It was worth the wait! 8 days at the Contemporary, food & fun! Updated 11/4, Day 7

[sbprincess]

Hello everyone! Welcome to my trip report! We've been back for 3 months but I finally feel motivated to start my report. I took pictures with all the intentions in the world to do a report. For some reason when we got back I just kept putting it off. Maybe it was that another trip wasn't being planned? Well, that's not the case anymore so I'm really wanting to relive our experience now. So let's get started! I promise lots of pictures, food reviews, and hopefully a few good stories too. Just one note: I am not a photographer by any stretch. I only have a little point and shoot digital so I do my best. I don't think most are too bad though! Just don't expect great fireworks pictures!

Alright, time to get the background stuff out of the way so you know a little about us going in. It's just me and my wonderful husband (so far!) We've been married since March 2008. We took our honeymoon to Disney then and haven't been back (hence the title of my report). We definitely wanted to go back but just couldn't make it work financially. We had a little good luck last December though and were able to make it work. Oh, a picture of us would probably be nice about now, huh? Here we are last Christmas.

We stayed at the Contemporary from March 8-15. Both of us had always wanted to stay here so since we had a little extra money, we went for it! We were also on the basic dining plan with park hopper tickets. We added one day to the front of our trip to visit my grandparents who have a house in Daytona Beach, FL. This trip definitely cemented my obsession with planning trips. So much so, that we're already booked to go back with some friends in December (check out my PTR in my signature for those updates!)

Enough details, on to the true report!

Where will our room be located?
What restaurants are we eating at?
Which park did we choose first?

 

[sbprincess]

Table of Contents:

5/7: Travel Day - Greensboro to Daytona

5/8: Day 1 - Resort Arrival
5/8: Day 1 - Room, Lunch at Contempo Cafe, and Magic Kingdom!
5/8: Day 1 - Dinner at Tony's
5/8: Day 1 - Wrap up of Day 1

5/9: Day 2 - Epcot!
5/9: Day 2 - World Showcase and Teppan Edo

5/10: Day 3 - Best.Day.Ever, part 1
5/10: Day 3 - Best.Day.Ever, part 2

5/11: Day 4 - It was fun...but I was scared!
5/11: Day 4 - We get Lost

5/12: Day 5 - Walking in a Winter Summerland!!
5/12: Day 5 - Is being this full of food really possible?!?!

5/13: Day 6 - A rough morning
5/13: Dat 6 - A great afternoon...followed by a rough evening

5/14: Day 7 - Playing catch up in Magic Kingdom
5/15: Day 7 - Our farewell dinner

 

[sbprincess]

So like I said, our trip was officially from May 7-15, Friday-Saturday. I remember this week seemed pretty hectic towards the end. I had an appointment to get my roots highlighted Wednesday after work. Wanted to look my best for the trip of course! Well, I'm not an early packer. In fact, that's the one thing about traveling I hate, packing and unpacking. So I always put it off until the last minute. I keep up with our laundry though (pretty easy with just two adults) so that wasn't a huge deal. Another thing to know about my husband, he loves Iron Man. And you probably don't remember since it's been since May, but Iron Man 2 debuted in theaters Friday May 7th at 12:01 am. So what were we doing at 11:30pm on Thursday night? Going to see the new movie, of course! I don't recommend this and we'll never do it again (right before a trip, that is!). Oh, and I should also mention DH had been sick the week before our trip. He had recovered but my body decided to harbor his evil germs starting Thursday morning I didn't get as sick as he did but my throat hurt pretty bad and I had a lot of congestion for the first few days of the trip.

Anyway, so Friday we woke bright and early at 7:10 am (early considering we went to sleep at around 3 am!) I showered, finished packing, and made us both coffee for the road. Here is our chariot from North Carolina to Florida!

Brian was as ready to go as I was!

We made a quick stop at CVS for some Mucinex DM (worth the $30 IMO) and stopped by McDonald's for biscuits!

My goal was to be leaving Greensboro by 9:00 am. I kid you not, this is the clock as we pulled out of McDonald's headed towards the interstate.

