Nov 7 – 14, 2022 – First Trip with 2 Kids Under 3 – Day 1

Due to time constraints, I’m not going to be super-detailed with this, but I do want to let y’all know how our trip went under this new circumstance and share some thoughts on the WDW of today. This was a new experience for us, not only because our family has changed so much in 1 year, but so has WDW. Christy and I have our daughter, Ariel, who just turned 2 years old, and our son, Enoch, who is 4 months old. This was Ariel’s 3rd trip to WDW and Enoch’s 1st. Christy’s 12th trip, and my 27th. Our most recent trip prior to this one was August 2021.

On Nov 7th, after having a delightful time visiting friends in Sarasota, FL, we traveled north to WDW and checked into our 2-bedroom Villa at Animal Kingdom Lodge- Kidani Village. My parents met us there and were going to stay with us. This was my first ever 7-night on-property visit to WDW. I have to say with our 2 young ones, 7 nights was just right. Our typical 5-night stay would have flown like a brick. My parents agreed to take the kids that night while Christy and I had a date night at the California Grill at the Contemporary Resort that night.

We quite purposefully did not make theme park plans that day. This allowed us to get there when we wanted, settle in, and then go out to dinner. We arrived at the Contemporary about 45 minutes before our reserved time of 7:00pm, so we did some window shopping in the Grand Canyon Concourse. At 6:45p, we checked in and waited a bit. They called us to the elevator at 7:00p sharp. We had never been to California Grill before, but the offerings on the 50th Anniversary fixed price menu were too interesting to pass up. The view at the top is truly stunning if you’ve never been there. Our table was away from the windows, but still had a nice view of the Magic Kingdom.

We strategically picked our dishes and split everything. For appetizers we got the short rib dumplings and the blue crab bisque. The dumplings were a huge win! Nearly life-changing flavor. The blue crab bisque was good and would probably be better received by people not used to getting blue crab bisque in Maryland. For me, it tasted like it was slightly burned, and the crab quality was underwhelming compared to what I’m used to. For entrees we got the filet of beef and the pork tenderloin. The filet and accompaniments of potatoes and asparagus were delicious! That said, the pork was the better dish. The pork alone would be worth a second trip. For dessert we go the creme brulee and the 5 flavors dessert. Again these were good, but not great. We’ve had better creme brulee. The 5 flavors were a mixed bag of great to just good. The lemon and chocolate were great. The carrot cake was too sweet. The others were good, but forgettable. Not pictured is the complimentary cucumber water we got which was bursting with cucumber flavor and a welcome treat between courses. Also I got a Sonoma Maple Bourbon Old Fashioned which was excellent!

Naturally we watched Enchantment from the balcony and that was also a good treat. That said, having finally seen it, I prefer Wishes and Happily Ever After to that show. It’s good. Not great. After dinner, we did more shopping at the Contemporary and returned to our villa. Far as we were concerned, we were off to a great start!

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