"Wow, that's a skinny squirrel!" - January 2012 TR *Updated 05/09

[archdandy]

Jambo everybody and welcome to my first trip report! This trip first came about in September when DH and I started school. We were having a rough time adjusting because neither of us had been in college/university before (he's in college and I'm in university) and we didn't like having so little free time anymore. Not to mention we moved and that was a huge hassle with our previous landlord and we had a death in the family. We don't deal with stress very well (we get cranky ;)). So it was then decided that we would take a Disney trip at the end of our first semester as a reward and as a way to just unwind. You can read all about the planning from my PTR:http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2811327.

We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside from January 8-15. We used the DDXP and I will be doing a dining report as well (I'll put the link in when I start it). Now let's introduce the cast members of this trip!

Me - My name's Jennifer and I am 22 years old. I'm currently in school full time majoring in Anthropology. My favorite park is Hollywood Studios, favorite character is Belle, favorite snack is the peanut butter cups.

DH - He is 26 years old and works full time as a manager of a payday loan and cash converters store. He also goes to school part time for animal law enforcement. His favorite park is Hollywood Studios, favorite character is Goofy and favorite food was the porterhouse steak from Yachstmans! :laughing:

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[archdandy]

Day 0/Day 1: Let's go! Let's go! http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=43947954&postcount=8

Day 1: We're here! We're here! http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44489161&postcount=14

Day 1: I lurve me some chocolate cake http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44618707&postcount=18

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Joining in! We were there at the same time, how funny is that? Can't wait to read more about your trip! :goodvibes

[Nermel9]

Joining in! Can't wait to hear about your trip! :cool1:

[jecskc]

Joining in!! Can't wait to read about your trip.

[archdandy]

Joining in! We were there at the same time, how funny is that? Can't wait to read more about your trip! :goodvibes

That is pretty funny! How did you and Wingnut find the weather? We're from Canada and it's mid-winter here but even we found it to be pretty cold some days!

Joining in! Can't wait to hear about your trip! :cool1:

Welcome! I can't wait to get started. I should hopefully have something up this weekend, maybe even tonight! :goodvibes

Joining in!! Can't wait to read about your trip.

Welcome aboard! :)

[archdandy]

I'm just uploading my pictures to photo bucket now. Hopefully I will have an update for you guys today or tommorow.

[archdandy]

This isn't technically the day we left for Disney, hence day 0, but for me it was when the trip began so I'm starting here. It was January 7 and DH had been at work all day and I was at home packing last minute things and cleaning the house so it was nice and purdy for when we got home. Finally after a long day of trying to keep the ants in my pants four thirty rolled around. I was supposed to go and drop off our house key to my sister in law so she could come take care of our cats. So I packed my suit case into the car (DH had put his in this morning) and said goodbye to the cats!

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(I don't know if you can see that well enough but the time says 4:30pm exactly!)

I got to my sister in laws house but nobody was answering the door so I just left the key in her mail box and got DH to text her to let her know. I arrived at DH's work a bit early since the drive there only took about 10 minutes with the trip to the sister in laws! So I waited around with our friend who was visiting DH at work. When we were ready to leave DH asked for the address of the hotel in Toronto we were going to be staying in for the night. :eek: But I had completely forgotten to write it down. So our friend suggested that we go to his house and use his computer to get the address. We agreed and drove to his house. It took us a little while to get his internet working and then finally we got the address! "Let's Go! Let's Go!" I couldn't keep my enthusiasm in, we were already behind schedule by half an hour and we had to stop for gas :laughing:

After filling up the tank and getting on the highway it was 5:30. As soon as we hit the highway I put on some music and bounced in my seat the whole time. (We listened to a couple older AFI c.d.'s) We stopped about half an hour away from Toronto at a Tim Hortons for dinner around 6:30.

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And we both got turkey sandwiches with cookies for dessert! They were typical Tim Horton's, which is good, but I was too excited to savour my cookies and unfourtunatley I gave them to DH later in the night.

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We got back on the road around 7 and it only took us another 20 minutes to get to the hotel :goodvibes We checked in and got our room key. Then we had to go all the way back to the car which was in a back lot with very poor lighting so we kind of ran the way there and hurried with our luggage to the side door on the way back. We made it safely though!

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It took us a bit to find our room and then when we did the key card didn't work! We tried it for about 5 minutes until my frustrated DH went back down to the lobby. He came back with a new key card and said the desk guy had given us the wrong room number. So we finally got the right room and opened the door without hassle this time.

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The room had a king bed which I wasn't expecting! So that was a nice surprise. Hopefully a omen of the pixie dust to come! :wizard:

I had to take a shower and do some last minute things like finish painting my nails (I know I'm a neurotic weirdo) so DH just relaxed and watched some TV. While we were exploring the room we came across this weird remote.

