After the very fine and full day yesterday, the plan recognised the need for some R&R. So there was no rush to be anywhere this morning and folks were allowed to get up when they wished.
I might have wished to be in bed until about 10, but my body clock had me up earlier than I might have liked. Resisting breakfast, knowing what the plan was, proved tricky. We were all ready to go at 10.50 and the sat nav was programmed with the location of a new eatery for us, Keke’s. We hadn’t had a US style, rib busting, double chin causing, T-shirt stretching, guilt inducing mega breakfast yet, so today was the day.
Now, we could have just driven a few minutes up to the 192 and done some pancakes and stuff at a Dennys or similar, but dining is an event on our holidays, and based on a fair amount of online praise and some blog reader recommendations, we had been salivating over the menu at Keke’s during the planning phase for many months.
So we did the half hour drive and arrived to endure a ten minute wait to get a table.
I’m not sure you can read this, but we reminded ourselves of the menu choices…
I had been pretty sure that I would be going for pancakes. The other stuff looked very appealing but there is always a mild concern that the other dishes might not contain the girth I was looking for. Size is important.
We ordered coffees and juices, in most cases one of each, and Emily had a hot chocolate.
and then we ordered…
Me and Tom – Blueberry Pancakes
Louise – French Toast with some sides that I didn’t write down
Mikey – Pancakes & Sides
Emily – Stuffed French Toast
Rebecca – Chocolate Chip Pancakes
I truly can’t believe that I didn’t photograph those and I suspect my camera or SD card has “lost them”.
My word, those pancakes were thick, satisfying and a perfect demonstration of my stupidity and bad relationship with food. I loved them.
We did feed Freddie, don’t be fooled by the manic longing in his eyes.
Those pancakes soaked up maple syrup at an alarming rate and we went through a huge bottle between us. I didn’t finish all of my pancakes to be honest. Knowing I had to drive home I thought it best not to pass out and/or vomit over the steering wheel. Tom made a very valiant effort, especially when he went for the large portion size of four pancakes compared to my meagre three!
After parting with $130 and any chance of ever fitting into my “smaller T-shirts” ever again, we waddled to the car and it was a subdued journey back through a few scattered rain showers. Louise suggested that we detour through Celebration to show our newbies, so we did. Who says my planning is not flexible?
We kerb crawled through the ‘burbs for a bit, picking out our lottery win houses, before heading back to the 192 and the villa. We were home by 2pm and we spent some time around the pool, but clearly not taking any photos! All this resting!!
Whilst we lay, read, swam and rested the pool cleaner came. We pointed out that one of the panels on the pool net thing was broken and she said she would let the relevant folks know. Indeed, a man was with us in double-quick time later that day to sort it. Freddie did some swimming and then was whisked away for a bath whilst the rest of us got ready.
We left, bound for Magic Kingdom at 5.20 after feeding Freddie. How he could eat at this point was a mystery to me. Due to reasons, tonight would be the only night we would be able to see Happily Ever After. A lot of nights at Magic Kingdom were taken up with MNSSHP so it was tonight or not at all.
Obviously, like an over eager, do it all knob, I had also shoe horned some FastPasses in before the fireworks.
We parked in Jafar 310 and trammed it in. A monorail ride later and we were into the park.
Oh look, I remembered to take a photo.
We walked through the castle and into Fantasyland.
We had a FastPass for Winnie the Pooh and this would be our first ride of this for many a year.
Perhaps it was better when I wasn’t taking photos….
Freddie definitely enjoyed the ride, but he enjoyed the shop at the exit equally.
I am ashamed to say that we were a little hungry at this point. We walked down to Tomorrowland and mobile ordered some hot dogs from The Lunching Pad.
It took an age and I was not happy about it. See how furious I am by the arch of my eyebrow.
We waited for a bit longer….
Until I reached my limit and wandered up to the counter. I asked a Cast Member who, I have to say was not the brightest I have ever met. She looked at the computer, found my order and pressed a button, and hey, look at that, my phone buzzed to say my order was ready. As the hot dogs we’d ordered were all pre-made and sat in a warmer, this should have been the case about ten minutes ago. Sigh.
We had an overly long conversation about whether we wanted cheese or apple sauce with our hot dogs. Another cast member had to step in to translate (she was an English speaker!) and despite the fact that anybody ordering apple sauce with a hot dog should be ejected from the park, finally I had my tray of food and I returned to our table.
We had hot dogs here a few years ago and they were excellent. It seems that they had shrunk by about 40% since then. They were still tasty but even after our frankly stupid breakfast, they didn’t fill much of a hole. At $10 a dog, this was challenging the Brown Derby for value for money.
Our FastPass for Buzz had opened up so Rebecca and Tom went to ride that followed by the rest of us when they returned. We got a churro or two whilst we waited as obviously we hadn’t had enough sugar today. I didn’t make a note of why we rode seperately but I suspect Freddie had dropped off. Whilst we rode Tom got himself another hot dog so that he felt like he’d eaten something.
We moved on to Mine Train now and it looked lovely in the increasing darkness. Rebecca and Tom rode first again, and we rode immediately afterwards aware that time was pushing on and the fireworks were looming. Again, a mixture of the wrong camera setting and my extreme incompetence produced some classics.
Take my word for it, riding this in the dark is excellent. By the time we exited it was 8.20 and there was just ten minutes until Happily Ever After. Emily and Louise walked ahead to bag a spot for us, but by the time we got to Main Street it was carnage and cast members were shouting at folks like us turning up at the last-minute to not stop there, and to keep moving, which was fair enough.
We never met back up with Louise and Emily who were somewhere near Caseys. Instead, the rest of us were marshalled up into the central hub.
We had a very good view if not a lot of room around us.
It was a great show and one I’d need to see many more times to take it all in. We shuffled our way to Caseys to find Louise and Emily who had, it turned out, had a worse view than us. Reunited we loitered outside of Caseys to watch the projection show on the castle.
That was lovely and full of Disney magic, we turned to shuffle to the exit.
I feel the camera and I almost redeemed ourselves with the last few photos.
Again, we chose the resort monorail due to the size of the queue for the other one.
There was still a fifteen minute wait but eventually we made it to the TTC. Boarding the tram involved a little bit of scrummage. Being so many of us, and with a stroller and Freddie, we were always open to over aggressive knob heads barging their way into a row of seats. Anyway, we all managed to get on albeit in various rows.
As another comment on the size of those hot dogs we called at McDonalds on the way home. I just had a drink but I think Tom and Mikey ordered food. They are young growing lads!
Naturally we also called at Walgreens for some water and “bits” before driving home and to bed at 11.15. Another relaxing rest day then.
Till the next time…..
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