Our Fantastic November Adults-Only Trip w/Pics & Food Reports *7/2/11 BB & CBR**

[SaberJ]

This trip report has been put off for far too long. I'm putting my foot down, and getting this party started right now!

Boom!

And just like that, the party has been started. But I should probably mention why it's taken approximately 2 months to get to doing this post-trip report. Part of it is procrastination, sure. But the bigger part is the sheer amount of work required to get to this point. How many people feel me when I say I was staring at a list of 900+ pictures, and several videos when I got home? I'm sure a lot of people know what I'm talking about there.

Mind you, some of the pictures we took were just silly. Who really needs 100+ pictures of Cinderella's Castle? Can you imagine going through THAT photo album? "Ok guys, this castle is great, but did you see anything else?" But that just made it all the harder. "Alright, which one of these five pictures that are of the same exact thing is the best?"

But I'll get to the pictures later. For now, I've realized that I might have caught some people off guard by jumping right into stories. So let's backup, and let me introduce my cast. But since I've already done that in the pre-trip report, I don't see any reason to repeat that typing. So instead, let me point you over to that important information. And since we are here, I think I'll go ahead and make this...

Ye Olde Table of Contents

Prelude> The Pre-Trip Report
Chapter 1> The Cast
Chapter 2> Recap
Chapter 3> Day One: Travel, Downtown Disney, Wolfgang Puck Express
Chapter 4> Day Two: Breakfast at 'Ohana
Chapter 5> Day Two: Magic Kingdom Part 1
Chapter 6> Day Two: Magic Kingdom Part 2
Addendum> New Pictures for previous posts!
Chapter 7> Day Two: Dinner at 1900 Park Fare
Chapter 8> Day Two: Return to Magic Kingdom
Chapter 9> Day Three: Epcot
Chapter 10> Day Three: Epcot Food and Wine Festival Part 1
Chapter 11> Day Three: Epcot Food and Wine Festival Part 2
Chapter 12> Day Three: More Epcot Rides
Chapter 13> Day Three: Teppan Edo
Chapter 14> Day Four: Hollywood Studios Part 1
Chapter 15> Day Four: Hollywood Studios Part 2
Chapter 16> Day Four: Sci-Fi Dine-In
Chapter 17> Day Four: Hollywood Studios Part 3
Chapter 18> Day Four: Hollywood Studios Part 4 & Wolfgang Puck Express
Chapter 19> Day Five: Blizzard Beach & Caribbean Beach Resort Pictures
Chapter 20> Day Five: More Caribbean Beach Resort Pictures



I'll be adding to this thread as often as I can find the time. Stay tuned!

 

[SaberJ]

Alright, so if you check out the Cast link in the table of contents, you can get a pretty detailed description of how we got to this point. I don't want to bore you guys by repeating all that information. But I do want to recap some of the important details.

Me, my brother, and my wife decided to head to Disney and see how much fun we could have as adults. We don't have kids, so we can't make the excuse that we were taking the kids to Disney. But we were determined to have as much fun with this week long trip as possible. Me and my brother had not been to these parks since....'98 I believe. And my wife had never been.

Since we were planning this as an epic experience, we wanted to remember it all. Thus, I bought a nice new Nikon D3100 camera before we left. We also took my brother's camera, and my HD Camcorder. So as I go along, I'm going to try and make this as pictorial as possible. Excuse me if I have an excess of pictures. I'll try not to overdo it.

Alternatively, if you would like to check out all of the pictures in album form, sorted by the days we visited each park, then check out this link: here.

Alright, so before I dive into the juicy details of the trip, I did want to go ahead and give a little payout. No sense in saving this until the end. We came away from this trip knowing well and good that we had as much fun as was possible. We took advantage of nearly every moment available to us. We took advantage of the meals, the hours, and weather to completely rock this vacation. There isn't a thing that we came away regretting (Other than the fact that I forgot my battery on the last full day of the vacation. Also known as Whispering Canyon and Fantasmic day). Sure we ended up missing a couple parades, had a few snack credits left at the end of the trip, still didn't have enough time, and we woke up later and later each morning. But overall, I don't think we could have had a better time with this trip if we had tried it 5 different times.

