TBY2225
02-25-2009, 02:46 PM
When:
January 30th –February 1st 2009
Where:
Port Orleans Riverside/ Alligator Bayou #3514
Who:
McGoofy --- Tara B – AP holder and DVC member with more trips than she can count!
Tby2225-----Tara Y---1st time AP holder with 6 trips in 3 years
Our families had so much fun on our trip together in September that we thought it would be even more fun to do a girl’s only weekend together. Both of us wanted to be able to go shopping, enjoy the Grand Floridian afternoon tea, eat in some really nice restaurants, and stay out as late as we wanted to. Our husbands agreed and said that they would take care of the kids, so, together we planned the girls’ only trip to remember!
Friday January 30th
I came down the night before from Greenville and stayed with Tara B’s family. Her son was so sweet to give up his bed and sleep on the couch. We knew that this would save us a lot of time since she lives about 2 hours closer to Disney than I do. We left Charleston around 6am and stopped at the St. Augustine outlets around 10:30am. We shopped there for about an hour, had a picnic lunch that Tara B had packed (yummy homemade chicken salad sandwiches) and got to POR at 1:30pm. There was a long line for check in, but it went really quickly and within 15 minutes we were checking in. The girl behind the counter was new and told us it was her first day by herself. She seemed confused when we asked if we could both put a credit card down on our room key. She got a manager and she said no, only one card per room. We thought this was strange, because we know people share rooms all the time, but, we decided that I would just use my own card and Tara B would use the credit card on the room key. There was a room available for us (3514) in the Alligator Bayou section. We were a little worried because on the map it looked pretty far away. Also, we had both been looking forward to staying in the mansions. Still, we decided to make the best of it and drove over to our room. We noticed right away how beautiful and authentic the plants and scenery was. It was really peaceful and quiet. The room itself was nice as well. We especially liked having double sinks. Within an hour we were on our way to the bus stop, which luckily was really close to our room. Our bus came by within minutes and we were in Epcot before 3pm. The crowds didn’t seem too bad and we noticed that according to the board in Future World, Soarin and TT were both a 20 minute wait. We walked over to Soarin and saw it was really a 45 minute wait so we headed over to TT. We ended up getting FP’s for TT and then walked back and took a ride on Spaceship Earth. We had early ADR’s at Tutto Italia, so we headed around WS and stopped in Germany for a drink. Tara B had seen this warm Christmas wine in December but wasn’t able to get it then and wanted to try it. She got it and said it was good. I got a glass of Riesling. It was really good as well, and you get quite a nice bit for the price. We noticed it was getting close to our ADR time, so we took our wine and headed over to Italy. We both love Italian food, so we were really looking forward to trying this restaurant for the first time! We arrived at 4:20 for our 4:30 ADR and were seated in about a minute. It was very pretty inside, not crowded yet, but the tables were very close together. We had great service and they immediately brought us warm bread with olive oil and pickled vegetables. Everything sounded so good on the menu that we decided to order two different things and share. I ordered the Tortelli Zucca. It was 5 huge pumpkin ravioli with a sweet cream sauce and roasted pecans on top. Tara B ordered the lasagna. It was a huge portion as well and meat was finely ground and had a really nice flavor. They were both delicious and we both ate too much of them! Since we were on the dining plan, we ordered dessert. We had the Tiramisu and the signature dessert Bugie/Chiacchere. The Tiramisu was very tasty, but the portion size was pretty small. That was ok though since we were both stuffed! We also ordered the signature dessert. We were both disappointed in this. It was just a few big crispy fried chips (similar to Chinese fried noodles) but thicker. They were covered with powdered sugar and had small bowls of chocolate and apricot sauce on the side. They were really rather plain and kind of a disappointment being that they were supposed to be the signature dessert. Overall, we were really impressed with this restaurant. I think we would both like to go back again and take our families to try it!) After dinner we went to see Oh Canada. I had never seen it, and I really enjoyed the 360 vision screen. Then we walked the rest of the way around WS and staked out our spot for Illuminations. We just enjoyed a drink and relaxed for a while. After Illuminations, it was EMH. We headed back to TT to use our FP, and then took in Soarin with a 20 minute wait. Then we decided to walk back through WS and we did the Mexico and Norway rides. Most of the pavilions were closed except for restaurants, so we just took some night pictures and then headed out around 10:30pm.
