Rough seas, more trivia and a 40th birthday to remember. Our Eastern SWDAS Cruise! Updated 2/25

Kari0180

Mouseketeer
Joined
Aug 4, 2013
Hello Again,

This report has been a long time coming, but there were a lot of delays in getting started including Influenza A, a dead computer and my mom needing surgery. Thankfully, we are recovered from the flu, the computer has been replaced and my mom is doing well post-op! So let's get started on our cruise.

For introductions, I'm Kari

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By day, I work in the veterinary field, I wish I could say that I'm out there saving lives, but I'm behind the scenes, I'm the one who is making your appointments and getting your prescriptions ready. I love animals (I'm the one at the party in the corner petting your dog or cat), reading, watching movies and traveling. I was always obsessed with Disney from a young age, but actually never made it to a park until I was 2001 when I was lucky enough to attend a conference at USC and managed to get a day at Disneyland. My parents finally took us on our first trip to WDW in 2002 because my sister now had kids and you know, spoil the grandkids (they actually went once without me while I was in school, oh the horror). But that trip had me hooked and I was always trying to plot a way to get back!

DH is Bill

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By day he works in video production, he worked in news for almost 20 years prior to his career change. It's been almost a year since the switch and he's still getting used to the change in hours, weekends off and we're both still getting used to seeing each other more than once a week. He loves movies, Cardinals baseball and also traveling.

Our Disney story

We started dating in 2006, right away, I was trying to convince him to take a trip to Disney. He finally relented (I think he was sick of my whining) and our first trip was November 2007, 6 days at Pop Century. We went to the Christmas Party, had the dining plan, we were hooked.

So much, that our next trip was for our wedding! We were married at the Boardwalk February 2, 2009 (yes, we were married on Groundhog Day, makes a good reminder for our anniversary)! The collage I posted last year for our 10 year anniversary.

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We've been lucky enough to go on several trips to WDW, a couple to Disneyland and in 2014, we did our first DCL cruise on the Wonder out of Miami. I was immediately hooked, but DH took a couple more cruises before he was on board (on board, haha). We've been on all 4 ships now (the Wonder is still our favorite, Magic is a close second) and this cruise was number 8 for us.

We were just on the Fantasy in October for an 8 night Eastern, where I put together my first trip report. I had a lot of fun reliving and writing it!

This cruise was from January 11-18, 2020, we flew in on the 10th and stayed at Gran Destino Tower at Coronado Springs and then stayed at Port Orleans Riverside the night of the 18th and flew home on the 19th. We picked this cruise for a couple of different reasons, but for one main one. It was an Eastern Itinerary with stops new to us, it was a Star Wars Day at Sea Cruise (we did the 2nd cruise the inaugural season) and we were excited to see the changes in the last 4 years. But most importantly, it was my 40th birthday and I couldn't think of a better way to spend it than on a cruise!

So with my introductions all set, let's get started on this report!
 
Travel Days January 9 & 10

Both DH and I worked our normal shifts on Thursday, DH was able to leave work a little early, so he headed home and started putting our suitcases in the car and started getting the kids all prepped for a week at grandma and grandpa's. We have 3 children, all with 4 legs and covered with hair. We're very lucky that both sets of parents are close by. DH dropped Archie off my parents house while I was on my way home

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Archie is a 10 year old, 20# Beagle/Dachshund mix, he's my baby, loves to give us hugs and is the sweetest thing every when he's not barking :lovestruc

I got home and we took off with the other 2 kids for my in-laws house. We met the in-laws for dinner (we went to Houlihan's because I ate for free due to my birthday coupon), headed back to my in-laws and went straight to bed.

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Holly is our 13 year old long-haired dachshund and can do no wrong in her daddy's eyes. She is spoiled rotten and spends all of her time curled up in somebody's lap and begging for food. She ruptured 2 discs in her back when she was 4 years old and needed surgery. She walks/runs pretty funny because of it, but it's never slowed her down!

