The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019 – Day Six

by mkingdon, posted in The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019

Our decision to skip the Magic Kingdom last night was, it turns out, a wise one. Freddie set the tone by sleeping for a full twelve hours and I think we all needed that early night and some extra sleep. Of course, being decidedly middle-aged I didn’t benefit too much as my days of sleeping for twelve hours ended sometime in the early 90’s when the girls destroyed my ability to sleep beyond 8am or have a positive bank balance.

We were all up, dressed and out by 9.30am and unusually so early in a trip, heading for a second day at Animal Kingdom. In its early years you’d be lucky to get a full day out of this park but now it’s all grown up and a place you can spend multiple days with no issue.

Unlike our last visit, we had some useful FastPasses and after arriving and taking the obligatory “I’m at Animal Kingdom” photos….

our stroll brought us to Everest for around 10.20 to use our first FastPass of the day.

With baby swap sorted, Rebecca and Tom rode first and I took the chance to play the “Ready Steady Go ” game again with Freddie over by the wall. The rest of us then rode taking more obligatory photos and screaming in a way that might call into question my masculinity.

It seems that everyone else in our party has forgotten how to do things of a morning. Only I had prepared for maximum touring efficiency by having breakfast in the villa so now we needed to feed people. This will not be tolerated on a long term basis.

We wandered over towards the area near the safari looking for something suitable. As testament to how long it has been since we sought food in this area, we approached Tusker House. In years gone by this was counter service style (I think) and you could sit out back and listen to someone washing up. If you know, you know.

However, now it appears to be a high-end dining experience at $55 per head for lunch, which they were now taking seating for. This was not what we were looking for so we snuck away and went next door to the little bakery thing and ordered some sweet stuff and drinks. I mean, as if any idiot would blow that much cash on a walk-in last-minute lunch in a theme park. Seriously, what sort of fool……I can’t imagine anyone being so silly…..anyway, onwards……

I appreciate that I had already eaten breakfast but if you think I was going to sit and watch everyone else eat without tucking in, then where have you been all these years? The danish thing above was lovely.

I have to be honest, I don’t remember what this is, or who ate it. It looks veggy friendly so probably Emily.

This photo doesn’t do justice to the size of this thing. A phrase I have never used before.

So we sat and ate our stuff for a bit, forming a nice sweat in the ludicrous heat.

Hopefully, you can still see Freddie there despite his camouflage.

Like a hungry chick, he awaits his chunks of Mickey-shaped goodness.

Having wasted vital touring minutes with non-essentials such as eating, we finally moved on to the gorilla trail thing. I accept that may not be the attraction’s formal name.

I apologise now for the nakedness in this next photo.

Freddie found these little chaps fascinating and a kindly cast member allowed him under the rope so he could go right up to the glass for a better look. I promised I wouldn’t tell anybody.

At this point, after a good breakfast, inevitably, we encountered turtlehead.

Whilst Freddie dealt with that, I “toad” him I’d be just next door with this chap.

We continued our tour of the various animals…..

At one point coming face to face with my future reality.

I made a mental note perhaps to skip dessert this evening.

One more photo from the Freddie with animals series…..

These were impressive Zebras….

but next to them were mere cats, so I didn’t take their photo.

We spent a good amount of time watching the gorillas as they were all close to the window and one of them had a newborn. I took several photos, all of them failing to capture it.

I assumed that the baby’s head was that hairy thing inbetween the Mum’s legs. I didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that it wasn’t!

Onwards further along the trail and to the silverback, avoiding decent photos of himself since 1997.

As we exited the trail we had fifteen minutes to kill before being the allowable ten minutes early for our safari FastPass. We spent that time in the shop, browsing and not buying. Some liquids were onboarded though.

We needn’t have bothered killing that time as when we tried to enter the ride via the FastPass queue the signs to the stroller parking for FastPass guests were so confusing and incoherent that it took about twenty minutes to find it. Moist, mad and middle-aged, I harrumphed my way back to the queue.

Eventually, amidst my many tuts, we boarded our truck.

A more paranoid person with hang-ups about their weight may have felt the universe was talking to them….

Overall, with this being almost the middle of the day, we’ve seen more on other safaris, but we did OK.

If you like giraffes this will be your favourite trip report day ever.

Our guide told us that giraffes only sleep for about twenty minutes at a time. That took me back to Rebecca’s newborn days. Clearly, she is part giraffe.

Freddie with his, “why is Grandad taking all these photos” face.

and this may be the most anyone has seen of the lions on any AK safari in living memory…..

It was now 12.55 which left about four and a half minutes to get the next Lion King show. We used all of the available time and just took our seats as the show was starting, with the benefit of not having to learn the hand jive stuff whilst we waited.

I did some more Facebook live-ing here….so if you want to watch it, and why wouldn’t you, here you go.

We left the show high on the joy it always brings and headed for Pandora. We had a Navi FastPass at 13.55. See how our touring experience seamlessly flows when I don’t have to re-plan it on the day.

On our way there, we decided we needed a drink. Normal families might alight at a drinks cart and get some water and cokes and spend about $3.50 each. Not us. We spotted the new Nomad Lounge next to Tiffins and decided to have a look. As I approached the cast member out front, my tired, weary legs spotted the plush looking banquettes (this place is too posh for just sofas) and as soon as the cast member confirmed we could bring a napping Freddie in, still in his stroller, I was sold.

This place is lovely. Very comfortable seating, top class service, lovely cocktails (and the diet coke is fine) and a lovely setting. It’s odd that it is right in the middle of a theme park yet somehow they have managed to make it feel secluded and peaceful.

We chose from the menus, not only ordering cocktails at the price of a weekly shop back home but also some “light bites”. If they want us to keep visiting this place they should reconsider their marketing messaging of their food.

The cocktails arrived first….

Hmm, diet coke…..

Then our lunch.

Those were the sliders, and these the chicken satay….

I had the bread service, because, presented with that as an option, why on earth wouldn’t you?

We spent over an hour here and enjoyed every second. We also Facetimed my Mum & Dad back home….all this and WiFi too! It was peaceful, relaxing and with lovely food and drink. So yes, with multiple rounds of cocktails, we blew $200 on a walk-in last-minute lunch in a theme park, but that figure, which would horrify me back home, meant little. We work so hard to get on these trips that every now and again you have to do things like this and I loved it.

Our relaxing time here meant that we had just gone past our FastPass for Navi. We decided to head there anyway, hoping the ten minutes grace period would save us and it did. Between getting from the front entrance and down the path to the queue, the heavens opened, and we got a few seconds of a drenching, which wasn’t all that unwelcome, other than we were then stood in air conditioning for a few minutes.

This isn’t a thrill ride by any stretch but it’s interesting, and one that everyone can go on, and Freddie spent it pointing at stuff that I wondered how his little mind was making sense of.

With all our FastPasses spent as we left the ride I fired up the app and secured another for the Rapids. restrooming happened and we made our way over to the ride as the time slot for our FastPass was nowish.

On our journey there we stopped to watch some dance party stuff going on but still managed to arrive at the Rapids ten minutes early. Our bands got the magic bleep anyway and we were in. Louise volunteered to sit out with Freddie. We looked with appropriate disdain at anyone wearing a poncho in the queue. That’s like having some soup at home before going out for a large meal so you won’t eat too much. The whole point is that you get yourself wet.

One thing I noticed was the waterproof cover thing in the middle is gone, so if you have anything with you that you would normally put in there, you can’t and it will get wet. Having said that, compared to the mother of all raft rides, Bilge Rats at Universal, this is nothing. Sure, we got a bit splashed, but nobody comes off Bilge Rats without feeling like they sat in a bath for an hour.

At this point, we headed for the exit. We wanted to get back to the villa for showers before heading out to eat. We were home around 5pm and I spent all the time other than the five minutes it took me to get ready resting and watching TV. We left the villa close to 7pm and headed up the I4 to Lake Buena Vista and Bahama Breeze.

The roads felt unusually quiet, perhaps brought on by the incessant TV coverage of everyone’s impending doom at the hands of Dorian, and the restaurant too was pretty empty. We chose to sit outside.

We ordered some drinks, an appetiser combo and a goat’s cheese dip thing.

I had a mocktail.

Tom ordered what I think was called the Dell Boy.

The ladies had stuff like this.

I had a Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad (the hippos today clearly having a subliminal effect on me).

Rebecca and Louise had the Jerk Chicken Pasta

Emily, the Black Bean Tacos

Tom had the Taste of Jamaica

and Freddie the Chicken Tenders.

I sacrificed my Virgin Bahamarita to Freddie who loved it.

As was becoming a tradition now, Freddie laid his hands on the camera and started randomly pressing the button. To be fair, if I hadn’t told you that, you probably wouldn’t have noticed much difference to my photographic skills.

Hippos be damned, I had a Key Lime Pie and Tom had a Chocolate Cake thing. The Key Lime Pie is excellent here and Tom cleared his too, but to be fair that can’t be used as any sort of comment on quality as he always tends to do that.

The bill, driven by a lot of cocktails was a slightly pricey for off-site, $250. The service wasn’t the best tonight, not bad, but we’ve had better, so I only left 15%. I tend to overtip all the time in my attempt to assure US servers that Brits aren’t always destined to leave no or little tip, but when the service isn’t that deserving I will knock a bit off.

Once again, our full bellies and heavy eyelids scuppered our best intentions of going to Disney Springs and everyone just wanted to go to bed. We did so by 10pm allowing our bodies to convert today’s calories into fat nice and early.

Till the next time……

The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019 – Day Five

by mkingdon, posted in The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019

After what have been some very busy and enjoyable days so far, today is a little more low key. It was a welcome rest day, of sorts, and contains acts of eating that you can only attempt with either years of experience, elasticated pants or a death wish.

In my case, as my fellow chunkster Meatloaf might say, two outta three ain’t bad.

I was looking forward to not having any reason to be out of bed. However, at 8.30 Rebecca messaged the group stating that “the boys” were hungry and we needed to make a move for breakfast. What a breakfast we had planned too. Hash House A Go Go was our destination, and …..

Image result for joey gif you boys are about to see something special

We were ready and out of the door by 9.45 and it took about half an hour to drive there. Upon arrival, there was complimentary valet parking. They say a common language divides the UK and US, but on this occasion it was just my hearing and stupidity.

As I tumbled out of the car, the very pleasant valet guy approached. I thought he said, “First time here?”.

So I said “No, we’ve been a few times before”.

It was only when he repeated what he said again, not quite believing how idiotic this Brit in the minivan and tight T-shirt was that I realised I had made an error.

“O……K……What’s your first name?”, he said with a puzzled look on his face.

My appendages shrivelled back up into my body with embarrassment and I didn’t even attempt to correct his “Creg” as he wrote it on the ticket. I took the ticket and scuttled off all sheepish into the restaurant.

We were seated immediately and we were served by Queen. That Brian May took an age to get us our drinks.

Emily had a banana latte….

She declared it tremendous as was her Egg Scramble.

Freddie just had the child’s portion of chocolate chip pancake.

Yep, that’s the child portion.

Tom ordered a Tractor Driver’s Combo with extra sides and Snickers pancakes. I think his face says it all.

Louise and I had a French toast thingy, which lacked in size but made up for it in taste. Louise appreciates that size isn’t everything.

Rebecca had the Snickers pancake but without the assortment of sides that Tom had. Amazingly, Tom finished the lot. Rebecca left a fair bit of hers, and because mine had lacked some girth, I “tasted” some of that too. It was good!

There are lots of places you can go for pancakes and the like in Orlando, and we have. This place is a little different though. It’s definitely more expensive than your Dennys or Perkins, but it’s worth it. Size yes, counts for some of that as the portion sizes are ludicrous. But the quality is exceptional. You know when you put something in your mouth and you can’t quite believe how good it is? Louise again appreciates this concept.

By Satan’s scrotum, we were full. The bill was $180 including a nice tip and I reluctantly returned to the valet chap hoping he’d forgotten my shameful episode earlier. I tipped more heavily than I may have normally and quickly left the scene, heading back to the villa.

We spent some time in and around the pool.

I found it amazing that Tom could move after what he had just shifted, but not as amazed as I was mid-afternoon when he had a bowl of cereal to “put him on” until our evening meal.

We experienced a few rain showers during the afternoon so we retreated indoors and watched some telly for a bit. Freddie played with the fine selection of toys in the villa.

At some point around 5pm, we got ourselves ready and headed out for tea. After such a breakfast we’d only need a light bite surely? Yeh, we were headed for the all you can eat buffet at Trail’s End. We would usually get the boat from Magic Kingdom to get there, but with the rain showers and the logistics of the stroller and a potentially sleeping Freddie later we decided to drive there directly instead.

As we arrived, I was completely taken by surprise by the fact that there was a bus ride involved to get from the entrance to Pioneer Hall.

I had no clue at all about the size and scale of the place having only ever done a “beach landing” previously and walked the few yards to the restaurant and back.

It took us a little while to figure out and ask which bus we needed to be on and be on our way. The bus ride took about ten minutes. The rainy weather we’d had as we left the car and walked to the bus cleared nicely for our stroll to Trail’s End.

We had a few minutes to spare before we needed to check in so we had a look at the horse….

and Freddie spent a little time on the playground.

We were seated just moments after checking in, on the same table we always seem to get here. It’s in a quiet spot but is annoyingly distant from the buffet.

Drinks were ordered, with cocktails for the ladies and then we unleashed ourselves on the glorious grub.

I would commit several low-level crimes for that cornbread. Maybe it was the lingering large amounts of breakfast, but I only managed two savoury trips to the buffet. I had to stop then to ensure I could fit in some desserts, which I did in the form of bread pudding and ice cream. Tom discovered the ice cream machine and what followed is better not recounted here.

Not for the first time today, I swore I would never eat again and waddled out of the restaurant happy yet slightly concerned that I might die. There had been a loose plan to go over to Magic Kingdom by boat and spend some time in the park, but we decided against the boat again. Knowing Freddie would be asleep on the return leg, would make the stroller/boat/bus journeys untenable. We caught the bus back to the car instead, intending to drive there instead.