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There was no N64 in the room so we think it might have been for pay per view? :confused3 And yes we thought this was weird enough to take a picture of!

We finally got settled into bed around 9pm. It was the worst sleep ever! I couldn't fall asleep knowing I had to get up 2am. So I tossed and turned all night! At last 2am arrived and we both got up and were pretty groggy.
Which means that it was Disney departure day! I didn't have to pull off a sheet from my Disney calendar because Saturday and Sundays share a page!

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We got our stuff together and sluggishly made our way to the lobby to check out.

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Check out went fine and we were told to wait in the lobby for the van to come pick us up and take us to the airport. We waited, and waited, and waited. The van wa supposed to come at 2:30 because we had to be at the aiport by 3. Others had come to the lobby to wait for the van as well. Finally it came around 3:15 I believe. I was pretty mad because I thought we would have a long line at the check in counter at the aiport for sure.

Everybody got loaded into the van and we set out for the airport! There was a group of Germans who reminded me of my childhood and it was nice listening to them talk to each other. I have German grandparents that I spent a lot of time with when I was younger. My oma recently passed away in the fall so it made me sad but happy at the same time.

We finally got to the airport around 3:30 and luckily the line for check in was short. They still had their Christmas decorations up!

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It only took about 10 minutes for us to get through. Then we had to wait for customs to open which surprisingly didn't take as long as I remember it taking last time. But the actual line for customs took quite a while. At least half an hour. We made it through eventually and security wasn't too bad. The beeper didn't go off for me this time which usually it does. It went off for DH though which was unusual. It turns out he forgot he had nail clippers in his pocket! They made him throw them out and he was a bit sad about that because it was his good pair :laughing:

After all that we had about an hour and a half wait until our flight. So we decided to use this time to find something for breakfast as we knew there wouldn't be anything served on the flight. There wasn't a whole lot open at this time but we managed to find a little cafe type thing.

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I got a yogurt with a muffin.

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DH got a chocolate croissant with a sausage! (Yup, a sausage! :thumbsup2)

This was possibly the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth! The yogurt was fine as it was a brand name yogurt. The muffin however was disgusting. I don't even know how I ate it looking back on it. It tasted like cardboard and had no flavor. It was super dry and just blech! I saw another couple who looked pretty disgusted with their muffin as well. My DH said his croissant was gross as well. The chocolate inside was hard and it just didn't taste good. I wish I could remember the name of the place we ate so I could warn others away but I can't!

After that rather unpleasant meal we headed towards our gate and sat down to watch a movie. We started to watch The Incredibles but only got about half way through before we started boarding. Our plane was about 15 minutes late for take off because we had to wait for a passenger. After that everything was smooth sailing!

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Our flight was supposed to be two and a half hours long and we left at 6:30am.

Did we arrived on time? Will we find the magical express? You'll have to wait until next time to find out!

[KatMark]

I'm late, but I'm here. I'll be back to catch up later. :goodvibes

[KatMark]

Okay, I'm back and caught up (I was afraid I'd come back and you had done two or more updates :rotfl2::rotfl2:).

Great start. Sorry about the yucky food at the airport (I find most airport food to be yucky).

Can't wait to see if you land on time and find the ME.

[IheartDDuck]

I'm joining! Off to a great start so far.

Ick, yucky muffin. I hate that. It looked good too! Don't you hate it when something looks good, you're just expecting that it's going to taste good, and then it's terrible? Argh, that stinks.

[SenecaWolf]

We live near Buffalo and Timmy's is a necessity whenever we leave the house lol. The N64 remote thingy you see is for pay per play video games on your tv. IIRC they were kinda pricey.

Cant wait to hear about the rest of your trip!

[archdandy]

Okay, I'm back and caught up (I was afraid I'd come back and you had done two or more updates :rotfl2::rotfl2:).

Great start. Sorry about the yucky food at the airport (I find most airport food to be yucky).

Can't wait to see if you land on time and find the ME.

Nope, still just the one post! :lmao: I am in the middle of uploading all of my pictures right now to photobucket so I can have them already uploaded and hopefully get this trip report back on track.

I'm joining! Off to a great start so far.

Ick, yucky muffin. I hate that. It looked good too! Don't you hate it when something looks good, you're just expecting that it's going to taste good, and then it's terrible? Argh, that stinks.

Yes, I do hate that! So very much! Luckily we had a weeks worth of yummy Disney food to look forward to! :goodvibes

We live near Buffalo and Timmy's is a necessity whenever we leave the house lol. The N64 remote thingy you see is for pay per play video games on your tv. IIRC they were kinda pricey.

