My recent tour of the UK continued last week with a couple of days in Marlow doing things considerably less fun than playing bass to people. Work required my presence and so 450 miles of driving, a night in a Travelodge and two days of meetings made up most of my week, as I was off on Monday.
I think/hope that might be it for travels until after my next proper travels to Mexico but with a couple of weeks still to go, who knows. Work is a bit like that at the moment.
My night away did afford me an expenses paid meal at a place called the Giggling Squid in Marlow which was very nice, even if the main course I chose snuck up on me with its spice. A wander down by the Thames on a summer evening did beat more recent trips of staring at a concrete tower block in London with a Tesco meal deal, but I’d still rather be at home.
My pre-holiday prep is complete with two deliveries this week. Louise has “toiletries” to procure, mainly sun cream, but it’s almost time to get the cases out. I am unusually anxious about the trip as I lack my normal levels of certainty of what is to come. Louise’s uncertainty was I suspect none existent until Friday’s Air India crash and now all of her long held fears around flying are re-surfacing.
Any last minute buying will need to be done outside of the next two weekends as she has somehow been rota-ed to work both of them. I’m at the stage now where I am scouring my work diary and counting how many really crappy things I have to endure before we go. Anyone else do that?
Aside from the mundane details of how I’ve passed the last seven days, today is Father’s Day which has been weird for me for the last couple of years of course. I think about my Dad a lot, but I suppose today is the a day when that is bound to happen more than it might normally.
I still don’t think I have fully accepted that I’ll never see him again. It’s very weird and for reasons I don’t understand I regularly play back those last few hours we spent with him in the hospital before he died. I somehow feel like I did it wrong or could have spent those more wisely even though he didn’t really know we were there.
Anyway, I love you Dad, and I miss you every day. It’s a cliché but if you’ve still got one, try to appreciate them as when they’ve gone and you think you can’t even remember their voice, you start to panic a bit and feel like you’re letting them down. Enjoy your Father’s Day and here’s mine as he would probably like to be remembered.
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.
Another week whizzes by. Work for me was full-on in terms of hours spent, complex stuff to deal with, and having to spend an unwelcome amount of time physically in the office. Insult to injury, indeed. I’ve said it endless times before, but I will say it again: How I did that commute five days a week for decades is beyond me.
There was also a team-building night at Junk Yard Golf in Manchester, followed by a curry. Whilst always grateful to the company for spending money on stuff like that and actually enjoying it to some extent once I’m there, they are not essential for me to want to work somewhere.
Still, I came joint first at the golf and enjoyed the food, so I should probably stop moaning about it and show some gratitude.
Louise has had less fun this week. Having worked last weekend and a good number of days on the trot, she had all this week off and had lots of plans.
Instead, she’s been pretty ill, and we ended up in A&E on Friday evening after her GP sent her there to hopefully get sorted.
Fearing a couple of days in the waiting room, we did OK. She was triaged within an hour and then was given an appointment with a doctor a couple of hours later, so we were able to go home, get some food, and go back at the required time. Another hour or so and we’d seen the doctor and were on the way home with Louise reassured it was probably nothing too serious.
She did have to go back on Saturday to pick up the prescribed painkillers and other drugs as the pharmacy didn’t have them in stock, and they gave her an IOU. Ironicall,y that took longer than the previous evening as she was given duff info about the opening times and spent several hours wandering the hospital, filling out forms, and generally waiting around just to get her hands on the all-important meds.
Hopefully, with those secured, her recovery will be swift. She certainly feels better today than yesterday.
Emily has been away from home doing some house and dog sitting for a friend who has gone on holiday to Italy. This is Pablo.
If this kind of work funded trips to Disney, I think she would happily do it full-time.
I’m still a little concerned for her August Florida trip as the US continues its rapid descent into anarchy and chaos. I know I have, without doubt, over-thought and over-egged potential issues for tourists to the Sunshine State, but it’s clear I’m not the only one, as stats are starting to emerge from the US of sharp declines in tourism this year. Hopefully, that just results in smaller queues and the same trouble-free experience as we are all used to.
It doesn’t feel like this level and rate of chaos can be sustained for four years but what do I know. Often, very little indeed.
I appreciate that many of both of my readers will not have slept well all week, waiting on the next crucial update in my self-inflicted dilemma of where to spend two weeks on holiday. I’ve done nothing but turn down interviews with major news outlets, conscious that I should only be giving updates here.
The news from Virgin Arlantic was as expected. We could cancel but at sizeable cost. So our options if we wish to not use the flights we have booked are –
Amend them to somewhere else that Virgin fly to ideally from Manchester for £500
Cancel for £700
Whilst not life changing in the overall context of the cost of any trip we may end up going on, those amounts are painful enough to mean it isn’t a simple decision, especially when all this may be a ridiculous over reaction and our original trip would probably be no different to any other we’ve been on despite the absolute buffonery and malice coming out of the White House.
All the signs point to the usual cycle with this orange idiot. Something is announced, the news is dominated by it for days and then it gets walked back due to the consequences or reaction or it was never going to happen anyway and, in the example of tariffs on Canada and Mexico it just facilitates some nice insider trading for the billionaire’s club who were able to watch the stock market crash for a bit, buy a load of cheap stocks and then make immediate paper profit once the tariffs are “postponed” and the markets recover.
So we haven’t made a decision is what I’m saying. There has been fairly extensive searching for alternatives and once again I’ve come across the ususal TripAdvsior issues where any place we think looks nice then has too many reviews talking about the kind of stuff we hate on holiday.
6am sunbed reserving
Poor food selection/choice/quality
Butlin’s style “entertainment squads” round the pool
Maybe I’m just looking wrong, but these are not cheap package deals.
The best thing to do of course is go off personal reccomendation and a friend and colleague of mine has just returned from a work incentive prize trip to Mauritius. It was incredible and I’ve even been looking at the hotel they all stayed at. For roughly the same all up cost of the Orlando trip, once we count spends etc, we could do that, although I suspect it would end up being a little more as it’s only Half Board, not All Inclusive, but the blocker here is the travel.
Flight options are either a gruelling 24 hour marathon indirect from Manchester via somewhere like Istanbul or direct via Gatwick. For Northern monkeys like us that is pretty challenging. Getting the train to Manchester can be hard enough, never mind from our local station, to Manchester, to Euston, then two tubes to Gatwick, with cases and hand luggage. That doesn’t sound like fun, especially on the way back on the wrong end of a 12 hour night flight.
The resort (Sugar Beach) does look stunning though.
So for now, even I’m bored of hearing about it so we’re sitting tight for a bit. We don’t need to really do anything until May when we have to start paying balances for stuff like the hire car. Perhaps if I just decide not to watch the news for a bit I can just be oblivious to the seemingly intentional journey into war and global recession and just go and enjoy brunch at Wine Bar George as the good lord intended.
Sticking with the plan would certainly be the easier option as the thought of going through the hoopla of cancelling with Virgin, waiting for the refund etc and then starting again with a place I know little about sounds like a time sponge.
I shall draw a close to this post so you can all give your eyeballs a rest from the constant rolling they must understandably be driven to do reading this stuff. Enjoy your Sundays.
OK, change of plan. Not only did I make zero notes for today, but when I came to the photos I also remembered that on about the third photo of the day, the little red battery thing was flashing and the thing died just after lunch. I took this as a sign from above that I really shouldn’t bother. It was not of course just a sign that I’m an idiot and had forgotten to charge the battery for about a week.
So I’ll share the photos I did take and just summarise today.
It was Magic Kingdom of course. I had bought Multi-Pass and I think this was the day it worked out the best. We literally walked from attraction to attraction without delay or with time to kill in between. The park wasn’t that busy which of course helped and we got pretty much everything done.
My excellent memory did recall that we definitely took Monorail Lime….
OK, I lie…
It was about this time that I saw the battery flashing thing.
After a morning of rides, we had lunch in Cosmic Rays. Still one of our favourites.
Once nice and full, sensibly we rode Space Mountain, which is more endurance test than attraction for me these days.
I don’t know who those are behind me but they learnt a few new words during that ride.
I got to ride Buzz with Dougie again, ensuring another victory. They all count.
And we took a lap around the park….
Before being foolish mortals.
And then the camera died….
I know we did Philharmagic, Small World and Big Thunder, ate at Liberty Tree followed by Tron and fireworks.
And we were done.
Thinking about the trip as a whole, we did a lot, which knackered out the oldies and pleased the ride-obsessed youngsters. I went into the trip hating Multi-Pass and left feeling pretty much the same way.
Don’t get me wrong, at times it really made a difference to our day with two youngsters not high on patience, and it saved us from long queues or upset kids. However, I still absolutely object to the obscene expense involved in using the theme parks. Parking and ticket prices are bad enough, but this addition of an expensive chargeable multi-pass adds up to a LOT of cash to splash for what is still an excellent experience, but the value for money question is much more debatable now.
Overall, Florida is a much more expensive trip these days. There are global/economic things at play with inflation etc, but supermarket prices are super high and eating out is no longer the “cheaper than the UK” experience it used to be. None of that is really anyone’s fault, but it all adds up to food for thought (pardon the pun) when considering returning.
I’m glad we got to take the boys at these lovely ages. I hope they always remember it and, maybe, in the future, read this drivel and look back fondly on it. I will.
With apologies for the less-than-perfect ending, I give my thanks to those loyally reading along. Your perseverance is a marvel!
What’s next? An update next week, of course, but I’m not too sure full detailed trip reports will feature as they have in the past. If the process is beginning to feel like a chore to me then it’s probably time for a rest of this exact format and look to do something else to capture the events of our holidays, should we have any. 🙂
I’ve done a lot in recent years, so maybe it’s just a bit of trippie fatigue. We shall see.
We are nearing the end folks and it’s not going to be too pretty as I had at this point decided I wouldn’t be writing this trip up. That had meant that my notes for the last few days had been poor and today’s notes were especially so, but they still beat tomorrow’s as I made none! I’m regretting that now of course, tasked with remembering anything that far back and my change of heart once home was driven by not wanting this trip with the boys to be just a bunch of photos stored somewhere. I realised that I did want to capture everything after all.
Anyway, we shall do our best armed with some photos and my fading memory.
