30 March 2013 – Port Orleans Riverside
A slow start to today as we were still tired after moving from the cruise ship to Riverside yesterday. We had breakfast in the food court and were surprised to see this resort only had plastic cutlery and paper plates – when Art of Animation had proper metal cutlery and crockery. We also noted a lack of cereal choices and you have to ask for tea bags from the checkout. But those are only small points as the resort itself looks magnificent.
After breakfast, we headed to Epcot to once again check out the Flower and Garden festival. We couldn’t believe how much it had grown since we were last there a couple of weeks ago. There was much more colour as the plants and topiaries become more established. We had a Mickey ice cream as we walked along – not needing lunch as we were meeting Brian and Patty later for dinner. We did a complete lap of World Showcase, and got a photopass photo in front of the Torii gate in Japan.
We then hit the shops and also visited the camera shop to check out our photopass photos. We also got a photopass photo in front of the main entry topiary with Spaceship Earth in the background. It was about 2pm when we left the park and headed back to the resort. We quickly got changed and then headed to the lobby where Brian came to pick us up as Patty was waiting in their car. We all piled in and we drove over to the Grand Floridian Hotel for a look around. In the lobby they had made a spectacular display of chocolate Easter eggs that depicted Disney scenes, so I photographed every one. We then went outside and looked at the gardens and around the hotel and shops before catching the monorail to the Contemporary Hotel. There we looked all around the hotel and took photos with the Mickey sculpture outside that allows you to sit in his ears – great fun.
Inside, we had dinner at the Contempo Café and Brian and Patty presented us with a number of cast member exclusive pins and a wonderful cast member presentation coin for the opening of Tokyo Disneysea which is beautiful. We are so lucky to have made such wonderful friends – we really hope they can make it to Australia at some point or that we can cruise together again in the future.
After dinner, we all caught the monorail over to the Polynesian Resort. We’ve never visited before and didn’t realise how nice this place was going to be. It is beautiful inside and we took a look at the volcano and pool area which was great. We went back inside and bought Dole Whips and ate them outside. It was another cloudless evening and spoke chatted for a couple of hours before realising it was time to get the monorail back to the Grand Floridian. Of course, Della had to check out the shops and she found a Easter Mickey which she bought.
We eventually caught the monorail back to the Grand Floridian and Patty drove us back to Riverside. We hugged goodbye and were sad to see them drive away as we had made wonderful friends and it is such a shame they are on the other side of the world from us! But we’ll keep in contact and I see us catching up a lot in the future.
We headed back to our room, picked up our mugs and got a couple of hot chocolates from our food court, before returning to the room and calling it a night. Tomorrow, we will spend the morning packing for our flight to LAX, before spending the afternoon and evening in Magic Kingdom.