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Hef is our 12 year old very handsome kitty, who thinks he's a dog, he loves grooming Holly (and biting her jugular, it's very strange) and chasing after Archie. We used to have a Pomeranian mix and he loved having her clean his ears (he's a weird cat). People who don't like cats, love Hef, he really is the most awesome kitty. My in-laws don't like cats and they let him stay with them when we vacation, he's just that cool!

The alarm went off the next morning at 2:30, our flight was leaving at 6 am (the earliest flight we have ever taken). My in-laws thankfully live pretty close to the airport and since there wasn't any traffic, we made it to the airport, checked in, got through security and were at our gate a little before 4:30. Once we were situated, I purchased a couple of muffins and a bottle of water

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These were pretty gross, they were both really dried out and the top of the chocolate chip was covered in cinnamon! We had a couple of bites, but most of them went into the trash. Our flight started loading a little late, but we only took off a few minutes late. Once on board, I realized, I was once again in my favorite window seat

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I now know why this row is always open when I go to book our seats. The lack of window doesn't bother me (especially at 6 am) and I love that it's so close to the front, so we can get off the plane right away. On the flight, I watched Downton Abbey and napped. DH was watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Even with the delay getting on the plane, we actually arrived in Orlando a little early, 10:00 on the dot. We got off the plane, hit the restroom (where I immediately changed into shorts, it was hot!) and headed toward Magical Express. We were soon seeing these beauties!

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This was our first time seeing the wait time sign, I don't know if this was new or if they bring these out during busy events (we were there during marathon weekend and magical express was packed). We finally got on a bus at 10:50 and soon we were passing by these

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We were lucky and were the first drop off of the hotels, and at 11:34, we were pulling up to our home for the night, Gran Destino Tower at Coronado Springs

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We had stayed at Coronado Springs on a previous trip and it is one of our favorite hotels (I know this is an unpopular opinion). This was our first time back since the tower was built and I was super excited to stay here! We got to the lobby and it was crazy busy, they had registration split by the alphabet into two separate lines to accommodate all the marathon traffic. DH did some wandering and managed to find a "secret" check in desk and managed to get us checked in and also into a room! We were on the 9th floor of the tower, facing the lake.

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This room was amazing! It really felt like one of the deluxe results, even nicer than a couple of ones we've stayed at (I'm looking at you basement "pool view" at Wilderness Lodge).

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This shower was amazing! I didn't want to come out of it! We quickly dropped off our stuff and soon made our way to the bus stop. Our park for the day was Animal Kingdom, we got there at 12:22. It took awhile to get through bag check, but after we made it through, we stopped for a quick photo in front of the entrance

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Our first order of business was getting some lunch, we were starving! We contemplated where to eat, I kind of wanted to head to Pandora, but hunger won out and Flame Tree Barbeque is right at the entrance and it is a favorite, so that's where we headed. We decided to split the ribs, chicken and pulled pork sampler

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This was our first time having this with the pulled pork, previous times it was a half chicken and ribs. DH was a little disappointed because he really likes the chicken and he's not a pulled pork fan, but it was really good! We also ordered a side of the french fries with pulled pork and cheese

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This is one of my favorite snacks! We didn't need it, the platter was enough food for the two of us, but I needed those fries, and they were so gooooood!

Finally full, we did what any normal person would do after eating a huge lunch...go ride a roller coaster! Yep, we had a fastpass for Expedition Everest. The stand by line was 65 minutes, even the single rider was posted at 50 minutes, but we skipped all the crowds and were soon encountering the disco yeti! After Everest, we decided to walk through Maharajah Jungle Trek. We spent a lot of time in the bat enclosure, one of the bats was really active and it was really neat watching him.

