Boo to Two, Kelley and Missy's Joint TR! Update! 3/28

[IheartDDuck]

How amazing that you were upgraded for you entire trip! I never get pixie dust like that, I have to admit. I'm always so jealous when I hear about it on others trip reports.

[Missyrose]

Originally Posted by Busymom85

Wow, what an amazing view! I would love to stay at the Contemporary. Those car cakes are so cute. Loving the reviews so far.

Staying at the Contemporary was the best Disney decision we've ever made! Thanks for joining in!

Originally Posted by IheartDDuck

How amazing that you were upgraded for you entire trip! I never get pixie dust like that, I have to admit. I'm always so jealous when I hear about it on others trip reports.

I know. I'd heeded the warnings from the Dis resorts board, where people say that the chance of getting any sort of upgrade is slim to none. So needless to say, I was floored. It was beyond just a sprinkling of pixie dust, I felt like I was covered head to toe in it!

[PirateKate]

That view from the Contemporary is awesome! I would have had a hard time leaving that balcony.

Kelley, I love those cakes for the boys' birthday! I bet they had a fun party.

[natebenma]

Originally Posted by PrincessAmongPrinces

Happy Birthday, Jack and Ryan!!! Awesome cakes!

[natebenma]

There are no words to describe how awesome that room is. Ok, maybe two.

Holy "Moley"!!! (insert word not suitable for a family discussion board...)

You're not kidding, the MK is CLOSE! Hey you, over by the castle- can you quiet down, we're trying to sleep in here!

Love the gift basket too!

OK, let's get this straight- easy travel. awesome upgrade. lunch at Le Cellier. Halloween Party. Sounds like a pretty decent day to me. Hooray!!!

[Missyrose]

Originally Posted by PirateKate

That view from the Contemporary is awesome! I would have had a hard time leaving that balcony.

Kelley, I love those cakes for the boys' birthday! I bet they had a fun party.

It was VERY hard pulling ourselves away from that balcony. Especially at night, when you know you should be getting some much needed rest, all you want to do is stare at that gorgeously lit up view!

Originally Posted by natebenma

There are no words to describe how awesome that room is. Ok, maybe two.

Holy "Moley"!!! (insert word not suitable for a family discussion board...)

You're not kidding, the MK is CLOSE! Hey you, over by the castle- can you quiet down, we're trying to sleep in here!

Love the gift basket too!

OK, let's get this straight- easy travel. awesome upgrade. lunch at Le Cellier. Halloween Party. Sounds like a pretty decent day to me. Hooray!!!

You're right, it was quite possibly the PERFECT Disney day. Though almost every day on this trip seemed downright perfect. Le Cellier is coming up next!

[Queenofallthings]

I am so happy for you! That view...good for you for holding the tears back as long as you did....I would have been blubbering all over the place!! Great view and great pictures!!

Thanks so much for sharing....that room is gorgeous....I would have hit that balcony every time I was in the room

[Missyrose]

Originally Posted by Queenofallthings

I am so happy for you! That view...good for you for holding the tears back as long as you did....I would have been blubbering all over the place!! Great view and great pictures!!

Thanks so much for sharing....that room is gorgeous....I would have hit that balcony every time I was in the room

I cannot believe I held it together as long as I did! I really loved that balcony.

[Missyrose]

Where we last left, we'd checked in to our amazing room but realized we had to scoot if we were going to make our 1:55 ADR at Le Cellier.

We made our first journey down to the fourth floor to catch the resort monorail.







The first stop after CR was the Ticket and Transportation Center, so easy!



When we got to the TTC,



it dawned on me that I’d left my drivers licence in my wallet in the room’s safe. And I was fairly certain I’d need it to redeem the AP voucher. D'oh! I decided we should go to a ticket window at the TTC, so that way, if we got rebuffed, we could hop back on the resort monorail to go back and get my I.D.

