The Adults Only Tour 2015 – Day Seven

Day Seven – 2^nd September

Not only was I awake again at 6.30am, full of snot and loathing for my own body, I was tackling some work emails too. My inability to switch off from work was probably the reason that I had been cursed with illness on my holidays. I only had myself to blame. Nobody likes a kiss ass.

It was only another two hours and ten minutes until everyone was ready to leave. We left the villa for Hollywood Studios at 8.40, yes, it goes without saying, about twenty minutes later than I might have liked to.

It took us that same twenty minutes to get there and park up in Stage 46. We boarded a waiting tram and headed for a day of fun.

I really have no idea why I felt the need to take that last photo.

Today we had two early Fastpasses booked quite close together, so with us running a little behind (my) schedule I was a little stressed and concerned that our first one, Toy Story Mania, would take too long to do and we’d miss our second.

With that in mind I pushed the pace as we made our way into the park.

Still, I had the time and skills to take superb theme park photography on the way.

I know you are impressed with those masterpieces and you are welcome to use them but please, make sure you credit me!

We got to Toy Story at 9.40 and my fears were unfounded. Unlike previous years the FastPass line was, well, Fast and we didn’t have any wait at all. Naturally, I won, easily with a fairly respectable score of 146,000. Everyone else’s score was so far short of that sort of awesomeness that I did not even bother to record it in my notes.

Having triumphed with my fast-moving wrist action, I felt the need to replenish my energy levels and we stopped at a coffee caravan (honestly, it was) for drinks and some of us had a Danish. I’ll leave you to guess whether I had one or not.

We sat outside One Man’s Dream whilst taking calories on board before going in for a quick look around.

We couldn’t stay for the film, which was a shame, as I always enjoy it. We had to leave to get to our next FastPass appointment, this time with Ariel. It was a little odd that upon arriving at our FastPass time of 10.30, we found the next show didn’t start for twenty minutes. As the park didn’t look busy, rather than stand in the pre-show area for that length of time we decided to have a wander around the gift shop instead. Thankfully after just a few minutes we heard music coming from around the corner which turned out to be what I have cleverly captured in my notes as “The Frozen Thing”. We walked over and took up a spot to watch that.

Ah, that’s what it was called….

I tried to Periscope this but the WiFi connection was bobbins and it kept bombing out.

With perfect timing, as this ended we wandered into Ariel and took our seats just as the next show was starting. We were sat on the far right which meant the sound wasn’t the best for this show, but it was as great as ever.

In an unusual twist, the ending seemed to have changed to one where Eric was mauled to death by an Old English Sheepdog.

We left the police to clear up the mess and made our way up to the Great Movie Ride. Louise had a weird leaky eye thing going on so she missed the ride to sort that which allowed me to take photos of a nicely trimmed bush.

We ended up waiting almost twenty-five minutes but it did give us a chance to see the new sequence of film clips. Seeing new things like this always brings mixed emotions. Of course, seeing rides updated and refurbished is great but then you automatically pine for the old stuff and feel sad that it will never be the same again. Or is that just me?

The ride itself isn’t that different once it gets going but Richard Attenborough seems to have returned from the dead to appear in one scene.

It was now time for our third FastPass at the Tower of Terror so we walked over there. Nana wasn’t feeling great today so she declined to ride, instead browsing the shops and carrying everyone’s bags. It is always upsetting to see a small standby queue when you have a FastPass as it restricts one’s ability to gloat. We made the most of sweeping majestically past the ten minute queue.

This is one of my favourite rides. The theming is probably the best on Disney property and the ride itself, now it has the random drop sequences, is just great fun.

The obvious destination after this was Rock n Rollercoaster, where we saw a twenty-minute standby time posted. We were even more delighted to see that this was nonsense and we walked on, straight into the studio pre-show.

This is another superb ride, so good that everyone except Grandad rode again straight away.

It’s the law that this photo must be taken.

We then made the long trek across to Star Tours. The trek was so long that by the time we got there we wanted feeding again so we popped into the Backlot Xpress counter service place next door. We had –

Rebecca, Sarah and Louise – Hot Dog

Me – Chicken Salad

Nana – Burger

Grandad – Chicken Nuggets

We rode Star Tours with full bellies and we got the Darth Vader story. I say that assuming that what I have heard is true and there are a number of options to experience.

After a brief look around the Star Wars gift shop we turned left towards the Muppets.

This too had a small change in the pre-show with the “Evil Kermit” from the most recent film making an appearance. Having not seen that film, it just made it a bit weird. After seeing this show more times than I can remember it was lovely to see and hear Sarah laughing out loud as a first timer.

In what was turning into an excellent theme park day, in terms of the amount of stuff we were getting done, next we trekked all the way back across the park to catch the 3pm Beauty and The Beast show.

It was incredibly hot by now and I lost about a stone in sweat as the show progressed.

It was now time to go and pick Emily up after her work meetings this morning. It was no bad thing as the heat was making the whole theme park thing hard work now.

We drove to The Commons, only to find once connected to their WiFi that Emily was stuck in meetings still, so we decided to drive back to our villa and come back for her once we were all showered and changed.

That turned out to be around 6.30, and with another stop at The Commons to collect a daughter, we then drove on to Kidani Village for our reservation at Sanaa. We self-parked (of course) and made the quite long stroll into reception.

Not surprisingly it is a mini version of Animal Kingdom Lodge. We watched some of the animals from a balcony for a little while, enjoying the place very much.

We checked in at Sanaa and had a ten minute wait for our table. We viewed the extensive menus but the appetiser had been a done deal for months….

One of the main reasons we had booked this restaurant was for the Naan bread appetiser…

I know it looks good on those photos, but there is no camera on the planet that can capture it’s awesomeness. It was incredible.

We then continued with –

Me – Tandoori Chicken

Grandad, Emily, Rebecca and Sarah – Butter Chicken

Nana – Butter Chicken with Steak

Louise – Butter Chicken with Lamb

I took a few photos, but alas, I can’t remember which is which….

Safe to say that everyone was very happy with their choices. Fuller than we had any right to be, we went for it and ordered dessert too.

 

With plenty of wine, beer and soft drinks the bill was $365.

Frankly, unable to make it all the way to the car in one go, we sat in a lounge off reception for a little while giving our body’s time to adjust to their new weights. Once able we walked, slowly, back to the car, dropped Emily off and headed for home. Having learned nothing from previous visits we stopped at Publix to be reminded that it closes at 10pm. We were in bed twenty minutes later.

Till the next time…..