Okay, we're long overdue now, and I apologize. I've actually had to do work at work.
Day Three - Wednesday!
Day Three was probably the worst day we had (well, if you don't factor in day one) while we were on our honeymoon. Tuesday ended on a real high, so it would have been next to impossible to top it.
Unfortunately, we were silly and hoped it *would* get topped. Oops.
I woke up around five to go to the bathroom, and I checked my email. I received an email from Nathan with a few selections. Here I was, sitting hunched over on the toilet (didn't want to disturb Rob with the light), trying to download these big pictures on my little phone. I was dying of anticipation.
When I saw them, I actually gasped. I was completely moved. So much so that I decided to wake Rob up after all and have him look at them.
We were both taken aback that we could look THAT good! And we were so touched by what Nathan and Jensey posted on their blog about us. The feeling was definitely mutual.
After we stared at the pictures some more, we got ready to head out.
We started with breakfast at Kona Cafe.
Rob trying to look pensive.
Me trying to look... blurry.
I opted to be wild, and I got an omelet (for me, that's crazeeeee!), which was very good, but WAY TOO BIG.
Rob got what I believe was called the Samoan (it's not listed on the menu on allears anymore).
I think it was some sort of hash dish.
Rob had to run to the bathroom after we ate, so I went outside to call my mom to have her look at the Roots' pictures. It must have taken five minutes alone for her to get the web address right, but you could tell when she did, because she gasped too.
From that day on, my mom became a Root-blog-junkie (she actually said to me on Thanksgiving, Did you see where they are today? What a life! >laugh<).
Rob came out, and my mom was still going on and on about the pictures, so we walked to the monorail, while she talked.
Imagine our surprise that while we were talking about Nathan and Jensey, they appeared in front of us! With lurkyloo and Patrick! Mid-sentence, I said to my mom, Um, mom, they're here, gotta go, and I hung up on her. (Sorry, I was excited!)
So we talked with the four of them while we waited for the monorail, and we Disney brides/our men got our pictures taken. Then we hopped on the monorail. Nathan showed lurkyloo some of the pictures from the shoot. Everyone oohed and ahhed.
Then we hopped off the monorail at Magic Kingdom, and suddenly had to say good-bye.
Truth be told, that was the highlight of our day. The rest of it seemed rather blah. At several points, we said, I wonder what Carrie and Patrick are doing. I wonder what Nathan and Jensey are taking pictures of.
We tried to spot them, but as it turns out, they spent most of their day on the opposite side of the park from us (we smelled).
As usual, we raced to Tomorrowland. It's our favorite part of the park. As usual, it was Space Mountain first, and everything else second. I am sorry to report that we only did the Laugh Floor once, and it was that day. We generally try to do the Laugh Floor three or four times on our visits, but it was either closed or we were headed elsewhere, so we missed out.
Here's Rob on the Astro Orbiter, a ride that I seem to have missed out riding except for our last two trips. So I like to ride it as much as I can.
Then I was lucky enough to spot my favorite little (big) guy!
We rode most of the rides at Tomorrowland, and then it was time for lunch at... you guessed it... Kona Cafe!
We opted to take a boat back to the Polynesian, because we'd never done it before.
We liked it, as evidenced here!
I took many pictures of the Contemporary, Grand Floridian, and Polynesian on our trip back. But I'll spare you from those.
We decided to stop off at the room before we went to lunch, and this is what we found:
Snowman and Big Red had a friend! Little Red!
While we waited for our table, I took some pictures of the Great Ceremonial House.
Then we, again, forgot to take pictures of our lunches. Oops. But I remembered in time for dessert.
The new banana chocolate creme brulee (the caramel version was much better).
And Rob got the coconut cream pie (or tart).
Sadly, the most amusing anecdote of the day was Rob trying to determine what the white fruit was on his plate and me saying, I wonder if it's lychee... and finding out I was right (I told you it was a depressing day). Whee!
We did receive a magical moment, though, thanks again to our Mousekeeper, Clara Brown. We came back to the room after lunch and found this:
That's actually edible sugar paper.
So this is where life gets really interesting (not really).
