How Many Days In A Row Will We Wear Tie Dye (or Disney 2009 review): Part 10.2featured
Before I get on with the writing, I quickly wanted to wish everyone the happiest of holidays. I hope your holidays are absolutely wonderful :o)
When I left off, Stephanie was dragging me by my new ears out of the Chapeau. The winner of the Nicole’s Newest Pair of Minnie Ears Sweepstakes?
Bah bah bah dahhhhhh….
The sequins.
What can I say? I’m a sucker for sparkly things.
We took our time strolling down an unusually uncrowded Main Street, stopping in a few stores to check out the merchandise and relishing in the relative quiet.
Nine times out of ten, we’ll start our time in Magic Kingdom through Adventureland and work our way clockwise. Stephanie says it’s because most people will go to their right and start in Tomorrowland. I say it’s because it feels unnatural to go counterclockwise. Regardless, we started our day in our usual way through Adventureland.
Stephanie and I rode the Magic Carpets of Aladdin (and fought over the control stick the entire time…whoever said maturity and wisdom come with age clearly hasn’t traveled with us to Disney World) while Mom and grandma went to the Enchanted Tiki Room (which you can add to the list of attractions Stephanie and I still haven’t seen). There was no wait for either, which was nice.
We grabbed some Fast Passes to Jungle Cruise (which we never ended up using…story of our trip) and made our way over to Pirates of the Caribbean, which was walk-on. I didn’t really want to go on. I hadn’t ridden it in a few years (and grandma, of all people, talked me into riding it with her then) and I don’t know why the drop bothers me more than any other drop, but the more I ride it, the less I like it. Maybe it’s because it’s in the dark. Somehow, Stephanie convinced me to ride it with her while Mom and grandma did some shopping in Frontierland.
Well, Stephanie enjoyed the ride. I don’t know. The drop isn’t much bigger than some of the dips on Test Track, but the fact that it’s in the dark makes it feel ten times longer than it actually is. I really don’t know why I don’t like Pirates (beyond the drop). All I know is that every time I ride it, I like it a little less.
Anyways.
Stephanie and I went into Frontierland to meet up with Mom and grandma and found them looking at some glass slippers at an Arribas Brothers glass cart. We each got a glass slipper with our birthstones in them last year and they’re such a cute little table piece in our living room.
We made our way into one of the shops to order the tea sets we’d been coveting the entire trip and had them sent back to the resort. One of the perks of staying onsite that we used most was having merchandise sent back to the resort. That way, we didn’t have to carry anything with us all day and we could pick it up later at BVG in the Contemporary. Easy peasy. We saw these tea sets all over Disney World and thought they were absolutely adorable. They’re a small teapot, a teacup and a saucer with an Alice in Wonderland theme. I think the set was less than $25, which makes it quite the affordable souvenir or gift and it makes a nice display in a china cabinet or a nice tea service (ours are currently in the china cabinet waiting to be used). While Mom was filling out the resort slip to have our tea sets sent to the Contemporary, I found this little Disney sign made of pins. Super cool.
Stephanie and I contemplated riding Big Thunder Mountain, but the 35-minute wait (while pretty short for a late morning in August) was too long to make Mom and grandma wait for us, so we took a nice walk around Frontierland and headed towards Haunted Mansion.
We split up at Haunted Mansion, with Stephanie and I riding and Mom and grandma heading towards It’s a Small World. Haunted Mansion had a short wait, but it was still much shorter than any other time we’d waited during the week. It gave me enough time, though, to admire the exterior of the ride. Walking through the queue and riding Haunted Mansion…it’s like experiencing Halloween at any time of the year. It’s so beautifully eery and there’s dozens of intricate details that I discover every time I visit.
Mom and grandma did two go-rounds on It’s a Small World while we were gone and we met up to all see Mickey’s Philharmagic, which Stephanie has to see almost every time we pass through Fantasyland. Our lunch reservation time was approaching, so we cut back through the castle to the front of the park, stopping to take a picture with Cinderella’s wishing well, before heading back to Main Street.
We contemplated making a quick stop back at the hotel to drop off our park stuff since we’d be returning to the hotel after lunch, but ultimately decided to stay on the monorail and see if they could take us for lunch early.
For lunch, we headed back to the Polynesian to the Kona Cafe. We’ve never tried Kona for any meal other than breakfast and though their menu seemed limited (especially to a finicky eater like me), it was interesting enough for all of us to want to try it.
The restaurant was nearly empty when we checked in, but we had to wait a few minutes to be seated. They walked us past a dessert display and showed us some of the dessert offerings before seating us at a table in the airy dining space. Our server was Susan and she was friendly but quite spacey. Despite the fact that she had only one other table and no more than six or seven tables were occupied in the restaurant, it took her a long time to get our drinks (diet Coke’s for Mom and Stephanie, a Super Charged smoothie for grandma and an iced tea for me) or get us refills, it took awhile for her to collect the cheque and my salad had onions on it despite the fact that I clearly said no onions.
