Oh the places We Go, The People We see

[jenseib]

Continued from previous pages post

I dont think we waited more than a couple of minutes before they took us to our seats.





We got that darn bread again, but also another bread as well&.but it had raisins in it, which I also do not care for.



The menu today was basically this &.
Basket of sweet breads

Seasonal Fruit Bowl for na Keiki (Kids)

Breakfast platter for the table which includes:

Hua Paka (Scrambled Eggs) - made fresh, hot & delicious
Uala Kahiki (Fried Potatoes) - island-style potatoes, caramelized onions & scallions
Pua'a (Pork) - pork breakfast sausage links & smoked bacon
Biscuits
Mickey Waffles - brought tableside by a server

Unlimited Juice, Milk and Coffee included
The juice is a blend of passion fruit, orange and guava.



Our waitress wasnt too fabulous. Not bad, but she was too busy to pay attention to a table of 2. We both got juice, but I asked for milk as well and it never came. She was slow to refill the juice and I reminded her about the milk, but again it never came.

We did enjoy our food though.



Claire pretty much had a breakfast of Mickey Waffles.



A parade came around, but Claire would not join.













Our first character was Lilo. I think Claire has an idea who she is, but I dont think she has ever seen Lilo and Stitch as a movie. I know I havent. She has seen the cartoon a few times though.





My flash was wonky and both pictures I took of Claire have her in shadow. I tried to fix them, but it didnt work to well.





Soon Pluto arrived.













We sure do enjoy this juice.

 

[jenseib]

Stitch came over next. He was a lot of fun!







I think this might’ve been the first time we ever met Stitch.





And then our main man Mickey made his way over.











With it just being the 2 of us, it didn’t take long to get filled up. Sadly our waitress seemed more interested in other tables. I had to flag her down to get the check and then it still took a bit before she came back with it. After she took our card, and we again waited, I actually stood up next to the table with my backpack on to give the universal signal of “We are ready to leave”.
Finally she came back and we headed off again.



I tried to take a few quick pictures as we left, but most came out pretty blurry.





Our thoughts on ‘Ohana for breakfast….. The food was decent. Not fabulous, but good and there were enough things for both of us to like. The character interaction was decent, with Stitch being the best. Our waitress was slow and I never did get my milk and because I reminded her twice I reflected my dislike in her tip, which was less than I would normally give. Would we go back? Yes…In fact in March we have a reservation. But the reason we do is because my cousins are going down the week before us and we have a day where we both can meet up and this was a breakfast she wanted to do for her boys, so I made it for all 8 of us to get together. It’s their last FULL day and our first FULL day at the parks.



I took a quick peek at Kona….we do have a reservation for her next year at this point, but I may have to cancel it once I get my plans more set.





So we decided to head to the monorail.





Looking down.



Here it comes!



A little closer…..



Here it is.

 

[JKSWonder]

We haven't had great luck with servers at O'Hana, but we keep going back because we like the atmosphere and the food is pretty good.

 

[KatMark]

More beautiful pictures of the Poly, Jen.

Sorry for the poor service at Ohana (again). We've never done breakfast there. I don't like Stitch, I don't like scrambled eggs, those potatoes don't look appealing and I'd only be eating the waffles and bacon (I much prefer to buffet to get the types of food I like).

Love the pictures of Claire with Mickey and Pluto...those turned out great.

Do you have Kona booked for breakfast or dinner? We've never done dinner, but breakfast is one of our two favorite at Disney.

 

[ptisme]

We always do breakfast at O'hana cause I love Stitch and it is the only place you can see Lilo. Not a huge fan of the food but we do a lot of character meals so I don't have to wait in lots of lines to see the characters we want to see. We usually do this early on on MK day so we can hop on the monorail and get to ropedrop. My DS loves POG juice as they say in Hawaii. Can't get enough there and they have it at Tusker house for breakfast too. Also had it on the Dream in Cabanas. Sorry your waitress was less than stellar. We usually have good luck there.

