Nobody will be more relieved than both of my readers to learn that a decision has been made for our July trip.
Yesterday we spent a good deal of time chatting about what we should do and it changed a lot during the day. Our first bit of thinking saw us considering sticking with Florida but having a completely non Disney adjacent trip and heading off down the coast, hopefully taking in Delray again and even getting as far as Key West.
I spent a while looking at options for that but soon discovered that with a flight in and out of Orlando, getting down to Key West and back up again in 14 days would mean a silly number of hotel hops and a lot of driving and in the end we discounted that as too much like hard work.
I even looked at internal flights to get us back up to Orlando from Key West on our last day but logisitically it was getting a bit silly and risky if that flight got delayed or cancelled too late in the day for us to drive up.
We then spent the afternoon looking at non US options, including places like the Dominican Republic and Mexico. We saw a few really nice top end hotels that we could do for the same budget as we had planned for Orlando and eventually stumbled across what has turned out to be our choice.
I have spent a couple of hours this morning contacting Virgin to cancel the flight and sucking up the associated fees and then going through everything else we had booked and cancelling or amending that. That included –
Airport Parking
Airport Lounge
Car Hire
Hotel
That took a while.
So America won’t be getting our hard earned and it feels like a subtle middle finger to the idiot in the Whitehouse to instead be giving them to Mexico.
We are going to Secrets Akumal, in Riviera Maya Mexico which of course 24 hours ago I had never heard of. I’ll share this video about it as this channel was the one we watched to get a good enough feel for the place to decide we should book.
I’ve been very brave and booked the flights seperately as all the packges were extortionate and involved indirect flights. So I managed to find direct flights with TUI from Manchester just by moving our dates back by one day from the 1st to the 2nd of July. We’ve been able to upgrade to Premium for a total price that is less than the refund we’ll be getting from Virgin. It also means I don’t need to rebook any airport lounge access as we’ll get that being TUI premium.
I’ve yet to book the accomodation as I want to scour the internet for the best possible deal, but a look at the obvious places shows I can book it at a price that makes it a fair bit cheaper than any of the packages offering flight and accomodation.
I’ve even booked a private transfer from Cancun airport to the resort and back again. It’s been a busy morning.
I do feel a bit sad cancelling Florida if I am honest. It wasn’t helped that literally just after we’d agreed to make this change yesterday I flicked the TV on and found Jayne McDonald doing a programme on Channel 5 about Key West and all the places in Southern Florida we had considered earlier that day. Like some weird fever dream she ended the programme by inexplicably singing Kids in America by Kim Wilde which sort of snapped me out of it, but I couldn’t escape the gutteral yearnings to stick with our original booking.
But I suppose a change is a good as a rest and we are nothing if not overdue a change in destination. I think we have sort of decided that our next Florida trip will be one that takes in the South of the state, but not with an Orlando flight making it hard to manage.
So, rightly or wrongly we’ve bitten the bullet and I’m happy with the decision, mostly, as it does feel strange and sad not to be heading to our usual haunts.
If by any chance anyone has stayed at this place do let me know your thoughts unless it was rubbish and then probably don’t as I can’t take the stress of having to unpick another holiday. At least we now get to see just how realistic the Mexico pavilion in Epcot really is. It’ll be 100% accurate I would imagine, just as the UK one is!
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.
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.
If there were any justice in the world I would be sat here typing this today, about a stone lighter than I was last week. That is based purely on the amount of snot I have expelled from my body in the last seven days.
I know that sounds like a joke but honestly, I don’t know where it’s coming from. No end of blowing is enough (amirite guys?) and as soon as I empty about a pound of the stuff into a tissue my nose is totally blocked again. Surely all that mucus must weigh something?
For that reason, this week is one I wish not to repeat and of course, I am glad whatever germs are causing this will have passed (right?) before we get on the plane.
Emily has passed her first few days back in the UK wrestling with pretty dreadful jetlag and trying to get back to work whilst weeping at the cost of flights for next August. It comes to something when you have your fingers crossed hoping for something under £1k each. Apparently, her friend the teacher has a blue light card which can bestow glorious discounts on things like flights. If anyone has any experience of that please let me know. I’m also wondering right about now why Louise doesn’t have one???
A lot of our attention in the last few days of our countdown is on the seeming conveyor belt of hurricanes aimed directly for every single one of our holiday plans. Milton is looking like it will pass directy over the theme parks area right now, with of course a lot of time yet for that to change. We just have everything crossed that this will be the last for a while and the two weeks after next week will be natural disaster free.
I had a “last minute” review of our plan, as you do, mainly to see if I could somehow avoid the Saturday we currently have at Hollywood Studios. I do try to avoid the parks as much as possible at a weekend, especially DHS, but I have concluded there is no way to juggle it. It’ll have to be a case of buying the Multi-Pass thing and bearing with.
Demonstrating how close we are now to departure, I got the instructions through for our villa a few days ago which I thought was the last bit of admin required before we worry about checking in online. However, for reasons I cannot fathom, check-in seemed to open up on the 1st of October so I’ve done that too. Although it seems you can’t get your boarding passes by doing so, instead you get a “Confirmation of Check-in” thing and have to present that to the desk at the airport to get your boarding passes. That all seems a bit odd and potentially pointless. I’m pretty sure that was not the case when we flew with them back in May.
I have ticked off another couple of unpleasant milestones on my journey towards this holiday. Wednesday saw me tolerating a Motorway Awareness course. At close to 1am driving home from a gig, on an empty motorway I was pictured doing 58mph in a 50mph variable speed limit zone. Sure, that’s not legal but it doesn’t half stick in the craw when the photo they send you shows you alone in three lanes of motorway. Anyway, I am now suitably chastised, poorer and educated. Then on Friday I went to the dentist. Hardly life threatening but as you may have noticed, I don’t like folks messing with my teeth and once again it was unpleasant and expensive. Never a good combo.
So here we are at what is often in my view the hardest part of the countdown. We are impossibly close and yet somehow it seems impossibly far away at the same time. I just want next week to hurry up and be over whilst recognising that if that wish were granted the same may apply to the two weeks after it and that would not be a good thing at all. I have been instructed by Louise to “get my stuff out” which is not a euphemism but rather the job of dumping all the clothes I wish to take onto the bed so that packing may begin. That’s how close we are. I have to admit, that solitary Monday the 14th, the day before we go, is praying on my mind as a schoolboy error. Why I did not book it off work I have no idea. Now, it is festooned with meetings I cannot avoid and I shall have to endure it. The firstest of first-world problems.
See you back here this time next week for the pre-departure sign-off. It’ll be here before you know it….right???
Thanks for all the interest and feedback on the “big plan” post last week. As much as I really appreciate those who persisted with the non-Disney content I have been posting, it’s clear from the views and visitor numbers last week that most of you really have more interest in WDW, which I am totally on board with!
For those who asked about Emily’s trip, if you want to follow along with her, your best bet would be to follow her on Instagram here. She will without doubt be posting there throughout. She leaves on Thursday. She also does some blogging if you wanted to follow that too.
I was due to take her to the airport but as it often does, work has gotten in the way of things I want to do, insisting I am down south on that day, so she has a friend taking her instead. Sure she’s 29, sure she’s been to WDW countless times, sure she lived there, but there is still some low level of worry when waving your offspring off to travel that distance.
After all the fun and games of the planning, based on having secured everything with low deposits, we are now at the stage where the pain hits and to quote a WDW vlogger, “and now it’s time to pay the price”.
I have just paid off all the balances, including the theme park tickets, villa and car. I’m not gonna lie, parting with that level of pound notes hurts no matter what the reason. Still, of all things I could spend money on this is one of the better ones. On the plus side, it’s a real sign that this trip is almost here.
It may shock you to learn that nothing has changed in the plan since last week. We are probably getting too close now for that to happen. In a couple of weeks, I have two meals to book at Citywalk (they only seem to offer slots a month in advance). Those will be Toothsome and Cowfish.
I still have low-level anxiety/PTSD from our more recent WDW trips as the state of the parks in terms of crowds, wait times and general post-pandemic recovery are fresh in my mind. I don’t know if this is reality but the park activity I see on social media seems to vary between “there is literally only me in this theme park today” to “do not even try to enter Orlando as it is full”.
With a better “FastPass” system in place, I am hoping things will be better. We are also visiting outside of any UK school holidays and when I look at the various crowd-level tools online most seem to be scoring most of our time there around the 6 out of 10 mark with slightly busier times predicted towards the end of our trip as we get close to Halloween (the day itself, not the season which starts in early August at WDW of course).
With lower crowd levels the quandary of course is should I book the multi-pass thing three days in advance (being off-site scum) or wait and see how the park looks that morning? I suspect I shall play it safe and book it for our first MK day to remove any stress/waiting on that special first day and then see how it goes. The natural exception to that, I think, will be Hollywood Studios, and I’ll probably cave and book the multi-pass for that park without hesitation, having had horrifying experiences there on the last couple of trips.
For anyone who has been and done it with the new system, I would be keen to hear feedback and experiences of the new thing.
I am girding my loins now for the final push at work. I’ve got a daunting couple of weeks with many things in the diary that I would rather not do (I refer you to the section above about these trips costing a lot of money to understand why I have to do them), but if my many years on this spinning rock have taught me anything it is that I will always be fatter than I want to be and everything passes. Typically even the most horrifying things in your future are survivable.
I am being over dramatic as my “things” are just a couple of days at Head Office next week and then a work conference/event the weekend after. I am not pulling babies from burning buildings but imposter syndrome is a bugger.
This time next week it’ll be a month until we go and just another milestone on the countdown ticked off. Of course, that just means I have five weeks to lose four stone. Seems doable?
With all that sunbathing nonsense out of the way, let’s get down to the serious business of getting ready for a holiday I think we can all understand and get behind.
We are just 44 days away from our Orlando theme park bonanza folks and whilst you’ve all been snoozing/trudging through endless blogs about sand and food, I’ve been busy planning our October trip.
There’s a lot to get through and rather than be sensible and eek that content out over the next few weeks, I’ll no doubt just shoot my shot this week and worry about next week when I’m staring at the blank page in a week’s time.
The first thing to report is that whilst we were all “at” Delray Beach, once again, Bob Iger has taken on board my feedback from this blog and scrapped Genie+. Good lad Bob, but you missed the bit about not charging for this stuff on top of the sky-high theme park tickets, but we’ll take a win where we can get it.
I approve of the change in general but of course, it came with some baggage.
Why does it cost money?
Why are off-site guests penalised? (I know the answer and I only care as we’ll be off-site this time)
Why are International visitors massively penalised unless you spend enough time reading WDW internet content to come across the fairly simple workaround? The workaround of setting the country of your address in the app to the US is so easily preventable that I strongly suspect Disney has left that in intentionally to mitigate a problem they couldn’t solve properly. (Isn’t the issue something about card payments for non-US folks?) My day job involves developing stuff for online products and it smells of a handy “oops we didn’t realise that was possible”. I applaud it.
Being weeks behind the release of this change I won’t go on about it anymore as I’m sure every angle has already been covered. I look forward to being able to secure some rides before we arrive in the parks again.
Moving on to our personal plan, one of the first things I did after getting home from our Delray trip was upgrade to Premium. I think it was about £150 each to do so and having experienced the economy seats, we were keen not to again, especially with two small kids who we will definitely want to go to sleep on the way back. The slightly enhanced room in Premium will be worth that investment and, much to my surprise (I am blissfully unaware lots of the time) until Rebecca told me, that entitles us to Lounge access and a free breakfast at Manchester airport so we’ve already made some of the £150 each back. Add the same sort of thing on the return journey and we’ll be close to a profit.
I’m under no illusions that we’ll be lying down in some sort of Business Class bed-seat, as we sat just behind the magic curtain of Premium on our last trip with TUI and could see the forbidden fruits clearly, but we’ll take the larger seat, slightly better food, more luggage allowance and hopefully getting our cases off more quickly.