We had a reservation for Jiko that night. Animal Kingdom had EME hours, so we decided to go to Animal Kingdom before our reservation to kill some time. At the time, we had about three hours before it closed.
We went to the bus stop and waited.
The family who was sitting across from us had already been waiting over twenty minutes for the Animal Kingdom bus. This happens from time to time, so we figured it'd be there any minute.
Twenty minutes later, there had been multiple buses from DHS, Downtown Disney, and even Magic Kingdom (which doesn't usually stop there)! But no Animal Kingdom.
Rather than waiting there any longer, we opted to head to Epcot instead and got up to walk to the TTC.
Guess what happened!
As we were walking away, a bus for Animal Kingdom drove by us. So we ran back to the bus stop only to find the bus drive RIGHT BY.
At that point, we were a little disgusted, so we started back to the TTC.
Guess what happened then!!
The monorail to Epcot was DOWN! Yep. So we waited there for another twenty minutes, as announcements kept being made about them switching tracks, and they'd be back *any time*. Sure.
We turned around and walked over to the buses at the TTC.
Turns out there was one for Animal Kingdom waiting there! So we hopped on. And waited another ten minutes for it to leave.
By the time we got to Animal Kingdom, we had about an hour and a half left before we had to head out to make it to AKL in time (remember, we started with three hours!). Very, very frustrating.
When we got to Animal Kingdom, most people were leaving because it had closed for regular visitors. We really didn't have time to ride anything, and we were relatively dressed up, so we wanted to stay clean (no Kali for us!). We just walked around and Rob took pictures with his camera. And I played Jensey and took pictures of him taking pictures.
I did stop to take this one.
It seemed like we were finished almost as soon as we got there. We made our way to the bus stop and were dropped off at AKL.
I have to say our experience at Jiko kind of went along with the day. We felt slightly under dressed (even though I was wearing a skirt and Rob was wearing cargo pants). It seemed too nice a place for us. The menu was a little too adventurous for me, though I had already planned on getting the filet mignon and mac and cheese, so I didn't have to think *too* much.
Everything rubbed us the wrong way, though. And it didn't help that a group of men were seated behind us. You know the type... hairy, manly men who were here on business for a conference. Loud men who felt it was okay to talk about the size of women's chests in not so glowing terms.
They were seated about five to ten minutes after we were. In the course of our entire meal, they managed to only have drinks and were finishing up their appetizers. They were rude, obnoxious, and they really ruined our dinner. One of the men (was the ringleader for inappropriate language... I wouldn't mind swearing, but he was just using unsavory body part terminology that just shouldn't be shouted out at a restaurant) kept staring at me. He almost seemed amused that I was sitting there as he talked about stewardesses he'd... yeah. I mentioned to Rob that he kept looking at me, and that made Rob mad because he could hear all the things he was saying (I'm sure everyone could). Rob never gets upset about anything, and he was half-tempted to get up and tell the guy to shut up. He asked me a few times to switch seats, but I didn't want them to garner any satisfaction in frustrating us.
We had talked about mentioning it to our waitress, but she sort of vanished. Which was fine because she weirded me out and made me feel like the bumpkin I am.
The meal was not exactly fantastic either. The mac and cheese had no flavor, and the filet mignon tasted like every other filet mignon at Disney (which I shouldn't be surprised about at this point, but was).
We did enjoy our desserts for the most part, and of course, remembered to photograph those.
I got the peach crumble with the white peach sorbet (yum) and ginger ice cream (not so yum). It's one of the more interesting looking desserts I got while on our honeymoon. I thought it looked like a fish. Or a turkey.
Rob got the allspice cake.
It looks a lot better than it tasted (though it still was good).
After we finished dinner, we decided we didn't want to take a bus to DTD and then go back to the Polynesian, so we opted to take a cab back to the room. We told our driver all about our Jiko experience. He was surprised that the staff didn't do anything on their own accord because of how loud the men were being. I think we were a little as well.
He dropped us off, and we went back to the room because we, again, missed the stupid electrical water pageant (doh!).
I know, not the greatest report, but I promise, the next day is much, much, MUCH better!