Disney's Polynesian Village Staycation

One of the best parts of living in Orlando is that we live where people vacation. Which allows us to do things differently. In this case we decided we would spend a long weekend at Disney's Polynesian Village Resort. But the catch is, we would not be spending any time in the parks, we would spend the whole weekend at the resort, or other nearby resorts.

Because of this I figured it would be fun to bring my camera and be able to really look and explore all the resort has to offer. If you've ever spent time around anything Disney, you know that the attention to detail on most everything they do is truly top notch, they really do a great job of ensuring everything is as perfect, themed, and immersive as they can make it, the food, the sound, the smells, all perfectly curated to illicit that emotional response and memories.

While we were there, we were feeling a sweet treat, and what better way to enjoy the theming of the Polynesian Village, than with a stitch themed desert, while 2 years later I've forgotten what the flavor was, the thought and look of this desert has been etched in my mind, and I know if they have it, I'll be getting one next time I go.

Outside of the wonderful Stitch shaped desserts we made sure to have a meal at Ohana, though we found out that pretty much everything on the menu for dinner has honey in it, which my wife is allergic to, so while the view of the pool was great. The food situation was great for my wife. We'll stick to breakfast at this one.

Of course Disney excels at the details, saw this cool glass shaped like Mickey in the gift shop and had to take a picture of it, just something about it felt right.

For this stay we had a room facing the monorail, which was nice to be able to see and watch from the room, which was fun as we were hanging out in the room we were all taking guesses of what monorail would pass next. Thankfully the monorails are quiet so you can easily miss them if you're not paying attention.

So, for the night past the time for pool, we decided we wanted to go watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the beach at the resort, which I think is one of the biggest perks of the magic kingdom area resorts, and especially the Polynesian Village resort being a straight view. We went down early to get a good spot, and I snapped this picture of a tiki torch on the way to the beach.

While we were waiting for sun down, and eventually the fireworks I took some pictures of the netting preventing you from going onto the actual beach, I love the texture of the ropes and feel like it's always visually interesting,

Sunset in Florida is always a magical experience with the colors, and I really just liked the way this boat looked with the yellow/gold/pinkish sky in the background.

Finally it was night time, I go to get everything set up, and then I realized two fatal rookie mistakes. I forgot to pack my shutter release, and I forgot my tripod. We were sitting in some Adirondack style chairs so I used my wallet, to angle the camera up some, and did my best to hold the camera as still as possible against the chair and when I pressed the shutter to hopefully not move at all.

Thankfully, I had some really nice keepers out of the firework pictures. And the show of course was wonderful. We don't often stay to watch the fireworks so this was a fun experience with the family.

-Randy