I have been thoroughly enjoying your trip reports the past few days. I just wanted to say congratulations on the upcoming nuptials. I am excited to read all about it! 
<---I love him
)
And you get to go back in October! That's so awesome. I can't wait to hear about it, from the planning to the Disneymoon - every time I notice a wedding going on in WDW it makes me smile, and soon enough that'll be you! 
We made our way through the shops on the right side of the street (left side if you're facing the castle), and then somehow found ourselves in the confectionery
We decided not to get anything there, and I was about to go into the next shop I saw on the left, when Wingnut pointed to the shop to the right.
"What's that one there?"
Of course, my brilliant now-fiance had found Le Chapeau. The hat store. Hope began to rise as I walked quickly into the store and scanned the shelves.
And there, near the bottom of the wall of hats, did I find my Beaker hat!!!!!!!! There were two of them left, and I grabbed one in glee, practically dancing to the cashier. We told her how we'd been searching high and low for them all week, and she said that they are a very popular item. The other customers in the store just looked confused as to why I was clutching a Muppets hat like I had just won an Oscar. After we bought the hat, we monorailed back to the Polynesian to get ready for our last signature dinner of the trip. (And also to take pictures of my new hat!)
Blurry, but you get the idea.
Our towel Mickey thought my new hat was awesome too.
for the beaker hat!! I am so glad you finally found one!!!
On a slightly random note, check out what I found at Target last night!!!
Wingnut: Don't you already have Hello Kitty band-aids?
Me: NO. I used them all up.
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We got slightly-fancied up for our dinner that night, and then decided to head to Epcot, since dinner would require a bus to another resort anyways. The same resort we'd been to that morning, actually.
That's right, our last dinner of the trip was going to be at our favorite from the year before: Jiko!!!
At Epcot, we decided to hang out mostly in Future World.
Almost, not quite:
We'd been stopping in MouseGears pretty much every day by this point (before, to look for the hat; now, just to peruse random souvenirs), and I had been scoping out the t-shirt wall with indecision every time. I finally had it narrowed down to two candidates, and held them both trying to decide for several minutes before Wingnut settled the decision for me:
"Just get both!"
Sounds good to me!
(Photos taken when we had arrived home. There aren't any couches in MouseGears - at least, that I had seen.)
OH HOW COULD I NOT????
These, I did not buy, but I did feel compelled to take a picture of.
We then went outside and watched the Fountain of Nations for a few minutes.
I think this has to be one of my top favorite places in Disney.
I honestly can't tell where exactly in Future World this was taken. Too many flower arrangements to narrow them down!!!
On our way to the bus stops, we detoured for another spin on Spaceship Earth (doesn't everyone?)
The globe is one of my favorite parts of the ride. It looks a lot less triumphant in photos though.
If you hum the music while looking at the photo, it helps a little.
(Or it just makes your fiance give you strange looks.)
I think these were one of our worst Spaceship Earth photos yet. (And when I say "our," clearly, I mean "my," since Wingnut's always come out wonderful.)
Stupid Judy.
SERIOUSLY, WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING??
At least I got a "good job" from the robot. Thanks, robot. I'm trying here.
These look just like all of the meals we'd had at Disney during this trip. Except replace the salad with beef and buffalo. And cake. And salted butter.
I will admit, I do think conga lines are sorely underrepresented nowadays.
(Here's where I'd type in some conga line music. But I don't even know where to begin with that.)
Okay, now we were really leaving Epcot.
Isn't Jiko a gorgeous restaurant?
I really do think that Jiko has one of my favorite ambiance's of all of the Disney restaurants. The bird lamps, the color-changing wall, and the general atmosphere are just awesome.
But we weren't here to just sit and look around! We were here for the even better part of Jiko - the food!!
We settled in to our seats by the sunset wall, and Wingnut decided to try one of the Kenyan coffee/liquor drinks, which was technically one of those after-dinner drinks, but hey, carpe diem.
He thought "it was good, a bit of an experiment for me as I'd never had liquored coffee before. It wasn't bad."
I was especially excited for Jiko this time around because my allergy concerns of the year before were gone (spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, et cetera, if you're just joining us!), and so I was free to order at will!
We started with the Jiko bread and butter basket, which includes a (I think) honey wheat bread and a grain bread, and is accompanied by tandoori butter.
