Month: November 2018

Freddie’s First Florida Fiesta – Day Eleven 8th September 2018

by mkingdon, posted in Freddie's First Florida Fiesta

This morning saw energy levels at a very low-level. Everyone slept in and I blame this tiredness for me and Louise having a corker of a falling out which led to an epic amount of cold shoulder and glares around the pool. Hey, even ladies as lucky as Louise to be married to me don’t have sunshine and lollipops all the time.

The time around the pool this morning, recharging the batteries, was much-needed and the decision last night to delay our start at Epcot was a very wise one. We were ready to leave the villa by 12 and called at McDonalds to further replenish our bodies. There’s little that a huge intake of calories cannot make better. We ate in the car park before making our way to our parking spot in Discovery 17.

Security was a right pain the harris today. It took an age and this needs improving as you can’t have guests waiting fifteen to twenty minutes to get into the park. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be doing checks, just do them in a better way.

It was 1.30 by the time we say the big ball.

I had seamlessly rejigged all our FastPass reservations for today and even included Louise despite our fall out. The first was for Spaceship Earth and despite that slot now being immediately available, everyone decided they needed to go to the restroom. I waited like the patient, chilled out theme park wanderer I am.

I love Spaceship Earth. Firstly, it’s a cool sit down, but the whole thing is just a shot in the arm of classic Disney.

It was raining as we left and Freddie needed his lunch so we found a bench in the covered bit on the way to The Land.

Once Freddie was full I took us into the short film festival which was in the old Captain EO theatre. Rebecca is still not OK with EO no longer being shown by the way.

I had no expectations for this but I was blown away. We watched three clever, moving and entertaining films before walking back to where Freddie had lunched to do our FastPass for a character meet and greet. We traditionally never use a FastPass for this, but we’d already done most of the rides and it was of course a requirement that Freddie meet Mickey on his first visit.

That’s the photo right there. The whole trip justified and paid for.

With the main man in the bag Freddie moved on to some other new friends.

We had wondered how he would react to characters before we went and it’s safe to say, he took this in his stride as he did everything else on this holiday.

 

We now made our way up to a very busy World Showcase and as the law dictates, started in Mexico. You can go the other way round of course, but you’d be wrong.

After a wander of the market stalls we did the ride.

I still miss the glorious cheese and 70’s naffness of the original ride if I’m honest, but Freddie enjoyed it and danced the whole way round.

Rebecca, Tom and Freddie went off for a wander whilst the rest of us walked to the US pavilion to watch the Voices of Liberty.

We got a seat around the edge thankfully as this tiredness was not going away. Is it me or is this show ridiculously short these days. It may be my ageing brain playing games here but I have memories of shows in years gone by that went on for twenty minutes or longer. This one was about two songs and done. They were excellent of course but more would have been great.

It seems that we were not the only ones feeling a little low on energy today. This lady was asleep when we arrived, slept through the show, and we left her in the same spot when we left.

We continued our journey the correct way around World Showcase, stopping in most countries for a browse and a drink in a couple. We picked up the pace a little as it was getting very rainy and believe it or not a little cold. With that in mind and our tiredness we messaged Rebecca and arranged to meet up by the big fountain thing near the golf ball. I understand these may not be the exact names of these things.

At the risk of overplaying how tired we were, and I know I have mentioned it a few times now, this is perhaps the best example of how bad it was. The plan had Teak Neighbourhood Grill for dinner. Knowing how much of a favourite that is to us, our decision to sack that off and just stay local to the villa instead and do The Outback will tell you all you need to know. Teak would have been a forty minute drive and would have meant a much later night.

I called ahead from the villa to bag a table and we waited just a few minutes after arriving to be seated.

Those of you paying attention will remember that Rebecca and Tom missed out on The Outback on our first night so in a way it was good to have them try it, and we of course started off with a Blooming Onion and Cheesey Fries.

I was too slow with the camera.

The waiter was a real character. His voice was the male version of Marge’s sisters in The Simpsons. He was clearly well versed in dealing with Brits as she used the word Cheers endlessly and he had a special skill of talking non-stop whilst taking our order. His service was excellent though.

