Take Two: The RELAXING, we are not over-planning trip!

[travelgirl06]

Welcome to my new trip report, after a much-delayed trip report for last year's trip, I am determined to get this one done quickly (which should be a bit easier, considering I have more a little more free time now). I should warn you, this is a short, non-commando trip (quite the contrary to last year's super-planned, super-busy trip). I promise pictures, which I will start to post as soon as we get back on Monday. Thanks for reading!


Pre-Story
Last year, a group of 8 friends made the trek across the country to visit the faraway land of Disney World (you can check out that TR in my siggie, but this one will be quite a bit different!). This group was addicted to Disneyland trips, and the WDW trip proved to be even more amazing. Who can resist 7 days chock full of fun and adventures (and I do mean full…multiple parks in each day, Pleasure Island on a regular basis, and enough ADRs to fill up every spare second, it was so busy, we didn’t even make it to the pool – the whole reason we chose CSR!). Last year’s trip was amazing, and recovery trip (and there would be a next trip) needed to be a little more relaxing.

HA! This conversation meant that I had hooked him (a former DL-addict) on WDW. Now, he still loves DL and considers it “home”, but at least now he understood the amazingness that is WDW. He was also hooked on DDP, so we joked that if free dining came out again, we would simply have to go back.

Around comes April, free dining is announces, and we have just reserved (and charged) a relatively expensive college graduation trip. Nevermind the fact that we just spent two days of spring break at DL (a relatively short drive from school, plus the SoCal 2fers help out a lot). Derek somehow agrees with my crazy “I must always be planning a trip” logic and we book a short weekend escape to WDW. Three nights is the minimum for free dining, and since we would be entering the “real world”, we decided that a weekend trip would probably be all we could get away with.

Next came the hotel selection (such a fun part of trip planning!) We stayed at CSR last year and loved it, but wanted to try something new. Deluxes were out of the “quasi-cheap-trip” price range, and we already knew that we were happy with moderates. We contemplated a value resort, but then decided that we would rather pay more for a moderate hotel and have a non-park day (gasp!). After last year’s busy trip, the objective this year was more relaxation and enjoyment of the non-park activities at WDW. For some reason CBR doesn’t appeal to me, so it was between POR and POFQ. An added bonus to these resorts was the boat service to DTD (especially beneficial, since last year our whole crew became addicted to the Adventurer’s Club…we’re glad we’re sneaking in one last trip before it closes…). I don’t really remember how we decided between the two, but POR won—maybe it was because I was constantly talking about how cute the mansions are (very Gone With the Wind!).

Then, of course, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about the trip and I started telling everyone! I persuaded my friend Jessica and her boyfriend John to come, and we had a great deal of fun booking her trip (almost as much fun as booking my own). We also spent quite a few coffee dates (when we were supposed to be studying and working on our theses) planning ADRs and park days. Jessica and John are going for 5 days, I believe, so they will be doing all the parks, and we will be spending one day with them (our last full day). It’s nice to have a little overlap and time to spend together, but I think we are also excited to have some time to ourselves this year. We are all staying at POR and have requested connecting rooms in the Mansions section.

While we were booking we got to thinking, if you requested connecting rooms with friends and one of you wanted water view and the other didn’t, would Disney upgrade the standard-view room to water view? We toyed with booking like this, just to see what would happen, but requesting water view in a moderate seems a little silly to me, seeing as you still have the breezeway between your room and the water (granted last year I spent no time in my room anyways, so I wouldn’t have noticed). Sorry about that random sidenote/pondering. Ok, back to the task at hand…

Planned Itinerary (we’ll see if the actual itinerary even resembles this!)

Friday:
Derek and I are flying from Texas to Orlando on Friday afternoon, thank goodness for SWA and their still-affordable fares (and lack of fees!). We got great airfare (yay for DING) which kept the trip possible (expensive airfare could have been the end of this weekend getaway).
The one thing that could throw a wrench in the plans is Hurricane Ike! We have been watching him on the news several times a day, and it looks like we should get out of dodge just in time. Granted, I assume flights from Texas to Orlando normally fly right over the Gulf of Mexico, which he has currently engulfed! We'll have to see how that turns out.
Assuming all goes "as planned", we land around 5:30, and we’re hoping to get to the hotel around 7:15 (probably wishful thinking, but we’ll see). We’re going to take the boat to DTD and use a CS for dinner (Wolfgang Puck Express or Earl of Sandwich), then meander our way over to PI for the Adventurer’s Club (although there has been some concern about how much fun it will be without a large group… but I think we will still go in their honor, and in honor of it being the final month…).

