Disney World. Day 5. Check out, check in.
We got up this morning and finished packing. My mother left to go to her next hotel to start her psych conference (which is actually the whole reason we’re down here). Around 10:00 we packed up the car and said goodbye to the hotel.
We drove over to the Four Seasons, which is on Disney World property. No, unfortunately we were not checking in. We are not that fortunate. The hotel, which goes for about $1000 a night, is probably the nicest in Disney World. We walked around and saw the grounds, which are just beautiful – we saw the adult pool, and then next to that, the kids pool and lazy river. Walking around the lobby we saw lots of [wealthy] foreigners and people checking in with their kids and their nannies (the nannies had their own $2000 handbags). What a life.
Anyway, we were at the Four Seasons to have breakfast. The hotel has a character breakfast with Mickey, Minnie and Goofy. We wanted to give it a try instead of the usual Disney character breakfasts, to see if the food is better at the Four Seasons. I’d say it is. The restaurant was pretty small so the characters came over multiple times, and we got lots of good pictures. It was Goofy, Mickey and Minnie. The breakfast was named “Goofy and Pals” and a photographer came around with Goofy to take pictures, which you then got for free. The food was also great – eggs, waffles, pancakes, cereals, juices, pastries, etc. Tzvi also enjoyed the cheeses and bruleed grapefruit.
Hallie started off the breakfast by posing for a nice photo with Mommy.
Then she caught up on the morning’s news. Nothing good.
Time for a little coffee.
Waffle is here, but who’s that coming around the corner?
Oh my gosh!
This is the best day ever.
“I’m never washing this face.”
We were also pretty excited to see some other friends.
Then Goofy came out. We were hesitant at first.
But then we warmed up.
Goofy’s so tall.
After breakfast we drove to the Disney World Dolphin, where we would be staying for the remainder of the trip. The Dolphin is one of the few non-Disney owned hotels that’s centrally located on Disney property (there are a bunch of non-Disney hotels near Disney Springs, but the Swan and Dolphin are right next to Epcot and Disney’s Boardwalk). The hotel is an SPG hotel so we used points for our stay.
We checked in and then took a walk around the property, stopping to sit by the pool for a few minutes while Hallie ate American cheese. I ordered her three slices of American cheese and they thought I was so strange. They are literally at a children’s theme park resort, I don’t think getting sliced cheese is so crazy.
Check-in wasn’t technically until four, but our room was ready by around two. When we checked in they told us we had been upgraded to a balcony room with a view of the Hollywood Studios fireworks. We got a room with two double beds – it was actually fairly spacious considering we were three people and a ton of stuff.
Not a bad view either:
After settling in we got back in the car and drove over to Disney Springs as we didn’t really have anything to do. It was either Disney Springs or the outlets and Tzvi said he wasn’t going to the outlets. We needed Hallie to nap, so as soon as we got there we got her into the stroller and she was asleep within a few minutes. We walked around a bit, got tuna sandwiches at Earle of Sandwich (not bad), did some shopping. It was nice. Relaxing. We went into the fancy bakery where Tzvi wanted to get some really good looking desserts. He asked about nuts and they brought the chef out who said the desserts would be fine and she could get fresh ones from the back for him. After he ordered he said he just wanted to double check that they were vegetarian. “Oh no, we set everything with pig gelatin.” Whoops. Needless to say we left empty handed. Then Tzvi wanted to go back to world of Disney to shop some more.
Before leaving we made a stop at World of Disney where Hallie kept pulling everything off the shelf and saying “I want to buy this.” We ended up buying her a small Minnie Mouse purse, which was the only thing she pulled and literally would not give back. When we were checking out, the cashier wen’t crazy for Hallie and thought she was so cute. First she asked her who her favorite princess was and she pointed to me. [blush] Then she said Rapunzel and the cashier gave her a free Rapunzel pin (those things retail for like $10) that she wore for the rest of the day.
After that it was time to go, so we got back in the car and drove about 20 minutes to Universal City Walk, our only encounter with Universal for the trip. The plan was to go to The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium and Savory Feast Kitchen, a fairly new chocolate restaurant outside the two parks. They don’t take reservations, so the plan was that the three of us would get there early and then my parents would meet us with their psychiatry friends. When we got there at 6:30 they told us the wait was an hour and twenty minutes.
Tzvi: First off, I don’t know what Steph was expecting, It’s a new restaurant, things are crowded, of course it was an hour-plus wait. As soon as we found this out, Steph sort of went into shut down mode, where she doesn’t want to acknowledge how upset she is over the situation, but is clearly very upset. The situation was that we would get Hallie some food and then I would take her back to the hotel to go to bed, because sitting down to dinner at 8:00 was just too late. We started walking and eventually found the kids menu at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company was our best option. I went inside to order Hallie a kids meal to go – fish sticks and French fries – but before I could actually order, Steph called me to say she got a text message that our table was ready.
Steph: That’s right. After only 24 minutes they texted saying the table was ready. I still don’t really know what happened, but it was fine by me. But what I was expecting originally was to leave Disney Springs an hour earlier than we did. Tzvi kept saying he didn’t want to have downtime in City Walk and I wanted to not wait an hour for a table, so that was the expectation. Anyway, we rushed back to the restaurant, basically walking all the way back around the City Walk. Universal City Walk is fine, but it’s really no Disney Springs. Not to be a snob, but Disney is just so superior. I know City Walk is themed more to adults, but it’s just not as nice and doesn’t really have any magic.
Anyway, we met my parents and another psychiatrist and his wife, and got our table. The restaurant is themed like a chocolate factory and pretty well done. Its themed around some story that I didn’t pay attention to but focuses around a girl and some man who resembles the Tin Man and works in a Chocolate factory. I think the girl got lost in the world and her parents would only find her if they followed the smell of chocolate. They actually had the characters walking around the restaurant and they were quite scary. Hallie was not amused.
We got a bunch of appetizers for the table, including warm chocolate almond bread with salted caramel butter (it just tasted like bread), avocado bruschetta which had avocado three ways (avocado crema, fried avocado, and plain avocado), hummus and pita chips, and roasted brussels sprouts.
Between appetizers and entrees Tzvi and I both got milkshakes, I guess as a palette cleanser. I got confetti shake with Vanilla ice cream, confetti cake, vanilla buttercream frosting, rainbow sprinkles, fresh whipped cream, and Tzvi got an espresso buzzzz shake with Coffee ice cream, espresso, chocolate espresso beans and coffee whipped cream (which I think was actually coffee buttercream). Both were very good.
For entrees I had teriyaki salmon with Asian vegetables, jasmine rice and miso broth, and Tzvi had a tuna melt with a fried egg on top that was so messy he had to eat it with a fork. Both were good but Tzvi really enjoyed his sandwich.
For dessert we got chocolate mouse and a brownie sundae. I would say the desserts were good, but not over the top. I guess when you are so used to Serendipity, everything else pales in comparison. Still fun though.
Somehow the dinner still took three hours and we didn’t make it back to the hotel until 10ish. We put Hallie right to bed and then hid in the dark until it was time for us to go to sleep.
