Just Killing Time Between Meals in the Happiest Place on Earth~Sept DR *COMPLETE

[jerseytinkerbell]

The next morning the three of us were up bright and early and strolled right over to MK just in time for the cute little rope drop ceremony. I love this!


Look, Else and Anna are there now!


Now that I'm through the gates it's time to stop for a selfie.


Early morning foggy camera lens. Darn!

Now we're off! We did everything this day. Everything. And we never waited in line for anything but SDMT. And the weather was perfect. It was seriously the best MK day ever. A few ride pics from around the park.




Now, it's time for a morning ice cream!


We canceled our breakfast reservation at Trail's End the night before because I knew we wouldn't be hungry (which we weren't) but I did want a little treat. Why not some pineapple ice cream?

Rob got his usual favorite, a Dole Whip pineapple float. Pineapple ice cream with pineapple juice aka pineapple overload.


I got the Dole Whip swirl of pineapple and vanilla ice cream.


I love this! The pineapple is so refreshing. Yum! We can't leave WDW without a Dole Whip. It's the law.

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

After some more rides we were all hungry. I decided to take a chance and see if we could get into Liberty Tree Tavern with no reservation. As luck would have it they could take us!


We sat down and waited to be seated and killed some time by coloring. I didn't get too far on my masterpiece before our name was called.


Once we were seated we decided right away on what we wanted to order. Rob got the soup of the day and for the life of me I have no idea what it was, but I know he really loved it.


For his entree Rob got the New England Pot Roast. Braised beef in a cabernet wine and mushroom sauce served with mashed potatoes and garden vegetables.


Our friend got the same thing and they both loved it. A very hearty and satisfying meal for a long day in the park.

I ordered the Pilgrims' Feast. Traditional roast turkey with herb bread stuffing, mashed potatoes and a garden vegetable.


This was super yummy! The turkey was really moist and I loved the gravy. The potatoes and stuffing were very tasty too. I ate it all.

I did leave some room for dessert though. So, I had to do it. I had to get the mother of all desserts. Ladies and gentleman, here it is, Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake. Vanilla cake with a gooey toffee filling, vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.


It was incredible. As always. This is a WDW must-do.

This was a totally impromptu trip to LTT, but I am so glad we ate here. Our service was great and the food was even better. And it wasn't horrifyingly overpriced. Now, it's time for our first ever ride on SDMT!


So much fun! Loved the ride! Perfect afternoon!

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

After yet a few more rides Rob was thirsty and decided to stop at a 'new to him' location. Sunshine Tree Terrace.


I LOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEE the orange bird. He's the cutest.


Rob got an Odwalla Tropical Lemonade.


He loved this! He said it had a very unique flavor. I think we will be visting this location more often now.

Like I mentioned before, the park was seriously dead this day. Look at this area near the Magic Carpet ride. So few people! Freaky!


On our way to Tomorrowland for our last few rides of the day we ran into the Festival of Fantasy Parade, so we had to stop and watch. We even lucked into a totally perfect spot.




















This parade was seriously amazing! Rob even loved it and he is not a big fan of parades. I can't wait to see this again!

After a few more rides we went back to the resort and our friend left to head home. It was such a long, but fun day in the park. Now it's time to relax!

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

That night we went to DTD for an evening treat. Naturally, we went to the best spot in DTD for a sweet treat. Ghirardelli!


We stuck close to our personal favorites. Rob got a Hot Fudge sundae with Cookie Dough Ice Cream.


I got a Brownie Hot Fudge sundae with dark chocolate hot fudge and mint chocolate chip ice cream.


Yuuuuuuummmmmm!!! Ghirardelli makes the best sundaes! They need to turn these into chains. I need one in my town. ASAP. I want to branch out and try new things here, but the hot fudge with the mint chocolate chip ice cream is too hard to stray from. I love it.

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

Movie times were not working in our favor this evening, so we decided to get our dinner to-go and grab a movie from the activity hall in the resort. Perfect! Our dinner came from one of our favorite Disney locations. Wolfgang Puck Express!


I love the pizza here and I decided to try a new kind today. I got the Barbecued Chicken Pizza with grilled Red Onions, Cilantro, Roasted Tomatoes, Smoky Barbecue Sauce.


This pizza was delicious, but I think in the future I will stick to either the Four Cheese Pesto or the Pepperoni Mushroom pizza. This pizza was great, but I like the other two kinds of pizza better. I'm glad I tried this though.

Rob went with his usual favorite. Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf Sandwich with Smoked Mozzarella, Garlic Aioli, and Crispy Onion Strings.




