When You're.... Downtown

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Welcome to another installment of "The Mumpowers Go To Disney!" One of my favorite shows. :) In case you missed it, yesterday we told you all about our lunch at Cinderella's Royal Table. During our stay, we stayed at the Pop Century hotel.


Pop Century has different buildings that are themed around different decades - 1950-1990.


There was another area they had ready with buildings and everything up just across a bridge called the Generation Gap and they were going to be 1900-1940 but I guess they decided to put that money elsewhere so those buildings are just kinda sitting there. I'm sure they're being used for storage or something, but not as a hotel. I wonder what they'll do with them in the future.

We were in the 1950s building. Right outside our room was a giant statue of Lady from Lady and the Tramp (the movie came out in the 50s). Across from her was a giant statue of Tramp. Unfortunately we forgot to get a picture of them. Oh well, next time. :) They had 50s music piped outside around that particular building, too. We were in room 2209... I always take a picture of our hotel room number. I don't know why, but I know others do it too so at least I'm not alone.


After we sat down for a minute we decided to catch the Disney bus and head over to Downtown Disney to grab some dinner and look at the shops. I had listed a few restaurants I thought sounded good and Aaron picked The Rainforest Cafe.


There are lots of big fish tanks/pillars around the restaurant. Ashlyn LOVED to watch the fish! It only took a few minutes to be seated so we made sure to visit them again after we were done with dinner. She was so fascinated that it was hard to make her turn around to take a picture.


But eventually we got her.


The cool thing was that our table was right next to a fish tank, too, so Ashlyn got to watch them all night.

We split an appetizer sampler (fried calamari, cheese sticks, and some other stuff) and also a Blue Moon grilled chicken sandwich (or something like that). It was all pretty good. We even ordered some macaroni and cheese from the child's menu for Ashlyn. It was the first time we've ordered something off the menu for her! She is such a big girl! She even really colored for the first time. We had to help her out and show her what to do, but she caught on pretty quickly. Like I said yesterday, she colored completely all by herself the next day at lunch. AND she kept putting her sippy cup down nicely on the table which she never does at home so that was very impressive. She also loved all the "thunderstorms" that happen in the restaurant.



After dinner we walked around to do a little shopping and take some pictures. There was a little set-up with a Christmas theme when we first got there. It is right by the Christmas shop so I'm pretty sure it's up all year long.


This area just looked like it would be a good picture so we took advantage of it.


There were two stores I definitely wanted to stop in. Mickey's Pantry has different Disney-themed foods. We grabbed some Mickey-roni and Cheese, a Mickey head shaped ice cube tray, and a Mickey head cookie cutter. I also wanted to go check out The World of Disney store (of course!).


Stitch on the sign spits out water every so often. Aaron found a super cute Minnie cup for Ashlyn. She's a little young for it yet (it has a straw that wraps around so it would take a lot of sucking - she can drink from a straw but just isn't patient enough for all that yet) but will be perfect soon. Outside of the shop was this pirate and we just had to get a picture of Aaron and Ashlyn by it.


We didn't spend too much time at Downtown Disney. By the time we got there, had dinner, and did a little shopping, it was definitely Ashlyn's bedtime. So we went home and all fell asleep very quickly. We knew we had a big day coming up! Tomorrow's post will be all about... the rides!!!