The “Why’s It Taking Long” Tour 2022 – Day Eight

by mkingdon, posted in The Why's It Taking Long Tour 2022

I do not have to tell you that I was awake at some ridiculous hour today. I don’t have to, but I will. 4am again. I dozed till 6am. Maybe this is my life now?

Breakfasts were had by many, readying happened and we finally climbed into the van at 8.20am. We were returning to Magic Kingdom today hoping that the crazy crowds we had seen so far had eased off a little as we were now on the 10th of January, one of the quietest times at WDW……once.

Hook 312 welcomed us into its warm bosom at 8.50 and once again we walked all the way in admiring the trams we could see parked up in another section of the parking lot. We took the monorail and whilst riding I took some very average photos….

and blew another $45 or so booking us a LL for Seven Dwarves Mine Train later. This meant on principle we would not be buying the Genie+ thing today. It was bound to be a lot quieter today though, right?

After once again waiting in the queue for several folks to work out how Magic Bands and fingers work, we were in. We decided to start with Big Thunder before the wait got too bad. The wait was too bad, showing a 60 minute standby. Instead we thought we’d get some breakfast for Freddie who didn’t have any at the villa, before trying Haunted Mansion. To keep him company we all got a second breakfast too.

We went to one of the stands in Frontierland and had breakfast sandwiches or Bear Claws. Like some sort of startled deer in the headlights once at the front of the queue, I panicked and ordered a Cold Brew Nitro with little clue what it was.

It was, it has to be said, absolutely awful, until a helpful daughter told me to put some Coffee Mate in it, which made it tolerable. Whilst we ate and drank I was watching the MDE app and the wait times. In that ten minutes Big Thunder showed 65 minutes, then 30, 50 and then returned to 65. Shambola? Just a bit.

Recognising that Big Thunder was not going to get any better today and wanting Freddie to experience it for the first time we braved it and everyone but Rebecca joined the queue.

I’d like to say it wasn’t as bad as it sounded….

but I can’t. It took an hour, not helped by one of the two tracks going down for about fifteen minutes whilst we waited. Splash Mountain was at this point down for maintenance, which would mean Big Thunder wait times were bound to be horrible.

It was, as ever, a fun ride and one that Freddie really enjoyed. We wandered back to Rebecca who was outside the Liberty Tree Tavern.

Tom pretended that Freddie wanted an ice cream so that he could have one, so they wandered off in search of some. I sat refreshing the app, studying wait times and tutting. It was looking pretty grim to be honest and if we were to have any sort of day, I would have to give in and fork out for Genie+, so I did.

As we waited for Tom and Freddie to return, I have to say that I was in reflective mood and not really feeling the Disney Magic at this point. Why?

Well, so far today I had paid $45 for Seven Dwarves Mine Train, $79 on Genie+ and $65 on breakfast. We had stood in a queue for an hour, and managed on ride. It was now almost midday.

Over the years I have been an enormous and endless advocate of the WDW experience. I will probably say this again before this trip report is over, but had this been our first ever trip it is unlikely we would have fallen in love with the place as we did all those years ago. Things felt, at times, like a normal theme park, which is probably one of the harshest things you could say about WDW.

Trying to block out the financial pain and the feeling of being rinsed, I booked us onto Buzz Lightyear for 12 o’clock. Funny how there are LL slots immediately but the standby is over an hour. It’s almost as if they are forcing gullible chumps like me into buying Genie+.

Whilst we waited for Tom and Freddie to return a cavalcade came by. I was delighted to discover that we could watch this without additional charge.

Tom and Freddie were still not back, held up in another long queue, this time for Dole Whips, so the rest of us wandered down to Tomorrowland and waited on a bench outside Monster’s Inc.

We walked onto Buzz and this time I rode solo, scoring an average 163,000.

Emily, showing Freddie no mercy, as it should be.

Rebecca and Tom said they would take Freddie on Astro Orbiter next. I would pay another $45 not too, as there would be Bear’s Claw over everything, so Emily and I opted for the People Mover. Discovering a 45 minute wait for Astro, they decided against it and went off to meet Buzz whilst Emily and I did a loop.

Tron still wasn’t ready.

Whilst riding I booked us all on the Tea Cups at 1pm. Normally I would avoid this like the plague too after a distasteful incident some twenty years or so ago, after a buffet breakfast at 1900 Park Fayre, but we were getting every dollar’s worth of value out of Genie+ today and if that meant vomiting over some four year olds, so be it.

Tom rode with Freddie so they could spin all they wanted. I rode with the girls for the first time since the incident above so we were filled with nostalgia and a shared desire not to even touch the sliver wheel in the middle, so it was a sedate ride.

I had booked Barnstormer next. See how Genie+ allows you to easily book all the headliner rides? That was not until 2pm so we rode Dumbo via the standby line, waiting just 20 minutes. As we were boarding it started to rain so we get considerably moist as we rode.

Being damp already, Freddie was allowed to get damper in the water playground thing. I restroomed and wandered off to get us all some sugar. It had been a while.

Why I only took a photo of two I don’t know. We didn’t share, as if I had to tell you that.

Freddie was very wet by now….

and was welcoming all comers to the gun show….

I had a bit of a speed walk around the park trying to find him a dry T Shirt to wear. This was much harder than I imagined it would be and I had to go all the way to the gift shop at Winnie The Pooh to find one. It was not a perfect fit, but it was dry.

Now, we could ride Barnstormer.

An exciting thirty seconds.

On this tour of headliner rides, I had booked us onto Aladdin’s carpets next so we walked across the hub to get there.

On a day when I was feeling very grumpy and non-magical, one of those “perfect timing” things happened as we were walking. A cavalcade came just as we got to this spot so we had a front row view(ish)….

My ability to have characters not look at my camera is second to none….

We boarded our carpet at 2.35, as more rain came down.

It was now 2.45. We had an ADR at 3.10, so I thought we would kill that time with yet another headliner….

I honestly cannot remember the last time I did this. I’m not sure the girls ever had. I may have last seen it with my parents all those decades ago.

Having sat through it, I understand why.

It also lasted longer than I had anticipated and were now a few minutes late for our Skipper’s Canteen reservation. I had checked in via the app mid-show but now sped ahead to let them know we had arrived whilst the others found the stroller and followed along.

We were seated at 3.25, eager to experience the place for the first time.

Rebecca and I had the It Tastes Like Chicken, Because It Is

Emily had what I wrote down as “Curry”

Freddie had Crunchy Chicken

Tom, noodles

Freddie’s Kid’s Menu selection included a dessert…

The bill was $150 including tip. The verdict? It was good. Nothing spectacular and not one we would be desperate to do again, but would if you know what I mean?

It was now time for our very expensive ride on Seven Dwarves (could also be a film title) and on our way over there, our cavalcade of cavalcades continued.

Like some sort of death star tractor beam in human form, I drew them in….

I have to admit to not knowing who this is….

I found Aurora’s expression borderline offensive. I am not a piece of meat….

I think whiskey may have been taken….

We rode. The only thing that made it worth the $45 investment was Freddie’s excitement levels waiting to board. Seeing that kind of unbridled joy and giddiness was lovely.

Philharmagic was a walk on. I’ve not been using that phrase very often have I?

Here we are, walking on.

Here’s a photo of no queue. Enjoy.

Because it was half empty the Cast Members were allowing folks to sit down before moving all the way to the end of their row. I understood it, but could not agree with it. They are just forming bad habits that will impact everyone when it’s fuller.

Makes me uneasy….

You will have noticed a lack of dessert at Skipper’s Canteen? We decided to rectify that now with something sweet. We found a table outside of Gaston’s Tavern and I got drinks and Cinnamon Rolls for the girls and I. Tom fancied ice cream so he and Freddie went off on another quest.

They deserve two photos.

We all sat and sugared up. Freddie got his hands on the camera again. I have edited heavily…

We had a LL booking for Haunted Mansion at 6.30 so that was our new destination. I’d like to say Freddie still had the camera but I cannot.

It’s always better to ride Haunted Mansion in the dark in my view.

We had another LL at 7pm for Winnie The Pooh so we went straight there.

I said earlier in the day that we endured the one hour wait for Big Thunder as it wouldn’t get any better today. Obviously now it was showing a 30 minute standby. So off we went to ride it again.

Again, a ride better for the dark I think.

There was more excitement….

and prettiness…..

That was as good a way to end the day as any and we made our way to the exit, reaching Main Street just as the fireworks were starting. We had plans to watch them another night so didn’t want any spoilers tonight. We kept walking and not looking back.

Oddly, no doubt due to higher crowd levels than a crowd scene from Ghandi, we were being directed out via a backstage area.

I allowed myself one photo, to capture us being back stage.

By default we chose the resort monorail and headed back to the TTC. The trams were running but were very busy. It was very hectic and this time Tom ended up walking back to the car.

On the way home I put $30 of fuel in the tank and went through the traditional laughing at how cheap it was over here. We were home for 9pm and did some packing for our two day trip to Universal which started in the morning.

Till the next time…….

The “Why’s It Taking Long” Tour 2022 – Day Seven

by mkingdon, posted in The Why's It Taking Long Tour 2022

I feel that I’m becoming a bit of a sleep bore, but it’s probably because I wasn’t getting much. I was awake at 6am again after what I noted to be a very bad night’s sleep. It was a very low energy morning. That’s what a rest day does for you!

Rebecca was also struggling with a lack of sleep and aches and pains. Like me, her protruding stomach was probably the root cause.

I spoke to Louise and had to try and talk her through some TV and washing machine issues as if I was in some call centre thousands of miles away. I left her on hold for forty minutes and then wasn’t much use before cutting her off, just to give her the authentic experience. Today was one of those days when Louise seemed to be struggling with everything which did not help my mood or condition.

Unsurprisingly we were very slow to get up and out today, only setting off at 9.40am. We were headed for the theme park closest to us, in Animal Kingdom and we arrived fifteen minutes later, parking in Giraffe 41.

Yet again, no trams were provided. Having since read several blogs on the subject of crowd levels at the start of 2022 breaking all sorts of records, I am bamboozled by the lack of trams. I can only guess a lack of CMs was the cause.

Christmas refused to die, despite it now being January 9th.

Rebecca’s struggles led her to the stroller rental place. Having established that absolutely nobody was willing to push her in a stroller, an ECV was rented for the day.

With our later arrival and the billion people at WDW, everything was stacked already so we headed up to It’s Tough To Be a Bug. There was no wait as such, just the walk through the entrails of the tree and the wait in the lobby.

Despite its often forgotten very dark and very loud bits, Freddie did well and enjoyed all of the show. Emily, at 26 still does anything she can to avoid the “exiting bugs”.

Off to Dinoland now.

Being all of something past eleven now, we of course wanted lunch. I mobile ordered from Restaurantosaurus.

I had nuggets once again which may explain my aches and pains. I also had some chicken to eat.

Hot dogs for almost all with an Impossible burger for Emily.

One of Emily’s all-time least favourite rides is Dinosaur. Unluckily for her, the app was telling us that this was the only thing with a tolerable wait time. You will have noticed that I had not purchased Genie+ today.

By the time we had parked Rebecca up and got to the entrance, it was a 30-minute wait. Still, in we went.

All I will say is that we were seeing parts of the queuing systems we had never seen before if that can be seen as any sort of positive. Finally, we got into the bits we recognised.

Here, we saw the remains and commemoration of my first telling of the turtle head joke from circa 2003.

We rode. Emily hated it. Freddie enjoyed it. He seemed to be unscareable.

Rebecca and Tom then took Freddie on a ride more traditionally suitable for his age in Triceratops Spin.

Emily and I did not ride, instead, taking a seat by the side of where Primeval Whirl used to be. It’s always sad when rides are taken away. They inevitably have memories attached and this one certainly does. As ever, we have to be patient and trust that WDW is going to add something new that will be better, or at least as good.

We invested in some drinks whilst Tom and Freddie played some games and won some cuddly toys before we walked past the closed Nemo show and the also closed Everest. It will not shock you to learn that the rapids had hardly any wait. This was due to the very cool temperatures today. We had little choice as nothing else was easily available, so we enhanced our “we live in the North and don’t feel the cold” reputation by riding.

There was still a bit of a wait and I was disgusted and intrigued by a young lad in the queue in front of us with what looked like his two sisters. He was around ten I think. He seemed to have a very bad and frequent habit of spitting. You know that thing where people spit through their bottom teeth? He did that, onto the floor, about once every ten seconds.

Being mid-pandemic and Omicron wave this was not ideal of course. I stared incredulously at him and we kept our distance from his emissions. Dirty little bastard. Thankfully we did not ride with them or it may not have been the water from the ride getting us wet.

With it being a bit chilly we were hopeful that the tame nature of this ride that we had experienced before would hold. It did not, we got soaked, much to a very dry Rebecca’s amusement, who we returned to in a soggy manner. We got a drink from the place opposite Yak & Yeti and Freddie had an ice cream.

This killed sufficient time to get us into the next bird show. This thing had had more rebrands than the Sugababes. I have no clue what it’s called now, but it was fun. In our house, it will forever be called “Birds of Flight”.

We left, heading for the safari.

It was a walk-on, which was pleasing. Rebecca took the advice that pregnant folks should not ride and waited outside. Whilst we saw some animals, Rebecca spotted a vlogger, Mr Morrow and exchanged a wave and a hello.

Meanwhile, on the ride…..

Sometimes it’s the little things that you could never predict that make the little ones happy. Freddie was obsessed with and delighted to spot which animals he had seen and mentally cross them off the spotting board above us in the truck.

You may remember that I was all up in your grill earlier saying I had held firm and not got Genie+ today, like some sort of Disney martyr. That’s mainly because I had forked out for the paid-for LL for Flights of Passage instead. It was, I had to come to realise, the only way you could ride these headliners with crowds like this. It stuck in my throat, I felt used and abused, but I wanted Freddie, and everyone else to be able to do it. I just want to be sure my resentment is duly noted.

Once again, Freddie’s excitement levels were off the scale. He couldn’t keep still, as the blurry photo confirms.

We only waited about five minutes but there was a whole load of “Why’s it taking long” before we entered the pre-ride briefings.

He was measured about four different times before we actually rode, which shows how close he was to being able to ride. He absolutely loved it. Well, we all did. It almost made the bitter pill of forking out what I think was $80 for us to ride it. Almost.

We were out by 4.30 and a little bit behind schedule to get all the way out to the Rainforest Café for dinner and our ADR. We arrived at 4.45 and were seated within five minutes, which gave us time to admire some fish.

We last ate here over twenty years ago and nothing seems to have changed.

Tom and I both had….

Cocktails were had….

Along with other fun drinks….

Rebecca had a Turkey wrap….

Emily another Impossible burger…Florida seems not to have yet embraced the vegetarian lifestyle it has to be said.

Freddie had something pasta based.

We went for the dessert, just to re-visit the Volcano thing we had over twenty years ago.

It seemed smaller and less impressive after all this time, unlike myself, as I am larger and less impressive. Whilst the adults shared that, Freddie had his own dirt and worms.

The bill was over $200 but I didn’t note it down exactly. Rebecca and Tom returned the ECV and we all trudged back to the car again bemoaning the lack of trams. Unaided by said trams we got a bit lost but did then find our way back to Giraffe 41. We were home in fifteen minutes and it was early nights all round. Had I mentioned that today was a bit low energy?

