17 Jan 2023
As I was researching food at Disney Springs, one must-try kept popping up- Gideon’s Bakehouse. However, the line to get in can be hours long so I figured I’d hit it first thing in the morning, plus, they have a special coffee cookie that only comes out in the morning- once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Disney has a pretty robust transport system, with free buses going from each hotel to each park about every 20 minutes. Most buses start running about 45 minutes before a park opens, but I had read conflicting reports of when the Disney Springs bus started running- some said 30 minutes before, some said 45 minutes… I wanted to make sure I got in the cookie line early, so I got up bright and early to wait for a bus only to find this:
Disney Springs opens at 10am and my bus wasn’t even listed yet. Lots of other buses came and went:
I briefly considered hopping one of these buses and then taking another bus up to Saratoga Springs (which is within walking distance of Disney Springs), but I was also curious to see when my bus would actually arrive…
I ended up waiting over a hour- the bus showed up around 0950. Fortunately, it was only about a 10 minute ride (and I later learned that you can’t get into Disney Springs before 10am anyway- they have barricades up until then).
I made a beeline for the cookie store and, while there were a few dozen people in front of me, only waited about 15 minutes to get in:
It was dark, with lots of kinda creepy drawings:
I really wanted to try the Coffee Cake cookie and the Pistachio Toffee Dark Chocolate cookie, and I figured Matt might enjoy a giant Chocolate Chip cookie:
They also had an assortment of cakes (which I didn’t try):
Cookies:
I did, however, try their cold brew coffee:
They have some crazy flavors like peanut butter and pumpkin chai, but I don’t like things (including flavors) in my coffee so I ordered the original. Unfortunately, I missed the “with oatmilk” part, so I ended up with this super-sweet drink instead. Far too rich for my taste 🙁
This is the Coffee Cake cookie:
It was good- cinnamon-y and spiced and crumbly yet gooey… until I got to the middle which was more doughy and probably not quite done all the way through.
We tried the other flavors later in the evening and while they are all good, they’re not stand-in-line-for-hours good. I checked the line a few times throughout the day and it was definitely shorter than yesterday (which was technically a holiday), so if you want a cookie and can’t get there early, try to stop by on a weekday rather than a weekend. Also, once the line reaches a certain length they start a virtual queue, so you can wander around and they’ll text you when it’s your turn.
I made it through maybe half my cookie before I was full (I blame that coffee drink), so I wandered around photographing the town:
You can pay to ride this giant balloon, but it’s like $25 and it’s tethered: it just goes up, stays there for a few minutes, and then comes back down. Didn’t really seem worth it, but made for some nice pictures:
Sampling Cokes from around the world is also on my food list (but that’ll be a filling snack, so gotta walk off the cookie first):
Legoland had some fun sculptures surrounding it, including this water dragon:
So many M&Ms!!!
Also, so many birds!!! I decided, since I had really seen all I needed/wanted to see at Disney Springs, that I would spend today bird hunting!
I think these are Grackles- they would stretch up tall like this and make a croaking graaaaackle sound:
I’m not sure where he found it, but this guy seems quite possessive of his carrot!
Amphibious cars!
Amphibious car, in action!
I think this little guy is a grebe:
Ring-billed gull:
Great Egret:
I started getting hungry again and since I was close to the Dole Whip stand (which is just over this bridge):
I stopped and got this monstrosity- Dole Whip Nachos:
Pistachio and cherry swirled dole whip with cherry sauce, pistachios, cherry-coated popcorns and waffle cone chips. The cherry parts and the pistachios themselves weren’t too bad, but the pistachio dole whip was pretty terrible- it tasted chalky and I ate around it as best I could (and tried to eat the chips before they absorbed the melted puddles of it). Overall, not terrible, but I probably wouldn’t get it again.
Matt had suggested checking out the Boardwalk, so I stopped back at our room to drop off the cookies and then took the Skyliner to Epcot (which is a short walk away from the Boardwalk):
(that’s our hotel on the left)
Most of the cars have a fun character wrap on them, which looks cool from the outside, but made me slightly nauseous to look through from the inside:
This is the Boardwalk:
Maybe I got there too early, but there’s really not that much to do, so I went back to hunting birds:
A hungry cardinal:
CHOMP!
At this point, I was bored- Disney Springs was overdone, the Boardwalk was lacking and I wasn’t hungry enough to keep snacking.
So I went back to our room and took a nap.
Lazy, yes, but it’s vacation? Once the sun went down, I ventured back out as I still needed to find my armadillo. I started at Wilderness Lodge, but struck out once again, so I decided to try Fort Wilderness, which is basically a giant campground!
There’s a boat that sometimes runs between the 2 resorts, but it was too late in the evening, so I took a boat to Animal Kingdom, then hopped another boat back to Fort Wilderness. As my boat was getting in, fireworks started!
I mapped it out afterwards- the route from the pier down to the buses is 6 miles! I was about halfway through when I heard a rustling noise and spotted this guy!
Not the greatest picture as my big camera doesn’t have a flash (I was using one of my dive lights as a spot), but I FOUND MY ARMADILLO!!!