We had –

Me – Steak & Shrimp

Emily and Mikey – Chicken Tenders

Tom and Louise – Philly Cheese Steak

Rebecca – Caesar Salad

We were literally falling asleep at the table. That may have been the numerous cocktails and wine though to be honest. We paid the bill, crawled back to the car and made the short journey back to bed. It was 10 o’clock.

It would appear that my plan had broken everyone and I was hoping a good night’s sleep would sort everyone out. You will have to tune in next week to see if I was right.

Till the next time…..

Freddie’s First Florida Fiesta – Day Ten 7th September 2018

by mkingdon, posted in Freddie's First Florida Fiesta

I blame the huge amounts of food last night, and every other night this trip, for sleeping in until 9am. This is a rare occurrence and if you aren’t middle-aged with a body conditioned to wake at the time your daily grind demands, then make the most of the lie ins you can currently enjoy. The fact that you can go more than eight hours without a wee will be a miracle you won’t appreciate until later in life.

Whilst it was a valiant effort by all concerned, leaving the house at 10.01 was still later than I of course would have liked. Today was water park day and Typhoon Lagoon had opened one minute ago.  Writing interesting prose about lying in the sun is always a challenge, so let’s see how we go with tales of swimming for a bit, eating, lying down a bit and then swimming again! By the time I had expertly reversed off the drive, in my mind, every slither of shade had already been taken and we would be forced to lie in the blistering heat watching our skin bubble and pucker, so I was keen to get there asap.

These mental scenarios tortured me as I hammered it down the 192. I did a glorious job of getting us there in just twenty minutes and to be fair it looked quiet in the car park, but of course that didn’t mean that 3,500 people hadn’t arrived by bus and coach.

As we wandered in the subject of hiring a cabana was mentioned. With Freddie with us the prospect of not enough shade was not an option and so we enquired if any were still available at this advanced hour. We were dealt with by a cast member earning their ears, bless her, who knew less than I did, and her more experienced colleague stepped in and gave us a choice of pretty much any cabana on property. It seemed the park really was that quiet. There was one available right next to the lazy river but we declined that one as it was the only cabana that wasn’t “lightning proof” and chose the one next to it.

We were joined by our personal server for the day and stood making awkward conversation with her whilst Tom went to change Freddie. Turns out I’m as good at small talk as I am at getting us out of the villa on time.

It was a load of cash. I mean, silly amounts, but you know, you can’t take it with you and all that and it was lovely. Having learned how much they make from these things I know understand why they don’t provide brollies for free.

This was our view. That is actually cabana number 1, the one which is not lightning proof due to it being a big umbrella.

There was a little fridge with bottled water and endless towels and crucially copious amounts of shade.

The price also included refillable mugs for the day so we had a LOT of coke to drink today. Once we had settled in we did our first filling of the mugs and had our first of many battles of the day with wasps.

Everyone, minus Louise who was already prostrate in the direct sunshine, went into the lazy river. We all did one loop and retired back to the cabana. Time to refill the mugs again. They were a bit temperamental to be honest. “Place cup on try” was a message I had already had enough of hearing especially as I had put the bloody cup on the tray.

I watched Freddie for a bit whilst all the youngsters went off swimming and sliding and took the responsibility of ordering us some lunch. This was done by texting our young helper for the day, who I think was called Rebecca. I spent seconds looking at the menu before spectacularly over ordering lots of pizza, a hot dog for Tom and a chicken sandwich for Rebecca.

It arrived just as everyone returned from the water and we dug in. It was all very tasty indeed. One interesting point was that our server wouldn’t/couldn’t accept a tip from us which I thought was strange.

Our food interested more wasps and some other wildlife….

SQUIRREL!

For some reason I thought now was a good time to take a photo of my refillable mug.

We all dried off and rested for a bit now.

Once we had waited the obligatory amount of time after eating that your Mum always told you to so that we wouldn’t die, we headed back into the wave pool to be aggressively tossed around for a bit. That was an interesting and unexpected perk of the cabana I have to say.