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It was then time for our next fastpass, on the way, we passed the Doug and Russell statues

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I was hoping to watch this, but we just didn't have time on this trip...hopefully next time! Our next fastpass was for Kilimanjaro Safaris, I have no photos of this. Sadly, we were right behind the driver and I was in the middle, the woman next to me was not exactly the friendliest, so I gave up trying to take pictures and instead tried to make myself as small as possible so I didn't touch this woman. DH got some good video though, I'll post it when I'm done writing up this day! After our safari was over, we hit up the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail, unfortunately, the baby wasn't out on this day, but we were still able to see a few of the gorilla's and plus, I got this awesome picture of the hippo!

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Then it was off to Pandora for our final fastpass, I wasn't able to get one for Flight of Passage, no matter how many times I checked prior to leaving and even same day, so we "settled" for Navi River Journey. Don't get me wrong, Navi is interesting, the effects are great, but it's no Flight of Passage. In past trips, we would ride and then leave right away, this day we actually walked around and took in the sights. Pandora really is beautiful, they really did a fabulous job with it.



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We also stopped and got a rum blossom (basically a night blossom with a rum floater), for the extra you pay for a shot of rum, I wasn't a fan. it didn't mix well with the rest of the drink. I love the night blossom, so we'll just stick with that in the future. At this time in the day, there wasn't much left for fastpasses and since we had plans to meet up with some friends, we really didn't have the time to wait in line for rides. We did manage to grab a fastpass for It's Tough to be a Bug (but really didn't need it).

After this, we decided to head toward DinoLand USA, even though the app said it was a 50 minute wait, DH wanted to check out the line for Dinosaur.

Since I've reached my photo limit, I'm going to wrap up here. Up next, the rest of our day at Animal Kingdom and an evening out with friends!
 
Since we didn't have enough time to ride Dinosaur, I decided to do a little shopping. I didn't find anything I really wanted, but DH got all sneaky and asked a CM to make a birthday button for me, she did a really good job! She was from Minneapolis, so we had a quick conversation and told her she made the right decision moving away from the snow and cold!

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We headed out of the shop and found a surprise meet and greet with Pluto with absolutely no line. He wished me a Happy Birthday and let me know that he was 91 years old, he's aging much better than I am!

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Walking around a little more and we ran into several more characters, I have to admit, I like that they turned a lot of the trails here into meet and greets. We were just about to leave when out of the corner of DH's eye, he noticed a character we have never had a chance to meet before...we got to meet Launchpad McQuack!! This was a really exciting meeting for us, we both grew up on Duck Tales. He barely had a line, so we jumped in.

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Scrooge also had a meet and greet, but his line was a little long and at this point we were running out of time and I still needed to hit up the gift shops. For the longest time, on every Disney trip, I would buy a new sweatshirt, I still have the one from our first visit in 2007 and from our wedding trip in 2009. I bought a couple after, but the quality went downhill and then couldn't find any designs I liked. But I found a new one at Animal Kingdom, it's a pretty aqua color and has a Disney retro logo to it. I don't have a picture of it, but if you watch our video, you'll see it. I love it, I wear it all the time! Sadly, our time was up and it was time to leave Animal Kingdom, originally I had hoped to stay and see Rivers of Light and I wanted to go to Pandora at night, but we were meeting with a friend for dinner, so off to Disney Springs we went.

We were lucky and there was a bus to Disney Springs waiting as we headed out, we had to stand, but I didn't mind. It took a little bit to get to Disney Springs from Animal Kingdom, but soon we were dropped off, we got there a little after 7 and our reservations weren't until 8. Our friend was stuck in traffic trying to get there, so we did a little exploring, DH Mickey hunted, I shopped. Finally, we met up with our friend, I'll call him K and his girlfriend M. DH and K had worked together and became close, K took a job near Orlando and we hadn't seen him since he left. We tried to meet up with him in October, but he was out of town. He recently started dating M, and they were so cute together! Anyway, enough about them...

