Sunday, August 9th
Hi Everyone,
Sorry this is a bit late, but it was our last day so we wanted to get as much in as possible before our Magical Express bus pulled away from the Contemporary Resort.
Our bus was scheduled to depart at 4:30PM from the Contemporary so we still had the day in front of us. We decided to end our trip at 1900 Park Fare for breakfast. This is a character breakfast with Alice in Wonderland characters, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Mary Poppins located on the 1st floor lobby of the Grand Floridian resort.
The Grand Floridian lobby
The loudest Mad Hatter I've ever heard!
The food on the buffet was very good. There was a station for made to order omlettes. My only complaint was there are apparent cutbacks in the food offerings. There was nothing to put on top of our scrambled eggs like cheese, and veggies.
The restaurant is very noisey; especially with the Mad Hatter running around yelling. The ceilings are very high so it seem to echo pretty heavily.
Our total bill with the 20% discount and 18% gratuity was $54 for 2 adults and 1 child. A little expensive for breakfast. Our service was ok, but this was the one time I regretted telling our server we had a Tables in Wonderland card. I really felt our service was affected when the server knew she would get the 18% gratuity.
We paid our bill and decided to head over to the Magic Kingdom. We arrived around 11:00AM and the crowds were starting to file in. The Magic Kingdom was crowded. Sundays seem to be a busier day in the week. On our way to Adventureland we saw the piano player (I forget his name) getting his piano ready to play near the entrance to Casey's Corner.
During our time at the Magic Kingdom we experienced Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Buzz Lightyear, the Laugh Floor, and our final ride of our trip was Splash Mountain. I was glad we got to experience it because we didn't get the chance the entire trip. It was a great way to end our vacation.
As we were exiting the park we discovered we had a little more time so we stopped for some soft serve ice cream. We tried the orange dole whip. It is very good, but the bottom line is it's orange soft serve ice cream. Maybe eating it at the Magic Kingdom makes it taste better. I'm not sure, but it tasted very good on a hot day.
Here's the menu at Aloha Isle. The orange soft serve is not listed specifically. You need to ask for it as orange soft serve.
We headed back to the Contemporary and caught our Magical Express bus out front at 4:30. Surprisingly we ran into another Kim when the Magical Express bus picked up guests at the Polynesian. She was on the same bus as us, so we were able to catch up on our trip as we rode to the airport.
As usual we had a great time. I can handle 2 weeks of Orlando theme parks anytime. The only problem now is getting back to real life. The last 2 days have been hard. I was getting so used to the parks I think I saw Captain Jack Sparrow in our break room at work.
I'll have some final thoughts about our trip in my final entry. Let me leave you with a few pictures we took during our trip I haven't posted yet.
Anna with a Morrocan fez hat
Doing the Chicken Dance at the Kidani Village pool
And finally, I say it's ok to exercise while on vacation! Core exercises.
More to come!