As is always the case at Typhoon Lagoon at this time of year a storm approached and the water was cleared.

There were a couple of light showers which saw pretty much everyone else leave the park, but as we were covered by our cabana we were able to sit it out, have a drink, fight some wasps and just chill out a bit.

Everything was opened up again at 4pm and we enjoyed whatever bit of water we liked all to ourselves. Maybe this cabana had been worth it after all?

We spent the last hour in the shallow bit of water just outside the main wave pool with Freddie. It was absolutely lovely. To be sat with the girls, all playing with Freddie in the warm water was just a lovely moment.

The park closed at 5pm, which I have to say I think is a little early saying it opens at 10am. We could easily have stayed another hour or two. We reluctantly made that damp, sandy walk back to the car and did the usual sitting on towels in the car whilst we drove home.

We did a fairly impressive set of showers and changes to quickly head out for dinner tonight at the Cheesecake Factory. The closest one was at the Mall at Millennia and my hunger drove us there in no time at all.

I checked us in and was upset to hear that it would be a thirty minute wait. We chose to wait outside as it was very busy and noisy indoors.

After what felt like several days we were shown to our table and we were hungry!

We had some appetisers despite the fact that we would be eating dessert here no matter how full we might feel. He who dares wins…..

Mikey had Calamari but I suspect there’s a cream for that in Walgreens.

I shared Guac & Chips with Rebecca. I’m not trying to be hip and groovy, that’s what the menu said…..

Emily and Louise had spinach and artichoke dip

Tom had pot stickers after loving them at Yak & Yati the other day.

I followed that with a fried chicken sandwich as I didn’t want to go crazy with the calories!

Tom a Bacon Bacon Burger. Yes, so bacony they named it twice….

Rebecca, spicy sausage pasta

Emily a Chicken Caesar salad

Louise had a Filet Mignon with Mash.

Mikey had Lasagne

I can confirm that this was all as delicious as it looked. Fantastic food.

What follows now are several photos of cheesecake. I didn’t note who had what. I was just too excited to cram mine down my neck so just drink them in and appreciate them.

Emily took hers to go as she was one spoonful away from a hospital visit. Holy hell those desserts were just wonderful. I was too full to eat it, but eat it I did and I’m not even sorry.

It was literally painful to walk back to the car and how I managed to control the thing without killing us all I don’t know. We abandoned the van pretty much on the drive, or close enough not to matter and we all crawled our way into our beds.

Tomorrow’s plan had called for an early start but by consensus we had all decided that was just not going to happen and a lie in was proposed, seconded and agreed by all.

Till the next time…..

Freddie’s First Florida Fiesta – Day Nine 6th September 2018

by mkingdon, posted in Freddie's First Florida Fiesta

I mentioned right back at the start of this report that I made some errors in the planning. I am sure you cannot believe this and as you read each glorious pleasure riddled day, you must all surely wish that you could pay me a lot of money to plan your trips. I would do that, but to be honest, I love my current job too much to do that, no matter what financial rewards you may offer me.

Image result for spacey gif

Anyway, I also said that I was the most tired I had ever been on one of these trips and the pace I set may have been a little too aggressive. I am not too proud to admit that…again. All that preamble is just an excuse for yet another shoddy late start to the day this morning.

After a twelve-hour day yesterday, a slower start had been planned for by my majestic forethought and considerate nature, but getting out of the villa at 11.15 was taking liberties.

We were bound for the Studios again, and we arrived into the current shambola of a car park and entrance around 11.50, barely making our arrival in the “am”. Pitiful.

We all split up looking for the shortest security lines as usual. Mikey picked wrong this time and we waited the longest for him to have his sack examined. Naturally, arriving at this time, we were all hungry and lunch was needed, so we wandered down Sunset Boulevard and the average burger counter service place pulled us in like some fat soaked tractor beam.

We watched as much of this as we could without actual standing still.

I think I mobile ordered and had more success than we did at the Magic Kingdom a few days ago. We all had burgers or nuggets I think. It was $95 and pretty average really.