January 30th –February 1st 2009
Where:
Port Orleans Riverside/ Alligator Bayou #3514
Who:
McGoofy --- Tara B – AP holder and DVC member with more trips than she can count!
Tby2225-----Tara Y---1st time AP holder with 6 trips in 3 years
Our families had so much fun on our trip together in September that we thought it would be even more fun to do a girl’s only weekend together. Both of us wanted to be able to go shopping, enjoy the Grand Floridian afternoon tea, eat in some really nice restaurants, and stay out as late as we wanted to. Our husbands agreed and said that they would take care of the kids, so, together we planned the girls’ only trip to remember!
Friday January 30th
I came down the night before from Greenville and stayed with Tara B’s family. Her son was so sweet to give up his bed and sleep on the couch. We knew that this would save us a lot of time since she lives about 2 hours closer to Disney than I do. We left Charleston around 6am and stopped at the St. Augustine outlets around 10:30am. We shopped there for about an hour, had a picnic lunch that Tara B had packed (yummy homemade chicken salad sandwiches) and got to POR at 1:30pm. There was a long line for check in, but it went really quickly and within 15 minutes we were checking in. The girl behind the counter was new and told us it was her first day by herself. She seemed confused when we asked if we could both put a credit card down on our room key. She got a manager and she said no, only one card per room. We thought this was strange, because we know people share rooms all the time, but, we decided that I would just use my own card and Tara B would use the credit card on the room key. There was a room available for us (3514) in the Alligator Bayou section. We were a little worried because on the map it looked pretty far away. Also, we had both been looking forward to staying in the mansions. Still, we decided to make the best of it and drove over to our room. We noticed right away how beautiful and authentic the plants and scenery was. It was really peaceful and quiet. The room itself was nice as well. We especially liked having double sinks. Within an hour we were on our way to the bus stop, which luckily was really close to our room. Our bus came by within minutes and we were in Epcot before 3pm. The crowds didn’t seem too bad and we noticed that according to the board in Future World, Soarin and TT were both a 20 minute wait. We walked over to Soarin and saw it was really a 45 minute wait so we headed over to TT. We ended up getting FP’s for TT and then walked back and took a ride on Spaceship Earth. We had early ADR’s at Tutto Italia, so we headed around WS and stopped in Germany for a drink. Tara B had seen this warm Christmas wine in December but wasn’t able to get it then and wanted to try it. She got it and said it was good. I got a glass of Riesling. It was really good as well, and you get quite a nice bit for the price. We noticed it was getting close to our ADR time, so we took our wine and headed over to Italy. We both love Italian food, so we were really looking forward to trying this restaurant for the first time! We arrived at 4:20 for our 4:30 ADR and were seated in about a minute. It was very pretty inside, not crowded yet, but the tables were very close together. We had great service and they immediately brought us warm bread with olive oil and pickled vegetables. Everything sounded so good on the menu that we decided to order two different things and share. I ordered the Tortelli Zucca. It was 5 huge pumpkin ravioli with a sweet cream sauce and roasted pecans on top. Tara B ordered the lasagna. It was a huge portion as well and meat was finely ground and had a really nice flavor. They were both delicious and we both ate too much of them! Since we were on the dining plan, we ordered dessert. We had the Tiramisu and the signature dessert Bugie/Chiacchere. The Tiramisu was very tasty, but the portion size was pretty small. That was ok though since we were both stuffed! We also ordered the signature dessert. We were both disappointed in this. It was just a few big crispy fried chips (similar to Chinese fried noodles) but thicker. They were covered with powdered sugar and had small bowls of chocolate and apricot sauce on the side. They were really rather plain and kind of a disappointment being that they were supposed to be the signature dessert. Overall, we were really impressed with this restaurant. I think we would both like to go back again and take our families to try it!) After dinner we went to see Oh Canada. I had never seen it, and I really enjoyed the 360 vision screen. Then we walked the rest of the way around WS and staked out our spot for Illuminations. We just enjoyed a drink and relaxed for a while. After Illuminations, it was EMH. We headed back to TT to use our FP, and then took in Soarin with a 20 minute wait. Then we decided to walk back through WS and we did the Mexico and Norway rides. Most of the pavilions were closed except for restaurants, so we just took some night pictures and then headed out around 10:30pm.