Pretty cool. We were both so excited! This was our first true vacation since our Honeymoon more than two years prior. I brought lots of magazines for the trip and it actually went by pretty fast (love me some Everyday with Rachael Ray!!) This is the only picture of the road trip. Sorry! I don't know why. Maybe they weren't coming out...I don't remember!

Well, we passed through Jacksonville headed towards Daytona. Let me explain this little detour a bit. Daytona, for those who don't know, is only about 60-90 minutes outside of Orlando. My grandparents have a vacation home there that they use for about 6 months of the year. I hadn't seen my grandma since my nephew was born last October. Well, we had talked about us stopping on our way down back in like February or so. But she wasn't sure if they would be there or back home on Georgia so she didn't want to commit to anything. I had kind of dropped it and figured she'd mention it again if they would be there. Well, my dad called me just a couple of weeks before our trip and said that my grandma was excited to see us in May! Needless to say, I quickly changed our plans without letting on that this wasn't the plan in the first place.

Back to the trip. So our directions said it should take us approximately 9 hours to get from our house in NC to her house in Daytona. This was the clock right as we parked at her house. In case you can't see it, it says 6:05, right on time!

Isn't her house cute! It holds a lot of memories for me since we used it a lot growing up. So we come in, exhausted, get freshened up and head to dinner with my grandma. My grandfather is very moody. Sometimes he can be very nice and sometimes he's just a butt He didn't come with us We had a great dinner at Aunt Catfish. If you're ever in the Daytona area, I highly recommend it. I think it's actually in Port Orange though. After dinner DH and I took a little walk on the beach. The water was freezing and we didn't bring a flashlight so we didn't stay long. I think as soon as we got in we went straight to bed, still exhausted but with full bellies!

I know there's not really been any Disney yet. It's coming, I promise! Next installment will be full of it!

 

[francis6306]

That house has good memories for me too!!!

Yay for your TR! Now I get to really hear ALL about it. Cause you have barely mentioned anything to me so far!

(for the public- I am Christen, the best friend of the author! For people who didn't really like each other when we first met, we have become REALLY amazing friends! )

 

[DisneyRockstar]

Yay another Disney Road Trip!

I'm subscribing.

 

[IATink]

Can't wait to read more! My DH and I have always wanted to stay at the Contemporary. Some day

 

[mandas08]

With less than a month til DH and I got to Disney I'm excited to read another couples TR!

 

[sbprincess]

That house has good memories for me too!!!

Yay for your TR! Now I get to really hear ALL about it. Cause you have barely mentioned anything to me so far!

(for the public- I am Christen, the best friend of the author! For people who didn't really like each other when we first met, we have become REALLY amazing friends! )

Yea! You found me! Maybe you'll learn something new about the trip. I know I've barely said two words about it so far, right?

Can't wait to read more! My DH and I have always wanted to stay at the Contemporary. Some day

We had a great time there! I hope you get to stay there too. It's such a nice resort.

With less than a month til DH and I got to Disney I'm excited to read another couples TR!

I got so excited reading reports before this last trip. I hope to keep you entertained!!! Will you be there for food and wine festival? I really want to do that one day.

Yay another Disney Road Trip!

I'm subscribing.

and thank you!

I will be posting another update sometime this weekend.

 

[sbprincess]

Hello again! Last I left off we just finished our first night at my grandparent's house in Daytona. Destination today = DISNEY!!!!! So we slept as late as we possibly could this morning to rest up for the week ahead. We both woke up around 8am though! I was hoping to be able to sleep later but that habit is dead unfortunately, along with my teen years Oh well. So I get up to find my grandmother on Facebook! Before this trip, I had no idea she even really knew what a computer looked like. (I only opened an account myself about 3 or 4 weeks ago...I know, I think I was jaded my Myspace though.) So when I came in the dining room and she was showing me how to look at other people's accounts I was floored. Anyway, she made my husband and I breakfast (scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, and coffee). It was good ol' southern cooking, so very fattening but good. Btw, I had lost about 8 pounds right before this trip just so I could indulge so nothing was really off limits for me...and I like to eat.

After breakfast my grandma and I went shopping for about an hour. While we were gone, Brian decided he was going to go walk on the beach. My grandpa suggested he take his scooter. I don't know what possessed my husband to agree but he did and got a big kick out it!

