Be Our Guest Restaurant

During our recent visit to the Magic Kingdom we ate lunch at the Be Our Guest Restaurant in the newly renovated Fantasyland at Walt Disney World. Fantasyland had changed so much, I did not recognize it at all. 

While we were waiting in line outside (we did not have reservations) this gargoyle was keeping us company.

Once inside, there were several examples of the menu you could look at while waiting to reach the check-in desk.

Even the waiting hall was gorgeous.

We are just entering the room to place our order. For our lunch, we ordered off a kiosk and when we were done ordering, we selected our own table in one of the three dining rooms. It was really interesting because we did not have a table number, or anything with us that would identify were we were sitting in the restaurant. 

We were seated in the main dining room, which was just beautiful. When the waiter brought our order to our table, Susan asked him how he knew where to find us. In typical Disney fashion, he said it was magic. How cute is that!

Food was delivered to our table in these beautiful carts.

The waiters in the main dining room. The tables, chairs and food carts were different in each dining room. 

This is the second dining room.

A nice statue of the Beauty and the Beast in the second dining room.

The third dining room. 

The beautiful stained glass window we passed by on our way out. Well worth the money if for nothing else than to see the rooms.  The food was good as well. 

Disney's Electrical Parade

I have been fortunate enough to visit both Disneyland and Walt Disney World on numerous occasions. Every time I was at one park, the Electrical Parade would be somewhere else, but this time it was at the Magic Kingdom when Susan and I were there. I felt like a little kid, I was so excited! I know that some of these pictures are not in perfect focus, but I still wanted to share them with you.

Tinkerbell is one of my favorite characters and even though she is out of focus, you can see her waving to the crowd right under the yellow balloon.

There were several little animals like this bee that would spin around really fast and travel back and forth across the street.

Captain Hook and his ship.

Several cast members dancing in front of the float carrying Cinderella.

Pete sitting up very high on his dragon.

Pete's dragon breathing "fire". Pete's dragon was one of my favorite floats in the parade.

The train belonging to the 7 Dwarfs with the float close behind.

There is a green frog on the back of this float and he had a really long tongue that would catch a fly and go into his mouth. It was a great job with lights and very cute!

This was the last float in the parade and it was beautiful.

An awesome parade and I am so happy that I finally got to see it.

Disney's Art of Animation Resort

Susan and I stayed at the Art of Animation Resort at Disney World in Orlando last week. The resort opened in May of 2012 and is located on property originally planned for "The Legendary Years" of the Pop Century Resort, but those plans were abandoned due to the tourism decline following the 9/11 attacks. The service was great, typical of Disney, and the food court had a nice variety of choices, but I did not like the layout of the rooms. There were only two of us in a room that can sleep four and we did not have enough drawers for our clothes. The dresser looked large, but half of it was the refrigerator.

The resort opened with "Finding Nemo" being the first theme followed by the Cars suites, the Lion King suites and the Little Mermaid Suites. Our room was in the Little Mermaid complex. The resort features the art of animation of those four popular films.  The outside of the buildings is similar to Pop Century, just using a different theme.

Animation Hall - the front hall in the main building at The Art of Animation Resort.

Our room in the Little Mermaid building.

Some of the great decorations throughout the grounds of the Little Mermaid buildings.

Decorations are always clever at Disney. We got a kick out of this ship made up entirely of fish. There were also shells in the flower beds of the Little Mermaid buildings.

A statue of King Triton. I did not get a good picture of the Finding Nemo pool, but it is the largest swimming pool at Disney World.

Darling recreation of a scene from the movie Nemo.

Prince Eric

Sebastian

This was the doorway we entered to get to our room. Our room was on the fourth floor and as you can see, Ursula is huge.

This is one of the photos hanging in the food court.

Guest can walk over to Pop Century, or walk all the way around the lake between the two resorts.

Pop Century is located very close by. My niece Julie worked at Pop Century when it opened.

Check back soon for more pictures of our Disney adventure.