How Disney turned Grumpy's Frown Upside Down! August 2010 TR!

[flamestarrdust]

As I mentioned previously, we had decided that after our POP lunch that we would take a nap and get rested for our dinner at Cape May. The kids and I love crab legs so we were really looking forward to this meal. Our reservation was for 7:55pm so I set the room alarm clock to 5:00pm. That would give us plenty of time to shower and change before making our way to Cape May. We settled in for our nap at around 2:30pm. We were very tired so we slept very well. Now at home, DFi normally wakes up before the alarm clock. So he wakes me up asking what time we needed to be up and I said 5:00pm. He then says uh oh and then I look at the clock to check the time and see that it is 7:28pm ! I figured it was too late to make our reservation or ask to see if we could go a little later so I just called Disney Dining and cancelled the reservation. After that we decided to just have dinner at DTD at either EoS or WPE since we had skipped it for lunch. So we get up, get dressed and leave for the buses to catch one to DTD. I also tried to take a few POP pics on our way out but my camera was having humidity issues .

We did not wait very long before a bus was there to pick us up. Once we arrived at DTD, we headed straight to WPE so DFi could see if anything on that menu interested him. We all agreed that we wanted to eat there instead of EoS so we got in line at WPE. The line was a bit out the door but not as bad as I have seen in the past. It's one of the reasons I had never eaten there before. We did not wait very long and were soon placing orders and being seated. So here is the food that we ordered:

Mine - Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf: this was amazing and a huge portion. DFi hates meatloaf but loved this. The mashed potatoes were perfect. I also got a soda, a frozen yogurt for dessert and paid OOP for a glass of chardonnay to split with DFi.

DFi - Oven Roasted Salmon: This was also very delicious. He also got this with soda and a frozen yogurt.

Haylee - Spaghetti & Meatballs: Also very tasty and a huge portion. Those meatballs are much larger than they seem. She got a coke and frozen yogurt with this. She could not finish this and had to get a to go box. We all munched on it later and it was still very good.

Alleyah - Pennette Chicken Alfredo: This was very yummy, too, and a big portion. She got a coke and brownie with this. She also had to get a to go box for this and it was also yummy later.

After dinner, we were too full for our frozen yogurts and just wanted to get a dessert to take with us. However, they only had 1 chocolate chip cookie left. So Haylee took that and we just skipped dessert. We really enjoyed this meal and will definitely be eating there again. Plus you can't beat the QS value for this. Most of our QS meals cost around $60. This one cost around $90. All of this was free for us since we had the Free DP but if we were using the DP when it wasn't free, this is definitely a great use of a QS credit.

CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST...

 

[flamestarrdust]

After dinner, we decided to explore DTD for a bit. You will have to excuse the frizzy hair and grumpy faces. We are all still very tired at this point. In between the pics, we wandered in and out of shops.

Alleyah saw Buzz and wanted a pic with him. Haylee was less than enthused to be a part of this.

Haylee wanted a pic with her favorite princess, Aurora, but was still not in a very good mood.

Haylee checking out the lego family

Alleyah and Haylee posing with the lego family

Lego Store Windows

Lego Dinosaur

Lego Transformer

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[flamestarrdust]

Alleyah and Haylee in front of the Lego Dragon

Lego Dragon

Alleyah and Haylee trying to avoid being eaten by the dinosaur at T-Rex

We didn't stay in DTD very long before we decided we were too tired to continue. So we headed back to POP for a swim before heading to bed. After a swim in the computer pool, we munched our our leftover desserts from our POP lunch.

Haylee enjoying her tie-dye cheesecake

Alleyah enjoying her dirt cup

After enjoying our desserts, we headed to bed to rest up for our breakfast at Chef Mickey's and our first day at MK!

 

[chunkymonkey]

Aww, love the TR so far! I can't imagine spending 13 hours on a train! It sounds like you guys pulled it off well though. The food at WPE looks so good! I wish we stopped there, but we didn't eat in DTD. Hopefully next time!
Looking forwartd to more!

 

[annmarieda]

I am all caught up!

It is so weird looking at your pics...I was just there less than a week ago. Your food at WPE...I have similar pics. It was one of my favorite meals!!!! We did skip the tie dye cheesecake. Looking at your dd...I am thinking...it may have been one of the good decisions we made on our trip.

