Day 19
This day was going to be a bit more leisurely proposition. I did not set an alarm call as we did not have to be anywhere until lunch time and I would have a late night. We woke up around 9:30 and Graham announced that he would do some laundry and go for a swim. When I was ready, I headed over to the pool, but could not see Graham anywhere. I decided to head over to Hospitality House to take some photos of the Christmas decorations there. While I was there, I had a quick look in the shop and spotted a holiday pin for Old Key West. I had to get this. I had brought my refillable mug and filled this up with ice tea and then I made my way back to the room. I stopped by the pool and Graham was back. He had been to Hospitality House, too to get some coffee. I went back to the room and got changed into my swimming stuff as the laundry still had a little while to go.
When I had looked for Graham before heading to Hospitality House, there were some people in the pool, but at this point, we were the only people around. The water temperature was lovely even though it was a bit nippy outside. I swam a few length and Graham joined me once he had put our laundry in the dryer. After a while, I decided to try out the hot tub, which was also lovely. Once all our stuff was dry, we dried ourselves off and headed back to the room.
When we got back to the room, we got dressed, gathered the things together that we needed for the day and headed out to the bus. We had a bit of a wait. We saw two buses coming past for each of the other parks before a Magic Kingdom bus came. We still had plenty of time so there was no rush. When we got there, Graham went to sit on a bench on the boat dock for the resort launches and enjoyed the sunshine. I quickly went inside the Magic Kingdom to get my spell cards. When I got to the boat dock, the boat was just pulling in and soon we were on our way to the Polynesian Resort although the boat stopped at the Grand Floridian first.
I had a ticket for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party for that night so I had made a reservation for a table service lunch. We had breakfast at Kona Cafe in 2010 and enjoyed it. So I decided I would like to try lunch there. We got there a little ahead of time and checked in at the podium. We were given a pager and had a quick look around. The pager went off pretty quickly and we were seated. Graham just had some water and I had a Coke. I really wanted to try the Pot Stickers, which are wok-seared Pork and Vegetable Dumplings with Creamy Ginger-Soy Sauce, but did not think I could eat a three course meal. Graham kindly agreed to share them with me and we both enjoyed them. For our main course we both went with the Kona Surf and Turf Burger Deluxe, which was a grilled Angus Chuck Burger topped with Spicy Fried Shrimp, Black Garlic Aioli and Sweet Potato Fries. I was in two minds about this as I really don't like Sweet Potato, but I really liked the Sweet Potato Fries. When it came to ordering dessert, the chef came out to see us. Graham quite fancied the White Chocolate Cheesecake and we just wanted to make sure that there was no real chocolate in it. Unfortunately there was, but the question made our server nervous. In the end he settled for Pineapple Upside Down Cake with Lemongrass and Caramel Sauces. I had the Kona Kone, which consisted of Ice Cream in a Waffle Cone with Cotton Candy. Graham had some of the Cotton Candy and really liked it. I was quite partial to it, too.
After lunch we had a proper look around. The Polynesian is a very pretty resort. I had heard before the trip that the Polynesian is the least impressive of the Deluxe Resorts as far as Christmas decorations are concerned and I would agree with this assessment. It was still very pretty though. The Christmas decorations were very understated and had a Hawaiian theme. We had accumulated quite a bit of loose change over the course of the holiday. I had told Graham that Disney regularly empties their water features of coins and that all the coins are donated to Give Kids the World. So he had brought our coins. When he saw a lot of coins in the water feature in the lobby of the Polynesian, he added ours as well.