Cant wait to hear about the rest of your trip!


Ohh, yes! Timmy's is a regular thing when we leave the house here! We live in a smaller town and we still have 6 Tim Horton's here :thumbsup2


So like I said I am in the middle of getting my photos uploaded and hopefully will be able to get this trip report back on track soon. I've been so busy with school but we are done in three weeks. I may even be starting a new PTR soon :woohoo:

[archdandy]

We last left off with us being on the plane waiting to see what time we would land because we had a late take off.

We started our descent at 9:17 am.

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And by the time we actually landed it was around 9:30am. We were supposed to arrive at 9:00am. So we were half an hour late but we were okay with it. We were just excited to finally be in Florida! :goodvibes

We stopped to use the bathroom and then made our way to the airport monorail. We took our time going through the aiport on the way to the Magical Express and stopped in to the Universal Studios store. We are both huge fans of Harry Potter and couldn't resist! We thought about buying a couple of the wands because they had a lot more of them now then when we went to Universal in 2010. In the end we decided against it and moved on.

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So you'd think that because we have been on the Magical Express twiec before that we would remember where it is. But you'd be wrong :laughing: Last time and this time as well we didn't get our Magical Express tickets in the mail so we had to go to front desk of Magical Express to check in. So we didn't have the actual paperwork with us to tell us where to go. We had been one floor up looking around for it because we knew it was at the end of the floor but it wasn't there this time :confused3 Haha, we were so confused! Eventually we ended up asking somebody and she directed us to the floor below us. We checked in at the desk and finally got the Port Orleans Riverside line!

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We finally boarded the ME at 11:30am (two hours after our flight landed!) and my excitement was growing by the minute. Can you tell? Haha.

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We got the real ME bus and our driver was named James. We would be stopping at the Yacht Club, Beach Club and then Riverside. James was really great. He encouraged people to get excited when he saw the big purple gates and even said we could form a line at the front of the bus to get closer to take pictures! :goodvibes He must have met a couple of DISers during his career! :lmao: Luckily we were in the front seat and didn't need to stand up to get a great shot (well, great to me) of the gates!

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The bus drive was short and within half an hour we had arrived at Port Orleans Riverside! Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get a shot of the name decoration thingy :laughing:

For some reason, I guess due to excitement, this was the only picture of the lobby I got that day.

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Yup, a chandelier!

We checked in fine and I didn't even have to request to be placed in the newly renovated rooms because the CM's had gotten my request from the week earlier and made sure we were accommodated! :wizard:

The CM marked on the map where our room was and it took us a while to get there. At first we thought it was just because we had taken the long way around but as the week went on we realized there was no shorter way. I've heard a lot of complaints against Coronado Springs being huge but we honestly felt like this resort was a longer walk to the amenities. Maybe it was just the way the resort was laid out? Anyways, we finally made it to our room. We were in Magnolia Terrace.

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After looking around the room for a bit we realized that time had gotten away from us and our ADR for Rainforest Cafe downtown was fast approaching. When I made this ADR I figured it would give us plenty of time to get there since our flight was at 6:30am. I guess I was wrong. I'll know better for next time not to make any lunch ADR's for arrival day!

We quickly made our way out to the bus stop figuring if they couldn't take us in late we would find somewhere else to eat. Okay maybe we didn't go quite as fast as we should have as we stopped to take some pictures! ;)

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Look at how huge that leaf is!

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The fan at the bus station. Isn't it funny how we think something is a good idea to take a picture of but then looking back you can't remember why you would ever take that picture? :thumbsup2

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The bus came in a decent amount of time and we were one of two families who got on. The bus wasn't crowded which was a relief and soon we were on our way to Downtown Disney!

Will we make it to our ADR on time? Will the food be good? Tune in next time to find out!

[Victoriasmom98]

Here I am at your report!!! :cool1: When we went in 2010, we stayed in Magnolia Terrace, too! Awesome start to your report!

[Grumpy's Wife]

Hi :wave: just joining in.

[archdandy]

Hi :wave: just joining in.

Welcome! I hope you enjoy it!

Here I am at your report!!! :cool1: When we went in 2010, we stayed in Magnolia Terrace, too! Awesome start to your report!

Welcome! It was a nice building to stay in. I just wish it had been close to the main building.

[archdandy]

So we last left off with us on the bus to downtown disney for our lunch ADR at the Rainforest Cafe.

The bus arrived downtown and we booked it to the restaurant. We only ended up being 15 minutes late for our ADR which was good! I thought maybe they wouldn't take us but luckily I was wrong. I was excited to try this place out because I had never been to a Rainforest Cafe before and it always looked so cool from outside! :lmao: And now that they were on the dining plan I could finally go inside!