I can make a very good guess that we didn’t get up early enough to make rope drop or anywhere close. Why break the habit of a holiday? It was around 9.20 when we got to the gates, got in and encountered DeVine again. Yes, it was DAK today.
I’d done some LL booking at the villa but due to our later than planned arrival I moved our first one back as it was due to end at 9.45 and now it would start at 10.10. Of course, that first ride would be Everest,
Louise’s feet issues peaked so she was in an ECV today, so we convoyed our way over there and set up rider swap. I stayed out with Dougie, bought him some Chip & Dale snacks and we watched the world go by.
I then rode with Freddie.
After that, despite the adrenaline now being pumped through our veins I could sense low energy and tiredness in everyone so we stopped for some breakfast to refuel.
We ordered from here. The odds of everyone getting what they wanted when you have to order at such a window for six people are low, but I think we cracked it today.
We found a table in the courtyard area close to Tusker House and we all had this kind of thing (see, no notes).
As we were eating Rebecca suddenly jumped up and screamed. She’d been bitten by the largest ant I have ever seen and it hurt so much she was brought to tears. Various creams and portions from various bags were applied.
By the time we had eaten, our LL for the safari was due.
My selfie game is not strong.
Another very good guide and lots to see.
Now, we had about twenty minutes to kill before the next Lion King Show, so the boys’ faces were painted. Dougie was happier about it than he looked.
Freddie just played it cool….
As we walked over to the Lion King Freddie decided he’d rather do a “fast ride” so having just had his face painted he of course chose the Rapids, so Tom took him off to do that whilst the rest of us did the show.
Anyone who has read any of my reports knows my thoughts on this show, so I won’t repeat them, much. It was as excellent as ever.
We walked over to the rapids to meet Tom and Freddie. They had ridden once so now everyone apart from Rebecca and Louise rode, thankfully avoiding too much of a drenching.
As we exited the ride, the app was telling me that Flights Of Passage was just 35 minutes, so we headed quickly in that direction. It was a long old walk. Rider swap was set up again so Louise and I sat out with Dougie and had a beer and a decent-sized pretzel.
It took them the best part of an hour to ride, then Freddie and I rode using the LL/rider swap and it took us fifteen minutes. I did some fiddling with our LLs to bring our Navi River slot forward to 4.45 from 6.50 to avoid more cross-park trekking as we had Dinsoaur at 5.45.
After Navi we walked over to Dinosaur, bumping into Donald, and Louise took Dougie on Triceratops Spin whilst the rest of us rode.
We walked over to meet Louise and Dougie and the boys had a couple of games.
A prize was secured.
We saw Everest was a walk on so we headed that way and it was….
Everyone rode apart from Louise and Dougie.
It was time to be leaving now, always a sad time to leave a park for the final time on a trip.
So I took pointless photos to commemorate the moment.
We took our time walking to the exit, looking at some animals and enjoying the sunset.
It would be just me and Louise for dinner tonight as Rebecca wanted the boys to get an early night as they were knackered. So they had a McDonalds and after showers Louise and I headed out for the Outback which is now in a new location further up the 192.
With no notes now to guide me, it looks like I had a steak of some kind.
As did Louise.
No desserts for us and were home in bed shortly afterwards, I’m sure.
We were all definitely feeling the effects of two full-on park days, but there was no plan or time to rest. We had a date with some 90’s pop stars in Epcot.
I did allow a very late start though and it wasn’t until 10.30am that we rolled off the drive. We also had some (barely) walking wounded with both Tom and Louise suffering with their feet.
To add to the fun I had been up for most of the night with middle-aged man acid reflux. I cannot think how I could possibly have brought that on. I had been eating so lightly and healthily recently.
Anyway, in our varying states of decay, we set off for Epcot. We stopped for gas on the way, and it was about halfway there that I noticed that Louise did not have her magic band on. Two days at Universal, and she forgets all her training. There was no way I was turning back, so we’d have to figure it out when we arrived.
We parked up in Rocket 612 and trammed in. The hat was back, alongside those sunglasses from last night.
One of those K9 units that stand close to the entrance took a real interest in Tom, Rebecca and Freddie as we walked to the entrance. I think it could just sense that Tom’s feet were about to fall off.
Just as we were about to finally get into the park Rebecca went to the restroom.
After entering, with Louise being given a normal ticket in lieu of her magic band, Louise and I took the boys into the queue for Spaceship Earth but Rebecca and Tom got delayed/seperated as they tried to park the stroller so they ended up not coming on, for which I think Tom’s feet were grateful.
I got to ride with Dougie again.
The ride stopped five times in total, meaning it took an age to get through it.
By this time it was coming up on our Eat To The Beat dining package reservation at Garden Grill. Rebecca and Tom had walked there to wait for us and we walked quickly over there as we were a bit late. We checked in at 12.55 for our 12.45 ADR.
We were seated and then served by the excellent Bob.
Our package included an alcoholic drink each so we all had a cold brew martini. It was the strongest drink we had all holiday and potentially of all time. It was taking the enamel off my teeth but I drank it all the same.
Soon some food and characters came.
It was a family-style affair, with food just brought out until you say enough or vomit.
The character interaction was almost constant and very good. The boys really enjoyed it. The adults no longer cared as those martinis had rendered us unconscious.
The food was excellent by the way, with some of the best mash any of us had ever had.
I can’t describe how full I was but some of this still went down.
This is Bob. He was funny, attentive and just full of joy all through the meal.
It wasn’t too far off Freddie’s birthday so we got a cake.
We left vowing never to eat again and wandered up to Figment.
Dougie was fortunate enough to be able to nap now. The rest of us had to battle through the food coma in a waking state.
We tried to get into the Seas pavilion but as we arrived they were closing the building down for some reason. Maybe there was some poisson in the water?
Instead, we walked over to Mission Space, one of Freddie’s favourites. Rebecca won the lottery to sit out with Dougie.
As we waited to enter our pods thing there was a longish delay with CMs rushing about with items that suggested somebody had lost their lunch. I was pretty sure I may follow.
Thankfully my ageing body managed to keep hold of the huge amount of food and alcohol I had taken onboard and we now headed to the other side of the park to ride Soarin’.
We waited in line for about half an hour with Louise sitting out with a still-sleeping Dougie.
We had a clash now. We needed to go to the American pavilion for our reserved seats at the Eat To The Beat concert at which Hanson were appearing. The Virtual Queue we had secured at 1pm for Guardians was also about to be called. I stopped at one of the blue umbrella guest services to ask if anything could be done. They assured us that the virtual queue thing would be good all day so we could ride that at any point.
That walk up to World Showcase certainly did not help anyone’s struggling feet.
I love watching live music and Hanson were very good.
We completed the loop around World Showcase by walking through France and back towards Guardians via Canada. Freddie was now suffering with aching legs and so Tom and I took turns carrying him for parts of that journey.
We set up rider swap and Louise sat out with Dougie whilst everyone else rode.
Freddie passed the time in the queue watching some videos and I tried to push my lungs back inside my body after having to carry him for a few yards.
It took over 40 minutes to ride and then Louise rode with Freddie whilst the rest of us walked over to Nemo and Friends with Dougie.
After the ride, we watched some fish….
Naturally after that lunch, there was turtle head.
As you know I can go into a lot of detail in these reports, but that’s because I don’t wish to shrimp on the information.
We met Louise and Freddie at the exit around 8pm and the tram and car took us over to the Beach Club where we had a Beaches and Cream reservation. I dropped everyone off at the door and then self-parked and walked back in a vain attempt to generate some appetite.
When I went to check in there was no sign of our reservation. Eventually, they did find us on the hard copy print out but it turned out we were no longer showing on the computer as some other family had taken our table and reservation. They had a similar last name so somehow they had managed to check in and get seated. A manager was summoned, she went to the table and the offending family and had a stern word with them as they had clearly had no reservation and just winged it.
We were found a table anyway and we all gave that family very evil passive-aggressive stares as we passed them.
This may or may not have been them.
I forced down some Chilli Cheese Tots.
Rebecca – Chicken Sandwich
Freddie – Cheeseburger
Dougie – Hot Dog
Everyone else had the French Dip
Of course, we had to get a Kitchen Sink too. You don’t come all this way and not.
We all chipped in but Tom pretty much cleared it by himself.
We were all knackered and it was a quiet journey home and bed by 11.30.
I think today was our earliest get up, so please be suitably impressed as we reverse off the drive at 8am, Universal bound.
Of course, it took almost an hour to get up the I4 and arrive at Royal Pacific. We self-parked, grabbed the stuff we needed for the park and headed into reception to check in.
I’ve walked past these frogs a lot over the years but have only now noticed they seem to have “their lipstick out”.
The ladies and kids took a seat whilst Tom and I went to check-in. It always seems to take longer than it probably should to do that here. The queue was small but the level of faff and keyboard tapping does seem excessive. Having given all the info when booking, it does seem odd that I am now writing names and email addresses on scraps of paper.
Anyway, after some real confusion about who was in which room, we were done, had our Express passes and popped into the shop for breakfast.
With food on board, we walked down to the water taxi.
Just outside the gates we did a quick check of Freddie’s height and he was so close to being able to ride the Hulk, but not quite there yet.
I had hoped to have us stepping foot into the park by 10am. It was 11am as we did so.
Having chosen Islands of Adventure for today we headed straight for Suess Landing whilst Dougie was still awake and onto Cat In The Hat.
There was no queue but we still used our Express to get our money’s worth!
Dougie loved it in much the same way the girls had at his age. It is a banger for the two year olds. Hit followed hit as we went straight onto the Carousel now, and Louise and I recognised a bit of a special moment as we clearly remembered taking the girls on this at very similar ages.
There was much concern, sorry I mean hilarity as Louise took about five minutes to dismount. I know that sounds like an exaggeration but she was in this position for many minutes and we were unable to help as we concentrated on not wetting ourselves laughing and in my case also making sure I got it on camera.
Naturally, One Fish, Two Fish was next. Louise and I rode together and I was the perfect gentleman by making sure I sat on the inside of the fish and had full control of our height. Louise was very grateful for the cooling effect of the water I subjected her to.
