Picking up where we left off last time, it was a beautiful Saturday in Central Florida. After getting our fill of birds and assorted wildlife and making a quick trip to Downtown Disney for some lunch, CP and I retreated to Bay Lake Tower for an afternoon rest.

A little before five, we rejoined the waking world and got ourselves ready for the quick walk to the Magic Kingdom. Normally you couldn’t pay me to go to the Magic Kingdom on a Saturday, but a Saturday Be Our Guest reservation was the only one I could secure when the reservations for BOG were first announced.  I had tried out Be Our Guest for lunch in November, but CP hadn’t been and I was excited to compare dinner to the lunch offerings.

We arrived with plenty of time to kill before dinner, but with crowds at every turn we figured our best plan was to walk around and people watch without trying to get on any rides.  Sunset is one of my favorite times to be in the parks, and so we spent an hour or so leisurely walking around – well, walking with as much leisure as you can have in crowds like this:

As much as I truly enjoy the New Fantasyland expansion, I am praying that it’s the Mine Train construction that is causing the ridiculous congestion like you see in this picture.  If it doesn’t improve once the ride is finished, Fantasyland isn’t going to be a place I’ll be able to tolerate very often. The traffic flow is terrible – the walkways are narrow, people are ditching their strollers and scooters right and left, and angry Cast Members have to stand in the middle of the melee to try and keep traffic moving in two directions.  It was bad in December (quiet season), worse on this trip (February), and I shudder to think what it will be like this summer during the highest of high seasons.

In any case, once we made our way through the stream of salmon, we stopped to take some pictures:

Soon enough it was time for our 6:30 p.m. dinner at Be Our Guest. If you have an upcoming reservation there, let me save you some Cast Member grumpiness and point out that you need to check in for dinner at the little hut prior to the restaurant’s bridge; we didn’t realize this, and instead walked right up to the Cast Member guarding the door at the restaurant. Mr. Personality crossly directed us to head back to the hut to check in, and so we joined a long line, gave our name, and the once again returned to Mr. Happy, who told us to go wait by the above gargoyle. Well, this is fun.

Luckily, things improved when a much nicer Cast Member arrived to show us inside. CP was fairly amazed by the restaurant’s interior, and I was pleased to see that we would be seated in the main ballroom – in November, I had lunch in the much smaller and darker West Wing, so I was happy to try out a different room.

We had a very friendly server, and while service was a bit slow, we both enjoyed our meals. I started with the French Onion Soup, which was decent, but a far cry from the much superior version you can get at the Wilderness Lodge’s Territory Lounge. CP had the trio of salads, and I think her appetizer was the winner. We also started with this:

Yes, that’s right – I had a beer in the Magic Kingdom. No, wait – I had two. Poor Uncle Walt and his dashed dreams! Really, though, the sky didn’t fall, the Magic Kingdom is still standing, and the beer was very good.

For our entrees, I had the roasted cornish hen and CP had the strip steak. For Magic Kingdom food, both were pretty excellent. We rounded out the meal with a strawberry cream cheese cupcake for me (quite tasty), and the triple chocolate cupcake for CP (also good). I also asked if the Beast would permit us a taste of the Grey Stuff, and he obliged – a cute touch. In all, it was a good meal. Would I go out of my way to have this dinner again? Probably not, but I wouldn’t hesitate to say people should eat here at least once, if only for the atmosphere.

Following dinner, I took CP around the restaurant so she could get an appreciation for the full size of the place:

Since I’d now had two beers, I figured there was no better time than to check out the new ending of it’s a small world. There was no line to speak of, so soon enough we were floating through room after room of creepy dolls. In reality, I quite like this ride because of the Blair artwork, and I  was curious to see how the new ending might fit in with Disney’s NextGen technology spree. Honestly, I can’t quite figure it out yet – as it is, it looks only like they have redone the “goodbye” signs. In any case, some pictures from our ride through:

Not in a hurry to do much of anything, we continued our leisurely walk around the park, people watching and enjoying the perfect weather:

We had no interest in staying for the mobs that were gathering for Wishes, so we headed to the exit for the quick walk back to the Contemporary. Once in our room, we wound down the day with some e-mail and web browsing, and I caught the Electrical Water Pageant from the balcony:

This was another one of those moments where I really came to appreciate the charms of staying at Bay Lake. Having such quick access to the Magic Kingdom is something that’s hard for me to put a price on – I get the original intentions of placing the Magic Kingdom a mile and a half from the parking lot, but there is something to be said for getting in and out without the headaches of boats, buses, trams, or monorails.

