How Many ADRs Can We Fit in One Week?: April 2015 TR- Finished 7/3!

Day 7: Look, There’s No One Here! Oh, Wait…

Plans for the Day:

ADRs: Kona Café, 8:45 a.m.; Jiko, 7:30 p.m.
FP+: Muppet Vision 10:20; Tower of Terror 1:55; RnRC 3:50


Rise and Shine! It’s our last full day of Disney! I woke up and couldn’t believe we were already approaching the end of our trip. We had planned to make this day another day in Hollywood Studios, then return to AKL for a romantic dinner at Jiko, and then head over to Magic Kingdom for EMH until 2:00 a.m. The day ended up MUCH different than we had planned.

On our resort hopping day, DH checked out the menu for Kona Café while we were in the Polynesian and thought their breakfast looked pretty good. He decided he wanted to try that, so we opted to book a reservation for that for our Saturday breakfast, and cancel our existing lunch ADR at Mama Melrose’s. I said that was fine, and we could just head over to HS once we were done at Kona.

So we started our morning off with some great breakfast!

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DH also really enjoyed the French press coffee he ordered. Overall, we had a really great breakfast with fantastic service. We both decided we would definitely eat here again in the future!

We headed out to the bus stops at Polynesian and quickly got on a bus to Hollywood Studios. I couldn’t believe when we got on the bus that it was only us and one other family on there! I told DH how it must not be very crowded today and how great that would be!

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As it turns out, my excitement was very short-lived…

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YIKES! Turns out nobody was on the bus with us because they were all already in the parks! We decided just to head into HS and see what it looked like.

Well, it turned out to be pure chaos. There were people EVERYWHERE. I should have known all of the locals would come in on Saturday. Lines for everything were outrageous, so we just decided to run back to Muppet Vision and use our FP for that. After we were done, we decided that instead of staying in the crammed park, we would head over to Epcot and check out World Showcase some more since it was now after 11. So we hopped a boat and ventured back around the world!

World Showcase was crowded, but definitely nowhere as near as packed as HS had been. We basically just meandered along for a while, not really riding anything but just checking things out.

We really had no need to eat a big lunch since we had just eaten breakfast, but we had discovered recently that we still had a ton of snack credits left to use, so we decided to look at the snack options. We headed back in France to Les Halles Boulangerie. We were amazed at all the delicious arranged food options when we walked in, and spent a few minutes staring at the incredible looking desserts.

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We decided to split the lobster bisque and a chocolate mousse. Both of these were snack credits!

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They were both sooo delicious. The lobster bisque was very rich, but was excellent.

After our snack, we headed around WS and shopped a little bit more, but didn’t buy anything. I had heard so many great things about Norway’s bakery that I told DH I really wanted to stop there for, uh, second lunch… don’t judge me.

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I have no regrets.
 
Day 7: “Due to unforeseen circumstances...”

Plans for the Day:

ADRs: Kona Café, 8:45 a.m.; Jiko, 7:30 p.m.
FP+: Muppet Vision 10:20; Tower of Terror 1:55; RnRC 3:50


At this point, it was around 1:00 and we were contemplating what to do with the afternoon given the relatively crowded parks. I told DH that since we were near HS and had a FP+ for Tower of Terror, I really didn’t want to leave without getting to ride it again. DH agreed that that was fine since we had a FP+, so we hopped back on the boat to go to HS again. By the time we made it out of Epcot and into HS, we were just in time for our FP+. I got to do my final ride on ToT, which was almost perfect other than the dumb guy on the ride next to me who decided to turn his flashlight on on his phone as we moved forward into the elevator shaft. Why this was necessary I don’t know.

Since we were all done in HS and our RnRC FP wasn’t for over another hour, we decided to head back to the hotel for the afternoon. We did a little bit of looking around the hotel and took some pictures since we hadn’t really taken any photos in the hotel.

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After that, we decided to finally hit up the pool. It was a little crowded, but we found some chairs and were able to relax in the sun and get in the pool for a bit. I also checked out the flamingos that were nearby.

