I had planned a truly magical and exciting experience for us prior to us arriving in the park. We were eating at Cinderella's Royal Table! This restaurant is INSIDE the castle! We arrived at the castle and checked in. We were given a card with our party number on it and went into a small room where we waited with other families to meet Cinderella. Finally, our name was called and we were able to meet Cinderella and ascend the staircase into the castle. We were brought to our table and promptly served our drinks. We were also given a wand, a sword, and each a wishing star. We made wishes on those later in the meal but let's talk more about the food! It was wonderful! Here is my appetizer, entree, and dessert, as well as my dad's dessert. My appetizer consisted of a lovely seared scallop, lemon peas, and delicious mushrooms along with a gorgeous cream sauce. It was small but it had SO MUCH flavor! I really liked it! For my entree, I had chosen the fish of the day. It was a salmon on top of a bed of grains with veggies and a tomato sauce. I really enjoyed it and would definitely eat it again! (Please ignore the bit that I already had taken out of it! I was so excited to eat it!) My dessert (on the left) was a chocolate and raspberry mouse called The Clock Strikes Twelve. It was lovely! On the right is my dad's dessert which was a deconstructed berry cheesecake. It was also very delicious! We each got a wishing star in this meal. In between princesses coming and visiting our table and taking pictures with us, we were directed to make wishes upon our stars as an entire dining room. It was very fun! Below is a snapshot of the inside of the castle and from where we were sitting. It was quite cozy (read small) but it was comfortable and very nice. I am glad that I took the opportunity to eat here! My next Disney World post will be all about our experience at Early Morning Magic in Toy Story Land in Hollywood Studios! It was a joyous adventure!
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After our late night at Animal Kingdom the night before, we woke up ready for even more Disney magic. What better way to spark the magic than to go to the Magic Kingdom! We started our day taking the Disney boat directly from our resort to the Magic Kingdom. Whether it is Disney World or Disneyland, it is such a fun feeling to walk down Main Street USA. Check out that view! Our first stop of the day was to the Enchanted Tiki Room where we listened to those wonderful birds and crooning flowers. We also made sure to stop into the Emporium on Main Street to ask about first visit buttons and we were promptly given these fabulous buttons to commemorate our trip! We then took a wonderful ride on Pirates of the Caribbean while we were waiting for our Fastpass window for Big Thunder Mountain to open. We went on Big Thunder Mountain and then used another Fastpass for Splash Mountain. While on Splash Mountain, we were stopped on the ride for about 3 minutes. It was pretty fun to be stopped on a ride with the lights on! Definitely a different experience! We then made our way over to the Jungle Cruise to use our last pre planned Fastpass of the day. Then the fun could really start! I'm very glad that I read up a lot on how the Fastpass system in Disney World works because I was able to get more Fastpasses right after we tapped in for our Jungle Cruise Fastpass. We got Fastpasses this way for Haunted Mansion, Mickey's Philharmagic, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (where I tried to max out the score and almost succeeded!), and Space Mountain! We were able to ride all of these rides with little to no wait in the course of an entire day WITHOUT getting to the park at the break of dawn! In addition to riding rides, we also spent time playing the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game that is exclusive to Disney World throughout the day. I'll be posting more about this in a later post as it is really fun! That night, for dinner, we had planned to go to Cinderella's Royal Table for dinner and had to pass the Tangled restrooms on our way there. It's only restrooms but they are gorgeous and wonderfully themed! We then made our way to the Castle for our dinner which was INSIDE the castle! Be on the lookout for when I post about how wonderful it was!