 

[joyfulnet]

Loving your TR. I'm excited to be with my little nephews next week when they get to see all of those amazing Lego creations!! Wow!

 

[flamestarrdust]

Fun report so far--I look forward to reading more!

Thanks for reading along!

Aww, love the TR so far! I can't imagine spending 13 hours on a train! It sounds like you guys pulled it off well though. The food at WPE looks so good! I wish we stopped there, but we didn't eat in DTD. Hopefully next time!
Looking forwartd to more!

You should definitely try it. I had been putting it off for a while due to the long lines but I am definitely glad we tried it. I know we will definitely be going back since it became one of our faves!

I am all caught up!

It is so weird looking at your pics...I was just there less than a week ago. Your food at WPE...I have similar pics. It was one of my favorite meals!!!! We did skip the tie dye cheesecake. Looking at your dd...I am thinking...it may have been one of the good decisions we made on our trip.

It was also one of our favorite meals. The cheesecake was worth the mess. I got one later on in the week and it was very yummy and not as messy for me.

Loving your TR. I'm excited to be with my little nephews next week when they get to see all of those amazing Lego creations!! Wow!

Thanks! They are really amazing. Each one of those windows is representing different cities from all the world.

 

[flamestarrdust]

After a rough arrival day, we got a good night's sleep and were ready for our first full day/ first MK day. After the alarm clock incident, I decided wake up calls were a better idea especially since we had a 10:35am ADR for Check Mickey's. I wanted us up and out the door by 9:15am so I set the wakeup call for 8:30am. We all had showered the night before so we only needed to get dressed and go. However, I couldn't sleep so I was up by 7:45 or 8:00. After that it didn't take long for everyone else to wake up, too. We ended up leaving the room around 9:00am. Once we got to the bus stop, we only had to wait a few minutes for the MK bus to arrive. However, it was very crowded so we had to stand. This happened a few times on the trip and we were ok with it most of time. Once we were arrived at MK, we made our way to the monorail to go to CR. We also did not wait very long and were able to get seats. Here a couple monorail pics:

Alleyah and DFi

Haylee

We arrived at CR at around 10:00 so we decided to check out the gift shops before checking in. DFi had left his lighter behind at POP by accident and needed to get a new one since we did not have plans to go back to POP until later in the evening.

At around 10:20, we went to Chef Mickey's to check in. It was very crowded considering our late breakfast ADR time. I guess it must have something to do with FD. We waited a few minutes longer than our ADR. I think we were seated at around 10:40 or 10:45. Here are a few pics of us waiting to be buzzed.

CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST...

 

[flamestarrdust]

I must apologize for this next part. We were very hungry so I forgot to take a lot of food pics. I only have one actually but I have plenty of character pics. So once we were seated, our waiter came to the table and took our drink orders. He also told us that we had plenty of time to eat since the characters would not be back to our area for about 20 minutes. So we went up to pile our plates with food. I immediately grabbed a little bit of my faves: Minnie's Breakfast Pizza, Mickey Waffles, and Goofy's Vegetable Lasagna. I also got a few other things. I always get a little bit of each thing on buffets so that I'm able to try a lot of new things. Of course, I got teased a little by my family because of how full my plate was. However, that was the only plate I had since I was too full to go back for more. So here is the one pic of food and it's one of Haylee's plates:

She was a big fan of the cheese eggs. She absolutely loves cheese so the cheese covered eggs were a big deal to her. She also liked the Mickey Waffles which surprised her. I told her before the trip that she needed to try them. She didn't want to because she doesn't usually like waffles but she did anyway and was very glad she did. Alleyah also liked them a lot. DFi said the food was ok but not great. I agree with him. When I ate there in 2006, it was a lot better. However, we both agree that eating there is worth it to avoid the long character lines. Once we finished eating, the characters had still not made their way over. After about ten more minutes, they came to our area. The only downside is that we were the next to last table in their order of visits. This is odd because our table was very close to the entrance of the room. This frustrated the kids because they would have wait and watch as the characters went by our table, visited with almost every other table before us and then finally got to us. I apologized to them since I had no idea that this was a possibility. In the end it was well worth the wait to see the looks on their faces. We also got to sing along with the characters and they wished another kid "happy birthday"

Haylee waiting for the characters

Happy Birthday Sing Along

Pluto signing Alleyah's hat

Pluto Signing Haylee's autograph book

The kids and Pluto (they are still a little annoyed after the wait in this pic. They get more cheerful as more characters arrive)

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST...

