The Aussietravellers Adventures continue... Updated - Day 26 - Part 1

[aussietravellers]

Well after the rest day yesterday I was feeling a little better. Still not fantastic but we were not going to waste another day, we would just take it easy Ok as easy as we could whist at WDW.

We had an ADR at Kona that morning. Plan was to go there for breakfast, take the monorail from Poly to Ticket and Transportation centre and then take the Epcot Monorail. Well we slept in, so those plans went out the window. Instead we grabbed a quick breakfast from the QS restaurant Mara. DS had a big mickey waffle, I had a bagel. Didn't take a photo, it was just a bagel, nothing exciting

We then jumped on the Epcot bus and off we went. We didn't make rope drop which was a little sad! I wanted to keep our roll going on making rope drop every morning but was not successful this particular morning.

Our first look at the big ball (whatever it's called) this trip.

We then raced straight over to Soarin for one of these

We first went and rode Living off the Land or The Land, can't remember what it's called. It's a ride about the land Living off the land really and the climate and growing produce. It's a little boat ride, like small world, here are some of the things they grow at WDW and use in their restaurants at Epcot.

I'd love a herb garden like this

We didn't have long to wait, so we thought we would stay close and go over to see Nemo. We rode

Cute sitting in a little clam. There was almost no wait for this at all. I remember last time we were here the wait was about 30 to 40 mins. After that we wandered around that area, looking around.
Found a hidden mickey

There was also a diver in a tank doing some demonstration. All to claustrophobic for me Don't know how he stood it in that little tube

Anyway it was now our fastpass time for our ride on Soarin. Oh and it did not disappoint. We absolutely LOVE this ride, I highly recommend it! and we had lunch at Le Cellier so we had to get a move on... Didn't want to miss that lunch after it's so hard to get an ADR!

So our lunch. I had been craving this meal, so looking forward to it, was looking forward to the steak, although after Jiko steak I didn't know how it would compare. All the hype about Le Cellier. I have eaten there before and enjoyed it. We were seated within about 10 minutes. Our waitress was friendly and bought over the bread sticks (YUM)

I had ordered the Cheese Soup as a starter. You could choose a bowl or a cup. I opted for the smaller cup size

It was ok, very peppery!

DS had something really surprising.....

yes a hot dog At least this one came with vegetables.

I had the fllet mignon steak with the mushroom risotto

with a side of steamed spinach

Now I love spinach, I eat lots and lots of spinach and I had a really hard time eating this, it was so salty! Actually I am having a bit of a hard time with a lot of the WDW food and the saltiness. But the spinach was inedible way too salty. Then the steak. Well after Jiko steak it was a big letdown! It was over cooked, dry and very thin and as for the mushroom risotto. Well it tasted like a packet of continental add water in a saucepan to the mix type thing. Certainly not what I was expecting and also very salty!

So that meal was a dud! We had another ADR for Le Cellier this week but I cancelled that. Would rather go to Les Chefs which we love and have always had great meals!

After lunch we started to walk around the world showcase. Everything looked set up for food and wine festival and it didn't start for a week. I was getting excited already.

Got to Mexico, took the little donald duck ride in there. It was cute, like a small world ride but not as good, but it got us out of the heat. It was SO hot outside. The hottest day we've had so far.

When we got outside again, we decided to just head back to the hotel for a swim as it was just too hot to keep walking around the world showcase. On the way back to the bus we stopped here....

It's a sort of cooling off station There are three of them and you just walk in and get sprayed with this cool mist. It was lovely. We got out of the front gates and were walking to the bus stop and could see our bus there. DS and some guys that were walking behind us started running. As AKL is the first bus stop it wasn't far, but just as DS and the guys got there, he closed the doors, wouldn't open them with them standing there and proceeded to pull away from the bus stop A bit annoying! The guys weren't happy either. Meant a 30 minute wait, in the stinking humid heat.

We made it back to the hotel and went down to the pool for a couple of hours and grabbed dinner at Mara and had an early night.