Sunday, February 3

With things to do and places to go, we were up with the sun:

On the agenda today was rope drop at the Studios, if only to try and get in a ride or two on Toy Story Mania. First, though, we had breakfast to attend to.  After trying it out in December, I was eager to get back to The Wave and its breakfast buffet:

The great thing about breakfast at The Wave is how quickly you can get in and out. In under an hour, we had eaten our fill of the buffet and drained our press pot of organic coffee, and so we headed out to the Studios in plenty of time to make rope drop.

The Studios was pretty crowded, and so we only managed to get one ride in on Toy Story Mania, and for whatever reason neither one of us felt like getting a FastPass or braving the standby line. So, that was pretty much it for us at the Studios, other than some store browsing and pin trading down Hollywood Boulevard as we made our way to the exit. I always feel like we get weird looks when we leave the park so early, but honestly, the Studios just isn’t a big draw for either of us. Maybe the (rumored) Carsland expansion will help, but I’m thinking the Studios really needs an even bigger overhaul.

It’s now not even 10am and we’re done at the Studios. Although I hate to leave property on such a short trip, we needed to run a couple errands, so we headed off property for some Starbucks, a quick visit to the Prime Outlets and Target, and an odyssey to Kissimmee to try and find me a replacement camera battery charger, something I had forgotten in my haste to pack on Friday. Talked to some family. Took a nap. Fast forward to….evening at the Magic Kingdom.

As with the day before, our foray into the Magic Kingdom on this night didn’t really have a purpose. We wandered, mostly, taking in the nice afternoon light:

We came into the Magic Kingdom without a dinner plan – originally, I had left this afternoon/evening open in case the Patriots made it to the Superbowl. They didn’t.  So, with an evening free, we decided to wing it, which ultimately led to me making a bad decision. I have three words for you, people: corn dog nuggets.

Having a meal at Casey’s Corner was another item I wanted to knock off the bucket list, and this plan-less evening seemed like the time to do it. After waiting in a horrendously long line in a small space that smelled overwhelmingly of sauerkraut, we placed our order for two servings of corn dog nuggets, some fries, and a soda to split.  Trust me when I say one serving of corn dog nuggets would have been enough. At the time, though, they tasted great. We’ll come back to this.

Anyway, stuffed with fried food we headed to Tomorrowland for a spin on the Peoplemover. Space Mountain was down, and there’s little I enjoy as much as seeing it with the lights on:

While we rode, I noticed some commotion going on at the why-does-this-exist Club 626. We of course had to go investigate:

After all that “fun,” CP had what turned out to be a brilliant but very dangerous idea – ending the night with a drink. We thought about the Territory Lounge at the Wilderness Lodge, but I figured it would be mobbed with Super Bowl fans. So, we thought we’d walk back to the Contemporary and see about having a drink at the bar at The Wave. Apparently, though, *this* was where all the Superbowl watchers were congregating, and we couldn’t even get close enough to the bar to put an order in.  Strangely enough, the Outer Rim Lounge next to Chef Mickey’s was pretty empty, so we sidled up for a drink. Or four. It’s hard to say at this point.

So, suddenly “having one drink” turned into both of us watching almost the entire Super Bowl at the Outer Rim Lounge, where the bartender made a surprisingly good Manhattan that I just kept drinking and drinking. Now, I’m not a huge drinker, but I was on vacation, got caught up in the moment…and then I found myself teetering across the 4th floor bridge and back to Bay Lake, where I promptly fell asleep. Rope drop? What’s that?

Up next: I dole out some advice on food and drink combinations to avoid (namely, corn dog nuggets and Manhattans), and we get our first taste of Coronado Springs.