We arrived early at the Contemporary for Highway in the Sky, so we decided to check out the hotel for a bit. We knew we’d have plenty to eat during Highway, but we were feeling a bit hungry and decided to check out Contempo Cafe. This quick service location is located on the fourth floor of the Contemporary Resort, adjacent to Chef Mickey’s. As you sit and eat, you can watch the monorail come through the building which is quite entertaining. This quick service can get a little loud, since Chef Mickey’s is a lively character buffet, but the noise isn’t a huge deal to us.
We decided to just share something, and ordered the Meat Flatbread – Italian sausage, pepperoni and Nueske’s bacon topped with mozzarella, $11.49 (on the current menu, it no longer lists this as a flatbread, I believe they might now be using regular pizza crust).
This was good! The crust was nice and crispy, there was lots of cheese and it really hit the spot! I’ve obviously had better pizzas, but for a quick serve location – I’d order this again. Now I’m craving pizza…
For drinks, I had a bottle of Coke, $2.99, and Luke had a Schofferhoffer Grapefruit beer, $9. This is the same beer they sell in the German Pavilion at Epcot, and it’s very light – even I’m ok with the taste of it, and I hate beer!
We also decided we each needed dessert, everything looked so good in the display case!
Luke, to no surprise, went for the Peanut Butter Pie, $4.79.
He loved this! He’s talked about it more than once since this trip, but for some reason we didn’t make it back here on our next two trips after this one so he could have another one… This thing was huge, and filled with a peanut butter mousse-custard stuff. I’ve seen this described before as peanut butter cookie dough, and that’s actually a great description of it! It’s inside a crispy tart, drizzled with chocolate and topped with chocolate bits and crunchy balls. This is probably Luke’s favourite Disney quick service dessert.
The item that caught my eye was the Smores Brownie, $4.29
This was another huge dessert, with a chocolate brown base (shaped like Mickey, how cute!), topped with chocolate icing (almost fudge-like in its consistency), marshmallows, graham crumbs and drizzled with more chocolate. This was a chocolate lover’s paradise! I really enjoyed this!
Our total was $34.68 after tax – no discounts were accepted here unfortunately.
Predicted food budget: $2631.67 (does not include tip) Estimated Cost of this meal: $26.61 (Capt’ Cooks breakfast) + $41.81 (Pecos Bills lunch) = $68.42 Actual Cost: $34.68 Over/Under: Under by $33.74 Remaining: $1910.33
We had read that there was a special Minnie’s Garden Party event in the Odyssey building just for the weekend (May 2-6, 2019), featuring a specialty dessert, free celebrations pins, a meet and greet with Minnie and a flower wall for selfies. The building typically sells Flower & Garden festival merchandise along with a few food offerings for the festival.
We decided to check it out, and received the free celebration pins as we entered. It was really quiet when we were in there, and there wasn’t a single person in the food line so bought one of the special desserts being offered for four days only (none of the regular food offerings in here interested us). Look at how gorgeous this is (and how cute the free pins were)!
Just because it’s the prettiest dessert ever, here’s another picture of it:
This was sold as Minnie’s Garden Party Dessert – $7 according to the sign, with no description provided. The bottom layer was a carrot cake base topped with cheesecake and the dome on top was filled with whipped cream. The flowers, dome, bow and ears were all made with white chocolate, and the ears were topped with sugar crystals. This isn’t the best picture, but here’s what it looked like inside:
The dome housing the whipped cream was quite hard and difficult to break through, so we just tipped it over and scooped the whipped cream out. Neither one of us really care for white chocolate, so we didn’t eat many of the decorations past a little nibble (the sunflower, ears, etc.). But the flavours of cheesecake and carrot cake worked so well together! I wish this was served as a dessert all the time somewhere on property, I’d be all over that – and I don’t need all the frilly details that make this so pretty! Just give me a straight piece of carrot cake topped with classic cheesecake and I’d be very happy!
I’m definitely glad we tried this, it was exactly the sweetness we were craving by this point of the day. It wasn’t huge, but it was a good sharing size since we didn’t want to ruin our supper.
