Beauty and Majesty, Shining Magically * Nov '15 TR! UPDATE 2/18

[Vernie822]

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my third TR! My TR title comes from my obsession with the Festival of Fantasy parade. I just love it!

Justin (my fiancé) and I just got back from 8 wonderful nights at WDW. We stayed at Pop Century, Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani Villas, and the Polynesian Villas. I will be sure to include details about our split stay and how it worked for us. We stayed 8 nights total and had 8 days in the parks.

Here's a picture of us from our trip before dinner at Flying Fish:

We planned this trip after taking our first WDW trip together (and Justin's first) in September 2014. I knew we would have a great time but I didn't know Justin would love it as much as I do, and that we would want to come back so soon. Originally we booked for Labor Day weekend (I purchased an AP since I had a trip planned in March with my mom) but Justin and I decided we loved MNSSHP/Food and Wine so much that we wanted to bump our trip later.

And then, we decided that instead of MNSSHP, we'd try to catch Osborne Lights and the Christmas decorations with a Christmas party, and thus, our November trip was born.

We rented DVC points for 3 nights at AKL and 3 nights at the Polynesian. When Justin unexpectedly had some more vacation time that needed to be used up, we decided to squeeze in 2 nights at Pop prior to our stay at the Villas. We rented points after reading some great stories and doing some research. Spoiler alert, it worked out wonderfully and we were 100% satisfied. We are now in the process of becoming DVC members via resale, thanks to the wonderful tips we have read on the Disboards and about a year's worth of research.

Our trip looked a little bit like this:
Friday, 11/6: Fly from PIT to MCO (landing at 8:15 PM), check in to Pop Century.
Sunday, 11/8: Check out of Pop and into Animal Kingdom Lodge.
Wednesday, 11/11: Check out of AKL and into Polynesian Villas.
Saturday, 11/14: Fly home (8:50 PM, landing at 11:15 PM), and drive home 2 hours.

And seeing the castle LIT UP LIKE THIS !!!!!

Some trip highlights include: New and old restaurant favorites, MVMCP, a 3 way split stay, Osborne Lights, lots of ice cream, lots of Food and Wine, and lots of rope dropping! I hope you'll join us!

​

 

[Vernie822]

A little bit about us...

I'm Ashley, a 25 year old from Pennsylvania. I work as an actuary. I really enjoy my job, but it keeps me busy so I am always excited for a vacation to WDW!

I have been visiting WDW for as long as I can remember. We took multiple trips as kids but there are 5 of us and as we got older, it got much more expensive, and our last trip as a family was in 2001. We took my Grandma after my Pappy had passed away a year prior, and it was a great trip!

I love Disney and everything it has to offer. I'm not really a beach bum, so I enjoy that Disney has many things to do and see. I get my love from Disney from my mom. Some people think I go 100 miles a minute, she goes 200 miles a minute! She's the best - and we even planned a mother/daughter trip for March 2016.

One of my favorite aspects of Disney is the dining. I am also starting a dining report on the dining reviews thread. Justin and I don't dine out too much at home and we eat pretty healthy, so WDW is our chance to splurge and enjoy ourselves.

My favorite ride is Splash Mountain. I get really really bad motion sickness that will ruin my whole day. So I avoid anything that goes around in circles and anything that's a simulator. My favorite restaurant is Ohana. My favorite characters are Minnie and Lilo and my favorite princess is Ariel. I absolutely have to have at least 1 Dole Whip while on property, and at least 2 Schofferhofer Grapefruits. If I go missing at WDW, you can usually find me in Germany.



And now for my better half, Justin. He is 27 and works for a company that runs prisons. I can't say much else, other than his job is VERY different from mine and often leaves him dreaming about vacations! He visited Disneyland about 20 years ago and had not ever been to WDW before meeting me. His first trip to WDW was with me in September 2014. He proposed...

Of course I said 'YES', and we are planning our wedding for 9/3/16!!

His favorite ride is Splash Mountain. He told me yesterday he could ride it even if it was pitch black the whole time because he loves it so much. He also loves Toy Story Midway Mania and Buzz Lightyear, mainly because with no effort he beats me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. (Spoiler alert, I beat him big time this trip ) His favorite characters are Donald and Buzz. He often confuses his princesses and his other characters. I believe he referred to Pluto as "Goofy" at least 5 times.

