All that stand between us and the airport are three days at work and roughly 3.5 million tasks and logistical challenges that we must complete. We’re almost there.
My to do list is longer than a thing that is very long and that’s just at home before I even think about the prep and angst involved at work.
The cases are out, packing has started and I’ve spent roughly half of the national debt on pet food to ensure those looking after them don’t run out whilst we are away. The dogs, Woody and Bean, are going off to separate sitters (foolish souls) whilst we have a house sitter coming here to keep the cats alive. If they don’t start eating less then next time we might not bother.
The last few stressful pre-trip days have started and whilst we complete all those tasks, we, as anyone travelling to Orlando at this time of year must do, are keeping our eyes on the weather over there hoping we can avoid a hurricane. It is looking pleasingly quiet on that front at this stage, although the weather has looked VERY wet over there recently. Bring it on. Have poncho, will endure.
The other thing I have seen on my “socials” are endless folks telling me how quiet the parks are.
I cannot bring myself to believe them. I’ve been going for too many years now to ever think the parks have quiet times anymore. I know September is comparatively quieter than most other times of year, but I just can’t allow myself to get my hopes up that we’ll be enjoying tolerable wait times on this trip.
As I said a couple of posts ago there was a lot of availability for our ADRs which is a good sign I guess, but I am taking nothing for granted.
In non holiday news, Willow is doing well, as is Rebecca, bearing in my mind she is still recovering from the operation/delivery. The boys are obsessed with their new sister, as are we all. Overall she’s been sleeping a lot and behaving herself as we all get used to the new addition to our family.
You know I don’t believe there is such a thing as “the right age” to take kids to WDW. You take them whenever you can afford to, but I think three weeks old may just be a little too soon, even if Rebecca could travel, so they will all have to stay at home this time. On this trip we will, for the first, have a girl grandchild to be buying presents for before we return. Exciting stuff.
If you want to, you can follow along as usual if I remember to post stuff to the Mkingdon Facebook page and whether you do or you don’t, I’ll see you back in a few weeks to tell you all about it.
This week’s title is one that will resonate with the kids and fans of Lena Martell. Ask your Grandad.
As tradition dictates, before any WDW trip, any planner worth their salt is required to outline their movements (bowel, optional) for every day of the holiday. I know to the handful of folks reading this, the concept is familiar and does not sound weird at all. I had a reminder this week that this is absolutely not the case for “normal people” when someone asked me about my upcoming holiday and I overshared slightly about the level of obsession and planning that goes on in this weird Disney online community. This is a safe space.
So here we go….
Day One
Travel Day. We are flying with Virgin from Manchester. Since booking, Virgin have moved our flight back one hour so we don’t take off until just after midday. I await their compensation for robbing us of sixty minutes in Orlando. This flight time now gives us a quandary. To get to Manchester airport from our house you have to navigate the M61/M60 and the infamous concrete tunnels and carnage that greet anyone daring to merge from 61 to 60 at rush hour. Then there is the 5mph crawl past the Trafford Centre.
I would say we need to be at the airport around 8.30, a good four hours ahead of the flight. In normal times that would be a 7.30 set off from our house, but in rush hour, in the first week after schools go back, we may have to leave 2-3 business days ahead of our flight. So I fear we will need to bite the bullet, be up very early and leave the house before 6.30am. It’ll be grim and I intend to scour the internet for alternative routes before the day.
We land late afternoon and I have sorted out the skip the desk Alamo thing so I am sure that will go without a hitch. Then it will inevitably be pouring with torrential rain as we try to battle the rush hour I4. The joys of a travel day.
Once at the villa, we will head out to do a supermarket run (I am mildly terrified of the costs involved for that as my social media feeds are just Americans telling me it cost them $100 for three apples and a box of “gram crackers”. Why they can’t say Graham or Craig is an eternal mystery.) We also plan to go out to eat. With no young kids on the trip this time we all may be awake enough to dine out and if so we aim to do that at Sickies on the 192. Their fried pickles are the best way to start any holiday.
Day Two
You know this is a Magic Kingdom day right? We’ll be there as early as we can be and not as early as I’d like and will be there until 6pmish when they throw us out as there is a MNSSHP on that evening. We are fairly happy this is case as crowds may be lighter and we’ll be tired by that time. We plan to eat at The Cheesecake Factory at Lake Buena Vista that evening.
It is harder to book a table from the UK than it is to do something that is very hard, as their online thing requires a US phone number. I really did not fancy the potential wait for a table on a Friday evening after an early start and a full MK day so I went old school and emailed their customer services team. It took a while but they did reply and booked us in for 7.45pm.
After our meal I suspect we will be in a food coma and ready for bed.
Day Three
The planning laws say this should be a rest day to get over the travel day after the adrenaline fuelled first day. For reasons too long to document here, mainly centred around us needing a rest day on day three as we intended to have a few drinks watching Yeeha Bob on this evening, we broke all the rules and put Animal Kingdom in here. The rule book states that should not be a rest day and instead be a theme park day, it should have been Epcot, as the parks must be visited in the order they opened, but AK closes early and we’d need to be out of the park to get over to Port Orleans.
The recent rule change around off site scum going to resorts make us now assume we will not be welcomed at POR, so instead we are going to the Grand Floridian to watch a favourite ex-Jellyrolls pianist, called Michael play in the lobby there. To get us into the place we have booked 1900 Park Fayre for dinner around 5pm. We could have booked an ADR at POR of course to get us in to see Bob’s show, but we’d planned to see Michael play at the GF *as well/first* before heading to Yeeha Bob so our ADR at the GF had already been made. So Bob lost out. That sentence wins the prize for most use of abbreviations in the world ever.
We will have a few posh drinks and watch him until we are ready for bed. Yeeha Bob will miss us as much as we will miss him.
Day Four
Here comes the rest day. Recently we had more upsetting news as we heard that Typhoon Lagoon won’t be open. That is our go to for an early trip rest day, but again we are scuppered.
We might go to Blizzard Beach but more likely we will just use the resort’s pool and clubhouse and have a relaxing pool day instead.
Emily secured us a 7pm ADR for Beaches & Cream, mainly to get us access to the Boardwalk area so we can have an evening stroll around it and may be a drink or two too.
