Walt Disney World – Page 17

Hurry up and wait.

08/08/201020/06/2021 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

I’m knackered.

The weekend has been less than restful, and it is only now that I have planted my backside on the couch, found an episode of Two and a Half Men I have only seen about twelve times, and commenced the me time.

Yesterday saw me tackle a task that has been festering at the back of my mind for months. I threw the back seats down in the car, ready for the trek to the tip, took a deep breath, and ventured into the garage. Someone once said that it is crazy that we leave thousands of pounds worth of car on the drive, and stuff the garage full of worthless crap. We had indeed, and it took many, many hours to get to a stage where you can now walk through the garage without striding over stuff.

To put the level of work into context, in one box we found the photo from the twelve week scan of Rebecca! Rebecca is 13 years old.

So with two trips to the local tip, we said goodbye to stuff we had kept for years, under the illusion that we would need it someday. Sod’s law says that we will next week.

The afternoon, as last week, was spent at the gym, and then Asda. I truly am living the dream.

This morning saw me wrestle with the downstairs loo. By that I mean that Louise had started to decorate it this week, and it was therefore my job to finish it. The room, as you might imagine, is small, so why is it then that it took me bloody hours, and it still isn’t finished. I ran out of wall paper just before I ran out of patience. There are so many nooks and crannies in there that not one piece of paper went on in one piece. The complexity of wallpapering is directly related to the level of bad language.

Pleased to have a reason to stop, I did.

So, that explains my opening sentence!

This week saw me produce a pre trip report, which was perhaps a little premature, but hey, such is the story of my life. I’m not a big pre trip writer, and have only done one a couple of times, as I’m never really sure what to put in there. Anyway, with my countdown racing to a conclusion, I felt obliged.

As a result of posting this, there may be a few new readers here at http://www.mkingdon.com so welcome to you if that is the case.

I don’t know if anyone else feels like this, but when we get as close as this to a trip, I try to tell myself to enjoy having a countdown, and in some way, fear the holiday racing past all too quickly, and then I’m sat back here staring a bleak winter in the face, wondering when the next trip will be possible.

So for now, it seems I can think of nothing else than the upcoming trip. I am looking forward to so many things it would be difficult to list them all. These things are not necessarily the big events either, it is also the silly things. For me, the sheer joy of the morning of the outward journey is pure magic. For once, no-one minds getting up at silly o’clock, and the drive to the airport is a jolly affair. Even the hours spent at the airport are special, and somehow I don’t mind paying over the odds for an average breakfast, and if the girls are looking to get anything bought for them, this is a good time to get me!

I don’t think Louise enjoys this as much though, as her fear of flying is pretty bad. I wouldn’t say that I enjoy the flight, but mainly due to an over eagerness to get to the front of the car hire queue. Louise however, is genuinely afraid of the entire thing. I suppose it shows how much she enjoys the holiday that she puts herself through it every year.

This year, I’ve booked seats right at the back of the plane, based on the assumption that if we hit any mountains then we’ll be OK, as you never hear of any planes reversing into these things. The layout of the plane is typically 3-3-3, but right at the back it narrows to 2-3-2. This means we don’t have to worry about one of us (me of course) having to sit with another family, and we can just concentrate on annoying each other.

In years gone by one of the grown ups (yes, that includes me) would have sat with one of the girls, as we would have had Polly Pockets to dress, and food to cut up, but these days the girls can sit together, share iPods, films and their opinions on any boy unfortunate enough to wander by.

The films on board look pretty good, with the latest Shrek, Iron Man 2, Valentine’s Day and a few others I can’t remember available so these should pass a few hours. For me, the worst part of the flight is just after the food, drinks and duty free have been around, and things settle down. It is at that point that I realise that we still have about six hours left, and the girls start asking me how long to go!

The big kid in me just wants to get there, beat everyone though immigration, be the first to get the car, and be free of the airport and en route to the villa. I will remind myself now, to savour every moment, even those that I find boring and frustrating, as they are all better than being back at work!!

I don’t usually deal with queues and people particularly well. You may wonder then why I continue to go to the one place on earth guaranteed to inflict both on me. I can’t answer that really, but I do know that this peaks on the outward journey, with a multitude of tuts heard at every stage, from the check in desk to the restaurant we have breakfast in. I promise to restrict my Meldrew-esque moments to a minimum Louise!!

Oh yes, I just remembered. A historic event happened yesterday. You may remember in a previous post my disdain at Louise’s suggestion that I may need some new shorts. I made the point that I only wear them for two weeks every year, so in effect, regardless of the fact that they are older than the kids, they are almost brand new.

Anyway, I bought some new ones! They should see me right till my 50th now!

I’m waffling now, so I should stop. My excitement is over-riding my ability to edit myself. If you think this post has been a winding piece of nonsense, lurching from one thought to another, all holiday related, just wait until next weekend, when it will be my last blog post pre holiday.

I’m not sure yet if I will be tweeting from Florida, I need to ask the IT chaps at work if my phone tariff will inflict thousand of pounds worth of data charges by taking it to the US. In a way I hope it does, as it will mean two weeks away from email. On the other hand, I could do with my phone to act as sat nav, mobile internet look up, and tweeter whilst away.

I really will stop now. Till the next time…..

One wedding, seven teenagers and almost my funeral.

25/07/201001/11/2010 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Before I start, can I just point out, more for my benefit than anyone else, that it is 25 days until we go to Florida!

This is not a gloat, well not solely a gloat, but more of a wake up to me that this thing is close now. The whole new job thing has really taken my eye off the clock watching, agonising minute by minute countdown analysis that is normally going on around now.

With my first week at the new place under the belt, my eye is now drifting back, slowly to the very pleasant task of awaiting our latest trip.