As we wandered now towards the Circus McGurgus thing, The Grinch appeared, preceded by his helper/host…
This was very fortunate as Dougie is obsessed with The Grinch. It played out perfectly as after a brief little show with Thing 1 and 2, he took up a position for a meet and greet right in front of us and we were first in line.
and this happened….
and he stayed like that for many minutes….
He was in heaven and it took some persuading for Dougie to let go and let somebody else have a photo.
Once that was done, we rode.
Staying at one of the Universal hotels that give you Express is expensive, so it feels hypocritical to praise it after moaning about Disney’s Multipass stuff, but the experience is excellent. It takes away all the stress about crowds and also doesn’t require military planning and constant app use and juggling of reservations. Universal for us is typically a couple of days maximum so it’s a different kettle of fish to our Disney park touring, and it works brilliantly. Right now, the Disney experience is complicated, expensive (as we want to go to their parks roughly ten days in a 2 week stay) and stressful.
Onwards we marched to the Potter stuff.
It was busy in Hogsmeade but not the crazy crowd levels we have encountered in the past so we did get some chance to take in the theming rather than just concentrating on avoiding other bodies.
After a quick Butterbeer everyone went on the Hippogriff so that Dougie could ride another coaster before succumbing to his impending nap.
Next everyone apart from me and Dougie went on the Hogwart’s ride. I took a long walk around the park until Dougie fell asleep.
Upon my return, I rode with Louise, but Freddie turned down a second ride, not being too keen on what he’d experienced. Upon riding it, I could appreciate why a six year old may not be its biggest fan.
Now, it was time for….
Louise sat out with Dougie and the rest of used the Express line, which still took 30 minutes to ride. Freddie was understandably excited and nervous as we waited, as this would certainly be his most intense coaster to date. It was not helped by the ride going down for about ten minutes.
I have ridden this before a few times but for some reason this trip it seemed more terrifying than I can recall. Sure it’s fast and has all the loops and twists but never have I ever experienced the feeling of coming out of my seat as I did on this coaster. I was genuinely scared for my life. I am sure it has been tested and it is no doubt physically impossible to fall out but good grief I did not believe that as I gripped for dear life and screamed.
With that in mind, it made perfect sense that I rode again immediately, this time with Louise, Freddie, and Tom. It was no less scary.
In need of some blood pressure soothing, we chose to ride the Jurassic Park River thing next. It was a walk on with or without Express.
After riding it was time for some snacks, so I bought a random selection of whatever the closest booth had to offer.
I didn’t know what that one above was but it turned out to be a very lovely sweet pastry type thing. I was more shocked to discover the one below was savoury after taking a large bite. It was potato and meat and Freddie also had a taste, loved it and devoured the rest.
Whilst I was busy eating, fiddling little fingers seized the camera.
On to Kong now and it was mildly surprising to find that Dougie could ride it. We bypassed a pleasing standby queue with our Expressness and rode. Despite the very gory and gruesome content of this ride Dougie was fine. It probably isn’t ideal for little ones to be honest.
We chose to bypass the water rides, as we were soon to be sat in a restaurant and did not want to be freezing to death in wet clothes in brutal AC. So we carried on walking through the park, to get back to the Spider Man and Hulk rides.
We were devastated to see that Spiderman was down for maintenance and would not be open during our visit. Meeting Temu Wolverine was not really compensation for that fact.
It was my turn to sit with Dougie now as everyone went off to ride Dr Doom. Despite us being minutes away from our dining reservation, like all good grandparents, I got him a huge lollipop from the shops.
He approved of my decision….
When everyone got back, I was delighted to hear that Louise had not ridden, and had sat out on a bench near the ride entrance and I could have ridden after all.
Next, we all rode the Storm Force waltzer thingy.
Louise and I had Dougie in with us so could avoid the excessive spinning that was going on in the other cup by Tom and Freddie.
We had time to repeat Cat In The Hat and One Fish Two Fish on our way to eat at Mythos….
Upon arriving at Mythos it was not busy and we were seated immediately. It is heavily themed around Mythos type things, if anyone has a clue what that is.
Rebecca and Tom had a milkshake and Louise a wine, with everyone else on soft drinks.
I started with a Mezze Platter….
Louise had a “dipping thing” according to my ever reliable notes.
Tom had meatballs….
and Rebecca had Hummus
They were all lovely. This Mediterranean style of dippy stuff and breads is right up my street.
For mains, I had Chicken Kebab with Cous and Cous.
Rebecca Lamb Burger
Both of the boys had pizza and Louise had a Grilled Cheese in Soup
Tom had Pad Thai, but a plaster and some talc would probably sort that right out.
The boys finished with a shared banana split and there was a creme brulee that a few of us dipped into. It was all very delicious with very good service but of course came at an elevated price which was to be expected when dining in the parks. It was around $400 including tip.
It was dark now. Freddie wanted to do Velocicoaster again, so Tom took him off to do that. We strolled over to the water rides, picking up a Grinch for Dougie…
as that was the plan after the boys returned but Popeye’s Bilge Rats had closed at 7. We waited for quite some time on a bench near Dudley’s as it turned out that Velocicoaster had gone down and it was taking them a long while to ride. As Rebecca had Tom’s phone to save him the bother of the locker nonsense, we had no way to get in touch like it was the 90’s or something.
Eventually, we decided to walk to the park exit in case they had gone there a different way and the park was closing now anyway. Louise took Dougie off to the boat whilst Rebecca and I waited for Tom and Freddie. Once we’d found them we set off to the boat to find Louise and Dougie sat on the one just leaving as we arrived.
The next boat was about ten minutes later and we thankfully got on board and headed for bed. We had done well over 20,000 steps today and were absolutely exhausted.
It’s rare to report on a first these days when it comes to a Florida trip but here we are. The plan hath not decreed it so but with the earlier changes due to the weather, more flexibility was required today and we moved our Volcano Bay day to today. For Louise and I, one of those rare firsts.
I didn’t get up until 8.45 am, which was right around the time we probably should have been parking up at Universal but I’d been up in the night and had not slept well so it was as unavoidable as it was undesirable.
This resulted in a very poor 10am departure and once again our journey was blighted with traffic that was less than ideal. It was bad enough that the drive took 45 minutes, but what added insult to that injury was as we pulled up to the toll booths where you pay for your parking for Volcano Bay, I don’t know why, but there was a huge queue that was just not moving at all.
My frustration and anger (mostly at myself for the late start) started to build and the 30-minute wait just to pay for parking was not improving our start to the day.
Once parked up, we had to board a bus to the water park itself. This was relatively painless, but my mood had darkened sufficiently to see this as a problem too.
Once off the bus, there was a sizeable walk to get somewhere close to any water. At this point I was wondering if Volcano Bay actually existed or if it did, I suspected it was located in one of the Carolinas.
I had to go to guest services to sort our tickets and then we were given a Tapu thing and finally, we were in. It was midday.
You can imagine that the availability of sunbeds and shade was not abundant at this time so there was a long, hot, frustrating trek around the park trying to source some. It was made so much easier with us having a stroller, which of course always work well on sand.
I spotted a set of beds large enough to accommodate us all and we made camp. It felt like very hard work indeed to just get into the park. The day was to get better but the herding cattle approach to getting folks into the park was not something I liked. Compare it to Typhoon Lagoon where you park about six feet from the entrance and stroll in and I would say it could be simpler.
Suncream was applied….
then everyone apart from Louise was off into the water, thankful to now be able to have some fun.
Being in unfamiliar surroundings, I felt unsettled, which probably should be added to my “reasons I need therapy” list and says a lot more about me than I would probably like it to. There’s a reason we keep returning to Florida. After a dip in the main pool, I returned to Louise as everyone else went off to do some slides.
I rested a bit until everyone returned around 1.30. We mobile ordered lunch and then went off to eat it.
Me and Rebecca – Turkey Wrap
Louise – Pulled Pork Sandwich
Tom, Freddie and Dougie – Pizza
Picking up the food was fine but I had a falling out with the drinks machine and had to go back and get another cup as the fanfangled machine just spat syrup all over the first one and me.
Some escaped Lays were appreciated by the wildlife.
Now fed, Louise and I returned to our encampment. Tom, Rebecca and Freddie went off for more rides and I walked Dougie around in his stroller until he fell asleep. That was a good way for me to get a good tour of the park anyway.
With him napping, I went for a couple of loops around the lazy river, finding a very comfortable position on a double-ring thing, which I believe is also the name of a film. I was dangerously close to falling asleep on a few occasions, but the tactically placed ice-cold drips and sprays kept me alert at the appropriate times.
I wandered back to the beds to find everyone had returned and Freddie was keen for me to go on the Crazy (not Lazy) River now so off we went. The fact that you have to wear a life vest to go on this may suggest how fast this thing goes, but it was really good fun.
We did four laps in total before being thrown out as the park was closing.
My view on Volcano Bay improved throughout the day and to be honest I am not worth listening to when it comes to any sort of review on a water park. I don’t do the slides (more issues for my imaginary therapist to unpick) due to some bad experiences on dodgy water parks in the Med in my younger days, so I couldn’t tell you if the slides here are better or worse than anywhere else. For me, as somewhere to just rest and relax it’s simply easier to get to and into Typhoon Lagoon so I would probably stick with that in future, although the Crazy River was excellent. I would say that our long drawn-out entry experience this morning was very likely largely down to our own very late start and the weird 30-minute wait to pay for parking, which oddly cleared as soon as we were through.
We got dried and dressed and made our way out. Getting out and back to the car was a good deal easier than the earlier shenanigans.
However, the traffic was not, and it took over an hour to get home. I guess it was rush hour, with nobody rushing anywhere on the I4, of course.
Dinner tonight would be just Louise and I as Rebecca wanted to give the boys an early night and get packed for our Universal stay tomorrow. So after showers, we set off. Having not planned for this turn of events, we just set off down the 192 looking for inspiration and, driven by growing hunger, opted for the next thing we saw which was…
It was not busy at all.
We started with some kind of fried pickle type thing (my notes are poor and seem to get poorer from here on, as at this stage, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t bother writing this trip up, but here we are.)
I reached for the camera well into our eating of it.