Day Five
We are back on track and heading to Epcot. Our first visit of the trip here means we do Future World. We have the evening loosely planned at this stage. The general idea is to leave the park when we get hungry for some tea and head to Celebration.
We haven’t been for a good few years and there are at least three eateries we are interested in trying there. There’s a new brewery place, a Mexican and the 80’s themed diner. If we do leave the park and get to Celebration we will try whichever of this is available and looks the best bet.
Day Six
Now things start to get a little complex. Emily and Mikey check in at the Polynesian today for their two day 30th birthday treat for Mikey. I have a rest day planned for Louise and I so I will drop them off and head back for another pool day back at the resort.
Our dining plans for the evening are simple. With Emily being a veggie our chances to dine at The Outback for a decent steak are limited so we will do that whilst she is otherwise engaged.
Day Seven
With it just being the two of us again today I have pencilled in Hollywood Studios as it is Louise’s favourite and if we need to buy Lightning Lanes it’ll be cheaper for just the two of us!!
Our evening plans are loose again. I have an option in the plan but we’ll see how we feel. I quite fancy a place called Ole’ Red up at Icon Park. We have never been to that neck of the woods. The food there looks good and they have live country music on. Recently I have found myself inexplicably listening to Absolute Country (thank goodness for the last two letters) on my car journeys so I’d like to see some live.
Day Eight
Today sees Emily and Mikey move again, this time up to Universal to stay at the Hard Rock for that glorious Front of line access and two days in the parks there. If I am feeling generous I will pick them up from the Poly and drive them up.
We are planning another rest day today, and in the evening we will meet up with them at City Walk for a meal together at Margaritaville before they head into HHN and we have a wander around City Walk.
Day Nine
On their second Universal day we have nothing planned. We might do another rest day if that’s what we fancy or need or we might head into a park. Look at me winging it!
In the evening we will head up to City Walk again to collect Emily and Mikey and we’ve booked the four of us a meal at Cafe Tu Tu Tango on IDrive for absolutely no reason whatsoever. This is one of our “let’s try somewhere new to eat” ideas.
Day Ten
All four us are headed to Hollywood Studios today. It’s a Saturday so I suspect coughing up for LLs will be a must.
We have a late lunch/early dinner booked at Sci-Fi Diner with a Fantasmic Dinner Package just to make sure it rains hard enough to see it cancelled.
Day Eleven
Today is a food day. The only way for us to fit in a couple of our dining musts was to eat ourselves to death on one day. We have brunch booked at The Boathouse at 11am and then in the evening we are eating at Wine Bar George. Pray for us.
In between, we will either head back to the pool or hang out at Disney Springs, trying in vain to walk off some calories.
Day Twelve
We head back to Animal Kingdom. Again we are expecting an early-ish exit from the park as we have a first time dining experience booked at Homecoming back at Disney Springs. I am looking forward to this one.
Day Thirteen
Epcot of course, and our second visit typically concentrates on World Showcase. Food and Wine will be on so I just hope it isn’t too busy as it can be at times. We have an ADR booked at Via Napoli for dinner and we will be staying for the fireworks just so we can reaffirm that they are good but in no way are they any sort of comparison to Reflections Of Earth.
Day Fourteen
You know of course that the last full day is spent at Magic Kingdom. There is no alternative to this. We are booked to eat at Steakhouse 71 at the Contemporary in the late afternoon so that we can get back into MK at dusk to weep at the nostalgia, magic and sheer horror of heading home the next day. Fireworks will be watched.
Day Fifteen
A late flight home around 9pm so I suspect some packing will be done, a large breakfast somewhere and then a lot of time at Disney Springs as my depression kicks in and Louise falls out with me due to my sulking. As God intended.
So there we are. Writing that does make me think that Louise and I have too many rest days planned but we do like a pool day as you saw on our last couple of trips so who knows. The plan (whisper it) can be changed if we wish to.
If you made it to the end, bless you and I’ll see you back here next week for the final post before we go.
Here we are at the dreaded last full day. A traumatic time on any holiday. Once again I was up at 7.30 and off down to the pool to secure our cabana. The Pool guy was there one final time and in some tragic Spanglish I somehow managed to get it understood that we were heading home tomorrow. It involved “manyana” and my arms outstretched in some aeroplane style moves. He got tipped again and it seemed we were now friends for life as he made me send a Facebook friend request and have some photos taken.
Then it was breakfast. Cereal and toast.
We called Rebecca and wished her a happy birthday before concentrating on the last of the sunbathing. Lunch was from the pizza place by the pool. It seems I didn’t take any photos today until 5pm as some sort of protest at having to go home tomorrow.
Our last afternoon was spent mainly in the quiet pool trying to figure out a lottery win or anything else that would prevent a need to go back to work. This last day melancholy/mild panic at the return to work is getting worse as I get older. At one point I nearly broke my toe on the bottom of the pool whilst mounting a float. I am confident the pain surpassed child birth.
As the day came to an end I suggested a final beach walk and this was, even though I say it myself a great idea and a lovely way to say goodbye to the place. It was a perfect golden hour stroll.
We turned back and headed back to the resort, past the beach bar, headed for the main pool and the bar there for a last drink in the pool. Margs and shots were had.
Up to the room next for one final getting ready and watching CNN. It’s sad how much I loved this time of day. Showers were done and we were not out until 8.30. We walked to Bordeaux, the restaurant we felt had been best all trip so this was to be our choice for the final meal. I don’t know if we’d caught too much sun but it felt very cold in there tonight.
Sadly the service was very slow, but the food was still good.
Quiche and French onion soup for both of us.
Steak for Louise and Pork for me.
To finish we shared a crepe suzette.
The Piano Bar was rammed so we had a walk over to Dreams, the other half of the resort, which was the family version of ours and had a drink there in the lobby bar. We wandered around having a look at their pool and impressive water park style rides. Back at our bar it was still busy so we sat in the public square till it cleared. We had a couple of drinks there before heading home at 12.
I secured our cabana around 9. I say secured, but there was never any pressure or rush to get beds of any kind which was right up there with my favourite things about this resort.
