Day 7: Disney Resort Christmas Tree Trail Part 2 / H&H@TP 2017

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Day 7 of Hibiscus & Holly At The Poly 2017, the latest of my Disney Trip Reports, is finally here! Today we had breakfast at Kona Cafe, did a spot of shopping, as well as more Disney Resort hopping to see the Christmas decorations. In the evening we had Thanksgiving dinner at Liberty Tree Inn at Magic Kingdom and watched the Happily Ever After fireworks.

The Hibiscus & Holly at The Poly 2017 Trip Report Index tells you a bit about the planning of this trip, as well as some info about me and my family (the Cast Members!) In short you have me, Michelle; Steve, my husband; and Liam, my son. It also, of course, has the full list of days for the trip.

Day 7: Disney Resort Christmas Tree Part 2!

Breakfast at Kona Cafe / Polynesian / Shopping at Super Target / All Star Sports / All Star Music / Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern / Happily Ever After Fireworks
December 13, 2017
You will be able to find all of the images from Hibiscus & Holly At The Poly 2017 in my Flickr Collection of albums from this trip. 
To see just today’s photos, you can view this Flickr Album.
Hibiscus & Holly At The Poly: Trip Report Index | Pre-Trip Report

Okay, before I get started on today’s trip report, I would like to make it known that I am completely aware that I’ve not updated this since December 2018! So I’m already over a year into writing this… and likely to not finish for a few more months yet. However, I am ahead of myself with photo editing! So I can hopefully get the next 2 or 3 days done in quick succession. Don’t even ask me about 2019’s Disney Trip Report (so far, unnamed) as I’ve not even thought about it yet!

Back to Day 7 of Hibiscus & Holly at The Poly 2017!

Today was a rest day of sorts in that we didn’t go to a theme park for a full day – but we did actually do quite a lot!

The day started with breakfast at Kona Cafe, followed by some shopping at Super Target (which is one of my favourite stores when we visit Orlando!), as well as visiting more Disney Resorts to look at their Christmas trees and decorations.

In the evening we had dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern and ended the day with the (new, at the time) Happily Ever After fireworks show. More on all that later, but first – breakfast!

Kona Cafe

Kona Cafe is located on the 2nd floor of the Great Ceremonial House of Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. It is a table/waiter service restaurant and is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We dined here for breakfast back in 2015 when we were on the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan.

We were having a late breakfast this morning and were sat at our table at around 10am. As the years have gone by, we have certainly become more relaxed about our holidays to Walt Disney World, and take things at a lot slower pace than those first couple of trips!

The food at Kona Cafe has a South Seas flair, and one of the most popular dishes for breakfast is Tonga Toast. A huge piece of French toast is stuffed with banana, rolled in cinnamon sugar, and served with strawberry compote. If tropical food is not your thing, they do serve regular, American breakfast foods, so no worries!

Quick tip! You can actually buy Tonga Toast down in The Poly’s quick service/counter service – Capt. Cook’s (it’s cheaper here too!) – so a heads up if you can’t get an Advance Dining Reservation (ADR) at Kona Cafe.

Breakfast isn’t complete without a coffee, and you simply must have Hawaiian Kona coffee when dining at Kona Cafe right? I believe what is served is a Kona blend – we’re not coffee snobs, so it doesn’t really matter to us! All we know is that it went down well with a splash of cream!

It starts in Kona, one of the most fertile regions of Hawaii. The combination of fertile soil and mild mountain climate produce one of the richest coffees in the world.

Liam had a glass of apple juice (not refillable), and I also ordered a Mimosa Flight which I shared with Steve. We could choose from 5 tropical juices, and we picked pink grapefruit, pineapple, and liliko’i (which is a Hawaiian passion fruit).

I decided to have the Loco Moco, which is a traditional Hawaiian breakfast. It is, I guess, an unusual dish for breakfast, considering what the dish comprises of – rice, hamburger, egg, and gravy! But I had a Hawaiian pen pal many years ago and learned about Loco Moco from her. When I saw it on the menu I had to have it. You might be wondering why I didn’t choose the famous Tonga Toast? Well, I had that the last time we dined at Kona Cafe, and it was time to try something new.

Although my memory is now hazy of what it actually tasted like, I do remember it tasting so good! It was one of those dishes that I didn’t want to end. I would definitely have Loco Moco again (hopefully the next time will be in actual Hawaii!).

Steve went with the Polynesian Egg Platter, which as the name suggests, is a platter of [breakfast] food. I’m not sure which part makes it Polynesian though! This platter seems to have replaced the [much loved by fans] Big Kahuna. In fact, Steve had planned to get the Big Kahuna and was disappointed to find it gone from the menu.

The Polynesian Eggs Platter came with eggs (of course), potatoes, fruit, a muffin, and a choice of breakfast meats – ham, spice ham, bacon, or sausage. The muffin was Mickey-shaped, which is of course, awesome; and the breakfast meat that Steve picked was spiced ham – which we suspiciously thought was Spam. Spam is pretty popular in Hawaii, so I reckon we were spot on with our suspicions!

Liam decided to have pancakes – which come topped with macadamia nut butter and pineapple, which I think is delicious, but my son is a fussy eater, so he scraped that to one side. He opted for a side of ham with his breakfast.

We were able to use our Tables in Wonderland card at Kona Cafe. Any discount at Disney is good! After paying the bill we made our way out, passing by a Moana display made out of chocolate. It featured Pua, and Hei Hei on a boat, with two Kakamora (the coconut people!). I’m not sure if this is up all year round, or just for the Holidays, but either way, it was so cool, and amazing to think it is made out of chocolate!

Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort has a lot of great food options. There are two table service places, a sushi bar, a quick service, a lounge, and more! I know we are a bit biased about The Poly as it is our Home Resort, but we feel like we could eat here for a whole stay, and not get bored of it! I’ll be going through Polynesian Village’s dining locations in another post (coming soon!)

One of the “must-do” things for this trip to Walt Disney World was to visit all of the Resorts to look at the Christmas trees and other seasonal decorations. By the time we finished this whole trip, we had visited all but one of the Walt Disney World Resort Hotels, and it was so awesome to see [nearly] them all! The only one we missed was Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground, and it’s a shame as I hear that the campers that stay here often decorate their pitch for the holidays. Definitely, something for us to check out on our next Christmas visit.

So far on this trip, we have seen the decorations at Art of Animation; Pop Century; Caribbean Beach; Old Key West; Port Orleans French Quarter; Port Orleans Riverside; and Wilderness Lodge.

Today I’m including The Poly, even though we didn’t do an “official” tour of the Resort since we were staying here for two weeks. Of course, the decor here has a tropical, South Seas vibe to it – which I just LOVE!

There was a tropical “tree” outside the front entrance with lots of orchids, bromeliads, foliage, and what looks like brightly coloured poinsettias.

One thing that did disappoint me was how small the Christmas tree was, considering The Poly is a Deluxe Resort – and compared with other resort trees too. But it was pretty all the same with twinkling lights, faux tropical flowers – hibiscus, orchids, anthurium –  and topped off with a bird of paradise.

I wish I had taken a few more close-ups of the tree ornaments! I may actually have more photos of Poly’s decorations in other day’s picture folders – I just need to go through them! Will add more if there are any… but for now,

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