So with that introduction, I'm going to call it a night, and come back within the next couple days to tell the story of our travel day. Just to give you something to look forward to, that first day also includes our first trip to Downtown Disney, and our first dining experience. Also, I'll go ahead and show you the only picture we managed to get of the three of us together. This was the night we arrived, while waiting to head to Downtown Disney. It has a washed out look, but I haven't got a chance to play around with editing these shots. Anyway, enjoy!

 

[Jack Talon]

We got another picture of all three of us! The end of the trip picture with all of us in our ears.

 

[SaberJ]

We got another picture of all three of us! The end of the trip picture with all of us in our ears.

I forgot all about that one! Oh well, guess we'll get to that one later. It's probably much better. Onwards!

 

[SaberJ]

Day One: Travel!​

November 12th was the day that we departed for Disney World. We live in Kentucky, so rather than taking 2 days for driving and staying in a hotel along the way, we usually chose to fly instead. It helps that I'm a total fan of flying. ~3 hours vs 20+? I'm there. In 2009 we took a cruise, and we flew into Orlando for that as well. I was lucky that my wife ended up loving to fly as much as I did. That meant all three of us could enjoy a nice short flight, and get the vacation started right.

There are many reasons why we love to take Florida vacations in the Fall. The crowds aren't usually as high, for instance. But the biggest reason is probably the fact that I'm not a fan of the cold. I'd rather be outside in 100 degree weather than 20 degree weather. So with a November trip, I was sure I was going to be leaving behind the cold of Kentucky for the warmth of Florida. Unfortunately, the flip side is that you leave behind the warmth of Florida for the cold of Kentucky, and get a double whammy of gloominess. Oddly enough though, the weather at home was really nice both right before and right after we went to Florida.

However, we still had a great day leading up to departure. My dad had to agree to take us to the airport in time for our 5:43 departure for Orlando. I can't be late for anything, so I end up being ridiculously early instead. Getting over to dad's was the same. So we all had time to sit around and talk about how awesome the trip was going to be. When we finally left for the airport, we left early for that as well. Which was just fine for me. When we arrived for our 2009 flight, the entire airport was being evacuated because of a fire alarm. I didn't want to get have anything like that happen this time, and risk becoming late because of a gigantic security line.

I was also a little worried about our flight. We had secured EXCELLENT prices on our round trip flights at only $135 per person. But it was through AirTran, which I had never actually flown with, but had heard that they are kind of notorious for delaying their flights. And since they only have one flight every couple of days, what would happen if they had to cancel a flight? But everything turned out better than ok, and by our 5:43 departure time, we were on our way.

We arrived in Orlando shortly before our expected arrival time of 7:38. I knew we wouldn't be able to fit in much because of the late arrival, but we wasn't going to let that stop us from enjoying our first day.

We bolted to the Magical Express section of the airport (Whew! What a hike) as soon as we could get off the plane. I love Orlando's airport, just because it seems like an early taste of Disney, with it's monorail system. Once we arrived in the area, we finally decided to take our bathroom breaks. And I'm glad we did. We were the first people on the bus, so we had to wait for a full bus. And the stream of people wasn't too heavy, so it probably took about 30 minutes.

Once we were on the bus, everything was something to check out. The video played for us, and we intently watched, knowing that there wasn't really any secrets we would gain from it. We also got to watch all the adorable kids, and their growing excitement as we went towards the resorts. Adorable kids became one of the recurring themes of our trip. I have to say, if there is one thing that would make me want to have a kid, it would be Disney.

Apparently the bus stopped at several resorts. But ours was one of the first, if not the very first stop. The Caribbean Beach Resort. I had heard how beautiful and large it was before going, but....I couldn't really see much in the dark. So for the moment I had to take everyone else's word on that.

Once we arrived at the resort, we got off only to find that our luggage had been sorted with the wrong hotel. and since we were the first ones on, and the first ones off, our carry-on bags ended up in the absolute middle of Pop Century's stuff. So it took about 10 minutes of looking, pointing, and digging before we had our carry-ons. After that, we entered the CBR's check-in building. Oddly enough, I thought that the inside looked more like an old-time bank than it did a Caribbean themed area. But I only planned to be in there a brief period of the stay, so I didn't really care.

As it was, there was absolutely no other guests in the building when we arrived. I'm not sure if there were others that got off the bus with us, and they just got through in the time it took for us to get our bags, or what. But either way, I was able to just walk up to the Online Check-In window, give them our information, and a few minutes later we had all of our stuff.

