Bad weeks happen all the time, all over the world, to varying degrees. Even the places that are supposed to be the happiest on earth have them too.
Whilst you all had a great week last week as I did not blog, the place that is never supposed to have bad things happen suffered a bit recently.
Safety whilst in the parks is not something that ever crosses my mind to be honest, but it just goes to show that even the most perfect of places can have an off day or three. In recent times WDW has been in the wars.
It started with the sinking of a Jungle Cruise boat a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know how long that ride has been around and it’s not even worth googling. It’s been a long time and as far as I know incident free. So I suppose the law of averages state that something was bound to happen at sometime. Thankfully of course nobody was hurt apart from some moistness and mild shock.
Then just days afterwards , there were reports of two people mover trams “slamming into each other”. Now, slam may be an over exaggeration knowing the speed these things travel at, but I can bet it wasn’t pleasant.
With photo credit to @wrightculpepper on Twitter you can see the evacuation taking place after the event. Again, if you had to pick two of the safest rides in WDW, Jungle Cruise and People Mover would be up there I suppose, but to quote the greatest philosophers of our time, shit happens. Of course, there was also a very public issue with the new gondola system shortly after go-live which after all the testing we saw happening for such an extended period was very shocking.
So those relatively minor incidents in quick succession were oddly out of place with what to the casual observer may seem like a fairly blemish-free accident record. I’m sure that’s not the case and you don’t have to spend too long on google to see rumours and reports of lots of other accidents and incidents.
One of the most quoted rumours about WDW is that “nobody dies on WDW property”. We’ve all heard the tales of folks passing away but not being declared so until they are safely away from WDW. I don’t know if that were ever true but putting those two minor bumps into sharp insignificance was the horrendous news out of the Contemporary Resort where it appears someone committed suicide by jumping from the building. That is just horrific in every way and it shows even in places like WDW people can do the darkest and most tragic of things.
It feels a bit grubby even writing about it so I won’t share any links etc, as I’m sure you all saw the news anyway, and I apologise for inflicting such horridness on your Sunday, but I guess sometimes, real life is like that and not even WDW can help.
My thoughts are with the poor woman and her family and anyone else who was involved in that horrible situation.
There’s no jovial coming back from that, so I won’t attempt any light-hearted sign-off. I know this is supposed to be a place of trivial nonsense, and it nearly always is but that struck a chord with me, being the most tragic of events against the “happiest” of backgrounds.
I suspect I’m not alone in feeling absolutely “over” winter. The recent weather has been like an endless Lewis Capaldi song, miserable, depressing and all too frequently experienced. Every dog walk sees me gearing up like some Arctic explorer and returning moist in places that have no right being so.
As I type I am looking out at sideways rain and a situation I do not want to be taking the hounds out into later. Spring cannot be far away now right? I need some sunshine, warmth and less moistness.
Last week was spent helping and advising Rebecca to navigate her return to working life. She had already secured herself a role in a nursery a couple of weeks ago, but shortly after starting found herself with two other offers to consider, both considerably closer to home which would alleviate the 6am starts she had been enduring.
Nobody could have predicted the difficulty of choosing between those two nurseries. It gets more complex as built into the decision is the fact that Freddie will be attending the same nursery so it has to be right on more than one level.
I won’t bore you with the tortuous deliberations, but it took a while and there were even a couple of twists and turns after making a decision that meant things turned on their head at the last minute. Anyway, she seems sorted now and will probably start a week tomorrow at the nursery at our local hospital, so she’ll be looking after the kids of the nurses and doctors who work there. She’s had to give two other nurseries a polite no, one of which mainly because even for a member of their staff they insisted on all of Freddie’s fees upfront for the first month. That’s just a big fat nope for someone just returning to the workforce like Rebecca!
In a strange twist of fate, Louise will also be back working at the same hospital, starting around the same time, so that will be handy. It’s funny how things work out.
I was astounded at the fees involved for Freddie to attend full time nursery. Safe to say that the majority of whatever Rebecca earns will be eaten up by those, at least until he turns three and they get some free childcare. In the meantime she gets back to the career she loves and wants to pursue and Freddie gets into a lovely nursery.
The other major event on the horizon is Rebecca’s hen party next weekend. Emily, as maid of honour, is in last-minute prep mode, making sure that everything is in place. I cannot say too much, as I do not wish to spoil any surprises, but I played my part yesterday by purchasing some items for the event online. I cannot tell you what they were, but safe to say my online personalised adverts will be something to behold for the foreseeable future. Of all the sacrifices I have made for my children over the years, this is right up there. May my cookies rest in peace.
Yesterday I was trying my best to do what we are probably all familiar with these days, in attempting to herd decades of photos into one “safe” place. Having lived long enough to take photos before digital cameras and the internet, sadly some are lost, but others are spread across different parts of the cloud and various devices. That is to say nothing of the video that still sits on old fashioned tapes in a bag somewhere that we MUST transfer into the internet before it gets lost.
There are still so many “memories” floating about that I need to get to, but I made some progress. You know what happens now through right? You get bothered with some of them. You have no doubt seen them all before, as I have I, but you don’t take photos to look at them just once.
It was particularly nice (and terrifying) to see a couple where Rebecca is Freddie’s current age. It also made me tragically aware of the damage the stresses and strains of the intervening twenty-odd years have done to me.
Oh and I also found one of the photos from my first ever trip to WDW in 1980.
You can tell it was our first time as I am holding a park map. Nowadays…
Christ, I look dreadful in that last one but still about 3000% better than I do today. Oh look, the rain has eased to a mere downpour, time to start layering up for the dog walk.
Often, when there isn’t much to report on the WDW planning front I will regale you with “edge of your seat” updates on the exciting life that I lead. I will often look back on the week just gone and select just a smattering of highlights from the many to choose from.
I’d like to do that now, but I was in a meeting. Yep, all week. It was one of those weeks in which events conspired to see me busier than a busy thing from start to finish. It was not enjoyable. As is the way of the working world these days, many of those meetings were “virtual”, either via an online “thingy” or video conference. I checked the calendar and it is 2020 which makes me wonder why these things are still, at times, absolutely bobbins.
“Hi, who just joined?”
“Can you see my screen?”
“I think he’s joining now.”
“Sorry, can you go on mute, there’s a load of background noise!”
Round and round on this carousel we go, discussing things that, given a choice, we probably wouldn’t, over sub-standard audio, and often, whilst on mute, not really listening and instead waging war on the endless shite pouring into your inbox.
I’m not sure this is the pinnacle of civilisation envisioned by those phoenicians half way up Spaceship Earth. Recognising this, the weather Gods expressed their distaste for my woeful week and my Ark is coming along nicely.
Last night, Mustard were taking yet more steps along the showbiz highway in Earby. If you haven’t heard of Earby, don’t worry, the people who live there haven’t ether. It’s out in the hinterlands around Burnley and the weather on the drive to and from the gig was underwear threatening. Sideways torrential rain, gusting gales and heart stopping puddles of water on the motorway reminded me of one of those drives many of us have had along the I4 during a Florida thunderstorm when the wipers just won’t go fast enough. There are fingernail shaped dents in my steering wheel as concentration levels were high.
In other, non moany work related news, Rebecca’s wedding draws ever nearer. Louise took Rebecca for her hair trial yesterday and by all accounts it went very well. I’m not sure when my hair trial is, but I hope it’s soon.
It’s only two weeks until the hen do. They are off to Liverpool for the weekend and Emily, to her enormous credit has worked tirelessly to arrange a full programme of events and activities that they will all have to tackle from behind huge hangovers. This hen do has been a labour of love for Emily for many months and I’m sure it will be a huge success. I shall be spending that weekend in glorious peace and quiet, missing them all, surrounded by take away containers and the PS4.
Planning wise, there has been time for none of that. We are hurtling at surprising speed towards our ADR window. At the end of this month we can begin the process of determining where we are going to eat in several months time. All of those plans are already set as you know.
One thing I did find a few seconds to notice last week (so I can’t have been that busy after all, right?) was one email. On our last trip, I signed into the Perkins WiFi during our breakfast trip there. One of the conditions of that was, it seems, signing up to them spamming me every day with their promo emails.
That can be annoying and it’s easy enough to unsubscribe, but when they send you content like this, why would you.
I have thought of little else since receiving this email. Indeed it saw me through one particular conference call which ran for six hours. Sucks to be me right?
I have often suspected the senior leadership team at Disney sit poised to read my weekly blog. Having just last Sunday laid out my own personal gripes in great details about the FastPass tiers, specifically at Hollywood Studios, I was pleased, but not too surprised to see them take my thoughts to heart and change things up.
Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway has been added to the top tier of FastPasses at Hollywood Studios. Coincidence? I think not. There may come a point when I need to start invoicing them for my consultancy services.
With three rides now in that tier that can only help to spread the demand out and make it even easier for us to fail in getting one for the two we really now want and begrudgingly settle for one for Slinky Dog.
In terms of career aspirations, I don’t harbour too many any more other than for a better commute and enough money to fund further trips to WDW, but if I could be one of those folks you see wandering around the parks in slacks, a remarkably non-sweaty shirt and an earpiece, then yes a position somewhere within Disney management would appeal. Imagine going to work every day to do something you are truly passionate about. The downside would be that if we did live in Florida I would need to be winched out of my front room within 12 months of our arrival as the smorgasbord of culinary delights on offer would see me behave like some sort of adult Augustus Gloop in a place where everything is seemingly is edible and either covered in Cinnamon or double Cinnamon.
This new railway ride opens in March. Demonstrating once again why this isn’t a blog you should rely on for up to the minute Disney news, I have no clue what this ride is. There are no height restrictions which is good for a party like ours with a Freddie in tow, so it won’t be rivalling Rock n Rollercoaster for thrills, but these family “everyone can join in” rides are for me, really important for WDW. I believe that the whole idea for the parks came from Walt having to sit and watch his daughter’s go on fairground rides without him. There are times when you do want a G force laden thrill a minute ride, but there is equal joy, perhaps more, in watching the face of the younger members of your party experience rides that everyone can do together.
On better Disney blogs than this one I’m also seeing rumours of Disney abolishing free FastPasses and the ability to book them ahead of time. That, to me sounds like a very bad idea. Not only do I not want to pay more for what I now get for free, but Disney must surely realise that the complex planning that a lot of WDW visitors do months in advance is very much part of the trip. The rumour is that you would only be able to buy FastPass privileges on the day and then I guess see what you can get.
That way carnage lies. A trip to WDW is already VERY expensive and no doubt by the time we get back there it’ll be costing somewhere close to $100 to park for the day, so charging for FastPasses as Universal does for off-site guests would be a very unpopular move in my view. Hopefully, it holds as much water as most WDW related rumours do and this never comes to pass.
Knowing as I do that all the top Disney execs read this, here’s my advice –
Leave the FastPass system alone
Stop increasing parking costs every few weeks
You need to either build a fifth park or undertake some major expansion to one or two of the others.
I say the last point as the continual addition of new resorts and rooms means they are pumping more and more guests into parks that have a finite capacity. Sure, there are new rides and lands, but the real estate they are in is pretty much what it always was. There are no longer any real quiet periods at WDW now, with Disney doing a fantastic job of inventing seemingly endless events and festivals to get people in.
This is good, as it gives them higher revenues which to their credit they then re-invest into the parks, but we’re coming to a point now where people will stay away if the very crowded scenes that happen at peak times continue. There’s little to no fun in that scenario.
Now, I do know that in December 2019 Disney bought 235 acres of land just west of Disney’s Oak Trail Golf Course.
In January 2019, Disney also bought 1,575 acres for $11 million in Osceola County and before that, it bought 965 acres for $23 million from nearby B-K Ranch in December 2018.
Disney has made no announcements about potential uses for the land, but it is located near other Disney golf courses. It would be an anti-climax if all that land was for golf, as much as I do like a round of that in Florida.
With Universal launching a new park in, I think 2023, it is usual for Disney to respond so I’m hopeful we get that long-awaited “fifth gate”. For as long as I can remember, a Villains Park has been rumoured. I think to be honest that rumour has just been a product of internet speculation and it may be more likely that another land is added to Magic Kingdom in that theme, as that to me would work well.
The worst-case scenario could be that they just use this newly purchased land to build more resorts. That would just compound the issues in the parks now. It’s almost as if I’m suggesting that some idiot from Bolton knows more about the workings of an organisation than those who run it.
So Bob Iger and the lovely Disney execs. I am available for consultancy and/or full-time employment at competitive rates and will take partial payment in food.
As we endured the 74th week of January last week, I was pleased to see it whizz by quite quickly. Work was busy, and so that hecticness stole away some more hours of my life I’ll never get back. As I hurtle towards my half century I have come to the realisation that most of my life now seems to be spent either communting or recycling.
In the whirl of normal life, I remember seeing some news that the FastPass+ tiers have been amended at Hollywood Studios. That was pleasing but you have to remember that it usually doesn’t affect us as our account on My Disney Experience has been blacklisted for all the rides everyone wants FastPasses for.
You may remember me from such films as “Flights Of Passage? Are You Having A Laugh?” and “Slinky Dog? I Should Cocoa!”. But, like Charlie Brown, once again trying to kick the football as Lucy holds it, I’ll be there on the relevant days going through the motions anyway just to fail spectacularly.
It’s a Safari FastPass for you!
Sumggler’s Run has now been opened up to FastPass bookings which is nice. That and Slinky are grouped together so I suppose the upside is that we may finally stand half a chance of getting one for Slinky Dog. We did ride it last year, but to date have not been anywhere close to a FastPass.
