[Singermom]

Day 2, part 2 – Kona Café, Spectromagic, Wishes

Cast Members:

Me – age 38, WDW planner – 6th trip to WDW
MIL – age 62 – many trips to WDW
DS7 – older ds, age 7 and ¾, 3rd trip to WDW
DS4 – younger ds, age 4, 3rd trip to WDW


When we arrived back at the resort, MIL couldn’t make it back all the way to the room and had to take a breather in the lobby. It was already nearly 3:30 and I wanted to get into the pool before the sun went down much farther so I headed up with the kids to get changed. Since the day was so warm, the pool was quite crowded despite being the largest on property. We splashed about for an hour before returning to our room to prepare for the evening.

With all our exertions, everyone was ready for dinner. MIL expressed an interest in trying Kona Café which is one of my favourites so I readily complied by making a ps. This time we got the car and took advantage of the valet parking privileges available at all the other resorts. Since we would be visiting MK within the 3 hour limit, we were able to park our car just once and have easy access to and from MK on the resort monorail. Actually, I don’t think there is any limit on the parking for valet as I only assumed there was a 3 hour limit. In fact, the valet at the GF (later in the trip) specifically informed us that we could go the parks if we wanted to. The food at Kona Café was delicious as usual though they changed and removed some of my favourites off the menu. DS4 had his usual chicken fingers while the rest of us split some appetizers and an entrée. For appetizers we had the seafood dumplings (the kids especially, even ds4, loved this), the crab cakes (they used to be much bigger and set on toast rounds with more of the tasty sauce), a pear, blue cheese salad (this was MIL’s favourite dish of the the whole trip). For our entrée we chose the macadamia crusted mahi served with a mushroom risotto. DS4 loved the fish, ds7 did not care for the crust, MIL and I both enjoyed it a lot. I did miss my old favourite – spicy shrimp and scallops over salad – it’s been replaced with another shrimp/scallop pairing but with a wasabi sauce – yuck! Although we were pretty full, I had to order another favourite – caramel banada crème brulee. I have to admit I was a tad disappointed – the custard portion was overly firm for my taste.

Now we just had enough time to hop on the monorail to MK and grab a spot for Spectromagic. Since it was pretty close to parade time we stayed near the train station. We were about three rows in so it was not great viewing for the kids at first until MIL spotted a closed ‘hot dog’ stand which was being used as a perch. We got the kids up on that (I stayed right next to it so they couldn’t tumble off) and the got a somewhat decent view. DS4 was thrilled again with the characters – it was so cute to watch him waving to everyone! While I enjoy Spectromagic, I still pine for the old Electric Main Street parade – the music is so much catchier than just hearing all the same Disney songs. After the parade, it was only a half hour until Wishes so we stayed in the same area. I actually found a curb spot right in front of the castle! It seemed like a great spot until several people stood right in front of us. This was okay for me, but now the kids could barely see. I hoisted up my hefty 4 yo for a better view and ds7 angled himself so he could see. Earlier I had mentioned our rude CM encounter of the day and now we had our rude park patron. The man in front of us actually lit up a cigarette in that crowd! Even though I complained about the smoke blowing into my kids faces he continued to ignore us and smoke away. It was impossible to step away and locate a CM so we had to endure his obnoxious behaviour. Well……sort of endure. I finally pulled out ds4’s light sword toy, stuck it in ds4’s hand and proceeded to continuously jab the offender in the back while watching the fireworks and pretending be totally unaware of ‘our’ offense. He finally got the message and butted out his cigarette – lol! I was totally awed by Wishes – so superior to Fantasy in the Sky. This was ds7’s favourite fireworks show of our trip over Illuminations.

After the show, we were fortunately ahead of most of the crowds so we had only a short wait to get on the resort monorail and back to our resort. MIL and ds4 got ready for bed but ds7 wanted dessert so we headed back down. First though, we stopped by Arusha Savannah to take advantage of the night viewing offered with the infra-red goggles. It was very interesting to view the savannah under the artificial moonlight conditions. If we didn’t have a dessert mission it would have been lovely to linger in one of the rocking chairs surrounding the firepit. Today ds7 selected a pawprint brownie form the Mara (very dense and chocolatey) and I purchased a mickey rice-krispie treat dipped in chocolate for later. While ds7 was having dessert we got a call from MIL – which unfortunately leads to a part 3 for today.