It did not disappoint. The inside was totally awesome! We had two thunderstorms while were there. Our waitress was really great and explained to us that this was only the second time she was using the dining plan. It made the meal a little slower but we didn't mind. We were just happy to be in Disney again.

For out appetizers we ordered:

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Mozzarella Sticks (DH)

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Chimi-Cha-Cha's (me)

DH said his cheese sticks were good, nothing special. My chimi-cha-cha's were really good. They were hot and tasty! The only thing I didn't like about them was that there was a certain spice that was too much in it, I think it was cumin. But they were still good and I would order them again.

For our appetizers we ordered:

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Caribbean Coconut Shrimp (me)

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Chicken Fried Chicken (DH)

My meal was pretty good. The rice was okay, it was just rice with a little bit of seasoning. The same with the veggies. But the shrimp were really tasty! They were perfectly crunchy and the mango sauce was delicious!

DH said his meal was okay. The chicken batter didn't have a lot of flavor and DH really like his fried chicken to be seasoned properly. He didn't try the gravy because he doesn't like it.

Next up was dessert (yeah we couldn't wait and took some bites!):

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Tribal Cheesecake

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Chocolate Diablo Cake

DH really loved his chocolate cake. He lurves chocolate cake and raspberry so this was perfect for him! The cheesecake I had was pretty good. I don't really remember anything else about it so it must not have stood out very much.

While we were waiting for the bill I looked over and saw this weird looking fish. I thought it was hilarious because it looked like it had a nose!

I was feeling artsy and in a good mood from being in Disney so I took this picture for a keepsake.

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After our bill was settled we decided to check out the gift shop and while we were doing that our waitress came back up to us because she hadn't charged our card properly. She apologized profusely but we didn't mind as we knew she didn't have a lot of experience with the plan.

Once that was finished we explored downtown a bit. We went to Basin as I had never been and I always mean to but always end up skipping it. I bought a three pack of bath salt balls. We went to most of the stores in the Market Place but didn't really venture past there. I took a lot of pictures of the different statues and murals in the stores.

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I also took a picture of a couple of the different statues I wanted but were way too expensive to buy.

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I also finally got a good picture of the dragon in the water by the Lego store! It only took three trips!

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We stayed downtown the whole afternoon but as evening approached we decided to take the boat back to the resort.

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This was our first time taking Disney transportation other than the buses and it was fun! We really enjoyed having the wind in our hair.

Once back at the resort we stopped in the lobby to see if they could print off a list of ADR's. I forgot to print them off before we left. It wasn't a problem and we now had the list for the rest of the week. Then we went to the food court to get our mugs. After filling them up we headed back to the room and showered and got cleaned up for our ADR at Yachtsmans Steakhouse.

This is where I will leave this update. But stay tuned for the next installment to see if Yachtsmans lived up the hype and if we would make it through the evening without falling asleep!

[archdandy]

When we last left off we were about to leave our room to make our ADR for Yachstmans Steakhouse. I was really looking forward to this meal because DH and I both love a good steak. We took the bus downtown and then took the bus downtown to the Yacht Club resort. This was our first time being in this resort. We had been to the Beach Club before but never wandered over to the other resorts.

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We were a little confused at first as to where the restaurant actually was and it took us a little while to find it. But we eventually made it and checked in for our reservation.

We didn't have a long wait and our host stopped by this window so we could view the different cuts of steak.

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I didn't really pay attention because cuts of meat don't really mean anything to me but apparently DH did pay attention, more on that later.

We were seated near the back of the restaurant which was fine by us and then our waiter came and took our drink orders. I got tea and DH got pop. Our bread came out shortly after and I was excited to try it because I love fresh bread! It didn't disappoint. It was soft and the onion flavor was nice. I wished I had more room in my stomach for more bread.

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Bread basket at Yachstmans Steakhouse

We finally ordered our meals and DH went with a ceaser salad for an app and I just nibbled on bread.

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Ceaser Salad at Yachtsmans Steakhouse

He said it was good. It wasn't spectacular but he ate most of it. Here we are waiting for our entree's!

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And what did we order?

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8-oz Center Cut Filet Mignon (Me)

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24-oz Center Cut Porterhouse (DH)

So remember how I said that I didn't pay any attention to the cuts of meat but DH did? Well I should have followed his example. His porterhouse steak was heavenly! :angel: It was so tender and had a really good flavor. Don't get me wrong, my filet mignon was delicious as well but it couldn't even hold a candle next to the porterhouse! I can feel my mouth watering just thinking about it.

DH didn't even touch his paprika fries, I think he was too full. My mashed potatoes were good, just mashed potatoes though. We opted to not get dessert as we were both pretty stuffed. I didn't write down our servers name but I wrote a little note saying he was excellent! We got our bill settled and headed out full and happy.

