Disembarking the Disney Dream & Disney Springs

Well, here we are in August and before we blink, it'll be Christmas time once again! In my thinking and reminiscing about Christmas at the parks, I was reminded that I never finished our November trip recaps, so here's the final one for you today! :)

Although we disembarked the Disney Dream on this day and it was technically our last full day before flying home, we seriously didn't waste a single minute of it! 

We awoke to the sunrise that morning in Port Canaveral and it was beautiful! It was definitely a mix of emotions as we enjoyed being able to split this trip with land and sea, but we were sad to only spend 4 days on board the Dream!

This was our very first time to utilize the pull out couch, so I had to capture our final morning! :)  At least we didn't have "chocolate face" that morning!! Hah!

Breakfast on our disembark day was at Animators Palate and it was nice to be able to say goodbye to our servers.

Something I noticed on our previous cruise were these signs in the hallway, just before boarding the ship and just after disembarking the ship. One side says "Welcome Aboard" when you're walking the hallway towards the ship and the other side says "See You Real Soon" when you're walking away from a ship. What a play on the emotions, huh? :)

For  our trip back to WDW, we used Happy Limo again and everything was great! They text the name of our driver to me while we were eating breakfast and our timing worked out great.

Goodbye Disney Dream!

Something I loved about this trip was the way we split it into pieces. Our first segment was at Walt Disney World for the Wine & Dine Half with a stay at Pop Century. We then boarded the Disney Dream for a four night cruise, followed by a one night stay at All-Star Sports and a trip to the Magic Kingdom for the very first Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party of the season!

All-Star Sports was a new-to-me resort and another one marked off my list!

Although it was not yet updated (like Pop Century) during our trip, I found everything to be in working order and just fine!

 

Our room was located in the tennis section and I thought it was super cute!

After getting settled in our room, we hopped a bus to Disney Springs for lunch at the Polite Pig and to check out the Christmas Tree Trail (both new-to-us experiences)!

Lunch was delicious! Jason, Brayden, and I all split this tray and it was perfect! I'll definitely be back! :)

Even though we were stuffed, we still left room for our trip-tradition, ice cream from Ghirardelli! Note to self, paper straws are terrible with shakes - always pack reusable straws in the future!

We LOVED the Christmas Tree Trail! Everything was so cute and festive! The trees truly reminded me of the old character themed trees in the (now non-existent) Camp Minnie Mickey at Animal Kingdom, these were just on a much larger scale!

See what I mean?! How cute!

I also loved the little extra touches that surrounded the trees.

Take this poster next to the Mulan tree for example!

My husband (who truly earned his magic band name of "bah humbug") said this was his favorite tree of them all. He knows I always go overboard for Christmas, so there's that...

A few of my favorite trees included:

Toy Story

TANGLED!

Fantasia

They were all so cute, it was hard to pick a top favorite.

Remember those magic bands I mentioned? Well, we all decided to order red magic bands for this portion of our trip and theme them with Christmas names (hence Jason's "Bah Humbug")! Mine was Noelle from the soon-to-be-released Disney Plus movie of the same name.

Spoiler alert: the movie did not disappoint!

After leaving Disney Springs, we returned to our room to drop off our purchases and change our shirts for the Christmas party. We were so excited to spend the evening at one of our favorite places during one of our favorite times of the year! If you'd like to check out a recap of our night at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, (and a video recap on YouTube), check out the links below! :)

We loved being able to spend this vacation with our friends and hope to be able to do so in the future. It truly was a wonderful trip, one I'll cherish and remember for the rest of my life!

Thanks for coming along with us! Have a magical day!

Disney Travel Day: Wine and Dine Expo & Animal Kingdom
Disney Day 2: Wine and Dine 10K & Kids Races & Hollywood Studios/Epcot
Disney Day 3: Wine and Dine Half Marathon & Magic Kingdom
Disney Day 4: Boarding the Disney Dream
Disney Day 5: Castaway Cay
Disney Day 6: Nassau
Disney Day 7: At Sea Day
Disney Day 8: Disney Springs and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

Disney Dream Day 4: At Sea Day

Our final day on the Disney Dream was a day at sea! It was relaxing and enjoyable and just the way we like it!

When Brayden woke up that morning, he had a random dark substance smeared all over his face and the bed sheets. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was actually a melted chocolate coin from Pirate Night the night before! Jason said Brayden fell asleep holding all three coins and was unable to locate one of the three in the dark. He assumed it fell down somewhere but was apparently still in Brayden's hand and it melted everywhere! After stripping the bed, I alerted the room attendant that the substance wasn't....you know....and we all had a good laugh over it! (Including Brayden)

Brayden still talks about the melted chocolate coin to this day!

Although we were scheduled for Palo Brunch that morning, we still wanted a small bite to hold us over, so we ordered a little room service. It was yummy, too! :)

Our first stop after breakfast was the Art of the Theme Ship tour. This is a tour I've taken on all four ships and pretty much each Disney Cruise I've done. It's a fantastic way to learn about the history and decor of each ship. If you have a chance to do it on your next cruise, I highly recommend it!