Monica

 

[dizneeat]

Love all the pictures, Jen, but mediocre service seems to happen rather often at Ohana.
We usually had a meal there but for the last few years we skipped it because of the service and how rushed we felt.

I am glad you enjoyed the characters. Stitch can be so much fun!

 

[jenseib]

We haven't had great luck with servers at O'Hana, but we keep going back because we like the atmosphere and the food is pretty good.

Yeah service wasn't good at all.. The food was ok, but pricey for what you get.

More beautiful pictures of the Poly, Jen.

Sorry for the poor service at Ohana (again). We've never done breakfast there. I don't like Stitch, I don't like scrambled eggs, those potatoes don't look appealing and I'd only be eating the waffles and bacon (I much prefer to buffet to get the types of food I like).

Love the pictures of Claire with Mickey and Pluto...those turned out great.

Do you have Kona booked for breakfast or dinner? We've never done dinner, but breakfast is one of our two favorite at Disney.

It is pricey for what you get. I don't think any breakfast potatoes at Disney are very good. I have yet to find any that I think "yum" about. I really have to load them with ketchup.
We have Kona for breakfast. I hear good things about it, but I don't like macadamia nuts on or in stuff, so I don't think I'll like the pancakes and I don't like banana anything (except the fruit itself) so no tonga toast for me either. I'll have to look over the menu a bit more.

We always do breakfast at O'hana cause I love Stitch and it is the only place you can see Lilo. Not a huge fan of the food but we do a lot of character meals so I don't have to wait in lots of lines to see the characters we want to see. We usually do this early on on MK day so we can hop on the monorail and get to ropedrop. My DS loves POG juice as they say in Hawaii. Can't get enough there and they have it at Tusker house for breakfast too. Also had it on the Dream in Cabanas. Sorry your waitress was less than stellar. We usually have good luck there.

Monica

I am not sure if I ever saw the juice on the Dream......maybe I need to sail her again so I can see. We like character meals as well. As Claire has gotten older we are branching out and doing other meals, but I try to get at least 1 character meal each trip. This next trip is offsite, so I only made a few ADR's so far.

Love all the pictures, Jen, but mediocre service seems to happen rather often at Ohana.
We usually had a meal there but for the last few years we skipped it because of the service and how rushed we felt.

I am glad you enjoyed the characters. Stitch can be so much fun!

It's sad that the service is so poor. I actually wanted to be rushed though and she was so slow. I think after this next trip, it will be awhile before we go back again. It's just so pricey.

 

[francis6306]

Finally caught up!! Thank you for the SOA show review. I will see how we like 'Ohana and wait a few years on that one!!

You are making me VERY sad about going in March- HOW am I going to enjoy Disney without my Christmas decor!??!!!? I am excited about warmer temps though… sigh… We'll see how it all works out!

We didn't get to check our bags, because we had to leave before 8am. So we still had to check all of our luggage. At the time, the flight worked better for Catie, BUT next trip, we'll fly out later!

 

[KatMark]

Jen, I don't like the macademia either and I hate bananas. They have great regular french toast, you can get the pancakes with the macademia on the side (or not at all) and there omelets are very good. Best bacon in all of Disney. And then the Pressed Pot Coffee...heaven in a cup.

 

[littlenellbell]

We don't normally do big breakfasts, but Ohana breakfast looks fun and the food looks good. Love the pictures of Claire with the characters.

 

[Woth2982]

I felt the same way when I went to Ohana in February. It was also our last day, and the place was not very busy but the waitress was very slow. The food though we did enjoy, as well as the characters. We had better character interactions here than at Chef Mickey. We were there for an hour and only one character came over.

Your photos of the Poly are great! I could wonder around that resort for hours I think. We stayed there when I was younger, but I agree, it is showing its age a bit, although the pool has been completely redone since 1994!

 

[dolphingirl47]

I am glad that on the whole you enjoyed breakfast at 'Ohana. I am going on December 11th. I did not think the food was all that good, but I loved the juice and I mainly go for Stitch. We had so much fun with Stitch last time round and he is my firm favourite.