We were joined on the bus by some folks from the south and I don’t mean Bournemouth. They were if I were to use crass stereotypes, red necks, with more kids than I could keep track of. It was a good thing that there were a few kids, as it helped to spread out the parent’s screaming between them a little so no one child had their parent shout at them too much. They were loud, unruly and unconcerned that he bus they were on contained other people. This, I thought, as I avoided eye contact with them, is why I hire a car, even if we stay on site.

As we got into the car, Freddie had just fallen asleep so any plans for Magic Kingdom were canned and I don’t think anybody was too sad about that. It was a rest day after all. To signify that we were home and in bed not long after nine.

These rest days are the scourge of trip report writing. More, if not better contact in the next one.

Till the next time……

The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019 – Day Four

by mkingdon, posted in The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019

There’s a long history of me being fortunate enough to spend my birthday in WDW. I can’t remember a bad one and today’s events, as yes, it was my birthday, ranked very high on the all-time list.

Touring World Showcase has been a regular event to celebrate my body ageing and resembling a deflating balloon just a little more, and again, we had Epcot planned. Today, however, had a little more meaning than usual, as this would be the last time that I would be watching Reflections of Earth on a birthday.

ROE has been a huge part of our family trips over the years. Indeed, it started on October 1st 1999, which was just a few days before the first visit for the girls, so for that, and many other reasons it has taken on a very special place in our lives and of course our trips.

This birthday started regrettably early at 5am. I refused to leave my bed until 7, reading and internet browsing until that time. I made my way downstairs eventually to be greeted with cards and presents and some football on the telly. I enjoyed some breakfast and Man United failing to win in equal measure and at around 9am, Facetimed my Mum & Dad back home.

Half an hour later everyone was loaded into the van and we made our way to Epcot and Discover 12. It was a short tram ride to a drop off point that led to a walk to the entrance which was longer than the tram ride. Once through security and the finger scanning I took the chance to commemorate the occasion with an “in front of the ball” photo with Freddie.

Today’s FastPasses, having not been made on the morning of our park visit, were in much better shape, represented by Soarin’ being our first. We set up baby swap and Rebecca and Tom sat out first having a drink and some cake in the food court in The Land.

The rest of us made the long walk to the ride.

I have never used the standby line for this ride so I always try to see, with interest, what the interactive stuff is over in the muggle line. I am interested, but not enough to actually queue up to ride.

We enjoyed, as we always do, Patrick’s safety briefing and then the new film for Soarin’. It’s just an excellent ride.

We took over care of Freddie, finished off the cakes Rebecca and Tom had bought, and Louise got some breakfast having failed to prepare by getting some back at the villa. It was a breakfast croissant and some potato things, the latter of which Freddie ate most of.

Once we were all reunited we made our way out over to Nemo. Walking out of The Land, I did so with Freddie walking beside me, holding my hand. It’s these lovely little things that stick in my mind.

It was a walk-on and a welcome sit down. We had a look around the fish and stuff, which I suspect are not their formal Latin species names.

By the time we left, it was 11.50 and time to execute my extra cunning piece of very cunning cunningness that I teased in a pre-trip blog weeks ago. I do fear that I oversold this as some stroke of planning genius, but I shall reveal all now, as long as you promise to keep it to yourself.

One thing that we don’t enjoy about watching Reflections of Earth is the crowded shuffle all the way down to the main entrance, followed by a wait for a tram or a long walk to the car. With that in mind, we always try to tie a viewing of the fireworks at Epcot with a dining reservation somewhere around the Boardwalk so that we may park there. This allows us to leave Epcot via International Gateway, which is not only better than the other option, it is actually a pleasant experience and a lovely stroll.

This year, on this birthday, having lunch or early dinner in any of those locations was not an option as we very much wanted and had booked to eat at Via Napoli. So, bending the rules ever so slightly, I made a rogue ADR for two at Ale and Compass at the Yacht Club.

The idea was that, now, Emily and I would power walk back to the car, drive it round to the Yacht Club, using our ADR to get access to the parking, and then walk back into Epcot to continue our day. Doing this of course does mean that there is a fair chance that you may get charged the $10 per person for missing your ADR, but frankly, that cost is bearable for the six of us to be able to have a leisurely stroll back to the car after ROE, rather than the battle to the main entrance with a stroller and a tired Freddie.

So there you go. If you want to use that trick you can, although, I did find a better trick that we used later in the trip. If I tell you now, you will have no incentive to keep reading, so try not to lie awake thinking about it.

When we arrived at the little house where the security guards live at the Yacht Club, I had my photo ID to hand, and a quick scan of my Magic Band confirmed to him that I did indeed have an ADR and we were waved through. It worked better than we thought as the self-parking at the Yacht Club was pretty full, and he directed us to the Beach Club parking which is that little bit closer to International Gateway.

As we always do when visiting here, we take photos as some sort of homage to how much we love it.

I think this photo has featured in more trip reports than I have.

When I’m having to endure a cold, bleak, work-filled day at home, sat in meetings that make me question my career “choices”, that photo above is where I wish I was instead.

It’s open now of course, but at the time, I had to lift my camera above my head and the boarding to sneak a photo of the new Skyliner station just outside International Gateway.

We discovered that everyone else was down near Mission Space so Emily and I made our way down through the UK and Canada to meet them.

It was a skin crisper today. Not so much hot, as human barbeque.

In another example of ninja levels of planning, just as we met up with everyone, our FastPass for Mission Space, booked 30 days ago, became active. I’m not saying I am good at this stuff, I just let my record speak for itself.

Louise sat out in the unbearable sun watching Freddie who was having a snooze in his shady stroller. As we often tend to do, we waited a little longer than we should have due to some lightweight leaving their lunch all over the ride. We entered, praying that we weren’t sat where the vomit just was.

After a successful mission, and a moment’s silent mourning that we no longer see the wonder that is Gary Sinese’s hair in the now-departed briefing video, we left to find Louise and Freddie.

It was very much lunchtime now and because we knew it was about to get bulldozed, we chose Electric Umbrella just in case it never returns. I didn’t mobile order here for some reason and instead stood staring at the board like it was the first time I had seen words, or food, blurting out numbers to the order taker. Yes, I’m one of those that order here by number.

Alas, the number I got wrong was the members of our party and when we got to our table, I realised, that as I often do in these situations, I had ordered for everybody other than myself. I really couldn’t be arsed queuing again so Louise and I shared a cheeseburger and a few choice words about my incompetence levels.

To make amends, as everyone was finishing up, I left the table and power walked around the corner to the Joffrey’s coffee stand and got us some dessert in the shape of three doughnuts. They are a size of which I approve.

Rest assured, Freddie shared that with his Dad and that means he didn’t get that much of it. These things are awesome and delicious in all sorts of ways. Get some.

We did some wandering around Mousegear and then made our way over to Journey Into Imagination. It will not surprise you to learn that this was a walk-on. After riding I finally had to admit defeat and go to a restroom. I can only hold it so long. The rest of the party took Freddie up to the dancing water fountain things, with which he was fascinated.

Our next FastPass called now, at Spaceship Earth.

It was a walk-on. I await my refund from Disney for this insult.

After riding, Tom went to retrieve the stroller from the ride entrance and Freddie did some modelling whilst we waited.

Onwards to Turtle Talk with Crush next.

I captured some photos of the area, knowing that it was about to be changed forever in just a few days.

Freddie enjoyed Crush and sat through the whole thing pretty well. With that done, it was time to make our way up to World Showcase. The plan now was to say our goodbyes to O Canada, as we had recently heard of an impending revamp and I was very much not OK.

I had checked online before leaving the UK that it would still be open on my birthday and I had, I’m sure, seen that it would be. Upon arriving, a cast member was stood at the top of the steps informing guests that it was now down for refurbishment until January.

I rugby tackled him to the ground and opened several cans of whoop-ass all over him. It made no difference and he point-blank refused to open up the show just for me. I have to say that I was very upset not being able to see this one last time. Please, just give me a moment…….and please appreciate one more time the glorious majesty of this song.

We continued up to the UK and across the bridge towards France as we were now on our way to Via Napoli. As some sort of representation of my distress, we experienced one of the weirdest rain storms we have ever seen in Florida. The skies cried at the demise of O Canada. We’ve seen all sorts of rain over the years but most of it gives you some sort of warning of its impending arrival. This one, as we were halfway across the bridge, came on as if we’d turn the shower on. There was no slow build-up or a few drops at first, but instead a complete downpour of torrential rain from nothing. We started at speed in search of cover. I wrestled the two umbrellas I had liberated from the villa out of Ryan and handed them out.

We sheltered eventually outside the perfume shop in France but by that time we were already soaking wet.

It lasted for about fifteen minutes, just long enough to mean that we now had to get a wriggle on and get to Italy asap, without stopping anywhere on the way.

Those familiar with a Floridian summer will not be surprised to see this next photo and how unrecognisable it is weather-wise from the previous ones.

I power-walked ahead a little, allowing others to restroom and checked us in. We were seated as soon as everyone caught me up.

We ordered various cocktails and with it being my birthday I even ordered myself a beer flight.

To start we ordered some salad and garlic bread.

It pleased us.

But not a much as the pizza did.

Louise, Emily and I ordered individual pizzas, but Rebecca, Tom and Freddie shared the half metre pizza……and it was good.

Emily’s looked like this

Freddie looked excited…..

and we all tucked in, delighted with our choices. This is good pizza.

Service was a little slow, but we honestly didn’t mind. We were just enjoying the sit-down, the lovely food and drinks and making the most of my birthday. To pass the time, Freddie got his hands on the camera and took about three hundred photos that I would need to delete later. He managed a couple that survived the cull.

We ordered some desserts even though we were full beyond all bounds of sensible eating.

Whilst we waited Freddie enjoyed one of his favourite films.

That was quickly abandoned as soon as his ice cream turned up.

I shared a Tiramisu with Emily.

I was so busy eating it that I didn’t take any photos as Louise enjoyed some large chocolate balls. Probably for the best. Tom had ice cream too. If you hadn’t noticed yet, he is quite keen on the odd ice cream.

The bill was large as expected, but worth it. We loved it again. We waddled out into the dusk of World Showcase, which as you know, is one of favourite times and places on the earth.

Inevitable restroomery meant that we loitered here for a while and I didn’t mind one bit. During the meal, I had managed to secure us a Test Track FastPass so we made the long walk there now. It was only as we got within earshot of the ride that Emily pointed out the lack of the distinctive ride noise. I consulted the app, and yep, it was down. Collective weeping at the wasted energy our legs had exerted transporting our very full bodies ensued. It was, of course, my fault and I was forced to walk back up to Mexico, naked, whilst Louise rang a bell shouting “Shame”.

To try and rescue the situation I took us into Mexico as the ride there is just as good as Test Track, right?

Well, Freddie thought it was great!

We then started our journey around the lagoon to our traditional ROE viewing spot on the bridge between France and the UK.

We got there with half an hour to spare and spent that time just being there and loving it.

My camera fails to capture this as do my words.

As I was stood looking out across the lagoon, with *that* music playing, a warm breeze blowing making the temperature just perfect, the lights twinkling aside the flaming torches, this, I recognised, was one of those moments.

All sorts of memories and thoughts came to me, brought to mind no doubt by pizza, beer, my birthday and the impending loss of Reflections of Earth. All the years I have stood here with the girls at various ages, the thought that my Mum & Dad wouldn’t see it again and alongside all of that, the anticipation of what’s to come, the possibilities of Freddie’s life in front of him and all of the trips, experiences and memories we would make together. My heart and belly were full, and that’s the way I like it.

I captured a few moments of it here…

Then, the torch was extinguished and the fireworks began. I captured that too.

There were tears at the end of course. Emily cries at everything, but even Rebecca shed a couple tonight, but I just had something in my eye and I think that pizza had caused the lump in my throat.

We slowly made our way out towards the Beach Club. After such a beautiful, magical evening, it was only fitting that we ended it by waiting half an hour for Louise to have a poo in the Beach Club.

I drove us home. It won’t be the last birthday I spend here, but if it were. it would have been a good way to finish.

Till the next time…….

The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019 – Day Three

by mkingdon, posted in The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019

As often happens, the number of folks who turn up to read this nonsense goes up quite a bit when a trip report happens. I’m grateful, but come on, where were you buggers when the rest of us had to endure the weekly grind of me papping on about each minor detail of this trip? I appreciate anyone who tolerates what I churn out here, I really do, but the real heroes are those that are here every week as I struggle to squeeze out 600 words on a failed FastPass booking and a bad commute to work. I salute you.

If you had been around for that, you’d know that the plan was carefully crafted, honed, perfected and laminated over many, many painful weeks. Today, as our third day dawned, I was sat in front of the rolling coverage of Dorian, with my plan in tatters and in need of being put back together. I had time to do so as I had been awake since 5am. At around 7am I made breakfasts for folks, put a wash on and re-engineered the plan all at the same time. If there had been a brush available it would have gone up my rear end to sweep as I went along.

The thinking at this stage from the experts on the telly was that Dorian would “hit” on Monday, some three days from now, and that day on the plan was Animal Kingdom. Today should have been a strategic rest day at a water park, to get us over the inevitable tiredness following the travel day and first-day adrenaline. So I moved that around and brought Animal Kingdom forward to today, thinking that we’d either be in a motel in Carolina or hiding in the bathtub come Monday.

I was making FastPass reservations whilst filling the dishwasher as everyone got themselves ready. As you can imagine, there was slim pickings available on the FastPass front at this late hour.

We left the house at 9.20am, took Sherberth Road and we were pleasingly in Giraffe 42 before too long at all. A tram was waiting just for us and it whisked us to the drop off point which again was still some considerable distance from the actual entrance.