We were visited by a cute squirrel who was a bigger fan of our food than we were, so we shared some.

I noted that a Beauty & The Beast show was due to start at 1pm so we made the long journey across the street and entered. We were fairly close to the start time, so there was not a huge amount of choice for a party of our size so we split up over a couple of benches. The one I chose had a family spread out across it for no reason. As we signalled our intent to enter their area, they did not respond. I am not unfamiliar with this concept.

I edged a little closer and they did get eventually get the message this big sweaty bloke standing at the side of them meant that they would need to SHIFT DOWN THE FECKING BENCH!

They had several young kids with them and they proved to be a gigantic pain in the arse throughout. They must have got up and left their seats at least six times between them during the short show. I have never tutted as loudly in my life. Sit down, shut up, pay attention and don’t move until it finishes unless one of your party is on fire.

There were brief moments when we could see the stage.

The show was superb of course and Mikey stated it was his favourite so far. After consulting the app, we decided to do Ariel again. She loves a bit of it.

We wandered all the way there in the searing heat and joined the short queue.

Ariel was much better this time and we all enjoyed her very much.

As we left, rain had started so we made a quick dash to the Star Wars Launch Bay thing which was quickly becoming our go to destination for rainy times.

Freddie was intrigued by the these chaps who interacted with him and us all for quite some time.

We had a wander around the various exhibits avoiding the rain and in Mikey’s case having a wee. He was allowed as there was little else to be doing.

This lady was wandering around again, talking to cast members and characters. We saw her in the First March thing the other day. I think she lives here now.

Whilst wandering, I had again multi-tasked superbly to consult the app and had seen that Tower of Terror has a measly ten minute wait, so that was our direction of travel now.

We had a FastPass for Rock n Rollercoaster so we snuck that in now before the Tower. We baby swapped on both but Louise sat out with Freddie for TOT. As we all returned from riding Freddie was just waking up and he seemed very hot. I know that seems an obvious thing to say when you are on Florida in the summer, but he was exceptionally so. We tried drinks and wiping him down etc but it wasn’t helping. To be sure he was OK we walked to the medical centre near the entrance just to get him checked. This is a great service, thank you Disney. They gave him some Calpol type stuff and an iced towel to bring his temperature down.

We needed to get some cash so we slowly wandered to the ATM whilst Rebecca and Tom took Freddie into the Brown Derby to change him and keep him cool. When they returned, Freddie was no better at all and we decided it would be best to leave and get him back to the villa.

We were quickly back in the car after a tram ride and home in about twenty minutes. Freddie chilled out, literally and Rebecca and Tom decided they would stay at the villa with him tonight rather than come out to dinner. A wise decision to make sure he was better for tomorrow.

The rest of us showered and got ready, whilst the largest takeaway order of McDonalds in history was made by Tom. The delivery guy needed a small truck. We headed for Bahama Breeze with me once again forgetting the camera. Bear with me now whilst I transfer the photos from that evening from my phone….

I’m back.

Cocktails were ordered.

I had a diet coke.

Appetisers were a must here.

That dipping sauce you can see with those onion rings was more addictive than crack. We had a spinach dip in addition to those onion rings and both were bloody lovely.

Me and Mikey had Buttermilk Fried Chicken with free heart bypass.

It was superb. Again, that sauce you can see is one of the wonders of the world.

Louise and Emily, as they always do here, had Jerk Chicken Pasta

I know that looks like a lot of pasta, but who doesn’t always make ten times more pasta than they actually need?

This is what full looks like.

We took three slices of Key Lime Pie home for those we left behind and the bill was $210 including a 20% tip for great service.

It was an early night!

Till the next time……

Freddie’s First Florida Fiesta – Day Eight 5th September 2018

by mkingdon, posted in Freddie's First Florida Fiesta

Enough of this meandering out of the house at any time we like. I had put my foot down. Today, we needed to be out and out early. I had spoken. We *had* to be out by 8.30, no excuses, no delays, if necessary, no sleep.