Corinna

 

[mickeystoontown]

I wouldn't say that the Polynesian is my "dream resort" but I sure wouldn't mind staying there. I love the tropical feel of the resort, all of the woodwork, etc. that the Poly has.

There's no way that I could get John to eat breakfast at Ohana simply because Stitch is there. He can't stand him for some reason. It's too bad that the waitress wasn't very attentive. I hate trying to chase down somebody to help me...especially when it's time to leave.

 

[mom2rtk]

OK, Jen. I was really afraid to come back over here and see just how far behind I was.......... You know you COULD have waited for me! I guess I was relieved to "only" be 20 pages behind!

I'm so glad Claire got to enjoy the Christmas skirt set. She looks awesome in it, and I love that you got her photo with the party CMs. How adorable is that!

How happy you must have been to get into New Fantasyland that night. I know at that time it was a rare treat. It turns out you early holiday travelers had it much better than me since by the time we got there, it was open for good and the crowds never let up.

And might I add that I'm not the least bit surprised Claire was taller than Belle at her age!

At least your photopass pictures turned out ok in ETWB. We have done it 4 time now (twice in December, twice in June) and pretty much all of our PP shots stunk. I was really glad I shot in RAW on my camera, because I needed to do a LOT of tweaking to get them close to ok.

LOL at the stained glass window being the Beast with no pants. I can TOTALLY see that now, but it never occurred to me until you pointed that out. Now get your mind out of the GUTTER!

I don't blame you for loving the fireworks back in New Fantasyland. It really is a great place to escape the crowds now while still enjoying part of the show.

Great shot of Cindy in her carriage! She is my favorite part of that parade, and there's lots of great stuff in that parade.

LOL on wanting that mirror float from the parade to fall apart! I like your plan! I wonder if they'll find a way to include it in the new daytime parade that's coming this spring.........

YEAH for meeting Scrooge! He was just to fun to pass up!

I felt like I was back at the Christmas party seeing your photos. It really is just heavenly, isn't it? Sigh. I'm excited about heading to DLR this year, but I really am going to miss that party. I know they do at lot at DLR, but I was really hoping they'd have a party going this year.

Too funny that Claire was so looking forward to riding Figment! Can you believe I just rode it for the first time ever last December? Sad, I know.....

OK, I just added Via Napoli to my list for our next visit to Epcot. That looks really yummy!

You got a great variety of shots around Epcot. You make even this Epcot avoider want to go back. We haven't done any of the missions either. I wonder if Katie is too old for that now.....

I LOVE the silly photos on your way out of Epcot. You know, you should bring an ear hat next time and recreate that adorable little impish one from way back when. Surely you know which one I'm talking about?????? If Claire won't do it, you could!

I do agree that the CARS section of AoA is the best. If I could justify the price of a suite, I would totally stay there.

LOL on you thinking you should have gotten a hot dog for dinner at the Spirit of Aloha dinner. It sounds like the food matched your view. What a bummer for your last night.

How lucky that the princess line was so short that night. A royal meeting sounds like a good way to end such a magical trip. I'm glad I got caught up and finally got to see more pictures of Rapunzel. She really does look like she has a lot of personality. She looks like she was playful, and that's what matters. In general though, I really haven't seen many stunningly beautiful princesses at WDW lately. Maybe when we go to DLR? I hear they all flock to the west coast to hit it big in the movies!

I really did LOVE the holiday décor at AoA. How lucky you got to see it just in the nick of time!

We've only done Ohana for breakfast once, in 2002. I suppose we really need to try it again!

I can't believe I finally caught back up..... and your trip is over. Although I know you're about it!

What an amazing trip though. I've told you before, it's my dream trip, watching the parks change from Halloween to Christmas. Thanks for letting me come along virtually!

 

[jenseib]

Finally caught up!! Thank you for the SOA show review. I will see how we like 'Ohana and wait a few years on that one!!