We went to the bus depot and waited for the bus back to Downtown. It only ended taking us an hour travel combined which was really great. I remember last trip it took us an hour and a half to get to Beach Club from the Coronado :headache: We got off the west depot at Riverside so we could stop at the food court and get some snacks. DH ended up getting this:
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Coffee Cake from Riverside Mill

And I ended up just getting a mickey ice cream head, which was delicious by the way.

DH didn't really like his cake. It had a weird cream cheese filling to it and thats not what we are used to with coffee cake.

After that we watched t.v. for a bit and then just crashed. It had been a long first day at Disney and we had to get up for our morning ADR at The Wave!

[Grumpy's Wife]

I've never been to Yatchsmen Steakhouse before. The foods looks wonderful.

[archdandy]

I've never been to Yatchsmen Steakhouse before. The foods looks wonderful.

It was more than wonderful! I could eat there every day! ;)

[archdandy]

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We got up at the bright and early hour of 6am and I was wide awake. DH on the other hand was not so wide awake. I had to coax him out of bed and into the shower which is really weird. Usually he is pretty good about getting up in the mornings.

After the shower we got dressed and packed up all of our things in our park bags and headed out. We were on the way to our ADR at The Wave for breakfast.

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While walking to the front of the resort to wait for our cab I took some pictures of the resort along the way. You can see it was still dark out and it was a bit chilly. We weren't used to Florida being this cold as we had always come when it was really hot (June and September).

Our cab was waiting for us when we got there so we hopped in and were on our way to The Contemporary. I dont remember how long the ride was but I do remember it cost us about $15. We headed towards the restaurant and I went to go take a picture of the outside of it when I realized I didn't have my camera with me :scared1: I knew I had taken it from the room because I took pictures of the resort on the way. Then I remembered I heard something drop in the cab but didn't really pay any attention because I briefly looked down and didnt see anything. Oh no!

We rushed back out to the front but the cab had already left. So we asked the lady who was at the podium outside the resort if she could call the cab company for us and let them know we think our camera was left in the car. She talked to them for a bit and she said the cab driver found our camera and that they could come back and bring it to us but that it would cost us the fare it would take him to get back to the resort. We agreed relunctantly, but what were we going to do, leave our $100+ camera in the cab?

He came back about 10 minutes later and DH got the camera back from him. We had assumed we could pay by credit card because thats how we paid originally but the cab driver said it was cash only this time. We didn't had cash on us so luckily the driver said don't worry about it! Phew!

Now that we had the camera back we finally went back inside and were a little later for our reservation but it didn't matter because the restaurant wasn't busy at all.

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We were seated right away and our waiter came out to take our drink orders. I just got tea and DH got orange juice. We opted to do the buffet instead of the a la carte and we were glad we did! They had everything that was on the menu in the buffet and it was unlimited, so it was a much better deal. Not that it mattered since we were on the DDP. I took a lot of pics of the buffet even though I'm sure the people there thought it was weird ;) But I'm a DISer through and through.

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We got back to our table and I couldn't wait to dig in! I had waited to try the sweet potato pancakes for a loong time! And let me tell you, they didn't disappoint. I loved them! I wish I could eat them everyday for breakfast!

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The with the lime sauce was delicious as well. I would have gladly ordered that as an entree and been happy.

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I know DH had a second plate but I can't find it on my camera. I think the second plate had some meat on it.

We finished eating and debated asking our waiter if we could get hot chocolates to go. DH didn't want to because he was worried they would say no, I insisted they would allow it because I had seen other people's dining reports where they did this. So finally I got up the courage to ask our waiter and he was very obliging! He said it was no problem and shortly after came back with some delicious hot chocolate in to go cups.

After settling our bill we headed out. It took us a little while to find the monorail but we managed. This would be our first time on a monorail so I was kind of excited. The wait was a little longer than I thought it would be but soon we were zooming towards Epcot.

I'm going to stop this update here and hopefully I will have the next one up soon. I am going to try and update faster because I'd like to get this TR done as we are going on four months now since the trip. If there are any lurkers out there feel free to say hi!

[archdandy]

**First off I want to apologize for the lack of pictures in this update. I guess through the course of the day I didn't realize I wasn't taking many pictures.**

We last left off with us taking the monorail to EPCOT. We made it to the entrance about ten to twenty minutes after opening and the line was still a bit congested. We got made good time getting in and bag check went smooth. Finally we were in our first park of the trip! :cool1:

The first thing we did was head to Soarin'.