He has traditional tastes when it comes to food. He loves spaghetti and meatballs, pizza, burgers, and hot dogs. But he is always willing to try new things which makes me excited, because I love trying new food. His favorite meal is, yep, Ohana! And this folks is why we are a perfect match.




​

 

[Vernie822]

CHAPTER LINKS

Day 0: Cake, Traveling, and Beef Brisket

Day 1: Ohana Breakfast & A Fabulous Rope Drop Morning
Day 1: Lunch at Food and Wine
Day 1: Flying Fish & I found love at the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor

Day 2: Animal Kingdom & Yak and Yeti
Day 2: Tour de AKL
Day 2: Osborne Lights
Day 2: Fantasmic! & 50's Prime Time

Day 3: Breakfast at Boma & Hollywood Studios
Day 3: Lunch at Food and Wine
Day 3: Disney Springs & Dinner at Sanaa

Day 4: Epcot Morning with some Food and Wine Yumminess
Day 4: Wine Seminar with King Estate Winery
Day 4: More Food & Wine Eats

 

[disneyguy4life]

Can't wait to read more. I've always wanted to spend the Christmas season in wdw, super jealous. My wife and I want to rent dvc points during our next stay. I look forward to seeing how that process went for you. Lucky dogs... being dvc owners would be fantastic. I look forward to reading the rest of your TR.

 

[SnowWhiteOz]

Following along! Can't wait to read all about it

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Joining in!

 

[Vernie822]

DAY 0: Traveling

We started our day by leaving our place (2 hours from Pittsburgh) and heading to my hometown for some wedding appointments. We were originally scheduled to fly from PIT to MCO on Sunday 11/8, but after adding on 2 nights at Pop, the most economical option was for us to fly PIT to MCO on Friday 11/6 at 5:45 PM. This allowed us some time that morning for some fun wedding appointments! So I won't bore you with too many details there, but we did meet with the bakery (cake tasting.. YUM!) and the florist (Justin was bored to death).

So we left our place around 8 that morning. We were up by 6:30 for showers and last minute tidying up. We headed to Pittsburgh, did our cake appointment, and met my mom at the florist (she knows way more about flowers than I do, so it was a huge help having her there).

Who doesn't love some cake pics!? We tried white almond with strawberry, white almond with raspberry, chocolate with fudge, and chocolate with chocolate buttercream..

We were also given a box of complimentary cookies. Be still, my heart..

I actually used to work at this bakery, so I'm familiar with their offerings, but being presented with all of these lovely goodies, especially now that I don't live close by, was fantastic! We left all of the yummy treats with my family, though. We did pick up a 6 pack of plain bagels for breakfasts on our trip.

We left the florist by 2 PM to get to the airport by 3. We parked in Extended Term Parking ($8/day). I was nervous about being late, but we ended up with plenty of time. Security was dead empty and we were through pretty quickly.

We started our vacation off right with some beers at Quaker Steak and Lube (a local chain with awesome wings). I had a Blue Moon (my favorite) and Justin had a Sam Adams seasonal, I think it might have been a Winter Lager.

We boarded our flight and it was pretty uneventful. Southwest has free WiFi which is pretty nice. They have a few select TV channels you can watch, including Bravo (Love me some Real Housewives of anywhere), and Food Network. We agreed on sharing the headphones and settled in for 2.5 hours of Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.

Of course, after 2.5 hours and some airplane peanuts, we were both pretty hungry. For beef or pork, specifically, after watching an episode of Triple D that was entirely dedicated to BBQ. Our flight landed a little early, around 7:50.

We decided this trip that we were going to get our bags ourselves. We had an early breakfast ADR the next day and I knew we wouldn't want to wait for ME to deliver our bags. We had our bags and were in line for the Magical Express by 8:20!

Around 9:15 we had arrived at our resort. It took a while to get everyone boarded. To be honest, I don't even know where all our bus went. It feels like so long ago. I do remember that it was a few random resorts, plus AOA and Pop. I think we were the 3rd stop out of 4 (can you tell my note taking is impeccable!?)

