Mollydolly334
Honorary Floridian
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2015
Trip #2, Day 2- August 31st, 2019
Good morning from the Grand Floridian!
Today was going to be a long day at MK, so we allowed ourselves to sleep in a bit and have a slow morning. We weren’t planning on taking a midday break, so we were in it for the long haul! We all woke up around 8:00 AM.
It took a while to get ready this morning, since we had some extra special outfits planned for today! About 3 months before the trip, Haley was visiting Ryan’s family in Indiana, and Kahla mentioned to Haley that she wanted to “dress up like princesses in the parks one day”
Um, of course!! I had never tried Disney-bounding before, so I was very excited to try this! We all picked out our characters beforehand and searched for outfits to match. It was a fun little summer hobby! I chose Aurora, Haley chose Alice, Mom chose Tink, Carla chose Snow White, and Kahla chose Belle!
About a month and a half before the trip, I saw some character bows on Etsy and decided that these would be the perfect accent to our outfits! Look how cute these are!!
We were very excited to get all gussied up
All of us agreed that our first MK day would be the perfect day to wear our outfits. Haley and I got ready pretty quickly, but my Mom took FOREVER.
We took some fancy pictures on our balcony while we waited!
It was looking like a beautiful day so far!
You may remember on my past TRs that my mom is extremely pokey and will find 3428439038 extra things to do before leaving the room (rinse her mouth with mouthwash for the third time, wipe off the countertops, fold the dirty towels…). When Haley and I finally asked her how much longer it would be, she said, “All I need to do is put on my jewelry, so about 20 minutes?”
It takes you TWENTY MINUTES to put on jewelry?! Haley and I were like, “We’re leaving in 10, with or without you”
Luckily, it did not take 20 minutes, and we were out of the room by 9:30 AM and off to find some breakfast!
One thing that we knew going into the trip was that our eating styles were going to be slightly changed this vacation! Usually, my mom and I are grab-and-go eaters and only do one TS meal a day at the most. We are snackers/grazers while in Disney and usually can’t be bothered to stop a lot and eat!
But, Haley, Carla, and Kahla like to take things a little more slow-paced than us and sit down to eat more. They especially are breakfast people and need food in their stomachs to take on a park, so we always made sure to have some sort of breakfast every morning before leaving the GF.
Breakfast food is my favorite type of food, so I happily obliged with this
I was actually intrigued to try out more TS restaurants this trip! It also fit into my new AP theme of “stop and smell the roses.”
For breakfast, we decided to eat at the Grand Floridian Cafe! Mom and I tried this in 2016 and loved it, so I was excited to be back!
Even though we didn’t have an ADR, we were sat down within 5 minutes!
I ordered a caramel blended frappe to drink; I remembered loving this in 2016. It was delicious and nice and cold!
I wasn’t super hungry at this point quite yet, so I decided on a lighter option. I ordered the Bananas Foster Steel-Cut Oatmeal.
This meal also came with a banana muffin! It was so yummy and a perfect pre-park meal with lots of carbs to keep me energized
The banana muffin was delicious, but I made sure to get some milk on the side for my oatmeal since I prefer my oatmeal nice and soupy! I also added some brown sugar since it wasn’t as sweet as I anticipated it.
Everyone else enjoyed their meals, and our server was super sweet as well. We will definitely be back to the Grand Floridian Cafe (very soon, in fact)! We stayed for about 45 minutes; we didn’t want to dilly-dally for too long, as we were all excited to go to Magic Kingdom!
We did take some pictures on the staircase in our cute outfits. But, sadly, the lighting was terrible, so I'm not going to share them
We took a quick monorail ride over and were walking up to the gates of Magic Kingdom at 11:00 AM!
We took TONS of photopass pictures in our Disneybound outfits!
The photopass photographer told us to act out our characters!
I was raring to go inside! It was such a sunny day and so hot!! I was already starting to sweat in my romper
More pictures!
Haley and I were also super artsy and decided to take some of these fancy photos!
After 74098290438 pictures, we FINALLY headed off to a ride! I think that the moms would have spontaneously combusted if we took any more pictures Hey, that’s the beauty of a girl’s trip!
We headed straight off to our first fastpass of the day, Splash Mountain! Ahhh, my fave!