We both really enjoyed the bread and butter basket. Both breads were warm and flavorful, and the butter was a nice break from the typical Disney salted butter slab. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)
W: I would eat that bread as a meal. A meal of the tandoori butter, and the bread with the flax seeds that aren't exactly on the bread. They're just on there until you pick the bread up, and then they fall off.
But, of course, we did not just make a meal out of butter and bread!
For our appetizers, Wingnut was STILL feeling the appetizer envy from Artist Point, and chose the Roasted Beet Salad - blackberry shiraz vinaigrette, pistacio-crusted goat cheese and serrano ham.
He thought that the beets were on a par with Artist Point's beets, he enjoyed them a lot, saying that it was a very good dish.
(Personally, I liked AP's version better
I had been very torn between getting the boar appetizer that Wingnut had loved so much the year before, or a sweet potato soup.
Not boar:
This was, to be exact, Puree of Sweet Potato Soup - with pineapple, and red pepper with curry-whipped cream and Plantain fries. I really enjoyed it, the flavors were excellent. However, it turned out to be a bit of an ordering mistake for me.
You'd probably noticed that throughout the trip, I had ordered cinnamon and other spiced items pretty much with abandon. By this point, I was getting confident that the allergy had completely passed, and what's a bit of curry whipped cream?
By the time I was around 2/3 of the way into this soup, I realized I had either hit my spice threshold for the week, or I had found a variety of curry I was not yet immune to. My reaction was extremely slight, but I took that as a bit of a figurative Yield sign for the rest of the meal, and was a bit wary of the spices going forward.
For his entree, Wingnut OF COURSE went with the dish he literally has been talking about since last December - the Seared Barbarie Duck Breast - Potato and Spinach Masala, Royal Trumpet Mushrooms, and Port Emulsion.
W: "Probably the greatest thing on the planet. I loved the African/Indian spiced mushroom and spinach combination."
I had chosen the Oak-Grilled Filet Mignon - with sweet corn risotto, roasted mushrooms and South African Cabernet Reduction.
This was a very good steak, I liked the flavors a lot. The risotto actually was one of my favorite parts of the dish, it was really good.
Originally for dessert, I had really wanted to try the Parsnip Creme Brulee, because really, where else are you ever going to have THAT? But the allergy concerns scared me off, as it seemed to be heavily-spiced, and so I went with the dessert with the least amount of spice potential: the cheesecake.
While this was not something that I would have ordinarily chosen to end our meal at Jiko with (it seemed a bit boring on the menu description), it was actually one of my favorite parts of the meal. I really liked the flavors, it seemed to be a ricotta-based cheesecake, with cherries on top. And a bit of gold leaf, because Jiko is all fancy like that.
DF tried my dessert, and really enjoyed it as well: "Your cheesecake was good. I really liked it. The cherries were nice and not too sweet."
For his dessert selection, Wingnut chose the Coconut Bread Pudding - Warm bread pudding with caramel rum sauce, toasted coconut and caramel ice cream.
He really enjoyed this dessert as well. "It was really good, but the actual highlight was the caramel ice cream. The bread pudding just left a bit to be desired, it was a bit dry and could have been sweeter. The ice cream was flavorful and refreshing."
After our dessert, we were bought out a little post-dessert treat of cookies, complement of Jiko!
We really liked these, they were a nice chocolatey cookie (they tasted just like cake mix cookies, actually!), and we very quickly devoured both.
Overall, we both really enjoyed our meal at Jiko. It is very solidly one of Wingnut's favorite restaurants in Disney. I definitely love it, but it does now have some tough competition in my mind between California Grill and Artist Point. But Jiko wins in the atmosphere category for me, hands down. It is safe to say that we will definitely be returning to Jiko again in the future!
After our wonderful meal, we headed out to the bus stops to go to Epcot for Illuminations and EMH's! I noticed that the bus seemed a bit more crowded than I had hoped, but figured that it would be fine.
When we pulled up at Epcot, we got off the bus and started walking towards the bag check area. This was when we were instantly able to see that Epcot was completely and entirely PACKED. The line for bag check extended out until approximately forever, and more and more people just kept arriving from the busses, monorail, tram, everywhere.
While I had really wanted to see Illuminations at least once during our trip, I just knew that it wasn't worth it to battle this level of crowd. And once we had stayed for the show, leaving afterwards was just going to be exponentially more difficult. DF left the decision up to me, and I steered us in the direction of the shortest bag check line that I could find, and then we veered left to go straight over to the monorail.