Saturday:
This is the day where we have NO (daytime) plans, and I am super excited. Well there are quasi-plans, these include, but are not limited to: the pool, DTD (shopping), hotel hopping (huge theme of last year, I think we visited all the Deluxes), marina activities, and mini-golf. There is no way we will do all of these (this is the relaxing trip after all), but we will probably manage to do a few (or at least the pool). There will also be a plethora of tasty food and probably a handful of libations (hey, it’s vacation), so it will be a great day.
Eventually, we will get all dressed up and head out to Citricos for dinner. We haven’t been here yet, and where to eat our “date” dinner was a hotly debated topic. We absolutely loved California Grill last year, but wanted to try something new. The rest of last year’s crew went to Narcoossee’s and was raving about how great it was, but Citricos seemed a bit more intimate, and the menu seems really creative. Hopefully this will have been a good decision; if it’s anywhere near as good as California Grill, we will be thrilled. After dinner we will explore the GF then head over to the Poly to watch the Wishes! from the beach (this was in the plan last year, but never happened due to a lengthy and incredibly fun dinner at Kona Café!). Eventually we will head back to our hotel, and hopefully meet up with Jessica and John who are flying in on Saturday.

Sunday:
Today we are spending the day with Jessica and John. Our park of choice is…EPCOT! There were lots of reasons for this choice (all of which are a little blurry now, as we are still debating if we can manage WDW without MK or DS or AK…ack!), I think one of them was the ability to drink around the world… I think we will try to be there for rope drop and hit the major rides, then we’ll explore WS and taste tons of tasty treats. Derek and I are planning to split two CS meals from different countries in EPCOT (Morocco and somewhere TBD..suggestions?) and to use a bunch of our snack credits too (wow, we sound like gluttons). I am also looking forward to buying cool chopsticks in “Japan” for our new apartment (I love cook chopsticks, probably due to the fact that I lived in Japan for a summer). Derek is excited to go back to Club Cool and drink more Beverly (yes, he actually likes it and wants more…he would probably buy it if he could….strange!).
We will probably stay for Illuminations then head to dinner. This is where things get a little fuzzy. The four of us are either going to Ohana or Spoodles, but we haven’t decided yet (we will cancel the extra ADR as soon as we decide, I promise!) A group of us went to Spoodles last year and loved it, but a different group went to Ohana and loved it. I would probably vote for Ohana, since I haven’t been there, plus it’s in the Poly which I love; but, Spoodles is so close to EPCOT, and it has Jellyrolls potential (another place we didn’t make it to last year that we wanted to go to). Decisions, decisions!

Monday:
We have to fly out fairly early (early enough that we don’t have time to do anything “fun” before we leave). I’m a little bummed that you can’t check your bags at the hotel if you are flying SW, but our bags will probably be small enough that we won’t have to check them anyway. DME gets you to the airport really early, and last year I enjoyed shopping around at the airport (gotta love the various theme park stores!). On the flight home we will probably employ an end-of-vacation trip that my dad taught me when I was little, “the best way to cure post-vacation depression is to start thinking about the next one…” Of course, with the rumors of DCL going to Europe in 2010 circulating, the “next vacation” conversation has already started.

Status Update:
We are leaving tomorrow earlyish for the airport, and I haven't even started to pack yet. What kind of a DISer am I? I know it will be easy to pack, since its only for 3 days, but still... then again, I waited until now to write my PTR too. Oye! Well, I guess the trip's theme of spontaneity and lack of over-planning is already being employed

 

[heaven2dc]

Your itinerary sounds great! It's nice to have time to yourselves once in awhile but also sharing a day with your friends will be great fun (esp in Epcot, my fav park).

Will be interesting if all goes according to plans (and hope & pray that you have a safe trip with the storm!)

 

[ChelleinNC]

Hope you had a good trip! Can't wait to hear if it worked out according to plans or not

 

[travelgirl06]

Hi heaven2dc and ChelleinNC, thanks for reading so far!