Luckily, we encountered an awesome CM, Jeffrey,who took pity on my mistake and used my KTTW card (“just this once”) as my I.D. to convert the voucher into an annual pass. He was making some “I’m Celebrating...Food and Wine” buttons for his friends who would be visiting him this weekend and when we said the Festival was one of our big reasons for the trip, he gave us two of the buttons!




We scurried back up the ramp to hop on the Epcot express monorail.





We’d forgotten how the Epcot monorail makes a loop in the park before stopping in the station, Franklin loved this vantage point for photos.















Can I just stop for a moment to say how much I love the Epcot entrance music? There’s just something about it that is some dynamic and so unique, that any time I hear it, I know exactly where I am.

The original plan had been to stop at Epcot’s guest relations to upgrade our other UT ticket to an AP and buy our Tables in Wonderland card. But I was worried about how long the walk was back to Canada in the World Showcase, so we decided to wait until after lunch to do the upgrade...which meant we didn’t have the TiW card for our out of pocket lunch at Le Cellier, oops!

According to the pictures from the monorail, we got to Epcot at about 1:40, so we needed to book it back to Canada.

[Missyrose]

We made it to Le Cellier just in time for our ADR!









And we were seated a few minutes after we checked in.





Our server was Joshua and he looked like Prince Charming.



Seriously, why is he a waiter and not playing one of the princes in a meet and greet or parade or something? Like most of the Disney servers in the WS restaurants, he was authentic...from Ontario, I think.

As we looked over the menus, I casually mentioned to Franklin that I may have already planned out our meal. Since it was lunch and a rather expensive OOP restaurant, I wanted to keep the meal light (especially since we were going to attempt to eat a QS dinner before MNSSHP that night). I offered up my plan: We’d split a bowl of the world famous (okay, well at least Dis-famous) cheddar cheese soup. And then we’d split the mushroom fillet but substitute the cream cheese mashed potatoes for the mushroom risotto. I said we could also get an extra side if he thought it wasn’t going to be enough food. He agreed with the plan and so we went with that plus we added the macaroni and cheese as our second side dish.

I also asked Joshua if we could have extra pretzel bread when he brought out the bread basket. He asked if we would want JUST pretzel bread? Can I get a ‘heck yeah!’? And so that’s what he brought, a basket with three plump rolls of pretzel bread. That stuff is as good as advertised and you don’t even need to add any butter!





When Franklin took a picture of the butter I told him the pictures didn’t have to be quite that detailed. He responded, “But the butters are Mickey heads!” Hahaha, very true honey!

We also got our drinks (iced tea for me and a mojito for Franklin).

Next came the Dis-famous cheese soup.



It was delicious! Good to the last drop! It tasted very much like baked potato soup but minus any strong potato flavor if that makes any sense. It was creamy and you could taste the cheese and a hint of beer and plenty of bacon yumminess.

Clearly, we hated it.



As each item was brought out, Franklin or I would remind the other that we needed to take a picture of everything, usually as one of us was reaching for the first bite! The couple sitting next to us chuckled and commented that they had hoped to take photos of all the food from their honeymoon, but that they kept getting to the end of the meal before they remembered!

Soon came our main course. And let me tell you, I’ve eaten plenty of steaks in really fancy restaurants all over the world and NONE has ever been as tender as the fillet at Le Cellier. You barely had to use a knife. And can we talk about the truffle butter? I’m fairly certain, if given the option, Franklin would have bathed in it. It was scrumptious.



The sides were very good (I would have liked to see the mac and cheese have a smidge more taste), but the steak was clearly the star.



Franklin had seen the maple creme brulee and before we ordered lunch declared that would be what we’d end our meal with. But we were both so stuffed, we couldn’t even imagine eating another bite, let alone a whole dessert. So we asked for the check.

Filled to the brim, we waddled back out into the heat and sunshine to head for Future World. First stop? MouseGears. My main mission was to purchase a set of Minnie ears to top off my MNSSHP ensemble for that night. But really, who are we kidding? I was dying to see all the Disney stuff. As you’ll see as this TR goes along, I have a bit of a shopping issue. I don’t want to say problem, because I never spend more than I’ve budgeted for. But I make sure going into any vacation that my shopping budget is, shall we say, healthy.