We stopped in the dump shop on the way out. I almost bought another tee shirt, since the one I bought in 2016 has shrunk quite a bit (well, or maybe I grew ), but I didn’t find anything that I liked. Kahla and Haley found a Mickey Mouse golf hat that they thought would be perfect for both Ryan and Kahla’s boyfriend, Tony!
They both bought the same hat using my AP discount, but had separate transactions and different CMs checking them out. Both sent them to the GF so that we wouldn’t have to carry the hats around all day. Kahla’s CM mentioned that she was a brand new to the college program and that this was her first time sending a purchase back to a resort. You’ll see later in the TR why I’m being so specific about this
The line for BTMRR was only about 15 minutes, so we rode that next! Then, we headed on over to Adventureland.
I love this land so much! The music and ambiance is so fun and reminds me a lot of the Poly.
We rode the Magic Carpets of Aladdin first, then headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean! The lines were so insanely short today, especially considering that this was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.
Everyone was really excited for Pirates, it’s definitely a fave! I made sure to check out our photopass photo, because I was the only one who knew about the new camera.
We literally laughed for 5 minutes when we saw the photo. LOOK. AT. OUR. FACES.
Don’t we look so excited to be there?! My mom’s face especially was hilarious; she looks absolutely disgusted!
After Pirates, we took a bathroom break. I really started to feel the heat at this point; I had to splash my face and the back of my neck with cold water!
We made our way over to Tomorrowland by way of the hub for our next fast pass, Space Mountain!
We had a little bit of time, so I insisted that we take a spin on the People Mover first Carla and Kahla had never been on this before, and this needed to be righted immediately!! We all squeezed into one vehicle so we could ride together.
Carla and Kahla loved it and deemed it a must-do! Then, it was time to ride Space Mountain. This is Haley’s favorite so she was pumped!
I love looking around in the Space Mountain gift shop. There are so many cool things in here! I was really tempted to buy a new “Arendelle Aqua” Magic Band, but I resisted since I had just bought the Millenial Pink band for my May trip.
Since the lines were so short, we figured we’d ride Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin to finish off the Tomorrowland trifecta!
It was all fun and games, until I realized that my gun was NOT functioning properly no matter how hard I pushed the button! I ended up with this horrifying score!!
BOO.
We were getting a little hungry; it was about 2:30 PM at this point but we didn’t want to have a full meal since we had a special ADR planned for 5:00! So, we split off and got some snacks to hold us over. Carla and Kahla jogged off to Adventureland to try the cheeseburger spring rolls (they gave two thumbs up), Mom and Haley got a cinnamon cream cheese pretzel and some frozen Cokes from the Lunching Pad, and I got a Wonderland slushy from Chesire Cafe!
My slushy was delicious and refreshing in the heat, but super sickly sweet with the candy straw.
My mom wanted me to get a picture of her in her Tinkerbell costume to send to her friend, so she posed all cute with her slushy
Her outfit was super matchy today because she was also wearing her Tink Alex and Ani bracelet! Mom loves these bracelets and gets a new one every trip.
Then, we met Carla and Kahla over by the hub to catch some of the Festival of Fantasy Parade! No pictures of the parade, but Maleficent did not blow any fire which I appreciated. It was sooo hot!
After the parade, we hightailed it over to Fantasyland for our final fastpass- 7 Dwarves Mine Train!
It was about an hour and a half until our ADR time, so we decided to stay close to where we would need to be. We looked in all of the cute shops near Belle’s castle! Kahla and Carla shared a LeFou’s brew since they hadn’t had any slushies like the rest of us. While in the shops, I managed to get us a FP for Peter Pan’s Flight for after dinner! I looove Labor Day crowds
We also rode Journey of the Little Mermaid and It’s a Small World!
We had just about enough time for one more ride before dinner, so we headed off to do my mom’s all-time favorite, Haunted Mansion! The line was only about 20 minutes, so not bad at all!
Another instance of me being the only one knowing where the ride photo is, haha! In our Epic Girl’s Trip Facebook group, we have a running joke where we post “awkward HM photopass pictures.” This definitely made the cut!!
We stopped briefly in Memento Mori to look around, the stuff in here is so cool! FINALLY, it was time to head back to New Fantasyland for our long-awaited ADR…
Be Our Guest dinner!!
