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October 2007 Florida Trip - Part 5

Part 1	Planning the trip On the Road	Days 1-3, Great Smoky Mountain and Blue Ridge PW	Days 4,5, Kennedy Space Center	Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa
Part 2	Day 6, Epcot	Day 6, Ticket and Transportation Center		Day 6, Magic Kingdom
Part 3	Day 7, Downtown Disney	Day 7, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party	Day 8, Animal Kingdom	Day 8, Animal Kingdom at night
Part 4	Day 8, Magic Kingdom (Night/Wishes)		Day 9, Disney-MGM Studios
Part 5	Day 9, The Boardwalk, Grand Floridian	Day 10, Downtown Disney	Days 10-11, Portofino Bay Resort	Days 10-11, Universal Studios Florida
Part 6	Days 10-11, Islands of Adventure		Days 10-11, City Walk

Please read the notes about this trip report in Part 1.

Day 9 (continued)

The Boardwalk and the Grand Floridian Resort

Click to go directly to the slideshow

(Backstory: Around Day 6, PiC wants to eat at a nice table service restaurant. I bring up wdwig.com (uh, actually allearsnet.net, but my fingers always types wdwig.com) and warn her that due to the dining plans, she probably won't get what she wants. I prove to be correct. Helpful CM tells PiC what is available, and we have reservations at Citricos the evening of Day 9. I always wanted to visit the Grand Floridian...)

We leave Disney-MGM a couple of hours before our reservations so we can take the long way. Thru The Boardwalk.

I am going to retake panoramics at the Boardwalk, so we get off at the Swan/Dolphin, so we don't have to sit on the boat two more stops. Besides, one of the places I wanted to photograph was closer to the Swan/Dolphin than Boardwalk's boat dock. I make sure I do it right this time, knowing now how things have to be framed. (But I still had a hard time putting it together.)

I lead PiC up the stairs and to the resort's bus stop, and we catch the bus to Magic Kingdom. The next stop for the bus was the Swan-Dolphin, so PiC thinks the route I chose is taking us around in circles. Well, yeah, it is, but it'll eventually get us there.

Bus gets us to MK, and we walk right across and monorail to the Grand Floridian (GF). Probably the first time I went to the Magic Kingdom, and didn't go to the Magic Kingdom.

Walt Disney World, The Boardwalk, Day 9

Now that I've been to the GF, I'm not sure I want to stay there. I felt like I ought to be wearing a collared shirt just to go to the food court. I guess I'm not the high-end luxury hotel kinda guy. (See Portofino Bay below...) I think I'd rather stay at an AKL or Coronado Springs...

Dinner at Citricos was excellent. PiC had the filet, I had the veal shank. We ordered desert, even though we usually don't... PiC had the chocolate lovers something-or-the-other, and I had the lemon cheesecake. The presentation of these were so amazing, I took pictures. Our waiter laughed and said more people take pictures of their deserts than they do of characters...

(The blue semi-circular 'Where Dreams Come True' background is food-grade inkjet ink on a sugar background. (It was. I ate some of it. :-) ) B&B on the plate was chocolate, and the glass on the right was 12yo MacAllans. A good year too.)

Best of all, it was all done on my Disney Visa Rewards card. (Dear Chase Bank... You should remit the check for advertising your Visa credit card to...)

Walt Disney World, The Grand Floridian, Day 9

Day 10 - Downtown Disney

The Downtown Disney photos were just thrown in here. The West Side pan was taken right near the spot I took the Saratoga Springs panoramics. Legoland has new Lego creatures outside (though the sea serpent in the lake remains) and that they would design one that had a family that was taking pictures and video of you was just too funny...

Walt Disney World, Downtown Disney, Day 10

Day 10 & 11 - Universal Orlando

Portofino Bay Resort at Universal Orlando. Even though there are burned out lights, it looks much better at night than during the day...

[I didn't write a lot on Universal Orlando, but that might be because the section was originally pretty small when it was first published in 2007. You can read more about it in my Universal Orlando pages.]

I hate lines. There. I said it. Lines just exist to waste my time. Drivers licenses, grocery stores, even long waits at restaurants are just minutes of my life I won't get back.

Thus the draw of the on-site Loews hotels. [See Universal Orlando, On-site Resorts for more information and pictures of the other hotels...]

Portofino Bay Resort is the high-end hotel on-site. Like the Grand Floridian (and the Grand Californian, for that matter) I've come to the conclusion that I don't like the high end places. (There's nothing wrong with them, but if given a choice, I'd stay at another on-site resort. Okay, maybe I'd stay at the Grand Californian again...)

I will admit, that there is plusses to the places. Citricos is the first place I've seen Macallans on the menu, and Portofino is the first place that I've seen Walker Blue Label... At a significant price, I might add.

Loews surveyed me after my stay and I blasted them for putting me in a room the absolute farthest from the lobby, and instead of having a 'Bay View', I had a 'Tree View'. I also told them that the buildings looked hokey being painted, something that 'A Certain Competitor Down The Road would never allow,' and that the place did look much better at night. I wonder if anyone reads those comments...

Perhaps I just don't care for the motif. I rate opera just above someone scraping their fingernails on a blackboard. The singers at dinner made me cringe. They appeared again over the courtyard later that night. I was being haunted by them.

Anyway, forced to decide which Universal resort I like the best, it'd have to be Hard Rock. The convenience of having the parks and Citywalk within (relatively) short walking distance is a big plus.

Oh, and one other thing. Last night of our vacation before we drove home, we went to the Blue Man Group. Other than the person next to us who took up his seat and 25% of the seat to either side of him (I think people like that should have to sit in the middle of their party, not the end...) this show was amazing. I'll never look at Captain Crunch cereal the same ever again. Highly recommended. Loud though. I was in a seat that could see the sound mixer. Everything was in the red a lot. :-)

Universal Orlando / Portofino Bay Resort