Disney here we come!

Having had an early night the day before, we packed up in the morning, went down to the restaurant and had breakfast. We both had the freshly made omelette and breakfast potatoes again, followed by French Toast with hot syrup. Yum, yum!!

We checked out and loaded everything back into our car, then headed to the University Mall in Tampa, which is right “next door” to check out the Disney store there. There are NO Disney stores in Austria, so whenever we get close to one, we pay a visit. We browsed the shop, but didn’t buy anything.

We filled up the car with gas and headed towards Orlando. A very uneventful trip and within 90 minutes we were at Downtown Disney, where we exchanged our Annual Pass Vouchers to Annual Passes and picked up all our party tickets. Pirate and Princess Party on the 21^st and 28^th of August and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party on the 4^th and 6^th of December! The CM was VERY surprised we wanted SO many tickets!!We strolled through the shops again and headed towards the exit, not without agreeing to take a Disney survey – one of many during this visit.

Got back into the car and went over to the Pop Century Resort to check in. We were so surprised to find our room already ready and waiting for us, as it was just 12.30. So we stored all our things in the room, rested for a short while and went over to the food court to have some lunch. 

Tom tried the Cheeseburger and I had the Chicken Strips.After that we were ready we to conquer the Animal Kingdom. As it was Evening Extra Magic Hour we picked up our wristbands and started exploring. Pal Mickey pointed out a lot of the animals and it took us a while until we reached the Tree of Life. It was VERY hot, so we wandered through the shops to cool down and then stopped for a soft drink at Pizzafari.

We couldn’t do Nemo, as it had just started so we went over to Everest which was a 45 minute wait and rode it. It was so much fun!

Don't think Mickey liked it as much as we did!

We strolled through Asia and back to the Tree of Life because it was time to leave. We had a 9pm reservation at the California Grill.

We arrived at the Contemporary with enough time to spare to study the drawings of what the new shop is going to look like. Then we went down to the second floor to check in. We got a table towards the back of the restaurant and our server Dale was very nice. We started our meal with some very nice bread with olive oil for dipping. Our starter was the BLT flatbread - with Heirloom Tomatoes, Nueske's bacon, provolone, crisp Romaine and lemon aioli. It was more than enough for the two of us to share. Our maincourses were Buffalo Strip Steak - with corn pancake, fava beans, wild mushrooms, bacon and crispy shallots for Tom and the Wild Alaskan King Salmon - with fingerling potatoes, crispy bacon, baby spinach and egg vinaigrette. Just when we finished the main course the waiter came over and told us that the fireworks were about to start and we were more than welcome to go out on the “walkway” to watch them before dessert.

What a wonderful view of the fireworks it was. The music is piped in as well. We really enjoyed it and will definitely do it again.

For dessert we both had the Valrhona Chocolate and Coffee. Warm chocolate cake with molten center, house-made white coffee ice cream and cappuccino anglaise. It was just disneylicious!

Before we left the restaurant we presented our server with a Disneyland Paris pin. We always bring some to award extra special cast members. He was really stunned and went over to show the pin to the other cast members. It was nearly midnight when we returned back to our room at the Pop Century.