Sounds like the dad should have taken his own advice! I would have found that incredibly annoying too.
I love that time of the evening. Unfortunately my photography skills are sorely lacking so I can never capture it in pictures that same.
I would have! I have a sweet tooth and could easily gotten my money's worth there. I have not done this dessert party but I really need to consider it.
It sounds fantastic. I just wish they wouldn't keep jacking up the price so much. Like I said, I could probably get my money's worth out of it, but it would be a bit expensive for a family of four and I'm not sure it's worth it. My oldest DD is Type 1 diabetic, so obviously that limits what she can eat, and my youngest DD would probably just pick at a few things, since she likes dessert but is not that adventurous with eating different things. Give her a chocolate chip cookie and she's happy. Probably something to save for an adults only trip, if I do one.
Staying at POFQ.
I'd have been tempted to start talking but I'd make things up or do it in some kind of an alternate narrative, just to mess with them.
Sounds like the CM maybe didn't understand what was going on? It's always unfortunate to be given conflicting information by 2 different CMs.
What? Wait... so you had enough room that you could sit down and see the castle show and fireworks? That would almost make it worth the price of admission for that alone!
Awesome! That makes up for the annoying ride you had earlier!
Wow, super annoying!
Well, he probably had to fuel up. 
Yay, I'm so glad you got to see it. I remember you messaging me about the timing of when I saw it. Glad it worked out.
... Stop being logical!!!
What an amazingly detailed trip report.Day 0: Thursday July 21st
This will be a text heavy update because we just didn't have time for pictures, but it's some background on what we had going on leading up to this trip!
As has become typical fashion before our trips, we didn’t have the easiest time leading up to our departure! DD started running fever and had to be sent home from daycare Tuesday which meant I had to scramble to find a sitter for Wednesday so I could still go to work. This had happened the week before, but she had seen the pediatrician who didn’t see anything and said it might just be teething. So this time, I was going to forgo a doctor’s visit if she didn’t keep running fever. She spiked a couple more times, and in the meantime, DS complained Wednesday night that his ear hurt and when I looked, I saw thick green drainage coming from his left ear. That’s never good. So I knew he was going to the doctor the next day to have that checked out, and figured DD might as well get checked out too since I was about to be leaving them with my parents for several days.
Thursday was departure day, but I was still working a half day. DH took off and was keeping the kids home anyway. I called to get them an appointment and the only time the doctor could see them was 11:50. We knew it would put us behind what time we wanted to leave, but that’s all we could do. I met them at the pediatrician's office when I got off of work, and we found out DD had an ear infection and DS’s eardrum had ruptured. 10 days of antibiotics for them both and 7 days of ear drops for DS, plus no swimming for him for 2 weeks which he was devastated about. DH took him home once his checkup was complete so they could start loading the car, while I stayed with DD for her checkup and had to stop at the pharmacy on the way home to pick up their medications.
Once we all reconvened at home and each kid had gotten a dose of antibiotic, I changed out of my work clothes and fed DD. We finally left the house at 2:35 pm for the 2 hour drive to my parents’ house. DS was pretty miserable because he didn’t have his iPad for the drive (he had left it at my mom’s house the week before when he had visited), and towards the end he started getting squirmy and saying he wanted to get out of the car RIGHT NOW. As I was fussing him a little bit and telling him we only had a short time left, he looked at me and said, “My stomach hurts.” Oh no. I barely had time to grab him a plastic shopping bag I had stuffed somewhere before he puked. A lot. Most of it didn’t end up in the bag. :-/ Thankfully we were close to my mom’s. I guess the antibiotic given on a mostly empty stomach before a long car ride wasn't the best idea!
We got there and she had a bath all ready for him. While she bathed him, we unloaded all of their stuff from the car and went over their schedules with her. DS had a little bit of a meltdown when I realized we had forgotten to get his toy Everest (from Paw Patrol) from home to bring with us. I had been talking to him a lot leading up to this trip about how DH and I could try to do something fun so DS wouldn’t miss being in Disney World so much, and we had decided I would bring his little toy dog with us and take pictures of her all around Disney World to send to him. He burst into tears when I said we had forgotten her, and DH and my mom were like, “Why did you even mention it?!?” But I still wanted to do something, even if we had forgotten the dog! So we looked around the toys my mom had at her house and decided we could bring his little Lightning McQueen instead. Crisis averted. Lightning was coming along on our adventure instead.
I fed DD one more time and DH and I left at 5:40 pm. We got some food before getting on the interstate and then we were on our way. We knocked out most of the drive that night, only stopping twice more. Once at a rest area where DH and a couple other girls were all playing Pokemon Go, and a second time for gas. We arrived at the hotel we had booked in Lake City at 2 am Florida time and went straight to bed.
Day 1: Friday July 22nd
Friday morning, we weren’t in too much of a rush because we knew we didn’t have much driving ahead of us. We got up at 8:30, took showers, and got dressed. It was about 10:15 am when we left. There was a Chick Fil A in the parking lot of the hotel, which we later realized was the same Chick Fil A we stopped at when we drove to Disney in May! So we decided to stop there first for a hearty breakfast before hitting the road since we probably wouldn’t be stopping for lunch.
