My Trip Report 9/25-10/4 with Photos!

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 5, 2009

Here are some photos of our room, which we were very happy with. Having the double sinks was a huge bonus getting ready in the morning. We also loved the little kitchenette. We chose to try the dining plan this trip but if we had to do meals in the room, we defintely would have had no problems.

Simba in the kitchen

Hidden Mickeys in the carpet and bedspread

TBC...

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 5, 2009

We only had two issues with the room. The first was that we only got maid service twice our whole ten day trip (I had read this online ahead of time so I was well aware). Considering the thousands of dollars DVC members fork over to Disney, I'm not sure why they actually get less benefits. Our only other problem was that our slider going out to the balcony did not have a screen. The first night we were there we wanted to keep the door open to get some fresh air. That all changed though when the biggest bug I've ever seen flew into our room. Nick didn't even want to swat it as he was afraid of getting bug guts all over the walls. He ended up shooshing it back out with a towel which prompted me to yell at him for wasting a towel since we had to pay extra if we need more :ROFLOL:

Anyways, after checking out our room, we walked around the resort a bit just to familiarize ourselves with it. The location of our room was pretty good. It was super close to the Mara (quick service) which was nice. It was a bit of a trek to the bus stop but we got used to it.

Hidden Mickey in the hallway

Hidden Mickey by the pool

That night we had 5:50 dinner ADRs at Jiko. We changed into some nice clothes (and out of our flying attire) and walked down to the restaurant. Jiko is beautiful and we had a nice view overlooking a small stream and a walkway to the pool.

After ordering, we were brought out fresh rolls and butter as well as small cups of ginger butternut squash soup. Both were really good. For dinner, Nick had the filet and mac & cheese which he loved, and I had the lamb with curry sauce with herbed couscous with dried cherries. I requested my sauce on the side and was happy with my decision as it was a bit spicy. The entire meal was just delicious. For dessert, Nick had the chocolate cheesecake and I had homemade cinnamon donuts with coffee ice cream. I loved mine and wished I wasn't so full from the meal! Nick said his was very rich and chocolately and tasted nothing like cheesecake. He only ate about half of it since it was so rich. I took pictures of our desserts because they were so nicely plated

Overall dinner was great and a very nice start to our vacation. Nick however did make the comment that while the resort was very nice, it still didn't feel like we were actually in Disney. We really could have been anywhere in the world. I had to agree with him.

After dinner, we walked over to The Mara and used our snack credits to get breakfast for the morning. I got a muffin and Nick got a package of cereal. When we went up to the register, the woman told Nick he could get a small carton of milk to go with his cereal and that she would still only charge him one snack credit. That was nice of her to let us know that. I also bought a refillable mug and filled it with coffee. I put it in the fridge in our room so it would be iced coffee by morning. I did this many times and it actually was pretty good!

That night we turned in pretty early. We were tired from the long day and knew we were going to be getting up early.

Day Two at Animal Kingdom... to be continued!!!

MKCP 1985 · Oct 5, 2009

How cool having a view of Everest from your room on the savannah!

You know, the Animal Kingdom Lodge is less cartoony experience but wow, what a nice place!

Nice photos! Your husband and you make a great looking couple, too.

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 5, 2009

Day Two- 9/26 Animal Kingdom

We decided to spend our first day in the parks at Animal Kingdom. The hours were 9-5 that day. The plan was to be at the turnstiles by 8:30am. However Nick tends to be a bit slow moving in the mornings so we were running a little behind my schedule. We ended up getting to the park about 10 seconds before guests were allowed through the turnstiles at 8:45. There were about 3 or 4 queues on the right that had a sign above them for Donald's Safari Breakfast. Once the park was officially opened though, the CMs started motioning for other people to use that entrance. We took full advantage of the "you snooze, you lose" policy and headed for that entrance. We then quickly walked to the Oasis and ended up pretty close to the front on the very right. We actually had a great few for the opening show!

At 9am, CMs led the rope towards Everest. Nick and I banged a right at Dinoland and with a combination of fast walking and jogging, made it to Everest pretty well ahead of the pack. The CMs in the front of the queue congratulated us on our short cut. When the other people got there, we were walked through the queue. Nick and I were of course given the first seat on the first ride, in our first day in the parks! I then looked at Nick and told him he was never to doubt his crazy wife again!

