Day 5 - Part 2 - An Unexpected Journey...to Disney Spring
After chilling in our room for a little while we decided we should get up and have some breakfast. So we wandered over to the Intermission Food Court.
Jared had bought our refillable mugs when we checked in the day before, so we took those with us! I had the Mickey one....
Jared had Buzz. This is him looking lovingly at his mug, which contained COFFEE.
Jared is pretty useless without his morning coffee. I don't drunk the stuff, but since I was often in need of caffeine on our trip I drank a lot of coke (I normally don't drink that much soft drink, but I didn't really have a choice sometimes when I needed to stay awake!)
Breakfast was a protein-palooza! I really love American bacon too. Our bacon is always a lot thicker and never quite as crispy.
This was Jared's first experience getting a food bill for $0.00! As I mentioned earlier, it made him so happy!
We had plans to meet our friends Derrick and Becky that afternoon in the pool. It was looking quite inviting as we walked past it back to the room.
This was our room, which was on the backside of building 2, overlooking the carpark.
Derrick and Becky were arriving around lunchtime, but before we could relax in the pool with them we had to take an unexpected journey (just like Bilbo, though perhaps not as perilless). Our unexpected destination.....Disney Springs.
We had planned to visit Disney Springs on our last day at Disney World. We hadn't seen it since it was Downtown Disney, and I was excited to see the changes that had been made. However, we hadn't planned to see it on our first day.
Our original plan had been to relax in bed, swim, and then relax in bed some more! Unfortunately, Jared no longer had a usable suitcase (thanks to either LAX or Sydney Airport) so we had to stop in at Downtown Disney to buy one.
This made us a little grumpy, as we knew that a Disney suitcase would be much more expensive than we wanted to pay, but we didn't really have much choice.
We saw a bus was scheduled to depart at 9:43am. We knew we wouldn't make that bus, but hoped the next one wouldn't be more than 20 minutes away. So we headed out to catch the bus to Disney Springs.
This was the first time we really felt the heat and humidity! We were waiting for about 35 minutes for a bus. This probably isn't a record in terms of the Disney bus system, but what was making me grumpy was that 6 Magic Kingdom buses showed up in the time we were waiting! I know that Magic Kingdom is a much more popular destination than Disney Springs, but the 6:1 ratio seemed a little over the top! Especially since at one point a Magic Kingdom bus showed up while another bus was sitting at the bus port and NO-ONE was waiting in the Magic Kingdom queue! In addition, the "next bus" time for Disney Springs kept changing. It started off estimating arrival at about about 10:02 and ended "moving" several times (every few minutes or so), until the bus arrived at about 10:25am.
Here's one of the many Magic Kingdom buses which frustrated me!
And then finally....our bus arrived!
You'll have to forgive the on bus photos, but it was our first day out and about in "The World" so I was super excited! I think I was also excited to finally be on a bus, and not waiting in the heat!
I got particularly excited when I saw this....
The Skyliner was moving! It was in the final few days of testing, as it would be opening the third day we were at the resort (29 September). Obviously we had no clue about the dramatic accident that would occur just a few weeks after we left, but it was exciting to see the buckets moving along! I videoed a little of the skyliner, as we weren't planning a trip on it (at that point) and I wanted to get some evidence we saw it on our trip!
Pretty soon we were pulling up to Disney Springs
We were headed to World of Disney (any other brand-name luggage sold at Downtown Disney was WAY too expensive for us to consider). The plan was to buy the suitcase and leave. Of course, as soon as I walked into World of Disney I saw a million things I wanted to buy, so we spent a bit of time looking around.
I was very tempted to buy this shirt (it's so me) but it really wasn't my colour! Plus out of the context of the parks it doesn't make heaps of sense (unless I'm visiting another tourist destination, in which case it's probably true!)
I was very temped by these Princess ears too!
The thing that tested me the most though were these gorgeous wooden pop ups decorations (I have a collection of things from travels at home and I thought it would go well). You could also get the Cinderella Castle. I really wanted it but Jared didn't think it was a great idea, it was too expensive and too heavy and I had to admit he was right!
I ended up walking out with 3 T-shirts and a bag. I didn't take shots of the T-shirts while there, so you'll have to enjoy pictures of me wearing them later on the trip:
The bag I love! And it wasn't too expensive (many of the brand name Disney bags are just too far out of my price range!)
I don't think I have a picture of the new suitcase, but it was black with a red/white and black Mickey design. Nothing fancy, and not the design I wanted (there was an awesome Walt Disney World decal design with lots of little castles, mickey bars, mickey ears and other cute things from the parks but it wasn't available in the size we needed). Thankfully we had a $50.00 voucher that we could put toward it (it cost us $200.00 USD which is about $350.00 AUD!). The $50.00 voucher we received from All Star Music upon check-in, for turning down housekeeping for the duration of our visit (we could request new towels and toiletries when required).
Oh, I almost forgot, we also bought these adorable little headbands for my niece, who just turned 1.
After the unexpected shopping spree, we had a quick wander around Disney Springs before heading to Earl of Sandwich to grab some lunch.
It was a beautiful day, picture-wise anyway. In reality it was quite hot and humid, and Disney Springs has a surprising lack of shade in the outdoor areas!
These humanoid
lego figures impressed me a lot! We've just had our first series of Lego Masters here in Australia (a competition for amateur Lego model builders). Jared and I watched it quite avidly (it was fascinating). Having watched the show we gained a small amount of insight into the time, effort and technique it takes to build humanoid figures like this, which made us appreciate these impressive builds even more!
We'd be back to Disney Springs on Wednesday to take some photos with the proper camera of the area, but I love the way my iPhone pictures turned out. It's such a picturesque area and the transformation is really spectacular. The only part I can say wasn't really to my taste was the building design in the Town Center. It isn't that the architecture wasn't lovely, it was just that it was a little too reminiscent of a high end shopping boutique/mall. The type of shops in the area suggested that too (everything brand name and so expensive). There's nothing wrong what that kind of shopping, it's just not for me and doesn't feel very Disney, as it's something you can do anywhere else in the world!
Anyway, after grabbing lunch at Earl of Sandwich we headed back to the resort to eat it, and to meet Derrick and Becky for a relaxing swim....
Continued in Next Post...
