Birthday weekend trip #1

5/17~DAY 1: Whispering Canyon Cafe, Magic Kingdom and DTD
This morning was going to be a special morning for us. We were going to the Whispering Canyon Cafe for the very first time. Now that's exciting enough, but what made it really special is my DH Aunt is a waitress there and we were really looking forward to seeing her. We arrived at the Wilderness Lodge at 9:30am. DH Aunt said to arrive a little later so the big crowds would be gone, and to ask for Tootsie Pop when we get to the hostess counter. She's worked at the WCC for 10 years and that's her "waitress name." We had to wait less than 10 minutes for a table, even without a reservation. We took the time to explore the lobby of WL. It is just amazing. We both were in awe of all the details. It's now on our "must stay there someday" list.
Once we were seated, we both ordered the all you care to eat skillet and it was SO good. During the meal my DH asked if I saw any ketchup anywhere. Since I read about all things Disney, all the time, I was aware of this little "treat" at the WCC. My DH had NO idea what would happen. I told him just to ask his Aunt for the ketchup, and I must say that the look on his face made my day. All in all, I give our visit to the WL and the WCC an A+. The food was excellent, it was wonderful to get to visit with our Aunt and the Wilderness lodge is just awesome.

After breakfast, it was time for some magic, so we drove to MK. We opted for the ferry because the only monorail open was the resort monorail and it had a very long line. Our FP+ for the day were Under the Sea, BTMR and Splash Mountain. I scheduled UtS~1:30-2:30, Splash~3:45-4:45 BTMR~ 4:50-5:50. Scheduling the FP+ this way, allows us to do UtS at 1:30 and explore the rest of the park until about 4:30, when we headed to Splash and we were able to ride BTMR immediately after Splash. Each time we visit MK, we try to fit in as many things as possible, but after so many visits we've learned to do it in as relaxed a way as possible.

After we rode UtS, which really is a cute ride, DH suggested we go into Bonjour! Village in Fantasyland. Since we got our first AP to WDW 6 years ago, I have been searching for a Chip mug. I'm actually shocked that they've never had one, because the Chip character is actually a tea cup. I just thought that he would be one of the first characters from B&TB they made into a mug. But, in all our visits, there has never been a Chip mug. Until.....Today! We walked into the store and on the very first table was Chip. I was so excited. Of course I got "him" and asked the CM if they had the mug anywhere else. Before I could stop her, she said "I'll be right back." When she came back, she informed me she called the Emporium on Main St. and they said that Chip is exclusive to Bonjour! In the parks, but that he may be at DTD.

Thanks and I'm planning on sharing with him your anniversary present to your wife too. A girl can dream

We had Chip sent to Guest Services and decided to see if the CM's at 7 dwarfs mine train had any new info. As we were walking there, we saw a train full of people riding it. We walked as fast as we could to the front and asked if it was a soft opening. There were about 5 CM's and they were all fielding the same question. They were also all giving the same answer. "These are all cast members riding and this is the only soft opening that we know of right now. The ride will be opening on May 28." We actually checked backed several times, just in case, and we were told the exact same thing each time. With no luck at the 7DMT, we decided to see Mickey's Philharmagic since the wait time was only 5 minutes.

We wandered around a little more, visited the nicotine attraction behind the castle, and went to Haunted Mansion to get it written on my DAS card. At this point, I was having a little trouble walking, so we decided to get a treat at Sleepy hollow. We've never had a plain waffle from there so we split one with powdered sugar and cinnamon only. This turned out to be a mistake. We LOVE SH waffles. They are the best we've had at any CS in all 4 parks. But there was so much cinnamon, and very little powdered sugar, that it was almost impossible to each without choking. Live and learn, next time-No Cinnamon.
At this point it was almost 3pm so we got a spot right on the walkway down from the castle, right beside SH, to watch the parade. We actually got one of the benches at the railing on the walkway and this turned out to be a perfect spot to watch the parade. It was just as amazing as the first few times we saw it, but this time.....we got to see the Maleficent Dragon breathe fire! We hadn't seen this before. The first time we saw it, it roared but it didn't breathe fire. It was SO awesome! After the parade, we went to HM, and got the hitchhiking ghost that changes our heads around. That will never get old to me. At this point we decided to get PoTC written on my DAS and visit the nicotine attraction beside Aloha Isle. It was now time to get to Splash Mountain. As some reading this may know, last month was the first time we ever went on SM. It was because of all the nice people on this forum convincing me that we wouldn't get too soaked, that I decided to try it. Now it's on our must list.
This time, we were in the second row, with two "tweens" in front of us. Translation~not very tall people in front of us=not much coverage from splashes! Well, we definitely got wet this time, but it was still not a soaking wet, so I was fine. After SM, we rode BTMR and PoTC right after that. At this point, we decided just to walk around and wander through shops for awhile.

It was now almost 7:00 and we were both getting hungry. We decided to try something different and go to DTD for the evening. Since our visits to WDW are almost exclusively weekends only, we don't go to DTD because we want all the park time we can get. We've only been to DTD once before. Based on recommendations I've read on this, and other forums, we decided on Earl of Sandwich for dinner. It was very busy, but the line went down relatively quickly. I ordered the Club and DH got the philly cheesesteak. I have to say that we were both extremely disappointed in our sandwiches. I got ONE piece of thin turkey on mine and they didn't even put it on both halves of the sandwich! I ordered it with no tomatoes, so all I had on one whole side of sandwich was a little cheese, a few bacon bits, a huge piece of lettuce and bread. Even the side with the turkey had nowhere near enough turkey. My DH sandwich was no better. One piece of thin lunchmeat on his too! It was almost entirely bread too. It was so bad, we won't ever be trying EoS again.

After our "dinner" we walked through some of the shops and spent a lot of time in WoD. That's an awesome store. We even got to see some of the SiTS fireworks from HS. What we could see were amazing. They changed colors in the sky and they were in the shapes of planets. Really cool fireworks! Needless to say, we were both still really hungry so we decided to do the adult thing and eat lots of ice cream for dinner. We went to Ghiradelli's. I got the brownie sundae and DH got the espresso sundae. We got a table outside and watched the volcano erupt at the Rainforest cafe. It was almost 11pm and time for bed! All in all, except for our dinner at EoS, it was a wonderful day!