Till the next time…..

The “Why’s It Taking Long” Tour 2022 – Day Six

by mkingdon, posted in The Why's It Taking Long Tour 2022

As much as a rest day is welcome in the punishing schedule of a WDW theme park based holiday, it does not make for a blockbusting, action packed trip report extravaganza, as I have often said. To be honest when you are as many trip reports in as I am, there is little I have not said before. I am not saying the park days offer anything blockbustery either, but that’s more a reflection of my poor writing skills. However, today was a rest day of sorts and I must make the most of it so here we go.

It’s always good to start a rest day by waking up at 6am of course. It’s a two hour lie in compared to the rest of the holiday so far, and I cannot fathom why this trip, for the first time, I was suffering from jet lag on the way out. My body would just not adjust to US time.

I forced myself to lie in bed till 8am. To be honest it it didn’t take too much forcing. After a shower and locating an accommodating T Shirt, we left the villa at 9.20 bound for I Drive. It’s unusual that we do, but certain eateries entice us there from time to time. I know many love that area but it’s not somewhere we have ever spent a lot of time. Being of boundless wealth, we can of course justify such snobbery.

This morning we were headed for…

to indulge in some life threatening gluttony.

On the way, the I4 was a bit busy and we did some crawling around Lake Buena Vista but eventually arrived at 10.10am. Being a Saturday and using the parks as a guide of how busy everywhere was, I was expecting to have to get a tram to this parking lot too, but it looked fairly quiet as we pulled in. We valet parked mainly as there never seems to be any alternative and we were seated immediately. We have seen the place much busier on every other visit.

To give you an idea of the calorific content you may onboard in a visit here, these are just the coffees.

Tom ordered the Camp Fire Smores Mocha, which had an inch thick crust of marshmallow on the top of it.

It’s always hard to order here as the menu is huge, but the main dilemma for me is critically, do I go sweet or savoury. We got our drinks and had a think….

We ordered –

Rebecca – French Toast

Emily went savoury with Avocado on Toast. The tree branch may have been optional.

Freddie just went with the Kid’s pancake….

I opted for Brown Sugar and Banana Flapjack, which would be a great name for a band….

Tom had a “Farmer’s Thing”, which as a Snickers Flapjack with sausage and egg.

Emily polished hers off and even helped Rebecca out a bit. Freddie did not finish, but that will not be a surprise.

Tom and I powered through and cleared the lot from our plates. I am equally proud and ashamed of that feat. My appetite is not what it once was for sure. I am developing old person’s stomach which seems to be a continual expansion on the outside, versus a continual retraction on the inside. I am not a fan. There were several times this trip when I would get angry with said stomach for getting full well before I had finished enjoying stuffing food into it. This however was not one of those times. Sure, I was full and should have stopped eating well before I cleared the plate but the deliciousness overcame those pesky thoughts of sanity and reason.

The bill was $140 including a good tip and we waddled out to get the car back from valet, tipping them $5, still not knowing after all these years if that is an insult or not.

It’s hard to drive when your stomach is as full as mine was but I got us back onto the 192 where we stopped at Target for “bits”.

As ever these shopping stop offs are random, with a trolley full of loo roll, drinks, snacks, pool toys and various personal items I will not recount here. It did not contain any video games, despite Freddie’s best efforts.

Tom tried to resurrect his quest for an Apple watch but there was no stock to be had here either. Bloody Brexit!

We drove back to the villa and once there, had a chat with Louise.

Rebecca, Tom and Freddie spent some time in the pool and I sat on the lanai strategising for our upcoming stay at Universal. I was looking into what was available to onsite folks for early hours and what was and was not included in the Front of Line access perks. I decided and decreed that we would do IOA first. Feeling happy with my decision I retired to bed for a nap. I dozed for around 90 minutes and upon waking felt like death. Clearly my body had decided to abandon any benefits of sleep during this trip.

I onboarded many painkillers and got myself ready to eat again. Yes, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.

We left the villa at 6.10pm and headed for Disney Springs. We parked in Lime on the very top floor and made our way down, through security and made our way across to House of Blues for our ADR. Sweet mother of Mary it was busy. It was a Saturday so we had loins girded for such, but it was madness. We struggled to even walk together and had to keep stopping to regroup along the way. We arrived at HOB at 7.10, I checked us in and we were seated ten minutes later.

I’ve taken better photos….Tom is vaguely aware of me pointing the camera in his general direction and Rebecca, being very much my daughter, is of course, more interested in the menu.

In all these years we have never eaten here. I think I popped in for a wee some years back, and another year we missed an ADR here as we got stuck at Premium Outlets in a torrential rainstorm, so it was nice to have the chance to finally see what the food was like.

Anyone else getting Hans Solo vibes here?

As we often tend to do, we started with Nachos.

There was live music on, which is nearly always a good thing, unless it’s Coldplay.

Party on Wayne!

For mains I had the Pulled Pork Platter and it was glorious.

Tom had a Juicy Lucy, but we would find a suitable cream for that in CVS later….

I wrote down that Rebecca had a burger……yep, I got nothing…

Freddie also had a “Burger”, but a different one….

Can you guess what Emily had?

I did note that this one was an Impossible burger to avoid any animal involvement.

Look, my meal was really good and I think my brain fogged over with the enjoyment and when I made notes later, “Burger” was the best I could do.

Everything was really tasty and the service was good. Emily had two cocktails with absolutely no regard to the effect on the bill which was $180 with tip.

We left, envious of Freddie’s ability to be pushed around.

We wandered a few shops and thankfully it was a little less busy by now, but not much.

Our wanderings took us back in the general direction of Lime.

We were all full and tired, again, for the second time today and not for the last time this trip. I shudder to imagine the calorie count for today so I won’t.

I drove us home in a pre-diabetic haze and we were all in bed by 10pm, me looking forward to another seemingly unavoidable early rise. Not a euphemism.

Till the next time…..

The “Why’s It Taking Long” Tour 2022 – Day Five

by mkingdon, posted in The Why's It Taking Long Tour 2022

As Phil Collins said (again), today was to be the Stu, Stu, Studios.

Well before that could happen I felt the need to be awake at 4am again. I forced myself to stay in bed and horizontal until 6.30. Just before 7am I opened up the My Disney Experience app, thinking I would take a look at some new ride I had heard about. Something about resisting a rise. I mean how hard could it be to ride something at a theme park?

I was very soon reminded that I was off-site scum and Disney would rather set me on fire than allow me to get on a ride I had spent a lot of money buying a ticket for the park it was in. I felt, for probably the first time, like some sort of outsider to the Disney experience. Off-site idiots are now blatantly treated very differently in relation to this stuff. This has been the case in other ways over the years yes, but that was about stuff like free car parking or an hour or so extra in a park. This is a fundamental barrier to actually experiencing an attraction based upon your accommodation preference. I am not a fan. I also felt that I did not understand how all this worked yet. Sure I hadn’t done the required amount of research, but I was just wanting to go to a theme park and ride some rides, not perform surgery.

I bought Genie+ again and immediately felt ripped off and resentful. This is exactly what Walt had in mind I’m sure. It was now just after 7am and the best LL I could book was Tower of Terror for 12pm as we wanted a slightly later start today due to tiredness. Sure, I could have not bought Genie+ and then rocked up to the park mid-morning and found wait times longer than my old fella for the entire day, but what good would that be? In the good old days we would have had three FastPasses secured for the day about 60 days ago and be able to plan our day accordingly.

I called Louise to see how things were back home and I think a good summary was, better than they were yesterday. Mary was home.

A bagel and some fruit entered me with my consent and I had a shower and put some clothes on. I wasn’t naked eating breakfast. I put some different clothes on.

We drove to Hollywood Studios and arrived around 10.30am. I’ve had a moan above about some things but I will say again, well done to Disney for properly sorting out the security checks when entering a park. It is an immeasurable improvement.

We could already tell that the park was busy. The app confirmed this once we had entered with long wait times for anything and everything.

Rebecca went for a wee and the rest of us stood here.

The only/best option for us was to go and watch the Beauty and The Beast show starting at 11. We grabbed a seat and waited about fifteen minutes for it to start.

Freddie got a bit bored so I let him take some photos.

Then we did more selfies.

Thankfully for everyone having to look at those photos, the show started. It’s a show we have seen countless times and we noticed some fairly heavy adjustments to accommodate social distancing so it looked a bit odd. It was still enjoyable though.

We were out by 11.30 and by jingo if it wasn’t time to get some lunch!

We stood and sat here whilst mobile ordering some stuff. We were eating early as we had an early ADR for “dinner” at 3.50 this afternoon. You know you are on a WDW holiday when you have to plan ahead to be anything like hungry for your next ADR.

Our order from Rosie’s was ready at 11.50 and we found ourselves a table to eat at.

Freddie had a hot dog as long as his entire body.

Tom had one with Chilli on it.

Rebecca and I had chicken nugget things.

Emily just got some fries which I deemed unworthy of a photo.

As we finished eating and were heading to Tower of Terror for our LL, Louise phoned with a technical issue with the TV back home. Once again I was in remote support mode, trying to figure out what had been pressed and what needing pressing to undo that. It was an easier thing to resolve than yesterday’s issue.

Everyone who wasn’t pregnant went on the ride. Our LL helped us avoid a 60 minute standby wait at this point.

You will notice today that I had remembered my camera had a selfie mode.

We had been a little concerned that Freddie my be frightened, not by the drops, but by the dark and spooky nature of the ride. We need not have worried.

He loved the whole thing and had his arms up, screaming with laughter as we dropped over and over.

We headed for the Indiana Jones show next as it started in 15 minutes.

When we got there it was already full. I did say the park was busy.

Instead we headed over to the Frozen show instead and were seated immediately.

This is just good fun.

We left in a better mood and state than when we entered and that’s how it should be.

Freddie added to his plastic tat collection and we made our way to Star Tours that only had a 20 minute wait posted.

Where he met and very much liked “shiny man”. From here on in, “I want to go on shiny man ride” was a regular phrase.

Rebecca and her bump once again waited outside as we rode.

This was one of Freddie’s favourites and no doubt kicked off his Star Wards discovery in the coming years. As we met Rebecca on the bench she had been waiting on a small cavalcade passed by.

Anything that we may want to actually ride had a ride time too long to be tolerated so we toddled off to the Muppets.

Even on a busy day like today this wasn’t full and I even allowed us to sit down in the middle of a row once I had been assured it would not be full. Now able to wear the glasses and appreciate the 3D Freddie really enjoyed this one.

I know we only ate a few paragraphs ago, but it was now time for our ADR at 50’s Prime Time Café. We strolled over in that direction.

We were seated after a five minute wait. You can check in via the app now in case you didn’t know.

Obviously the experience here is not what it was before the pandemic. I don’t know if that is 100% of the reason but when we first dined here many years ago the interaction was legendary. Elements of it remain and let’s hope and see if they come back when any form of normality does.

Freddie and Tom ordered a milkshake.

It will not surprise you to hear he did not finish this.

Rebecca ordered this drink which seemed to involve something happening when Pluto was dropped in but it escaped me.

Emily chose a cocktail purely on the basis that it had a glow cube.

She was a little more limited for vegetarian options so ended up with a salad.

Rebecca, Tom and I had the Fried Chicken

Freddie had Chicken Tenders.

We ventured into dessert territory, with Emily and I sharing a peanut butter layered thing. Again, probably not what appears on the menu as its description.

Tom had one of those to himself and Rebecca a brownie based thing.

The food was all very tasty, but the bill of $215 including tip would be better justified once the full experience is back here. We were however very full, which was odd as we hadn’t eaten a lot today.

A Collection of House of Cards' Best Frank Underwood Side-Eye GIFs | Kevin spacey, Frank underwood, House of cards

Since riding Tower of Terror at midday, I had been booking other LLs every two hours and now we found ourselves with stuff stacked up so we were looking forward to some queue free fun. This was not scheduled to start until 7pm so we rode “shiny man” again.

Freddie got a remote controlled BB8 from the gift shop. Having finally released it from the most ridiculous packaging known to man, everybody but Freddie then played with it for a bit. We gave him a turn eventually.

It was 6pm now and we had a choice of watching Indian Jones or going to Galaxy’s Edge. We chose….

It was just lovely watching Freddie’s reaction to the fantastic theming. He was enthralled by all the droids and fighters we walked past.

He got especially excited when we reached the Falcon.

He was absolutely desperate to ride it. The wait time was ridiculous and we had a LL for 8pm. Trying to explain to an over excited four year old why he can’t go on something that mind blowing until later is tricky. See….

We wandered off trying to distract him with other stuff….

and sat him in stroller with my camera as we made our way to Toy Story Land.

Thankfully for your and my camera’s sake we soon arrived at Toy Story Land.

Our first LL at 7pm was for Swirling Saucers so we all rode that, firstly via the 20 minute standby queue which was more like five and then Tom and Freddie rode again using the LL.

The rest of us found a bench to wait on.

It had become very cold, very quickly so we reached for the hoodies and walked to Toy Story Mania for our LL at 7.10pm.

I rode with Freddie and showed absolutely no mercy in the manner of defeat I inflicted upon him. I did so knowing it will only be a few short years until those roles are reversed.

We still had half an hour until our LL for Smuggler’s Run so Tom took Freddie on “shiny man ride” one more time.

Finally it was time for our LL for Smuggler’s.

It is hard to describe how excited Freddie was. He literally could not stand still during the short amount of time we had to wait to ride. It was just a joy to watch him. He almost exploded with anticipation.

Emily and I were gunners with Tom and Freddie piloting the Falcon. It was all a blur of images, noises and excitement but it was fab. This is so immersive that Freddie was absolutely convinced he had just flown the big Falcon he had seen outside and that is how it should be.

We walked out of Galaxy’s Edge and to the park exit.

With Rebecca struggling now after a full on day, Emily and I walked back to the car and then drove back to the front of the car park to pick everyone else up. We only missed them a couple of times and got there in the end!

We were home by 10pm after a full, sometimes frustrating, but enjoyable day.

Till the next time…..

The “Why’s It Taking Long Tour” 2022 – Day Four

by mkingdon, posted in The Why's It Taking Long Tour 2022

Holidays are a time to relax, de-stress, kick back and avoid any issues to deal with that may raise your blood pressure. Well, this holiday was already classed as “not normal” so sit back and let me tell you a story.

Today started early, again. I was awake at 4am. I dozed till 6ish when Louise phoned me. She was a bit flustered as she was on Asda’s car park, in the snow, having just locked the car keys in the boot of the car, and of course the car had now locked.

This is not the news you want to hear from 4,000 miles away, as usually I would have picked up the spare key and driven the ten minutes to Asda to resolve the problem. Today Louise had a million things to do to prepare for her Mum coming home, so her stress levels were already higher than normal.

I sprang into action, calling Greenflag, who we get cover with via our bank account. They said they would despatch someone asap. I passed this on to Louise and had a shower and some breakfast, glad that this emergency had been dealt with.

We had noticed that Epcot didn’t open until 10am today which was a bit weird, but having been quite tardy with our park arrivals so far we made up for it by leaving the villa at 8.40. We parked in Amaze 34 and walked into the park.

