And you said this wouldn’t be fun
Our complimentary continental breakfast was what you would expect at a Comfort Inn -- enough to get you going for the day but certainly nothing to rave about. At least the price was right. We got started on our drive around 8 o’clock, made a stop somewhere around Jacksonville to get a van-ful of Starbucks frappucino’s, and then eventually arrived at the Boardwalk around 11:30. We were so excited when we walked in.
Our check-in cast member was named Andy and he reminded me of Drew Carey, especially his voice and speech pattern. I must have been wearing something with a Penn State logo on it because he saw it and mentioned that he went to a Big Ten school. Michigan, I think. And he had kind of a Drew Carey charm and wit to him. When he asked if we’d like to allow the kids’ Magic Bands to have room-charging privileges he said that if we reviewed the charges we’d be able to see who the “perpetrator, er I mean,
purchaser was”. (We did allow them, by the way, and the kids were very responsible.)
As you might expect checking in at that early hour, our room wasn’t ready yet so we piled back into the van and headed off to Downtown Disney (in the midst of its transformation to Disney Springs). We had three things to accomplish there (in no particular order): 1) I wanted Judy to see Erin McKenna’s Bakery (gluten-free heaven, from what I’d heard), 2) I needed to get a Tables in Wonderland card at Guest Relations, and 3) we were getting mighty hungry and needed to address that situation.
I found the new parking garage and we were impressed by the boards that show you how many available spots are on each level. That’s a nice touch. The rest of Downtown Disney Springs (yeah, that’s what I’ll call it since it was in its metamorphosis stage) was undergoing a lot of work. Walls were just about everywhere.
As we were walking I noticed the new Boathouse restaurant, so snapped a picture.
We went into Chapel Hats to take a look. And you know, trying on hats at Disney always fun.
Marlene has a way with hats.
James looks like he’s ready for Miami Beach or something.
Judy’s Kentucky Derby hat.
1920’s Lauren.
Marlene and Lauren. I dunno, attire for a Guns ‘n Roses show?
The girls ready for the next coronation.
Erin McKenna’s Bakery was right next door after we left Chapel Hats. Looks like Marlene is amazed at the items on the top of the counter that were called “Bakery Sink”. I think Judy just kept asking, “And everything is gluten-free?!” This was her kind of shop.
Judy is psyched about her gluten-free Bakery Sink.
We each took a couple of bites of the Bakery Sink (after buying it) and it was really good. It was a concoction, kind of a mini-trifle (you didn’t think I’d know what that was, did you? c’mon I know about desserts), that had doughnuts, cookie crumbs, brownie-bites, frosting, and cupcakes in it. We decided that we’d stop back in here to pick up some more items on our way out.
Our next stop was the World Of
Disney store and we found more hats, among other things (they have quite a wide selection in there, as you probably know).
I just noticed that James is wearing the shark necklace that he made at Disney’s Vero Beach resort on a previous trip in that picture.
I had my fill of shopping pretty quickly so told the ladies that I was going to go on to Guest Relations to get our Tables in Wonderland card. James said that he’d go with me and I warned him that it wasn’t going to be much fun, just standing in line and buying a card. He decided to come along anyway. We got to Guest Relations and sat down to wait for our turn at the counter. (I forget how it worked exactly, but we must’ve taken a number or something because I remember that we had our place in line but could sit on a bench.) Anyway, after a minute or so of silence, sitting there twiddling our thumbs, we happened to look at each other. James broke the silence with, “And you said this wouldn’t be fun!” I laughed out loud!
James wanted to look for a Star Wars slider for his Magic Band and the folks at Guest Relations suggested that we try the Pin Traders store. We didn’t find a slider that James liked, but we were able to take a good selfie to text to some friends of mine at work.
We found the girls in the boutiques in the Marketplace Co-Op and Tren-D. They were trying on some clothes so we wandered around the other stores for a little bit. We found this chair that seemed to suit me for some reason, but I can’t really put my finger on it.
By this point it was approaching 2 o’clock and we were starving, so once the girls were ready to move on we started hiking back toward the West Side. We wanted try the food trucks.
I barely recognized this area around Cooke’s of Dublin, with the walls up and all of the construction going on.
Here’s a shot of the street with the Erin McKenna Bakery, Chapel Hats, and the Boathouse restaurant at the corner.
We stopped back in the Bakery so that Judy get some gluten-free things for breakfasts.
continued in next post