Coast 2 Coast Disney! *Update 3/22 Crystal Palace and Keys To The Kingdom*

Your lunch at Earl looks great!! (And is making me hungry! :laughing:)

How does the silicone pancake mold work? I'm always curious about the silicone baking pans and molds, but have never gotten one before!
 
Your Earl of Sandwich lunch looks good! Great first meal choice!:thumbsup2 I always feel like I get my money's worth there, because the sandwiches are huge.
 
Your lunch at Earl looks great!! (And is making me hungry! :laughing:)

How does the silicone pancake mold work? I'm always curious about the silicone baking pans and molds, but have never gotten one before!

Well, it won't melt in the oven or in a pan. For the pancake one you just put the mold in the pan, fill it with your batter, wait till its time to flip, then flip the mold and pancake together, and when its done on the second side, you take the mold off. Its pretty nifty!

Your Earl of Sandwich lunch looks good! Great first meal choice!:thumbsup2 I always feel like I get my money's worth there, because the sandwiches are huge.

They are huge! I always loved Subway, but I'm going to have a hard time going back there because Earl is just soooooooooo much better.
 
After shopping at Mickey's Pantry, I decided that I needed something a little sweet. So we stopped by Babycakes and got two to go.

When we arrived back at the hotel, we had some surprises waiting for us!!

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Disney Florist payed a little visit with some pixie dust.

The first one there was the "He'll Be a Pirate." It included a nice selection of imported beers, chips and salsa, and pretzels and mustard. Along with this awesome pirate hat.

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The second one was the family treats tote and was loaded with fresh fruit, Chip & Dale trail mix and nuts, Mickey Popcorn, Goofy's Candy Co. Sweets, and bottled water and juice.

They were both pricey, and I was originally upset that I was charged a delivery fee for each item, even though they were being shipped and sent together. They ended up beautiful though and I was quite pleased at actually being able to pull off this surprise for Adam!
 

I want to stay at Coronado. I have even booked there only to go back to Pop. I love the rooms so far. If that man can draw Mickey that well then he is in the wrong job at WDW :)
 
Jess!!! I can't believe I missed that you started your TR!!! YAY!! I am totally in!

Everything looks amazing so far... We probably crossed paths a bunch of times... Your room looks amazing... Your Disney florist delivery looks perfect - that was a wonderful idea.

I am looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip. :)

D~
 
I want to stay at Coronado. I have even booked there only to go back to Pop. I love the rooms so far. If that man can draw Mickey that well then he is in the wrong job at WDW :)

We stayed at Pop for our first trip, and I would not hesitate to go back to Pop after staying at CSR. It is a beautiful resort (not nearly as large as I had imagined given the way people complain how everything is so spread out.) But the buses really did me in. At Pop I loved how they had the queue for each park. We NEVER waited more than 5 minutes for a bus because they dispatched them to Pop based off of how many people were in the queue for that park. At Coronado it was just a free for all. There are 4 bus stops and everyone congregates together. So, there could be 30 people waiting, 20 wanting to go to one place, and buses for everywhere else go by, none the wiser that we are all trying to get to Epcot.

Jess!!! I can't believe I missed that you started your TR!!! YAY!! I am totally in!

Everything looks amazing so far... We probably crossed paths a bunch of times... Your room looks amazing... Your Disney florist delivery looks perfect - that was a wonderful idea.

I am looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip. :)

D~

D!!! I am back! Have you started your TR yet?! The bag you made for me was an absolute dream in the parks and I received many compliments on it!
 
Very cool florist purchases! :thumbsup2 I thought the pirates one was great and a perfect surprise for your arrival day!
 
Joining in! That pic of your fiance lifting you up in front of the MK is so adorable! Congrats to you guys!

I can't believe I've never been to Earl of Sandwich. I'm gonna try the one in NYC soon, I hope it's as good as people say the one in Disney is.

Can't wait to read more. WDW and DL... so amazing!
 
D!!! I am back! Have you started your TR yet?! The bag you made for me was an absolute dream in the parks and I received many compliments on it!

