Shop till you drop!

We had only made it to our beds in the early hours of the morning, so we needed to sleep in. By 9am we were both up and getting things done around the villa. We could not make our minds up on what to do, or what park to go to and since we had found a HUGE spider on our balcony we decided to make this a shopping day and hunt for water shoes and spider spray.

There were lots of credits to use up, so we drove over to Downtown Disney to use two counter service credits at our favourite counter service location, Wolfgang Puck’s Express. We parked close to the Once Upon A Toy store and walked over to the restaurant. They had just started their lunch service and there were only a few guests in the restaurant and no one in line. So our meals were ordered in no time, we picked a table and waited for the food to arrive. Tom and I were just discussing that some of the servers at Puck’s had been there for a long time, when one of the servers, Maritsa, came over to our table and welcomed us back. We were stunned! By the many people they serve every day, she had remembered us! We talked for a short while, then our pizzas arrived. Tom had ordered the Barbecued Chicken Pizza - grilled red onion, cilantro and smokey barbecue sauce, while I had to have my favourite, the Four Cheese Pesto Pizza - mozzarella, fontina, parmesan and goat cheese.

We really enjoyed every little bite of our pizzas, Maritsa refilled our drinks and once we were done with our pizza we still had the Crème Brulee to look forward to. We both managed to finish it and were stuffed when we finally left the store a little after noon. Since we already were at Downtown Disney we walked over to the Christmas Store and had a good look around, then walked through the Once Upon A Toy Store, TrenD and World of Disney.

Before we left we had a look around the Ghirardelli Store and picked up a sample as well. Once we were done window shopping we decided to go and buy some watershoes, as we were determined to try the waterparks the day after next. We drove to a Walmart and had a good look around, but didn’t find anything. Instead we bought a mobile hard drive and some other things we hadn’t planned on.

On the way back to our villa we stopped at the Saratoga Springs Resort for a snack at the Artist’s Palette. We had visited the restaurant before and they offered unique flatbreads so we were determined to try and share one. Before we hit the restaurant we walked around the grounds a bit and finally explored the store before we went to order a Cheeseburger Flatbread. Once we had placed the order we got a buzzer, picked up a fruit cup and a carrot cake and two Diet Cokes and walked to the seating area. We found a nice table, took photos of the food and finally went to pick up our flatbread. The flatbread was fantastic, the Fruit Cup refreshing and the Carrot Cake yummy.

Right when we left it started to rain, so we hurried to the car and drove over to Old Key West. We made it to our villa and relaxed for some time while the rain shower lasted. We had a reservation for Artist Point later that evening, but we just didn’t feel like it, so we cancelled it. Later that evening we discussed making a reservation somewhere else, but the thought of having to dine out, just didn’t seem right.

So we drove over to Publix again and picked up a few more salads, a pizza ring, which needs to be heated in the microwave, tomatoes, a Caesar salad kit and a few more snacks for a leisurely dinner at home. When we left Publix an idea dawned on us. We already were at Highway 192, so why not make another pit stop at the Krispy Kreme store there.

All the way along the road we prayed that the “Hot Now” sign would be on and it was. We picked up a dozen glazed, still hot doughnuts, got a Diet Coke and went straight to one of the tables and dug into the doughnuts. We both had two doughnuts right there at the store, then finally got back into the car and drove back to our villa. We had a very leisurely dinner while we watched a little TV and talked about the first few days of our vacation.

There was still the water shoe problem to be addressed, but that could be done the very next day. It was close to midnight when we finally got to bed.