Dining at Be Our Guest, Day 3 Continued Again!

Sorry for the delay, but I've posted so many pictures over the last few days, that I thought I'd give my loyal readers a bit of a break.  But now I'm back!  And we're still only on day 3.  I promise, we'll be done with this post!

 

We dined at Be Our Guest, otherwise known as the new Beasts' Castle in the Magic Kingdom.  Our food was pretty tasty (Andrew and I had the New York Strip with Pomme Frites) and the kids had, well....kid food.  But the real star of dinner was dessert.  We each got to pick from a pastry/cupcake that was brought to our table on a special dessert trolley.  

 

 

 

Ethan chose a strawberry cupcake with strawberry filling...and Mickey drawn on his plate.

 

 Andrew opted for "The Grey Stuff".  (It's name comes from the song "Be Our Guest" from the movie).  It was chocolate brownie-like stuff on the bottom and some sort of grey frosting.  It was good....but mine was better!

 

I had a triple chocolate mousse-filled cupcake with a tiny little chocolate "book" on top.  It was very yummy!

 



 

Emily had the Grey Stuff too, plus an extra helping of the frosting with a candle, since we were celebrating her 9th birthday on this trip.

 

Here's a bit of the grand ballroom dining room.  If you look closely at the windows, you can see that it is "snowing" outside.  It's really very pretty.

 



 

 

This is the very intricate ceiling with cherubs and crystal chandeliers.

 

And here are the children with the Beast.  He is much nicer in person!

 



Some scenery in the castle.

 



 

A very intricate tile mosaic of Belle and the Prince.

 

 

 

The entrance to the ballroom.

 

 

The ballroom, obviously.

 

Beauty and the Beast....I mean, Emily and Ethan and a gargoyle.

 



 

Emily wearing her princess Mickey ears.

 



 

 

And that was day and night on the third day....and it was good!

Day 3: Be Our Guest

After an hour or two back at the hotel after leaving the Animal Kingdom, we got ourselves back together and headed over to the Magic Kingdom for dinner at Be Our Guest and Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party.

 

(As always, if you want to see bigger pictures, just click on the pictures!) 

As you can see, the park is completely decked-out in fall/Halloween decor, with carved pumpkins and scarecrow pumpkin people everywhere. 

 



 

 

We headed over to Fantasy Land and checked out the newest addition, Beauty and the Beast town.  Ok ,I'm sure that's not the official name, but you get the point....it's a re-creation of the French town in which Belle (and Gaston) lived and then a beautiful castle high on a hill where the Beast resides.  Above is the fountain of Gaston in front of his tavern. 

 

 

 

A little gift shop in the town square...everything is so quaint!

 

And here is a glimpse of the Beasts' castle...where we had much-anticipated (and very hard-to-get) reservations for dinner.

 



Be Our Guest is the name of the restaurant and has been open a little less than a year.  We called exactly 180 days before our trip, which is the soonest you can make a reservation, and still barely managed to secure a table, and then not on the day we originally planned.  Either way, I think this is the place I was most excited to see and it didn't disappoint.

 



 

 

Some of the scenery on the way up to the castle.  Disney really does a great job of immersing you in whatever you are doing.  I mean, those mountains look real...don't they?

 

 

The details here are fantastic.  Each lamppost had a gargoyle.

 



Here is the entrance to the castle.  No idea who those people are!

 



Once inside the castle, there are two dining rooms.  The first is very large and is the royal ball room that you see in the picture above.  This picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice....it is truly beautiful and there will be better pictures to come.

 



The second dining room is themed as the Beasts' study.  It is, how shall we say?  A little more beastly and ripped to shreds.  It is also much smaller, and probably more dramatic as there are things that happen as you dine. 

 

Allow me to explain....

If you've seen the movie, you know that the Beast has a magic rose in his study.  When the last petal falls from the rose, if the Beast hasn't learned to truly love, he will remain a Beast forever.  Here's the rose.  In person, you can see the petals slowly falling.

 



This is not a great picture, but notice the picture over the fireplace.  It's a portrait of the Beast when he was just a normal prince.