Oh, I bought our park tickets! I know I have dragged that out for weeks now, but with the realisation that we don’t have long to go, and a minor rally on the Dollar rate, I took the plunge. I used Orlando Attractions in the end, and got an 8 day Magic Your Way Base Ticket, with 2 days for free. We will not do ten days in Disney, but it gives us a couple spare in case we want to pop in for an evening etc on a non planned Disney day. Add to that the 14 day 2 park Universal ticket and we are sorted, and all with change out of a grand! I was happy. Well as happy as I can be parting with that amount of cash!

So, this new job then, how did it go? I know you will not have slept with worry all week, so let me enlighten you. It was OK.

Now what else happened this week….

Oh, more detail perhaps? Well, it was OK, with most people being very welcoming, and I certainly know more now than I did last Sunday, but there lies the rub for me. For the past many years I have been the guru, the gnu, the expert, the one with an answer for any question. So to transport me from that to being the bloke who is still opening every cupboard in the kitchen area trying to find a cup, well its a culture shock.

By Friday however, I was feeling like progress had been made as I did make a couple of contributions that were remotely useful. Hope is high that I may do the same again next week.

The week itself consisted of training on Monday, London to see a customer on Tuesday, another customer meeting, but this in the office on Wednesday, and then Thursday and Friday a series of internal meetings and getting stuff sorted to respond to customers.

The view to the left is a snap I took on my walk from the car park to the office on Monday morning. The offices are at Salford Quays, so it is all penthouse apartments, pink pound and expensive coffees, but the views are certainly better than the last place which was a business park in Bury (no offence Bury).

Having avoided being uncovered as the charlatan I am in one whole week, we’ll see if we can do the same again next week and take it from there.

Emily returned from Berlin on Friday evening after another 24 hour journey from hell. She had a great time, but was glad to be home. When she posts her photos (obviously on Facebook) I will post a link here if anyone wants to have a look.

She was zombie like and hadn’t eaten properly in about two days, so we did the decent thing and ordered a load of Dominos pizza. Her early night drifted to 11pm of course, and she is still struggling now to be honest.

This is mainly because she had her birthday “do” yesterday. This involved seven teenagers descending upon us at lunchtime Saturday. We quickly deposited them at the cinema to watch Toy Story 3, whilst we did the BIG SHOP, and prepared things for the evening.

Emily & Friends — Fringes are fire hazards

This involved buying three tonnes of junk food, preparing it, supplying a few horror DVDs and then buggering off out for the night. We tried a local restaurant for the first time having driven past it a million times threatening to eat there. Desperate to escape Teen City, we arrived early, and had the place to ourselves initially, but very soon the place was buzzing as an Asian wedding was taking place. We were enthralled to be honest. The colours, dress and all round showbiz nature of the event was great to watch.

With all the hullaballoo, we couldn’t leave the restaurant as we would have had to walk right through the video and photos, so we just sat and watched. This meant that we missed the film we wanted to watch at the cinema, Inception. So we had to kill 45 minutes until the next showing with a glass of wine and J2O. I will let you guess who had which!

The film was great…I think. It is so complicated it was hard to tell. I was almost afraid to breathe in case doing so distracted me from the story line and I lost the thread.

So we didn’t get home until midnight, to find our lounge looking like Beirut, and smelling worse. So we shut the door and went to bed like the responsible adults we are.

Next thing, we are awake at 8.30am, by shouting and giggling from downstairs, and I am soon on bacon butty duties. An enormous amount of getting ready happens and finally they all stumble out of the door around 10.30. I see this as a chance of escape, and run away, I mean drive to the gym. Having being operated on a little while ago (what do you mean you forgot?), I have not been to the gym since. I have used our treadmill at home a few times, but that is quite gentle really, so I was fearing the worst to be honest. I was right.

Five minutes in to my normal routine I was seeing my life flash before my eyes, and as most of it seemed to involve seven teenagers and an Asia wedding, peppered with highlights from Inception, it didn’t make much sense. I somehow made it to half an hour on the cross trainer, and then shuffled for a further ten on the treadmill. The sit ups I ended up with were less than elegant, and I dragged my wheezing frame into the changing room before I presented the gym with the highlights from last night’s curry!

As for the rest of the day, well the kids are out, probably taking crack somewhere, Louise is happily ironing away upstairs, so I think I’ll take my lead from Henry, and join him in a bit of this….

Till the next time…..

As Joey Tempest once said….

11/07/2010 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

For those too young to understand the reference in the title, your life is poorer for not having embraced the poodle permed, leather trousered, white teethed Lothario that was the lead singer of Europe, Joey Tempest. The title of course refers to their finest hour, well three and a half minutes anyway.

The countdown reference is double barreled. You may have heard me mention that I am due to start a new job? I mentioned it once or twice. I can’t believe that I’ve been saying this since April of course, but next week will be my final week of purgatory, otherwise known as my notice period. This countdown has sort of distracted me from my more important countdown to my ever so special 40th birthday WDW trip. This countdown too is entering the final furlong, with around 40 days to go now.

Last week and the one to come have been a little unusual in that Emily has been with me on work experience. I do find it odd how things work out. When I started work at my current employer, Emily was four, not yet in proper school, and now some ten years later she is in GCSE phase, and how ironic that she is on work experience for my final two weeks.

The experience she has mostly gained in her first week is the mind numbing banality that is the working office. I think it was mid afternoon on her second day when she uttered the fateful phrase “How many hours to go?”. Well, if I calculate that you will start work at say 18, and retire anytime between 55 and 75, I’d say she has a lot of hours to go. Hopefully, it will help her to appreciate school a little more, and follow my one and only piece of advice about school, work and life in general.

That is to find something to do that you enjoy, because if you don’t, work becomes one long interruption to what you’d rather be doing.

Emily’s other contribution to this week has been to be the daughter with a broken heart. They tend to alternate on this one, having met some boy, agreed to go out, and then about seventeen minutes later, break up. This is a little disrespectful I suppose, as this week Emily is very, very upset over some little Oik, and I’m sure at fourteen the world seems to have ended. If only there was some way to inject what you know into them they may not be quite so upset, but I suppose everyone has to go through it. It is not an easy thing to watch though. I should ready myself for lots more to come I guess.