Everest was of course awesome as usual. That backwards in the dark part gets me everytime! Defintely the highlight of the ride. Even though I knew where to look for the Yeti, I still missed it. There were not as many lights on it as I remember and it did not move at all.

As we exited Everest, we grabbed a Fast Pass which had a return time of 10am. That gave us just enough time to head over to Dino Land! First we rode Primevil Whirl which we both liked last year. This time though, it seemed more jerky and painful than we remembered. We agreed it would be our one and only ride this time around.

We then went over to Dinosaur which I love! Not only is the ride great, but the interior of it is beautiful and just so nicely designed! I still think though that there should be some kind of warning that this ride is not for kids! There was a boy sitting behind us who was about 10 or 11 years old and he look terrified in the photo!

While in Dino Land, we bumped into these two!

I should also quickly mention that it was so unbelievably hot the entire time we were there. It was between 88 and 93 every day. We had just started getting into nice, cool fall weather back home so it was a bit of a shock to us.

After Dino Land, we went back to Everest to use our fast passes. The stand by line said 5 minutes, so we figured what the heck, and we literally walked on, then used our fast passes. We also grabbed another when we got off. What can I say, we love that ride!

We then went over to Kilimanjaro Safari and on the way, we ran into these two-

Meeting Terk was especially cool as she is one of my favs!

At KS, the wait time said 20 minutes. I think we waited more like 15. The Safari was pretty typical, good views of giraffes, elephants, and rhinos. The lions were of course snoozing.

We then went back to Everest to use our fast passes (I know, a lot of back tracking) and then headed off to the Maharajah Jungle Trek!

To be continued....

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 5, 2009

The Maharajah Jungle Trek was cool, although the tigers were all sleeping. I guess the hot sun makes everyone sleepy!

We also liked this guy-

We had a 1pm reservation at Tusker House and even though it was a little early, we checked in around 12:30. We were seated almost immediately and the AC felt so nice after a morning of running around in 90 degree weather! Nick was already starting to complain that he was getting tired, hot, etc. I took out my times guide and saw that the Nemo show was at 2:30. I suggested that we take our time at lunch, enjoy the AC, and then go over and relax while watching the show.

Lunch was great, I truly enjoyed the restaurant. There were a lot of salad choices that were good, and I especially loved the pork with sweet and spicy BBQ sauce at the carving station. Nick can be a very picky eater and he later told me that there wasn't much he liked. I loved everything I tried though and would defintely go back again!

We left Tusker House a little after 2 and slowly made our way towards Nemo. We got there at about 2:15. There were still plenty of seats towards the back but a CM was down towards the front holding up 2 fingers so we went down there. We ended up in the forth row which was actually a little too close. It was still a great show though. I saw it back in '07 with my mom but Nick has never seen it. He also really liked it and said he liked it even more than Festival of the Lion King. Here are some pictures from that-

The only bad thing was that about 5 minutes before the show ended, my camera died. I bought a new one about a week before we left and only used it once before. Apparently, the battery doesn't last as long as my old camera's did. Sad...

After Nemo, our original plan was to go to Rafiki's Planet Watch to meet the characters. Since my camera was not working though, we decided to save that for another day.

We decided that we wanted to see the parade but first, my husband begged me to go on Kali River Rapids with him. I hate rides where you get wet, nevermind soaked. But since he waits in lines for characters with me, I figured I could do this for him.

The posted wait time was 40 minutes but we most defintely waited longer than that. I really wished my camera was working because the queue for Kali is beautiful! The ride was terrible, it was really short and boring and it basically felt like you just sat in a raft while getting buckets of water dumped upon you. Even Nick said it wasn't worth the wait and he would be fine never doing that ride again.

We got off of Kali a little after 3:30 and decided to find a spot for the parade. I tried taking pictures, but only got 2 before my camera turned off again.

We only had 3 other things we really wanted to do- Rafiki's Planet Watch, Camp Minnie Mickey Character Trails, and the Pangani Trail. But since my camera wasn't working, we really couldn't do any of those things.