We never saw his sandwich until we arrived back at the room. He was extremely disappointed to discover they have replaced the french fries with chips. Once we looked we realized it is now listed that way on the menu, but we are so used to ordering this that we never really looked at the menu to notice the recent side dish change. At this point it was too late to do anything about it. He was very unhappy with this change. It is now extra to get the fries. Not cool WPE.

The food was still great and a room picnic is always a blast, but this wasn't our best WPE experience ever. Next time we will be paying closer attention to the menu.

 

[kastoney]

Wow, what a perfect MK day. What day were you all there? If I remember right I think our trips overlapped and we never encountered crowds that low. Super jealous.

I was thinking you were going to have an all desert day there for a while. How perfect would that be? I do like the abundance of frozen treats though.

 

[akayek31]

I love ESPN. We spent half our vacation there in October watching games. We waited for the the booth that had the tv in them. I think that is just the coolest place to eat and watch a game I am a huge 49ers fan (but not a kapernick fan) and a huge Alex Smith fan so we watched the 49ers v/s the Chiefs. It was a win/win game for me even though I was rooting for Alex to stomp Kapernick I will be so sad that no football will be on when I go on my solo trip in February

 

[ursalita]

Hi there! I'm new to your report and really enjoying it so far! Looking forward to reading the rest.

 

[java]

Loving your report!

But wait!!! No more patiserie(spelling is way off on that one) it's ice cream now? No more madelines, delicious cookies, pitherviers?(again spelling disaster)

We missed last year and learly a lot has changed.

 

[pumba]

I loved loved loved...all your reviews and photos..

thanks so much for taking the time to take the photos and then post them ..

Our granddaughter and her husband spent their honeymoon in Disney last May and she ordered the same appetizer that you did at ESPN..I dont think she knew it was for two either..I will have to tell her..

I love the bread pudding at O'hana..so much we made another reservation for our next trip...delicious..

Thanks again

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

Wow, what a perfect MK day. What day were you all there? If I remember right I think our trips overlapped and we never encountered crowds that low. Super jealous.

I was thinking you were going to have an all desert day there for a while. How perfect would that be? I do like the abundance of frozen treats though.

I know it was a Tuesday. The 16th I believe. It was the only low crowd, low heat, no rain day we encountered during the trip. It's great when the stars align like that.

It almost was an all dessert day. It wouldn't be the worst idea ever!

I love ESPN. We spent half our vacation there in October watching games. We waited for the the booth that had the tv in them. I think that is just the coolest place to eat and watch a game I am a huge 49ers fan (but not a kapernick fan) and a huge Alex Smith fan so we watched the 49ers v/s the Chiefs. It was a win/win game for me even though I was rooting for Alex to stomp Kapernick I will be so sad that no football will be on when I go on my solo trip in February

We love it too! It's a blast to root for your favorite team there. 49ers vs Chiefs sounds like a fun game to watch there! Too bad there won't be anything fun to watch when you are there in February. NBA isn't quite as exciting as NFL in my humble opinion.

Hi there! I'm new to your report and really enjoying it so far! Looking forward to reading the rest.

Thank you so very much for joining in! More updates coming up!

Loving your report!

But wait!!! No more patiserie(spelling is way off on that one) it's ice cream now? No more madelines, delicious cookies, pitherviers?(again spelling disaster)

We missed last year and learly a lot has changed.

No need to worry! The patisserie is still there. It moved into the building next door. It's in a bigger location to accommodate more goodies and more people.

I loved loved loved...all your reviews and photos..

thanks so much for taking the time to take the photos and then post them ..

Our granddaughter and her husband spent their honeymoon in Disney last May and she ordered the same appetizer that you did at ESPN..I dont think she knew it was for two either..I will have to tell her..

I love the bread pudding at O'hana..so much we made another reservation for our next trip...delicious..

Thanks again

Thank you so very much! I hope your granddaughter had a great time on her honeymoon. You can't go wrong with a Disneymoon and nachos.

I am disappointed we didn't get to keep our reservation at O'hana this trip. The Eagles game took precedent over dinner reservations and then I couldn't find a new time there. Bummer. But at least I got to have the best part of the dinner in the lounge.

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

The next morning we were up and out first thing in the morning so we could arrive at HS for rope drop. As we waited in the line of cars to get in the parking lot it started to drizzle. By the time we parked it seemed to stop, but the sky was still looking pretty dark. I quite stupidly decided against bringing either our ponchos or an umbrella. They were in the car. I just didn't grab them. This decision would haunt me. Check out this cool rainbow we could see from the parking lot.