I knew I would be purchasing a refillable popcorn bucket for the trip, and we’d always been intrigued by the variety of flavours available at Epcot so when we felt peckish around 11am we headed over. This particular popcorn cart is located close to Journey into Imagination with Figment, and had the option of three different kinds – Sour Cream & Chive, Buffalo Bleu Cheese and Cheddar.
I wasn’t overly excited about any of the current specialty popcorn buckets, and decided I’d be fine with one of the regular refillable ones (and I wasn’t fussy about the colour – whatever one they gave me was perfectly fine). The refillable buckets cost $10, but they allow you to get refills for only $2 – a regular popcorn costs $5, so if you plan on purchasing popcorn at least three times on your trip you will save money!
We had walked over with the intention of getting the Buffalo Bleu Cheese popcorn, but we changed our minds at the last minute and opted for the Sour Cream & Chive instead. And it was so good! I would definitely pick up this flavour again! We split this, and didn’t even finish it all. The best part about these refillable buckets is the lid – we were able to snap the lid on, and finish it later in the day!
One of Luke’s favourite restaurants on our December 2018 trip was Kona Cafe for breakfast, and he was quick to request a return on the May trip. We booked an early reservation (7:45am), and caught a Lyft over to the Polynesian from OKW.
I love the Polynesian – we will stay here one day! It’s so beautiful (but just a little out of our price range) –
We headed upstairs and checked in. It was still early, so we only waited a minute or two before being called and led to our table.
We both knew exactly what we wanted to order – the exact food we had ordered in December!
Luke went for the Seven Seas Samoan – poached eggs with citrus hollandaise sauce on pulled pork and turkey hash with mustard greens and tomatoes tossed in a citrus vinaigrette -$14
Luke loved this – he tends to order whatever version of a benedict is on a menu, and this is one of his favourite ones. The mustard greens is basically just arugula. It doesn’t look like a huge portion (and it isn’t), but it’s very rich and contains a perfect mix of sweet, savory and salty with a bit of of freshness added in from the greens.
He also ordered the Freshly Brewed Joffrey’s Coffee Hawaiian Kona Maragogype Press Pot – $9.5
I don’t drink coffee, but according to Luke this is one of the better ones available on property – in his words “it’s smooth and has great flavour”.
I went for the famous Tonga Toast – banana stuffed french toast rolled in cinnamon sugar and served with a strawberry compote and your choice of ham, spiced ham, bacon or sausage – $16
They brought over a plate with condiments – butter, ketchup, maple syrup and strawberry compote.
It’s all about that strawberry compote on the tonga toast! It’s a huge piece of sourdough bread, stuffed with bananas and coated in cinnamon sugar after being fried – I barely put a dent in this before I was full, but it’s so good! It’s a large serving, and I could easily share it with someone.
Total Cost was $37.87 after applying my 10% AP discount, and we will absolutely be back again on a future trip! Luke says that Kona is his favourite breakfast on property (but he might only be saying that to make Boma breakfast jealous…)
After our quick one-night stay at the Grand, we woke up really early and called bell services to come gather our luggage for our final hotel transfer of the trip. Once our room was empty, we said goodbye to the most comfortable bed ever, and headed out to the main lobby – of course I took some pictures along the way 🙂
I also took some pictures of the grounds at the Grand, and the main lobby – where they were refreshing the flowers for the day.
We knew we would be taking an Uber/Lyft to our breakfast ADR, so we decided to be a little extra and ordered ourselves a Minnie Van – so stinking cute! (This was during the time when it was still a flat rate of $25 – I don’t think I’ll be taking one now that they charge by mile – it’s so much cheaper to just use a regular Lyft).