We had a great trip, and our flight was early enough in the day to avoid the hurricane (or at least, early enough to fly over it...more on that later). Of course, the trip didn't go exactly as planned, but that is part of the fun.

Here goes...

The Cast

Me: 23, raised in a quasi-Disney family; went to WDW several times as a child and spent a great deal of time at DL during college in California.
Derek: also 23, aka DBF, raised with even more Disney influence, but of the DL variety (he grew up in CA). His first trip to WDW was last year with 6 of our other friends from college, he loved the size of WDW and how it is a fully-Disney vacation, but still thinks DL is a better park than MK.
Here's a picture from last year's trip...

Jessica: one of my close friends from college, we were clubs together and spent a lot of time going out for coffee to work on our theses (which frequently turned into chatting and Disney planning).
John: Jessica's BF, also a good friend of Derek and mine from college. He and Derek are very tolerant of Jessica and my antics (thank goodness!) I'll have pictures of these two later...

Derek and I just graduated in June (and moved across the country), so it was nice to meet up with old friends for part of the trip.

We also had a tag-along (actually, a graduation present from Jessica and John), who is affectionately known as Pigbert. Jessica and John have several Pigberts, but we have one. He enjoyed riding the bus to the airport.

On the bus to the airport, we witnessed a car crash literally 10 feet from the bus, which was pretty scary. The bus was not involved, and everyone was fine (walking and no visible injuries), but one of the cars was very damaged and there was a good bit of drama/typical crash behavior between those involved. The driver was talking to the people involved in the accident and gave them his information (maybe as a witness?). For a while it looked like we might have to figure out another way to get to the airport, but within about 10 minutes we were underway again en route to the airport.

We had checked in online for our SWA flight, so we already had "reserved" our spot in line, and we just had to check our bag. This was fast and painless and the lady who took our bag was delightful. We got through security quickly and had lunch at Schlotsky's. Growing up we always went to Schlotzky's on the way home from camp, so I was very excited to relive post-camp memories by eating there (strange, I know). I bought a book to read at the pool (ha!) and then it was time to board.

Derek, Pigbert, and I found two seats together pretty easily, and he got his coveted window seat. Once we got underway, we realized that the window provided a view of the hurricane, and only the hurricane (pretty much just white clouds, covering the entire Gulf of Mexico). The ride was pretty bumpy and the flight attendants had to sit down a few times, they still gave us two drink services on a 2.5 hour flight (yay Southwest!). One of the flight attendants was quite a comedian, and he sang at the end of the flight and made several other jokes throughout.

We got off the plane and found our way to the Magical Express desk.

I was a little concerned about the lines we might encounter (arriving around 5:30PM on a Friday), but there were no lines! We checked in and were on our bus within about 5 minutes (similar to last year, when we got in at 5:30AM). We had to wait a little while on the bus for everyone else to board, but that wasn't a problem, we found plenty to do...

The bus stopped at Old Key West, Saratoga Springs, and POFQ on the way to POR. I had never seen any of these resorts up close, so it was great to see them all, if only briefly. Of course the bus video made us want to go to all the parks, and we briefly toyed with going to MNSSHP that night, but realized that this was supposed to be our relaxing trip and we were too tired to fully enjoy it.

There was a short line at check-in, and we had our KTTW cards within about 10 minutes of arriving at the hotel. All of our requests were granted (a room next to Jessica and John and the Mansions), and we were in Magnolia Bend (Terrace?).

On our way to the room I noticed how beautiful POR is. It's very different from CSR, and the river makes for much shorter walks than the huge lake in the middle of CSR. The marina is very cute, and we loved walking over all the bridges and catching our first glimpse of Old Man Island (main pool).

Part of the Main Building

Water wheel (the food court is inside)

Pool

 

[travelgirl06]

Eventually we got to our room, and it was quite nice (the air conditioning was fabulous!). I thought these rooms were really well-themed, and a little fancier than the rooms at CSR (we were in Casitas, which is a combination of beachy and cityish). We took a quick breather and noticed a few things about the room.
1. There was a leftover bag of Cheetos tucked in the cabinet of the nightstand (ick).
2. Disney has changed the toiletries at the moderate resorts (this may have happened ages ago, and I haven't been keeping up). Last year we had face soap, regular soap, lotion, shampoo, and a separate conditioner; this year, it was just the soaps and a combination shampoo/conditioner. This meant lots of frizzy hair for me for the rest of the weekend! Also, I think the stuff from last year was a lot nicer, so this was a very mild disapointment.