This past week has been ADR time and as ever, the success has not been as complete as I may have liked. Overall though, I’ve done OK. Of course, I had sworn that we would eat off-site almost all the time and I have then caved and made more ADRs than I first intended, but we will still be dining off-site a fair bit.
With a two-year-old with us, all dining plans live and die with him, so there are a fair few early meal slots booked and only the odd late one, where that was the only availability, which will be in the lap of the toddler Gods.
To once again demonstrate my masterful planning skills, with the plan pretty much locked and loaded, including our ADRs, a last-minute decision to add in a trip to Universal just last week may have flummoxed other less awesome planners, but no. A ten-minute conversation with Rebecca, whilst staring at the plan, along with some swift internet interrogation saw us expertly evaluate options and then move stuff around with minimal disruption, ADR cancellation or pain. If only I were this good at my day job.
So let’s take a trot through our plans, shall we? I will say that after a few trips where we have not done a great deal and bored you to death with beaches and pools, this trip is hard-core, jam-packed and will probably kill us. Being (even if I say so myself) an elite-level WDW trip planner I recognise and embrace this and should we need to amend stuff on the hoof due to exhaustion and/or killing each other with our bare hands, then I shall rise to that challenge with ease. This is nobody’s first rodeo and we go into the plan with eyes wide open and loins girded.
Day One
As you now know we fly Premium out of Manchester with TUI on October 15th. Airport parking has been secured (which is getting a bit pricey these days I must say) and we are scheduled to be wheels up at 11.25 so we should be in the air at around 1pm if things go to form.
We arrive in Melbourne mid-afternoon and have a suitable vehicle awaiting us courtesy of Discount Florida Car Hire again. An unwelcome but necessary 90 minutes in the car should see us pull up outside our favourite villa on Amelia Downs Trail in Kissimmee and we shall unpack, do a shop and eat no doubt. The boys will be in the pool if they are still awake I’m sure.
Day Two
It goes without saying that this is a Magic Kingdom day. Who knows what time Dougie might be awake so it could be a short or long one. Eating wise, we have gone for an old favourite and a regular tactic on our first park day in Whispering Canyon Cafe at 5.20, as it seems these days that all the shenanigans and fun are back after their suspension for the pandemic and for Tom’s benefit they still offer unlimited refills on milkshakes so he intends to bankrupt them. I suspect we’ll be done at that point and will head home.
Day Three
A rest day but with a twist. On recent theme park trips, we have done Typhoon Lagoon on day two which works really well, offering rest for the oldies and slides and stuff for the youngsters. We will eat off-site that evening at Sickies on the 192.
Day Four
Unusually it is Animal Kingdom today. Typically we would visit the parks in the correct order, which is the order in which they opened, and today would be Epcot, but for reasons I cannot now remember we will be at DAK, for what might be our one and only day here. The second day had to be sacrificed recently to squeeze the two Universal parks in.
Day Five
A rest day, and we plan to spend it at the villa and most likely at the large resort pool on offer. We may go for a sit-down breakfast at a new place I have seen online called @The Diner. Then we will do our best to be hungry again for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory at LBV.
Day Six
Ah Epcot, there you are. This will be our Future World day and after some skilful manoeuvres on my part with ADR bookings, I managed to secure us the “hen’s teeth” booking of Space 220 for lunch. Freddie is incredibly keen to go here so that was pleasing.
Then in the evening Rebecca and Tom will activate their built-in babysitters and allow us to watch the boys whilst they head up to experience Halloween Horror Nights at Universal. We will probably drive us all up there and drop them off and then Louise and I will eat with the boys on City Walk, maybe Toothsome. Rebecca and Tom will get a Lyft back home when they are done.
Day Seven
Hollywood Studios, our nemesis from recent trips, delivering THE worst theme park experience from a “getting on things” perspective consistently, driven by the recently deceased Genie+ nonsense. We hope things will be better now. Knowing from past experiences that whenever we want to do Fantasmic it will be rained off, we have taken the earliest opportunity possible to book a Fantasmic Dining Package, choosing the SciFi Diner for lunch.
Day Eight
A much-needed pool day again. We may again avail ourselves of a sit-down breakfast and possibly return to a real favourite of ours in Hash House A Go Go. Then after some serious lying down in the sun, we shall visit The Outback and I will without doubt have a large steak. It takes some real skills to make yourself hungry enough to dine out twice in one day but it is a challenge we intend to rise to.
Day Nine
We head to Universal and a one-night stay at Royal Pacific to get the Front Of Line access. We shall get there as early as possible, check in and head over to IOA first (I think). With this being very fresh into the plan, there are no firm dining plans for that evening but City Walk is our lobster so that will get firmed up shortly.
Day Ten
Universal Studios of course. And should stamina and timings permit, then we will return to Teak Neighbourhood Grill for dinner. It’s been a while since we dined here. I think our last visit was on the trip amid all the Covid restrictions and the experience wasn’t perfect. The menu looks great and hopefully, everything is back as it should be with the service so it’s definitely worth another try.
Day Eleven
Epcot again today with a likely focus on World Showcase. A huge stroke of fortune came our way in the shape of the Eat To The Beat concert series. A few months ago when the lineup was announced it was the usual mix of the odd famous person or band amidst a load of artists we at least had no idea about. Anyway, it turned out that during our trip, Hanson would be performing. We saw them recently supporting Busted and have liked them ever since the one song everyone knows them for back in the 90’s. So I have booked lunch at Garden Grill as part of the Eat To The Beat package which secures us a seat in their 5.30 show.
I wanted to get us into Beaches and Cream for our evening meal and did so but the only slot available by the time I’d sorted the Garden Grill booking was at 9.15pm. We will just see how everyone is doing by that time and play it by ear. I think leaving Epcot in the early evening for a Boardwalk stroll will be on the cards either way. There’s a Banana Bread Espresso Martini at The Boardwalk Bellevue Lounge that I have my eye on.
Day Twelve
Day two at Hollywood Studios and lunch is to be at the Rodeo Roundup place in Toy Story Land.
Thanks to Disney Food Blog for that photo
Nothing is booked for tea/dinner so we may head off-site and try to help the budget by going to Olive Garden. If energy permits, then we might head to Disney Springs for a stroll and with a following wind, one of the Espresso Martinis from Wine Bar George.
Day Thirteen
With one day left on our three-day Universal tickets, we will use that up today at Volcano Bay. A first for Louise and I and I suspect this will be a welcome break from the parks and a chance to rest up a little bit for those who want to.
Dinner is pencilled in for Cowfish at City Walk.
Day Fourteen
The emotional last full day and of course that means Magic Kingdom for the farewell lap of honour. Having, much to our surprise, thoroughly enjoyed our unplanned visit there on our last trip to the parks, I have booked us in at The Liberty Tree for a 5.40pm ADR.
Fireworks and tears will be experienced as we leave the park for the final time.
Day Fifteen
The usual mix of packing, a visit to Disney Springs, some food, perhaps at The Polite Pig and then the longer-than-usual drive back to the airport. We don’t fly until 7pm so that should work out OK.
So there you have it. It’s a humdinger and no doubt some of that won’t happen, but he who dares wins. As ever, the thinking is that despite the last few decades telling me otherwise, who knows if and when any of us may get to return.
In other news, Emily and her boyfriend go to WDW on September 12th for a long-awaited trip they booked well before we booked ours. It is Mikey’s first visit and they are both ridiculously excited. They are staying at the All-Stars and flying Aer Lingus. I can’t wait to hear all about it. You can’t beat a first-time visit, especially when an experienced guide is with you to show you the ropes.
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.
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.
I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on social media this week about the 100th anniversary of Disney. As ever, I like to be at the forefront of these online trends and post about it many days after the event. It is this cutting-edge nature that sees my blog surge in popularity week after week.
Many of these posts seemed to be trying to summarise what Disney means to people, and the effect it has had on their lives. I’m genuinely at a loss as to where to start with that. But of course that will not stop me now from spending the rest of this post trying to do exactly that.
My first ten years on this planet were lived in a normal way, in terms of Disney. I’d watch the films and every bank holiday I would watch the Disney special that was inevitably on the telly, showing clips from all the classic films.
Our holidays were, I am lucky enough to say, regular and wonderful, with the destinations usually being somewhere Balearic.
Then one fateful day in the first half of 1980, our family went into Bolton town centre (when there was one) to go and book our next holiday.
For those under 30, this involved sitting in a shop and watching someone who worked there tap away at some pre-historic-looking green screen VDU if you were lucky. I genuinely can’t remember if by 1980 AT Mays in Bolton had those, but via whatever method our travel agent was looking at stuff, the phrase that would change my life forever was uttered.
“You know, for the same price as Mallorca, I can do you Miami.”
This was mainly due to a dollar rate of 2.20 to the pound. Now, this working-class Bolton family had barely heard of Miami, never mind ever dreamt of going there and I don’t think it took long for that decision to be made.
Of course, zero planning was done. I was nine. I do vividly remember the flight, and that all drinks were free, and I think my Mum probably had one too many Miami Whammies (I’ve no idea either but they were easy to drink it looked like).
Somewhere we still have photos of all the stewardesses on that flight, who to me, at nine and from a northern mill town (whippets optional) they all looked like film stars and I don’t mean Danny DeVito. Obviously, I’ve shared all this previously as I discovered a load of 1980 photos buried deep in a post from years ago.
The holiday itself was mostly like the others. We stayed in a hotel on Miami Beach, and I swam a lot and discovered American food and portion sizes and I have been fat ever since.
Then in the middle of the trip, we drove up to Orlando, stayed in a Howard Johnson (a hotel, not a person), and did Disney.
Now, at that time, Disney was just Magic Kingdom and a very small embryo of Disney Springs called The Disney Village.
Obviously, I fell in love. I turned 10 in America and I remember us going to a mall called Omni that had a merry-go-round in it which blew my mind and my Mum and Dad bought me a birthday cake there.
For years afterward, at family parties and get-togethers, my Dad would tell the same stories over and over about the size of a pizza we got and the number of slices of turkey he got on one particular sandwich, as well as phrases about people not being able to appreciate the scale of the park (there was just one as Epcot would open soon after).
“You get to the entrance and you’re still bloody miles from the turnstiles! You park up, get a tram and a monorail, and only then are you in”. They probably thought us all a bit weird.
I’ve carried on this tradition by regurgitating the same stories here for over a decade.
We even brought home a menu from a restaurant called Pumpernickels in Miami as nobody would believe us when we got home. I remember us being absolutely floored by there being two huge bowls on every table when you were seated, one full of coleslaw and one full of bread.
I have very limited but very vivid memories of this trip as it was a long, long time ago now, to the extent that I question whether they are accurate memories or just some sort of assumed thinking of something we did.
Now, clearly, all of this bred a love for Florida more generally, but the Northern Star in all this, and the tractor beam that has kept pulling us back there was WDW.
We went back several times during my childhood. I’m sad and sorry to say I cannot remember how many times. It’s a long time ago now and no notes were made, and all the photos were analogue.
Once I had my own family, it was my Dad again who re-ignited my passion for the place. He was about to retire and had an endowment policy burning a hole in his pocket. He declared he would be taking us all to Disney. That was him and my Mum, my brother, his wife and their two kids and us four.
I think he booked it over the phone with Travel City Direct, after scrolling through Teletext for hours, but I may be confusing that with other trips. It was £199 each for fly-drive and we had a huge, beautiful villa on Highlands Reserve. Our hire car was more of a bus, and we spent a lot of time one night being lost in Celebration I remember. It was Halloween and the place looked amazing.
Again, no planning was really done but we of course loved it.