On site special people were being greeted into the park like the elite kind of folks they are and us scummy off site proles had to settle for a Joffrey’s coffee and a doughnut.

Right about now Louise called me again, in a very heightened state of distress. The Greenflag man could not open the car. She was at this stage trying to smash a window on the car and I was phoning glass replacement businesses some 4,000 miles away to see who could repair it when she did. Several more calls came in from Louise, each more upsetting than the last.

Greenflag man asked Louise if she had a spare key for the car, at which point I think his head landed about half a mile away after she had taken it off. I was calling various family members to see who could help.

The horrible juxtaposition of me being stood in the pleasant warmth of Florida about to undertake a day in a theme park and Louise’s end of the video call, which consisted of sleet, high winds and a very distraught wife was not one I ever wish to repeat.

Meanwhile, back in Epcot, I sent everyone else off to do stuff whilst I sat near the entrance calling and googling various things to try and help. The new plan was to get a locksmith to our house to “break in” so Louise could get the spare key. The tricky bit wasn’t finding a locksmith, which I did from Epcot in two phone calls, no, the real challenge was getting Louise home. For reasons I cannot understand all the local taxi places would not take her as it was a journey from one town to another and due to COVID, apparently, this meant it was a no no. I was too stressed and busy to even worry about this.

We were about an hour in now and I was close to a heart attack. You do not want to be across an ocean when there is an emergency happening back home. Then, a saviour entered the scene. The locksmith I had found was sat outside our house and he called Louise to ask where she was. She explained she was stuck at Asda and could not get home. Like a superhero he went to pick her up.

Upon their return they were to go around the back of the house and pop one of the locks on the conservatory, which is very old and due to be replaced as soon as the weather improves enough for it to be installed. At the back of our house is a field and to get down from it to our garden there is a steep slope with less then great steps.

Here it is in what passes for summer in the North West of England.

Both Louise and the locksmith went down those steps, however Louise did so on her backside, slipping on the mix of sleety snow and other wintry shite on the ground. You may smile, or even laugh at that image now and that’s OK. At the time, nobody did!

We are edging towards the end of this story now. At this time I had wandered up through Epcot to meet everyone and I did so outside The Land as they had ridden Soarin’.

On my way up, just as some attempt at this being a trip report, I should mention that Epcot is a building site. I find it odd that it is so during the 50th celebrations, but the whole centre part of the park has endless boards up. It’s a bit of a mess.

As I waited, after all this stress, there was almost inevitably, a large Pooh.

We walked over to Nemo and Friends, but I was still mentally back home, waiting for news from Louise and confirmation that she had found the spare key and got into the car.

Whilst in the ten minute queue, Louise called. She had the spare key. The crowning glory of this tale is that when Louise and the locksmith had rappelled down the slope to our back garden and conservatory, and as the locksmith was preparing to break in, it turns out the conservatory door was open!

Suffice to say, Louise paid him plus a large tip for saving the day regardless of him just acting as a taxi.

I had chest pains.

We rode.

After that we decided to do Crush and walked in just as the doors were closing.

A few minutes into the show my phone went again. It was Louise and I had to leave the show to take it. She had got a taxi back to Asda and was back in the car and on with her day.

To add insult to chest pains and injury, it turned out that there was a lack of ambulances, so Mary’s homecoming would be tomorrow instead of today.

Shall we all just have a minute?

The weight of a thousand manatees lifted from my shoulders as I waited near them for the others to finish Crush.

We then wandered the rest of the tanks.

Half in anger and half as reward for the stressful delay to our park touring day, I had purchased Genie+. I had secured a Lightning Lane (from hereon in that is a LL). Even at that time in the morning all the LL’s for Test Track were gone for that day. How can a system where you pay for special access have that happen? I booked us onto Mission Space for 11.45 instead. It was now time for that so we made our way over there via the circuitous route created by all the screening boards.

Myself, Emily and Tom rode that. We rode the Orange intense side much to my delight.

I missed most of the briefing video as the next LL window was due right at that time so I spent those minutes looking at the app, choosing what to book next. I felt absolutely dog rough as we left the ride. It’s an age thing I am convinced. I once took my Mum on it when she was in her 70’s and almost killed her. I fear I am heading for the same fate as the years pass.

Freddie was spending a bit of time in the splash pad despite it not really being splash pad weather.

That next LL booking I had made was for Spaceship Earth and it was due now. We headed that way.

I had the honour of riding with Freddie.

Lunch was now very overdue so we headed back to The Land for food. I had something called a Land Crusher which was pulled pork on Texas Toast. I think it’s called that as it Texas so long to make it.

Honestly it was one of the tastiest things I had all trip.

It was so good I have no record of what anyone else had.

I had by now booked our next LL for Journey Into Imagination and not too surprisingly that was due immediately.

I constantly wondered what Freddie was making of these things he was experiencing for the first time. Now I know he’s ridden some of this stuff before but he of course has no memory of it.

Having no way to book any form of LL for Test Track, next, everyone except Rebecca joined the 60 minute queue.

Even with two breakdowns of the ride whilst we queued, and here we are during one of those looking happy about it…

We were on in 25 minutes. I am not one to suggest that wait times are being inflated to encourage the purchase of Genie+. To be fair it was a mixed bag all trip with many times the displayed minutes being correct and a good number of times it not.

We designed our cars….

Waited a bit more….

and enjoyed the ride.

With Rebecca waiting for us on her own we did not spend too much time admiring the cars we could not afford.

We met Rebecca in the new Creations shop. Rebecca and Freddie finally got their new magic bands all linked up and after a browse of the shop we found a bench and had a drink whilst Tom took Freddie on Mission Space. It’s always a judgement call as to when you let your small kids go on the big stuff. Every child is different of course but Tom and Rebecca were confident he would be OK. There are surgical procedures I would have undertaken without sedation rather than ride Mission Space again at this time.

Freddie loved it and returned with one of those Groot things that sit on your shoulder as a reward for bravery. Yes, he rode Orange too.

We walked over to the Short Film Festival next. Please don’t disregard this when looking for things to do. Sure, it’s no Captain Eo, but it was extremely enjoyable.

As we entered this, Mickey was out for pictures. We couldn’t stop as the show was about to begin, so as we left we circled back and were delighted to find him still there.

I am hoping these socially distanced style photos will just be a reminder of different times soon and we can get back to the meet and greets with hugs and stuff soon.

As we walked back to the stroller we passed one of the cutest service dogs we saw all trip and for some reason we saw a lot. We have never really seen any in all our previous times, but this year they were everywhere.

At some point in the recent past I had booked a LL for Soarin’ to make up for me missing it this morning as I was trapped in a glass case of chest pain and stress.

We rode at 6 and I loved this ride as I always do.

By this time Rebecca was starting to get tired and back painy so we decided to head out.

I saw the new lights on Spaceship Earth for the first time and all I wondered was why had they never done this before. It looked stunning and I took far more pictures than I will inflict on you here.

We made our way out to the exit.

I will add a note here to say that I am still in mourning for the loop music that now seems gone. I am sorry but this music IS Epcot.

Tonight’s dining was meant to be Bahama Breeze remember but we pulled that forward due to the Cheesecake Factory being too busy. With everyone being very tired we took the decision to just call at Taco Bell on the way home. I haven’t been to a Taco Bell for over a decade so had no clue what to order. Emily and I went in and muddled our way through the self order board thing and emerged with some food. It was $40.

We drove on to the villa and whilst we ate, called Louise to check in on her after her eventful day. Tom and Freddie went in the pool for a bit and then bed happened.

Till the next time……

The “Why’s It Taking Long Tour” 2022 – Day Three

by mkingdon, posted in The Why's It Taking Long Tour 2022

There are many signs and few advantages of getting older. I once wrote a novel in the time it now takes me to start peeing and my appetite seems to be receding faster than my hairline did. I know it may not look like it, but I think I am starting to lose my hair.

One other setback, for me at least, is losing the ability to sleep well. I don’t know if it is stress, aches and pains or something else but despite being very, very tired upon getting into my (extremely comfortable) bed at the villa last night I was awake at 3am. Many years ago that’s when I may be going to bed never mind waking up but here we are and I was not happy.

I must have dozed off again at some point as my next recollection is timed at 5.30am and after more dozing I gave up on sleep around 6.45am. Jet lag really seemed to hit me for the first time ever on the way out this year and I don’t know why. It took me an age to get into the new time zone.

I had my morning chat with Louise, who of course was in her lunchtime environment at that time and then I had a bagel and some fruit for breakfast. If you don’t buy one of those big fresh fruit carton things from Publix are you even on holiday in Florida? Our plans for today were Typhoon Lagoon for a bit of rest. No matter that is was in single-digit degrees outside, we were doing a water park.

As it didn’t open till around 10, we were in no rush to get out. How I laughed about being awake since 3am with that in mind. At around 8am I had the great idea of going for (a second) breakfast, like were some kind of Hobbit. Everyone liked that idea, so we all showered, dressed for swimming later and piled into the car and headed to….

Tom had never done a Dennys so it was definitely overdue. This restaurant was a fixture of my early trips to the US when I was all fringe and naivety. My Florida knowledge and dining experiences have both developed for the better over the years but it is still nice to dine here from time to time just to marvel at how small the bill is for the amount of pain you are in from eating too much.

We all ordered coffee and juices with Rebecca having a water.

Rebecca (and her maternity knockers) had Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

Me and Tom had a Grand Slamwich

Emily had a Beyond Burger

Freddie had Birthday Cake Pancakes. God bless the US of A for having such things.

Sure, we’ve had better quality food elsewhere, and my sandwich had more salt in it than was healthy for all five of us to consume in the entire holiday but it was all very tasty and extremely filling. The bill was $87 including a good tip. This meal was the perfect preparation for going to a water park of course.

We dragged ourselves back into the car and for the first time ever having a Sat Nav in the car I typed in Typhoon Lagoon and off we set. Sure I could probably have found it unaided, but with the roads forever changing around WDW, better to trust the Sat Nav right?

Wrong.

Inexplicably it took us to Blizzard Beach. So we had to pull over and type the actual address of Typhoon Lagoon in and within ten minutes we pulled into the car park. We were not too shocked to see that the car park was empty.

We strolled towards our usual area but this time we had our pick of beds right on the water’s edge. Today, a lack of shade was unlikely to be an issue.

It was quite cloudy and when the sun was hidden behind them it was definitely chilly, but this did not stop Tom and Freddie heading straight into the wave pool. It took Emily and I another half an hour or so to build up the courage to join them. We were delighted to notice that the wave pool was heated and it was actually much warmer than it feels in August!

We stayed in for an hour, with Freddie loving the waves. We came out around 12 along with the sun which was very welcome indeed as we got dried. Today was my Dad’s birthday so we Facetimed him and my Mum and had a chat to wish him a good day, even though is was almost over where he was.

Shortly after that we spoke to Louise again as she had just heard that Mary was being discharged from hospital the next day.

Rebecca, Tom and Freddie had a wander doing some slides and stuff whilst Emily and I relaxed a bit. In a pathetic attempt to walk some breakfast off I did a full loop of the park stopping briefly to watch some people remind me why I hate water slides and will never do the Humunga Cowabunga thing that looks like a death wish made out of plastic. Freddie joined in with the relaxing once he returned and got dry.

I got us some drinks and we watched the weather improve a bit through the afternoon, and it actually got quite warm.

More wave pooling happened. I retired to my lounger suffering from tiredness and a sore ear. With that in mind and Freddie being tired by now we left around 4pm. We made our first pharmacy stop of the trip in Louise’s honour and I got some drops for my sore ear.

We were home just after 4.30. Freddie and Tom continued getting wet in our pool and I had another chat with Louise.

Some resting happened and we were all then showered and ready to head out for some tea at 7pm. The plan stated we were to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. There is a new one near the Premium Outlet Mall. We arrived to discover a one hour wait and quickly decided that was not for us. Let nobody say I am held prisoner by the plan as I quickly juggled things around and brought forward Bahama Breeze from tomorrow’s plan as it was “just around the corner”.

Just a general note for those who haven’t been that often or at all. Nothing is “just around the corner”. Everything is miles from everything else. Always give yourself much more time than you may think you need to get anywhere. It can make for stressful times if you don’t plan for this stuff.

We were seated immediately, after opting to sit inside (it was chilly).

Today and probably the two days before had taken it out of all of us tonight. We were all tired and lacking energy. Luckily we could try to inject some into our bodies in the form of food, so we did.

We appetised ourselves with a Spinach and Artichoke Dip and Chips and Guacamole.

We then ordered….

Me and Emily – Black Bean and Guacamole Tacos

Tom – A chicken in a pineapple thing (this may not be the official name of this dish)

Rebecca – Steak

Freddie – Chicken Tenders

I was so tired I failed to capture these.

Everyone was too full for dessert and I was too tired to capture what we paid. I think it was sub $200 anyway.

We were home by 9.30. There was some minor kerfuffle trying to get the gates to the development to open but this was more about us not having listened to the instructions we were given at the gate house when we first arrived due to excessive tiredness and a lack of patience.

Freddie was already asleep in the car by the time we pulled onto the drive and if we’d been driving a few more miles, I would have been too.

Did I mention we were tired?

Till the next time…….

The “Why’s It Taking Long” Tour 2022 – Day Two

by mkingdon, posted in The Why's It Taking Long Tour 2022

Having been so tired last night after being awake for almost 24 hours I can find no reasonable explanation for being awake at 6.20am. I could hear Freddie charging around the villa. Either that or Emily, Tom or Rebecca felt the need to be running up and down the landing. At around 6.45 I called Louise and had a chat. It wasn’t nice to once again have confirmation that she wasn’t with us, but at least these days video chatting makes long distances easier than this might have been some years ago. I can still remember buying a phone card and calling Louise’s Mum from Downtown Disney just once during one of our holidays.

My chat with Louise was interrupted as she got a call from the hospital about her Mum, so I made some breakfast whilst she took that. Sensible cereal for me, saving my calories for later and then Louise called back. I gave her a tour of the villa, which based on how impressive it was I’m not sure made her feel any better about being stuck at home. She chatted with everyone else and then we all showered, separately.

Once dressed I prepared Ryan for his tour of duty. Out went all the gubbins that he had been required to carry yesterday for the journey and in went all the theme park essentials and as it was 9 degrees outside, a hoodie. Other than that, we were all dressed as if it were August, other than Emily who had a jumper on. Having said that, Emily feels cold in August in Florida so no change there. It must be a mindset thing, but if I’m in Florida I’m in shorts and a T-Shirt (with a bum bag of course) regardless of the time of year.

We spent a bit of time figuring out which physical ticket belonged to which person as a couple of us were missing magic bands. By hook or by crook, with limited help from the My Disney Experience app, we got there. Sure I could have written everyone’s name on their ticket when I linked them but I live in a paperless digital world baby, don’t fence me in with your last century luddite paradigms.

We were ready.

We left the villa at 8.45 and drove past the nearby school where we saw all the pupils piling in for their day. I always dread driving past a school bus in the US. I know there are special rules about that and it feels like unless you stop dead and throw your keys from the car a SWAT Team is likely to take you out.

We turned right onto Funie Steed Road, which took us on a journey back in time past many of the villa developments we have stayed in over the years. Lindfields, Sunset Lakes and Emerald Isle all brought back memories of happy holidays.