At this rate, we’ll be easily snagging FastPasses for Rise Of The Resistance when we go for Freddie’s 18th birthday. It is the theme park version of the circle of life. I’m old enough to remember rides like Test Track and Soarin’, being THE ride to get a FastPass for. It was only five minutes ago that I was dad jogging all the way through Animal Kingdom to get an old fashioned paper FastPass for the Safari as that was the headliner at the time. These things come and go and if you are mature and sensible you’ll realise that and not spend your Sunday morning pissing and moaning about it in a blog post.
For anyone who missed it –
Tier 1 will include: Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Slinky Dog Dash. Guests will be able to pre-select one of these attractions as a FastPass+ reservation in advance of their visit to the park.
Tier 2 will include: Toy Story Mania!, Alien Swirling Saucers, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, Voyage of the Little Mermaid, Disney Junior Dance Party!, For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration, Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, Muppet*Vision 3D, Fantasmic!, Beauty and the Beast – Live on Stage. Guests will be able to pre-select two of these attractions as a FastPass+ reservation in advance of their visit to the park.
So Tier 1 is going to be a bit competitive isn’t it? Not for us of course. We’ll just end up with the dregs, but it won’t affect me and I won’t go on about it endlessly.
We are 205 days out now. It won’t be long until we can begin the ADR process and we have a few to do this time. Disney are smart in allowing ADRs 180 days out. It makes the upcoming trip exciting earlier and for longer, having to imagine what and where you want to eat several months out. Then after me moaning about not being able to get some of them at the time or day I want them, a few months later I can do it all again because I can’t get onto a theme park ride without queuing.
Anyway, there’s no planning I can do right now, so I am away to tick off my list of Sunday chores. It’s amazing how upon opening my eyes on a weekend morning I can see a full day of nothing laid out in front of me and within moments it becomes filled with stuff that “need” to be tackled and tackle I must.
See you back here next week for more upneat musings and moaning.
There are times when I and certainly you may wonder, what is the point of these blogs each week. There will be several different answers to that question, many of which I wouldn’t want to share here, but one of the reasons was borne out last week.
Despite this blog being, I suppose, some sort of Disney blog, I never profess to be an expert and I’m certainly never up to the minute on all the stuff that’s going on. It’s a Disney blog, sometimes, by theme, audience and intent more than design. With that in mind, it is always useful to get the often more expert views of those hardy fools who persist in reading these posts.
When I lay out my plans for our next trip as I did last week I can always guarantee that I will get some feedback that will change my thinking and often the plans themselves. Last week was no different.
It’s funny how some eateries emerge from the pack at certain times as “the one” getting the buzz and reccomendations. The name just seems to crop up in conversations, blogs, vlogs and exchanges between like minded Disney foodies. That’s how we’ve discovered many of our favourites over the years. This time it is Rock and Brews. It got two or three seperate mentions from different folks as a place we should consider.
It may be sacriledge, but one of our all time traditional absolute rock solid eateries, Applebees, was wavering on the cusp of the plan. It has done nothing wrong, other than not cater especially well for vegetarians and with our group now including one, it has become a consideration.
With that in mind, a change has been made, and instead of our Applebees pilgrimage we are now going to try somewhere new in the shape of Rock and Brews.
If like me you’d never heard of it until about now, then the menu is here. Now, I don’t think it’s breaking any new ground in the culinary experience but that’s no bad thing. The menu looks interesting enough, with a decent nod to non meat eaters and it is local to our villa so fits nicely into our plans as an Applebees alternate without us changing our direction of travel.
The other joy from last week’s post came via Twitter from SchmeichelJFox .
We’ve both ignored our football incompatability enough over the years to follow each other on Twitter and this paid dividends when he slid into my DMs this week.
Apparently guests staying at the Hard Rock Hotel are allowed to enjoy the pools and facilities at Portofino Bay. As my DM read….
“Last time we stayed at Hard Rock (love it) we found out we can use all the facilities in Portofino Bay. They have quite a few pools to check out – one with an amazing bistro and waterfall that’s great for a chilled afternoon (more chilled than Hard Rock and a little more room to play with the kids). Also, the bay itself is a great place for ice cream and a beer watching all the boats and singers who come into the square…. We always had a pre city walk beer or two at the thirsty fish in the bay of the hotel in its “square”. A lovely way to maximise the value from your Hard Rock purchase. We were quite shocked how much was available at this hotel so far away from the parks and city walk.”
Now, I’m not sure my then 25 and 23-year-old kids will be wanting to play with me in the pool, but Freddie might. But more crucially, we are always on the lookout for stuff like this. This sort of venue sounds perfect for a just showered, slightly sunburned pre or post-dinner chilled out drinkie and so this sounds right up our street. Our time at Hard Rock is limited but we shall be trying our best to avail ourselves of that and maybe the pool option too should the Hard Rock be a little too “Magaluf” as it can get at times.
So all my planning last week was done by others. This was handy as work was inconveniently busy and it was a Mustard heavy week too. We had no gig, but we took the chance to slot in a rehearsal to get some new songs into the repertoire which take some time for my ageing brain and limited ability to soak in.
We also released a video. Yeh, I know!
Sometime in early December, we spent a cold, yet interesting and enjoyable Sunday in a local rehearsal room being filmed not actually playing some of our songs. Thankfully, the unwritten rule of the music world is that bass players cannot feature in more than 1% of the footage used and for that, I have to be honest, I am thankful.
The chap who did this for us has performed a “silk purse/sow’s ear” standard of miracle making five middle-aged blokes slightly beyond their best look almost acceptable. Now, that’s talent.
Should anyone require the services of a great band for a special occasion, then Mustard may be for you.
I will leave you with that pop perfection and see you back here next week when hopefully you have all improved my holiday plans again. You know it makes sense.
OK, so we’ve done the Christmas, New Year and the moany back to work posts. Waistline aside, things are back to normal and so, with barely a mention so far of our new and exiting WDW plans for my 50th, it is well overdue that I drag you kicking and screaming through a day by day account of the plan as it currently stands.
I’ll be honest, it’s probably much more complete and finalised than even I imagined at this stage. In fact, moments after confirming the dates and flights, the day by day template was filled in and if it changes significantly between now and August I’ll be astounded. It would appear, that shockingly, I’m quite good at this now. Still, that won’t stop me obsessing over it at regular intervals and adding extra, unneccsary expense to it as we go. It’s what I do.
Last year was a “cheap as chips” we shouldn’t be going affair so we held back on the ADRs and on-site dining. There are no such restrictions this time around so you will notice much more going on in that regard.
Day One
We fly on August 26th from Manchester with Virgin. We are bubbling as we enjoyed that so much the last time we flew with Virgin. I’m pleased to say we take off (around) 10am (no plane has ever left the tarmac on time in the history of mankind) and land at a very sociable 2pm at MCO. We didn’t enjoy the later flight times last year as it meant getting into Orlando at 7pm, and by the time we’d got to the villa there was no time to go out and eat. See where our priorities lie?
I’ve hired an overly extravagant car from Dollar. I have shunned the mundane mini-van for some sort of monster truck equivalent that will take up three parking spots wherever we go. I’m only 50 once, if at all.
We will be picking that up and leaving the airport more quickly than the It’s Orlando Time group left Facebook, but under less suspicious circumstances.
Our villa is a doozy, again an absolute extravagance, near Formosa Gardens. We should be there some time around 4pm, and after a little unpacking and a trip to the supermarket, taking our seats at the Outback Steakhouse as tradituon dictates some time around 9pm UK time.
Day Two
If you don’t know by now that our first day is spent at Magic Kingdom, I can’t help you. With a more civilised arrival time on day one, we should be fed and in bed by a sensible time, meaning we are fully rested for day two and a full day in the park. The plan is to last until late afternoon/early evening and then go to the Polynesian for our (hopeful) ADR at O’hana.
Day Three
Traditionally a rest day but in recent times we have chosen to spend it in a water park. This works well as those who want to can rest up and those who get bored after an hour around the villa pool can go off and risk life and limb on the slides and stuff.
We are going in strong from the start food wise with a trip to Teak Neighbourhood Grill planned for our evening meal.
Day Four
Hollywood Studios today. Hopefully Rise of the Resistance has calmed down a bit and we won’t need to be outside the park gates at 6am. I can say with some certaintity that whether it has calmed down or not, we won’t be doing that!
Again, like some dining greatest hits collection, another firm favourite for many years is on the plan for tonight, at Bahama Breeze.
Day Five
Animal Kingdom. We didn’t see Rivers Of Light last year, mainly due to time pressure but also because we suspected Freddie wouldn’t sit through it. With another 12 months under his belt he might so we’ll try to give it a go.
The hits keep on coming with Yak and Yeti for dinner (by that I mean tea but I’m aware people south of Birmingham read this).
Day Six
As tends to happen every year, this will be my birthday. It’s a big one, and not only does it mark my passing into my 50’s and no doubt another pants size, it also marks the 40th anniversary of my first ever trip to Florida. I spent my 10th birthday in Miami all those years ago, and look what’s happened since! We drove up to Orlando for just two days at what was only the Magic Kingdom then. It was clearly enough to create the monster I now am.
Epcot of course. You knew that, but we are cramming more food than is wise into the day with a character breakfast ADR at Cape May (we can then park at the Yacht & Beach), a wander around World Showcase and then probably back to the villa to get something vaguely presentable on. That’s because I am hopeful of securing an ADR at California Grill, followed by a re-mortgage and a viewing of the fireworks from the viewing deck.
Day Seven
Something new today. We are doing a few days at Universal, and the first part of that will be to give the “new” water park Volcano Bay a go. I need to do some proper research and vlog watching on this as I have very little clue as to what goes on there and the best way to tackle it, but, again it serves as a rest day after the excesses of yesterday’s celebrations and a chance for the more adventurous members of the group (Tom) to go and play.
To keep that theme going, for dinner we are going to try the Ford’s Garage place on the 192 for the first time. If you’ve been and think we shouldn’t, now is the time to tell me.
Day Eight
So now we start our holiday within a holiday and check into the Hard Rock at Universal. This is one of our most favourite places in Orlando and despite probably only needing one night to get the required front of line passes to complete both parks, we’re doing two. It gives us more chance to experience the parks, especially as it is Tom and Freddie’s first time and hopefully rest around the pool.
We will start in Islands of Adventure today.
It also opens up some of the excellent dining options on City Walk and we HAVE to do Cowfish as the Cheeseburgerooshi is the most delicious thing on the planet and that’s where we will head on this evening. Toothsome for dessert may be an option or perhaps Voodoo Doughnut’s taken back the room for an orgy of excess.
Day Nine
Universal Studios today, with perhaps some pool time followed by a meal at Antojitos, which is a Mexican most of us have never tried but Emily recommended it after eating there during her CRP stint.
Day Ten
We checkout from the Hard Rock but of course sill have front of line access so we will park hop and re-do anything we want to. Once we’re done we will head back towards the villa and eat at Applebees on the 192.
Day Eleven
All I have so far for this day are food plans. They are BIG food plans, and I’m sure we will fit something inbetween them, but after three park days, some relaxed down time filled with calories will no doubt be required.
Breakfast/Brunch will be at the excellent Hash House a Go Go. Several hours of moaning and swearing that we’ll never eat again will be followed by dinner at Sanaa at Kidani Village where there will be literal fist fights over the bread service. We all do like us some bread. Hopefully we’ll also be able to show Freddie some of the animals wandering about out the back.
Day Twelve
Back to Animal Kingdom today. We loved our light lunch at Tiffin’s last time out so we may wander back there for cocktails and food around lunchtime. With that in mind, I just have Homecoming at Disney Springs in my plans for dinner, as that is known for it’s light, healthy menu!
Day Thirteen
Our second day at Epcot. It feels late on day 13, but that’s how things work out sometimes. Tonight will be our chance to watch whatever they have seen fit to replace Illumnations with. No pressure.
With that in mind, we will return to Via Napoli as we have loved it on our past two visits.
Day Fourteen
As we will have 14 day tickets for all the Universal stuff I have pencilled in a return today. We won’t have front of line of course, but we can have a more leisurely wander and ride anything that doesn’t have horrible wait times. By this time in the trip, we will be well into September, past Labor Day and hopefully, there will be sufficiently low crowds to make this worthwhile.
Our dining option of choice tonight is Cheesecake Factory. This is another awesome eatery and we were all gutted not to be able to fit this in last year.
Day Fifteen
We are lucky enough this year, due to my 50th splurge, to be staying a little longer. We return to Hollywood Studios today with little more planned than that. Olive Garden is pencilled in as our eatery.
Day Sixteen
Our last full day is of course spent at Magic Kingdom. Last year we popped out to eat off-site at Romano’s Macaroni Grill and were delighted we did. We hadn’t been for a few years but if you haven’t been, you must. With that in mind, it is planned to do the same this year, but if other events take our fancy we may do those instead. Who said I was a planning obsessed overweight ball sack?
Day Seventeen
Travel. Enough said. We’ll do a huge breakfast somewhere and then fly home after buying gifts for people who have hundreds of Disney gifts already.
The only positive about today is that I managed to get us into Premium for less than economy so we may get some comfort/sleep on the way home.
So there you go. I’m tired after typing that out so who knows how we will cope with the real thing.
If you have any advice or suggestions on new places to eat that we should do instead of returning to past favourites I’ll be all ears.
Often of a Sunday evening, the black dog will find me. The looming presence of another Monday steals a part of my weekend and I spend more time than I should “fearing” going back to what I’d rather not.
Most times, of course, this is silly and unfounded and the worst thing I have to contend with is the commute and having to make my own brew. I then promise myself I won’t be so foolish in future until it all happens again the next week.
Last Sunday, following a tremendous two-week break, and the opportunity to almost totally unwind, this Monday phobia was strong. In the back of my mind I was assuring myself it was all unfounded and all would be well.