We were so excited for our fancy dinner in our princess outfits! When I was making dinner ADRs, this was Carla and Kahla’s number one request. All of us had all been here for lunch multiple times, but we really wanted to try out the dinner!
We were seated pretty soon upon arrival at 5:00 and were notified that we would meet the Beast after dinner! The hostess led us to the rose room, and I made a face I had eaten in this room the last few times at BOG, and I had really wanted to sit in the ballroom. But, y’all know me and my issues with confrontation.
Carla noticed this right away, and politely asked the CM if we could sit in the ballroom She said “of course,” and led us to a table right in the middle! Woohoo!
Our server was absolutely wonderful tonight. Of course, I totally forgot her name, but she was so attentive and sweet. We ordered some wine for the table- one bottle of Moscato and one bottle of Pinot Grigio.
This meal is a three-course meal, where you pick an appetizer and an entree, and then you get a dessert sampler! For my appetizer, I chose the cheese plate, and for my entree, I chose the Poulet Rouge Chicken with potatoes and veggies. Everybody else ordered the French onion soup for their appetizer, and I was very tempted to as well since I’ve had it before and loved it! But, sometimes onions bother my stomach, and I didn’t want to risk feeling nauseous.
As we were enjoying our wine, the lights dimmed and we heard a big musical fanfare! We all got so excited, expecting some big production, but the Beast just came out, did a 20-second lap around the restaurant, and disappeared again. He looked like Sasquatch awkwardly walking through the restaurant!
We were laughing because it seemed way too dramatic for literally nothing
Soon enough, our appetizers came! My cheese plate was good, but I was having serious food envy about everyone else’s soup. My mom let me have a few spoonfuls, haha!
I don’t have a picture of my appetizer or main meal since it was so dark in the restaurant! But my food was very good. It was a little more basic from what I am used to for a “2-credit” meal, but it filled me up! Everybody seemed to like their main dishes as well. This meal was paced nice and slow, which is one thing that I like about these fancier meals in WDW. We were in BOG for almost two hours!
I DID take a picture of my lovely dessert platter (clearly, you guys know my priorities)
Sorry about the awkward sideways photo! From bottom to top; a raspberry macaron, a white chocolate Chip cup filled with the “grey stuff”, and a dark chocolate truffle.
YUM! These were definitely the highlight of the meal. Everything on the plate was edible, even the decorative paper below the desserts! My favorite dessert was definitely the white chocolate and grey stuff combination! The others thought that the desserts were too rich and couldn’t finish them, so I happily finished their scraps
We were all stuffed by now, but we had one last stop- we had to meet the Beast!
Good picture, but it would have been better if there wasn’t a giant shadow across my face
Since Kahla was all dressed up as Belle, we had to get a bunch of pictures with just her!!
These interactions were sooooo cute! The Beast was such a gentleman.
We were all so full, but very satisfied with our dinner. Would we be back to BOG soon? Yes, but not for dinner. We prefer lunch since the food is cheaper, but you still get the cool ambiance of dining in the castle. However, it was so fun to get to experience dinner here!
Our fast pass for Peter Pan’s Flight was valid, so we rode that as soon as we left dinner! I was so excited to finally take a ride through Neverland.
It was 7:30ish by now, and Happily Ever After was showing at 9:00 PM tonight. We decided to stay close to Main Street USA and do some shopping while we waited to scope out a spot!!
Haley, Kahla, and I went to Starbucks to get our caffeine fix. They both got coffee and I got a Strawberry Acai Refresher. This is one of my favorite things to drink in WDW because it’s not as heavy as coffee but it still gives you a little jolt of energy!
We browsed around Crystal Arts, Uptown Jewelers, The Art of Disney, and all of the Emporium shops to look for souvenirs. We were all looking for some cute Minnie ears to wear!! I was so torn with this- I have a pair of rose gold ears and a pair of buffalo plaid Christmas ears, but I really am not a huge fan of ears because they hurt my head so bad! Although my Christmas ears are furry and less tight on your head; those are the only pair I can wear for extended periods of time!