Our entrees were a dipping beef sandwich thing….
with Louise opting for her “go to” cheesy pasta thing
The food was tasty and the service fine, but this was not a life-changing dining experience and we probably would not return. With it being a slow weekday the atmosphere was probably not at its best either with just a few tables occupied. It’s odd how that can make such a difference to a dining experience. The place being so busy you can’t get a table or decent service is of course no good, but when a place is as empty as this was, it gives the whole experience a bit of weird “vibe” and I’m sure we can all agree that I am far too old to be using words like vibe.
We drove home, did some packing for Universal, which was no doubt a lot easier than Rebecca’s and went to bed.
As shining examples of how to get stuff done early in the parks we are not that psycho blonde woman with four kids who keeps infecting my Instagram feed with her 4am wake ups and Stepford vibes. If you know, you know.
Today was probably the exact opposite of that but we were tired to it was a much later start. I had booked Multipass and stacked our LLs for the afternoon so we took our time and benefitted from the extra cash outlay, but not as much as Disney would.
It was 10.30 when we left the house. Less than half an hour later we parked in Mickey 312 and we trammed in.
I can’t say for certain that Dougie didn’t sleep in that hat.
We had a Fantasmic Dinner Package booked for this evening which involved lunch at the Sci-Fi Diner so we had no ride plans before that. We had a stroll of the shops and just took things in.
We checked in at the restaurant at 12.20 and were seated within 5 minutes.
We all ordered a milkshake which would count as dessert on our FDP thing, which was fine by us. And they were fine.
We paid extra(!) for an appetiser of Fried Pickles and then….
Me – Chicken Salad
Louise – A blurry chicken sandwich
Everyone else had burgers, which proved impossible to photograph as we were all sat in a car.
It was another pricey affair, as expected, but it did give us a “Fastpass” for Fantasmic later.
Our first ride of the day was Mickey’s Runaway Railway and everyone except Louise endured the 30 minute standby wait for that.
It’ll never be the Great Movie Ride, but it’s clever, and I suspect it takes a lot fewer CMs to run it than the previous ride here.
Next, it was time for our LL for Rise of the Resistance. As often seems to be the case, as we arrived the ride had just come back up which meant that even the LL queue was bedlam. The standby was at 3 hours, and that would rise to 4 as we queued. Tom stayed out with Dougie and it took the rest of us 45 minutes to ride.
I suppose this ride’s impressiveness and complexity lead to it going down a lot.
It truly is an incredible spectacle and feat of Imagineering but its instability means that idiots like us who paid to ride it get upset at still having to spend an hour doing so.
Tom and Freddie then rode much more quickly as the initial surge after re-opening had calmed down.
The rest of us walked to Tower of Terror for our next LL, and we knew at this point that Tom and Freddie would be late for our slot on that ride. I went to one of the Guest Services blue umbrellas and explained the Rise-induced delay to our plans and they kindly made our LL for Tower of Terror open-ended for any time today.
We took a seat and had a drink whilst we waited for the Rise riders to return.
With Dougie napping, Rebecca, Tom and Freddie rose TOT, then with Dougie awake again, Tom took Freddie on Rock n Rollercoaster whilst the rest of us took Dougie to see Beauty and The Beast.
Keeping Dougie entertained whilst we waited in the scandalous and persistent absence of Four For A Dollar, involved him having a go on the camera.
Once the show started, I took over on camera.
With that show enjoyed Louise and I took our turn to ride TOT. Everyone else headed back to Galaxy’s Edge where we were to meet them for our Smuggler’s Run LL. We were half an hour beyond our time slot, which stressed me out no end, but as we beeped our bands Mickey turned green and we were in after more very persistent measuring of Dougie, which he once again passed.
Dougie, much like myself had no clue what was going on, but enjoyed it nevertheless.
We wandered Galaxy’s Edge for a bit, catching a bit of a live show involving Kylo Ren.
Rebecca and Tom did a great job of resisting Freddie’s persistent urging to buy some form of very expensive plastic tat and then we set off for Toy Story Land and our Mania LL. This time I rode with Louise. Different competitor, same result. A bruising defeat for Louise.
We completed our rides for the day with the Holy Grail of LLs, Slinky Dog, and as a bonus, it was just going dark which makes most rides better in my opinion.
Dougie loved it. A great coaster, perfect in its intensity so that everyone can ride and enjoy it.
As we now made our way towards Fantasmic, the boys were bought the inevitable light-up toys and as we entered the stadium we stopped for snacks of drinks and popcorn before taking our seats.
This show continues to be one of the best experiences on WDW property. That finale gets me every time. It’s amazing what music can do to you. Rebecca was in tears and I wasn’t far off. Do not miss this show.
It was an easy exit and we made our way back to the car.
Having given Disney far too much of our money on food and LLs recently we headed off-site to eat at the cheap and cheerful Olive Garden. We arrived at 9.20 and were seated within about 15 minutes.
You know what we had to start….
I had the Tour of Italy, as usual.
Freddie had meatballs and spaghetti.
Both Tom and Rebecca had Lasagne
Louise, Five Cheese Ziti
Dougie had Pizza
With wines, iced coffees, sodas and tip, it was a wallet-soothing $160. It was all pretty good, although my entree could have been warmer. We do find this place to be quite hit and miss in recent years, but overall it’s decent quality food for a good price when your bank balance needs a break from WDW prices.
We were home by 11.15, with a great day in the bag, despite the late start.
Rest days are the habitual practice of seasoned travellers to WDW who love to recharge their batteries….
Parklife!
But once that’s done and the rides start calling again all you can do is make your return to hustle and bustle of …
Parklife!
So with a 6.55am alarm waking me so that I could book us all a virtual queue for Guardians, the day began. My notes remind that I felt rough this morning with a headache and nausea. It was either last night’s cold spud or I was pregnant.
Despite the 7am alarm, we were not out of the house until 9am and it took about 25 minutes to drive to Epcot’s gate. Another $30 exchanged hands and we parked in Rocket 602.
The tram took us in, (since when were they red?) and coffee and donuts were served from Joffries for those who didn’t feel like vomiting.
I stood strong today and refused to book the Multipass, so the day started with a 20-minute queue for Spaceship Earth.
I had the genuine pleasure of riding with Dougie, who despite several very annoying stops for several minutes was incredibly well behaved.
Next, we restroomed.
With our virtual queue time approaching it made sense to head in that direction and ride Mission Space. I declined the chance to ride as I needed no further encouragement to be making pavement pizzas so Louise and I sat out with Dougie and had a drink.
Once everyone was back from space we had been summoned to Guardians. After setting up rider swap, Me, Louise, Rebecca and Freddie rode.
This is THE best ride on property and I will not be entering into any debate on the subject.
It had been raining a little all morning and as Tom an Freddie rode Guardians it really came down. We needed to get to a restroom and by the time we did it felt like we had been swimming.
While waiting for Tom and Freddie to return we stood under the canopy outside Connections and Club Cool.
Dougie had been kept out of it with his pram hood and a poncho.
With no sign of the boys and our ADR at Space 220 imminent, we messaged them to say meet us there and set off to get a little bit wetter. I explained to the check-in host that we were waiting for two who were riding, and it was fine when we eventually got everyone there and checked in at 1:30 for our 1.10 ADR. As soon as we did that, the rain stopped.
We entered the lift ensuring the boys could get up to the rail to see the “lift” take us up to space. It was quite full so I could see bugger all standing against the back wall.
I dangled the camera from my outstretched arm and got….
Once we arrived in space as you would imagine, the theming was just excellent.
There were novelty fizzy drinks with glowing things and popping space rock….
Even though Dougie wasn’t having that particular special drink off the menu our server was smart enough to make sure his apple juice also glowed.
and those rocks really popped….
Food wise we had
Me and Tom – Shrimp Tacos and the burger
Louise – Cauliflower starter and the burger
Rebecca – Caesar salad and burger
Boys – Nuggets and a dome pudding.
Some adult desserts were had too….
Louise had some wines and most of us finished with a coffee.
Many of you will know that this isn’t a cheap experience, and there’s nothing to be gained by saying how much this meal was, so I won’t. The experience was very good, the food was better than expected and the boys really enjoyed the theming. It was chilly, but that was because we arrived drenched in cold water. I also got a better view in the lift on the way back to earth.
Dougie was in desperate need of a nap so I volunteered to walk him round until he caught one. I ended up doing a full loop of World Showcase and met up with everyone over at Journey Into Imagination.
Louise and I stayed out with Dougie.
Due to our evening plans, we had about 30 minutes left now to ride something before we had to go and Freddie chose Mission Space and insisted I rode too.
I survived with my expensive lunch intact.
The weather had perked up too.
What I’m doing here, I have no clue.
Something tells me a younger camera operator was holding the camera….
It was time to leave now so we made our way to the exit. Dougie was back from his nap.
But only just….
That’s better.
We trammed to the car…
and I captured evidence of someone’s battle with the overhead speaker….
Sometimes being bald can be a blessing.
We were heading for City Walk, as tonight Tom and Rebecca were going to Halloween Horror Nights whilst we took the boys for some tea and then home to bed.
The traffic was of course horrific all the way up the I4 but the cherry on top was the 35-minute wait on the off-ramp to get to Universal parking. This, we soon found out was caused by a combo of Horror Nights traffic plus a Chase Atlantic gig at The Hard Rock. After parking the car security was also carnage but we made it in around 6.15 and Rebecca and Tom went off to be horrified, mainly by the prices and wait times.
The fringe-filled emo-fest that was the queue for the gig at the Hard Rock was a flashback to the teenage years of the girls.
Louise and I sat with the boys on those big steps for a bit, people-watching until it was time to head to Toothsome for our reservation. No, we were not hungry at all.
We were seated immediately and started to ponder what someone who isn’t hungry at all orders.
Louise went for French Onion Soup.
I went sweet with a Banana Fosters Waffle, you know, because I was full.
The boys, who were hungry, went for burgers.
We had a few minutes of interaction at our table with the two characters.
Then the boys shared the S’Mores, barely making a dent in them and I was in no position to help.
We wandered City Walk, and after looking for all kinds of plastic tat to get for the boys, Dougie showed no interest in anything and Freddie ended up getting two airbrush tattoos. It was bedtime, for Louise and me, so the boys had to come home too. We had walked all the way back to the car when Freddie announced he needed a wee, so I had to walk him all the way back to security to the closest restroom.
Despite having the sat nav on I managed to take a few wrong turns on the way home and one of them saw us divert through some sort of military base entrance. Bizarre.