 

[aussietravellers]

What a fabulous day! For some reason, I love the Indiana Jones show, so that was a great picture you posted. Sometimes I can't work out if it is Indie that I love or Harrison Ford....

YAY for TSM! And you got a good score. I can whoop everyone in the family on the Buzz Lightyear Astro blasters at DLR but I complete suck at TSM.

I've never eaten at Sci Fi Dine In. It sure looks fun for pure ambiance and the food looks like it is typical of DHS.
Great looking meal at RFC. We always try and eat there at least once in every trip.

I like the Indy show too It's a little corny in places and a little precictable at times but its still a good show!

Hmmmm. that kids meal at Sci Fi Dine In looks quite sad doesn't it!!!!

We attempted the volcano at RFC last year. Just try and picture a mum and 2 very small little girls sitting in front of that and trying to eat it - I don't think we even made a dent. But the girls thought it was worth it because it meant the waitresses sang to us

xxx

Oh I ask for no singing with the volcano. I remember a few years ago when we first had one, we were mortified with everybody looking at us being complete toads with this massive dessert So now we order the volcano, hold the noise

I hope your neck is feeling better now.
Nice that you had a rest/laundry day!

I think CR gets good wraps because it is a monorail resort and because you can walk to MK from this resort. But it's not high on my list to stay, although the new Villa complex does look fantastic.

The neck has ups and downs, if I do too much it sort of let's me know to pull back a little and take it easy. I've been fighting a chest bug for a few days now. Woke up this morning at 4am (hence all of my updates ) with razor blades in my throat So I really hope that I can continue to keep it at bay and I don't get a big chest infection

 

[amyren]

Thanks Amy, yes we loved NY and I had a couple of visits to Magnolia Bakery, well actually I ended up having a third after my second visit ended up all over the floor when I knocked them over I hope you had a great trip to WDW and did you go on a cruise also?

Magnolia is addicting. When I was in NY with my girlfriends we went twice in just two days!

Yes! We did a 4 night cruise and 3 nights at Grand Floridian! We were at WDW Thurs 23 -Sun 26. I read your updates wondering if we were in any of the same parks on the same days but I think our schedules were different. We had a great time. The cruise was AWESOME! Excellent food, great shows and the staff was phenomenal. We liked is so much that we are doing a 10 day Mediterranean DCL cruise next June! I have a bunch of pics on my blog… but they are mostly of me, DH & DD posed with all of the characters. We counted and DD had her pic taken with like 40 different characters.

Loving your updates. We did TSM as well. It was so fun and I was so proud to beat DH. oh, and by the way "that big ball" is Spaceship Earth. DH LOVES that ride.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

I'm so jealous you got to ride TSM. I'm starting to think I won't get to .;

Bummer about Le Cellier, I was so disappointed to not be able to get an ADR but it sounds like that wasn't the end of the world.

Loving all of your pics and detailed stories about your days, keep em coming.

 

[aussietravellers]

Magnolia is addicting. When I was in NY with my girlfriends we went twice in just two days!

Yes! We did a 4 night cruise and 3 nights at Grand Floridian! We were at WDW Thurs 23 -Sun 26. I read your updates wondering if we were in any of the same parks on the same days but I think our schedules were different. We had a great time. The cruise was AWESOME! Excellent food, great shows and the staff was phenomenal. We liked is so much that we are doing a 10 day Mediterranean DCL cruise next June! I have a bunch of pics on my blog… but they are mostly of me, DH & DD posed with all of the characters. We counted and DD had her pic taken with like 40 different characters.

Loving your updates. We did TSM as well. It was so fun and I was so proud to beat DH. oh, and by the way "that big ball" is Spaceship Earth. DH LOVES that ride.

Oh thank's Amy, I don't feel so bad having done multiple visits to Magnolia Bakery

I will have a read of your blog now, looking forward to readying about your trip

I'm so jealous you got to ride TSM. I'm starting to think I won't get to .;

Bummer about Le Cellier, I was so disappointed to not be able to get an ADR but it sounds like that wasn't the end of the world.