I was between the potion purple pair and the blue polka-dotted vintage pair with the daisy coming out of the top, but I couldn’t pull the trigger so I bought neither
Haley and Kahla did end up buying some super cute ears! Haley bought the Small World pair and Kahla bought a silver and gold pair with Cinderella’s castle in the middle. We also took note of souvenirs we were thinking of buying later in the trip! I personally don’t really buy souvenirs until the last few days of the trip; I like to peruse all of my options in each park and see which items I keep thinking about as the days pass!
It was nearing 8:30, so we decided to make our way over to the castle and stake out a spot. We spotted a photopass photographer on the way!
I love this picture of all of us so much! We would have had it framed, except we wished the photographer would have noticed that my head was covering Carla’s mouth!
We had no problem finding a spot at all; pretty expected for the insanely low crowds we were experiencing so far!
We made some fun chit-chat with the people next to us about our Disney bounds. That was one thing I really noticed about doing the Disney bounding; we had so many people coming up to us or complimenting us on our outfits and bows throughout the day! It was a great ego boost
Pretty soon, the show started! No pictures of the fireworks, but it was lovely as always This was my mom and Haley’s first time seeing HEA (we had planned on seeing it in 2017 before Irma ruined our plans)! They both LOVED it! I knew they would; my mom is a huge fan of castle projections and Haley really enjoyed all of the obscure Disney music.
I didn’t cry this time, I think I was so focused on making sure my mom and Haley enjoyed it I probably looked like this while watching them during the entire show.
Carla and Kahla were pretty tired, and it was still super hot outside (especially while packed in tight watching the fireworks), so they decided to head out with the masses. We hugged goodbye and said that we would be heading back to the GF soon as well!
Mom, Haley, and I finished up some shopping at the Emporium. Unlike me, Haley decided that tonight would be her souvenir night, and she bought ALL of the things!! She had wanted to wait until the last second so that she could just carry her purchases back instead of sending it to the hotel.
I can’t remember what she all bought, but I know that she bought lots of stuff for her and Ryan’s Labradoodle puppy, Birdie, like a dog collar and food/water dishes. I want to say that she also bought some kitchen towels, appetizer plates, a keychain, a picture frame, and some magnets. Luckily, she got to use my AP discount so she got a nice deal on everything!
I never had a problem using my AP discount for others; the CMs pretty much told me straight up that they can never say “no” to a guest unless it’s dangerous or strictly against company policy The only places where I had issues using my discount were some TS restaurants- I guess there is a rule where you can only use the food discount for the AP member + 3 others.
I did end up buying one small souvenir- a Princess mystery pin pack!
I used to be obsessed with these a few years ago and buy a new pin every day, but I soon realized that it was kind of a lot of money to spend on something I’d just hang up on my bulletin board I’ll usually buy just 1 pin/pin pack per trip now and only buy a pin if it really stands out to me!
We made one last stop at the Confectionary for some treats! We figured we could keep our treats in our mini fridge and eat them throughout the week. We each bought a chocolate-covered pineapple spear, Mom bought a caramel apple, Mom and Haley bought Mickey chocolate chip cookies, and I bought a vanilla cake pop and a giant Mickey peanut butter cup! You can never trust us in the Confectionary; ever since we were little and going on trips as a family, we would always buy out the place
It was nearing 10:30, and we were definitely beat! We took the boat back to the GF and were back in the room by 10:45. Carla and Kahla came over from their connecting room and we discussed plans for our Epcot day tomorrow. The decision was pretty unanimous- sleep in! We said our goodnights and showered up.
We turned on the TV and got our Dorian update. The path was still very inconclusive and changing by the hour! This was doing nothing to calm our nerves, shockingly Finally, I ordered that we turn off the news and turn on TLC- a much more girl’s trip-friendly option!
We watched some TV and wound down for the night. I opened my pin pack that I had bought at MK and I got Tiana and Jasmine! I also enjoyed my cute Halloween vanilla cake pop for dessert
We all hit the sack at 11:45 PM. See you tomorrow, Epcot!
Good morning from the Grand Floridian!
Today was going to be a long day at MK, so we allowed ourselves to sleep in a bit and have a slow morning. We weren’t planning on taking a midday break, so we were in it for the long haul! We all woke up around 8:00 AM.
