WDW 2011 Day 5 – Part One

Friday 1/14/11

After making sure to get to bed early the night before, we dragged ourselves out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6:30 to make our morning breakfast reservations in:

Today is Crystal Palace! Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, and Pooh – AND early morning access to the park.

The sun is not yet up, and even the plants are still tarped against nightly frost:

It’s so fricken early that the sign is even lit in my picture:

The sun slowly creeps into the sky as we ride the monorail:

It’s about 7:30 when we roll into the Magic Kingdom station – see?
(I love the old-fashioned clocks here – notice the little Mickey ears on the hands?)

The view from the MK monorail exit ramp:

We get in line:

I love the mix of clothing – Chris and I are in t-shirts and you can see some people are in full winter coats. I bet if you surveyed you’d find the less people are wearing the further north they normally hail from! When it hits over 45 in the winter in Michigan you’re opening the windows and enjoying the heat wave!

If I were by myself I probably would have let the crowds get to where they were going and get a better “empty park” shot:

But as it is – that is TOTALLY worth the early wakeup call. I love it. You also may notice that my other “fail crane” is missing. Sadly that’s not because they were done working on the Castle. It was there the entire time…

I just refuse to have my once in a “blue moon all out splurge anniversary/birthday trip” photos spoiled and scrubbed it after I got home. Yay photo editing skills!

We check in at the Crystal Palace and are quickly seated.

I love the topiaries in here! They’re still wearing their holiday hats, but it lookes like PJ nightcap to me, which is just adorable to think about. Just out of bed and still in pj’s!

I, being the unapologetic geek and child at heart, found this sticker set at Hot Topic and knew I must wear them for my meeting with Tigger. Sadly I forgot (in my early morning haze) to wear my ears.

Tigger was suitably impressed anyway.

We grabbed breakfast – which was at least as tasty as the one we’re used to getting at the Embassy Suites, which is pretty good for “quick and mass quantity” type buffet.

Mom and dad grabbed a little of everything:

Chris got the buscuits and gravy, along with sausage and bacon.

I got a sampling of a few things. Also – for those of you who don’t know… I am a “no touch” food person. Unless they were intended to go on top of each other (like Chris’s pick), or with rare exception (corn on my mashed potatoes), my food should have a proper separation line between items!

With the little plates they give you, this was not an easy task for me. Those grits are getting dangerously close to the potatoes.

I also got an omelet. This was really tasty!

Made fresh in front of you, while you wait, and with whatever ingredients. I chatted with the Chef, as I watched him pick up a carafe and pour egg onto the griddle. I commented how much easier that must make it to keep up with demand. He chuckled and informed me that once upon a time, when he started working at Disney, they were cracked to order and mixed on the spot. Yikes! He said even on the slowest days now he can’t imagine how he managed it.

Pooh had come by while I was fixing my plate, so I missed him. FYI – I could have waited, he was on his way back around as we left, but shhh… don’t tell him, I wasn’t too upset.

My two favorites (don’t make me choose!) are Tigger and Eeyore. Tigger’s my bubbly bouncy can’t shut me up personality, and Eeyore is my quiet take things as they happen and every day is a new start personality.

Piglet it just too cute to be denied however. I LOVE how the sun caught his ear here:

Mom doesn’t quite get my camera focused properly sometimes. I admit, it’s a fussy beast of a thing. I’ve had it almost 5 years and I still learn from mistakes.

Even fuzzy it’s cute though:

And that was breakfast. I didn’t hear any screaming children (I think most were still half asleep), nor was it excessively crowded. The food was good considering I don’t usually do breakfast fare – I’m just as likely to have dinner’s leftovers for “breakfast”. I’d give it 2 Mickey’s for food, and 4 with an 8am reservation (early park admittance) and the characters. Which, isn’t that why you’re stopping by anyway?

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