So after the parade we decided to call it a day. We went back to the hotel where we rested for a bit and then went down to check out the main savanna. We agreed that we liked ours much better. The main one is huge with lots of trees and its easy for the animals to be hidden. We did however find this guy very interesting-

We then went to the Mara to get some dinner. We were surprised by the limited selection that is offered at dinner. We both ended up getting flatbread. Nick got cheese, I got chicken. They were okay but nothing special. For dessert, Nick got cheesecake, which he liked, and I got zebra domes. They were okay but a little to creamy for me. I only ended up eating two. We also used our snack credits again to get some breakfast. Because both lunch and dinner came with dessert, we really didn't need snacks during the day. So using the credit for breakfast worked out perfectly for us!

I will try to continue on tomorrow... our next day was spent at DHS which is our favorite park! See you then!

CheltonJ · Oct 6, 2009

Great report so far.

I stayed at the AKL two years ago and had a savannah view room. We loved waking up in the morning and going out on the balcony to see the various animals.

Look forward to reading more

minnie2000 · Oct 6, 2009

Great report - love the photos!

monkeysammich · Oct 6, 2009

Great report and great pictures... can't wait for the rest!

Atomicmickey · Oct 6, 2009

Great report, thank you!

Awesome Hidden Mickey finds!

I have never seen Flik and Terk before, pretty cool!

I agree about "fourth row" at Nemo--next time we will sit
back a little to take it all in better. Front row is not
necessarily best . . .

Look forward to more!

HollyBelle · Oct 6, 2009

I'm really enjoying your report. A 10 day DVC stay! Woohoo...what a great wedding gift. I can't wait to read more.

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 6, 2009

Hey everyone! Thanks for reading so far!!

Continuing on...

Day Three- 9/27 Disney's Hollywood Studios

DHS is both mine and my husbands favorite park so we were really excited to spend the day here. Park hours that day were 9-7 and once again, we arrived at about 8:30am. Lines at the turnstiles were already pretty long. We were beginning to notice that free dining seemed to have a big impact on crowd levels. However, we did see very few school age children. There were a lot of couples there with no kids- a lot celebrating honeymoons and anniversaries. The families there mostly consisted of preschoolers, toddlers, infants, etc. I would say the crowds were similar to when we went in mid Jan. in '08.

Anyways, while waiting at the turnstiles, a few CMs from American Idol were going through the crowds with video cameras. They were recording people yelling, cheering, shouting things like 'I love America Idol!' etc. They also asked people to sing various Disney songs such as Zip A De Do Dah. Nick and I both agreed that everyone was far too peppy for 8:30 in the morning so whenever the cameras came near us we would turn away. haha

When the turnstiles opened at 8:45, we got stuck behind a family who had no clue how to put their tickets in the machine. It took them forever and by the time we got in, we were pretty far back in the crowd. I didn't even take any pictures of the opening show because I had way too many heads in our way.

At 9am, I would say 70% of the people took off towards Toy Story Mania. The rest of us headed towards Rock N Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. We decided to do RnRC first. Nick quickly grabbed some fast passes and then we jumped in the standby line. It was, of course, awesome! We were on the first ride of the day, but this time we were in the last seats due to us being pretty far back at rope drop.

We then went over to Tower of Terror which is my favorite ride in all of WDW. After our trip last Jan. I started getting into the Twilight Zone. So throughout the week one of my obsessions was finding props throughout the ToT. I took pictures of the ones we found later in the week so I will post those in a later post.

After riding ToT, we made our way over to Toy Story Mania. This wasn't open yet on our last trip so we were excited to try something new. The standby wait said 30 minutes so we hopped in line.

After being in line for only about 5 minutes, the wait time changed to 60 minutes. We asked a near by CM what the real wait time was and told us from where we were, it was probably about 40 mins. We decided to stick it out.

The queue for this ride is awesome! It was like being in a toy store. I was having so much fun looking at everything and we couldn't believe the number of kids that were either crying or playing on a DS. There was so much to look at!