I bagged a different one today looking for more shade having returned to the room yesterday more pink than I may have liked.
My big toe was at extreme risk here.
I know this looks lovely, and that is because it was.
I had dragged a spare brolly alongside the cabana for extra, extra shade today.
No breakfast as such today. However, we did devour some Pringles instead. During our time round the pool yesterday a member of staff came round surveying guests, asking what they could do to improve our stay. We said it’s be handy to have some cover from the rain on top floor balconies, but didn’t expect them to do that immediately at least. We did mention that at the other Secrets we had been too we loved having snacks in the room and the lady made a note. About an hour later I went back to the room for a bodily function and there were a load of snacks waiting for us. Excellent service.
During the morning I watched some football on my phone and Louise lay in the pool. We ordered a beer each which was soon delivered and then we went for lunch at the Seaside Grill. Chicken burritos and salad for both. Fruit platter to finish.
Back to our beds and some time in the pool. At some point I had a micro nap and generally did very little. I nipped back to the to room for more functions of the body and a maintenance man came to fix a broken bath plug I had reported via the app a few hours earlier. Turns out it wasn’t broken and we are idiots who cannot operate basic applicanes.
Some loud Americans came to play volleyball, loudly, in the quiet pool. They were very loud with one especially vocal person sounding just like a loud Seth Rogen. Did I mention that they were loud.
Up to room at 5.45, readied and out at 7.30. We tried did the other Italian tonight. Chicken soup for me caprese salad for Louise.
Steak and Lasagne which were both decent.
The Piano bar was far too busy so went to lobby bar for one drink and then to the amphitheatre for the Rock show. To bed after that as we, well mainly I, are massive lightweights.
I was awake around 8. I readied and went down to get a cabana, and I was sulking about huge weight gains. You will know that over the years my weight has often featured in all my posts. Having been a very fat kid, there is no doubt some deep lying psychological damage at play, and when I do manage to shift a few pounds, I do get very tetchy when my body betrays me and adds some pounds back after eating and drinking shite.
One of the things I really appreciated about both Secrets resorts so far was the fact that they had scales in the bathroom. I know that sounds counter intuitive but believe me, my mind will convince itself that I have gained thirteen stone in a daaaaayyy, and then usually when I get home I find it’s nowhere as bad as I thought, and I could have enjoyed myself a lot more.
So being able to keep a daily eye on things was a good thing for me. Apart from today when for some reason several pounds had come from nowhere and I had a cob on. They would come off again and go on again a few times during the trip with me returning home just a couple up on my pre departure fighting weight. However, today I was still in a mood about it.
So I had no breakfast and instead went for a huge walk around 11.20 all the way to the end of the bay.
It was a hell of a walk taking about an hour each way.
To put it in context, that tip of land you can see out to sea is our resort.
I was a big ball of sweat when I got as far as I was going to walk. So I stripped down to my shorts and went for a welcome dip in the sea.
I could have carried on this way….
But I turned for home, noticing a brand new resort being built at this end of the cove.
Once I got back to our resort I had clocked 7.5k in total. What do you mean I have a mild eating disorder?
We immediately went for lunch at the Seaside Grill. Chicken Burrito starters (oddly with chips) and a Cuban sandwich for both of us. Very good and filling.
After lunch there was lots of resting and reading. At around 4.30 we went into the main pool and its bar, for drinks. We watched some volleyball taking place on the beach and then returned to our cabana.
There was more golden hour action as we watched sun go down behind one of the hotel buildings.
Once the sun had left us we went back to our room at 6.15. We watched a couple of weddings from our balcony.
We didn’t make it out till after 8. Tonight we were going to give the buffet a try at the World Café. Whilst everything was fine, this was not a standout meal of the trip. It was a little but “buffet slop” of the kind that had for years put us off all inclusive trips.
It was all freshly made and of decent quality but just not “five star”.
I do take full responsibility for my very poor plate presentation skills here which does not reflect the food in the best light!
We ended the night in the piano bar after waiting for a seat as it was very busy tonight. We felt sorry for the poor piano player. There were far too many people with main character syndrome who would not leave him alone to perform and constantly badgered him to let them join in etc. In the end he hardly got to play but to his credit he didn’t glass anyone. We left, frustrated at having to listen to amateurs murder some classics. Bed at midnight.
For those worried about my oral situation, things were starting to improve and my gum was starting to look a little less space hopper and the pain was only like routine child birth. An improvement on just a couple of days ago.
Forty years of getting up for work once again forced my body into waking up at an hour I did not appreciate but I used it to wander out to secure some breakfast from the coffee shop and then a cabana by the quiet pool.
This is the coffee shop and it was an upsetting 7.29am.
The early hour did mean I had my choice of all the cabanas. There was absolutely no sun bed reserving at this resort. We were glad as that is one of my pet hates that has put us off “non WDW” holidays for years.
By 9.25 the early morning cloud was clearing nicely and the relentless sun would char our bodies for most of the day.
At 10.30 I went for a walk up the beach.
My need to “earn” calories does not take a holiday.
Today I had turned left to see what lay in the other direction and it was a little more populated, with a large mainly French resort not too far away and then lots of very interesting little coves.
At times the terrain got a little too “natural” for my liking and all I could imagine were the headlines of “Fat Northern Bloke Dies Due to Stupidity on Nice Beach”.
So I headed back to safety.
See, lots of nature and danger…..
No idea what was going on here….
I was ready for lunch on my return to so I ordered some stuff from the same café/grill as yesterday, and a kind man brought it to our cabana.
Breaking every rule in the book, we went in the pool immediately after eating, but fear not, there was no swimming, just too much Tequila. By too much, I mean one. We did also have two Margaritas though so that exceeded my alcohol intake in one day for the about the past thirty years.
We saw that there was rain forecast from around 3pm, so we left the pool just before that and went to sit on the balcony until it arrived.
It was 4.30 before it finally did so we went inside then and started to get ready. It was raining when we set off for food, armed with umbrellas, but a nice man in a golf cart drove by and stopped to pick us up. He dropped us off outside our restaurant.
Dominican tonight….
I had some slightly odd crisp bread with Avocado mousse to start….
