Thursday 9/13

Happy birthday to me!

Cupcakes for breakfast!

Our alarm went off around 7am, and I was up like a shotgun, while CP was a bit groggy and moved somewhat slowly. We both dressed and gathered our park belongings, and then headed to the parking lot to grab the car for a quick drive to Poly for breakfast at Kona.  Kona has become a WDW trip tradition, and it seemed the perfect place for a birthday breakfast. We’re seated quickly and have Eric for a server, the same one who helped us in April.  We order everything in one fell swoop, CP the two eggs any style, me the Tonga toast, both of us with sides of fruit instead of questionable Disney breakfast meat. Also as per tradition, we order a press pot of Kona coffee to share. One of the best things about Kona (besides the tasty Tonga Toast and exceptional coffee) is that the service is fast, so we’re fed and out the door in no time – but not before I receive a lovely birthday cupcake and a serenade!

Happy and ready for our first full day of vacation, we head out to the car and toward the Studios, where we park in Stage 41 and hop on a tram to the front. Rope drop lines are minimal – good lord September crowds are amazing! – and they let us in at 8:45 and we can walk right onto TSMM. Literally, we walk on, and we’re pulled out of line and directed toward the handicap entrance to fill up a car.  Shortest Toy Story Mania wait ever, I think? CP breaks

We always seem to hit the Studios on really beautiful mornings.

134k, I near 200k but can’t quite get there. We walk right on the ride again, and CP hovers near 132k, and I get near 195k – still can’t quite get to 200k!  I decide this morning that this is one of my trip bucket list goals – I will cross the 200k threshold before we depart.

Satisfied – and truthfully with arms too tired to go again – we decide to character stalk and browse the stores before heading to the MK, the only place that seems truly appropriate to visit for a birthday. Tigger is the only character out near the Hat, so

Who decided – and why?- that Minnie needs to be…sexy…all of the sudden?

we wander the stores, receiving many “Happy Birthday!”s from Cast Members as we do.  Eventually we walk back to the car, drive back to the Contemporary, and run back up to our room to grab our mugs.  We fill up on soda in the Contempo Cafe and then hang out on the 2nd floor while we wait for mousekeeping to finish our room. When they do, we find a lovely towel animal, one of many we’ll receive at the Contemporary.  We freshen up, grab pins to trade, and walk to the MK, both muttering about the oppressive heat that’s bearing down well before noon.

The late morning crowds are decent but not huge by any means. We walk in under the train station and see our friend Pluto. We head straight to the Emporium, do lots of pin trading, and CP and and Cast Member named Bill from Brooklyn serenade me for my birthday. He gives CP an “I’m Celebrating” button, and we both get stickers.  We continue with our pin trading, and run into a couple that are clearly our “people” – they are adorned in lanyards, ear hats, and other accoutrements of nerdiness. We pin trade with them, talking about the dorkiness of pin trading and how much we love it, and discuss our shared secret love for Duffy. (There – I said it. I love Duffy! I know, I hate myself, too.)

Spooky.

I love fall at the Magic Kingdom.

STT – home to a tasty – and fast-melting – use of a snack credit.

We then head to the stores across the street for more pin stalking, and then strike off to Adventureland to browse the stores there and get CP a citrus swirl for us to share. This will be the first use of our snack credits – exciting, right? Except that there is huge dining plan drama, the CM can’t find our plan on our account, and we have to pay for the swirl out of pocket and fix things at the Contemporary later. Sigh. The drama took so long that our poor citrus swirl was melting into a puddle, so there’s no way we can successfully share it. CP digs in, and once finished we walk through Frontierland to pin trade and browse. We take a quick ride on the Haunted Mansion (basically a walk-on), and then walk through Fantasyland, which is the most crowded area of the park. We are offered participation in the Enchanted Tales with Belle test but decline; it’s just too hot and humid to wait outside for the 40 minutes they are advertising. In any case, it’s time to knock another item off our trip bucket list – Dumbo! There’s no wait time posted, and we walked on this, too.  I was more impressed with the interactive queue than I thought I’d be, and we found the ride to be fun and nostalgic, although hot under the midday sun.  We hop off Dumbo and onto an arriving train in Fantasyland, riding one stop to Main Street. We almost join the line to meet Pluto, but ultimately head back to the Contemporary because we’re absolutely wilting in the heat.