After this, we were FINALLY on our way to Orlando. We left their house at 11:45. The drive went by incredibly fast. Now, the plan was to look as we were getting close to Disney for a grocery store or Wal-mart off the interstate. I don't know why I didn't get directions before the trip. I just figured we'd see something and it would be simple. Long story short, it wasn't. After driving up and down I-drive we did find the Goodings across from DTD (at 2:15 by my notes!) and although I had heard it was expensive, we didn't need much so in the interest of time we stopped. I do remember we only got a gallon of milk and 2 small containers of creamer and the total was close to like $12 so yeah, expensive!!

We got back on the road, and soon we saw this glorious site!

My shot of the Disney sign isn't great so I'll spare you. Next, we saw our wonderful home for the next 7 nights!

We pulled up to the guard booth and told the CM we were there to checkin and he quickly let us through. He didn't even check a list or anything though. I guess we didn't look shady! We probably looked and sounded more like excited geeks...I would have let us through too.

As we pulled under the awning (sp?) to let the bellmen (bellpersons?) unload the car, I realized how much stuff we had! But they didn't bat an eye to it so I didn't feel too bad. While DH parked the car I went in to checkin. It was my first time here ever so I just took in all in and I know the smile on my face was so big. When I walked through a very nice greeter guy said, "Welcome home miss. Do you need to checkin for your stay?" He pointed me to the online checkin desk since I had done that a few days before we arrived. This process was very fast. We barely said more than just a few polite exchanges before we were done. He gave me my packet, circled my room on the map, and I was done! I even had to wait for DH and all he had to do was park the car.

So we had requested to be close to the tower (we didn't get upgraded to a tower room which was really my hope, oh well), on the ground floor. Well, the first request seemed to be honored by the looks of the map but we were on the second floor. Again, not too bad. So we start our trek to the garden wing, admiring the decor along the way. When we get to the wing, amid a slight tiff about which way to go (we're pretty bad about getting in arguments over directions), we realize the CM was way off on what he circled on the map. We started looking at the numbers on the map in relation to our room and finally made it without his help. But we were too excited to stay unhappy for long. As we got to our room

and opened the door, we were so overjoyed!!!!! Later I realized how far we were from the tower though. I can't really complain too much because nothing was guaranteed and everyone probably requests what we did too. But it was kind of a downer. I think it took us about 5-7 minutes of continuous walking to get from the tower to our room. We were literally about as far from the tower as you can get. Again, knowing how much you walk at Disney an extra 5 or 7 minutes doesn't sound like much. But to think that that is about 5 extra minutes each way, with one trip back to the room each day, that's about 20 extra minutes of walking. Which is about 1 mile extra per day. Okay, I'm done venting. We really were happy with our room though! I loved the decor! I don't think I would stay here again though unless I was able to spring for the tower room. Just my opinion (and DH agrees).

(Continued in next post)

 

[sbprincess]

I was so excited to walk into the room. I had seen pictures but nothing beats experiencing it for yourself! Here are a few pics of what the rooms look like in case you've never searched out this resort yourself.

the coffee station

inside the closet (I've heard people ask about this is why I'm posting it)

Here is the bathroom. I loved the look of these! But as many others have said, they're much cooler looking than they are functional. The flat design was VERY irritating when you're trying to flush something down the drain (toothpaste, coffee grinds, anything!) This is my only complaint with the room decor. I LOVE everything else!!

This was our view. We could see the Electrical Water Pageant at night from our room!

Bellservices brought our bags about 10 minutes after we called. We were starving by this point. I had wanted to eat at Pecos Bill's but we really needed food right away so we decided to try the Contempo Cafe. Our ADR for dinner was at 6:50 though so we didn't want anything too large. After looking at the menu Brian decided to get an order of fries (snack credit) and I got the "Stacked Ham Sandwich - Smoked ham, dill havarti and honey mustard on ciabatta bread - $7.39", fresh made chips, carrot cake, and a bottle of water, all for us to split (CS credit).

I hadn't told DH about the food pictures up until this point. He said he didn't get it but would humor me if that's what I needed to do. So this is him making fun of the food pictures.