When we sat down in our car, I looked at my watch and saw that we had waited exactly 30 minutes. I was defintely glad we stuck it out. The ride was really fun. We both agreed it was a perfect length and all the different games were great. I don't remember our scores but I know my husband kicked my butt. However, my accuracy was 75% and his was only 35%. He later asked if accuracy was factored into your final score and was told no. So he didn't care if I beat him there.

When we exited the ride, our fast pass window had opened up so we grabbed one for Toy Story. The return time was around 2:30 that afternoon.

We then went back to RnRC to use our fast passes. This was by far the weirdest ride ever. We loaded as usual and pulled up to the underpass section where you wait before taking off. The music started, we heard the countdown and then nothing happened. We were just sitting there. A CM finally came over and apparently, someone had managed to get one of their arms out of the restraint. We couldn't see who it was so we weren't sure if was a kid who didn't know any better or a teenager just being an idiot. At any rate, the problem was fixed. Instead of starting the music over again, we took off with no warning! It was great. The rest of the ride was strange though because there was no music playing. It was literally silent the entire ride except for people screaming when we went upside down. We both agreed that if there were any first time riders they must have thought the ride was pretty lame. Oh well.

When we left RnRC, we started to make our way towards the Great Movie Ride. However Nick decided he wanted to buy a frozen lemonade (it was once again in the 90s that day). After he bought it, we didn't know if we could get on the ride with it. So instead, we walked back over to Pixar Place and got in line to meet Woody and Buzz. The line was loooong, a CM outside said it would take about a half hour. I feel like we waited longer than that. There were cute little photo ops along the way so here is me with Stinky Pete (I'm making a stinky face)

We finally got to the front of the line!

By then it was getting close to lunch time. We decided to go over to Backlot Express since there is indoor seating. Lunch was nothing spectacular, I got a hot dog, fries and a strawberry parfait. Nick got chicken nuggets, fries, and an extra bottle of water.

After lunch, we went over to the Great Movie Ride. I love this ride, Nick hates it. He hates rides with animatronics because he thinks they all look fake and robotic. Oh well! I found the hidden Mickey and Donald but couldn't get a clear picture.

We then went over to Muppet Vision. It was fun, as usual, although we both agreed the screen could use a refurb.

On our way out of MV, we saw a meet and greet with Lightning McQueen and Mater so we got in line. It was fairly short so we only waited 5 or so minutes.

We then went back to use our Toy Story fast passes, and also rode ToT again which had a 15 or 20 minute wait. I started taking pictures in the queue and even though it was fully charged that morning, my camera died again. Sad. Nick and I agreed that if I had any further problems with it, we would return it when we got home.

Does anyone know what the little sign means??? It says, It's easy enough to be pleasant, when life hums along like a song...
The rest is covered and I can't read it.

to be continued shortly...

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 6, 2009

Continuing on...

Nick took two pictures in the Tower of Terror when the doors opened. As you can see, it was raining. By the time we exited the ride and gift shop, it had stopped so we missed it completely!

We then went over to the animation building. We first got in line for the UP characters which were Russell and Carl. However, we heard a CM say that Russell would be leaving soon and Dug would be coming out. Dug is our favorite so we got out of line so we could wait for him.

We went over to Sorcerer Mickey and the CM was able to snap one picture before my camera turned off again.

We then went over to the Incredibles and again, got one picture.

We then got back in line for Carl and Dug and this time, the CM was not able to get my camera to turn on. Sad. We knew we would have to come back another day. This was a really fun meet and great. Nick scratched Dug's belly and shook his butt and thumped his foot. It was great.

We then saw Frozone where the Incredibles were and luckily, the CM got my camera to turn on long enough to get one picture.

We exited the Animation building and saw people wearing ponchos. It looked like it had rained again but again, we completely missed it! It was getting close to our ADR so we went over to the Sci Fi.

I ate here in '07 with my mom and we both enjoyed it. Nick has never been. Because there was only 2 of us, we were seated with a family of four. Our waitress told us we could order milkshakes as our drink so we took her up on the offer. Nick had Oreo, I had vanilla and both were yummy.