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The time posted was 15 minutes so we decided that was reasonable and waited it out. The ride was good as always. I love the smell of those oranges! :love:

We were already in the The Land pavilion so we decided to the Living with the Land attraction as we had never done it before. I was curious to see the huge lemons that I've seen in other trip reports. There was no wait for this ride, bonus!

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There they are! ;) This was a really interesting tour. I really liked thep different ways they were growing produce. I would definitely do this next trip.

After that we talked about doing The Circe of Life because it was right there and there was no wait but we decided to leave it to our next trip. We don't like to do everything at once because that leaves nothing new for our future trips.

I wanted to go down to Sunshine Seasons to check out their offerings because we've never eaten there but always hear great things about it. Nothing really caught my attention though so we kept moving.

We walked out of The Land pavilion and didn't really have a burning desire of where to go next so we kind of strolled along until we came to Figment. This was another new one that had no wait so why not do it?

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...this wasn't one of my favorite attractions. I know a lot of people like it because its a classic and they find it cute but this just wasn't for us.

We took our time looking through the gift shop though because they had some unique stuff in there.

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Our string of new attractions continued as we headed towards Captain EO. The wait for this ride was a bit long, not because there were a lot of people but because of the introduction video and it took a bit for us to be admitted to the room for some reason.

Let me just say :rotfl2:! Oh, man! That show was good. It was purely awesome for its LOLz.

After having ourselves a couple of chuckles we headed in the direction of Test Track and Mission Space. The lines were long for both attractions so we got a FP for Test Track and waited it out for Mission Space. It took us a while to decide whether to do green or orange because DH gets really queasy on rides lately. In the end we chose orange for me :cool2:

I love this ride! It's such a different feeling and when you're done taking off and you're floating around in space it feels so real after that huge GFORCE simulation. Of course DH got queasy.

It was time to take a little bit of a break. We sat on some benches and drank some water to give DH time to recover. Our plan was just to sit it out until our FP for Test Track were good. But as we were sitting we started to get annoyed at the sun in our eyes. And yes we both forgot our sunglasses this trip! :(

The only thing to do was to go to Mouse Gears and pick out some glasses. We had some time to kill anyways. After paying for our stuff we walked back to Test Track because our FP were finally good!

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The ride was good as usual. It's not DH's favorite but it's one of mine in EPCOT. At this point it was nearing lunch time and we had an ADR for Coral Reef. We weren't really feeling that restaurant though so we decided to walk around World Showcase and see if there were any CS options that appealed to us.

Some of the christmas decorations were still up. I was happy about this but also kind of sad. I wanted the first time I saw the christmas decorations in person to be during the christmas season on one of future trips.

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We entered through the Canada side, of course! My plan was to just get Mexican CS but we had to walk around basically the whole world showcase for DH to decide what he wanted. Nothing ended up appealing to him but the fish and chips. So we had to go all the way back around. :lmao:

The line for the fish and chips was kind of long so we hatched a new plan! we had ADRS for Rose & Crown for later anyways so we decided we would see if they would take walk ups for lunch. And yes they were taking walk ups! :banana: It would be about a twenty minute wait so we used that time to walk across the "street" and look through the UK shops. I wanted to buy some of the tea really bad but didn't end up getting anything. I can't remember why now though? :confused3

Finally our beeper went off and we basically skipped over to the podium to be seated!

I'm going to leave the review here for now. I hope you enjoyed this installment!

[pld5]

I am loving your trip report. Especially the food reviews. Can't wait to read more.

[chocolateMinnie]

Thanks so much for this trip report. We've booked our first meal at Yachtsman this trip and my DD is determined to go for the Porterhouse LOL it looks bigger than she is. :)

[IheartDDuck]

Mmmm, your Yachtsman photos just made my mouth water. Such a good restaurant.

[Britard]

I'm enjoying the report so far and joining in for more!!

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Your breakfast at the Wave looks great! Sweet Potato Pancakes :cloud9:

Glad you got to see the giant lemon for yourself! Yay for R&C taking walkups!

[archdandy]

Your breakfast at the Wave looks great! Sweet Potato Pancakes :cloud9:

Glad you got to see the giant lemon for yourself! Yay for R&C taking walkups!

Ahh, I don't even want to get started on how delicious those pancakes were. :) Thanks for reading!

I'm enjoying the report so far and joining in for more!!

Thanks for joining! :cutie:

Mmmm, your Yachtsman photos just made my mouth water. Such a good restaurant.

It is indeed an awesome restaurant. We are going back on our next trip and can't wait!

Thanks so much for this trip report. We've booked our first meal at Yachtsman this trip and my DD is determined to go for the Porterhouse LOL it looks bigger than she is. :)

It is a HUGE steak! LOL. I'm surprised DH finished it but I guess that explains why he didn't eat the side that came with it.

