What is an mkingdon? Well, it is a long story, but a simple one.
I have an addiction to Walt Disney World and Florida, and have done little else but holiday there for the past ten years. Worse than that, I have written about it too,in the form of long and detailed trip reports mainly on The Dibb. Upon joining that site I had to choose a username. I chose mkingdom, with the obvious relation to the Magic Kingdom. However, I am cursed with less than perfect typing skills, and I actually entered mkingdon.
So it all started there really, and people have come to know me as that, so I’ve sort of adopted it as my online identity.
Behind the name is a late thirties Boltonian with two girls, and Louise, a wife. I work in IT/Web stuff, and endure it to the best of my ability.
You can find me in various places online. You should follow me on Twitter, and I am facebooked up too.
The weather continued to take the piss, frankly. Having extended our trip to take advantage of the improved conditions, today, again, we had a forecast of cooler temperatures, not suitable for sitting by a pool.
You can appreciate the very average nature of the weather by looking at the view from our new room.
We had breakfast in the hotel as usual (I wonder how much we “saved” over the trip by not having to buy breakfast?)
Our plan today involved a drive to the Grand Floridian to have a look around now that the gingerbread house was up.
It didn’t take long to get there, but initially, we were politely denied access by the security guard. Only guests and those with ADRs were allowed in. So we turned around, parked just outside the entrance, and booked an ADR for lunch at the Grand Floridian Cafe. We drove back to the same guard, told him we had an ADR and he let us in without even checking. Weird.
The car park was very busy to be fair, so best he keeps the off-site scum out 🙂
It had been a good few years since we were last here, and we had forgotten the majesty and beauty of the place, especially with it all dressed for Christmas.
We took our time strolling around the lobby.
We browsed the shops and from the upstairs balcony, we Facetimed my Mum and gave her a virtual tour.
It was an enjoyable morning and we enjoyed just spending some time in such a lovely spot.
We checked in for our ADR at 12.30 at a very busy podium. As there were crowds of folks waiting to be seated we had a wander around outside for a bit.
It was a bit grey and drizzly but the place looked lovely.
We went back inside and were eventually called and seated around 1pm.
Our server was great, but overall the service was pretty slow. We were in no rush though so it didn’t affect our experience.
I had an iced coffee and Louise had a wine.
No starters, and Lousie ordered the Burger. It was declared the best burger she had ever eaten. I doubt my photo does it justice.
I had the Reuben sandwich.
We were not finished until 2.15 but we enjoyed it and were glad we had eaten somewhere we would never have thought of trying. The bill was $85.
We made our way back to the car and drove over to a very, very busy Disney Springs. So busy in fact that most car parks were full and those that weren’t had huge queues. Thanks, Thanksgiving!
So we went back to the hotel instead. I had a shower and put on some extreme-weather long pants before ordering a Lyft back to Springs. We arrived around 3pm.
We were hoping to get into the next showing of the Napoleon film at the AMC but it was sold out, so we booked in for the 4.30 showing instead and went to have a stroll. We ended up in the House Of Blues.
After a walk around the shop, we sat in the outside seating and had a Margarita. This was not one of my favourite drinks of the trip and I struggled to finish it.
It filled enough time until we headed back to the AMC though. Napoleon was an enjoyable film despite following the current trend of needing to be longer than it should have been at two and a half hours and apparently being historically inaccurate.
Once we were done we walked over the bridge to Wine Bar George for another Espresso Martini. I had two, Louise had one, and then a glass of wine.
Our bill was higher than it was for lunch at the Grand Floz!
We then walked across to The Boathouse for our ADR and our second visit of the trip. We were immediately seated on the outside deck which is lovely and for us preferable to being inside.
We had chips and dips to start along with the sticky bread service.
We both ordered the Sliders.
The food was just good on this visit. Nothing spectacular.
I opted for another….
Which again, was not quite as excellent as on our first meal here. It goes to show how much things can vary at the same restaurant.
Unlike our last visit, the bill was a much more tolerable $90.00 including tip.
It was spitting with rain as we left and we made our way back to the Lyft pick-up through horrendous crowds. We spent a few minutes browsing the Disney art shop before we were dropped off at the hotel and fell into bed by 11. A lovely day despite the weather’s best attempts to upset us.
Thankful to be feeling better after last night’s weirdness, we lay in a bit, and breakfast could not tempt Louise out of bed so I went down alone today, of course at around 9.55am. The staff continued to love me for doing that.
Bagels with PB and J, accompanied by a tiny bowl of cereal won’t be winning any culinary awards but they did the trick to get my day started once again.
Alas, the weather forecast for today was not stellar so we had made plans that did not rely upon warmth and sunshine. We also had to pack up to move to our new room today, which was a bit of a pain but not as much as packing to go home would have been. Louise had made a start by the time I got back from breakfast and we took our cases out to the car until we could “check in” later.
It was around 10.40 when we set off towards Fantasia mini golf. We parked up and found a spot to wait out the thirty minutes or so we’d been told it would be before we could start.
Yep, the weather looked fine after all didn’t it.
We were called after about twenty minutes and the whooping of all whoopings that I inflicted on Louise could begin.
It took a while to get around as were we behind a couple of families with very small kids. There were tantrums and sulking when the ball wouldn’t go in the hole and the kids in the party in front of us weren’t much better either. We weren’t in any rush so we just took a seat and watched them until it was our turn.
It wasn’t even close despite Louise fluking a hole-in-one on the 8th.
Note how I was pleasingly under par. What do you mean I am overly competitive?
After the game, we took the chance to have a wander around the Swan Reserve which is in the car park for the golf or vice versa. It is a lovely place with a very intimate feel for a Disney resort. It feels very boutique-y.
It has a very adult feel and by that, I don’t mean saucy films are being made there.
We set off back to the hotel, stopping off briefly at Disney Springs to spend over $100 on a pair of sunglasses for Louise despite just having a few days left on this trip.
The Sunglasses place was rammed with other idiots spending too much but we did get 30% off with it being Black Friday week. Yep, I know that doesn’t make sense, but we’d just blown $100 on some glasses that were probably made in a sweatshop for £2.50, so making sense was not the order of today.
You will have noticed that the weather was glorious so we headed back to the pool to make the most of the incorrectness of the forecast we had believed.
We managed about three glorious hours in perfect conditions.
Once 4pm rolled around I took a break from the sunbed to get the cases from the car and check into our new room. We were put in room 503 in the Cypress Tower. It was much the same as the other one but without a balcony which we could tolerate for a few nights!
After showers and stuff, we got a Lyft to Disney Springs around 6.30. There was a different band on tonight so we watched them for a while.
We then walked through a very busy Springs to find a drink. We managed to get the last two available stools at the bar in Wine Bar George, ignored the huge choice of wine, and ordered two “Wake Up Calls” which were Espresso Martinis. These were the best yet and remained our favourites of the trip.
We had a semi-serious conversation about buying one of those coffee drip/distillery things you can see in the background so we could make these at home.
I think we had two rounds and left after paying the $85 including the tip bill.
Tonight we had a new place to try for dinner. Because by rights we should have been flying home right now I had been forced to make some emergency plans and with it being Thanksgiving availability was scarce.
I had secured us a table at Terralina and even with that, we had a fifteen-minute wait to be seated. Whilst we waited walk-ups were being quoted a ninety-minute wait.
I had stuffed rice balls, which was probably something I picked up in the pool.
Louise had Bruschetta.
I followed up with Chicken Parm…
Louise had Lasagne.
It was all very delicious and I was glad we tried somewhere I would never normally have tried to book.
After our very strenuous sporting day, we were of course very tired as soon as the food hit our expanding bellies and we immediately walked back to the Lyft area to get taken home to bed.
It was an impressive 10.30 by the time we went to sleep.
It’s only when you write these trips up that you start to realise what dreadfully predictable creatures of habit we are. Trying to find an original way to say we woke up and went to breakfast just before ten is proving too much for my limited writing skills. Anyway. that’s what we did.
Having laid out a load of cash to stay a few extra days to enjoy some of the lovely weather we were denied on our first few days, we were a little perturbed to see the forecast predicting a little more shit weather today.
We went to the pool anyway, as if to defy the weather Gods and we Facetimed Rebecca and the boys. Today we watched a man cut some grass. Who says you need to go to the theme parks in Florida to enjoy yourself?
The weather turned around 1pm and we retreated to the covered area and had some chips and dips for a rare proper lunch.
