Free Dining is the Best Dining!

Great pics!

We quickly went outside for pictures and ventured out for our dinner reservation at 1900 Park Fare. It was quite entertaining walking through Pop Century in our costumes to confused guests who thought I was Robin Hood, not Peter Pan. I can understand the confusion, but just no. Disney parks, Disney costume!

But, Robin Hood is a Disney Character.
latest


The film is from 1973. :)
 
Cannot Beat Early Mornings in the Magic Kingdom.


We were not able to sleep in on our last day at Walt Disney World like we were the previous day. When I planned our trip, I really wanted to make sure I had an early morning breakfast reservation. The fact that it was at Magic Kingdom was a massive plus.

The night before our reservation, Sarah and I were searching for information about how early we could get into the park. Hot tip: Disney provides early buses which depart from the resorts starting an hour and a half before park opening. Also, guests with breakfast reservations can enter MK an hour before the actual park opening.

When we entered the park, there were several photographs Sarah and I really wanted to get. The main photo was us in front of an empty castle. I loaded up my camera with the shiny, new fisheye lens and we quickly walked to the front of the castle.



When we arrived, there was only one mom and her daughter in front of the castle. I arranged the camera and tripod to the center of the castle as the girl had an absolute meltdown. Her mom asked her to smile and she screamed, “I DID SMILE!” so loud that Sarah and I jumped in panic. After we recovered, we took lovely photos.







After we were done taking photos, we wandered lazily towards New Fantasyland. I decided to take a few more photos as we wandered. When we arrived, we checked in and were immediately allowed to enter. The theming in this restaurant is unbelievable. From the entry to the lobby and from the macro to the details.







The food was also excellent. I got the Croque Madame and Sarah got the Croissant Donut. My sandwich was great. It was a massive amount of delicious food. My only complaint is that there was quite a lot of Bechamel sauce. It oversaturated the bread and made it difficult to cut.



Sarah was happier with my sandwich than her donut. She ended up eating more of mine than hers. I tasted her donut and it was incredibly dense. Sarah and I have become huge fans of what we call “cronuts.” There is an excellent donut shop in Monrovia, CA that sells incredible cronuts. This was not as good as ABC Donuts, but it was still good.



There was also a completely unnecessary plate of pastries. These were decent, but I was completely full before getting to these treats. I guess for larger parties these could be a nice added element, but Sarah and I didn’t eat all of these.



After we were done with breakfast, we decided to try to take more pictures of of Fantasyland. Sarah really wanted to take more pictures of the castle outside of Under the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid and Gaston’s Tavern.

There was a Cast Member stationed behind a rope that blocked off that area. We asked him when it would open, but he told us that we could actually just go around the other side with a wink. This made Sarah and I incredibly happy. Unfortunately, we were not able to follow his instructions. Disney was actually conducting a photoshoot outside of Seven Dwarves Mine Train.

Being that it was the only ride open in that area, we decided to ride Seven Dwarves. When we got off, the CM strongly suggested that we turn around and ride the attraction again. And by strongly suggested, I mean he blocked the exit and made us turn around and ride the attraction again. This was fine by us because it gave us a chance to take some photos.



By the time we were done, the park was officially open. We wanted to “rope drop” Peter Pan, but the queue was already massive. The wait was something like 65 minutes. We went ahead and skipped that attraction and went back to Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

After we finished our run through Frontierland, we wanted to go watch Mickey’s PhilharMagic and Little Mermaid. This was a nice balance between attractions that I prefer and attractions that Sarah prefers. Marriage, right?!



It was starting to get really hot in Central Florida, I know, crazy! I decided that we would take some fun shots of Casey Jr. Splash ‘N’ Soak, while cooling off slightly. Mission accomplished on both counts!



As we exited the park, I wanted to get an action shot of Seven Dwarves with Cinderella’s Castle in the background. We set ourselves up in the ideal position and waited for the train. The first time I took the shot it was late, so I used my negative experience to get the right shot.



This was our last experience at MK for this trip. There is always a bit of sadness involved in leaving our favorite park. We slowly walked down Main Street, U.S.A. and we absorbed as much magic as possible.

As we wiped the tears from our eyes, we walked to the Monorail to head to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. We walked around the grounds of the resort towards the wedding pavilion. We had never walked around the outside of the resort and towards the wedding pavilion. While we walked, we found there was actually a wedding starting! Sarah, with jealousy in her heart, creeped on a bride taking pictures in her gown at WDW.

As we walked, we found an awesome spot to take pictures next to the Seven Seas Lagoon. We just had to risk our lives swimming through a sea of bees. For some reason, they really love the sand around the walkway. Despite our trials and tribulations, we got the shots we were looking for.