We had received a text a few hours earlier, I think around 2:30 PM, that our room was ready. I should add that when we booked the 2 nights at Pop, we did so through Orbitz. It was probably sometime in August, and nothing was available at any of the value resorts via WDW. We paid maybe $130 a night through Orbitz after a 15% off code. Side note: When booking through Orbitz, it lists the Orbitz address as your reservation address. So I had to go in and change that.

We requested the 60's side, to be close to the main building and to try something new. In June we had stayed in 50's and we really liked it, but might as well try something else. We were in room 5118 of the 60's section. It was on the first floor, facing the lake.

We were just outside of the main building, to the left of the pool, and the left of the big yo yo.

The beds at Pop are mostly doubles, I think there are some kings as well.

Here's a shot of the bathroom..

Note: If you're picky, bring your own TP. I didn't mind as we were only there for 2 days, but Justin compared it to "sandpaper". Enough said there.

This picture is terrible and I apologize. I didn't realize how bad the lighting was, but here is the "getting ready area" with room for hanging things to the right.

Bonus pic of Justin in the background. Can you hear him saying "Babe, quit, let's go, I'm hungry"? I'm pretty sure that's what he was saying.


So off we went to check out Pop's food court, Everything Pop. We had eaten breakfast and dinner each here once. We weren't too hungry and had an early breakfast ADR the next day so we decided to just split something.

We decided on a Beef Brisket Sandwich. This would satisfy our BBQ pork/beef craving for now. This came with your choice of house made chips (GET THE HOUSE MADE CHIPS), pasta salad (Justin likes this), or coleslaw.

Our CM scooped some beef brisket on a bun and topped it with some juice, similar to an au jus I believe. Our sandwich was topped with muenster cheese.

This station also offered tuna croissants, meatball sandwiches, chicken pot pies, etc. A lot of it sounded pretty decent.

We took our beef brisket on kimmelweck, purchased a Diet coke, and rang up at the register. The sandwich is $10.49, our drink was $2.99, and I believe our total came to $14.39. Not bad for the two of us to split.

The meat was juicy and tender without being too juicy. The juice from the meat didn't make the bun soggy which was good. The house made chips at Disney are amazing, I'm not sure why I love them so much but I do.

This hit the spot and made for an easy dinner before getting to bed. The food court was hopping with people. Plenty looked like they had just got back from the parks, and I'm sure some were arriving just like us.

I also noted that there were some toasters for us to toast our bagels from home..

We were in bed and asleep by 10:15, we had an EXCITING day ahead of us the next day!
​

 

[Vernie822]

Can't wait to read more. I've always wanted to spend the Christmas season in wdw, super jealous. My wife and I want to rent dvc points during our next stay. I look forward to seeing how that process went for you. Lucky dogs... being dvc owners would be fantastic. I look forward to reading the rest of your TR.

Hi, thank you so much for reading! I had always wanted to experience Christmas at WDW. It was so great even though it's only November. I highly recommend it. As for renting DVC points, if you have any questions along the way feel free to ask! It was a very smooth process and we have no regrets.

Following along! Can't wait to read all about it

Yay, thank you for reading!

Joining in!

Hi, welcome! Thanks for reading!

 

[Vernie822]

Starting out, we did not have any concrete plans for this day, because we added it on late, so we considered it a “bonus day”. I was able to grab an Ohana breakfast reservation a few months prior, so we decided to make it a Magic Kingdom day. I was also able to grab a Wishes FP+… Bonus!!


Justin and I love Ohana, it is our favorite Disney dining experience by far. We have never had a bad meal here. One day I was either browsing Disney Food Blog or reading a dining review, and Justin was sitting next to me. He saw that Ohana offered breakfast and asked me if I could make an ADR. How could I say no!? I love breakfast, although Justin is usually reluctant about it because he is fine with a $7 quick service meal.


We originally had a 9:30 AM ADR but I managed to find one for 8:10, which is more our speed.


