NYE 2009: Day Three - Monorail Resorts and EPCOT
January 1, 2010
It's decidedly cooler today. Seems our warm front has come and gone. And we were up so late last night even the birds were shooing us to bed. So we sleep in today while the early birds hit the parks. (Robin tells us later it was pretty much dead at the parks that morning.)
Our first stop of the day is lunch at the Grand Floridian Cafe. It's one of our new favorites and gives us an excuse to explore the luxurious lobbies in all their Christmas splendor.
There's the 4 story tall tree, all decorated in Victorian
cream...
Outside we have frolicking reindeer munching on the roses...
And inside is Grand Floridian's signature Gingerbread House...
The lobby smells of gingerbread and everyone flocks to this giant baker's creation. Here are a few of our favorite details...
We also notice they have finished with the new tile floor makeover. This job took 2 months, hundreds of manhours and lots of custom made Italian marble reliefs. Here are two of my favorite. See if you can figure out where they are.
After exploring a bit, we're called into lunch. Our server is a very pleasant lady who has this odd distraction outside. Her little boy and mom have showed up for lunch too and the boy insists on studying the lighted deer outside instead of coming in to eat. When she does manage to coax him back inside, he turns out to be quite a charmer. We tease her not to spoil him too much or he'll think he always get such service at home. She teases back that after eating, he'll be back in the kitchen cleaning the dishes. That's enough to ruin any kid's appetite. But they make a really cute family and end up sitting next to us at lunch.
The Grand Floridian Cafe is on my favorite list now. The French Onion soup is incredible as are the Grand sandwiches Cuz and GM order. Open-faced, hot ham, turkey, bacon and cheese sauce. Yum...
After lunch, we hopped the monorail and took a tour of the other monorail resorts.
Polynesian had a Gingerbread contest on the 2nd floor of the Grand Ceremonial House. This one from Up was our favorite.
In the lobby below, they still had their tree up.
Contemporary was underwhelming with this half gingerbread tree relief. It just blended into the existing mural background too much.
We popped outside to see about hopping a ferry to the Wilderness Lodge. Alas, none of the accessible ferries dock at the Contemporary. The launch captain directed us back to Magic Kingdom, but it was getting dark. We opted to head into EPCOT instead. But along the way, we did spy this little addition to the Contemporary pool. Yup, it's a wheelchair lift. Seems our friends from Saratoga Springs have been successful in porting the technology over to their new Bay Lake Towers home. We'll see for ourselves in April.
Cuz hadn't seen EPCOT this year, so we opted to head over there for the night. We arrived just before dark. By far the most festive thing in the park this year was at the entrance...
But once inside Future World, things looked on the dull side. The tree
was tall and twinkling white.
But when you turned around, the pathway was boring. We all really missed those quaint old lighted arches known as the Lights of Winter. GM bemoaned they didn't even bother putting some twinkling lights in the trees.
I stopped into Guest Relations later to make note of my disappointment. Turns out i wasn't the only one. They had a special file to log such complaints and were getting hundreds per day. The CM, who shared our disappointment, assured us management got the message and were planning to bring back the lights next year. New and improved with LED lights, he said. We'll see.
Meanwhile, the near full moon rose over the park again...
Our night was fairly low key. with this being my 3rd trip to Disney in 2 months, I was a bit rided out, as were my companions. Cuz, hand't really seen the Living Seas yet, so we went exploring there...
Cuz checks out the manta rays swimming with the dolphins...
Then we took in a few other favorites. A ride on Figment for me, a turn at Honey I Shrunk the Audience for Cuz, and a view of the fireworks from my Rose Hill. That last bit turned out a bit disappointing. They only had the regular fireworks and cut the Peace on Earth holiday tag this night. I guess EPCOT's management just didn't want to go all out celebrating this year. Makes you wonder who got coal this year.
We stayed for Extra Magic Hours for a bit. Rode Soarin' then relaxed in Seasons cafe with a little late night dessert.
When we got back to our room we did have a pleasant little surprise waiting for us. A present from our SSR friends...
That's candy and balloons, by the way. A pleasant little reminder that we are truly home at Disney. It's going to make it all the harder to leave tomorrow.