The rest as they say is history with our own trips as a four, starting in 2001. An un-reported stay at the All Stars. From then on, pretty much every year we have been back in one way or another. Looking back now I really cannot fathom how we afforded it. Well, sometimes, we didn’t, but I don’t regret any of the trips, memories, experiences, and lovely times we had.
Some time around the time these trips of our own started I discovered the Disboards and then of course The Dibb. These were cutting-edge tools of their day and I learned so much from them and made some good friends too who we met many times over the years.
It is very hard to sum up what Disney has meant to us as I just do not have the writing ability to capture that. I suppose with recent events my Dad is in my thoughts. He loved the place and what he really got a thrill out of on the odd occasion it happened, was, during my Dibb days, we would get approached in a park by fellow Dibbers who recognised us. I think he was quite proud of that tiny bit of recognition, and he certainly enjoyed being in and reading the trip reports.
Now of course, we have started the next generation of trips with Freddie and Dougie, and I doubt they will be as obsessed as I am, and probably will not go as often, but I think, for those who get it, my girls have both summed up what I’m trying to say in different ways.
Firstly, here are the photos Emily posted on her Disney Instagram account last week (go follow her) showing how she feels Disney has touched her life. I think they do it perfectly.
Secondly, I’ll go back to our first trip with Freddie in 2019. It was our first morning and we were of course in Magic Kingdom. We had just entered the park and were standing at the hub looking up at the castle. There was a trolley show on, and I think one of the performers gave Freddie some attention whilst he watched from his stroller. I turned to see Rebecca in floods of tears, and she said…
“I get it now!”.
Of course, she had loved WDW before, but it hits differently as a parent and to see that realisation on her face and her reaction to seeing Freddie in that place, will probably tell you all I want to about 100 years of Disney without me trying to get the words out.
Cynics may say this is all manufactured schmaltz and others may say I should stop regurgitating the same content and photos and they are probably right, but beyond the schmaltz can be a form of magic, a generational bond, formed from memories and happy times that can help to get you through the less happy ones. Ultimately, if that makes you feel “better”, if it supports your mental state and improves your well being then it can’t be a bad thing. It’s better than doing drugs, although a lot more expensive.
Well, this weather was showing no signs of improving. Inexplicably I was awake at 6. Mind you, with the bar closing at 10 we did get an early night.
I rested and pottered for quite sometime before the need for breakfast became too hard to resist. Louise couldn’t be arsed getting up (she hadn’t slept very well at all) so Mum and I went down to Constant Grind again.
We Facetimed Emily back home over our usuals of Granola, toast and today a Danish for me, as what is breakfast without cake, before we headed out to the pool area. The forecast was pretty grim.
It was not a struggle to find beds by the pool with the weather how it was.
Weather for ducks indeed.
It was so windy that umbrellas were not permitted to be erect.
Louise joined us and as Mum nipped back up to her room to get something we chatted and quickly decided that an early return to Orlando may be in order. This was our last day/night in Daytona but there seemed little point if the beach and pool were not going to be enjoyable.
We consulted Mum who didn’t mind either way, and after deciding at 10.30, we were packed, checked out and in the car by 11.30.
As if to confirm our decision was correct, the drive “home” was a wet one. I kept it simple and stuck to the I4 all the way and it was painless enough apart from a slight delay around downtown Orlando.
Our time in Daytona had not been what we had hoped. Much of it had been enjoyable, the hotel was absolutely fine, the time we were able to enjoy the sun was very welcome and the baseball is always a treat, but ultimately I think we were all a little disappointed. The weather played a large part in that of course but beyond that, our impression of Daytona this time was that it was a resort in decline. It was very quiet almost everywhere and outside of the handful of very nice hotels along the beach, it was, to be frank quite run down and in places felt a little unsafe. I don’t think we would return.
Having left the villa a few days ago, assuming we would never return, we had stripped our beds and left all the sheets for Rebecca to wash when they checked out in the utility room. That had, in light of current events been a poor decision, as we now needed to wash and dry them before putting them back on our bed for tonight.
So we got to the villa, stuck a wash on and then went out for some lunch. Rebecca, Tom and the boys were out at Epcot.
Wanting the closest possible eatery we chose the little cafe thing at the clubhouse on the villa development, called Tu Casa. We were a little gutted we had not found the clubhouse before now. The boys would have loved the pool and its slides.
We ordered –
Louise – Nachos (of course)
Mum – Caesar Wrap
Me – Loaded Fries
Once we were done we drove back to the villa, shoved the sheets in the dryer ad set off for Epcot, parking in Crush 205.
We walked in due to another complete absence of trams.
It was nice to be back for an unexpected bonus park half day.
We did Spaceship Earth immediately having let Rebecca know where we were.
This was a source of immense pride.
They were riding Journey Into Imagination so after our ride we walked over there to meet them. Once they appeared we spent a little while watching the boys enjoy the fountains.
And experienced a large Pooh.
We noticed Soarin’ at just 25 minutes on the app (we were Genie+ less of course today) so we headed there and joined the queue. Louise sat out with Dougie.
As we left the ride, it was timed perfectly for Rebecca, Tom and the boys to check in for their ADR at Garden Grill at 5.55 so we left them to it.
We walked up to World Showcase for a wander and started at Canada.
Mum sat out in the sun whilst Louise and I enjoyed the show and of course the song especially.
As we continued through the UK, I had to restroom and all I will say is that it was Florida’s problem now. Into France and I tried to lead us up to the bakery but Louise insisted that we eat proper food instead so I was denied.
We ended up in the Tangerine Cafe in Morocco, I think for the first time ever and had some lamb kebabs and Hummus (nobody knows how to spell Hummus). It was absolutely delicious. It was so tasty I almost whipped my phone out and booked us a holiday there.
Having ticked the “proper food” box, I led us astray at the Funnel Cake stand in America.
It was awesome.
That was one of the two we shared.
We had a message from Rebecca that we were done eating and had a virtual queue return time about now for Guardians. I walked down to meet them to collect Dougie so they didn’t have to baby swap. That would have worked off all the funnel cake I am sure.
We continued our journey through the countries, including a ride in Mexico.
And some trolling in Norway.
It was now that lovely dusky time around World Showcase.
And soon it was dark….
I got us some frozen Margaritas from Mexico for the watching of fireworks and we took up a position opposite the America Pavillion with our backs to Spaceship Earth ready for a quick-ish getaway.
Mum wandered off into the nearby shop to look at stuff at 8.55, falling foul of the “we close the shops bang on 9pm” rule and getting herself locked in and missing the start of the fireworks!
Epcot Forever seemed better than the last time we saw it, somehow, unlike my photography. It’s still no Reflections of Earth.
We started our final exit from Disney for this trip with all the usual emotions and feelings. It had been quite some years since we had done the slow walk out to the main entrance as we always tend to find a way to be able to go via International Gateway.
Many of the emotions I feel at this time are based on never assuming we will return. You never know. Now, based on our track record, that’s unlikely but I reserve the right to feel all melancholy if I want to.
It was a long old walk back to the car and as if to reinforce the return to reality from the Disney bubble we stopped at the 7-11 to get some bin bags.
What do you mean we are creatures of habit and we nearly always do the parks in the order in which they were built? Surely everyone does that? As law dictates then, it would be Epcot today, but first, we had to wake up early and prepare some fine dining options for breakfast in the form of bagels, cereal and toast, as suited to everyone’s desires.
Yes, technically, yesterday we went to Hollywood Studios, but that was a tactical insertion just to see Fantasmic and does not count as a proper theme park day!
At 7am, I went to work on the app and secured Genie+, a LL for Ratatouille and a boarding group for Guardians. I regularly have less productive 8-hour days at work.
Tom drove again and got us safely to the Rocket area of Epcot’s car park, which was a new one to me. It left us with a long walk in and both Mum and Freddie got ambulatory aides today in the form of an ECV and a stroller.
We were headed for Soarin’ first and it was a walk-on, once we had parked up all our vehicles and decided on a sitter for Dougie, which this time was Louise.
Mum rode this one as it is her absolute favourite ride in WDW. Once we had collected all the vehicles and Louise and Dougie, we moved on to Journey Into Imagination.
It’s an odd day when you queue longer for this than Soarin’. Everybody rode.
It was 11.30 now and as Rebecca and Tom hadn’t had time for breakfast whilst getting the boys up and ready, they were in need of food now, so we opted for an early lunch. We decided to head to the new Creations place.
Epcot was looking very nice…
I found Mum a decent spot to park up her ride and waited whilst she did. It was up against one of the large windows of Creations, and the souls of the family eating on the other side of it almost left their bodies as Mum hit that window at full speed. She was still getting used to it, it is fair to say. Once inside, we found and dragged together a couple of tables and mobile ordered. It was burgers, chicken sandwiches and pizza for most and a salad for the odd folks.
Dougie, looking ready for a nap, had some milk.
I was one of the odd folks, with this “salad”.
It all came to about $120.
After lunch, Rebecca and Tom got a Joffreys coffee and a doughnut.
It was now time for our LL for Ratatouille so we had a long old walk up to France. It was incredibly hot which helped.
Once we finally arrived, Louise stayed off with Dougie whilst we rode. It was a first ride for Rebecca, Tom and Freddie and my second. A clever ride and a great addition to World Showcase. I just wish it had been closer to Future World today as we now had to walk all the way back down there.
At a kiosk along the way, Louise and Tom got themselves an alcoholic drink, which was strong enough to put us all in bed.
Mainly to benefit from the AC, we made a stop in the Creations shop, which, I’m afraid will never be as iconic as Mousegear. Still, it has some good stuff in it, and Freddie was treated to some awesomely expensive plastic tat.
Mum bought some Crocs and on the way to the till, almost killed a small child who crossed the path of her death machine at the wrong moment.
Enough shopping now and time for Mission Space and some idiot let Freddie choose which side to go for. It was of course Orange, whereas, after my salad, my vomit would be green.
Louise once again chose the sun over the ride and sat out with Mum, who still hasn’t forgiven me for getting her on Mission Space about a decade ago. She still feels queasy she says.
We had a LL but there was no standby queue to speak of.
As we emerged, with me feeling surprisingly OK, we found Dougie in the splash pad. Louise and Mum were there too. He had not been abandoned.
As you can see, he loved it. Freddie joined him for a bit.
Due to the incredible heat and being burned, amazingly from being exposed to the sun at every opportunity, Louise had stolen my cap. As a man with little protection in that area, I cannot afford to be capless for long so I wandered off to get myself a new one and whilst I was there I got Freddie a pair of Crocs to replace his now very wet trainers.
Next over to the Seas. Another walk-on for the Nemo ride.
We started to have a look around the Manatees and the various tanks…
I was fending off typical Freddie questions like “Why are there Manatees?”…he meant in the world, not so much the tank in front of us, when I was relieved to get a notification that our Guardians boarding group was called.
Another crossing of the park was made all the harder by the continued work in the middle of the park and we encountered about a half an hour wait to ride.
It is still awesome and I would say, this is the best ride on property. Again, a first for Rebecca, Tom and Freddie and they were all blown away by it. Our music this time was Tears for Fears.
Checking in on Mum and Dougie as we passed, we went straight onto Test Track for which I had secured a LL earlier.
This was Freddie’s car.
Louise and I did not manage to build one as our screen froze as my design skills clearly blew its mind. A ride enjoyed by all but especially Freddie and of course on the way out we stood beside some cars.
Dougie had fallen asleep whilst we rode, so we decided against doing Spaceship Earth on the way out of the park, which was where we were headed now. We dropped off the stroller and ECV and endured the long walk back to the car.
For tea tonight we were taking everyone to Ford’s Garage as Louise, Emily and I had enjoyed it on our last trip in January. We were seated immediately out on the patio. Freddie had some time with the camera.
Louise and Mum, not being overly hungry, just ordered the kettle chips.