I was wrong. Holy moly, the week just gone was a struggle. Physically and mentally it felt like I was dragging myself along on my xmas inflated belly towards the finish line of the end of each day never mind the weekend. Monday, with the clock only having edged to 12.30, saw me seriously wondering how I would actually make it until 5.30. It was not good. My brain struggled in a similar manner, and I felt like I had been parachuted into my seat and told to do a job I had never heard of never mind done before.
Muscle memory kicked in around Thursday and I began to feel that I wasn’t stealing a living and no doubt things will bet “better” next week. It all went to confirm that as fortunate as I am to have the job I do, with probably the best company to work for possible, this is not my calling, and should my lottery numbers drop at any point you will not see me in the local paper declaring that I will continue working. I will be emailing my resignation from my first class Florida bound seat within hours of the cash hitting the bank.
So with that horror now hopefully behind me, the new year has brought into focus two priorities for the year. Our holiday of course, which celebrates my 50th, but first, and more importantly, Rebecca and Tom’s wedding in May.
Stuff is organised and even paid for mostly. There is nothing major left to do, find or fund, but now we are into the detail. Guest lists, confirmed numbers, table plans, favours (whatever they are) and the little bits and bobs that I would never have guessed were part of a wedding.
Luckily, I have somewhat of a track record for planning stuff and Rebecca has inherited enough of that to be making a good job of things. The hen do plans are ticking along in the safe hands of Emily and I’m sure everything will fall into place helped by the huge efforts of all of us.
Yesterday, as Louise wrestled with her latest assignment deadline for her midwifery course, and Tom went to do his Ju-Jitsu, Rebecca, Freddie and I went for a wet and windy walk around what’s known as The Jumbles. It’s a country park/reservoir which holds a dual role in my mind. Now, it’s a lovely place for a walk right on our doorstep but formerly it was a place of horrors as this is where my school would make me do cross country in PE lessons. Tell me how it makes sense that because it was raining we weren’t allowed to play football but were allowed/forced to run miles around some water.
We spent some of the time going over what’s left to do, so that helped and things seem clearer now. We spent the rest of the time waiting for Freddie to pick up stones every three steps.
We saw a 17 week old Old English puppy which I immediately fell in love with and a Great Dane that was more horse than dog. We said hello to the ducks and got rained on quite a lot. A lovely afternoon.
So after a grim work week, the weekend has helped. Friday night was the Mustard Christmas do. Having had a very busy festive period, my bandmates and I went out for a curry and some dirty beer. We also took the chance to watch a couple of local bands as that’s something we seldom get a chance to do. Alas, they weren’t very good, but at least it made us feel better about what we do!
Today hasn’t a lot that I need to do, which is always the plan but seldom the reality for a Sunday. I have a small DIY job to do at Louise’s Mum’s house, but then the afternoon is mine to do as much or as little as I like….once I’ve walked the dogs…..and tidied the kitchen……
With that horror-filled first week back at work done, the wedding plans firmed up nicely, at some point between now and May I need to rid myself of the post-xmas paunch and should time allow later today I will fire up the Florida plan and start to put some flesh on the bones of our daily activities.
I shall probably share the current state of that with you all next week unless I forget or something more interesting happens in the meantime.
I’m going to keep this brief today otherwise it will just turn into a return to work moanfest and there’s enough negativity around without me adding to it.
I was desperately in need of a break as Christmas approached and I do feel better for my time off. Another few weeks away from the rat race would be nice if I’m honest for me to really feel the benefit but that won’t pay the bills so tomorrow I will resume my battle to beat the traffic and feign interest.
Our New Year’s celebrations were lovely if subtle. We enjoyed an excellent Indian meal at a restaurant called Akash in Darwen with Rebecca, Tom and Freddie. They went on to a family party at Tom’s brothers and Louise and I rolled home to watch Jools Holland, desperately trying to stay awake until midnight. I made it, just, having enjoyed the night.
So it’s been a traditional festive period, involving all the things you’d expect. There was a visit to the tip, impressive weight gain, and a chocolate mountain that we’ll be staring at until Halloween as we can’t now eat it as of course we need to lose the pounds that have found us in the last few weeks.
I’m not a fan of the whole new year, new you stuff. In a way, the new year thing feels a little bit like the most Mondayish Monday of all Mondays, and I rail against the stark U-turn in advertising from indulgent foodstuffs to gym memberships, weight watchers and fitness equipment. It all feels a bit too predictable and controlling for my liking.
The world seems to be sharing my dim view by getting 2020 off to a wonderful start. Australia is on fire and it is absolutely heartbreaking to see what’s going on there, and the man-baby in the White House seems intent on starting a distracting war to stop people concentrating on his illegal actions. As re-election campaigns go, it’s a bit predictable and it will certainly be expensive in all sorts of ways. I did say there was a good amount of negativity knocking about.
In brighter news, we are just 253 days away from our next trip and assuming we aren’t at war or on fire, we have some fine plans, almost exclusively (at this stage) involving food but you’d expect nothing less. Standby to be told about each and every element of that plan in excruciating detail in coming weeks.
I did say I’d be brief so let me keep that promise so I can soak in my last few hours of freedom before reentering the real world tomorrow. Once the horror of the first week back is done I may be in a more jolly space and able to blog at you more positively.
Greetings. Having spent the last fifteen weeks or so using my weekly blog to report on our latest US adventure, I find myself trying to use my now flabby and out of shape blogging muscle to somehow come up with something to write that isn’t based on rides and food. Bear with me as I ease myself back into the weekly discipline of thinking of something to write.
I am slap bang in the middle of a glorious two-week break from work. It felt needed, and of course, by the time I’ve relearnt how to do nothing, I’ll be heading back into the daily grind once again, rueing not spending the downtime more wisely by doing even less than I did.
Our Christmas has been gloriously unspectacular. We hosted on the day, somehow catering for nine, with only about eight hours of hard labour in the kitchen required and our house still hasn’t recovered, with pots, plates and presents still strewn about the place like the aftermath of a particularly wild party at Mary Berry’s.
I could post ten minutes of video here, showing Freddie ignoring every present but one at our house on Christmas morning, but it wouldn’t be fair to expect anyone not related to us to sit through that.
OK, I’ll post one of the clips at a mere five minutes or so which outlines the chaos of the unwrapping process with two dogs and the glories of the Bolton accent. Louise will love it…..
The dogs did, of course, get their own gifts, courtesy of Emily so it’s only right you see that too. There’s nothing like quality content and….well, you can complete the punchline.
Other than that we have had some lovely lazy days, doing not much more than hoovering up leftovers and clearing the fridge of all the stuff we overbought whilst binge-watching stuff. It’s what God and the baby Jesus would want.
I know I spent much of my trip report bemoaning illness, and in some ways, I have never fully recovered from that since my return to the UK. I have, it seems, been snotty, coughy and achy ever since. However, over the festive period, most of the family, and it seems most of the UK, have been struck down by cold-related illness, Freddie included, and it’s fortunate that we are off work to enjoy our respective conditions to the fullest.
If I were a proper blogger who spent time planning what spews onto the page this post would be a glorious retrospective review of the past year and indeed past decade, a decade for which I have blogged almost every week in its entirety.
Instead, I am stumbling around this Twxitmas no man’s land in a tired daze, wondering if it’s possible to eat yourself to death. Of course, should you wish to occupy your downtime in this festive wasteland, there are something like 450 blog posts from me you could wade through. That would save me having to apply any brainpower to looking back at all that time.
Having started blogging in November 2009 I have documented all manner of crap in that time. The decade about to end has, like with every one of you reading this, delivered some highs and of course some heartbreaking, soul-crushing lows. On the negative side, I will remember the decade for two of the most upsetting episodes in my life, which I won’t be sharing here, but, as you must, you suck it up, deal with it and move on. Of course, things could have been worse and we are blessed in many ways that I undoubtedly don’t appreciate enough.
Of course, one of those blessings has been the arrival of Freddie into our lives. It can be incredibly tedious to listen to someone pap on about their kids and grandkids, but hey, I’m not about to break the habit of a lifetime, but it has been THE highlight of this or any recent decade. What a fun-filled, joy-giving bundle of perfection he is and I apologise for my past and future Freddie related gushings.
A feature, and of course highlight of the last decade (or two) have been our Florida trips. We’ve been fortunate enough…no bollocks to that…we’ve worked our absolute arses off and endured all kinds of soul-crushing stuff to be able to afford them, and we’ve done all manner of glorious things and eaten all kinds of filthy nonsense. They have defined the childhood’s of the girls in many ways, and, fingers crossed they will continue to do the same for them and Freddie in the years to come.
So that’ll do for today. Hopefully, the new year and decade of blogging will see a glorious return to the incredible content I am renowned for producing.
Look, I know I overuse this gif but it is useful in so many ways.
I hope the new year celebrations and whatever follows them are kind to you and yours and your WDW trips are frequent and glorious. Seasons greetings and best wishes for 2020 and beyond from everyone here at Mkingdon Towers.
The irony of sleeping in until 7.45, the latest lie in of the whole trip, on the day we fly home was not lost on me. It made it clear to me that in future I clearly need more than just two weeks of a holiday to allow my body to begin to adjust to vacation mode.
The next hour or so was filled with the unavoidable packing and tidying in preparation for our departure. It was relatively pain-free, to be honest. It’s almost as if we’ve done this a few times before and are finally getting the hang of it.
Tom and I collected all the now full cases and girded our loins for the task of forcing them into the back of the van. We struggled at the airport upon arrival so this was looking like a challenge and a half now our luggage contained several purchases and half a ton of plastic tat collected by Freddie along the way.
If anyone can explain to me how we slotted everything in with ease I’d appreciate it. The only rational observation is that upon arrival I was tired, emotional and a little incompetent and at least two of those can’t be true.
Breakfast was the first order of business and we pointed the van north towards the 192, happy to eat at whatever relevant establishment we saw first. Ideally, it would be a restaurant.
A IHOP caught my eye and we arrived like a SWAT team storming an embassy. I think we were hungry. It was busy but we were seated immediately so nobody got hurt.
We had a lovely server. Her chatting was pleasant at first, but as it stretched into more than three minutes, preventing us from eating, it started to lose its charm a little. At last we ordered –
Freddie had smiley faces, which would probably be the only ones seen today.
He made sure his Dad was cutting them up to his liking…..
I had blueberry pancakes and they were all kinds of awesome.
Rebecca had birthday cake pancakes and Tom had what you can see there. I didn’t capture its name…sue me.
Emily had chocolate chip pancakes and they were every bit as good as you might imagine.
Louise had something called a Split Decision.
With coffees and juices and a very nice tip the bill was $100.
Back into the van now and off to Disney Springs. We parked in Lime and spent more time than was ideal in Uniqlo. Things were purchased and then the pain was done. Next, the inevitable last-minute gift shopping in World of Disney. I think we spent an hour in there buying things for other people who already have nearly every possible gift from someone who has holidayed in Orlando. It gets harder each year.
It was another hot day so we found a shaded seat near a bar and listened to a chap with a guitar for a bit. There were some final cocktails consumed by the non-drivers and we sat and contemplated the horror of returning home.
We took Freddie on the little carousel there and he met one of his new friends again.
The view before us made the thought of the M60 on a cold, dark rainy Monday even more disconcerting.
For one final time, Freddie somehow got the camera again….
Just a few highlights there from the 78 photos he took.
With drinks consumed, we moved on to the Marketplace for some browsing of expensive shiny things.
Louise spotted a necklace she liked and I was really struggling to find a reason not to buy it. The Gods smiled upon me. As it was taken from the case for further inspection the assistant realised it was actually broken. I shed a small tear.
On the way out we popped into Amorette’s just “for a look”.
It was good….
We could not put it off any longer. We boarded the van and pointed it at the airport at 2.50. It felt like they had built a few more tolls on the way back than we saw upon arrival. Undeterred we arrived at the car hire return at 3.20.
All sweat and regrets, we pulled the luggage out and headed for check-in. There was a ten-minute queue to do so. Security was a whole different matter. What a slow-moving, joy void that was. Just the tonic for those travelling home after a holiday.
We boarded the wrong sort of monorail and headed for the gate.
We wanted to spend our last moments in Orlando eating, as nature intended. We tried Bahama Breeze, but the wait was too long so we walked over to the Outback instead who were able to seat us immediately.
Alas, this airport version was a pale imitation of the place we enjoy so regularly at Formosa Gardens. A limited menu and virtually no vegetarian options whatsoever. They had to come up with some sort of attempt at a salad for Emily which wasn’t worthy of a photo.
I had an Asian Chicken Salad so that I wouldn’t put too much weight on during the holiday.
Freddie had a Grilled Cheese Sandwich.
Rebecca, Chicken Tenders.
Louise and Tom a Steak Sandwich.
All in all, the food was a decent reflection of going home from a WDW holiday. It was so underwhelming, I actually had a beer to console myself.
We boarded without incident or queue, as we waited for everyone else to queue up for their guaranteed seat before getting on last.
Freddie was changed into his comfy flying clothes and readied for take-off.
My notes end here. The flight wasn’t great, mainly as Freddie was a little bit unwell and had a temperature, meaning the he had a period of upset and crying about halfway home. Shout out to the family sat behind Rebecca, Tom and Freddie for complaining to the flight crew about Freddie crying and stopping them sleeping. You stay classy.
You don’t want or need to hear about our landing and endless waiting for luggage at Manchester. All I will say is that we were the last out of the place as one of our cases was missing. I had to fill out a load of forms about that before finally going to meet our now very tetchy taxi driver who had been waiting for over an hour. He took it out on me all the way home by regaling me with his right-wing, racist views, not stopping to draw breath. He was a message from the Gods as punishment for being so stupid as to leave Orlando. The return to the stark reality of the UK could not have been better signalled.