We sauntered back to the main building and then broke into a sprint to board a bus to Animal Kingdom. We were a bit confused because we expected to have to wait for the bus to clear. What we didn’t understand until the bus was driving away from AK was that it was being shared with Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort.

When we got off the bus I was determined to try the locker system at AK. This was a mistake. When I arrived I was shocked to see that it was $10/ day. What?! I must have been suffering from heat stroke because I justified that I had that exact amount of cash in my wallet so I purchased it. Hot tip: bring a bag that you feel comfortable bringing around the parks because $10 for a locker is ridiculous.

We headed to Finding Nemo The Musical with significantly lighter wallets. We got there early and I read an excellent article from the Los Angeles Times about Disney’s complicated relationship with the City of Anaheim. This was a strange reality reading about how Disney, depending on your point-of-view, has been taking advantage of their relationship with Anaheim. Even though business is business, it does take the shine off of things a bit.

After the show, we headed over to use our Fastpass+ for Kilimanjaro Safari. Being that our safari was in the middle of the day, we did not see very many animals. Hot tip: the best time to go on Kilimanjaro Safari is in the late afternoon. Many of the most interesting animals, including the lions, are nocturnal and will just be waking up in the late afternoon.



We departed the safari and were incredibly famished. I decided and Sarah agreed to try the Harambe Market for lunch. We were out of Dining Plan credits, so we paid cash. The only downside to arriving early and staying late on our trips is we usually have to cover at least one lunch/dinner with cash. We would trade this small expense for more time in the parks, so we rarely worry about it.



For the first time, my meal was better than Sarah’s. Finally! :) I ordered the Beef and Pork Sausage and Sarah ordered the Tikka Masala Chicken. When I first tried the sausage, I was underwhelmed with the amount of curry in the batter. But Sarah rightly advised me to try it without ketchup and that made it much better. Classic American, ruining flavor with ketchup!



Sarah and I did not particularly care for the tikka masala. This isn’t something Sarah gets very often, but she didn’t love it. The rice was good but the rest of the dish was pretty bland.



The meal was fairly inexpensive (comparatively speaking), which suited Sarah and I just fine. I think we paid roughly $22 for the two dishes and got 4 cups of free water. We were both really dehydrated so the water was probably the star of the meal.

As we ate, we discussed our plan for the afternoon. I had planned a 3:15pm Fastpass+ for Avatar Flight of Passage, but our Disney’s Magical Express bus was scheduled to leave at 4:05. We could not go on the attraction and make our bus. We discussed paying for an Uber, but ultimately decided to just skip the ride. This is very much so against our usual tendency.

We arrived back at Pop Century with just enough time to use our last snack credits. We ordered nasty ice cream. Sarah would disagree with this assessment, but hers was, once again, better than mine. She ordered the Brownie Sundae with hot fudge and was very happy with her chocolate decadence. I ordered the Classic Sundae with strawberry sauce and the strawberry sauce was really gross. Of course, this didn’t stop me from inhaling the entire thing.







When we boarded the DME bus, there was a strange delay. This delay led to an almost unbearable trip to MCO. One of the families on the bus had forgotten a bag of snacks in their hotel room. They demanded a Cast Member go back and check their room and they demanded the motorcoach driver wait for them to find their bag. This was only the beginning of the rudeness. The woman in the party proceeded to call Guest Services and demand they refund her for the snacks, then the CM would offer to help by sending the snacks to the airport and she would hang up on them. She called back and repeated the process for the entire 35-minute drive. Sarah and I are not people to call someone else out, but we got really close on this occasion.

We departed the bus, gave a sympathetic thank you to the motorcoach driver, and got to our gate. I ate at Qdoba and Sarah got a Wendy’s chicken sandwich. I began the process of importing photos that took almost the entire time we were waiting for our flight. Here is a fun one to end the trip!

 


Wow, you really have some amazing pics in this TR!
I especially like the one of 7DMT with the castle in the background.
Thanks for sharing!
 


Your photography is stellar!! I've seen several that are gallery worthy.
You were much more restrained than I think I would have been with the demanding woman. I call them 'me-mes' , i.e. 'all I think about is myself' types. I'm finding that, in my older age I call them out more than I ever would have when I was younger.
 
Your photography is stellar!! I've seen several that are gallery worthy.
You were much more restrained than I think I would have been with the demanding woman. I call them 'me-mes' , i.e. 'all I think about is myself' types. I'm finding that, in my older age I call them out more than I ever would have when I was younger.

Thank you so much I appreciate that!

We had to try our hardest to restrain ourselves, because she was the worst! I am sure we will get much more bold as we continue to see guests behaving badly!
 

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