Loving all of your pics and detailed stories about your days, keep em coming.

Don't be disappointed about missing Le Cellier. It's ok and you can have a nice meal there, but there are many many restaurants that are much much better than there. You have been to Sci-Fi and that was a hundred times better than Le Cellier.

 

[aussietravellers]

So it is 4.30am! This is my third night of not much sleep. Last night I didn't sleep until 2.30am and then woke up at 6am so was very yesterday and then tonight, I have woken at 3am and can not go back to sleep. I have picked up some hideous bug. This will be my third day now with a very very sore throat (can hardly swallow) and my third night of not much sleep, I just can't sleep as my throat is so sore. I think it may be moving into my chest now too which will not be good. I will see how I go today and may pay a visit to Centracare I think it's called, the medical centre that is apparantly near here.

Anyway enough of my misery I am at WDW and whilst I really feel very unwell I have soldiered on as all we mothers do I will not do the daily update at this stage. Just wanted to post some photos of my cake that we had on the wishes cruise the other night and my DS's cake that we had last night.

This is my cake. Ordered and delivered by Grand Floridian bakery to the boat for our wishes cruise. It was a tall, multi layer chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and chocolate buttercream, covered with fondant. It was absolutely delicious, it was a touch difficult to eat in the dark on the boat and without forks (we had left those ashore by accident ) It was also our first night with our friends from home and it was such a great night.

Kind of murdered the cake here. As much as I tried to cut it neatly, I was not very successful

DS's cake I had delivered to our room at YC and made by the Yacht Club bakery. We had checked in that morning and had been out all day shopping with our friends and had gone straight to his party which I had booked ahead of time at Ridemakerz, then dinner at TRex. We hadn't been to our hotel room yet as it hadn't been ready when we checked in, so we had the excitement of seeing our new room and being greeted by this awesome looking cake. All the kids went racing into the room and I was yelling, "please don't touch the cake" as I was wanting to take photos. Of course they ran straight to it, but were all so good and just looked and oooed and ahhhhed whilst we took photos of the cake. Sadly I forgot to take photos of the cake cut. So only have photos of the outside. But it is a chocolate cake, chocolate mousse and chocolate buttercream. Tasted very different to the night befores cake even though they were the same type, but it too was absolutely delicious!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Gorgeous castle cake! So glad that you got to spend the big 4-0 at WDW. How was the wishes cruise?

DS cake also looks fantastic!

Sorry to hear that you're not feeling the best. I swear it must be all that in and out of freezing air conditioning into the hot Floridian air that does it! Oh I wish you a speedy recovery.

Enjoy the YC.

 

[aussietravellers]

Not a very eventful day today. It was going to be a Magic Kingdom day today but for some reason we decided agains't it as DS wanted to go to a waterpark.

We started our morning at 1900 Park Fare. Breakfast was delicious as usual, we love 1900 Park Fare (although the food is not as good as Boma). We saw the Mad Hatter who I absolutely love, he is so funny and always makes us laugh with his antics. The rest of the characters were Pooh, Tigger, Alice, Mary Poppins and I think that was it. DS is really not into the girl characters I am sure that will change one day soon DS got a birthday place mat and cupcake which was nice. He has refused to wear his birthday button (much like his mother )

After breakfast we hopped on the monorail to Magic Kingdom to take the bus back to AKL

where we then changed and took the bus to Typhoon Lagoon.

We had a great day there. It's an awesome wave pool. This massive wave comes ever once and a while and it is huge and so strong. I love the lazy river, just so relaxing lying back in the tyre and going around floating your way around the park.