Once we got to Formosa Gardens we were on familiar territory indeed and it was nice to get back onto Sherberth Road and on to Magic Kingdom. It does seem that the entire road infrastructure around WDW changes completely between each trip and today, after two and a half years seemed no different. I’m sure we used to turn left to get to the parks and now there was an off-ramp on the right. Luckily I am totally cool with change and adapted seamlessly. It took about twenty minutes. There was a fairly huge queue of cars at the main gate all desperate to hand over $25. We parked in….

Despite all the announcements of their return not long ago, there was no sign of any trams so we walked in. Did I mention it was busy?

One massive improvement since our last trip was the security checks at the parks. We have all endured retired gentlemen and ladies poking at our sacks with a stick and even queued up for the experience, but now, you just walk through a scanner and only a handful of folks are pulled to one side for the sack inspection. Once through security, a bit giddy at finally being back, the camera came out for a series of “why would you take pictures of that” shots.

With Louise not with us, somebody had to take on her role, so Rebecca announced she needed to go for a wee, denying my urge to sprint onto the monorail, or at least join the queue for it. So we waited, ever so patiently.

For those wondering, there was no mask requirement outside, but having somehow dodged the COVID bullet to get here, we all often masked up in crowded places, even outside, just so we could make every effort to have a full holiday.

Freddie’s bum bag game was strong.

After a ten minute wait for the monorail, we were on and heading towards the castle. We breezed through the ticket scan thing unlike, it seemed everyone else on the planet who appeared to be taking about ten minutes each to figure out how to get into the park and, well, finally, we were home.

That first walk up Main Street is always special. We took it all in whilst at the same time, looking at the MDE app to see what we might ride first. To say this had been a long journey, in every meaning of that phrase, is one of the largest understatements in the history of understatements. The number of twists and turns, rule changes, hopes, expectations and disappointments had long since become incalculable, so to finally be here, on Main Street, looking at the castle was surreal. I’m sure none of us could really take it in.

Based on the crowd levels we were seeing, finding the first ride to do without a long wait could be a challenge. As we tend to do, we turned left and we were headed for…

The walk to the ride wasn’t one during which we could really soak things in. High crowd levels, especially with a stroller, mean you have to constantly concentrate on the next pocket of space to walk into. This was not to change for the duration of the trip to be honest.

You can see Pirates already had a 30-minute wait posted, but we went in and only waited around 10. We had decided not to get Genie+ today, as we didn’t know how long we’d last in the park and we wanted to see what was possible without it. Plus of course I am tight.

Just as we were about to board our boat, Louise called so we arranged to call back after the ride. Freddie loved the ride. He’d done it before but of course, had no memory of it. Interestingly, the canon water splashes seemed to be off today probably due to it being chilly outside (unless you live in the North West of England).

As we left the ride we called Louise back as she was visiting Mary in hospital so we all had a chat with her as best we could. It was very loud, very bright with dodgy WiFi and Mary (Louise’s Mum) is hard of hearing. Apart from that, we had a good chat!

We made our usual way over to the Big Thunder and Splash. The latter was showing a 45-minute wait. We joined it and were glad we did as the day after today it closed for maintenance so this may have been our last ride in its current state.

It was a full 45-minute wait but worth it for Freddie’s reaction. He adored it.

As we boarded our log, the young couple behind us were challenged for not having masks on. They claimed ignorance and said they didn’t know they were needed. The Cast Member allowed them on but told them to go and get some. Firstly, I was surprised WDW didn’t have a supply to hand out to folks like this and secondly, I didn’t believe for a second they didn’t know. There are regular announcements, loads of signs and everybody else had one on. Maybe they do this on all the rides?

Next, I restroomed. It is important you know this. I had mobile ordered from Cosmic Rays (Yes, I can multi-task) in the queue for Splash, so we then headed in that direction. Rebecca, who of course could not ride Splash in her pregnant state, had been chatting to my Mum & Dad whilst we rode so we all had a chat with them as we made our way towards food. On the way, we spotted some of the Country Bears up on the balcony where clearly this chap had just stepped on some Lego.

We had hot dogs all round, (just fries for Emily) and a Chicken Sandwich for Rebecca.

That lot was $87.

Next, we headed down to Main Street as Rebecca and Tom wanted to do their gender reveal for their new arrival on Main Street.

We got the appropriately coloured balloon from the seller and then joined a queue for a photographer. Just as it was our turn, a cavalcade came by so we had to move to the pavement.

Emily cried.

We took our place in the middle of Main Street again and Freddie assumed the position. I proved why I am not employed as a photographer at WDW.

The proper photo went onto social media to let all family and friends know that they are having a boy.

As a reward for his modelling work, we went off to get Freddie an ice cream.

He approved.

We found a seat near The Plaza and he tucked in.

Based on some scary wait times on the app, we planned to do Philharmagic next and headed up through the castle to get there.

Even trying to find a spot to park the stroller was challenging for Tom but eventually, he returned and in we went. Freddie was on a sugar high!

Until we got to the start of the thankfully short queue.

As we entered the area just before the doors to the theatre open, Freddie got a bit confused in the darkness and held the hand of a chap in front of us, thinking it was me. The chap was very gracious and chatted to Freddie. The fact that he was in his 70s and about 18 stone did nothing for my self-confidence.

Finally now old enough to keep the 3D glasses on, Freddie was fully immersed in the experience, reaching out for the 3D effects through the show. The new Coco scene was there now of course and as ever the whole show is a delight.

Maintaining our search for a wait time below an hour we identified the Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor and headed that way. When we got there Freddie spotted Buzz and really wanted to do that. It was a 65-minute wait which I really did not fancy. Tom volunteered to take him on whilst the rest of us rode the People Mover and chilled out. At the last minute, Rebecca decided to join them on Buzz, mainly as it was one of the few things she could ride. Emily and I waited 30 minutes to get on the People Mover. Yep, 30 minutes.

We took in the sights for a bit on our way round.

Tron is huge!

Once we were done, Emily and I headed to the shops on Main Street whilst the rest continued to wait for Buzz. We did a lot of browsing and not much buying.

We did see another cavalcade come by though.

Alice wouldn’t leave it……

We were messaged to say they were off Buzz now and we met them in the queue for Laugh Floor.

A 30-minute wait was posted. That was probably more like 20, but long enough. The show was very clever and very enjoyable. Once we were done there it was 4pm and time to make our way out of the park to Wilderness Lodge for our ADR at Whispering Canyon.

Rebecca and her bump were struggling a little now so our pace was slow. We decided to take the car over rather than just take the boat as it was unlikely we would return to Magic Kingdom after eating. To save Rebecca the journey, Emily and I caught the monorail back to TTC and got the car whilst the other three caught the boat over to Wilderness Lodge. We took the resort monorail to avoid a queue at the normal one. I think we did this all trip to be honest.

During our monorail journey, the one downside of that route is you stop at the Contemporary. As we waited for guests to join and alight, in our compartment was a Mum with two kids. They were very young and I think the word is rambunctious.

As phrases were bellowed by the Mum like…

“Don’t you dare bite me….!!”

“That’s not safe!”

We thought it best not to turn round and look at what they were doing just in case the monorail was on fire. I am eternally thankful the girls, and now Freddie, never really inflicted that sort of behaviour on us in public.

The tram was running as we got to TTC and we boarded on the Villains side and headed to Hook. We made it to Wilderness Lodge after a wild goose chase caused by the onboard Sat Nav in the car. It was, how do you say, bobbins for the whole trip.

We arrived at 4.55 and found Rebecca, Tom and Freddie in the lobby. I checked in, had a wee (not simultaneously) and we were seated within a few minutes.

Our server was great fun. Much of the old school shenanigans are currently not in play, I guess due to COVID, but he still made it a very fun experience. As we waited for our food we chatted to Louise. It was of course still Christmas in WDW.

We ordered skillets all round, with Emily getting her own plant-based one. By George these were good.

Tom had four chocolate milkshakes (they are unlimited here) and some extra sausage and mash. We were all very full and extremely tired.

The table behind us was a bit weird. They were determined to make it a competition with the server and his banter, rather than just enjoy it. It became uncomfortably confrontational at times and kudos to our server for not forking them in their junk. I forgot to note down the amount of the bill but I think from memory it was around $200 including a good tip, which was that he should fork awkward guests in their junk from now on.

Thankfully the Sat Nav guided us home more easily tonight as we still had not found our bearings. I think we were all in bed at 7.30pm. These first full days get you like that!

Some thoughts on recent changes. We didn’t use Genie+ today. We knew we would be leaving around 4pm so it didn’t seem worth it. The park was MUCH busier than we were expecting and this remained the case throughout the trip, and despite this, today we managed to get a good amount of stuff done without too much excessive waiting, but we were able to cherry-pick things like Philharmagic that have less challenging loading times.

If we had wanted to do the big stuff today it would have been a lot of waiting. We did use the “free” Genie thing, in so much as we constantly refreshed the Tip Board to weep at the huge wait times for everything. I’ll not steal my own thunder and give you my overall thoughts on Genie+ etc now, but I’ll share as we get to the relevant points and examples along the way.

The overall theme though was just how long wait times were. The car parks were nowhere near full so my guess is that a mix of COVID staffing issues and perhaps allowing too many folks to get a park reservation for that staff capacity, mixed with some stuff not yet being open caused these. If you don’t have many of the shows, street entertainers, character meets and parades on, then all people can do is ride stuff, so the queues get inflated. Anyway, more thoughts later……

Moaning about crowds in the parks after such a long wait to be there seems churlish. I mean, I’m still going to do it, but I should at least acknowledge my churl as I do.

Till the next time…….

The “Why’s It Taking Long” Tour 2022 – Day One

by mkingdon, posted in The Why's It Taking Long Tour 2022

As Phil Collins once said, against all odds, we somehow managed to get away and have this bloody holiday. Sadly, as has been well documented and lamented pre trip, not everyone who should have been there was, but I am still claiming it as some form of kharmic victory that we won the war of attrition and got to have some sort of a holiday.

It’s fair to say that this victory was in doubt right up until the last minute. I was not sure I would could/would be going, leaving Louise behind, literally until I walked out of the door. It is safe to say we have had happier starts to a holiday, but with all those caveats aside let try to take you with us on this trip and share what we got up to, mainly what we ate and what sort of experience you have when you try to have a holiday mid-pandemic.

The title is the catch phrase of our trip. Every time we joined a queue, arrived at a restaurant or needed to wait anywhere for a few seconds, we would hear “Why’s it taking long?” For clarity that was Freddie, and not me, but at times it was close. More on queues and waiting later!

I awoke at 5.30am when my alarm sounded. I was dressed and showered ten minutes later and I got mine and Emily’s cases into the car. The goodbye to Louise was not easy, but we were on our way by 6.10. The mood in the car was subdued to say the least.

I managed to find my way to T2 West car park avoiding the £5 fee this time. If you drive through the drop off lane you have to pay £5 for the privilege and this time, determined (and tight) I spotted a sign at a key roundabout to avoid that. Having made that saving we could now live it up large on holiday of course.

We parked up on Level 2, and as we were dragging the cases from the car Rebecca, Tom and Freddie got out of their car just a few spaces away from us. We masked up and wandered into Terminal 2. It was quiet and we were surprised to see that check in did not open until 7.30am and we were expecting a 7am opening, the usual four hours before take off. We loitered at the relevant place and then just as it was about to open we were approached and asked if we had checked in online. We had. So we were then diverted to a self serve kiosk. What could possibly go wrong? I am after all a technical genius and not some middle-aged boomer who is struggling to cope with the modern world. Right?

The process was not simple. Somehow we managed to weigh and label all our cases but then needed human help anyway as we had a stroller and a car seat to check in. Even then we had to walk all the way down to the large item drop off with the car seat. Trying to be helpful to Rebecca and her pregnant state, just Tom and I walked down only to discover we needed the boarding pass and passport of Freddie, which Rebecca had in the bag, and she had to come down anyway. Sigh.

COVID wise there was no bother. The VeriFly app did all the work and as long as you are all green and good to go on there, no checks were made of any vaccination records or anything else.

Restrooms were used and we made our way through to security. It was painful. Ryan (for anyone who doesn’t know, Ryan is my rucksack) had been pulled to one side for further inspection. That resulted in a ten minute wait whilst some burly Mancunian had a good feel of my sack. It turns out Emily had put her lip balm into Ryan and left it there. Having decided the liquid was harmless, Ryan was released and we could now head for food. All the queues and faff were over. Or were they?

Terminal 2 at Manchester seems to have changed a lot in recent years and it is fairly unrecognisable from many of our previous trips. It appears now to only have a couple of eateries and both had huge queues. Peaking into the restaurants we could see a load of empty tables so we could only assume they were having staffing issues. Being very clever, Emily and I joined one queue and Tom and Rebecca the other and we would see who got to the front first. After about fifteen minutes we both got to the respective podiums simultaneously. We chose San Carlos.

We had….

Me – Full Works Sandwich

Freddie – Kid’s Breakfast

Rebecca and Tom – The Full Italian (see what they did there?)

Emily – Smashed Avocado on Toast

Juice and coffees all around, but they had no orange or apple juice, and this delicious lot was £85 including a tip. It was very nice indeed.

It took an age to pay. Our server just kept avoiding our table it seemed for some reason, so I told everyone else to go and do their shopping etc and I would wait to pay. With that done, I restroomed ( I am but human after all) and went to not one but two WH Smiths. I was in search of water and a notepad for the taking of trip report notes.

At the second Smiths I did find a suitable pad and took it to the self checkout thing along with my water and Emily’s mints. The pad had no bar code on it so it could not be scanned or paid for. I await my arrest.

Our gate had not yet been put up on the boards so we had a sit down for a few minutes. Tom wandered off in search of an Apple Watch from the Currys store. Much like San Carlos, they had no apples either and he was denied. Remember when shops and restaurants had pretty much everything you wanted? Good times.

Gate A6 appeared on the board so off we went.

We sat at the gate and as ever, watched everyone queue up for no reason. We boarded last and found our seats. Louise’s seat was empty. I had only cancelled her ticket a few days ago so I was hopeful I would at least have some extra room as a result of a bad situation.

The leg room was fine, and overall I could not fault Aer Lingus. We will definitely use them again. Comfort wise they were fine, soft drinks were free as were the headphones and I could find nothing that would deter me from booking with them in future.

Here’s a picture of my huge sack between my legs.

Everyone else was in a four across the aisle.

This was my view as we waited around an hour on the tarmac.

This again was caused by staff shortages with baggage handlers. Instead of our 11am departure, it was almost 12.20pm when we picked up speed down the runway and took off. In that hour and a bit, the chap in front of me went to the loo twice. See a doctor for goodness sake! One of my pet peeves about flying is that you never take off at the time on your ticket so I was not enjoying this “wasted time” sat on a plane that was not actually moving. Taking off, when Louise would normally have my hand in a death grip was when it really hit home that she wasn’t with us.

I plugged in the head phones after drinks and a packet of at least eight pretzels were served and was delighted to find Series 1 of The West Wing on there. Over Christmas I had started to re-watch this and I was about half way through the first season. I polished off the rest during this flight.

After a while I spotted a small sign saying Wi-Fi was available. I didn’t get it, but I think it was about £6 for 50GB of data.