We arrived at Animal Kingdom Lodge, and headed downstairs to check in for breakfast at Boma – one of Luke’s favourites! Review here 🙂
After finishing up breakfast, we were ready to get into the parks, so we took the very short bus ride to Animal Kingdom! Did I mention – it was cold this day! This Canadian is pretty soft, and was bundled up…
We arrived, and decided to head towards Dinoland after checking on the wait times. We got into the standby line for Dinosaur, and since it was still within the first hour of the park being open, the wait wasn’t too long at all- within 10 minutes we were seat-belted into the ride
This ride consistently gets a “just ok” from me. I think I would have a much higher opinion of it if I’d never been to Disneyland, but it’s a very similar ride to Indiana Jones in California – and Indy easily wins in the comparison to Dinosaur!
Also – most of our family and friends who were due to arrive in a few days had never been to Disney, so I had been asked by a few of them about what to do with their park bags while on rides – so I took a bunch of pictures to show them how accommodating the Disney rides are for backpacks! This one is to show how large the storage pouches are on Dinosaur –
We then decided to was time to finally see Pandora for the first time! We walked in, and wow! What an amazing Land Imagineering has created, with the floating mountains and the waterfalls and all the plants. Just incredible.
We stopped for a few Photopass pictures –
… before we headed over to use our first Fastpass of the day – on Flight of Passage! I was so excited for this ride, and it did not disappoint! We were also very lucky to have a Fastpass – the wait time was listed at 240 minutes (4 hours!) for most of the day.
After our exciting ride on the back of a Banshee, we spent a bit more time exploring the land (and yes, of course I took a bunch more pictures, the land is just so pretty and deserves to be photographed!)
The park was really busy this day, but we had another Fastpass to use so we made our way over to Asia for my favourite Disney ride – Expedition Everest!
I again took a picture for our wedding guests to see that there was nothing to worry about when it came to space on the rides for their backpacks – hopefully these pictures can help anyone currently planning their first Disney trip!
The ride was as great as always! We still had quite a bit of time to kill before our next Fastpass window, so we headed back out to the main area in front of the Tree of Life. By this point some of the huge crowds that gather for Photopass pictures first thing in the morning had dissipated, so we decided to stop for some pictures
After another satisfying meal at Homecomin’, we took a leisurely stroll around Disney Springs. I didn’t take many pictures, but we enjoyed some window shopping and a very slow-paced evening. At one point we decided to stop for a beverage that was on our must-try list: the Mango Moscato wine slushy from Amorette’s Patisserie, $9.
This was so good! I don’t love mango flavour, but I do love moscato! I’m a huge fan of all these new adult slushies that are popping up everywhere – it’s a trend I can definitely get behind! We enjoyed this so much – it was not the only one we had on this trip 🙂
Our next park was Hollywood Studios. As we arrived, there were cast members waiting for us with baskets of snacks – Skittles, chips, etc – and bottled water. We weren’t expecting this, but it was a very nice little touch since we were getting hungry. We headed straight for Toy Story Land – Luke and I had seen the land on our December trip, but it was the first time for many of our group. We went to Slinky Dog Dash – the first time riding for Luke and I! The queue for this ride is great, I love the small details that Disney incorporates – like the price sticker that references the original release date of Toy Story 1.
Karamie’s eye roll behind me makes me laugh every single time!
Kelly was ready for this picture!
Luke and I had no idea where the camera was for this ride – but clearly Su-Lynn and Steve knew where to look haha.
Jon and Amanda asked us what else we wanted to do at Hollywood Studios, and there was mention of heading over to Tower of Terror. However, a decision was made to just ride Slinky Dog Dash for a second time – again through the Fastpass line. Also – we clearly still had no idea where the camera was hahaha.
After our second ride on Slinky Dog, we stopped for group photo #2 – and the infamous ChunkyDump was invented by Liesa….
We headed back to the vans, and were instructed to place a mobile order while we drove to park #3 of the day – Animal Kingdom!
Our first stop was Pandora for our third group picture (where the ChunkyDump once again made an appearance) –
We then split up – a few went over to Navi River while the rest of us headed to Flight of Passage. Luke and I have been on this ride quite a few times now, but always with a Fastpass so we’ve never seen the standby queue. Jon actually took us into one part of the standby queue to point out one of the murals – I can’t remember what this guy was named, but he shows up during FOP.
