Today we had a late start. The bus to EPCOT took forever,(for-EVER!) so after seeing several buses go by (including 2 Disney-MGM buses) we got out of line and hopped on the next Disney-MGM bus, (figuring we'd take the "friendship" ferry over to EPCOT. So we did, and got there probably slightly faster than the folks that were queued up in the awful heat. Sometimes it's good to know the transportation system. =) I don't know it that well, but enough to know sometimes it really is quicker to take a bus to another park.




Anyway, Once we ferried over to EPCOT International Gateway we:
-went to Twinings for iced tea behind the Twinings store, and then into the store for our "parting gift" from the Tea Seminar,(turns out to be long handled loose-leaf tea diffusers).
-Oklahoma for the "THREE SISTERS" soup and seared buffalo (which was really good). We'll go back another time for the desserts. =)
-India for the semosa and tamerind sauce, and the coconut rice pudding. YUM! =)
-Poland for the cabbage roll and perogi, which we split. =)

We caught the "Voices of Liberty" performers at 130pm.. I love their costumes and the singing, of course! We also saw the "updated" (and by updated we mean, borrowed footage from Disney's California Adventure)"American Adventure" presentation.

Afterwards we walked around and eventually got to "Club Cool" (the former Ice Station Cool) as we still wanted to toast Andrew for his bday officially (yesterday)and that included us getting a photo of us toasting with some of his favorite drink. =) Sean asked a CM in Dream Squad outfit if she'd take a photo of us raising our papercup w/ Smart Watermelon in it and she was very oblging including offering to make Andrew a birthday button!!! =) So Andrew, we got a little something for you. =)

Sean did a LOT more pin trading than we expected. We hadn't been pin trading in WDW in several years despite our being here, we've just been too busy. Honest!! So this time, we brought the mini pin bag that we purchased at Co. D (thanks again C&J) and I had filled it with several (not a TON mind you, just several) traders, thinking it would either be enough, or maybe not trade at all. We've brought the BIG trading bag to WDW before and just not bothered with it. It's a hassle. The little bag fit in Sean's hip bag.. so we've been spotting lanyards, and we've been finding some neat stuff between Sunday night's Extra Magic Hours at MK, and at Epcot the last couple times we've been there. We now have the entire "pirate cuties" set they are selling here for $30.00 (but we traded stuff we had dupes of and a few mini pins) for some "hidden mickey" and mystery pins. We are well behind on trading with CMs so it's been fun finding things we didn't know about. I don't know if we'd bother if it stunk. =P Now we're almost out of traders though!! LOL

"Off to the Magic Kingdom via monorail, we had to change monorails at the TTC which was fine. Once at MK we went through bag check pretty quick and got to ride a few attractions and do a little pin trading. We caught the "FAMILY FUN" parade with Chip & Dale, Clarabelle Cow & Horace Horsecollar and the WDW band. Then we caught the Roger Broggie around to Frontierland.

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We had dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern, got fastpass for POOH, rode the TTC, rode Pooh, did some window shopping (Sean got the MK event party music) and caught the Castle show with the 4 of the Fab 5 (Daisy and Pluto weren't in it I don't think) and the Princesses, Peter Pan, Wendy, CPT Hook, Mr Smee (hurray!) and Maleficent. I took several photos and a couple mini videos that I have yet to consider uploading... "

LIBERTY TREE TAVERN:
As mentioned we had dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern. This is a family style all you care to eat typical "holiday" meal. Salad, dinner rolls to start. Turkey, roast beef, and honey pork loin (sort of ham) as well: green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni & cheese (which is holiday food depending on where you live I guess) and of course, stuffing!

I liked the salad and ate a BUNCH of it and had 2 dinner rolls, Sean seemed to like them too. However, the winner for this meal was the character interaction and the TURKEY. I didn't eat the roast beef but it looked dry, and Sean said it was salty. The green beans were my favorite but they too tasted WAY too freaking salty. The mashed potatoes were..alright, and as Sean says "it's really hard to mess up mashed potatoes!" =) The stuffing was ok. Our server, Karen really was great and kept up with us and brought out mugs of diet coke before Sean went completely empty. =) I had like 3 mugs of Diet Coke in those Liberty Tree Tavern mugs. She brought out more turkey for us but we left some as we were freaking stuffing ourselves and wanted to leave room for the dessert to come. I was telling Sean.. which sport is it that has the 2 halftimes?? OH yeah, HOCKEY.. that's me.. I'm needing my 2nd halftime to just, you know, breathe and digest! LOL. So dessert came and it was apple cobbler w/ vanilla bean ice cream. Sean cut it in half and served it in the little bowls that came with it and then we got our check and in total it was..

something like $61 bucks not including tip.

We keep running into people surprised we aren't on the dining plan. Karen told us that it seems like everyone there at Liberty Tree are on it, so she just assumed. It's weird. We were asked when I made the ressies a couple weeks ago.. We were asked again by the CM at the check-in counter and again said NO.. and then I guess they didn't tell Karen either. I have heard that the dining plan screws a lot of the host/ hostess CMs who get some crappy tip as part of the dining plan.. so say you spend $100.00 at a nice restaurant like Jiko or that new Italian Place, the servers get like $4 for serving you your jacked up dining plan meal. So I guess that explains all the depressed faces working Liberty Tree and some of the other places we've seen. Karen was super nice to us, although she seemed tired. I think she may have assumed we were dining plan people cause I was so excited to be there. It's hard to get a reservation at Liberty Tree. It's not the food that's for sure.. but the character experience.

We got to meet Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, and Chip & Dale! Even though we had our character experience already, they still stopped and waved and Minnie gave me fake "smooch smooch" as did Dale and Chip. I was so excited to see Chip & Dale.. they were cool. Also they would point at our plate and make gestures and Sean would let them know that we were enjoying our meal and it was great. =)

I was worried that we were taking too long, as at one point the area we sat in was mostly cleared of guests (who were there before us) and only us and maybe two tables had guests which made the area eerily silent. =) Then they brought more guests in to be seated. They are doing this thing where they have a CM stationed with a computer PADD to keep track of how long it takes for the tables to turn.. communicating with the front to track when tables are available for the next guest with ADRs.

This happens at Boma as well, and I'm sure that's the case with a lot of the sit-down meals but like at Boma it was a puzzlement as we hadn't seen it done before. I don't know if I like the PADD person to be so obvious. I know they aren't tracking US but rather the servers and the tables; Still, it's a bit disconcerting. At Boma, the CM with the PADD seemed to loiter on the other side of our table, what made us realize he wasn't a survey taker was when he was chatting with another CM who turned out to be the CM who had checked us in with our reservation pager.

So anyway, we left stuffed and happy with the character meeting & greeting at our table. I call that worthwhile so I'm happy with that. On top of it, Karen was a rock solid CM who I feel lucky to have been hosted by. Seriously. Some of the CMs there need to pretend they aren't so miserable.