I found the meal to be very tasty. I had Beef Stroganoff (the other choice was Chicken Ravioli).

Emily and Freddie received their pre-ordered kids and veggie meals without issue.

After a while Freddie came to visit to give his Mum and Dad a break. Clearly my engaging conversation skills were not lost on him.

The flight was scheduled to take nine and a half hours. There was no explanation offered, but it felt like longer. That extra 90 minutes or so than we have had previously really made a difference. I got so bored that I went into the games section of the in flight entertainment and taught myself how to play Texas Hold Em poker. Sadly that was not the name of any of the films on offer which may have been more entertaining.

As we continued to fly, seemingly endlessly, I was starting to make my notes on events so far. Every time we do this trip I hate the faff and stress of getting to Florida. The whole morning is complicated, stressful and usually an early start. Of course, I’d rather be doing any and all of that than going to work, but each time I say I will try to enjoy the experience, but I don’t. Travel day is always a mess of hurry up and wait and wanting to get the next bit of faff over with so you are closer to your destination. An inability to enjoy the journey must be some kind of life metaphor I’m sure.

As you will have seen from the photos above, masks were required and they would be for large chunks of the holiday. Honestly, we had no issues with them at all, and in fact in many scenarios they made us feel safer and more protected. On the flight there were of course a good number of folks with them under their chins and noses and I spent a good deal of time glaring at them in a proper British passive aggressive way. They are required so do it properly!

At the airport we had spotted a service dog with someone. It turns out they were on our flight. It seemed odd seeing a dog on a plane, but every time it wandered by with its owner all I could think about was where was it peeing and pooping?

At some point we were served an ice cream which was also very nice. We were in the hard yards now with about three hours still to go. I watched The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife or something like that. I noted it was 19:37 UK time at this point.

Our last food was a pocket chicken tikka thing. I don’t why I am always hungry on a flight, but I devoured this in no time. As we got into the final hour and a half I started to watch some episodes of Friends, mainly as I could tell myself if I watched three we would be almost there by then.

Finally, finally we landed at 21:40 UK time, 16:40 in Orlando.

Immigration was a delightful ten minute wait. Just so you know, even if all your party are on one locator form you still need to go up to the immigration chap in separate households. The cases took a little while and as ever we ignored the double bag drop thing and carted everything up the escalator and onto the monorail. Mayor Buddy Dwyer, it was good to hear your voice.

We then dragged everything over to the “B” section to get our car. After an interminable series of elevators and stairs we found our way to the SixT desk to get our car. There was nobody in the queue, just me waiting for one of the two agents to become free. As the next one did she told me that desk had now just closed and we would have to go over to the desk in “A”. Yes, all the way back to where we had just walked and then some. I asked if she could possibly process me before closing as we had been flying for what felt like 27 days. Nope, off we went. I will gloss over my feelings and emotions at this time. This was not a good moment.

Once we got to “A” I was sorted in five minutes. We were directed to the relevant garage and were handed our keys. On the way we stopped at the Visitor Toll Pass Booth. I had pre-ordered this and it is a toll pass thing linked to your credit card that you hang from your rear view mirror. It means you can use the automated Sun Pass lanes rather than fiddling around for quarters. I recommend it. So there was no choosing of your vehicle with SixT but we were very happy with our Chrysler Pacifica.

With Louise not travelling we were able to collapse two thirds of the rear seat to give enough room for the luggage. Had she been with us she would have had to find her own way to the villa, so that was one positive.

Once we got to the 192 I realised we had done so, in the dark, with no headlights on and I hurriedly found the relevant knob to correct the error caused by the other knob who was driving . But the toll thing was a big success. For many years we have been trying to find change and had to stop at teach toll booth when all you want to do is get to your accommodation.

Finding the villa was fun. It is on a very new development. So new that my trusty sat nav had never heard of it and even Google maps was struggling. I called the number the owner had given me to be talked in, stopped in at the clubhouse of the incorrect development and finally found the right guard house for Solara resort. Freddie was asleep in the car at this point and if this carried on much longer I would have been too.

We got there eventually and my word the villa was stunning. We all found our rooms and I did some unpacking. Tom and I then headed out to the supermarket for supplies. There was another struggle to actually find a way out of the development but we wended up at the Berry Town supermarket on the 27. Two trollies and $214 later and we were done. We needed food so wandered to the pizza place a few doors down. It was 10:27 now. I know that as the chap there told us they closed in three minutes and he didn’t seem that happy to see us. We ordered two large cheese pizzas and waited outside. He handed/threw the boxes at us and quickly locked his door. The pizzas were $34.

Getting back to the villa was easier this time and we all inhaled some pizza and fell into beds at 10:30 Orlando time, 3:30am UK time. I was exhausted.

It may be an age thing, but these travel days seem to get harder and this one had been a struggle for all kinds of reasons. Anyway, onwards to less stressful and fun times, right?

Till the next time…….

A Lack Of Positivity

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

I hope everyone had a glorious festive period. My radio silence over that time was intentional. You didn’t need me moaning about the usual stuff as you celebrated. Also, a lot has happened since I last posted.

The main thrust from a COVID restrictions point of view is that there haven’t been any, yet. I’ve long since given up trying to predict what may happen. We will just deal with whatever happens as it does. That all became fairly insignificant on the 22nd of December when Louise’s mum was found at home after not answering her phone for a few hours, having had what was thought to be a minor stroke. She was taken to hospital and remains there.

At that point of course none of us were even thinking of the holiday. It was apparent at that point that based on how she was then, we could not be sure of anything, least of all a trip to the States.

Over Christmas her condition has improved marginally and at least she is speaking a little and knows who we are. The hospital she was in for the first week or so was in lockdown due to a COVID outbreak and it was heart-breaking not being able to visit. We Face Timed every day so at least she got to see us that way. She has now moved to her local hospital and Louise at least is allowed to go and see her.

The long term implications of all this are unknown at this stage, but as much as we can say, she seems relatively stable now and out of immediate danger as much as anyone aged 90 can be after what she has been through. Please send her your collective best wishes for a good recovery. Here she is in better health not long ago.

Over many long discussions, despite Louise deciding not to travel, she has been adamant that the rest of us should go. We have been debating and worrying about this constantly and none of us are entirely comfortable with that option.

It would take too long to cover here all the different elements and factors around making this decision and whichever way it ended up going, none of us could say we would be totally happy.

With Mary now in a bed in her local hospital rather than the specialist stroke unit at Salford and with her having improved slightly, we have decided to take the trip without Louise. Even typing that makes me uncomfortable, but for many reasons, and mainly not to break Freddie’s heart by cancelling, we are going to go ahead.

If I heard someone else was doing this I would be shaking my head in disappointment and bewilderment so I understand anybody else doing the same. I could go into all the reasons for doing this but it would only be to make myself feel better and that wouldn’t work either, so it is what it is.

All this comes before any concerns about the current state of the pandemic of course but everyone who can be is triple jabbed or recently recovered in Tom’s case and he now has to wait to get the booster, so we have done all we can. This trip has always felt like a war of attrition and going despite many internal voices screaming I shouldn’t seems the only way this saga could have ended.

What sort of trip we will have I don’t know. It obviously won’t be the same without Louise being there for a start before we add in the worry about Mary and how Louise is coping back at home. There will be a lot of video calls for sure. Whether we will be able to relax and have some fun remains to be seen but at least Freddie will get to go on what will be the first trip he remembers after what has been almost two years of telling him he is going to see Mickey. Moving the trip again wasn’t an option for a couple of reasons. One, Rebecca is 20 weeks pregnant so any trip for her now will need to be at least 12 months from now when the new arrival is at least six or seven months old and of course we have no way to know what will be happening with Mary with anything like the degree of certainty we would need to know when a future trip my be possible for us all.

Rocks and hard places have been the story of our festive period.

So I’m a mess of conflicting emotions. I feel like a dick for going and leaving Louise at home but she wants us to go and have a good time. In addition to abandoning my wife and mother in law I am flying my family into the eye of a horrendous COVID storm in the shape of Florida and more trivially most of the parks seem to have closed 70% of their rides for maintenance the day before we get there. Can you feel the positive vibes gushing forth for this trip??

Hopefully it will all feel better once we get there. Negative tests permitting of course.

Speaking of which, I did my required testing this morning and the results confirmed my suspicions and feelings about myself right now.

We are all thankfully negative. Once we had decided to go ahead we have literally hidden ourselves away for days trying to avoid all human contact. It feels like more people have COVID than not right now, so a full house of negatives is a miracle I was not expecting.

Let’s see what we can make of this trip with all these positive vibes going for it!

As ever on our trips, I’ll be going live on the Mkingdon Facebook page from time to time so give that a Like if you want to be pestered by that.

Till the next time….

Incoherent Ramblings About The Unknown

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

What a mess. Stress levels are through the roof, much like case numbers and with each passing hour we seem less sure of what will happen.

Welcome to trip planning pandemic style.

There are those who might say, why are you attempting to travel in a pandemic. I have some sympathy with that view, however, the rest of time will contain COVID so if not now, when? I guess after Omicron has run its course? See how I can argue with myself endlessly?

If I had tried to choose travel dates that would lead to the ultimate stress and confusion levels, I could not have done much better. It seems our dates will be right in the eye of this storm and there is no way to begin to predict what might be the situation. In the coming weeks perhaps the UK may be seeing a tailing off of Omicron cases, but the US is a little behind us and could be right at the peak. Having said that, the US may be just as bad as us right now and is just doing less testing. Who the hell knows.

Whilst much of my brain naturally gravitates to the worst case scenario, which is me fighting for refunds for the next three months or so, and staring down the barrel of no WDW trip until well into 2023, there is some small part of me which is mildly optimistic. This part of my brain ordered my “new trainers for the holiday” this week. Once again they are not the bright white abominations of years gone by. These days I am all about the blue Skechers. Very comfy.

Just to add a little spice to the mix last week, on Tuesday, Tom tested positive, initially on lateral flow and later confirmed by PCR. Rebecca and Freddie have spent the week sleeping on a blow up bed away from Tom and so far, their daily testing has come up negative. It’s weird.

So what on earth is our plan? Good question.

We’ve decided to limit all interaction over Christmas once we get past Christmas Day. We have cancelled a panto on the 27th, all of Mustard’s gigs leading up to Christmas were cancelled and we will pretty much only be seeing those who are travelling plus our triple jabbed parents in the ten days up to departure.

We are and will be testing very regularly and I think the main risk to us being able to go will be one of us testing positive within those ten days before we go. That is very stressful. Even by doing no mixing beyond Christmas Day there is still a chance one of use tests positive in the few days after that of course. Tom should be OK now as he’s been through it but I cannot tell you how stressed I am about one of us getting it before we go.

At some point, and I think that will be next week, we need to go ahead and order the remaining tests we don’t yet have booked, specifically the return to the UK ones. They can take a few days to arrive and with the festive break that’s as late as I want to leave it. I’m also going to buy some extra travel insurance to protect us against not being able to travel due to infection/isolation and if any of us test positive over there and need to stay for the ten days isolation. For our PCR tests once back in the UK , we can order them whilst we are in the US as we only need that order reference for our passenger locator form 48 hours before flying home. Things may change before we fly back as that is over four weeks away yet. They could be back to lateral flow or we could of course be required to quarantine for ten days depending on how things play out.

With all of this in mind, of course, the easy option would be to not go at all. But then, refunds become more challenging as there is technically nothing stopping us going, so that would be a battle and we would no doubt lose very large chunks of cash. It’s going to be a very nervy few weeks for sure. This is adding to what is already a stressful period of life and there is no perfect or anything close to perfect solution right now. We just have to wait.

I honestly don’t think there will be a closure of borders by the US. I don’t know of course, but it seems pointless. France and Germany seem to be restricting travel for UK visitors, but I think there are other things at play there. France may well be political and Germany has had a horrendous time with Delta which is just subsiding, so with Omicron just about to hit them they are doing all they can I guess. Border closures seem futile. Omicron is already everywhere and if arrivals are tested and vaccinated they pose no greater risk than anyone already in that country. The big risk and fear for us is a positive test amongst our group on or after Christmas Day. Have I mentioned that I am stressed about this?

Trying to predict what may happen is becoming my main hobby and I simultaneously read articles that tell me Omicron is more mild and hospitals will be fine, and South Africa is now seeing case numbers fall away again, and other ones which tell me Omicron is at least as severe as Delta and we should already be in full lockdown.

I think it is inevitable that further restrictions will come to the UK. I suspect had they not pissed away all their credibility by having an endless series of parties last Christmas we would be in tighter restrictions now. I don’t think anything the UK government does can stop us flying to the US. That is the prerogative of Biden. Again I am guessing.

I did think yesterday just how nice it would be to just be able to count down to this trip, certain that we would be going. How we all took that concept for granted.

Fifteen days to go. None of us can get excited, it does not feel like we are going and maybe that will be the outcome. Only uncertainty remains certain and you all know how well I deal with that.

If you are in a pre-trip position like us, you have all our sympathies. I know this is just a bloody holiday and people are losing their lives and livelihoods. We are fortunate in many, many ways of course, but I can only talk about my own experiences really and this is what they are. A frustrating mess. The worst bit I think is that there isn’t even a deadline beyond which I feel confident saying we will be going. We could be in this tense limbo until departure. What a fun couple of weeks this will be.

Till the next time…….

Coin Toss

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

I really should know better and by now, tempting fate should be the last thing I do, but, if I am honest, at times I can almost convince myself that we may actually get to go on this holiday. Well, from a COVID restrictions point of view anyway.

Other life events, particularly the well being of Louise’s Mum may play their part yet, but I don’t think we will see any further travel restrictions now. Let’s face it, it is impossible to undertake any more testing than is already in place and with Omicron now everywhere in the world, there is very little to be gained from closing borders.

The other event that happened this week has also all but confirmed that we will go. We have bought two new suitcases. That investment means there is no turning back now and we must be aboard that plane.

What sort of trip we will have is a different matter of course, with all these tests, masks and faff but we take what we can get at this stage.

That’s one way to look at things but as with every painful twist and turn through this epic will we won’t we saga it is equally easy to argue that every passing day sees the messaging being ramped up about the need for further restrictions and rather than just do them, the powers that be as ever leak out teasers to test the waters and soften us up.

Literally anything could happen between now and January 3rd. I think it is pretty likely that January will see some tighter lockdown rules in the UK once we’ve all done our duty by spending all our money in the shops and at our Christmas parties, and if we do get to go then we may just miss their introduction but come home to them. Ten days quarantine for returning travellers anyone?

It is a bit surreal to be this close to a trip and still not know if we will go. This is the closest we have got of all the dates we’ve had booked, but for our own sanity I think we have had to not let ourselves believe it is happening. I’m not even sure if and when there may be further reviews and announcements. Having gone into plan B in a panic to divert the media has he now shot his bolt that he had loaded for the 19th of December?

It probably doesn’t matter as only a US change of policy about their borders would scupper us I think. My guess is the first we would hear about that will be if it happens. I am so weary of tossing this same coin what feels like every week now. I’m sure you are too.

So we go on, day by day, edging closer to a final answer. If I were a betting man and had to put a money on one outcome I would say right now it’s more likely we get to go, just. Only just. Much as this endless uncertainty has removed much of the wind from my sails for the anticipation of this trip it has also removed the same wind from writing about it, so we will leave it there for everyone’s sanity and see what next week brings.