We made our way up the paths and into the park…

Freddie is currently obsessed with Up! and so we were delighted to see Kevin wandering about as we entered.

It does make you wonder what Freddie makes of the whole thing. Having seen this character on his telly for months, to have it there, in front of him, must be weird. He, of course, took it in his stride with a smile and a wave.

Because our last-minute FastPasses were crap, we had nowhere to be immediately so we took the chance to do something we only do with no rides to get on. Or at least we did when the girls were little. We headed, for the first time in many years, to the boneyard.

First, Freddie was let loose in the playground part and did some sliding.

Then we took him over the bridge to the dig.

I said this at the time, but it was incredulous to me that it had been something like twenty years since I was watching the girls do the exact same thing.

It was a lovely half an hour or so watching Freddie fill his shorts with that thing they pass off as sand and then we moved out of the boneyard and Rebecca and Tom took Freddie on the Triceratop Spin.

As they boarded and we got ready to do the “grandparent wave” I bought a couple of tubs of popcorn as it had been many minutes since food passed my lips.

Freddie was looking very hot after his ride so we made our way into the nearest source of AC to cool him down a bit. That happened to be a shop and I left a good few dollars lighter having given in to his pleas for a plastic thing that produced bubbles. He shunned all other models in favour of the Ariel one. I understand that, as I too would choose an Ariel that blows.

We had a FastPass looming for It’s Tough To Be A Bug now, yep, that’s how slim our pickings were. As we arrived to find an unsurprising five-minute wait we took the chance for Freddie to meet two of his favourites, Russell and Doug.

On the way into the ride, I think we were all little concerned at how Freddie might take some of the effects, noises and darkness in this show. To that end, we made sure we were first into a row and of course moved all the way to the end so that should he not be too happy he could be easily taken out.

We needn’t have worried. It seems that this child was built specifically for theme park touring. He loved it all and did not flinch at even the most scary elements.

Lunch was very much on our minds now and as we made our way over to Pandora, at an inevitable restroom stop, I mobile ordered for everyone.

I have no real clue what everyone ended up with, but they looked like this and it all cost $120.

Everybody said their dish was tasty. and surprisingly filling. I had tried to get sangrias for Louise, Emily and Rebecca but had to sacrifice one of them as only I had photo ID and it’s a two per ID limit.

Naturally, a restroom visit followed and as we loitered for that to happen rain came along. Luckily, we managed to find a table with a huge brolly over it to sit it out. Throughout lunch, I had been watching the app to see what the wait times were, as Flights Of Passage had been loitering around the 60-minute mark all morning. Freddie had fallen asleep by now and as the rain continued the app showed the wait time drop from 75 minutes to 60. It was now or never. Rebecca, Tom and I decided to go for it. Emily didn’t feel like waiting for an hour as she wasn’t feeling great.

We left Freddie and an allocated amount of cash with Louise so that they could amuse themselves whilst we rode.

One of the drawbacks of riding stuff for the first time, or at least queuing for it, is that you have no concept of how long you have yet to go. In the end, the wait was more like 80 minutes, but, it was still worth it and that’s from someone who typically has a 20-minute wait limit.

I found the mid-queue Blue Man Group show a little disappointing to be honest.

Having been so frustrated not to get a FastPass for this, although I never mentioned that in the build-up to the trip, of course, I was chuffed that we got the chance to do it without a wait numbering many hours.

We exited and met up with Emily and Louise, full of tales of how good the ride is and we made our way over to Everest as I had managed to secure at least one decent FastPass for today. We set up baby swap with the cast member at the FastPass entrance and Louise and I sat out first with a now awake Freddie as the others rode. I took Freddie over to the wall where you can watch the ride coming down the big drop. He loved it. We played a game of “Ready Steady…Go” for each train as it cam down the drop. This is one of those moments that doesn’t involve a ride, an expensive meal or elaborate hotel but it’s one that I will remember for a long time. It was a lovely thing.

Louise and I then rode. Freddie may well have been at the same wall, watching us as we came down the drop but I was not in a fit state to do any sort of “grandparent wave” as I screamed like a big girl.

Next, we made our way over to the next Nemo show, with a stop for some ice cream on the way and Freddie’s first Mickey Premium Bar.

He made a right mess….just the way it should be.

As we waited for the show to open, he played with his Ariel bubble thing, attracting admirers from all around.

We took our seats in what, I’m sure, where exactly the same place as last year. Freddie did well with this one, with it keeping his attention almost all the way through. I too managed a similar effort. I like it, I do, but it’s no Lion King is it?

Restrooms next of course before heading over to Dinosaur. En route, we took advantage of there being no wait to take Freddie on Triceratops again, this time with me and Louise. There would be no “grandparent wave” this time.

Freddie enjoyed it almost as much I enjoyed riding with him.

Still ultimately heading to Dinosaur we were distracted by the Dance Party thing. Freddie wasn’t too sure about the characters at this stage of the trip, but with some encouragement, he got there.

Finally, we made it all the way to Dinosaur and this time Emily volunteered to stay with Freddie as she has been emotionally scarred by this ride since an early age and now, even at 24, refuses to ride it.

This was a walk-on and as we boarded we witnessed a mother encouraging her young son to get on and reassuring him that he’d be fine. If he’s anything like Emily he may never recover and still blame his parents at the age of 24.

It was 6pm by now and we decided to make a move for the exit so that we could go and eat before Freddie was too tired. The walkout to the exit was a leisurely one involving shops and restrooms and in one of those I picked up some bubble refill fluid for Freddie’s Ariel. I inserted fluid into Ariel whilst Louise was shopping, It serves her right.

We trammed back to the car in what was again incredible heat.

The plan was Applebees but we had to make a twenty-minute detour back to the villa so that the girls could pick up their IDs and a hoody. No, it’s fine honestly.

I programmed the sat nav for Applebees not wanting to take any risk of a further delay to food due to navigational incompetence. It turned out that the Applebees in our sat navs history was the one of the 27, which was considerably further away than the one I would have driven too unaided on the 192. It seemed to take an age to get there but at least we were seated immediately when we finally arrived.

That iPad thingy on the table was a Godsend for gadget-obsessed Freddie, keeping him occupied brilliantly whilst we ordered. Our server, a mixture of Dr Phil and Richard Dreyfuss, was great. He had a comedy routine he clearly rolled out for all his guests but he was funny, knowledgeable and most importantly fast.

Apparently, the trip for the IDs was insisted upon as the girls had remembered that it always seems to be 2 for 1 happy hour at Applebees.

We ordered appetisers of a combo platter plus pretzels and cheese sauce.

These pretzels deserve a photo all of their own, so good were they.

We had –

Me – Strawberry Salad (no, really….)

Louise – Chicken Alfredo

Emily – Alfredo without the chicken

Tom – Ribs

Rebecca – Quesadilla Burger

Freddie had pasta, some strawberries and yoghurt.

Tom managed three, yes, three chocolate milkshakes.

During the meal our server, Phil Dreyfuss, chatted to us about the incoming hurricane, mainly reassuring us that he doubted we’d get any major impact and we also watched with a mixture of disbelief and disdain as the table next to us managed to moan about everything until they got what they wanted which was their bill written off. I’m all for raising issues if you have them but their “problems” were petty much nonsense and they should never have a good meal in a restaurant again as recompense.

We were all too full for desserts and having paid the bill on the tablet thing on the table, it was about $180 but I didn’t make a note for some reason, we made our way to the car.

We had to call at the Publix next door for reasons I didn’t listen to or remember. Louise and Emily went in and the rest of us marvelled at the car next to us which seemed to be a tip on wheels.

After waiting longer than I would have liked, Louise and Emily returned and I drove us home. Full, tired and happy from what was another absolutely lovely day.

Till the next time……

The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019 – Day Two

by mkingdon, posted in The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019

This is what it’s all about. The months of planning, the dark, cold mornings when you drag your unwilling ass out of bed to get to work to pay for these trips and the endless waiting for the countdown to reach zero. The first day dawns like a glorious new era, with all that real-life crap behind you along with the exhausting travel day. The endless possibilities of your trip stretching out before you as your T-shirt fits you the best it will for the foreseeable future.

Despite all of that, waking at 3am as I did was a big fat nope. I managed to get back to sleep until a much more respectable 6.30 before venturing downstairs to make the first of many checks on Dorian’s path. It was still a good few days away but that didn’t stop the TV from having 24-hour rolling coverage.

I showered and waited for others to appear. Freddie was soon ready to go.

and at a decent effort of 7.45am we were out of the door. Having failed at the whole supermarket thing last night, the cupboards were literally bare so we needed feeding and quick.

I had spotted a McDonalds on the way in last night and that was selected by me, without any consultation with anyone else, as it would be quick and not delay our arrival at Magic Kingdom any more than absolutely necessary.

We decided to eat inside and despite having to wipe our own table and order our own food on the big screen thing, it hit the spot. Look at how sunny it was and how it made the photos I took so great.

There were all sorts of sugar and salt-based goodies consumed in short order for the princely sum of $32. It would be the cheapest meal we would consume all holiday.

Not that I was keeping a track of time like some anal time-obsessed idiot, but we left McDonalds at 8.32am and arrived at the gates to Magic Kingdom at 8.50.

Not those gates….

These…

We paid the $25 for parking. Now, you know I am willing to gift Disney all of my money all of the time, but I have to say the parking fee is getting a little silly now. I know we are off-site scum who don’t hold an annual pass, and those are some ways to avoid it, but that is a high fee. Still, it could have been worse. We could have been one of those “characters” who sing to the cast member because they heard it can get them free parking. Just stop it!

We parked in Simba 117 and walked the inevitable walk from the very bottom of the row to the tram.

Getting six bodies and a stroller onto the tram isn’t easy, but by the end of this holiday, we could do it with our eyes closed.

Due to ongoing work, the tram doesn’t take you all the way in currently. It stops just outside of Tampa and you have to walk in the rest of the way.

At this point, some families may have a debate about how to get across the water to the park itself. Not on day one you don’t. Every second counts and anyone suggesting the ferry will be sleeping with the fishes.

There was a torturous wait as Rebecca took Freddie for a nappy change and I hid my burning desire to get into the park quite well I thought.

I mentioned in the previous day that I had abandoned the traditional bright white trainer for a more conservative black pair. To ensure that our party would continue to bring down aircraft with their footwear, both Emily and Louise had taken up the mantle.

We boarded the monorail, all craning our necks for that all-important first glimpse of the castle.

It is difficult for someone like me, with my weak grasp of writing, to express how this time and journey feels. You’ll know if you’ve done it I think. It goes without saying that I would sacrifice most of my major organs (not that one!) to be back in this moment.

Finally….finally….after a journey both real and metaphorical, we arrive at the turnstiles. We start to scan bands and fingers, mere moments from the first walk up Main Street. Wait, what? Emily is having problems. The cast member raises their hand so another one in a different uniform is summoned. Much scanning of bands, clicking of iPads and typing of stuff happens. I even get my photo taken for reasons I don’t understand. All that matters is that finally we are released into the Magic. Apparently, the issue was caused by Emily having her own My Disney Experience account, yet her ticket was linked to mine. That whole linking thing is more complex than Brexit.

Having realised that she had forgotten her magic band halfway to Manchester airport, Emily needed to get herself a new one. We did so in the very first shop we came across after doing a quick Facebook live of our first fateful steps in the park.

I have tried to embed that video here. It’s on Facebook so it may not work for some or all of you. To see it, I guess you’d need to Like the Mkingdon Facebook page, but frankly, if you haven’t done that already, it serves you right.

We linked the band up there and then in the shop and carried on up through the shops on our way to Pirates. We were very much soaking in every aspect of the park as if we’d never set foot in it before. This is a special time.

It was hot and sticky already, so Tom and Freddie took the welcome water of the camel.

Pirates had a fifteen-minute wait posted but it was a walk-on as you’d expect at this time. We don’t tend to use the Memory Maker as we should so I feel compelled to inflict the ride photo on you to feel that I am getting some value from it, despite getting it for “free”.

As you can see, Rebecca had already purchased her bride ears ready for next year. Tom said he’d wait! 🙂

Freddie loved the ride, especially the small drop and the bit where we all got splashed with a cannonball. I know it doesn’t particularly look like it on the photo but the joy of the first ride stayed with us as we left it, and waited for Rebecca to restroom. I collected the stroller and we all moved on to Big Thunder and our first FastPass.

As Freddie’s body clock was adjusting he was now in this state….

so Louise volunteered to sit out with him and she got us all some drinks for after our ride. After the wildest ride in the wilderness, we were headed to Haunted Mansion, but in a spectacular bit of unco-ordinated restrooming, Louise desperately needed to pay a visit. Rebecca, Tom and Emily set off for the Mansion whilst Lousie transferred Ryan, Freddie and other bits and bobs to me. Louise headed off and I set off to catch up with the others.

We were too early for our FastPass but the standby queue was short so I said that I would stay with Freddie whilst the others rode. I wrote up my notes so far, and waited for Louise to bear down and then catch up. After a while, I went to message her to find out where she was only to realise that she had left her phone in Ryan, so that wasn’t going to work. After several minutes of waiting, I got a bit bored, and that’s usually a recipe for trouble…for Louise.

I opened up her phone and did some mischief. Just for clarity, ICE1, is Louise. She is, and I advise you all to do the same, stored as my “In Case Of Emergency” (ICE) in my phone.

I took most joy from the fact that for the ten minutes that Emily, Tom and Rebecca were on the ride they really thought Louise had sent those messages. It’s the small things……

Louise, of course, found it absolutely hilarious as she openly displayed by rolling her eyes and looking at me with disdain and pity once she was reunited with her phone.

Once we were all back together, guess what we did? Yes, we stopped at the Tangled restrooms. Of course we did.

At one of these toilet stops I’m sure I will actually use a restroom at some point.