There was no sign of the weather getting better so I drove to a Target on the 192 to collect that doll for Louise’s friend that I told you about some time ago. I finally worked out how to get the Target website to take a payment method registered in the UK but could only seem to do so if I collected. So I drove for over an hour to get a doll I knew nothing of before this trip for the child of someone I did not know.
The traffic was bobbins, matching the weather, with the rain tipping down for the whole journey. Still, apparently, I made some little girl’s Christmas so I’ll count this as my good deed for this lifetime.
Once back at the hotel, I watched more Two and a Half Men whilst Louise got ready. We made it out around 6.30 and got a Lyft to Disney Springs. It was a mercifully short journey, as when the driver set off from our hotel, she made the sign of the cross and kissed her crucifix, which was mildly concerning for a journey that would take about four minutes.
We arrived in one piece and made our way to the stage outside World of Disney, got a cocktail from one of the little drinks places nearby, and watched a band for a bit. It was now not raining.
It was no espresso Martini but it was OK.
We then made our way over to The Edison for our reservation.
The Spings were very busy tonight but we were seated immediately upstairs. There was a very cool retro three-piece band on the stage below us.
We of course ordered the bacon thing to start and in all the excitement it escaped a photo.
I ordered the Edison Burger.
Louise, the Soup and Grilled Cheese.
Louise had wine and I had of course….
We shared a Lemon meringue for dessert.
Overall, we were not blown away by The Edison. The theming is fantastic and the live music a real bonus, but the service was a little slow and whilst all the food was good, nothing blew our socks off enough to have us wanting to go back any time soon.
My mood may have been tainted by my health at this point. I was completely full of snot. I don’t know what the bill was, but I remember it of course being fairly pricey for what was nothing fancy. As we walked back to catch our Lyft home, I was feeling dreadful. I was short of breath, dizzy and really felt out of it.
Once home I went straight to sleep. I did wonder if that first cocktail we had as we watched the band had something in it that I had a reaction to. It was a very “fruity” cocktail and I may be way off the mark, but I can’t think what else it was, as I was right as rain the next morning.
On the plus side, had we not extended our stay we would have been flying home in the morning. Sadly, for you, that means a few more of these rinse-and-repeat blogs!!
There was no change to our routine this morning. Awake early and yet down to breakfast with just a few minutes to spare as ever.
Louise took up our position by the pool whilst I nipped out to Walgreens for another book. It’s amazing how much I can read when I don’t have to do unpleasant things like work for a living.
I also got some more sun cream and deodorant (there had been complaints!)
Things were looking lovely back at the pool.
We did undertake a fair amount of judgemental eye-rolling throughout the morning as we heard the names of some of the kids playing….
Jagger, Maverick, Ace and Landry were having fun though.
I spent a silly amount of time watching these big birds hunting for fish by the lake next to the hotel.
The weather was glorious today, and after another lunch of Lays, we were really feeling a little hard done by with the weather for the first few days after we arrived. With this being a shorter trip anyway, our over-privileged arses were feeling very sorry for themselves.
With our flight home just a couple of days away now, we both felt that we were only just getting going and I jokingly mentioned that we should stay a few more days. To cut a not-very-long story a little shorter, we had an opportunity to move our flight by a few days…..so I sprang into action on getting a room at the hotel…..and extending our car hire….and adjusting our airport parking….and making sure Emily back home could manage a bit longer….and talking to work, who were very understanding.
I’m pretty good at all this trip-related stuff, so with about half an hour or so on the phone and a few quid spent, we were now going to do the full two weeks and not go home until next Monday. We felt a mixture of luck, relief, and guilt.
I spoke to reception in the hotel about extending our stay but they gave me a price about 25% higher than what I could see online so I opted for the latter.
It turned out that the hardest element to amend was the airport parking due to the Holiday Extras app being a doom loop of not being able to amend anything or contact anybody. In the end, I just made a new booking for the extra days and crossed my fingers.
As the afternoon ended we went back to the room and I watched some Two and A Half Men whilst Louise got ready. I did pop down to the laundry to wash some clothes as we were now here for a few more days.
We set off up the gnarly I4 at 6.30 heading for Universal. We parked up around 7pm.
I took this to find the car later but I’ll share it anyway.
We walked through City Walk, picking up some gifts and having a drink from one of the kiosks not far from Voodoo Doughnuts.
We made our way to Antojitos for our 8.15 reservation and were seated after five minutes.
There is something just lovely about Florida of an evening.
We were brought the usual mountain of chips and salsa whilst we browsed the menu.
Of course, there were Nachos to start. These are a contender for the best we’ve ever had.
Louise had Fajitas.
I had something called The Trio. I didn’t really know from the menu what it included but it was very nice with a snot-inducing spicy kick in a couple of mouthfuls.
We walked up to Pat O’Briens as we had heard it had a dueling piano bar. I think we stayed for all of thirty seconds due to a mixture of not being able to find a clean table and the two piano players being woeful. I don’t seem to have recorded the cost of this meal but whatever it was, it was worth it.
We set the car in the direction of Jellyrolls and all was well with the world again.
We got there at 10.30 and once we had secured a table I nipped out to the ATM near The Boardwalk Inn so we could make some requests. We got three songs played tonight, this being one of our favourite songs, played by our favourite Jellyroller.
The other two were Pinball Wizard and If I Had A Million Dollars by Bare Naked Ladies.
It was quieter tonight being mid-week but we stayed till 1.20 before driving home and falling into bed at 2am.
Welcome to the next installment of us doing nothing all day and then going out to eat. There are worse ways to spend your time I suppose. I mean us doing it, not you reading about it of course. That sounds awful.
Louise was suffering from a life-threatening hangover this morning. So once awake I let her sleep and made my way out to the balcony (see, the extra few dollars for it was worth it) and wrote up some notes for yesterday in my stupidly expensive note-taking book, acquired on the Disney Wish!
Having left it as late as possible before risking not having breakfast, I left Louise in bed and endeared myself to the hotel staff once again by arriving at 9.56 for breakfast. I had my buffet routine down to an art now. I had largely shunned the hot options for fear that I may eat myself to death before making it home, so each morning I had a bagel and some cereal. The bagel had to have peanut butter and jelly on it too. I was truly living La Vida Loca!
I took up a spot by the pool in the glorious sunshine and didn’t really move for many hours. I spoke with Rebecca back home for a bit and Louise eventually joined me before lunch.
Things looked like this.
The weather today was the best we’d seen, which wasn’t hard I know, but we enjoyed it. We did nothing of any note all afternoon. There may have been swimming. No formal lunch again, just more Lays.
We left the pool around 4.30 and got ourselves ready for dinner. Because we had managed to slot The Cheesecake Factory in on a rainy day at the mall, it had freed up an evening dining slot on the plan and to confirm how highly we thought of Sickies, we made a second trip there tonight.
As is very often the case, a second trip often struggles to recapture the magic of the first but the food was still glorious. Our server had some serial killer vibes going on, but after arriving at six and being seated immediately at a high table which tested our agility, we of course ordered those pickles again.
I spent an age studying the extensive menu only to order the same thing I had last time. The Chowzilla with tots.
Louise chose the Mozzarella Burger.
Mine was fabulous again, Louise rated hers just OK. To make up for it, Louise decided to have a dessert and asked our server for a menu and some sign of a personality. Neither arrived, instead, the server just reeled off some desserts in a way that somehow made no sense whatsoever. Louise heard the word cheesecake and stopped our server there to put us all out of our misery.
It was nothing to write home about or indeed photograph it seems.
The bill was $115ish and frankly, we may have paid that just for the pickles. We had started the evening with every intention of going back to Jellyrolls, but as we clambered back into the car a brief conversation saw us decide to head straight to bed like the crazy cats we are.
Nothing wrong with a 10.30 bedtime! I bet you can’t wait for another exciting installment next week?
I’m sure you’ll agree that as nice as it has been thus far to be away and in Orlando, this trip has a feeling of taking a while to get going, certainly as far as actually doing what we came here to do. You can’t control the weather I guess. Similarly, as day seven arrives, I can finally start to make some sense of the title of this trip report for you. That is what is called a teaser. Well, I have to do something to encourage you to read this guff.
We awoke around 9am following our wild late night last night! We made it to breakfast before it closed and were heartened to see the weather looking very good. It was noticeable that breakfast and the hotel in general were much busier on a weekend. It wasn’t unpleasant in any way, just noticeable.
After breakfast, we needed to nip out to Target as I needed a new book to read. Now, nobody just “nips” to Target of course, and it was lunchtime by the time we got back to the pool.
Feast your eyes on this….
