Disney.

However Downtown Disney will soon be no more.  Its new name will be Disney Springs and it will have twice as many shops and restaurants as before. Change, the ever present constant in all our lives, especially those of us familiar with retail.

Today the crowds were thick, and the carried packages many, but the atmosphere was never negative or gruff, so far as we could see. Oh, I saw one guy who was put out for some reason with his ferry captain. Maybe the captain refused to marry he and his girlfriend.  These are not international waters, you know; on the creek (river)

We left Downtown Disney and returned leisurely by ferry to Port Orleans.  A Walmart stop was next, and while I shopped Mona got a haircut.  Not like yours, Debbie Boyer!!  But she can see again below her bangs. J

Tomorrow we spend the day with the Gresh’s and they will show us through the FREE Disney resorts that connect to the monorail, then share dinner with us in the coach.

This will be the closest we’ve gotten to the actual amusement parks all week.  Its amazing just how much fun you can have at Disney World and not spend a dime.

And while our evening never ends with anything but some quiet reading time, or a bit of a movie for me, the highlight tonight was the golf cart parade.

-Ken