The slogan is "Happily Whatever You're After!" and with all the shops, restaurants, and fun things to do, you really COULD find just bout anything you want in this outdoor shopping center. Accessible by Disney transportation from the resorts and the parks, there's also ample parking for cars and no need to park for parking OR admission! It's no wonder this is a great "to-do" item on visitor's non-park days.
RDB and I attempted to come across on Disney transportation, but decided to bring the truck across instead. Once we were parked we started walking thru the stores and shops, still looking for a pair of souvenir earrings for this trip.
Along the way, we stopped into The Ganachery. Mostly just to look around (RDB doesn't each milk/dark chocolate because of the caffeine in it) because I have found that handmade chocolate can be like works of art.
The women behind the glass were hand-painting those chocolates! Like I said, works of art! I was drawn to give one a try so I ask the shop clerk which was her favorite. Ya'll - I bought an orange dark chocolate square that came "with instructions on how to eat it" and "is so good, you just might need a cigarette after you're done." :-0 It was delicious!
We were waiting for my friend and colleague DJ-Hot-T and her son, Dom, to come over and join us for dinner. They were in town for a mother-son vacation with a few other friends and going to Universal Studios for the weekend. While they got settled into their hotel, we walked over to Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar for a few beers. You could play "I Spy" for hours in this bar!
We struck up a conversation with Craig behind the bar, and decided to grab an appetizer to go with our local brews. He recommended the loaded pretzel - and WOW, y'all!! This was perhaps the best snack we had our entire trip to Disney!!
We devoured that pretzel and all the goodies that came with it!
We were planning to have dinner at The Boathouse but couldn't snag a reservation for our party of four in advance. The other option was to walk-up and hope for a table. Well, we were in luck, because after RDB and I finished off that pretzel next door, we were able to walk right in and get seated at a table for four in the bar; that in turn lead to another round of drinks while we waited to DJ-Hot-T and Dom, which lead me down this road:
That's the duck duck buzz drink, and our waiter, Matthew, encouraged me to name the duck - with her big eyelashes, settled in on the top of my (very sweet) martini, she just had to be a Victoria. Our friends arrived shortly thereafter, another round of drinks ordered, and somewhere along the way we decided to scratch another item off the bucket list and ordered a round of... oysters! I'd never eaten an oyster before, and I suppose the beers and duck-duck-buzz gave me the liquid courage to give them a try!
Down the hatch they went! And, no they're not that bad, but also, no, I wouldn't order them again! While we waited for dinner to arrive Dom kept us all entertained with rounds of quizzes about dinosaurs (there is literally a dinosaur for every letter of the alphabet!) They even brought a card game for us to play after dinner (What is something that starts with a T and "it flies"? - TIME! When you're having fun with friends on vacation!)
We had an alternative for meeting DJ-Hot-T and Dom at The Boathouse for dinner and it was the after-activity of taking a ride on an Amphicar! We got a few pictures, our Caption, Jakob willing snapping a few with our iPhone and then we loaded up to take a drive... in the water!!
No, Dom, you are not the Captain. This guy is:
Ok, maybe we should have let Dom drive? All kidding aside, though, Captain Jakob has the best job at Disney, hands down! We got a discount on the price of the ride thanks to our dinner at The Boathouse, and the photos were linked to our PhotoPass account since it's a Disney property. Score!
It was about a 20 minute drive around the lake, we did water donuts, and even Dom got a chance to steer for a bit. The car itself is pretty cool - this model was a 770: 7 knots on the water and 70 MPH on dry land.
We did stroll around a bit, checking out the shops and other distractions, there's a Lego store and several life-sized creations around both the store and in the lake, as well as the World of Disney store for all your shopping needs; forget the Midas touch, here it's the Mouse's touch! everything you could ever imagine, branded in Disney.
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| Photo Bombed by the Domasaur! |
Disney Springs is definitely fun, a great distraction with an awesome night life, and they are the place of "Happily Whatever You're After" but I still haven't found a pair of souvenir earrings.....
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