Here are my thoughts on the Contempo Cafe. I didn't care for it. This was our only time here the whole trip though. Maybe we just ordered the wrong things. Everything was good except the sandwich. First off, I know the wdwinfo menu does't list it, but I know the menu at the CC said it came with arugula. I like arugula. This sandwich had shredded iceberg lettuce on it, which I despise. So I scraped it off but there was still a distinct lettuce flavor lingering on everything. I could have said something, I know. But again, we were very hungry and really wanting to get to the the park! The bread was also a little too thick but I guess that's what you get with ciabatta bread. Anyway, lesson learned on this. I did like the feel of this area and might try it again if we stay here again. I'll just order something else.

By the time we were done with our food, I was itching to get to the park. Which was it?? Magic Kingdom, of course! My first park will always be MK or Epcot, no exception! Those are definitely my favorites. So we start our walk over. Oh, after snapping this pic of the mural!

As we're walking, I see this! Can you see it???

It's the castle!!!!!!!!! We're minutes away! By my notes it took us 10 minutes to walk there. We did stop to take in the surroundings a few times though. We're finally here! This is the obligatory pose in front of the train station. We do this every time!

Here is the park right through the gates. Can you tell how not-crowded it was?

There it is!

And there's Walt and Mickey!

First ride? Space Mountain! Then the TTA. I love that ride.

We stopped to watch a little bit of the stage show in front of the castle. It was pretty cute. Next we saw Mickey's Philharmagic. I really like this show. It's one of those I really remember from childhood. By this time we were fully in my favorite area - Fantasyland! I LOVE this area. There were lots of things closed off though for the expansion. Not many things were closed but it changed the look of everything. Next was It's a Small World! This is another favorite. I really want this to my my little children's first ride whenever we bring them for their first time. I know it's silly, but it's what I want to do.

Okay, I took a LOT of pictures but these were some of my favorites. I need a better camera but can't afford anything right now. So these will have to do. Next, we went to the Hall of Presidents. Brian had never done this before! I couldn't believe it. He really enjoyed it. I love history so I've always like it. Next was Pirates! This is probably DH's favorite in MK but I like it too!

By this time we were cutting it really close to our 6:50 ADR so we quickly made our way back toward the front. I think we got into the park around 4:00...we did a LOT for only 3 hours, right?? We did stop to get FP's for the Jungle Cruise though. I had heard it was pretty different at night so I thought it would be great to do after dinner. Let me also say, this day was pretty warm. I was wearing jeans b/c the last time I was there in May, jeans were fine. Not this time. I suffered through one more day in jeans before changing this.

Up next:
Did we make it to our ADR in time?
Where did we eat?
How was Jungle Cruise at night?

 

[mandas08]

Your food pics made me hungry. I am seriously going to go make a sandwich right now. I also am watching what I'm eating now to prepare for my 7 days of feasting haha. Excited to hear about the rest of your night!

 

[tinkerbells mum]

looking forward to hearing more xx

 

[sbprincess]

So when I last left off, we had just accomplished quite a lot for our first few hours in the park! We were rushing to our ADR after grabbing fastpasses for Jungle Cruise for after dinner. Our ADR was for 6:50 and by the time we got there we were just a couple of minutes late. Where were we eating? Tony’s Town Square Restaurant – one of the best locations for a restaurant in all of Disney World, IMO. However, the food left much to be desired…more on that later. We checked in at the podium and I needed to take a quick potty break while Brian found a spot in the waiting area for both of us to sit.

Now I’m definitely not one to make a big deal about small things, but the following really irritated me. It was probably the most un-Disney thing that happened on our entire trip (although it doesn’t really involve “Disney” at all, but rather a fellow tourist). Brian sat down to wait for me, leaving a space for me to sit beside him. A lady came over (not an older lady by any means) and sat in this space. Brian politely said to her, “Excuse me ma’am, but my wife is in the restroom and this was her seat.” The woman looked at him, pivoted in the seat so that her back was now to him, and started talking to the person on her other side. He was furious and pretty dumbfounded! After I came out Brian gave me his seat and told me the story after we had been seated at our table. I’m glad he didn’t tell me earlier because I would have probably said something to her. Which wouldn’t have been good for anyone! Now, I’m not going to pretend to know exactly what happened on her end. Possibly she had some sort of ailment and really needed to sit down at the moment. What irritates me more than anything is the fact that she heard him and acted as though it didn’t matter what he said (or so it seemed). She spoke English and from what we could tell she didn’t have a hearing impairment. I was floored when he told me his side though. Okay, enough with that, on to the restaurant. (I promise, that’s the only story like this the whole trip!)