I was up around 5:30 AM (I had set my alarm for 6). Getting up early was a recurring theme for us this trip, I don’t know if it was a result of daylight savings time the week before or what.


We were ready and out the door headed to the bus stop by 7:00. This was our view that morning from outside our room - gorgeous!

We hopped right on a bus to Magic Kingdom. Seriously, walked right on. It was great. I was a little nervous about making it to MK on time, just because I knew the park didn’t open until 9 and I was a little nervous about the monorail.


We pulled up to an empty Magic Kingdom around 7:15. I could see the Christmas decorations and I was already in awe! It was pretty much empty.

We managed to get right on the monorail, and we were to Ohana by close to 7:30.


We had just missed the opening show at Ohana, I think the servers all came out and were dancing and clapping.

We checked in early, even though we were still about 35 minutes early, thinking we’d kill time by sitting down in the waiting area.

Looking down into the Poly lobby..

To our surprise, our buzzer went off and we were seated right away!


We had a great meal here. I’ll elaborate more on meals in my dining report, but we left Ohana satisfied and happy that we added this ADR.


It is $29.99 per adult, or one table service credit on the dining plan.


We were given some sweet breads upon entering, just like they do at dinner..

And some fresh fruit while we waited for our meal.

They also served us POG juice, which Justin and I discovered that we LOVE!

I also had a coffee and we both ordered ice waters.


Ohana was seriously EMPTY at the time. Around 8 they seated a new wave of people, but the restaurant was still so empty compared to when we’ve been there for dinner.

Our food came out shortly after. This is an “all you care to enjoy” meal, so you are welcome to ask for more food. The platter included eggs, bacon, sausage, Mickey and Stitch waffles, potatoes, and biscuits.

There were two of us so we only received 2 waffles and 2 biscuits, but I think we had at least 12 pieces of bacon!

While this was typical breakfast food, it was really done well and we enjoyed it! The character interaction was great. We did have a little bit of a wait after we had finished eating but we did not mind waiting for Pluto and Mickey to come through.

Blurry selfie with Mickey (only Stitch had a Photopass)..

We ordered more waffles and more sausage, and they brought us two of each.

Once we were finished it was about 8:30, so our breakfast took about 50 minutes total. I assume as the morning goes on it could take longer because they may start to run behind, but we were the first round of character interactions.

At $60 plus tax and tip, it’s not a breakfast we will do all that often, simply because we are not huge breakfast eaters. You’re definitely paying for the character interaction and restaurant experience, but both of these lived up to our expectations, and the food was delicious.

We were on the monorail and back to Magic Kingdom by 8:50. There were now tons of people there. As we walked towards the entrance, the opening show was happening. I’ve never seen it before so I was excited to catch the tail end of it.

We were into the park within minutes and headed straight for 7 Dwarfs Mine Train. Of course, I stopped to take a few Christmas decoration pictures because I was IN AWE!

Ahhh... Home sweet home!!

The line was already pretty long for 7DMT and we decided it wasn’t worth the wait since we had a FP+ for it later that day.

We hightailed it towards Liberty Square to ride Haunted Mansion. Perhaps not the best rope drop approach, but we didn’t expect to be there so early, so we didn’t have a good plan!


Fantasyland was pretty much empty on the way into Liberty Square.

After a spin through the Haunted Mansion with no wait, we came back towards Fantasyland and hopped on Pooh with maybe a 10 minute wait.


It was now time for our 7DMT Fastpass, so we got on that with maybe a 5 minute wait. I love this ride and I wish it wasn’t so short. The track is so smooth, which is great because I get terrible motion sickness and I’m a ride weenie.

I love the ending scene with Snow White and the dwarves dancing in the cottage.

I made a habit this week out of taking a screen shot of MDE, then saving it as my phone background. This helps because then I can put my phone on airplane mode, conserve battery, and glance at this instead of opening up my app!

Buzz didn’t have a long wait at all, so we headed that way. Justin beat me, as per usual.. but you'll see later this week that I get my revenge.

On our way back through Fantasyland, we met the Hairy Dogfather! Er, the Fairy Godmother. Ok, I did. Justin was not as enthused at the less than 5 minute wait. She told me she loved my shirt!