We were home for 11 and got the boys in bed. I waited up downstairs just in case Dougie woke up and then fell into bed as soon as Rebecca and Tom got home around 1am, I think.
I slept solidly until 2am and then again until 4am. When I woke again at 7.30 there were questions about what the plan for today was. Sure, I’d had a plan in place for months but the weather looked like scuppering that as it was looking too chilly for the planned visit to Typhoon Lagoon.
The preference seemed to be Hollywood Studios so with it already being too late to be getting there, never mind trying to plan a day that wouldn’t involve riding Star Tours and watching the Muppets (RIP) seventeen times I had work to do.
There was no choice but to buy Multipass again, so I did before showering and getting dressed. I did OK with the first LL, securing Rock n Rollercoaster, Star Tours and Alien Swirling Saucers.
We were out of the house by 8.30 and in the park just after 9am. Not bad. My heart sank seeing huge queues at the entrance but I was hopeful that was driven by incompetence rather than attendance.
Our first LL wasn’t until 12.30 so I was on the app trying to find a tolerable standby wait. Toy Story Mania promised a twenty-minute wait so off we went.
We entered the queue full of excitement about the day ahead, with Freddie particularly looking forward to Rock n Rollercoaster.
After about five minutes of queueing a cast member entered the area and shouted that currently, of the the three tracks available, two were down and the new estimated wait time was 70 minutes, but the other tracks may come up at any time.
A lot of folks left so we figured we’d give it a bit of a wait and see what happened.
After about 15 minutes Freddie was clearly desperate for a wee. I took him out, and asked a cast member could I rejoin our party afterwards. They said of course so all was well and it was easy to find everyone as they had not moved.
We were now trapped in the quandry of having committed almost an hour to the ride that leaving would inevitably see everything open back up and us kick ourselves. We were indeed just about to give up and we were looking for the easiest way out of the queue when things began to move. After 30 minutes in the same spot we were seated on the ride in about five, having waited, spookily for 70 minutes. All the tracks were now open though.
For the second day running the first ride of the day had let us down with its wait time. I have to admit that during that long wait and reflecting on yesterday’s experience of lots of rides being down, I was getting a bit fed up and sulky about our Disney experience so far.
I rode with Rebecca and won convincingly of course.
We had obviously missed our next LL slot at Star Tours as we didn’t get off Toy Story Mania until 11.15. That ride had availability all day so I just moved that to later and we headed in the direction of Sunset Boulevard. It was time for lunch, having had no breakfast, before our next ride.
We mobile ordered at Rosa’s Canteen.
The usual array of hot dogs, burgers and nuggets with some universally disappointing dessert options.
With that tucked away it was time for Rock n Rollercoaster and we set up child swap at the entrance, meaning that Freddie could ride it twice, with Tom who sat out with Dougie.
As we waited for the few minutes our LL afforded us, Freddie was that lovely mix of fear and excitement. He literally could not stand still.
He loved it despite what his face was saying on the photo.
We walked over to Star Tours whilst he and Tom rode again.
It was my turn to sit out with a now-sleeping Dougie.
I did some LL faffing on the app and got us a LL for Frozen sing a long at 3.
With Star Tours done Louise and I went for a drink at the Tap House whilst everyone else went to do Tower of Terror which looked to have an inoffensive standby wait.
I got some of the sweet and spicy almonds which were about three times more addictive than crack.
We all met at Frozen at 2.45 and were immediately annoyed that the LL time of 3 p.m. was for a 3.30 show. So we wandered down to the Star Wars Launch Bay for a look around.
Dougie was awake again.
The boys met Chewbacca with Dougie really not sure how he felt about that.
Now, it was actually time for Frozen!
We wondered if it would hold Dougie’s interest, but he loved it.
We made our way over to Galaxy’s Edge now, stopping off on the way to watch The Muppets. I am nothing if not prescient with all things Disney. In my notes for this day I wrote that this was half empty and had no wait all day and wondered if its days were numbered. At this point, I am going to start invoicing Bob Iger for consultancy.
We walked right through Galaxy’s Edge, having a look at various stuff…
and we stopped for what I think qualifies as a coffee.
Freddie was delighted with his coke.
We were soon out the other side and where we needed to be for our next LL on Alien Saucers.
Everyone enjoyed that one and with no options available beyond what we already had booked, we had an hour to kill before our next LL on Smuggler’s Run. Knowing we would have to do some queuing at this point we decided to go and do standby for Smuggler’s and then ride it again with our LL.
The posted wait time said 45 minutes. Dougie was measured, a lot, and got on by a whisker.
As we got to about 20 minutes into the queue, Freddie started his now familiar dance indicating he needed a wee. With no real way out we knew we were in trouble. We either abandoned our wait or maybe there was another way.
Rebecca downed the contents of a water bottle in their backpack and we devised a cunning plan. The queue was quite slow moving, so at the agreed time, I knelt down pretending to tie my shoelace, holding up the queue behind us and Tom and Rebecca crowded around Freddie whilst he did what he needed to do in that bottle. It worked a treat, with even a wet wipe available to wash his hands afterwards. The bottle was jettisoned at the next bin. Luckily at six years old, it takes about five seconds to have a wee, not the hour or so it can at my age.
Dougie had no clue what was going on either time we rode but he loved it all the same. Riding it twice like that did give me at least a fighting chance of trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
It was about 7pm now and time to go.
We walked out and back to the car and headed for Sickies on the 192, which was in the plan and staying there despite us changing things for today.
It took about 20 minutes to get there.
We were told there would be a 30 minute wait for a table but we were seated in 10.
We shared the Spare Parts to start.
Weirdly I was craving a salad. My body does this as a reaction to abuse from time to time, so I had the Avocado Salad, as did Rebecca.
Louise had a chicken fajita salad.
Tom had the Hot Beef Sandwich, also known as the “CVS have a cream for that”.
The boys had Mini Corn Dogs and Tots and a Cheeseburger.
Everything was delicious. The service was great even though a good number of the servers were giving off Wentworh Detention Centre vibes.
With several shakes, wines and drinks it was $170 including a good tip.
We were all exhausted, but not too tired to enjoy another tour of CVS on our way back to the villa for some bite cream and moisturiser. We were home by 9.30, again having to endure several pockets of really crap traffic even at this time.
We did a decent job with the body clocks. Well, Louise and I did. I think Dougie made a very early appearance so Tom was in the pool at some unreasonable hour. It was 5.45pm for us and we finished unpacking and showered.
It looked like I was being a kind and wonderful husband by making Louise some coffee and toast and taking it upstairs to her while she got ready, but it was really just a selfish attempt to hurry things along and get us out of the house at an hour to benefit from the first day’s early rise.
I dressed in my smallest T-shirt knowing it may never fit again this trip.
At 7 a.m. on the dot, I was on the Disney app securing a virtual queue for Tiana. This was a pleasing start. Three days earlier in the UK, I had secured us Multipasses, hoping to make the first day go smoothly. As we were off-site, there were slim pickings in terms of times for our first of the day, so they pretty much only started from lunchtime.
We left the house at 8 am, which was right around the time I would have liked to have been waiting at the turnstiles to get into Magic Kingdom. It took 25 minutes to get there and we parked in Peter Pan 25. I had passed Rebecca the camera, not needing to explain what was required of her.
It felt a little cool this morning and we were surrounded by folks in several layers of fleece and long pants. The early start may have been catching up with some of us already.
We arrived at the tram stop as one was pulling away but that was because there was another right behind it. Tom, as would happen every day, got pulled for a manual bag check but we were getting closer!
The monorail looked stacked with a queue stretching right down the ramp, so we opted for the ferry. Of course, as we got very close to the entrance they closed the gate and it left. We could see another one coming in over the water.
We boarded after a few minutes and with being close to the front of the waiting guests we got a seat too. I hung over the side taking some more pictures.
These trips are often just a long stream of decisions about which line might move the quickest and typically me getting most of them wrong. Here was the next.
We were behind the usual collection of goons trying to use Blockbuster membership cards to get in, but finally, we made it.
I fired up the app looking for some guidance on which ride to head for first which wouldn’t have a long standby line. Three rides were currently down which was a bit shit and it proved to have a significant knock-on effect until our lightning lanes kicked in later.
Pirates, Jungle Cruise, and one other, which I forget were down. These big crowd soakers not being available meant that other rides were already mobbed. Buzz said it was ten minutes so we headed there and joined the queue which looked suspiciously longer than ten minutes.
The fact that we were queuing outside pointed towards a much longer wait and that we were able to see some local wildlife. Everyone thought this was a frog, but I toad them it wasn’t.
It took 45 minutes to get on the ride which was in danger of squashing the magical joy of that first-day arrival in Magic Kingdom. Still, everyone enjoyed the ride. We exited, immediately needing food. It was 10 am after all.
Options were slim I have to say. We settled on Friar’s Nook after seeing a longer queue at Gaston’s place for the Creme Brulee Croissant than we went through for Buzz. I mobile ordered and we made our way over. Tom and I waited whilst everyone else walked over to Pinocchio Haus to get a table. We waited for what felt like an age, but it was at least 20 minutes.
The boys had Hot Dogs and the adults all had these tot bowl things.
Our first LL was due now over at Barnstormer so we walked that way.
Thinking we might not fit in the same carriage, Louise and I sat this one out and had a tactical wee. Dougie absolutely loved what was his first rollercoaster ride.
Our virtual queue for Tiana was called. Louise volunteered to stay with Dougie and took him off for a walk to get him to have a nap. The rest of us walked up through Frontierland.
The wait in the virtual queue was about 40 minutes. It did feel odd that it wasn’t Splash Mountain, which was laced with so many memories for us, but it’s a good ride and Freddie loved it.
We were behind Go Pro guy….
.
As we left the ride, I did what I would do upon leaving and/or entering every attraction. I fired up the app to plan our next move or the move after the next three moves in most cases. I noticed that more rides were down and tried to take a picture of the app to show you all but, well…..
Second time lucky.
Obviously, this meant the wait times for anything still open were getting a bit silly.
We secured some of the Tiana “Beg Nets”, as Freddie called them and met up with Louise and a sleeping Dougie. Next, we used our LL for Big Thunder, with Louise and I riding second after sitting with Dougie.
