Day 1

Saturday, January 30^th

We finally made it!! Once we got off the Magical Express, we proceeded to the online check-in counter. Wow, what a difference that makes! No line at all. It took probably 5 minutes to get our room key. It would've been shorter if I hadn't complained about being in the 70s building. The cast member made a phone call and we were put into the 50s building instead, on the 3^rd floor. In the end, I actually got the exact building I wanted. It's the first building on the left, upon entering the 50s section of Pop Century. The one with the Lady icon from "Lady and the Tramp" fame. Our room was ready when we went up, so we relaxed for a few minutes then headed out to the Magic Kingdom.

It was about a 20 minute shuttle bus ride from Pop to MK. Our lunch reservation wasn't for about 30 minutes. Once we found our restaurant, we headed over to the Haunted Mansion. Only had about a 10 minute wait, because there was a parade going on. Nice when the kids and their parents are occupied with things other than rides!

We then made a bee-line to The Plaza Restaurant on Main Street. With the parade over, it wasn't that difficult. We informed the server we were on the dining plan. No problem. With it being lunch, there were no appetizers to be had which actually ended up working for us. E got the cheesesteak sandwich without mushrooms, while I got the turkey club sandwich.

I know, not very fancy of us. We needed our first real meal of the day to not be complicated. E finished his meal within 5 minutes, it seemed. I took my time. Both were very good.

Then ..dessert. Ah! I went traditional with a hot fudge sundae with vanilla ice cream, while E had the cheesecake with strawberries. Both of us were stuffed from our sandwiches so dessert was a difficult task. E loved his and even enjoyed a bit of mine. I ate what I could, which was very little.

The bill was around $45 (without tip); wouldn't have eaten here without the dining plan. Having the plan is going to be interesting. We would normally do quick service meals for lunch and order one item to split. Doing the Disney dining is changing all that. Will we get hooked? Most likely not. It's really all about price.

Then again, we haven't had enough table service meals to really make that judgment yet. We'll have a firm opinion of it at the end of our stay.

It started raining as we were leaving the restaurant. The exhaustion of traveling and full bellies finally hit us full force and we both decided a nap was in order - so back to POP we went!

Upon arriving at our room, our luggage was waiting for us. I so love the Magical Express service! It is truly a great thing! After a few hours of nap, I. had to roll E out of bed. He was a tired boy and very pissy about having to get up. I didn't want to miss out on dinner reservations and the rest of our evening.

We headed back over to MK, thinking we'd take the boat from there to the Grand Floridian for our reservation at Narcoossee's. Well, we showed up at MK at 8:30pm to make the transfer to boat service to the resort, which happened to be the exact moment that MK finished up the fireworks show and EVERYONE decided to ditch the park at the same time. Taking the boat was not an option to make our reservation on time.

We decided to go into MK for a smoke to see if the crowd would maybe clear up. It wasn't happening. By chance the smoking area is next to Tony's Town Square restaurant on Main Street. This was a place I had been contemplating a reservation at for weeks but couldn't seem to get a time booked for today. I wanted to eat there because it's designed around the "Lady and the Tramp" film. Italian food. How could it be bad?

Online reviews were not favorable. We took a chance and walked up to see if they had room for us. They did! We started with appetizers. E got the house salad, which he enjoyed. I got the minestrone soup. Yum!

Then E had the New York steak for his entrée. He devoured the steak, but left the potatoes and green beans. I tried them and I would've left them too. Not good. I ordered the vegetable lasagna, which they described as having vegetables and cheese. Well, the veggies were slimy and there wasn't very much cheese that I could tell. I barely touched it.

The server forgot our bread and brought it out when we were almost done with the entrees. It was okay as the break wasn't great anyhow. No loss.. Now, dessert ..OMG!! We ordered the tiramisu and the lemon walnut cake. YUM YUM YUM!!! We shared the desserts and they were the only thing worth anything in this place. Delicious! The tab was around $85, without tip .. THANKFULLY the dining plan covered this (1 credit each). So not worth it out of pocket. The décor is cute, but you can see that from the outside.

Next, we headed over to Downtown Disney. It's a very strange place. Shops but really not much foot traffic. Very odd for a Saturday night when this is the only thing open. The parks were all closed by 9pm. We browsed a couple of the Disney shops, but really not much exciting. I picked up a cute purse for $16 (thank you mom for the gift card at Christmas!). The stores closed at midnight so that was our sign it was time to head back to the room. Not a very productive day, but we didn't expect it to be with our overnight flight and lack of sleep the night before that. Now, just need to figure out when we can fit in Narcoossee's another night since we missed it tonight. Also, need to plan out our transportation to get from point A to B as smoothly as possible. I think avoiding using a theme park for our point of transfer would be the first thing. Maybe routing through Downtown Disney would work better for next time. We'll have to see.

Almost 2am. Calling it a night with some Tylenol PM.

t.