Because I am full of good ideas, I decided that we needed to do a pre-opening breakfast at Be Our Guest at the Magic Kingdom so we could get on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train before the mass of crowds at rope drop. We get to go into the park before the 9 am opening, we get to eat inside Be Our Guest (BOG), and we get to get one ride in on Mine Train. Sounds good, right?
Yeah...except for the part where we have to get up by 6:30. They start letting people into the park around 7:45 am, and only those with pre-opening breakfast ADR's are permitted past the castle. That meant I wanted to be at MK's front gates by 7:30 am which means being at the bus stop by 7 am at the latest. So once again, WHILE ON VACATION, we got up at the butt crack of dawn. AHHHH!
But up we got, because this was going to be a busy day. We had ADR's for BOG breakfast, BOG lunch (what? We love B&B), and an 8 pm ADR to Cinderella's Royal Table (the other of JK's few requests). This was to be a day of good food. And princesses. Lots of princesses.
We were by the bus stop at 7 am and within minutes, a bus to the MK pulled up and off we went. We passed through security, joined the morass of crowds waiting to enter, and waited, eager to enter the park. Well...7:45 came and went...apparently they were having technical difficulties with a crane or something? Either way, we were let into the park a few minutes late. We power walked up Main Street as I was determined to get to BOG quickly so we could get our breakfast quickly and be able to have more time admiring the restaurant before we had to exit for the ride on Mine Train.
We ended up getting there before the doors opened, and were the 2nd party into the restaurant. And because we placed our orders ahead of time, it was super duper fast :)
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| everyone else is also power walking to their breakfast reservations too! |
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| time for a super quick selfie! |
We ended up getting there before the doors opened, and were the 2nd party into the restaurant. And because we placed our orders ahead of time, it was super duper fast :)
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| look how empty it is! |
Because we got there so early, we had our pick of tables. I headed directly for one of the "window" tables, since these are usually the ones that get taken up first.
It's my 3rd time at BOG, and I'm still awed at how gorgeous it is. Look at the frosted windows next to us! No detail is too small for Disney...unless we're talking about Loser Land USA (aka Dino Land). JK wandered around to look at the rose and the West Wing while I snapped the above photos. I have photos of the restaurant, but not this empty! And not of the windows this up close :)
I can't believe I didn't take photos of our food! (sacrilege!) Our food was wheeled out pretty quickly - JK got the egg and bacon sandwich (which used to be open faced and on a baguette, but now served on a croissant) and I tried the croque madame this time. Between the two of us the pastry plate was perfect, because now we got both savory and sweet - we inhaled the breakfast and slurped down our coffee. Because coffee = life.
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| hello teeny Beast's castle! |
At 8;45 we headed out and got in line to wait for rope drop. Usually they start letting pre-opening ADR's start riding on Mine Train before rope drop, but this was an Extra Morning Magic day, so there were people who paid like, $80 to have Fantasyland to themselves, and breakfast people became second class citizens (sob!). That's okay, we still got in before the massive crazy rope drop crowd got there. So pre-opening breakfast was a success - we got a delicious meal, we got to get into the park earlier, and we also got a ride in on Mine Train. We win!
My original plan called for hopping on Peter Pan after Mine Train, but since we already did it Saturday night I opted to skip it. Instead we headed to a FP machine and picked out our same day FP's. Then we headed for Winnie the Pooh and the Haunted Mansion (a little different from ours, and I actually like it more). We did Big Thunder, Splash Mountain and Pirates using our same day FP. As we were heading from Haunted Mansion for Big Thunder though, it started raining. We ran for cover under Diamond Horseshoe and pulled our ponchos out and on. Then as we walked out into the rain...it sprinkled for a minute and stopped. Seriously? And this happened a few more times. We kept saying God was messing with us - just as we pulled our ponchos on, the rain would stop. And we'd have to take them off because the humidity turned the poncho into a sauna.
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| We sat in the front row. We got wet :( |
We were about to use our FP's for Jungle Cruise when it was shut down because of rain. What??!!! They converted it for an anything (except for Mine Train) FP, but I already had FP for all the stuff we wanted to do anyway. Then I wanted to watch the 11 am show of Muppets History, but of course, that was also closed because of the rain. Stupid rain! What else was shut down because of the rain? Mine Train. -_- So we walked away, FP's still unused.
That did not stop us from taking awesome in the rain selfies however!
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| big castle... |
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| ...teeny castle |
It's a good thing I brought TWO ponchos AND my awesome dorky rain hat. I must be prepared for all contingencies! We got same day FP for Under the Sea (the ride is the same as DCA, but the queue in Orlando is SO much better), so we did that before lunch and Philharmargic as well since it's indoors.
