Disney Dream 1/4/16 - 1/8/16 Sailing to The Bahamas
Pre-Cruise day before at Walt Disney World Resorts
PART 3
The GF was as beautiful and elegant just how I've always thought it would be.
I mean, who grew up in the 80's and 90's and
didn't want to stay at the GF after watching the Full House WDW special over and over?
I wrote on a thread somewhere here about everyone having their achievements towards the "golden spoon" in their forum signature (Awarded after eating at every restaurant on property). I said there should be a golden pillow for staying at every resort at least once. I would LOVE to accomplish this someday. (Too bad I lost this last powerball jackpot).
I should note here that we were
supposed to boat it over to Wilderness Lodge because I've always wanted to see it in person, especially at Christmas. Time was running low before ADR reservation for dinner and it was wet and cold outside.
Next stop, bus to AK and then a quick bus to AKL. I had this picture of the lobby at xmas as my desktop background at work for 3 months before our trip and I was determined to see it in person.
(Raincoat blues)
The resort was BEAUTIFUL and stunning and I would kill to be able to afford staying here, even if it's a split stay trip! DGF
loves giraffes so this would be extra special for her. This is a hint to our next adventure, I surprised her with GIRAFFES outside the back of the resort!
She was SO happy for her surprise giraffe sightings. There were 2 feeding right in front of us at the time. The look on her face was priceless. Especially after she found her very own giraffe mickey ears! AKL has an amaaaaaazing gift shop. There was so much that we wanted to buy. I am a Disney pin collector so I found a few here that I put on my "wish list".
I did have plans to check out AofA and POP, POP being the last resort we stayed at (and loved it). Time just didn't allow for it this trip, unfortunately.
We took the first bus available to us at AKL and it was going to Hollywood Studios where we caught a boat over to the Swan/Dolphin.
I loved these resorts as a kid, we stayed there for 2 or 3 nights I believe in 2004. I was surprised to find no Christmas decorations really there. Originally we had Il Mulino ADR booked for this trip but I changed it last minute for Trattoria al Forno. We walked a very gloomy and wet Boardwalk back to the resort. DGF was having a rough day. She came down with a nasty congested cough, began losing her voice, AND she found a small hole in the sole of her sneaker, getting her sock wet with each step.
Disney's Yacht Club was very stunning too at Christmas.
We returned back to the resort and DGF really needed a nap. We got to bed rather late the night before our very early flight. I showered before dinner and we both napped for a while. (To the lovely music on the Disney TV channel). I absolutely LOVE every channel they offer at the resorts. I was a big fan of Stacey when she would host the specials. I like duffy the bear's bedtime story, I'll even watch an
ABD or DVC information channel.
We took pictures at the Boardwalk Resort on our way to dinner and browsed some of the shops.
Dinner at Trattoria al Forno was very nice. Our waitress was extremely friendly. It appeared that we missed the dinner rush for our 7pm ADR. DGF ordered the spinach ravioli's and I ordered the Chicken Parmagiana. (A sin for a true Italian to order Chicken Parm but hey! I'm on vacation). I neglected to take any meal photos. In reality, looking back I should have spent less $$ for dinner and just done a counter service somewhere.
Now back to all of the plans that I mistakenly got overexcited about. I wanted to get the Mickey Pants sundae at Beaches & Cream before coming back over to JellyRolls Dualing Piano Bar for drinks and music. I bit off more than I could chew and we didn't have time (or stomachs) for any of it. We were wet and tired and settled on a small sundae to share at Beaches & Cream.
We came back to BC and ate our sundae at the cute little tables they had next to their marketplace. I inhaled that amazing sundae. The fudge was perfect temperature to compliment the cold ice cream. It was heaven. We gave short reports back home to each of our families and went up for bed. I was a good BF and drew DGF a hot bath since she still felt under the weather. On the door were our checkout instructions and transfer confirmations for Port Canaveral and
DCL!!! We could also hear and seem some of two different fireworks shows. I think it was HS and also some Illuminations.
EDIT: I forgot to include one of my favorite GIF's to add to the fact that I woke up
super early on this morning, waaaay before she did. I sat on my phone reading other people's TR's
In the morning, we had 9:00AM reservations for Cape May Cafe's character breakfast.
I got my glorious Mickey waffles that I waited 2 years for! The breakfast was great. Character interaction was solid. All of the children around us got to see characters once, if not twice. This is a nice low-key breakfast that gives you the same characters and a similar meal as Chef Mickey's (Very popular and expensive). Minnie loved my shirt and Nicole's necklace and Goofy almost took my head off with his nose!
After breakfast, we still had 2 hours until our meeting at 11:45 with our DCL rep for boarding the bus. We walked around Stormalong Bay (we sadly never got to swim, but contemplated quickly getting a dip now). It was SO cool but so was the temps so we just toured it and took some pictures.
After our tour, we returned to the hotel room for a little while. Oops, Mousekeeping had already been there even thought we hadn't checked out yet. We hung on the porch for a half hour or so and enjoyed the warming weather and slight view of Epcot and HS Tower of Terror.
Next part of our journey will be the
Disney Cruise Line beginning! Stay Tuned.
. We chose the Disney Dream, 4 night itinerary sailing from Port Canaveral, FL to Nassau, Bahamas, Castaway Cay, and an at sea day. I planned an early flight for the day before our cruise to assure we would not repeat what happened last trip. Flight delays galore. Ruined two ADR' for us! Nope, nu-uh not happening again. I discovered DVC point renting on the boards here and decided to surprise my DGF with a 1 night stay at the Beach Club Villas. I loved the idea of resort hopping just after Christmastime, Stormalong Bay, a nice dinner on the Boardwalk, watching Illuminations from the sand, and drinks at JellyRolls before bed. 
This is why we compliment each other so well. We found our room on the 5th floor. We lightly unpacked our clothes for dinner and I practically dragged her out of the room so we could get started exploring "The World" at Christmas time!
)