It was a quick trip back to the Polynesian, where we packedin anticipation of checking out bright and early the next morning before breakfast
).
Oh my goodness, Stringbean!!! I can't begin to tell you how excited I am that you are having a Disney wedding and a Disneymoon (and a planning trip beforehand)!!! I am going to have so much fun living vicariously through you that I am absolutely giddy (I am even doing Kermit hands in my mind with a yeay!!!).
The cross-stitch is so cute! I love to cross-stitch.
And how cute is your niece with her plans!!!
This is going to be so great!!!
I am SO excited for you!!! My DBF hasn't been to Disney (I know) so he doesn't "get" my Disney craziness...so I am so, so excited for you!!! I already cant wait to read about your plans for a Disney wedding AND honeymoon!
That is amazing, even if not surprising!!So will it be a full out trip in October? Where will you stay??? Cannot wait to hear about the wedding plans!
WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!! A DISNEY WEDDING!!!!!!!
Not surprised at all!
OK - when, exactly, is the October trip?
I'm so so so so excited for you guys.....and for me because I get to read along!!! My 15 and 11 year old each say they want a Disney wedding and I'm keeping my fingers they will still have Disney running through their veins when they decide to marry (when they are at least 30!
Super awesome!! Could this be any more perfect?
Great review of Jiko! Sorry you had a reaction to the spices, hope it wasn't a bad one.
Awesome news about the Disney Wedding and Disneymoon!( I wasn't that mad but I love that smiley! LOL)
SO EXCITED FOR YOU!!!!
Seriously, I'm such a dork. I was grinning from ear to ear when I read that.
I can't wait to read along with all of the wedding plans! I love weddings, and recently I've become a little obsessed with reading Disney Wedding Planning Journals. Some of the stuff they do is so cool, it makes me want to get married all over again.
If you remember, I commented that we saw a wedding party being photographed at MK in my TR. Well I'm not sure if you saw, but the bride commented on my TR! She included a link to her PJ, and I read the whole thing last night. She did some really cool stuff (like DIY stuff herself) for the wedding. She also got married at MK, and had a photo shoot in front of the castle. I think they had about 20 people. Her PJ might be a really good place to start getting ideas.
Congrats to you both, I'm sure that your wedding day will be truly magical!
Awesome, awesome, and more awesome! So, so happy for you guys!
This.....
I love!
I can totally hear Bella saying something like that, only her post-wedding ride would be the horsies.
The cross stitch gift is perfect!
Yay
Awesome a disney wedding.
A Disney wedding wowsers dream come true much! Congrats!
A Disney wedding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (See I like ! too!)
Yay for a Disney wedding and Disneymoon...how exciting!! That cross stitch is so sweet and perfect for you guys...such an appropriate gift!
I can't wait to ride along as you guys plan your special day, Disney-style!
ETA: Lookie what I found!
)AWESOME! I'm so happy for you Stringbean and Wingnut.
Hey, your niece is on her way to being a DISer with all the planning she's already doing.
AHHHHHH OH MY GOSH!!!! Congratulations!!!
I am so jealous of people who get to go in October because it's my birthday month, but I'm so happy for yall! That sounds amazing. AMAZING. A Disney wedding... oh my goodness! Are you just giddy?
Hello.
I wish I had a family member who was doing a Disney wedding but unfortunately my extended family (except my mom - my constant travel partner) just aren't "Disney People" and actually think I'm crazy for going to the World every couple of years.
I haven't completely caught up on this report - I'm on day 5 - but just wanted to say hi and congratulations (as I just read the updates about the proposal and wedding venue).
Glad to have you here!!
What super awesome fantastic news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (because you can never have too many exclamation points)
I really hope you do a wedding PTR. I love reading about Disney weddings!
Yeah for the Disney Wedding. So looking forward to reading about it. We will be there in October if you need any help with food tasting
Congratulations!!!! What could be any more perfect than a Disney wedding and Disneymoon!!! LOL, thought you might like this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0P5FzSe3qw
(Although I am sure you've seen it many a time
So exciting!!
Can't wait to hear how it all happens
I'm all caught up! Yay for a Disney wedding! I can't wait to read about all your plans! I will live vicariously through you, I really wanted a Disney wedding, but since both DH and I's family lives in CT, it would have been too much to ask everyone to travel. I'm so excited for you guys!
Oh and your dinner at Jiko looked delicious! We ate there once and I loved it, your review makes me want to rush out and book an ADR right now!