For dinner, Nick ordered the butcher steak and I had the italian chicken sandwich. Mine was good, Nick did not care for his. For dessert, Nick had the chocolate peanut butter cake and I had the apple crumble. Both were great.

The waitress was able to get a picture of us.

Nick later told me that he did not like this restaurant at all. He said he didn't like that we had to sit with another family, and that it was too dark and loud (he sounds like an old man doesn't he). He also said his dinner wasn't that good. I liked it though and would still consider going back.

When we left the restaurant there was about a half hour left until closing. We browsed in a few stores and then decided to call it a day!

That night I was playing around with the settings on my camera and took this picture from our balcony-

Day four at Magic Kingdom coming later....

Ariel484 · Oct 6, 2009

Great report so far! That stinks about your camera battery...I feel your pain - I bought a new Sony for my May '09 trip and had to buy a back-up battery because I realized early on that the included one wasn't going to last all day :cry:

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 6, 2009

Day Four- 9/28 The Magic Kingdom

On day four we planned on spending the whole day at Magic Kingdom. The hours that day were 9-9. We once again arrived at about 8:30. The opening show was fun, as usual. Does anyone know why though they refer to the train as Casey Jr? I know that is the train at Disney Land, do they just use the same song?
The front of the park looked beautiful all decked out for fall-

They let us through the turnstiles at about 8:55. We made our way down Main St- ropes were still set up at the entrance to each land. We chose to go to the Liberty Square entrance. At 9am, two CMs led us through Liberty Square, then one went towards the Haunted Mansion while the other continued on towards Frontierland (where we were headed). Right around the Diamond Horseshoe, we were greeted by another line of CMs. They led us, at a fast walk, to the mountains. Our group made it there a little before the group coming from Adventureland. Nick and I were officially the first people in the line for Big Thunder Mountain! However, since the train loads backwards, we were in the last seat instead of the front. That ride is actually better in the back anyways!

After BTM, we went over to Splash Mountain. I was excited and nervous for this ride. I hadn't been on Splash since 1995. When I went with my mom in '07, I didn't go on because I didn't want to get wet (also, my mom doesn't do the big rides so the combination of riding alone and getting wet caused me to pass). When Nick and I were there in Jan '08, Splash was closed for refurb. I was excited to experience a ride that was somewhat new to me but I was also really nervous because I didn't know how wet we would actually get...

So we loaded into our boat and got going. We had just reached the first outdoor part when another boat went down the big drop. When that boat hit the bottom, a huge splash of water came up and dumped down right on our boat! 10 seconds into the ride and we were already drenched!

The rest of the ride was really fun. The indoor parts are really cute and nicely done. That first drop in the dark is awesome too. When we went down the big drop, I started with my arms up but crouched down when we hit the bottom because I didn't know how wet I would get. We defintely got far more wet when the other boat splashed us than when we went down the big drop. On the way out, Nick wanted to grab a fast pass for later since it was once again supposed to be in the 90s. I agreed but I was already dreading another soaking.

After the 2 mountains, we headed towards Liberty Square. On the way, we bumped into Frontier Donald!

We hit up the Haunted Mansion which is another one of our MK favs, and then continued on to Fantasyland. Nick would have liked to skip FL all together, but I convinced him that if we hit up the rides early in the day, we wouldn't have to wait very long and we could get them out of the way early.

Our first stop was at Peter Pan which had a 20 minute wait time posted. We defintely waited that long, maybe longer. The ride seemed extremely short to us but maybe it was because we were just at The Haunted Mansion.

When then went on It's a Small World right around 10:15....

Nick vetoed IASM on our last trip but this time around he vetoed Carousal of Progress. IASM was nice although I wish they could figure out how to make loading/unloading more efficient. We were stuck in the last room for a long time.

After IASM, we went into Mickey's Philharmagic. This is defintely my favorite of the 3D attractions and one of my overall favorites as well. After the show, it was just about time to use our Splash fastpasses so we cut through the castle to go back to Frontierland. Along the way we spotted the Fairy Godmother!

Splash was FAR more enjoyable this time as our boat was not drenched going by the big drop. I snapped a few pictures along the way.

Nick took this one right before the drop

After this more pleasant experience, Splash became our best friend throughout the rest of our 90 degree trip.