 

[flamestarrdust]

Goofy's Visit

Mickey's Visit

DFi taking an unexpected pic of me while we wait for Donald. (this is an awful pic of me but since I posted the one of him in the Mickey hat, it is only fair to post an embarassing pic of myself)

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[flamestarrdust]

Donald's Visit

Minnie's Visit

CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST...

 

[TheTravelingCarters]

I'm caught up!

I would have freaked out waking up late after the nap But good idea to change the plans instead of rushing with the chance of still missing it. I can't decide if we want WPE or Raglan Road when we go to DTD...hmmm

And you pics from Chef Mickey's gets me excited for my March trip with the kids!!! Looks like so much fun

 

[flamestarrdust]

Minnie was the last character so after our visit with her, we paid our bill and left. Once outside of Chef Mickey's, DFi wanted find a DSA to smoke. I told him it might be better if we went elsewhere since I wasn't that familiar with the DSAs for CR. I told him Poly might be a better choice since it had a lot of outdoor areas. Plus I wanted to check out the gift shops there since Poly is one of my favorite resorts. So he said ok and we took the monorail to Poly. Here are a few pics we took:

The kids being silly

Poly's pool

DFi waiting for the monorail after Haylee convinced him to wear the Mickey hat. This was the first and last time he wore that hat. After a quick Poly visit, we made our way to MK.

Up Next, our first day at MK. Will we be able to stay the whole day or will the heat ruin our plans?

 

[flamestarrdust]

I'm caught up!

I would have freaked out waking up late after the nap But good idea to change the plans instead of rushing with the chance of still missing it. I can't decide if we want WPE or Raglan Road when we go to DTD...hmmm

And you pics from Chef Mickey's gets me excited for my March trip with the kids!!! Looks like so much fun

Thanks for reading along! I did freak out a little but decided it was probably for the best. It did disappoint me since it is the 2nd time I have missed out on eating at the Boardwalk area. On my 2006 trip, I had a lunch ADR on our arrival day at Big River Grille & Brewing Works. However, my friend's flight was delayed. Because of that, we decided since we had a dinner ADR for Fulton's that we should just cancel the lunch ADR and split a sandwich at EoS. This also turned out well since we loved EoS. But from now on, I will not be planning any BW ADRs for arrival day and just plan them for Epcot or relaxing days.

Chef Mickey's is a lot of fun. I'm not sure if we will go on our next trip or not just because the girls are getting older and there are several other restaurants we want to try. But if they request it then I definitely will.

I ate at Raglan Road on the 2006 trip and loved it. The atmosphere was nice and the food was good, too. I had fish and chips & was very pleased with my choice. Though WPE tops it. They had a great variety. Plus, it was the best QS we had on the entire trip. Everything that we tried was amazing.

 

[JacksLilWench]

Joining in!

I love that your daughter's cow is named Bella...it reminds me of the SNL skit with More Cowbell, lol!!!

 

[annmarieda]

I am so excited that I get to read along as you post. I was actually worried about missing updates while I was on our trip.

I think character meals are such a good way to meet the characters. The food is maybe not the greatest, but it is so neat to get the characters to come to you. (even if you do have to wait).

I love all the pics of your family. The girls are so pretty!

Cant wait to hear how you deal with the heat! Good grief, I think we about melted.

 

[vikkil70]

I love the pics from Chef Mickey's, it looks like a lot of fun!
I agree about the character dining being a great way to see the charaters without the lines. I was going back and forth between Chef Mickey's and Garden Grill. My youngest DS made the choice for us when he kept going on about meeting Chip and Dale. Same as Chef Mickey's the food was not great, but we got to see all the character two or three times which was great. We did get lucky seeing Donald in Epcot, and Minnie and Goofy in AK with hardly any lines so it worked out.

We all tried the Tye Dye cheesecake too and did'nt look much different from your daughter when we were done They were giving out samples on napkins at the main desk when we checked in. There were no forks so not only our teeth but our fingers were multicolored too. It was really good though but even that small piece was enough for me, very rich.

Loving your trip report so far, can't wait to ready more!!!!

 

[flamestarrdust]

After our mini monorail resorts tour (minus GF), we went to MK. Now I must tell you before I continue, this day was one of the hottest of the trip being topped by the final/departure day that was also in MK. It was also very crowded. I guess that a lot of people were getting in their last minute trips before school started. We arrived at MK at a little bit before noon based on the time these pictures were taken.

