Ugh, the halfway point of our trip already! I slept in a little bit (until the sun came up), but was still up really early given the laid back day we had planned. Nick slept in a bit too, by Disney standards. Not by his home standards. When he got up he showed me that he’d taken the front piece off the AC and tightened something that was rattling, making our air conditioner quieter. Honey, you know we could have called for maintenance, right?
By 9, I was getting antsy, so I went for a photo walk around the resort. It was way past time to capture how beautiful this resort is!
When I got back to the room, Nick was on the phone with his dad. They were talking about the weather at home and Ukraine. Then the subject changed to the wait times, where I heard some fantastic descriptions of rides. And I quote: “there’s this buzz lightyear teacup ride that you don’t even spin your own teacup” (Alien Saucers) and “the Buzz Lightyear shoot em up ride”. And of course, “It’s a Small World hasn’t changed; it just smells old now”. Oh Nick…
Eventually (like after 11:30) it was time to get rolling.
We headed for the bus stop and picked up a bus to the Magic Kingdom. It was a nearly private ride, with us not picking up anyone else going that way until we got to the final stop at Riverside. The driver was pleasant and chatty. It was a decent ride.
From the Magic Kingdom, we hopped on a monorail to the Contemporary to begin our monorail tour. We had a bit of time to kill before our lunch reservation that officially started our bar crawl, so we did a bit of shopping. From the WHY DISNEY?! files…
Then I showed Nick outside to one of the slightly lesser known awesome views of Disney.
And then we headed downstairs for lunch at Steakhouse 71. We checked in and had to wait right until our reservation time for our text so I did a bit of picture taking of the newly redone lobby.
Lunch at Steakhouse 71 was excellent. I loved the photo wall leading in, the cast working there were busting their rears but all really pleasant, and the meal was great. We split the Tequila Sunrise for 2 that’s made with POG juice and it was awesome, because POG juice. We got the brioche appetizer which was amazing. I got the burger, which had awesome flavors (that aioli…) and was a perfectly cooked smashburger on a delicious roll. The fries were a bit crunchy but also had amazing flavor and Nick apparently prefers fries that way, so he really loved them. He got the steak frites and cleaned his plate. We’d definitely do lunch here again.
After lunch, it was on to the next stop, the Polynesian! I went straight to Trader Sam’s to put our name on the list. They open at 3:00 and it was about 2:30. The cast member told me the estimated wait was about an hour past opening. No problem, the Polynesian is a good place to kill time.
From here, we went to Pineapple Lanai (or Pineapple Florida Room as Nick was now calling it, having heard a guest the night before make a really “duh” comment about “oh, the pineapple lanai is outside…just like our lanai at home”) for some dole whip! We split a pineapple vanilla swirl! And no, I did not pay extra for the 50th chocolate medallion and shimmer…
Ice cream enjoyed, we wandered around and parked ourselves on the beach for a bit. When the sun got to be too much after 5 or 10 minutes, we wandered some more, which led us to the pool bar. Fun fact, the Polynesian pool bar is accessible from the back to non-resort guests. There’s a window along the path to the boat dock. The Polynesian pool bar also has some pretty unique drinks, like the lime dole whip margarita that we split. It was very tasty and went down easy!
We walked the path almost to the wedding pavilion, just enjoying the peace of this resort. We both agreed that it’s a stunning resort but not a place we could justify staying at on a parks trip, because it’s an awful lot of money to not take advantage of every amenity. As we got close to the wedding pavilion we could see a bride and groom just emerging from the pavilion, so we turned around and headed back to the Polynesian to not interfere.
It was time for some air conditioning anyway. We went back and parked ourselves in the lobby where we actually didn’t have to wait much longer for our text that we could go join the fun. When we got the text we headed straight for Trader Sam’s, where we ended up standing at the end of the bar. I had the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Rhum and Nick had the Zombie. This was Nick’s first experience at Trader Sam’s and he understood almost immediately why it was necessary to experience this place. I loved my drink; he continued his trend of not ordering well and didn’t love his. But, he got the souvenir mug anyway! We only did one round of drinks here, because we still had one more stop!
Having paid up, we headed for the monorail once more. Grand Floridian and the Enchanted Rose were hopping, but we were able to get seats at the bar. I had the Kir, Nick had the Boulevardier. I enjoyed the Kir. Nick had chosen the Boulevardier because it has Angel’s Envy in it and he likes that, but he wasn’t familiar with Campari and he probably doesn’t like that, because he did not like this drink. He agreed with me though that the decor of this bar is pretty awesome.
Monorail crawl completed, we hopped back on the monorail and then bussed back to the resort from the Magic Kingdom. We grabbed dinner in the food court when we got back. Gumbo for me, salmon for Nick. The gumbo was significantly spicier than earlier in the week and Nick’s salmon was exceptionally overcooked. His green beans were good though.
After dinner, I headed over to the beignet counter, because we were way overdue for some of those. Ended up chatting with the southerner behind me about dole whip and the various forms of it around Disney while waiting in line. Nick joined me in line eventually, after buying some milk to have with his beignets. We got 3 beignets with caramel sauce to go, and took them back to the room to enjoy. So good! And so messy!
I’m pretty sure we crashed early tonight, knowing we had an early morning the next day.
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