My DH and I had eaten here for lunch on our honeymoon and had a pretty good meal. I ordered a flatbread (don’t remember DH’s) and we split the tiramisu for dessert. For our first dinner I really wanted it to be in the MK and this seemed like the best option in the park. LTT’s menu doesn’t really appeal to me, I didn’t want to do CP, and The Plaza is kind of a waste of a TS credit, if you ask me. So when we checked in I requested to be seated in the solarium because it seemed very pretty out there (as compared to a little dark on the inside). I wholeheartedly recommend asking for this area if you go here! It is so pretty!

Our waiter came and he was pretty friendly. He took our drink orders while we looked over the menu. Oh, if I haven’t mentioned it already, we were on the regular dining plan. He also brought us bread with olive oil and spices. The bread was actually really yummy! It was still warm and had some sort of garlicy spread on the top.

When the waiter came back over, I asked him about the vegetable lasagna because it sounded good to me. He asked if I was between that and something else and I told him that I was trying to decide between it and the Chicken Parmesan. His response was kind of weird to me. He said something like “Get the chicken parm because well,...lasagna is boring.” Huh? Okay, well I didn’t want to seem rude so I took his advice. Both DH and I ordered the chicken parm.

Can you tell how many noodles were with this dish!? Well, I have to say, as a whole, this was not very good. The chicken was good – well seasoned and rather large. But the noodles were cooked way past al dente so they were mushy. And the red sauce was just gross to me. It had pretty large chunks of crunchy onion and the flavor wasn’t good. I ate most of the chicken but left the rest. When our waiter came to take our plates he didn’t ask how it was. All he did was make a comment about how many noodles they give you (I guess he didn't realize I didn't touch them because they were gross ). I didn’t want to make a fuss because I knew going into this meal that it gets mediocre reviews. I just remembered the tiramisu from our honeymoon and thought it would make it all better! Again, both DH and I ordered the same thing. (Oddly enough this happens a few other times during the trip…it almost never happens at home!)

I hate to be a downer but again, this just wasn’t good to me. I LOVE tiramisu. This was coffee flavored custard. The taste was fine, but I wanted the tiramisu I remembered from our honeymoon! There were no ladyfingers in this one. I don’t know if we got a weird section or what. But both of ours were like this. So, unfortunately, Tony’s is probably off our list for good. I think this is the only restaurant I feel this way about at Disney (that I have gone to, of course). Trust me, the rest of our meals were great. I don’t think we had another bad one the whole trip. I’m actually glad we got the two worst out of the way on Day #1.

(continued in next post)

 

[sbprincess]

So we left Tony’s a little disappointed but looking forward to the rest of the night in Magic Kingdom! The sun was starting to go down and it was actually getting more crowded than the afternoon. Here’s the castle as we’re coming out of Tony’s going towards Jungle Cruise!

Before heading into the jungle, what do we do? Grab some fastpasses, of course!

After some corny, but quintessential, Jungle Cruise jokes, we went for our ride on Big Thunder! FYI, I’m not a water ride girl so there will be none of those this whole trip. I’ve ridden Splash when I was a kid but won’t be doing that again unless it’s raining outside making me already wet. Sorry, but I hate being wet in regular clothes! Next, Brian really wanted to try out the shooting gallery in Frontier Land. He had so much fun!

And he did VERY well. After watching him I thought, “Okay, how hard can this be? He’s making it look easy!” Well, that last sentence is exactly right. It wasn’t easy…he just made it look that way. I did terrible. I think you get like 25 shots or something for only $1. I know I hit a few targets right at the end so I did improve, however slightly!