Louise’s Ricotta Balls persisted….
We were hungry so also had a soup each before my main which was Chicken and Rice…
and Beef Tenderloin for Louise.
This was one of our better meals of the trip.
We got a comfy couch in the piano bar and listened to a piano and violin duo for a bit who were somewhere over there.
We gave up after one drink and went to bed after another tiring day.
Normality was returning to our sleep patterns and we slept till a reasonable hour before heading to the coffee shop for a pastry and latte for breakfast.
We based ourselves at the quiet pool, snagging a very comfortable cabana. These were free, extremely comfy and from this point on we made sure we got ourselves one whenever possible.
It looks a little cloudy there but it was mighty hot and we enjoyed the hotness until lunchtime by not doing very much at all. My tolerance for doing absolutely nothing was unmatched on this trip. A welcome antidote to the chaos of working life I think.
For lunch we ordered Nachos and Pizza from the small café by the pool and it was delivered to our cabana at the exact moment the impending rain that had been threatening for an hour or so also arrived. Demonstrating our commitment to food we sat on our cabana, under two umbrellas, onboarding our lunch. We quickly became waterlogged and realising it wasn’t about to stop I went into the nearby (very) hot tub to avoid the cool rain. The food was very tasty but not captured on film due to the wet nature of our surroundings at this time.
Once I had warmed up, we took our dampness and brollies back to the room. We showered and relaxed in the room watching the King’s visit to the US on CNN.
The rain stopped at around 4pm so we got dressed and went for a wander around the resort. We had a couple of games of pool on the least flat pool table in the world, which made things interesting to say the least before heading up to the lobby bar for a couple of drinks and chat with Emily back home. I lost the first game as the black ball fell into a pocket it should have been nowhere near had the table even been close to being flat. No, I am NOT a bad loser.
Some idiot got us Tequila shots which resulted in about three days in hospital for me. I am not a big drinker and I struggle to understand how folks do shots on purpose and enjoy them.
It was nice to just sit on a comfy couch in a perfect temperature and not have to be anywhere or do anything. We walked back to the toom to get changed for dinner and we were off to Portofino, an Italian, at 7.30.
I had soup….
and pasta…
Louise had Ricotta Balls….which can be painful if left untreated….
and Cannelloni.
The food was decent but not earth shattering. We watched the band in the Town Square thing very briefly before heading to the Piano Bar. The entertainment there had finished for the evening, or at least the early spot had and frankly we were too tired to wait for the 11pm spot, so we went to bed around 10.30 after potentially the most uneventful day anyone has had ever. Luckily, you get to read about it here.
For those wondering/caring about the sponsor of this trip, today is when it may make some sense. But first, we were awake earlier than is normal and we still hadn’t fully adjusted to this new time zone. We made best use of the time by heading for a buffet breakfast again, but to be fair I had mainly fruit today. I did enjoy how the honey on offer was literally dripping from a honeycomb. Nice touch.
I had for the last few days been troubled by some pain in my gum. For those who inflict all my posts on themselves you will know that just before we went away I had to go to the dentist for some work to reconstruct some tooth that I lost (getting old is crap). At the back of my mind I did hope that this would not lead to a similar issue that I had on a previous holiday after flying. On that occasion it was the flight home that caused an infection/abscess in my gum. It does seem that if you have folks messing with your teeth before flying it does leave you open to these risks.
I was doing the natural thing of hoping it would all go away by itself and ignoring the pain for now, horrified at the thought of having to find some kind of treatment whilst away.
To distract me further Louise dragged me to the shops and she purchased a pair of orange flip flops. This was understandable as this was a clear gap in her meagre holiday shoe collection back in the room.
Anyway, we headed to the beach today knowing that there was some rain forecast for later.
When the clock struck a reasonable time we ordered a cocktail. A couple of Miami Vices.
I had a brief dip in a very rough sea, perhaps a sign of the incoming weather and after that we Facetimed Rebecca back home.
The rain came at 12.30 and we timed it perfectly at the sign of the first drop to be walking into the Seaside grill just as it lashed it down.
One thing we did notice on this trip, compared to our other “Secrets” experience was the language barrier seemed to be more of an issue. Of course, speaking no other language than English (aside from being able to fluently order Black Forest Gateaux in German) this was not a complaint, but more of an explanation of how I ordered soup but ended up with Cerviche.
I was not 100% certain what that was but suspected it was fish. Indeed it was and maybe even raw fish but in the spirit of he who dares wins I ate it anyway and it was fine. I won’t be rushing to have it again, but it was an experience.
Louise just had two starters and I had a Cuban Sandwich after my fish. That was delicious.
The rain was heavy and persistent so we took our time finishing our meal.
We left the restaurant around 2pm and walked back to the toom under brollies. We then sat out on our balcony under those same brollies bemoaning whoever decided not to put a roof on the balconies on the top floor.
Once the rain cleared we headed down to the pool.
At this point my gum was becoming a real problem.
We changed for dinner and left the room at 7.30. I went to reception to change some larger dollar bills into ones and fives for tipping and headed to Castaways, the steak restaurant. In hindsight perhaps not the best choice for someone who was dentally challenged.
We had to wait for a table with a drink during which time we got messages from Emily back home that she was hearing noises in the house and the dogs were spooked. We Facetimed with her and it seemed the noises were sounding like coming from the roof which was odd. Once she felt reassured and I’d messaged two sleeping neighbours to keep an eye out she felt a little better and tried to go back to sleep. Is there anything worse than getting a call from one of your kids who is scared and you’re thousands of miles away and can’t directly help? We went to eat.
We were a little distracted during the meal but we had a salad and Grilled Provolone.
We both then had a New York Strip. We did wonder if there was some kind of potato famine on the island as they were in very short supply both on the menus and on the plate throughtout the trip.
The food was fine but the service not the best but to be honest at this point my gum was the only thing on my mind. We started to watch one of the shows on tonight but I had to admit defeat at this point and go in search of medical assistance. We went back to the room and I called the front desk who immediately despatched a golf cart to pick me up.