On to more pleasant matters, and I have (I think) decided upon the ticket options. It will, as predicted, be the Magic Your Way Base option for seven days, along with a two park Universal ticket which last for fourteen days, but we’ll only use two. I had more Disney days in the plan, but to keep the ticket spend down to a level that George Osbourne would approve of, I did a quick switcheroo with the plan.

I have tagged an extra day onto our Daytona Beach visit, and rather than do their and back in a day, we are going to do a stay over. This suits Louise a lot, as you may know that she is the first to tire of the Disney parks every year, and she is quite keen on a spot of sunbathing. After a quick trawl of the The Dibb, I had enough info to make some firm plans.

Accommodation wise, the criteria was clean and cost-effective (ie cheap), as we’ll be spending very few hours in it. A name that popped up a fair bit on The Dibb was the Sun Viking Lodge. A quick bit of a google found me a price of less than £50 for a three bedded room (this is key as the girls are not keen on sharing a bed). Having used Quidco, this cash back brought the price to nearer £40!!

The location looks superb, being beachfront, with a decent waterslide and pool, and if the rains come, and indoor pool too. It is also less than five minutes from the baseball park where we have tickets to watch a game on our second evening.

Again, from Dibb research I discovered that Daytona has a waterpark, and this being the activity I had culled from the plan, this seemed like a good option. Even better that upon looking at their web site, the admission for our date was $12 each!!

I am not expecting a Disney experience from our break at the beach. The hotel will not be Vero Beach, and the water park may not live up to Typhoon Lagoon, but it will be good to experience new things, and of course save a few hundred quid into the bargain.

Once I have the new job started, I imagine that I can concentrate more on the holiday, but for now it seems perhaps further away than it is.

So onwards we go into my final week at work for the old regime, and if you can imagine scenes similar to the closing ceremony of the World Cup, or even the last Olympics, these will be the scenes in an office in Bury on Friday. I expect several members of my team to be wailing, tearful wrecks as I try to leave the office with several of them attached to my legs begging me not to leave.

More importantly I will find it hard to leave the office, burdened as I shall be by the vast quantity and size of the leaving presents I shall have bestowed upon me.

Let me remove my tongue from my cheek, and just hope that I can slip away in a peaceful manner with minimal fuss, and then get on with the new job…but only for a few weeks, as I have a holiday booked. I did mention that didn’t I?

You may also have noticed that I have worked out how to embed video into these here posts…be warned!!

Till the next time….

That’s the ticket?

03/07/201003/07/2010 by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

The time is drawing close when I need to make my annual trip through the absolute maze that is, buying theme park tickets for our Florida trip. The sheer enormity of the options available are enough to scare anyone, even someone who has been through this as often as I.

The simple stuff is usually Universal, as we only need two days there around our on site stay, and even I can navigate that purchase fairly well. Sea World and Busch have alas not made the final cut this year. Budget plays a part, but really we just don’t have enough days to get to them and do them justice. So the real task is to select the ideal ticket option for WDW.

So that will be a major thrust of my weekend to come, and if you need the internet this weekend I’d get on it early as I may wear it out by late Sunday.

My choice may be swayed by the ever improving dollar rate. Many a day in the preceding months I have toyed with the idea of getting some dollars before the dollar rate dropped any further. Seeing rates at less than 1.4 at one stage was truly depressing. Thankfully, the bank rate seems to be consistently above 1.5, and whilst this is still pretty paltry compared to the freakishly high 1.9 or so we have had on one previous trip, psychologically, getting above the 1.5 makes me feel like I have had a minor victory!

With a better dollar rate I may buy our tickets from a US site in dollars. We shall see. I am tempted by those non hopper things, for the exact amount of days we need, as they are good value, however, they come with several drawbacks.

1. You can’t hop between parks

2. They don’t include water parks and Disney Quest

3. We can’t just pop into a park on a whim for an hour or two, as this will use up a full day

Choices, choices.

How goes your post op recovery Craig? I hear you all say in unison. OK, thanks. I have had better weeks in terms of sleep, mobility and lack of pain, but I seem to be emerging from those woods now, and edging back to something like normal, well as close as I ever got anyway. I got bored of the whole resting and not doing stuff within about two days, and just became really frustrated by not being able to do anything. Now that I can actually do stuff again, the appeal seems to have worn off a little.

The week gone by has seen Emily go to Chester Zoo on her end of year reward trip. The reward was that I was allowed to give the school £17 for the privilege. Speaking of Emily she finishes school this week, as she has a busy few weeks ahead until the official end of term.

Next Monday she starts two weeks work experience. She managed to get a placement at the same place as one of her friends. How did she manage that? Well, because she is coming to where I work. My team is naturally delighted to have the bosses daughter around for a fortnight!!

Once she finishes that, she immediately goes to Berlin on a school trip. This is to support her History GCSE, in which they are covering the Nazis. The itinerary looks great, and I wouldn’t mind going. Seems only fair after sorting her work experience out for her? Then on her return, it is her fifteenth birthday, and of course a few weeks after that we go to Florida.

We attended a planning session at the school a few weeks ago to go through the long list of rules, and even worse, stuff they will need to be bought to take with them to Germany. As the group are obviously below eighteen, visiting the proper concentration camps is not an option but they are going to Sachsehausen Concentration Camp which apparently was the place where they trained SS officers to carry out the Final Solution. They are also doing the Stasi Museum, the Wannsee Villa and Checkpoint Charlie amongst lots of other stuff in a very busy week. There will be some light after all that shade as they also visit a waterpark, ten pin bowling and the Olympic Stadium.

Most of my school trips involved a kagool, curled up sandwiches and three hours on a coach to some caves in Yorkshire. Although, I did do one overseas trip to Hamburg to stay with my German pen friend. Everyone in my German class had a pen friend allocated, and they also came over to stay with us. My chap was called Carsten Polland. I wonder where he is now? Germany I am guessing, but you know what I mean. This exchange programme will explain why after three years of study, my grasp of the German language starts and ends with being able to ask for a piece of Black Forest gateaux.