So we’re done. I would typically at this point wax lyrical about WDW, and Florida in general, as some sort of attempt to explain my relentless desire to return. Chances are, if you are reading this, you know.
Despite my never-ending illness, and the week-long threat of weather-induced devastation, I have to say this trip was a beauty. We all enjoyed it enormously, due in no small part to the thrill of showing Tom and Freddie something that means so much to us all. The joy of spending uninterrupted time with Freddie is just a happy and joyful bonus of course. He has brought so much happiness, fun and enjoyment to our every day lives, that being in WDW with him is just something we treasure. I contest that there is no better place on the planet to spend time together as a family. For those of a certain age, like me, who seem to spend more and more time looking back at the girl’s younger years and getting annoyed and upset that I can’t actually remember huge chunks of their lives, these overly detailed trip reports have been a godsend, in forever capturing at least some of our time together. Same goes now for Freddie of course.
So I won’t drone on. I don’t know how many words I’ve written detailing this trip, or how many hours I’ve spent doing so, but I could have saved us all the trouble by just posting these two twenty-second videos the day after we got back. They say it all.
Thank you for your perseverance for making your way through another one of our trips. After all these years it really is touching and mind-boggling that so many of you still care enough to read this stuff.
Unfortunately for you, we’re doing it all again next year as I celebrate my 50th in the only place I ever could. If you missed it and want to read about how that plan is going, this is the link you need.
Things have worked out very neatly with the ending of this trip coinciding with Christmas. So I will take this opportunity to wish you all a lovely one and if at all possible a Disney filled 2020. Every view, read, comment and like is always very much appreciated, probably more than you know. It’s a small corner of the internet, but I’m delighted you join me in it of a Sunday.
There aren’t many other combinations of three words which will strike fear into the heart of a WDW fanatic more than “last full day”. It is inevitable and yet ignored for as long as possible. It is a day for savouring the details, drinking in the sights, sounds and smells of a place you may not see for quite some time. whilst trying to have some fun at the same time.
Ours started with me awake at 7. There was no sign of anybody else so I made some coffee and ate a Voodoo doughnut as nature intended. It turned out that Freddie had been unsettled during the night and so, of course, had Rebecca and Tom so they were a little slow to get started this morning.
Louise and I did some packing whilst we waited for them to be ready and by about 10am we were loaded into the van for the final trip to a park this time around. Every time we had driven to the parks on this trip, as we stopped at a set of lights as we joined the 192 we had seen a billboard, which alternated between three adverts. One of them was for Hollywood Studios and had a large picture of one of the aliens from Toy Story. Over time, Freddie had invented a game of “there he is”, every time the picture appeared. He played it for the final time. Am I getting across that we were very aware that today was the last day?
I had already shifted some FastPasses to later to accommodate out later start at some point before leaving the villa and after parking in Simba, we boarded the tram knowing it was for the final time. I tried to stop myself blinking so that I could drink in as much as possible of every single thing.
It seemed busier than we’d seen today but however busy it was, we were going in hard today for a full-on fun fest. As we made our way up Main Street….
We came across the start of the trolley show and we stopped to enjoy that before completing the journey to Caseys where we spent a few minutes listening to the piano player.
We were headed to Pirates for our first FastPass of the day. That was handy as the standby queue was forty minutes already. We had ridden in all sorts of different configurations on all sorts of rides over the course of the trip but for this one, Freddie rode on my knee and it was a treat. I’ve ridden this ride a lot, many times with my own young girls, and to see at close hand his wonder and enjoyment made this one as special as those early rides with my own kids. It was lovely.
It was by now 11.30 and of course, time for lunch as nobody had eaten breakfast and my doughnut didn’t count. We decided on Pecos Bill’s as Emily had heard good things about the veggie options there. I mobile ordered from within the building and waited for it to be ready to collect as the others found a table.
Louise and I had Beef Nachos
Emily had the Veggie burger and Tom a normal one
My notes say Rebecca had “chicken”….
Your guess is as good as mine. Freddie had a Chicken Rice Bowl.
Emily was so blown away by her Veggie burger that she had to double-check it really wasn’t meat. She has raved about this burger at regular intervals since returning which may be useful to you if you have one of those odd veggie folks in your party.
Rebecca was detained in the loo for a while so we made our way toward Tomorrowland. With no news via WhatsApp of her following us, I waited at Small World whilst the others walked on to ride Ariel, which I know she would be upset I wasn’t a part of. With Rebecca now with me we caught up with everyone else just as they exited the ride.
Next, we walked all the way back to the Speedway where some actor from the 50’s seems to have been hanging around.
After a twenty-minute queue, Emily and I rode together for the first time in what must be twenty years. I seemed to do better than previous attempts, wrenching the steering wheel from one extreme to another to avoid the middle rail.
Freddie did some steering apparently, and can’t have done any worse than I did. We then moved on down to the People Mover for a sit-down. There was no queue, but as soon as we boarded the ride stopped for a couple of minutes, denying us of the cooling breeze.
Freddie did his best to help out.
Totally by accident I then took one of those photos that I suspect we’ll treasure for a long time.
Once we got moving again I took some now very much out of date “update” pictures of the Tron construction….
We all know that size isn’t everything but it does look mightily impressive. I can’t wait to ride it.
Louise then took in some sunshine whilst the rest of us rode Space Mountain. For the first time many years, we were directed to the left-hand track. I’m not saying it’s wilder than the right but it was not possible for me to tense what I needed to for long enough and in the end just had to relax everything and scream.
To clam the nerves we got an iced coffee from the Joffrey’s nearby. Despite me clearly being an internet sensation and a black belt at blogging, this is one of the many reasons why I don’t do the same on Instagram….
Having polished off our drinks we quickly made our way over to Branstormer for our FastPass. There were just a few minutes left on our window so Rebecca, Tom, Freddie and I hurried and made it just in time.
This queue afforded us a better view of Tron….
I used the fandangled thing on my camera which allows me to point the viewfinder backwards to capture Freddie enjoying it for the second time.
At first, he maybe wasn’t too sure….
But he soon settled into it…
We met back up with Emily and Louise before riding Buzz. We were doing some serious crisscrossing of the park to get in as many rides as we could now. I inflicted a justified and crushing defeat on Emily, reclaiming my crown for at least one more year. We then made our way over to Liberty Square to take in the Muppets history show.
We paused at the castle to take some photos whilst it was relatively quiet there. Freddie’s nap did not stop me capturing him in this iconic location.
We spent a decent amount of time here, doing lots of last day photography.
We found a place on a nearby wall on which to sit as we watched.
We enjoyed the show and it’s a great addition to an area of the park most would just previously just walk through to get somewhere else.
We wandered a shop or two before heading back to the castle for the impending show. It’s difficult to reconcile what I will say next to the arctic sideways rain currently going on outside my UK window, but as we stood watching the show, I could feel the sweat, generated by the phenomenal heat, trickling down my back and other places. Nice.
With Emily in tears andFreddie now awake, new photographic opportunities opened up to us, and we tried to recreate the partners statue with mixed results….
The Dance Party parade came by just then so we watched that for a bit.
Freddie got to dance with Chip and/or Dale and this last hour or so just sort of fell into place as a lovely way to end our time at Magic Kingdom. It’s often the things that aren’t rides that stick in the memory the longest.
We made our way down Main Street through the shops. Freddie got a Mrs Potato Head to go with the male version he had back home and we ended up near the flag pole, deciding what to do for food. We had nothing booked and our later plans involved watching Reflections of Earth for the final time at Epcot. After a quick play with the dining options on the app and finding that to be unfruitful we decided to go off-site.
So this was it, our official MK goodbye.
So panic mode photos started….
It was as tough as it always is to leave this place and there were more Emily tears and longing looks over shoulders as we made our way to the monorail to get back to the car.
It took us just twenty minutes to drive to our restaurant of choice, Romano’s Macaroni Grill at Lake Buena Vista. This was a long-time favourite of our early trips but we had left it alone for a while as newer things had to be tried, but by jingo, we were glad we went back. This was one of the best meals of our trip and if you haven’t done it, give it a go. It was amazingly quiet and the service, probably due to that, was superb.
For a start, it begins with warm bread and dipping oil.
We gorged ourselves on appetisers of Goat’s Cheese Peppers and Mozzarella Sticks, which were all kinds of awesome.
Louise and I had Meatballs.
Emily had a Butternut Squash Pasta thing….
Tom had Mama’s Trio….
Rebecca had a strangely un-photographed Rack of Lamb.
Everybody raved about the quality here. Just superb.
There was cheesecake for Louise and Tom, Tiramisu for Rebecca and Sticky Toffee Pudding for me.
With three glasses of wine and various other drinks, plus a 20% tip it was $220.
Happy and full we made our way speedily to the Boardwalk. Here fine folks, is where I drop another of my “infamous” planning hacks. It can often be tricky to get parked at a resort if you aren’t staying there, and as we wanted to leave Epcot via International Gateway once the fireworks were done, finding a reason to park here was key.
Having realised that the Big River Grill place at the Boardwalk does not take ADRs, it was simple enough to drive up to the gate, flash some ID and say we were going for dinner there. We were waved through to park without question. Assuming that isn’t common knowledge, if anyone asks, I didn’t tell you.
We made our way up to the hotel entrance for our onward journey to Epcot.
With timing reminiscent of the D-Day landings we arrived at “our bridge spot” at 8.40 and took up our last ever viewing position for Reflections of Earth.
Now, I know we’ve all seen it, and indeed I have posted our video from our earlier viewing this trip, but it’s gone now, so have it again, this time with the added pathos of knowing you can never watch it live again.
There was genuine emotion, nostalgia and regret at it’s passing and it took a good amount of time pull ourselves together and move on, in every sense. You can even witness first hand my croaky cold filled timbre at the end of the video……I wasn’t well you know.
We stopped at the shop at International Gateway to get Emily an ROE T-shirt but they only had odd sizes left so we were denied, only to be rescued by the lovely Val Ramsay who got us one a few days later and posted it to Emily Thank You!
It was a long, leisurely walk back to the car via one of my favourite places on earth.
I’m pretty sure that this store was named after an actress known for her adult roles….
It was a subdued and uneventful drive home and once there, I checked us in for our flight home and then took my sad, tired (still ill) body to bed.
All that remains is our travel day and reflections of the trip and reflections of Reflections of Earth. Spookily the writing of this report will take me right up until Christmas as if this had all been planned. With the amount of planning cock-ups you’ve witnessed over these last weeks, you will know this was not the case, but I will revel in the neat, tied up with a bow satisfaction it brings me.
There was a hint of a lie in this morning. It was a leisurely 9.30am by the time everyone was vertical and as I am a rat race drone, conditioned by years of monotonous work-based drudgery and now incapable of sleeping beyond 8am, I spent that time doing fun things like putting the bins out and putting a wash on.
With our days remaining dwindling now our kitchen cupboards were looking a little empty but I managed to find Freddie some Cheerios and we watched some TV whilst he ate them.
All this dilly-dallying would normally have had me gnawing my limbs off, but with us being hard at it, pace-wise over the last few days and having had a late night last night I was super chilled daddio. No rush to be out this morning….honest.
Despite the later start nobody managed to feed themselves so we stopped at the local McDonalds for breakfast. I parked the van and as we all tumbled out of it we were being waved at frantically by what looked like some of The Village People from inside the restaurant. It was not a 1970’s themed promotion but instead, a sign that the one particular McDonalds franchise we had chosen, from the millions available, was closed for refurbishment.
Their exaggerated arm gestures did suggest that drive-through was still open so we all piled back into the van and made our way there. Six hungry people in a van, with a seemingly unintelligible northern England accent in a foreign country….what could possibly go wrong?
What fun I had shouting over my shoulder into the dark recesses of the van to gather information on food requirements to then shout it out of the window at a small intercom which responded with crackles and scratches. That only took ten times longer than I would have liked.
Naturally, we were asked to park up and wait for our food so we did. A few minutes later a brown bag was delivered to us and we very quickly discovered the shocking news that our order was wrong as we were missing Emily’s veggie option and Freddie’s drink. So round we went again to shout some more into the void of the intercom before being asked to park up again whilst they fixed their errors. Sigh. Fast food?
More minutes passed and another brown bag arrived. We soon discovered that Emily’s meat-free burger was actually the very meaty version. Emily point blank refused to go round again and said she’d get something in the parks, should we ever get there. Tom ate the meaty burger as an act of selfless sacrifice.
Finally, we were heading to Hollywood Studios and we parked in a very hot Mickey and trammed our way to the entrance.
Having spent a lot of time 30 days ago making FastPasses for this morning, upon realising that we weren’t doing mornings today, I had seamlessly shifted them all to the afternoon. You may find it as hard to believe as I did that we only entered the park at 12.20.
After a restroom stop for Freddie we quickly made our way to the 12.30 Frozen sing-a-long show. We had all enjoyed it enormously the other day and we were a little disappointed that the male storyteller wasn’t the same hilarious one we had previously. We enjoyed it still but didn’t laugh as much.
More restrooming before heading into Indiana Jones for the 1.15 show.
We were seated just as it started only then to find them having serious sound issues for a good while. Eventually, the show got started….
Freddie wasn’t too keen on some of the loud bangs we were very close to so I took him out, or at least up to the back of the theatre where he felt much more comfortable and we watched the rest of things from up there. We were the first out of the place as the show ended and the others were not too far behind.
This brought us to one of our FastPasses at Star Tours. Louise assumed Freddie duties whilst the rest of us rode. As we rejoined Louise, it was time for a Freddie nap so we decided to wander some shops to allow him to fall asleep in his stroller. He didn’t so instead we headed over to the Dance Party for which we had a 2.25 FastPass.