We left at 9.20.

Usually I would have been mad, but this was mainly caused by Freddie having a lie in. He is forgiven by default. This meant that time was tight, as our first FastPass slot ended at 10.05. Luckily, via Sherberth Road we were a longish stone’s throw from Animal Kingdom, which was our destination this morning.

We were at the gates by 9.30 and via a broken speed limit or two once in the car park, we were in Dino 39 and on to a tram a few moments later.

The theme park Gods were smiling, as the security line was short and we were actually stood on the correct side of the entrance at 9.50. I started the walk to Everest at a brisk pace but shortly afterwards we were halted. Emily had arranged to meet up with Ceara, who is currently on the CRP in the UK pavilion as it was her day off.

Out of the kindness of her heart Ceara had agreed to come along and use her cast member magic to get us a “return time” for Flights of Passage. To facilitate this we had to visit some secret cast members tucked away on a secluded path. Much tapping of tablet devices and scanning of bands happened. I had no idea what was going on, but we were eventually sorted and once again on our way to Everest.

We chatted to Ceara on the way, and still managed to arrive at the ride entrance at 10.03. Impressive if not a little stressful.

We saw the relevant cast member to sort out the baby swap stuff. Her name was Beth and she was lovely. She allowed five of us to ride initially and then a further four to ride the second time with the baby swappers. The ride was pretty quiet so nobody suffered any extra waiting due to us.

Once everyone had ridden, we all met up outside the gift shop. Ceara revealed her real motive for joining us today. She wanted a photo with Ryan!

It seemed like a fair exchange for all the help she would end up giving us today.

In all the rush and kerfuffle of getting everyone where we needed to be on time, I had not yet consulted the app to check our plans for the rest of the day. So, my natural instincts kicked in and we set off for the safari. It would turn out that I had at this point totally forgotten that we had a FastPass for the safari later, but that’s not important right now.

There was a five-minute wait and we were soon all aboard.

Regular readers will know that at this point you are about to get bombarded with a large selection of blurred photos of animals. Enjoy!

It was a good trip and enjoyed by all.

Now it was time to head to Pandora. I had managed to secure a FastPass for Navi River Ride and that was next on the list. We tried our best to take in the theming as we wandered into another first this trip.

It’s been a while since this came up in a trip report, but that might benefit from a drop of Vagisil.

Ceara watched Freddie so that we could all ride together, which was lovely of her.

It’s a gentle ride, but excellently themed and one you’d need to ride a lot to take it all in.

We returned to Ceara to rescue her from the incredible heat. We were now headed for Flights of Passage. Ceara had used her CM special pass to get a return time (before she met us earlier) and as all our bands were linked to hers as her guests, we could ride with her. Having tried and failed to get a FastPass this was a lovely thing for her to do and very much appreciated.

Tom and Rebecca sat out first to feed and change Freddie and the rest of us entered.

I know there will be a good few of you that haven’t ridden this yet so I won’t describe it, but….

WOW.

This is just incredible and from a technology point of view this is THE best ride in WDW.

We exited all agog and watched Freddie so Tom and Rebecca could ride. Whilst they did we want to Santuli Canteen to get us all some food. There was no queue. In this instance this was a bad thing, as there as no time to study the menu before ordering so it turned into a panic driven random selection, just making sure that we had enough meals for everyone.

Don’t even ask me what this stuff was…

They were all just variations of the “protein” option. Whatever they were, they were very tasty indeed. With those demolished I mobile ordered a few desserts…

These were also excellent.

Being a gloriously flexible planner and all round good guy, whilst eating I used the app to swap the Safari FastPass I forgot we had booked for a Lion King one and as  that show was imminent we wandered there next.

We were Warthogs.

I have run out of superlatives over the years with which I can heap praise on this show. It’s good.

Mikey was loving it so much he volunteered for the bit at the end where the kids walk round shaking stuff. We “forgot” to tell him it was really just kids who did this, but, to his credit, he didn’t seem to care and loved every second.