Sounds like a fun summer for Emily. She had better make the most of it though, as next year is her official GCSE year and she will be locked in her bedroom for all of it revising. In case Emily reads this, if you look up the definition of revising, there is no mention whatsoever of Facebook, MSN or iPod. Just so we are clear!

Time to draw this here post to an end now, as I have the house to myself. The girls are out with friends celebrating someone’s birthday. This involves a trip to Manchester (for a change), a visit to see Eclipse, and then a sleepover. The best bit of all of that is that it happens at someone else’s house. Louise is also out, at the hairdressers, which is a double-edged sword. It creates an Xbox opportunity, but also creates a huge dent in the bank balance. Life is never simple!

Here’s to a shorter week next week.

Till the next time…..

Let me explain…or at least try to.

29/05/2010 by mkingdon, posted in dibb, mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Girls with Mickey — Three of my favourite things

I have been incredibly lucky. Don’t get me wrong, at times I have also been incredibly unlucky, but the luck I refer to being good is that since 1999 I have been able to go on holiday to my favourite place more or less every year.

So in some respects, each year follows a similar pattern as the countdown does exactly that. Depending on how early we book, I mentally tick off certain landmarks of the year as they pass. If we booked nice and early, then this mean Christmas, Easter, and then as we get into summer, the passing of Rebecca and Emily’s respective birthdays in May and July tell me that we are getting close.

During a countdown that is usually months long, some weeks I don’t really think about our holiday. I know it is there, like a long term promise, don’t get me wrong, but other life stuff takes over, and I am swept along with it. The business of life doesn’t really impact this, as some other weeks I can do little else but think about our upcoming trip, even if I am rushed off my feet at work.

I suppose this is the main difference between “normal” holiday makers and those who see it as more than just two weeks away. A trip to Florida is pricey. You can’t get away from that, but to coin a phrase, it is the holiday that keeps on giving.

With the level of preparation and planning required over things like –

Flights
Accommodation (often several different places each trip)
Park Tickets – A million different combinations
Dining Reservations
Car Hire

and a host of other things, it can be, and some days is, a full time job.

Then upon returning to the UK, if you are so inclined (and I am) you can then continue to enjoy the holiday for weeks and months to come. This, for me, takes the form of writing my trip reports. This takes a while, and I usually don’t finish mine until late October.

Then, often the cycle starts again, as the next trip begins to cross my mind!

I know that many of you visiting my blog do so (very kindly) as you have read and hopefully enjoyed some of these trip reports. This means that all this will probably make sense to you. I do of course understand that there are those outside this “club” that simply don’t get it.

Holidays for those not of this mind set, can be a very simple affair, and they certainly would never dream of writing about it when they got back!! That’s OK. I am not in any way criticising anyone for this. I fully understand that I am not normal!

I have given up trying to explain to non believers what this is all about. Disney is only for young kids, it is a theme park (singular) like Alton Towers, and isn’t something that adults could enjoy for two weeks, with or without kids. I have heard this a million times. As I say, no point arguing. Besides, the more people who don’t get it, the shorter the queue for Soarin!! If someone calls the Florida version Disneyland then you know they don’t get it at all!!!!

Last week has been one of the weeks when I have been thinking about the next trip. Aside from stressing about the abysmal exchange rate, I have been fine tuning the plan, and browsing various web sites, trying to inject a little of the Disney magic into an unseasonably cold and windy UK week.

I am re-reading for about the four hundredth time a couple of the Disney books we have hanging around. This all helps.

But why? What is it that keeps drawing us back?

Well, if I could put my finger on that, I could sell it, and make a fortune. All I can do is perhaps try to express how the place makes you feel.

In my rational mind, I fully understand that Disney is very much a for profit organisation. I can see the business elements hidden behind the magic, even as I hand over my handful of dollars, which I know is probably inflated for the privilege of spending them on their hallowed turf, but I don’t mind at all.

Magic Kingdom 1980 — And so it begins....

Disney is built on nostalgia, on the legacy of generations, and of course family. It is a haven from the madness of the real world, and a sanctuary for a family to escape to, and make some memories. The beauty of their business model is that we market to ourselves. For me, I was hooked early. I first went when I was ten, in 1980. We actually stayed in Miami, but drove up Orlando to spend two days at the Magic Kingdom, and the rest is history.

Now, WDW is a common language spoken by the extended family. I am by far the most addicted, but we’ve invested thirty years and unimaginable amounts of money in the place, and this means that every time we go back, we stumble across a memory, a half remembered episode of a previous trip that sparks a warm glow, or in some rare cases a shudder!! But the latter are very few and far between. Disney have somehow found a way, like childbirth, of having their guests forget about the time when they queued for Dumbo for two hours and had a one minute ride, or spent a day in a park when it was so busy you couldn’t see the pavement below your feet.

The special memories, and the place they hold in the hearts of my family are unique, emotive and unforgettable. I may be an extreme case, but I feel many things as I step onto Disney property –

Safe
Comfortable
Happy
Relaxed
Privileged

Magic Kingdom Castle — A heck of a pull.

I don’t have a favourite park, but the essence of the experience for me is the Magic Kingdom. Every penny that a trip costs is paid back on the first morning stroll up Main Street. The castle seems to draw everyone up Main Street towards it like some sort of friendly tractor beam, using smells unique to this one place on earth, sights that are both familiar yet ever exciting, and perhaps this is the crux of the experience, friendly, engaging, welcoming and highly professional Cast Members.

If you read any of the many books on the market that talk about some of the behind the scenes elements to how all this works, you know that the level of detail, and the attention to it is a massive part in the chasm between WDW and UK theme parks. Every smell, note of music and each blade of grass is there for a reason, and is controlled to be exactly as they want it to be.