I know this may seem like a silly thing to say, but there were a LOT of kids here.
Rebecca and Tom sat on the floor with Freddie and we found some actual seats towards the back.
Dancing happened. See how Freddie has already perfected the “Brent”….
Two thoughts occurred to me.
Imagine being a cast member at this show and seeing that six times a day.
It was good but comes nowhere near the classic version we took the girls to all those years ago which included the legend that is Bear in the Big Blue House.
After experiencing all those kids in such a confined space, we needed sustenance. Emily and I had a cheesy pretzel, but I was confident CVS would have a cream for that. Louise, Emily and Rebecca had a Hollywood Lights cocktail from a cart next to the pretzel booth thingy. We all had a sit down for a bit whilst those things were consumed.
After that, we did some shop wandering on Sunset Boulevard, killing time until our Rock n Rollercoaster FastPass at 3.40.
Rebecca and Tom rode first and we discovered that somebody has built a whole new bit of the park here. Nobody told me….
It was too hot to do anything silly like walking around that new area so instead, we used a bench to people watch and rest.
It was soon our turn to ride. See how we naturally attached ourselves to the exit door to gain those vital few places in the queue……
After riding, we caught up with Rebecca, Tom and Freddie in the Pixar shop before then riding Tower of Terror via standby which was a very palatable few minutes. I did not ride, instead, I took Freddie on a full lap of the entire park as my way of saying goodbye to it for now. I know this may sound odd, but strange things happen towards the end of a WDW trip…for me anyway.
As I was trying to soak in as much of it as I could by not blinking unnecessarily, Freddie was enjoying the ride (I was walking at full man pace) waving at cast members. As we came to the end of the loop we stopped to do some hula hooping. Well Freddie did, I’m not sure they had my size.
We met up with everyone else at the top of Sunset before making the sad final journey to the exit and the official goodbye to the park for this year. Emily cried a little whilst I just buried the hurt and upset deep inside like you are supposed to.
We made our way back to the car….and notice how Louise blows tens of dollars on an official WDW spray fan thing when we have just two days to go…..
We were headed for City Walk for dinner tonight. We arrived at 5.57. I know that’s an exact time check. The reason I know that is parking becomes free after 6pm, so we pulled to the side just before the payment booths and waited for three minutes. I’m not proud of it, but at the same time, not ashamed either. It is what it is.
We parked, for free, in Cat In The Hat 360 and made the long journey on foot through security and to City Walk.
We went straight to Cowfish as we were hungry, of course. We were seated immediately.
I went all crazy and abandoned the diet coke and went for one of their delicious milkshakes.
There was wine and cocktails for the ladies and Tom joined me in the milkshake…..we didn’t share, he had his own.
Louise returned from a restroom visit with disturbing tales of shallow bowls and furious hand washing. Despite this, we ordered…..
Rebecca, Tom and I had the Cheeseburgerooshi. I know we’ve eaten some terrific stuff, but I have to say, and Tom agreed, that this was the tastiest thing of the entire trip.
Undeterred by shallow bowls, Louise had an upside-down Spicy Burger.
Emily had the Veggie burger option….
Freddie had the grilled cheese sandwich and loved it.
Tom managed a deconstructed chocolate cake and I had a coffee. The bill was $206 including an 18% tip. We loved it here.
We had a slow wander around City Walk. It was one of those lovely dusky, twinkly light times, made better by the glorious warmth. We soon came across the fountains and Freddie was straight in.
He loved playing here as much as we all enjoyed watching him. This was one of those unplanned, glorious memory moments and one I think we’ll all remember for a long time.
Being very wet, Freddie was then whisked off to the restroom to get changed into the spare set of clothes a very organised Rebecca and Tom had with them.
Whilst they did that the rest of us sat on some chairs next to the fountains, again soaking in the surroundings, weather and all-round gloriousness of where we were, banking it to somehow get us through the bleak cold winter to come.
With everyone back together we made our way over to Voodoo Doughnuts. We were not in any way hungry, but we’d vowed to try them and we wouldn’t be back here this trip, so sacrifices had to be made at the altar of gluttony.
Emily and I queued and chose a selection of six.
We sampled the wonders of the glorious pink box, which I’m sure is one of those films you can buy on your TV in hotel rooms, but most of the doughnuts came back to the villa with us to be eaten later.
We made the long journey back to the car and after those 10,000 steps we made our way home stopping at a gas station for fuel and some milk. We were home by 9 after a very lovely day.
I know all of you are hoping that I awoke this morning feeling much better, having fought off whatever super virus I had contracted. I didn’t. Never mind. As the very good song goes, we go on.
If this were a Hollywood movie, right about now, teams of men in hazmat suits would be rappelling down the outside of the villa before smashing through my bedroom window to escort me to some secret isolation facility for intrusive examinations. As it wasn’t, I swallowed a handful of pills, blew my schnoz (not a euphemism) and braced myself for the day ahead.
With a Dorian shaped hole meaning the plan made little sense this deep into the holiday, today we faced another sort of non-park day. Madness.
We did have stuff planned though, starting with a character breakfast at Chef Mickey’s and ending with MNSHHP. Last night I had told/pleaded with Louise that we needed to leave the villa by 9.40. That of course meant that I was pacing the lounge like some caged tiger listening to the never-ending sound of the hairdryer coming from upstairs at 9.55. Admittedly, it’s been some time since I used such a device, but it did seem more time than was necessary for Louise’s amount of hair.
This resulted in an aggressive drive to the Contemporary and a mild sulk from the handsome, yet slightly portly driver. We arrived at 10.30 which was far too close to the 10.40 ADR for my liking. Despite that I self-parked of course and we made our way in across the car park and into the hotel reception. This resort has never been high on my list of places I really wanted to stay. There’s nothing wrong with it of course, there are just other resorts I like more. That does not take away from the impressive size and styling in the foyer.
There was a disappointing queue to check in which was not appreciated by my rumbling tummy. It took about ten minutes to get checked in and seated in the waiting area.
Freddie took charge of the buzzer thing and we took a seat. Even at such a young age, see how he sports the “where’s my bloody breakfast” expression like a pro.
After about another ten minutes we were buzzed and seated, right at the back of the restaurant overlooking this glorious vista.
Our server was upon us immediately filling our cups and glasses with appropriate liquids and explaining how the buffet works. That was a bit like explaining snow to Eskimos and clearly, she had no idea who she was dealing with. Somebody had to volunteer to wait at the table with Freddie. I don’t know who did that, as I was away filling my plate.
The selection here is enormous and eventually, we had all visited and filled our plates.
Just so you know, that was Tom’s (first) plate. You know by now that I would never contemplate such gluttony.
Personal highlights that I need to share with you were the Tater Tots, Eggs Benedict, the cheesy potatoes and my final flourish at the waffle station. That got a bit silly if I’m honest as my creation contained chocolate chips, butterscotch chips (no, I didn’t know they existed either), caramel sauce, syrup and a sprinkling of M&Ms.
With perfect timing, just as I was getting to the stage of passing out whilst fighting the meat sweats, the characters started to arrive. First up the big man himself.
The interactions were very good. It helped that we were tucked away a little bit and we got a good amount of time with each.
As you can see Freddie was getting more confident with the characters now and really enjoying meeting them.
We left at 12, and headed back to the villa for some of that resting stuff.
Having put a brave face on things over breakfast I crashed into illness and self-pity again whilst everyone else spent time in the pool. My plan stated we should be leaving the villa at around 4pm to get to Magic Kingdom for our Mickey’s Not So Scary party. As a sign of how ill I was, I didn’t pester anyone to get ready and just left things to nature so we ended up leaving at 5.45 instead, showing no regard for the FastPasses I had booked a month earlier for that 4pm slot.
Another doozy of a headache, no doubt brought on by the reservoirs of snot up my hooter was plaguing me again. I parked us up and we trammed into the park.
Freddie was the only one in our party to make the effort and wear a costume, although his Mum & Dad followed the theme.
Upon entering the park we got wristbanded for the event and made our way through the designated party area to get our candy bags and our first handful of sweets. I’d eaten those by the time we made our way around to Casey’s for some tea.
I didn’t document it but I have a vague memory of exchanging a less than loving exchange with Louise in the queue. I blame the illness and the fact that Louise was probably in the wrong.
It was busy, but we eventually got our selection of hot dogs and corn dog bites and amazingly found a table to sit at whilst being attacked by the killer ducks in that area. We ate our food admiring many of the excellent costumes so many guests had gone to the effort of making.
We made our way through Adventureland, bypassing Pirates which we had intended to ride as it had a 25-minute wait. Instead, we walked round to Splash which was a walk on.
Riding things you have done hundreds of times is always nicely enhanced in the twilight/darkness of night. As we made our way around Splash it went from twilight to full-on dark and it was lovely.
On that note, as we left the ride, the Haunted Mansion looked incredible. My photos don’t do it justice, but it’s all I have.
We entered the queue, with this being Freddie’s first time. As ever, any concerns we had about how he would react were unfounded.
Even the noise and pitch black of the stretching room did not phase him and he spent the entire ride dancing in his Doom Buggy. I had a buggy all to myself and I may, just may, have closed my eyes for a few seconds. Again, I was ill you know.
We watched the performers on the lawn for a few minutes and then made our way through Fantasyland, collecting more candy.
Having got nowhere near riding Mine Train with a FastPass at any other time during our trip, we headed there next. Louise opted to take Freddie for a wander whilst the rest of us waited the 20 minutes or so to board.
This is a belting ride. For the amount of space this takes up, it is definitely a bang for your buck. We only seem to ride this one in the dark too, which I’m sure enhances our experience. I did feel sorry for the lady in the same carriage as Tom, who was doing his level best to rock the thing until it tipped over.
The only downside to this ride tonight was, having invested all of $5 earlier on a hand sanitiser and clipped it to Ryan, I lost it, wrestling him out of the snug space by my feet on this ride. The sanitizer was a vain attempt to infect as few people as possible and of course, protect myself from further misery. There was no way I was wasting another $5. I had a budget to stick to.
We carried on down to the teacups ride, bought Freddie a light-up pumpkin necklace thing to add to his collection before he rode with Rebecca and Tom. I don’t have many rules on these trips, but me not riding the teacups is one of them. This all stems from a post-breakfast buffet ride in the early naughties that still gives me cold sweats to this day.
After riding Freddie was restroomed and changed and we waited near Dumbo. As they returned there were many smiles as they had managed to get Freddie onto Barnstormer. They just tried him against the measuring stick as they passed the entrance, got the green light and on they went. His first coaster and again he loved every second.
I got us all a drink and we walked to Main Street to watch the fireworks which were starting shortly. It was busy but we managed to find a decent spot without too much trouble, which I guess is one of the benefits of going to one of these limited numbers ticketed events.
I have, as ever, saved you from the 257 other photos I tried which were blurred, dark or downright crap!
When the fireworks ended, much of the gathered crowd moved away and we were able to make our way forward to the same corner we occupied last year to watch the upcoming show. Again, it was excellent.
The Sanderson sisters really are a highlight and if you can get to see them you really should,
By this time, Freddie was way past his bedtime so Rebecca, Tom and a very tired Louise headed for the car. Emily and I had important unfinished business so we stayed a little longer. Sure, there was a parade to watch but more importantly, Emily had her heart set on one of the Amuck cupcakes.
Believe it or not, I wasn’t that hungry (I wasn’t feeling well you know), so I had just had a blueberry muffin when we had waited the Starbucks queue out to get them. As we did, the headless horseman rode past the shop so we knew the parade would not be far behind.
My muffin was excellent. It was moist and warm and lasted about seven seconds. A tale as old as time.
We made our way down to a spot we often use for the watching of parades, the steps of City Hall. We didn’t have long to wait at all.
I know the photo above is mainly of the chaps with the spades, but, my word, can we just address the elephant in the theme park. Those are some serious leggings. Amirite?
This parade cast member clearly spotted them too.
We could see the end of the parade coming around the hub and we decided to make a run for it, conscious that we had folks waiting in the car and it would be better to avoid the main rush of folks leaving the park.
We went home via a 7-11 for essentials like cold sore cream and Tylenol, only one of which was for me. A cold sore was probably the one affliction I wasn’t currently stricken with.
I was in bed by 12.45 and asleep before 12.46.
By the way, you may have missed the rare unicorn that is a mid-week blog post from me? If you did, and you want to hear about our next trip’s birth, then you can do so here….
What’s this nonsense? A mid-week Mkingdon blog? As if it isn’t enough effort to write one of these a week, never mind the effort of actually reading more than one.
When I’m mid-trip report, as I am currently, you lovely readers miss out on the weekly cut and thrust of my exciting life. It’s like if Keeping Up With The Kardashians were cancelled, put in a skip and set on fire, twice, and then blown up for good measure I imagine, and I do like to imagine that.
Anyway, whilst you have all been enjoying enduring the weekly updates from a holiday that happened a long time ago now, I have been busy. For the first time ever, and I recognise that this might be hard to appreciate or believe, upon landing in Manchester at the end of a trip, I knew for sure that we would be returning the following year. This is because I will be celebrating a significant birthday. That gets me a free pass with Louise, as you know she has often put her foot down and stopped us from going back to Florida year after year….
So, like a multi-masking maestro, I have been writing about the last trip and simultaneously planning the next. I’ve managed to fit a bit of work in here and there too.
It hasn’t been easy. Firstly, Louise is back at University on a short and very intense course to become a midwife. As such her holidays were fixed and as they stood, meant that she would need to be in the UK on my actual birthday, which would have been a shame for her. Anyway, many weeks of negotiations, pleading and crossing of fingers saw them agree to her taking a holiday outside of the set dates….twice.