It took a little while to get our chicken biscuits, but we had an interesting conversation with the girl checking us out. She asked where we were from, and we said New Orleans, to which she replied, “Oh yeah! … Where is that again? I want to say Louisiana, right?” Stay in school, people.
It was about 10:30 when we had our food and hit the road for our final stretch of driving, which would be about 2.5 hours. As we got closer to Disney property, we came upon a point where we could either follow our Google directions or our GPS. We ended up choosing the Google directions, which was the wrong choice! I had been so looking forward to going under first the Disney World arches, and then the MK gates to get to our hotel. I had Lightning McQueen up on the dashboard waiting to take his picture with the gates…and we totally bypassed it. We ended up coming in the back of property by Disney University and got to the Contemporary from the other side. I was so disappointed! But I was still excited to be there. DH thought it was cool to pass so close to Space Mountain coming from this way.
Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr
Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr
Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr
We unloaded our stuff, then DH went to park the car so we could go inside and check in. It was about 1 pm at this point, and they said our room was not ready but we would receive a text when it was. We left our bags with bell services and went upstairs to the Contempo Café to grab a cup of water to take with us before going over to the monorail station. We wanted to go to MK to catch a bus to the Boardwalk to check in for the Mega Meet. We had talked about the walkway, but we knew we would probably just do that when we were actually going to MK, so we thought taking the long way by going the monorail loop would be fun.
Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr
Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr
We got on the monorail and settled in for the loop around. Just as we arrived at MK, I get a text that our room is ready. Of course it is! So we had a moment where we stopped to decide what to do…should we go back to the Contemporary and unpack in the room, or keep going?
We decided to just keep going.
So after exiting the monorail there (and realizing how damn close the bus stop is to the Contemporary and that walking would have been SO much quicker), we hopped on a bus to the Boardwalk. The silent auction was happening in one of the convention rooms, so we headed there first and ran into Mike from our Viva Italia trip in the hall, so we stopped to chat with him for a few minutes. Then we went over to the convention room and met Tom Bell (host of the Disneyland show) first because he was giving out the credentials out front. Once inside the room, we immediately saw Jeff & Val, also from our Viva Italia trip, and stopped to talk with them first, then got a chance to tell Kevin & John (from the podcast) hi and catch them up on how we have been since Italy. It was fun seeing so many Viva friends!
We had a couple of items for the auction, so we went over to give those to Kathy (from the podcast) & her daughter Katie, then checked out some of the other items. They had some pretty neat stuff available for bidding! Our items went for about $150, so that was pretty cool. We had donated a set of the Passholder prints from Flower & Garden, and also 2 framed Disney postage stamp sets that we have been trying to sell at garage sales for years and couldn’t even get $5 for!
While there, we also got to meet Michael Bowling of the Disneyland show & Connecting With Walt, and his wife Carol. They are both SO sweet! It was nice to meet them now and spend some time talking with them since we were doing the Connecting With Walt meet up later on in the weekend.
After hanging out awhile there, we decided to go check out the Boardwalk area since we have never been there before, and make our way over to Beaches & Cream to see if they could take us any earlier than our 5 pm reservation.
We took a peek inside the Boardwalk Bakery and some of the stuff was sooooo tempting, but we were about to gorge ourselves on ice cream, so we stayed strong and didn’t pick anything up.
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There’s Michael’s head down at the bottom right corner. Lol He had walked over with us, chatting along the way with us.
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After a leisurely walk taking pictures and trying to stay in the shade as much as possible, we arrived at the Beach Club!
July 01-009 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
July 01-010 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
July 01-011 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
We made it to Beaches & Cream a little after 3 pm and asked if we would be able to get in early for our ADR. The CM outside said they were running right on time, so we probably couldn’t get a table earlier. But she did say there would be spots at the bar if we didn’t mind that instead, and it would only be about 20 minutes, so we decided to do that instead. There were a few seats outside available, so we grabbed a couple of them and waited. We were entertained by the lifeguards coming out to the pool and dancing for the guests while we waited!
It was pretty close to the 20 minutes quoted to us by the CM when I got a text that our seats at the bar were ready, so we went back to check in. And just in time, as it started pouring down rain as soon as we went inside!
I have always read on message boards and FB groups that this place is small, but I was not mentally prepared for how TINY it is on the inside!! How we were able to find a reservation for this place not once, but twice (we had originally booked it earlier in the day, then moved it later) is amazing and kind of mind blowing.
We grabbed our seats at the bar, and our server came to take our order shortly after. We had decided early on to split a meal and get our own desserts, so we ordered the burger & fries to share. Then we got to watch them make all of the desserts while we waited for our food to be ready, including many, many Kitchen Sink sundaes.
We even had a few minutes to FaceTime with DS while we were waiting for our food, and he got to see the lights go off and the red lights start flashing when someone ordered a Kitchen Sink. He got a real kick out of that! Soon enough, our burger & fries came, already split for us onto 2 plates.