You will understand that we did not move from our sun beds, appreciating the weather and reading.
In an attempt to stay out beyond 10pm tonight, the plan was to skip lunch and eat an early dinner so we did not immediately crave bed as soon as the food hit our stomachs. We aren’t animals so I went to the shop and got us some snacks to keep us going.
Louise, as she would now for pretty much the rest of the trip had a packet of Lays for lunch. I know the reveal wasn’t worth the build-up, but when I thought back on this trip when dreaming up a title, I didn’t want to use one that bemoaned the crap weather and the other thing which stuck in my mind was our crisp-based lunches by the pool.
Having enjoyed an afternoon of cloudless skies and temperatures in the mid-70s, we retired to our room at around 4.30pm to get ready for our early dinner. We still didn’t leave the room till 6 after the usual sixty minutes of hair dryer use by Louise.
Tonight’s dining choice was Romano’s Macaroni Grill. A stalwart of our trips over the years and often one not known about by many. This proved to be tragically true as we drove up to it. All the lights and signage were off and it looked as if it had shut down for good. We were genuinely gutted.
We assessed the nearby options and opted for Bahama Breeze, not least because it was five minutes away.
We were seated immediately with it being 6.20pm and started with a Spinach and Artichoke Dip, a Bud Light, and a red wine.
I don’t drink much/often so tonight’s beer had to be recorded. There would be a good many more to follow as our plans for later involved Jellyrolls if we could stay awake.
Louise, as ever had the Jerk Chicken Pasta…
and I, after much consideration, opted for the ribs, despite the fact that the calorific value was pretty much the highest of any item on the menu.
Both were tremendous.
We declined dessert, paid the $100 bill, including the tip, and drove back to the hotel. A Lyft was summoned and I nipped up to the room to get some actual cash for the requesting of songs at Jellyrolls.
We were soon dropped off at the Boardwalk and got into Jellyrolls around 8.30pm.
At that time there were still a few empty tables, so we claimed one, ordered some drinks, and received our bottomless popcorn.
We had four excellent performers and felt lucky to have been able to watch them. Our fave was Michael, and here he is performing a classic….
We had a few requests played, trying to not request the stuff everyone else does like Billy Joel, Elton John and the like. We went for One Week by Bare Naked Ladies and That Thing You Do.
We sent a few videos to Emily who was up at 4am UK time due to a snoring boyfriend and dog and she was enjoying it all with us, despite being 4,000 miles away.
We stayed for a long time and drank too much. The place really filled up as it got later (those two videos were taken within half an hour of us arriving) and much of the crowd tonight seemed to be young cast members. Many Disney songs were requested and played and when Circle Of Life was playing it became obvious that many of the CMs were from the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom as we got a performance of the dance routine!
With things now being very crowded and rowdy as drunk youngsters were constantly dancing about three centimetres from our table, we left at around 1am.
I don’t know how much we had to drink if I am honest, but it could have funded another holiday. But, we had a really good night and we would return.
We made our way back to the Boardwalk and waited about ten minutes for our Lyft to arrive. Our driver was called Gaston, from Chile. He was an engineer by trade, working for Lyft at night to raise the funds to get his family over.
I don’t remember everything he said but Chile sounds like a scary place to live and no place for his two young kids.
We tipped him well and fell into bed just before 2am like the wild crazy kids we are.
The weather seemed to be behaving itself now. We awoke to much more acceptable fare, or at least the promise of it and we celebrated by getting down to breakfast with more than three minutes to spare before they closed.
After another very acceptable free brekkie we were out by the pool at 10am and here, captured by my excellent photography skills was the very moment we first saw the sun on this trip. It was quite emotional.
I know that modest glow actually being the sun is debatable but after the last few days, we were getting desperate. Yes, it was cloudy, but crucially it was dry and warm. We embraced this opportunity and did little else but read and relax until a break for another average poolside lunch at 1pm.
Louise had a Quesadilla and I had Tacos. They did not justify a photo.
More resting and reading followed lunch and even what had previously been an unthinkable dip in the pool happened.
We were back up in our room at 4.30 for showers and general readying for our trip out for tea. I couldn’t help but capture the unusually glorious weather a few times. I had forgotten what shadows were!
We were seeing things from the balcony that had been up until now concealed.
No Lyft was summoned tonight as we were headed to Universal, so I was driving.
This was the view from the window by the lifts on our way down to the car. Florida can be pretty when it’s not pissing down with rain.
It took about 20 minutes to travel up the I4 and park at City Walk. We arrived at the car park at 5.55 to see a load of cars pulled over to the side and not going through the payment booth things. We soon realised why, as parking became free at 6pm.
It was about 5.58 when we were next in line to pay the $30 when we saw the team member in the booth get on the phone and then immediately close up. What joyous luck hath been bestowed upon us? We were the first “free” car through and that $30 saving made all the difference in our overall budget for this trip.
We parked in ET and took the long walk into City Walk itself.
We browsed a shop or two, perpetually on the lookout for suitable gifts for those at home. Then we took up a table at the Palm Lounge (near the plane) for a pre-dinner drinkie. It was waitress service…literally, there was one waitress on, so after a little wait we had a beer and a wine.
We then made our way round to the Hard Rock for our reservation.
We were seated immediately and in the decade or two since we last visited we had forgotten how noisy it was in here.
Of course, we shared Nachos to start.
I followed that with a very large piece of meat, which was just OK, to be honest.
Louise ordered Fajitas and the “fixings” arrived about five minutes ahead of the sizzling platter of meat so she had to ask for new fixings as her tortillas were now cold and hard.
I had ordered a milkshake about twenty minutes ago and it now arrived.
Overall, the experience was just about acceptable. The service was patchy and the food was just OK. It may be another decade or two before we return.
As we made our way out Louise did wonder why they had a painting of David Baddiel hanging at the top of the stairs.
The bill was a slightly painful $155 all things considered.
You may guess that at this point, all we wanted was sleep, so was walked back to the car, drove home and let all that food add to our fat collections nicely as we immediately slept.
Much to our disgust there was still no sign of the sun. So we had a lie-in until 9.30, showered, and were that annoying couple who arrive for breakfast at 9.59 when it closes at 10.
As we ate, I consulted various weather apps and they were promising better stuff around 10.30, so we finished our food and headed out to the pool, ready to absorb all this good weather.
It was still shite. We didn’t even bother getting sunbeds, for fear of triggering the Trades Descriptions Act. Instead, we sat on the lanai, undercover and did some reading.
We Facetimed folks back home for a while and when it was time we ordered some lunch from the bar side snack bar. It was once again fairly average.
The drizzly grey stuff continued throughout.
We abandoned all hope of seeing any sun, well even any dryness at around 2.30 and went back to the room. We did some more reading and relaxing before getting ready to go out around 4.30pm. (I bet you wish we’d done some theme parks on this trip?).
We ordered a Lyft around 5.30pm and one turned up within a couple of minutes. We were dropped off at The Boardwalk about fifteen minutes later.
We headed to the new (to us) Abracadabar for a couple of pre-dinner drinks.
I had a Negroni and of course an Espresso Martini.
Louise had a wine and then an Espresso. It’s a nice place. Not huge so I suspect it will get full quickly at busier times.
We wandered over to The Swan at 7.30.
We had an ADR at Il Mulino. This would be our fourth visit of recent times, the third and now the fourth trying to recapture the excellent experience we had on our first two.
The bread service here is excellent and the higher prices get you a lot of attention and lovely iced water served by a team of about 14 staff per table.
I had rice balls….but I suspect it was all this damp weather.
They are one of my favourite dishes of all time but be warned they do pack a spicy punch. There was snot and tears, but all of it worthwhile.
Louise started with Meatballs.
Her main course was Ravioli…
and mine Gnocchi…
Whilst both our starters were superb, the mains were just OK and I think we’ll give this one a rest for a while now. We clearly stumbled into some kind of magical experience the first couple of times that we don’t seem to be able to replicate. None of it was bad, and we enjoyed it, but for the price, we should probably try elsewhere.
The bill was $155 including tip.
All full up now, and clearly exhausted from our very busy day (!?) we decided against Jellyrolls and walked through to the main entrance of The Swan to summon a Lyft.
We waited all of six minutes before it arrived and we were back at the hotel and in bed by 10pm. We are the very definition of rock and roll I know!
I am not one to use spoliers, but tomorrow there may well be a blue sky and some sun!
We awoke full of expectations of more crap weather, and a few minutes of watching the TV confirmed this to be the case. Bugger.