Coffee was required now so we made our way right over to Tomorrowland and the Joffries there. This sort of summed up our experience today really.
That took half an hour only for me to then spill half of my (thankfully cold) coffee over myself when putting my straw in.
Dougie was back with us…
and Freddie was in heaven.
Because we are not stupid, Louise and I sat out with our coffees whilst everyone else rode Astro Orbiter. I took the chance to “fiddle with my fastpasses” in the app and managed to move some stuff around to better suit us. It is a full-time job these days.
Philharmagic next for everyone.
.
.
.
Look how fresh and happy Dougie is after a good nap. During this trip I had a couple of “million-dollar ideas” and I hereby copyright them.
The first was Disney adding the concept of “Nap Pods” into their parks. They would be similar to the sleep pods in Japan…
You hire one for a couple of hours. They are air-conditioned and soundproof and allow you to catch some sleep before emerging looking as happy as Dougie did.
The second idea was that Disney should sell (much cheaper) dummy magic bands that kids under 3 wear. They beep when scanned but obviously don’t need to work for real. Dougie felt so left out as we all scanned into parks and rides, constantly lifting up his naked wrist to the scanner.
We were first into the theatre and I can confirm we moved all the way to the end of our row to avoid the cast members having to harass us as they did all the idiots sitting down in the middle with a full theatre trying to get in. Both of the boys really enjoyed the show.
We walked straight over to Small World for our LL there.
It was a big hit with Dougie.
Safe to say Freddie enjoys the faster rides these days.
It was time now to make our way out of the park and over to Wilderness Lodge for our Whispering Canyon ADR. The park was rammed and I think we all were welcoming the prospect of some quiet time.
We caught the boat over….
It didn’t take us as long as I expected to get there and we were pretty early for our 5 pm reservation. So we chilled in the lobby for a bit. There are worse places to be.
The camera once again fell into tiny hands.
Freddie then had a go with impressive results.
Mainly….
I had checked in via the app and as soon as they opened at 5 we were seated. Everyone ordered the unlimited skillet apart from Louise who had the Nachos.
Dougie being told no, he can’t have the camera again….
The food was so delicious and we had far more than we should have, getting our skillet refilled a few times. Beyond the odd shout for ketchup, I have to say there are no signs of any of the “shenanigans” that made this place legendary in years gone by. Go for the food as it is delightful, but from our last few visits don’t expect the fun and interaction there may have been in the past. Tom made the most of the bottomless milkshakes on offer here and all up it was $236 including an already-added 18% tip. This was due to our party size.
We waddled back to the boat and sailed back to Magic Kingdom. Golden hour was upon us.
It was getting a little chilly again, so Ryan was raided for Louise’s cardigan and the boys felt the benefit.
The resort monorail and a tram got us back to the car.
The traffic was horrific trying to join the 192. It does appear to be broken. You know of course that around this time we would make our first visit to CVS for vital things we needed but did not bring. We were home by 8 and all soon very much asleep.
As first days go, not our best. We had fun of course, but with so many rides being down it really buggered up the park today and if this were our first experience of Magic Kingdom it would not have been a favourable one. Even getting food and drinks proved troublesome which we have never really seen before. The Multipass thing did save the day I suppose at vast expense, but it’s pretty poor for off-site guests as by three days out there isn’t much left for the headliners and everything else has very few early slots available. You need your first LL to be as soon as you get in the park so that you can use that to then free up the ability to book another tier 1 ride. It’s complicated, expensive and needs constant attention throughout the day. Disney, please change this.
Here we are then. Just one workday stands between me and all the fun of the fair and as expected, last week surpassed itself with its length, drudgery and amount of pride-swallowing, ego-enduring nonsense that work can often be. The trick now is to try to push that and the stuff I know I’ll be returning to from my mind for a couple of weeks to make the most of what will be a hard-earned break. Yeah I know we take loads of holidays but in between we really work for them.
On Saturday I bought us Multi Pass for the first day, which, as the law dictates will be Magic Kingdom. I know that you know that I think this, but the cost of that at $29 each plus tax is just a piss-take. It really is and even for someone as dyed in the wool a Disney fan as I am, it really does impact my propensity to do their parks in future. We shall definitely be using that system only as a necessity as it just has such a huge impact on the budget. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, for us at least it just means we spend less time and money in their parks. Knowing that extra cost will happen we plan to eat off-site more than we would and I will be less likely to splurge on merchandise.
Anyway, with a bit of playing around with the original selections and times presented to us, I have what I think is a solid base for the first day. Being off-site scum of course we joined the party very late, just three days before our visit so despite only having the crumbs from the table of availability, I would give that a 7 out of 10. I have already begun to mentally come to terms with the fact that we will not get on Tiana’s new thing.
We hope very much that Dougie will make it on to Branstormer. He is soooo close to the height requirement, we just have to cross our fingers that he can do his first Disney coaster.
So as I type everyone else is out doing and buying those last-minute things you need (I’m told) for such a trip. Louise has us pretty much packed and she finished work on Friday so is now free to prep us to death.
The weather post-Milton looks glorious, at least for the next week or so, with nothing currently of any concern forming out to sea so we hope that continues. There was a brief concern about a “cold front” predicted for next Thursday, but context is important as that for Floridians means it will drop into the nasty mid-seventies (if you are young, don’t ask me what temperature that really is….just use the correct method for temperatures instead!). Such temperatures here have half the population shirtless and two out of three households holding mandatory barbeques, so I think we’ll be OK.
The last bit of planning I had to do was my “airport Dad” approach to what time we need to leave the house to get to the airport. This is not as simple as you may think. Since we moved house a few years ago we are a little further away from the airport and with this being a weekday departure and the M60 not being fit for purpose, it is hard to negotiate the journey without us being ridiculously early or late. With a flight at 11.25, our journey to the airport is right in the middle of the armageddon of rush hour so planning is crucial.
So my plan is to leave the house at 6.15ish, which even with the catastrophic traffic getting off the M61 onto the M60 and then battling that across Barton Bridge past the Trafford Centre, we should be getting to the airport I think around 7.30. I thought everyone worked from home these days, but the motorways of the North West tell a different story.
That gives us time to park the car. This will take a little longer as our usual place was full and we have to do a meet and greet option which I don’t really like as you have to figure out dropping your keys off at an “automated” set of lockers and it’s all a bit faffy. Once that is done that should get us to 8am or so and that is when check in opens. Being posh Premium superstars we should be escorted through that by our own personal valet within seconds and into security.
I don’t want to jinx it but when we did this last May the experience had undergone a big upgrade and improvement with seemingly new technology making the whole thing a breeze.
With that behind us, we have access to The Escape Lounge from 8.30 and all should be well. That’s just the journey to the airport which goes to prove that these holidays don’t just happen you know. From there it’s just a matter of surviving nine hours in a tube with a very rumbunctious Dougie. Wish us luck.
As ever, from time to time I’ll share as we go on the Mkingdon Facebook page. So give that a Like if you haven’t already.
Other than that, I think we’re done and we’ll see you back here in November!
The “highlight” of this week was a stomach-churning panic on Wednesday afternoon with a tearful phone call whilst I was at work (Rebecca was the one in tears, but if I’m at work there’s always a chance I am too) saying she had just fallen down some steps and broken her ankle!
I left the meeting I was in the middle of without explanation and flew homeward. Tom had got home to her first, so we arranged to meet at the hospital so I could take the boys home while they were seen in A&E.
When I looked at her ankle, I was sure it was broken. While waiting for them to arrive at A&E, I had already done some extensive googling on whether you could fly with a broken limb. It seemed to be the case that you could, but of course, doing WDW with a broken ankle would not be ideal.
A few hours later they returned home with the news that it was not actually broken, but there was severe tendon/ligament damage. She was in a boot and on crutches but relieved.
Of course, there is the small matter of managing everyday life on one leg with two young kids for the next few weeks but at least the holiday was not badly affected!
Just 24 hours later the huge swelling was much reduced so we are very hopeful she will be ambulatory by the time we fly. It was around this time that all the other injuries she had picked up all over her body started to hurt with the pain in her ankle subsiding a little. It was a heck of a fall.
The other daughter continues to have the best time ever over in Orlando. We receive a steady stream of food and drink pictures which is always welcome and not quite as painful as it might be if we were not headed there very soon. I feel very conflicted that I never want their trip to end as I know how much they are loving it, but it has to if ours is ever to get here.
Emily wept uncontrollably at Fantasmic as did most of us just watching the video she sent. There is something about that finale music in that show that just gets me.
On Wednesday they did Halloween Horror Nights and were, to be honest, a little underwhelmed, mainly due to the huge wait times for everything. Only one house was done as every house had wait times of well over an hour and even the food trucks had similar queues.
They made the most of it by attending the show, scare zones, and riding the rides, which did have low wait times. It seems you need Express, but the cost for that is huge/frankly ridiculous so now Rebecca and Tom are considering whether to bother or not on our trip as with the tickets and Express for those few hours would cost close to £500. That is tough to justify and seems a mad way to operate the event.
Why not double the cost of the entry ticket but sell half as many so those going can actually do some of the things they want to?
Amongst other things, they’ve also done Beaches & Cream, a load more walking and are generally living their best lives. Feedback from Mikey the first-timer is that he is blown away, already addicted and plans for next year are being hatched.
In my own planning, I have picked up the remaining reservations in and around Universal that I was looking for. The first at Toothsome on the night Rebecca and Tom are/were planning to do HHN. I’ve booked the meal for us all just in case they decide not to go and I can always amend it if they do go after all. If they don’t we’ll just have a night at City Walk.
The others are Cowfish and on our day in IOA I have booked us into Mythos. Despite me seeming to remember it has a very good reputation I think we have only ever done it once. It being within the park makes it handy, with us not having to come all the way out to City Walk to eat. We are booked at 5.30pm, so should we wish to do more in the park after that, we don’t have walk all that way back in.
I ticked off another milestone yesterday, getting a work event out of the way that always looks better in the rearview mirror. Three weeks left at work now. I’m hunkering down for the final push.
I don’t know how your week went, but as mine ended, I had to endure the dentists. I’d been for my check-up a few weeks ago and was told that as I am old and closing in on death, my gums are giving up and all my teeth will imminently fall out.