We laid out for a couple hours before we decided we should probably head back to our room to get ready for our dinner at Jiko, which we were both very excited about. As we were packing up our things, my phone rang with a Florida area code. I answered it and it was someone calling me from Jiko. Horror of horrors, she informed that Jiko had just closed for the evening due to unforeseen circumstances and we would not be able to eat dinner!! I was so upset! I asked her if there was any way it would be opening back up as it was the last night of our honeymoon and we were so looking forward to eating there. She said that it would not be reopening, but we could try Boma for dinner.

We quickly packed up our things and headed inside, where we came upon a total mad house as everyone who had previously had Jiko reservations were now crowding around the hostess for Boma trying to get a reservation. We quickly decided we were not about to wait to try to get a table there as it was likely already packed with reservations to begin with.

Instead, we headed to the front desk and asked someone if he could help us try to find another reservation. Unfortunately, this was probably the least helpful CM we encountered in our entire trip. He basically had no suggestions at all. He checked Mara for us and told us that was booked. We asked if he could find anywhere else nice since it was the last night of our honeymoon. I knew this was a long shot as it was a Saturday night at Disney, but I was hoping there would be something available. There was not, and his best offer was “you can order pizza to your room.” Really? REALLY?! I didn’t want to be rude, so I decided it was in my best interest to just walk away at that point.

We decided to head back to our room to regroup and see what we could figure out. DH started looking on his phone to try to find reservations anywhere else. We were planning on going to MK that evening for EMH, so we didn’t really want to go super far out of our way to dinner and then have to head back to MK. Meanwhile, I called the dining reservations number and was connected to the NICEST woman I think I’ve ever talked to at Disney. The poor woman felt so bad that we had lost our Jiko reservation, and was really working hard to try to find us anything near MK that would be good. Unfortunately, everything was totally booked on an hour’s notice on a Saturday night, which was not surprising. The only thing she could come up with was a dinner reservation at Tony’s in MK. Knowing absolutely nothing about the restaurant other than it was Italian, I told her to go ahead and book that just so we would have something to eat. She then did a little more digging and told us that she had an opening for lunch at Be Our Guest the next day that just became available if we were interested in going there. Having heard a lot of great things about BoG lunch, I told her to go ahead and book that. I thought that was very nice of her to try to find something else us for the next day too given our bad luck with dinner.

After quickly getting cleaned up, we hopped on a bus to MK for our dinner at Tony’s. There was a fairly long line when we arrived, which I was hoping was a good sign.

Unfortunately, it was not a good sign. And I imagine that many of you might have read that we were going to Tony’s and immediately went :scared: I really don’t think I’m speaking from a place of disappointment that we couldn’t go to Jiko when I say that Tony’s was honestly our worst meal of the entire trip. Our wait was probably the longest one we’ve had, which I’m willing to let slide for a Saturday night in Disney World. The food was mediocre, at best. Honestly, it tasted like frozen Italian food out of a box. Our waitress’ personality was also mediocre, at best. She wasn’t rude and our food came out in a reasonable amount of time, but I don’t think she ever said anything to us beyond “hello” and “what can I get for you?” And I’m not saying that every waiter gushed over us being honeymooners, but I do know that at least every waiter or waitress looked at our buttons and at least said “congratulations.”

I really tried my best not to let our final evening be ruined by the cancellation of our meal at Jiko, and we did have a great night despite that. But Tony’s was without a doubt the worst meal I’ve ever had at a Disney restaurant. Two thumbs very down. One day, Jiko, I will come eat your delicious food!

After our meal, we decided to head out for some late night fun in MK. As we were leaving Tony’s, the Electrical Parade was about to start. We ended up having a fairly good viewing spot from the porch at Tony’s so we just hung out there to watch. The last time I was at Disney to watch the evening parade was in 2005, so it was still Spectromagic, which I LOVED.

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We were impressed by the parade, of course, but I thought Spectromagic was far superior. I love the music from Spectromagic, and the Electrical Parade music got a little irritating after a bit (don’t yell at me, DL fans!). All in all, it was a good parade though.

I will say that after having gone to Disneyland in January 2016, Paint the Night Parade blows ALL other parades out of the water. We LOVED Paint the Night! That was truly incredible, and I sincerely hope it comes to Disney World in the future.

