We started day 2 off at around 8am. Dominic found these on the bed waiting for him:
It was a Test Track driver's license & invitations to Biergarten for lunch & Coral Reef for dinner.
We ate a small breakfast from the food court and headed off to the bus stop for Epcot. Here's a picture of Dominic posing with our window decorations:
We have a lack of pictures from the morning at Epcot due to the constant drizzle. I kept my camera in my bag and only pulled it out a few times when we were inside buildings. We entered the park right after 9:00 when it opened and headed straight for Soarin' fastpasses. The wait was short so we rode it right away as well. Then we made our way to Test Track and they shut down the ride as soon as we got there. The track was too wet so we picked up a fastpass to ride it later. We then headed over to Spaceship Earth. On our last trip, I had no idea that was a ride... beats me how I missed something like that!
It was a nice break from the rain. Then we headed over to Ellen's Energy Adventure. I really enjoyed this. Dominic got close his eyes for a few minutes and I just loved the technology in that ride. After we left that ride we walked over to the Food & Wine building. As soon as we walked in, a cast member commented on my Hanson/Mickey head shirt. We checked out the merchandise for a bit then headed back out into the rain. By this time it was a little bit before 11:00 so we headed over to Club Cool to try out some drinks.
After our Coca Cola break, we headed over towards the World Showcase. At this point, we were pretty cold & wet (despite the ponchos). I was not looking forward to snacking in the rain. At least the crowds were non existant. Our first stop was the Australia booth. This was our first "snack" at Food & Wine 2011:
Grilled Lamb Chop with Potato-Goat Cheese Salad and Shiraz Reduction
1 snack credit used - 18 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $5.75
Grand Dining Total - $76.41
I didn't care for this. The salad had a weird tang taste to it and the lamp chop just didn't taste very good. It could've been the fact that I was eating it in the rain but it left a bad taste. Dominic wouldn't even take a bite of this. We also got this from the Australia booth:
Shrimp on the Barbie with Pepper Citrus Berry Glaze
1 snack credit used - 17 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $4.50
Grand Dining Total - $80.91
This was good... not amazing though. Even though Dominic loves shrimp, he refused to try this because of the sauce & "pepper". Our next stop was in Mexico. The rain was beginning to taper off at this point... Dominic decided to give this next food a try:
Crispy Shrimp Taco (Chipotle, Lime Mayo and Cabbage on a Flour Tortilla)
1 snack credit used - 16 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $4.95
Grand Dining Total - $85.86
This was really good. Dominic absolutely loved it. He ate about half and wanted another one. We decided to check out the Mexico Pavillion and got to ride the Three Caballeros boat ride. Lots of fun!
When we came back outside, we got the best surprise imaginable:
Blue skies!!! That was the last we saw of rain for the entire vacation. We lucked out once again. Disney World is so much more enjoyable in the sunshine but we made the best of it with what we were given. I'd still rather be at Disney on a rainy day than at home on a sunny one (no offense home)!!! We still had a bit before our lunch reservation so we took a walk to Norway and decided to ride Maelstrom for the first time.
Dominic did NOT like this ride. The drop was pretty intense for him. He's not a fan of butterflies in the tummy. The outside view:
The inside view:
After the ride, we walked around Norway for awhile and admired the surroundings.
Check out the price tag! Ouch!
We walked over to the China booth and got this:
Pork Pot Stickers
1 snack credit used - 15 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $3.50
Grand Dining Total - $89.36
I was expecting these to be a lot tastier. They were cold when we got them and I didn't care for the flavor at all. Dominic refused to try them. We had fun checking out all the plants growing around the booths.
Next we headed over to the South Korea booth.
Lettuce Wrap with Roast Pork and Kimchi Slaw
1 snack credit used - 14 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $3.00
Grand Dining Total - $92.36
This was really yummy. Dominic wouldn't try it and spent his time across the way banging on some drums with a few other kids. By this time, I was full. Extremely full and guess what?! It was ADR time for our lunch. Yikes!!! We tried to walk off all of our snacking but we weren't very successful. We also got a few Photopass pictures taken quickly...
So we headed over towards Germany.
We were a little early for our ADR at Biergarten but they squeezed us in. It wasn't very busy at all. We waited about 5 minutes to be seated.
We got seated with another family on the second tier dead center with the stage. The band was playing as we walked in and it lasted about 10 minutes into our lunch when they took a break and we never saw them again. We were seated with a nice family from Pittsburgh who was enjoying the beer (hey, nothing wrong with that!) Dominic & I opted for milk since we still had a long day ahead of us. The food was great, lots of sausages to choose from and some hot potato salad.
