Day 6: Shopping, Sales and Shakes
Monday 23rd April 2019
When our alarm went off this morning, we decided that we were too tired to hit the parks, so changed our plans to a leisurely breakfast and some shopping, before heading to the parks later in the day.
We had a slow start and were at Bob Evans for 8:30. This was a new restaurant for us and we were excited to see what it was like. We had a more mature lady as our server, who was very attentive and friendly. Nathan having not consumed enough sugar this holiday opted for the French toast $5 and I had a mini sampler $6.
Unfortunately, Nathan didn’t rate his toast highly, as it was soggy. My sampler was ok, the potatoes looked crispy, but were actually a little hard and undercooked in the centre, the rest of my breakfast was fine. We were glad that we had finally tried the restaurant, but both feel that it is not one that we would rush back to in a hurry. It is really affordable though.
After yesterday’s Target fail, I was having withdrawal symptoms, so we nipped in for some bits that we wanted to pick up to take home with us. We like to stock up on Advil, American cereal etc. that you can’t get back at home, I also chose some ‘candy’ for my students, which was reduced by 30% now that Easter Sunday had been. I also picked up a couple of cute fabric Easter fabric bucket things, that I now use to give out sweets to trick or treaters, as they were down to $4.
As a lazy morning was now on the agenda, we decided to head to Disney Springs for a meander. I have mentioned before, but I love the atmosphere here and spending time walking around, listening to the musicians and taking it all in. Our bargains at Target had reminded us of our Ghirardelli bargains we found at Christmas, so nipped in to see if there were any Easter treats to be had - there were! We grabbed a chicken filled with chocolate squares for $9.
We had managed to book a reservation for Beaches and Cream, but were planning on going for desserts only, which is why we still had a big breakfast. I had seen the secret menu for shakes, which are on MDE, through The Disney Food blog and knew I would be ordering one of these. I had the confetti one and it was delicious, it was expensive at $13, but you got to keep the cup, so not too bad. It was a thick and tasty vanilla shake, with a confetti cupcake on top (which I had to box up and take with me to eat later). Nathan had a huge No way Jose sundae, chocolate, hot fudge and peanut butter, which he of course managed to finished. You can see that he caught the sun at the Poly in this pic - He’s my lobster!
The shopping bug had well and truly hit me, so Nathan drove us to Internal Drive outlets. In my defence, we did want to pick up some gifts for our nieces. We got them some outfits from Tommy Hilfiger and I may have purchased a few other ‘necessities’ for myself! We also found a bargain in the Character Warehouse, a blue spirit jersey for $20, I was so excited and couldn’t believe they were in the outlets!
Our next stop was back to the hotel to clean up and change before going over to Universal for the evening. As we were having a more slower paced day, we thought that mini golf would be a great activity. I love beating Nathan at mini golf and I had yet to beat him on the Universal courses, this clearly had to be rectified. There are two courses and we went for the sci-fi themed course. We knew that we would want to come back to complete the other side another point, so paid for them both now, to save a few pennies. It still came to an eye watering $60 for the both of us, this included our AP discount! I was gutted, as Nathan actually won, by 2 points?!
It was actually a difficult course and my balls kept on looping around the rims of the holes.
We played a quiz when we gave back our clubs and won some scratch cards, they were for 10% off of a game. As we had already brought tickets for the other course, we gave our cards to two families waiting to pay, who were both really grateful.
Ever since we had the Hard Rock potato skins in New York, I have been dreaming about them and was excited to be reunited. However. It wasn’t to be! We found some seats at the bar, but couldn’t see them on the menu. The bartender told us that they were currently only get sold at the NYC restaurant and that he gets asked about them constantly - see, I told you they were good! He did say that they should have been added to the Orlando menu in the next few months, does anyone know if this is the case?
I was too disappointed to choose anything else, so we didn’t stay for food. Instead we headed into IOA and went on the kids ride in the Seuss area. We were going to wait and watch the Hogwarts evening show, but we were too peckish to wait until 8:25, so our bellies forced us to leave.
We fancied something quick that we could take back and pick at in our rooms, so decided to try a Denny’s take out. It’s only around the corner from the Rosen Inn and we chose a variety of picky bits. We had wavy fires, onion rings and cheesy bacon tots for only $10. There was loads and it was all pretty good, a little salty, but I find this true for lots of American food. Nathan had a lime-a-rita that he picked up on one of our supermarket visits and I had a soft drink, but in my Disney mug.
As we had been beaten by our attempts at early entry this morning, we had an early night, ready to try again tomorrow.
Thanks everyone for reading along still,
Laura Xx