Our reservations took us to a place that was new to us, we were dining at The Edison

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DH was really excited to try this place, I was a little concerned because I hadn't heard the greatest reviews about it. We checked in and had to wait about 15 minutes before we were shown our table. We were in a booth on the upper level, we were right in front of the aerialist and there was a tv at our booth so we could see the band that was performing right below us. DH and I started off with a couple of cocktails

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This was DH's and I can't find it on the menu for what it was called, I remember it was their take on an Old Fashioned, DH really enjoyed it, I thought it was okay.

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I had the Berry Smash, this was not what I expected, I will tell you that if you like strong drinks, go to The Edison. All I could taste in this was the whiskey, I couldn't make out any of the fruit flavors, it was just a little too strong for me, I thought DH's drink was really strong too.

For our mains, I wasn't too hungry, so I went with the mac & cheese

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They have several different varieties, but I just went with the plain. It was very good, but for $24 it was a SUPER tiny portion. Since I wasn't that hungry, it did the job, but if I had my normal appetite, I would've been starving. DH and K went with the meatloaf

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I stole a few bites of this and it was soooo good! DH said it was probably the best meatloaf he had ever eaten! M had gotten the fish & chips, but I guess we forgot to get a picture, she said it was really good, that the fish was perfect! Now, the one thing I had heard about The Edison was the DB Clothesline Candied Bacon, we had ordered it as an appetizer, but it never came out, our waitress was extremely apologetic, brought it out pretty quick and they also took it off of our bill. Let me tell you, this bacon....it was worth the wait. Holy sh*t, it was fantastic, after the first bite, I didn't want to share.

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It was pricy, $16 for 4 strips of bacon, but I can't even tell you how good it was. It's served with pickles (also fantastic) and a jam. The jam was good, but you didn't need it, the bacon was amazing all of it's own. We were too stuffed to have dessert, but our waitress did bring me a little birthday cannoli.

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This was really good and perfect to share with the table, we each got a couple of bites. During dinner, they had a band playing, they also had an aerialist and some dancers. They were all entertaining and fun to watch! But a warning, it is LOUD!! We pretty much had to shout at each other to hear, we had a great time, but it you're wanting to have a conversation, probably not the best place to eat. Other than that, I was actually very impressed with The Edison, we had a lot of fun and would eat here again!

After dinner, we said our goodbyes to K and M, they headed home and even though I would've loved to spend more time at Disney Springs, we were both sooooo tired, at this point we had been up almost 24 hours, so we headed to the bus. We had a little bit of bad luck trying to get a bus back, a bus didn't show up for almost 45 minutes, the line kept building and people were starting to get REALLY angry. Looking back now, I wish we would've called for an Uber, it wasn't necessarily the waiting, but the attitudes of the people in line were really starting to get to me. We finally got on a bus, finally got back to Gran Destino Tower and made it back to our room. Our luggage had made it some time during the day and we also had the letter from DCL, letting us know bag pick up would start at 8:30 and our bus would pick up at 12:15. We unpacked the things we needed for the next day and started watching Hercules before quickly falling asleep.
 


The next morning, we got up, showered and packed up our suitcases. We left them in the room and headed down to breakfast. One of the things that was super cool about Gran Destino Tower were the elevators

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You would press what floor you wanted, and then it would tell you which elevator to head to.

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There were no buttons inside the elevator and rarely did the elevator stop at other floors, it was so neat! We headed toward El Mercado de Coronado for some breakfast, there were a lot of things that sounded good. We both settled on the breakfast sandwiches, his had ham, mine had bacon

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These were really good, it was a cheese-filled omelet, topped with choice of meat and served with hash browns. The hash browns were crispy and the sandwiches were really cheesy, they were a solid breakfast choice!

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In case you like hot sauce, they had quite the variety. After breakfast, DH and I went our separate ways, he wanted to do a resort tour and I was tired, I wanted to take a nap. I headed back up to the room, relaxed, watched some tv and did take a nap. DH walked around the resort did his video and came back to the room. We still had a couple of hours until the bus came. At 11:00, we had to check out, so we went down to the lower lobby, where all the other people waiting for the bus were waiting. We met a nice mother and daughter and spent our time talking about DCL and all the things we were looking forward to on the cruise.