Tom had a Chipotle Chicken Sandwich and Freddie a Cheeseburger with Tots
I, eventually, had Nachos. I think they forgot them to be honest and I had to wait a good ten minutes after everyone else got their food. They were worth the wait. Yes, they were large but I did only have that “light salad” for lunch remember.
Rebecca had an un-photographed Chicken Nachos.
Freddie went back to the camera.
The bill was….
On the way home we called in at Publix to get some pool toys and some “bits” that we needed. On one of these trips, at some point, we may be able to go a full day without the need for medial supplies or supermarket bits. We were back at the villa and in bed before 10pm.
Today started with a 6.45 alarm. Yay for being on holiday. Was this early rise required for onerous cruise departure activities? No. It was required as Disney think it’s OK to have their guests be awake at 7am in order to get on some rides at additional expense. Have I said I don’t like this?
As 7am rolled around I secured a Guardians virtual queue group and a LL for Remy. We were headed for Epcot once we got back to Orlando so I was sorting out all the admin related to going to a theme park.
We rose, showered, dressed, and packed our final bits into our hand luggage before heading for breakfast at 8am. We were eating in the Roy Disney restaurant.
We started with pastries.
I also had muesli as I am all about healthy eating.
You can tell we were dining alone now as my food photo game is back on point.
For balance, I also had French Toast.
Louise had what I wrote down as “scramble”. Make of that what you wish.
Emily had Eggs for the Road
It was all very, very nice and it made us a little sad that we hadn’t managed to get breakfast here earlier on the cruise.
We said our farewells to Edi, our server and went to sit in The Bayou until our group number was called to disembark. I Facetimed my Mum whilst we were waiting and gave her a brief tour of the ship.
We left the ship at 9 and it took about fifteen minutes to queue to get through customs.
We were soon back in the car and we had a smooth and painless drive back to Orlando. It took one hour and ten minutes until we pulled up at The Yacht Club.
We dropped our cases at Bell Services and headed out towards Epcot.
I do find it hard, no matter how often I try, to express my love for this place.
It felt good to be back in my spiritual, yet expensive home.
We stopped for a drink by the pool where we were joined by this delightful lot.
We continued our walk to the park…
arriving just after 12. We started our journey of the countries in the UK and as always tends to be the case, after a swift breeze through the shops, left again. This pavilion needs a show or a ride.
Then, O Canada.
The show may have changed, but thankfully, for their sake, Disney saw fit to retain the song and I soaked up every second of it and I think I even went live on Facebook to inflict it on others too.
We continued around the showcase heading now for Mexico. The queue at the Margarita stall could have benefitted from Guardians’ style virtual queue. It was enormous!
There were similar scenes inside the pavilion for the Tequila bar too. It may have passed me by in previous times as we were busy with small kids but the Epcot alcohol thing seems to have really become a thing in recent years.
We did our duty and rode the Three Caballeros ride.
I was feeling a little peckish at this point, having only had the three courses for breakfast, so I got an Apple cake thing from the Norway Pavilion bakery. It was pure filth in all the right ways.
We wandered on through the countries until in Italy, we got some light bites. I was served by a CM called Guiseppe (yes really), who was so good looking he made me reconsider my life choices.
Freid Mozzarella and Ravioli.
We found a quiet spot to eat them.
I honestly don’t think I had ever noticed that there was a ship here before.
We were joined by a very friendly seagull, hopeful of some pasta, but he was scared away by some idiot teen who thought chasing it was a fun activity. What is wrong with people?
We browsed around Italy for a while and then it was time for our Guardian’s return time. Yes, we were the furthest point possible away from it!
We stopped off sort of on the way at Journey Into Imagination to look in the shop for a Figment T-Shirt that Emily wanted. We were a little surprised to find hardly any Figment merch there.
We entered Guardian’s at 2.30 for Emily’s first ride. This time we got Tears for Fears as our soundtrack. This ride just makes me smile all the way around. It is tremendous fun.
I have to admit to feeling a little dizzy afterwards and we had ten minutes on a bench people-watching.
Now, our slot for Remy was close and yes, we were the furthest possible point away from that too. We set off on the long walk to France.
After a long wait since it opened and a few failed attempts, we finally got to ride it.
It is a very clever ride and I am glad we did it. I am resentful that we had to hand over a load extra dollars to do so but such is the way at the moment.
Having not watched “the film” in France since the old one years ago, we stopped into the Beauty and The Beast sing a long show and despite the low numbers made our way to the end of the row.
We now made our way back to Italy for our dinner reservation at Via Napoli.
On the way, we paused in Morocco to watch the belly dancer there. This was always a favourite with my Dad and not for the first or last time this trip, he was in our thoughts.
We checked in and were seated after about ten minutes. We had a table at the back of the restaurant.
We had a great server and great food, as always tends to be the case.
I had a beer flight.
We ordered –
Emily – Mozzarella and Tomato salad….
White pizza
Louise – Same starter, then four cheese pizza
Me – Rice Balls (but CVS would have a cream for that)
Piccante pizza
Something weird happened as we were ending the meal. Our server, out of nowhere asked Emily if she was a cast member or used to be and she said yes. He chatted with her about folks he had known from the UK pavilion and a load of other stuff and we never worked out or asked how on earth he knew that. We did ask if he recognised her but he said no.
Anyway, he then proceeded to give us a cast member discount and I responded with a very large tip.
We left at 6.30 and headed for the theatre at the America pavilion to watch the Broadway show.
I am always staggered to find these things are not packed out hours in advance. They are superb, but we are big musicals fans.
Tonight’s show was from a husband and wife duo. He had played Tarzan and she was in the Newsies Broadway show. The songs they chose weren’t particularly known to me, but we enjoyed them very much.
We were all flagging a bit now. It had been a long day. We walked back to the UK pavilion to catch the 8pm show from Command Performance. We found a bench thankfully and despite the band striking up and almost frightening a poor rabbit to death, the show was great if not a little short. It was empty when we arrived but very soon filled up.
We let the crowd disperse before making the short journey to the bridge and our usual firework-watching spot. I think you know by now that I was not the biggest fan of Harmonious and again as much as I could appreciate the technical skills of the show, it felt devoid of any soul and feeling. It was just random clips of songs with no real theme or message. I appreciate I may be trying to give a fireworks show too much gravitas here, but Reflections of Earth did it and spoiled it for all other fireworks shows.
I spared you the usual collection of blurry fireworks photos.
We walked slowly back to the resort and asked Bell Services to send our cases up to our room. Once we got there I realised that I had a distinct lack of cash for any tip. I cobbled together a few dollars in coins and handed that over sheepishly to the poor chap who delivered our bags.
I won’t go on about how I was awake at 2.40am. I’ll just mention it once. Nobody wants to hear about my interrupted sleep pattern, do they? Granted, that was very early, but I should just crack on and not linger on this boring detail. Especially as, after a pee, I slept on until 5. Yeah, best not to mention it.
That was just my body clock naturally making sure I was awake in time to undertake all the admin required on the Disney app to try and get on some rides. When the relevant time slots came around I bagged a boarding group for Guardians and bought Genie+ again. Disney, you robbing bar stewards.
We were all ready and out of the door by 7.45 and did the short drive to Epcot. We were one of the first to arrive and parked right down at the front. There was, it may not shock you to learn, a decent queue at the “turnstiles” so we picked a line that would naturally move slower than all the others.
Our ability to select the line that sees the party ahead of us have issues with their tickets, fingers, magic bands and competence levels is top-notch. At one point the CM was taking photos of them all with their iPad thing, hopefully, to go on their criminal record for holding us up. We used an alternative scanner thing, leaving them there. I still don’t think they are in the park.
We arrived at the front, scanned a band, laid a finger down, and were in.
Early entry time again so we waited about ten minutes for a rope to drop and headed, at a brisk walking pace, to the Land with Soarin’ on our minds. This chap was on the scrim boarding near the rope drop.
Despite hordes of folks heading the same way as us, very few actually turned into The Land which surprised me. Where were they headed? Probably up to O Canada to wait for it to open at 11, right?
Despite knowing by this stage that we would be able to just walk on to Soarin’, the urge to walk faster was almost irresistible for me. Louise loves that.
We did indeed walk straight on and after a briefing from Patrick, we took our seats.
Join us as we ride Soarin’.
I allowed breakfast now. We went to the only just opened food court in The Land and got three breakfast sandwiches, one without Ham for Emily and I had some overnight oats. I’m sure CVS have a cream for that though. $38.
With Genie+ in the bag and a feeling that today wasn’t going to be that busy, we went on Living With The Land for the first time in about two decades. It was very interesting and much better than we remembered.
It would turn out that our Genie+ purchase today wasn’t essential. The only queues all day looked to be Remy and Test Track. We walked down to Spaceship Earth next and tolerated a fifteen-minute wait to board. There should be a refund option by a certain time of the day in these situations.
Restrooms next for Louise so Emily and I went into Club Cool and tried a couple of weird sodas.
Once we had Louise back we walked over to the Seas and rode Nemo. That’s the sequel you won’t see on Disney+.
A ten-minute wait for the shells. We disem-shelled and didn’t do anything else in there as we normally might as our LL for Test Track was now imminent. On our journey over there we could see the progress on the build of the “Moana thing”. It’s this level of detail that you read this crap for, right?
and whatever this will be.
I also booked another LL as we walked, this time for Mission Space, for “now” so we could ride that immediately after Test Track.
We didn’t bypass too much of a standby wait before joining the main queue to design our car.
Once that was done we spilt out of that room into the next part of the queue which is a real mess. All the doors dump you into a corridor where you have to jostle for position and everyone tries and fails to keep their parties together whilst not wanting to appear rude.
After enjoying the ride we made the short trip across to Mission Space where it was absolutely fine that Emily chose the Orange side and not the Green, honestly.
I still miss Gary Sinise’s hair in the old briefing, to be honest, but I was just glad to enjoy the ride and not feel like I wanted to revisit my breakfast afterwards. We got a couple of coffees and a water and had a sit down for a bit near Guardians and did some people watching for about forty minutes. We were just killing time until our boarding group came up and that happened at 1.25. It took about half an hour to get through the queue and pre-shows. Having ridden it once before we knew that it’s better to be over on the right in the pre-show room as that is where the door opens.
What I had forgotten was that there are two pre-show rooms. In another episode of “you couldn’t write it”, I was standing up against the door on the right in what turned out to be the first of two rooms (I had forgotten that fact from our one previous ride). As that show came to an end, literally to the second, behind me the doors opened and I turned ready to Dad walk to the ride. Turns out that a CM just happened to be coming in through that door at that exact time and said, politely, “Where are you going?” as I tried to go into what was clearly a backstage area.
I assumed the same position in the next room and did manage to get us down to the ride ahead of 95% of the folks in our group. Top tip, stand to the right, but in the second room.
Anywho, the ride was tremendous again and we got Tears for Fears this time.
Having conquered most of Future World, I allowed us to walk up to World Showcase now. Being the Festival of the Arts, we wandered past a lot of art.
Breaking every rule in the book, we bypassed several countries and went to China. Louise needed food for her medication and the quick service in China seemed the best option based on the queues we saw in Mexico and there only being cakes in Norway. Today was not our official World Showcase day so it was almost OK to do things abnormally.
We were amazed to find zero vegetarian options for Emily other than a full meal of a veg stir-fry thing. Louise and I shared some pot stickers and egg rolls which allowed her to take her tablets. I may have over-ordered.
Conscious that Emily hadn’t eaten in at least a few hours, we left Louise to finish up and Emily and I speed-walked over to Italy with the intention of getting Emily a slice of pizza from the window at Via Napoli. It was of course closed. Onwards we marched, determined to find something that did not include meat. You can imagine that the BBQ place in America was not the one, but just past that Emily settled on a funnel cake as a nutritious way to fill a gap. I left her to buy that whilst I restroomed. I may have helped finish it off as we sat at a table outside the American pavilion and we messaged Louise to tell her where we were, which was not Italy as we had said. She didn’t reply for a worrying amount of time so we walked back to Italy hoping to find her there.