Till the next time…..

Testing Times

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

It sounds counter intuitive but I have been through some really dark times in relation to this bloody holiday. Of course, that’s me being a drama queen and it shouldn’t be like that, but we live in unprecedented times.

Last week, I think it was Tuesday, I approached the point of “this isn’t worth it”. I’ve been close at various points and there wasn’t one major event that broke this camel’s back, so I guess it was the culmination of lots of straws.

I awoke to a message from a blog reader over in the States. Yes, that’s right, this blog IS international baby. He was giving me a heads up about a rumour that testing requirements were about to change in the US. I was still sulking and reeling from the move to PCRs on the return to the UK so this was not surprising, but it was unwelcome news.

I did some twittering and other internet things and it did seem that it was a real thing and we would need to do our fit to fly test one day before departure and not the three as we had previously thought and booked. Even as I type that, I see it isn’t a big deal. At the time, it felt like a body blow and started my journey to the edge of my tolerance.

As I tend to, I found myself not waiting and seeing but instead trying to move our tests before the hordes tried to, once this was eventually announced. Why I thought there would be any hordes suddenly taking up all the testing slots on the 2nd of January, I don’t know. I’m tired.

I found the way to do it on-line and quickly and easily moved the video call for Louise and I to a new date. I asked Emily do the same with hers (she will be at her boyfriend’s so will need her own call). She tried. It errored and I had no choice but to phone them up. As I was finding how to do that I got a text from our test provider confirming I had moved our test successfully and they were reminding me it was tomorrow, so don’t forget. Tomorrow? What were they talking about? How could they be so stupid.

They weren’t. I was.

In my haste and a multi-tasking maelstrom I had moved the test not to the 2nd of January but to the 2nd of December. I now had to urgently contact them as that slot was the next day.

I will gloss over the frustration and despair caused by 45 minutes of the same hold music and skip to the part where as soon as they answered, my signal dropped and I was disconnected. Objects were thrown, things were shouted. Thankfully I was alone in the house as Louise had taken her Mum to A&E after a funny turn. It’s been a “fun” week all round.

Another 55 minutes on hold and I got through to some poor soul who had to deal with me at breaking point explaining the mess I had made and what I needed. Even though I had her confirm several times what we now had in place once she had sorted it, and I got confirmation emails, I was still not convinced it would all go smoothly. Anyway, we had three tests booked across two different video calls for the 2nd of Jan now. Rebecca, Tom and Freddie booked their own tests with a provider that only allow you to book 30 days out so they can and have now just selected the 2nd of January with hopefully more competence than I did.

On top of all that, we then had the wait until 6.30 UK time for the Fauci press conference that my US blog reader (thanks @pabs) had tipped me off about. I was still fearing closed borders and a communal burning of our passports and park tickets.

In the end, Fauci seemed quite chilled about the whole thing, briefly mentioned the one day test thing and that was it. For now then, we are still on, but I dread every day for new developments. Now of course, with Louise’s Mum’s hospital trip, that also casts a doubt over our ability to go on holiday and leave her. She’s 90 and lives alone. If we get to stand on Main Street and look at the castle this January, I may cry for the first week of the holiday in absolute relief.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, somehow fitting all that in between a ridiculous workload, I think I actually said out loud, “this isn’t bloody worth it”. I’m sure, no, I’m hopeful that these dark clouds are temporary and somehow by hook or by crook we will finally get to go on this bloody holiday, but I can’t let myself believe it just yet.

Then Friday morning came and like some weird lucid dream, my fears were realised and confirmed. We had emails from DocHQ telling us our tests on the 2nd of January had been cancelled. Tethers were waved at as I passed the end of them and I assumed the position on the phone again pre 8am. Surely at this time I would get through?

Of course not. The line would not even connect. I was googling around to find an alternative phone number so I could shout at someone when I stumbled across their Facebook page where a post announced they had dropped a bollock and cancelled a load of appointments in error and would re-book them all. How I laughed.

My mental state is no doubt being replicated amongst all travellers soon to be on their way. You only have to look at the Facebook groups and the huge amount of confusion and mis-information being thrown around by folks in a tizzy. Everyone is looking for clarity and reassurance and just to know what to do. What ends up happening is more panic. I engaged on one such post where it was suggested that the 1 day fit to fly would also need to be PCR. There was absolutely no mention of that anywhere by anyone in a position to do so in the US, so I don’t know where it came from, but chaos ensued in the thread as everyone was fretting about how on earth they would get a PCR result within 24 hours without paying hundreds of pounds for each test. Where this is a vacuum of information, folks will fill it I guess. That could be a strap line for my entire blog.

Why folks are inventing new hurdles when there are plenty go around already I do not know.

As I do every week, I hoped that was the end of the stress and worry about this trip. Then, last night, the latest kick in the twins came when the UK government announced that tests were needed before flying back to the UK. I was out gigging last night so I have no clue what tests those might be, crucially how much they will cost and whether you need all the certificates and stuff, but I suspect you do.

You will know that I have always been supportive of measures to shorten the pandemic. I am triple jabbed, have worked from home, worn masks and everything else asked of me. What I find unfathomable is the mixed messaging of “you should absolutely continue with all your Christmas plans and have loads of parties in crowded unventilated locations” but should you dare venture out of the country then we will make that as hard and as financially unattractive as we possibly can.

If anyone has figured out what this new test before flying home is (PCR vs lateral flow? I guess the latter) and whether it needs to be video supervised/done by a person and then a certificate entered onto your Passenger Locator form, I would be really grateful for that information. At this point I just need to work out if this is worth the unending obstacles being put in place. I suspect these won’t be the last thing either.

This used to be fun.

Till the next time……..

Unvarying Misery

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Shit got real last week, with planning stepping up several notches. Well, I say planning, it was more holiday admin that needed doing.

I booked our tests on Friday. Yes, irony alert, my impeccable timing knows no bounds. They came to about £43 each for the fit to fly video one and the day two return to the UK test. Both are lateral flow and of course events have conspired to see those being irrelevant for the return leg now, and we await the US’s changes in response to this variant, as they may well insist on PCR for arrivals too, but more on that later. Our pre-flight tests are booked for New Year’s Day. My paranoia around positive results has not abated. I am pleased to see that tests these days seem to only involve a nasal invasion as I only have to look at the swab to start gagging. Avoiding putting long foreign objects in my mouth is a life rule I like to stick to.

I have downloaded the Verifly app as advised by Aer Lingus and as soon as my vaccine certificate covers our departure date I will start filling stuff in. I am actually due my booster in early December so I will hopefully be completely Teflon to any and all diseases that may come my way. If it and wearing a mask on the plane can stop me picking up the usual stinking cold I have got on the last few trips I will be happy.

I did some painful things too, like paying the balance on the villa, paying for the hire car and securing our Universal tickets, also known as everyone’s Christmas presents. I went for the cheapest option available which was a 2 day ticket, but limited to one park per day. The only thing that prevents us doing is the train journey between parks and for the hundreds of pounds difference in price, we can watch it on YouTube.

I downloaded the Universal Resort app, where my tickets are now resting digitally, ready for use. Upon doing so I noticed you could make dining reservations for restaurants there, most importantly City Walk, so we now have a lovely booking for Cowfish on our first night there at 8pm. With just two days in these parks they will be full on theme park commando affairs, so eating at 8pm, just as the park closes is the only acceptable time.

I still haven’t seen a definitive answer on those 3 day tests for Freddie. I’m pretty sure nobody checks them, but whether you can take an NHS freebie or have to buy one in a pharmacy there, it makes little difference. At least there’s no video consultation involved.

I also filled out our passenger info on the Aer Lingus site. I was amazed to find I hadn’t already, but maybe I did but it got lost in one of the 17 re-bookings I had to do.

Of course, as mentioned above the Universe spotted all this activity and financial outlay and delivered a threatening COVID variant that could well derail the whole trip and maybe all international travel again, but hey, let’s not worry about that right now. That would be nice, but by now you know that isn’t my style. I did not take the news well that PCR tests were now required, hours after booking and paying for lateral flows. Beyond that of course if things don’t go well over the next few weeks, and let’s be honest when has it during this pandemic, my fear is the trip will be impossible again. You may have noticed that today’s post was a little later than has been the case recently and that was because I had to nip to hospital to have my bottom lip surgically restored to a more natural position. I have been in a sulk and a strop since around tea time yesterday.

So yes, it’s been a busy old week on the holiday front, and the metaphorical kick in the balls yesterday’s changes delivered were comically timed after I had finally started to give myself permission to believe that we may actually go. I see the cosmos waited though until I had undertaken maximum financial exposure before allowing all this shit to kick off. I don’t have a persecution complex, I am just persecuted.

I do have to say that if our plans do get scuppered by some COVID related shite, then we’ll give up. It won’t be practical for Rebecca to travel any later into her pregnancy and Louise will find it impossible to get time off beyond January for quite some time. We’ll be looking at mid to late 2023 for any plans to be a reality at that point.

If travel to the US is suspended again, it won’t be pretty around these parts. I’m just putting out an early warning!

We have also planned another trip, tomorrow, over to Cheshire Oaks. Louise tells me we need some new luggage and not only that, buying it online and saving petrol and about three hours driving would be a folly beyond comprehension, so off we will go. Whilst there I will take the chance to procure some hoodies. Yes, I know I have some already and most are only a decade or so old, but what the heck, I deserve it. Looking at photos right now in Orlando, it seems there may be a lot of chilly nights so a couple of good quality hoodies will be essential. Emily is cold in Florida in August so she may have to buy extra luggage space on the plane for the amount of layers she will need to take. Now you see, even that shopping trip seems a bit futile. I am deflated and demoralised by the whole thing. Again.

If I allow the grown up in me to speak up, it would say that the likely outcome here is that the only change to our plans will be having to fork out for a PCR test for our return to the UK test, and most likely the same for the fit to fly as I expect the US to follow suit, on top of the money already pissed away on the lateral flow version. In the scheme of things, that’s not too bad, but if you look up all the times I have said “in the scheme of things that cost isn’t too bad” I could have bought a second home.

My inner child, which is currently writing most of this post is screaming Verruca Salt style that the Universe hates me, it’s all really unfair and if this trip gets cancelled I will be in a tantrum for about six months. It’s all about balance.

On a serious note, if we cannot go, the thought of no WDW for at least another 18 months, and all that uninterrupted work instead, well, I can’t tell you how that makes me feel. I suppose I just tried.

So you find me not in a good place today. All I can do is sit and wait, again, with thousands of pounds dangling by a thread, not knowing, even this close to the trip whether we will actually go. As many of you will have experienced, it has just drained all the joy out of the now, almost two year build up.

You can return next week for more positive vibes and mature takes on life threatening pandemics that are inconveniencing my holiday planning.

Till the next time……

Lament and Lamination

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

With the week just ended, the plan, whilst not quite laminated, is pretty much complete. I am happy with it. I lament the fact that the plan is not perfect, but they never are, as the fact that other people insist on being there at the same time and stealing our desired eating times means that to secure some of our choices we are having to eat at odd times. We shall somehow cope.

I think I left you last week in our Universal break, where we plan to eat at Cowfish on night one and Teak on night two, and I was waiting for those days to pass to try and secure the last few WDW ADRs.

I was majestically successful with Via Napoli, if you consider eating dinner at 3.55pm a success. Similarly, Sanaa was bagged with the minor sacrifice of only being able to eat at 9.10pm. That, I think is our latest dining time of the trip and staying awake long enough may be a challenge for those of us pregnant, under 5 or middle aged and overweight. We will endure.

The last day (in Magic Kingdom of course) is always a tricky one. You want to go out with some sort of culinary bang, but also want to spend as long as possible in the park and the two things can be mutually exclusive. I considered just letting it all hang free and we would scavenge as best we could from snacks and counter service, but the compulsion to plan overtook me and I booked something.

I am very happy with the result. I decided to go for Steakhouse 71 at the Contemporary, for lunch. It’s a stroke of genius, well, as close as I come to one. We get to nip out of the park when it will theoretically be at its busiest, try a new eatery within a resort that is always worth a visit and a look around and finally, and let’s face it, most importantly, there is this….

I know the whole concept of booking meals 60 days in advance will be bizarre to some not au fait with the whole WDW thing, but I also know what dessert I will be having.

With that done, we will back in Magic Kingdom by early afternoon, ready to weep through the final few hours. Then when we become hungry again just a few short hours later, we can unleash the snacks.

So overall, I am pleased with the plan. Let’s be honest, after all this time I am just happy to have one at all. There are some ADRs I couldn’t get but that has just meant us trying new places or revisiting some old favourites and it’s all good.

To avoid anyone ploughing through the entire plan again here is a list of all the places we plan to eat.

  • Whispering Canyon
  • The Cheesecake Factory
  • Bahama Breeze
  • 50’s Prime Time
  • Hash House A Go Go
  • Miller’s Ale House
  • Rainforest Café
  • Jungle Skipper Canteen
  • Cowfish
  • Teak Neighbourhood Grill
  • Olive Garden
  • Via Napoli
  • Ford’s Garage
  • Sanaa
  • Steakhouse 71

I’ve put on half a stone just typing that out.

I am still waiting for definitive news on the day 3 test Freddie needs in the States. It is looking like they are unsupervised and based on an honour system so we should be able to take a free NHS lateral flow test and just make sure he is negative. I can’t see anybody checking on these as folks fly home, but we’ll find that out this week I guess as those who went out on the 8th start to return.

My paranoia about one of us testing positive before we fly grows by the day. The irony of getting so close and then producing a positive test would be unimaginable. It is made worse by the fact that we will be taking those tests on New Year’s Eve so if the worst happens, trying to contact insurance companies, airlines and any bugger else will be a nightmare as the two days after that are holidays. Best not to think about it. Yeah, right.

It may be a form of trauma caused by the trip denials and delays of the last couple of years but I still can’t fully believe we will go. I just have this awful fear something is going to happen between now and then. Unfounded I imagine, but unsurprising based on recent history.

The other planning decision we made this week was to do airport parking rather than a taxi. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly I couldn’t get any bloody taxi firm to get back to me with a price and confirmation they were available and secondly having done the airport parking thing recently for Gran Canaria, we preferred it. So that is all booked now. It removes one small worry about taxis turning up at either end of the trip.

With our trip happening right after Christmas our decorations are going up a bit earlier than usual, as they will be down again before we leave. It does appear that we bought the incorrect house as our tree does not fit anywhere. Don’t get me wrong, the new house is bigger than the old one, it just has lower ceilings and odd shapes, being an old Farmhouse, so we spent a good deal of this weekend trying to find a solution. Moving house again is not one of them. The expense of buying another tree is equally unacceptable.

As we get close to departure now, with just four weeks left at work, Freddie was measured a few days ago. In his new trainers he is a fraction under 44 inches. This means there is very little he can’t get on and the stuff he can’t I don’t think we’d want him riding anyway. It’s good to know he will be able to enjoy most things, unlike his Mum who will be sat outside the majority of rides watching Ryan! There will be other trips!

Till the next time…..

Kungaloosh!