I am so glad you liked it! :) And I am so happy that it worked out for you, I really love hearing reviews like that! :lovestruc

I started my TR, last night... Here's the link: Sew much to do, sew little time, but it was worth it! I really need to put the link in my siggy. :)

D~
 
I am in and super excited to hear all about your trip and the future DL trip! That is smart to quote your dining reviews into this! You definitely don't want to type all of that up twice.
 
Yay that you were able to surprise Adam with the Disney Florist goodies! They sound like great baskets!

In the end they were well worth it! Since we had the Deluxe Dining plan though, we didn't have much room for snacks!

Very cool florist purchases! :thumbsup2 I thought the pirates one was great and a perfect surprise for your arrival day!

The Pirates one was really cool and turned out much better than what I was anticipating.

Joining in! That pic of your fiance lifting you up in front of the MK is so adorable! Congrats to you guys!

I can't believe I've never been to Earl of Sandwich. I'm gonna try the one in NYC soon, I hope it's as good as people say the one in Disney is.

Can't wait to read more. WDW and DL... so amazing!

It is one of my favorite pics of the two of us! I was in NYC from end of August - December last year, and never made it to Earl!! My apartment there was on W 42nd b/n 9th & 10th and I was working on Wall Street, so got very very familiar with the 1, 2 and 3 trains, but didn't venture over to the east side very often. I want to say that Earl is on 52nd St somewhere around 6th Ave.

I am so glad you liked it! :) And I am so happy that it worked out for you, I really love hearing reviews like that! :lovestruc

I started my TR, last night... Here's the link: Sew much to do, sew little time, but it was worth it! I really need to put the link in my siggy. :)

D~

Thanks! I will be over there shortly right after I finish up my posts!

I am in and super excited to hear all about your trip and the future DL trip! That is smart to quote your dining reviews into this! You definitely don't want to type all of that up twice.

I can't believe we are only 6 weeks away from Disneyland and I haven't even planned any ADRs yet!
 
Once we finished checking out the goodies from the florist, we went to go and pick up our refillable mugs, and stop at the concierge to get my credit card added to our room keys. For some reason it wasn't added at check in. We took a quick peak at the quiet pool closest to our building, and decided it was not nearly that quiet. I took the opportunity to freshen up a bit before dinner, and we headed off to Bus Stop Number 2 to await our chariot to Hollywood Studios.

We had to wait about 15 minutes for a bus, along with plenty of other people trying to get to Fantasmic. It is a super quick ride to Hollywood Studios from Coronado. Once there we decided to take the walking path to the Boardwalk.

Once we began our journey, we learned that while Disney is probably one of the safest places on earth, they could probably use some security on that walking path.

Its where we were introduce to some guy named Corey, and his crazier than you could imagine girlfriend, with the lung power and voice of a banshee. (I assume girlfriend of course.) We had no sooner rounded the bend and started off on the footpath when we could hear Crazy Banshee, shouting, somewhere off in the distance, at Poor Corey. The conversation was going something like this.

"That was WRONG Corey!! That WAS WRONG!! I can't BELIEVE you broke my necklace!"

"Well....you broke my key chain..."

Mind you, there was an overpass between us and Poor Corey and Crazy Banshee. As we got closer, their fighting began to escalate. Crazy Banshee began spraying Poor Corey down with a water bottle, and Poor Corey shouting back "Stop that! I'm just trying to get away from you until you cool down right now!" (Wise choice Corey, wise choice.)

She then began throwing her water bottle at him, and trying to kick dirt up at him.

I felt like we were on an episode of "What Would You Do?"

Since there was no one in site that appeared they were the 'plain clothes' type security...I was trying to decide if it was best to walk all the way to the gate at Hollywood Studios to tell someone, or walk to the Boardwalk and tell someone, before things escalated any further.

I settled for the next best thing. Jumping around and waving like a seemingly insane person and gesturing at one of the boat captains. The boat captain (and I'm sure all the people on that boat) looked at me like I was the crazy one, but then nodded his head, like he understood what was going on.

Just to be on the safe side, we told the first CM we saw at the Boardwalk, who didn't seem very concerned.

Putting the incident behind us, we went over to Flying Fish to check in!