We actually had enough of us to fill an entire room for the pre-show, so there were many laughs during this part of the ride…
The ride itself was as fantastic as always! I love taking a few glances around at the other riders, and seeing the pure joy on everyone face’s as they soar on the back of a banshee.
As we exited the ride, we were told to click the “I’m here, prepare my order” button on the orders we had placed from Satu’li Canteen. You can read my review by clicking here 🙂
After our meal – which was much needed, we were all starving by that point – we had a discussion on what to do next, and the decision was made to head over to the Safari.
When we arrived, the line was insane! Even the Fastpass line was backed up, but Jon apparently knew every cast member we met that day, and led us into the handicapped line. We still had quite a bit of a wait, but eventually we boarded our vehicle and set off on a safari together!
Enjoy the following onslaught of obligatory safari pictures:
Once we finished our safari, we realized we were running out of time on our VIP Tour, and we still wanted to get to Park #4 of the day. A few people decided to stay at Animal Kingdom, while the rest of us went back to the vans and headed off to Magic Kingdom. When we arrived, cast members were once again waiting for us with bottled water and baskets of snacks. Jon and Amanda took us down the pathway that’s typically used for the Halloween/Christmas parties so we could avoid the crowds on Main Street. We stopped for our group photo in the Hub – we had successfully completed all four parks in one day (actually, all 4 parks in 7 hours!).
Quite a few of us pulled out the ChunkyDump for this group picture…
We were basically out of time, but were told we had time for one single ride. We quickly all agreed upon Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, so we headed back to Fantasyland. Once we had entered the Fastpass line, Jon and Amanda said their goodbyes, and gave each of a VIP pin (with strict instructions to not trade or sell it).
SDMT is an ok ride, I enjoy it at least once every trip, but I would never wait hours in the standby queue for it. I am very happy we got to go on it as part of our tour however, as this ended up being the only time Luke and I went on it during our entire two week trip.
Jackie managed to Mike Wazowski me in the second picture hahaha –
And with that, our amazing VIP Tour had ended! Once we exited, we said “See you later”, and split into smaller groups. Luke and I had grabbed a Fastpass for Buzz Lightyear, which we were already in the window for.
It was a pretty big day – for the first time ever, I actually beat Luke! I tend to destroy him at Toy Story Midway Mania, but he has my number when it comes to Space Ranger Spin – but I won! Of course I had to take pictures to document the moment!
We stopped for a few pictures –
Tshirt from TeePublic, Skirt from Kay Pop Art, ears from an Independent Seller
It was then time to head out of the park for our supper reservation! For the second night in a row, we were eating at Homecomin’ – what can I say, we’re big fans! We did at least change up our typical orders – you can read my review here.
After another satisfying meal at Homecomin’, we took a leisurely stroll around Disney Springs. I didn’t take many pictures, but we enjoyed some window shopping and a very slow-paced evening. At one point we decided to stop for a beverage that was on our must-try list: the Mango Moscato wine slushy from Amorette’s Patisserie, $9.
This was so good! I don’t love mango flavour, but I do love moscato! I’m a huge fan of all these new adult slushies that are popping up everywhere – it’s a trend I can definitely get behind! We enjoyed this so much – it was not the only one we had on this trip 🙂
We called it an early night – Jetlag was still kicking us in the butt, and we had a busy itinerary for the next few days!
Our original plan for this day, our first park day of our trip, looked something like this:
A pretty standard Magic Kingdom day, with an evening at Disney Springs…
A few weeks before leaving for this trip however, one of the ladies from the Disboards who was a part of the Epic Girls Weekend messaged us all, asking who would be around on May 2nd and have a park hopper ticket. Another Disboarder, who has asked to remain anonymous, had decided to gift us with a VIP Tour that day! I couldn’t believe it, it was honestly one of those crazy bucket list items Luke and I had, but never believed we could make it happen due to the high cost associated with it. For those who aren’t aware of what this even is, you can read a bit more here on the Disney website. Basically, you hire a tour guide (or a plaid, named for their plaid vests that they wear) for a minimum of 7 hours at a cost of $425/hour (in the low season – pricing will increase during peak seasons) – so $3000. This allows up to ten guests – we actually had 19 of us on our tour which required two tour guides…
Anyways, once we found out what this amazing, kind-hearted benefactor had offered to us, Luke and I canceled our fastpasses and our breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare. I will make it there at some point, on some future trip! Strawberry soup for breakfast?! Count me in! We decided to hold on to our Homecomin’ reservation just in case we had time though – it’s our favourite so we figured we’d risk the chance of paying a no-show fee if we had to.