When we booked our trip, I had mentioned that it was kind of a Birthday gift for my wife and brother, who both celebrated birthdays in September when we were booking. However, I didn't actually expect that information to be relayed to Disney, since we wasn't planning to celebrate it at the park itself. However, my wife ended up having a birthday listed in the system, so she got a pin. My brother didn't actually get one though, not that we really minded.

After checking in, we were told that we could go out back and wait for the on-site transportation bus to run to take us around to our building. So that's what we did. After waiting about 10 minutes, we discussed walking, but we agreed that it wasn't the best idea in the dark. And given the size of the place, I'm really glad we didn't end up doing that. It would have been quite the trek, and we had no idea which way to go. We ended up doing it during check-out, and it was a terrible idea to try and lug our luggage across the property.

We had to wait about 20 minutes for the bus, which surprised me. How many people were really using the on-site transportation at this time of night? this bus was ONLY for getting between CBR buildings. But waiting still wasn't going to bother me on this trip. And in the meantime, it gave me a chance to play around with my new camera, which I had barely used up to this point.

The two top pictures are of my brother, Russell (who has posted to this thread) and my wife, Tabitha. The third picture is of me and Tabitha. Technically the last two were taken on our way back out of the resort that night, not while waiting to go to our building.​

I apologize for my wife's eyes in her pictures. It's become a running joke that she saves all of her blinks until we are taking pictures. Flash, no flash, red-eye reducer...it doesn't matter, she is always blinking when the picture is taken. I've had to delete dozens of pictures of her just because her eyes would end up completely closed in them. These are the best of the pictures, and she still ends up looking drunk. The best bet is to take pictures of her with sunglasses on, because then it doesn't matter if she blinks or not.

Anyway, our bus eventually arrived, and whisked us around the property. That was really our first chance to see just how large of a resort we were staying at. I believe we were in the Martinique buildings. It was really nice, and pretty close to the main pool area. We were staying on the 2nd floor in a corner room.

Technically, those pictures are from after we got back from Downtown Disney. I had seen a ton of pictures for the new look rooms, but I was still very impressed with it. It looked and felt great. The only thing I didn't like about them was the pillows. It felt like my head was about 3 feet off the bed when I slept of them. However, they did make effect ammunition to stop Russell from snoring for an hour or two at a time. I considered seeing if there were different pillows you could request, but I didn't feel like asking that silly of a question, so I never tried.

We stopped by to drop off our stuff at the room, get in some long sleeves for the chilly night air, and headed back out. We had determined we were going to check out Downtown Disney, and then perhaps come back and swim a bit before bed. But we had an early morning the next morning with a breakfast ADR at Ohana's for 8:10. So we didn't want to be up TOO late.

When we walked to the bus stop, the Downtown Disney bus was just pulling up. Great luck, which we hadn't had to this point with waits. Luckily when we got close to Downtown Disney, our driver explained the two bus stops, and the times that the buses stopped running. This was good, because we had no clue how it worked. It was kind of nice, because I don't think we had but one other driver the rest of the week that explained those details upon arrival.

We didn't do too much once we got to Downtown. We wondered around lost for a while before we realized that there were maps. We did take in the awesome decor and design, however. It was pretty amazing at night time.

The first thing we found was the gigantic Disney store. Russell had wanted to grab a Stitch plushy to take pictures of with our food. So we couldn't eat until he found one. Once we found the store, we was pretty sure we would be able to find something Stitch related. Call it a gut feeling, I guess.

I actually found the store a little hard to navigate. Everything felt so cramped, and the horizontal spread to the store with very little vertical climb didn't help. And to make matters worse, I don't think the layout had any rhyme or reason. Every different room had a random assortment of items. As big of an area as they had, they could have really themed each room, and had plenty of space for everything.

After looking for anything Stitch related for a few minutes, Russell asked a CM where he could find something. Up until this point, I had thought the CMs were nice, but these girls were simply fantastic. They must have had the store memorized, because they new exactly where everything would be. In addition, they chatted with Russell about Stitch, and whatever else he was looking for.