It took a while to get ready this morning, since we had some extra special outfits planned for today! About 3 months before the trip, Haley was visiting Ryan’s family in Indiana, and Kahla mentioned to Haley that she wanted to “dress up like princesses in the parks one day”
Um, of course!! I had never tried Disney-bounding before, so I was very excited to try this! We all picked out our characters beforehand and searched for outfits to match. It was a fun little summer hobby! I chose Aurora, Haley chose Alice, Mom chose Tink, Carla chose Snow White, and Kahla chose Belle!
About a month and a half before the trip, I saw some character bows on Etsy and decided that these would be the perfect accent to our outfits! Look how cute these are!!
We were very excited to get all gussied up
All of us agreed that our first MK day would be the perfect day to wear our outfits. Haley and I got ready pretty quickly, but my Mom took FOREVER. We took some fancy pictures on our balcony while we waited!
It was looking like a beautiful day so far!
You may remember on my past TRs that my mom is extremely pokey and will find 3428439038 extra things to do before leaving the room (rinse her mouth with mouthwash for the third time, wipe off the countertops, fold the dirty towels…). When Haley and I finally asked her how much longer it would be, she said, “All I need to do is put on my jewelry, so about 20 minutes?”
It takes you TWENTY MINUTES to put on jewelry?! Haley and I were like, “We’re leaving in 10, with or without you”
Luckily, it did not take 20 minutes, and we were out of the room by 9:30 AM and off to find some breakfast!
One thing that we knew going into the trip was that our eating styles were going to be slightly changed this vacation! Usually, my mom and I are grab-and-go eaters and only do one TS meal a day at the most. We are snackers/grazers while in Disney and usually can’t be bothered to stop a lot and eat!
But, Haley, Carla, and Kahla like to take things a little more slow-paced than us and sit down to eat more. They especially are breakfast people and need food in their stomachs to take on a park, so we always made sure to have some sort of breakfast every morning before leaving the GF.
Breakfast food is my favorite type of food, so I happily obliged with this
I was actually intrigued to try out more TS restaurants this trip! It also fit into my new AP theme of “stop and smell the roses.” For breakfast, we decided to eat at the Grand Floridian Cafe! Mom and I tried this in 2016 and loved it, so I was excited to be back!
Even though we didn’t have an ADR, we were sat down within 5 minutes!
I ordered a caramel blended frappe to drink; I remembered loving this in 2016. It was delicious and nice and cold!
I wasn’t super hungry at this point quite yet, so I decided on a lighter option. I ordered the Bananas Foster Steel-Cut Oatmeal.
This meal also came with a banana muffin! It was so yummy and a perfect pre-park meal with lots of carbs to keep me energized
The banana muffin was delicious, but I made sure to get some milk on the side for my oatmeal since I prefer my oatmeal nice and soupy! I also added some brown sugar since it wasn’t as sweet as I anticipated it.Everyone else enjoyed their meals, and our server was super sweet as well. We will definitely be back to the Grand Floridian Cafe (very soon, in fact)! We stayed for about 45 minutes; we didn’t want to dilly-dally for too long, as we were all excited to go to Magic Kingdom!
We did take some pictures on the staircase in our cute outfits. But, sadly, the lighting was terrible, so I'm not going to share them
We took a quick monorail ride over and were walking up to the gates of Magic Kingdom at 11:00 AM!
We took TONS of photopass pictures in our Disneybound outfits!
The photopass photographer told us to act out our characters!
I was raring to go inside! It was such a sunny day and so hot!! I was already starting to sweat in my romper
More pictures!
Haley and I were also super artsy and decided to take some of these fancy photos!
After 74098290438 pictures, we FINALLY headed off to a ride! I think that the moms would have spontaneously combusted if we took any more pictures
Hey, that’s the beauty of a girl’s trip!We headed straight off to our first fastpass of the day, Splash Mountain! Ahhh, my fave!
We stopped in the dump shop on the way out. I almost bought another tee shirt, since the one I bought in 2016 has shrunk quite a bit (well, or maybe I grew
), but I didn’t find anything that I liked. Kahla and Haley found a Mickey Mouse golf hat that they thought would be perfect for both Ryan and Kahla’s boyfriend, Tony!They both bought the same hat using my AP discount, but had separate transactions and different CMs checking them out. Both sent them to the GF so that we wouldn’t have to carry the hats around all day. Kahla’s CM mentioned that she was a brand new to the college program and that this was her first time sending a purchase back to a resort. You’ll see later in the TR why I’m being so specific about this
The line for BTMRR was only about 15 minutes, so we rode that next! Then, we headed on over to Adventureland.
