Disney Day #14

This was our last full day in the parks.

My sisters and I started by taking the monorail to the Polynesian to have breakfast at ‘Ohana. I have eaten dinner there several times but never had breakfast.

‘Ohana is served family style. You start with a coconut bread. Then you get a platter that has eggs, sausage, potatoes, Mickey waffles and biscuits. You can have more of whatever you want.

‘Ohana is also a character meal so we got a chance to say hello to Lilo, Stitch and Mickey.

Our plan was to then take the monorail to the TTC and transfer to the monorail to Epcot. When we arrived at the TTC, there was a cast member that said due to construction the monorail wasn’t running until 10 am. He said we could take a bus to Epcot. I had this happen once before so I sort of remembered where the buses were. However, there was construction walls up at the TTC so it was not clear how to get to the buses. After some confusion, we found the bus and arrived at Epcot.

Had to take an Epcot selfie:

We had some FastPasses for the day and we went to check out the “Epcot Experience.” The Epcot Experience is a room with a huge 3D model representing Epcot in the middle of the room. Around the walls of the circular room, there are screens. The show runs continuously and consists of little presentations of all the new attractions coming to Epcot. There are projections onto the model that go with the theme of the attractions. It was pretty cool and I watched it all the way through a few times.

For lunch, we tried the new counter service restaurant in the American Pavilion. I don’t think you can compare it to “real BBQ” that you can get in other places around the US but we enjoyed it. We tried the ribs and the pork.

I can’t go to Epcot and not go see Voices of Liberty. They usually sing old traditional Americana songs but in recent visits, they have started to do a few modern Disney songs.

This is my dream job!!

We were going to the After Hours party at the Magic Kingdom this evening and we had to pack to leave early in the morning, so we decided to go back to the room for a bit in the late afternoon.

We had a dinner reservation at 1900 Park Faire at the Grand Floridian. I love the lobby of that hotel:

1900 Park Faire is a buffet and a character meal. The characters are Cinderella, the Prince, Lady Tremaine and Cinderella’s step sisters. The step sisters are so funny and the interaction is awesome. The food is very good too. The Prince insisted on a “portrait” with us.

Our plan had been to hang out in the lobby a bit and then take the monorail over to Magic Kingdom. We had hoped to get there around 6:30 / 7 so we could watch Happily Ever After at 8 pm and then stay for the After Hours event which was from 8 – 11 pm.

The Magic Kingdom is only one stop from the Grand Floridian on the monorail so we thought we had our timing worked out. However, when we got on the monorail, there was an announcement that they were in a delay due to a maintenance issue but it would be running in about 15-20 minutes. So we waited… and then they said it was going to take longer so we needed to get off. They said they had a water taxi or buses now running for us to the get to the Magic Kingdom. We went downstairs and were lucky to see the bus pulling up as we got to the bus stop.

We got to the Magic Kingdom at around 7:30. Main Street was pretty packed with guests waiting for Happily Ever After. I have seen it a few times but my sisters had never seen it. We found a spot in the entrance hub and I said to them “As long as you can see the castle, you are fine.” The show is a lot of castle projections so you really need to see it to fully enjoy the show. We were happy with our spot and had about 25 minutes to wait for the show.

I have been trying to keep my blog posts positive, but I have to talk about what happened as soon as the show started. All the way down Main Street, it was a domino effect of parents putting children on their shoulders. We had that happen right in front of us as well as a person directly in front of me that decided to hold up his IPad to record.

If you really need to put your child on your shoulders, do it while you are waiting so the people behind you know that is going to happen and won’t stand behind you. Or stand on the side. And as far as the IPad… just no. I saw what he was recording. It wasn’t good. Half the time, he didn’t even have a full view of the castle.

I really didn’t try to move. I had seen the show. As it got to the very end, a bunch of people started leaving. I guess they wanted to get a head start getting to the buses. Their loss that they missed the finale.

I finally had a pretty good view as people left and I took a bunch of pictures at the finale that came out pretty good.

With that over, we were staying for the After Hours event. However, the masses of people down Main Street were leaving. This was going to be interesting. We hugged the front of the stores and didn’t do too badly until we tried to cross over to start in Adventureland. It took some work but we made it through.

The After Hours event was just awesome. You can basically walk on to every ride. We started at one end and worked our way around the whole park. We enjoyed the free snacks this time too because it wasn’t freezing! The only ride we waited for was Mine Train and that wait was only 15 minutes.

There was also almost no wait for a photo opp that I have seen online and wanted to do.