With Freddie still sleeping we decided to take the opportunity for a snack, which after a quick analysis of where we were and what was on offer, turned into an early lunch at Pinocchio’s Haus thing. We sat outside and I mobile ordered. It’s much easier to do that with a larger group, as every time we all stand at the till staring up at the menu trying to order in real-time, someone or something gets missed.

Once we’d collected the food we sat inside as the concrete was melting outside.

Tom – Nuggets

Rebecca & Freddie – Pasta Marinara

Me – Chicken Parm Burger

Emily – Flatbread

Louise – Bread Sticks as she wasn’t that hungry.

With slushes and sodas all round it was $94.

Naturally, a restroom was required after eating after which we headed out into the now incredible heat and the Carousel.

There was no wait and Freddie absolutely loved it, mastering the “wave at the grandparents” thing like a natural.

Philharmagic next.

Again, Freddie loved it despite not getting on too well with the 3D glasses.

It’s A Small World had a ten-minute standby and offered an escape from the heat so we did that next. This was right up there in the Freddie appreciation charts. He absolutely loved it. Again, I did a Facebook live here and I’ll try to put it here…..

Completing the set of Fantasyland stuff, our FastPass for Pete Pan was due. It’s as if all this had been planned.

As we left the ride, having now used all of our FastPasses, I booted up the app and made another for Barnstormer later that day, so Freddie could ride his first coaster.

As we had done much more restrooming than eating today I tried to remedy that now with some ice cream. We went to Friar’s Nook and got some very tasty stuff.

I won’t name any names, but some members of the group said they “didn’t want any ice cream” but then somehow ate a large proportion of said ice cream once they had tasted it.

That Key Lime stuff that I bought, but Emily seems to be eating, was absolutely delicious. I patted myself on the back for managing to capture such a flattering photo of Louise there.

It was parade time now, and we just managed to catch some of it after walking through the castle and onto one of the ramps leading down to Main Street. It was a great last-minute view and the five minutes of rain that we had at the time was not unpleasant and quite welcome.

It was Barnstormer time now. As we arrived we offered up Freddie for the measuring stick. We knew it would be close, and it took an excruciating few moments for the cast member to reach their verdict. He could get his finger between the top of Freddie’s head and the stick and therefore he couldn’t ride. We were mildly disappointed, but do not give up hope dear reader, that part of the story does not end there.

I cancelled the FastPass and booked Buzz instead. In the meantime, we had a sit-down, a restroom of course and Freddie and Tom played in the water for a bit.

I have always said that there is no “good age” to take kids to WDW. Take them as soon as you can afford to do so and as often as you can….always. Seeing the day that Freddie was having today and would continue to have throughout the holiday, I will wrestle anyone who disagrees.

I took the chance to take some pictures of the progress being made on Tron. It is HUGE and promises to be a significant addition to the park.

As another piece of planning genius unfolded before our very eyes, our Buzz FastPass was now ready so we made our way over there. I do think it unkind of Disney to take photos of folks when they are concentrating on beating their family at shooting targets.

Oh and due to an error on my part, where I scanned the wrong button, we seem to have a photo of a random couple on our account. Say hello!

It is both cool and a little tragic that I turn my cap around so that it does not impede my vision…..

and look at this classic……

Louise sat out in the sun for this one avoiding photographic shaming.

We were done at this point and we headed out to the car via tram and monorail. Tom and I dropped the ladies at the villa so they could begin the getting ready and we went to the Publix that we found closed last night. $220 later, we had a full trunk and soon a full fridge back at the villa.

After showers for all and some waiting for the males, we headed out for Outback at Formosa Gardens. Freddie was a little tired, as you can see….

but he did brilliantly as we ordered and ate.

He watched some Wallace and Gromit on his Dad’s phone and was even entrusted with the camera as a distraction for a while….

We had the customary Bloomin’ Onion….

Then….

Louise – Garlic Medallions of Steak

Rebecca – Sirlion (half-eaten)

Emily – A cheesy pasta thing, being the only Veggie option.

Freddie – Nuggets

I had a lovely steak and shrimp thing, but forgot to photograph it. I get better at this. It was our first night, forgive me.

Tom – An Quesadilla burger which escaped the camera also.

It was all very, very delicious. The bill with a 20% tip, was $178.

We barely managed it home awake. Bed at 10. That, my friends, is a very good effort at an excellent first day. We had a blast.

Till the next time……

The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019 – Day One

by mkingdon, posted in The Dodging Dorian Tour 2019

One of the greatest challenges in documenting one of these trips is the first day. Here I sit, still a bit jet lagged, the horrors of work on my mind, trying desperately to re-capture the excitement and anticipation I can see in the photos from our travel day. The two moods could not be more removed from each other.

Our travel day starts early these days. With Rebecca not at home we have to do the door photos the night before. It does warm my heart a little that it is the girls asking days before when and how we are all getting together to get them done. It is not just my sad tradition, it is theirs too.

This report starts even earlier than that this time. You find me at my desk on my final afternoon. I am tolerating the back to back meetings that have somehow invaded my diary and counting down to the the time I can leave without being formally disciplined when a text arrived on my phone. Oh good, I can now check in for our flights.

I follow the link and start clicking stuff. Now, my track record with online check in is not good for some reason. It never seems to go smoothly. Anyway, I am moving through the various pages with my natural silky grace and one more click will see us all sorted.

An error appears. That’s odd. I do not make mistakes, so surely this pesky website is playing up. Looking in more detail the error relates to Emily and it tells me to check her status on the ESTA website.

The faint stirrings of nausea appear deep within my gut. I do as advised. Luckily, I have a photo of her passport stored on my laptop so I have all I need to confirm that her ESTA is fine. My hands are shaking a little as I type in her details, mainly as the new red warning message across the top of the ESTA site reminds me that it can take 72 hours to get approval.

So, it turns out she has no valid ESTA. My mind wildly searches for a reason for this, but the only one it can come up with is that I am an absolute idiot. I remember distinctly sitting at my laptop many weeks ago getting everyone’s ESTA either renewed or checked. I had a stack of passports and I worked through each one methodically.

Anyway, finding someone else to blame for this was a job for later. Right now, I had to apply and quickly. With my hands shaking a little more, I somehow got the application done as quickly as possible. As expected, Authorization (sic) was pending. I sat refreshing the page for a bit, but nothing changed.

At this point I called Louise to confess my incompetence. Next I called Emily to confess the same and without saying it out loud, letting her know that she may not be travelling with us. She took it calmly and in her stride which just about stopped me from jumping from the window ledge I was stood on. An hour passed, and panic was setting in and I started googling stuff about recent time frames for ESTA approval. Nothing gave me any comfort, and despite knowing it was very unlikely to make a difference I called the number on the ESTA site. I sat on hold for twenty minutes whilst still refreshing the page constantly.

Whilst doing that I even checked out flight times over the coming days just in case the worst happened and she wouldn’t be able to fly with us.

To draw a veil over the horrors of this afternoon, at 4.35pm, a desperate push of F5 refreshed the ESTA site one more time and, thankfully, the status changed to Authorized. I haven’t felt relief like it since her conception.

Now, you will know that I am a dedicated planner and have been until this point a fastidious, organised type. I could never imagine that I would be incompetent enough to let this happen. Clearly I am that incompetent, as I will prove to you in other mistakes I will document here over the coming weeks. Senility is arriving early. But do please take my failings as a warning to check and double check everything one last time. I can ony think that Emily’s passport was stored in her room and when I gathered them all together I couldn’t count properly and didn’t do hers. As I said, incompetent.

So, with that over with, and I am sweating slightly again just recounting it, we shall proceed with those traditional door photos.

If I had been sensible I may have got the camera out before now to remind myself how it works. Like most of you, my phone is my camera at every other time than a WDW trip so getting to grips with my very nice Canon G7X takes a little time. All of that is an excuse for these being a bit blurry.

They got a bit better as we went along….

Well some did….

Now would be a good time to warn you. There are going to be a lot of photos of Freddie in this trip report. It’s natural of course but it’s best I tell you now.

Now we get into the different configurations….

and a more traditional door photo….

So with that done, we ate our takeaway, finished the packing and all went to bed.

Online check in still wouldn’t work for Emily, so that was one last minor issue we would need to address at the airport. A small price to pay for my stupidity. I had felt panic stricken and on edge all evening to be honest, convinced I had made some other error and it was hard to relax into the holiday feeling.

That no doubt contributed to me being awake from 3am. I rose at 7am for the traditional three S’s, tidied up a bit, put the bins out and got the final bits into the cases and wrestled them downstairs. The taxi arrived early at 8.20. We were ready and after a tearful goodbye to the dogs we loaded ourselves and the cases into the van, with me still questioning what I had forgotten.

We collected Rebecca, Tom and Freddie five minutes later and made our way slowly to the airport with me doing the “you been busy?” thing with the driver as I had to sit up front.

We arrived at 9.20 and made our way to desks 14-24. We were approached by a chap offering us an upgrade. Alas, it was not a free one, and another £800 for the move to Premium Economy could not be justified, especially as I had already, unbeknownst to the rest of the party, paid for extra leg room seats in economy.

Emily’s check in was trouble free and it was a nice feeling to have her boarding pass in my hands.

Security was dreadful. As we had a pram with us we were directed to the Assistance Lane. There wasn’t any assistance that I noticed, but there was a whole heap of waiting. It wasn’t helped by the family in front of us having what appeared to the their weekly food shop in their hand luggage. After about half an hour we finally got through and feeling hangry, we moved through into the departure lounge. Our direct route to food was only interrupted as several of the females needed the rest room.

Freddie made good use of the time.

A bee line was made for Giraffe, our usual Terminal 1 eatery and there was no wait to be seated. The choosing of food was a serious business.

We had…..

Me and Tom – Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich

Louise – (A quite poor) Eggs Benedict

Emily – Veggie Breakfast Sandwich

I failed to capture this but it looked like the sandwich Tom and I had.

Rebecca – Some Mexican themed breakfast thing

Freddie – A generic kid’s breakfast

Coffee and juice for all and it came to £90 including a tip.

Having only just waited outside a restroom mere moments ago, we had to do so again as my daughters laid some cable. With that done, we wandered some shops, I bought a book from Smiths and then we found ourselves a seat to wait for the gate to open. I think even I had a wee at this point. I am only human.

As I did, I wondered, as I often do, what it is that makes men need to dredge up a pint of phlegm as they take a leak at the urinal. The two functions are not connected. Why do I have to have a wee whilst listening to my fellow urinators pulling up bodily fluids from their toes before expectorating it into the piss pot. Come on fellas, sort it out!

We explored the totally authentic UK/Manchester themed area of duty free too.

Yet more restrooming was done as we made our way to gate 27. As ever, there was a long queue which we ignored and just waited until most folks had got on. Inexplicably, Rebecca and Louise needed to restroom again. Is there a doctor in the house? They took just long enough to make me a little worried that the gate would close with us still on UK soil and some heated messages were exchanged before they reappeared.

We boarded and settled in for the flight which was announced as taking nine hours.

Our extra leg room was welcome and looked like this. You will see that I denounced the usual bright white trainers, but fear not, the tradition was not abandoned. More on that later.

As ever, we did not take off at the intended time, instead we left the UK at 3.07, some twenty minutes behind schedule. Drinks and entertainment upgrades were purchased. These not being free is the main difference between Thomas Cook and Virgin in my mind. The available film choice was pretty poor to be honest with few that hadn’t been out for an age. I found Vice and watched that with a few breaks for entertaining Freddie and food, which was chicken pasta or beef stroganof.

At some point, clearly Freddie got his hands on the camera…..

Only the appearance of the ice cream got him back settled in his seat and watching something again.

Freddie was great to be fair on what felt like a very long flight. It was made to feel even longer and more arduous as the woman sat behind Rebecca coughed for 8 hours and 50 minutes of the nine, without once covering her mouth. It was a nasty, “I’ve worked down a coal mine for thirty years” lung wrenching, phlegm factory of a cough that promised to infect most of the plane with whatever she had.

To prove that fact, I developed a runny nose almost immediately and spent a lot of the flight blowing my conk in the toilets, which isn’t a euphemism.

Freddie was tired but wouldn’t sleep so I took him for a walk around the cabin once everything had been served, sold and collected. I spent the rest of the flight watching Big Bang Theories I had already seen and blowing my nose. A sandwich and some cake was served around 10.30pm UK time and the desperation to get there was not eased by that offering.

Our descent took about 45 minutes and we landed at 7.04pm Orlando time. We taxied to the gate by 7.20. We were sat in row two which had me excited about being the first off the plane. Knowing that, the ground staff attached the tube to the middle door instead and we were off behind most other passengers which would prove to be troublesome. I say it every year, but MCO is a mess for arrivals.

Firstly, immigration was horrendous. We had arrived just behind what appeared to be a fight of 3500 Brazilians. We waited for 80, yes, 80 minutes to get processed. Poor Tom had to hold a now sleeping Freddie in his arms for the entire time. Louise was having hot sweats as despite all of her previous restroom visits, there was now a chocolate hostage fighting to be released.

Not surprisngly, our bags were waiting for us when we finally got through. We collected those whilst Louise sprinted for the restroom.

The next parts of moving through Orlando airport also contribute to my view that it is a mess. The whole double bag drop thing is silly, and we always choose to just take them with us, but that involves escalators and/or an elevator before you even get to the monorail.

With a light sweat on, Buddy the Mayor greeted us and we finally made our way to the bit where you walk for miles again, before more elevator nonsense to get down to the car hire bit.

Having been reunited with his pram, Freddie made full use.

There was no queue at all at the Dollar desk and I was in and out like a teenager’s first time. They tried the upgrade thing, the extra insurance thing, the toll pass thing and the sat nav thing. I brushed them all aside and rejoined the group, now on a mission to get to the bloody villa.

We had been directed to row 2 to choose our mini van. My tired brain was confused by the fact that row 2 seemed to only contain SUVs until a staff member pointed out the mini vans were about five minutes walk down that row. What’s another bit of walking at this stage?

