A Hidden Mickey Wedding and a Disneymoon with a newbie - TR - Page 8 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Day 2 - Free Day/Poly Check In PART FOUR Dinner at Cali Grill
Thanks to everyone for being so patient with me! We have finally got settled and moved in to our new place. I started my new job last week - which has been quite stressful AND Ken brought home our xmas gift 2 weeks ago too...a new puppy!! His name is Riley (named after Riley Poole in National Treasure - disney movie) and he is a 12 wk old mini dachshund (brown). He is very cute. Ken is absolutely in love with him and so am I - we couldn't be happier. We are also now starting to look at a 4 night getaway to WDW in late Feb/early March or early May Anyways on with the show...!!
Day 2 - Free Day/Poly Check-In PART FOUR Dinner at Cali Grill
We decided the best way to get to California Grill was by monorail and set off for the GCH. We had a short wait for the monorail and made it to the Contemporary with plenty of time to spare. We checked in around 7:20pm (20 minutes early) and was escorted upstairs right away. We were given our pager and found a nice table beside the window to have a glass of wine while we waited. My first impressions of this restaurant was amazing. The ambiance, the view, just spectacular. We sat at small table by the window overlooking bay lake and the magic kingdom just as the sun was setting – so beautiful.
Amazingly, our pager went off at 7:30pm and were led to our table (10 minutes ahead of our ressie time!). In my opinion we got one of the best tables in the house – we were right beside the window with a view of Cinderella castle right in front of us. Our table had even been decorated with lots of cute confetti...(which we later got creative with the confetti...)
The host who seated us came right back over and said that he knew that it was our honeymoon, and we should have a romantic slow paced evening, and gave us the heads up that no one was out on the observation deck. He invited us to go out and have a moment together with our wine as the sun was setting and he would let our sever know we would be back in a few minutes. The view was amazing! I would head back to dine there again just for the views alone. At this point Ken was becoming very impressed with the customer service in Disney and how helpful and friendly all the cast members could be.
After soaking in our surroundings we headed back into the restaurant to order our appetizers. Ken decided on sushi (Double Crunch Rainbow Roll) and I went with the Sonoma goat cheese ravioli. When the food arrived it was so delicious I forgot to take pictures of our appetizers. Ken devoured the sushi and said that it was really good – some of the best he’s ever had. I loved the ravioli dish my only complaint was that it wasn’t enough. It was an appetizer after all but still very small portion size – it was so delicious I could order 4 more for dinner!
For our main I had the filet of beef (this was the start of what was to be too many steak dinners for me over the week). The filet was cooked perfectly to my liking and the sauce was to die for. A perfect meal for me thus far...
and Ken had the Bass - which I can't seem to find on any of the menus online - but it looked and tasted awesome. I'm thinking that this was a seasonal thing...
After our mains were finished we were only minutes away from watching Wishes. I was getting so excited. Since we had prime seats we decided to watch from our table rather than follow the masses out to the observation deck.
As soon as the lights dimmed and the the music started I reached for Ken's hand and got all emotional. Not only was I lucky enough to be sharing this magical moment with Ken but with Ken as my husband. Heaven.
Now I love wishes but I do have to say nothing compares to being right in front of the castle when you see it..not to say watching from Cali Grill wasn't good - because it was...
Once Wishes was over our server returned to take our dessert orders. Ken went with the Creme Brulee and I went with the Sweet Celebration.
Ken did say he found the creme brulee a little bland as did I with my dessert but overall it was a phenomenal meal and we would definitely return. Overall the total cost of the meal for the two of us was: $171.26 without tip. Most of our meal was covered on the DDP (except Ken's sushi starter and my wine) bringing our total OOP cost for the meal to $53.25. Not bad at all. It was an awesome meal to start off the trip. I would say that the views and the level of attention and customer service would bring me back there in a heartbeat, not to mention the food. At the end of the TR i'll let you know how we ranked all of our TS meals and who reigned supreme! Was it Cali Grill? You'll have to keep reading to find out...