 



Several times throughout the dinner, the lights would flicker and it would thunder and the portrait would change..from a prince to the Beast.  (You have no idea how many times I tried to catch this super fast transformation for documenting purposes....but I succeeded!)

 



And here are your's truly and Emily.  Ignore the princess crown on my head.  It was going to be my Halloween "costume" for later.  Emily and Ethan had headware of their own and Andrew was going to buy something to wear, but in the end, the only one who even tried was me.  It's ok, it was helping to keep my bangs out of my face!

 



 

And here are my two favorite guys....Andrew and Ethan, who apparently was showing us the beast with his face!

 

I have a ton more pictures from our dinner, but since I've already posted around 30+ today alone, I think I'll save some for tomorrow.  Check back and scroll down so you don't miss anything!

Day 3: Animal Kingdom (continued)

I had a ton of pictures from the Animal Kingdom (and day 3 in general), so I thought I'd split up day three into several posts.  You can thank me later.

 

The general consensus on the Animal Kingdom from our little family is this:  It's usually the hottest/most humid park.  It only takes a day to see everything and seeing the animals can be somewhat hit or miss.  It's definitely easier to see more on a cooler day.  It's also a very lush tropical-feeling park.

 

 

 

 Above and below are just some scenic water falls from around the park.

 

 

 

 

The Animal Kingdom is an African-themed park (with a little Asian flair mixed in).  Here were some pretty cool "tribal" musicians.  They played all sorts of rhythm instruments along with singing and dancing.

 

 

 

Later in the day, Andrew and the kids opted to do a little playing in the kids play area.  I went back and took another safari ride.

 

 

 

I think this is a black rhino...and some large birds.

 

And if I recall, this is a white rhino.  It was as close to us as it looks.

 



 A momma giraffe and her baby and some deer-like creatures.

 

 

 

Crocodiles....lots of crocs!

 

 

 

I don't know what these guys are called, but their horns were pretty cool.

 

 

A big group of hippos.  Hippos are weird. 

 

 

Another cool waterfall on the safari ride.

 

 

 

A view of Mt. Everest (which is actually a large roller coaster).

 

Some very vibrant tropical flowers.

 



 

 

Some very vibrant kiddos in the play area.

 

A closer view of Mt. Everest. 

 

And that friends, was just a sampling of the morning and afternoon on day three.  We still have A LOT more to come.

Day 3: The Animal Kingdom

Day three of our Disney vacation started out rainy once again.  The good news was that we were headed to the Animal Kingdom and the rain kept the crowd at the park way down.  It was also good for being able to see lots of animals.  Thankfully, it was only a little drizzle now and then, unlike the torrential downpours from the previous day.

 

Above is a picture of the Tree of Life.  It's a little hazy because, once again, it was just a wee bit humid there in Africa....I mean Florida!

 



 

 

Closer to the tree, you can see that there are animals carved all over the trunk.  It's pretty impressive.

 

After riding a couple of rides, we hopped on to a safari tour.  We were able to see quite a few animals because it was a bit cooler than the previous couple of days and by that time, the rain had pretty much stopped so the animals were out and about.

I apologize in advance because the pictures are a bit blurry or off-center at times due to a new camera that I haven't completely mastered (or at all!) and we were in a moving vehicle.

 

 

 

A momma elephant and her baby.

 

 

 

 

The king of the jungle looking pretty peaceful on top of his rock.

 

A very close view of a great big warthog.  They're pretty ugly.

 



 

 

And then there's the best shot I could get of this rather pretty animal (no idea what it's called).  Sorry for the rear-view angle!

 

 

A better view of the lion through the trees.

 



 

 

And then there's the king of our jungle!

 

After the safari ride (which is about 15-20 min. long), we went on a walking tour.

 

 

 

Anybody like meercats?  I'm pretty sure this is Timon from The Lion King, which I guess makes the warthog Pumba!

 

 

 

I think this is a silverback gorilla, but I'm not sure.  The pictures aren't great because they were through glass, but the gorilla got right up beside the glass for a while.

 



And here's our resident gorilla...I mean girl!

 

More to come in another post!