The only thing I don't like is the bits where you get sprayed with water from above! The water is absolutely freezing! It wouldn't be so bad if the water coming from above was warm but it's take your breath away cold! It was just so hot that day and once we got back to the hotel I realised how burnt my legs got. Stupid me, my legs never get burnt so whilst the rest of me was lathered in sunscreen, my legs were not and lying in the tube in the lazy river so much I was absolutely cooked! What a goose I was Oh well, had to suffer in silence as it was all my fault

I didn't take any photos of lunch or our ice cream sundaes we had during the day. My camera was in the locker and I didn't go and get it all day. But we had hotdogs and hamburgers with chips. They were ok, nothing special, but we were not expecting a gourmet lunch The ice cream sundae was delicious, chocolate ice cream with chocolate fudge, went down perfectly on such a hot day.

After a fun (and frying) day we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. It was time for another meal at Jiko. I am absolutely kicking myself though, as AGAIN! I forgot to take photos, so sorry, not much food porn. I think when that filet with mac and cheese came out, I was so excited and so hungry that I just didn't even think of photography all I could think about was getting that in my mouth! So I do have a photo of DS's dessert, it is the chocolate and caramel fun-do (fondue). It looked just divine and I didn't have any dessert.

The meal at Jiko was just superb! Service was great, food was out of this world, just yum!

After dinner we headed off up to bed, my legs were stinging and very sore from the sunburn, so we had an early night.

 

[aussietravellers]

Today started with breakfast at Boma, have I mentioned this is my favourite breakfast at WDW Yes I think I may have mentioned that once or twice.

Today was a scheduled Epcot day but I really felt like shopping so as I had created the schedule I was going to change it So I changed it to a shopping day.

We spent the day at Prime Outlets. We took a bus from AKL to Downtown Disney as this is the cheapest way to go. It cuts quite a bit off the taxi fare. Our taxi from DTD to Prime Outlets was about $25. This is our (well my) favourite outlet mall. It is really big and is much bigger than when we were last there. It had only just opened when we last went so not all of the shops were open yet but they were now. We made it just after 10am when the shops opened so had plenty of time to wander around after picking up my coupon book with the voucher I had printed up online before leaving.

Surprisingly I didn't buy too much. Just some clothes from Ralph Lauren and JCrew, got a pair of true religion jeans as they are a third of the price compared to Australia, some Ed Hardy stuff but this was not that cheap in my opinion and not a lot more. I did more shopping in NY at Macy's And to be honest, with the sales they have and the discount card from Macy's, I think you sometimes get just as good if not better deals than the outlets. We had subway for lunch at the food court.

We left around 2pm and just in time, as we were driving back to the resort, the rain started, but it had stopped by the time we got to AKL. Once back in our room, this was the view of the sky outside, it was black. We knew we were in for one heck of a storm and the lightening was awesome. We love a good lightening show. It was funny, as the clouds started rolling over some of the animals in the savannah were going mad, racing around like crazy animals They just have sensed a big storm coming. (Ms.Shuttergirl, this was your nightmare arrival night)

We actually went to head out for dinner, go to the bus stop and the weather was just so bad that we decided go back up and have dinner on our balcony that night and watch the lightening show going on outside, so went down to Mara and grabbed some take away (sorry take out in the usa). We then heard that there were tornedo warnings out but nothing happened near WDW. It ended up being a good idea as we had to pack up to move to the Beach Club the next day and we had an early ADR at Cape Mays at BC the next morning, so wanted to be packed up and ready to go before breakfast.

 

[aussietravellers]

Very early start this morning! We had a 7.30am ADR at Beach Club. Bit silly organising that on check out day I know, but we extended our trip by one day and added that extra day to AKL, so yesterday, day 14 with breakfast at Boma was our original check out day and this day, day 15 was to be our first morning that we wake up at BC but due to the extension of AKL by one night it meant that our check in morning was an ADR at 7.30am at our new resort.

So luckily I had packed up the night before, so we just got up early that morning and got ready to go, finished off the last bit of packing and called Bell Services at 6.30am to take our bags over BC. When you do a split stay you can have Disney transfer your bags for you. It is a fantastic service and very easy, bell services come to your room and collect the bags, then when you are in your new room bell services will bring the bags up to your room. Now as the bags would possibly take until 4pm to be delivered, we packed our hand luggage bag and one suitcase and took that with us in the taxi and sent the other two suitcases, hand luggage bag, grocery bags with Disney.