We then made our way to our favorite ride (which will make multiple appearances in this TR) – Splash Mountain! At a less than 10 minute wait, we were happy to jump right on. Justin is in love with this ride. Which makes my heart happy because I am, too.

My hair was already like "Sorry girlfriend, not today."

Afterwards was Big Thunder, again with a 10 minute wait, WOO HOO! We did not use our FP here and instead exchanged it for a Space Mountain one later that evening. I hate Space Mountain. I'm not sure why I did that.

At only 11:00, we had already done 6 rides and had a character meet. Oh, and we had a character breakfast, too. Whew!

It was starting to get busy so we decided to head to Epcot for some lunch before heading back to Pop for a nap. We stopped by Casey’s so Justin could get his Diet Coke fix. I grabbed an ice water (fo freeeeeee)!


We were on the monorail by 11:35 and shortly after, we had arrived at Epcot, along with everyone else in the state of Florida!

Up next.. some Food and Wine yumminess!​

 

[ariane37]

Hi Ashley!! So glad your DVC rental experience was positive. We've been lucky and had 4 good experiences in the past, and we've actually already rented points for January from the owner we're renting from next week because all communication with him has been so smooth so far
And it sounds like your first morning at MK was very productive, especially considering it was a bonus"unplanned" day lol!!

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Fun morning!!

 

[kastoney]

Hi Ashley, following over from the food review and subbing in. Can't wait to see how the rest of the trip unfolds.

 

[accountingbabe08]

Sounds like a great morning to me

 

[Vernie822]

When I had left off, we had just arrived to Epcot for a little spin through the Food and Wine booths. It ended up being quite busy that day, which I figured, due to the Wine and Dine half marathon that night and the fact that it was a beautiful weekend for some food and wine sampling. There were of course, groups of drunks, but that didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves, even though there were long waits.

We decided that since we had a dinner ADR that night that we would just share a few items for lunch. (Note: originally I had planned on us just spending the afternoon/evening at F&W but a Dis-er so nicely pointed out that it would be packed, so we moved our dinner ADR at the Boardwalk from Thursday to Saturday, which was a great move! So thank you to whoever suggested that!)

Ah, what a beautiful sight!

We passed the Wine and Cheese studio booths. I thought it was too hot out for wine and cheese but I snapped a pic of this cute display..

I loved the decor and vibe of this area!

We ended up at the Canada booth, where we really enjoyed the filet and cheese soup last year. Justin was really excited to get it again this year. It was really crowded back in World Showcase so we were glad we just stopped at Canada.

We decided to try all three food items offered at the Canada booth. The Le Cellier wild mushroom filet with truffle butter ($7.50), Canadian cheddar cheese soup ($4.25), and the chicken sausage with creamy polenta and Minus 8 onion jam ($4.50).

On the dining plan, these are each 1 snack credit - which is pretty good for the filet because it's one of the more expensive F&W items! We also grabbed a bottle of light lemonade for $3.25 since it was super hot out.

2 of the 3 items here were a hit. We really enjoyed the filet and the soup, as we did last year. The filet was cooked nicely, a little too rare for Justin but perfectly done for me (I like medium well). I ate all of the mushrooms, because he doesn't like them. The cheese soup was good, a little thicker than I recall, almost paste-y which I didn't really like, but the flavor was great and overall we both liked it. The chicken sausage with creamy polenta was just okay, I didn't care for the onion jam or the red peppers really, I just don't know that everything went well together. I'm sure others liked it - just not the best thing we tried that week. And believe me, we tried a LOT of stuff!

After our food at Canada, we were both satisfied without being stuffed. We had dinner coming up and neither of us wanted to be too full. It was also insanely hot which didn't really make me want to eat much.

We decided on our way out to swing by the Craft Beer stop and grab a flight of beer. They had two different flights to choose from.

The Craft Beer was in the Odyssey Pavilion, and you could get in line on either side.

Here were the menu choices - we went with Flight #2.

And we stood in line for what felt like an ETERNITY..

Check out the sweaty guy in front of us..