We did. She was oblivious to our search around the world for food, as her phone was in Ryan and he was on my back.
We went back to America again as the Voices of Liberty were due to start. We even managed to get a seat.
After watching this and the drummer folks in Japan, again this was starting to feel like “old WDW” may be returning in some ways.
We continued our wander around World Showcase.
We just browsed in most pavilions along the way.
before making our way down through the park to the exit.
We drove back to the resort for showers and readying and headed out for tea at Bahama Breeze. We were not starving it has to be said but we’re on holiday so who cares.
We were seated immediately and served by a Scottish chap called Euan who we struggled to understand so heaven help the Americans.
Cocktails for the ladies.
and a lovely Diet Coke for me.
No appetisers tonight, just straight to the mains.
Me – Chicken Tostada Salad (again).
Emily and Louise had the jerk pasta, one without chicken.
The bill was $119ish and we paid using the device on the table as we needed to be on our way. We were headed to Port Orleans to watch Yeeha’ Bob!
We were incredibly lucky to find just one table left in the bar as we arrived so we bagged that and ordered some drinks. Bob did his usual wander around the tables gathering information on where folks are from etc.
I had Pomegranate Lemonade, Louise, wine and various cocktails for Emily.
If you want to see videos of almost his entire show, head over to Louise on Facebook, as she posted them all there!
We loved the show and Emily enjoyed it for the first time.
We did witness some absolute shithousery from a couple in front of us.
Not long into the show a table emptied and a couple came to claim it. It was a large table which could easily seat eight people. It was in fact two tables pushed together. Not long afterwards another lady wandered up and very politely asked the lady from the first couple if she minded if they took the other half of the table.
Well, the first lady did mind, very much, but couldn’t bring herself to say so. You could see her mind racing, looking for a reason to say no, but she could not. Instead, she just literally said “Whatever” and then proceeded to try and wrestle the two tables apart for about five minutes, failing miserably. She sat there with a face like a slapped arse.
Her partner returned to the table and they proceeded to look at the food menu. After quite some time and several chats with their server, the chef appeared. He had a long conversation with them, taking copious notes and nodding earnestly as this couple talked at him. He went way to construct what would no doubt be the world’s most complex meal, despite the menu only offering bar snacks.
Then their server brought their drinks. That order had taken about ten minutes too and the minute the drinks hit the table the man took one sniff (yes, sniff) of his drink and handed it back. The server showed him her pad where she had clearly written down his exacting request, but no, he was not having it.
“I never usually send things back,” he said as the server wandered away back to the bar.
Eventually, he was happy with his drink and their food arrived. What had been the result of their long consultation with the chef?
Wings.
Look, I know folks have allergies etc, but these two were bellends who just wanted to feel important. Their entire demeanour was horrible and there was just no need for it. It’s nice to be important but it’s more important to be nice, right?
Thankfully they buggered off soon after, leaving the other family on the table to enjoy the rest of the show.
Whilst that was an interesting diversion it did not stop us from enjoying Bob’s show and we left around 11pm. The drive home was thankfully short and sleep did not have trouble finding us.
We’ve experienced all kinds of things in Florida, the vast majority good of course, but you don’t visit a place as much as we do and avoid encountering upsets, arguments and downright upsetting stuff over all those years.
Today, however, is something I have no idea how to write about. Only my type A, OCD need for completing stuff sees me sitting at the keyboard and having to get through it. So here we go….
I was still waking up at 6am despite the holiday being almost over. Thanks, body clock. We watched another episode of Dahmer via Netflix and I think Louise nodded back off for a bit. Emily was with Mary back home and we were calling and messaging constantly with the latest updates etc.
At around 8.55am Florida time, Emily sent us two words. “She’s gone”.
She immediately called us, and Rebecca joined the call from her home too. We had all been preparing ourselves for this moment for at least eight or nine months since Mary had a stroke in December 2021 and had to come and live with us. There had been many times in those months that we thought she was leaving us, only to bounce back like the fighter she was, but all that preparation did not make it any easier now.
There were lots of tears, of course, accompanied by a numb feeling of disbelief. After a while, we all hung up and we began the process of informing those who needed to know and arranging things such as a funeral director. Thankfully, technology and much-improved roaming contracts made this much easier than it may have been a few years ago.
We also spoke to the nursing home and went through what would happen between now and when we would get home. As much as Louise feels incredibly guilty about being away when her Mum passed, any attempt to fly home earlier than scheduled, once we suspected we may not get back in time, would have seen us either in the air or in an airport at this moment, unable to make arrangements or speak with the girls as easily as we could now, so if there can be any good thing about a moment like this, we should cling to that.
Amongst all this, I had nipped down to Fuel in the Dolphin’s lobby, their take-out food option and got some breakfast and coffee, mainly as I didn’t know what else to do.
Once all the calls we could make were done, we had no idea what to do with ourselves so we just went back to the pool again around 11.30. Louise cried pretty much all day and I felt like a fairly useless spare part, lying there in the sun, feeling like we shouldn’t but not wanting to sit in the room.
More calls were received and made during the afternoon and I handled as many of those as I could to prevent Louise from having to.
At around 5pm we went back to the room and had showers and got dressed. At some point during the day, I had looked for somewhere to eat this evening and just chose the closest thing I could find, The Yachtsman’s Steakhouse at the Yacht Club. We were booked in for 7.30.
We walked over there, the gorgeous surroundings feeling all the weirder at a time like this.
We arrived with a little time to spare so we went into the Crew’s Cup bar for a drink. Louise had red wine and I had a chocolate martini again.
On a day that probably called for it, we had a second round, this time I swapped to a beer.
We checked in next door at the restaurant at 7.25 and we were seated after a five-minute wait. It was odd to experience the world carrying on as normal, with the Cast Members doing their jobs and greeting us happily. We were served by Marty and during the meal, we chatted with the couple at the next table who were from Minnesota. They were frequent visitors too and it’s always nice to talk to other folks bitten by the bug and pick their brains about all the stuff you haven’t done yet.
We started with another lovely bread service.
I ordered the New York Strip.
Louise, the Filet Mignon.
We had creamed spinach and mushrooms as our sides.
We were too full for pudding, which was the second saddest thing to happen today.
We strolled back to the hotel slowly, soaking up the environment.
With some perfect timing, the Epcot fireworks started right at that moment and I took far too many photos of very poor quality.
You know I love this place and I lingered longer than was probably needed just to soak it in a little more. I always think about the horrid winter waiting for us back home and how I have to charge my batteries with the life force from this area just to get me through it.
We were back in the room and quickly asleep after a day we will never forget, full of all sorts of emotions. The next day would see us fly home.
Another early rise. On recent trips, my body clock seems to be refusing to budge from UK time. I can only blame Brexit.
We took the chance to speak to folks back home, who we were still clearly operating on the same time zone as, and at around 7am, went out onto the balcony as we had nowhere to be in any rush.
Louise and I chatted for a bit and it was right around now that our plans and trip report title went out of the window. Honestly, pre-trip I had zero intentions of darkening a Disney theme park’s door. I had been scarred by our January experiences and did not need that stress in my life.
However, I suppose having been so close to Epcot for several hours, we were tempted. I “just had a look” to see if there were park reservations available and by now, we knew it was game over. I quickly booked a 4-day pass, reserved our entrance to Epcot that day and then things needed sorting. Never have I been so unprepared for a day’s theme parking.
Firstly, I needed to change. I was dressed for a day of swimming and relaxing and needed to get out of my current swim shorts and into some that would take the rigours of over 20,000 steps and my mighty undercarriage.
Whilst Louise was making similar adjustments to her wardrobe, I had also bagged a Lightning Lane for Guardians of the Galaxy. This, proving my well-made point from January that if you are off-site scum, this Genie+ thing is barely of any use to you in this regard.
We were out of the room at 7.40, walking towards International Gateway. As we did I cancelled our ADR for that evening at Sanaa as we would be in the park until late.
As would be the case every time we went near a Disney park this trip, Ryan and I got pulled aside for a full cavity search at security as we passed through the scanner. At the gate, I zapped my Magic Band and scanned Louise’s QR code from my recent ticket booking to get us in. Louise hadn’t even brought her Magic Band, so sure were we that we would not be doing park things.
For now, she had an old-school plastic card thing.
To add to our good fortune, we had early entry this morning as we were high-class on-site glitterati and we, therefore, went straight to Remy to remedy not being able to ride this thing in January.
There was a decent queue there already but nothing that wouldn’t clear in a few minutes once the ride opened at 8am.
All of my malice and angst from January were melting away and Disney was pulling me back from the brink, I could feel it.
I knew they would. They couldn’t keep getting things so wrong, could they? It was 8.05 now and the line was moving. There was genuine excitement at riding something for the first time. I was messaging Emily back home telling her all about our change of plans and that we were about to ride Remy. It was great.
Then the ride broke down, they shut it and sent all of the queue away.
Not only could we not ride it, but any advantage from our early entry was now squandered on a queue that led to nothing.
We walked back to World Showcase with me muttering unspeakable things and tripping over my bottom lip. All we could do now was walk down to Soarin’ and see if we could eke out any sort of advantage over the pleb crowds coming in through the main entrance. I was so upset that for reasons I still cannot explain we walked the long way around World Showcase rather than down through the UK and Canada. I realised this mistake sometime around Italy by which time it was too late and we were committed to the full loop.
Hot, sweaty and annoyed, we eventually got down into Future World.
Even my camera was angry.
There was a ten-minute wait posted but it was in effect a walk-on. No, this did not make me feel any better! We did get the top row, which did help a little bit and yes, it’s an awesome ride and one of my favourites so I suppose we will stay in the park today after all.
Food next and we just grabbed a breakfast roll thing from the Land food court. It was OK but America’s unfamiliarity with brown sauce was a loss.
We were definitely now back in park touring mode as we had just fifteen minutes to get that into us and then walk over to Guardians before our Lightning Lane slot passed. I necked mine in seconds and then “encouraged” Louise to do the same as if she were Adam Richman mid-food challenge. Full of sandwich and indigestion, we made it to Guardians in time.
It took just five minutes to get onto the ride.
Wow.
We just laughed for the entire ride, a mixture of appreciation for how much fun it is and the joy of riding something new. It is the perfect mix of innovation, just being thrilling enough with a huge dollop of fun. No doubt around 90% of the detail passed me by on this first ride but we loved it.
It was raining quite hard as we stood at the exit so we loitered in the shop for a bit resisting the need to buy a poncho.
As the rain slackened a little we dashed over to the Creations eatery, as it was the closest building and cover from the rain, which was new to us. It was no Electric Umbrella but it looks nice.
We made our way down to Spaceship Earth to find a queue of worrying length, but it turned out to be just ten minutes before we settled in to listen to Judy.
I was so relaxed during the whole experience that as I left the ride I did not notice that my phone had slipped from my pocket. Luckily, as you need to look at your phone every seven seconds in a WDW park, I did notice just as we entered the post-ride bit where you see your photos up on the map.
I quickly found a CM who gave me the “not another one” look and wandered back up to the ride. She had asked me to describe the phone to her.
“Well, it’s an iPhone in a black silicone case. Surely that is unique?” I said. “Oh, and the lock screen image is of the best dog ever to live”.
“Ah, Oli the Old English,” she said with a knowing look.
She quickly retrieved my phone from the no-doubt skip full of devices that we idiot tourists keep leaving on rides.
To settle the blood pressure we stopped to get a drink and some popcorn and had those at a table in the now lovely sunny weather.
