I mean… things have not been super great or easy this last year. Work is hard. We’ve hit the dual-sports-chauffeur stage of parenting. And Cabo Verde lost to Argentina last night. But here we are, ready to take on our next adventure - just the spoonful of sugar we need.
Cast of characters: me, Joelle (47), DH Michael (51), DD Billie (10 and a bona fide adult according to Disney 
), and DS Huck (7).
DH hates to fly and we like taking the auto train back to ease the sting of reentry. So he left yesterday with all the luggage and our car. Kiddos and I got up at o’dark thirty (4am), got a Lyft to the Allentown airport at 4:30, and hopped on our first “flight” (which is a bus) to Philly.
I was worried about a tight connection since the bus drops you off in F gates and the connection to Orlando was out of A (about a 1.5 mile walk) and we originally only had 15 minutes between arrival and boarding, but our bus left 15 minutes early (perks of being a bus I guess), and there was zero traffic, so we got to Philly well before boarding. So much time that we were able to get pizza for breakfast (will post pic in follow up post as mobile Forums being cagey)
We just finished boarding and should be landing at MCO in 2ish hours
Away we go!
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7:44am and he was so excited to be eating this!!
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Landed early. Quick Mears transport (private hire)
Now enjoying some pool time before dinner on the early side tonight. We’re all flagging a bit but should be perking up soon.
Berry Virgin Mojito to put me in the vacay mood without tanking me to early. Plus it goes well with the Parmesan fries from Primo Piatto!!
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Great start! Following along eagerly.
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A 4 am wake up call is rough!
Everyone looks ready for WDW, though! Enjoy!
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Have fun! Hope everything works out as planned!
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The Boy Child is dragging. The Girl Child won the poolside hula hoop contest.
I had used the TP Room Request feature a few months ago and only saw this week that they stopped sending. So I followed their instructions (super easy) and sent an email but only like two days ago.
I checked with the front desk just now to see how much longer before the room is ready and they confirmed my requests were NOT in their system and that the best thing to do is talk to the check in desk when you arrive. The room they had us blocked in was likely to still be another hour but they put my requests in and said their system continually “plays tetris” so maybe we’ll luck out in the end.
We have a 4:45 dinner res so we’ll start getting ready in the poolside restrooms shortly (seriously though I wish they had better changing facilities for this exact purpose) and hopefully the room will be ready by the time we return.
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Lightning in the area shut down the pool right about 3:30, which is just as well as we needed to get ready for dinner. Checked with the front desk one last time and our room was ready! Except that I requested a high floor on the west side and they gave us a low floor on the east side. So I asked politely if there was anything they could do. Mariah at the front desk, who is earning her ears, called her “back office” and we basically negotiated a higher floor on the east side for tonight and then we’ll move to a room I requested for the rest of our stay tomorrow. A hassle? Maybe. But to be able to see EPCOT from the room?! (Especially since we don’t make it to fireworks in the parks?!) Worth it I think. Grateful to the team for making it happen.
With the lightning, the skyliner was closed (obvi) so we drove over to Boardwalk. I was worried since my Cake Bake resy was via OpenTable and not the Disney app and I know parking can sometimes raise questions. Guard barely looked at my phone and waved us right in.
Res was at 4:45 and we got seated around 5. Huck especially was struggling. But after some chocolate milk (hot cocoa for Billie) and some quiet drawing time (dragons on the back of the kid placemat), he perked up to make it through dinner.
H had kids chicken tenders. B had kids sliders with glitter dusted fruit and proclaimed it the best berries ever. Michael had the crab cakes (he had them on our date night last year and had been thinking about them for quite some time). I loved the croque madame last year but I also was exhausted so I opted for slightly lighter fare - a cup of the French onion soup and the avocado stack. Both were very good but the stacks’s proportion of onions and goat cheese to avocado and tomato was slightly unbalanced IMO. But you guys?! I think my kids are starting to like each other 
Maybe not:
We ordered cake to go so we could get back for an early night. Dropped everyone off and ran over to the Publix in Celebration to pick up the grocery order. Got back and settled by 7. Kiddos now powering down and I’m going to end the night with perhaps a highly controversial opinion:
I think The Cake Bake Shop cakes are really bad actually. We tried Millionaire’s and the Champagne and Berry one last year, both of which we felt lacked flavor. This year kids got Earl’s Court and we got the carrot cake. The cake is stodgy, lacks texture, and is underspiced. Don’t get me wrong. I think they make EXCELLENT food. But cake?! Not worth half the price they charge. 
With that, I’ll turn in and will be back in the morning with our EPCOT day (predicted crowd level: 1 
).
Night all!
(oh! Post script for those on the uncensored thread - Bar Riva was showing the World Cup matches so we kept poking our heads in during our pool time. It was weird, though, because no one else seemed to care. Go Morocco!!)
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Sounds like a promising start to your trip! Glad you got the view you wanted!
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I would like to try one one day to make my own judgment, but I find it hard to believe that it is anything special. Cake rarely is for me. The only cakes I really love are made using my great grandma’s recipes. Hard to top.
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Hard agree. Got one last September and hard pass going forward
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It’s kind of shocking to me that a place called “The Cake Bakeshop” has bad . . . cake! I would have liked to have tried it sometime but I trust liner reviews!
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Every Disney morning is a Good Morning!
got to Riviera Skyliner at 7:15 (posted opening 7:30) and it opened at 7:20. Approximately 20 people deep. Security opened at 7:36 (8:30 early entry) and taps and early entry already opened. Now one family in front of us at the bridge.
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let us in at 7:56 and we were second in line at Reby. 8:35 and they haven’t opened it yet. The Boy Child is displeased.
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But how did your son take it? 
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(Though it’d be funnier if the hubs was like that. He’s the most go-with-the-flow type B among us!)
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