Off to the parks, solo for the first time in Walt Disney World

I snapped some pictures on my way to the bus stop. Every step I took I just loved SSR that much more. It is just beautiful, peaceful, calm, relaxing, and oozing Disney charm without all the characters. Here is Congress Park my home away from home for the next few days.

I arrived at the bus stop with a not a plan in mind. Play bus roulette! Matthew and I like to play this game from time to time but I did it more this trip than every before. After about 2 minutes this puppy showed up:

I hopped on and off I went to Hollywood Studios.

I noticed my tummy was grumbling and realized I had not eaten all day. It was almost 11am and I was ready for some Disney food. While Hollywood Studios has some icky counter service food we love the table service options there. I decided I would head to Hollywood Brown Derby after I got there and accessed the crowd situation.

 

I arrived to see this:

I just love Tour Groups. A lot disagree with me but they are excited, having fun, and full of energy. Later on I even have some delays because of them but I still enjoy them. I ran into no less than 5 between the bus stop to the Fastpass machines at Rock N Roller coaster and back to Hollywood Brown Derby for lunch.

Hollywood Brown Derby may have my favorite dish in all of WDW. The Cobb Salad. I am a salad nut and just love Cobb Salad, it is also HUGE and is easily split able (and probably should be). I walked up and was seated within minutes with no ADR. The place was practically empty. My table was on the raised balcony type area on the far side of the restaurant. My server, Jose greeted me promptly and commented on my great people watching location. I ordered without as much a glance at the menu and sat back to wait on my food. This is the part of the solo trip I thought I might struggle with, eating table service alone. But really it was great. I updated some chats on my phone, checked out some wait times and sat back and watched people. I love people watching and this was a great location to do it. I could watch people and as a bonus see all the beautiful dishes the kitchen was serving up. Jose came by a few times to fill my drink and stopped and chatted. We talked about how long I’d be there, what I did, where Jose was from, etc. He was very friendly and made me feel right at ease with eating alone.

It seemed like no time before this appeared:

And I dug in. It was great, nice and cool, fresh and crispy where it needed to be and dressed with just the right amount of dressing but not overpowering. It was as wonderful as I remembered it was and I scarfed it down. I was much hungrier than I realized and still couldn’t finish it. Jose came back by I settled up my check, sat for a few minutes longer people watching and deciding my next destination.

I checked my Lines app on my phone and saw Beauty and the Beast was starting soon so I headed that way. Boy it was HOT. Sweating almost immediately when leaving Brown Derby kind of hot. The sun beating down on my skin like it was on fire. I was glad I got some carry on sized spray sunscreen, I don’t burn easily but in this intense heat a sunburn could develop quickly. I stopped for a photopass pictures on the way.

Just want to say that I loved the photopass photographers on this trip. I still had photopass plus left from our May/June trip and since I was within my ’30 day’ window I figured I would take advantage and use the regular photopass cards and add those to my CD. Every time I would stop at a photographer they would take extra time with me chatting and extra shots with different poses. I ended up with some good ones and had a great time chatting with the photographers.

Beauty and the Beast was fabulous as always. We had the ‘good’ Belle and our Gaston wasn’t too bad either but he is ‘new’ to me. We have our favorite performer in most of the shows at WDW. As usual I loved the show got misty eyed in all the right parts and clapped like mad at the happy ending. While it was a great show it was blazing hot and stifling in the theater area. There was no breeze so it was just heavy heat hanging around. The only good thing was we were in the shade but that seemed to be holding in some of the muggy air. I thankfully had my Frogg Togg with me and it helped a lot. I got many strange and many jealous looks throughout the week when I had my Frogg Togg out. If you don’t know what they are but visit WDW anytime between May-October you need one. You can find them at Wal-Mart, Dicks, Bed, Bath and Beyond and online. Best $12 I’ve spent in a long time for our WDW trips.

I tried something new with this viewing of Beauty and the Beast. Usually I’m trying to get the perfect shot of this or that. This time I only took a few shots and sat back and enjoyed the show. That part was great. Here are my few Beauty and the Beast shots.

I hung back after the show for a bit while the crowds cleared out and planned my next move. I headed over to check on Single rider line for Rock N Roller coaster to find out it was closed. They had no idea when it would open back up but the 60 minute standby wait was definitely not appealing.