Our first full day (and "extra" day) at Disney World was a beautiful one! It also happened to be Fat Tuesday for those of us down south who celebrate Mardi Gras, so we had to wear our Mardi Gras colors to represent!
We also checked our cameras back home and were slightly surprised to still see so much snow and ice on the ground. Our area stayed like this for almost an entire week with power and water outages as well. The whole thing blew my mind and made me grateful we made the decision to leave early and extend our trip by a few days at the beginning!
So, since we had an "extra" day without park tickets and were staying at Pop Century, we decided to ride the Skyliner to the Caribbean Beach hub for a little Joffreys coffee before hitting up Disney Springs!
The line for the Skyliner kind of blew our minds because we hadn't experienced a Skyliner line like this in the past. I'm glad to say that it moved incredibly quickly due to social distancing. I wasn't complaining! Let me say, the "flow" at the Skyliner main hub is quite the process and requires a lot of organization on the cast member's parts, but they have got it going on!!
Brayden's first ride on the Skyliner this trip and he LOVED it! The Skyliner is always his favorite!
Speaking of favorites, the Toffee Flight is always a must-do for me! So delicious! Jason also ordered the same thing.
As for my little dude, he remembered the giant donut from our
Disney Cruise trip back in 2019 and had to get another. This time though, he decided on chocolate! (Seriously though, he was only 3 years old then...how does he remember some of these things?!)
After breakfast in our room, I headed over to the front desk to have my magic band reset. My magic band was the only one that wouldn't work on our room door and I was told that I had too many on my profile. For reference, these dated back even to the OG magic bands...Whoops! With a little change, they were able to get it all working again just fine! For future notes, deactivate some of those old magic bands you never use because they will mess with your current ones!
While in line for the front desk, I ran into
Kimberly! It was so much fun to see her!! We also made plans for dinner later on that evening.
Our next stop for the day was at Disney Springs. Upon our arrival, we headed straight for the Gideon's virtual queue as I had to find out what the cookie hype was all about!
This was a Tuesday and we arrived at Springs around noon. The virtual queue line for Gideon's was an hour and twenty minutes. I was ok with that because we just started our day and had plenty to see/do before leaving so it worked out. If you are interested in trying Gideon's cookies, I would plan to get in the virtual queue when you first arrive at Springs that way you can shop/eat while waiting!
We were on a mission to check out a few of the new things at Springs and one of those included the M&M store! It was so much fun inside!
Brayden's favorite was the wall of flavors!!
We also walked through World of Disney for a little while and purchased a few things. While shopping, Jason had a bright idea to ask about our Annual Passes at Guest Relations. They expired in 2020 and we heard if the expiration date was within a certain window, Disney was allowing for renewal. While waiting for Guest Relations, my phone popped up with a message about our return time for Gideon's. Since I just knew the answer to Jason's AP question would be a "no", I left him there and walked over to Gideon's for my return time.
We'd decided ahead of time on four different flavors to try - Eternal Flame (February Special), OG Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, and Pistachio Toffee. As an added bonus, I purchased the Peanut Butter Cold Brew to try. We also planned on sharing the cookies with our friends once the arrived the following day.
I waited about 20 minutes to get inside but this line also went relatively quick without any issues.
The cake slices looked tempting, but I figured I'd save those for a later trip!
While waiting in line to order cookies, I received a text from Jason, asking for my ID information! WHAT! I was so shocked to discover that our ticket expiration window did indeed fall in Disney's time frame and he was allowed to renew our AP's! Cue the hallelujah chorus!!
The Peanut Butter Cold Brew was different and Jason agreed with me - our first reactions were on the lines of "what in the world is this?" followed by "ok wait...that's kind of good!" It really was the oddest thing!
For a late afternoon lunch, we had Earl of Sandwich. We'd received a promo the day before about a 2 for $10 Tuesday combo and much to our surprise, we ended up at Springs on a Tuesday (unexpectedly)! Worked for us!
For those of you asking from instagram...yes, my child does still nap...and in his stroller at Disney! He's usually curled up a little more than this, but it works and he likes it! We purchased this stroller specifically because it gave him a little bit of room to stretch out and nap.
At dinner time that evening, we met up with Kimberly and rode the Skyliner over to Riviera for dinner at Primo Piatta. We love this restaurant and the menu has so many delicious options!
I ordered the Croque Monsieur with a side of tomato soup and it was very good!
I was so glad Kimberly was able to join us for dinner! It was so nice to chat and catch up with her!
After dinner, Brayden wanted too...swim! Surprise! Haha! Even though the main pool at Pop was out of commission due to upgrades, we were able to swim in the 50's pool which was located right outside of our building.
We cut into our Gideon's cookies that evening and we each had different favorites! Mine was the Pistachio Toffee, Jason's was the Eternal Flame, and Brayden's was the OG Chocolate Chip. Our overall thoughts on these cookies...well, we personally felt like they were overhyped. Were they good? Yes. Were they the BEST cookies I've ever had? No. Would I wait an hour and 20 minutes plus 20 additional minutes for them again? Maybe...but I would not go out of my way to do so. I have a very unpopular opinion and I do realize this but that's ok - our opinions are what make us all unique and different, right? :)
Up next: An "extra" day at the Magic Kingdom! Stay tuned! :)