OK, I may be exaggerating but whatever they said it resulted in me sitting in the chair whilst the hygenist did unspeakable things to my mouth. I wouldn’t say it was painful as such. In fact, I could endure pain more easily and for longer than the feeling of raw sensitivity that whatever they do delivers. Within seconds I had my eyes screwed tightly closed and a sweat on.
I had told her that due to a savage dentist in my formative years, I had an irrational fear of dentists. Still, her empathy was lower than my pain threshold and she raked, scraped and jet-washed stuff with a determination and gusto reserved for mossy block paving.
I escaped with less money than when I went in and the promise of two further sessions in June where she will really get into the nitty-gritty apparently, so much so that I will need a local anaesthetic. I did ask, but apparently, a general is not available. Well, I’ll look forward to that then. The price I pay for that Hollywood smile.
I had root canal work back in my forties and honestly, I do not know how I got through that.
Anyway, enough unpleasantness. Last week I declared the start of my pre-holiday diet and it has gone OK. I never trust our scales as I can be many pounds different from one day to another even when I’m not trying to lose weight, but it seems I may have lost about four pounds.
I’ll need to keep going though as I can put that back on at the airport.
The other thing I mentioned last week was Hollywood Studios and that I had thoughts on it and the current state of it but that would be a whole other post. With that park celebrating its 35th birthday this week, it looks like this is a good time for me to talk about it in my usually ill-informed way.
On our last two trips to WDW, post Genie+ and the pandemic, DHS has been a problem child and has presented the worst symptoms of the fallout of both in my view. Let’s start with the problem before I tell Bob Iger how to fix it.
In simple terms, the park suffers from a lack of crowd soakers. By that I mean, things that can occupy people. That ratio is off, with Galaxy’s Edge drawing large crowds, but there not being enough other stuff to keep them busy whilst they inevitably cannot get on stuff in GE.
If you look back in history, the park was, I believe, envisaged as a half-day park, hence its smaller size etc but I think that was abandoned as the additions of Galaxy’s Edge and Toy Story Land recently have shown. It can’t be a half-day park nowadays as it can take you that long to ride one ride if you’re in standby for Slinky.
Anyway, I digress. Years ago you had things like the Back Lot Tour that would scoop up hundreds of guests and occupy them for half an hour or so at least. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was another crowd soaker up, alongside the Animation Tour and of course, the stunt show was a big crowd sponge. I’m old enough to remember the Hunchback of Notre Dame show that was there too, another one to have a large number of guests out of circulation for the other attractions.
Alongside those types of attractions, you also had a lot of street performers who would delay and distract guests from looking for the next ride.
In summary, I think the issue now is that there is very little like that so all guests seem to do is queue extensively for the handful of attractions on offer.
Having undertaken my usual ten seconds of research, attendance is not the issue. Visitor numbers, up to 2022 at least, are down on pre-Covid levels.
This supports my theory that the guest experience is worse than it used to be, due to the lack of attractions.
It’ll help to get the Little Mermaid back up and running as that will take a few hundred guests out of circulation for a while, but what we found on recent trips was that if you did not have Genie+ you had two choices.
Wait in line for upwards of 90 minutes for anything you want to do
Ride Star Tours and The Muppets all day with a couple of long pit stops at the Tap House, which is no fun for the kids.
We would literally sit refreshing the app in a depressed, stunned silence looking for anything that the kids could tolerate queuing for.
So what to do about it? As if I have a clue…..but there are some options I can dream up unencumbered by finances, reality and a great deal of the facts that I don’t possess.
The first is the one most deeply rooted in fantasy.
I have long wondered why WDW and all theme parks don’t just make all the queues virtual. Sure there will be technology challenges but they already exist for some rides. Why Disney and Universal want people to stand in lines for hours of their day I do not understand, as whilst they do, they cannot spend any money.
Do the parks literally not have the space to accommodate all the guests if nobody is waiting in line? It would make the guest experience better right? In DHS specifically, space may be an issue as it is one of the smaller parks, but WDW does not lack land to grow into.
I also think they should reinstate a lot of the “ad hoc” street entertainment to entertain folks as they wait to ride, who would be walking around instead of being contained in a queue but that would not be enough on its own, virtual queues or not. Those entertainers were also a large part of the magic of this park.
Adding stuff similar to long-since-gone, big-crowd attractions such as the ones I mentioned earlier would be ideal. I’m not saying on the scale of Fantasmic, but some attractions, like Indiana Jones, that can take thousands of guests out of circulation for a period of time. As a paying punter, I just want to feel that there is something to do for most of the day without queuing for over an hour and ideally without paying extra to avoid doing that.
Whether we will ever get virtual queues for all or most attractions aside, there is, in my view a fundamental issue at DHS and as it turns 35 it feels like it is having a mid-life crisis of sorts. It has lost its original reason for being as it is no longer a working studio, which was a huge part of its appeal and ethos and now only tips its hat to the film industry.
It may sound silly with the relatively recent additions of Galaxy’s Edge and Toy Story Land to say the park needs actual expansion, but the addition of those two lands alongside the removal of all the stuff I mentioned earlier is actually making the problem worse. Surely a constant wait time of over 90 minutes for Slinky Dog should be a clear sign that something in the park isn’t working as it should.
I don’t think our recent experiences have been unique but of course, we could have just been unlucky. Of all the parks in WDW, it is the one that I gird my loins most for in terms of actually getting much done, and that can’t be a good thing.
With an expansion recently announced at Magic Kingdom my hopes for another at DHS are low, but something needs to be done or it will get to the stage where people will vote with their feet and spend less time there which ironically would help to solve the issue at that park, but make it worse at the other three!
When it comes to Disney, especially with a trip on the cards, there is little I like to do more than to think about scenarios that may or may not happen that will have hardly any impact on my life in the long term. Things like not getting specific ADRs or the parks being too busy or that those FOMO perks that Disney gives to on-site guests will make our off-site trip a disaster. It’s all part of the fun. For example, it seems off-site scum can only start to book their Genie+ Lightning Lanes from park opening, not 7am like the honoured on-site types. A bit petty Disney if you ask me. If you’re going to do this, then you need to come up with some affordable accommodation options for larger parties.
The only thing I enjoy more is whinging about Genie+ but I guess I’m not alone there.
Another fun part of this countdown process is to make completely unsubstantiated guesses based on zero knowledge about what Disney may or may not do in the future.
Take for example….
Soon, in Summer 2024, the new version of Splash Mountain will open. Tiana’s ride (not the official title) will be welcome for a couple of reasons.
Having such a major ride down for so long just means there are fewer things to spread the people around and all the other attractions get busier. (This is the entire issue with Hollywood Studios right now. Not enough things for too many people to do, but that’s a whole other blog post.)
It may draw some folks away from the likes of Seven Dwarves at rope drop and give other folks a fairer chance to ride it without paying extra or waiting for 90 minutes.
Emily and I were pondering if Tiana’s ride would be added to the list of individual lightning lane attractions in Magic Kingdom. There is much to think about.
It seems that MK is currently the only park with more than one such attraction…
Epcot – Guardians
Hollywood Studios – Rise of the Resistance
Animal Kingdom – Flights of Passage
Magic Kingdom – Tron and Seven Dwarves
So adding a third would be bordering on a piss take in my view. The options seem to be to take that piss and add a third which would be punitive and very unpopular, leave Tiana’s ride as Splash was, as part of the (still paid for and shite) Genie+ service, or add it to the Individual LL list and drop one of the others.
Personally, I think they will leave Tiana as Splash was. If they were to make it one of the two, then which of the existing ones would they drop?
Tron is too new surely and Seven Dwarves is one of the most popular and slowest loading rides on property, so that could just be carnage.
As ever, this thought process will be a complete waste of time because the last time I correctly predicted what Disney would do next I had a fringe.
I’d be interested in your views of course.
Speaking of change and new rides. Due to some clickbait-style headline writing by some other Disney-related blog (not that you read any others of course), there were a couple of minutes late last week when it seemed like Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin was going to be replaced by a Wreck-It Ralph attraction. A quick scan of the article once they had my very valuable click, confirmed that this was in Tokyo. Let’s hope that nonsense idea never darkens Florida’s door.
The other thing I have done in the last few days is begin to firm up some dining plans. We are months from ADR booking but I did try out the new system where you can put in a range of dates for a restaurant and see all the ADRs available. That is excellent!
My strategy for our eating on this trip is to focus on off-site places as much as possible with just a smattering of on-site ADRs. Sure, cost is a consideration. Feeding six folks multiple times a day on property is a pricey hobby, but we also love a lot of off-site places.
So I am adding an eatery of choice for each day and if it so happens that on one of those days we don’t want to leave the parks or that doesn’t fit with our plans, we will just try to find somewhere there and then via the app. We do want to try and get ADRs for a few such as Garden Grill, Rodeo Roundup, Space 220 (yeah right) and probably one character meal.
On that note, has anyone done BR77 Steakhouse on the 192. It’s a Brazillian Steakhouse type place it seems and I was thinking of giving it a try. Other than that, our list is the usual suspects.
All of this theme park talk ignores the fact that we are now just four weeks away from our absolutely no theme park trip at the end of May, to Delray Beach. When we called in to see my Mum last week she asked if we had the cases out yet. Even for me, five weeks out was a bit early, but it won’t be long.
The only prep required now for that one is to get some bloody weight off. My “Fat Elvis” period has been dragging on for a while now and it seems these days the only thing that can motivate me to get some lard off is a trip overseas. Let’s see how that goes over the coming weeks. The hardest part for me is starting. Once I begin to see any sort of result, I can stick at it, but as the years go by, it just becomes harder and harder to get the ball rolling.
If only everything in life were as easy as getting fat.
One of the criticisms of holidaying in the same place for a few decades, both spoken and probably mainly unspoken by folks I know, is “How can you keep going to the same place and doing the same things”.
Sure, I get that and there is some part of a trip to WDW specifically where that familiarity is part of the comfort and magical feelings that a certain type of traveller craves. A great deal of the joy and satisfaction I get is from showing this stuff to new people whether that be parents, kids or now grandkids.