Magic Kingdom continued soon...

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 6, 2009

It was just about time for lunch so we headed off to Cosmic Rays. We had never been there before and we ended up really liking it. It was pretty crowded when we got there so we had to be quick to snag a table as soon as someone got up. Nick got a burger and fries with a brownie and I got rotisserie chicken with green beans, mashed potatoes and carrot cake. I also got an iced cappachino as my drink! It was yummy. My only complaint was that my green beans were really salty. Other than that though it was great! We were entertained during our meal by Sonny although Nick and I thought his jokes were a little too much like 'dad jokes'.

After lunch, we stayed in Tommorrowland and started out at Buzz Lightyear. After Toy Story Mania, Buzz was extremely lame. We couldn't even tell where we were shooting and whose red dot was whose. Half way through I gave up and just sat back and enjoyed the scenery. We went on Buzz last year and really liked it so I guess we are now spoiled by Toy Story.

We then went into Monsters Inc which is always a blast! Even though I know when the "that guy" jokes are coming it cracks me up every time!

After Monsters, the only thing left to do was Stich's Great Escape. My mom and I went on this in '07 and I was so completely disgusted by the chili dog burp that I never wanted to go on again. So Nick and I skipped it last year. This time, he really wanted to try it, so I agreed.

It actually turned out to be pretty fun. And when the burp part came, I didn't smell anything. When the show ended, I turned to Nick and said that they must have taken out the smell. He too said he didn't smell anything. However, when we were leaving the theater, the family in front of us was talking about how gross the chili dog smell was. So I dont know why, but it seems some people could smell it, and some couldn't. Oh well, I liked it better without the smell anyways!

From Tomorrowland, we made our way over to Adventureland. The first thing we saw was Rafiki!

After taking that picture, we asked if we could get a butt picture since we loved his blue butt! He did a silent laugh then turned around and shook his butt for us. I'm choosing not to post the next picture since I don't think everyone needs to see my butt! haha

We then rode Pirates which had a 10 minute wait posted but seriously I think we only waited about 5. There was an older man in front of us in line who was talking to us the entire time and it was getting a little annoying. We were seated in the same row with him so I begged Nick to sit next to him. I felt bad for him through the rest of the ride as the guy continued to talk his ear off. Every so often I would here Nick say, oh really? or thats great... after, I asked him what the guy was saying he said he had no idea, that he wasn't really listening.

When we exited Pirates, we went over to the Peter and Wendy meet and greet. Nick had to go to the bathroom so the CM took the picture for me. It was by far the strangest character meeting I had all week. Wendy did not say one word the entire time and Peter was a little rude. He asked me what my name was, I said Jillian, he looked off into the crowd distracted and muttered, thats great. They both smiled for the picture and then he said, well bye. I was like, ok and walked away. It was really strange.

It was then just about time for the parade to start so I convinced Nick that if we went back to Fantasyland we should be able to get on the rest of the rides there without much of a wait. On the way over, we decided to stop to get our first ever Dole Whips!

The lines were pretty long and were directly in the sun. So I told Nick he could go sit on a bench in the shade and that I would wait in line. I got in the left line and it was absolutely not moving. Meanwhile, people were breezing in and out of the center line. When I finally got up to the front, I saw that there were two cash registers in the center and only one on either side. Ten minutes later, we finally had our snacks- I got a pineapple dole whip float and Nick got the same in orange. The only good thing was that the woman messed up and only charged us one snack credit.
They were delicious by the way!

When we got over to FL, which was still packed, our first stop was Snow White. As you can imagine, Nick was thrilled for this one.

We then went on the Winnie the Pooh ride which was actually really cute! Even Nick commented that it was way better than Peter Pan so thats saying something.

We also took a quick walk through the Winnie Pooh Playground. I had never been in there and I couldn't remember if they were getting rid of it during the expansion so I wanted to see it just in case.

We then decided to head over to Toon Town. Toon Town was so incredibly packed that we could barely move around. There was actually a line out Minnie's front door of people just waiting to go in and look around.

Instead of trying to fight our way through, we hopped a train to Frontierland where we used our Thunder Mountain fastpasses we had picked up on our last ride on Splash.