We slowly got ourselves ready and headed down for some breakfast. With no real clue what to do today, I booked an ADR for Beaches & Cream at 2.30, thinking we may do some resort hopping if all else fails.
The view from the restaurant was not a pleasing one.
It became clear to us during breakfast, based on what could be seen through that window and what the weather apps were telling us, that it would probably be too wet to be doing any sort of “hopping” or generally just being outside at all, so we changed plans and decided to head to Mall at Millenia to be indoors as much as possible. Crucially it also had a Cheesecake Factory.
We left the hotel at 10.45 and undertook a slow, wet, and frankly slightly dangerous drive up the I4. We parked up, got wet on the walk-in, and wandered a few shops before deciding that was more than enough shopping for now and it was time to eat. You know where we went.
It will not shock you to hear that we ordered Nachos.
Having had breakfast not that long ago that was the extent of our efforts. We are not animals.
We resumed the wandering of shops and Louise had pinched my hoody as she was a bit chilly. So we went to American Eagle and I bought myself a new one for $75. This frivolous spending can only happen when on holiday.
With enough dollars spent now, we walked back to the car and drove to Disney Springs, headed for the cinema.
The rain at this point was biblical.
I take these photos so I can find the car when we return, but I share them anyway.
There was not a great deal of choice, film-wise, but in the end, we opted for the new Di Caprio film, Killers Of The Flower Moon. I knew little about it other than it was three and a half hours long. We were pretty full but I did manage to fit in a bag of choccy snacks……three and half hours is a long time!
The film was good but could have been a fair bit shorter and easier on the ass.
We emerged at 6.30 and guess what, it was pouring down still. We drove back to the hotel and got ready for our evening with Yeeha Bob at Port Orleans.
We were picked up by a Lyft at 7.45 knowing this was already too late to secure a good seat. We arrived ten minutes later and found that to be true. We had to loiter for a while until a couple vacated a couch just outside the main bar area. They knew we were waiting for their seat and the arse husband therefore spent about ten minutes examining his bill, for what who knows, before, slowly and finally getting up. I really dislike people sometimes.
We had one drink in this location before someone left a table in the main area and Louise pounced whilst I settled up.
That was an Espresso Martini, but probably the least impressive of the trip.
This was much better.
I had moved on to Chocolate Martinis as I am not a real man and cannot drink proper alcohol.
After a good few drinks we were peckish so ordered some bar food. I think it was some sort of Spinach dip and Tots.
At some point towards the end of the evening, just after a round of drinks had arrived, I put some of my not inconsiderable weight on my end of the table and it tipped up, launching Louise’s full glass of red wine all over me.
Many napkins were needed and I now had pink trainers and a soggy hoody…you know the one I spent $75 on earlier. Our server replaced the drink for free of course, despite my clumsy ineptitude. Maybe their tables are known to be faulty?
Anyway, we left at midnight in another Lyft, and hey, it was still raining.
We do seem to have been cursed with some very average weather on recent trips. Our stay at Daytona in May and now these first few days on this trip have all been very unFloridian. If anyone knows where I can submit my compensation claims that would be handy.
Trying not to sulk too much after waking at 6am and suspecting that once again the weather would not be conducive to the pool we had some breakfast. Like the proper Brits we are we did take up positions by the pool for a little while, of course being the only folks out there as it was very grey and drizzly.
We admitted defeat and headed back to the room and made other plans. Those plans involved food, drink, and ten-pin bowling.
It had been many minutes since breakfast so first, we planned to get some lunch at Disney Springs. We caught our first of very many Lyfts over to the Spings as I was planning to have a drink or two. These things were amazingly efficient, abundant, and affordable. They were a great success for all of our trip.
We were deposited at the Lyft drop-off place near the Earl of Sandwich and we walked in the general direction of Splitsville looking for somewhere suitable for food.
Another tree…
On a whim, we decided upon Wolfgang Puck’s mainly as were walking past it.
It was pretty quiet so we were seated immediately. Keeping it light, as we had dinner plans, I just had a sandwich!!
and Louise a salad…
Louise had a wine and I had a draft beer.
Our server was excellent earning himself a good tip, taking the bill to $95 in total.
It was raining hard as we left so we made our way to Splitsville via as many shops as possible. Yes of course we had forgotten to bring the umbrella we acquired at great expense yesterday.
We booked in and were told there would be a 20-minute wait. At first, we thought the entire place had just these lanes….
But we soon realised most lanes were upstairs and this was a private party area. It was currently hosting some corporate do so it was all chinos, false smiles, and male bravado.
After about ten minutes we were taken upstairs to our lane and we ordered more wine for Louise and I had a beer flight.
This activity was all about fun, in the absence of the sun, but it is still important to record the fact that I won by a country mile despite not having played for over a decade.
Once were done we made our way back to the Lyft area and went back to the hotel. We had a drink in the hotel bar, noticing that it was still raining really hard, but not caring as much as we did before we started drinking.
I spent about twenty minutes trying to order this Ily Stitch doll for Louise’s friend online, but the Target website refused my every attempt as I was a bloody foreigner.
We went up to the room for showers. I read whilst Louise used the hair dryer for an inexplicable amount of time.
At 7.45 we were in another Lyft heading back to the Springs. The Drury Plaza is very close so I would say on average a Lyft there cost us about $10 with a tip.
We walked to The Boathouse, our eatery for tonight and it was, yep, you guessed it, raining hard still. This time we had the brolly though. The Boathouse was very busy so we had a wait for around 20 minutes after checking in. We sheltered in the shop next door until we were called, shortly after I went back to the podium to check, as I never trust these text messages to UK numbers in the US.
We were seated on a high table, which was just about fine for two fifty-somethings who had been afternoon drinking and after only a few minutes we ascended the stools and looked at the menu.
We declined an appetiser and instead enjoyed the bread rolls.
We then pushed the boat out (pun intended) on two Filet Mignons at silly expense. We added Truffle Fries and Asparagus as our sides.
I had, and this is going to be a theme throughout this trip, an Espresso Martini.
I think I had at least two and Louise had a similar amount of wine. We had a bottle of water (not your tap nonsense) and I had a diet Coke as well.
All of this is to prepare you (I was not prepared, probably due to the drink) for the size of the bill at $295. The steaks at $67 each plus the drinks were mainly to blame but it still hurt a bit and this would be by some distance our most expensive meal of the trip.
Regardless, we thoroughly enjoyed the food and the experience.
As we emerged, the rain had almost gone and things were a bit quieter.
We strolled back to the Lyft area and summoned a driver who arrived within what was to be the customary 2-3 minutes and we were back at the hotel for 11. Sleep was not hard to find.
If you’ve ever wondered what to do in Orlando when your plans to sunbathe are torpedoed by UK-style weather, stick around!
We both slept OK but were of course awake around 5am. A quick look at some weather apps and out of the window confirmed that the weather today was going to be crap, so the plan was to go to Disney Springs and hopefully get all the gift shopping we always leave to the last minute done nice and early.
Once the hour was more reasonable we headed down to the free breakfast buffet. It is very decent for a freebie and served us well all holiday.
It was proper grim outside.
It was better than this looked. The buffet included breads, bagels, cereals, fruit, a waffle station and a full hot buffet.
We finished around 8am and by 8.30 we were headed for Disney Springs where of course bugger all would be open yet. Indeed Lime Garage, our usual choice, was not open and we had to park in Orange. We then had to hang around for a bit at security until 9am until we were let in, but only after Louise got pulled by security. In front of us was a wedding party, planning to get wed somewhere at Disney Springs and the security checks they were going through may have lasted longer than their marriage. They had boxes of all sorts of stuff that had to be gone through one by one.
Once inside, it was understandably quiet at this time.
We wandered down to House of Blues….
and around the back of it, along the waterfront.
It was lovely just to be here and wander about having the place pretty much to ourselves. I don’t think we had ever walked down this bit of the Springs by the water and we just soaked up the view for quite a while. We slowly made our way down to the other end of the Springs to kill time until most of the stores opened at 10am.
We were sending the girls endless photos, whether they wanted them or not!
We timed it perfectly to arrive at World of Disney at 9.59 and the doors opened literally as we arrived.
As we did all the CMs were lined up clapping us in.
We bought a gift for Emily and a pen for Louise’s job (honestly!). It was an extra wide, chubby pen as clearly she is very used to how that sort of thing feels in her hand.
We continued to wander all the usual stores, such as Trend D and the Coop, dodging the now heavy rain. We invested in a brolly. I’d been asked by a blog reader to look out for a specific calendar and on this, our first try of many, it was sold out!