We spent a few minutes trying to choose the best van available but gave up and just chose the one we were stood next to. The cases and pram were jammed in badly and we were off. Tom programmed the sat nav and with only one minor detour, as I took a wrong exit somehwere along the 528, after a long, dark and rainy journey we made it to Sandy Ridge. Wait, no, I took a turn earlier than I needed and we were still a few hundred yards away. A quick turn around, and a bit of swearing and we were now on the right development at least.

Now if someone can explain to me why the villas are numbered in a random order that would be great. We were in 206, so obviously next door would be 196 yes? I mean….

http://gph.is/NYwvMB

This caused another U turn and some more swearing before the van was more abandoned than parked on the drive and we started dragging the cases in.

Louise found a letter for us from the management company telling us that Hurricane Dorian was definitely going to completely ruin our entire trip. OK, in my tired state I may have over reacted, but the letter was written in a way that pretty much said we would either need to evacuate or spend two weeks in the bath tub. My mood was not a positive one.

Add to that, my dissapointment that the villa seemed to be less than we were expecting. I spent a decent amount of time looking for a cheap (we weren’t supposed to be going remember?) villa with two en suite masters, sacrificing location to get that within our budget. At first glance, the two main bedrooms, whilst being en suite had, at best, Queen beds. Rightly or wrongly, when someone advertises two master suites, I would expect at least King size beds.

As Tom and I headed to the supermarket for supplies, I was, I have to admit, feeling a little downbeat. With the hovering threat of a holiday ruining hurricane and me seemingly having dropped another bollock with the villa selection I was not as upbeat as anyone should be at this point of a trip.

This was compounded by the fact that the nearby Publix closed at 10pm and it was now 10.40, so we had to go across to the WaWa petrol station to grab some milk and cereal for Freddie’s breakfast.

Defeated and deflated we got back to the villa and fell into bed around midnight.

Maybe it is my advancing years but this travel day is a real endurance test. It involved almost 24 hours of being awake, endless queues, waiting, dragging of luggage and frustrations. You may be hoping that things improve or this trip report might not be very much fun. Well, I have to report as I find, but don’t worry, you are, over the coming weeks about to join us on one of our most enjoyable trips. Whether I can write about it in a way that you’ll enjoy cannot be guaranteed though!

Till the next time…….

No Licence To Chill

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

It’s been a very stressful last week of the countdown. It started in glorious fashion on Monday, when it suddently occurred to me that I hadn’t yet slotted all the cards I need to take with me into the card shaped slot in my bumbag. That’s right, I wear a bumbag, don’t @ me as the kids might say.

It not only looks impressive, manly and attractive, it is very practical too.

So I selected the relevant credit cards and went to add my driving licence to the collection. Hmm, it’s not in my wallet I thought, as I discovered it wasn’t in my wallet. A mild dew of sweat gathered on my forehead.

Not to worry. Last time I saw it, it was in that thing in our bedroom. Trouble is, since then our bedroom has been through a total rebuild and everything in it was scattered to the four winds for the duration. Most of it has never returned.

A moist half hour followed as I barrelled around the house doing my “man looking” for it and getting increasingly agitated. After exhausting every possible location, I decided I could waste no further time and had to apply for a replacment. A few minutes online and I was done and £20 lighter. I’d also applied for a new licence.

Seconds after hitting submit, I thought, I’ll just check “there”. There being under Rebecca’s bed in what is now our spare room/junk store/bomb site. Oh look, there’s that container thing my licence used to be in before we destroyed and reconstructed the bedroom. I pulled it out, but there was no time for that, so I put it away and had a look in the container instead.

Yep, there it was. Thank goodness. I quickly called the DVLA folks and explained that a mere sixty seconds ago I had hit submit on an application for a new licence, and that I had since found my current one and they could cancel that application.

Apparently the computer said no, and my application was now “in the system” and could not be stopped. How sad that there is an all powerful, omnipresent, sentient, undeniable force at work at DVLA that cannot be accessed or influenced by mere human beings. OK, no problem, I’ll just take my existing one that I just found and use that.

Nope. I was told that was now an ex-driving licence and would be no use to me unless I intended to use it as an ice scraper come the winter. I would need to wait for my new one and use that.

I enquired when that might be. “Within two weeks”, was the reply.

How I laughed. With further questioning, it appears that typically it takes 3-5 days so we should be fine, but the fear was real because if that thing didn’t arrive before we left, Louise would be driving for the full two weeks and that would be fun.

It’s amazing that no matter how long the countdown is I can leave myelf exposed to such muppetry. If only we’d done these trips before and I knew what I was doing.

Anyway, it arrived on Thursday and that particular panic could be called off.

Alongside that specific bit of nonsense has been a general feeling of anxiety and a sense that there a million things that need doing and time is fast running out. Louise’s passport wasn’t where it should be which added to the moist brow. Apparently it was in her car which of course is a very sensible place to store such an important document.

Work was annoying too. My plan to spend next Tuesday working at home was scuppered with the appearance in my diary of a handful of meetings I have to be in the office for, so that hasn’t helped. Every year this shit must happen but like childbirth, I completely forget the stresses of the final few days and getting everything in order and stumble blindly into it every single time.

Decelerating from the pace of working life and the hectic preparations is something that I will need to do quickly as I drive home from work on Tuesday if I am not to waste the few few days adjusting to be in holiday mode.

Louise is working all weekend, so I have been spending my time alone ticking off all the tasks I had been stressting about all week. Inexplicably that included some decorating as I finished some painting Louise started some months ago in the spare room, and very unsually for her (not) hadn’t finished. Our dog sitting guests will be staying in that room so it was only right I made it habitableish.

I have washed lots of things including the dog’s beds and rugs (they have a fine collection), ordered and had delivered the shopping for the dogs, cat and dog sitters for our time away and washed and curated my collection of designer wear for our trip. I have of course planned and co-ordinated all my outfits day by day so you can rest assured I will be rocking “the Gram” for the entire trip, so keep your eye on my acount.

So, one day in the office aside, we’ve made it. The counting down is done, the planning complete, and the waiting is almost over. If nothing else you all get a couple of Sundays off from me moaning here, and hopefully you will be joining us at various points on the trip as I share stuff online.

So away we go, and I’ll see you on the other side, back here, sometime in September.

Till the next time…….

All The Single Digits…..

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

We’re nearly there folks. Just a few more days and you get at least two Sundays off from this tripe. It’s a strange phenomenon that the fewer days we have left in the countdown the further away it seems. Getting through another week and a bit seems more daunting than when we rounded the double-digit day milestone.

Looking back over recent posts, I recognise that the last few weeks may have come across as a little downbeat, negative, or big girl’s blousey. That’s because that is an accurate summary of the content of recent posts. How can I be moaning so much this close to a trip?

I don’t know. I’m tired and emotional maybe and in desperate need of a break? Who knows? Or maybe it’s because I am being persecuted by the Gods of the FastPass to never get the ones I want and this is a clear case of victimisation and persecution…….ahem, we shall move on.

Anyway, not to break stride, and continue this maudlin mantra, this week I learnt that O Canada will be down for refurb whilst we are there. So there’s that.

To be honest I am at the moment in the mode of trying to dampen my own expectations for the trip. The countdown and build up are so long and arduous that there is a danger that the holiday never stands a chance of living up to the lofty heights your mind has created.

So I am mentally preparing myself for the fact that it will rain a lot, which is just like being at home right now, and that the crowds will be huge and annoying and we won’t get the FastPasses we want….oh I’ve mentioned that already….

I do this just so that I can take these minor set backs in my ever pleasant and smiling stride of course.

Looking at reports from folks over there at the moment, the rain thing is definitely on the cards. We are experienced and seasoned August travellers so we know this and are ready to deal with it, but hopefully it will be restricted to the normal afternoon downpours and nothing more and we, as we have so far over all these years, avoid a hurricane.

If I can ensure my expectations are not too high then there is every chance they shall be exceeded and for my (and your) sake let’s hope that is the case.

Today, we will slip into our single digit day dance territory with effortless grace and I face just one week left at work now. Technically, I am in work on the day before we go, the day after the Bank Holiday Monday, but I shall probably work from home that day at least saving myself the horrors of the commute, so I am not counting that.

It’s funny that the absolute need for this holiday is so great now that I cannot comprehend how I intended to survive until next summer before having a holiday as was the plan. Right now, getting through another few days in the office without head butting someone is looking like a challenge.

There will be just one more blog pre trip so now is a good time to do some recruitment for the old social media channels. I will mostly be posting on the Mkingdon Facebook page so if you haven’t liked that, now is a good time to do so. I will be going “Live” a fair bit so if you want to join us, you know what to do.

If you wish you can also “enjoy” my content on Instagram and Twitter. How many ways are there to hear me moan about stuff? I wouldn’t bother “hitting me up” on Snapchat as I’ve never been able to figure out how to use it, which is just how Snapchat like it.

Sometimes I do think that this point of the countdown is the best and it is a state that everyone should live in perpetually. Imagine always having a WDW trip just a few days away? Existing in a state of perpetual anticipation would be lovely, other than of course never actually going on the trip itself. Having lost about six ounces on my hellish never-ending healthy eating regime for the last few weeks I have tried on the shorts, selected those that fit and are worthy of the journey, and with that another pre-holiday tradition is ticked off. I think that pink lycra is the way to go this time, don’t you?

Till the next time……

A Passage To Whingier

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

So how’s your week been?

I can summarise mine like this….

So mainly I have been fighting the rising resentment of not being able to get a FastPass for anything built after 2010. Talk about first world problems right?

Of course, but it still ticks me off. It must be some sort of unwanted special achievement to book FastPasses for a full two week trip and not get a single one of the FastPasses you really wanted at any park? I don’t count Epcot in that as there is currently no “must have” ride and you can pretty much choose whatever you like, but wherever there is a tricky to get FastPass, I have failed miserably to get even one.

So having a daily sulk on this topic hasn’t detracted too much from seeing our countdown reduce to touching distance. Well, it has, but not enough to matter. With this huge chip on my shoulder, I doubt I’d be able to fit onto Flights Of Passage anyway so it’s maybe for the best.

Maybe this isn’t something worthy of my persecution complex? It could just be that the place is going to be very busy, with Galaxy’s Edge, Food and Wine and summer all happening at the same time. You see, I might believe that if I weren’t getting messages from kindly folks through the week telling me how they all got FastPasses for every ride they ever wanted, and in fact Disney hand delivered them to their UK address asking what time would suit them best. I’m not bitter…..

The new FastPass teiring system at DHS isn’t ideal either. Every ride you want to do is in the same tier so the choice is very limited. With Slinky always unavailable if your surname is Williams, after choosing one “headliner” the second and third choices are all for things that you’d rarely need a FastPass for, like Muppets, Indiana Jones or Frozen Ever After. Hopefully they will readjust that once the Galaxy’s Edge thing has opened and clamed down a bit.

Perhaps this is just Disney’s strategy to encourage folks to stay on site. It seems I have proven that it is impossible to secure first choice FastPasses at 30 days out (please don’t tell me that you got all yours at 30 days, I want to wallow in my own self pity). The thought of staying on site for at least part of next year’s trip has crossed my mind already so maybe it works. I get it. They spend a fortune on new attractions and if you wanna ride it, fork out for an on site stay fat boy or just suck it up on Journey Into Imagination and Carousel of Progress with the rest of the muggles.

In better news, on our commute home on Wednesday I was fighting the urge to run the car into the central reservation as we battled another shitty overly long journey home, when Emily emerged from her cataonic state in the passenger seat to share some exciting news she had just discovered on some social media thing. Reservations were open for some Galaxy’s Edge stuff.

Neither of us knew anything about what might be available but that didn’t stop Emily immediately going onto the My Disney Experience app to see what was going on. The initial signs were not good as there was a message saying that dining reservations were not available via the app due to high demand and they had to be booked on the main website.

Emily followed those instructions, managed to remember the relavant password and started frantically searching for the relevant dates. As we expected to get nowhere near Galaxy’s Edge this year we have done zero research and had no idea what was what, so we had no clue what we might be booking. There were several minutes of tension and stress as we lost 4G for a while mid-booking and the site died a bit but Emily valiantly succeeded in her quest.

As a side note, how far have we come in recent years? There we were doing 70mph on the M60….well probably more like 25mph, but the potential is there, booking stuff via a handheld device for a trip we wont take for a few more weeks. It was only ten minutes ago that I had to speed march to the FastPass ticket machines around the parks elbowing small chldren out of the way to do so. I miss that, it was fun!

So on our first day at DHS we now have a “lunch” reservation at Oga’s Cantina. I say lunch, but the menu looks to be mainly alcohol with some token nibbles but I’m not that bothered. It’s just a way to get us into the general area, in case they start restricting access, so we can have a look around.

In a world where our account has clearly been blacklisted and blocked from getting access to any recently built attraction, I’m calling this a small victory. I have zero expectations of being able to do anything other than that reservation and look round some shops, but we’ll take in the theming and do what we can.

In other trip related news, Rebecca and Tom, but mostly Tom, have been busy creating Freddie’s MNSSHP costume. He has played a blinder and the cuteness is, as the kids say, off the scale.

Up is currently one of Freddie’s favourite films to watch so it is apt too. Just wait till he discovers you get unlimted free sweets on the night too.

The trip is now playing on my mind constantly, mainly as I grumble inwardly about not getting certain FastPasses, but I am mentally remembering and reminding myself of all the things I need to do, sort out and remember to take. You’d think this was all second nature after so many years of practice but no, I still manage to find a way to worry about this stuff.

There are two weeks left at work and my only hope is that the two weeks of our trip last as long as these next two will.

Till the next time…….

FastPases, Frustration and Fiduciary Failings

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Let me start by saying that yesterday was a significant day in the Mkingdon household. Yes, it was FastPass day for Animal Kingdom. It goes without saying that despite pouncing all over the My Disney Experience like the lithe and taught cat I am, I had more chance of a fringe than getting a FastPass for Flights Of Passage. I think it is the case now that if you are staying off site, you don’t get a FastPass for that thing.