We also had a corner room, which meant double windows! This was fabulous, and I loved the wooden blinds, so cute!

By this point, we were starting to get hungry and we decided to head out to DTD. We took the boat (one of the reasons we chose POR) and it was a lovely ride. What a great way to get to DTD, so relaxing and fun. There was a nice cool breeze and the music they play on the boat is great (it changes themes from bayou style to New Orleans Jazz to southern music to pop music as you travel from POR to POFQ then onward to DTD). There was also a gorgeous full moon up above and this was the perfect way to start our vacation.

We started off with a little shopping. I had to pick up bath bombs at Basin (even though I still have a stockpile from our Spring Break trip to DL, but now that I live a plane ride from either Disney I have to be prepared!) and Derek had to get a swimsuit (the perils of packing quickly, but he needed another one anyways...)

Eventually we wound up at Cooke's of Dublin for what was supposed to be our first dinner (with Wolfgang Puck Express later). We had a platter of fish and chips and they were delicious! They make everything fresh, so our food was piping hot and super tasty. We also got a large drink and a Snickers Ice Cream. The meal would have been about $19.00, but it was free, compliments of free dining.

Next up came the great PI debate, we had been planning on going, but once we got to DTD we weren't really in the mood. I was worried that it wouldn't be as much fun with just two of us (last year we were a group of 8), and I had such fond memories of last year that I didn't want to taint them. Also, we figured that the $44 it would cost for two admissions could be used elsewhere. The final straw was the huge line to get into the Adventurer's Club, we aren't big fans of overly crowded clubs (we like to be able to sit and move around if needed), so we decided we'd rather have a mellow evening in DTD then have to battle for a seat at the various AC shows. So with that, we decided to continue exploring DTD.

We never made it to Wolfgang Puck Express (I wasn't hungry enough for another whole meal), but we did find another snack to tide us over.

All I can say is Goofy's Candy Company is AMAZING! I had wanted to go last year, but the day we stopped in it was crowded and I wasn't sure what was a "snack credit". This year we found a CM who confirmed that the make-your-own treats were included, so I knew that I had to have one. I went a little crazy with the order sheet and requested: dark chocolate coating, m&ms, crushed reese's, sprinkles, and dark chocolate drizzle. I quickly notices that everyone else had only one candy topping, and I felt a little bad, but I was at WDW so what the heck! The girl making my treat did a great job and covered one side with m&ms, then put sprinkles on the ears on the other side, and the reeses went on the mickey face. It was amazing, talk about a sugar overload! Hey, it lasted 5 days, 5 WONDERFUL days. This was probably the best use of a snack credit ever, and SO much fun!

We took the boat back to POR (I love that boat) and went for a swim. We swam at Old Man Island. It says the pool is open until Midnight, but I think we got there around 12:30 and stayed til 1:00 and it was pretty busy. I was amazed how many kids were swimming at that hour. They keep the flood lights on, so its easy to swim.

Eventually we made it back to the room and watched a little Disney TV before calling it a night. We still had no firm plans for Saturday, but that was fine with us. I did call in for a wake-up call though, so that we wouldn't sleep the day away.

 

[ChelleinNC]

Great first night

Aren't the Mickey rice crispy treats awesome?! The make your own pretzel rods are pretty good too (so are the marshmallows & the gingerbread men )

FYI, Adventurers Club is closing (ok, all of PI is closing) so that's probably why you saw the extra long lines. Everyone's trying to get one last visit in

 

[travelgirl06]

Yep, we knew AC was closing, so we wanted to sneak in one last visit; but then we decided that we have really good memories from last time, so we wanted to stick with those. AC will be missed though.

 

[travelgirl06]

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early with a music(????) wake-up call. Obviously I have been slacking on my DISing, because I fully expected it to be Stitch again, and I wanted to let Derek experience the "joy" of a Stitch wake-up call. The music was much more pleasant though! We ate some oatmeal breakfast cookies that we had packed and decided to head out to play mini-golf.