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Thanks for all the nice messages about last week’s good news. It was nice to be able to finally share that with everyone and hopefully put behind us what has been a fraught number of months. I know Rebecca and Tom would want me to thank everyone who wished them well.

It is only now can you fully appreciate the level of planning skills I have had to deploy to cope with that lovely news and a global pandemic when trying to get us on this bloody holiday!

On the subject of lovely news, at the other end of the life spectrum, last Sunday we held a small get together to mark Louise’s Mum’s 90th birthday. After almost two years of lockdowns I think she loved seeing all the friends and family we had gathered together and the left over party food that’s been in our fridge all week has done nothing for my pre WDW diet.

I have been nuts deep in work this week, but I have managed to find sufficient time to be equally deep in ADR getting. Results have been mixed. I reported last week that we could not get O’hana, but Whispering Canyon was a worthy alternative. On the positive side (despite a few of you telling me Prime Time was now crap!) I did manage to get us in there on one of our Hollywood Studios days. Hopefully the experience will be somewhere close to our memory of previous visits.

I was less successful on other days, having to sub in Rainforest Café for Yak and Yeti at the Animal Kingdom. I know what we are in for there, and I’m not expecting life changing food, but the theming and experience should go down well with the four year old in our group. I will try to get into Yak and Yeti on another day at AK. If not we will try a walk up, such is our fondness for the place.

For the 10th of January (in what other context would planning your eating 60 days in advance be normal?), when we are in Magic Kingdom, I again tried O’hana for dinner but there was more sign of my fringe than an opening there so we moved to plan B. In the spirit of trying something new I booked us in at the Skipper’s Canteen Jungle Cruise place. That is almost definitely not its correct title but it is one of those places that I will never get the real name right for. We have had to go for a mid afternoon time slot but if there’s one thing we can do, it is eat whenever required to.

I haven’t read any reviews and I’ve only had a cursory glance at the menu, but at the point I read this, the booking was confirmed.

Kungaloosh!
An African-inspired Chocolate Cake with Caramelized Bananas served with Cashew-Caramel Ice Cream topped with Coffee Dust

I do suspect our party size is making ADRs harder to come by. We could try and book separate ADRs for a four and a two I suppose but the faff of that is off putting. I imagine eateries are geared up for more normal parties of two and four as standard table configurations.

We had a break for a few days in terms of securing ADRs as the next two days of the trip are at Universal and then I have some off site stuff planned in. Next I need to secure our usual spot at Via Napoli on the 14th of January. That has quickly become one of our firm favourites. That will pretty much see the plan complete from a dining perspective, with just Sanaa on our minds for our first day at Coronado Springs. I intend to have a three course meal, each of which will be the bread service.

I have our last day in Magic Kingdom currently with no eating plans and that’s always a tricky one, as we want to spend as long as possible in the park. We have in previous years “nipped out” to an off site eatery and we do need to find a spot for Romano’s Macaroni Grill if we can but I may succumb to somewhere in the park, even if it is counter service just to give us maximum “bottom lip” time on our final day.

Away from food, nothing seems to be any clearer with regard to some of the testing required. I watched the first flights leave for Orlando last week, and over the next few weeks we should start to hear what those with unvaccinated children did for their 3-5 day test in the US. My gut feel is that you sign the attestation form to say you will test them and isolate them if positive and nobody checks that you actually did. The question I currently have is whether you can just take a free NHS lateral flow test from home and use that or whether for some inexplicable reason you need to buy one instead.

Last week at work we went live with a major project that had taken many months to deliver and that seems trivial when compared to the logistics of getting on holiday to WDW right now.

Rebecca and Tom went for their 12 week scan on Thursday (I think). All is well, the baby had hiccups during the scan and Rebecca is starting to feel movement now, so everything is looking positive. She is due her 20 week scan on our first full day in Orlando so that has had to be pushed back until the day after we get back. Whatever is in there quite rightly already has a WDW trip as a higher priority than being scanned to find out whether they are a boy or a girl. He/She will have been on two holidays by the time they arrive and that somehow sets the tone nicely for what lies ahead I hope. If you look closely below I’m sure I can see some Mickey ears being worn.

Then to end the week, we’ve spent a lovely weekend entertaining some friends of ours from Yorkshire who we haven’t seen in too long and it’s been lovely catching up and eating lots together. They are Disney experts and DVC owners so it’s always nice to have fellow Disney folks to chat to.

Imagine getting me ranting about Genie, COVID and price increases in person rather than in a blog you can just stop reading! Poor Steve and Di.

Till the next time…….

Room For One More?

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Let’s start this week with the best news. Rebecca and Tom are expecting again. Here is not the place for the detail but as happened with Freddie they have been on a bumpy journey to get to this point, but with everything crossed, their new addition will be very much welcomed into the world next May.

They have been on this journey with scant regard for how it has impacted my planning and multiple rearranging of dates but I suppose some things take precedence even over our WDW trips! Rebecca will be around 20 weeks when we go, so hopefully that small window of trip availability, found with some definite threading the eye of a needle skills, will be the best it can be for her. Fingers crossed, she will be in that sweet spot of being over the sickness but not too far along to find getting around a problem.

If you could not let Bob Chapek know the news please, as he would no doubt be wanting us to buy another park ticket for the upcoming addition. It’s lovely to bring you such good news.

I took last week’s post as something of a wake up call. Clearly, looking at the plan in the state it was in, I had been phoning it in, as they say. I’m sure many of you thought the same and were too polite to say and a couple of readers said it. Sometimes you need that kick up the backside.

When you get a comment asking why there is no Teak Neighbourhood Grill on your current plan you know its time for an intervention. Usually our visit to Teak is planned in just before we book flights. The situation was grave.

I did not waste time and that very evening last Sunday I pulled my socks up, fired up the plan and made some progress. I gave some proper thought to how the days would flow, what eateries would work best in that flow and added a good number of restaurants to the days when, like some kind of mad man, I had no plans for dinner.

I won’t re-run the whole plan again, nobody wants that, but added now are the likes of 50’s Prime Time Café for one of our DHS days (ADRs permitting of course). This is a place we haven’t done for (I’m guessing) well over a decade and for Tom and Freddie it will be a first time. I feel it is my duty to give them the classic experiences like this, right?

Off site, I have added a trip to Miller’s Ale House. Again, we’ve not been for years and it is one of those solid, no frills, reliable off-site eateries that will make a change from the likes of Applebees and The Outback which have lost our custom due to their lack of or absence of veggie options, which is a shame. Teak of course is now in there too, for dinner on our second day at Universal, as it is up in that neck of the woods and it’ll save a forty minute drive up from the villa.

Outside of eating, I am sitting back and watching the horror show of rumour and misinformation that is the testing requirements for entry to the US. Nearly every post and article seems to contradict the last and for that reason alone I am glad not be heading out any time real soon. Hopefully by the time our turn comes things will be clearer and we will have tales from folks who have been and done it.

As we stand today, as far as I can decipher, for us with both jabs, it is a video supervised or in person test three days before we fly and then the lateral flow within 2 days of getting home. For Freddie, who cannot be vaxxed, he has to do the pre-flight test three days before we fly, then as far as I can make out, is then supposed to do a test within 3-5 days of arriving in the US and then the one 2 days after getting home. Or is that not required for young children? I can’t remember.

That test in the US is the one that seems to be causing all the confusion. Is it mandatory or is it “recommended” as some places say? Is it a lateral flow that you can do unsupervised or do you need a “proper” one done at some pharmacy etc? If anyone has a definitive answer please do share, but I suppose we will find out soon enough when folks start flying tomorrow. I’m not seeing any process for recording that test taken in the US, so if it isn’t being checked then surely it has to be a lateral flow and only recommended?

I’ve also seen snippets of the attestation form that is required to be completed. It looks longer than the documents I signed to move house. Ah well, it is what it is…..

As the trip is becoming increasingly real, I have done other stuff. When we went to Gran Canaria I of course took Ryan with us. Turns out he functions equally well in Spanish. That meant dumping out of him all the US stuff temporarily. One such item was out US Sat Nav. We bought this in 2011 (I think) when we did a trip down to the Keys/Naples/Vero and I didn’t fancy using the force to find things. It has been the best $80 I have spent on US soil. We have used it on every trip since, which only recently brought to mind why no hire car in that time has ever had Sat Nav in it. It could not be, could it, that the hire companies want to upsell us to take a Sat Nav at extra cost?

Anyway, I figured that at least once a decade I should update the maps on this thing. There have been so many road changes around WDW in that time that we stand a fair chance of ending up face to face with a Gator in a lake following the roads that used to be there back in 2011. A little while spent mauling around on the internet and I had the relevant gubbins from Garmin installed. There was a slight false start as it turns out that ten year’s worth of maps was more memory than the device had and I had to invest a few quid in a Micro SD card to go in it. With that installed it took just two hours to get all the right roads in place and it is now safely tucked inside Ryan again, ready for the off.

You know of course with that done, this year’s car will have built in Sat Nav, right?

Later in the week, ADR time happened, for our first day anyway. It’s been so long since “the plan” was first crafted that I cannot remember why we had O’hana as a target on that first day, but I bet it was related to Bread Pudding. Anyway, of course O’hana didn’t make one appearance on our list of choices when I fired up the app to select our dinner plans (it’s tea, but I’ll be posh).

With that plan scuppered, I offered up a few alternatives in the WhatsApp family chat and it took about six seconds for everyone to make their choice from…

The Plaza

Crystal Palace

Whispering Canyon

Can you guess? Yes, we’ll be boarding a boat over to Wilderness Lodge to experience the fun and games there. It is and always has been a firm favourite with us so it was no surprise.

Whether we make it back into the park afterwards will be determined by our tiredness levels and whether we can still walk with full bellies. That first day is always hard to predict, especially for a four year old.

The plan doesn’t require another ADR for a few days, when I will be trying to secure the 50’s Prime Time so I am readying myself for more disappointment.

If I had the ear of the folks who build the app n stuff for Disney I would suggest that it could be more user friendly. Sometimes they way it works is fine, when I just want to see every restaurant that is available on a date and time, but often I know I want a certain restaurant or two, and it would be great to be able to ask the app to show you all the times (if any) those places could accommodate your party, rather than having to keep changing the time and/or date in the vain hope it may come up in the list. I am available for paid consultancy should anyone from WDW be reading this.

It feels odd and very welcome to be back into some form of normal planning routine nonetheless.

So we’ve passed the 60 day countdown marker now and we head into the final straight with only growing cases and deaths forcing a new lockdown to thwart us. What could possibly go wrong?

Till the next time…….

One Day Like This…

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Ok, I’ve calmed down a bit now. To be fair to me I did say last week’s post was knee jerk but it doesn’t matter what limb is jerking, I stand by my opinion. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a universal (pardon the pun) condemnation of a Disney change and there have been many over the years.

I also said that the whole thing would get smoothed out and maybe refined. That hasn’t happened yet of course but I stand by that thought too. I’ve watched some more vlogs and feel better that ignoring the whole shit show could be a viable option, especially during the hopefully quieter times in January.

Certainly being very selective in any use of these paid for options will be the order of the trip if we do at all. In effect Disney have removed the three free Fastpasses we used to have and it stinks. Making the best of that means that I may need to up my game in terms of planning our park days and break out some of the strategies honed over the years to get on stuff with the least amount of waiting.

Rather than just piss and moan, whenever Chapek gets a minute to read this here is my suggestion if they absolutely insist on introducing a paid for option. Retain the three free FastPass+ rides that guests can book in advance. Then, if guests wish to upgrade they could pay that $15 per person (or maybe even a little more) to get one FastPass go on all the rides that day.

For now I think the best thing to do is to put it to the back of my mind and focus on the very positive news that we are very close to another Florida adventure and it will be be full of lots of good stuff.

With that in mind let’s trot through the plan as it stands. The thought of getting lots of days filled with fun stuff all in a row is almost unthinkable after the last couple of years. Just one day like these would have been very welcome at any point in that time!

One major change enforced by the park reservation system is that we don’t have many formal rest days planned. Usually we operate on a two days on, one day off scheme but now, having to book your WDW park days, we cannot risk being “locked out” if we plan a rest day but then decide to pop to a park late in the day.

So every day has a park booking of some sort and we will not use/cancel them when we know for sure our plans for that day. Factoring in the weather in January too makes that more of a requirement as rest days typically need to be warm and sunny and January might see some that aren’t and we would need to have a park to visit.

For those who may have missed the details of our flights, and heaven knows there have been many changes over the last couple of years, we have booked with Aer Lingus direct from Manchester. We leave the UK on the 3rd of January at 11am. That fact has still not completely sunk in.

We land around 3pm and have a minivan reserved with Sixt at MCO at a price that could be confused with buying one. I have set up the app to use the Visitor Toll Pass thing. I’m hoping it will save us scrabbling for quarters from the bowels of Ryan after a nine hour flight in a car crammed with suitcases and tired people. We head straight to the villa and depending mostly on Freddie’s tiredness levels we will either order takeout (see I am already mentally in the US) or if he and everyone else is up to it, head out for tea. I haven’t planned anywhere for that meal. Who am I?

There will be a supermarket visit somewhere around this time and some unpacking and then bed.

You’ve been here long enough to know that the first day will be spent at Magic Kingdom. we are very close to ADR day now and I’m hoping to snag one at O’hana for an early tea recognising our body clocks will see us eating lunch at sometime around 10am. If I can’t get that ADR then we might do somewhere in the park or do offsite. We have to save our pennies for going on popular rides now you see!!

Day two is traditionally a rest day. It might be this time. I see Typhoon Lagoon is reopening in December and if temperatures allow we will be there on this day. If not I have a park reservation at Hollywood Studios. Dinner plans are for The Cheesecake Factory.

Day three is Epcot probably trying to get on rides in Future World before heading off site to Bahama Breeze for dinner. One of our absolute favourites.

The next day is Hollywood Studios watching other people get on Rise Of The Resistance. As it stands I have nothing in the plan for dinner. I am suitably ashamed. Let’s see what ADR day brings.

Day five is a Saturday and it’s the weekend of Disney run things so I expect things to be busy. With that in mind I have the closest thing to a rest day on the plan. It starts with breakfast at Hash House a Go Go and then most of the day recovering from that around our villa. I do have an Epcot park reservation if needed and things don’t look too mad.

Animal Kingdom appears on day six for a good old full day of park touring. Dinner of course is at Yak and Yeti.

Monday the 10th of January next and plans are still fairly basic with Magic Kingdom on the cards but again no dinner plans as of yet. Perhaps an ADR at the new Skipper’s place in the park or we will head off site depending how long we stay in the park.

The next two days will be spent at Universal. We have crowbarred this in on the cheap so with no Front of Line we will be theme park commandos for two days getting done what we can get done. Dinner on the first day will be Cowfish and on the second night, we’ll I’m not sure yet.

Day ten sees a park reservation for Hollywood Studios and not much else at this stage. I am wrestling generally with how many in park dining reservations to make or whether we go off site.

Day eleven is Epcot and hopefully Via Napoli for dinner as we wander World Showcase and the following day we are back at Animal Kingdom. We have to pack up and leave the villa the next day so I have dinner at Ford’s Garage as it is very close to our villa so we can head back and get packed.

Next we check in to Coronado Springs for two nights. Weather allowing, the first day I have us around their pool and dinner at Sanaa, ADR permitting.