Finally, it was time, our bus (or actually busses) were here! There were 2 busses for us, the first one was completely full and the rest of us piled on the second one, it was almost full, we soon took off from Coronado Springs.

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Goodbye Coronado Springs, once again, we had an amazing visit, I might be willing to forgo my bucket list in staying at every Disney resort, I loved you so much! Our bus stopped at The Dolphin and picked up one couple and then at 12:36, we were off to port. Our driver said we would probably get there about 2:00, but he would try to get us there earlier. At 1:36, we were getting our first glimpse of our home for the week

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We got to port about 1:45, quickly made our way through security, got checked in and were soon headed through these babies

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Now, I know a lot of people don't like taking DCL transportation, but we love it. Since there are only the 2 of us, it's really the cheapest transportation. An Uber is over $100 and private transportation for the 2 of us would cost even more. I love walking in to open boarding, having no crowd at the terminal. The best thing is that once we get on board our room is ready, we can drop off our bags and head to lunch. I used to not like it as much when you had to sign up for everything on board, but we don't have to worry about that anymore, so it's my ideal way to go!

We scanned our cards for the first time and headed on the ship. For the first time, we had planned to use a fun name for the announcement, but the cast member grabbed my lanyard, and announced our actual name (and mispronounced it, which everyone does), what can you do!

We went to our room quickly and dropped off our bags, DH surprised me with the birthday decorations, so that was a lot of fun! We then headed to Cabanas for lunch, we ate breakfast early and it was now after 2:00, so we were hungry

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My plate, peel and eat shrimp, Disney crack chicken nuggets, fries, salmon and chicken with pico. The salmon and chicken were pretty dry, but the shrimp and chicken nuggets were great. This would be the first plate of many of chicken nuggets or tenders.

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DH's plate, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, asparagus (this was a first, I didn't realize he ate asparagus, I can't stand it), peel and eat shrimp, fried fish, salmon and some steak. He agreed that the salmon was dry, but otherwise enjoyed the rest of his plate. By the time we were finished eating, it was time to head to the spa, it was open house and I wanted to win a gift certificate.

Up Next: Do we win? Our first evening aboard the Fantasy!
 


enjoying another one of your trip reports, watched some of the videos last week that you posted, but always enjoy reading your reviews
 
It was time to head to Senses for the spa tour and hopefully win some sort of gift certificate (spoiler, we didn't win anything). After the drawing, we went to book an acupuncture treatment for DH and as part of my birthday gift, I got the length of cruise pass for the Rainforest Room, I also made DH get a pass too because I wanted to spend time with him.

It was now time for the Muster Drill, we were lucky enough that we were in the Buena Vista Theatre, but we got there kind of late and all the seats were gone, so we had to stand on the stairs. This was almost worse than being outside, they packed 2 lines on each step, I have anxiety and I was really starting to feel it, we were so crammed on those steps! Thankfully, the Muster Drill was soon over and we were off to our next adventure.

We went over to Guest Services and applied our Disney Gift Cards to our onboard account, we normally do this first thing, but the line when we first got on board was really long and since everyone was headed to the sail away party, the line was very short and I got through it pretty quick.

We debated going to the sail away party, but since we had just seen it in October, and since we had splurged on a verandah, we decided to enjoy everything from that.

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Waving to the Port Canaveral Webcam! At this time, we decided to skip the welcome show and use our Rainforest Passes. This was a great idea, it was pretty empty at this time, we were able to enjoy the loungers, the hot tub and the showers and saunas. I get the point is to use the sauna and then the shower, but man, the showers were so cold this first day, even after going to the sauna first. We spent about an hour here and then decided to get ready for our evening. One of the things I enjoyed about the Rainforest Room was taking advantage of the showers in the locker room to get ready after we were done. I love how they have all the products in the locker room, so I would just bring my hairbrush and some makeup and would get ready up there.