That “twice” was important as the first set of dates saw prices of flights that seemed to be inclusive of owning a good chunk of the plane and not just travelling on it. Many weeks of checking prices for mid-August passed with no success and hope was fading that we’d be able to go at all without a seven leg journey via New Zealand.
Having somehow got those later dates agreed, it made all the difference and yes, I am delighted to announce that we are now booked to return to Florida in 2020 for a special birthday trip.
We leave on the 26th of August and I seem to have done very well with the flights, more through luck than judgement I would admit.
Prices north of £1000 each for our original dates were laughed off for a long time, and only very recently using the new dates, I struck lucky. With the demise of Thomas Cook, it left us only one direct operator from Manchester so we had three choices –
Virgin
Aer Lingus, indirect via Dublin
Stay at home
Thankfully, option 1 came through for us, and with paying a little extra for bubble seats on the way out and Premium on the way back we secured flights within the budget. Having been contacted by a reader after posting on Instagram about this booking, it seems we have been very fortunate indeed. They (Hi Julie, I hope you get your flights sorted) were telling me that even in late September they were seeing prices over £800 for standard economy, which is just crazy. I’m taking it as a sign that this trip was meant to be, or the Virgin web site was broken. The latter may be true, as, for reasons I could not fathom, on our return leg, the Premium option was actually cheaper than economy. I booked it very quickly!
It was nice to have that in the bag and have the main task done. Or so I thought. This just moved me on to phase 2, accommodation. The easy element of that was booking our time at Universal. Hard Rock was always the intention and it was just a matter of finding the best deal. I was just about to book with someone else when I stumbled across Travel Republic who were offering just a £30 deposit to secure the two rooms we needed, with the balance paid just before we go. Thank you kindly very much and that was done. Two rooms for two nights in early September.
This was all going so well. Onto the villa. We had a fairly testing set of requirements, so it maybe should not have shocked me that it was so much effort to find “the one”. They were –
At least 2 masters with en-suite and another Queen/Double if possible.
You would not believe how hard this was to find. There’s a whole other blog post in my mind for villa owners, about how to make it more likely to get booked. Some do make it really hard!
Location – Ideally around Formosa/Emerald Island/Sunset Lakes.
As with when buying a house, location x 3 matters. When visiting WDW, it just makes life easier and gives the flexibility to be able to “pop back” to the villa if needed. There’s nothing worse than a 40 minute trip to and from the parks.
Prettiness – Being a special trip, I wanted something that reflected the gravity/success of getting there, so I was looking for something eye-catching, nicely decorated and with a bit of a wow factor.
I have spent more time than I would like to admit looking at villas since securing our flights. I have endlessly wavered between villas that were very close to the parks, but are now a little dated (or the websites are and have photos from 2006!) and those villas only just built, but are so far down the US27 that they are equidistant between WDW and Miami.
To draw a veil over a long, long…..long process, finally, I bit the bullet and, paying a little more than I may have wished, but bugger it, this is a special trip, booked this one. You can click the image to view it…..
It’s on a new development at the end of Funie Steed Road. That is the road which runs parallel to the 192 past all the developments I mentioned above. So it is a good mix of everything we were looking for. Namely, shiny, new and yet still in that sweet spot of being close to WDW.
I feel I have short-changed you, by skipping the detail of the endless painful hours which brought me to that villa. Especially, after all that work and research, I eventually found it by going back in our family WhatsApp group and looking at some villa links I posted months ago that had caught my eye. Sigh. It was the second one I ever saw way back then.
I still have to book us a car, but that is easy, right? The first draft of our 16 (glorious) days is now crafted and of course, pretty much every meal spoken for. I won’t steal my own thunder and reveal any more as I will need something to write about when this current trip report comes to an end, and I can only moan about my commute for so many weeks!
So, yay and hoorah, we have a countdown and it feels good. Now, let’s all commit to finishing this current trip report strong and then we can gird our collective loins for the next one.
Having survived the night, I woke to be almost pleased that today would be a sort of rest day. It involved no theme parks anyway, which would probably be for the best as I had no doubt already infected half of North America, like some sort of mid 70’s Elton John.
A few months ago, based on Freddie’s absolute obsession with The Minions, I had booked a character breakfast with them, as recompense for not doing Universal this year. To be fair, I don’t think he knew that was the case, but the grandparent guilt is strong even when there is no reason for it. Today was that day and after resting in my pit until 9am, we were all up, ready and out by 10am. In the plan, I had given us an hour to get to Universal, but thankfully in half that time, we were self-parking and making our way into the Royal Pacific.
We know this hotel fairly well having stayed here a couple of times but it still took a long walk, a compass and a generous helping of the force to find the location of this breakfast.
It was waaaaayyyy down there, right out at the back of the hotel.
We were still early and after checking in we waited about ten minutes for anything to happen. Judging by Freddie’s reaction here, this booking had been a wise choice.
After those ten minutes, Gru and a Minion (I’m not sure which) appeared for some meet and greet action. Freddie, having been all-in on the cardboard versions wasn’t immediately that confident with the lifesize equivalents.
To their credit, the characters were very patient and won him over eventually.
With our photos done we were then shown into the “dining room”. This is where it started to get a bit odd.
The breakfast was in one of the conference/meeting rooms which had been filled with a few large round tables and some more cardboard versions of the characters. Despite the event being about half full, they were still having parties share tables and we really hit the motherload.
We were joined by a family of three, Mum, Dad and what we assumed was their son. Nothing too odd there. However, the son was in his late twenties, maybe early thirties and had a definite, Alan from the Hangover vibe.
Despite being British, we attempted a hearty good morning and got nothing back. We were served juice and coffee and unleashed on the buffet, but “Alan”, in an unnecessarily rude manner, refused everything. No drinks, no food, no manners. He just sat at the table looking around with a permanent scowl on his face. His Mum and Dad tucked in, but still, not a word from them. We carried on regardless.
Freddie was especially taken with “the gurls”.
The food was fine, if nothing too special. The whole event felt weird though. The choice of room lacked any sort of atmosphere and it felt like we were just sat in a random, bland conference room eating breakfast….because we were.
Still, this is what we came for….
Freddie had ample time with all of the characters and I had three trips to the buffet. Everyone’s a winner.
Our table sharing friends took about two photos with the characters, with the son not taking part in that either, and then immediately left. Honestly, they were just weird. Not like us perfectly normal folks!
After about an hour we were done eating and meeting and we made our exit. As we were three days from going home, Louise, of course, decided she needed some new “more comfortable” footwear, so we popped into the onsite boutique to purchase probably the most expensive pair of flip flops in the northern hemisphere. It’s fine.
We strolled back to the car and made our way back to the villa for some serious resting. I rested so much that there isn’t one photograph of the entire afternoon. That camera stuff can really take it out of you. I didn’t swim due to me still not being any better. Instead, I sat inside unwisely eating all of a family size bag of Cheetos and watching endless re-runs of Two and a Half Men, pre-Kutcher of course.
Everyone else was in and around the pool, blissfully unaware of my fight for survival. and orange fingers.
At some point folks got ready and at 6.30 we left the villa again, heading up the I4 again towards Universal for our trip to Teak Neighbourhood Grill. We hadn’t booked, or let them know we were coming. We did that once and we got such a fantastic welcome and red carpet treatment that we felt a bit guilty and awkward with all the attention, so we wouldn’t be doing that again! On the drive, I slumped to new lows of illness. I had a headache the likes of which would have made a lesser man moan about being ill all the time. I was really struggling.
You can almost see my headache here….
Ah yes, Freddie had the camera again.
If anyone would like to see the 47 other photos like those, just let me know.
After a forty-minute drive, we arrived and only had a five-minute wait for a suitable table inside. As we were seated, I took some more pills and went to the restroom and expelled vast amounts of fluid from my nasal area. Seriously, it took about five minutes, three toilet rolls and a couple of flushes. As soon as that was done my headache lifted and I cannot express the feeling of relief and euphoria involved. I floated back to the table full of joy and empty of snot, ready to order.
We skipped appetisers, planning to focus on the wonders of the entree menu and for me, it was an easy decision, despite the vast amount of choice.
The Cronie burger was, once again, magnificent.
Louise had the French Dip.
Rebecca had a Green Salad.
Emily had the Trooper Burger, with the meat substituted for an Impossible Burger.
Tom also had a burger. Its name had Pig in it, I think…..don’t hassle me, I was ill.
The food was delicious and it made us happy.
Cocktails were involved, Emily had a blueberry beer she had been craving since our last visit and Tom, Rebecca and Freddie shared a Brownie dessert.
Yes, they did finish it.
The service tonight wasn’t the best we’d ever had here, but the food made up for it. With tight pants, we loaded our full bodies back into the car and drove directly home as fast as was legally allowed. It was straight to bed for me, again praying that I might make it through the night.
If you think Boris Johnson is saying “Get Brexit Done” a lot, just see how often I manage to let you know that I was not feeling 100% again today. In fact, I’d rate myself at about a faltering 35%, but nothing short of limb loss would keep me away from a theme park today.
I was awake at 6am, expelling liquids from all sorts of holes and eating my bagel in front of the TV. It was a mere three and a half hours later that everyone was ready and I reversed the van off the drive. By this time I was almost ready for my second set of tablets of the day.
The plan, which I had painstakingly crafted over many months was, at this stage, at the risk of another Boris Johnson analogy, a right bloody mess. We would be starting the day by heading for Epcot. Just to reaffirm that….
By the beard of Zeus it was hot today. We like it hot, but not that hot…….
Our first FastPass was a poorly planned Frozen Ever After. Poor, as it meant we had to yomp all the way up there from the entrance in the incredible heat. Freddie somehow managed to jettison his sun hat from his pram somewhere along the way without anyone noticing so that had to be replaced.
Having made the physical sacrifice of burning about three and a half thousand calories getting there for our FastPass, the standby line was ten minutes. Smashing. Still, we saved about eight of those minutes by still using our FastPass. It was for the best as it gave all those young, blonde cast members less time to ogle me in the queue.
Freddie very much approved of this ride and we took him into the shop afterwards to meet the troll for the first time. I was a little sad that he would never know the true joy of what preceded it and running through the film theatre at the end of the old Norway ride so you wouldn’t have to watch it.
I could easily have filled that nose with the fluids I was carrying in mine!
Even though I had a bagel about six hours ago, I felt breakfast was deserved, and in my haste to get food down my neck, I led us into the bakery in Norway. I have to say, I did expect a slightly better array of breakfast finery, but we made do with cakes.
I had something called school bread. I learned that it was pretty good and absolutely nothing like bread.
Louise had a chocolate chip cookie the size of a small planet. Freddie may have helped.
Rebecca and Tom shared an un-photographed Parfait and Tom had some fruit. I think his body was making a cry for help. Emily, not being a breakfast person, declined to participate and just had water.
We sat and ate for a bit whilst Freddie did some people watching.
We then moved off around World Showcase, stopping in most of the countries and alas shops.
A glance at the app revealed that we were about fifteen minutes from a Voices of Liberty show so we made our way into the American Pavilion and I sought out a restroom to empty my nose of about three pints of snot.
Freddie explored for a bit and I took him into the native American exhibit, but I doubt he retained a great deal of the information to be honest.
We took our places as the singers emerged.
If these very talented folks ever sing O Canada, I may never recover. I suspect that’s unlikely unless the US invades Canada at some point, but these days you never know.
Onto Japan now to admire some huge bongos….
I told you it was hot. Even the air conditioning couldn’t save this toy.
Many of us were hungry now, with Tom’s body violently protesting about the fruit it had been subjected to earlier and despite our very fine intentions to sample a load of food from the food and wine booths, nothing stuck out as being worth queuing for and/or something Freddie would appreciate, so we kept on walking. When we got to the UK, I went to the fish and chip shop to get some waters. Even in my home pavilion, things get lost in translation. I wanted to buy some bottled water but ended up with a tray of six cups of tap water, which were both very tricky to transport back to everyone else and tasted a bit weird.
With the heat as it was, my incompetence was barely tolerated.
To redeem myself, I decided to bite the bullet and see if the Rose and Crown could accommodate us. Whilst I enquired, Emily spotted that one of the cast members at the podium was a chap from our home town who used to work at her school. As someone once said, it is a small world.
We were seated immediately and could even choose whether we sat inside or out. It was perhaps not the wisest decision to sit outside, underestimating the heat, but it wouldn’t be the first or last crap decision I would make this trip. It was made mainly as Freddie was now very asleep and it would be easier to park his pram next to us outside.
Tom and Rebecca had Bangers & Mash. Oops, I blame the heat for my tardy photography.
Emily had the vegan Bangers & Mash….
Louise and I, having eaten the most sugar in Norway, were not starving so we just had the cheese and biscuits.
Freddie kipped throughout.
$130 lighter, we continued our journey around the world and in Canada, I got myself a new cap as I had stupidly forgotten mine and my thick head of hair was just so sweaty! Rebecca needed some new sunglasses having forgotten hers because she only had three and a half hours to get ready this morning, so they were acquired too. Did I mention the heat? Luckily, I wasn’t struggling with a temperature and life-threatening cold during this very severe heat.
With our FastPass for Test Track now almost due we made our way down in that direction. Another long sweaty walk followed and after setting up baby swap, Rebecca and Tom sat out first with the still sleeping Freddie whilst the rest of us rode.
Having left Emily to most of the design work, resisting the urge to take over, our car and performance lacked a little but it did not detract from the ride. We took over Freddie duties whilst Rebecca and Tom rode and a now wide awake Freddie loved sitting in all the cars.
Having been in every car at least twice, we made our way out and not long after Rebecca and Tom returned. I made myself useful by going to get everyone a drink, oh and I may have acquired a couple of those Joffrey’s doughnuts again. They are superb.