So as you can see, there are two lines that meet in the middle here. While you're in line to order and pay, you are not in the line to pick up your beer! So you have to get in a second line, which is the line we are currently in (the line to order and pay is to the right of where we were standing). Note that there is only ONE line to pick up. Therefore, everyone that ordered in the other line just hung out in the pick up area and didn't wait in line with everyone that had been on the other side's line.

Confusing, I know. We waited in line to order and pay for our beer for 20 minutes.

The line to pick up the beer? WE WAITED FOR 40 MINUTES. Everyone was pretty irate that the folks in the other line were basically cutting all of us and the workers didn't seem to care. Oh well.

The room to the left side of where the above picture was taken was lit with cool colors and had some tables to stand at.

It was definitely a nice spot to get out of the sun and relax. There were a few families in there with small children and it seemed like a good place for them to get away from everything as well.

Here is the flight we ordered:

Flight #2: Craft Beer Lovers – $10.25
–3 Daughters St. Pete Beach Blonde Ale, St. Petersburg, FL
–Florida Beer Company Passport 20 Belgian-Style Tripel Ale, Cape Canaveral, FL
–Funky Buddha Vanilla Espresso Porter, Oakland Park, FL
–Shipyard Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout, Clearwater, FL

I really liked the top 2 (#1 and #2). I really don't like dark beer (Justin is starting to) so I tasted them all but I only really drank the top two. Justin really liked the Barrel Aged Imperial Stout (bottom right) so he drank that one. The bottom left one (Vanilla Espresso Porter) unfortunately did not get finished - because I don't like dark beer and Justin doesn't like espresso/coffee. It was just a little too much for me.

Overall we really liked the flight and we would do it again. Maybe we would have liked the first one even more! I didn't get a good look at it. It was definitely good beer, and they gave you decent sized pours.

Afterwards, we caught the bus back to Art of Animation around 1:30 (it came quicker than the one to Pop) and walked across the bridge back to our room. Our room was in such a good location - it really was not far over the bridge to our room, and our room was not far from the main Pop building either. Win, win.

Side note - We've taken the bus to Art of Animation and had lunch at their food court. I highly recommend it; especially if you have the quick service dining plan or little ones that may enjoy exploring the resort. It's a beautiful area and their food court is fantastic. I wish we would have had a meal there this trip.

We took a little nap and relaxed until about 4, then took showers and got ready for our first real night in Disney! We would be headed to the Boardwalk for a fabulous meal, with a FP+ for Wishes after that!

​

 

[SnowWhiteOz]

The whole beer ordering and collection situation sounds like it was a disaster. I don't know if I could do a 40 minute wait just for collection - ouch!

 

[Vernie822]

The whole beer ordering and collection situation sounds like it was a disaster. I don't know if I could do a 40 minute wait just for collection - ouch!

It was suuuuuuch a pain in the butt, because you wanna say to all those people "HELLOOOO you are cutting the line!" but they don't care, haha. If I would've known it would be 40 minutes I'm sure we would not have waited. It was not that amazing!

 

[Vernie822]

Hi Ashley!! So glad your DVC rental experience was positive. We've been lucky and had 4 good experiences in the past, and we've actually already rented points for January from the owner we're renting from next week because all communication with him has been so smooth so far
And it sounds like your first morning at MK was very productive, especially considering it was a bonus"unplanned" day lol!!

Hey Ariane! Have a blast on your trip. It was definitely a positive experience and I would recommend it to anyone. I am sure you will just love the Poly studio!

Fun morning!!

It was - and we got so much done!

Hi Ashley, following over from the food review and subbing in. Can't wait to see how the rest of the trip unfolds.

Welcome Kari - thanks for joining!

Sounds like a great morning to me

It certainly was!

 

[Vernie822]

When we left off, we were heading back to Pop for some naps. I ended up taking a mid-day shower before we napped so that I wouldn't have to do my hair the next morning, and because we were gross and sticky already!

By quarter to 5 we left for the bus stop - we had an ADR at Flying Fish at 6 PM. We figured the best way to go would be to take the HS bus and then boat over to the Boardwalk. Justin came up with that one - I had planned to just go through Epcot and out through the International Gateway, but since it was so busy I'm glad he thought of that.