We then jumped in the taxi to BC with the plan to check in, have breakfast and then return to AKL for the day as we had the room there and didn't expect our room at BC to be ready until about 3pm, official check in time. We got to BC, had bell services store the two bags we took in the taxi (why not just take all the bags in the taxi you ask! Well with groceries we now had 9 bags, yes 9 bags, so we would have needed a removal truck to take them to BC not a taxi, LOL)

I went and checked in as Cape May's was not open yet and was going to receive a text when the room was ready. We then checked in at Cape Mays and were waiting for our table (yes you do even get a pager and wait for a table when you are the only people there and the restaurant is empty and just opened! I seriously believe that Disney does not believe in a 0 wait time Anyway whilst sitting in the lobby for our breakfast pager to go off, I receive a text message to say the room was ready Couldn't believe it and I had to go to reception to get our room number. Just as I did that the breakfast pager went off. It was all happening.

We enjoyed a yummy breakfast, Cape Mays really is a great character meal. It is more quiet and laid back than some of the other busy hectic character meals and with the characters all in their beach attire they are so cute. Food on the buffet is really really good. There are only three characters at this meal, Minnie, Goofy and Donald Duck. When we went a couple of years ago Chip and Dale were there too, its a little sad they have gone but it is still a nice breakfast. I usually end up having scrambled eggs and fresh asparagus, fruit and waffles.

After we finished breakfast we went past bell services and handed our luggage ticket and they were going to meet us at the room. So we got in the lift and headed for the 3rd floor. We then proceeded to walk down a hallway looking for our room, following the signs and we walked around another corner, then another corner, down another hall, around another corner, down another hall, around another corner, up another long hall, turned another corner (at this time we were laughing thinking, that these hallways were going to go on forever and we were in some time warp dream ) so after turning that last corner we went almost to the end of that hallway and there it was, 2nd door from the end, our room OMG, we made it. Finally! Not long after the bellman turned up with the two bags. I asked him if BC had a shuttle service from the lobby to the rooms Luckily he had a sense of humor (as often our jokes or sarcasm fall flat in the USA) and said that was a really good idea. I said yes, like a golf cart or something like that would be very handy.

So here is our room, it was just gorgeous and even though we were half way back to Australia it felt like, we were almost right at Epcot. He did tell us that there was a stairwell at the end of the hall (finally something close by ). If we went out that door, there was a little gate and it was literally about 30 seconds from the Epcot gate

Cute little lamp

So we then decided to go to Epcot seeing we were so close. We rode soarin, got another fastpass for later, I can't actually remember what else we did Memory is going

I do remember though that we went to Les Chefs des France for lunch. It was absolutely delicious and we enjoyed ever minute of it, service and food was great. A bit disappointed that we didn't see Remy though, but maybe next time (we are going back )

They serve a yummy bagette

French Onion Soup (that was SO good)

DS had some cheese pastry thing, it was nice

Quiche Lorraine

DS had a chicken dish with pasta and red sauce, it was lovely

We decided not to have dessert there and went outside to their french bakery and had a chocolate eclair

and chocolate mousse

After lunch we then walked around the world showcase going back to the room for a rest later afternoon. We had a dinner ADR at Via Napoli. On our way back to BC, we passed this fellow, who was not very happy and only a couple of feet from us, luckily he did eventually slither off into the bushes.

 

[aussietravellers]

After our afternoon rest it was time for our early dinner at the new Via Napoli italian restaurant.

We walked from our very close room to Italy and checked in for dinner. We waited about 10 minutes for the table and the restaurant was packed.

The service was great and the food was absolutely delicious! So good, we are going to go back again. I wish they did take away pizza actually, would love to just grab a slice as a snack.

Chicken Parmajana

Kids Pizza

That pizza was so delicious (I did have a try) as was the chicken.

We didn't have dessert there, instead we went outside and had a gelati and wandered around world showcase having our dessert.