If you are staying off site and got a FastPass, please don’t tell me. It is this one slither of comfort that is stopping me penning a strongly worded email to senior Disney officials or posting it on one of those Disney Facebook groups for the sole purpose of getting some attention and maybe getting some compensation.

Oh, it was also our 23rd wedding anniversary. We celebrated with a Chinese and an early night. Not that kind of early night. We were both a little under the weather so Louise had to retire to bed with a migraine and I played some PS4. Who said you can’t keep the magic alive?

So I’ve been booking FastPasses since Tuesday. The first day was a deja vu moment from last year, with the stroke of 12 (that’s the title of a pay per view movie I once say advertised in a hotel) seeing me wrestle with the web site and the app as they both crashed like some toddler after a bag of M&Ms. It took about twenty minutes for them both to start behaving. Of course by this time my only priority, Mine Train, had gone. Still, Big Thunder, Haunted Mansion and Peter Pan is a decent return for our first day.

This midday crashing of their site still happening suggests to me that they don’t want to fix that. As far as peaks of trafiic go, that time on the FastPass booking site is probably one of the most predictable on the planet so there are things they could do I’m sure. There must be a reason they don’t want to. Inflicting frustration on paying guests doesn’t seem to be a good strategy but hey, I keep going back and handing over my cash so take from that what you will.

I didn’t need to book anything on Wednesday as we will be at Typhoon Lagoon but Thursday saw a little bit of pressure as I was booking for what will be my birthday trip to Epcot. I am pleased to report that this was the one day on which I got my main priority, Soarin’. With Mission Space and Spaceship Earth that’s a solid day’s activity before we move up to World Showcase for our meal and fireworks stuff.

The next day was just about making some “maybe we will use them” FastPasses for the evening as it will be a day of eating at Hash House a Go Go and Trail’s End, with either an evening in Magic Kingdom or, I have a tentative idea of going to the Poly to watch the fireworks from their beach. Our energy levels will dictate what we do. Don’t worry, I will of course cancel those FastPasses should we not intend to use them. I am not a monster.

That brings us to yesterday and Animal Kingdom. It does irk me a little that the best ride on WDW property is clearly beyond us but it is outside of my control and I will not pointlessly whinge about it on the internet like some spoilt entitled oversized baby….oh, bugger. I did manage to get a solid trio (which was also what I got after last night’s Chinese, but I’m feeling better now) of Everest, Safari and Na’vi River Journey.

Today at 12 I will be being dissapointed with things again as I attempt to book FastPasses for our first visit of the trip to Hollywood Studios. They are changing or have changed already, I can’t remember, the tiering for their FastPasses so I think you can only book restroom visits and access to the car park at the same time or something. We’ll see. I’m not convinced we’ll even get in the park so it may not matter.

Anyway, FastPass dissapointments aside, we’re at 23 days and at the stage where I almost don’t mind Mondays rolling round again as it is just another step to departure.

The other event in a planning filled week was the purchase of some dollars. Really, I should draw a veil over this as if I start ranting I may never stop…..

Suffice to say, for my many, many English pounds I got enough dollars to maybe buy a drink from one of the vending machines at the airport after we land.

Sigh, only I could be a mere 23 days away from a WDW trip and spend my time moaning about stuff. It comes from a good place of wanting to make the best trip I can or everyone…so if you could all log on and cancel your Flights of Passage FastPasses and somehow double the dollar rate, that’d be great.

Till the next time…..

Birthdays and Baldrick Brainwaves

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Another week goes by, and as time tends to, so does another year. We had a birthday this week as Emily turned 24. Believe me she is struggling to come to terms with how that happened as much as you may be. At some point I’ll let her into the secret that no matter what age you actually are you never really feel like a proper grown up and everyone is just busking it and doing their best to get by.

We all enjoyed her cake, made expertly by Rebecca, who is developing a real skill for this sort of thing.

Freddie had some for brunch minutes after arriving with it.

As you may know from previous Julys, Oli shares Emily’s birthday and the big daft bugger is now a mature 8 year old with fading tolerance for the not very mature Bean. It gets to us all.

We had a family takeaway curry on Friday evening to commemorate the day and over ordered so spectacularly that our fridge still contains Naan bread and some curry. That is never a bad thing.

Onto matters of planning. Surely there can be nothing left to plan? The issue is that most folks have a lengthy countdown to these trips, and with planning being interesting, fun and a way to make trip seem closer (assuming you are wired in the appropriate way, and I am), over time you end up adding stuff and planning bits and pieces because of all of the above. However, with just the 30 days to go until departure, this week I excelled myself and conducted an act of planning genius so cunning that I can’t tell you what it is. It is more cunning than Mr McCunning, the teacher of cunning at Cunning Town School for foxes who wish to be more cunning.

There’s a few reasons I can’t tell you. One of them is that I know for a fact that Bob Iger reads my blog every week and if he realised the brilliance of my act he wouldn’t know whether to sue me or hire me, and I can’t take the risk he’ll choose the wrong option.

Other reasons include the fact that whilst it absolutely does not break any rules, if everyone did it, then Disney would probably put things in place to stop it or at least make it more difficult. Also, now that I have bragged about my brilliance I want to wait and see if it comes off before admitting to what it is so I don’t look (more) stupid. All I will say is that it has been an issue I have been wrestling with for a while and all of a sudden during last week inspiration came to me. I quickly made the relevant arrangements and felt pretty smug, if not smug or confident enough to tell you about it.

If you never hear of this again, you will know which way it went. If it works I will probably admit to it in the trip report and then you can all tell me you all do it anyway and everyone knows about it and I am in no way clever or special.

Loins are being girded right now, ready for the FastPass thing to start on Tuesday. As we are off site scum, I will need to try every day for two weeks to secure the passes we want for each day 30 days hence. Day one is usually fairly stress free as Magic Kingdom is our park of choice and there’s typically a good enough selection of rides and attractions to get decent FastPasses. The thinking is to secure Mine Train if we can, something like Haunted Mansion and then a ride ideal for Freddie. We may ride Peter Pan but only with a FastPass. It always seems to have at least a forty minute wait and we won’t be doing that.

The FastPass pressure will really be on for the days we are at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios to get those rides everybody wants. Stay tuned for me trying to put a positive spin on getting FastPasses for the bird show at DAK and the car park at DHS.

Ryan has now been rescued from his cupboard where he rests between trips. All relevant documents, tickets and anything trip related such as the digital camera I only ever use in WDW, are being randomly stuffed into him. A tactical repack of Ryan will happen close to departure so that things are to hand in the order I will need them during the journey. This is in no way sad.

The next major milestone will come post pay day on Wednesday when I will sit weeping, looking at the dollar rate for a few hours before realising I have no choice but to order some anyway. As cunning as I am, I have yet to find a way to rig the currency markets for my own benefit as your Rees Moggs tend to. I spit on your Brexit. Anything which make my holidays more expensive, by definition, cannot be a good thing.

And on that political bombshell, I shall return to my Sunday and wish you well for yours….

Till the next time…..

Sanaaty is So Scary

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

37 days.

How can something feel so close and yet seem so far away at the same time? Over the years, I have to admit to getting very close a trip and not being ready. I don’t mean physically, as packing always gets done and plans get made. I mean mentally. Sometimes life is just so busy that I have struggled to get into the right mindset and it has taken a few days of the holiday to get into the right mode.

Well, I’m ready. This happened this week I think. This lovely bonus trip that was not going to happen is incredibly welcome, needed and almost upon us.

It may have been this holiday mode settling in that was responsible for my latest faux pas. All the things that we told ourselves about squeezing this trip in by cutting back on the more expensive things a trip can include lie in tatters. That’s harsh, we have restricted the number of ADRs but like some kind of Augutus Gloop of trip planning I couldn’t keep my fat fingers off another succulent looking morsel that came into my view this week.

To get the confession out of the way, I have booked Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party for us for the 8th of September. Some random blog about it came into one of my social media feeds during the week at a time when I had a few minutes for it to catch my eye. I read about some of the new things for this year, remembered how last year was one of the highlights of our trip and as all good financially irresponsible planners do, thought, sod it, and pressed the button.

It fell nicely into the plan on one of those days that I mentioned last week that had nothing concrete in it, so, clearly, it was my density.

Image result for you are my density george mcfly

My weakness was welcomed by my fellow travellers with all the enabling support an addict does not need. It’s like having Oliver Reed as your Alcoholics Anonymous mentor.

Rebecca is now planning and putting together Freddie’s costume. We won’t be dressing up, mainly because when we went last year the temperature was ridiculous and the idea of being in some cumbersome polyester number is too horrific to consider. I applaud those that do.

So that solved one of my outstanding planning issues, as that day now has a character breakfast at Chef Mickey’s mid-morning, and MNSSHP in the evening. Whilst updating “the plan” with these details, I did have a minor meltdown and panic. It suddenly dawned on me that my birthday plans had some potential issues.

This year it falls on a Saturday, and based on Emily’s experiences when working in World Showcase during Food & Wine, Saturdays are generally to be avoided as she always found them to be very busy and very full of drunken people staggering from booth to booth. Options were considered, but the amount of surgery required to the whole plan to accommodate any change that may properly solve this and not cause carnage to the rest of the trip was too severe. So, we decided to leave it as it is.

I consulted Touring Plans and saw that they rated that day a 4 out of 10. This reassured me a little, as I could see they were showing DHS at a 10 out of 10 for much of that week when Galaxy’s Edge opens. At the end of the day, we shall play it by ear. If we focus on Future World (what remains of it) during the day we should avoid most of the crowds coming for Food & Wine and then we can do our ADR at Via Napoli and then wander a hopefully quieter World Showcase in the evening before the fireworks. Simply put, if it does get too busy, we’ll do something else. You know me, I just go with the flow!

To show that I am not a total idiot, I did resist booking Sanaa. This, despite spending a little time browsing the menu this week, is an act of self restraint that I applaud myself for. We already have a list of off site favourites that we will never get through so it made no sense. Then again, their bread service is sufficient to abandon all sense of sanaaty (see what I did there?) so I am quite pleased with myself.

Yesterday I found myself nesting. This seems to happen as a trip gets close enough to touch. It’s a desire to get things in order before we go I guess. Like some pregnant mother about to deliver, when holiday mode gets me, I too have a burning desire to get things done. So a number of tasks that I have been gladly ignoring for months got done. Some grouting, random repairs around the house and sorting of our spare room took place. That spare room has been a disaster since we did our bedroom and that was finished in May. Don’t get me wrong it’s still far from show room standards but we can now see the floor!

So my readiness is there and in a week we will be in FastPass territory. That’s when shit gets real, as somebody who doesn’t mind swearing might say. Be prepared for my inevitable rants about Flights of Passage and Slinky Dog not being available for the entirety of our stay. It’s all part of the process.

Till the next time…….

Schrodinger’s Plan

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Hello friends. It is an appropriate point in time, I feel, for one of my walkthroughs of our holiday plans. I know that you get bits and bobs each week, but it is inevitable that at certain points in time, you must be afflicted with a detailed breakdown of where we currently sit. So now, just 44 days away from departure, it is that time.

Now, I know I have said that this trip will be “planning light”, but, if you believed that for a second you haven’t been paying attention to my obsessive over thinking, over planning nature all these years. It is not however as detailed as previous years and for that I should be applauded.

So settle in for my current version of the plan. It will be strikingly similar, yet crucially different, to all my other plans over the years, and therefore (almost certainly not) worth the investment of your time.

Day One

This is our travel day, and already we have something new and “interesting” to report. Our flight is not until 2pm in the afternoon, so this negates the need for one of those 3am starts driven by a 10am flight, to find Louise already up and hoovering the ceiling in an attempt to distract herself from the prospect of the flight.

Our taxi to the airport is booked for a very civilised 9am. This means that will be able to fully enjoy the M60 and all of its delights just as rush hour is ending. I am giving us an hour to complete what should be a 30 minute drive, getting to Manchester Airport Terminal 1 at 10am.

By the time we check in and get through security that may be getting on for 10.45 or so, and that means we will be in proper brunch territory at whichever eatery we select.

We land at 7pm local time, so this means we will leave the airport in our fun bus in the dark and therefore our chances of getting lost are at least doubled, despite all of my years of experience of driving over there and our trusty sat nav. It will happen.

With that late arrival and with Freddie probably having fallen asleep in the car on the way to the villa, we are not planning to do our traditional first night meal at The OutBack as it will be too late. Instead, a take away will be ordered whilst some folks unpack and I find the nearest supermarket for a very expensive shop.

Day Two

Who knows what time we will be awake, but what is not in doubt is that we will be going to Magic Kingdom. It appears that there is Early Morning Hours and one of those pay to stay late things planned for that day at this park, but it matters not. Day one means Magic Kingdom and the law must be obeyed.

We have no dining reservations made (see, I can play it fast and loose) and my expectation is that we will be flagging by tea time and we will leave the park for some off site dining around that time.

Day Three

We are off to Typhoon Lagoon. It’s best to get this in earlier in the trip before all the food has destroyed my Adonis like physique. We have always tended to attempt a rest day on day three, but sitting around the pool never seems to work out for us and we find ourselves getting itchy feet in the afternoon and heading out to do something not very rest like. So by doing a water park the aim is to get some rest but also not get bored!

Again, no dining plans are made. I have pencilled in, very lightly, an evening stroll around the Boardwalk, but hey, what will be will be, right?

Day Four

This is my birthday so there’s only one place we’ll be heading. Epcot today, ending with our penultimate viewing of Reflections of Earth. As we know we intend to stay in the park till close, I have reserved us some dining today. After loving it last year, Via Napoli gets the nod at 5.40pm. Assuming we are out of there by seven, that’s the perfect time for my ideal birthday activity, wandering around World Showcase at dusk, with the music, and the torches, soaking it all in before we take our spot for the fireworks.