No sooner do we get in the park and it pours down rain. Pours. I was soaked to the bone. I was so looking forward to all of the Frozen stuff going on in the park and I was far too wet and weary to enjoy it. After a couple of rides we took a break to grab breakfast. I headed straight for Starring Rolls!


Rob went to Fairfax Fare to grab is favorite Sausage, Egg and Cheese Muffin option. I was going to meet him there with my food, but it was pouring so hard we decided to stay where we were and eat our breakfast separately. I couldn't risk getting this beauty destroyed by the rain!


OMG this was the best WDW cupcake I have ever had! Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. And it looks like Olaf. Heaven.

I totally lucked out and grabbed a table outside that protected me from the rain while I enjoyed my fabulous sugary breakfast. The second I even thought about getting up from the table a large group of very obnoxious women practically pushed me out of the way to obtain it. The rain (and Disney World) makes people crazy.

 

[vettegirl]

Love that Olaf cupcake!!

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

We had early lunch reservations this day at Hollywood Brown Derby.

We had only eaten here one other time and it was on our honeymoon. We had great service but not very memorable food. We literally don't remember anything about the food at all. I did want to give it another try and their lunch menu looked pretty tempting. We arrived at the restaurant before our reservation time hoping to get in early, but we were informed that our reservation time was in fact the first time of the day. Bummer. However, they did ask us if we could come back about 10 minutes before our reservation that day because they chose us as the Celebrities of the Day and wanted us to open the restaurant today. Exciting!

We came back to the restaurant at the time they asked us to and waited around the lobby for a few minutes. I love the lighting fixtures in here. Too cute!


Then someone came over and took all of these pictures of us outside. Then there was red ribbon across the entrance into the dining room. They made a big production of introducing Rob & I too the packed lobby and gave me a crazy big pair of scissors to cut the ribbon with and open the restaurant for the day. There was more picture taking and it was pretty cool. Then we were lead to a special table all decorated for the Celebrities of the Day. Later in our meal they brought over a special booklet to commemorate our meal. It is such a cute souvenir!




Pretty cool! I wish I had been dressed a little cuter that day and wasn't in a goofy Olaf t-shirt, but what can you do.

This was our specially decorated table with star confetti.


The view of the restaurant from our table.


We had the whole place to ourselves for about 5 minutes before they started seating other diners.

Now the really fun part. The food!


We started out with drinks. We celebrities needed a cocktail. I had the Citizens Take Flight. A tasting of three flavored margaritas:
Bucky Greenhorn - Derby Margarita
Melvin Macheezmo - Mango Margarita
Ready Freddy Fiddlesticks - Pomegranate Margarita



My Olaf was finally able to come out of hiding after fear of getting him wet in the rain and take part in cocktail hour as well.


You can't enjoy summer without a cocktail, right Olaf?

Rob had a red wine called California 37. Apparently the band Train owns a winery and this is their wine. Rob LOVED it! It has become his new favorite wine. We found it back here at home as well and it has become his go-to red wine. I even bought him a couple bottle for Christmas. I'm not a a big red wine drinker and even I really love it. Very smooth.

For food we started out with their bread and butter combo.


These rolls were pretty good. Very crusty on the outside and soft on the inside.

I got an appetizer of Blue Lump Crab Spring Rolls, along with Snow Crab Claw, and an Asian Slaw with spicy Miso Aïoli.




This was delicious! I had been eying this on other people's DRs for some time and I am so glad I got to try this. There was a ton of crab meat on this plate. It was everything I hoped it would be.

For my entree I instead opted for a second appetizer and got their famous Cobb Salad with finely chopped greens, turkey breast, egg, bacon, tomatoes, crumbled bleu cheese, avocado, chives and Cobb dressing.


This was definitely delicious and I am so glad I finally tried this as well, however I don't think I would ever order it again. It was a must try, but not a must re-order item for me.

Rob's entree was their seasonal pork dish. I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of the menu and now these many moths later forget what came with the pork, but here it is in all it's porktastic glory.


Rob absolutely loved this dish! It paired nicely with another glass of California 37.

I decided to go for dessert. This time I did manage to take a picture of the menu!


You could choose any three. I chose the Amaretto Flan opalys white chocolate whip with an almond cookie, the Double Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee and the Chocolate Sphere with hazelnut praline chocolate and orange white chocolate mousse.








All three were delicious, but I would say the Amaretto Flan was my favorite.

And here we are in our cozy booth at the end of our meal.


I would also like to mention that our server was fantastic! He was right on top of everything, but never seemed like he was there too much. He gave wonderful recommendations and really gave us a lot of interesting info on the restaurant and the food. He was awesome!

