Chapter 4 - A Relaxing Afternoon & Dinner at Via Napoli!
February 19th, 2011
It was time to unpack and put the clothes in drawers and make ourselves right at home!
It was all so exciting that Jonathan fell asleep! And Mom did too!
Dad and I took a walk to the Main Area and went to the Conch Flatt's store. The distance from our room to the Main Area was far for a quick little stop, but not so far where you were getting tired by the end. Overall I was pretty happy with our placement.
At Conch Flatts we got water, cereal, english muffins, jelly, peanut butter, etc. Just a few basic things because we had lots of dining reservations coming up! We didn't want to fill up on food we could have at home, now did we?
We unfortunately forgot our Annual Passes back at the room but we could have gotten a 10% discount! Darn. We won't forget next time!
We walked 1/2 way back to the room and then caught a bus that took us back to "Turtle Pond." We probably could have walked the whole way, but hey, I'm not gonna say no to a Disney Bus ride!
We got back to the room and got ready to go swimming! The pool is RIGHT near our room. It was like having a pool in our yard, it was that close! It wasn't the main pool with the slide and everything, but it was a pretty big pool! Also, the Turtle Shack Snack bBar was right there and open till 5 pm every day! I don't think I ever got the chance to utilize the snack bar's prime location, but I think Jonathan got a smoothie or two at some point!
While we were in the pool, some lady was telling us about how Disney messed up their Dining Plan on their last vacation, and because of the mistake they gave her a $400 voucher! What I could do with that kind of money in Disney...
The car company messed up too so they gave her another $100! They were practically paying her to go on vacation!
She also told us about how she heard that eventually we're going to be able to make Fastpass Reservations. I'm sorry, but I really don't like that idea. I have my Disney Strategy so well thought out at this point, that throwing that into the mix would just be annoying!
Jonathan and I continued to swim and we swam laps back and forth in the pool so we would get hungry for dinner!
After a little while we went back to the room and got changed!
And we grabbed a bus and headed over to Epcot!
After a lot of thinking, math, and convincing, we decided to get Jonathan and my Dad annual passes too! Since we're going for 9 days in Christmas and this was a 7 day trip, it just made sense. They had old tickets with no expiration, but we might as well just save those when we only make it down to Disney one time that year.
So, they were issued their Annual Passes! Jonathan got Donald (who he wanted!) and Dad got Pluto. Mom already has Goofy and I have Mickey (from our January Trip) so we have all different characters! Wonderful!
They got the new "Let the Memories Begin" version of the AP's, while Mom and I have the "Celebrate" version since we got them so early in the year.
We headed off to Italy for our reservation at Via Napoli at 6:20 pm.
While we were in line, these young guys were all frustrated because they didn't have a reservation. They were muttering "of course you need to make a reservation!!" continued by some unpleasant words. That's not what I want to hear on my vacation, thank you very much. Reservations are there to help you, not hurt you!
When it was my turn to check in, the lady almost couldn't find my name. I had to check the list and find it for her. It must have been a long day or something.
We were seated within 5 minutes and we were at a booth in the back of the main dining room. This is the view of the restaurant from our table:
Also, can I just say that there were SO many good looking waiters!?
But of course..... we got a waitress.
The good news is that she was really wonderful. Her name was Violetta and she was very nice! She was efficient and told us about her experience working at Disney.
Then we ordered our food!
Dad got Chicken Parm
Mom got Spaghetti and Meatballs
and Jonathan and I split a Pepperoni Flatbread.
IT WAS SO GOOD.
The pizza sauce tasted like real tomatoes. And although I really don't like tomatoes, it was absolutely delicious. It was so fresh. And the pepperoni was real, good pepperoni. YUM! Simply amazing.
We also ordered dessert: Zeppoles!
One nice thing about not having the
DDP was that we could get one dessert to share amongst the whole family. We were all so full at the end of this big meal! A lot of food would have gone to waste if we would have each gotten our own dessert.
Overall, this was one of the favorite meals of the whole trip! As you can see in the introduction post, I think it's one of everyone's favorite restaurants!
Overview of Via Napoli Dining Experience:
Overall Rating: 5/5 - One of the BEST meals I've ever had! SO GOOD!
Service: The waiters were good looking
But Violetta was great! We loved her! 5/5
Overall Experience: This is honestly one of my new favorites in all of Disney! It was fantastic!! We all left so happy!
First Visit?: Yes!
Would I Revisit?: Yes!
Complaints: Not a one
Continued in Next Post
That is so cool that your trips were only a month apart! 
I hope one day your wish comes true- 
I think OKW is great- I have only stayed there once so far, but I know I'll be back again- glad you'll be sharing lots about Olivia's....I would really love to try it one day! 
I'm sorry! Since there were only 4 of us we didn't need to use any of the living room beds so I didn't get to check.
And yes it was nice! We were able to get to DTD by a bus.. it was about the same as any other destination. Except the bus route went backwards for DTD. But Turtle Pond is in the exact middle so it didn't affect us really.
That's my dream. Old Key West is wonderful... and yes I have a few more meals worth of pictures to share! I hope you get to try it some day too!
