We were very excited to dine with Mickey and his pals – we had worn some of our best Soffes and tees so we would look stunning in our pics, and we couldn't wait to stab our forks into some delicious, cold, hard Mickey waffles! But these dreams were not to be realized. We zoomed from the MK to the Contemporary via the monorail and were immediately horrified for the people staying in the Contemporary when we saw scaffolding and construction material all over.

We exited the monorail to the absolute loudest construction noise we've ever heard! And we've all lived and worked in New York City, so that's saying something. We knew we could not eat at Chef Mickey's during this chaos (and while dust was flying everywhere

), so we decided the easiest thing to do would be to call the dining line to try to get an ADR for Kona Café, since it would require only a short monorail ride. Over the blaring construction noises, Jen was very relieved to hear the dining CM offer us any time we wanted within the next 30 minutes for Kona. Jen selected 10 minutes from the current time, then marched up to the Chef Mickey's check-in podium and cancelled our ADR for there. While Jen was canceling/ booking our breakfast ADR, Laura and Liz were shopping in the lovely Contemporary shops, where Liz purchased a replacement tiara, as hers had cracked.

Unbelievable that a plastic tiara that had been packed and dragged on planes for numerous trips and gotten millions of hours of wear would not hold up forever!

We popped back up to the monorail and arrived at the Poly in no time.
We were incredibly relieved to walk into a quiet Polynesian and be seated immediately in an almost empty Kona Café.

It was 11:00 am when we arrived, and we were hungry and ready to relax! Kona at this time was the perfect spot to do this! Though we were on the
DDP, we paid out of pocket for this meal.
Jen: I had been so excited to try Kona's Tonga Toast (we had never been to Kona for breakfast before). However, I have to say I was disappointed in it.

I thought the Tonga Toast was way too greasy (and this is coming from someone who lists french fries and other not-so-great-for-me fried items among some of my favorite foods).
The cinnamon sugar on the outside of the toast was delicious, and I wish I could have enjoyed more of it, but the outside of the bread was so greasy that I did not eat much of it. I did very much like the warm bananas inside of the Tonga Toast, which I pulled out and ate along with the inner reaches of the sourdough bread.
The bacon, which I obviously understood would be greasy, was also too greasy for me to really enjoy. I guess coupled with the overly fried Tonga Toast, it was all just too much for me. I am glad I tried the Tonga Toast, because I had so been looking forward to it, but I would not order it again. I would probably return to Kona and try the Macadamia Nut Pancakes, though!
Liz: I too was super excited to try the Tonga Toast. Since cinnamon, sugar, bananas, and strawberries are some of my favorite tastes I thought it would be my top dish of the trip.

However, I too found the toast way too greasy and sugary to enjoy. The inside banana portion was good, but had I eaten the entire toast I can guarantee that I'd have had a terrible tummy ache for the rest of the day.

The potatoes were great though. They had a nice seasoning and were not dry at all.
I also enjoyed a glass of Lilikoi juice which was sweet and delicious- I didn't even know that I liked passion fruit or guava juice!
Laura: I was extremely disappointed when the chef told me I couldn't have Tonga Toast! I've wanted to try it for years.

However, in hindsight, I'm glad I couldn't have it, because Jen and Liz told me that I would have died if I had even tried a bite of it. They said I would have absolutely hated it. I'm not a fan of greasiness or really heavy food, even though I essentially subsist entirely on carbohydrates. The chef said he could make me waffles with no problem (the waffle process is completely nut free at all times.) The French toast was off limits entirely, because the bread was not guaranteed to be nut free, (also why the Tonga Toast isn't okay). The fried items (like the potatoes and the meat) seemed to be okay for those with nut allergies, but only if the chef prepares it separately. The chef who talked to me gave me a ton of options. I asked if I could have plain pancakes. He had a separate griddle that does not come in any contact with the macadamia nut pancakes, so he was happy to do this, but he warned me that mine wouldn't look as pretty as everyone else's! Although I wasn't all that excited to just have plain pancakes, they turned out to be delicious!
I loved them.
While the food gets mixed reviews from us, the atmosphere at this restaurant could not have been more delightful. It was mostly couples eating around this time, and they were all really nice, not rushing, and extremely enthusiastic about our tiaras!
Liz also experienced one of her fav moments of the trip whilst visiting the bathroom near Kona: I headed over to the ladies room before leaving Kona and experienced one of my fav parent and child squabbles of the entire trip. A mom and her two young daughters came into the bathroom after I had gone into a stall. I saw tiny
crocs in the stall next to me and then saw the smallest pair zoom out of the stall. As her mother called after her, this little girl ran into the furthest stall and locked the door. Her mom then began banging on the door and yelling, "Katie Jane, you open this door right now!" By this point, I was washing my hands and was fascinated with the entire exchange. After a few tries of banging and yelling, Katie Jane's mom tried politely knocking on the stall door to get Katie Jane to come on out. However, he knock was only answered by a little voice saying, "nobody's home!" I left after this point, but was delighted by Katie Jane's very funny response to her mother's knock.
Along with the atmosphere, we also loved Kona's close proximity to the GF! After a short monorail ride, we headed down to the concierge desk in the GF lobby to change the ADR we had for Kona for later in the week – no need to go back there again this trip. We decided we would do the Supercalifrag breakfast at 1900 Park Fare instead; after all, we were right at the GF and Liz is a Poppins super-fanatic.

We were horrified to learn that the earliest ADR we could get was for 8 am; we could have gotten any time we wanted that morning, but the restaurant just doesn't open until 8! We'd had a 7:30 am ADR at Kona and were planning on being at Epcot for rope drop on that day. Oh well, we decided, we would roll with it.
We then headed back to our lovely room and were pleased to see that Mousekeeping had already beautified it for us.

We freshened up a bit, re-spraying our heads with Fructis and our bodies with Coppertone. The room smelled delightful! But it was no bother, we enjoyed the balcony for a bit, and used it as a safe space to spray some more Coppertone.
Liz was enjoying a rest in a comfy chair in the room, and Jen and Laura decided that it was time for a mini-photo shoot. We took a few self-portraits, but Liz was terribly rude and deleted a number of the pics!

Here is an example of one that survived.