You are making me VERY sad about going in March- HOW am I going to enjoy Disney without my Christmas decor!??!!!? I am excited about warmer temps though… sigh… We'll see how it all works out!

We didn't get to check our bags, because we had to leave before 8am. So we still had to check all of our luggage. At the time, the flight worked better for Catie, BUT next trip, we'll fly out later!

I have been trying to update as much as possible. We are closing in at a year since the trip......I do have all the pictures edited and almost everything written up, so I am close!

I suggested a celebration trip for Claire's b-day to Skip last night...and he totally blew me off. Claire however did not. I'll have to work on him. I am having surgery in a few weeks and he is complaining about it (you know after I have gone through at least 4 surgeries with him over the past few years and mine is minor outpatient stuff) and if he keeps it up, I am just going to have to get nasty....and you don't want to see me nasty!!!!

Jen, I don't like the macademia either and I hate bananas. They have great regular french toast, you can get the pancakes with the macademia on the side (or not at all) and there omelets are very good. Best bacon in all of Disney. And then the Pressed Pot Coffee...heaven in a cup.

Good to know. I don't do French toast either nor coffee, but if I can get plain pancakes I am all set. (I don't do syrup either,,,I know I am weird).

We don't normally do big breakfasts, but Ohana breakfast looks fun and the food looks good. Love the pictures of Claire with the characters.

It was fun and a nice way to spend our last moments at the world. Since I haven't eaten anything yet this morning, the food looks really good right now.

I felt the same way when I went to Ohana in February. It was also our last day, and the place was not very busy but the waitress was very slow. The food though we did enjoy, as well as the characters. We had better character interactions here than at Chef Mickey. We were there for an hour and only one character came over.

Your photos of the Poly are great! I could wonder around that resort for hours I think. We stayed there when I was younger, but I agree, it is showing its age a bit, although the pool has been completely redone since 1994!

I hear that about Chef Mickey's a lot. We went once, on our first trip with Claire and it was just kind of a mess. We had to ask for characters to come to us so we could leave and the waitress wasn't that great either.

I am glad that on the whole you enjoyed breakfast at 'Ohana. I am going on December 11th. I did not think the food was all that good, but I loved the juice and I mainly go for Stitch. We had so much fun with Stitch last time round and he is my firm favourite.

Corinna

I don't mind stitch. I know some love him, some hate him. He is OK with me, but not my favorite. But it is nice to meet him and lilo to add to our list.

I wouldn't say that the Polynesian is my "dream resort" but I sure wouldn't mind staying there. I love the tropical feel of the resort, all of the woodwork, etc. that the Poly has.

There's no way that I could get John to eat breakfast at Ohana simply because Stitch is there. He can't stand him for some reason. It's too bad that the waitress wasn't very attentive. I hate trying to chase down somebody to help me...especially when it's time to leave.

I wouldn't mind staying there either, mostly for location. But they need to bring that price way down!
I hate chasing waitresses down too. It drives me batty.

 

[jenseib]

I will put replies in red

OK, Jen. I was really afraid to come back over here and see just how far behind I was.......... You know you COULD have waited for me! I guess I was relieved to "only" be 20 pages behind!

Thats ok. I know how busy you have been. 20 pages isn't too bad at al really.

I'm so glad Claire got to enjoy the Christmas skirt set. She looks awesome in it, and I love that you got her photo with the party CMs. How adorable is that!

I love that picture with the CM's

How happy you must have been to get into New Fantasyland that night. I know at that time it was a rare treat. It turns out you early holiday travelers had it much better than me since by the time we got there, it was open for good and the crowds never let up.

It was such a treat and so many people didn't know it was open. I was lucky to basically walk on Little Mermaid when I heard how long the waits were after it officially opened.

And might I add that I'm not the least bit surprised Claire was taller than Belle at her age!