There was only one person in line at Pop for Hollywood Studios, he said he had just missed the last bus and had only been standing there for a few minutes. So we sat down and I wanted to get a nice picture of us..

Justin HATES when I try to take our picture so in the first two, he was not having it.

Then I took the one on the bottom left, and I about died laughing. I asked him why he would make that face. And he said "I was trying to smile!"

Poor guy! Finally the last one turned out great.

We hopped in line after that, and about 15 minutes later a bus finally came (around 5:15). Buses had passed for every other park, so I was getting nervous but I knew one would come eventually. They had to unload a few scooters, then load two new scooters on, so it took a good 5-10 minutes before we got going.

We have stayed at Pop before and the longest we have ever waited was 15-20 minutes for a bus. No big deal. Typically the buses at Pop are great - so I don't want anyone to think that our waiting 15-20 minutes was typical because in general we have had very good "bus luck" at Pop!

It was about 5:35 once we got to Hollywood Studios. It was a beautiful night and it had cooled off a bit.

We headed over to the boat dock to catch the boat from HS to the Boardwalk. We waited for a few minutes and we spotted a boat coming, but we were nervous that even if we hopped on the boat, by the time we got to the Boardwalk, we'd be late for our reservation.

So we decided to walk! Neither of us really ever mind walking, especially in Disney with all of the scenery.

Tower of Terror in the background!

I <3 the boardwalk all lit up at night.

It took us maybe 15-20 minutes from the boat dock at HS to the front door of Flying Fish. And we beat the boat by a long shot!

Once we got in the doors, we checked in and I went to use the restroom while we waited. Our table was ready before I was even back!

We had a wonderful server, Nadia, who was really helpful and sweet.

I started with a glass of Riesling - I believe it was a 2011 or 2012 Fess Parker.

This was light, smooth, and delicious. Not too sweet, but not really dry, which is just how I like it.

We ordered an appetizer. Nothing jumped out at Justin, who doesn't like seafood, so he let me choose.

While we waited for our app, we enjoyed some potato leek bread and butter that Nadia brought us. It was warm and delicious.

Our appetizer did not take too long to come out. I chose the calamari and rock shrimp with Asian dipping sauce. The kitchen split the appetizer for us, so this is just my half portion.

This was so good! I love calamari and shrimp. They were breaded nicely, not fried, and not soggy. The Asian dipping sauce was sweet and tangy and I loved it with the calamari and shrimp.

Justin usually does not like seafood, but he ate the calamari and gave me his shrimp.

For our entrees, I had my eye on a particular item that I had seen quite a few times in trip reports and dining reports! The duo entree of potato crusted red snapper and char crusted NY strip steak. Unfortunately it was not on the menu, but I asked our server if it was still offered, and she said she would ask the chef. He agreed to make it, which I was so happy about!

Justin decided on the char crusted NY strip steak.

Here is my entree, which was a small piece of the potato wrapped red snapper on leek fondue, and the char crusted NY strip steak with fingerling potatoes, sauce Foyot, green beans, and carrots.

And Justin's entree-sized portion of the NY strip..

We both REALLY enjoyed our entrees. Like, lick the plate good. I would say Justin's portion was at least 8-10 ounces. Nadia said that each of the pieces on my plate were 4-5 oz. I polished off the steak with no problem, and ate about half of the potato wrapped red snapper. The sauce on the steak was really good, it had a zing to it and was nice and creamy. It went really well with the potatoes and the steak. The steak had a really nice char crust on it that just made the steak even better than it already was.

The red snapper was really good. The fish was nice and thick and the potato wrapping was thin and crispy without being greasy. The leek fondue and the cassis butter that went with it were divine.

Both of us are still dreaming about this meal! The only other signature restaurant we have tried was Yachtsman, which we totally loved and would do again. Dare I say, this may have been better.

We did not order dessert here, since we planned to digest a little and grab something at MK while we watched the parade and fireworks.. so Nadia brought us these.

So cute!

There is a 10% AP discount here which was really nice. We don't dine in "fine dining" places like this too often so this is a treat for us.