Around this time, with a few seconds to spare, we thought about where we may eat that evening. Being last-minute Larrys, the choice was limited but we found a table at the Mexican place overlooking the water in World Showcase at 5.30.
Mission Space next, and only because the Orange lane had a long wait and absolutely not because I am getting old and the intense version makes me go all woozy these days, we chose Green.
We rode with a single rider who was riding for the first time as he overshot our circled places just outside the ride and tried to join the next party. I just hoped I would not mark the occasion of his first mission by barfing all over him. The story on Green was different and new to me (I think). Old age again?
By now it was 12.05 and way past time for lunch. We went back to Creations, forgiving it for not being Electric Umbrella and mobile ordered. Not being that hungry and with a relatively early ADR this evening we just went for a couple of salads. They were of course huge and we couldn’t finish them. Very tasty too. Those chucks of chicken were huge and plentiful.
We people watched through the window for a while just to have a rest and I remembered from somewhere in the dark bowels of my memory that at 1pm we would have a chance to get another slot for Guardians.
Everybody was on their phone outside the window through which we were people-watching, just waiting for the slot to open up. When the time came, I just clicked any button that appeared and somehow ended up with an estimated return time of 5.25. My celebrations were slightly curtailed when I realised that this clashed with our recently booked ADR. I tried and failed to reschedule our meal. I decided to ignore the problem for now and just see what happened, hoping the Guardians slot would creep forward a little.
Being two adults in our fifties next it was necessary to ride Journey Into Imagination so we walked over there.
As we exited, Emily face-timed us from the care home so we could see and talk to Mary. After that, we made our way to The Seas and rode the Nemo thing.
We then wandered around the tanks for a bit before Louise popped into the restroom to make her own release into the sea.
We grabbed a water on the way out. It was very hot now. We had a sit on a bench for a bit with our drink and we had about an hour to kill until our Guardian’s return time which was now saying it would be around 4.45, which was much more helpful. We decided to slowly wander in that direction but on the way, it started raining very hard so we ducked into Spaceship Earth and rode that again to avoid the rain.
That did the trick as it had stopped by the time we emerged, this time with my phone safely in my pocket.
We loitered not too far from Guardians relentlessly refreshing the app to see if the return time improved any further. We got the alert at 16.35 that we could now board. I was still a little concerned about how long it might take to ride it, as this time we had to do some queuing, not being a LL, and I had no concept of the queue structure so had no clue how long we would have to wait.
Fifteen minutes and we were in. From our first ride, I did have some clue as to the best places to stand in the pre-show to bypass some of the queueing after that which helped and we were out and done by 5.17. We got the same song again, (I Ran, which as tributes to a country go, is no O Canada?) and it wasn’t until returning home that I even knew there could be multiple song options on this ride.
We now had to walk briskly up to Mexico for our 5.30 ADR. We arrived at the podium at 5.29. It was a majestic demonstration of theme park touring. We did then have to wait five minutes behind the chap already being attended to, booking his party of 716 guests in and feeling the need to tell the CM everyone’s name, age, birth sign and inside leg measurement. The CM had only asked how many children were in his party and we all had to endure a rundown of names, ages and heights.
After some passive-aggressive sighing, we were seen to and soon seated.
We started with some Guac and Chips.
I had a beer and Louise a Sangria.
I have to say there was not a great deal of choice for Entrees and even by the time they were brought to our table neither of us could say with any certainty which we had ordered. It was all a bit of a blur and with most dishes carrying names in a foreign language on the menu, our tired brains could not retain that information for the ten minutes it took between ordering and their arrival. Anyway, what we had was very tasty.
The service was efficient, or in other words, we were out of there very quickly. No room for desserts. $150 including tip.
It was raining again so we dashed across to the Mexico pavilion.
We did some brief browsing…but I am more of a boxer’s man!
Then we rode the ride, chuckling as the boat almost tipped over backwards as we sat down. The folks in the front were not of equal heft.
I blessed Norway with one of my wees before quickly moving on to China. We wandered the shop for a bit, as usual buying nothing before a similar look around Germany and Italy.
At the Spain food booth, we got a couple of drinks, a beer for me and a wine for Louise. As we were served the CM asked us if we preferred waffles or pancakes. Our two answers of pancakes seemed to win him some game he was playing with the CM on the next register. Sadly it did not result in any free drinks for us.
We wandered some more before stopping at Morocco for another drink and a sit-down. A Sangria for Louise and I tried a Strawberry Daquiri. A band and belly dancer performed briefly before the rain put a stop to that.
The weather was getting a little unpleasant now, with persistent drizzle and a chilly wind so we decided to call it a night and walked up to International Gateway.
It was too wet and we were too tired to wait around for an hour to see the fireworks. We could see most of them from our room anyway!
It took a while to walk “home” as Louise’s feet were suffering. One year, after all these years of practice she will eventually find a suitable set of footwear that won’t cripple her after one day in a theme park! We had done a bit of walking to be fair.
We stopped in at the Club Lounge for a wine. coffee and cakes.
We got back to the room at 8.50. Louise watched the fireworks on the balcony but I collapsed straight into bed. I was knackered. I fell asleep immediately and didn’t even hear Louise shower or dry her hair!
It had been a stressful build-up and countdown as you know. But here we are, with the alarm going off at 5am rousing us from our sleep to begin our journey. In the early stages of packing, with there just being the two of us, we had played with the idea of just taking the one case. Now, with minutes to go until we needed to leave, I was wrestling with two very full cases, arguing with Louise about what she would need to sacrifice for us to stand a chance of getting on the plane. A handbag and a large make-up case were jettisoned. I wouldn’t need them anyway.
Having let the dogs do what they needed to do outside, I launched them into Emily’s bedroom and said our goodbyes. Knowing it could be at least an hour or two until food, I fuelled up with some toast and a coffee whilst Louise took the customary half an hour longer to get ready than was desired. I had wanted to leave at 6 and ahead of schedule, we left the drive at 6.24 am. The first of many weird things about it just being the two of us on this trip meant there was nobody to take a “door photo” of!
The drive to the airport was problem free but I think we both thought that it didn’t feel real.
We arrived at the airport at 7.10 and headed for T2 West car park which I had now used twice and that familiarity would make things easier. As I pulled in, oddly, the machine at the entrance spat a token at me. Bit weird, but OK. It was busy and we had to journey up many, many levels to find a spot. I pulled the cases from the car but couldn’t shake the nagging doubt that something was wrong. Yep, it was me, I was wrong. Upon checking my booking confirmation we were in the wrong car park. Somehow, I had managed to book some meet-and-greet nonsense in another car park. I have no idea how this happened as I avoid meet and greet like the plague. I do not want my car being rallied across the UK by some bloke in a high-vis vest for 2 weeks.
So we loaded the cases back into the car, went down all the ramps we had just come up, paid the £6 fee and started looking for the correct car park. I’m not saying this was stressful or that my nerves were shot after the fraught countdown to this trip, but I almost pointed the car back at the motorway and went home.
After a few minutes, we spotted T2 East, which had a meet and greet sign over it and we queued, yes, queued to get into it. Once inside we were directed up to the right place, parked the car and spent a frustrating amount of time inside the terminal waiting for and then figuring out the ridiculously complex mechanism to drop your key off. Safe to say, I will make sure I never make that mistake again.
We arrived at the check-in desks once again to be astounded by the fact that nobody else seemed to have checked in online. What is wrong with these people? When I was doing that the day before, the Aer Lingus website crashed so I assumed everyone was doing the same thing at the same time. Apparently not.
We were diverted to a kiosk and without too much assistance from a human had our cases labelled up. One of the two was over 23kg so we had to do a quick reveal of some underwear to the terminal as we opened up one case to transfer some stuff to the other. Now the plane would be safe to take off!!
We then couldn’t find the luggage drop-off point (what do you mean I only did this in January and should know the drill??) and we had to get more human help to sort us out.
Cases dumped, we headed for security and used my fast track thing to bypass no queues at all. Despite being fairly regular travellers we still never know exactly what electronics go in the tray on their own and do we take our shoes off and do I need a full internal.
This whole pre-departure process is just overly stressful and unnecessary.
There is always a sigh of relief once security is done, mainly as next comes food. I had an unavoidable wee before joining the queue at San Carlos for a table. This took twenty minutes but felt like one hundred and twenty. Finally seated, with the bonus of having a window seat, we ordered.
Eggs Benedict for Louise (half eaten).
Breakfast Sandwich for me
Juice and coffee for me and two Mimosas for Louise. The bill was £37 and whilst we waited to pay, we Facetimed Rebecca to say our farewells.
Some shops were wandered. My shaver for the trimming of my manly beard and bald head had broken yesterday, thankfully before I started shaving things and not half-way through, so I needed a new one. Not one shop sold them. I would have to search one out stateside.
We bought some books, as of course we would not be doing theme parks this trip aside from a few days at Universal, so we would need something to entertain us on the long relaxing days around the pool. Right?
Louise went off to release a chocolate hostage and I wandered about a bit, stumbling across this chap, who I think was off on international duty with Belgium.
We moved down to the gate area around 10.15 in good time for our 11am departure. Boarding started at 11am so getting away on time was going to be a struggle! We marvelled at the queue as we do every time and boarded last.
Being the day of the Queen’s funeral, which was of course a surprise to the management at Manchester Airport, once on board and already very late in getting going, the pilot announced that all take-offs and landings had just been unexpectedly halted as a mark of respect, as the funeral had just started, so we sat some more. We finally pushed back from the gate at 12.15 and left the ground at 12.30.
This will sound mean and derogatory but I spent much of the first hour watching a woman across the aisle playing Bejewelled on her seat back TV. I say playing. Honestly, in that hour she did not move one “jewel” and just kept whacking the screen in frustration as she just could not work out how the game worked. It took all of my willpower not to lean over and show her how to do it.
Drinks came, then some food. A surprisingly good Beef Stroganoff.
I watched some episodes of The Office as the film selection was very poor.
It took some time but I eventually managed to hand over some money to get access to WiFi. With the situation back home we couldn’t be out of contact for nine hours. Yes, we were and would be worried about Mary for the whole trip but also had our workmen at the house (no the work still isn’t finished) and needed to be in touch with Emily who was supervising them much to her delight.
There was some unavoidable expenditure as Louise “had to” buy a set of three lipsticks on a plane, despite having frequented every retail outlet in the North West in preparation for this trip, which made absolute sense. I had a wee before settling into the cheese-fest that was the new Top Gun film.
Despite now being chock full of cheese courtesy of Tom Cruise, like some mid-90’s Nicole Kidman, somehow, I was starving and it felt like an age until we were served some sort of Chicken Tikka pasty. It was inhaled. The rest of the flight was pretty bumpy and we eventually landed around 4.05pm local time.
That lady was still trying to figure out Bejewelled!
Of course, the airbridge broke at our gate so we sat waiting some more, being teased by all of the Orlando outside of the window that we could not get to.
We were the last off the plane at 4.35 and through immigration in about fifteen minutes. Our cases were already making their way around the carousel so I grabbed those and then of course waited for Louise to go to the toilet. As I did, the magic of these holidays was reinforced as a large family group, also probably waiting for someone to go on the loo despite having been sat next to one for nine hours, were arguing. I didn’t get the full context but Grandma was shouting at Mum something about “getting the F**king car seat”.
With Louise now empty, we made our way to the monorail and the very welcome greeting from the Mayor.
Upon alighting we naturally headed to the “B” side as we have every single time we have done this journey. In fact, I would say that until January’s trip I had been unaware that there was an “A” side where you can get your hire car etc.
I waited five minutes to get an Alamo person to sort me out and then all we had to do before hitting the open road was pick up our Visitor Toll pass thing from their kiosk. I wandered up and down for about ten minutes before asking someone who told me they only have a kiosk on the “A” side! Seriously, that is just nonsense. So I trouped all the way over there, got my pass and walked all the way back. Yes I did the same thing in January, what of it? My cognitive decline is a growing worry.