Derek wanted to do Fantasia Gardens, and I was indifferent, so we headed over to the Swan/Dolphin. We could have taken any bus, but the Disney Studios bus was first, which was especially convenient . We rode the bus to DS then we were right on time to catch the friendship boat en route to EPCOT via Swan/Dolphin. The boat ride was quite nice (boat rides seem to be the theme of this trip) and we were at the Swan and Dolphin shortly.

I really like these resorts, and based on some minor QC issues at our resort (mostly Mousekeeping related), I would seriously consider staying here in the future. The special rates at these hotels are comparable to a Mod, but of course you don't get DME or DDP. I like the idea that they are run by a mainstrem chain that "has" to meet pretty stringent standards (e.g. pillowtop beds, high thread count sheets, nice toiletries, nicer towels, etc.). These hotels are also so elegant and they have a fabulous pool!

Rant Warning (feel free to skip it, if you like):
I LOVE the Disney resorts, but there were a few too many "motelish" moments this year (combo shampoo/conditioner, cheetos in our room, dirty towels (repeatedly), leftover Dr. Scholls wrapper, no towel animals, no bounceback flyer, etc.). I realize I could have complained, but sometimes complaining just gets me more frustrated with the whole situation. I hope this is the exception to the rule, we didn't have any complaints last year at CSR (except slightly less-than-stellar mattresses, but that's to be expected). Derek and I were talking about how if we paid $150 for a room in that shape anywhere but Disney we would be pretty peeved (heck, we got mad about dirty towels at a Motel 6 that was $50!). Hopefully Disney can get their Mousekeeping worked out, because everything else was good to wonderful.
Rant Over (sorry about that!)

We had a lovely walk to Fantasia Gardens where we decided to do the Fairways Course, I believe. It was the course that is more like mini-golf with Fantasia statues and cool colored carpeting. We picked this court because I am the anti-golfer (in terms of skills, not enjoyment), and Derek is quite good at real golf, so this would even things out a bit. The course was quite fun, and I loved how they wrote little rhymes at each hole. Most of the special effects (e.g. musical hole) were really cute, although one of the "tricks" (a pirouetting hippo) was broken, which made manual golf ball manipulation necessary in order to get the ball in the hole. It was a fun little course, and I really liked the water effects on the last few holes. I beat Derek by a few strokes, so he had to "buy" me lunch . While the course was fun, I would probably not pay full price ($11.75) for it; but, with one of us getting in free, I think it was worth it.

One of the holes was ice skating themed, and being a skater, I had to give it a shot!

After mini-golf, we spent some time hanging out at the Boardwalk. I love this area of WDW, its so mellow and nostalgic. It reminds me of a weekend I spent with my cousins at the Jersey shore when I was about 9. We explored Yacht and Beach Club, vaguely in search of food, and found lots of options. I really wanted to get an ice cream at Beaches & Cream, but I wasn't sure if it would count as a snack credit (at the walk-up counter?), and we hadn't had lunch yet, so I decided to wait a bit. We saw several characters in their beach garb at the Cape May Cafe character lunch (so cute!) and I even foun this fabulous chair, which I wanted to bring home with me.

Eventually we made our way to Boardwalk Bakery and by this time we were starving. The menu here wasn't overly impressive, but the location was VERY convenient. I had a Caprese sandwich with chips and Derek had a turkey sandwich with cucumber salad. His meal was very good, and mine was okay (the sandwich had been sitting in the fridge a little too long). Probably the best thing about Boardwalk Bakery is that they have a huge selection of desserts and you can pick any of them on DDP (woohoo!). I had Tiramisu, which was fabulous, and Derek had a fruity flan, I believe. These were very tasty.

We ate on the Boardwalk, which was so nice and relaxing. I loved people watching while we ate our "picnic". While we were finishing up our meal, I spotted these guys, they were so cute and completely made my afternoon.

 

[heaven2dc]

Nice relaxing day 2! I hope to have a more relaxed vacation in December since I'll be there 8 days - the 4 days I spent earlier this year was too rushed!