This meal was so much fun! It is the one place Rob really wants to return to on our next trip. This was his favorite meal of the trip.

 

[kastoney]

Wow, I had no idea a celebrity was in our midst ; )

Your meal at HBD looks awesome. Love when you can make apps a meal, and even better when a trio of margaritas can accompany it. I'm gonna have to try and find the train wine. Always looking for an easy drinking red.

Looks like our itineraries were the same these two days. Though the crowds @ MK must have been wherever we were and not you ; ). Had lunch at LTT the same day and while u were at HBD we were over at SciFi. Small dis world

 

[stacy~**]

Sorry about the rainy morning but I'm sure an Olaf cupcake for breakfast made it less painful. My dd had one of those this summer. I'm thinking I need one for myself on our coming trip.

What a fun experience at HBD!! I guess they must do that everyday? How awesome! I was LOL at your Olaf shirt comment. Isn't that how surprises always work. We were the family of the day at the Boardwalk once and the picture makes me cringe even though it was a cool experience. If I had only known ahead of time.

I sure wish the menu at HBD appealed to me since we aren't big fans of any DHS TS options and HBD is the only place we haven't tried. We are "mostly" vegetarian (it's complicated...) so the options are pretty limited for us. In February I actually have us going over to EP to eat on our DHS day because there are so many options there.

 

[happy2012]

That tropical lemonade is AMAZING!! I was just telling my friend about how good it is & can't wait to have it again!

It looks like you 2 have enjoyed so many places this last trip! Are you planning another vaca to wdw in 2015?

 

[ursalita]

How fun that you were the Celebrities of the Day! Our boys were chosen as Little Farmers of the Day at the wave last trip. These little things Disney does really makes guests feel special (at least we felt special). The food looks delish, thanks for posting the pics.

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

Love that Olaf cupcake!!

It was the cutest! The fact that it tasted great was a plus!

Wow, I had no idea a celebrity was in our midst ; )

Your meal at HBD looks awesome. Love when you can make apps a meal, and even better when a trio of margaritas can accompany it. I'm gonna have to try and find the train wine. Always looking for an easy drinking red.

Looks like our itineraries were the same these two days. Though the crowds @ MK must have been wherever we were and not you ; ). Had lunch at LTT the same day and while u were at HBD we were over at SciFi. Small dis world

The margarita trio definitely helps make anything better! Definitely keep an eye out for that wine. I think you would enjoy it.

That's so weird that you experienced different crowds on that day. It was definitely dead for us. I wonder if we were in LTT at the exact same time. Small world indeed!

Sorry about the rainy morning but I'm sure an Olaf cupcake for breakfast made it less painful. My dd had one of those this summer. I'm thinking I need one for myself on our coming trip.

What a fun experience at HBD!! I guess they must do that everyday? How awesome! I was LOL at your Olaf shirt comment. Isn't that how surprises always work. We were the family of the day at the Boardwalk once and the picture makes me cringe even though it was a cool experience. If I had only known ahead of time.

I sure wish the menu at HBD appealed to me since we aren't big fans of any DHS TS options and HBD is the only place we haven't tried. We are "mostly" vegetarian (it's complicated...) so the options are pretty limited for us. In February I actually have us going over to EP to eat on our DHS day because there are so many options there.

The cupcake definitely helped. I hope you get to try one on your next trip!

HBD was really cool! I'm assuming they do that every day. I'm glad you know where I'm coming from with the pictures from that day. It really does make me cringe when I see my goofy t-shirt and frizzy rained-on hair. I struggle to find places to eat in HS and we have no food restrictions, so I feel your pain. Epcot is so close by that you may as well make your way over there for better options.

That tropical lemonade is AMAZING!! I was just telling my friend about how good it is & can't wait to have it again!

It looks like you 2 have enjoyed so many places this last trip! Are you planning another vaca to wdw in 2015?

I think I may need to try a whole one of those tropical lemonades for myself next trip. Rob is looking forward to having it again too.

We are still deciding what to do for vacation this year. I thought maybe we would sneak down for a last minute trip in February, but Rob was chosen for a new program at work where they teach college courses in business during work hours to earn college credits for free. Classes are every Tuesday and Thursday and they run from now until May. He can only miss one class during the entire 5 months, so that makes a week long vacation completely out of the question next month. As long as we can hang on to our vacation days long enough, I think we may go down in early November for F&W or early December for Christmas festivities. I will keep you posted!

How fun that you were the Celebrities of the Day! Our boys were chosen as Little Farmers of the Day at the wave last trip. These little things Disney does really makes guests feel special (at least we felt special). The food looks delish, thanks for posting the pics.

