Hooks/Korte Disney Vacation: Breakfast with Characters

Today we scheduled an off day, as far as Disney days go, and did not go to a park for the day. We decided a long time ago that it would be a good idea to have a day where we could rest and play but without all the walking like you do in the parks. Last night on the way back to our hotel from Magic Kingdom, I was quite happy that I wasn't going to have to get up today and do it all over again. I'm beat!

We began this morning by having breakfast at the Grand Floridian at 1900 Park Fare. We dined with Pooh, Tigger, Mary Poppins, Alice, and the Mad Hatter. Breakfast was a buffet, and it was yummy. I think I sampled a little bit of everything because I wanted to make sure I ate my money's worth! Character meals aren't cheap by any stretch of the imagination.  We ended up having Pooh and Tigger come by our table twice, which was pretty cool. The Mad Hatter is pretty hilarious and shouts a lot in the restaurant.

After breakfast we wandered around the Grand Floridian for just a little while. It's a gorgeous hotel! It's pretty from floor to ceiling. We ended up having to take a boat from there back to the Polynesian so we could walk to our resort, which was nice. The Monorail was taking a little maintenance break.

Heather and I did a load of laundry after breakfast while the girls played in the room for a while. Nick and Will both ended up taking naps. Once the clothes were all cleaned, we headed down to the pool to swim. It was in the upper 80s today so the weather was perfect for the pool again. Back home I hear that it's sleeting and snowing. It's so weird to imagine that they're having to deal with that nastiness and here I am sweating and getting sun burned in Florida. I much prefer the heat, that's for sure. As I've gotten older my desire for snow has dwindled quite a bit and now I mostly find it an annoying nuisance.

When swim time was over, we all cleaned up and headed over to the Wilderness Lodge for dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe. We had an all-you-can-eat family style meal with mashed potatoes, cornbread, green beans and carrots, ribs, pulled pork, BBQ brisket, chicken, sausage and corn on the cob. It was amazing!! We all ate way more than we actually had room for in our bellies. The whole premise behind Whispering Canyon is that it's a rough and tough atmosphere. If you want to play along, the waiters will shout at you, throw napkins and sweetener at you when you request it, give you a hard time about eating, yell loudly about your birthday or other celebrations, and all of the ketchup in the restaurant travels together. So when a table requests ketchup, their server yells (LOUDLY) "KETCHUP!!!!" and someone from whatever table it is currently sitting on must bring all of the bottles of ketchup to you. I think there were 8 or 9 bottles there. At one point Nick asked for more tea, and she brought him a half gallon mason jar and said (with an attitude) "Here, is that enough?" He drank the whole thing. It was pretty amusing.

We came back to the resort after dinner and almost everyone is currently in bed already, and I am following suit very soon. We have another long day tomorrow: Epcot!

Today's Character Count: Mary Poppins, Alice, Mad Hatter, Tigger, Pooh