Fireworks from the Poly - Part One
I just returned from a four night stay at the Poly. This was long my favorite resort but we had not stayed here for years - ever since we bought into vacation club. Now that studio accommodations fit our needs, we were able to book a stay here.
Sunday, June 17th
We arrived at the Polynesian fairly early in the morning. I had already received a message that our room was not ready. Still, we drove directly there and parked the car. Since we were hungry, we stopped into Captain Cook's and had breakfast sandwiches and coffee. Thus fortified, we headed to the monorail, making the transfer at the Transportation and Ticket Center to the Epcot line.
We started our day by going to see SpectacuLAB. This short presentation on some science principles is definitely geared toward the younger set. In fact, children were invited to sit on the floor by the stage and a number of them were given turns volunteering for the various "experiments". It was nicely done but, for these childless adults, I think it was a once and done experience. I will say that the Innoventions space within Epcot really needs some new ideas that will bring families back into the space.
We had some time before our first fastpass so headed out to find the Donald Duck annual passholder magnets that had been moved from Disney Studios to Epcot about a week earlier. We went to where we had gotten the Mickey and Minnie magnets during the Flower and Garden show but were told the Donald magnets were over at Mousegears at the checkout counter instead. We headed there and stopped at the first counter we saw. We were directed to the other side of the store - by jewelry. Nope - directed to another counter. Not there either. We were directed to a small table set up that had a small sign on it indicating the magnets were there. It was a chore but we finally got the Donald magnets!!
After using our Living with the Land fastpass, we headed towards World Showcase. We were moving pretty slowly this day - and every day this week - as it was quite hot and humid as well. Summer has definitely arrived in Florida. We visited with the Three Caballeros and it was nice to be in the air conditioned space. By time we got around to Germany, we decided we needed some liquid refreshment so got beers, found seats in the shade, and slowly sipped our drinks.
It was close to time for our Spaceship Earth fastpass so we headed there and then backtracked to the Land building for our Soarin' fastpass and were rewarded with front row seats - it's been a while since we sat in row one.
Since we had been notified that our room was now ready, we headed to the monorail and got off at the Great Ceremonial house. We had parked near there and now needed to move our car closer to our room.
We had a third floor lake view room in the building closest to the Transportation and Ticket Center. What a great view we had!! We liked directly across at the Castle and could see Space Mountain, the Grand Floridian, The Contemporary, the monorail, and the ferry boat. The only thing that marred our view was the line of vacation club bungalows sitting out over the water. I was glad we were on the third floor.
Once we unpacked, we decided we were done for the day so we ordered a pizza and stayed "home" for the evening. This turned out to be a wise decision as a large thunderstorm rolled on through about the same time our pizza was delivered.
We had a partial view of the electrical water pageant and an excellent view of the Magic Kingdom fireworks.
Monday, July 18
Today, we were headed to the Magic Kingdom. After breakfast in our room, we walked over to the boat dock and took the boat over to the Magic Kingdom. It was going to be another hot and humid day!!
Our first fastpass was for Peter Pan so we headed there. We were quickly on and off. We still had time before our Splash Mountain fastpass but noticed the wait time was listed as five minutes so walked over and did it on standby. We were in the front row. This ride took an extraordinarily long time. We broke down four times during the ride - once moving only a few feet before we stopped again. By time we got our wet selves off the ride, the standby times on just about everything in the park had gone past the 30 minute mark. We did get on It's A Small World and Under the Sea. After that, we decided the park was crowded enough and we were hot enough that we would cancel our Big Thunder Mountain fastpasses and head back to the resort.
We took the monorail back to the Poly with the thought that we would go to the pool and get lunch at the pool bar. Once we were at the Poly, we decided to eat at Kona Cafe and spend some time cooling down before we headed out to the pool. We both got the burger but asked that it be served without the poached egg - why must everything be served with an egg these days? The burger was filling but, in my book, it was just okay.
After lunch, we returned to our room, changed into swim gear and headed to the main pool. We only spent a few minutes there before deciding to go to the quiet pool instead. We spent an hour or so splashing around in the pool there and have frozen pina coladas before heading back to our room to freshen up.
We decided to go to The Wave for dinner. We didn't have reservations so decided we would just eat at the bar. I had a very good salmon dish (which was the sustainable fish of the day) while my spouse had a steak. After dinner, we wandered through the shops. We talked about going to Top of the World and watching the fireworks from there but decided we had such an excellent view of them from our room, we would return home to watch them. So...we got on the monorail, headed back home and, once again, enjoyed the fireworks from our balcony.