Disney is a magical place. We all know the line. But I think sometimes people expect too much out of everyday people, and so we often hear the bad experiences that come from CMs. I think it's that level of expectation we all have for everything to be perfect. But the one recurring theme we had during our trip was that all of the CMs blew our expectations out of the water. They were without a doubt the friendliest, most informed, and chipper people I have met in a long while. It started here, but it absolutely didn't finish there. It was so noticeable in fact that when we got to the airport on the way back, and went off to grab food, me and Russell both had these sad looks to us. And the comment was made that the people at the restaurants definitely aren't Disney employees. It was a week of great people experiences, and I wanted to take the time to point that out. I believe it's something that deserves a moment of our time to appreciate.

Anyway, after locating a Stitch, Russell grabbed two of the plushies. A smaller one for the food pictures, and a larger one for....having a larger one, I guess. This was one of his first obsessions in the park. Later that night would come the pins. A couple days later, there was Figment. And finally, there was the ears collection. I'll try to remember to talk about them all as we go along.

Another thing that we were amazed by was store-to-hotel shipping. It's such an amazing service, and we used it at every possible opportunity. Everyday, we would head to the trading post, and collect our pile of purchased goods. They must have loved us. The only thing that could have improved the experience is if we could have swiped our key of the world card, and got a printed receipt. Instead, you had to fill out a form each and every time. A bit antiquated when the whole system operates on one card, if you ask me. But either way, it was a great service that we made full use of.

So, following the shopping, we had to make up our mind about where we wanted to eat. I had went back and forth between Earl of Sandwich and Wolfgang Puck Express leading up to our arrival. Finally, we decided on Wolfgang Puck Express, with the promise that we would get Earl of Sandwich before we left. So now all that was left to do was find the place.

It was actually a funny experience. We walked over to a map of the place, and we found Wolfgang Puck Express on the map. We find it, and I say, "Alright, where is the Disney Store?" And a lady walks over and says, "It's right behind you." I look up, blink at her a couple times and then point to the map, "No...I meant on the map." We had a good laugh about it afterwards.

At this point, we found the paper maps, which we needed, because we probably passed that little alcove 5 or 6 times before we realized it was there. So we headed WPE, checking the menu before hand. I knew I absolutely wanted to try the pizza, but I didn't know if I wanted to try the Barbecue Chicken or the Meatball. Eventually, we agreed that I would get the Barbecue Chicken, and Russell would get the Meatball, and then we would share. My wife is pretty boring when it comes to this sort of thing. We are both picky eaters, but I'll at least try new things that sound good. She almost exclusively sticks to her old faithfuls. So she got the Chicken Tenders.

When we went to the counter, the guy was super nice. I was beginning to have second doubts on my choice again, so I asked him if he would recommend the Chicken pizza. And he said if was him, he would get the Rotisserie Chicken instead, because there was a lot more meal there. So I went with his choice, and everyone else got what they wanted. The only complication was that apparently they had a really busy day, and ran out of french fries, so my wife had to get chips with her chicken tenders. But she didn't mind that too much. We were on the dining plan, so we all grabbed the Creme Brulee for dessert.

The dessert actually beat the food out, which was a little disappointing, as now we had empty stomachs, and food to stare at that we weren't going to eat yet. Eventually our food arrived, and OH MY GOD did it look and smell so good.

So as a little aside here, me and my wife have been on diets. We agreed that for the week of Disney, we could eat anything and everything we wanted. But that agreement didn't start until we arrived in Orlando, and stopped the moment the got back to Lexington.

So first I'll talk a bit about my food. We came in near closing time, so I can only imagine that I got a closing time portion of mashed potatoes and gravy, because good lord was there a lot. The entire thing was just delicious. But I did end up regretting that I changed my choice. The guy was right, there was more of a meal with my choice. But having come off a diet, it was way too much. And even if it wasn't, I expected chicken that would be manageable. This was a huge chunk of chicken, and it took a lot of effort to eat at it.

So in the end, it was a delicious meal, but I would have much rather had one of the pizzas. I drive an automatic car, I use cruise control when possible, and I don't like to work to eat my food. I guess I'm lazy, but that's how it is.

Moving on to Russell's Meatball pizza. It looked amazing, it smelled amazing, and we swapped some food out, so I can vouch, it tasted amazing. For the next 3 hours or so, I was really disappointed that I didn't go that direction, or at least get the BBQ Chicken.