We arrived at the row of cars we had to choose from. We spent more time than we ever have previously sizing up our options, and despite that still drove out in a car that I wasn’t that happy with. Don’t get me wrong, it ran fine and was comfortable, it was just fairly old with high mileage and no sat nav. We should have chosen better!
I did manage to drive to the Yacht Club without electronic aid. It has only taken forty-plus years of holidaying here to accomplish that. Once through the security gate, I dropped the bags and Louise at the entrance and went to park the car over in the Convention Centre car park as things were busy. Bell Services took our bags as the My Disney Experience app said our room was not ready, which was very odd at this time of day. So I went to reception and gave them my name.
“Oh hello Mr Williams. If you would follow me please I will escort you to your floor”.
Bit weird but I suppose this is a deluxe resort. As we headed to the elevator the Cast member explained that we had been upgraded to Club Level.
I was vaguely aware of what this was, but it had been so far out of our price range on our previous trips with larger family groups that I had never taken the trouble to look into it.
We were left at the reception up on floor five where two cast members sorted us out, gave us our room keys and explained how it all worked. We had timed it perfectly as the afternoon “snacks” were ending in about fifteen minutes so they ushered us into the Club room with a couple of glasses of fizz (mine had a man in it!) and we ate and drank some lovely stuff, a bit dazed and confused.
We exercised some restraint on the eating front as we knew we wanted to go out and eat in a bit, so we headed to room 5231
and could not believe the view we discovered.
We were a little gobsmacked at the whole experience and just sat looking at that view and taking too many photos.
I had a quick shower and then booked an ADR for Ale & Compass in the hotel for a little later. We checked in at the podium and then went next door into the lounge for a wine and Sam Adams.
Our table was soon ready and we ordered.
New York Strip for me
A chicken pasta thing for Louise
My steak was awesome and had some magical, unidentifiable sauce with it. I loved it as did Louise hers. I went crazy and ordered a Maple Old Fashioned which was also lovely.
At this point I was triple glassing it.
The bill was $120 with a very good tip included and we wandered back up to the Club room for a coffee and two tiny desserts.
We grabbed a couple of waters and were back in the room by 9.00, tired, shocked and happy to be here. To top off the day, as we went out onto the balcony the Epcot fireworks were happening.
I’d apologise for so many photos usually, but we may never be that fortunate again, to get such a view from our room. I know you know, but this is one of my very favourite places on the planet.
Grateful, and also just full, we went to sleep around 9.30.
Every week you must toss and turn of a night waiting for my sleep updates from a trip you didn’t go on months ago. So let’s clear that right up, straight off the bat. A luxurious 7am awakening today. There was a fair bit of tiredness knocking around this morning. As if being very pregnant was any kind of excuse, Rebecca’s body had told her she would not be going anywhere this morning. She needed to rest.
After a bit of TV watching and lazing about Emily and I decided to head out and check out the Skyliner. We had never ridden it and knew little about it so we were looking forward to our adventure of discovery as we left the villa around 10am.
Hanging the expense, we parked up in Hollywood Studios rather than have to come up with some clever scheme to con a security guard at the gate of one of the Skyliner resorts to let us in. Spookily we parked in the same row as yesterday but this time we made our way over to the Skyliner station.
It was not at all busy and having had a quick look at the routes online we decided to start by heading towards the Art Of Animation resort.
Soon we were up, up and away both discussing how much Louise would absolutely hate this experience. She once almost passed out on the Old Town Ferris Wheel.
It is lovely just to ride this thing. The scenery is interesting and attractive and it really helps to get a feel for the layout of many of the parks and resorts.
At AOA/Pop Century we disembarked and walked from the exit to the entrance to start our journey over to Epcot.
Once at Epcot, we again, got off and walked back around to the entrance to start the journey back.
On this leg though we stopped off at the Riviera Resort to have a nosey. It had been quite some time since we had done any resort touring. I had forgotten how nice it can be.
We found our way into the reception where there was a lovely little coffee bar where we each had a coffee and what was without doubt the best blueberry muffin on the planet. This is not up for debate.
We sat here to enjoy it.
My impression of this resort was excellent. We weren’t there longer than an hour but it looked and felt lovely. Any resort on the Skyliner route also gives you a massive bonus.
We hopped back on the Skyliner and rode back to Studios to pick up the car. It had been a really nice way to pass a few hours, it was free (coffee, muffin and parking aside) and there were no queues.
On our way home our very foundations were shaken. We had to pick up some milk and other bits for the villa so we made our way to our “regular” supermarket at Formosa Gardens. For those that know it, it is close to the Outback and still had theming in it from when Splendid China was around just behind it.
It had closed!
This was devastating news. This place has featured in almost all of trips and it felt like a member of the family had died. In addition to that I now had to drive somewhere else for milk!
The 7-11/gas station near us was fine but it did not hold the memories that the now closed previous stop did.
Upon our return, folks were in the pool and relaxing. That continued until about 2.30. We headed out to Epcot. The plan was to do our ADR at Via Napoli and then stay for the fireworks, our first time seeing Harmonious.
On the drive there I decided to try and park at a resort around the Boardwalk to make the post fireworks exit easier for Rebecca and her achy hips. We drove to the Boardwalk hotel and as I flashed my ID at the security guard I said we were heading for lunch at the Big River Grille place. This is a lovely loop hole. You cannot make ADRs for it on the app so the chap on the gate could not check we had a reservation. He waved us through and we found a parking spot without any trouble. Sure, this is bending the rules but, being frank, I have more than paid for this “privilege”.
We strolled from the car park into the resort.
This area is, and probably always will be, one of my favourite places on the planet.
We got a bit lost looking for the elevator from reception down to the Boardwalk itself but made it eventually.
Sigh.
What a lovely stroll that was.
At this point the peacefulness ended. We made our way through a very busy security check at International Gateway into World Showcase which was incredibly busy.
Again, we could not walk together. We had to keep regrouping every once in a while as we made our way around to Italy for our ADR. It was impossible to look at anything. If memory serves today was the first day of a festival which probably explained the carnage. I’m very open to the concept that this was just bad planning on my part. Doing World Showcase on the first day of a new festival doesn’t make a great deal of sense at face value. However, we’re twelve days in by now and the only places that we’ve been to on property that haven’t been rammed to the gills were a chilly Typhoon Lagoon and the Skyliner.
On our way we spotted Mr Morrow (the vlogger) and his friend Jackie, who Emily got a wave at and from. It was just too busy to even contemplate a photo.
Eventually we arrived at Via Napoli and were seated in five minutes.
Our table was lovely but bloody hell it was cold. Everyone’s sweatshirts/jackets were soon on.
We started with some Garlic Bread.
It was then pizza all round of course.
Rebecca, Tom and Freddie shared the half metre pizza.
I had the pepperoni.
Emily the Four Cheese
A picture can paint a thousand words. Tom really stepped up to the platter here and powered through when others had fallen by the wayside.
However there is no amount of food that can prevent Freddie having an ice cream.
The pizza here is excellent. The bill was $190 including a good tip. Again, not our best experience here but nothing to complain about. We were, as you may expect, full.
We ventured out again into the chaos of World Showcase. Freddie was keen to do some rides. My stomach was not. So Emily and I wandered the countries whilst the other three walked down to Future World, where hopefully it would be easier to push a stroller.
All the festival booths had enormous queues. Not that we wanted to eat anything but it was just ridiculous. As the law dictates, we started at Mexico, where even the ride in there had a twenty minute wait.
It was very hard to take anything in with the crowd levels as they were so we didn’t stay anywhere very long. There was a half hour queue just to get into the Tequila Bar in here.
There appears to be a huge gap in my photos here. It was too busy to even get the camera out.
Suffice to say we made it all the way around to France where Emily (keeper of rats) wanted to get some Ratatouille merchandise. It was dark by now.
There was of course no chance of doing the ride. I had tried to pay the extra cash to do so first thing this morning, but as off-site scum I could only do so at park opening, which was 10am. All the LL slots had gone by about 7.10am. The standby queue was approaching two hours at this point.
The theming in the area is lovely though!
Eventually, with the help of a CM, we found the Remy shop, which was helpfully nowhere near the ride. Emily got a few bits and we both were delighted to see this chap helping behind the tills.
We continued our loop through the UK and into Canada. We passed Mr Morrow again with what looked like an entourage of about twenty people with him. We stopped in Canada and waited fifteen minutes to watch the new show there.
Look, all that matters is that it still contains “that song”, but I preferred the Martin Short version. The new film is pretty much a rehash of many of the old clips with a new narration.
As we left we messaged Rebecca and arranged to meet at America as we wanted to try and watch the Disney on Broadway show. They were currently in the UK. The pavilion. They had not flown home.
As we had continued our loop and we were now opposite America we tried to get the boat service across but as we reached the jetty the captain closed it and we had to hoof it all the way around. All these steps had at least walked off that muffin from earlier.
Navigating World Showcase on a night like this, with only minutes to get to your destination for a show about to start should be an Olympic sport. Dodging, ducking weaving, all at pace, takes some serious skills.
We got to the theatre outside the America pavilion a few minutes before the show was due to start. This was the second show. We had walked past the queue for the first one on our loop of World Showcase and it was horrific so we assumed it would already be full, Thankfully it was not.
Rebecca had decided to stay put in France where we planned to watch the fireworks to cut down on the walking.
Emily and I settled in.
This was fab and “proper” Disney theme park stuff. We loved it. Top quality, with a real feel good feeling. The two singers were brother and sister and had both done many shows on Broadway. I pretended not to know the words to the High School Musical songs.
We left and walked up to France to meet up with everyone else who were sat on a bench near the fountains in France.
I walked round to the shop at International Gateway for some waters before the show started. The view, considering we were able to sit down, was fine.
Freddie genuinely loved every second of this show.
I have spared you most of my typically useless photos of fireworks.
The show itself is very well produced and of really high quality. You’ll know our affection for Illuminations, so it won’t be too shocking to know we found it a little emotionless. It’s “another” Disney’s Greatest Hits to fireworks and that is great, but it just lacked the feel and heart of the former show.
We made our way slowly out to the Boardwalk area and strolled back to the car. Many others were doing the same but I always feel it is the better option than trying to get to the main exit and then get a tram etc. Indeed the Boardwalk at night is somewhere I would happily walk around in a loop for many hours. Have I mentioned I like it here?
Holidays are a time to relax, de-stress, kick back and avoid any issues to deal with that may raise your blood pressure. Well, this holiday was already classed as “not normal” so sit back and let me tell you a story.
Today started early, again. I was awake at 4am. I dozed till 6ish when Louise phoned me. She was a bit flustered as she was on Asda’s car park, in the snow, having just locked the car keys in the boot of the car, and of course the car had now locked.
This is not the news you want to hear from 4,000 miles away, as usually I would have picked up the spare key and driven the ten minutes to Asda to resolve the problem. Today Louise had a million things to do to prepare for her Mum coming home, so her stress levels were already higher than normal.
I sprang into action, calling Greenflag, who we get cover with via our bank account. They said they would despatch someone asap. I passed this on to Louise and had a shower and some breakfast, glad that this emergency had been dealt with.
We had noticed that Epcot didn’t open until 10am today which was a bit weird, but having been quite tardy with our park arrivals so far we made up for it by leaving the villa at 8.40. We parked in Amaze 34 and walked into the park.
On site special people were being greeted into the park like the elite kind of folks they are and us scummy off site proles had to settle for a Joffrey’s coffee and a doughnut.
Right about now Louise called me again, in a very heightened state of distress. The Greenflag man could not open the car. She was at this stage trying to smash a window on the car and I was phoning glass replacement businesses some 4,000 miles away to see who could repair it when she did. Several more calls came in from Louise, each more upsetting than the last.