We spent a bit of time in Mousegear, mostly to cool off, but Emily also got herself a hoody….one of these…
Having somehow managed to pay for my 24-year-old, fully employed daughter’s hoody, it was now time to leave Epcot and head over to Animal Kingdom. Even writing that now feels weird and not something I might plan, but Dorian had ridden the proverbial coach and horses through the laminate and all bets were off. We had an ADR to honour and by jingo, we were going to.
It was a brief ten-minute drive and we left the van in Peacock. Louise refused to move just yet, a sign of the incredible heat today. She just needed a moment more in the air con, so we left her to it and walked in across the car park to the entrance. Having done that, Rebecca almost passed out, so seeing that as a subtle sign, we spent some time in and around the cool of the restrooms, perhaps recognising that the pace today had been a little more demanding than the weather might permit.
Having cooled off a lot we continued our journey up to the safari. It was a walk-on, and probably because the animals have more sense than us, there were not so many on view. They were probably backstage in the air con.
Oh look, more giraffes…
I like how I captured this bloke’s ear in lovely soft focus though….
And here, unlike other less skilled photographers, I cleverly managed to focus on the pole on the truck and not the animals.
Next in this master class of photographic technique, I capture some trees….
As tradition dictates, it is now time for my Rhino joke…..
Our guide confirmed that the one out front was called Neal…with this joke included in every report, you can complete the punchline yourself.
We slowly made our way over to Yak and Yeti for our ADR.
Louise met us there having been tempted out from the cool car by the prospect of eating at one of her favourite eateries and as we were early and too hot to move, we asked if we could bring our reservation forward. We could and we did.
As is the case in quite a few restaurants now, we were shown to our regular table! In the spirit of fighting the heat, we got Freddie a slush thing and I think he enjoyed it.
We always love our meals here and today was no different. I even had a beer. Crazy I know!
We ordered –
Me – Beef Tacos, which were tremendous.
Emily – Tofu Sweet and Sour
Louise, the same but with chicken
Tom had Korean Beef, quite what they had done to upset him I don’t know… (ba dum tish)
Rebecca had Honey Chicken
With Egg Rolls and Pot Sticker appetisers, we were nicely full, but that didn’t stop us ordering a cheesecake and a number of forks and we all had a bit. At times I am very grateful for my extra dessert stomach.
The bill was a testing $250, but this is one of our favourite places and one we always love.
With that done, so were we. The heat had done us for today and we wandered out to the exit to say the first of our goodbyes for this trip. This would be our last Animal Kingdom visit this trip. We seem to have spent a lot of time here this time and that’s a good thing.
On the way home, we, of course, called in at the local CVS and spent $70 on drugs. They were legal and much needed for my quickly deteriorating state. Did I mention I wasn’t well?
I started today close to death. The onset of my cold last night had incubated nicely during the night into what I assumed was the onset of the Zombie apocalypse, as clearly no human could feel this rough and live to see next week. As I was due back at work at that time, I figured this wasn’t a bad way to go and resolved to make the best I could of my remaining time. If the cold was going to get me I figured I may as well eat myself to death and go out in style.
Luckily, today had become a non-park day. What should have been happening on day two, didn’t as we moved a theme park up due to Dorian, and so here we are on day nine, doing day two of the plan. I’m glad that’s clear.
Typhoon Lagoon was the plan and it opened at 10am, so leaving at 9.40 was just late enough to have me silently tutting that we probably would arrive a few minutes after opening, seeing every sliver of shade already taken and us crisping nicely in the scorching sun for eight hours.
Upon arrival, the car park was empty, or at least close to it and me and my budgie smugglers made our way into the park ignoring my chaffing flabby white thighs as they attempted to start a fire between my legs. Not for the first time baby!
It did take us a good few minutes of wandering to find somewhere that would allow Louise unfettered access to eight hours of blistering direct sunlight and the rest of us some cooling shade. All of the umbrella spots had gone to the people who hadn’t left their villas too late so we had to try and find a spot covered with some natural shade. As we began to set up camp, Tom, Rebecca and Freddie were already off into the water.
I sat, making good use of the toilet roll I had brought from the villa, depositing it once used into the supermarket plastic bag I had brought for that very purpose. I mean, who wants to be walking all the way to the restrooms! Fear not, I was depositing nasal secretions rather than anal, which is a sentence I didn’t imagine using in this, or any report.
I read for a while between sniffs and blows and after some time doing that I wandered off to get some bottles of water for everyone. See how everyone rallies round when I’m ill so I don’t need to do anything? No, me neither.
Eventually, the heat got the better of me and it was time to go and infect the wave pool with my germs. With every battering from the waves, I was no doubt launching ever so tiny molecules of germ-ridden snot in all directions. Caring is sharing. Hopefully, the coughing woman from the plane was in there and she caught it again.
Soon, that was very much enough of that and I had to retire back to my sun lounger, resting there like some oversized snot dispenser. Louise and Emily left me to it and went to do the lazy river.
By the time they returned it was 12.30 and I was so hungry I was about to call Bob Geldof to launch an appeal. Louise, Emily and I went off first for lunch leaving the rest to guard our possessions. My large plastic bag of snot ridden toilet roll was clearly going to be catnip for any potential thief.
Louise bagged a table and far too many condiments and napkins whilst Emily and I ordered. We had…..
Me – Chicken Burger
Emily – The Impossible Burger
Louise – A “Chicken and Rice Thing”.
Emily’s was pretty good but other than that the food was at best average. We returned to camp and released Tom, Rebecca and Freddie for their eats.
The rest of the afternoon was spent resting, for me anyway. Tom wasn’t seen again until closing, as he spent every moment sliding down stuff. Imagine our surprise at the end of the day when he returned looking like a very red thing.
Late in the afternoon, I took Freddie into the wave pool for a bit, obviously away from the major action.
We had a lovely time and he wasn’t keen on leaving at all, but we did around 4.30, having avoided a rainstorm at Typhoon Lagoon, which is incredibly unusual for us. I loved that time with him playing in the shallow end. I’ve banked that as a another one of those times to remember.
We made our sandy footed, damp bottomed way out of the park and back to the car which had attained the temperature of the sun whilst we had been away. That was handy as it would need to dry out my seat after I had made it all wet. Incontinence is a curse of the middle-aged.
We were soon back at the villa for welcome showers and changing. Our plan was to head over to Magic Kingdom tonight to watch Happily Ever After. Like some overconfident, detail averse idiot, I assumed that tonight’s fireworks would be at 10pm, so I had booked the Plaza restaurant for an 8.15 ADR. See how I subtly hint at some upcoming planning woe?
We parked in Scar, drinking in another spectacular Floridian dusk.
There are few places on earth that make me happier than a tram heading into Magic Kingdom. Freddie seemed to concur. We were again dumped and forced to walk to the TTC.
I apologise but there’s something about a WDW sunset that means I get a form of photographic Tourette’s and can’t stop myself.
It was right about now that I actually looked at the app to discover the time of Happily Ever After tonight and realised that I had once again dropped a huge ricket, as tonight for reasons that were never clear to me, it would be on at 9.15.
Still, the view was nice.
Fearing now that we wouldn’t be done eating by 9.15 I was very annoyed with myself. I haven’t been keeping count of all the absolute howlers I have committed this trip, but it’s a lot. Clearly, I need many more trips so that I can improve my planning skills. I put this one down to illness, which I’m not sure I have yet mentioned.
With the new time table in mind, I upped the pace a little as we entered the park trying to get us to the Plaza those crucial few minutes early.
I hoped that we may be seated immediately, as we arrived at around 7.55 but alas no, we waited until just after 8.15 before getting shown to our table.
Freddie had been in charge of the buzzer and was convinced it was actually a phone. I have no idea who he thought he was chatting to.
Here, you can see Tom and his radioactive complexion. He’s doing well to hide the incredible pain caused by his T-shirt touching his skin.
I look like someone who has been expelling snot from most orifices for several hours. See how I manfully suck it up, flash a winning smile and don’t mention that I’m ill at all.
Service was a little slow, or maybe that was just my perception. We ordered as today’s water park exertions started to hit Freddie like a ton of bricks. He hits the same brick wall that Rebecca used to all those years ago. As soon as the incoming food would hit his stomach we all knew it would be game over. To be honest the same would still be true for Rebecca!
Rebecca and Tom had one of the Plaza’s special milkshakes each.
Upon its arrival, Freddie suddenly perked up a little!
Louise and I had the steak….
Emily, the Fried Tomato Sandwich,
Tom and Rebecca, a Turkey Sandwich
and Freddie the PB & J
The bad news was that, as feared, we missed the first few minutes of the fireworks and I had another enormous man baby sulk.
The slightly better news was that we had a window seat and had a decent view of the stuff we were missing.
I hastily paid the bill and we made our way outside to watch the rest.
At this point, as predicted, everything had caught up with Freddie and he immediately fell asleep in his pram. Rebecca and Tom decided to set off for the car with him before the crowds all did the same. The rest of us stayed to watch the end of the fireworks and whilst doing so got a message from Rebecca telling us that the monorail was down and the exit was like a scene from a disaster movie where thousands of people try to get on a ferry boat. We immediately left, just ahead of most of the crowds but still got caught in the carnage.
The ferry still seemed like the best option and we waited fifteen minutes to board one. It was packed and not one of the more enjoyable journeys on it, but it got us where we wanted to be.
We walked to the tram pick up and were soon back at the car where Tom, Rebecca and a very much asleep Freddie were waiting. I drove us home still feeling more ill than anybody ever in the history of the world, but I don’t like to talk about it.
With a full day’s park touring ahead of us, now that Dorian was behind, or technically North East of us, it was handy to be awake nice and early. Alas, that did not result in us being out of the villa similarly early.
By the time everyone had done whatever everyone needed to do it was 9.30am and let’s face it, the day was ruined already. Right?
All those days ago when I booked our FastPasses for today, some sixth sense, or maybe years of experience told me not to book our first FastPass until 10.35, so our late start was not as dramatic a disaster as my protruding bottom lip might have had you believe.
Signalling another quiet day, despite our tardy arrival, we parked too close to the entrance to warrant a tram and we breezed through security without significant sack intrusion and we were into Hollywood Studios.
On the whole subject of favourite parks, I can never give a sensible answer when asked. In fact, it seems that whenever I enter any park it assumes the position of my favourite until I go to the next one. The warm virtual hug each park gives me as I enter is one of the best things about this place.
We were making our way to Toy Story Land and as you can see, the emptiness we were seeing was pleasing and encouraging.
As many now inconveniently restroomed, we observed a squirrel showing un-nerving familiarity with people for a while.
Our first FastPass was for Alien Swirling Saucers. It was upsetting to see it only had a ten-minute standby queue.
To avoid the discomfort only experienced by sardines in a can, I rode separately so that Louise and Emily could ride together. I spent the ride taking Grandad photos of Freddie and attempting the grandparent wave at high speed.
As we disembarked, Toy Story Mania was showing a meagre ten-minute standby time so we headed there. Just as we reached the ride entrance it changed to twenty-five. We joined anyway and ended up waiting for fifteen. A decent compromise.
I rode with and resoundingly thrashed Emily. I don’t always report the results of these types of rides, but when I win, it seems right and proper to do so.
As we queued, we had discussed, agreed and booked our dining plans for the day, securing Sci-Fi Diner for later. I could sense a milkshake in Tom’s immediate future. Not knowing how Dorian would play out we had left things a little free and loose, but enough about my extra large eating shorts.
Speaking of food, now it was time to tick off our list one of the snacks we had ear-marked as essential in our planning stages. A Num Num Cookie!
I secured a number of them, along with some coffees of varying hotness and coldness from Joffrees and we snacked, well. By jingo these things are superb. Soft, warm, moist….all the good words apply here.
As we scoffed, we spotted a show of some sort starting up right at the bottom of Pixar Courtyard so we wandered down that way. It was an Incredibles dance and play type affair and Freddie was up for it.
Like his Grandad before him, women naturally gravitated to him, and he spent the latter part of the show limboing with Mrs Incredible.
This was one of those unplanned, stumbled across moments that will live long in the memory. You can’t beat them.
Having wooed Elastigirl, we moved on to Ariel, as we had a (redundant) FastPass for the 12.05 show. We had to kill ten minutes in the Launch Bay before being allowed to enter.
Freddie met Darth Vader. You’ll have to trust me as it was un-photographed.
We used the FastPass entrance at Ariel with no requirement to do so and settled in for the show.
Freddie is asking his Mum why Ariel is staring at Grandad.
Freddie loved the water spray, bubbles and the laser effects and sat through the whole show enjoying what was a very good Ariel.
Outside, in the courtyard, Freddie did some character meeting…..
We did have a FastPass for the Disney Junior Dance Party show, but as that again wouldn’t be required on such a quiet day, we decided to not do that and instead we headed for Tower of Terror which was just showing a ten-minute wait. Louise was on Freddie duty, otherwise known as sunbathing and the rest of us enjoyed the ride.
We were all kinds of ready for lunch so we decided on the first place we came to after riding.
Louise and I shared a Chilli Cheese Dog
Emily had the Fried Tomato Sandwich
Tom had a foot long, but that’s frankly none of my business.
Rebecca and Freddie shared some Nuggets
We finished eating with perfect timing to walk over the road for the 2pm Beauty & The Beast.
I can’t be the only one to wish for the return of Four For A Dollar?
An enjoyable show as ever, with Freddie’s attention being kept throughout. I agreed to enter some shops after this solely because my love handles were melting.
Louise looked at and even tried on some retro style dresses in the now ever so posh shop, but decided against buying one. I had no opinion on this….
I chose two T-shirts as part of my birthday present package and we admired some lovely Up! art work.