This is one of THE highlights of any trip. That atmosphere is unique and magical and almost impossible to describe.

Day Five

The way this day currently looks on the plan it may be life threatening. You may find that this part of the plan changes before we go, but currently we seem to have two dining experiences planned that, when attempted on the same day, could be very damaging.

This is a rest day after a long day in Epcot the previous day. Rest days tend to get used for the few breakfasts we like to do, and top of that list is Hash House A Go Go. So if this plan stands we’ll need to be out early, eating as soon as we can to give us any chance for our dinner reservation (we won’t need lunch…probably) at Trail’s End.

That is a deadlier duo than double denim. If anyone can pull it off, we can. We have trained for years to undertake this sort of thing so please don’t try this unless you are similarly experienced.

If we survive, having parked at TTC, and taken the boat over to Fort Wilderness from Magic Kingdom, we will perhaps spend the evening enjoying the park, if we can still walk.

Day Six

This is Labor Day. I always have the fear that this will mean horrendous crowds, but we did DHS on this day last year and it was OK. So, the plan says Animal Kingdom.

Our dining options are again wide open with my expectations that we will go off site, but hey, I am a free spirit, and wherever our whims take us, I’m OK with that…..really.

One thing we are trying to do on this trip is snack. We’ve been watching a few of the Disney Food Blog snack videos and many of them look incredible. So on some days rather than a counter service lunch we may just snack from various places. Look at me, I am the free spirited hippy of WDW planning.

Day Seven

OK so the elephant in the room is Hollywood Studios. Galaxy’s Edge opens the day after we arrive and I have intentionally omitted that park from our plans for as long as possible on this trip. This will be a week or so after the official opening and I have no idea what the park will be like. So this is very much a “toe in the water” suck it and see day. With this in mind, no dining plans have been made in the park and considering we may not even make it into the car park, then we really will just see how today goes.

Day Eight

Look, another water park! It’s another pseudo rest day attempt and a nod that Freddie will absolutely love the water, so we are going to Blizzard Beach for the first time in decades. I honestly think that the last time we went, Rebecca was four and Emily six, and Rebecca got lost in the kid’s slidey bit and we had a horrible few minutes looking for her until we were reunited at the lost kids table where she was colouring in, oblivious to our nervous breakdown. That was sixteen years ago! Not much will have changed then right?

No dining plans again. We shall select our off site option of choice from our sun beds on the day. It *might* be Cowfish, as I have suggested an evening at City Walk. We didn’t get chance to do that one last year so it is a priority this time.

Day Nine

Epcot. I did say that my birthday would be our penultimate viewing of ROE, as I have low expectations of us making it all the way to 9pm on this day, but never say never. No ADRs again. Will this fast and loose madness never end?

The plan has a tentative suggestion of an evening at Animal Kingdom Lodge for a wander around and a look at whatever animals are knocking about. I am currently fighting the urge to book Sanaa. Pray for me.

Day Ten

Our second day at Animal Kingdom. No doubt having failed to get a Flights of Passage FastPass for either day I will be furious and will have to fight the rage so as not to spoil the day. We have an ADR at Yak & Yeti at 6.45pm, with a very loose intention to see if we can get into Rivers Of Light afterwards. We may FastPass it, if it suits our plans, so that we can wander in relatively late.

Day Eleven

This is unusual. Until this week there was absolutely nothing planned for today, so I guess you’d call it a rest day. Going against everything I said about not doing loads of expensive dining, we do now have plans for breakfast.

Freddie is currently obsessed with Despicable Me. The films mesmerise him and with us not doing Universal this year, it seemed a shame to not try to fit something in that would entertain him. So we now have a Breakfast With the Minions character breakfast booked at Royal Pacific Hotel at Universal.

Other than that, I don’t know what we will be doing on this day. I feel unwell!

Day Twelve

What? Another day with no firm plans yet. It’s a disgrace. We do seem to have another character breakfast booked though. Do my words mean nothing? This one is at Chef Mickey’s at the request of Rebecca to give Freddie (yeah right) the chance to meet the main characters amidst of buffet. Who am I to argue?

I’m sure we’ll head to a park afterwards but which one, who knows?

Day Thirteen

We are back at Hollywood Studios, maybe, crowds permitting. No dining plans of course, so this will be a do what we can, take it as it comes day, with a retreat if the crowds are as bad as feared.

Day Fourteen

Our last full day, so of course we are back at Magic Kingdom. Today is a Not So Scary Party so we will be turfed out at 6pm. This is fine on this occasion as we want to end this trip at Epcot watching ROE for the final time. It will be an emotionally charged farewell and will be an emotional affair. Our last night’s can get teary anyway, but this could be a sob fest.

No ADRs booked so we may eat on the way from Magic Kingdom to Epcot.

Day Fifteen

Travel day. No doubt we’ll buy an extra suitcase, eat a huge breakfast and head to the airport after a shopping spree. It’s only natural.

So that’s where we are. Clearly there are gaps to fill, details to add and in some cases days with nothing planned that need to be sorted but it’s broadly there now. FastPass booking is probably the last thing that may drive significant changes and those are available to us in two weeks time.

It is entirely normal and reasonable to block book 12pm out of your work diary so that you can book FastPasses uninterrupted, right?

If you managed to retain any sort of interest to the end of this post, I salute you.

Till the next time……

Mormons, Makeovers & Memories

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

The recent horror show at work led me to take drastic action last week. On Tuesday I booked Friday and Monday off. My body was telling me I had to. It was also telling me I’m a fat get, but I can only deal with one thing at a time.

The decision was initiated by the fact that on Friday evening Louise and I were going out to watch Book of Mormon in Manchester. This was our glorious Christmas present from Emily and we’d been looking forward to it ever since. My commute being what it is, battling my home, to then turn right around and head back to half a mile from where I started seemed silly, so the day off made sense on many levels.

I didn’t do a great deal with it I am pleased to report. It was nice to take a breath, enjoy the nice weather and set off nice and early to avoid rush hour stress.

Our plan was to eat in Manchester pre-show, and despite our first choice being too busy we had a lovely Indian before heading into the show. It was fantastic. This might be the musical for people who may not feel that they like musicals. It isn’t your traditional, boy meets girl, love song driven affair. It is incredibly funny, fast paced, original and of course full of great songs. I think (and don’t quote me on this) it was written by the creators of South Park with the bloke who wrote Avenue Q. From that you may work out it is irreverent and rude, but for me that just makes it better.

I give it five stars and a Freetime thumbs up (ask your Dad).

This week has also seen some significant news coming from WDW. Whatever is going on at Epcot, it’s big. We already know that the entrance area is being rid of those Leave a Legacy things, but it seems the work and transformation also reaches all the way up to Club Cool and the fountain area. Institutions such as Electric Umbrella and Mouse Gear are to be closed, either temporarily or for good perhaps in some cases, and as with all major WDW changes that brings a mix of emotions.

Now, I am old enough to remember standing in front of a monitor in the area beneath Spaceship Earth and talking via video to a cast member to book our meal for later that day at China in World Showcase. That was in the early 80’s I think and that’s probably as good an example as you would need that things do need to change with the times. That blew our collective minds at the time and unless Epcot is going to fully embrace the retro modern motif, then I guess change is inevitable. Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom sort of has that going on, and bearing in mind what Epcot stands for, then with technology having changed so much since 1982 when it opened transformations like these make sense.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t had time to read up on what might be coming to Epcot. Honestly, if you are relying on my blog for up to the minute and accurate WDW news then I don’t think you’re doing it right! I’m not sure I’d even class whatever this is as a Disney blog, and I salute those bloggers who are always up the minute on the latest changes, rumours and announcements. I just wish I had more time to read them.

Whatever is on the way will need to be accepted, not that I have a choice, and trust has to be placed in the Imagineers doing all of this. I do appreciate the constant reinvention though. We all pay a lot of money for our time at WDW and it would be easy for them to sit back for a few years and watch that money come in, but they do seem to be constantly investing our hard earned into significant changes and upgrades. Of course, that’s a big driver for footfall. Many folks will go back specifically to see the latest new thing, but, then at times, many more will go to watch something before it vanishes forever.

Reflections of Earth is one of those. That thing has a really special place in our hearts. We’ve watched it on most of my birthdays over the past twenty years of course, but it’s more than that. So our final viewings this year will be a special time. There’s something special also that Freddie will see it with us. He was there last year of course but was too young to take it in. This year, as we say goodbye to it, he will take it in for the first time. The circle of life metaphor doesn’t need making.

Change is constant, time stops for no-one and Emily might still be crying on the flight home after saying goodbye to ROE. WDW is expensive, but very few holidays get you like that and I suppose that’s why we all keep going, right?

Till the next time…..

Yaks, Yetis and Yew Tree

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

You’ll have had enough work based whinging by now I imagine? Well, on the bright side I retire in about twenty years so not long to go now.

I was “darn sarf” for most of the week at Head Office. I was in meetings to kick off one large project whilst literally at the same time overseeing the delivery of another. Relaxing it was not.

Anyway, with one off my plate now, and team members back from holidays, the next few weeks look more tolerable. Wait, is that the countdown home straight I can see just around the next bend? I think it might be. 58 days folks. One more pay day. I can almost smell it.

The car hire balance was paid off on Friday and that’s the last chunk of expense to be paid apart from the spending money. Out of interest, how much spending money should I take for two weeks?

http://gph.is/1duK0uv

Ah, the memories of that question being endlessly asked on Disney forums and no doubt still being asked today if I went on any to look.

Summer has arrived, Wimbledon is imminent, as is the Open Golf and these are all welcome tell tales signs that we will shortly be off on our adventures. After 73 weeks of rain, I intend to enjoy the lovely warm weather before autumn starts next week. Bear in mind, that right about now, somewhere in the UK, the John Lewis marketing team are pulling all nighters trying to decide which acoustic maudlin version of a song they are going to play over their Christmas ad this year.

Summer of course also means festival season. Glastonbury is on my telly showing several young folks I don’t recognise talking over music that nobody on stage is actually playing. Mustard have their own festival season as well which lasts over the space of the next two weekends. Today, we are off to Yorkshire to play at the Ravenknowle’s Children’s Gala. We are sharing the billing with Mr Zoot, a children’s entertainer and the Wrenthorpe All Stars. The latter being a majorette troupe and the former a Yew Tree court case waiting to happen. They may not sound all that but both will be better than Janet Jackson was. I believe this gala is similar to Glastonbury in that most of the crowd won’t have heard of us either. Still, if you are in the area, that being Huddersfield, then come along, take lots of illegal drugs and pee in a bottle but don’t throw it at the stage whilst we are on.

Then next weekend, specifically the 7th of July, we are playing at the Tottington Big Day Out. That, it won’t surprise you to learn, is in Tottington. We’ve played this one before and it is a fantastic day out as well as being Big of course. Again, come on down if you’re local. We are on from around 2pm I think. I cannot confirm if Mr Zoot or the Wrenthorpe All Stars will be appearing at that one so you’ll just have to take your chances.

I am still fighting the urge to books ADRs but forgive me, I have done another. One place that we have to eat at, as we rate it so highly, is Yak and Yeti. There’s little competition in Animal Kingdom of course for a sit down do, so it made sense to secure a table. With a party of six, walk ups are harder to come by and if we miss out on this eatery Louise would be very, very upset. It is one of her absolute favourites.

Image result for yak and yeti

So that is done for the 6th of September at 6.45. That’s our second day at DAK, the first being Labor Day. Expecting that day to be busy I suspect we may not last all the way to Rivers Of Light, so on our second visit, we shall eat and see if there is room in Rivers of Light after the meal. I doubt there will be if we rock up at 8.15, but it is what it is. See, I told you this trip is trying to be a more relaxed take it as it comes thing. Look, I know you won’t believe it, and I’m not sure I do, but I’m trying.

Time to go, I have a “festival” (gig in a field) to get to.

Till the next time……

Woody and Wedding Dresses

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Rebecca's Wedding

After the last few weeks where these posts have been more a cry for help than a blog, you might expect me to start once again by whinging about my week at work. Well, you are absolutely spot on. It’s been another relentless tsunami of shite that I don’t wish to repeat but alas the lack of a lottery win means that I will have to.

Friday ended like one of those skids you have in your car in icy weather when you almost crash but somehow manage to avoid any large hard objects, but only just. With heart racing, pulse racing and bearing the battle scars of a war I’d struggle to call a draw, the weekend began.

We were booked to see Toy Story 4 at 7pm, so the transition from work to weekend was a rushed one for us all, and we arrived at Middlebrook (extensive retail park next to Bolton Wanderer’s stadium) again in that car crash, sweat on brow, pulse racing mode, with seconds to spare. There was barely enough time to secure a life threatening amount of Pick n Mix before settling into our ever so posh reclining leather seats.

Not having the time to adjust my brain to leisure mode properly and having missed the 45 minutes of adverts and trailers, the opening moments of the film passed me by a bit as I just wasn’t mentally prepared for what I was about to see.

Soon enough the adrenaline started to subside and the enjoyment of the film kicked in. This will be a spoiler free zone of course so my review will be brief. It’s very good. All the stuff you want in there is present, with jokes that work on many levels, a good story line and of course the heart tugging emotion, and they all come together to make it another film that will entertain families for decades to come.

The emotional bits, I suppose, work best for the likes of our viewing party. The Toy Story quadrology (hey, I may have made that word up, but it works) has been with us as a family as a constant. Sat there with the next generation in the form of Freddie, when Emily started crying her eyes out, at the time when Freddie taking his turn on her knee, it was no surprise. The thing that happens, that I won’t spoil, is a symbol, once again, of time passing, new generations taking over and things often never being the same again. Having swallowed too many sugary snacks, I had to work extra hard to swallow the large lump in my throat.

Freddie, at 18 months old, behaved fantastically. Beyond the occasional “Quack Quack” at the appearance of a duck like toy which made our row chuckle if nobody else, he didn’t make a peep and broadly sat captivated throughout. It augers well for the watching of shows in WDW in 65 days time. Ooh see how I crow bar a countdown update seamlessly into a post.