More coming up...

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 6, 2009

After Thunder Mountain, we were both really hot and starting to get tired. We decided to catch the Hall of Presidents so we could relax in the AC for awhile. I couldn't find a setting on my camera that would take a decent picture of the animatronics, but the Obama one was really cool. The show was interesting and we enjoyed it.

We then went back towards the hub, where we stopped for a photo.

We were headed down Main St. to our ADR at Tony's and the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate Party/Parade was just starting. So we stopped to watch. It was cute.

We then went and checked in at Tony's.

A few minutes later, our buzzer went off and the hostess told us our table was ready outside. I nicely told her we were really hot and were hoping to sit inside. Also, I had never been to this restaurant and was eager to see what the inside looked like. I told her we would wait longer if necessary. After another five minutes or so, she came back over to us and led us to our table.

Our table was all the way in the back corner. It was a nice little location and a great spot to relax at the end of the day. Our waitress was Amy who used to waitress at another Disney restaurant but was 'earning her ears' here at Tony's. She was very efficient and accommodating and checked on us often.

For dinner, Nick ordered the boneless short ribs which came with butternut squash and brocolini. I was impressed it came with 2 vegetables as we soon realized that vegetables are often hard to come by in Disney. I ordered the chicken parm. After Amy put our order in, she brought us rolls and butter. We had literally taken about 2 bites of our rolls when our food was brought out to us. It was a little strange that it was prepared that quickly. It tasted great though and we both really enjoyed our choices!

Amy then brought us the dessert menu and came back a few minutes later to take our order. They had a special pumpkin cheesecake that Nick chose. I was torn between the granny smith apple sorbet and the pistachio creme brule. I asked Amy what she recommended. She said both would be a great choice. I finally decided on the creme brule. When she came back a few minutes later with our desserts, she told me she didn't want me to miss out, so she brought me both desserts! It was a great surprise and as it turned out, while the creme brule was good, the granny smith sorbet was delicious! So I was really glad I got to try it!

I took a picture of Nick's dessert because I liked the Lady and the Tramp imprint. Amy took a picture of us also.

At the end of the week when we were discussing our favorite restaurants, we both picked Tony's as one of our favs. The food was great, service was great, and it was a nice way to end our day. The only down side was that the restaurant is basically one big open room with tile floors so it was really noisy in there. It wasn't quite as bad in our little corner but there were times when it sounded like we were in a big cafeteria.

One more page of MK coming...

monkeysammich · Oct 6, 2009

... Pumpkin Cheesecake? That sounds delightful. The public demands to know how it was!

DisneyDreamer08 · Oct 6, 2009

After leaving Tony's, we saw Chip and Dale at the end of the porch. This ended up being my favorite character meet and greet of the trip!
First, whenever I get in a picture, I always leave my purse and camera case on the ground near by. One of the guys (not sure if it was Chip or Dale) went over an picked my purse up and tried to put it over his head. He couldn't fit it over so he finally hung it from his nose and started to walk back over to us. Then I went and gave each of them a hug. When Nick came over, they tried to pull me away from him as if to say, she's mine! The one closest to me, again don't know if was chip or dale, kept making the call me sign. It was really cute. During the photo, you can kind of see him grabbing my ear. For some reason, he was trying to scratch me behind my ear.

When the photo was done, I turned to him and scratched his belly. He then pulled me into the biggest, tightest hug a character has ever given me! It was great! It was a really fun 3 minute meeting. haha

After that, Main St. was starting to get really crowded as everyone lined up for the fireworks and Spectro. We were planning on seeing both on our last night, so I just walked around and took a few pictures of the decorations.

We also went up to the train station and I took a few up there are well. You can see how packed Main St. was at this time.

After that, we were both pretty exhausted so we headed back to AKL. On the way out, the front of the park was less crowded than it was that morning so I got a better picture of the train station.

I will try to continue on with Day Five at Epcot a little later!!

Heatherbell · Oct 6, 2009

That pic you have at the top of Splash Mountain is so cool. Great trip report! You guys are cute.

My Trip Report 9/25-10/4 with Photos!

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