We were also on a mission to find an Ily Stitch doll for a friend of Louise’s (no, I’d never heard of them either) and World of Disney didn’t have any of those either! Not the most fruitful shopping expedition.
We had a sit down in the covered bit near Chicken George and Facetimed Rebecca for a bit.
Having not much else to do, we drove to Target to see if they had one of these dolls, but of course, they did not. We picked up some bits and that may sound like a quick thing to do, but as you may know, any trip to Target is measured in days. With that done we headed back to the hotel as I had a call of nature to attend to.
It was mid-afternoon by now and we were both knackered so decided to have a nap and relax for a bit. This inevitably turned into a good few hours of not doing a lot and we were so tired that we decided just to grab a Pizza Hut pizza from the shop in the hotel for tea and watch some telly. The weather was still very grim and was not encouraging us to go out anywhere.
Bedtime was embarrassingly early.
We do better than today from here on in, I promise.
Well, here we are again folks. Even in the heady days of the Dibb when I used to write good trip reports I could never be accused of each one being unique. I was recycling jokes and content before recycling was enforced by your council. Now, with more trips recently than hair growth I am afraid you are in for some serious deja vu.
Knowing what we got up to I can assure you this report will be briefer than others, with no park activity to report, so in effect, most days will be a couple of shots around the pool (photos, not drinks) and then a restaurant at night, so if you’re up for that, welcome along.
We had a really good time by the way. I know I say this every time, but I cannot remember ever feeling so sad about coming home and not wanting to, so much so that we didn’t, for a few extra days but more on that later.
The title of this trip may not become clear until a few days into the report, but
a) it doesn’t matter,
b) thinking up titles for essentially the same holiday is hard, give me a break and
d) what happened to c) and
c) ah there it is.
So things kicked off in the usual fashion with a 5am alarm that we were both awake before. With showers, a half-drunk cup of coffee and some time sorting the dogs out, the cases were closed and loaded into the car.
I popped into Emily’s room to say goodbye and grabbed what I thought was her foot to wake her up. Imagine her boyfriend’s horror of being woken up by me grabbing his foot! After a slightly awkward goodbye after that, we were off.
I’m all for these winter holidays but it seems the penance for escaping the crappy UK weather is that the drive to the airport must be undertaken in monsoon conditions. To be fair there was an officially named storm in progress, but the drive was a headache-inducing one with huge levels of concentration as I was determined not to die and miss my holiday.
We got to T2 at 6.55, had to go up six levels in the T2 West Multi-Storey before finding a spot and were soon stood in what was a ten-minute queue to check-in.
As soon as we approached the desk and handed our passports over, the baggage belt broke down. Of course. So we stood staring at the check-in lady for a while until, thankfully it started up again and we could get rid of our bags.
Security was better than usual, and we were soon through to “the bit where you get some food”. The airport was incredibly busy for reasons I could not fathom.
Anyway, like the creatures of habit we are, we headed to San Carlo and only had a five-minute wait for a table.
I had my usual. The Full Works sandwich.
Louise had what I believe to be Eggs Benedict, expertly captured here.
After all these years, I had recently discovered that via some app that I have access to thanks to my bank account I can get into airport lounges (they were all fully booked by the time I found out) and I get some discounts at the airport. One of them was a 15% discount here.
Redeeming it took longer than eating the food, but we got there in the end. I tipped 15% so that was all worth it wasn’t it. £39 in total.
We had a very brief stroll through Duty-Free before picking up holiday read in the bookshop.
Louise then Facetimed Rebecca and Dougie whilst I queued for fifteen minutes for a poo. I told you the airport was busy.
We headed to the gate, which involved the usual half-marathon distance stroll. Gate A6, and being at the very back we boarded as our row was called to avoid having to wait for everyone to put their bags up to walk to the back of the plane.
I was selected for a random security check which involved swabbing a lot of things and taking my shoes off.
As ever, the ticketed departure time was a greater fiction than the book I had just bought and we didn’t take off until 11.25, just under an hour later than advertised.
It was a windy and bumpy ascent but much of the storm from earlier had now thankfully vanished.
Once we were up, Louise discovered her TV was broken. Luckily the centre seats to our right were empty so I moved across to those so she could use mine.
Drinks and pretzels arrived first at 12.12. The film choice was poor, mainly as it hasn’t changed for a while, so we didn’t watch too much. Being on the last row, we were the last to get food so our choice was beef or chickpea curry. The former for me…
And the latter for Louise, with no photo as I was sitting across the aisle at this point.
But you can see a blurry photo of my bun instead.
I watched three episodes of Friends and then played some of the games for a while. All of a sudden we were over New York and only a couple of hours out from Orlando.
I was, as always seems to be the case, inexplicably hungry. The pastry thing handed out as a snack was inhaled and I continued to watch “stand in the aisle guy” a few rows down the plane.
All flight, he had, as his name suggests, stood in the aisle, including every possible moment before take-off. He was “erect” again before the bong to announce seat belts could be undone had finished bonging.
The cabin crew must have had to ask him to get out the f…. I mean to, please move to one side about a dozen times.
He was still standing up as we started to descend at 2.40pm. I moved back to my original seat for landing as my considerable weight in the wrong seat could be catastrophic for the pilot.
Louise bought some perfume from duty-free for £50. I have expelled more liquid from a sneeze than turned up in the bottle.
It was overcast and bumpy as we touched down, but, we were home.
I do prefer Terminal C. Getting your cases first is better and avoiding that ludicrous trek/double bag drop thing is always good. It does however mean you do not get the Buddy Dyer talk on the monorail. We were last to the carousel and ironically last to get our cases too. This meant a ten-minute wait at immigration before being processed incredibly quickly by a cast member from Orange is the New Black who was only slightly terrifying.
Down to Level 2 for the car and I had booked with Alamo and managed to secure a “Get out of jail free card” in the form of a straight-to-the-garage pass. I took some small delight in walking past “stand in the aisle guy” as he queued at the car hire desks.
After figuring out where Alamo lives in Terminal C we were shown the vast array of Compact SUVs on offer….all six of them. Three already had folks crawling over them so pickings were slim and we ended up with a very average Nissan Rogue, but it did the job for the few times we would use it.
The sat nav took us to the hotel a weird way I had never seen before. We went through a few tolls and I had decided that getting a Visitor Toll Pass thing was simply not worth the trek over to Terminal A, especially as we had no plans to drive anywhere involving a toll once at the hotel. As we got to the release barrier at Alamo the lady there told us that all their cars now have toll pass set up and you just get charged for what you use, plus (and there’s always a plus isn’t there) a $5 per day activation fee.
That was good enough for us as we were only going to hit tolls going to and from the airport.
Check-in at the hotel was painless and very quick. The free parking perk, which I seemed to get by booking with Travel Republic was a big saver as it was usually $25 a day. With that and all the other perks at this hotel is really is a great choice. I’ll probably wang on about that later. Right now I’m tired from the flight!
We were given room 1841 so we needed the lift up to the 18th floor. One of the lifts was being fixed by the maintenance guy, so every time we pushed the button, that lift opened, revealing him on his knees fixing stuff. We did that about four times in total before he’d finished and we could get in a lift.
The room was lovely.
Is there a better feeling than the “just got to my room in Orlando” feeling? Almost certainly, but it was still a lovely moment.
The view would be fantastic once the weather behaved itself but more on that later.
I unpacked in under sixty seconds and after a brief rest we were out in the car heading for food. We were Sickies bound on the 192 and the traffic was absolutely dire. It took about forty minutes but luckily the journey would be very much worth it.
The experience did not start off as well as it could as us and a few others were stood waiting at the podium area with no staff to be seen for five minutes but once we were seated all was well.
Now, granted we were high on the “we’ve just arrived” dopamine but we loved this meal.
To start we had the Fried Pickles. To be honest these were one of the main reasons we had come.
These things were simply one of the tastiest things we had ever eaten.
The menu is huge. It was easy for Louise as where there are Nachos, she will be eating them, but in the end, the server was there, pen in hand and I had to take a stab at something. I chose, wisely it turned out, the Chowzilla.
It deserves two photos….again, one of the most tasty things to enter my gob.
The nachos…
As those nachos were officially an appetiser, they appeared at the table much sooner than my dish, which was a minor inconvenience. We asked our server when mine might arrive and she apologised saying her manager had brought out the nachos in error. It was absolutely fine and we did not in any way moan about it.
She removed the nachos from the bill! So I just added that back onto her tip as she had been great.
