I forgot to mention in the last installment that Mom really enjoyed the Animation Academy. When I first mentioned it I don’t think she realized that the Animator talks you through and demonstrates the entire drawing. And if there is one thing Mom can do, it’s follow directions. She is a rules girl after all.
After another disappointing trip down Sunset Boulevard only to find Tower of Terror STILL not working, we struggled with the age old question of what to eat for dinner. MGM isn’t known for its counter service restaurants - and we’ve eaten at most of them - which makes meal time always a dilemma for us. We had already had sandwiches for lunch so we were thinking we needed something different. Mom didn’t want pizza and I didn’t want a sandwich.
What to do?!?!?
We finally decided to head back over to the Boardwalk area and see what we could scrounge up.
As we left the park, we saw we had just missed the boat launch and there was already a really long line for the next boat. So we decided to walk back to the Boardwalk area - but only after I solicited an agreement from Mom that she would not expect me to power walk and instead we would just stroll. She reluctantly agreed and we set off on our walking adventure.
And let me tell you, it is a long way around to actually get on the walking path. It seems to take forever - and Mom was questioning whether we were going the right way. I had never walked between MGM and the Boardwalk area before but I knew we had to get around the canal so I felt confident we were heading in the right direction. (If you remember, I usually have a good sense of direction except when driving at WDW - walking is excluded from this WDW lapse of directional sense.)
We finally got on the path and found it to be a very relaxing walk. It is a good mile or so and is quiet and not heavily traveled. And wildlife can be seen.
The next boat launch went by. And we decided to play the beat the boat game.
We didn’t speed up but we kept tabs on the boat to see if we would actually beat it...sort of like the Fates Game. And this time we did beat it - we made it to the Boardwalk before the boat went by. Wooohoooo!!!!! It takes very little to entertain me.But we still hadn’t answered the question of what to eat for dinner. I haven’t ever really paid attention to the more casual restaurants of the Boardwalk so we consulted a map and discussed our options. We finally decided on the Big River Grille & Brewing Works.
Flat Brody was happy we finally decided on a restaurant so we could finally sit down and get to eat something.
But the wait was 45 minutes. We decided this was okay since it would take us almost that long to get to another restaurant and then have to wait to get seated at the new restaurant. So we took our buzzing coaster and went to hang out for a good while.
We looked in the shops and watched the juggler and strolled from Jelly Rolls to Screen Door General Store (we couldn’t go further or our buzzing coaster wouldn’t work). We watched the surrey bikes go by in a circle time and time again. (And if I never hear another stupid surrey bike bell again I will die a happy person. People love those damn bells) We watched people eat their food - not stalkerish but longingly - or maybe longingly is stalkerish. We tried to find a bench with no luck. (You could see where the benches used to be bolted to the boardwalk but they weren’t there anymore. The must have been in the shop for repairs.) We even studied the menu. All the while never forgetting that we were tired and ready to eat.
***A little side note on the surrey bikes*** They look like fun but if you are hanging out on the Boardwalk be very careful. It seems that the surrey bike renters like to go up the bridge by the Swan and then speed down on to the boardwalk. While this is probably lots of fun, it is also very dangerous since the Boardwalk area is busy with little kids everywhere and the surrey bikes aren’t racing bikes and won’t be able to maneuver around people milling about waiting for their table at Big River Grille & Brewing Works. ***End of side note***
Finally we found a brick wall at the Disney Vaction Club model and took up residence to rest our weary feet and legs. Little did Mom know but this gave me another great opportunity to continue my little plan of convincing her to buy into Disney Vacation Club.
Flat Brody was happy to join in on my little plan.
He actually got really into my little plan but decided that he needed to leave it in Mickey’s hands.
Finally our buzzing coaster buzzed. Wooohoooo!!!!! And we even got a table out side. It was a very pleasant evening so it was a great table. You can actually see our table from the DVC picture above - it’s the second umbrella in.
Since we had already perused the menu we didn’t need a lot of time to decide. So when our waiter arrived Mom and I both ordered the Summer Seasonal Wowser’s Wheat beer - which was very good - and our meals.
Mom’s salad - Grilled Chicken Cashew Salad - marinated and served cold atop a bed of mixed greens with artichoke hearts, Feta cheese, tomatoes and cashews with honey mustard dressing
Flat Brody was anticipating my Hazelnut Crusted Chicken - sauteed and served in sundried cherry sauce, accompanied by garlic mashed potatoes and the vegetable of the day
Mom’s salad was really good but my chicken was only alright. Hazelnut crusted chicken sounded really good when I read it on the menu but it was just a piece of chicken with some gravy sauce. But the zucchini and squash were really good. Of course since I was starved I ate all of my chicken anyways.
One thing I did notice about Big River Grille & Brewery Works is that is wasn’t run very efficiently. They didn’t turn the tables quickly at all. People had to wait a good while to pay because the poor wait staff had to bus all of their tables. I just don’t understand why Disney can’t take a page or two from some of the really well run restaurants around the country. It would make the whole Disney experience much better for the guests and the company would make more money. Hmmmm - sounds like a no brainer to me.
After dinner we needed to get back to All Star Sports and I knew that in order to do this we needed to get back to a park. But which park? We could take a boat or walk back to MGM? Or we could take a boat or walk back to Epcot? Or take a bus from the Boardwalk which would require us to walk through the hotel and locate the bus stop and wait for a bus and then wait for another bus once we got to the park?
Hmmmm, decisions, decisions. We opted to walk back through Epcot and take a bus from there. This way we could see some of Illuminations since it was almost 9 p.m.
But by the time we got to Epcot we were pretty tired. We had left the hotel this morning before 8 a.m. so it was already a 13 hour day. Since we had to be up early then next morning for our Discover Future World tour and to check out of All Star Sports we decided to not stop for Illuminations in order to beat the end of the night bus rush. So we just keep walking through to the buses. (I really wish we had worn our pedometers this day because I think we walked at least 15 miles.)
We weren’t really all that sad about missing Illuminations because I knew that we would get priority viewing tomorrow night since we were doing an Epcot tour and we were really exhausted. And I got to show Mom the Illumination Cruises - what can I say, I am laying the ground work for future trips.
We walked to our bus stop but I had a hard time convincing Mom that I stopped at the correct stop. She thought she read Stop 15 on the sign and she wanted to keep walking. But it was actually Stop 13 and I was tired of walking. Finally convinced of the correct bus stop when I showed her the sign above our heads that said "13 Disney’s All Star Sports" she agreed to get in the relatively short line.
We didn’t have to wait very long at all for the bus to arrive. But I do remember that there was a Rosie Perez wannabe in line with us. She looked and sounded just like Rosie - big gold hoops and everything. Actually the woman and her daughters all sounded and looked alike. Sort of spooky.
We made it back to All Star Sports in no time flat but we didn’t go directly to the room. I wanted ice cream!!! So I obliged my craving and got a scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough. The sign at the ice cream counter said it was almost $4 which I thought was a bit excessive but I haven’t actually bought a scoop of ice cream in years so I had no idea what the going rate was. Thankfully when I paid it was only $2 and change. And as it turned out, I wasn't in the mood for just a scoop of ice cream - I was in the mood for a Mickey Bar so my craving wasn't exactly satisfied.
We took the short walk back to the room through the X & O football field and started packing up for our move to the Swan tomorrow. It didn’t take long since we hadn’t really unpacked. And then we got ready for bed and FINALLY I slept.
Next installment – I think they think we’re famous!!!!
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