I love this land so much! The music and ambiance is so fun and reminds me a lot of the Poly.
We rode the Magic Carpets of Aladdin first, then headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean! The lines were so insanely short today, especially considering that this was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.
Everyone was really excited for Pirates, it’s definitely a fave! I made sure to check out our photopass photo, because I was the only one who knew about the new camera.
We literally laughed for 5 minutes when we saw the photo. LOOK. AT. OUR. FACES.
Don’t we look so excited to be there?! My mom’s face especially was hilarious; she looks absolutely disgusted!
After Pirates, we took a bathroom break. I really started to feel the heat at this point; I had to splash my face and the back of my neck with cold water!
We made our way over to Tomorrowland by way of the hub for our next fast pass, Space Mountain!
We had a little bit of time, so I insisted that we take a spin on the People Mover first
Carla and Kahla had never been on this before, and this needed to be righted immediately!! We all squeezed into one vehicle so we could ride together. Carla and Kahla loved it and deemed it a must-do! Then, it was time to ride Space Mountain. This is Haley’s favorite so she was pumped!
I love looking around in the Space Mountain gift shop. There are so many cool things in here! I was really tempted to buy a new “Arendelle Aqua” Magic Band, but I resisted since I had just bought the Millenial Pink band for my May trip.
Since the lines were so short, we figured we’d ride Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin to finish off the Tomorrowland trifecta!
It was all fun and games, until I realized that my gun was NOT functioning properly no matter how hard I pushed the button! I ended up with this horrifying score!!
BOO.
We were getting a little hungry; it was about 2:30 PM at this point but we didn’t want to have a full meal since we had a special ADR planned for 5:00! So, we split off and got some snacks to hold us over. Carla and Kahla jogged off to Adventureland to try the cheeseburger spring rolls (they gave two thumbs up), Mom and Haley got a cinnamon cream cheese pretzel and some frozen Cokes from the Lunching Pad, and I got a Wonderland slushy from Chesire Cafe!
My slushy was delicious and refreshing in the heat, but super sickly sweet with the candy straw.
My mom wanted me to get a picture of her in her Tinkerbell costume to send to her friend, so she posed all cute with her slushy
Her outfit was super matchy today because she was also wearing her Tink Alex and Ani bracelet! Mom loves these bracelets and gets a new one every trip.
Then, we met Carla and Kahla over by the hub to catch some of the Festival of Fantasy Parade! No pictures of the parade, but Maleficent did not blow any fire which I appreciated. It was sooo hot!
After the parade, we hightailed it over to Fantasyland for our final fastpass- 7 Dwarves Mine Train!
It was about an hour and a half until our ADR time, so we decided to stay close to where we would need to be. We looked in all of the cute shops near Belle’s castle! Kahla and Carla shared a LeFou’s brew since they hadn’t had any slushies like the rest of us. While in the shops, I managed to get us a FP for Peter Pan’s Flight for after dinner! I looove Labor Day crowds
We also rode Journey of the Little Mermaid and It’s a Small World!
We had just about enough time for one more ride before dinner, so we headed off to do my mom’s all-time favorite, Haunted Mansion! The line was only about 20 minutes, so not bad at all!
Another instance of me being the only one knowing where the ride photo is, haha! In our Epic Girl’s Trip Facebook group, we have a running joke where we post “awkward HM photopass pictures.” This definitely made the cut!!
We stopped briefly in Memento Mori to look around, the stuff in here is so cool! FINALLY, it was time to head back to New Fantasyland for our long-awaited ADR…
Be Our Guest dinner!!
We were so excited for our fancy dinner in our princess outfits! When I was making dinner ADRs, this was Carla and Kahla’s number one request. All of us had all been here for lunch multiple times, but we really wanted to try out the dinner!
