Bay Lake Tower Weekend

Friday, July 9th, 2021

My husband and I have reservations for a Bay Lake Tower studio with theme park view beginning on this day and park reservations to go to the Magic Kingdom.

The Magic Kingdom is slated to open at 9 am on this day. We arrive at Bay Lake Tower around 7:30 am after an uneventful drive from home. As I suspected, our room is not yet available so we park our car in the lot at Bay Lake and walk over to Contempo Cafe at the Contemporary. Since the Contemporary is in the process of being refurbished, it's pretty quiet here.

While we were still in the parking lot, we used mobile order to order coffees and breakfast sandwiches. The system would not allow me to order until after we got past the guard gate. Before that, I got a message saying that mobile order was only available to current guests of Bay Lake or the Contemporary. Our order was ready as soon as we arrived. We sat and enjoyed our breakfast but the park had still not opened by time we finished breakfast.

We went upstairs to catch the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Masks are still required while riding the monorail (as well as on buses and on the Skyliner) but are not longer required in the parks. The Polynesian station is still under construction so we glide through this location without stopping.

Once inside the park, we are held at the end of Main Street as it has not yet turned 9:00 am. Once they allow us through, we head over to Peter Pan and only need to wait 10-15 minutes before we are on the ride. By time we exit, the wait time is somewhere before 40 and 50 minutes. From there, we head over to the Haunted Mansion. The interactive area is still closed off but folks are once again experiencing the stretching room. I'm guessing they are still limiting the number of folks allowed in as, when we exit the stretching room, there is no line outside the room and carts are going by without passengers. We also go into Mickey's PhilharMagic and ride It's a Small World and Under the Sea. Under the Sea is now directing passengers along a different path to exit so that we come out very near Dumbo.

By now, it is time for lunch so we use mobile order for Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe. I think we both had cheeseburgers but don't exactly remember.

After lunch, we ride Winnie the Pooh. Ride times are now beginning to increase for all rides. As we exit Winnie, I get a text saying our room is available so we leave the park and monorail back over to the Contemporary.

We drag our bags from our car to our room. Oh oh - neither one of our bands will work to open the door. I also tried my phone app and my annual pass card - none of which will open the door. I stay with the bags in the hall while my husband heads back down to the desk to work out access to our room. In the meantime, a housekeeper lets me into the room. After my husband returns, we unpack. (For the remainder of our time here, my husband's band is the only access to our room. I never bothered to go to the desk to have them play with my band.)

I forgot to bring wine glasses with me so we go in search of some. We are unsuccessful at the shops at the Contemporary so head over to the Grand Floridian. There are no wine glasses there either so we pick up a couple of champagne flutes - they'll do and are better than the disposable glassware available in the room.

The day before we arrived, I had snagged a reservation for dinner at California Grill. Actually, I hadn't even realized that California Grill was open again so hadn't even attempted to make a reservation there until a day or two before we arrived. For dinner, we both had goat cheese ravioli. They have changed the presentation and, while the ravioli itself, tastes as good as it always did, I did not love the sauce in which it is now served. I found it too sweet for my taste. For dinner, we both had the steak which was served with potatoes and asparagus. My steak was a little undercooked - not enough to send back but not perfect either. The potatoes were salted a little too heavily. The asparagus was perfectly cooked, very tender, and delicious. For dessert, we had specialty coffees. All in all, we did not find this to be as excellent a meal as we have always experienced in the past.

After dinner, we returned to our room. When we booked a room with a theme park view, it was all that was available. Fireworks were not on the schedule. It was a wonderful surprise that fireworks returned the weekend before our arrival so we ended our evening watching the Magic Kingdom fireworks display from our balcony.

Yea!!! I love reading your trip reports (especially since us Canadians still have a closed border, so we need to get our Disney fix through others). What a great surprise with the fireworks!

Sounds like dinner should have been delicious. Watching the fireworks from the Contemporary sounds like it would be so romantic. You could waltz to the music in your own room. Well, you could have with Wishes. I haven't seen the new fireworks show.