We were about 10 minutes early, and were handed a pager. Very soon we were lead inside the restaurant and to a table towards the back of the restaurant. There was a small wedding reception going on at the tables behind ours.

The first thing that you notice when you walk into Flying Fish is the noise. It was overwhelming, but due to the fact that the kitchen here is completely open to the rest of the restaurant. There is ample seating at the counter, which I might request to try next time.

Our servers name was Rogelio. He was nice enough, but not very attentive. He was one of the servers for the wedding reception as well, so perhaps he was a bit overwhelmed. We had a very nice view from our table.

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We started off with some cocktails!

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A Hefeweizen for Adam.

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And a blood orange margarita for me. Very tasty and seemingly the same recipe used at La Cava for their blood orange. Only difference was that this had a plain sugar rim.

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Bread at butter service. Ok, nothing special.

And then it was time for the good stuff!!

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I started with this! Yellowfin Tuna Tartar and Crispy Tempura Tuna-Vegetable Sushi Roll - Hijiki and Wakame Seaweed, Yuzu Tobiko, Wasabi Foam, with Sweet-and-Spicy Sauce $16.00 The sushi roll and tartar were excellent. I don't care for seaweed salads in general. This was no exception. The wasabi foam was nice and added a good heat to the tartare. The soy sauce was excellent with the sushi roll. There was actually some fish in the roll along with the vegetables. I wish there wasn't. Since it was a tempura roll, the tuna ended up being cooked through and wasn't all that appetizing. It really ruined the integrity of the fish, but was still tasty. It was also a very large portion for an appetizer.

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Adam started with, not surprisingly, a tomato salad. If you followed along with my first dining report, you know that Adam would probably trade me in for a lifetime supply of fresh, ripe, tomatoes. I on the other hand, cannot stand tomatoes!

Fresh Mozzarella di Bufala - Florida Yellow Beefsteak, Heirloom and Tiny grape Tomatoes, aged Balsamico, Exotic Peppercorns, Petite Basil, and Sicilian Olio Verde $15.00

He claimed this to be very good.

For entree's I couldn't resist their signature item.
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Our Signature Flying Fish Café "Potato-wrapped Red Snapper" - Leek Fondue with a Veal Glace, Red Wine, and Cassis Butter reduction $36.00

This was good and went nicely with the red wine reduction. The leeks were very disappointing. Mine were severely underdone and very crunchy. If you've ever had an underdone leek, you know that they are completely unappetizing. The fish was nicely done and the potato wrapping was crispy without being greasy and kept the fish nice and moist on the inside. I probably wouldn't order this again as it didn't really wow me.

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It was a "Surf and Surf" special which has mysteriously disappeared from the menu. It was flounder and laughing bird shrimp, and the flounder had a horseradish and bread crumb crust. It was very good as well, the shrimp were outstanding!

Next up was dessert. I had my eye on the boardwalk treats sampler for quite awhile. But our server (who was now a guy named Moh, who was much more attentive than Rogelio) let me know that they were just debuting a new dessert, a Peanut Butter and Jelly Creme Brulee. Say what? I quickly jumped ship and ordere the PB&J Brulee.

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That little eye dropper thing that looks like something you would have used in 5th grade science class was filled with chocolate. I chose not to inject it into the brulee.

Oh. My. Word. This was in the top 5 best desserts of ALL TIME! There is a healthy layer of grape jam on the bottom, and then a creamy, thick layer of peanut butter custard on top. The sweetness of the peanut butter (picture the filling of Reese's peanut butter cups, but much creamier) was lightened by the jelly. It was just really delicious.

Adam had this.
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Marcona Almond-laced Chocolate Mousse and Sinful Triple Rich Brownie Creation - apple-wood smoked bacon praline crunch, smokey salt-scented chocolate sorbet and raspberry coulis $8.00

This was also very good, but not nearly as amazing as mine!

Overall we had an enjoyable meal here. It was salvaged by the incredible desserts. In the future I would definitely come by for dessert, but I wasn't wowed by the entree offerings.