Loved the pics of the little ducklings - how cute

 

[travelgirl06]

We caught the bus at BW and headed back to POR. I LOVED this hotel! It was still pretty early (about 1:00, I think) and I was amazed at how "much" we had done, and at how relaxing it had been so far. I was really starting to appreciate this "no-park-day" concept.

When we got back to POR we rested for a few minutes (but not too long, because we were at WDW and there were things to do!) before heading out for a swim. We had grandiose plans of frozen fru-fru drinks at the pool, more specifically at Doubleloon Lagoon (POFQ pool). Since the PO resorts share pools, I wanted to take full advantage of it! We took a nice hike from our room to the POFQ pool and immediately headed to the bar, when we remembered, we left our IDs in the room! We decided not to chance it, since we both still look young and we didn't have our IDs, so we just got a smoothie, and man was it tasty! After the smoothie, we took a spin on the slide and swam around in the pool for a bit, we LOVED the spitting crocodiles and the crocodile-umbrella shower (sorry no photos).

After enjoying a swim at POFQ, we headed back to POR for a dip at Ol' Man Island. I really liked this pool. It has great water features and a fabulous slide (we liked this slide better than at POFQ, because it was a bit longer and curvier, plus it had enough water power to get adults down the slide without needing to push).

The man in front of me in line for the slide had a very little girl (3 maybe), and he wanted to go down the slide first so he could catch her. He asked me to make sure she got down okay; and, of course, I obliged. As soon as he left she got really scared, but I encouraged her to sit down at the top of the slide, which she seemed fine with. She still really afraid and I kept encouraging her to go, and asked if I could giver her a little push and she reluctantly agreed. She seemed to be fine as she started, but by the time she reached her dad she was sobbing. I felt so bad for the poor little girl! I could tell she really wanted to slide, but it seems like she wasn't ready to slide alone (it's a pretty big slide for a little one!) Luckily, I saw her and her dad a few minutes later, and she seemed okay, but I still felt a little bad.

We swam a bit more then headed back to the room to get ready for our "date night" dinner at Citricos. I was really excited for this dinner, and we both enjoyed spending a little time getting dolled up for an evening out. We took the bus to EPCOT, then caught the Monorail to the TTC, then the monorail to GF. I know this isn't the quickest way, but Derek is really into transit and LOVES the monorails, so this was a fun way to travel.

I really like the GF, it is so beautiful and fancy. It makes me feel like I truly am back in the Victorian Era, as if Samantha Parkington would come bounding up to me at any second. I don't know that I would want to stay here (a little formal for my liking), but I definitely like to visit.

I really like the old-fashioned elevator cage (the Hotel Del Coronado, which the GF was modeled after has a really cool elevator cage too).

We checked into Citricos, and I requested a window view (little did I know the views would be fair to middling, but still). We were seated at a window table goodvibes ) within about 5 minutes. The seats and decor in here are really nice, a bit more casual than California Grill, but still real linens and nice dishes and whathaveyou.

Our waiter came over shortly, and while he was polite, for some reason he rubbed me the wrong way from the start. Last year at CA Grill we had a WONDERFUL server who was very patient in explaining things, suggesting wine, and helping us order (which we welcomed); our Citricos waiter seemed more interested in getting our order in then in helping us with it. For example, I asked him to describe the Syrah and he started telling me general characteristics of a Syrah without any specific reference to this Syrah, which is frustrating to me when I am contemplating spending $12+ on a glass of wine! Later, when Derek commented that the water tasted funny he simply said "It's SWAMP water, you are in the middle of Florida, there are swamps here" (we would have preferred a lemon for our nasty water, thank you!)

We shared the Gateau of Crab for our appetizer. This was fabulous. A wonderful combination of textures and flavors, very tasty. It wasn't very large, and I don't think I would pay OOP for it again (man, I miss the old DDP!), but it was tasty.

For dinner I had the Filet Giardiniere (per our server's suggestion) and Derek had the Ribeye. Neither of us were overly impressed. My filet seemed tiny and the taste was very standard, nothing out of the ordinary. The description was so nice, that I was very disappointed in the actual taste (of course, as soon as I realized how unsatisfied I was, our server had vanished). I wound up getting really frustrated by how underwhelming the entree was and our servers apparent apathy (wine, water, not checking on us), that I couldn't really enjoy the meal. Most people like Citricos (which is why we chose it), but for us the entrees and service were not on par with the Disney Signature restaurants we hear about and have visited.