Cookies & cream and chocolate

We have this thing where DS has his photo taken in every country wearing a different hat. So we continued on this quest after dinner. We haven't found a hat in England or Japan yet So took a photo in the phone booth at England but it's not the same as a hat!

Here is a sunset looking over France

We didn't stay at Epcot for illuminations, we watched part of that from our room

 

[areweindisneyyet]

Aussie Travellers - you are turning me green,

Thank you for the volcano photos, the girls and I were talking about this just the other day and I could go one just about now. The French meal looked fabulous as well.

I am still waiting for my first trip to WDW and you are making me feel like I am sitting on your shoulder and getting the grand tour. Thanks so much for your early morning postings. I hope your throat is feeling better soon and that the sleep pixies sprinkle some dust on you for a good night's sleep

OH and Oh My Goodness on the cakes, but what else would you expect from Disney.

 

[meandmygirl]

Wow, those cakes are amazing.

 

[Jade+3]

Those cakes are amazing. I love all the fine details.

Your room looks lovely. We went for a wander around that resort on one of our non park days.

Eeew to the snake! I had read a thread ages ago about snake sightings in the parks and the resorts. Apparently Disney actually employ snake handlers.

 

[amyren]

Love the cakes... could have done without the snake picture

 

[OzCath]

Thanks so much for the reports. Hope you feel better soon!!

 

[darren123]

Thanks for the Trip Report
Has been great reading

 

[aussietravellers]

Aussie Travellers - you are turning me green,

Thank you for the volcano photos, the girls and I were talking about this just the other day and I could go one just about now. The French meal looked fabulous as well.

I am still waiting for my first trip to WDW and you are making me feel like I am sitting on your shoulder and getting the grand tour. Thanks so much for your early morning postings. I hope your throat is feeling better soon and that the sleep pixies sprinkle some dust on you for a good night's sleep

OH and Oh My Goodness on the cakes, but what else would you expect from Disney.

Yes that volcano is absolutely delicious. The meal at Chefs was a surprise, I didn't really read many reviews of it as everybody seems to want Le Cellier, but we enjoyed it here more. The cakes just looked beautiful, I was so happy with them and also the flavour, they were both so yummy.

Wow, those cakes are amazing.

Thank you, yes the cakes were amazing, I was very happy with them.

Those cakes are amazing. I love all the fine details.

Your room looks lovely. We went for a wander around that resort on one of our non park days.

Eeew to the snake! I had read a thread ages ago about snake sightings in the parks and the resorts. Apparently Disney actually employ snake handlers.

Yes I loved all of the little details on the cakes too, particularly DS's pirate cake, it was amazing, we kept finding another little thing on that cake there were so many little hidden treasures. We have seen two snakes whilst here, I will be posting the second snake photo soon, it's from a report in a few days.

Love the cakes... could have done without the snake picture

Thanks Amy, the cakes were delicious! That is the second snake we have seen, that one was right near the walkway from Epcot to our room at BC, but it is all bushland (woods) so it will be full of snakes I imagine, it did give me the creeps.

Thanks so much for the reports. Hope you feel better soon!!

Thank you Yes it's a bit annoying being sick particularly now that friends have arrived and we want to get out and hit the parks and shops with them.

Thanks for the Trip Report
Has been great reading

Thanks

 

[aussietravellers]

So another 4am waking and another WDW trip report I have awoken with quite a high temperature so once the panadol kicks in hopefully I will have finished my report and can go back to sleep.

Day 16. Our first morning waking up at the BC. First thing is to open the balcony door for fresh air. We actually turn the aircon off in the room here (which we couldn't do at AKL) as even on a warmer setting it is just too cold. I prefer the heat outside to the freezing inside so it's nice having the fresh air.

This morning it was breakfast at Captains Grill at the Yacht Club. As we has slept in we missed our ADR but thought we would go anyway and hope for a walk up. There isn't a CS at BC. There is only the marketplace in the resort store that has some items, but not a hot breakfast. There is Hurricane Hannas around the pool, but it isn't open for breakfast unforunately.