After dinner, I decided I just couldn't wait till the next day for my first dose of theme park. And Hollywood Studios was RIGHT THERE!! So, you guessed it. We made our way through the turnstyles at Hollywood Studios. It was nearly 8PM by this point. So, we had an hour to pack in as much as we could. I appologize because I didn't take any pictures. I was just so excited to be in the parks! I checked my Disney Mobile App that still said there were fastpasses available for both Rock n' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. Since the standby line was shorter for Tower of Terror, we went over to Rock n' Roller Coaster and got a fastpass, and then hit the standby line for Tower of Terror. It said it was a 35 minute wait, but only ended up being about 20 minutes. It was time to use our fast pass by the time we were done with Tower of Terror, so we headed over to R'n'R. It took us about 5 minutes to get on the ride, since everyone else was watching Fantasmic!

As much as I wanted to be able to stay for more, exhaustion was starting to catch up with me since we had been up since 3 AM! We made our way back to the bus stop (Coronado is the closest one to the exit woohoo!) and waited for our bus. When we arrived back at Coronado, I knew we made a good decision to stay here. It is absolutely beautiful at night!

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Adam went down and filled our mugs up and then it was time for bed!
 
Your dinner at Flying Fish looks really good! Overdone leeks are a disappointment, that's too bad! But your desserts sound awesome! Your creme brulee sounds so cool!

Coronado Springs at night does look beautiful!
 
Your dinner at Flying Fish looks really good! Overdone leeks are a disappointment, that's too bad! But your desserts sound awesome! Your creme brulee sounds so cool!

Coronado Springs at night does look beautiful!

The desserts were amazing! I really enjoyed Coronado at night! Very peaceful and it felt just like we were in Mexico at a posh resort.
 
We awoke at about 5 AM on Day Two, thanks to a pretty nice thunderstorm that rolled on by. No big deal. I stayed in bed till about 6 and then it was time to get up. We flipped on the news (we always watch WESH when in Orlando) and learned that we had already hit the high temprature for the day. It was 90 the day before, and we were presently at 67, and it was only headed down from there. It was also completely overcast with no sign of a break in the clouds. Thankfully this Wisconsin gal packed for the elements.

Honestly, I packed for the elements because then I assumed it would be sweltering all trip. Didn't actually pack them with the intention of using them. Thankfully the rain had mostly stopped by the time we headed to bus stop 2.

We headed to Magic Kingdom and found a line that was pretty short for a Sunday morning. I think the rain scared most people away.

We only had a few minutes to wait before we were let in. Our ADR at Crystal Palace was at 8:10 AM, so we arrived early in hopes of being seated early. We were behind a massive group of people (about 30 in all) all in very cute matching shirts. There was no way around them, so I just waited behind them. Thats right, all of them lined up in the check in queue. We checked in and were handed a pager, and then we waited.

Here's a review of how the rest of the meal went (Don't forget to check out our fancy winter attire.)

If you followed my last review then you will know that I was very self conscious about taking pictures at a buffet. I don't know why. In retrospect it is actually probably less odd to be doing so when there are characters milling about then when there are not. Anyways, I am glad to report that I got over myself on this trip.

Breakfast at Crystal Palace on our first full day has now become our tradition for us. So far, they haven't disappointed!

There is a really great selection at this buffet. Yogurt, cheese, a variety of fresh fruit, whipped cream, cold cereal, hot cereal, egg fritata, breakfast potatoes, Pooh's puffed french toast, breakfast pizzza, pastrami lox, chocolate Mickey waffles (they do have plain Mickey waffles for the purists in the audience,) potato hash assorted pastries, and omelettes made to order.

Our reservation was at 8:10, but we were seated promptly at 2 after 8. Score!

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Here is my first plate. Starting at 11 o'clock and progressing clockwise we have cubed cheese (swiss and cheddar), pastrami cured lox, breakfast potatoes, and a yummy concoction they were calling breakfast casserole. It is a french toast casserole, or something that closely resembles bread pudding in flavor and texture. It is topped with a vanilla custard, sliced strawberry and banana, and then they brulee'd the custard a bit, but not to the extrent of a traditional creme brulee. There was also a layer of raspberries on the bottom. I scooped above the raspberries as I do not care for their seeds. Sorry, mine is flipped upside down in the picture. It came off the spoon that way and there was no saving it. It was excellent, although I have never met a raisin-less bread pudding that I didn't love.