It was there in about two minutes and I was whisked to the on site doctor and seen immediately. She was around 14 years old and after a few questions and credit card swipes issued me with lots of drugs, but most importantly the sweet, sweet Amoxicillin that would be the best purchase I had made in quite some time.
I walked back to the room, took a lot of drugs and went to sleep.
With all that sleep under our belts we were in good shape to make it to all three meals today. We were awake at 5.30 having slept for almost twelve hours. We took our time getting up and ready and headed in the direction of the Market Cafe for a buffet breakfast after making sure the view was still there.
We did that thing of sitting at our allocated table for about half a second before then getting up and aiming for the food.
There was a huge range of options from the alcoholic, to the healthy….
To the downright unhealthy….
I ended up with this very varied collection of stuff.
It was all very nice but a phrase once coined by Peter Kay sprung to mind….
“Has tha’ nowt moist?”
It was crying out for some beans, or anything to give it a little moisture.
After breakfast we inexplicably had to go shopping and as you’ll appreciate the shops on site would absolutely not be price gouging as you had nowhere else to go.
We needed a hat for Louise as she had burned her head yesterday and some washing powder as Louise had failed to pack me sufficient unmentionables. If she’s not careful I will be forced to do my own packing in future.
Many dollars lighter (although the packet of washing powder was oddly just one dollar!) we headed back towards the pools.
This would be our spot today, next to the main Jacuzzi that we never went in.
We did absolutely nothing all morning other than look at that sky.
Having had a large breakfast neither of us needed lunch but we did venture into the main pool and got a drink from the swim up bar.
I had a rum and coke which gave me heartburn. I am so Rock n Roll it’s scary.
Even with her newly acquired very expensive hat, Louise was still finding the intense sun was burning her head so she doubled up and used the cardboard thing that came in her hat for added protection.
In the afternoon, probably at the very hottest part of the day we decided to go for a walk up the beach.
Once we walked past the edge of our resort it was completely untouched and unspoilt.
But we had no idea what this was/is….
We walked for about thirty minutes before turning back, so we were both balls of sweat when we got back to our sunbeds after that hour. We had a shower and then a swim to cool off.
We headed up to the room around 5pm and actually made it out of the room again at 7.30.
We were to eat at Meraki tonight which was billed as the Mediterranean restaurant. We were expecting Mezze and all that jazz but the menu was a weird mix of all kinds of stuff.
Spring rolls and soup for starters, I had the soup
I had steak which was enormous and quite teasty.
Louise had Chicken Tikka Masala which wasn’t the best.
We stopped at the piano bar for a drink before heading to the Amphitheatre for tonight’s Rock Show.
The highlight of the show were a couple beyond drunk desperately trying to be in the show and at one point the wife was literally lap dancing for random audience members with tomorrow’s washing on display. The husband had an uncanny look of Timmy Mallett and that would be how we would know them for the rest of the holiday when we saw them each evening. Despite being in their forties he dressed like Justin Bieber and she mostly didn’t seem to like to wear clothes at all.
If this video avoids a copyright infringement, you may be able to see them here. It does not really do justice to how drunk they were.
After the show we strolled back to the room and we were in bed by 10.30.
Welcome to day one, part one of our financially irresponsible double trip year to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. Sure, I know I don’t look old enough, but somehow here we are.
After a false start involving Mexico, cartels and some stressful rearranging , we found ourselves waking up today bound for the Dominican Republic for the first time. Louise told me that she was awake at 2am. I only woke up at 4am when a video she clicked on her phone played at full blast. That saved me the trouble of switching off my alarm an hour later at 5am, when I actually needed to be awake. I did try to get back to sleep only for Louise to do the same thing again about ten minutes later.
Defeated, I rose, attended to dog’s toilet needs and showered. Once dressed the packing was completed and we left around 6.10am after saying goodbye to Emily and the dogs. The cats did not require one.
The traffic was pleasing and we pulled into our parking at 7am, which again was nice and quiet. Premium check in/bag drop with Tui was deserted too and being special Premium people we also got a free go on the security fast track lane. All in all a very quick and painless start to the day.
Terminal 2 at Manchester is undergoing some major changes so the layout is all different with lots of construction walls up hiding stuff so we were a little disorientated but our noses led us to the lounge soon enough. That for some reason was very busy, mainly it seemed with people who had not pre-booked and were waiting in line only to be turned away. Our pre-booked asses were waved through quickly and I was soon at the buffet.
Juice, coffee and a plate of the breakfast stuff followed and once we’d lined out stomachs, the drinking began (and ended for me).
We did some shop wandering and smelled very nice after it. There was a stop at Boots and then Starbucks before the long walk down to gate A6.
Our Premium specialness saw us board early and being a nervous flyer Louise picked up that the song playing in the cabin as we sat down included the lyrics, “Kiss me like we die tonight”. Still better than Jess Glynne but an odd choice.
The Prosecco/Juice was not offered until we were airborne, and that was quickly followed by the drinks service and some crisps. Once the meal arrived (I had buttered chicken) I watched a Robert De Niro gangster film. I know that doesn’t narrow it down too much but I can’t remember the title.
I did try to have a sleep and I think dozed for a bit. Next thing I knew more drinks were being offered and we had three hours to go (of the 8 and a half in total).
I watched another film, Black Bag, which again was decent. When that ended we were pretty much starting our descent. Somewhere in the Premium cabin, someone was whistling. Not constantly, just the odd little phrase of music every now and again. After about forty minutes of this, Louise was ready to eject them from the plane. To be fair everyone was getting annoyed with it, even the crew, and we did eventually spot who was doing it. A bloke sat with his headphones on, a bit worse for wear and thankfully he stopped before anyone had to be arrested.
There was a bus from plane to terminal.
We waited in a ten minute queue to get through the passport bit and then much, much longer for the bags to start arriving.
I’m sure it was just tiredness, but I too then wanted to commit acts of harm to a young chap who wandered right in front of all of us stood behind the yellow safety line at the carousel to position himself in front of us all, despite us being there for about twenty minutes. I really dislike people an alarming amount of the time.