I am loving your trip report. Especially the food reviews. Can't wait to read more.

Ahh, yes, who doesn't love food? popcorn:: Thanks for joining!

[archdandy]

When we last left off we were just about to head in to the Rose & Crown after successfully being taken as walk ups! :thumbsup2

The hostess sat us at our table and our waitress came shortly after. I finally managed to remember one of our servers names, haha, it was Gem. She went through the menu a bit with us and explained some of our options on the dining plan.

We ordered our appetizers and entree's at the same time and waited for our drinks. DH ordered lemonade and I ordered tea. Of course it was Twinings tea which I was grateful for instead of that other stuff they serve at a lot of places. The only problem was that all of the bags she brought me were decaf :confused3 Looking back on it now I should have said something to our waitress but at the time I didn't bother because I wasn't familiar with the brand and didn't know if decaf was the regular or something.

Anyways, for our appetizers we ordered:

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Cheese Platter (DH)

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Potato & Leek Soup (Me)

My soup was delicious, much better than the stuff I make at home. I only ate about half of it as I was saving room for the entree's. DH's cheese plate was really good as well. I was surprised he ordered this as he is not usually very adventurous with food. The cheese's were all pretty mild except for the last one. It tasted exactly like a barn smells :sick:

We both ordered the same entree's.

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Fish and Chips

These were delicious! The fries were very thick cut and I love them when the are like that. They were crispy and warm and just thinking about them makes me hungry. The fish was excellent as well. The batter was crispy and not soggy and the fish had a nice flavor to it.

By this point we were so stuffed from our big breakfast and lunch and we couldn't get dessert down. The one thing I will mention about our waitress was that she was kind of pushy for us to get dessert. She just kept reminding us that it was part of the dining plan. Yeah, we got it, thanks.

We settled our bill and continued our trek around the world. We passed through France and checked out the Boulangerie Patisserie. I'd never been inside so I was curious and I wanted to scope out some goodies for later consumption! :cool2: It was very crowded in there and we didn't stay long.

We made our way to Morocoo and browsed through some of the shops. I'd never really looked around in the country before so it was all new to me. We continued on until we got to Germany. Of course we had to stop in Karamel Kuche. My family on my mom's side is are all German so this is my favorite country in Disney. Everything in Karamel Kuche is drool worthy but we both ended up settling on the same thing.

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Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes

These were alright. The cake was very moist but the icing wasn't what I was expecting. I thought it would be more of a buttercream frosting but it wasn't. It wasn't bad just not what I thought it was going to be. It had a kind of gritty texture to it as well.

By this point we were kind of losing our steam and we wanted to go back to the resort for a rest. I don't think we even made it to the rest of the showcase. Or if we did we just briskly walked through them. Shame on us right? I believe we had intentions of coming back that night to watch Illuminations.

On our way out we walked back through the Mission: Space area and spotted a cart that was selling cinnamon and sugar pretzels. We couldn't resist getting one and we didn't even get a picture of it before it was gone. That's how good it was. :woohoo:

Slowly but surely we made our way out of EPCOT and to the bus station. It's always so confusing coming out of this park to the buses because we always end up going the wrong way.

[Victoriasmom98]

I am so glad to hear you liked the Rose & Crown. We loved it the last time we ate there. The waitress even gave me some of the papers they line the dish with for my scrapbook! :)

[archdandy]

We got back to the resort and decided to take a nap. After our rest we got cleaned up, showered and talked about what we wanted to do for the night.

Originally the plan was to go back to EPCOT for dinner and watch Illuminations. But at this point neither of us felt like doing that. So we hatched a new plan that involved getting dinner at the resort and then going downtown to watch a movie. It might seem like a waste to spend an evening at Disney in a movie theatre but we both love going to the movies!

So we made our way to the Riverside Mill and checked out all the options. I'm not a big fan of counter service meals in Disney and I have a very specific diet I need to follow because of my stomach issues so there weren't a lot of options for me. In the end we chose:

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Roast Beef with Potatoes and Carrots, Red Velvet Cake (Me)

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Pepperoni Pizza, Apple Slices

My dinner was good. The roast beef was very tender but I wish it had more seasoning on it. The potatoes were delicious and the veggies were just cooked veggies. The cake was not what I was expecting. Normally red velvet has a cream cheese flavored icing but this was just sugary icing. I only had a couple bites of it as it wasn't really to my liking.

DH's pizza was standard Disney pizza which he enjoys. And the apple slices were apple slices. They were very fresh though.

After our quick dinner we took the boat to DTD. I tried many times to get this picture while on the boat and this was the best one.