After we soak up the lobby’s wonderful air conditioning, our first stop is the Contempo Cafe for a snack. Let’s just say that the food didn’t overwhelm us with positive feelings. CP ordered a sad Caesar Salad, and I had a slightly better but still kind of sad grilled chicken sandwich and fries. Once fainting from hunger is no longer a possibility, we refill our mugs and walk down to the lobby to fix our dining plan problem. It turns out our dining plan problem is in some way related to the room key problems we had the night before, and the only solution is for the CM to completely rebook our package. This takes nearly 20 minutes, and so we kill time in the lobby amidst the throngs of Royal Prestige conference attendees and their children. Package problems solved, we take the elevator back up to our room and collapse for a three-hour nap.

The view from our balcony at dusk. Not bad!

Because we’re on such a long trip I feel absolutely no guilt about sleeping and relaxing the afternoon away. Following our marathon nap, we get dressed for dinner and head to the 4th floor for more soda and pin trading. We make some great trades from the pin board at the Fantasia Store. We run back up to the room to stash our mugs and grab another handful of trading pins, and we head to first floor and find a pin board out at the Wave.  We make two more trades, and then walk outside to browse and take pictures in the twilight. Around 7:30, we take the escalator to the 2nd floor for check-in for my birthday dinner at the California Grill.

We wait about 10 minutes to be seated, people watching and commenting on the poor fashion choices all the while. I’ve covered this in previous trip

Evening at the California Grill.

reports, but it is *such* a pet peeve of mine that people can’t be bothered to wear even halfway decent clothes to Disney signature restaurants. I can kind of forgive this phenomenon at the in-park restaurants like Le Cellier and the Hollywood Brown Derby, but I have less tolerance for this happening at resort restaurants.   Tonight’s fashion disaster featured a man in camouflage manpris (you know, capris…for men), a t-shirt, and a hat, and his wife and kids were similarly dressed down. I can’t really single this family out too much, though, because they were hardly the only ones.

Rant over! In any case, CP and I are seated at a table on the Epcot side of main dining room. Addell is our server; he’s quiet but attentive and you can get

Roasted pork tenderloin with goat cheese polenta, button mushrooms, fried sage, and a Zinfandel glaze. AKA Best Meal Ever(tm).

him to smile with a well-placed joke. He gives us his recommendations, and then for drinks we order French 75s, but he’s unsure whether the bar can make them. He goes to check. In the meantime, CP for an appetizer orders the beet salad, I get signature goat cheese ravioli, and we both order the pork tenderloin for our entree.  Addell departs, and returns to tell us that not only can the bar make the drinks, the drink itself is actually in the computer system. Our meal is lovely and well paced, and the pork is probably the best we’ve ever had there. For dessert, CP gets the Valhrona chocolate cake, me the pear tart – hers wins. She finishes the night with coffee, and I finish with a lemon verbena tea, hoping to avoid the sleeplessness that befell me the night before, possibly from the press pot of coffee I had at Jiko.  Addell is unsure whether we can use

A very happy birthday indeed.

our TIW card on our drinks given that we are paying for dinner with the dining plan, but he checks and we can. But then a manager appears and I feel like we’re going to Disney jail; after the drama of the package rebooking situation, we had forgotten to add a credit card to the “new” reservation. Luckily the manager had called called the front desk, which allowed us to room charge provided we went and added a card ASAP. So, it’s one more trip to the front desk for us (and one more stop at the Contempo Cafe for soda), and then we contentedly rest in the room, watch Wishes and drift off to sleep. We have another early morning tomorrow!