This is where the detractors can be heard to bemoan the manufactured sterile nature of the place. I can understand that point of view. To be honest though, I live fifty weeks of the year in the non manufactured, natural, uncontrolled environment, and frankly, most of the time it sucks. With that in mind, I can suspend belief and normality quite easily and allow myself to be swept along with the magic.

I also think that there are two (well, there are hundreds, but bear with me) main types of holiday to WDW. Both are wonderful, and can honestly be a once in a lifetime (every year!), but they are different. This is where my Disney snobbery raises its head, be warned.

The first type of holiday is the one most probably undertaken by everyone going for the first time. If you haven’t stumbled across one of the many Florida planning forums you will still have a great time, but perhaps only skim the surface of the place and I have known people return from this type of trip and be less than impressed. One family we know were a case in point.

I spent not an inconsiderable amount of time writing up a series of tips, recommendations and things to avoid, all of which they seemed to ignore. Their main priority seemed to be that the hotel had a bar!! Having holidayed in the Med for years, their holiday focussed on the pool and as much alcohol as they could imbibe. Wow, I do sound snobby here, but let me explain.

Ironically had they read my tips, they may well have discovered an angle to Disney that not many do. One of the multiple faces of Disney, in their unending ability to morph themselves into the exact experience you are after, is the night time entertainment at places like Jellyrolls or Pleasure Island at Downtown Disney (which was still open when they visited).

As I type this, Louise is in the kitchen pursuing her hobby of ironing, and whilst she does she has Meatloaf blaring out. Right now the song playing only means one thing to me, and that is Jellyrolls. Paradise by the Dashboard Light is not a song I was really aware or fond of earlier in my life, and Meatloaf is by no means a regular on my iPod, but having had a couple of fantastic nights at Jellyrolls, this song now takes me there, and I can almost smell and taste the place, right here on my sofa in Bolton.

Disney even make getting drunk slightly magical, and classy, and you don’t really see that advertised on the telly…but it’s there if you know where to look.

So this second type of holiday is the one that sees the extra bits of Florida, the slightly more hidden gems of WDW, and you only tend to find out about these from –

Someone who has been there and discovered them
Knowledgeable folks on the internet
Guide books

For me it was a mix of all three, but I was pointed in the right direction by a colleague who had been a DVC member for years. He dropped the bombshell that you can wander around Disney resorts whether you are staying there or not. This opened my eyes, and the door to many hours of doing just that. With appetite whetted, my thirst was quenched with endless hours of internet use and book reading, and like most things, you only realise what you know when you try to explain it to someone else.

In the case of the family I gave the tips to, I wish I hadn’t bothered.

As my colleague often quotes now, using a Star Wars analogy, back then I was the young Jedi to his Obi Wan. I have since spent many metaphorical years in the swamps with Yoda and I am now the one telling him about new things, and old, which I have discovered, and we can easily spend too many hours in the office swapping stories and experiences from our trips.

The real trick that Disney, and of course the rest of Florida have up their sleeve is that there is still so much to discover that despite all my trips and research, I still don’t know what I don’t know yet, and if I went every year for the rest of my life (what do you mean if!!) I would still find new things every time.

I’m not really sure why I have felt the need to write this post. I think it is undoubtedly part of the countdown process, and a rock to cling to in the seemingly unending passage of days to the next trip. I still don’t feel that I have managed to explain any part of why I feel like I do, and that is eternally frustrating.

There we have it I suppose. If what Disney did was easy, then everyone would do it. For their attention to detail, unending pursuit of excellence, insistence on quality, and the undefinable essence of magic, I salute them, thank them, and ask them to put the kettle on, as we won’t be long now.

Till the next time…..

Under 100 days to go….time to do some planning.

16/05/201020/06/2021 by mkingdon, posted in dibb, Walt Disney World

As we sneak under the 100 day marker, I thought I’d just post a brief update as to the plans etc.

As you can see from my Dibb Planner (and by the way these planner things are excellent) our plans for August are starting to come together.

Daytona Cubs Stadium — The only diamond Louise will see this year....

Most days are now mapped out, a few ADRs booked, and most recently we’ve decided to spend a day at Daytona Beach, then that evening watch the Daytona Cubs baseball team. We’ve been threatening to do so for a few years now, so we’ve finally taken the plunge.

I looked at the Tampa Rays, who are Major League, but we’ve plumped for a minor league game (as it is about ten times cheaper) but also as a bit of research suggests these minor league games have a great atmosphere. At $33 for the four of us, if ten minutes in the females are bored to death I don’t mind leaving. Had we paid the $70 each for Major League I would have nailed them to their seats till the bitter end!!

ADR wise, after saying I wouldn’t be booking (m)any we have ended up with –

Yak And Yeti, to round off our day at AK
Kouzzinna on the evening of my birthday
Captain’s Grille for an unfeasibly large breakfast
California Grill for the last night of our hols.

We last did Cali Grill about ten years ago, and the kids, having spent what we thought would be a rest day at Blizzard Beach, were knackered, and spent the meal either moaning, asleep, or trying to go to sleep, and we didn’t exactly appreciate the ambience etc.

Now with the girls being 15 and 13 at the time of this trip, I suspect it will be the other way round.

Hopefully with a 7.50 reservation, and Wishes at 10pm, we might be able to see the fireworks at the end of the meal. I remember hearing something about the viewing of fireworks having changed at Cali Grill…anyone know for sure what the score is?

Anyway, there isn’t much else to plan.

I’m just waiting for the dollar rate to behave itself so I can book my tickets and get some spends.

Till the next time…..

A postcard from Drayton Manor

12/05/201020/06/2021 by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

As my trepidation filled previous post outlined, we were off to Drayton Manor on Saturday, and this meant a fairly painful early start to the day. I was personally up at 6.30, and after a quick shower I was then stuck with the job of waking up Emily, Rebecca and Nat (Rebecca’s friend) in an attempt to get to the park before lunchtime.