​

I didn't expect much from Tabitha's chicken tenders. After all, it isn't hard to screw those over. But they were actually really good. Had a nice crunch to them, and a good flavor. It's about all you can ask for. The potato chips were also good. Homestyle. I still like fries better, though.

I stopped early on my meal, but everyone else finished their meals off for the most part. Russell even grabbed a bit more of my food. We still had desert to go though, and I wasn't going to make myself sick on the first night. So we finally got a chance to go at the creme brulee we had been staring at the whole meal.

I love creme brulee. I do tend to prefer it warm, rather than cold, which is what this was. However, it was a very good, very crispy creme brulee. I love how the top tastes like roasted marshmallows. Yum. Anyway, it ended up not being my favorite on the trip, but more on that later.

Anyway, I wanted to grab a picture of the receipt from each restaurant. Unfortunately most of them gave you a receipt saying $0.00. WPE gave you the regular receipt though. I was amazed at how much this quick service meal cost us. I thought it would have been in the range of the table service meals. And while it was probably the most expensive QS meal, it ended up not touching most of the TS meals we had. And this is why I'll always get the dining plan. Even if it would have come out being cheaper in the long run, I would never eat at a place like that every day during a vacation for that price.

So, this is a pretty long report for a day where we barely did anything, so I'll try to finish this off soon.

After dinner, I wanted to check out Goofy's candy company. I had the idea that I would get a dipped rice krispy treat and keep it in the room the whole week to snack, since I didn't really want to eat at the food court for my food credits. So everyone else also decided to do the same. Mine was by far the best combination available, and anyone that tells your differently is lying. I got the Rice Krispy dipped in Milk Chocolate, rolled in Butterfingers, and drizzled with white chocolate. Oh my God. It was fantastic. And it served it's purpose, keeping me with something to snack on the whole week.

Russell went the route of an insane person. He got his dipped in milk chocolate, rolled in white and milk chocolate chips, and drizzled with white chocolate. It didn't even look edible to me. At least not with a normal size milk, and certainly not without a cup of milk by you for each bite.

Finally, Tabitha loves sprinkles. So she got hers dipped and drizzled in milk chocolate, and rolled in sprinkles. It looked edible, but really just seemed like Rice Krispy dipped, rolled, and drizzled in chocolate.

At this point, Russell had went over to the pin shop, and got a new addiction started. But everything was starting to close. We didn't want to go to the other side of the DD area, so we quickly headed back to our bus stop to get on one of the last buses. On the ride home, we quickly discarded the idea of going swimming, because we were now quite tired, and still had a rapidly approaching morning coming up.

But on the way back to the room, we met a friend.

He was nice enough to stand still as I walked over, took out my camera, and snapped a picture of him. Then we left him to his hopping, and headed for the room.

Since we had such an early ADR the next morning, those of us in the room that can't get ready in a reasonable amount of time (Everyone that isn't me) had to get up at some ridiculous time for showers, dressing, and grooming. Luckily, I got to sleep in a bit later, but it still wasn't nearly enough sleep time for me.

But that all starts into Day 2. Which you will have to wait a bit longer for. Assuming you haven't totally zoned out from Day 1's recap.

 

[dort]

I'm on board, waiting for more
Those rice krispy treats look yummy!!!

 

[palaemon]

I was thinking that you guys must have done DDP since you guys just kept eating... lol.

Then, when you said that you were on diets before you went, I was thinking that DDP is the worst thing you can do because it forces you to either over eat or have leftover credits.

That said, you are right though that you'd probably never eat at those places w/o DDP.

I looked at all the pics you posted on Shutterfly. You know what's funny is it looks like your brother and your wife are a couple based on the photos. There's very few of you and even less of you and Tabitha. I know, you're the "camera guy."

BTW, your rice krispy treat was by FAR the best sounding... just sayin'

 

[SaberJ]

I was thinking that you guys must have done DDP since you guys just kept eating... lol.

Then, when you said that you were on diets before you went, I was thinking that DDP is the worst thing you can do because it forces you to either over eat or have leftover credits.

That said, you are right though that you'd probably never eat at those places w/o DDP.

I looked at all the pics you posted on Shutterfly. You know what's funny is it looks like your brother and your wife are a couple based on the photos. There's very few of you and even less of you and Tabitha. I know, you're the "camera guy."