We poke around the shops (I half heartedly look for the rose sipper cups that are sold out anyway) and decide to head over to BOG for lunch a little early. Literally as we're walking to the castle, it starts POURING. Crazy hard. My dumbass sat outside in the rain until JK was looking at me like I'm a moron and pulled me inside. And they seated us early.
We had a big breakfast, and we were due for a big dinner, so we both opted for the braised pork in the kids portion along with their fantastic french onion soup (and we split the Master's cupcake...because come on, it's the gray stuff!) for a really satisfying lunch. Because we sat in the ballroom for breakfast, we stood around and managed to snag a table in the west wing for lunch.
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| the kids portion of the braised pork: with green beans and mashed sweet potatoes. I really liked this. It's actually what I had on the last trip. |
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| This soup is so freaking good. The gooey melty cheese, the savory broth. My pet peeve for onion soup is that they're often too salty. This one was tasty without feeling like I was licking a block of salt. |
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| The Master's Cupcake: they charge for the gray stuff, but I don't care! It's a super light chocolate sponge that's not cloyingly sweet |
After lunch (behind schedule because of the rain! which stopped after lunch 😑) we ran around to try to finish all the stuff we couldn't do in the morning. The original plan called for us leaving the park by 3 pm for a nice long break since we didn't have anything until our 8 pm reservation @ Cinderella's Royal Table. But...that didn't happen. I can't remember what order we did everything in, but I'm pretty sure we did Enchanted Tales with Belle right after lunch using our FP because of its proximity to BOG.
It was cute. It's probably cuter if you're with a kid who thinks all this is real. All the parents were losing their minds taking photos of everything. This was pleasant, but I wouldn't do it if it were a lot wait.
We also hit up Mine Train (as it opened up), Jungle Cruise, and Small World.
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| Snow White's cute little cottage?? |
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| shout out to my people - 5,000 years of history distilled into two plate spinners. Yay. |
And we took a bunch of selfies. Because that's the only time when it's acceptable - on vacation. Not when you're on a toilet. Or sitting on your couch. That's just weird.
We then headed to Tomorrowland. We weren't doing Space Mountain again, but I wanted do the Peoplemover (it was one of my favorites at Disneyland and I'm still in mourning over it) and Carousel of Progress, which is super cute. I was playing with the idea of buying the express transportation option to hop over to Epcot since our hotel was right next to Epcot, and on a lark got on my phone to see if there were any FP's available for Soarin' Around the World (which I was super excited about since I haven't done this version yet - and I had booked another pre-opening breakfast at Garden Grill for the following day JUST to get onto Soarin' without a wait) and found one for Soarin' at around 3:30. So I booked it. Then we did Carousel of Progress...unfortunately I fell asleep about halfway through, but it was a comfortable seat and it was air conditioned!
We hurried over to the express transportation kiosk by Buzz Lightyear once we were done at CoP and purchased our tickets ($29/7 days for our trip) and got super lucky as they escorted us to a bus that was JUST about to depart to Epcot. They actually held it up for us. Score! But the buses are staggered - and buses to Epcot from MK are on the 10 and 40 of every hour...so every half hour there's a roomy air conditioned bus to your park of choice, where you are let off backstage inside the park and get to bypass security. How is this not the best thing evah???
We hop onto the bus, and after swaying around in our air conditioned seats for about 15 minutes, enter the backlot of Epcot (there are signs EVERYWHERE saying NO PICTURES) and enter the park by Spaceship Earth (the golf ball). We head to Soarin' Around the World and get on the ride in under 10 minutes with FP, and it's so much fun! Yes, there's a lot of CGI (it seems pretty seamless though), but I don't care! I like it! We also then cancelled our pre-opening breakfast for the next morning as we now don't have to rush over to do Soarin' since we've already done it. We grab a snack at Sunshine Seasons (need to fuel up as we're running on fumes at this point), manage to grab a FP for Spaceship Earth and ride that too. At this point, we're literally being powered by the fish tacos and red velvet whoopie pie we wolfed down and stagger through the World Showcase (while admiring the gorgeous foliage and flower arrangements from the Flower and Garden Festival) and head to our room. Uh...all told, we're going to have less than an hour to rest before we have to leave for MK for our reservations at Cinderella's Royal Table. Well...it's better than nothing!
We wipe ourselves down (gross sweat and dust) and I plop on my bed while JK falls onto her "dirty bed" (which is just the couch's cushions that have been displaced as she's got the bed out). We watch 2 episodes of Blackish and loathe to get back into our sweat soaked park clothes, we pull out our muumuus to have dinner with fake princesses. We were both so tired at this point we probably wouldn't have gone back to the park if we didn't already pay for the dinner (they make you pay up front when you make a reservation at CRT); I was actually considering throwing away the $75 I already paid, but my cheap Chinese soul couldn't do it.
