06 May

Day 2 – THE Sighting

 

Today, we planned to stay at Gran Destino and enjoy it all day!

Here was the view out our window:

Look at this beautiful hallway!

We started off in the lobby, with some breakfast from the Barcelona Lounge. We took the awesome elevator downstairs to the two-story lobby.

Look how grand!

The Barcelona Lounge is on the left!

The artwork is so pretty.

The breakfast pickings weren’t huge, but we both found something. We could have walked over to the Coronado food court, but we were fine!

I was a little bit disappointed that there wasn’t a refill station for mugs in Gran Destino. You had to walk to the pool, or the Coronado food court to refill. Which is a pain!

I get that the refill stations don’t go with the vibe of the beautiful lobby, but I feel like they could have hidden one somewhere! While we sat in the lobby, Mukta decided to ask every cast member we saw where the refillable mug station was. That way, at their next meeting, some could say that guests kept asking about one, and then like five others would chime in and say – me too!! Then Disney would realize there was a huge clamoring for them.

Ha! Brilliant!

We ate and then walked out front to take pictures:

Back inside!

We went upstairs to Toledo to see it.

It’s so pretty!

And here’s the Dahlia Lounge:

Which had amazing views!

We had planned on dinner at Toledo, and lunch at Three Bridges! Neither of which worked out for totally different reasons!

First, Three Bridges was closed at lunch! Dang it! We decided to go there for an appetizer and drinks before our dinner that night. That was a fortuitous decision to say the least! You’ll see why later…

We were trying to decide what to get for lunch, and Mukta said they had amazing nachos at the Swolphin. So we went there! And took no pictures, but she was correct. They were delicious.

We took a Lyft back, and we both worked for a little while until dinner. Our friend Kevin was meeting us at Toledo!

On our way to pre-dinner!

There’s Three Bridges:

We had no idea at that point, just how exciting our night was about to get!

When we were walking in, I said hello to the hostesses and glanced over to the right at a large group seated.

And saw – JOE ROHDE!!!!!

Oh. My. Heck.

Mukta was behind me, and I turned around, resisted every impulse to scream, and verrrrry quietly said – look who is sitting right there!!!!!!!  

She looked, her face went through about 12 stages of excitement in 2 seconds, regained her composure, and followed the hostess like nothing had happened.

Like our world hadn’t just changed. Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but still. JOE ROHDE!!

We ended up being seated across from Joe’s group, and we said thank you and waited for the hostess to leave. Then we – very very quietly- FREAKED OUT.

We could not believe our luck. We immediately started planning how we could say hi without interrupting him or his evening too much. We decided we would wait until he got up to leave, and then we would say hi.

Our seats were excellent, and he had to walk right past us to leave.

I took SD-14 out, and took a few photos. I was secretly hoping Joe would notice and have a reason to stop and say hi!

I took so many pictures, but not of Joe! I kept my stalkerish tendencies in check.

Here’s the bar area on the other side of us:

SD-14 was enjoying the beverages.

There was a rainstorm!

We were nervously watching the clock with our dinner reservation in mind. At some point we realized Joe wasn’t leaving soon, and it was now a choice between meeting Joe, and eating at Toledo.

Of course, we picked Joe. 

Nothing was more important in my life at that moment than getting a picture of Joe Rohde and SD-14 together. Nothing.

We texted Kevin, told him the situation, and he agreed Joe was way mo better than the Toledo which would always be there. So he came to us!

Our server knew full well what we were waiting for, and she was amazing. And hilarious. We loved her. We told her a friend was coming and we said we needed another seat, but we couldn’t change tables under any circumstances. She understood completely and brought us a chair.

Kevin came and we made our plan for when Joe would walk by. We decided that Mukta would stop him because she is the brave one. We ordered some real food, and waited and talked.

I finally saw Joe get up out of the corner of my eye and the time had come. Mukta was so excited she almost froze!  I was whispering encouragement, and she got up right when he came by!

She said, “Mr. Rohde!”

We had actually discussed what to call him beforehand. I told her how Stephen insists that we should call people by their first names, because they are all people, just like us.

He called Elon Musk, Elon when we met him.

Elon.

We decided my husband is crazy and we were going with Mr. Rohde.

Mr. Rohde stopped and smiled at Mukta and she said, “We just wanted to say we are huge fans of your work.” Kevin and I were nodding, and I said, “We were just talking about how excited we are about Lighthouse Point (we were, I didn’t lie)!”

Joe then realized we maybe knew what we were talking about and said, “Oh, I was just meeting with the Lighthouse Point designers! That’s them over there. We were celebrating meeting our first goal!”

I almost had a stroke at that point.

Mukta asked if we could take a picture and we all took turns.

I wasn’t prepared for a picture with me, all I wanted was SD-14, but I wasn’t going to say no!  It’s a miracle I had a normal smile in this picture, because I had no idea what I was doing.

Here’s Kevin!

Joe was about to leave, and then Mukta, the GREATEST FRIEND EVER, asked if he would mind taking a picture with our droid!!!

Joe, being the amazingly friendly person he is, of course agreed.

And then we thanked him profusely and he left. And we all sat down and tried to compose ourselves again.

Our sweet server brought out our food right around then, but it took a very long time to calm down enough to eat!

So that – was amazing.

After we ate, we had one more plan for the night, Epcot! We walked back to the room first.

Look at this gorgeous lounge!

We ran upstairs for a second and then we were off to Epcot for one last viewing of Illuminations! SD-14 made an appearance to watch!

That was the perfect way to end a great, great day!!

 

 

Ladies of Leisure Lucky Number 7!

Day 1 – Gran Destino 
Day 2 – THE Sighting 
Day 3 – Galaxy’s Edge Before Dawn 
Day 4 – The Grand Floridian and Chef Mickey’s 
Day 5 – Epcot and Homecomin’
Day 6 – Boarding Day 
Day 7 – Sea Day in Nassau 
Day 8- Cabana Day! 
Day 9 – An Actual Sea Day