I simply couldn’t finish my Chowzilla despite really wanting to and all in all, it was $100.
It only took fifteen minutes to get back to the hotel, which shows how crap the traffic was earlier. We got some water from the hotel shop, read for ten minutes, and fell asleep to allow all those calories to do their work.
Sure, another Florida trip could easily be seen as decadence or financial stupidity. It wouldn’t be the first or last time that’s the case but as if to cement the glorious correctness of our decision, this week it has rained 99.99999% of the time.
I do not play well with bad weather and cold dark nights, so the thought of getting away to some sun and warmth has sat well with me this week, as each day crawled endlessly by at a glacial speed, inching me towards a welcome break, and I don’t mean the motorway services. Work really did outdo itself on the shitshow front as a finale week.
My usual prep started late but is pretty much complete now. With no park plans, the prep is easier, but Ryan has been readied, essential items procured and the passports checked.
Huge sums have been spent on pet food to arm Emily with the tools she will need to keep our zoo alive and kitchen fitters have been tempted back to our house to also give her a kitchen that works fully. I guess it is now 99% complete with just a few snags to sort out next Tuesday.
Here are some before and after pics. Our new dining table isn’t ready yet. It is being hewn from precious metals and the rarest woods known to man by blind Tibetan monks, using diamond-tipped chisels of pure gold. I don’t know if any of that is true, I’m just guessing it must be based on the price. Clearly, I was not involved in that buying decision.
There isn’t a huge difference between the two, and these were taken immediately after the workmen left so there’s still some cleaning, tidying, and “settling in” to do but you get the idea. We have extra cupboards, a different colour of units, new worktops, a new sink, and a fancy Quooker tap. We also took out the monolithic extractor fan thing above the island which somehow immediately made the room seem bigger. Indeed, the main aim was to make the room lighter as it can get a bit gloomy in there, with it being encased in two-foot thick stone walls and in the North of England!
Anyway, we are off tomorrow. I haven’t been able to check in online and will have to do it the old-fashioned way at the airport. This is because when I was adding the Advanced Passenger Info a few weeks ago, an error happened and it turns out that some idiot put Louise’s date of birth in wrong at the time of booking. It’s not that I don’t know it, there was just some issue with the scrolling picker thing and it landed on the 27th and not the 28th.
So Aer Lingus had to manually update that and warned me it would mean I would need to check in at the airport. Sigh.
As the main focus of the trip is going to be food (which is not very different from any previous trip tbh) here’s a summary of the places we plan to eat at.
Sanaa
The Boathouse
Il Mulino
Hard Rock Cafe
Romanos
Cheesecake Factory
Antojitos
The Edison
I am hoping to fit in one or two other new places if possible.
I have struggled endlessly to carve off a few pounds over the last few weeks, as I do before most trips and of course, I will have added those back on by the time we land in Orlando. This may be just me, but isn’t travel day the most calorific day outside of December 25th? With multiple meals across two time zones, plus snacks, fancy coffees, and the relaxing of pre-holiday restrictions, it is a gut-busting bonanza. My body’s ability to put on weight really is a thing of wonder.
Anyway, lots to do today so I must be off. As ever, I will post sporadically on the Mkingdon Facebook page whilst we are away so give that a follow if you don’t already should you care enough.
The week of Halloween is typically spent celebrating Freddie’s birthday. This year was no different. It was inevitable, with Rebecca being his Mum, that Freddie is a huge Halloween fan. Rebecca makes sure the house is fully decorated and when the day itself comes, they are appropriately attired to do some candy gathering.
With the spooky season done, it was then time to move on to his birthday and the serious business of turning six. On the day itself, he was overwhelmed with presents, taken to a play area and the cinema, and then on Saturday, we joined him and his classmates at another play area for his official party.
He’s had a good birthday and a good week! He deserves it as he is just a lovely soul. He’s kind, clever, considerate and really funny. Clearly, my genes run strong!
Our kitchen remains unchanged from this time last week. We are waiting it seems for some drawers to be resized to fit into our island, accommodating our fancy new extractor that is in our hob. I say it seems, as getting any form of reply from our fitter has proven to be a bridge too far since we saw him last. Frustration levels are high as we still sit in the 95% completion zone, not yet able to get things “back to normal”. Hopefully, it’ll all get sorted out next week before we go away or there will be a falling out.
Speaking of which the cases came out this week. A little early, but I was in the outhouse getting a cat carrier out for THE most expensive visit to the vets in recorded history and I thought I’d grab the cases whilst I was in there to save me a further trip a few days later.
We’re taking two large cases as normal, despite only doing ten days as one of these trips I would like to not have to stress for the last few days about how we are going to get everything we have acquired back home.
I’ve also been helping Emily plan a WDW trip for next March. She is going with her boyfriend and a couple they are friends with. As one of their friends is a teacher they have to go at a really expensive and busy time, so finding flights that are not laughable has been a challenge. Emily is now planning out the days and is finally appreciating the high degree of expertise and responsibility involved in doing so!
None of the others have been before, so the pressure is on. They literally could not be in better hands as long as they submit to her will and plans. Right?
So I’ll see you back here next week for a pre-flight post.
I know this is a ridiculous thing to say after the last couple of years, but I need a bloody holiday!
A mixture of our leaky roof saga (now resolved) and our never ending kitchen refit (about 95% done), along with some work stuff that would try the patience of a saint, I am frazzled. It feels like we have been living amidst chaos for far too long.
I know it is physcological, and if I did not have an imminent trip booked I would probably feel less deperate for it, but here we are.
The worst news of last week was discovering that The Cheesecake Factory have stopped using Yelp for their reservations and now they insist on a US phone number to do any table booking. This means I will have to do an actual phone call to the restaurant once we’re in Orlando to book us a table. I know I could do it now, but that would add unacceptable pennies to the bill of thousands for this holiday so I won’t of course.
All this activity, choas and kerfuffle has meant that over the last few weeks and months I haven’t really watched any Florida vlogs. I have managed a couple recently to discover that The Trackers are clearly billionaires now and Mr Morrow has shifted his views per video from the 30,000 bracket to the 100,000 bracket. Good luck to them both.
It did dawn on me whilst watching one showing Mr Morrow spend about $300 in Gideon’s that when we are there in mid-November I think all the Christmas stuff will be up. Not that we will be in a park of course, but it will be nice to see that at Disney Springs and any resorts we go to.
Halloween starts in August and Christmas on November 1st I would assume.
With a flurry of activity late last week in our kitchen we were hoping it would be done. We had multiple trades in the room at the same time on Thursday and Friday and enough got done to get us a functioning kitchen and we can now start to think about putting the house back together again. Maybe by next week it’ll be really finished and in a state fit for some photos that I can share.
My hatred for the disruption of this type of stuff going on in the house only grows deeper every time we do it.
On Saturday we had Dougie stay over with us as Rebecca and Tom took Freddie away to Drayton Manor for an early birthday treat. He is trouble in human form but also a little love and we dutifully spoiled him rotten.
I had a long arranged gig so Louise was on main duty until this morning.
Freddie had a blast too.
Now for some rest before the madness of whatever next week brings starts.
I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on social media this week about the 100th anniversary of Disney. As ever, I like to be at the forefront of these online trends and post about it many days after the event. It is this cutting-edge nature that sees my blog surge in popularity week after week.
Many of these posts seemed to be trying to summarise what Disney means to people, and the effect it has had on their lives. I’m genuinely at a loss as to where to start with that. But of course that will not stop me now from spending the rest of this post trying to do exactly that.
My first ten years on this planet were lived in a normal way, in terms of Disney. I’d watch the films and every bank holiday I would watch the Disney special that was inevitably on the telly, showing clips from all the classic films.
Our holidays were, I am lucky enough to say, regular and wonderful, with the destinations usually being somewhere Balearic.
Then one fateful day in the first half of 1980, our family went into Bolton town centre (when there was one) to go and book our next holiday.
For those under 30, this involved sitting in a shop and watching someone who worked there tap away at some pre-historic-looking green screen VDU if you were lucky. I genuinely can’t remember if by 1980 AT Mays in Bolton had those, but via whatever method our travel agent was looking at stuff, the phrase that would change my life forever was uttered.
“You know, for the same price as Mallorca, I can do you Miami.”
This was mainly due to a dollar rate of 2.20 to the pound. Now, this working-class Bolton family had barely heard of Miami, never mind ever dreamt of going there and I don’t think it took long for that decision to be made.