We were seated pretty soon upon arrival at 5:00 and were notified that we would meet the Beast after dinner! The hostess led us to the rose room, and I made a face
I had eaten in this room the last few times at BOG, and I had really wanted to sit in the ballroom. But, y’all know me and my issues with confrontation.Carla noticed this right away, and politely asked the CM if we could sit in the ballroom
She said “of course,” and led us to a table right in the middle! Woohoo!Our server was absolutely wonderful tonight. Of course, I totally forgot her name, but she was so attentive and sweet. We ordered some wine for the table- one bottle of Moscato and one bottle of Pinot Grigio.
This meal is a three-course meal, where you pick an appetizer and an entree, and then you get a dessert sampler! For my appetizer, I chose the cheese plate, and for my entree, I chose the Poulet Rouge Chicken with potatoes and veggies. Everybody else ordered the French onion soup for their appetizer, and I was very tempted to as well since I’ve had it before and loved it! But, sometimes onions bother my stomach, and I didn’t want to risk feeling nauseous.
As we were enjoying our wine, the lights dimmed and we heard a big musical fanfare! We all got so excited, expecting some big production, but the Beast just came out, did a 20-second lap around the restaurant, and disappeared again. He looked like Sasquatch awkwardly walking through the restaurant!
We were laughing because it seemed way too dramatic for literally nothing
Soon enough, our appetizers came! My cheese plate was good, but I was having serious food envy about everyone else’s soup. My mom let me have a few spoonfuls, haha!
I don’t have a picture of my appetizer or main meal since it was so dark in the restaurant! But my food was very good. It was a little more basic from what I am used to for a “2-credit” meal, but it filled me up! Everybody seemed to like their main dishes as well. This meal was paced nice and slow, which is one thing that I like about these fancier meals in WDW. We were in BOG for almost two hours!
I DID take a picture of my lovely dessert platter (clearly, you guys know my priorities
)Sorry about the awkward sideways photo! From bottom to top; a raspberry macaron, a white chocolate Chip cup filled with the “grey stuff”, and a dark chocolate truffle.
YUM! These were definitely the highlight of the meal. Everything on the plate was edible, even the decorative paper below the desserts! My favorite dessert was definitely the white chocolate and grey stuff combination! The others thought that the desserts were too rich and couldn’t finish them, so I happily finished their scraps
We were all stuffed by now, but we had one last stop- we had to meet the Beast!
Good picture, but it would have been better if there wasn’t a giant shadow across my face
Since Kahla was all dressed up as Belle, we had to get a bunch of pictures with just her!!
These interactions were sooooo cute! The Beast was such a gentleman.
We were all so full, but very satisfied with our dinner. Would we be back to BOG soon? Yes, but not for dinner. We prefer lunch since the food is cheaper, but you still get the cool ambiance of dining in the castle. However, it was so fun to get to experience dinner here!
Our fast pass for Peter Pan’s Flight was valid, so we rode that as soon as we left dinner! I was so excited to finally take a ride through Neverland.
It was 7:30ish by now, and Happily Ever After was showing at 9:00 PM tonight. We decided to stay close to Main Street USA and do some shopping while we waited to scope out a spot!!
Haley, Kahla, and I went to Starbucks to get our caffeine fix. They both got coffee and I got a Strawberry Acai Refresher. This is one of my favorite things to drink in WDW because it’s not as heavy as coffee but it still gives you a little jolt of energy!
We browsed around Crystal Arts, Uptown Jewelers, The Art of Disney, and all of the Emporium shops to look for souvenirs. We were all looking for some cute Minnie ears to wear!! I was so torn with this- I have a pair of rose gold ears and a pair of buffalo plaid Christmas ears, but I really am not a huge fan of ears because they hurt my head so bad! Although my Christmas ears are furry and less tight on your head; those are the only pair I can wear for extended periods of time!
I was between the potion purple pair and the blue polka-dotted vintage pair with the daisy coming out of the top, but I couldn’t pull the trigger so I bought neither
Haley and Kahla did end up buying some super cute ears! Haley bought the Small World pair and Kahla bought a silver and gold pair with Cinderella’s castle in the middle. We also took note of souvenirs we were thinking of buying later in the trip! I personally don’t really buy souvenirs until the last few days of the trip; I like to peruse all of my options in each park and see which items I keep thinking about as the days pass!