Then comes our last full day and you know where that will be spent. Magic Kingdom with as yet no dinner plans.

The next day is just full of a huge breakfast and travelling so let’s not think about that yet.

So you can see plans are loose as yet. I have work to do but that can only really happen once we can book dining. The weather is a potential curve ball at all times too. With all the date changes and uncertainty it’s clear my detailed planning has suffered and I need to up my game. I suppose deep down I still can’t believe we are going and it is having an impact.

Hopefully these blogs continue to contain more planning normality and less moaning going forward. We can all but hope.

Till the next time……

Genie Arse

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Not too surprisingly this week has been a busy one and a bit of a blur. Work was ridiculous for the first few days, where I found myself in the position of having so much to do I had no idea what to tackle first, next or not at all.

Then on Thursday, Mustard were out gigging at a fairly large corporate do in Manchester. We played at an awards show for the Manchester Society of Architects (I think) at the Albert Halls in Manchester and it was a bit surreal, not least because the likes of James and The Manic Street Preachers have played there and the in house PA system we were able to use was incredible. We had proper sound folk and all sorts looking after us. It was awesome, nerve wracking and weird all at the same time. It went well anyway.

So with all of that and more going on, there has not been too much time for the planning of the WDW trip. I did find time to watch a handful of vlogs around the introduction of the new Genie service and all its chargeable variants.

Now I recognise that the system is still very new and I am sure things will get smoothed out and changed, but, and pardon my knee jerk reaction, what an absolute shambola and piss take the whole thing seems to be. I have always thought that any system that sees people pay more money when the parks and lines are busier is just giving that park the absolute ability to inflate wait times and make more money, but from what I have seen so far, I am absolutely gutted that this horror show has been introduced.

Costs aside for a second (but I will come back to that, don’t worry) getting on a few rides seems to be more complex than a moon landing now. I am fairly tech savvy for an old boomer, and I know the parks inside out. How on earth is someone who isn’t that great with a smartphone, newly arrived in WDW for the first time going to cope? It appears to be massively over complex. Nobody likes a good bit of planning and strategising over a theme park day more than me but I think we have jumped the shark here. When and how you are allowed to pay and book stuff will require full time study for about three months prior to a trip. There will need to be months of planning about your planning. The danger is that first timers may find the whole thing so overwhelming and over complicated that they fail to fall in love with the place like we all did all those years ago, and that will be to Disney’s detriment of course. One of the vloggers I watched already said that they noticed far more phone usage in the parks with Genie in play, which is no surprise as it seems you need the app to schedule your restroom stops. Hang on, that could be a handy feature!!

As for the costs. Just no. Now, I am sure once I am in the parks and in the moment I will succumb to handing over some dollars to get on some things, because it’s a long way to go for us to then not ride some of the headliners, but I will massively resent it and it will and has already tainted my perception of WDW. The huge financial pressure this is going to put on families with smaller kids who are giving them the puppy eyes to get on a ride that costs extra is just heart breaking to think about. This may not be the cash cow Disney think it will be. Families have finite budgets so anything spent on these new extras will surely only come out of any budget that may have gone on merchandise or on-site dining, and guests may now have to do less of both to accommodate these new “essentials”. Or folks will just take fewer trips as the cost of one has escalated so much in this and every other way.

When I apply this new system to our own situation, having already paid literally thousands of dollars to get my party into a WDW park on each day on our trip, if all six of us then wish to ride Rise Of The Resistance with what would have been a free FastPass+ in the past, we would need to pay an extra $90. That could be on top of the other $90 we have already paid that day for the Genie+ thing too. Then, if the only way we can ride, say Remy is to pay again, that would be another $50 or so. If we bought Genie+ and two of the extra special rides for all of us for each day we were in a Disney park on our trip (assuming that is say ten days) we would spend another $2,300. An extra $230 a day, ($40 per person) on top of the ticket price is absolutely crazy and they should be ashamed. I’m sorry, this is just too much money.

I know it’s optional, and I am painting the worst case scenario but when attractions like Rise Of The Resistance have standby lines of two hours almost constantly there isn’t much of an option if you want to ride that. And if you simply can’t afford the extra money you have an inferior experience to those who can.

This feeling that what we all had once for free is now provided at a premium is really the thing that sticks in my throat. I was always that person defending the cost of a WDW trip, pointing at the likes of ROE, Wishes and Fantasmic all provided pretty much nightly, as just one way in which the investment you made in a holiday to Disney was repaid.

They or their replacements are all still there (or soon will be) and they are on the same impressive scale, but this latest cash grab seems to have tipped me over the edge as a result of my own knee jerking.

I remember vividly standing in Galaxy’s Edge for the first time and feeling both blown away and somehow proud that a brand and experience I had long advocated had yet again delivered in such an impressive way. It bolstered my opinion that they always knew what to do and when I handed over my cash they knew how to spend it. That exchange felt fair.

I suspect and fear that if and when I do get on to Rise of the Resistance the whole thing will be soured both by the $90 we have handed over and the feeling that we are being taken for a ride and not in the way we might like.

Again it’s early days and things may settle but there’s a very real prospect that only on-site guests will have any chance to secure a Lightning Lane for this ride. There have long been on site perks which I understand but they need to give all guests a fair chance.

Universal have their own version of all this. We typically pay for the on-site experience when we do go there. The difference is we go to Universal infrequently because of that. That extra cost means we are selective about our visits there and Disney may find this begins to apply to them.

Yes, WDW has always been expensive but I have always felt that the quality, service and limitless entertainment made it good value. This new model feels like it is bordering on a piss take. For the first time it feels like Disney are not on my side. I’m sure they never really were, but at least I felt I was getting good value and a fair shake of the stick for my dollars.

As things settle and improve and maybe they even listen to some of their long standing customers, this all may change, but right now, from what I have seen it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth. It seems a move borne out of greed and not to improve the customer experience. Disney seem to have overcooked this massively both in terms of complexity and cost.

I appear to have gone off the deep end on something that when it was announced didn’t really bother or register with me. I suppose that was mainly because at that point I had no expectations of going any time soon. On the plus side, if things keep going as they are in the UK, that may be true once again.

So I shall leave it to Disney to sit in the corner and think about what they have done. They have time to smooth things out and make changes of course, and whatever happens we will hopefully go and have a good trip whenever that time comes regardless of all this nonsense.

For next week I shall ban myself from moaning and as ADR booking time approaches in the coming days we shall focus here on the nicer side of planning and me boring you with a day by day, blow by blow plan for our next American adventure.

Till the next time…..

Wham Bam, Gran Can, Let’s Plan

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

We are back in the country and I have no clue where to start with this blog post. I’m still in that odd limbo of a post holiday arrival home, anxiously girding my loins for the horrors of work tomorrow.

There will be no trip report. This was the first holiday in two decades where I didn’t make notes about what we did or photograph any food so there can be no detailed tales of what went on.

You wouldn’t want it anyway. Eating, sunbathing, eating and then sleeping repeated many times does not make for an entertaining read to be honest.

I enjoyed the holiday. That said, it does seem that we do one of these types of holiday every twenty years or so just to reconfirm that we’ve been doing the right thing by going to Florida every year. Even Louise has conceded defeat and said that Florida cannot be beaten unless of course we can go on a “beach” holiday to somewhere like The Maldives. Believe me we can’t.

I enjoyed the sunbathing and doing nothing more than I thought I would. I was the one probably most worried about not enjoying that but I think I had the highest tolerance for it. Others were bored of it long before I was.

The All Inclusive element was a blessing and a curse. Of course unlimited drinks helps but the food did get a little repetitive pretty quickly so there was some eating out and extra expense but we enjoyed that of course.

Gran Canaria was nice. At this time of year it was one of a few places with the required heat levels. It looks stunning as it is very “cliffy” (yes that’s absolutely a real word) but that means you can’t really stroll out anywhere as most hotels, like ours, are perched up high and you need transport to get anywhere.

The hotel was lovely with just the odd descent into what I consider to be the worst of these types of holiday which normally involves bingo and some of the worst “entertainment” in the evenings I have ever seen. Honestly some of it defies explanation. It was the lack of options and things “to do” that really hit home how great Florida is for always having options, whether you want the chilled out sun worshipping or full on entertainment filled days and nights. We had it confirmed that it delivers on all levels and it will be another long while until we stray again I think.

I’m not going to get on my soap box here, but something that really struck us was how everywhere and everybody were still doing things to control Covid. Masks are used everywhere without complaint, and overall there are still lots of visible signs that the pandemic isn’t over. Case numbers in Spain are ten times lower than here. I know the testing undertaken is higher here but hospital admissions and deaths see the same ratios. We are headed for a tough winter if we continue with the “do nothing because we did some vaccines” method.

The flights felt like a doddle. Decades of being conditioned to nine hour flights meant the under four hour flights felt like nothing.

Anyway, despite constant illness and injuries including Tom breaking his foot and Freddie getting tonsillitis, it was a nice break. I do plead guilty to thinking about the next holiday whilst on this one but that will not shock you. Before we move on to that next holiday here is a photo dump of the trip just gone.

The main thing that was planned from our sun lounger or more accurately from a chat Louise and I had on our balcony one morning is that we decided we can’t go to Florida and not do Universal. For all kinds of reasons, we do not know when we will get back and Tom and Freddie have yet to experience those parks so we are going to shoe horn it in by making the girls accept their Universal tickets as their present this Christmas. To keep costs down we won’t do an on-site stay and will buy the 2 day, 2 park tickets and do two full on twelve hour days to get as much done as we can. January might lessen the need for the front of the line perks we won’t have, he said hopefully.

Of course the huge news that broke on our last day in Gran Canaria was the announcement of the date when the US will allow us back in. As ever we still await some details around testing requirements and how unvaccinated kids will be dealt with but all that will be resolved before January of course.

Just a note on the level of faff required for the trip we just did. Luckily a lot of the testing requirements were dropped shortly before we left the UK so all we needed to do was the test when we got back home. The passenger locator form was a bit of a faff. As with most government websites and forms it was not the most intuitive thing in the world and a lot of the info they asked for they must surely have from your passport number which they capture on this form, but overall it wasn’t too bad.

The testing is obviously open to abuse. There is nothing to stop someone running the swab under the tap or have someone else do it if they felt they had symptoms. Clearly that is massively irresponsible but impossible to prevent. I wonder how long testing can be a part of international travel. It would be interesting to see the stats on how many actual cases are being found that way.

It almost doesn’t feel real yet that we will actually go on this WDW trip after all this time. We are only seventy odd days out now which adds to the surreal feeling of it all. But now my full attention turns to WDW, as if that is ever not the case. To be honest the day by day plan, aside from exactly where the two freshly added Universal days will fit, is in place. This is because it is roughly the same plan for the trip booked back in 2020.

ADRs open up in a few weeks and that always has the potential to affect the plan so it won’t be close to final until then. Anyway, it just feels so good to be talking with some level of certainty about a trip. You will be delighted to learn that more detail on that plan will be forced upon you here. Try to contain yourselves.

So with one holiday just behind us we are fortunate enough to have another on the horizon. Having holidayed elsewhere and having not seen WDW since mid 2019, I suspect it will feel like coming home more than ever. I am ready!

Till the next time…..

50 (Ab)Cent

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Before we begin I need to wish a happy 50th to a close personal friend. I am so sorry I could not be with you at this time, but that decision was taken from me, several times.

From 1980, you have been a constant obsession, drain on my finances and welcome distraction from real life. A source of lovely memories and good times, with hopefully more of both to come. We have both come a long way in those passing years…

Have a great party. We’ll be a bit late, but we’re coming.

On to more immediate matters, sure, I’m going on holiday tomorrow, and yet I have spent nearly all my free time last week thinking about and planning the one after that. What of it? Did you expect anything else?

One sad note on the holiday happening next week. My Mum and Dad were due to come with us to Gran Canaria, but have had to cancel. My Dad is having some leg trouble and doesn’t feel able to get around sufficiently well to enjoy it. This is a real shame and is upsetting for all of us. Fingers crossed he can get it sorted soon.

I have done stuff to prep for the first holiday of course. I dug our suitcase out, and piled all the stuff I needed to take onto the bed next to it. Surely now those things will magically find their way to where they need to be. Money, endless forms, our house and pet sitters, airport parking…I’ve sorted it all, but to be frank I have spent a lot of time and brain space trying to find us accommodation for the last two days of our Florida trip in January.

I reported last week that the DVC folks from whom I rented our points were saying that there was not one DVC room available for our dates, and we need two. Thanks to some helpful folks who read this blog, this lack of availability was confirmed and I have had to be creative. The DVC rental folks are also Disney travel agents so were able to apply my credit note with them to a cash booking. The “value” for that credit note amount was obviously a bit less than it would have been but after several very long chats with them, I have managed to find something suitable.

We will be spending our last two days at Coronado Springs. I still know very little about the place if I am honest, but a couple of vlogs and some online reading tells me it’ll be fine for the short time we need it. We secured it for just under the value of our credit note so it cost me nowt (I’ll tell myself anything). If anyone has knowledge on the resort I would welcome the sharing of it.

With that in place the rest of the plan (of course that means where we will eat) can begin to fall into place. I will of course share that plan with you at a future time once it is a little more firmed up. The next priority was to get the park reservations sorted. By the way, my long held belief that those are here for the foreseeable seems to be correct. That makes my record 1 to 6751 in that regard.

The lack of DVC room availability in January was a slight worry, potentially indicating some higher than usual crowd levels, so I would only feel better when those were sorted. The planets aligned to see our latest set of park tickets arrive on Friday so I spent a small part of Magic Kingdom’s 50th birthday securing our park reservations for January.

As ever, my planning of eateries, the bedrock of any Mkingdon plan, is that eternal quandary of wanting to return to the places we love but also always wanting to find the next one. Usually, the former wins, but if anyone has any humdingers we should try then do feel free to let me know. Our usual list of “greatest hits” goes something like….

  • Teak
  • Bahama Breeze
  • Hash House A Go Go
  • Olive Garden
  • Cheesecake Factory
  • Sanaa
  • Cowfish
  • Via Napoli
  • Yak & Yeti

I have Ford’s Garage in for one night when we need to eat close to the villa, and that will be a new one for us. Outback and Applebees have been on that list previously and we love them, but with a vegetarian in our party and their very limited options for them (or they were the last time we went) we have had to look elsewhere.

Of course, us WDW nerds still await the detail around the US border re-opening and what hoops we will need to jump through to get in. Although I did rue the irony of November being the re-opening schedule having booked a different holiday, rather than move our October WDW plans to November, right now, that would have been another stress filled stage of that holiday. I suspect we would have moved it exactly one month, to early November and now all the chat is around when in the month we will be allowed in. I suspect it won’t be the 1st and we would of course have been booked to go the day before we were allowed to. So I guess, in the end things didn’t work out too badly.

Right, I should go. There are things to do. Ryan is prepped and ready. Bless him, he’s only ever been to the US so he’s going to get really confused tomorrow. We have such an early start that I needed to go to bed ten minutes ago. I very much doubt there will be bloggage from the beach whilst we are away so for that everyone can be grateful.

Enjoy your break as I enjoy mine and we shall reconvene in mid October for some proper WDW planning stuff, but this time, with a tan and some certainty.

Till the next time….