They were pretty good to be honest, and we left the house at 8am, only half an hour later than I felt would be ideal. The SatNav predicted just under two hours, which should be fine for a 10am opening. Indeed yes, we arrive at 9.40 (what do you mean I must have broken the speed limit?) and with a complete lack of queue, caused by the sub zero temperatures and what turned out to be constant drizzle for the entire day, we are into the park just before 10.

How happy I was to learn then that the rides did not open until 10.30!! So we wander about a bit and try to kill some time and get our bearings. With the cold starting to turn apendages blue, we seek out an indoor space to cower in for half an hour. A hot drink each sets us back the best part of a tenner, and we wait for stuff to be open.

We then wander outside and see rides starting up, and decide to do a nice gentle one to get everyone warmed up. It was a sort of Octupus style thing, but with Mexican Hats!! Yes, I know. A decent enough ride, apart from the fact that the bucket seats were filled with an inch or two of rain. When asked if they were going to wipe the seats down, the “cast member” shrugged and walked back to the hut he started the ride from.

So with moist bottoms, we endure the ride as the wetness made its way north. Nice start.

Rebecca has turned into an absolute fear free zone in theme parks, and is not happy to realise that Nat, and to some extent Emily are less than daring with every ride. This also impacts on me as I am now dragged onto the Apocalypse ride with Rebecca.

Don’t get me wrong, I like most rides and fear very few, but I am less than keen on the ones that take you up a couple of hundred feet and just drop you to the floor. Indeed, as we find ourselves walking straight on to the ride, and making our way up the tower (how bloody high does this go???) I did turn to Rebecca and tell her that I hated her!!

She looked less than convinced that this was a great idea, but of course it was all too late now. Sat at the top of the tower, having left my glasses with the attendant, I can make out rough shapes below, and it seems Louise was one of them, waving with a very wicked smile on her face.

Those few seconds before realease were pure hell. What few muscles I possess, I had them tensed. Then, the fall happened. My God.

Feeling just a little sick, we stagger back to the other cowardly lot, and mentally make a note that we don’t need to do that ride again.

The rest of the day is spent trying to avoid hyperthermia, and the heaviest of the rain. They have some decent rides, like G Force, although the loading capacity is shocking, and the ride very short. The girls enjoyed the pirate ship thing too.

It is very obvious that someone from Drayton has been to Florida. There are some things that have been lifted almost directly.

They have the shark hanging upside down thing, just like Universal, and a couple of rides are sort of “own brand” equivalents of US rides. The Happy Feet 4D cinema thing is sort of like Philharmagic/Shrek 4D, but just less good! As an example, during the show it won’t surprise you to learn that the seats move, and some water is sprayed on you. We sat on the front row, and I wondered why every time the audience screamed at getting wet I was wasn’t.

As I left the show I realised why. The jet of water was aimed perfectly at my crotch. A large target area I grant you, but I spent the rest of the day looking like I had poor bladder control.

The ultimate rip off though is the Pirate’s Adventure ride. The attempted similarities to Pirates of the Carribean are beyond uncanny, from the entrance/queue, to the boats, even down to the scenes as you go around. The scene with the dog holding the keys is identical, although the dog at Drayton is a goat….yeh, we couldn’t work that out either.

It really is a complete rip off, scene by scene, just on a crapper level, with much poorer execution.

Bearded Dragon — Is that lamp portable, I'm freezing?

The zoo is OK. The highlight of the day was the reptile house. The reason being it was lovely and warm, and we spent a long time in there!

I am aware that my level of negativity isn’t good, and it might sound snobby to say that if you hadn’t been to WDW, you might not have the same opinion. Snobby it may be but I think it is true. I can’t help that really.

As expected the staff were young kids, with little or no interest in the guests, just going through the motions. This is the essence of the difference between the UK and US experience. No-one was rude really, just bored, cold and looking forward to going home, which spookily is how we felt too.

To be fair, Rebecca enjoyed the rides, so in terms of her birthday outing it was fine, and gladly she and Emily took it all in the right spirit. Yes, we know it isn’t Florida, but we’ll make the best of it. Maybe some day they can teach me that level of maturity!

I tweeted a couple of times during and after the day, and I was mildy impressed to find that Drayton Manor has replied to one tweet where I said…

“Back from Drayton Manor, kerrriiiist it was cold!! Dominos ordered, heating on. If I say I’m going to a UK theme park again, shoot me”.

They said…

“That seems a little drastic, maybe just wait for the summertime when it’s warmer?!”

Rebecca and Nat — Girls just wanna have fun....

I’m sure a warmer, drier day would make all the difference, but then again, that would mean higher crowds, and the prospect of a long queue for the rides there would just upset me more! Alas, the weather is not the issue really. It is the fact that all UK theme parks (that I have visited) are tacky, a bit dirty, have surly staff and charge more than their US counterparts, which are none of those things.

This I think also contributes to that glazed, knowing expression you see on people’s face when you tell them you are going to Florida (for the umpteenth time). The lack of comprehension is palpable, and it is clear they try to reconcile their knowledge of UK themeparks with flying for nine hours to spend two weeks in one.

It is like saying you are going watching the local Sunday League footy match, when you’ve been a season ticket holder in the Premiership. The concept is the same, but the standard and the execution is woefully inferior. This of course doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the Sunday League match, but given a choice most would choose the Premiership…especially if it was costing you the same to watch both!!

I fear I am a lost cause, probably not representative of most visitors to a UK theme park, and looking at their Twitter feed, they do indeed have lots of positive feedback from customers after their visits. So maybe the quality of the park is not the problem, maybe it is my expectations?

Oh yes, we always had some sort of political event this week too, but I don’t have the time, knowledge or will to comment on this trivia when a major event like a chance to slag off a UK theme park has presented itself!!

All I will say is that I have found the events quite riveting, which is probably quite sad….anyway…

Till the next time…..

Breaking my own rule.