It was nearing 8:30, so we decided to make our way over to the castle and stake out a spot. We spotted a photopass photographer on the way!
I love this picture of all of us so much! We would have had it framed, except we wished the photographer would have noticed that my head was covering Carla’s mouth!
We had no problem finding a spot at all; pretty expected for the insanely low crowds we were experiencing so far!
We made some fun chit-chat with the people next to us about our Disney bounds. That was one thing I really noticed about doing the Disney bounding; we had so many people coming up to us or complimenting us on our outfits and bows throughout the day! It was a great ego boost
Pretty soon, the show started! No pictures of the fireworks, but it was lovely as always
This was my mom and Haley’s first time seeing HEA (we had planned on seeing it in 2017 before Irma ruined our plans)! They both LOVED it! I knew they would; my mom is a huge fan of castle projections and Haley really enjoyed all of the obscure Disney music.I didn’t cry this time, I think I was so focused on making sure my mom and Haley enjoyed it
I probably looked like this while watching them during the entire show.Carla and Kahla were pretty tired, and it was still super hot outside (especially while packed in tight watching the fireworks), so they decided to head out with the masses. We hugged goodbye and said that we would be heading back to the GF soon as well!
Mom, Haley, and I finished up some shopping at the Emporium. Unlike me, Haley decided that tonight would be her souvenir night, and she bought ALL of the things!! She had wanted to wait until the last second so that she could just carry her purchases back instead of sending it to the hotel.
I can’t remember what she all bought, but I know that she bought lots of stuff for her and Ryan’s Labradoodle puppy, Birdie, like a dog collar and food/water dishes. I want to say that she also bought some kitchen towels, appetizer plates, a keychain, a picture frame, and some magnets. Luckily, she got to use my AP discount so she got a nice deal on everything!
I never had a problem using my AP discount for others; the CMs pretty much told me straight up that they can never say “no” to a guest unless it’s dangerous or strictly against company policy
The only places where I had issues using my discount were some TS restaurants- I guess there is a rule where you can only use the food discount for the AP member + 3 others. I did end up buying one small souvenir- a Princess mystery pin pack!
I used to be obsessed with these a few years ago and buy a new pin every day, but I soon realized that it was kind of a lot of money to spend on something I’d just hang up on my bulletin board
I’ll usually buy just 1 pin/pin pack per trip now and only buy a pin if it really stands out to me!We made one last stop at the Confectionary for some treats! We figured we could keep our treats in our mini fridge and eat them throughout the week. We each bought a chocolate-covered pineapple spear, Mom bought a caramel apple, Mom and Haley bought Mickey chocolate chip cookies, and I bought a vanilla cake pop and a giant Mickey peanut butter cup! You can never trust us in the Confectionary; ever since we were little and going on trips as a family, we would always buy out the place
It was nearing 10:30, and we were definitely beat! We took the boat back to the GF and were back in the room by 10:45. Carla and Kahla came over from their connecting room and we discussed plans for our Epcot day tomorrow. The decision was pretty unanimous- sleep in! We said our goodnights and showered up.
We turned on the TV and got our Dorian update. The path was still very inconclusive and changing by the hour! This was doing nothing to calm our nerves, shockingly
Finally, I ordered that we turn off the news and turn on TLC- a much more girl’s trip-friendly option!We watched some TV and wound down for the night. I opened my pin pack that I had bought at MK and I got Tiana and Jasmine! I also enjoyed my cute Halloween vanilla cake pop for dessert
We all hit the sack at 11:45 PM. See you tomorrow, Epcot!
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Whitney here. 
She ordered bacon and eggs, but pretty much realized as soon as she ordered that her migraine was still not going away. So, she took her food to-go as soon it came and decided to head back to the room to try and rest. We felt so bad!! We told her to keep us posted and that we wouldn’t leave without her. We had a fastpass for Spaceship Earth booked from 11:00-12:00, but I was able to change it to 5:30-6:30 no problem!
They met us in the lobby and we monorailed off to Epcot!
. My other sister is so laid back I don't even know if she would notice we were snippy.
Our festival orders are just about the same! I love FArts and seeing all of the artwork was actually a huge highlight for my January trip! Hope you and Andi are doing well, I feel so sad that her college experience is being affected by all of this!!