July 01-012 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
July 01-013 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
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Then we ordered the most important part of the meal…dessert!! I ordered the No Way Jose (A Peanut Butter and Hot Fudge delight featuring Chocolate and Vanilla Ice Cream, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Morsels, Whipped Cream, and a Cherry) and DH ordered the Fudge Mudslide (A gooey, chewy Brownie covered with Hot Fudge, Three Scoops of Vanilla Ice Cream, Oreos, Whipped Cream and a Cherry). We even got to watch them being made!
July 01-017 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
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Our server insisted on taking one of both of us with our desserts.
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Then we dug in! And let me tell you, these sundaes were totally worth the wait. We had wanted to try this place for a long time, but never made the time to get over to the Beach Club to do so. We figured it would be perfect to do this trip with no kids, which would be a lot easier than having them along with us.
I made sure to get a photo of Lightning after he helped us enjoy our desserts.
Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr
We decided that although both desserts were delicious, we absolutely could have (and should have!) shared one. It’s so much ice cream!! But it was a fun splurge. One more photo on the way out. This is pretty much the whole restaurant!
The plan had been to go straight to DHS from there, but we wanted to go back to the Contemporary and get our stuff settled in the room first since we were planning on it being a late night. After a detour through the Beach Club lobby, we went outside to the bus stop. Luckily, the rain had stopped, but all of the benches at the bus stop were soaking wet so no sitting while waiting for the bus.
July 01-020 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
July 01-021 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
This was our first experience with the new screens they had up to let you know when the next bus to each destination would be coming. We found it wasn’t really helpful, as it would just keep changing. Like if it said an MK bus would be there at 5:08 pm, once it got to 5:08 and no bus had arrived, it would change to 5:15.
July 01-022 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
We took the bus to MK, then tried out the walkway over to the Contemporary. It’s SUCH a short walk to get there!
July 01-023 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
In no time, we were arriving back at the Contemporary and getting our luggage from bell services.
We were on the second floor of the Garden Tower. There was a single elevator right as we entered the building, but we learned quickly to just take the stairs because it was much quicker! But for now, with all our stuff, we took the elevator. We were right next to all of the big suites that had multiple entrances.
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July 01-025 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
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July 01-027 by disneymom1024, on Flickr
We were amazed at the size of the room! It seemed huge compared to other Disney resorts, even other deluxes, we have stayed at. I guess because it was one of the originals back when rooms used to be larger. We would have easily had space for all 4 of us including the Pack & Play and double stroller had we brought the kids with us. The only thing that I thought was kind of a miss were the sinks. They were large but not really functional as water didn’t rinse or drain like a normal shaped sink would.
Going back to the room ended up being a great idea anyway because it ended up raining the whole time we were there!
After unpacking as much as we had planned on unpacking (mainly just toiletries!) and freshening up, we went down to the bus stop to catch a bus to DHS for evening EMH! We had been hoping to take part in more late night EMH while we were there with no kids, but this was the only night that had them, which was a bummer. On the plus side, it had stopped raining and didn’t rain again for the rest of the evening.
It was shaping up to be a great night at DHS!
UP NEXT: Extra Magic Hours
Very Impressive! 
What a fun night! Good to get a positive report on the dessert party. Might be worth the money to have the uncrowded viewing spot. Wonderful nighttime photos! Glad you got another shot at Pirates without the talking family. Some people just don't realize (or care) when they're being rude to those around them. Today I booked a trip for early Dec. 2017 - I know it's ridiculously early to book but I'm excited
Wow, super annoying!
Yay, I'm so glad you got to see it. I remember you messaging me about the timing of when I saw it. Glad it worked out.
As always, beautiful pictures.
... Stop being logical!!!
Though, I will point out that next trip it will be the new Once Upon a Time show so he will be justified in wanting a good spot for that one
Seems like a nice evening and I love wandering through a nearly empty Disney park at night! Glad you got to see the Kiss Goodnight!
What an amazingly detailed trip report.
Your photography is amazing, some of those pictures look like they should be included in a Disney brochure!
I can't wait to read your other entries!
Both meals looks so yummy! I'm glad you decided to go there!
I would certainly say this picture speaks for itself! I'm glad you enjoyed getting to try a couple of different things for breakfast!So, how did we enjoy our first meal at Kona?
It looks like it was a fun event. I didn't watch the video of it, but I did listen to that podcast. I honestly haven't listened to the Dis Unplugged for all that long. I had listened to an episode here and there but never really added it to the constant rotation until this summer when I was driving to the hospital every day and needed more to listen to. Anyway, I now make a point to listen every week, but I felt like this 10th anniversary show was a great way to celebrate the show and kind of served as a nice introductory piece for me to get to know the cast a little bit better.
That is a fantastic picture!
Excellent choices!
Great picture!
So I can't tell, did you enjoy your breakfast?
I'm glad you guys enjoyed the podcast taping!