Once we had the bags we survived the Hunger Games of getting from the terminal to our coach whilst being hunted by hundreds of locals trying to wheel our cases for us. I managed it all the way to the back of the van, where I handed my cases to what I thought was our driver, only to find I then owed some random guy a tip for lifting my two cases into the van. Two dollars lighter I got onto the minivan and we waited about twenty minutes for the eight other people to do the same and then we set off.
It was a long 90 minute journey. Once we arrived, check in was smooth. I did fall for the upgrade spiel, being offered a “very special” discount due it being our anniversary for a premium room over looking the ocean. In all such deals I will of course have been the loser but, wait for the view, for the few quid a day extra we felt it was worth it.
We were then golf carted over to our room.
And here is the view I teased….
And the view from the side of the balcony back towards reception.
Some of the room itself….
We unpacked, showered and headed out for food.
We wandered to the Asian restaurant, having enjoyed that the most at the other Secrets we went to in Mexico last year. By the way, this resort is the Secrets Esmerelda Playa.
We both started with Spring Rolls.
I had Shrimp Pad Thai.
Louise, Sweet and Sour Chicken.
Too full for desserts we paid (oh no, we didn’t need to!), and strolled to the Lobby for a night cap.
It was 9pm local time, so 2am in the UK meaning we’d been awake for 22 and 24 hours respectively. Sleep came easily.
I’m not one for a load of nostalgic yearning for the good old days. That sounds ironic for someone who for the last good few decades has almost exclusively spent their holidays in a place where the main currency is memories, but I am almost allergic to the boomer porn “things were better in my day” guff prevalent in most Facebook communities.
However, this week I have been looking back all bleary eyed at that time not so long ago that you could book a holiday and know, almost with certainty that it would happen as planned. Sure, the odd volcano eruption or hurricane could scupper your plans, but at least they were natural.
Since those heady days of Covid, it seems that nothing is certain until you are sat on the plane hurtling down the runway. I look back in horror at the endless uncertainty of those early post Covid months and years when trips were endlessly booked, rescheduled and in some cases cancelled.
Ever since, it seems the world has got itself into a downward spiral of uncertainty and simple things like a trip to WDW can no longer be taken for granted. Our upcoming September trip is still in pencil rather than ink, waiting to see if the US descends into civil war or indeed if World War 3 happens before we can get there.
In the last couple of weeks Mexico entered the game, with a “hold my cerveza” with cartel violence ripping through the country. As soon as Louise saw that our trip was in deep jeopardy. I did not appreciate one bit that the cartels waited until we had paid in full before subjecting their country to these horrors.
I was pretty certain it would all calm down by late April, but it didn’t stop Louise from going on a one woman mission to find us an alternative destination, less likely to see us held at gun point in my speedos. So for the last week we have been spending our evenings watching videos on You Tube of lovely looking places all around the globe.
With Mexico discounted, and the US already in our definite maybe pile, pickings were slim. I may be a working class lad from Bolton, but we soon also discounted closer countries such as Greece, Turkey and Spain as, at least with TUI who we would have to stick with to avoid huge cancellation fees, that meant flying with Easyjet or Ryanair and well, no thank you.
Having virtually visited Thailand, Bali, Tanzania and other far flung locations, we had almost settled on a resort in one of those. The search is now such a blur I cannot remember which to be honest. This search was not helped by my current working situation meaning I could devote little to no time aiding the hunt.
On Friday however, I managed to eek out half an hour over what in a normal job would be my lunch and I did one last search on the TUI site before attempting to swap us over. There it was, about half way down the first set of results.
To be honest, I had been reluctant to change our holiday at all, as I loved Secrets Akumal so much and I was very much looking forward to going back. I almost felt like I was betraying them by looking elsewhere. Having spent so long finding somewhere to compete for our US WDW holiday money, we had finally found somewhere that perfectly ticked all our boxes.
So when I saw another Secrets resort, seemingly in the ball park of our budget/spend on the Mexico trip I quickly clicked to find out more. It did seem to tick all those same boxes, and unlike the Thailand, Bali options it meant a direct flight in Premium with TUI rather than indirect flights of over 18 hours in economy with another airline.
Louise reviewed and accepted my choice and it was then down to me to do the business. Now, it starts to get interesting (I make no promises you will find this interesting, but that is sort of baked into all my posts).
Earlier in the week I have chatted with TUI to establish that we could change our trip for £50 each and whatever the difference in price was, so I expected this to be painless. Having priced up the new holiday on their site, I found the “Amend my holiday” option and off I went. At the final stage where the money became involved I thought it odd that the price I was now looking at was 20% higher than the price I had seen on their site.
I opened up another chat and to say the contents of this chat was confusing is like saying I have a restricted fringe. I explained my dilemma and shared the price differences. After a good twenty minutes I was more confused than ever, as I was told that it was both an extra £1700, or maybe £1200 to change my holiday, despite their site pricing it just a couple of hundred more than my original booking or I could just cancel my first booking for £570 and book the new one as a new trip. I declined all options as that just sounded dodgy and not right at all. Apparently it was something to do with brand new bookings getting some automatic discount but amendments did not. The insistence on companies to reward new customers over loyal returning ones baffles me.
I had another go on their site and tried to cancel my existing trip for that £570 so I could book afresh and their site then told me I’d lose £2500 if I cancelled. What the……??
At this point I resorted to the nuclear option and I phoned them. I was raging at this point. Disinformation, uncertainty, lies and an unreliable website were all in play and I just wanted to change my trip for the £100 I’d been told and move on with my life.
The lady I spoke to was awesome. She listened to me moan at length, agreed that was a shit show and vowed to help me. She also immediately spotted that my original booking had the TUI Flex option on it (I had forgotten) which meant I didn’t even need to pay the £100 admin fee.
She patiently worked through a whole range of options of dates and length of stays. We had always regretted only booking for 8 nights originally, and as this was part of our 30th anniversary tour, we figured we should go bigger as we may well kill each other before our next significant milestone. I had also had to cancel a few days off I had planned around Easter due to work being crazy so as punishment to them I figured I would tack on a few days at the start of this trip to make up for it.
So after literally hours of faff (most of which I have spared you) extending late into Friday evening, thanks to that lovely lady on the phone, all those ridiculous and confusing sums of money quoted online went away and we managed to change our booking, extend from 8 to 14 nights all for an extra £460. I was very happy.