We finished our wonderful day in the best way possible, we went and met Mickey and Minnie! It was very nice and even without a Fastpass, we didn't have to wait long at all! We then hopped on the boat back to our resort and called it a night so that we could get ready for our EARLY morning the next day in Hollywood Studios! Our first night, right after we got to our resort, we went to Animal Kingdom for an After Hours event. Disney is now hosting events where limited numbers of guests get to enter the park and spend the evening in the park. They call these events After Hours and they hold them periodically at Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and at Animal Kingdom where we were! When we got to the park, we entered through a designated After Hours entrance and got special After Hours wristbands. After the park had officially closed to general guests, cast members were stationed at certain checkpoints in the park to check if you had a wristband or not. They would then direct you where you needed to go! The event started officially around 9pm and lasted until midnight but we were able to get into the park starting at 7pm. The first thing we did when we got to the park was go on a safari! On Kilimanjaro Safaris, we were able to see a BUNCH of different animals. Can you spot the lion? It was a BLAST! We then went to get some food and had some delicious ribs! After this, the event had yet to start and we had fastpasses for the Animal Kingdom nighttime show called Rivers of Light. It had been raining quite a bit before and during the show but it was very enjoyable and was great to watch. By the time the show was over, our event had started so we got started riding some rides! The first thing we rode was Expedition Everest which is a roller coaster. The special thing about this coaster is that it goes backwards! It was very exciting. We then went to Pandora and started exploring over there. We rode both of the rides with very minimal wait which is one of the selling points for these After Hours events and were able to ride Flight of Passage at least two or three times. It was AMAZING! I can see why people normally wait 3+ hours for it during the day. We were then able to get some drinks and ice cream. They were included in our admission to this event so we were able to walk up to any food cart and simply get whatever we wanted at no extra charge. We ate a ridiculous amount of ice cream! We then went to Dinoland USA and rode Dinosaur which is built on the same track as Indiana Jones in Disneyland but has a dinosaur theme. It was very fun and quite exciting! This day was our travel day so we were a bit exhausted but this event was so much fun! After having ridden a few more rides, we got more ice cream for the road and made our way out of the park where we saw projections happening on the Animal Kingdom Tree of Life. We then boarded the bus back to our resort and by the time we were back in our resort, we were reunited with our luggage!
All in all, it was a wonderful travel day with an amazing event! In my next post, I'll be talking about our first full day in Disney World! Stay tuned to see where we went, what we did, and what we ate! For the entire 11 days and 10 nights, we stayed at Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort. We were located in a nature view room. Now, unfortunately, I forgot to get pictures of the inside of the room but the room was almost exactly the same as the pictures shown on Disney's website. Our resort was themed for the Pacific Northwest so it was kind of like something we'd see back home but it was a gorgeous resort! There was a spacious lobby with lots of seating and a giant fireplace modeled after rock layers and a river leading out from the lobby all the way to the pool. The resort had many areas to relax and unwind from the day. There were also several places to eat in the resort.
We were able to eat at almost every meal location in our resort. We had breakfast at Roaring Fork which is one of the quick service locations. We were able to do a lot at this location from getting breakfast to getting quick snacks like ice cream and fruit as well as fill up our refillable mugs that we got with our dining plan. We also ate at Geyser Point which was another quick service location out by the resort's pool. It is named for the resort's geyser which is modeled after Old Faithful at Yellowstone. The geyser erupts every hour during the day. It is quite cool to watch! There were two sit down restaurants. One is a character meal that we went to in the middle of our trip. The other seemed to be an interesting experience with all you can eat skillets and sassy wait staff! In regards to transportation, we had a couple of different options. My favorite option was using the boats to get to the Magic Kingdom. It left every 20-30 minutes and it was a short and beautiful boat ride. Another option was taking the Disney buses to wherever we needed to get to. There were designated bus stops for each park and our bus only stopped at one other resort before heading to the park. We also could have taken ride share services like Lyft and Uber. Disney also has its own comparable service through Lyft called Minnie Vans. We did not use this service but it would be something to try next time. Overall, it was a wonderful resort to stay at and I would definitely choose to stay at this resort on my next trip! |
AllisonThese are the chronicles of my time before, during, and after student teaching in South Korea! Archives
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