By this time the crowd had gotten much thicker and people had staked out their parade spot. Because this was our first night and we were both pretty tired and sticky from sweating and running around, we chose to make our way out of the park. Once we got back to the room, we both took much needed showers and went straight to bed! We set a wake up call for 7:30 and were both out before you could say Mickey Mouse!

I know this picture is blurry but can I just say, I love the Comtemporary! And I LOVED how it was walking distance from Magic Kingdom!

Up next:
Which park is planned for our first full day?
Why shoe choice is so imperative to a great day
Why is the beginning of May this hot???

 

[mandas08]

Oh no! We have reservations at Tonys. The chicken parm it looks very blah. Thanks for the review, without your guidance I would have ordered the chicken parm

 

[sbprincess]

Okay, people. From my "view count" it seems that at least some people are reading my report. Not sure why I only have a few commenters (thanks mandas08!!). I will keep posting because it is fun for me...but come on, let me know you're out there! Pretty please

Sunday, May 9th

Day 2! Like I said last, we set our wakeup call for 7:30 this morning. I woke up around 7:35, looked at the clock, and wondered why in the world we hadn’t gotten our call! Oh well, I was up. So at 7:39, the phone rings. Yep! It was our call. This was the only time it happened this way during the trip so I don’t know what went wrong. We had brought some snacks, coffee, and cereal for the room so we each had a bowl of cereal before getting ready. We were out the door and ready for our first full day at 8:55.

We took the monorail over to Epcot! This was both our first time staying in a monorail resort so we felt pretty cool.

Btw, we saw the TRON monorail several times but never did seem to catch that one for a ride. Brian is super excited about the sequel coming out in December (just 2 days after we get back from our Christmas trip!). I still haven’t seen the first one but I’ve promised him we’ll watch it before then.

The Flower and Garden festival was at the very end of its run for this year so I was very excited to see all of the displays. My first job was delivering flowers and I just love to see arrangements. We missed this back in 2008 by just one week so I was so glad we caught it this time.

The first display was of Donald and Daisy camping and it was so cute. I don’t know why I didn’t take more shots of this. I was probably just so excited to be there. We also saw Daisy! I really wanted to get a picture with her. But this was our first day and there was already quite a line since she was so close to the front of the park. She was standing right outside those stations close to SE with all the camera supplies. Oh well, I did get a shot of her with some little girl I’ll never see again!

Our first ride was Spaceship Earth. I wouldn’t normally ride this so early but the park really wasn’t crowded at all so we went ahead and did it. I remember when I was little I didn’t get this ride. I was so disappointed the first time we did it. As just a kid I really thought there should be something much more thrilling inside the big ball since it was the icon of the park. I love it now though. Unlike many others on the ride , I didn’t use flash photography, so no pictures. I did try to get a shot of our faces on the screen at the end but no matter what I did they wouldn’t turn out.

Now, here’s where we made a huge mistake. We should have gone straight to Soarin’ to get fastpasses. It was still very early and the return time wouldn’t have been too far away. But we didn’t. We very stupidly acted like we lived in Orlando or something and took our time . We went into Innoventions and did the Sum of All Thrills. This was very fun though! We tried to design the fastest coaster with the most loops. We did pretty well from what I remember. It’s definitely worth it if you have time.

We played around on some of the other games…

and then headed out to get FP’s for Test Track. While we waited for our return time, we decided to do Ellen’s Energy Adventure. This is my, “please don’t take my picture” face.

I didn’t think I had ever done this before. But as soon as the movie started, I vaguely remembered I had. This was fun to have done again now that I’m older but it’s definitely not a must-do for us every time. I really hope they update it pretty soon to talk about energy sources that are a little more eco-friendly and newer. After our trip through time with Ellen though, we stopped to listen for a minute to the Jamminators. I have heard about these guys and they really are talented!

Finally, our time was up for Test Track! This was where Brian finally realized the value of a fastpass! We didn’t really need these when we were there for our honeymoon because the parks were just not at all crowded. He didn’t understand going all the way to a ride to get the pass then walking to do something else. He thought if we just bypassed all of the extra walking it would all equal out in the end. Silly boy. But when we were able to walk by all the people in the regular line to the very front, he was converted! He didn’t question me not even once the rest of the trip about stopping for a FP!