On this day, however, I did plenty of eyeing but very little buying. I ended up getting just my Minnie ears, but I had my eye on a few T-shirts and a scarf that I may have bought later on.



Our next stop was guest relations to make our final two big purchases: Franklin’s AP and our Tables in Wonderland card.

I had worked out how much it should have been to upgrade our once-used UT ticket to the AP and I even run the numbers past Cheshire Figment to double check all my addition. I printed out my findings and felt fully prepared to get the transaction right. Luckily, all my preparation counted for very little as we had a totally competent CM who did every step correctly and came up with the exact same total as me. The World must have been in a doggy kind of mood because I ended up with a Pluto AP and Franklin’s was Goofy.

It was about 3:45 by that point and I knew Franklin wanted to grab a beer in the lounge before we headed to MNSSHP. So we made our way to the monorail.



On this day, however, we ran into our first monorail snafu. Once we got on the monorail, we got held just past the Poly “for further traffic clearance.” Ugh. Plus, we’d managed to get on a car that had no air conditioning running, so it literally felt like we were melting.


The one bright spot, however, was the couple who had boarded at GF and were clearly headed for MNSSHP. The were in the most adorable Ariel and Eric costumes and they were clearly fully committed to the characters. Which seemed all the more impressive given the Florida heat.







We eventually made it back to the room and I retrieved some beers from the lounge CM, but warned Franklin that we had very little time to drink them. We also found a gift waiting for us in the room. A Contemporary chocolate box!



It was just about time to get ready for our very first Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, which is coming up next!

[ZehnJahren]

Wow, what great updates! All of those pictures are so clear and so well-taken - there are a couple that I paused to look at twice just because they were so appealing!

That's awesome that your lunch was so good. I still haven't eaten at Le Cellier - but to be fair, I've only been twice in the past eleven years (twice in the past year!) and I wasn't in a position to take that amount of time to eat!

Also, what a cool Ariel and Eric! And, WHY ON EARTH do they not air condition EVERY MONORAIL??? We got on one of those non-air-conditioned monorails and I was so surprised. It was HOT.

[brookelizabeth]

I am here!

Originally Posted by PrincessAmongPrinces

Kelley-those are AMAZING! Wow!!!

Originally Posted by Missyrose

Can I just stop for a moment to say how much I love the Epcot entrance music? There’s just something about it that is some dynamic and so unique, that any time I hear it, I know exactly where I am.

Love the Food & Wine button and the face that the o's in Food are Mickey Heads makes it all the better!

And I completely 100% agree with you on the Epcot entrance music. Anytime I hear it, it takes me right back. It is probably my favorite place to be in all 4 parks!

Loving every update! Your pictures from your room are AMAZING. I was so thrilled when I heard of your upgrade I shrieked out loud! Looking forward to more!

[natebenma]

Yeah for Jeffrey for giving you a break obtaining your AP! And for the extremely cute buttons!

If you write a letter/email to Disney Guest Communications praising the CMs who went above and beyond to make your trip special, you should mention how he helped you with your AP (although you should leave out the exact details where he bent the rules a bit)

Love the pictures taken from the monorail! Especially the ones of the attractions in EPCOT.

I love Franklin's laid back attitude! It doesn't sound like he was bothered by the already planned out meal or his mission to capture it in photos. When I started taking pictures of our meals, I encountered a lot of eye-rolling, but now my DH will help "Wait, Mom needs to take a picture first".

Wow, those are fantastic Ariel and Eric costumes.

Can't wait to see how you guys look. We already know Kelley and her family had Incredible costumes!

[heathsf]

Joining in!

[Queenofallthings]

What a great day you've had so far! Lunch at Le Cellier...it doesn't get any better than that! That soup is all Jasmine ever has when we go there...I am waiting for the day she orders 2 bowls!

How cute was that couple on the monorail Can't wait to hear all about the party!