BTW, your rice krispy treat was by FAR the best sounding... just sayin'

I'm terrible at handing the camera off to other people. I never think to do it. Plus, it's hard to get pictures of the three of us, because I'm even move reluctant to hand a random stranger an expensive piece of equipment.

But yeah, you guys are right. The Rice Krispy Treats were fantastic. I wanted to get one to take home, but I didn't want to have to try and figure out how to do it. I would assume it would've had to be packed. Plus, I didn't feel like going back to Downtown Disney that last night. Russell went, though.

Ultimately, they were probably one of my favorite snacks during the trip. But as you'll see in the later posts, there are a lot of contenders.

The funny thing about the diet is that I did overeat. Especially the last full day. We did a ton of walking, and I still came away having gained 5 pounds. However, two things came out of that. First, I kept saying, "Man, I can't wait to get home and go back to my diet." Second, those 5 pounds melted away. Like within 3 days of being back, I was below what I was when I left. I'm not sure if that was mostly water weight, if I was still burning extra calories from all that exercising, or if it's the fact that you tend to lose weight faster when you break your diet for a few days and then go back to it.

The diet was probably the real reason I didn't get one of the dipped treats to go. I would've broke my promise to go back to losing weight once I got back to town if I got one of those for home. And bad habits are hard to kill off once they start.

BTW, I don't think those pictures do justice to the Rice Krispy Treats. The things were huge. I had to break chunks off and eat it like that, because it would barely fit in my mouth.

 

[Lynn57]

I'm in

 

[Jack Talon]

We stayed in the Trinidad North building! Man, can't you remember anything? :3 I had actually totally forgotten about the lady that pointed out the Disney Store to us. Good times.

I can also vouch for the superb tastiness of the meatball pizza. My God that thing was amazing. Unlike Randy, however, I believe that the WPE creme brulee was my favorite. Something about it was just insanely tasty to me.

Also, my rice krispy treat was the best. Randy is lying to you all, because 26 layers of wonderful chocolate is where it's at. It was pretty hard to eat though.

 

[SaberJ]

And just like that, the party has been started. But I should probably mention why it's taken approximately 2 months to get to doing this post-trip report. Part of it is procrastination, sure. But the bigger part is the sheer amount of work required to get to this point. How many people feel me when I say I was staring at a list of 900+ pictures, and several videos when I got home? I'm sure a lot of people know what I'm talking about there.

Mind you, some of the pictures we took were just silly. Who really needs 100+ pictures of Cinderella's Castle? Can you imagine going through THAT photo album? "Ok guys, this castle is great, but did you see anything else?" But that just made it all the harder. "Alright, which one of these five pictures that are of the same exact thing is the best?"

Just for fun, I went in and looked to see how many pictures I ended up taking. 1800+ is the actual number. I'm eliminating a lot of those as blurry, duplicates, or stuff I just don't like. But even so, I ended up with 22 pictures on day one, 154 on day two, 168 on day three, and 192 on day four. I have 493 pictures left to sort through at this point, and one day I didn't have my battery with me to take pictures. These are just my pictures. Russell also took a bunch (Especially when I couldn't), and I'll have to get them from him. then we also have HD video that we want to get up at some point. For things like The Festival of the Lion King.

But it's been fun going through these pictures again, as it bring up some great memories. Me and Russell are going to have a discussion soon about everything again, to get everything fresh in our minds again. The funny thing is that I got a photo album for this trip, but it only holds 200 pictures. Those will have to be the best of the best.

 

[Googelibear]

I am here

 

[palaemon]

Just for fun, I went in and looked to see how many pictures I ended up taking. 1800+ is the actual number. I'm eliminating a lot of those as blurry, duplicates, or stuff I just don't like. But even so, I ended up with 22 pictures on day one, 154 on day two, 168 on day three, and 192 on day four. I have 493 pictures left to sort through at this point, and one day I didn't have my battery with me to take pictures. These are just my pictures. Russell also took a bunch (Especially when I couldn't), and I'll have to get them from him. then we also have HD video that we want to get up at some point. For things like The Festival of the Lion King.

But it's been fun going through these pictures again, as it bring up some great memories. Me and Russell are going to have a discussion soon about everything again, to get everything fresh in our minds again. The funny thing is that I got a photo album for this trip, but it only holds 200 pictures. Those will have to be the best of the best.