After that, we caught a bus to MK where we had a FP+ for the Fireworks. By the time we waited for a bus at Boardwalk, got on it, and got to MK it was about 40 minutes. On our trip in June, we watched the fireworks from a really crowded spot (aren't they all!) so Justin requested that we try out the FP+ this time.

I was SOOOO excited to see the MK all lit up at night for Christmas!

The castle (and I suppose the guy in front LOL) was looking soooo fabulous!!

We decided to just hang in the hub area, get some ice cream, look for a spot for the parade, and then head to our fireworks FP+. Wishes was at 10 pm so the FP+ window was 9:40-9:55.

The Plaza Ice Cream Parlor has become one of my favorites. It was a bit of a wait tonight but we didn't mind since we had some time to kill. I love the kids Mickey cone, for $2.99 its the perfect size. But tonight I had something else in mind..

The All-American Sundae!

It's $5.39 and include chocolate and vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, peanut butter sauce, whipped cream, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and a cherry. We fell in love with the No Way Jose at Beaches and Cream in June, and this was the perfect alternative! It's also a snack credit and is so big it could easily be shared.

Justin just got a single scoop vanilla cone, which I think is $3.49 or something like that. This is his "Can't I just eat my ice cream" face.

Dairy and I don't really get along, so I gave up halfway through. Seriously that is one awesome sundae. I also LOVE peanut butter and chocolate together so I knew I would probably like it. It's definitely something I'll want to get every time! We would end up at the Plaza ice cream parlor two more times on this trip.

We found a spot for the parade not too far away from the Plaza!

We met a really nice family, it was mom, dad, and a little girl. I can't remember her name for the life of me, but she was SO sweet. Her grandparents and I think aunts or uncles decided to go back to the resort (it looked like it was going to rain) so we hung with her parents as we waited for the parade.

We were second row behind a few people sitting on the curb. Of course, as the parade starts, a family jumps RIGHT IN FRONT of this little 4 year old girl. I was irritated as we had been sitting there for probably 30 minutes. The mom and I both said "We have been here for a while, can you please move?" and they didn't speak English, so they just ignored us.

Everyone could still see (our little friend went up on her dad's shoulders) so it was all good, but ya gotta hate when people do that. All you can do is just enjoy the parade and ignore it!

Our little friend had on light up Tinkerbell wings and a wand. She was waving like crazy and blowing kisses at Tink.. Tink did it right back! So cute! Since we don't have kids I always enjoy seeing Disney through the eyes of a child. And this little one was soooo excited.

Unfortunately, at the end of the parade, it started thundering and lightening. We didn't really want to chance it, and we were exhausted, so we decided to call it a night. We'd be staying at the Poly later in the week so we knew we'd have plenty of chances to watch Wishes.

We waited a little bit for a bus, it wasn't too packed but we stood. The half marathon was that night so it was crowded at MK and the buses were taking alternative routes. There was a big group of teenagers, probably 18-20 years old, that all sat down while the parents with little sleeping kids stood.

I can't stand that. But it is what it is. There was a family next to us with 2 small girls. Dad held the sleeping little sister. Mom had the bags and the stroller. And their 5 year old was so exhausted that she sat by my feet.

Until she got a second wind about halfway home and started dancing and chatting my ear off hahaha. She was adorable and I enjoyed talking to her - but I did feel terrible that her mom and dad (among other parents on the bus) had to stand with their little ones while a bunch of teenagers sat.

Overall, we had a FANTASTIC first day. Two awesome table service meals, a spin through Food and Wine, got lots of done rope dropping, and capped off the night with some awesome ice cream and the MSEP. ​

 

[kastoney]

Looks like a great evening in MK. I've never been at Christmas time and the castle is just pure magic. Thanks for all the great pics (guy in front of the castle excluded )

Mmmm, your Plaza ice cream looks so good. As much as we eat there, I've never actually had the ice cream (except in milkshake form). Gonna have to change that.

Can't believe people didn't move for the folks with children. As someone who has had to hold a child for a very long bus ride it is certainly not fun. Peoples me, me, me disney mentality never ceases to amaze me.

 

[felynn]

Beautiful pictures and I really want that sunday! Can't wait to read more.