If you feel like it was hard work reading that, imagine what it was like trying to navigate it.
Anyway, so what have we changed to?
We have secured another Secrets resort, Secrets Playa Esmeralda, in the Dominican Republic. It’ll be our first time going there, assuming we aren’t all dead as a result of a world wide nuclear escalation.
It is a direct flight, retaining our Premium cabin from the Mexico booking and all in all, if we had to change (and Louise said we did) I don’t think we could have done much better.
We will definitely return to Secrets Akumal, unless of course we like this place so much better, but even so I do feel we’d like to return as we loved it so much.
I don’t think I have it in me to rearrange another holiday so unless the US is literally on fire and/or travel is banned due to world wide conflict, I think we’ll be going. Won’t you all be relieved being spared another of these posts.
Hello again. Turns out I’ve had, and needed, a little break from the weekly blogging so apologies to anyone….anyone??? who missed these on the last few Sundays. It wasn’t really planned and just happened but it was very much required and unavoidable.
I return today unable to promise a weekly delivery but for now, mainly as I’m off work until the new year, we blog again.
Over the years I know I have regularly moaned about work being busy, but I was a young naïve fool, as only now do I feel justified in claiming that. In the late summer I was asked to take on some new responsibilities at work as well as my real job and it’s been carnage ever since. It’s involved some travel too with visits in recent weeks to London (a few times), Southampton, Birmingham, Leeds and of course our Manchester office which, with the commute as it, is qualifying as a trip all on its own.
I can’t say I am deliriously happy at work, but that’s not really related to the silly levels of busy, but more the over arching landscape since a new boss and some changes came around during this last year. Everything will pass I guess and when you’ve been there as long as I have, these Johnny come latelys don’t seem to stick around for the long haul so hopefully this is a temporary thing as I could do without having to find another job at my time of life.
So that work stuff meant that for the last few months I really haven’t had a minute to think about much else, and the prospect of sitting back at the laptop at the weekend to write this nonsense did not appeal. I’ve already been spending good chunks of evenings and weekends either working or travelling for work so I decided to not spend whatever free time I did have typing these posts for a bit.
How’s everyone doing? Well, Louise keeps on nursing despite not really wanting to, Emily still works with me and Rebecca, Tom and the boys are all good, with Rebecca now working part time in a local nursery.
Yesterday we went to see my Mum to commemorate what would have been her and my Dad’s 67th wedding anniversary had he still been with us. She’s doing well, is fit and healthy for someone in their mid 80s and she’ll be joining us for Christmas Day next week. Louise is once again working on the day itself and for a lot of the festive period, such is the life of a Community Nurse and she tends to volunteer to do/get stuck with Christmas Day as many of her colleagues still have young children and they want to be there for the big present unwrap.
Both of my readers may have been wondering if we have any holiday plans for 2026. Well, next year is a significant anniversary for Louise and I, as we will hit 30 years of marriage, so we are hoping to gift each other not one, but two holidays, if funds allow.
We have hopes of a return to Mexico and Secrets Akumal in April. We’ve paid a low deposit to secure our dates and have to decide by February if we’re going. It ain’t cheap so we’ll make a call then as to whether it is wise to once again blow all our available funds on overseas travel rather than more sensible uses. Our house continues to conspire against us financially so we’ll see what major bills hit between now and then before inevitable saying sod it we’re going anyway.
However, our main trip next year is a, perhaps surprisingly a Disney one.
In September we have booked to return to Florida, this time with Emily and her boyfriend. It’ll be an off-site affair in our usual villa, flying with Virgin and that’s about all we know at this point. Our boycott of the US was not an easy thing to lift, but after Emily went last year and found that inside the WDW bubble all was well, we decided we didn’t want the orange turd dictating our holiday plans for the next three years so we’re going despite our strong objections to current events over there.
So let’s see how long I can keep this blogging up, and I’d like to as I do like to look back on these things many years later, and to do that, I suppose I have to write them first!
Well, as punishment for daring to go on holiday, last week at work was one of the worst I’ve experienced in all the decades I’ve been sucking this shit up to pay the bills. Just two more similar days to go before I can pretend to not think about it for two weeks.
I can feel the stress coursing through my body and my neck and shoulders feel like I’ve done something that is very bad for your neck and shoulders.
All that meant that yesterday was also stupidly busy as I had to do some work that has to be finished before I go and I’m in meetings for every hour God sends from the start of Monday to the end of Tuesday and then start to try and prep the stuff I prep for the holiday. That meant printing off the stuff we might need (I’ve been over cautious as this isn’t our familiar journey) and can I say, how is it that in 2025 AI can do your job for you but we still can’t build printers that print? I also filled the rucksack, which won’t be Ryan for this trip. Louise says he’s too scruffy to go a resort like ours and I gave in as his role is solely for US based trips. Instead I’m taking son of Ryan, the brand new exact replica Louse bought me a few years ago.
Filling the rucksack is faffy, ranging from the essential passports and docs to the relevant phone and watch chargers, camera, kindle, painkillers, money and credit cards etc.
What I also learned this week was trying to order some US dollars in specific denominations appears to be impossible. I tried a load of websites and nobody gives you the option to request smaller bills (these dollars are only for tipping folks) so in the end I had to go old school and rock up the local post office and ask them to give me the smallest they had. They were still mostly too big.
With Louise out working I was also in charge of doing multiple washer loads, mainly of the dog’s bedding, and our bedding despite the fact that our house sitter is Emily, who lives here. I waited in for a delivery for Louise, which I “missed” as when it arrived, the chap rang the bell and then seemingly sprinted to his van and drove away by the time I walked the thirty steps from the couch to the front door.
Then I had to do some mowing up on the field as the grass was getting ridiculous despite me attacking it with a strimmer for the past week and I had to at least cut some walking paths in it for when Emily walks them whilst we are away.
I took delivery of an obscene amount of pet food for the dogs and cats and then nipped to the supermarket to get enough food to feed us until Tuesday and then I made tea.
It was a busy Saturday and today is looking similar. I’ve done some more work this morning, wrote this clap trap and then I have to go to a shop to collect an order Louise clicked last night and then go and see my Mum.