After the parade, we had a great evening in MK. Is there anything like Tomorrowland at night? Something about it being all lit up and the music just makes me feel like a kid again as soon as I walk in there. We basically just wandered the parks hitting up our favorite rides again. We rode Under the Sea, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Winnie the Pooh. We then decided to get in a long line for Seven Dwarves Mine Train. It was about 50 minutes, but we both decided we wanted to ride it one more time before we left. It turned out to be more like 70 minutes, but we were glad to watch it again. The longer line also gave us the opportunity to play with some of the interactive line features, and we got to see Snow White appear above the spinning barrels!

Once we finished riding it was after midnight, so we headed back to our hotel for our last night at AKL!
 
Day 8: Until Next Time

Plans for the Day:

ADRs: Cinderella’s Royal Table, 9:00 a.m.; Be Our Guest, 12:30 p.m.

We’re finally here. Our very last day of the honeymoon. If you’ve stuck around for this (long, drawn-out) trip report, I appreciate you reading!

We woke up and finished packing up the last of our bags and said good bye to our room. We checked out bags at the front desk to catch Magical Express later and then headed to our last Disney breakfast.

We got early ADR entry into the park, which was very neat. It was totally empty!

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You can see the scaffolding erected on Main Street midway through the week too. I was glad we got pictures in front of the castle before that went up.

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We headed straight to the castle and quickly snapped our picture with Cinderella before heading up to our breakfast. We had a great seat near one of the windows where we could look out as people started entering the park. We ordered a pastry basket to start and got this cute little Mickey muffin.

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I can’t remember what we both ordered, but I know this was my meal!

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I also received a plastic wand which I was very excited about, and promptly broke that day.

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Please note my amazing shirt that I purchased that week. “Midnight Never Strikes When You’re In Love.”

The princesses came around to our table and were a lot of fun to talk to. Jasmine was by far the best interaction we had all week and was very quick on her toes with her comments. She asked about us getting married and how long we had been together. I told her that we had been dating for eight years before getting married. Without missing a beat, she responded “Wow, sounds like he was moving at camel speed instead of carpet speed.” I was cracking up!! I thought it was just hilarious! It was a mutual decision to wait so long to get married, but it was very funny nonetheless.

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After breakfast, we meandered around slowly. We were pretty tired at this point so we sort of just checked out what was happening and people-watched. We considered getting on Peter Pan, which we had never ridden this week, but the wait time was outrageous. It was sort of a running joke between us all week that we would get on this, but the line was always nuts!

One thing we hadn’t done is ride the train around the park. We chose to hop on in Frontierland to take a spin all the way around. This was a nice ride, and I can’t say I remember ever having ridden it when I was younger. To be honest, we were both so worn out at this point that I think we might have fallen asleep at one point! But it was still really nice.

We rode all the way around and back past Frontierland to get off in Storybook Circus. We hadn’t really explored this part of the park as we knew there wouldn’t be much there for us, but we decided to stop in Big Top Souvenirs. This was a great little store and we looked around for a while, ultimately buying a Mickey t-shirt for our friends’ son.

After our visit, it was time for our lunch at Be Our Guest. We were taken into the restaurant almost immediately, and got to use the ordering stations. I chose the turkey sandwich and DH got the roast beef sandwich. No pictures, but the sandwiches were pretty good. I liked the roast beef better. I’d heard such rave reviews of the carved turkey sandwich, but I didn’t think it was anything particularly special. We definitely enjoyed dinner more, but it was a good meal nonetheless.

After lunch, it was time for us to sadly make our way back to the hotel to get on the Magical Express back to the airport. On our way towards the castle, we came upon one last little bit of Disney Magic. Some street performers, a man and woman, were behind the castle doing a little show and calling out to different people. As we walked up, the woman spotted our Happily Ever After buttons and asked when we’d gotten married. We told her a week ago and she got our names and then had us come forward and announced us to the crowd! She had everyone applaud for us and had us do a kiss for the crowd! I think DH was a little embarrassed, but it was a really cute final moment for our trip!

With that final bit of Disney magic, our trip was over and we headed out the exit and back to our hotel and on to home. Happily ever after :wizard:

Thank you all so much for reading along with this wonderful trip report! It’s taken a long time to finish, but I’ve really enjoyed writing it and appreciate all of your comments along the way.

And as a surprise bonus- we are taking another trip to Disney World in just one month! Just a very quick three day trip staying at Pop Century. We are so looking forward to it and I hope you’ll join me over on my new pre-trip report!
 
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