Friday, 7/18:
Initial Plan: Friday, 7/18 - Magic Kingdom. Eat at Tony’s. The firsts: Tony’s. The bread service looks amazing!
Actual: We initially had wanted to be there for early entry, but with our late night the night before, we quickly scratched that. We ended up getting ready and down to the bus a little after 9AM. We had pretty good luck with buses this trip and we were soon on our way, arriving at MK shortly after. We were treated on our way in with the Dapper Dans doing their trolley show and quickly walked towards Tomorrowland to start our day.
We had received an experience pass from Remy being down during Moonlight Magic, so decided that our first ride of the day should be Space Mountain using the express pass, followed by our LL for Buzz. We all did pretty good.
After helping Buzz Lightyear save the galaxy from Zurg, we were pretty hungry so decided to get some breakfast somewhere we had not been in a while, Gaston’s Tavern! We got 2 cinnamon rolls to share, as well as a ham and Gruyère sandwich. It was all as delicious as we remembered and made a mental note to come back on our next trip. No idea why we hadn’t come back in years.
On the way out, there was a photo pass photographer, so we decided to take some photos, which we hardly ever did before. I chalk this up to adding the photo pass to my AP. Here are some of the best from that photo session:
After breakfast, we started to hit the rides that had low wait times as well as our planned lightning lanes. We hit Storybook Circus, riding Dumbo and Barnstormer.
We had a late lunch at Columbia Harbour House. I had a salmon meal with a kids shrimp skewer meal with rice and a coke. DH had truffle fries as he was not too hungry and was going to finish off everything that we did not eat, Ethan had a shrimp platter, and Josh had an uncrustable kids meal.
We continued doing rides, both with standby and LL, and would make more LL as we used them. One thing to keep in mind if you are wanting the ride photos is to pay attention to where the rows are for photos. We rode Seven Dwarfs and were in different photos so we had to ride again (oh, Darn
).
We had a pretty successful day of rides. We had dinner at Tony’s which we had never eaten at before. They were having some seating troubles as no one wanted to eat outside since it was so hot. After waiting for 30 minutes after our reservation, we were finally seated. At dinner, we had the bread which was delicious if a little pricy. Josh had a butter pasta kids meal. I shared the shrimp Alfredo with Ethan. DH had the pepper pasta. We all enjoyed our meal, but all agreed it was not really worth the cost as we enjoyed the Columbia Harbour House meal just as much. We ended the night with Space Mountain again, followed by Tron with LL, Speedway, and Astro Orbiter. We saw that they were doing a preview of Starlight parade while we were on Astro Orbiter. There was no 11PM Starlight parade as it was in previews, so we saw the fireworks show and hopped on the bus back to the resort. Had to stand for the 20 minute ride back to AKL, and went to sleep pretty much as soon as we laid down.
Firsts: Tony’s
I got the kids explorer platter which Ethan got as well. Josh got the kids waffles. DH got the breakfast sandwich. The food was good, but it took about 30 minutes to get our food after we had ordered. I am glad that we did not have any parks planned for the day. After finishing breakfast, we then continued getting ready before heading back out to Disney Springs. We went back to Ron John so Ethan could pick up a bracelet and Lego where we picked up 2 Lego sets (gotta love that AP discount at that store) and headed over to Enzo’s hideaway as it had been closed for a private event when we went to Disney Springs on arrival day. DH liked the atmosphere so we stayed.
I got a kids pizza as I was not starving, DH had a salad, Josh got a butter pasta ($19 for spaghetti and butter!) which he did not finish, and Ethan got the rigatoni. It was all pretty good, although very expensive for what we got. The pizza place, Pizza Ponte might be where we try at Disney Springs next time. After lunch, we then went over to Gideon’s and Goofy’s candy co.