Anyway, as it always does, time will pass, I’ll get through work and we’ll be off soon enough. I’ll probably share some stuff on the Mkingdon Facebook page whilst away so do what you need to do if you want those. A day by day trip report is unlikely as it would be (more) boring than a US trip and I almost certainly won’t have time to write it, but I will of course share thoughts, highlights and food in some way.
Usually, about now, in the standard cycle of our endless Disney trips, I would be elbow deep in all kinds of planning activities. Assuming a summer trip, once we start to see daffodils and daylight beyond tea time it normally feels like a proper sea change in daily life, everything looks literally and figuratively brighter and I undergo self imposed and unnecessary stress about where we might eat in a few months.
Do I miss it, with our plans not involving the US this year? A bit, yes. One of the big benefits of a holiday that takes more than the action of booking it is the continuing dopamine hit of doing the bits of planning that are the milestones in the countdown.
With us heading for Mexico and an all inclusive experience I have nothing to do other than ensure I have the appropriate attire for our activities that might even fit me. On Friday, not being allowed to work, I found myself in the unusual setting of a retail location and did cast my eye over some suitable long trousers for the posher restaurants at the resort which insist on such. After about twenty minutes of pushing things around racks I left with a pack of socks and nothing related to the holiday.
There’s plenty of time yet and I as ever I hold onto the hope that I will lose fourteen stone “in a daaaaay” before July and any wardrobe additions now would be wasted. Socks however, will fit me whatever shape my body is in.
Conversely, not having to keep up to date on all the happenings at our destination to understand what attractions might be closed and what format and price this week’s FastPass system may take is liberating. I’m not saying we’ll make a habit of it but this relaxed approach to going away to relax is definitely a change and in some ways welcome, especially with work being stupidly mad at the moment.
I am even thankful that our chosen resort does not operate a reservation system for their restaurants. I am an animal of extremes! The absolute extent of my pre-holiday activity has been watching the resort post on Instagram.
I really don’t want to wait four years before returning to the US so let’s hope something happens over there to return things to something approaching normality. It may just be my soft lefty liberal echo chamber on social media but I am seeing lots of articles detailing large downturns in tourism to the US. It’s a real shame that ordinary folks in the relevant industries will be affected, unless of course they voted for him, then not so much. Maybe the downturn in numbers will see some keener prices for flights and more offers from Disney and the like, but I suspect any downturn from the UK market won’t be significant enough to make that much of a difference.
So as we enter the season of bank holidays, allegedly higher temperatures (although nobody seems to have told the weather up North), power washing your flagging and unavoidably visiting DIY shops and garden centres I find myself with nothing holiday related to do. It’s different, but I’m not too sure whether that is good or bad different. I am absolutely looking forward to our change of pace and plans, mostly because I am just sick to death of being cold!
I’ll just have to spend the next few months browsing lightweight chinos online I suppose and call that holiday planning.
Nobody will be more relieved than both of my readers to learn that a decision has been made for our July trip.
Yesterday we spent a good deal of time chatting about what we should do and it changed a lot during the day. Our first bit of thinking saw us considering sticking with Florida but having a completely non Disney adjacent trip and heading off down the coast, hopefully taking in Delray again and even getting as far as Key West.
I spent a while looking at options for that but soon discovered that with a flight in and out of Orlando, getting down to Key West and back up again in 14 days would mean a silly number of hotel hops and a lot of driving and in the end we discounted that as too much like hard work.
I even looked at internal flights to get us back up to Orlando from Key West on our last day but logisitically it was getting a bit silly and risky if that flight got delayed or cancelled too late in the day for us to drive up.
We then spent the afternoon looking at non US options, including places like the Dominican Republic and Mexico. We saw a few really nice top end hotels that we could do for the same budget as we had planned for Orlando and eventually stumbled across what has turned out to be our choice.
I have spent a couple of hours this morning contacting Virgin to cancel the flight and sucking up the associated fees and then going through everything else we had booked and cancelling or amending that. That included –
Airport Parking
Airport Lounge
Car Hire
Hotel
That took a while.
So America won’t be getting our hard earned and it feels like a subtle middle finger to the idiot in the Whitehouse to instead be giving them to Mexico.
We are going to Secrets Akumal, in Riviera Maya Mexico which of course 24 hours ago I had never heard of. I’ll share this video about it as this channel was the one we watched to get a good enough feel for the place to decide we should book.
I’ve been very brave and booked the flights seperately as all the packges were extortionate and involved indirect flights. So I managed to find direct flights with TUI from Manchester just by moving our dates back by one day from the 1st to the 2nd of July. We’ve been able to upgrade to Premium for a total price that is less than the refund we’ll be getting from Virgin. It also means I don’t need to rebook any airport lounge access as we’ll get that being TUI premium.
I’ve yet to book the accomodation as I want to scour the internet for the best possible deal, but a look at the obvious places shows I can book it at a price that makes it a fair bit cheaper than any of the packages offering flight and accomodation.
I’ve even booked a private transfer from Cancun airport to the resort and back again. It’s been a busy morning.
I do feel a bit sad cancelling Florida if I am honest. It wasn’t helped that literally just after we’d agreed to make this change yesterday I flicked the TV on and found Jayne McDonald doing a programme on Channel 5 about Key West and all the places in Southern Florida we had considered earlier that day. Like some weird fever dream she ended the programme by inexplicably singing Kids in America by Kim Wilde which sort of snapped me out of it, but I couldn’t escape the gutteral yearnings to stick with our original booking.
But I suppose a change is a good as a rest and we are nothing if not overdue a change in destination. I think we have sort of decided that our next Florida trip will be one that takes in the South of the state, but not with an Orlando flight making it hard to manage.
So, rightly or wrongly we’ve bitten the bullet and I’m happy with the decision, mostly, as it does feel strange and sad not to be heading to our usual haunts.
If by any chance anyone has stayed at this place do let me know your thoughts unless it was rubbish and then probably don’t as I can’t take the stress of having to unpick another holiday. At least we now get to see just how realistic the Mexico pavilion in Epcot really is. It’ll be 100% accurate I would imagine, just as the UK one is!
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