Of course, zero planning was done. I was nine. I do vividly remember the flight, and that all drinks were free, and I think my Mum probably had one too many Miami Whammies (I’ve no idea either but they were easy to drink it looked like).
Somewhere we still have photos of all the stewardesses on that flight, who to me, at nine and from a northern mill town (whippets optional) they all looked like film stars and I don’t mean Danny DeVito. Obviously, I’ve shared all this previously as I discovered a load of 1980 photos buried deep in a post from years ago.
The holiday itself was mostly like the others. We stayed in a hotel on Miami Beach, and I swam a lot and discovered American food and portion sizes and I have been fat ever since.
Then in the middle of the trip, we drove up to Orlando, stayed in a Howard Johnson (a hotel, not a person), and did Disney.
Now, at that time, Disney was just Magic Kingdom and a very small embryo of Disney Springs called The Disney Village.
Obviously, I fell in love. I turned 10 in America and I remember us going to a mall called Omni that had a merry-go-round in it which blew my mind and my Mum and Dad bought me a birthday cake there.
For years afterward, at family parties and get-togethers, my Dad would tell the same stories over and over about the size of a pizza we got and the number of slices of turkey he got on one particular sandwich, as well as phrases about people not being able to appreciate the scale of the park (there was just one as Epcot would open soon after).
“You get to the entrance and you’re still bloody miles from the turnstiles! You park up, get a tram and a monorail, and only then are you in”. They probably thought us all a bit weird.
I’ve carried on this tradition by regurgitating the same stories here for over a decade.
We even brought home a menu from a restaurant called Pumpernickels in Miami as nobody would believe us when we got home. I remember us being absolutely floored by there being two huge bowls on every table when you were seated, one full of coleslaw and one full of bread.
I have very limited but very vivid memories of this trip as it was a long, long time ago now, to the extent that I question whether they are accurate memories or just some sort of assumed thinking of something we did.
Now, clearly, all of this bred a love for Florida more generally, but the Northern Star in all this, and the tractor beam that has kept pulling us back there was WDW.
We went back several times during my childhood. I’m sad and sorry to say I cannot remember how many times. It’s a long time ago now and no notes were made, and all the photos were analogue.
Once I had my own family, it was my Dad again who re-ignited my passion for the place. He was about to retire and had an endowment policy burning a hole in his pocket. He declared he would be taking us all to Disney. That was him and my Mum, my brother, his wife and their two kids and us four.
I think he booked it over the phone with Travel City Direct, after scrolling through Teletext for hours, but I may be confusing that with other trips. It was £199 each for fly-drive and we had a huge, beautiful villa on Highlands Reserve. Our hire car was more of a bus, and we spent a lot of time one night being lost in Celebration I remember. It was Halloween and the place looked amazing.
Again, no planning was really done but we of course loved it.
The rest as they say is history with our own trips as a four, starting in 2001. An un-reported stay at the All Stars. From then on, pretty much every year we have been back in one way or another. Looking back now I really cannot fathom how we afforded it. Well, sometimes, we didn’t, but I don’t regret any of the trips, memories, experiences, and lovely times we had.
Some time around the time these trips of our own started I discovered the Disboards and then of course The Dibb. These were cutting-edge tools of their day and I learned so much from them and made some good friends too who we met many times over the years.
It is very hard to sum up what Disney has meant to us as I just do not have the writing ability to capture that. I suppose with recent events my Dad is in my thoughts. He loved the place and what he really got a thrill out of on the odd occasion it happened, was, during my Dibb days, we would get approached in a park by fellow Dibbers who recognised us. I think he was quite proud of that tiny bit of recognition, and he certainly enjoyed being in and reading the trip reports.
Now of course, we have started the next generation of trips with Freddie and Dougie, and I doubt they will be as obsessed as I am, and probably will not go as often, but I think, for those who get it, my girls have both summed up what I’m trying to say in different ways.
Firstly, here are the photos Emily posted on her Disney Instagram account last week (go follow her) showing how she feels Disney has touched her life. I think they do it perfectly.
Secondly, I’ll go back to our first trip with Freddie in 2019. It was our first morning and we were of course in Magic Kingdom. We had just entered the park and were standing at the hub looking up at the castle. There was a trolley show on, and I think one of the performers gave Freddie some attention whilst he watched from his stroller. I turned to see Rebecca in floods of tears, and she said…
“I get it now!”.
Of course, she had loved WDW before, but it hits differently as a parent and to see that realisation on her face and her reaction to seeing Freddie in that place, will probably tell you all I want to about 100 years of Disney without me trying to get the words out.
Cynics may say this is all manufactured schmaltz and others may say I should stop regurgitating the same content and photos and they are probably right, but beyond the schmaltz can be a form of magic, a generational bond, formed from memories and happy times that can help to get you through the less happy ones. Ultimately, if that makes you feel “better”, if it supports your mental state and improves your well being then it can’t be a bad thing. It’s better than doing drugs, although a lot more expensive.
It has been a bit of a week. Hectic is how I would describe it, with some chaos thrown in for good measure.
I was in the office on Monday and Tuesday. I don’t think I have done two days in the office in a row since February 2020. It hurt, and if, as The Daily Mail may have you believe, the whole country is working from home now, why did my commute take longer than it did pre-pandemic? I will not be repeating that in a hurry.
Our roofer finally turned up on Monday and got to work stopping our living room wall resembling Niagra Falls. He didn’t come Tuesday as it was raining, but thankfully by then he had found and fixed the bit that was causing all the trouble and we were watertight.
He was back later in the week to do the bulk of the work and said he should finish tomorrow. It will be an (expensive) weight off my mind but “Winter is Coming” (we are currently almost done with a complete rewatch of Game of Thrones, and we had forgotten most of it, so it has been very enjoyable) and I will sleep easier knowing we have sorted what has been a troublesome part of the house since we moved in.
Whilst that went on in one part of the house, the kitchen continued to be a scene of chaos. Our fitter was back for a day, followed by the electrician, and then on Friday, the men came to take away everything that is to be resprayed. We are keeping most of our existing cabinets, adding a few more, and have new worktops. That may have reduced costs slightly, but we seem to have opted for the “longest possible disruption” option.
We have a working hob and oven but still no sink and all our cupboards have no doors. I thrive in this chaos!
Then on Thursday evening, I was out at a Mustard gig, (yes I still do the band thing) and we were playing at the after-party for an awards do in Manchester. It was a star-studded affair if Kris Akabusi presenting the awards fits that description. We did not actually attend the awards ceremony so missed his hurdling-related high jinx (he was a hurdler right?) and we were just celebrity adjacent, knowing he was somewhere in the same venue. It was a building awards event and we had a good night but it was a very late one for a school night!
Then on Friday morning, I had to go to the dentist, just for a check-up but it was lovely to hear that I have gum disease, just to confirm that I am old and decrepit.
Speaking of rubbing shoulders with celebrities, whilst on Facebook the other day I spotted a clip from Phoenix Nights. Whilst nobody other than me and Louise would ever spot it, there in the background in the dressing room at the club (real name, St Gregory’s in Bolton) was Louise’s promo from when she was doing the club circuit in the late 90’s. Acts performing at a club would always leave their photo/promo on dressing room walls. Don’t try to click the arrow to play the video, I just grabbed a screenshot so you could really appreciate the blurry thing that may or may not be what I said it was.
It was a club we regularly visited on the circuit and it is exactly as the show depicts it, as were (and probably still are) most of the other clubs too. That dressing room is as “roomy” as it looks and most were also filled with all the crap the club didn’t have anywhere else to put, such as broken bingo machines, the Play Your Cards Right game, and the Hoover. Endless glamour it was not.
Unrelated to anything else, it’s been a while since I inflicted any photos of our endless pets on you, so here are some from when Emily took Woody to a pumpkin patch yesterday.
He’s almost 18 months old now and I suppose it is safe to say he’s here to stay and part of the family.
I am ever hopeful that by the time I post here again, we may have a fully fixed roof and a kitchen approaching something like normality. It’s this naivety that is both stupid and admirable in equal measure.
We are now less than a month from our Orlando holiday (we’re still not doing any WDW parks!) and I am ready. I did ask Louise if I could get the cases out yesterday as I was going to the outhouse in which they are stored for some other reason but I was denied.
On Facebook, the local community pages just seem to be a load of boomers mooning over photos from the old days when rickets and 10-year-old chimney sweeps were a thing, yearning for a return to those golden times.
“Oh look how full our town centre was and how many great shops there were,” they say before going to the door to collect their 4th Amazon delivery that week.
