Two birthday girls - updated Nov 20 About This Page:

[Big Baloo]

Your dinner at Palo's sure makes the pork chop I had for dinner tonight seem so very, shall we say, ordinary? Really glad you had such a great time. Can't wait to read more.

[Colexis Mom]

What a great dinner at Palo's Terri! Boy, did the pictures look good

Hurry back with more

[Stephanie P.]

I'm so glad you guys got to eat at Palo! It was wonderful when DH and I ate there last year!

[MegglesMom]

That meal at Palo sure does sound (and look!) yummy! Can't wait to read more...

[JoanW]

I just love photos of food at WDW and the cruise! We are so doing Palo in June. The kids will be fine without me!

[sarah_belle]

Great update! The food looks amazing!

Sarah

[DrDolphin]

September 30 – Arrival Back at Port Canaveral – and our trip at Walt Disney World officially begins…..

I woke up around 630am – and found that we had docked at Port Canaveral. We got up and got dressed, and made sure all of our STUFF was packed. We headed up to Shutters, so Cheryl could pick up her Christmas cards, and so we could look at the Palo photos taken the night before. We decided not to buy any of them (mine are better, and my dress strap is on shoulder in all of them – it kept falling off throughout the night – and the photographer captured a great photo of my bra strap).

We then tried to head to breakfast. We were supposed to eat at Parrot Cay – we arrived at 800am, and were told we could not be seated until the 2nd seating at 830am. We decided we did not want to stand around and wait to be seated. Instead, we went back to the room, gathered our carryon bags and headed for the exit and de-embarked.



This is the banner that hung over the gangplank were we disembarked. We headed down to Customs and Immigration, and found our suitcases. We also headed to the buses to Walt Disney World and were on a bus headed to the Polynesian Resort by 9am. Cheryl slept on the way back (its an hour ride from Port Canaveral to WDW) while I (gasp) read email on my blackberry.

We arrived at the Poly about 10am, put the bags into the car, and headed back into the Polynesian for a breakfast at the Kona Café. Cheryl had the famous Tonga toast, while I had the regular French toast (that they cover in cinnamon sugar…. First for me).


My breakfast at Kona Café


Cheryl’s Tonga toast (French toast stuffed with a banana then cooked and coated in cinnamon sugar).

After breakfast, we headed over to the Swan to check in. While the Swan is on Disney property, Disney does not run it. Checking in took more than 30-minutes – because I had decided to use an AAA visa cash card. This proved to be a major issue with the Swan since they had not seen one of these cards before… we finally got checked in – and went to our room, opened the door and was hit with a MAJOR smell of MOLD!!! OK – not staying here. I called downstairs and within 15 minutes, we were in another room. It too smelled of mold – but due to the hurricane, there was not much to be done. We opened the balcony door and turned off the AC – that seemed to make most of the difference.

After we got checked in, we decided it was time to get out of the hotel and into the parks – so we headed to MGM, I think we got there about noonish. We rode the boat to MGM from the Swan – and that took about 25 minutes – since you stop at the Boardwalk and the Yacht Club/Beach Club before heading to MGM. We skipped lunch since we had a late breakfast and planned an earlier dinner. The plan for today was to ride Rock n Roll Coaster and Tower of terror, to have dinner at the Brown Derby and have the famous Grapefruit cake. This is the day I finally began to videotape in earnest. We rode RNRC (my favorite coaster – you could put me in here, and leave me there all day long) == oh one note I should make here – I bought a Disney World trivia book that Cheryl became completely enamored with – I think she read it cover to cover and is now a Disney trivia expert. We rode Tower of Terror – another ride I adore!!! This time we thought we were done, and were shot back up another 13 stories for another 130-foot fall!!! WEEEEEE!!! We also saw “Voyage of the Little Mermaid”. We played a round of “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, Play it” – and Cheryl and I both made the top ten, and we went on the backlot tour – which of course has had major changes due to the removal of the neighborhood house facades. Crowds were very light – and we accomplished quite a bit.


Backlot tour – the “Earful tower” in the back and the topiary tower in the front.

We had a 5:20 PS at Brown Derby for the Fantasmic Dinner Package. We had very high hopes for this meal – since others have had such great experiences. In a nutshell – the food was good (except for that grapefruit cake – ugh, too grapefruity and way too dry for me) but the service left much to be desired. We had a server who said she was new to WDW – and we were only her 3rd table ever as a CM. She was hard to find when we wanted water, our appetizer, tea and soda refills, and our check. I think I had the grouper - can't remember what Cheryl had..... I need to find my notes.


The famous grapefruit cake

After dinner, we headed back to RNRC, since we had a bit of time (oh yeah, we had FastPasses too – no lines for us). Like I said – my fav rollercoaster!!!


Can you guess where this is??


This should give you a better idea (I lay down on the road beneath the car to get the first photo).

After RNRC – we headed to the Fantasmic nighttime spectacular – and I videotaped the whole thing – of course – Murphy’s law prevailed, and I ran out of tape half way through the show – so we had to coordinate a quick tape change!!!! Next time I will have a better plan (in other words, check how much tape is remaining, BEFORE the show starts!!).

We finished Fantasmic, and decided to head to the hotel and go to bed – we had a very long day!!!!

[DopeyGirl]

Nice shot of your driver's license in the photo with the grapefruit cake!!!

You seriously laid on the ground and took that picture? Did you get any funny looks? "What IS that lady doing?"

Great update!!! Bring on the next day!!!

[LizardCop]

Great update Terri....

Patiently waiting for more... [img]http://smileys.*************.com/cat/4/4_6_109v.gif[/img]

[luvnwdwgal]

Great update Terri! That's the first time I've seen a picture of the grapefruit cake, and it looks absolutely nothing like what I imagined. I'm thinking some people thought you were pretty strange laying down on the concrete to take the picture at RnR! But it's a cool pic! Looking forward to more!

[Colexis Mom]

Great update Terri! Hurry back with more! Sorry the service at HBD stunk!

[Tara O'Hara]

Terri, that's a cool picture under RnR!! That food looks yummy too!! Great update!!

[DrDolphin]

For those of you wondering if I lay down on the ground at the entrance to RNRC - the answer is YES -- and Yes - I did get some strange looks - even from Cheryl - who is used to me doing weird things!!!!

I will add another update tonight (since all the school stuff for tomorrow is done).

[Joy J]

Terri, I just caught up with your trip report and it's wonderful! More please!

Joy

[Stephanie P.]

Enjoyed reading your update, Terri!!