I also got a pic of this restaurant since I really wanted the kids to see the paw prints outside of it. I have never eaten here since I have heard so so reviews about it but I like the theming.

To keep cool, we walked through several shops. While DFi and the girls were looking around a shop, I walked outside for a minute and saw these guys.

I only saw them sing part of a song and tell a few jokes. They were very entertaining and I wished I could've stayed longer to watch them but it was entirely too hot.

After that, we made our way to Tomorrowland where there was a 5 minute wait for Stitch's Great Escape so we did that first. Everyone liked it and had no issues. DFi wanted to ride Space Mountain but the wait was 60 minutes so we decided to save it for later, possibly during EMH. Next, we went to Carousel of Progress which also only had a 5 minute wait. We all enjoyed this, too, especially since it was a nice break from the heat. After that we headed towards Haunted Mansion since it was something the kids really wanted to ride and it is one of my faves. And at this point, the heat was getting worse and worse with no sign of rain. Once we got to HM, there was a 20 minute wait so I mentioned waiting to ride it later and DFi said since it is only 20 minutes, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Turns out everyone thought that too and our wait was more around 30 to 40 minutes. Fortunately we were in a covered waiting area so it was tolerable.

After our longer than expected wait, we rode HM. Alleyah rode with me and Haylee rode with her dad/DFi. Both girls kept their eyes closed for pretty much the whole ride. But afterwards, they both said they loved it. Being still tired for the day before and worn down from the heat, we decided it was best to go back to POP for a break and then come back in the evening. As we made our way to the front of the park, I noticed wait times for most of the rides were up to 30 to 60 minutes so leaving at this time was definitely a good choice. Once at the bus stop, we waited a bit but made it back to POP at around 4pm.

Up Next, Spilled Coffee Drama and Space Mountain Meltdown...

 

[flamestarrdust]

Joining in!

I love that your daughter's cow is named Bella...it reminds me of the SNL skit with More Cowbell, lol!!!

She wanted to name it Claribel after the Disney cow but I think she settled on Bella because it was similiar. Bella shows up a couple more times in our pics. We had a lot of fun posing her on our departure day.

I am so excited that I get to read along as you post. I was actually worried about missing updates while I was on our trip.

I think character meals are such a good way to meet the characters. The food is maybe not the greatest, but it is so neat to get the characters to come to you. (even if you do have to wait).

I love all the pics of your family. The girls are so pretty!

Cant wait to hear how you deal with the heat! Good grief, I think we about melted.

Thanks for the comment on the girls! We took a lot of breaks to deal with the heat and we still had a couple minor meltdowns. We have decided that we will go for a longer time on the next trip to take things a little slower to avoid the meltdowns and manage the heat.

I am glad you get to read along, too. I have been so busy since we got back that I haven't been able to update as much as I wish I could.

I love the pics from Chef Mickey's, it looks like a lot of fun!
I agree about the character dining being a great way to see the charaters without the lines. I was going back and forth between Chef Mickey's and Garden Grill. My youngest DS made the choice for us when he kept going on about meeting Chip and Dale. Same as Chef Mickey's the food was not great, but we got to see all the character two or three times which was great. We did get lucky seeing Donald in Epcot, and Minnie and Goofy in AK with hardly any lines so it worked out.

We all tried the Tye Dye cheesecake too and did'nt look much different from your daughter when we were done They were giving out samples on napkins at the main desk when we checked in. There were no forks so not only our teeth but our fingers were multicolored too. It was really good though but even that small piece was enough for me, very rich.

Loving your trip report so far, can't wait to ready more!!!!

Thanks! After riding The Land and DFi checking out the menu, we are planning an ADR for Garden Grill for our next trip. We also got to see a few characters outside of the meal with little to no lines. But others' lines were really long.

The cheesecake is very rich and very messy. But I'm glad I tried it and will definitely get it again next time we visit POP.

 

[Mickey_Mom]

I'm caught up again! I love Chef Mickey! I just read how they're changing it and Mickey isn't coming to the tables anymore to visit. He's going to be at the front of the restaurant now only for pictures when you first arrive. Not sure I like that change.

So smart of you to walk around the Poly. Four visits under my belt and I've yet to tour the resort like that.

Great idea to head back to Pop for a break... everyone looks so hot!