My answer to that question is always the same. We do something different every time, mixed in with the warm glow of the familiar. We’ve done on-site, off-site, Vero, Naples, The Keys, Siesta Key and a load of other stuff I have no doubt forgotten. I guess the best answer is, that I’ve been going since 1980 and still haven’t come close to “doing everything” and never will.
Also of course things change regularly whether we may want it to or not. Parks get new stuff and indeed new parks happen too. We still, for example, haven’t done Aquatica, Volcano Bay or Legoland.
Anyway, flying that flag of trying something for the first time this week is Emily, who despite her very real fear of the whole event, has booked Halloween Horror Nights for her trip in September. There had been much debate, pondering and a little dithering, but my advice was you’d be daft not to. You never know if you’ll get the chance again and all things (within reason) should be tried once.
So good on Emily for giving it a shot. Technically we could also do it on our October trip but with a six-year-old and two-year-old with us that really isn’t practical and nobody is ready for the huge amount of screaming that would ensue from Louise for sure, but also me.
I have been to a Halloween event at DLP some years ago, which had some of the same elements I think, but from the vlogs I have seen of HHN, it was nowhere near as intense.
If the houses prove to be too terrifying I suggested there is always the option of taking the chance to do some rides whilst the queues are (I assume) short, so what is not to like.
For those with experience of this event, your comments, advice and feedback are welcome.
Having said that we always do something new, eateries aside, it feels like our October trip may not see that happen. This trip is a good old-fashioned WDW-only (probably) event and will be all about doing all the stuff we love with the boys.
Sure Tiana’s ride may be open by then so that will be a first and perhaps just once I will be one of those folks who return from WDW and say “I actually lost weight with all that walking”!
Really, who are these people and what are they (not) eating!?
But it feels right that this is how it may turn out. I know in reality it hasn’t been that long since we did the parks but it feels that way, and this trip, as is always the case when you take kids with you, will inevitably involve a load of firsts for them and I can’t wait.
Freddie is very much looking forward to being able to ride pretty much anything, certainly on Disney property. He is very tall for his age and the one in his sights is Rock n Rollercoaster as it is the only thing at WDW that goes upside down. Right now it is closed for refurbishment but it does seem to be promising to re-open in Summer 2024 so hopefully, we’ll be OK.
Rumours abound about whether the theming will change from Aerosmith to something else. I get that Aerosmith aren’t exactly relevant to anyone born in the last few decades so a change makes sense. I don’t know if they will move away from the band idea, but one rumour doing the rounds is that Queen will replace them.
For me, this makes no sense. They are no longer a band, mainly as the main man has been dead for decades and they are barely any more relevant to younger folks than Aerosmith. I do struggle to think of a band big enough to resonate with the older generations yet still be relevant to today’s music scene.
If anyone suggests Coldplay I will burn the ride down.
If any act makes any kind of sense it would be Taylor Swift. She is, love her or hate her, the biggest act on the planet right now, is young enough to have some career longevity to come and she already has a relationship with Disney, with her Eras tour thing showing on Disney+.
I’m not sure her music would have the same adrenaline-fueled effect that Walk This Way has as you are catapulted forward to start the ride, but it would permanently make the queues for the ride three hours as the Swifties descended upon it. Could they still call it Rock n Rollercoaster with a Swift theme? I don’t think so.
What say you? Can anyone see a B*Witched-themed ride working? I’d be interested in your suggestions so that I can let Bob Iger know. He’s a loyal reader as you know.
Another week gone and another week of seemingly endless posts on Facebook WDW groups of crowds that look biblical in proportion. Sure, it’s Spring Break, and for balance, there were some posts and blog posts about a really quiet week in the parks last month but overall, I have to say I am very trepidacious about our trip in October.
Nothing ruins a trip like overly busy parks and not being able to get on anything.
Having been out of the loop park-wise for some time, or at least it feels like I have, what is going on?
Is it social media over-egging the issue? Are we still in some kind of post-pandemic bounce back or have we reached a point where the existing parks just cannot accommodate the number of guests attending? Are there actually more guests and Genie+ (or some other factor) is playing a part in creating longer lines from that same number?
A minute’s worth of research suggests that the latter or something like it may be the case.
Thanks to queue-times.com for the graph.
Pre-pandemic attendance at MK was higher and this is replicated at all four parks, with only DHS almost back to pre-Covid attendance. Of course, we don’t yet have 2023 or 2024 data so that may show a sudden spike?
Are there still shortages of CMs? Are there other factors I am not considering (there definitely will be!).
So what is going so wrong in the parks that wait times of over an hour for most rides are the norm? Do Disney care? Is that bad for business or not?
I recognise I am asking lots of questions and not many answers. My opinion is tainted by my hatred of Genie+ I guess. Sure, I really resent the extra money it requires but it just doesn’t look to be working as well as the old system. We’ve had good days using it, with an afternoon/evening stacked with ride after ride despite the park being busy but is that causing a lot of pain in the standby lines? Why aren’t Disney offering virtual queues for all rides and attractions so guests can be free to roam the park spending money?
There has been a clamour for a fifth gate for almost as long as I can remember and with Universal taking the bull by the horns and opening new stuff, are we at a point where Disney need to or will respond?
Will they be reluctant to do so when seemingly at war with the state governor who seems to be intent on biting the hand that feeds him?
If overall attendance is still not back to 2019 levels will they want to create a fifth park or just continue to expand what they have? There has been talk of a significant MK expansion recently.
As well as offering more capacity it would also deliver a draw to get guests to return. Nothing mobilises the Disney faithful like a new thing. There are four-hour queues for a popcorn bucket. Add to that the benefit to guests of spreading themselves out over five parks and not four, and the whole experience may improve and return visits would increase perhaps.
If nothing else, the Disney vlogging community would definitely thank them!
Of course, that new park brings a lot of investment and cost to build and run it but I suspect Disney are not short of a few bob.
As we are now some 30 years since WDW opened a new park it feels like time to do so, and as ever the healthy competition of Universal being in Florida and doing just that may be the catalyst for Disney to finally announce this.
As you know, I have a direct line to Bob Iger, so I will be passing on my thoughts to him via this post. He is always the first to read them as you know.
Ultimately, I am looking to be reassured that we won’t be pissing away thousands of quid in October to stare at the app and not see a wait time under 90 minutes. If Bob could pull his finger out and announce and build that fifth gate by then that would be lovely.
I’m sure you’ll agree that as nice as it has been thus far to be away and in Orlando, this trip has a feeling of taking a while to get going, certainly as far as actually doing what we came here to do. You can’t control the weather I guess. Similarly, as day seven arrives, I can finally start to make some sense of the title of this trip report for you. That is what is called a teaser. Well, I have to do something to encourage you to read this guff.
We awoke around 9am following our wild late night last night! We made it to breakfast before it closed and were heartened to see the weather looking very good. It was noticeable that breakfast and the hotel in general were much busier on a weekend. It wasn’t unpleasant in any way, just noticeable.
After breakfast, we needed to nip out to Target as I needed a new book to read. Now, nobody just “nips” to Target of course, and it was lunchtime by the time we got back to the pool.
Feast your eyes on this….
You will understand that we did not move from our sun beds, appreciating the weather and reading.
In an attempt to stay out beyond 10pm tonight, the plan was to skip lunch and eat an early dinner so we did not immediately crave bed as soon as the food hit our stomachs. We aren’t animals so I went to the shop and got us some snacks to keep us going.
Louise, as she would now for pretty much the rest of the trip had a packet of Lays for lunch. I know the reveal wasn’t worth the build-up, but when I thought back on this trip when dreaming up a title, I didn’t want to use one that bemoaned the crap weather and the other thing which stuck in my mind was our crisp-based lunches by the pool.
Having enjoyed an afternoon of cloudless skies and temperatures in the mid-70s, we retired to our room at around 4.30pm to get ready for our early dinner. We still didn’t leave the room till 6 after the usual sixty minutes of hair dryer use by Louise.
Tonight’s dining choice was Romano’s Macaroni Grill. A stalwart of our trips over the years and often one not known about by many. This proved to be tragically true as we drove up to it. All the lights and signage were off and it looked as if it had shut down for good. We were genuinely gutted.
We assessed the nearby options and opted for Bahama Breeze, not least because it was five minutes away.
We were seated immediately with it being 6.20pm and started with a Spinach and Artichoke Dip, a Bud Light, and a red wine.
I don’t drink much/often so tonight’s beer had to be recorded. There would be a good many more to follow as our plans for later involved Jellyrolls if we could stay awake.
Louise, as ever had the Jerk Chicken Pasta…
and I, after much consideration, opted for the ribs, despite the fact that the calorific value was pretty much the highest of any item on the menu.
Both were tremendous.
We declined dessert, paid the $100 bill, including the tip, and drove back to the hotel. A Lyft was summoned and I nipped up to the room to get some actual cash for the requesting of songs at Jellyrolls.
We were soon dropped off at the Boardwalk and got into Jellyrolls around 8.30pm.
At that time there were still a few empty tables, so we claimed one, ordered some drinks, and received our bottomless popcorn.
We had four excellent performers and felt lucky to have been able to watch them. Our fave was Michael, and here he is performing a classic….
We had a few requests played, trying to not request the stuff everyone else does like Billy Joel, Elton John and the like. We went for One Week by Bare Naked Ladies and That Thing You Do.
We sent a few videos to Emily who was up at 4am UK time due to a snoring boyfriend and dog and she was enjoying it all with us, despite being 4,000 miles away.
We stayed for a long time and drank too much. The place really filled up as it got later (those two videos were taken within half an hour of us arriving) and much of the crowd tonight seemed to be young cast members. Many Disney songs were requested and played and when Circle Of Life was playing it became obvious that many of the CMs were from the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom as we got a performance of the dance routine!
With things now being very crowded and rowdy as drunk youngsters were constantly dancing about three centimetres from our table, we left at around 1am.
I don’t know how much we had to drink if I am honest, but it could have funded another holiday. But, we had a really good night and we would return.
We made our way back to the Boardwalk and waited about ten minutes for our Lyft to arrive. Our driver was called Gaston, from Chile. He was an engineer by trade, working for Lyft at night to raise the funds to get his family over.
I don’t remember everything he said but Chile sounds like a scary place to live and no place for his two young kids.
We tipped him well and fell into bed just before 2am like the wild crazy kids we are.
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