As we walked to the food court it was already dark outside and about 8:45 in the evening. We passed a movie showing in the Lion King area, too cool. We were way too hungry to stop, so we trekked on.
Its about a 6-8 minute walk from Little Mermaid to the main building, not too bad at all, unless youre late for a bus, as we learned.
When we made it to the food (yay,
finally,) I sought out the build-you-own pasta, already having done my research and knowing what I wanted. Chris strolled around to look at his options. I had already thrown my buttons on, and received my first Happy Birthday from the guy starting my pasta, so my mood was back to magical at this point.
Let me just say that the pasta bar is
SO AWESOME! First you start at the cold station; you pick your pasta, meats, veggies and sauce. They throw the meats and veggies in a bowl and pass it down to chef guy. Chef guy then cooks the pasta and sautés in front of you. They have some crazy method that cooks your pasta super quick, in like a minute right in front of you. So they then toss it all together, and sauce it and pass down to bread girl. Bread girl (or guy) asks if you want cheese (
duh!) and cheeses it all up before slapping on a delicious piece of garlic bread! There was a small line when I got in and the whole process took me about 8 minutes.
I got pasta for me and the kids and headed off to find Chris. We went to pay and found out the kids pasta meal comes with 2 sides and a drink, so we had to go back to a cooler and pick and then head back to pay again. For all 3 meals and 2 drinks it cost about $35. Chris paid with cash and we went to find a spot to sit. There were plenty of open tables to choose. Once all settled I informed everybody that no one could start on their food until I got photos from here on out.
So I ended up with bowtie pasta with chicken and shrimp, sauced in pesto and alfredo. The girls shared the spaghetti with turkey meatballs, with chocolate milk, yogurt, and chocolate pudding. Chris got a surf burger (?) which was basically a burger using a giant crab cake as the patty, and fries.
***Let me just take this time to apologize for the seriously bad food photos, there were many moments on this trip where we dug in before remembering to take a photo and many times like this one when we were so starved I snapped a phone pic quickly and it didn't turn out the best in my haste! But still, enjoy!***
I, for one, can say the pasta bar was
AMAZING! I loved it so much, and the serving was
HUGE! All the in-laws got pasta as well and there were zero complaints. Bob seriously couldn't believe that starting tomorrow a meal like this would be covered on our
DDP! He also couldn't believe that it counted as a QS meal! Chris was thoroughly amazed by his meal as well and he was jonesing for it again all throughout the trip!
First meal turned out to blow our expectations out of the water, especially since it came from a glorified food court! Unfortunately by the time we were almost done with our meal, a very large group sat down beside us. They seemed to be having some
MAJOR issues and began screaming (like
realllllllly screaming) horrible things about killing one another, and cursing and all sorts of hoo-haw. Chris and I were done so we gathered up the girls and told the rest of the group we needed to get the kids outta there and we would meet up with them at the pool.
Talk about eventful! So we headed with our very full bellies back to the room and to change into our suits and head to the nearly deserted Little Mermaid pool! I was so happy and relieved to find a smaller mini fridge hooked up in our room when we got back! Yay! No ice chest! We moved our groceries over and were totally happy about the promptness in handling the situation. We were pretty tired from our travels at this point but we knew Olivia had been looking forward to swimming all day, so we decided to just make it a quick dip.
Pool hours are listed as 6am-11pm, however there is another sign in the pool area that stated from 11pm-6am were quiet hours, so no splashing and being loud. So basically, the pool is always open! You just cant be loud after 11! Good to know!

Also, I just want to say that I LOVE these clotheslines they have in the showers, so handy!
We swam for about a half hour, and the rest of the group joined us as well. When we were done we headed up to the room and everyone showered and got ready for bed. The beds are only full size (boo) and pretty small compared to the king size Chris and I share at home so we decided to sleep separately and rotate Olivia out. Tonight she slept with Chris and I got a bed to myself! In no time at all my three loves were out and I stayed up a bit longer to unpack everything, and get all our things ready for the next day. I also had to recap my day and get it all logged! I started my nightly ritual of posting a few highlight pics of the day and soon enough, around midnight I was off to dreamland myself.
Tomorrow we were headed to The Magic Kingdom, and I could not wait!
Coming soon,
The One With the Cutest Photo Ever!