Awww I didn't even know The Wave had a special thing like that. That's so cool that they were chosen! It is such a fun memory.

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

A couple hours after lunch we made our way back to the resort to relax and get cleaned up before it was time for our dinner reservations at FWL. This is when BLT lost all of its charm for me. I'm sorry, but I have to throw a total rant in here. We went up to our room and our MagicBands would not unlock the door. I was not happy. We had this issue the first day, but we had not experienced any issues since that time. We went back down to the lobby and told someone at the front desk what was going on. The response I got was not, "Sorry you're having troubles" it was "Are you holding the Mickey to the Mickey?" It was hard not to freak out. While I realize there are a lot of idiots out there and they have to narrow down the issue by the most obvious possible reason, I wanted to scream. I assured her that I was and that we tried many times and that we have used MagicBands quite a bit over the last year. She punched in a bunch of stuff on her keyboard and after about 15 minutes of standing there she said they should work. Obviously they should work. But they don't. I told her to come up with us because I was not coming back down if they don't work. She came up and of course they once again didn't work. Then she went back down stairs to get some type of card that was basically a MagicBand master key. After waiting in the hallway for another 20 minutes, that doesn't work either. My anger was rising. Back down to the lobby we go so she can inquire as to what the problem might be. It was finally determined that the battery was dead in the MagicBand reader on the door and they have to call maintenance to fix the issue. "You can just wait in the lobby for a few hours until they're done." Ummmmmmm.... excuse me? This is when I lost it. I told them in no uncertain terms that I paid good money for that room, it is unacceptable to waste this much time of my vacation and I don't care what they have to do to get me in my room even if it requires them repelling down from a higher floor into my room to open my door from the inside. Even though we were treated like we were being totally unreasonable for not wanting to wait in the lobby for another couple of hours to have access to our room, two of them finally went over to the Contemporary to get the master key that was an actual key to get us into our room.

Throughout all of this we never got an apology or any inclination from any of the snobby employees that we dealt with that they cared at all that we were totally inconvenienced for hours. I work in customer service every day and have to smooch some serious booty and get screamed at by strangers on a regular basis. In turn, I expect outstanding customer service wherever I go, especially when I am spending thousands of dollars on a vacation and a brand that prides itself on customer loyalty. To say I was unhappy at this point was an understatement. The experience was so appalling that it really soured the remainder of my vacation. Words cannot even describe how completely uncaring and rude the CMs we dealt with during this acted towards us. I have never experienced anything like it in all of my trips to Disney. Disney got a strongly worded email upon my return home. I wanted nothing in return, just for someone to know what happened so that it never happens to anyone again.

*RANT OVER* Now onto the good stuff!

Once we were FINALLY back in our room I had to quickly get in the shower to get ready for our dinner reservation that was now rapidly approaching. We both got ready and down to the boat dock just in time to miss a boat. No matter. We'll wait for the next one and we have plenty of time before our reservation. That will give me just enough time for a selfie.


This might be my favorite selfie ever.

We ended up waiting a very long time for another boat over to FWL and arrived for our dinner reservations a few minutes late. Geez, Disney transportation can sure take awhile sometimes. Now it's time for dinner at one of our favorite locations. Trail's End!


Once we were seated our server was with us very quickly and took our drink orders. Now it's time to hit the buffet! This is seriously my favorite buffet ever. Not just in Disney, but anywhere. It's so good and the choices are amazing. The buffet was pretty crowded, so I didn't snap any pictures, but here are our plates.

Rob's first plate consists of fried chicken, mac and cheese, baked beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, carved beef and a pecan square.


Second plate. More fried chicken, mashed potatoes, ribs and carved beef.


My first plate. Mac and cheese, baked beans, fried chicken, a baked potato loaded with cheese, sour cream, pulled pork and chives, and some carved beef for myself.


Everything was amazing! Loved the mac and cheese. Tasted like a great homemade dish. The fried chicken is the absolute best there is. Love it!

Then I had an all dessert plate. Pecan squares, bread pudding, sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies and corn bread with butter.


The pecan squares are the best thing ever. I could eat those every day. Their corn bread is phenomenal too. It's hard to pass up.

With full bellies we made our way back to the boat launch and took the boat to MK. We got there just in time for Wishes, which we watched from the middle of Main Street U.S.A. I really needed these awesome fireworks tonight to shake off our bad resort experience a few hours earlier and bring me back to remember what makes WDW so great. And the best part was, once they were all over we only neeede to walk though the gates and walk right over to our resort. No crazy after-Wishes bus madness to deal with.