So we arrived at Captains Grill, told them we had an ADR but slept in and we were given a pager for the usual Disney wait. I would love to know if anybody has been seated straight away? I would honestly doubt there was anybody. As we have been eating at TS restaurants two to three meals a day, we regularly experience the pager and wait. Even if you are next to be seated, you still wait! Some we have only waited 5 or so minutes, with the longest wait at 50's Prime Time Cafe (warning to anybody going there, always expect a long wait for a table even with an ADR).

Anyway back to the breakfast report. Now Captains Grill is a hidden treasure I think. Everybody thinks of Cape Mays at BC & YC but the breakfast at Captains Grill is fantastic. Adults buffet there is $15.99 (+ tax and tip) which is quite reasonable for a buffet, but the great thing is, that they have a full menu also, so if somebody in your group wants the full buffet they an have it, but if somebody in your group is not that hungry then can order from the menu, there is fruit parfait from $4.99.

So we had the buffet, I forgot to take photos because we were so hungry. But I had eggs benedict which was nice with the breakfast potatoes, then some fresh fruit and a mickey waffle. YUM!

After breakfast we walked to Hollywood Studios, the walk is not far and it was a nice walk. Once we got there however the line for bag check and to get in was HUGE, SO busy and it was after opening, so we decided to just skip it. We had already been to HS this trip, so decided to just go back to the hotel and have a resort day and go back to HS tonight for Fantasmic after dinner. We took our first boat ride back to the hotel. BC, YC and BWI have boat to HS rather than bus. This is the view of the pier outside BC to take the boat.

I had a massive pile of laundry that needed doing, we were running out of clothes as it has been ages since the last laundry day. I went down to the laundry and after the laundry at AKL I was expecting more. I was expecting to do it early and have all the machines free, do the three loads in one go, then put all three in the one dryer (the dryers are huge) and laundry would be done in an hour and we could carry on with our day. Well that did not go as planned! There was only one washing machine! Well there were two but only one was working. Then there wasn't a coin machine to change the notes into coins for the machine so I had to make the long trek to the Marketplace to change coins for the machine.

So it was a very very show process and ended up taking up a lot of the day. Firstly we went out and sat by the quiet pool, I did some posting on Dis, checked and replied to some emails etc (love the Virgin Wifi that we bought for the month can take it anywhere!). DS started to get bored as there isn't a lot to do at that pool. So I took him down to the arcade and set him up there with a card and back I went to do and wait for the laundry.

By lunchtime the laundry still wasn't done. The last load was in the dryer so we decided to go to Beaches and Cream for lunch. This is such a cute place. It is quite small, but it's set up like a 50's or 60's soda shop! I feel like I'm on happy days show or something. The decor is really cute in pastal colours and outside there are tables where the table legs are an icecream cone. You can get take away ice creams and drinks from here. Also if you are staying at BC or YC you can refill your refillable mugs here at the take out line. So we sat inside at a table, there is booth seating and countertop seating also, but this place is always packed, so expect a bit of a wait for a table if going in peak times.

Here is what we had a Beaches and Cream
Kids hot dog with a side of fruit

Chicken sandwich (I had it without the tomato)

Then the milkshakes..... OMG, honestly this was the best milkshake I have ever had! It was SO good and I do highly recommend a visit to B&C even for a take out milkshake if you can't or don't want to eat there. It is a TS restaurant but the food isn't really much better than a CS so if on the dining plan it's a bit of a waste of a TS credit, unless on the deluxe dining, I would pay OOP for this meal.

After lunch DS went back to the room to get changed and ready to go to Stormalong Bay, the BC&YC pool and I went to.... you guessed it.... to the laundry. Finally finished the laundry and off we went to the pool.

What an awesome pool this is. I haven't taken any great photos of the pool yet but I will do this before we leave and post them here. DS was swimming for hours! Stormalong Bay is a massive pool that seems to wind around forever, it is acres in size. It has a massive slide that starts in a pirate ship that is on the beach and winds back around to the pool I sat reading on a lounge under a tree and it was all very relaxing.