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We knew we wanted snacks for the movie and movie theatre prices are outrageous so we stopped at Goofy's. :thumbsup2

DH got a massive chocolate peanut butter cookie. I thought I had gotten a picture of it but I guess not. He said it was really good but it was so big it took him a couple days to finish it. :lmao:

I got these:

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Gummy Worms

These were just sugar coated gummy worms but I love candy so they were delicious to me.

We took our time walking towards the theatre as it is all the way in Pleasure Island. We stopped in a couple different stores and looked around. A common theme throughout this trip was stopping in all the places that carried Vinylmations because DH has a Toy Story collection going. But no matter where we went there were no Toy Story one's. :confused3 Did they discontinue this line or something?

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We finally got in to the theatre and we decided on seeing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I disliked this movie but DH thought it was good.

It was a really long movie and when we got out of the theatre it was around 1:30am! :scared1: DTD was desserted and I worried for a little bit about if the buses would still be running. Luckily they were and one arrived shortly after getting out. We were the only one's on the bus. It was a bit eerie to be walking around DTD when it was so completely empty, haha. We made it back to the room and dropped like flies.

[archdandy]

I am so glad to hear you liked the Rose & Crown. We loved it the last time we ate there. The waitress even gave me some of the papers they line the dish with for my scrapbook! :)

What an awesome idea for a scrap book! I always want to make a scrap book for our Disney trips but I've never done one before and I guess I get intimidated with all the stuff that goes with it and never end up doing one :sad2: If you have pictures up I would love to see some of the one's you've done!

[Victoriasmom98]

What an awesome idea for a scrap book! I always want to make a scrap book for our Disney trips but I've never done one before and I guess I get intimidated with all the stuff that goes with it and never end up doing one :sad2: If you have pictures up I would love to see some of the one's you've done!

Oh I love to scrapbook. I started in 2003 and have done it ever since. I will have to get some photos together of my scrapbooks and post them. That will take me a while. :lmao:

[archdandy]

Oh I love to scrapbook. I started in 2003 and have done it ever since. I will have to get some photos together of my scrapbooks and post them. That will take me a while. :lmao:

Definitely let me know if you do because I would love to see them!

[archdandy]

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We slept in until about 8:30am today because we had been up so late the night before from the movies. After getting ready we made our way to Riverside Mill food court. I got tea in my mug and we both picked up an orange juice. For our meals we ordered the same thing.

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French Toast with Bacon

It was packed in the cafeteria and there was no where to sit. Luckily we saw a sign posted saying there was additional seating at Boatwright's. So if you ever find yourself needing seating during the morning rush, try there. It was completely empty.

We tried to eat fast because we knew we were going to be pretty late for rope drop our plan was to go to Hollywood Studios today, both of our favorite parks. The bus pulled up just as we were walking to the bus stop so we had to make a mad dash for it. While we were on the bus I noticed an ad for the new movie, Brave, and I got super excited. Of course I had to take a picture.

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By the time we actually got to the park it was about an hour and a half after park opening. That wasn't too shabby. The first thing we did was make a run for Toy Story Mania. Those are in DH's top 5 movies so he enjoys this ride.

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The fast passes were already at 3:55pm. I guess we are lucky we even got them. After securing those precious pieces of paper we tried to decide what to do for now as we had a long way to go before they could be used. So we made our way over to Rock 'N Roller Coaster.

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I guess everybody else had the same idea :laughing: The wait wasn't too bad so we waited in the stand by line. I love this ride! It's the only roller coaster that I will go on that goes upside down.

Next we decided to see the Beauty and the Beast show because we never got to do it on our last trip and it's one of my favorite disney movies. I didn't take too many pictures because I just wanted to enjoy the show.

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While we were waiting for the show to start I noticed a huge group of people coming towards our section with flags! :scared1: It turns out they were a brazillian tour group. It turned out to be fine though. My first experience with a tour group turned out pretty decent, so I was relieved. I will say that I had a worse experience with the family behind us. The child kept putting his feet up on the bench where my butt was and kicking the bench underneat me so it was really irritating. The parents told him to stop multiple times but he never did :sad2: I tried not to let it bug me and enjoy the show. And it was great as usual!

After the show it was getting pretty close to 12:45 which is when our lunch ADR was. So we decided just to walk around and take in the sights while we waited. We slowly made our way towards Sci-Fi and took some pictures.

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Sadly we never did make it to the Muppet Show on this trip. So it's on our list for sure next trip.

We finally made it to our destination!

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This was a first for us eating in Sci-Fi but we were really excited because we both love going to the drive in so this was perfect for us. I knew the food wasn't going to be great so our expectations weren't high going in.

We checked in and we were seated with no wait. It was pretty packed in there though and a lot of people were trying to get walk ups.