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Shampoo, conditioner and shower gel in the shower

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Razors, deodorant, facial cleanser, lotion and toner. They also have hair dryers to use. After we got ready, we stopped by the room to drop off our suits and upon leaving, DH somehow got his belt loop stuck to the door, I did what any spouse would do....laugh and take some photos

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After DH was rescued from the door, it was time for my favorite activity...Trivia!! We headed to The Tube where tonight we would be playing 70's Music Trivia, given that DH was born August of '79 and I was born January of '80, we knew we wouldn't have a chance, but it was still fun to play! Matt was our club host again and we were very happy to see him! After all was said and done, we did not win 70's Music Trivia, we got 21 out of 40.

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Hey, at least we got more than half! With trivia over, it was time for dinner! Our rotation took us to Animator's for the Crush Show. We were shown to our table and met with our table mates for the week, we would be dining with 2 other couples, we had a lot of fun at dinner with both of them! The unfortunate thing about our dinner at Animator's was we were right behind a pillar, so we really couldn't see the screen. This was the first time that we were far from the screens, we're usually right next to one, oh well, we've seen the show several times! Now on to the food...

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We both started with Black Truffle Pasta Pursettes, these are a favorite, the cheese, the sauce, so good!

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Next up, the Baked Potato Cheddar Cheese Soup. Neither of us are normally fans of potato soups, but this one is always a good one. The potato is blended, so it's very smooth!

We had different entrees, I decided to try the Pennette Bolognese

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This was good, it was filling, so I wasn't able to eat much of it. I wish it would've had more cheese, but that's probably because I'm addicted and what dish doesn't taste better with cheese (as I'm currently eating my lunch, tomato soup, topped with cheese)!

DH went with his usual, the Ginger Teriyaki Angus Beef Tenderloin

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He always gets this and enjoyed it as usual. We then split 2 desserts, we went with our usual, the Cookies and Cream Cheescake

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I will admit, I'm not a huge fan of cheesecake, but I love this one, it's so good, the chocolate bottom is so yummy.

And, I've hit my photo limit, so to be continued!
 
Our Server really talked up the Lemon Icebox Pie

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This was really good, a nice, subtle lemon flavor, reminded me of Key Lime Pie, but lemon. Animator's may become a 2 dessert dinner!

With dinner finished, we headed back down to The Tube to play Intuition, I decided to volunteer to play and what do you know, I won! The object of the game was to guess if the next card was higher or lower, and my "intuition" is just spot on (in reality, I got really lucky and most of my cards were either really high or really low)! I won a little "swag bag" with a couple key chains, a hat, 2 "tech tattoos" (aka stickers) and a reusable bag.

After Intuition, it was time for John Charles, he is one of our favorites, we were so bummed that he wasn't on our cruise in October, so we were super excited to see him on this one!

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He is really funny and so talented, he can play almost any song that's requested. During his performance, DH and I decided to get a couple of drinks to enjoy

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We had The Underground and the The Bullseye. They were both really good, but The Bullseye was the better of the two. I think I need to purchase reusable straws for our next trip, neither of us really use straws to begin with, but they are a necessity for a frozen drink and the paper straws just don't cut it. We finished up with John Charles and headed back to our room, tomorrow was going to be a busy day for us, including brunch at Palo!!
 
enjoying another one of your trip reports, watched some of the videos last week that you posted, but always enjoy reading your reviews

Thank you for following along (and watching)! I'm excited to write about the rest of our trip!
 
Hey Pals glad to hear your doing good again, you’ve had your hands full for sure.

We have stayed a week at Coronado!

Flame Tree is a must for us even if only for some onion rings we just love sitting and looking out at Everest either have lunch or a snack break!

:wave2:
 

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