At least your photopass pictures turned out ok in ETWB. We have done it 4 time now (twice in December, twice in June) and pretty much all of our PP shots stunk. I was really glad I shot in RAW on my camera, because I needed to do a LOT of tweaking to get them close to ok.

Well you know Claire is pretty tall for her age. And kind of odd shaped.
It really is hard to take pictures in there. Some of mine were decent, but it is hard to get them.

LOL at the stained glass window being the Beast with no pants. I can TOTALLY see that now, but it never occurred to me until you pointed that out. Now get your mind out of the GUTTER!

Someone pointed it out on another TR and now I can't even look at it without thinking that! Let's just say, Belle truly likes him for his personality!

I don't blame you for loving the fireworks back in New Fantasyland. It really is a great place to escape the crowds now while still enjoying part of the show.

They were gorgeous back there.

Great shot of Cindy in her carriage! She is my favorite part of that parade, and there's lots of great stuff in that parade.

LOL on wanting that mirror float from the parade to fall apart! I like your plan! I wonder if they'll find a way to include it in the new daytime parade that's coming this spring.........

I was frustrated photographing the parade. It was crowded and my flash was acting up, but I still enjoyed it so much.
I bet that float will be there. I am willing to bet money!!!

YEAH for meeting Scrooge! He was just to fun to pass up!


I felt like I was back at the Christmas party seeing your photos. It really is just heavenly, isn't it? Sigh. I'm excited about heading to DLR this year, but I really am going to miss that party. I know they do at lot at DLR, but I was really hoping they'd have a party going this year.

Scrooge was so much fun too see. Thanks to Carey letting me know where he would be.
At least you will see Disney decor, even if it's in CA. I am still trying to figure out a way to get there.

Too funny that Claire was so looking forward to riding Figment! Can you believe I just rode it for the first time ever last December? Sad, I know.....

OK, I just added Via Napoli to my list for our next visit to Epcot. That looks really yummy!

You never rode Figment till last year? Holy cow!

We LOVED Via Napoli

You got a great variety of shots around Epcot. You make even this Epcot avoider want to go back. We haven't done any of the missions either. I wonder if Katie is too old for that now.....

I LOVE the silly photos on your way out of Epcot. You know, you should bring an ear hat next time and recreate that adorable little impish one from way back when. Surely you know which one I'm talking about?????? If Claire won't do it, you could!

Claire liked the missions and I bet Katie would too, because they can be in charge...or think they are at least. But do the UK as Mexic was not all that fun.
I know EXACTLY which photo you are talking about. I bet she wouldn't do it though. Well I could just put the hat on her and then she would be mad and make a face.

I do agree that the CARS section of AoA is the best. If I could justify the price of a suite, I would totally stay there.

I can't justify the price either, but I would like to stay again. But the LM rooms are so far away...at least for my liking.

LOL on you thinking you should have gotten a hot dog for dinner at the Spirit of Aloha dinner. It sounds like the food matched your view. What a bummer for your last night.

Yeah, we won't be back there for a while

How lucky that the princess line was so short that night. A royal meeting sounds like a good way to end such a magical trip. I'm glad I got caught up and finally got to see more pictures of Rapunzel. She really does look like she has a lot of personality. She looks like she was playful, and that's what matters. In general though, I really haven't seen many stunningly beautiful princesses at WDW lately. Maybe when we go to DLR? I hear they all flock to the west coast to hit it big in the movies!

Yes, they do seem to have lost a lot of the beautiful princesses. Or maybe i was just seeing them different before.

I really did LOVE the holiday décor at AoA. How lucky you got to see it just in the nick of time!

We've only done Ohana for breakfast once, in 2002. I suppose we really need to try it again!

I can't believe I finally caught back up..... and your trip is over. Although I know you're about it!

What an amazing trip though. I've told you before, it's my dream trip, watching the parks change from Halloween to Christmas. Thanks for letting me come along virtually!

I was so excited to see the Decor going up at AoA that night. It really made a perfect ending for the trip.

We are doing 'Ohana agin in March, but then I don't think we'll rush back after that one...unless Claire insists.