After spending the whole afternoon at the pool it was time to head to Epcot for our dinner ADR at Garden Grill........ to be continued.

 

[aussietravellers]

We walked from our room at BC to Epcot for our dinner ADR at Garden Grill. We arrived and had about a 20 minute wait. We were quite excited about Garden Grill. This is the only character meal that have Chip and Dale now that Cape Mays don't have them anymore and we love Chip and Dale. On our visit to GG last time, chip and dale were so much fun, as were all of the characters, so we were looking forward to a fun night. This restaurant also turns, very slowly, so the restaurant is a circle, in the middle is the kitchen (hidden behind walls obviously with all of the tables on two levels around the middle, there is one row on the top level and one row of booths on the bottom level (so if you lean over the top level you could drop a bread roll on those sitting below ). Then the outside rim of the circle is the scenery (and the entrance. So the scenery does not move, its the centre circle where the table and kitchen are located that move. But it does not move fast, you can not feel it moving.

So we were seated on the top row (we like the bottom better but on well). Our server was over to us very quickly and took our drinks order and bought some rolls.

This restaurant is family style. So it's all you can eat, like a buffet, but it's served in big platters in the middle of the table and they will keep getting you more food as long as you want it.
Next came the salad

The salad was delicious!

Here is the kids selection

And here is the adults selection

There was turkey and some beef which were both nice, tender and the turkey was not dry. The potatoes were nice, but the fish....yuk! It tasted like fishy soap water. It left a hideous aftertaste in my mouth and it was yukky and I only had one small bite. Overall I am finding the food to be very salty, so I have started saying I'm on a low sodium diet to stop them adding extra salt to the already salty food.

Dessert was some sort of cobbler (we call it a crumble)

I only had one bite, it wasn't that great but that is probably just me.

The kids dessert was cookies and cream brownie.

What I didn't realise until after is that blob of what I thought was cookies and cream ice cream is literally a massive blob of cookies crushed up into the fake cream they seem to use everywhere in the US. Anyway DS loved it and gobbled it down, much to my horror once I realised he had just eaten a massive scoop of fake cream for dessert.

Now for the character interaction. It is hard to describe. It was so great when we went last time and the other character meals, they have been so active and fun. Here they almost seemed to have been sedated. Particularly Mickey, it was weird. We were actually laughing about it wondering if somebody had shot him with a tranquilizer gun or something by mistake and he was almost moving in slow motion. He walked up to our table and did this slow wave then slowly moved and DS got up for a photo, then he slowly turned and just walked to the next table where he did the same. He looked so cute in his overalls but he was just plain weird

All of the characters were sort of a bit slow that night and completely void of personality, it was really strange. Anyway Dale just kept avoiding us. We were on the upper level as I have mentioned and there are a couple of small stairwells (about 3 or 4 steps) to the lower level and we were right beside one of those stairwells. The characters come around in a circle, but Dale was at the table on the lower level directly below us so he had a full loop before coming to us. He came around the top then but instead of coming to us, he went down the stairs beside us and did the lower loop again, so missed half of the upper circle. So I had to ask our server as everybody in our top half circle missed Dale. He did come back eventually before we left.

But overall the meal was ok but the character interaction was just terrible, it's not somewhere we will race back to and it is not on our must do list!

After dinner we walked back to World Showcase entrance and got on the boat for Hollywood Studios. We did not have long until the late session of Fantasmic and we were hoping we would make it. I thought it was on at 9.00pm but luckily it was 9.30pm, we would have missed it if it were 9pm. We hopped off the boat and raced towards the venue, where we ran into the line which luckily hadn't started to move in yet. We made it into the middle section of Fantasmic and watched the show. We really love this show but I do prefer the one at Disneyland personally.

Here are a couple of shots from Fantasmic

After that finished, we raced back to catch the boat with what felt like a million other people and we were back at the BC and off to bed.