I forgot to take a picture of the dessert but it was some sort of berries in a cup and absolutely amazing. We were having a great conversation with the family at our table. They told us about seeing Hanson in Magic Kingdom the day before. Oh how I would've just died right there had I bumped into them! Anyways, here's the numbers for this meal:
2 Buffets at Biergarten
2 table service credits used - 26 table service credits left
Actual Cost - $58.56 (without tip)
Grand Dining Total - $150.92
Biergarten was extremely enjoyable. I would return here but with more of an appetite. Food & Wine kinda ruined it for us. It would be nice to have a dinner here and a few beers. It's a great atmosphere.
Once we left Biergarten, we headed straight for the ferry boats. We wanted to quick get a ride in at Test Track before we needed to get in line for the Hanson concert later on.
Test Track is Dominic's all time favorite ride (or so he said before this trip). He was so excited to be in line!
We got the blue car & front row at that!
The ride was sooo much fun. Dominic has a great face on his Photopass picture!
Next we headed over to the cranberry bog. Craisins was handing out free samples so we grabbed a few for snacks later on and started walking the opposite way around the world.
We were still pretty stuffed so we didn't even bother stopping at any booths :(
We did come across some characters though... we took about an hour to wait in line for Jasmine & Aladdin & then headed over to Belle & Beast's meetngreet. Dominic charmed Jasmine and got a kiss from her. What a lucky little boy!
After we were done with the meetngreets, we headed towards the American Theater to get in line for the 2nd Hanson show (the 1st one had just let everyone in for the show).
We got in line and were about 20 people from the front. It was going to be at least a 90 minute wait but we could see the stage from there and we got to see the first show.
Behind us in line were a bunch of girls dressed in banana costumes (it was Halloween after all).
Finally, it was time to go in and yes, we got front row. I was so excited. Hanson at Disney World on Halloween. Pretty sure it doesn't get better than that!
Dominic even acted like he was excited. The show lasted about 40 minutes and they came out in costumes of course :)
After the show we were a little hungry so we found the Hops & Barley booth and ordered. Only good things could come from a booth named Hops & Barley, am I correct?
Oh yes!
Linda Bean's Lobster Claw Cuddler with Drawn Butter
1 snack credit used - 13 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $6.50
Grand Dining Total - $157.42
Here's a picture of the meat inside the claw:
It was awesome and I wish I had known it would be that good. I should've just planted myself in front of that booth and ordered all 20 of my snack credits worth of these claws. Yum.
We also ordered:
Linda Bean's Perfect Maine Lobster Roll
1 snack credit used - 12 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $7.25
Grand Dining Total - $164.67
This was also amazing. I love seafood and these did not disappoint.
We quickly made our way to the boat launch once again and got super lucky! We caught the last boat across! Otherwise we would've had to walk all the way around the world AGAIN (literally!) We enjoyed our night time boat ride and made our way towards Nemo's ride.
While on the Nemo ride (right at the end), the shells go past a real aquarium and we got to see a dolphin swim by as we were about to get off the ride... so cool. Then we were off to our late ADR at Coral Reef. I had heard some bad things about this place so I wasn't expecting too much.
After checking in, we sat in the lounge area for less than 3 minutes before being brought to a table farthest from the tanks. Darn!
Dominic got straight to coloring & puzzles. The waiter brought his drink with a plastic dolphin attached to it.
Our waiter was super nice and very quick with everything. The restaurant was pretty loud... we saw quite a few toddlers throwing night time tantrums and getting dragged out by their parents. I guess that's the norm in Disney World after 8pm.
Our bread basket came:
We ordered and got our food quickly. Dominic got this:
Cheese Pizza w/ Ice Cream Sundae - $8.99
This was my appetizer:
Crab Cakes - with tropical fruit salsa and tequila aioli $10.99
This was awesome. Full of flavor and I loved every bite!
Next was my entree:
Lobster Ravioli - with Rock Shrimp, fresh Tarragon, and Lobster Cream $26.49
This was also amazing. I ate it all and not exactly sure how seeing as though I was so full from everything that day.
Then it was dessert time. I couldn't wait to try this:
The Chocolate Wave (contains alcohol) - served with raspberries $7.99
I'm not a huge fan of chocolate but this was sooo good. I ate every bit of it. The chocolate cake had a warm center to it and the raspberry sorbet went sooo well with it.
Overall, we loved this restaurant. I would return here anytime I'm on the dining plan. I couldn't see paying out of pocket for it though.
2 Meals at Coral Reef
2 table service credits used - 24 table service credits left
Actual Cost - $60.33 (without tip)
Grand Dining Total - $225.00
So here we are at the end of day two and already only $25 away from breaking even on what we paid to upgrade our dining plan. Good deal, yes?
We started heading out of the park and got to see some of the firework show, Illuminations, as we were walking out. Dominic fell asleep on the bus as we headed to our room. We took a stroll to the food court to refill our mugs and called it a night. Lights out by 11pm. Animal Kingdom tomorrow.
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