A glance at the app showed that every ride time (Pandora aside) was ten minutes at most which pleased me. To celebrate we paused for Ceara to take a group photo.

Freddie had nodded off.

We headed for the rapids next, looking for a little moisture to combat the incredible heat. Louise sat out with Freddie and the ride was a welcome walk on.

I am happy to report that Ceara got the worst of it and was absolutely drenched but to be fair we all got a decent soaking.

To further aid the cooling down we stopped at the cocktail bar near Everest for some refreshment. I didn’t make a note of what everyone had but there were no complaints other than it seemed to cost me $50 for a mocktail.

With Freddie in mind we headed over to…

We’ve only done this once before and our memory of it was that we didn’t need to do it again. However, now with Freddie needing to see it, we were prepared to fall on our swords.

It was *much* better than our memories had remembered. Freddie didn’t manage to sit all the way through it. He’d been woken from his nap to go into the show and he was tired and hot so Tom took him out about half way through.

Dinoland next and on to Primeval Whirl for some rib rearranging.

Rebecca and Tom took the chance to get Freddie back to sleep by walking him around whilst the rest of us rode. Mikey and I rode together, proving that two gentlemen of our girths should find smaller partners to inflict injury on.

We sat in the sun whilst Rebecca and Tom rode and had a much needed cold drink. Then we headed over to…

Emily *hates* this ride due to the childhood trauma of the first time she rode it and she volunteered to sit out with Freddie. It turned out that Ceara wasn’t a huge fan either and screamed all the way round.

We collected Emily and Freddie and made our way back to Dinoland so that a now wakened Freddie could be taken on Triceratops Spin.

With that done, we started the walk over to Yak & Yeti for our ADR(s).

When we arrived I spoke nicely to the lady at the podium and merged our two seperate ADRs (I hadn’t been able to book for our full party on the app back home) and added Ceara.

As we stood outside waiting to be seated a young girl had just thrown up and we got to marvel at the custodial staff dealing with it using some magical powder which made it vanish.

Many cocktails were ordered…

I went crazy and had another mocktail….well, it was more an “ade” of some sort…

We ordered some Egg Rolls and Pot Stickers as appetisers and the chef came out to talk to Ceara who needed to see what she could eat with her allergies.

We had –

Ceara – Lo Mein with no veg

Me – Lo Mein Combo

Rebecca and Emily – Honey Crispy Chicken

Louise and Mikey – Sweet and Sour Chicken

Tom – Korean Beef

We all had various desserts too….

Desserts were Freddie’s favourite part of the meal….if you look closely at the photo above, you can see Freddie’s hand reaching out to get his Dad’s attention. Tom had made the mistake of sharing his cheesecake and now Freddie was on a mission.

He was a HUGE fan of cheesecake and they may have created a monster by introducing him to it.

Freddie had corn dog bites for his main meal and enjoyed those too.

It was going dark now and it was almost time or Rivers of Light. Animal Kingdom was looking very handsome.

As Everest was a walk on we rode that, Emily and Ceara did it twice. We had a FastPass for Rivers of Light so were able to wait until quite late before actually entering.

Freddie was knackered and there was little chance he would sit through this show so Rebecca and Tom wandered slowly out to the exit through the shops and we said we’d meet them at the car.

We took our seats and waited about ten minutes for it to start. It has changed quite a lot since we saw it last, starting with some of the cast wandering through the audience.

I’ve seen quite a few young girls on Instagram with less make up, but his contouring is “on point”. Am I doing this right?

The show is much improved, in my opinion and my camera excelled itself…

The water projections and lasers are far more “firework like” and it is all much more effective and interesting.

We made our way out of the show and wandered slowly to the exit, browsing a couple of shops. These delightful warm, dark Florida nights are just a treat to witness.

We dropped Ceara off at her apartment at Vista Way and then made our weary way home by around 10.30. Another tiring but very enjoyable day.

Thank you to Ceara for making the day much easier and enjoyable via the use of her special cast member magic and of course for getting us on to Flights Of Passage which everyone agreed was just mind-blowing!

Till the next time…..