After our meal at Cali Grill we were absolutely stuffed. We could hardly move. We decided to waddle on down to the gift shops to try and walk some food off then headed for the monorail. We called it an early night since we had a very early date with the princesses the next morning!
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Oooooh, what a romantic meal! My DH and I will be dining there for the first time this January, so I am thrilled to hear you rave about it.
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Tanya
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Day 3 - Magic Kingdom Day "That was the most magical day EVER!"...
Today was an early start – around 7 am I think. We woke to Mickey and Stitch telling us to “get moving” – Ken was less than impressed. I was super excited!! This was the day that I had been waiting for - the day that I can walk hand in hand down an empty Main Street with Ken on the way to our breakfast with the princesses.
We ended up leaving the room around 7:30 and heading for the monorail. A few minutes later we were being ushered into the breakfast reservations line at MK. I was super excited to be wearing my bridal ears and button (can you tell?) IMG_1653.jpg
Ken wasn’t wearing his hat but his pin was good enough for me! About 7:50 am we were led into the park. We were only about the 3rd or 4th family in line so we really did feel like we had MK to ourselves! Ken, being as goofy as he is and seeing just how ridiculously happy I was, suggested we skip hand in hand down Main Street – so we did! Just like we were 5 years old. Awesome. When we got to the hub we noticed that everyone in the crowd was veering to the left…we were the only ones in our group headed to CRT, everyone was headed to CP! I was thrilled! We would be the first people at CRT that day! WooHoo!
We got to the counter, gave the CM our names, and waited for our name to be called. A few minutes after we arrived another couple showed up with a small child. And guess who got picked to be the “princess of the day” and get one-on-one time with Cinderella before CRT opened? Not me….the little girl from the family behind us. While I totally respect their choice, I totally agree that they should choose children, it made that little girls day, I mean the look on her face? Priceless. But the little girl inside of me couldn’t help being just a tiny itsy bitsy little bit disappointed that I didn’t get some one-on-one time with Cinderella.
About 10 minutes later after the little girl and her family had her time with Cinderella the rest of us were let in to have our picture taken with the princess. Ken did very well and even played up to the little prince charming jabs she made at him – so proud. After the photo we were led upstairs by the “princess of the day” and her family. We got an awesome table right by the window (a continuing trend in our trip?) but half of the view was of the big crane that was parked right behind the castle (and remained there for pretty much our whole stay).
Our waiter came over quickly and took our drink orders and left us with the assortment of pastries and a purple wand for me...When the waiter came back he brought a sword for Ken "to protect his princess with"..it was very cute...here's Ken's scary pirate-ish face ....
We both decided to go with the traditional breakfast option and the food even came out to us before the princesses started to make their rounds. The first one out was Aurora (who is slowly becoming my second favorite – Belle being my first).
Our waiter was really great about coming back to take our photo when the princesses came around so we could both be in the shot. Next came Jasmine (sorry no pic of that one)…
Belle! We even had the best interaction with her…she was asking a ton of questions about how I met my “prince” etc. It was awesome!! All in all though the breakfast went by really quickly. We had seen all the princesses and eaten our fair share of food (ken had 2 plates) and we still ended up leaving at only 8:40 am.
On the way out we saw a couple of photopass people standing around in the hub..time to put them to work! We had a great photopass photographer this time round (best ive ever had I think)…she was awesome! She had us doing all sorts of creative shots and poses. I’ll have to post some pics in my next post since im over my limit for this post….
About 10 minutes later we decided it would be time to head over to Tomorrowland so we could be there for rope drop. It was really neat since all the Tomorrowland CM’s were out and chatting away with everyone to pass the time. The only thing I didn’t like about the morning was that we didn’t get to see the welcome show outside of MK. That is a favorite of mine. I’d get up early any day to watch that show!
Soon enough the rope dropped and we were all lead to the back of tomorrowland with some groups splitting off to ride Buzz Lightyear and others to Space Mountain…
Which one did we choose?
Will Ken enjoy his day at MK?
Just how much food is too much food?
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Anyways on with the show...!!
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Susan
Cali Grill & cannot wait to eat there with my DH! 
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