Palo Brunch, anyone?

Our plans for this brunch included the other couple from our travel party. They were first timers and we couldn't wait to hear their thoughts!

Palo brunch includes four tables for the beginning (and middle, and end) of your dining experience. 

One table has fruit, pastries, and amazing sticky buns while the others host seafood and savory options. The fourth table is my favorite though...it's dessert!

My starters! So good!

We also took the opportunity to split several of the main menu items with our friends so we could try out more dishes!

The calzone...

...lasagna... (my personal favorite!)

...parmesan crusted chicken...

...and the sirloin steak!

My favorite part was dessert!

After Palo, we tried our hand at the Ultimate Disney Trivia!

Tisa was our cast member for this trivia challenge and I don't know if you've ever played Tisa's ultimate trivia before, but it's HARD, y'all! She asks questions on things no one ever thinks to look at our count! By that I mean.....how many movie tiles are on Prince Charming's Regal Carousel. Like...what??

The next stop was back in our rooms to change into regular clothing once again. We also might have shopped a little on our way back to the pool to meet up with our friends!

Before dinner that evening, we played our final trivia challenge this one, we WON!

It ended in a 3 way tie and I was able to snag it in at the tie breaker question! "Idiots on a Cruise" reign once more! :)

My trivia medal added to the collection!

The gingerbread house was being built the entire duration of our cruise. We were sad to miss the Merrytime cruise celebration by just a few short days, but we still had Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party to look forward to!

That evening, we took part in a must-do of any Disney Cruise, the "Kiss Goodnight"!

Various characters are out and about in their cruise attire to say goodbye to their guests.

Brayden had a chance to see Daisy, Goofy, and Captain Mickey!

Ahoy, mate!

Although we were sad to say goodbye to the Disney Dream, we still had Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party to look forward to, and we couldn't wait!

Stay tuned for the final update of our November trip (finally) from Disney Springs!

Disney Travel Day: Wine and Dine Expo & Animal Kingdom
Disney Day 2: Wine and Dine 10K & Kids Races & Hollywood Studios/Epcot
Disney Day 3: Wine and Dine Half Marathon & Magic Kingdom
Disney Day 4: Boarding the Disney Dream
Disney Day 5: Castaway Cay
Disney Day 6: Nassau
Disney Day 7: At Sea Day
Disney Day 8: Disney Springs and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

Topolino's Terrace Breakfast Review

Maybe I'm really longing for Disney World...or maybe I'm just hungry? Well, whatever the reason, I came across pictures from our dining experience at Topolino's Terrace at Disney's Riviera Resort and wanted to share them with you today!

For starters, we were not staying at the Riviera on this trip. However, getting to the Riviera was an easy ride away! We were also on the Dining Plan and wanted to utilize our credits as best as possible. For us, that usually does not include using a table service credit for breakfast, but we decided to chance it for a breakfast experience at Topolino's Terrace and we don't regret it one bit!

Prior to the trip, I'd attempted to score a reservation for breakfast at Topolino's and was unsuccessful. For good measure though, I continued trying throughout our trip and literally at 11 p.m. on the second to last night of our trip, a reservation slot opened for Topolino's for 8 a.m. the following day! What a way to begin our final day at Disney, huh?

We were so excited!

Topolino's Terrace is located at the very top of Disney's Riviera Resort and you are welcomed into their lobby immediately after stepping off of the elevators. From the start, this restaurant gave me a very Disney Cruise Line vibe, which I was 100% in for!

I loved all of the subtle Disney/Mickey touches, too!

The view from the top is incredible!

After a very short wait, we were directed to our table. Remember that Disney Cruise Line touch I mentioned? Well, my DCL friends will recognize the knife on the table! How fun, right?

The breakfast menu was prix fixe and included an art dish of pastries (yet another ode to DCL) as well as an entree of your choice.

The pastries even had dipping sauces across the bottom of the dish and everything was oh so delicious!

As the characters began coming around, Brayden became "shy". (His head on my shoulder was a recurring thing this entire trip! He thought he was so silly. At least he's smiling! Kids crack me up!)

Brayden's meal was the kids waffles which he ate up!

Bonus: Look how cute - they had a Mickey AND a Minnie waffle! So fun!

I ordered the sour cream waffle dish after asking the recommendation of our waitress. She was amazing, by the way and also a fellow DCL fan!

Although I'm not a huge fan of sour cream, these waffles were delicious!!

Jason ordered the  wood grilled steak and said it was very flavorful!

We all took turns taking photos with the characters (I did solo, too). For sake of time, I'm just posting a few here.

The outfits of all of the characters were so cute!

We loved this new (to us) dining experience and will definitely add it into our rotation for a future dining experience!

Have you had a chance to dine at Topolino's Terrace? If not, do you plan on dining there in the future?