Just asking... Are you familiar with camera settings? (ie aperture, white balance, etc) I'm not, but dang...1800?? crazy. At least you have plenty to choose from... lol

 

[SaberJ]

Just asking... Are you familiar with camera settings? (ie aperture, white balance, etc) I'm not, but dang...1800?? crazy. At least you have plenty to choose from... lol

No. I wanted to find a place to take classes before we went. But I couldn't find the time. I wish that I was informed better about those settings. If I was, a lot of the pictures would have turned out better. I definitely want to take a class before next time. It would also be nice if the weather was warm enough to let me go out and experiment without freezing my butt off.

 

[palaemon]

No. I wanted to find a place to take classes before we went. But I couldn't find the time. I wish that I was informed better about those settings. If I was, a lot of the pictures would have turned out better. I definitely want to take a class before next time. It would also be nice if the weather was warm enough to let me go out and experiment without freezing my butt off.

I hear ya. I end up taking as many or more photos on my iPhone 4 than I do on my canon because its "auto" mode smarter. The flash is "meh" but outside shots/videos look great.

I do want to buy a good (Nikon) camera and learn to take good photos.

I saw photos on here by DVC_Mike (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvc_mike/)

OMG... Of course he knows how to use his $5000 camera...

 

[SaberJ]

I hear ya. I end up taking as many or more photos on my iPhone 4 than I do on my canon because its "auto" mode smarter. The flash is "meh" but outside shots/videos look great.

I do want to buy a good (Nikon) camera and learn to take good photos.

I saw photos on here by DVC_Mike (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvc_mike/)

OMG... Of course he knows how to use his $5000 camera...

*whistles* Man, those are some nice vibrant colors. I would kill for pictures like that. They remind me though, I'll be discussing the Grand Floridian resort on Day #2. We sat in the bar behind that orchestra that he has pictures of. It never even occurred to me to take pictures of them.

That photo stream definitely inspires me to go learn to use my camera right. My camera was no $5000 camera, but it was $900 (Granted, that was a package deal, and it came with a memory card, carrying case, and extra lens). So I'd like to learn to use it good before I take my next trip (Probably Oasis of the Seas in October, I imagine).

 

[Darkfirewolfe]

Subscribing! I love adults only trip reports.

I also loved your picture of the bunny - the last two times we've been to the parks, we've seen bunnies around the resort. So cute!

 

[SaberJ]

Thanks for all the follows and comments. Hope you guys didn't think I forgot about you. Today I'll continue, but I'm going to break the days down from this point on. The last post was really wrong, and the days only get more packed from here out. So I'm going to break the full on meals away from the park visits. That means up next we have:

Day Two: Breakfast!​

Following a night of travel, check-in, and Downtown Disney, we were really looking forward to our first sit down meal of the week. And that honor went to 'Ohana. Before we had booked this ADR, we already had one for an 'Ohana dinner, which is really what I wanted to try (more on that later). But I wanted to do at least one breakfast. Since they were almost all character meals, we picked the characters that we wanted to dine with the most. Lilo and Stitch win, in that category.

So after the somewhat late night the night before, the two slower to get ready members of the party (not me) got up pretty early. They started getting up sometime around 5-5:30. Luckily, being the fastest person, I got to sleep until about 6:30. We planned to leave by 7:10, to give us a full hour to get to 'Ohana. This was the first time using the bus system, and we didn't know what to expect.

I believe that we actually ended up getting out of there a little later than 7:10, because we arrived only a minute or two before our scheduled ADR time. Bus to Magic Kingdom, monorail to the Poly. Since 'Ohana hadn't been open for long, they were still just starting to let people in. So we had a wait of 10-15 minutes, in which time we setup camp in the nice lounge area next to the reservation podium.

Notice that Tabitha is texting. This is a common occurrence during the trip, and something you will see in several other pictures.​

I also took the opportunity to look around and take some pictures on the Polynesian. While I was doing this, Tabitha and Russell went off to the giftshop to look around.

Finally, we were buzzed to be seated. We were shown to our seats by one of our "cousins". He made sure to mention quietly that we would be very pleased with our seats, and that everyone else around us would be very jealous. Then he lead us over to a table that sat right next to a window, looking out to the gorgeous landscape. In fact, we had gotten pretty lucky with the view. Part of that was probably because there were still very few people seated at this point. Another reason is because we had three people, and a lot of the window seats were 3 seat tables. But still, it was very relaxing to have breakfast and look at the lush green landscape of the surrounding area.

