A DISmeet kicks off the trip

We were up early. It was 5.35 when we got up because our inner clocks were still running on European time. We watched a little TV in the morning, then got ready to head for breakfast. We had an 8am reservation at Olivia’s Café and were more than in time for it. We signed in and were the only guests at that time, so therefore the server took us for a fun little walk around the restaurant, pointing out several of “his favourite” tables, before “parking” us in one of the booths.

We were both handed a menu and told that our server would be right with us. And she really was. Before we even had time to study the menus our server came by to take our drinks orders, coffee, tea and orangejuice and soon came by with a huge box of different teas for me to pick from. Once we had been served the drinks we were ready to order and shortly after our orders had been placed our starter arrived, the Fresh Strawberries and Cream. It is our new way to start off the first full day at WDW. While we still enjoyed the fresh fruit a few more guests arrived and we watched the CMs having fun seating them after leading them all around the restaurant. A short time later our breakfast arrived.

 Tom had ordered the Conch Republic Omelet, with shrimp, avocado, and Pepper Jack Cheese.I had known what I wanted to have long before we had left Austria, the Traditional Eggs Benedict, two Poached Eggs with Canadian Bacon on an English Muffin with Key Lime Hollandaise.

We both were in heaven with our breakfast and enjoyed it very much. Once we had finished it, we settled our bill using our new Tables in Wonderland card and went back to the villa. We saw that mousekeeping was just starting their rounds so we decided to go shopping and give them time to clean up the villa. Our first stop was Downtown Disney. We were a little too early for the World of Disney to open, so we walked along the lake and admired the many “sculptures” they had created from Lego bricks. We were not the only ones taking photos, there were quite a few people doing the exact same thing. Once the store had opened we ventured inside and were surprised at how much Lego has advanced since we were kids.

And then it was time to stroll over to the World of Disney. There were so many new things to see and we took our time and enjoyed browsing very much. Once we had seen all there was to see at the World of Disney we wandered through the other shops, explored the new spices at the Kitchen store and spent some time at the Art shop. Once we had seen it all we walked along the path that runs behind all the shops along the parking lot back to the World of Disney. We had sworn not to overdo the shopping before the cruise, but there was something I was determined to buy, no matter when I would find it, the new 2012 calendar.In 2010 we had seen the calendar in the stores, but put off buying them until the end of our vacation.

When we were ready to buy, they had run out of them, so we had ended up ordering them on the internet. So, after our first shopping spree we headed back to the car to do a little more grocery shopping. We drove over to Publix and took our time, strolling all the isles, picking up lots of items we could enjoy the first eight days before the cruises. It was almost noon when we returned to our villa, parked the car, tried to pick up all the bags we had and headed upstairs. Tom opened the door, a look to the left into the master bedroom, yippie, mousekeeping had already cleaned our room and everything was clean and neat and a few more steps and we were in the living room and there was a huge surprise on the kitchen block.

A wonderful basket full of yummy treats. We put down our bags and went to look for the card, even though I was quite sure who had sent us this wonderful surprise. And yes, I was right, it was from our friends Mary Ellen and Joe! After all that shopping and discovering the surprise we needed a little rest, so we went outside onto the veranda and sat there for a while, drink in hand.

Needless to say that we needed to take a few more photos of the view as well. After some time we decided that we better got going if we wanted to have lunch before our first DISmeet. Where better to have lunch than Wolfgang Puck’s Express again. When we arrived we were stunned at how full the restaurant was 2pm. We placed our order, picked up our number and went to find a table. While we waited for the entrees to come out, we sipped our Diet Cokes and talked about what we expected our first DISmeet to be. And then our first Free Disney Dining Plan lunch arrived. Tom had ordered the Barbequed Chicken Pizza with red onion, plum tomatoes and fresh cilantro and I had opted for my all time favourite, the Four Cheese Pesto Pizza, Parmesan, mozzarella, fontina, goat cheese, plum tomatoes, fresh basil and sun-dried tomatoes. Yum!! We took our time to enjoy the heavenly pizzas before it was time to conquer desserts, the Crème Brulee, which we both had ordered.

When we had finished lunch it was about time to drive to the All Star Movies resort for our DISmeet. But before that we quickly headed back to Old Key West to pick up our gift bag for Jennifer who we were going to meet.

We arrived at the All Star Movies Resort shortly before we were supposed to meet and had a peek into the shop, then stepped outside to walk to the lobby where we were supposed to meet.But we didn’t even have to go to the lobby, right when we left the shop, there Jennifer was, entering through the opposite door. We hugged, exchanged presents and started having fun together. First off, we took a little walk around the resort to see her room. She stayed in one of the newly renovated rooms and boy was it a nice room. Definitely puts the All Start resorts back on the map! Once we had had a good look we went back to the car and drove over to Old Key West, so she could have a look at our villa.

We showed her round, then settled in the living room to chat. It was so fun to finally get to know the “real” Jennifer, whose trip reports I had read long before I first dreamed of meeting her.We learned more about her life, being a dairy farmer’s wife and beautiful little Claire, who I would have loved to meet too. All too soon after a little wine and lots of laughs it was time for Jennifer to leave again. We all squeezed into our Mustang Convertible again and we took her over to Downtown Disney, said our goodbyes and were sad the meet had been over so quickly. Tom and I went back to Old Key West to relax a little before our late dinner at The Wave and Extra Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom. And this was when the time change caught up with us. We both put our feet up on the sofas and soon were so tired that we didn’t see ourselves driving to the Contemporary for dinner. Instead we took a romaine salad out of the fridge and prepared a Caesar Salad, used some of the grocery items we had bought and had a picnic in the villa. Well, wasn’t the best idea either, as eating made us even more tired and after a while we decided that we would just skip the Extra Magic Hours and stay put where we were. We were really lazy, watched a little TV and finally went to bed around 11pm, right when Extra Magic Hours were about to start.