How long do you think it would take us to pay for this car on our measly salaries back in North Carolina?

We don’t do Mission Space b/c it gives me a serious tummy ache, in case you were wondering.

By this time we were starting to get really hungry though. That small bowl of cereal was long gone and we needed food! Since we weren’t in WS yet, and I had heard such good things about Sunshine Seasons, I thought it would be a great idea to go over there for lunch and get FP’s for Soarin’ too. Well, I don’t remember if they were out of FP’s or the return time didn’t work for us but we weren’t able to do this. And the wait was 70 minutes! See how we made such a big mistake earlier!?!? But it was only our second day so surely we could work it out to ride it SOMETIME before we left, right??? You’ll have to wait and see…

So have I mentioned my husband can be very silly sometimes? If not, well I am now! He took one look at the menu board for SS and said, “I’m really in the mood for a burger.” Ahhh! Okay, Electric Umbrella it is I guess. I was just really hungry. Again, we both order the bacon double cheeseburger with fries. I get cheesecake as my dessert and he got chocolate chip cookies. All of this was actually much better than I expected. I don’t quite understand what people don’t like about the WDW burgers. I don’t think they’re that bad. The bacon was a little puny but everything else was tasty. I would go here again.

Finally, it was time for my favorite area – World Showcase! However, we had quite a problem. My.Feet.Were.KILLING.Me! I was wearing a pair of sandals with almost NO support. Very silly of me, I know. I’m not sure what I was thinking getting ready that morning. Lesson learned but I was struggling with what to do. We could either go back to the room and lose precious time, or I could try and suffer my way through and correct things for tomorrow. I chose to try for the latter. On with the show!

A few F&G pics!

Canada came first. We saw the film, which is so beautiful and enjoyed the scenery.

Then we stopped in one of the UK shops and just played around, being silly.

continued in next post

 

[waltdizzy]

Loving your trip report! You guys are so adorable We also booked a gardenview room for Oct. I'm so excited, first time staying on a monrail resort! Can't wait to hear (read lol!) more about your trip!

 

[pgumiela]

I'm more of a lurker than a poster, but since you want to hear from the people reading....

I love your trip report, keep it coming!!!

Your pictures are great too, it makes waiting for out next trip easier to see other people's pictures.

 

[liltinkerbell25]

totally loving your trip report! you and your husband are an ADORABLE couple! i loved seasons too when i ate there, had a salmon salad that was delish. In response to forgetting a FP for soarin', that's why i make a list of things i want to hit, yes i'll admit i'm one of those planners but it's good just to make a couple of notes for the day

 

[sbprincess]

Loving your trip report! You guys are so adorable We also booked a gardenview room for Oct. I'm so excited, first time staying on a monrail resort! Can't wait to hear (read lol!) more about your trip!

Thank you! You will love staying right by the monorail. It makes getting around so convenient! We're staying at POP in December and although I'm extremely excited just to be going back, a little piece of me is sad to not be able to walk to MK whenever we feel like it. That walk was probably my favorite part of staying at the CR.

I'm more of a lurker than a poster, but since you want to hear from the people reading....

I love your trip report, keep it coming!!!

Your pictures are great too, it makes waiting for out next trip easier to see other people's pictures.

Woo hoo! I have to admit, I tend to lurk on others' reports too But since I started my own, I realize how much just a short reply helps to encourage the author that people are reading! Thank you for coming out of lurker-dome for me! The report is keeping me excited for my next trip too!

totally loving your trip report! you and your husband are an ADORABLE couple! i loved seasons too when i ate there, had a salmon salad that was delish. In response to forgetting a FP for soarin', that's why i make a list of things i want to hit, yes i'll admit i'm one of those planners but it's good just to make a couple of notes for the day

I know! I can't believe I made such a huge mistake right off. I did pretty good the rest of the trip. I think because this was our first full day I had the mindset that whatever we missed, we'd just make up for later. Even though the crowds weren't bad most of the time we were there, it was very silly of me. Won't be making this mistake EVER again!

Again, thanks to everyone who replied! I really do appreciate it!