If I made one mistake on this trip, and I could do it all over, it would be that I discounted breakfast sit down meals, and only scheduled one. The food was delicious, it made a great way to start the day, and we got to discuss our plans for the park, rather than rushing in.

The meal started with a bread basket delivery. I had been looking forward to the pineapple bread every since learning it was served with dinner. But this is not, unfortunately for dinner, the same bread. There were apparently two types of bread here. Both were very sweet and delicious. At least one of them was very similar to a cinnamon roll, except fruity instead. I loved this bread, and couldn't get enough of it.

We also got a delivery of fruit soon after being seated. I ate a couple pieces, but I was much more interested in what was yet to come.

While we were waiting for the rest of the food, we were entertained by characters. Since the place was so empty during our meal, we got quite a bit of attention. And in at least one case, a character repeat.

Stitch, with his big ego, loved the little Stitch. I'm pretty sure he wanted to keep him, but obviously that wouldn't do. Stitch was our food picture host.

Following Stitch, we got a wonderful treat in the form of POG juice. Passionfruit, Orange, and Guava. While I tend to like my juice a little colder than they serve it, this particular juice was absolutely delicious. We probably went through 3 bottles or so. The only real complaint is that between the juice and the bread, my fingers were getting quite sticky by this point. Not a good combination with a nice new camera.

While we waited for the rest of the meal to show up, I decided to take a picture of the area we were eating at. This is pretty much the busiest it was during the entire time we ate our meal. It was very nice, and extremely relaxing.

Finally, our main course was delivered. For those of you that may not know, the meal is served family style. So you can get as much of anything that you want. But it comes in waves of sorts. So the bread, the fruit, and then the main meal. The main part of the meal came with scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, and biscuits.

I always feel dumb when talking about this part of the meal. It makes me sound like I never get out, and have never had anything homemade. But I have. Even so, this was such a fantastic surprise for me. I'm generally not a fan of restaurant style scrambled eggs. They generally just pour them out of a carton, cook them, and serve them up. But these eggs were easily the most delicious eggs I have ever tasted in my life. I can't say why, for certain. Part of it was that they were moist, yet done. The other part was that they seemed to be seasoned somehow. I couldn't place my finger on the taste. It wasn't a straight butter taste, but the texture and taste had me thinking that was part of it. Either way, they were probably the most popular part of the meal for our table.

I'm not a sausage person, but I am a huge bacon, biscuit and potato fan. I was especially looking forward to the potatoes. Unfortunately, they ended up being the biggest disappointment of the meal. They just kind of tasted like fried potatoes. I've had better at home, so I wasn't about to fill up on these. However, the biscuits and bacon went together for me to create some nice bacon biscuits. They couldn't keep those coming out fast enough. Especially since they only gave you three of four tiny biscuits per platter. So basically we each got one each time they brought some out.

Between the eggs and biscuits, we had to request a few refills. They were always great about bringing it right out. But oddly enough, the meal was almost over before we were offered a Mickey Waffle. That being said, I was still hungry, so I ended up having a couple. They were very good, and I wish they had been offered when the main platter came along.

During the meal at various times, like I said, we got a lot of attention from the characters. If you are going for this character interaction, I definitely suggest going for as early of a reservation as you can get. It was great not having many people around.

Overall, I was very pleased with my experience at the '
'Ohana Character Breakfast. It was one of my top experiences for the week of eating that we did. I loved the food, I loved the atmosphere, and I loved the characters. If I were to book another trip tomorrow, this would be one of my first ADRs. I would also recommend this experience to anyone, as long as they like traditional breakfast. Obviously the variety isn't as high as you could get from a buffet breakfast, so liking the options is a necessity. I'm not sure if they offer anything else for people that don't like the traditional offerings, but that might be something you could ask.

I'll finish this report off with something I wish every restaurant we ate at offered. The damage report. Which honestly isn't much damage, since we were on the DDP. But still.

Coming up next, our day at Magic Kingdom!

 

[jelloarms]

Just letting you know I am in! Childless TRs are the best.

 

[palaemon]

Awesome pics! How far in advance did you make your ADRs?

btw, that breakfast looked soooo good.

Also, you're not in any of these pictures.