Treasure hunts and being rained out - part 2

Once we got off we had one more ride planned before we would head to Tiffins for dinner with the Rivers of Light package. Pamela and Jeanette had been to Pandora before and led the way.

I have to admit that I have not seen the movie and neither has Tom.

We both tried to watch it, but it just is not what appeals to us, and maybe that is one of the reasons why I was less impressed with the whole area. While it is very nicely done it didn’t really “speak” to me and in later talks Tom stated the same. But it was nice exploring and we were happy that Pamela knew where to go as we would have taken way longer to find the entrance to the Na’vi River Journey.

Again, we scanned our Magic Bands and then went along the path. It was long and winding, but finally we got to our boat, were assigned a row and off we went.

Again, it might have helped both Tom and I to know more about the movie, but we were both underwhelmed.

We didn’t know it by then, but it should stay the only time we rode it, even though we got back to Animal Kingdom a few more times. Once we had gotten off and left the ride area we discovered that it had started to rain. It was just a light rain and we did not even take out our ponchos, while we slowly made our way through Pandora and over to Tiffins.

We arrived there about half an hour early and since they seemed to have just opened up we thought we might try our luck and be seated early. So we walked up to the host stand and asked and were told that there was no way to be seated early.

By then it had started to rain much harder and we all needed to put on out ponchos to wait until they would seat us. We stuck around the restaurant and about 15 minutes later we were finally called to the restaurant. We then had to wait another few minutes until a server took us to our table. They seated us at a nice four top towards the back of the restaurant and our server was a very lively one, but she was hard, very hard to understand for a non native. Thankfully we had Pamela and Jeanette to help us out.

We quickly ordered our drinks and then were left to study the menu. The package entitled us to an appetizer, a main course and a dessert and I had read a lot of reviews of the restaurant and was really looking forward to experience it for myself. Didn’t take long and our server was back, explained the menu some more and we all placed our orders. Lots of laughs were shared while we nibbled on some bread, waiting for things to come. And before we knew it, our starters were served. Tom had ordered the

Marinated Grilled Octopus with salsify, saffron aioli and lemon-caper olive oil. It looked pretty good, and Tom gave it the thumbs up. I had not been sure on what to order, but thought that the

Black-Eyed Pea Fritters, served with Zhoug yogurt and pappadew puree sounded good. Well, they were rather hard and dry and lacked some taste as well. My bad, I should have ordered something else. I did not finish my dish, but then I wasn’t very hungry anyway. The server came, joked with Jeanette and Pamela and cleared our plates and soon put our main course plates in front of us. Having read many reviews I had thought that the

Snake River Farm's Wagyu Eye of Ribeye, served with marble potato confit, bacon-sherry vinaigrette, cauliflower variations and amarula crème would be nice to try. We both had ordered it and again it was a bit of a letdown.

Not only was my plate just lukewarm after taking a few photos, I also found the meat to be slightly tough and underseasoned.

Tom’s was a bit better, but in the end he said that he would not order it again either. Again, I did not clean my plate, but both Jeanette and Pamela enjoyed their dishes very much. The server brought our tickets for Rivers of Light

and then handed us the dessert menu. Tom, who doesn’t have a very sweet tooth had a hard time deciding on something and was going to not order anything, but then decided on ordering something and let Pamela and Jeanette have it, as the server recommended it so much. So he got the

Passion Fruit Tapioca Crème, served with Chocolate crumble and citrus fruits. It looked nice and Pamela and Jeanette enjoyed it very much. If there is something with the word chocolate in it, then I know what to order, so I got the

South American Chocolate Ganache, caramelized banana and cocoa nib tuile. It saved the night, as it was pretty nice, but by then my mind was set that for us there was no burning reason to head back to Tiffins any time soon.

We paid our bills and a few minutes later we headed back outside into the now pouring rain. There was quite some time left until Rivers of Light and I was not sure we wanted to stay and wait for it, so Tom and I were pretty happy when Pamela and Jeanette stated that they had both already seen it and didn’t mind if we skipped it. So instead of waiting for Rivers of Light we stopped into the shops and looked around, having fun trying on hats and ears and checking out the merchandise.

Around 7pm we went towards the exit and headed back out to the car. On our way back to the Grand Floridian we dropped Pamela and Jeanette off at the Polynesian and then headed to our resort, parked the car and hiked back to our building. We were both tired and rested for a while, watching TV until finally heading out onto the balcony to watch the Water Pageant go by.

After that we went to bed, we had another exciting day ahead of us the next day.