That morning, I was feeling a bit of jet-lag, especially with the red-eye flight the day before, so we decided to sleep a few extra minutes and just call a Lyft to take us to the park instead of using the Disney buses. This actually turned out to be well worth it, since the security lines on the bus side were insane that morning, but our Lyft dropped us off on the side where people parking their cars enter – so there was maybe one single person in line ahead of us at security.
Since we had cancelled our breakfast reservation, we just ate leftover Cheddar Drop Biscuits from Homecomin’ – a fantastic breakfast option if you ask me! I was so nervous though, I could only manage to eat about half of one – I had pitched an idea almost a year prior to a few girls on Facebook who I met through the Disboards about setting up a meet-up trip – and I was about to meet over a dozen of them today! We even had our own logo for the trip, designed by the wonderful Su-Queen <3
Once we were through security and found the correct line to scan into the park – it was an extra magic hours morning – we entered a mostly empty, slightly wet park:
We headed straight for Guest Services to the right of Spaceship Earth, afraid we were going to be late. We ended up being the third ones there – Karamie had also taken a Lyft over, and our incredible new anonymous friend had drove, so we had all entered from the much quieter side of security. We all introduced ourselves, and I handed out the first of my Canadian treat bags I had prepared 🙂
Eventually, the rest of our group made it through the crazy long security lines and joined us. Our two Plaids for the day arrived, introduced themselves and handed out rain ponchos to each of us just in case. I’ve always been too cheap to buy myself one of the Disney rain ponchos ($13USD for something I can get from the Dollarama for $3CAD? Pass.) – but they are actually well made and quite thick! I brought ours home with me to save for future trips.
At 8:37am, we approached our first ride of the day – Test Track. We entered through the Fastpass line with our VIP Guides – we felt pretty special all day!
Luke and I worked together to design our car – our goal is always ugly. We call this one “An Ode to Alberta” due to it’s sweet lift-kit. Behold its beauty:
I also have this picture of someone else’s car – I think it’s Karamie’s?
Each car on Test Track only holds 6 people, but there were 19 of us so obviously we had to split up into smaller groups. We sat with Karamie, and her car kicked our car’s butt in the simulations haha. I also stole these next two pictures from Lesley, since they are hilarious haha:
And of course, our on-ride photo:
It was Military Appreciation Month in the US, so the Blue Angels were doing a special fly-over of Spaceship Earth that morning. We went and found a spot to stand with a great view, and spent a few minutes chatting and getting to know each other.
I had asked about a month prior to going if anyone wanted anything in particular from Canada, and Billie had responded with Ryan Reynolds – so I presented her with her very own Ryan for the front of her scooter during this time haha. Someone had a bandaid in their bag, and used that to stick him on there…
At 9:30am, the Blue Angels did their first flyover of Spaceship Earth:
An announcer came over the speakers in the park to let everyone know to stay put, as there would be a second flyover once they were back into position. We once again had our camera ready, and captured the second flyover:
This was so amazing to see – and I’m not even American. I’m so glad we took the time to see this!
Our VIP Guides, Jon and Amanda, gathered us together again and led us off to Norway. Our next ride was Frozen Ever After – which we once again entered through the Fastpass line. I love Frozen, and I love this ride – I never rode Maelstrom, so this is all I know for the Norway Pavilion. For this ride, we sat with Jackie, Caroline and Kelly – and the rest of our boat was filled with random strangers.