Greenflag man asked Louise if she had a spare key for the car, at which point I think his head landed about half a mile away after she had taken it off. I was calling various family members to see who could help.
The horrible juxtaposition of me being stood in the pleasant warmth of Florida about to undertake a day in a theme park and Louise’s end of the video call, which consisted of sleet, high winds and a very distraught wife was not one I ever wish to repeat.
Meanwhile, back in Epcot, I sent everyone else off to do stuff whilst I sat near the entrance calling and googling various things to try and help. The new plan was to get a locksmith to our house to “break in” so Louise could get the spare key. The tricky bit wasn’t finding a locksmith, which I did from Epcot in two phone calls, no, the real challenge was getting Louise home. For reasons I cannot understand all the local taxi places would not take her as it was a journey from one town to another and due to COVID, apparently, this meant it was a no no. I was too stressed and busy to even worry about this.
We were about an hour in now and I was close to a heart attack. You do not want to be across an ocean when there is an emergency happening back home. Then, a saviour entered the scene. The locksmith I had found was sat outside our house and he called Louise to ask where she was. She explained she was stuck at Asda and could not get home. Like a superhero he went to pick her up.
Upon their return they were to go around the back of the house and pop one of the locks on the conservatory, which is very old and due to be replaced as soon as the weather improves enough for it to be installed. At the back of our house is a field and to get down from it to our garden there is a steep slope with less then great steps.
Here it is in what passes for summer in the North West of England.
Both Louise and the locksmith went down those steps, however Louise did so on her backside, slipping on the mix of sleety snow and other wintry shite on the ground. You may smile, or even laugh at that image now and that’s OK. At the time, nobody did!
We are edging towards the end of this story now. At this time I had wandered up through Epcot to meet everyone and I did so outside The Land as they had ridden Soarin’.
On my way up, just as some attempt at this being a trip report, I should mention that Epcot is a building site. I find it odd that it is so during the 50th celebrations, but the whole centre part of the park has endless boards up. It’s a bit of a mess.
As I waited, after all this stress, there was almost inevitably, a large Pooh.
We walked over to Nemo and Friends, but I was still mentally back home, waiting for news from Louise and confirmation that she had found the spare key and got into the car.
Whilst in the ten minute queue, Louise called. She had the spare key. The crowning glory of this tale is that when Louise and the locksmith had rappelled down the slope to our back garden and conservatory, and as the locksmith was preparing to break in, it turns out the conservatory door was open!
Suffice to say, Louise paid him plus a large tip for saving the day regardless of him just acting as a taxi.
I had chest pains.
We rode.
After that we decided to do Crush and walked in just as the doors were closing.
A few minutes into the show my phone went again. It was Louise and I had to leave the show to take it. She had got a taxi back to Asda and was back in the car and on with her day.
To add insult to chest pains and injury, it turned out that there was a lack of ambulances, so Mary’s homecoming would be tomorrow instead of today.
Shall we all just have a minute?
The weight of a thousand manatees lifted from my shoulders as I waited near them for the others to finish Crush.
We then wandered the rest of the tanks.
Half in anger and half as reward for the stressful delay to our park touring day, I had purchased Genie+. I had secured a Lightning Lane (from hereon in that is a LL). Even at that time in the morning all the LL’s for Test Track were gone for that day. How can a system where you pay for special access have that happen? I booked us onto Mission Space for 11.45 instead. It was now time for that so we made our way over there via the circuitous route created by all the screening boards.
Myself, Emily and Tom rode that. We rode the Orange intense side much to my delight.
I missed most of the briefing video as the next LL window was due right at that time so I spent those minutes looking at the app, choosing what to book next. I felt absolutely dog rough as we left the ride. It’s an age thing I am convinced. I once took my Mum on it when she was in her 70’s and almost killed her. I fear I am heading for the same fate as the years pass.
Freddie was spending a bit of time in the splash pad despite it not really being splash pad weather.
That next LL booking I had made was for Spaceship Earth and it was due now. We headed that way.
I had the honour of riding with Freddie.
Lunch was now very overdue so we headed back to The Land for food. I had something called a Land Crusher which was pulled pork on Texas Toast. I think it’s called that as it Texas so long to make it.
Honestly it was one of the tastiest things I had all trip.
It was so good I have no record of what anyone else had.
I had by now booked our next LL for Journey Into Imagination and not too surprisingly that was due immediately.
I constantly wondered what Freddie was making of these things he was experiencing for the first time. Now I know he’s ridden some of this stuff before but he of course has no memory of it.
Having no way to book any form of LL for Test Track, next, everyone except Rebecca joined the 60 minute queue.
Even with two breakdowns of the ride whilst we queued, and here we are during one of those looking happy about it…
We were on in 25 minutes. I am not one to suggest that wait times are being inflated to encourage the purchase of Genie+. To be fair it was a mixed bag all trip with many times the displayed minutes being correct and a good number of times it not.
We designed our cars….
Waited a bit more….
and enjoyed the ride.
With Rebecca waiting for us on her own we did not spend too much time admiring the cars we could not afford.
We met Rebecca in the new Creations shop. Rebecca and Freddie finally got their new magic bands all linked up and after a browse of the shop we found a bench and had a drink whilst Tom took Freddie on Mission Space. It’s always a judgement call as to when you let your small kids go on the big stuff. Every child is different of course but Tom and Rebecca were confident he would be OK. There are surgical procedures I would have undertaken without sedation rather than ride Mission Space again at this time.
Freddie loved it and returned with one of those Groot things that sit on your shoulder as a reward for bravery. Yes, he rode Orange too.
We walked over to the Short Film Festival next. Please don’t disregard this when looking for things to do. Sure, it’s no Captain Eo, but it was extremely enjoyable.
As we entered this, Mickey was out for pictures. We couldn’t stop as the show was about to begin, so as we left we circled back and were delighted to find him still there.
I am hoping these socially distanced style photos will just be a reminder of different times soon and we can get back to the meet and greets with hugs and stuff soon.
As we walked back to the stroller we passed one of the cutest service dogs we saw all trip and for some reason we saw a lot. We have never really seen any in all our previous times, but this year they were everywhere.
At some point in the recent past I had booked a LL for Soarin’ to make up for me missing it this morning as I was trapped in a glass case of chest pain and stress.
We rode at 6 and I loved this ride as I always do.
By this time Rebecca was starting to get tired and back painy so we decided to head out.
I saw the new lights on Spaceship Earth for the first time and all I wondered was why had they never done this before. It looked stunning and I took far more pictures than I will inflict on you here.
We made our way out to the exit.
I will add a note here to say that I am still in mourning for the loop music that now seems gone. I am sorry but this music IS Epcot.
Tonight’s dining was meant to be Bahama Breeze remember but we pulled that forward due to the Cheesecake Factory being too busy. With everyone being very tired we took the decision to just call at Taco Bell on the way home. I haven’t been to a Taco Bell for over a decade so had no clue what to order. Emily and I went in and muddled our way through the self order board thing and emerged with some food. It was $40.
We drove on to the villa and whilst we ate, called Louise to check in on her after her eventful day. Tom and Freddie went in the pool for a bit and then bed happened.
What a mess. Stress levels are through the roof, much like case numbers and with each passing hour we seem less sure of what will happen.
Welcome to trip planning pandemic style.
There are those who might say, why are you attempting to travel in a pandemic. I have some sympathy with that view, however, the rest of time will contain COVID so if not now, when? I guess after Omicron has run its course? See how I can argue with myself endlessly?
If I had tried to choose travel dates that would lead to the ultimate stress and confusion levels, I could not have done much better. It seems our dates will be right in the eye of this storm and there is no way to begin to predict what might be the situation. In the coming weeks perhaps the UK may be seeing a tailing off of Omicron cases, but the US is a little behind us and could be right at the peak. Having said that, the US may be just as bad as us right now and is just doing less testing. Who the hell knows.
Whilst much of my brain naturally gravitates to the worst case scenario, which is me fighting for refunds for the next three months or so, and staring down the barrel of no WDW trip until well into 2023, there is some small part of me which is mildly optimistic. This part of my brain ordered my “new trainers for the holiday” this week. Once again they are not the bright white abominations of years gone by. These days I am all about the blue Skechers. Very comfy.
Just to add a little spice to the mix last week, on Tuesday, Tom tested positive, initially on lateral flow and later confirmed by PCR. Rebecca and Freddie have spent the week sleeping on a blow up bed away from Tom and so far, their daily testing has come up negative. It’s weird.
So what on earth is our plan? Good question.
We’ve decided to limit all interaction over Christmas once we get past Christmas Day. We have cancelled a panto on the 27th, all of Mustard’s gigs leading up to Christmas were cancelled and we will pretty much only be seeing those who are travelling plus our triple jabbed parents in the ten days up to departure.
We are and will be testing very regularly and I think the main risk to us being able to go will be one of us testing positive within those ten days before we go. That is very stressful. Even by doing no mixing beyond Christmas Day there is still a chance one of use tests positive in the few days after that of course. Tom should be OK now as he’s been through it but I cannot tell you how stressed I am about one of us getting it before we go.
At some point, and I think that will be next week, we need to go ahead and order the remaining tests we don’t yet have booked, specifically the return to the UK ones. They can take a few days to arrive and with the festive break that’s as late as I want to leave it. I’m also going to buy some extra travel insurance to protect us against not being able to travel due to infection/isolation and if any of us test positive over there and need to stay for the ten days isolation. For our PCR tests once back in the UK , we can order them whilst we are in the US as we only need that order reference for our passenger locator form 48 hours before flying home. Things may change before we fly back as that is over four weeks away yet. They could be back to lateral flow or we could of course be required to quarantine for ten days depending on how things play out.
With all of this in mind, of course, the easy option would be to not go at all. But then, refunds become more challenging as there is technically nothing stopping us going, so that would be a battle and we would no doubt lose very large chunks of cash. It’s going to be a very nervy few weeks for sure. This is adding to what is already a stressful period of life and there is no perfect or anything close to perfect solution right now. We just have to wait.
I honestly don’t think there will be a closure of borders by the US. I don’t know of course, but it seems pointless. France and Germany seem to be restricting travel for UK visitors, but I think there are other things at play there. France may well be political and Germany has had a horrendous time with Delta which is just subsiding, so with Omicron just about to hit them they are doing all they can I guess. Border closures seem futile. Omicron is already everywhere and if arrivals are tested and vaccinated they pose no greater risk than anyone already in that country. The big risk and fear for us is a positive test amongst our group on or after Christmas Day. Have I mentioned that I am stressed about this?
Trying to predict what may happen is becoming my main hobby and I simultaneously read articles that tell me Omicron is more mild and hospitals will be fine, and South Africa is now seeing case numbers fall away again, and other ones which tell me Omicron is at least as severe as Delta and we should already be in full lockdown.
I think it is inevitable that further restrictions will come to the UK. I suspect had they not pissed away all their credibility by having an endless series of parties last Christmas we would be in tighter restrictions now. I don’t think anything the UK government does can stop us flying to the US. That is the prerogative of Biden. Again I am guessing.
I did think yesterday just how nice it would be to just be able to count down to this trip, certain that we would be going. How we all took that concept for granted.
Fifteen days to go. None of us can get excited, it does not feel like we are going and maybe that will be the outcome. Only uncertainty remains certain and you all know how well I deal with that.
If you are in a pre-trip position like us, you have all our sympathies. I know this is just a bloody holiday and people are losing their lives and livelihoods. We are fortunate in many, many ways of course, but I can only talk about my own experiences really and this is what they are. A frustrating mess. The worst bit I think is that there isn’t even a deadline beyond which I feel confident saying we will be going. We could be in this tense limbo until departure. What a fun couple of weeks this will be.
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Mkingdon's Blog 