He was on a massive snack and sugar overdose which helped but that’s how the cinema works, so he deserves all the credit.

Speaking of important family milestones, time passing, and kids growing up. Remember, Rebecca? The little girl you’ve seen in my trip reports over the years….

Well, yesterday Louise and Emily watched her choose her wedding dress. If the themes and motifs of the Toy Story films are ever more accurately mirrored in my life at any other time, I will be amazed.

Yes, yes, I don’t look old enough to be the father of the bride. That’s just my natural athleticism, classic good looks and military grade fitness regime, but it’s happening nonetheless.

I haven’t seen the dress. Rebecca wants me to see it for the first time on the day and that’s fine. Mine and Louise’s job is just to deliver the day she wants. She is delighted with it, and, as the cliche goes, she knew it was the one the moment she tried it on. I had a similar experience last week in Matalan trying on a new pair of jogging pants. Just the bills for those two items were different.

So at the risk of being THAT patronising person who thinks they know it all about parenting, if you are taking your young kids to watch Toy Story 4 anytime soon. Enjoy it. Despite the perpetual exhaustion, financial woes, never ending work and day to day struggles, drink it in. Next week you’ll be planning a wedding and bouncing your grandchild on your knee. That’s great too of course, and I spend every moment in Freddie’s presence with a smile on my face, but just smell the roses of today, take a million photos, write endless trip reports that capture your holidays. Otherwise you’ll blink and miss it.

Here endeth the eyebrow raise inducing faux wisdom.

At the risk of not heeding my own advice, I have to go now and spend the rest of my Sunday fighting the dread of the impending Monday.

Till the next time…….

Binging, Bean and Bonkers Behaviour

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Remember when it wasn’t raining? Good times, good times…..

The weather has been a meteorological metaphor for my past week at work. Each raindrop representing some element of my working week that washed away my energy, resilience and will to live.

With no immediate end in sight to the current madness and a diary chock full of things I don’t want to do with people I don’t want to do it with, I am clinging onto sanity by looking at my fridge door on a regular basis. Why? Because that’s where our countdown sits.

Evenings have been a vegetative state of binge watching, with Louise similarly busy, it’s all we can muster. Last week we polished off the new Killing Eve in two nights, caught the first episode of the new series of Handmaid’s Tale and then, whilst surfing around Netflix, Louise chose Dr Foster. We are always on the cutting edge of new releases. I probably wouldn’t have picked it to be honest but it was largely good. The end of series 2 seemed to be a case of the writers losing it a bit and letting the whole thing get away from them, but it was very watchable for the most part.

I was out gigging last night at a wedding in Tottington/Bury and Louise took the opportunity to binge watch all of the current series of Love Island. This has to happen when I’m out of the house otherwise I have to set the TV on fire.

Away from exciting TV related news, that I know you live for in these blogs, yesterday Rebecca started her wedding dress search. She, Louise and Emily went to a couple of shops where apparently you now need to make appointments. Clearly I am not involved in this process and will not see the selection until the day, but she has not yet found “the one” but did try a few on which she really liked and found it helpful.

The cake has been ordered now and lots of other things are being looked at and selected. It’s full on this wedding lark isn’t it?

During the hurly burly of my working week I got wind of utter madness going down in Orlando. I have to say it did fill me with a bit of horror and dread for what might be in store with the opening of Galaxy’s Edge. I didn’t have time to read too much detail of what was going on, but for the opening of what (it seems to me) is the re-theming of a fairly standard roller coaster, folks were waiting over ten hours. Ten. Hours!!

I barely tolerate a flight shorter than that to get to Orlando never mind to ride one thing. Come on folks, have a word with yourselves. Apparently the park had to shut the gates at 10am after reaching capacity, and the queue literally filled the whole park.

I mean, I have a soft spot for this ride already. For those paying attention, it was the announcement of this ride that forced Louise into wanting to go back, (next year) to ride it. Sure, another trip then got shoe horned in this year but still, it has played its part in our Orlando obsession. But, look, just, look….

Look at how happy they look. Ten hours…….ten hours!!

I would go so far as to say, despite all my work related moaning that I probably would rather spend a day at work than queue for anything for ten hours. That is the level of my disdain for this stupidity.

Before I go, I need to mention two occasions of note. The first, as Emily would be upset if I didn’t give it a “shout out”, is Bean’s third birthday. She’s a pain in the arse at times, but can also be a loving, funny ginger nuisance. Happy Birthday Bean.

The other of course is Father’s Day. With both of my daughters having the audacity to be spending this morning out of my house with their respective partners, there was no breakfast in bed and I had to source my own bowl of Shreddies.

Having said that, I live next door to my Dad and I didn’t make him breakfast either so I suppose that’s fair enough. I shall pop round later Dad with a gift that will in no way reflect what you deserve for everything you’ve done for me, Louise and the girls. Happy Father’s Day to my Dad, all of yours and of course to those Dads who aren’t here to receive their gifts in person. Louise’s Dad is in that category so a special mention to him.

Oh, and it’s 72 days folks. I don’t know if I’ll remember to give you a weekly update on that but I hope so!

Till the next time…..

Little Cards Of Joy

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

We have defeated the 80’s and we are at 79 days folks. FastPass day approaches more quickly than my ulcer and with that in mind a welcome and significant delivery came this week.

These little bits of plastic were a very welcome distraction from a week at work I will long remember and yet wish to forget. It was a busy one.

That photo also demonstrates how dirty my laptop is. That’s a result of spending its three year life with me eating my lunch whilst working. There’s probably a whole sandwich somewhere in that keyboard.

Along with the tickets and their inherent ability to get our FastPasses sorted in a bit came news, well more rumours, of a tiered system at DHS. The theory is that all rides will be Tier 1 and all shows Tier 2 and you will only be able to book one Tier 1 and two Tier 2s. Now, I have my doubts that this is actually going to happen, as rumoured, when Galaxy’s Edge opens, mainly as Disney have already said that there will be no FastPasses for Star Wars stuff, at least initially.

It doesn’t sound great though, especially for those long time visitors who have seen all the shows a lot and prefer to do the rides, but I think this may be a symptom of the fears Disney have over the crowds they are expecting and how to control them.

For us, certainly whilst Freddie is so young (and short) it won’t affect us too much. He (and Tom) are still relative newbies, so doing the shows is fine and many of the rides Freddie can’t do yet. Disney will do what Disney will do, and some of the meltdowns I’ve seen on those very sensible and level headed WDW Facebook groups over this is just another reason why I very rarely contribute to any of them.

This year is very much a bonus, we shouldn’t be going year, so I am going to try and be as sanguine as possible when the time comes to get our FastPasses. I will of course fail and be sat at my keyboard, with war paint on and wild eyes, hammering sandwich riddled keys whilst screaming about how shit the My Disney Experience web site is as it crashes for the seventh time that morning and it’s only ten past seven……

Sorry, I just had a flashback to last year…..

If we can get on some stuff, and maybe benefit from the DHS crowds by bagging Pandora related rides, which we couldn’t last year, then all will be well. What will be will be……well, I almost believed that myself.

So 49 days till FastPass fun and games. I’m at the stage where I’m looking for ways to make the holiday seem closer than it is. For example, there are only two more pay days until we leave. See, it’s sooooo close.

In less frivolous news, Louise endured a trip to A&E during last week. The pain levels she was experiencing led to suspicion of a stone of some variety. X-rays, prodding and tests of all her liquids over many hours seemed to rule that out and a follow up visit to out patients a couple of days later confirmed that. As welcome as that news was it didn’t really explain the root cause, but she’s slowly getting better, and should be back at work tomorrow.

She is of course now on trial, having to prove her fitness to travel to Florida without the need to visit our friends at Centracare. As much as our Platinum reward card comes in handy, its to be avoided if we can.

Till the next time……

Freddie, Football and Fatigue

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

This will be rushed and make less sense than usual. I know that sounds like a challenge but I am on Freddie duties this weekend so my typing time is restricted. Louise is out working so he has been entrusted to me and me alone. My parenting memory muscles are being tested along with my stamina.

Supervising little humans is literally a full time role as this weekend has reminded me. The fact that I did my step target yesterday without leaving the house other than a walk to the local shop demonstrates the physical exertions of making sure he hasn’t got his fingers in something he shouldn’t.

He’s been good though, as he always is. He is ever pleasant, tantrum free ( so far) and a joy to be around. There’s a reason I had kids in my twenties though. I had more energy then!

I have of course fulfilled my duties as Grandparent to spoil him and feed him stuff his Mum and Dad might not. Here he is enjoying his Scooby Do gingerbread biscuit.

It has been a manic week all round. Work has been a million mile an hour maelstrom full of pressure, problem and pricks and then I was out gigging on Friday night over in Bispham, which meant a very late night, followed by an early start on Saturday as Freddie duties commenced.

Louise arrived home just after six, giving me just enough time to walk the dogs before settling in for the football. Now, typically I avoid blogging about a few things that I feel strongly about and football is one of them. The easiest way to stop either of my readers from turning up each week would be to wang on about my favourite team. Same goes for Brexit.

You probably know that I support Liverpool so last night was kind of a big deal. It’s been a terrific season but the thought of ending it with nothing tangible to show was not a good one and I was, as I always am before big games, anxious, edgy and knowing I wouldn’t actually enjoy the game itself until the result was beyond doubt.

The game itself was awful, and with Liverpool holding a slender 1-0 lead from the first minute, the game was on a knife edge for the next 86 minutes and it was not an enjoyable experience. Then, in the 87th minute a second goal brought sweet relief and a grown man to his feet in the living room, shaking his fists at the TV. If you get football, that won’t sound tragic but if you don’t then of course it will and I don’t mind either way. It’s best I don’t tell you about how emotional I got at the final whistle. It cannot be explained if it needs explaining to you.

If you have no idea what the game was, just know that winning the European Cup for the 6th time is a big deal and the pleasure almost equalled the relief felt as the cup was hoisted aloft by the players.

I retired to bed just before midnight preparing myself for day two of Freddie fun. He’s currently crawling through his pop up tunnel thing on our living room floor. It isn’t clear it is a floor at the moment as it cannot be seen for toys. If it ever stops raining we shall head out to the park for some swing action but the forecast does not look great.

This evening will be spent relaxing for sure, readying myself for another five days of mayhem at work. A casual glance at my diary for the week confirms it is chock full of meetings I don’t want to go to, people I don’t want to deal with and more work than I know can be fit into the amount of time available. It pays for the holidays I suppose.

OK, I have to go and see what Freddie has been doing outside on the road for the last half an hour. That’s a joke Rebecca!

Till the next time…..

ESTA Bank Holiday

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Having had glorious (relatively speaking) weather all week whilst working, the bank holiday weekend brings with it a November style climate and I sit looking out at sideways rain and people walking past dressed like the folks who used to get involved in the back lot tour at MGM in the boat scene.

Some cliches are cliches for a reason. As another example, yesterday I did some painting…yep the bedroom again. This time it was only a few minutes of a job, following my Dad helping me (code for I stood watching) fill a couple of last bits. Oh and of course I went to the tip. I am the living embodiment of a British bank holiday weekend in flabby form.

We’re 93 days out from our trip and the need to change the flabby part of the above becomes more pressing. Louise recently invested in an exercise bike and I have already worked up a real sweat with it. But since assembling it I haven’t been near it to be honest. I have made plans to do so of course, by buying the cable that was missing from the spare room’s TV so that I can watch it whilst peddling. That is half the battle surely? Now, it is all set up and ready to go I am literally shedding the pounds already, right?

My relationship with exercise is sort of hate, hate with a side portion of guilt. I have started walking every lunchtime at work again with the winter weather possibly behind us. It’s only half an hour or so but add that to the half hour of walking the dogs after work and that makes a whole hour of me doing stuff I’d rather not, but it is for the greater good I guess.

During last week Emily introduced me to a new You Tube thing that has some good stuff for those who are obsessed with food. The channel is called Delish and whilst a lot of the content is less interesting to me, being recipes and such, they do have a good few that are right up my street.  I particularly enjoyed the ones where they eat the entire menu at the likes of IHOP, Cheesecake Factory and Applebees.

There are also some good ones involving all the snacks at Magic Kingdom, Universal and Disneyland. For a rainy bank holiday weekend, it’s ideal. Tell them I sent you.

The first one I saw was a good one. It involved the many snacks and of course alcoholic drinks at World Showcase. Enoy.

The fact that this one blog post goes from exercise bikes to life threatening amounts of food so easily sort of sums up my life quite well.

My new passport arrived at the start of the week. Despite them saying it would take three weeks, it took three and a half days. Clearly nobody is travelling anywhere these days. Having wept over the horrific ageing shown in the respective photos again, I then went off to the ESTA site to update mine and Louise’s with our new passport details.

You probably all knew this, but that isn’t possible. Even though we all got new ESTAs last year and should have had them last for two years, upon trying to edit mine, I saw that it expired alongside my old passport in a few days. So I had to bite the bullet and the $28 and apply for brand new ones for the two of us. I always forget the level of detail these buggers ask for and it took longer than I thought it would. I should at some point log back on and make sure we have moved from Pending to Approved.

Here’s a question for someone who knows their stuff. Am I able to update our US accommodation details on the ESTAs for those who don’t have new passports? I mean, I could go to the website and try but that would mean me going getting Emily’s passport from her bedroom in the attic and that’s not happening right now. This is the equivalent of those who post questions like “My child only turned three four years ago, can I pretend they are three and not pay for park tickets?” on all those WDW Facebook groups. They are of course one click away from Google but hey.

My guilt just forced me to Google that and I think the answer is no, you don’t need to/can’t update your US address but if you know better, hit me up, as the youngsters say.

Enjoy the bank holiday Monday if you get one. You might need a cagoule.

Till the next time……