After Frozen, our VIP Tour Guides took us out a side door I had never noticed before that allowed us to skip the gift shop. We headed back to Future World for our final stop at Epcot – Soarin’. Again, we entered the Fastpass line – by 10:15am we had been through the fastpass line for all three tier one rides at Epcot! This VIP Tour was really spoiling me!
Nice work pal!
Again, another picture stolen from Lesley –
Our group took up almost two full rows, and the ride was as great as always!
Afterwards, we took our first official group photo before heading out a Cast Member’s Only door to our awaiting vans.
From left to right: Luke, Molly, me, Kara, Karamie, Steve, Ariana, Caroline, Billie, Kelly, Su-Queen, Liesa, Jackie, Su-Lynn, Lesley, Jenny and Joe
We split into two groups. I was in the van that Amanda drove, but she didn’t really say much as we drove through backstage areas to our next park. It was pretty cool to drive through the backstage of Epcot to see some of the Festival booths not currently in use, the construction on the Guardians of the Galaxy Coaster, etc. We were not allowed to take any photos while in the backstage areas, so nothing to share, sorry.
One of Luke’s favourite meals from our 2017 trip was breakfast at Boma, so we made a reservation to return there. Our reservation was early, 7:30am, but we were there on time and were seated in a fairly empty restaurant.
Our
waitress took our drink order (juice for both of us – I can’t remember what
they call it at Boma, but it’s the same delicious POG juice they serve at many
other locations on property, and a coffee for Luke). We went then went up to
the buffet.
My first plate, starting at the top and going clockwise: a plantain, strawberries and grapes, bread pudding with pecan caramel sauce, asparagus, carved turkey and tater tots. Not overly exciting, but everything was really good, I especially love that sauce for the bread pudding!
My second plate: made to order omelet with bacon, ham and mozzarella. I don’t typically eat eggs, but I just can’t pass up the opportunity to have an omelet that’s made to order. I didn’t finish this entire thing, as eggs are a food that bother my stomach (I have GI issues), but I did enjoy what I ate of this!
Luke’s first plate, starting at the top and going clockwise: goat cheese and chives scrambled eggs, turkey bobotie, asparagus, bacon, ham, tater tots and smoked salmon. The bobotie was one of the main reasons he loved this place so much, and he really enjoyed it again.
Also – proof of our drinks haha –
Luke also had a bowl of African fruit salad
Luke had a second plate of food, but I obviously didn’t take a picture of it, and it was so long ago now that neither one of us remember what he had -opps.
The cost for this meal was $27/each (it’s probably more now, most buffet prices seem to have increased since this trip). I was able to use my Tables in Wonderland card again (after being blacked out the previous two days), so our total bill came to $55.73 with the 18% gratuity added in.
This is a great option for breakfast, although it is a bit out of the way. We did skip it on our last trip to Disney (December 2018), but we are staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge on our upcoming trip (May 2019), so we do have plans to eat both breakfast and supper at Boma 🙂
Tables in Wonderland original cost:
$150
Break Even Point Before this meal:
$130.60
Savings this Meal: $10.80
Total Until Breaking Even: $119.80
Predicted food budget: $2631.67 (does not include tip) Estimated
Cost of this meal: $53.25
Actual Cost: $46.01 (before tip)
Over/Under: Under by $7.24
Remaining: $2143.45
It’s not that I’m ad because I don’t understand people. I’m sad because I do.
The world rewards extrovert behaviour… but all the VIPs are in private luxury boxes.
Amazing feeling: when you find an article of clothing you thought your pet had peed on, but find out it just got some water on it instead.
I’m starting to feel better, but not recovered to the point where I’m gonna pass on a can of ginger ale.
Why am I so transfixed by primetime melodramas that I won’t watch for 6 year but then will be all “Oh hey – this serial killer procedural is on” *loses 48 minutes*
Weird how we forget that we aren’t required to be on Facebook
Loki isn’t dead. He’s the Hulk somehow. Book it.
I hate when people ask me what I want to do because the actual answer I’m not allowed to go with is “eat brunch”.
I celebrate the birthdays of rides at Disneyland. This is my life now.