See, very free and loose….
Rebecca and Tom got themselves a couple of Up! T-shirts for their MHSSHP outfits and then we ended this shopping nonsense and set off to explore Galaxy’s Edge a little more. On the way, we phoned home and spoke to Louise’s Mum, discussing time differences, the weather and Los Cadbury’s Fingres.
Freddie nodded off in his stroller during the walk so we just had a general wander, who is a lesser-known character in the Star Wars films. We started in the driod shop where we would absolutely not be paying $200 for one. Many others seemed to have no such objections.
We wandered some more…
Having taken more photos than one of those speed cameras in motorway roadworks, we left Star Wars behind, heading for another product of the Seventies, The Muppets.
This might just be me, but the layout here is a bit odd. You have Galaxy’s Edge, separated from Star Tours by The Muppets, the courtyard and the pizza place. I am surprised that they didn’t extend Galaxy’s Edge out to Star Tours, relocating the Muppets elsewhere. It just feels like a weird break in theming to have that in between the two Star Wars things.
We arrived halfway through the pre-show, but it seemed to me that the film shown in the waiting area has changed. This is not acceptable as I was not consulted. The show remains untouched and despite the challenges of the 3D glasses Freddie managed to sit through the whole thing. He was particularly fond of Sweetums and the bubbles which appeared at some point.
We wandered the adjoining shop for a bit before making our way to Star Tours.
Louise, Emily and I rode first. It was a walk-on so we didn’t have to wait too long for Rebecca and Tom to do the same. As they rode we watched some Jedi training and then went to check-in at Sci-Fi Diner and they joined us once they were done.
Darth Vader there, with a similar “red pencil” that Oli, our Old English Sheepdog, has from time to time.
Freddie was very taken with this car and spent quite some time posing in it and playing with the other kids doing the same.
After a fifteen-minute wait we were seated and despite the gloomy conditions, managed to order.
Rebecca and I had the BBQ Burger
I gave up with the photos after that one due to the absolute lack of any light.
Emily had the Falafel Burger, Louise and Tom the Cheese Steak and Freddie the child’s burger. Milkshakes all round, which were superb and we all loved this meal and experience. I failed to write down how much it came to, but I didn’t care. I was full of milk shake and happiness.
We had half an hour to kill until the next showing of the Frozen sing-along, so despite our bulging bellies, Tom and Emily joined me in a speed walk to Tower of Terror which had no wait time. I’m not over exaggerating when I say that we queued for less time than it takes me to start peeing.
We avoided throwing up and left the ride into the lovely dusky atmosphere of Hollywood Studios looking its best. Freddie was spending this little bit of free time getting his hula hoop on.
I spent it filming randomly for the benefit of Facebook and of course for myself who can now watch it months later, in a cold dreary November.
Parks at dusk are special and especially special when they are as quiet as Hollywood Studios was at this time.
Frozen was superb. It can depend on which cast members are appearing and we struck lucky with a couple of hilarious ones and Emily laughed so much I feared for her underwear.
By now, darkness was approaching and again, the place looked glorious.
To end what had been a superb day we headed to Fantasmic now, picking up drinks and ice cream on the way. It had been ages since we ate!
It was right about now that I got that sinking feeling of incoming illness. Damn that woman on the plane! The inevitable arrival of a cold was not welcome, but for now, I pushed those thoughts away and enjoyed the show.
As happens in most situations that involve fireworks, nighttime shows and characters, Emily was emotional. I have to say that ending “Some imagination huh?” does manage to get me every time. I love it.
We were too tired (or ill in my case) for the Star Wars fireworks so instead, we headed for the car. We were home and in bed by 10pm, resting nicely in the afterglow of a glorious full theme park day. More please!
Day seven already, and despite the title of this trip report and the little bit of enforced last-minute plan changing, you may wonder, what’s with all this Dorian drama? Indeed.
During the last two days, the eleventy billion hours of TV coverage had told us that the long hoped for “right turn” had happened, and Dorian was off up the coast, with Floridian landfall now looking unlikely. Those on the coast would be affected but it seemed we would be missing the worst of it.
This had not stopped Disney going all health and safety on us and closing their parks at 2pm today. I was awake at 6am, looking for Dorian updates and for the latest thoughts from Denis Phillips on Facebook. He is the “go-to” meteorolo…….meeterol……met….weatherman and his updates had given a lot of clarity and calm in what might otherwise have been a stressful few days.
Like the mature rational grown-up I am, I was a little upset that this major weather event which had already devastated several islands in its wake and might yet still do similar to the coast of Florida had denied us of some park touring time, I went downstairs to the TV to see how bad today’s weather might actually be, feeling suitably proud of my selfish attitude. These latest weather reports would determine whether we ventured to a park until 2pm or not.
I had by this stage got about 27 different weather apps on my phone and I spent an overly long amount of time looking at each of those and watching several different weather folks, oddly all on the same channel, predict what would happen. It was amazing that one channel could employ thirty-six weather experts and have them all on at the same time.
All of the above were predicting some quite nasty rain this morning and after much deliberating, I decided to call it, and the parks were off for today. It would not be fun in torrential rain. Instead, we decided to go out for breakfast. If we can’t ride, we’ll eat.
I noted that I was particularly hungry this morning, which would be good news for whichever breakfast place we stumbled upon first. I did notice, with some concern, that as we got into the car, there was blistering sunshine and nothing but blue skies, but this, of course, would all change as predicted by the great and good of the TV. Right?
As we met with the 192 we spotted a Perkins and after a mildly dangerous and somewhat illegal U-Turn, we abandoned the van in the parking lot and made our way inside. Again, as I cast my eyes upwards, there was still no sign of the evil weather coming our way.
We were seated immediately and ordered coffees and juices. I was becoming a little obsessed with the weather at this point, wondering why outside did not look like this…..
I had blueberry pancakes….
Emily and Tom had some form of Eggs Benedict (I did write it down but I can’t read my own writing!)
Louise had this…
and Rebecca had the thing you can see at the end of the table which I have in my notes as “Not sure but something big”. It’s tricky keeping track of what everyone orders with a larger party!
The food improved my mood a little. Outside still looked like a typical Florida day and not mild Armageddon and I was developing a large sulk about it. All I could think was we were wasting the day and that I had made the wrong call to scrap our theme park plans. Its time likes these that the responsibility of being “the planner” lies heavy.
I paid the $85 bill and as it was still sunny we decided to go for it and head for the planned park for the day, Hollywood Studios. At this point, Lousie made that call as she couldn’t take another second of my man baby pouting. I doubt I have driven to a theme park more quickly in all these years. We parked in Mickey 312, trammed and had our sacks poked with a stick.
See, no hurricane!
It seemed that many other people had made the same wrong call that I did and had abandoned their plans.
Seeing such low crowd levels, now would be the time to head for the newly opened Galaxy’s Edge. Join us, as we enter for the first time….
It was clear that most of the people who had made it into the park today were also headed for this area…..
but it was still fairly light in terms of crowds.
It’s always a special time experiencing something for the first time in a park, and luckily when that’s a theme park you don’t get arrested. That’s especially true with something as significant as this. We soaked up the incredible theming for a while, wandered about and got our bearings.
Like a literal tractor beam, we were pulled to the Falcon and were all blown away by the detail, size and scale of the thing….
Did I mention that the theming was impressive?
Full of excitement, anticipation and pancakes, most of us joined the 70-minute queue for Smuggler’s Run. Louise volunteered to stay with Freddie.
Emily was overjoyed to be wearing her spirit jersey, selected to protect her from the air con chills of our breakfast restaurant and not to sweat 12 pounds off her in a raging hot theme park. Another victim of my poor decision making. We all must suffer for the cause from time to time. Tom was bravely sporting his unusual hairy neck.
It didn’t feel like over an hour of waiting to be honest. We were, of course, taking in all the new stuff and admiring what an incredible job had been done.
You will have to excuse the large numbers of photos here, I was a little over-excited.
You can tell it’s a new ride when you feel the need to take photos of the queue.
Even I’m not sure why I took this one….
Once you get into the holding area just before you ride, the theming is eerily identical to the scenes from the films. It’s excellent.
We were allocated our roles and were then just seconds away from riding. I was a little giddy.
The ride itself flashed by in an instant and I cannot remember too much about it. There is so much going on that it will take many more rides before it all sinks in. It is very enjoyable, incredibly well put together and a stunning addition to the park.
I’m sure the last hour had seemed a little longer for Louise and Freddie so we hurried out to meet them now. It was still gloriously hot, dry and incredibly un-hurricane like. We were about ten minutes away from our reservation at Oga’s Cantina. We’d booked this on the M60 some weeks ago, after seeing reservations being released, with little to no clue as to what it was. We were about to find out.
There was a queue and the cast members would wander up and down it shouting out names when they were ready to take you in. We didn’t wait long.
The theming is great. We did wonder why they hadn’t made it much more like the actual Cantina from the film but I’m sure there is good (legal) reason. We were shown to our seats which were shared with two other couples.
We studied the menu…
I made no attempt to write down what we had but they looked like this.
This was mine. I cannot say that I knew what was coming when I ordered it, but it was an experience.
I also can’t say that any of the drinks we had were the nicest of the trip, but of course, this was just about experiencing the new stuff in Galaxy’s Edge and we took it for what it was.
The place was rammed and noisy and not the best place for Freddie so we didn’t stay too long. It was 1.30 now, with the park due to close at 2pm. We noticed that Slinky Dog was showing a thirty-minute wait, so we decided to give that a go.
We set up baby swap, with Louise, Emily and I planning to ride first. Tom and Rebecca took Freddie to ride the Saucers whilst they waited, just too late to benefit from Louise deciding not to ride and instead soak up the last few minutes of sun before Dorian ended the world. Emily and I joined the standby queue.
Spookily as we came to the point where the standby and FastPass queues meet, Rebecca and Tom were stood waiting to merge and joined us. This accidental situation, got me thinking of a slight “hack” here. If you have a large party and one or two people willing to sacrifice themselves you could do the following.
Set up baby swap and say that one or two people are riding first and they join the standby. Whether they queue and ride or not is up to them. This immediately gives the rest of the party a FastPass, intended to be used as the first riders return, but there is nothing to stop those immediately joining the FastPass queue. It’s a stretch to call it a hack, but it kept me occupied thinking about it during the queue. This was a welcome distraction from the army of annoying kids in front us who did nothing but fight each other, climb on the rails and generally be a pain in the arse. Mind you, if you call your kids Hunter what do you expect?
So, in the end, we all rode together on our first ever Slinky as if it was written in the stars after all our failed attempts to get a bloody FastPass for it. The ride is a belter. Just fast enough to entertain the adults and not scary enough to terrify the kids.
The park was closing now. Weirdly the weather was still great and there seemed to be no reason to do so. With that in mind, we decided to go to Disney Springs which had no such plans to close until much later in the day. It was a twenty-minute drive and we parked in the Lime garage.
We walked for too long trying to find somewhere we could sit and have a drink. We ended up outside Splitsville on some high stools and a table. Does anybody else have real trouble making sense of the geography of the place now? My brain just can not reconcile the new layout with the old.
Whilst we rested and drank, a sudden appearance of some Dorian inspired wind blew all the menus off the table, knocking Louise’s red wine all over Emily’s bright white trainers. Being very new and very expensive she was rightly upset but the waitress was brilliant. Not only did the affected drinks get replaced, she returned with some club soda and cloths and we managed to clean any trace of red wine off Emily’s shoes and laces.
With that trauma behind us, we wandered off to the shops. Freddie added to his essential plastic tat collection….
For obvious reasons, the big balloon thing wasn’t in operation.
On our travels, Rebecca got some Up! Mickey Ears for MNSSHP. Before long, breakfast seemed a long time ago and we needed food. With it just being “round the corner” we decided on Olive Garden and we were there in a few minutes.
We were seated immediately and soon had the infamous salad and breadsticks along with our drinks.
I had some non-alcoholic berry thing. It was nice and more importantly not diet coke.
Tom naturally had a milkshake/iced coffee thing and at this point confessed that he’d been hungry for about four hours!
That used to be my plate of salad. We ordered…..
Emily – Five Cheese Ziti
Me – Steak & Alfredo
Louise and Rebecca had the lasagne.
Emily has turned vegetarian since our last trip and this meal was her single greatest sacrifice to date. Olive Garden lasagne was her most favourite meal on the planet so to watch two others eat it was painful!
Tom had the Tour of Italy.
Having skipped lunch (did you notice?) I had Tiramisu.
Tom had a huge chocolate lasagne cake. He was still so hungry that they could have brought him a urinal cake and he would have eaten it!
We paid the $180 including decent tip and made our way to the car. It was getting a bit breezy now and there was to be a curfew starting at 11pm tonight with worse weather to come. We made our now customary stop at CVS on the way home for stuff we apparently couldn’t live without. As we pulled out of the car park using an exit I hadn’t previously used, there may have been a few moments of us being on entirely the wrong carriageway, but I soon restored order with no harm done, save for some colourful words from the passenger seat.
We all watched some TV and relaxed in the villa. As I went to bed I could hear the wind really getting up outside and some pretty heavy rain. Apparently, it was quite a wild night, and the weather was pretty rough too (BOOM!) but I slept through all of that, missing any sign of Dorian altogether! The previous six days of 24/7 TV coverage seemed all the more worthwhile now.
I know these things can be devastating and deadly, and this one tragically was elsewhere, so we were thankful it didn’t cause us any issues other than a few lost hours at Hollywood Studios. Touching wood and anything else that may do the same job, we have in all our touring years managed to avoid any real hurricane impact despite almost always travelling in peak hurricane season. Long may that continue. And yes, I said touching wood…..fnarr.
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