The Waterstraut Waterspout: Anniversary #9: Day One

I'm back with the series of anniversary blogs. It might be a minute until I get all four of them up, it's kind of been a work in progress. I gathered all of mine and Asa's pictures, broke them down by day, and I'm ready to write them now. But, we're instituting Friday night move night around here, so I'm sure I won't have time to hit all four blogs today. I might have time this weekend, since Asa just started his on call (which pretty much puts a cap on the weekend fun), but we're also doing the blanket fort and our belated hobbit day for Asa (since we were gone last Sunday for 'father's day'.)

Rewinding back to last Friday, I left a big list of chores for the kids on the chalk board. This is the second year we left them to fend for themselves on our anniversary, and I knew they could handle the house and pets and chores and such, but I just didn't want them to forget anything. They did a killer job. The house was cleaner than I left it, and the lawn was even mowed (which wasn't even on the list!) This might have been the second year we left them, but it was the first year Calib could drive by himself, so I did leave them some money to go out to eat, and then Calib bought them dinner one night- so they hardly had to cook. But still, stellar job, kids!

We left Saturday morning for our three nights at Disney. We've basically celebrated every anniversary at Disney except for our first, where we went to the place we got engaged. But, Disney is sort of where it's at for us. We don't have to use any sort of budget for travel (I mean $20 bucks for gas more than does it), but we stay somewhere new every year and try out some new restaurants and couple that with some old favorites. It's awesome every time. And I SO look forward to it. I'm already planning next years (setting aside $20 a paycheck hoping to do the Wild Africa Trek!)

Our first stop along the way was lunch at a new to us restaurant, The Grand Floridian Cafe. I've always heard good things, but we just hadn't made it there yet. As a fun bonus like two weeks ago, Disney announced a group of restaurants where passholders could get 20% off at lunch- and this was on the list! We got a cute table right by the windows. There was every fresh flowers on all the tables.

They have this lobster thermador burger that everyone talks about, but they also have pancakes, french toast and waffles (which they serve at lunch time!!) I love Disney breakfast so I went with one pancake. I knew I couldn't- and shouldn't- eat a stack of three, so I asked if I could just get one. Of course they obliged, and it was only like $4.50. But, then you also get to choose from a variety of toppings. I could have gone with the lemon curd, granola and blueberries- but I have that all the time at home. So I went with the oranges, cranberries and chantilly cream. Plus, I got pecan syrup.

Seriously, get these. Go to this place just for this. It was SO good.

Asa meanwhile got the Eggs Benedict Flight. Yes, a flight of eggs benedict! They have a traditional, a chorizo, and a LOBSTER! You can order any of them as a whole entree, but you can also get one of each in the flight. So of course that's what he did. I love my breakfast food, but Asa can't ever pass up a good eggs benedict. They totally lived up to the hype. And of course the lobster was the best.

After brunch we knew our room wouldn't be ready so we decided we would nose around the Magic Kingdom monorail resorts a little bit. I got $20 from my mom on mother's day, and I decided I wanted to use it to buy some Minnie ears. But, I took a long time to decide which ones I wanted. When I finally decided on the Purple Potion, Disney was sold out of them park-wide. I decided to tuck my $20 back into my zippered compartment in my wallet and wait (and hope!) The first store we went into on our anniversary, in the Grand Floridian had them back in stock, so I bought them right away. The cashier also gave us our '9 ears' anniversary buttons.

We took the monorail over to the Contemporary Resort where we decided we would have dessert. The bakery case at the Contempo Cafe always has awesome stuff. But, the Peanut Butter pie is the best of them all. SUPER rich. I ate about a quarter and made Asa eat the rest. But, this pie is one of the best desserts on Disney property.

By then we had gotten notified our room was ready. We actually decided on the Caribbean Beach Resort this year, mostly because of the awesome deal we got. Caribbean Beach just went through a big renovation, and the new gondolas that will transport guests to and from Epcot and Hollywood Studios from the resort are mostly built, but not running for guests yet. Couple that with the fact that a brand new resort is getting built on the other end of the lake, and all the construction is kind of keeping people away. I heard it wasn't really an issue anymore, and at $130 a night I was willing to take that chance. I loved it. The room was pretty standard. But, the pools were great, the newly redone lobby was awesome, the newly built Spyglass Grill became a favorite for us for breakfast, and the whole resort didn't feel like it was under construction at all.

