Hollywood Studios, etc.

Friday, February 27:

Today was our day for Hollywood Studios. It’s also ESPN: The Weekend, with lots of live broadcasts, sports personalities, athletes, etc. The four of us really wanted to ride Tower of Terror and Rock N’ Roller Coaster, so we headed for those first and got fastpasses for RNR and baby switch passes for TOT. By 10:00 a.m., we’d were done with those rides, but Jacob was, of course, getting board. So, we headed over to Playhouse Disney Live and we were just in time to wait for the 10:30 a.m. show. While everyone got in line, I ran over to the new Toy Story Mania ride, but the wait was 70 minutes and the fastpasses were for 5 p.m., so I knew we wouldn’t be able to use them.

Jacob really enjoyed Playhouse Disney Live, as one would expect. The show is a little different since last time we saw it. It’s more streamlined and focuses on My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Handy Manny and Little Einsteins. It’s a cute little kid’s show. After Playhouse Disney, we decided to let Jacob check out the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground. Jacob really enjoyed it, but the design of this playground is pretty scary because there are lots of places for kids to hide and you can’t see them. I brought Jacob out, but he was crying to go back in, so Jeff took him back. John & Kat came along later. We debated some lunch plans, and then decided just to come back to the house to eat since Jacob had been napping around 1 p.m. each day. We did go and find Lightening McQueen and Mater from Cars and Jacob took pictures with them. We headed out of the park and home for lunch. Plus, we had big dinner plans at California Grill for John’s birthday. When we got home, Jacob wouldn’t nap. After a while, we got him up and Jeff took him swimming. The pool was FINALLY getting a good bit warmer. Jacob probably swam for nearly an hour. Later, he was watching Blues Clues on TV and literally fell asleep sitting up! He napped like that for about 45 minutes. Very funny!

We started getting ready for dinner and my mom had bought John a cake, so we had a mini-birthday party for John, who turned 30 today. Around 6:45 pm we headed to the California Grill at the Contemporary Resort. Unfortunately, by the time we left, Jeff was not feeling good at all. He was such a sport though. The Contemporary is one of the original Disney resorts. It is the tower that is just outside of Magic Kingdom. The California Grill is a fancy restaurant on the 15th floor of the resort. You can see the Wishes fireworks from Cali Grill. And, they also play the Wishes music & program in the restaurant during the show. It’s a nice evening. The four of us went there 3 and a half years ago and really enjoyed ourselves, so it seemed like a natural choice for John’s birthday. We had to make the reservation months ago too. It’s definitely been something we were all looking forward to.

We arrived at the restaurant and ascended to the fifteenth floor. We ordered drinks - Katherine had a Pinot Grigio, John had a scotch on the rocks, and I had a Cosmopolitan. Jeff decided to hold off since he wasn’t feeling good. After a wait, we were sat at our table and had a pretty good view of the fireworks from our table. They had also sprinkled Mickey confetti on the table in honor of John’s birthday. It was a nice touch.

We ordered the Malibu roll (sushi) and the artichoke flatbread for appetizers. I do not like sushi at all, but this is a place I will eat it. It was SO good. Wonderful. The flatbread was good too. We ordered our entrees about 8:15 p.m. John & Kat ordered the grouper. Jeff got the pork tenderloin, and I got a chicken entree. We waited. And waited. And waited. It was 9:00 p.m. before our food came out. The server knew this was not good and told us that a manager would be right over. To make it worse, John & Kat’s fish was clearly not right off the pan. It appeared and tasted like it had sat and dried out. Jeff’s pork and my chicken were fine. Quite good in fact. The manager came over and to really add insult to injury, he was really defensive and refused to admit there had been some type of problem. He left us to eat and told us he would return. After we ate, and he returned, he remained very defensive saying there was no way the food had just sat, and on and on. He finally moved on to say how he’d rectify it. He ended up comp’ing our appetizers, one of the grouper entrees, and giving us a 20% discount on the remainder of the bill, meaning the total bill was about ½ of what it would have been. We paid the bill and headed out. We are still a little peeved at the manager’s attitude. He must have forgotten the customer is always right rule. I’ll go back to Cali Grill, but only for drinks & appetizers, not entrees.

We all headed home and cut the evening short and headed on to bed.

Saturday, February 28:

This morning, I got up and went to Walgreens for Jeff for meds. But, the pharmacy didn’t open until 9 am and he needed pseudoephedrine, so I had to go back. I picked up a few extra things for Jacob for the car ride home. I did a little packing and then Katherine and I took Jacob to the little park in the neighborhood. Katherine and I checked out a open house across the street. Lovely 7 bedroom house for just $535,000.00. A little out of my price range! We finally came home and once we got all situated, we decided to take Jacob to Downtown Disney. We did a little shopping, then took Jacob into the Lego store. Next, we grabbed a McDonald’s happy meal for him ($4.57!), and went over to Earl of Sandwich. The line was long, but moved pretty well. The food was good! After lunch, we let Jacob play in the fountains and he had a blast. Katherine got some great pictures! Lots of those to come when I get time!