On that note, we all ordered the Kona Salad (Mixed greens, Maytag blue cheese, fresh fruit, red onions, smoked almonds with a citrus vinaigrette) for our starters. I asked for no onions since I don’t eat raw onions and it came out with a handful of julienned onion slices. The pieces were big enough for me to pick around, and I didn’t want to make a stink (I’ll almost NEVER send anything back…the only time I can think of that I ever send anything back is if it has mayo on it since the sight or thought of mayo makes me want to throw up) so I pushed them aside. Beyond that, the salad was pretty good. The greens were fresh, there was a nice crunch from the almonds and the smokiness of the nuts with the pungent blue cheese and the sweet vinaigrette provided a nice juxtaposition of flavors, but I prefer the more simple salad at ‘Ohana. Mom, Stephanie and grandma all really enjoyed the salad, though grandma thought hers was a little too heavy on the blue cheese. I also thought the portion was overly ample for an appetizer salad, but wouldn’t quite fit the size of an entree salad.
Kona Salad
Stephanie and grandma both ordered the Chicken with Peanut Sauce Polynesian Plate Lunch, which came with sticky rice and macaroni salad and both enjoyed it. They were served large, breaded chicken cutlets in a sticky sweet sauce and both thought the chicken was prepared well and was tasty.
Chicken Polynesian Plate Lunch
Mom and I both ordered the Teriyaki Fried Steak (with Pineapple Salsa) Polynesian Plate Lunch. Mom enjoyed hers, I didn’t quite enjoy mine as much. Because of the aforementioned aversion to mayo, I substituted Polynesian chips for the macaroni salad and those were probably the best thing on the plate. My steak was past well-done when I’d ordered it medium and was covered in gristly fat. The sticky rice had literally no flavor and the pineapple salsa wasn’t sweet enough for my tastes. Mom thought her steak was good, but she likes her meat done a zillion degrees past well-done.
Teriyaki Fried Steak Polynesian Plate Lunch
Stephanie went with the Kona Kone for dessert, which was a large waffle cone filled with a few scoops of ice cream, topped with cotton candy and presented with small cups of other toppings (likes sprinkles and M&M’s). Stephanie didn’t finish it (if she had, it might have induced a sugar coma), but thought it was excellent.
Kona Kone
Mom and grandma both ordered the White Chocolate Cheesecake (Cheesecake with a hint of white chocolate, strawberry coulis, and whipped cream) and they both thought it was pretty basic but otherwise tasty.
White Chocolate Cheesecake
I ordered the specialty of the house, the Kilauea Torte, which was basically like a molten chocolate cake and while I’d read great things about it prior to the trip, it failed to live up to the hype. The outside was dense and over baked and there wasn’t much molten chocolate inside. I suspect it was either sitting under a heat lamp for awhile or was simply over baked, but I only ended up taking a few bites of the inside and leaving the rest. It tasted alright, though…not overly chocolately…but the texture of the entire thing killed it and not even the ice cream, the whipped cream or the vanilla sauce it was placed upon could help the chalky texture of the exterior of the dessert.
Kilauea Torte
The cheque came to $135.61, and we redeemed four dining credits. Overall, I don’t know if we’ll be dining here again for lunch. We all agreed the food was average, at best and mine was downright bad for two of the three courses. I was a bit disappointed that they no longer serve the hawaiian bread with macadamia nut butter with lunch, as I was really looking forward to trying that. Maybe we’ll try it for dinner sometime and we’ll certainly come back for breakfast, but there are better lunch options available on the monorail if we don’t want to dine inside Magic Kingdom.
After lunch, we hopped back on the monorail and rode one stop over to our old stomping grounds, the Grand Floridian, to do some shopping. The Mouse Mercantile was closed because of construction, but we hit up Basin White and Summer Lace and bought some soap (and Stephanie got a bath bomb…I think Lush’s bombs are far superior to Basin’s, though). Afterwards, we just sat in the lobby. While some might think the Grand Floridian is stuffy and too classy, I’ve found that there’s a comfortability in the lobby. I could (and have) sit in the lobby for long amounts of time just taking everything in. It’s just absolutely breathtaking. Aspects of it remind me of a country club we used to go to, and it certainly maintains a level of elegance at all times of day (and night…Stephanie and I used to sit in the hammocks on the beach and then head to the lobby to people watch late at night when we used to stay at the Grand Floridian), but I’ve never felt uncomfortable or out of place at the Grand Floridian, even in my park clothes.
After spending a bit of time relaxing in the lobby, we hopped back on the monorail and headed back to the resort. We had a late dinner reservation and plenty of time, but tomorrow would be our last day, so we wanted to get an early jump on the laundry and packing.
