Family Disney Trip 2017: Day 8 – Resort Wandering

The last day always makes me so sad. I’m usually ready to sleep in my own bed, shower in my own shower, drink my coffee at home, which is way better than the coffee at the resorts. But this trip was different. I wasn’t ready to leave, but that meant I wanted to get the most we possibly could out of our last day!

We said goodbye to our room and to the savannah view and checked our bags at the resort airline check-in, and then we were onto our last 2017 Disney World day.

We decided to start our resort wandering at the farthest spot, so we took the bus from Animal Kingdom Lodge to Magic Kingdom. From Magic Kingdom, we hopped on the Monorail and went to The Contemporary, Polynesian, and Grand Floridian.

First up was Contemporary to check out their gingerbread house. It was pretty cute but, I have to say, I was a little disappointed since I’ve seen the Grand Floridian gingerbread house before and this one definitely wasn’t as impressive. If you haven’t seen any of them, I strongly urge you to check out The Contemporary, first. It’s really cool, and then you’ll see the other one and be blown away.

One thing I get every trip is a mug. I love collecting mugs. And I hadn’t seen any I wanted, so in addition to my Dooney search, I was also hoping to find a mug. I struck out on the Dooney at The Contemporary, but I found the coolest mug!

We’d already been to The Polynesian this trip, since we had dinner at Ohana on or first night. We’d gotten to our reservation a bit early so we had a chance to check the decorations then, so this stop was almost entirely for Dooney hunting. I struck out again, but I got to grab myself a delicious latte at the Kona coffee stand, so I was a happy lady.

Last stop on the Magic Kingdom Monorail loop is Grand Floridian. From the Monorail, you walk in on the 2nd floor and get to take in the amazing beauty of the tree and grandeur of the lobby from up above.

It’s pretty damn impressive when you’re standing next to it, too. 😉 Good, bad, or indifferent, my top priority was checking Summer Lace for my Dooney. I have to say, the cast member who worked there was beyond amazing!! Every time I found the bag I wanted in the sketch print, I’d ask the cast member working if there were any more than what was on display so I could look at the different pattern options. Some understood the concept better than others, but she immediately said she totally got the importance of the search and went to see what she could find. She came out with her arms absolutely overflowing with bags!! I’d originally told her I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I knew I hadn’t found it yet. She laid out all the bags on a table and started talking to me about what I did and didn’t like and helped me narrow it down and finally choose the PERFECT bag!

Jessica, if you’re reading this, thank you so much for all the time you spent with me!

Now that I was thrilled with my bag, hubby was probably secretly happy I’d shut up about it, and not secretly happy we could just enjoy the day without checking every store. First up was a closer look at the Grand Floridian gingerbread house!

By now it was lunchtime and we were hungry, so we strolled over to their quick service restaurant to grab lunch and, I have to say, we were really impressed with it. We sat outside and just took in the day and enjoyed every minute we were together. Then it was time to head to our next resorts.

When we were done, it was time to take the Monorail back to Magic Kingdom, and then get a bus to The Boardwalk.

If you read my post about day 5, you already know we spent a pretty good amount of time over on the Boardwalk the night we had dinner at Trattoria al Forno, so we mostly wanted to check out the decorations at Yacht and Beach. So we strolled, hand-in-hand, along the boardwalk and over the bridge towards Beach Club.

Beach Club is at the very top of my list of places I want to stay. If you read my post about the craziness of planning this trip, you already know, but I want to stay right in this area and we’ve never stayed at Beach Club before.

We wandered in and saw, in my opinion, the most impressive of all gingerbread creations.

A carousel! A freaking moving carousel out of gingerbread. Last time we were in Disney World at Christmas, we saw it, but it still just blows me away. It’s incredible what Disney can do.

Yacht Club was next but neither of us is really into the theming here, so we looked at the tree but then were pretty much ready to go.

We headed down to the dock to catch a boat over to Hollywood Studios, so we could then catch a bus back to Animal Kingdom Lodge from there. (You can also walk from the Epcot resort area to Epcot or Hollywood Studios, but we were doing pretty well on time and enjoy the boats, so that’s what we opted for).

We had amazing timing with the boat so we got over to Hollywood Studios pretty quickly. As we were walking by the entrance on the way to the buses, I couldn’t resist having hubby take a pic with the Sorcerer Mickey topiary so I could show off my new bag and Happily Ever Tees shirt (I was trying to delude myself into thinking going home was a good thing).