The hour that we spent laying around did make a difference though. There was no pep in our steps, but at least we weren't dragging our feet now. Muumuu'd out, we go to the bus stop and wait for the MK bus...which arrived in like, 10 minutes. I swear, we got so lucky - we never had a long wait for a bus and we always got a seat. It was magical!.
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| waiting for the bus |
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| our Disney nail game was strong |
They allowed us to walk up the ramp to the castle because we had ADR's for CRT.
The mosaics inside the castle are gorgeous - I don't think I even saw them the last trip I was here - but I'm wondering if these are the same ones that Tokyo Disney have - because I went when I was 4 and vaguely remember the Cinderella story inside the castle.
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Once we checked in, they call everyone who had an 8 pm reservation and we all entered. There are benches along the wall to sit on while waiting to be called upstairs (where the dining room is), but upon entry, everyone lined up to take a photo with Cinderella. So while waiting in line, I just stared at all the details from INSIDE the castle!
My favorite detail? (hard to see because I didn't bring my real camera with the zoom, just my dinky phone) Gus Gus and Jacques!
Was it a little weird that 2 middle-aged Asian women waited to take photos with a 20 year old pretending to be a fictitious princess? Maybe.
Then we saw on a bench and waited to be called...which ended up being less than 10 minute wait. And up the spiral stairs we walked...and we see this pretty window:
It was pretty! I knew what it looked like from photos, but it was still fun to be inside. I can't say I had to eat there, but I'm glad we had the chance to. But yeah...this is probably not something I'm going to do again. The food was good...but it wasn't $74 good. It was more like $40 good. But it was worth it to have the opportunity to see inside the castle.
We got lucky and were seated by the window. I booked 8 pm not because of any kind of strategy, but that at 181 day out, that was literally the only time available. I seriously got up at 4 am 181 days out to book CRT. It was fortuitous though, that we got 8 pm AND got a window seat, because we could see some of the pyros for Wishes during dinner.
This is a prix fixe meal with gratuity and fountain drinks included in the $74 price.
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| the Charcuterie plate: "A Selection of Cured Meats, Cheese, and other specialty selections of the Castle" |
We both opted for the beef and shrimp, described grilled beef tenderloin with "fingerling potato confit", shrimp and seasonal vegetables.
There were only 2 shrimp, but they were crisp instead of mushy and the beef was nice and tender. Not Mastro's level, but definitely tasty.
For dessert we had the cheesecake and I think some sort of spice cake? I can't remember, but I do remember they were both pretty tasty.
The worst part for us? The highlight of the meal for little girls. They were squealing when their favorite princesses came by, but for us it was just awkward. JK was a good sport an took a photo with Snow White so we didn't seem too creepy and weird.
And they gave us a wand, which we ended up waving around for the rest of the night.
Promptly at 9 pm, we could hear the music to Wishes and see the fireworks. This is a unique and fun way to see it (and I guess now Happily Ever After), but only if you've already seen it the way it's meant to be seen: in front of the castle by the hub. When you actually know it, then the perspective from the castle is fun.
They turn off some of the lights so it's kind of dim and we could see some of it out the window.
This is what the castle looked like during the fireworks:
By the time we were done, it was about 9:30 pm...and there were still people lined up outside for the next seating! What??!!
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| looking back at where we just ate |
We then toddle back towards Main Street where they started Once Upon a Time. We catch a photopass photographer for a few photos and wander over closer to the castle to watch the show again.
The park closed at 10 pm, an in an effort to avoid the rush of bodies out, we wander over and look through the shops souvenir shopping again. After about a half hour, we deem it safe and exhausted, we head towards the Beach Club bus stop...where there was no bus and nobody else. Oh well. But then, a very nice man in a big bus pulls up...he was actually going to the Boardwalk, but seeing as the two of us were standing around looking like doofuses, he waved us on and a guy heading to the Dolphin also got on. So the very nice bus man took us on a tour of the Epcot resorts, where the Dolphin guy got dropped off first, and us second. And the poor Boardwalk people, whose bus we had commandeered, got dropped off last.
We were exhausted. And dirty. We had to shower. And being true pioneer women (not!), we also did some of our laundry (tank tops and shorts that were soaked in gross sweat) in the sink and bath tub so we didn't feel gross rewearing some of our clothes.
Then it was time for bed. I texted a goodnight to my family so they knew I was still alive and fell asleep watching Blackish.
The next day, we have another long day at Epcot...our last day at Disney World (sob!). ðŸ˜
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