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Sorry its really blurry. Adam wasn't used to my new camera. Starting at 11 again, is vegetable frittata, strawberries and cream, sliced tomato, breakfast potatoes and corned beef hash, and bacon.

So...the bacon. I don't eat bacon, but I had read lots of reports that Disney's bacon is...bizarre. This was like tissue paper!! It was actually see through! True story, we played with our food at the table. I am sorry if, by default, your child learned inappropriate table etiquette from me, but I couldn't get over this bacon. It shattered when you grabbed it with the tongs. No, not crumbled like bacon you would use for a salad, but actually shattered, like it was a sheet of very thin glass. So, another vote in the Disney has weird bacon column.

After this we did order omelettes (which I forgot to take a picture of!) I had a ham, mushroom, and swiss. I don't remember what Adam had, but he was upset they didn't have sour cream on the buffet for omelettes, just salsa. I think that most people don't enjoy sour cream with their omelette. Am I right? The guy that made our omelettes was not very friendly at all. Not rude either. Just the type that really seemed to hate the fact he was making omelettes for people. But I did see him making eggs over easy for a guy. I wouldn't have thought to ask for eggs to order as well.

We had another fantastic meal here this year. I hope that we get to go back in the not so distant future!

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After breakfast we were trying to decide if we had enough time to make it over to Space Mountain for a spin before meeting for our tour. We decided to make a go for it. We were finished with breakfast at 8:54, so we headed over to Tomorrowland. At precisely 9 AM sharp, we were following the CMs to Space Mountain, and trying to not get run over in the process.

We made it on the 2nd ride of the day, and then proceeded over to City Hall to check in. We were offered complimentary coffee and bottled water and given a name tag! We also ordered our lunch for the day.

I won't post specific specific details of the tour, because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone. My only advice is that if you have at all considered it in the past and have been "on the fence" DO IT! I am so glad we did! I will share that one member of our tour group was rather emotional and felt that it ruined some of the magic for her.

You do go to 2 behind the scenes areas, and they are a bit shocking to see what it looks like back there. You also get to see the underground utilidors, which I found somewhat boring, but Adam was fascinated by them. One of the most interesting things about the utilidors was that you get to watch a movie about the laundry service at the Magic Kingdom. It never occurred to me that CMs can actually have multiple positions in the park. I thought all the Haunted Mansion CMs worked the Haunted Mansion, and Space Mountain worked Space Mountain, etc. It turns out CMs can have up to 8 different costumes out at a time.

Our tour guide was Matt and he was so incredible! He was so knowledgable and taught me so much. He was also very respectful and asked that we ask our "behind the scenes" questions when we were behind the scenes, and not afterwards, just in case little ears, or other guests were listening.

We got to ride a few rides (Jungle Cruise and Haunted Mansion.) but mostly we learned about a ton of the little hidden touches throughout the park.

Here are a few pics from the Jungle Cruise:

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After our tour we were freezing! We decided to head back to the hotel for a break before returning for dinner.

When we got there we stopped at the Laguna Bar, and had a cocktail.

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I had the sangria and Adam had a margarita (which they made from scratch!) Both were tasty, and we tried our best to imagine we were in a warm warm place.
 
Your breakfast at CP looks great! We really enjoyed it there as well! DBF went nuts for that breakfast casserole too.

The Keys to the Kingdom Tour sounds really interesting! I've always debated doing a tour like that, maybe in the future we will! It must be really cool to get to see the behind-the-scenes aspects!
 
Amazing updates!

I have a serious weakness for the PB&J Malt at 50's PT - so I can only imagine that this Creme brulee is AMAZING!!!

Your KTTK tour sounds awesome too!

D~
 
I remember that day. Was it ever 67 at any point? My phone kept reading the temp in the mid to low 50s ALL DAY. We all packed pants and a light jacket ... as we thought that would be all we would need. We spent all day looking for indoor things to do to stay warm. :lmao:

I'm glad you enjoyed your tour! I'd love to do it one day. Maybe on an adults only trip. :thumbsup2
 















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