Happy Birthday!!
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Happy Birthday! It looks like you’ve got some beautiful birthday weather so far!
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Happy Birthday!
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Happy birthday! What an awesome way to celebrate!
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Happy Birthday!!
Ok, that meme was freaking me out. There are waaaay cuter rats/mice/animals to pick. So I’ll just say it instead, when life gives you birthdays…EAT CAKE!
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Lovely birthday lunch at Tiffins. Bread service, then I had the shrimp and grits and DH had the whole fried fish. We both enjoyed our choices quite a bit! They gave me some birthday pixie dust for dessert as well.
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Happy birthday!! Best way to celebrate your birthday is to be in the Best Park. Nicely done!
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I really liked the Fuzzy Taun Taun but I did not care too much for the Jedi Mind Trick. Hubby liked his Bespin Fizz but I also didn’t care for the sweetness of it.
Ya gotta get there at 10:40ish for opening table.
Well jeez if you had lunch at Tiffins, missing Sacred Spaces is only a mild fail. 
Looks delicious!
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I know, but we were hoping to have a pre-lunch cocktail and watch the floating cavalcade. 
Anyhoo, lesson learned about getting there early.
After lunch, we did the Gorilla Falls and Maharaja trails. Baby Gorilla was out playing and then nursing. Tiger was feeling playful as well. Once we finished that, it was closing in on 2pm and the heat/humidity was getting pretty intense, so we called it and headed back to the hotel.
Bopped down to the pool where they had live music going on, the bar was open, towel hut was open with floaties available for rent, and there were plenty of chairs open too. The pools at the Hilton Lake Buena Vista are pretty basic - two very large rectangular pools that start about 3 feet and go to about 6.5 feet. There’s also a baby pool that’s 1 foot deep, and a large hot tub.
The pool was super refreshing on tired feet, so we stayed for about an hour until some
Ominous looking clouds moved in, then headed back up to the room for the cake we got at Amorette’s Patisserie earlier this week.
Now, a nap for the hubby before dinner time. And probably watching college football for me.
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Did you survive the Ominous… whatever it was?! Or was it Truly That Ominous and the report is ending unexpectedly early?
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Oh phew.
Corrected post reveals, all is well
That cake looks AMAZING!!!
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So ominous it posted my post before I was done with it!
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Happy birthday!
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Happy birthday. Best place to celebrate.
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Happy birthday wishes!
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Our final night is here! How did it come so quick?!
After our naps, we cleaned up and headed over to the Contemporary for our 8p CG dinner reservation. We checked in at about 7:35 and our table was called at 8:03 - and much to my surprise we got an AMAZING window side table! While we didn’t have a straight on view of the castle, we did of the seven seas lagoon, which was just as good in my mind because we got to see the Electric water pageant going and coming (with even more floats than we’d seen on Thursday! Not the best photo quality, but I was happy to see them!)
So, as soon as we’d gotten seated and ordered a bottle of wine, we stepped out for the fireworks which were just great. What a nice end to our trip!
After the fireworks, we ordered the short rib wontons (note: @Minnie27mouse they are spicy, as @NaviHeart mentioned…but they’re also really delicious!) and the heirloom tomatoes and burrata appetizers. The latter was the only let down of our meal, as I’m pretty sure this wasn’t burrata at all. It had a consistency more akin to a very firm feta, actually. And without the saltiness of the cheese, the dish just wasn’t well balanced.
But our entrees were great - hubby got the ribeye and I got the veal. We were both very satisfied but agreed his was the better dish.
We finished with the cheese plate (since we still have cookies, cake, and candy in the room, argh!) and thought it was a good cheese board, though fairly “boring” cheese choices. Any artisanal cheese lovers will have definitely had some of these before (point Reyes’ blue, cypress farms’ humboldt fog, etc).
All in all, we felt like this was a very good meal, and while the sophistication of the menu was more than our Be Our Guest lunch, the execution of BoG was better overall. So we’re gonna rank this trips’ meals as:
- (Best) Be Our Guest
- CG
- Post-Park Closing Oga’s
- Food and wine fest sampling, generally (though specific items or booths may rank higher or lower)
- Trader Sam’s
- Tiffins
- Regular Oga’s
- Polite Pig
- Ronto Roasters
- (Tie for least good) Sci Fi Cafe
- (Tie for least good) Jungle Canteen
After dinner, we went to the fourth floor to see the contemporary mural, and the monorail security folks even helped us spy the five-legged goat, lol.
With that, we headed back to our hotel. We finally get to sleep in tomorrow (first time all trip!!!) then will be hitting up DS one final time before having lunch with some local friends at Cafe Tu Tu Tango before heading to the airport.
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I agree with your assessment of polite pig. I found their actual bbq not that good. But the Mac and cheese was.
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If I recall correctly, you’re in Austin right? We lived in Austin over a decade ourselves, so I figure we’ve both earned the right to be barbecue snobs 
Bless their hearts, they tried.
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