It was a dream trip. To do both parties and see the transformation was awesome. Cruising in between was awesome too. I would love to do it again, but I am not sure if it will be in the budget any time soon.

 

[jenseib]

Our Next Stop! Magic Kingdom!

Now I mentioned this before, but it was quite a few days ago on this report, that when I booked our trip I booked 7 days worth of tickets. But after getting plans all in place I really only needed 6 days. BUT the ticket price had increased since I booked and to take a day off would actually cost me more than to keep that days tickets, so I just kept them. Since we still had time I figured let’s use them or lose them. I knew we wouldn’t have much time in the park, but going in would give us that one last fix.



We headed straight to the Candy store as we still had several snack credits left with the deluxe dining plan.





We picked out several bags of candy and Claire made a “make your own” pixie stick, which was marked right there which sizes were included in the dining plan.





When we went to check out, the CM told us pixie sticks weren’t included. I told her yes they were and 2 sizes were actually listed. She still told me no and I again said yes they are, and it was the only reason I allowed her to get it. If it’s not included, we aren’t getting it. So she said she would “try” to put it through and guess what? I was right. (Don’t ever doubt me!)

With our package in hand, we left and headed down Main Street. I had one other thing planned.











We had to have one last dole whip float before going and I saved a snack credit just for that.



Of course the line was moving slowly.



But finally we had that precious snack in our hand.



We sat down and shared one last yummy treat. I think I called Amanda again to confirm her picking us up later and to talk about my car and its tire.
Nothing like Pixie stick and dole whip float.




We had been conversing a bit over the last few days and it was just a mess. She had the tire changed by AAA to the spare and then drove it to a couple of different places to have the flat one fixed. They said the wheel was bent and there were some other issues and it was going to cost several hundred dollars to replace it…and it would have to be ordered. I talked to Skip and he made a call to his buddy who owns a tire shop and he said to just drive it home on the spare and just to not go over 55. This made me a little nervous, but they assured us we would be fine if we didn’t hot rod it.

I put that to the back of my mind for now. I wanted to enjoy my last moments.

Claire and I discussed what to do. She wanted to either do Carousel of Progress or the Laugh Floor. Though we had time, I was still worried about how the buses would run and how long the wait would be. In the end I decided we should head back up front and get back to AoA. It made me nervous to think if something went wrong and we missed the bus or flights. I am sure we would’ve been fine, but I just didn’t want to test my luck.



And this was a first for us…some MK streetmosphere!



I can’t recall seeing any in the past, but we usually walk through her pretty fast. We did stop and watch.



This girl was walking around in the area and we asked for a picture.



And then we headed on towards the front.









It didn’t take long and the bus was there and we headed back to AoA.

 

[jenseib]

Back at AoA we made a quick bathroom stop.





And then we roamed around since we made such good time and still had quite a bit of time to waste.















We had not been by the bridge yet this trip, so we headed over there.



It was neat being on this side of it after so many stays at Pop Century with this end being closed off.











We decided we had time to take a quick wander around Pop.

 

[mom2rtk]

After falling so far behind, I thought you might appreciate one timely reply from me.....

I'm glad you got to pop into the MK on your departure day. We usually try to take the last flight of the day and spend a few hours there. It keeps us distracted on such a sad day.

The Dole whip float looks pretty awesome. Was that the orange one? I have only tried pineapple but would love to try an orange one next. I'm hoping they have the orange version at DL.

I also wandered around taking more photos of AoA when we were back at the resort on departure day. I walked those grounds SO many times. I wouldn't even want to start counting how many photos I took there that week. Of course, I have the same problem you do, waking up early every morning, so I would walk the grounds then.

 

[dolphingirl47]

That was nice that you made it to Magic Kingdom on the last morning. I have never been brave enough to try this, but are determined that I will go to Epcot for a couple of hours on the last day this time round.

What a shame about the car trouble. Expensive repairs are the last thing you need straight after a vacation.

Corinna