We dropped our stuff off at the room and went to check out the pool. The main pool is awesome, but mid-day is pretty crowded, since it's such a big resort. We decided instead to hit the 'quiet pool' closer to our room, as there was hardly anyone there.

For dinner we decided to head to Disney Springs and finally check out Chicken Guy. We've heard really good things about the place, and we had yet to try it out. Asa got three crispy chicken tenders, while I got the grilled. But, really it's all about the sauces. They have like 25 of them- but anymore than 2 per order and you have to pay 50 cents for them. I figured since it was our anniversary we would splurge the extra $1 and get six sauces between the two of us. My favorite was the Avacado Crema, while Asa really liked the Donkey sauce.

We also split an order of fries with SMC (aka Super Melty Cheese). They were good, but didn't really even need the chicken tender on top. While we liked chicken guy, and for Disney, it's REALLY affordable (like $5.99 for three tenders affordable), I honestly like PDQ better. But, again, if all five of us were looking for dinner at Disney Springs, this totally wouldn't be a bad option.

You can't take Disney transportation directly from Disney Springs to a park, but we were headed to Hollywood Studios next. So we hopped on a bus to the Boardwalk- and ended up being the only one's on it! We nosed around the Boardwalk a bit and then hopped on a boat to Hollywood Studios.

Usually we're blacked out of the parks on our anniversary, but this year we got a new type of pass- 'Theme Park Select' where you are never really blacked out of EVERY park (in fact, the only times you can't go to any park is during the REALLY busy times- when we wouldn't go anyway). This trip (and this summer) we are able to go to Hollywood Studios and Epcot until our heart's content. We can't, however, go to Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom until mid-August.

That works out for us though, because on our Disney Quest to go on every ride and see every attraction/live entertainment/character Disney lists on it's website/app we had only gotten FOUR items checked off our Hollywood Studios list to date. So, we had some work to do.

Our first stop was #5 Star Wars Launch Bay

Now, Hollywood Studios is under a lot of construction, what with Galaxy's Edge not set to open yet, along with a few other things- so there's only a total of 36 things on the list. And even some of those are a little cheap to list separately. The Launch Bay is an attraction listed, but then so is everything inside the launch bay.

Like #6 Star Wars Photo Ops/Visit the Cantina

And Character Meet and Greets that are inside the Launch Bay.

But, I didn't mind, seeing the characters is kind of fun- if you hit it right, waiting in line for characters is kind of a drag. But BB8 is so cute!

#7 Meet BB8

Kylo Ren was less fun. He was really grumpy and threatening.

#8 Meet Kylo Ren

But then we got to

#9 Meet Chewbacca

And he made it all better with his Chewbacca hugs!

I had nabbed some Fastpasses for our trip at the 60 day mark. First up we went on Toy Story Mania. It's one of Asa's favorite's, and we rode it so many times this trip.

There are some nods to Toy Story 4 over in Toy Story Land. Though he's not listed anywhere, we did stop by and get our picture taken with Forky.

Woody's Lunchbox is always a fun stop- their seasonal lunchbox tart is blueberry lemonade, and it's delicious.

We noticed a 5 minute wait to

# 10 Celebrity Spotlight Meet Olaf

so we went over there to see him real quick. He might like warm hugs, but Chewbacca is a better hugger.

And then it was time for another Fastpass. We've had passes for at least a decade now, but I had never once been on

#11 Rock N Roller Coaster

so, per our quest, today was my day. I didn't feel too sick after I got off the ride, but I'm not sure I'll be riding it again anytime soon.

Next up, I'll have to ride the Tower of Terror. And I'm not super looking forward to that.

Since we were there at night we tackled two night time shows.

#12 Fantasmic

Which is still alright, but is really starting to show it's age. Also, skip the Fastpass on this one, it totally wasn't even necessary.

And also #13 Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular

which is basically just projections on the Chinese Theater, and fireworks. It's cool, and worth a stop if you're in the park. But, I wouldn't call it destination worthy.

At that point we'd completed 13 of the 36 things on our Hollywood Studios list (or 36%)

Asa was hungry by now, so we took the bus back to Disney Springs. After 4 pm, there is a bus that runs there from the parks. We decided to try out Pizza Ponte. It's been there at least a year and we hadn't been.

They have some seriously huge pieces of pizza. I told Asa we should split a piece. But, that didn't go over well, so we ended up with two. The square cut pizza was my favorite, but for a late night pizzas place, this was a good pick.