I can enjoy memories of the past without always thinking that today is bobbins and yesterday was always better because it wasn’t.
Having said that I am a bit of a sucker for some WDW nostalgia and this week some was sent to me that I feel compelled to share. As you know I am on close personal terms with all the high-ups at Disney, and they all read my blogs you know, and every now and again a Disney Imagineer that I know through a friend will send me some good stuff. I don’t know how much I can say about this Imagineer but I will tell you he was heavily involved in the recent project to design and build that real lightsaber you may have seen showcased at a recent D23. It is annoying that he seems to have the job I would like. It’s only a lack of relevant qualifications, experience, and about 4,500 miles that stand in my way.
Anyway, this week I received this gem from him of WDW in 1973.
It’s funny how some things look unchanged and some unrecognisable and that I suppose is the sweet spot for WDW to achieve. I was 3 when this was filmed, and aside from most of the people in the film now being dead of course, I wonder what they would have made of how things are now.
Have a watch if you can spare the time. It’s like being wrapped in a warm blanket.
This video, as lovely as it is, has not altered our intention of not visiting any parks in November. Part of the deal of going back to Orlando was to do so on the same budget as Egypt would have been, and with WDW park ticket prices as they are, they would be a deal breaker. Honestly, though, I have no real desire to do so either. That would change the entire trip’s dynamic and “planner Craig” would kick in and I’d be setting alarms for 6.50 a.m. to secure virtual queues and Lightning Lanes and then dragging Louise from one end of the park to the other because a ride we’ve ridden six dozen times only has a twenty-minute queue.
It’s enough that our entire eating itinerary is laid out already. It’s best not to awaken that beast.
The plan remains unchanged from last week, mainly as the week just gone has been an absolute shitter at work and with the house so I haven’t had the time or mood to be looking at it. It’s probably for the best.
Next week doesn’t look to be shaping up any better. I have to be in the office for two days in a row, which post-pandemic is an absolute insult and horror show and we have (the promise of) multiple workmen being in and on top of our house too. I can’t wait.
That last night of the trip was taunting me in its blankness, sat there on my plan, goading me to book something. What do you mean I could have not booked something and just gone with the flow?
I had thought I’d book somewhere around the Boardwalk but didn’t in the end. The Edison got the nod and that last remaining blank space is filled.
I looked at a few places and really wanted to try somewhere new. The menu and experience look pretty good based on what I read and watched so it’s booked and we’ll see how it goes.
Thanks to those suggesting things last week. Whilst we didn’t book to dine there, I did discover from one suggestion that there is another Jellyrolls style dueling piano bar at City Walk, in Pat O’Briens so we’re going to try and give that a go one night when we have dining planned at City Walk.
I’m now in that countdown hinterland, where no further planning is needed and it isn’t time to go to the airport yet. This feeling is probably why the plan will change before we go but it’s all part of the experience, right?
Away from holidays, our roof is still leaky, but now we know what it may cost for it not to be so. The figure is so large I cannot speak its name. Where we live, on the edge of the moors, where rain only happens 23 hours out of every 24, and when it comes, it comes sideways, we cannot risk not having a waterproof roof. We now sacrifice things at the altar of Sarah Beeny in the hopes of bringing the roofer to our property to actually do the work. There are rumours he may be with us “mid next week”. We shall see.
Our kitchen is more battlefield/bomb site than kitchen, and we spend our days working around the carnage and trying to tempt workmen back into the house to get it progressed. If someone were to condemn me to my own personal hell this would be it.
Oh and for good measure yesterday the washing machine broke so I had to find another workman to come into my house and relieve me of some money. Of course, despite not even being two years old, it is unfixable and we have to get a new one. Kerching!
Emily had her own troubles last week, finally catching Covid after all this time. There’s a lot of it around. She’s been quite poorly with it and is only now starting to feel anywhere close to normal again, but still testing positive almost a week later. Last weekend she attended two Busted gigs in Liverpool and Manchester arenas plus the work event I told you about down in Cardiff, which was attended by around 2,000 people, so it’s almost certain she got it at one of those. She’s been too ill to leave her bedroom for most of the week so protecting Louise and me from infection has been fairly easy.
Writing about trip planning and Covid takes me right back a couple of years to when all I did was plan trips that got canceled and moan about the handling of the pandemic.
Louise and I went to see Busted with her last Sunday too in Manchester and it was very enjoyable. We got Hanson included in the price of the ticket and here they all are performing one of my favourite songs.
All is well with Rebecca, Tom and the boys. Freddie is excited about his upcoming sixth birthday to which he has invited his whole school class. Sensibly, it will be held at a local play area. Dougie, who is 18 months old now, is starting to walk which only adds to the fun of daily life for Rebecca. He is a little bit more of a handful than Freddie was!
We are off out for tea with them later, along with my Mum who is doing OK, despite feeling a bit lonely at times. Adjusting to life without your husband after so many decades together must be difficult.
So there ends a post with a nice mixture of trip planning and life updates. I feel really out of practice in writing non trip report blogs so let’s hope something (good and not expensive) happens in the next seven days to give me something to droan on about.
I did chuckle at the comments and reaction to last week’s post. I wondered how many of you might get halfway through it really believing we were heading to Egypt.
To be fair, we came very, very close.
With an upcoming trip, I would usually be telling you all about all the planning I am doing, but as we aren’t doing a “WDW” holiday, although we will be in Florida and actually technically staying within the WDW resort area, I have nothing to do.
Yeah, right.
I have been booking “a few” ADRs and meals. I told you last week that I got Sanaa sorted for our first night (Day 2) there and I have done some more.
I didn’t book them in this order, but let’s go in the order we’ll do them on the trip.
Day 3 I have booked The Boathouse. It was strongly recommended to me by a regular reader/online friend (Thanks Matt) and a quick look around the internet sees many vloggers call it the best restaurant at Disney Springs, so we’re in.
Day 4, we plan to go and see Yeeha Bob at Port Orleans so we’ll probably just eat in the bar there before enjoying too many cocktails and some piano-based rowdy fun.
Day 5, (and this pledge to eat off-site isn’t going very well is it) I have booked Il Mulino at The Swan as a stomach liner before heading over to Jellyrolls. We’ve done this restaurant three times. Twice it has been outstanding and once it was just good, so we’re giving it another try.
Day 6 sees us head over to City Walk and I have booked us into The Hard Rock Cafe. We’ve been meaning to go back for about a decade. On a trip many years ago, with my Mum and Dad, we had a very memorable meal there that is one of our fondest memories of our trips. I remember the Nachos were insanely good (let’s face it, this trip is going to be a tour of the best Nachos in the Orlando area….we love a Nacho) and my Dad was blown away by the servers doing the Thriller dance routine. Anyway, for those mainly nostalgic reasons, we’re giving it a try again. It’s a Saturday so City Walk should be buzzing as we walk through it to the car park to go home to bed by 10pm!
Day 7 I have us penciled in for Romano’s Macaroni Grill at Lake Buena Vista. I always feel this place doesn’t get the love it deserves but it is one of our favourites.
Day 8, another absolute off-site fave, with us dining at The Cheesecake Factory. I think we’ve eaten here more than any other restaurant in recent visits. It really is outstanding.
Day 9 and we’re back to City Walk, for a second visit to Antojitos. We tried this Mexican for the first time in May and it was probably the best meal of our trip. Again, we do love a nacho so this should be no surprise.
Day 10, our last night and I have nothing planned just yet. I don’t know where to pick for our finale! I suspect it may be somewhere around the Boardwalk area as we do love the place and just being able to soak it in on our last night will be lovely.
Day 11 sees us come home and visit a heart and diet specialist as an emergency case.
All of this planning has been a welcome distraction (and isn’t that the whole point of these trips?) from the stressful reality of real life, which has been especially busy recently. Work is silly, and even involved working yesterday, in Cardiff! Life sometimes feels like you’re spending so much time doing stuff you’d rather not and in turn feeling guilty about all the stuff it stops you doing.
We’re having work done to the kitchen and you all know how much I love a workman in the house, alongside a very badly leaking roof timed perfectly for the worst rain we’ve seen in years. It’s made a right mess, as will the roofer’s quote to our finances, should he ever find time to relieve us of most of our earthly wealth. Nothing makes me more anxious/upset/depressed than a leaky roof. I can’t explain it, just hate water getting where it shouldn’t.
Anyway, I am holding off booking that last meal for our last evening as I am hopeful to perhaps find or have recommended that new fantastic, ideally off-site restaurant close to the Boardwalk. So, that is your mission this week. I await your suggestions!
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