Degutis Insights

We decided to make our third day of vacation one of shopping and sightseeing (of sorts). With the dearth of Disney apparel (specifically Mickey Mouse items for Judy) in and around Chicagoland, we planned on checking out everything Disney that can be purchased outside of the theme parks.

Breakfast was, and will continue to be, the standard continental breakfast at the hotel. Why pay for a meal when it’s included with our room.

By 10:30am we were off to our first destination, Premium Outlets Mall which has a Disney Outlet Store amongst it’s dozens of other stores.

On our way out we grabbed some pics.

I thought Faulty Towers was across the pond?

Gators are a real threat here in Florida.

We found a few treasures at Premier Outlets, including a Mickey Baseball jersey for Judy, then headed for lunch at Chicago Pizzeria Uno. Yes, a known good pizza for lunch. I don’t mess around when it comes to pizza.

Next, we headed to Prime Outlets for the Disney Character Outlet store. While at Prime Outlets we checked out the Columbia Outlet store where I purchased a new jacket for winter at 50% off retail.

Our last shopping stop was at Downtown Disney. Numerous stores, restaurants, clubs and boutiques on the lakefront. Below are some pictures from Downtown Disney.

The bridge to Pleasure Island:

Judy trying on some head wear:

The Lego Store had some awesome displays. Here are just a couple (we’ll upload more to Flickr soon). Yes, these where made entirely from Legos.

We ended the day at Planet Hollywood for dinner.

Being a big fan of the burgers at Hard Rock Cafe Orlando (probably the best burger I ever had), my goal was to do a taste test of burgers between Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock which we’ll dine at on Monday night. Unless they’ve completely ruined the burgers at Hard Rock it will be no contest. The mushroom swiss burger at Planet Hollywood lacked flavor. The cheese and mushrooms were good, but the big tasteless beef patty made the burger, in a single word “blah”.

Posted by Al Degutis