Another party and pouring rain!

After another late start we decided to go to Downtown Disney this morning. We did some shopping at a lot of the stores there and enjoyed some chocolate at Ghirardelli’s. The art shop is one of our favorites and we spent a lot of time in there.

We didn’t want to go to a park, because we were going to another Pirate and Princess Party in the evening, so we went to the former Belz Mall to check if the Disney Outlet Store there had already opened. IT HAD!!! Just the day before and the store was full of really good deals. Everything I touched was at least 50% off and there were a lot of things they were still selling in the parks. They even had some collectibles.

We went back to the hotel to get changed and arrive on time for our reservation at the Kona Café this evening.

Since they had predicted rain we decided to leave the princess tiara at home and be pirates for the evening. Mickey was dressed in his pirate outfit too! We arrived at the Kona Café a little early and were about the first to be seated this evening. Our server was very nice and attentive. We both loved the sweet bread and nut and honey butter! As always we enjoyed our food. Tom had decided to try the Beef Teriyaki - 10 ounce sirloin strip, grilled with pineapple teriyaki sauce, mashed Yukon gold potatoes, and stir-fried broccoli florets while I wanted to taste the Coconut Almond Chicken - sauteed chicken breast served with Asian greens tossed with honey-lime dressing, golden pineapple, strawberries, and tossed with almonds.

Wow, what an explosion of flavors! I loved it!! We both could not resist dessert. I had the Kilauea Torte - an explosion of warm liquid chocolate inside a brownie volcano a la mode and Tom tried the Chocolate Macadamia Nut Tart - chocolate tart shell with chunks of macadamia nut and chocolate served with vanilla ice cream and caramel rum sauce. Sooooooo good!

While we were enjoying our dinner it had started to rain – real hard. We thought we could wait until it had ended, knowing summer Florida rainshowers, but even after an hour of walking around the Great Ceremonial House it had not stopped. I was really worried about my leather sandals, so I tried on a pair of Crocs. The color didn’t really go with my usual colors so we took the Monorail over to the Contemporary to buy a pair. Back to the Polynesian to put my other pair of shoes into the car and off we went in our plastic ponchos! Even though it was pouring down for the earlier part of the evening we had lots of fun just walking on the rides.

The first parade was cancelled and the fireworks were delayed for quite some time, but nevertheless they were awesome again. After that the rain had stopped and Mickey was allowed out of the bag and we went treasure hunting and riding the rides along the way.

We ended the party with a ride on Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain as the last ride.

The Monorail took us back to the Polynesian and we walked out to our car and drove back to our room at the Pop Century. Tom took a few pix of Mickey and his “treasure” to send to our friend Mary Ellen, before we fell into our beds way past 1am!