My filet

Derek's Ribeye

Luckily, dessert was better! I had the lemon cheesecake with raspberry sauce, which was both gorgeous and tasty and Derek had the seasonal berry gratin, which he liked. We both had cappuccinos as our DDP drinks, and these were very tasty (I think they had a hint of cinnamon, which was great). Again, our server wasn't around much, but it was less of an issue now, since we were both content with our food.

Even with DDP, the bill came out to be quite high, more than we normally spend going out for dinner (argh!). Granted, this included one glass of wine each and the appetizer (all OOP); then again, when we go out to eat we usually get an appetizer and at least one drink each, so... I was far less than thrilled to tip over $25 to our server (which was just about 15%, he would have recieved more, if he had earned it...) for his sub-par service, but its over and done with. Sorry about the rant, it's the last one, I promise.

After dinner we explored the GF some more. The grounds are beautiful! We were going to wait for a boat to MK (en route to the Contemporary), but then decided we would rather just ride the monorail. So, we headed back to the main building and jumped on the monorail for its grand circle tour. By the time we left MK it was about 8:20, and Derek suggested that we skip the Contemporary and go right to the Poly, where we were going to watch the Electrical Water Pageant and Wishes!.

Once we got to the Poly, we found a spot on the beach and settled in to watch the Electrical Water Pageant. Derek said it reminded him of the Main Street Electrical Parade, and I agree. It was retro, but quite cool and a pleasant diversion. Wishes! was at 10 that night, so we had almost 45 minutes to wait after the EWP, and I decided I needed a Dole Whip. (I had given Derek most of my filet, since I wasn't enjoying it, so I was hungry!) Luckily, he was in agreement that we needed something tasty, so we headed over to the food court and used a snack credit for a cup of tasty goodness. I am really starting to love Dole Whips, I had my first one at DL when it was freezing, and I wasn't convinced, but now that I have had them in the heat of Florida, I am in LOVE

We took the Dole Whip back to the beach and grabbed two chairs for Wishes. I got a little creative and made a Mickey Castle in the sand.

So, I may have used a kids meal plate/dole-whip-drip-tray, but still, it was fun. Derek was mildly impressed, but I don't think he fully appreciated my sandsculpting skills. Wishes, of course, was fabulous. I thought I had read that they piped in the music, but I guess they don't. We could vaguely hear some parts of it (over the CMs sitting next to us, who had obviously seen Wishes far too many times and were now critiquing every little thing....ack, just let me enjoy it!). The show is great though, I still like it better from inside the park, but the beach at the Poly is a relaxing alternative.

After the fireworks we headed back to POR (via DTD), where Jessica and John were waiting for us!

 

[travelgirl06]

Okay, I have to at least finish up the first full day...

We took the bus to DTD then transfered to the POR bus. I LOVE how the buses all have music that is themed to where you are going. The POR/POFQ music is really cute, and I also like the DTD and PI music (the boat is the same way, soo cool). The bus stop was very close to our room, so we only had a short walk back to the room .

Jessica and John were in the room next door, and we stopped in to say hi. They had already unpacked somewhat and taken over their room. I guess they had a little issue with one of their bags getting lost, when Disney finally found it, they had Bell Services deliver it, and I guess the guy just dropped it on their floor really rudely . They were in good spirits about it, and they were happy to have their luggage but they didn't understand why the luggage delivery guy was so rude about it.

We quickly persuaded them to change into their swimsuits and we headed out to Ol' Man Island for another dip in the pool. I assured them that there were towels at the pool, so we didn't need to bring them...of course, once we got there, there weren't any towels lol. It was warm though, so we decided to just go for a swim and deal with the lack of towels when we got out of the pool. The pool was nice and toasty and we enjoyed a nice chat and a few Shiner beers. Eventually we got out of the pool and walked back to the rooms, we weren't dry, but it was warm enough that it really didn't matter.

We made plans to head to the bus stop at 8:15 and went our separate ways. Derek and I wound up watching TV for another hour or so, before finally going to bed around 1:30 or 2:00. I guess we should have gone to bed earlier, but I had to squeeze out every last ounce of Disney fun in our short weekend.