Day 1 - Magic Kingdom
My birthday started with a wonderful surprise! While we were getting ready, there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, I found this waiting for me on the other side:
My husband had arranged for it and completely surprised me! The "cake" that Mickey is holding consisted of chocolate bars forming an outer circle and the inside was filled with cookies, pretzels, gummy bears, jelly beans and squares of Ghiradelli chocolates!
After ooohing and aahing, we needed to head for the Kona Cafe for their famous Tonga Toast! Our ADRs were for 8am, though, and with the park not opening until 9am, we had to figure out how to get to Poly. I had asked for advice here a while ago and several people mentioned the Breakfast Bus. Sadly, I asked three different CMs and none of them knew anything about it. So, we took a cab over instead. With tip, it was $20.
But all of that was forgotten when we got to the Poly. One thing I noticed was how few people were waiting outside Ohana's and how empty the Kona Cafe was. Only one side of the restaurant was being used and there were only about 5 tables taken.
On the plus side, that meant our orders came up very quickly. I first had Tonga Toast 5 years ago and was disappointed when we weren't able to get to the Poly during our 2007 trip, so I was craving this pretty hard and it did not disappoint.
After washing down breakfast with a mimosa, the waitress brought over another surprise:
It was just dollops of whipped cream and a cream puff, but it was yummy!
Finally, we jumped on the monorail and arrived at MK just before opening. I went to Will Call to pick up the Birthday Fast Pass and we were through the tunnels within a minute of the rope drop.
Our first ride was BTMRR which had absolutely no line so after we finished the first ride we went right back on again. Next, we headed to Splash which also had a very short line.
We hit PotC, ETRUNM, HM, HoP, IASW, and Peter Pan all before lunch. We stopped at the Village Haus around noon for lunch. Lines were short and finding a table was not an issue. After lunch, we went on Buzz before we decided to head back to the resort for a swim.
We spent about 90 minutes in the pool, just relaxing. I thought the pool was very nice - large enough that it didn't feel crowded at all and three attentive lifeguards. The kids really enjoyed the slide as did quite a few grownups!
After quick showers, we headed back to MK for dinner. I'll mention here that I know that one of the biggest issues that people have with AKL is the bus wait. And while the drive from AKL to MK is a bit lengthy (20 min), most of the time we waited no longer than 5-10 minutes for buses.
Our dinner reservation was for Tony's. It's sort of become a tradition for us to have our first night's dinner there. The food was all very good and my husband and I split the pistachio creme brulee for dessert while my son declined dessert in order to introduce my sister to the joys of a Dole Whip.
At this point, we wanted to walk off some of our dinner so we went through the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse before taking the Jungle Cruise where the pilot had everyone wish me a Happy Birthday. And let me just add here how awesome it is to spend your birthday at WDW. So many CMs and other guests went out of their way just to say Happy Birthday. It was so much fun!
We made a few more stops (Pooh, the Laugh Floor and SGE) before we settled down on the Tomorrowland bridge for the fireworks. I had wanted to book the dessert party but it was already sold out when I called, however, we wouldn't have been able to eat $18 worth of desserts anyway at that point. Tinkerbell flew right over our heads and we had a perfectly framed viewed of Wishes. It was the perfect ending to a perfect Disney birthday.