06/05/2010 by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

This Friday (tomorrow as I write this) it is Rebecca’s birthday. Over the years, having exhausted every single birthday option from McDonalds, to Wacky Warehouses, petting zoos, and in latter years, discos (don’t I sound groovy) in scout huts, and house parties, we have struggled to find something cool enough for Rebecca this year.

She is turning thirteen, so a happy meal and a stroke of a sheep isn’t really in order.

Her decision/preference was Alton Towers. Now, you may or may not know that I am allergic to UK theme parks due to my over exposure to the abject excellence of US theme parks. I have tried in the past to appreciate them in Blighty, and failed.

However, for the sake of my youngest I had a look at the web site. How much??????

It turns out that on Saturday, when we plan to go, there is an event on at Alton Towers, which will see thousands of young Christians attending the park. So, a UK theme park, at weekend, with an inflated crowd. I think not.

A little bit of googling later and she decides on Drayton Manor instead. We are taking one of her friends too, so I have had to sell a kidney to fund the day. I am full of trepidation about the outing to be honest, partly because the weather forecast looks “changeable” to say the least, with strong winds and rain predicted. Can anyone say Kagool? I am also trepidated (I say it is a word!) as I always leave a UK theme park feeling bereft of pleasure, money and a sense of well being.

UK Theme parks are more often than not

Dirty
Cold
Staffed by ASBO holding teens
Cheap in terms of quality
Expensive in terms of admittance
Full of horrible food at Five Star prices

Now I appreciate that my opinions may affect my ability to enjoy said UK outings, but I’m hoping that anyone with experience of a theme park on the other side of the pond will understand the sentiment? If you haven’t been to likes of Walt Disney World Resort or Universal Resort, my embittered ramblings here may not resonate.

I do hope for a good day out, for Rebecca’s sake though. She certainly enjoys the large rides these days, and hopefully, as her birthday “do” it will tick the boxes for her. I shall try my bestest not to stand around tutting all day, as the wintry winds and icy rain pour onto my £50 lunch.

Please, if you feel the same, feel free to back me up. Also, anyone with experience of an excellent day out at Drayton Manor can also reassure me I would not be better burning the cash and watching the videos of our previous Florida trips instead.

Till the next time…..

Best laid plans….

27/03/201027/03/2010 by mkingdon, posted in dibb, mkingdon, Walt Disney World

So, with all the excitement of having a new trip booked, this week has been a flurry of activity and research, finalising all the details of our itinerary.

This was tricky, as I had the inconvenience of having to go to work every day, which seriously impacted on my ability to do important stuff, like find villas and hotels.

Somehow, I have managed to come up with a workable plan, and my what a plan it is. To say I am happy with it would be….well, it would be absolutely accurate.

First job was a villa. There are one or two villas knocking about on the internet these days, so choosing one can get a little tiresome, after you’ve looked at the three hundredth website. My criteria were simple –

3/4 bed
Decent sized deck round the pool for Louise to burn herself stupid
Located in Sunset Lakes/Lindfields areas

A few hundred hours of interent use later and a suitable villa is located. It is a marvel to me that not only can you see exactly what you are getting via the internet, but within a few minutes you can actually walk down the street via the wonder that is Google Street View. I now know exactly where it is, and the best way to get to the 192 etc. This is of course helped by the fact that we’ve been so many times that I know the area as well as my own street at home!

The next step was the quickest and easiest. Booking a night on site at Universal is pretty straight forward. Having now tried the Royal Pacific and the Hard Rock, the clear winner for us was the HRH, so a few minutes of keyboard tapping, and we’re in.

I mentioned last week that our DVC friends were contemplating their needs, and in the end it turned out that they did indeed require their points this year. Despite this mightily selfish act, I agreed to continue our friendship on a trial basis, for now.

So now, the tricky stuff starts. Without the magical (and cheap as chips) DVC points, how are we to round off my “special” trip? Well, in steps Jakki (TinkTatoo off of The Dibb). We had been chatting via email about our plans, as we usually meet up whilst in Florida. As at this stage I was unsure of what points if any I might have at my disposal she very kindly offered to call Disney and see what might be available for the dates I was after.

Rather cruelly, my wish list options were available, which sort of made the whole waiting to hear about the points all the more unbearable. Being female, Jakki then used subtle and clever mind tricks to get me to tell her which of the options she had investigated would be my preference. The technique used was “So which of those options would you go for, if you got the points?” See, how am I to compete with such witchcraft?

Having told her, she then prompty offered me the use of the required number of points from her “banked” allocation for next year, at a price that could not be obtained anywhere else. I was slightly, ever so, taken aback by the act of kindness, and I think I have thanked Jakki enough times to make her more than a little uncomfortable.

So, what did we get. Well, to tell this tale properly I have to rewind a few years, to a previous trip, and the four of us are sat in World Showcase at Epcot, having a drink. We are sat in the corner bit where the African outpost thing is, and I’m looking over the Lagoon across to the Yacht and Beach Club.

Beach Club — Where them millionaires stay!!

“When we come for my fortieth” says I, all confident that we would be, “We’ll do it in style and stay at one of them there posh places, that only rock stars and millionaires can afford”. Yes a slight exaggeration, but it makes the story mildly more interesting. The family give me a knowing look, and continue to take on board enough fluids to avoid a collapse somewhere around Norway.

So, just over a week ago, I’m thinking that my ever so bold statement was to lie in ruins, due to us not going at all, and here I am a few short days later, on the brink of achieving said ambition. There was a very nervy half an hour whilst Jakki, now having my instructions and wishes has to phone up Mr Disney to secure it.

Sensing my nervy anticipation, Jakki does the right thing, and rather than go and collect the kids from school, she leaves them stranded at the side of the road whilst she makes that call instead. Apologies to Aidhon and Niamh (I work on the premise that the more variations of spelling I use for for Jakki’s kids, I am bound to get it right sooner or later) for making you hang about, it was for the greater good. The deed was done, and I got some odd looks as I did a little jig around the office.

Just tell us where the bloody hell you are staying, I hear you cry….if anyone is still reading/caring at this point.

We have four nights at the Beach Club Villas. All that build up for a nine word sentence??? Well, yes.

The location is, in my opinion, perfect, the hotel itself a delight, and the pool is epic, and the girls will love that. The added attraction of having a Kitchen Sink every day also appeals on some level.

So with all the basics now in place, I’ve also made a couple of ADRs. Kouzzina (the place where Spoodles used to be) for the night of my birthday, and Yak & Yeti at the Animal Kingdom as this is a firm favourite with Louise.

All this hard work this week reminded me how much the art of booking a holiday has changed thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web. When I watched my Dad book holidays, it was either a trip to the local travel agents to watch them tap away at their VDU for a couple of hours to tell us that the hotel in the brochure wasn’t available, but there was one almost built next to it that was. Or, in later years, on the phone (with the appropriate teletext page on Hold) only to find out that the fly drive for three bob and a conker was actually ten times the price on screen.

Now, holiday makers, if so inclined, can plan every detail of their trip, and, as with most shopping experiences now, crucially get advice from like minded travellers on the quality and suitability of things well before you arrive to find the top three floors of the hotel unfinished, and the pool full of wildlife. Being a border line control freak, this appeals, and long may it continue.

You might think with all this activity that not much else had happened this week.

Well, outside of holiday planning world, work has been just another notch up on the busy scale, and I visited hospital for a change, but this time to visit my Dad, who has since been home and gone back in again. He has had a minor operation to remove around three pints of “stuff” from a cyst on his liver (I hope no-one is eating whilst reading this!), and as soon as I have finished writing this I’m off to see him again. He’s been in pain for weeks with this, so hopefully this will get him back to normal, and crucially for his, and my Mum’s sanity, back playing golf.

Emily has done her mock GCSEs this week, and how she has done is anyone’s guess really. The few utterings to come from behind the fringe suggest she thinks she has done OK, but we’ll just have to wait and see. I attended school for both the girl’s parents evening type things, and was relieved to find that they are both hard working and not mentally sub normal (they get that from me!!). Rebecca says it doesn’t matter though as she is going to be a rock star. Fair enough. By teaching her to play bass I am more than entitled to the large mansion once she goes platinum.

To round off the week, on a hopefully happy and more relaxed note, we are off out tonight to celebrate Louise’s birthday. The four of us are off to a local Chinese to see if we can eat them out of crispy duck. I have the big pants washed and ready to go.

Next week sees me on my travels with work to the exotic lovelieness that is Bristol and Stroud, so with the upcoming Good Friday holiday, I only have to endure two days in the office. Happy Days.

Till the next time…..

A week is a long time…..

19/03/201020/03/2010 by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

You may recall my post from the 8th of March….

“You do not find me in the happiest of places.”

“The desire for sunshine is immense right now, but alas not quite as immense as the gaping hole where my bank balance should be, so on I trundle, countdown-less.”

“As the message ended with him telling me he’d just booked again, I lost all empathy and cursed the swine for being able to go this year when I can’t!!! “

Well, the phrase out of the blue doesn’t quite cover the events of the week which followed this.

Having almost stopped looking forlornly at flights in the vague hope of finding one for less than a tenner, I see a meeting request appear amongst all the other dross in my diary for Monday afternoon.

“Bonus Briefing” was the title. Now, having worked here for ten years, this is an annual event where we hear phrases like “close but no cigar” a lot, so my expectations were low, indeed, I turned up five minutes late.

Ten short minutes later, and after hammering out a few calculations on the calculator (well on what else would you hammer them out?) I am sort of dumbstruck really. A quick wander across to my friendly HR person, and the amount I have calculated is indeed correct. Hand shaking, I text Louise, pinching myself (it isn’t easy to do both at the same time).

My mind is already half way through a plan of course, but I fear Louise will reply with boring nonsense like…

“Oh good, we can do (insert nonsense task) to the house”

“We can marginally improve our failing battle against impending bankruptcy”

But no dear reader, she did not reply in that manner. Allow me to quote….

“What are you wasting time texting me for….get the flights booked”

Joy unabounds, and I break the internet with the ferocity of my flight search (all in my own time of course, never when I should be working).

To spare you the many hours of intense searching, around about 12 hours later I am sat on my couch at home, with a smoking VISA, the proud owner of flights, a hire car, and a beaming smile.

Details you say? OK.

We are flying with Thomas Cook on the 20th of August from Manchester. Now these are not ordinary Thomas Cook flights (the oft discussed 29″ seat pitch, no telly, and the meal is a rotting apple if you are lucky), oh no this is the ifinitely more expensive normal flight with a whopping 33″ seat pitch, and a seat back telly…..EACH!!

I also discovered the joy of Quidco, so made back a whopping £8 into the bargain. The car, also via a Quidco link, earns me multiple pounds back from Alamo. We fly into Sanford, which is where we have flown to more often than not, so this is fine and dandy with us.

I am currently in negotiation (and prayers) with my lovely DVC friends, to see if they are using their points this year. I won’t find out till next week, and this is in no way highly frustrating. I am in the hellish limbo of not knowing whether I need to find a villa (if one is still free for our dates in the whole of Florida!), or to book perhaps some on site stuff via the Disney UK site and get free dining and stuff. Until I know, I will be pretty unbearable.

Anyways, I am not complaining as until Monday my 40th would have been spent at our local Frankie and Bennys no doubt, so DVC, cardboard box…makes no odds really.

The usual maze of tickets still baffles me but I have several spreadsheets on the go, each involving complex macros, taking into account the phases of the moon, high tides and average temperatures for our dates, so I can secure the best value tickets for our activities. I shall book those once accomodation is secured.

This planning lark is hard work, and at some point I will do my day job again!!

So there we are, the Gods have smiled upon us, the trip is booked, and my significant birthday will be spent where it was always destined to.

I consider myself a lucky chap, well, a bit more lucky than I was a week ago, but I probably didn’t realise I was then, and I should!!!

Till the next time….

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