The main thing of note to share from the past few days was our gig last night, which was our first public outing as the Neon Vortex, our 80s tribute band.
We had rehearsed on Wednesday and felt completely unready for public performance, mainly due to a lack of rehearsal time due to our collective busy lives. Anyway, that fear drove us all to do enough homework before last night for it to go off almost mistake free.
It was pleasing to see this new show go down so well with the audience and hopefully things can only get better from here on in.
Earlier in the week something a bit odd happened. I started to get alerts that my blog was getting large volumes of traffic. Now, those days are long gone so it felt weird and certainly unexpected and I wondered if someone had uncovered my secret scandalous life of drug abuse and crime, but no. After a bit of digging into the stats and the source of the traffic almost all of it was coming from Facebook but in Germany.
Of course I have legions of readers all over the world as you would expect but the sheer volume was off the scale of even the height of my relevance and readership.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, mainly as I stopped researching it as soon as I figured it out, it would appear that I am not the only one who can’t type kingdom. A typo decades ago on The Dis saw me create a username of mkingdon rather than mkingdom and here we are. Still, it made buying the domain cheaper and easier.
At some point during last week something happened in German politics which saw a group or party get banned or something and they were called Kingdom of Germany. I have no idea how, but it seemed folks searching for that somehow then led them to click through to my blog.
I can only chuckle at the bizarre and surreal experience my new German visitors had when trying to make sense of the absolute trivial nonsense I pump out here when they were looking for some insightful information on whatever these Kingdom folks said, did or had done to them.
I only hope they used Google translate on my posts to see what it was all about and suffered whatever Google made of my drivel. If any of my German friends have stuck around, literally all I can say to you is Ich mochte ein stuck shwarzwalderkirschtorte bitte.
Two years of German study in the mid 80s has not gone to waste.
Ironically, one of the songs we did last night was Nena’s “classic” Neunundneunzig Luft Ballon. We did however take the easy option and do the English version. It’s spooky how different themes collide or at least how I can desperately mash them together in an attempt to churn out a few hundred words every week.
At this point doing these posts is solely driven by my “completion complex” (not a euphemism). I’ve been posting nearly every week since 2009 and every cell in my body rejects the idea of stopping now, and of course once I pop my clogs, all this inane crap will be a fitting testament to my time on the planet. Take from that what you will.
In an unpleasant and unwanted turn of events last week I was once again in London.
I’m not really saying I want another pandemic to obliterate travel for work and in person meetings but it was a silver lining in the heaviest of clouds.
I left on Tuesday afternoon on an uncomfortably packed train from Piccadilly and arrived in my “digs” that evening not too far from the Gherkin (not a euphemism).
I doubt that anybody’s company’s travel budget affords them luxury but a London Travelodge is never going to evoke memories of the Yacht Club. I settled into the room desperately trying not to think of everyone else who had slept in that bed and I took in the view.
I was not expecting a glorious vista with herds of wildebeest but perhaps the odd London landmark would have been nice.
With a Tesco Express meal deal secured I returned to the room for an evening of freeview telly and an early night.
The work itself was nothing I wish to recall. It was bad enough going through it once and I escaped the capital around 5pm on Thursday thankfully being able to secure a train an hour earlier than the one I had booked so I got home around 8.30, tired and all Londoned out for the foreseeable. The parking fee at Manchester Piccadilly for those three days will be given our finance folks heartburn for a while I’m sure.
I was very happy (relatively speaking) to be back at my desk at home for work on Friday. Sure it was an unacceptable day of back to back Teams calls but at least I didn’t have to wear proper pants.
Saturday saw me gigging with Mustard down in Knutsford at a 4×4 car festival thing.
Our first outdoor gig of the year, albeit within a marquee. Luckily it was a dry sunny day but as we crept into darkness the temperature dropped and my already average playing skills were tested as I started to lose all feeling in my fingers.
It has been nice to see the sun recently and experience some hint of warmth as the weather improves. I am so tired of being cold. It makes me look forward to our July Mexico trip where we can hopefully forget all the coldness for a couple of weeks and instead moan about it being too hot.
Thankfully next week has no requirement for me to be anywhere for work so it will just be the standard level of horror. Can’t wait.
It’s Bank Holiday season. Damn these pesky four day weeks preventing me from spending all the time I’d like to at work! Since we last spoke it’s been a proper busy time and it whizzed by in extra fast fashion as it was broken up by a visit to London for work. I’m never a fan of work involving leaving my house but it’s becoming more of a thing in recent times as things change at work and it all gets busier.
It was fairly painless as work trips go with a 8am train out from Manchester and a 4.15pm train back out of London with a 3 hour meeting in the middle. So just the 13 hours end to end journey.
Despite the horrific Wi-Fi on the train I even managed to get a little bit of work done on both legs of the journey.
The rest of the work weeks have followed the recent pattern of absolute chaos, back to back meetings all day every day and the feeling at the end of each day that I’ve been run over by a train with a brain that can barely remember how to eat my tea.
There was more travel and leaving the house last weekend too as Louise and I went to see Calamity Jane in Liverpool, which was a recent birthday present from Emily for Louise.
It was funny to watch the show as a million years ago both Louise and I “starred” in a local production of this show. Well, Louise starred as Calamity Jane and I had a slightly less vital role as Joe the bartender, but I feel I added my own unique take to the character.
The lead role was taken by Carrie Hope Fletcher, who you may know is the sister of Tom Fletcher from McFly, both huge Disney fans and regular visitors to WDW. I’m sure both of them read this blog religiously of course as every Disney fan on the planet tends to.
We arrived in Liverpool nice and early and of course immediately had some food. We stumbled across an eatery called Smoke and Dough and were glad we did. It was an unlimited meat platter kind of deal.
They had me at assorted breads.
The main platter was very nice and we could not take advantage of the ability to order any more.
Following our meal, still with time to kill we took the opportunity of being in Liverpool One to do some holiday shopping.
I have secured my holiday slacks. I confirmed my middle aged middle class status but procuring four pairs of summer trousers from M&S. That blew my usual clothes budget for the year.
The day after I was busy mowing and choring around the house and then had to enjoy watching Liverpool secure the league title. All of that was the reason for no post last week. There was just no time. I hope you coped and suspect you didn’t notice.
This week just gone saw a Mustard rehearsal as we enter a busy band time over the next few weeks and of course there were more manic days at work. One day did include a working lunch with a supplier down in Knutsford. The weather was proper summery and we ate outside, lightly toasting my glorious dome.
Tune in next week for, time permitting, more tales of this jet set lifestyle.
Usually, about now, in the standard cycle of our endless Disney trips, I would be elbow deep in all kinds of planning activities. Assuming a summer trip, once we start to see daffodils and daylight beyond tea time it normally feels like a proper sea change in daily life, everything looks literally and figuratively brighter and I undergo self imposed and unnecessary stress about where we might eat in a few months.
Do I miss it, with our plans not involving the US this year? A bit, yes. One of the big benefits of a holiday that takes more than the action of booking it is the continuing dopamine hit of doing the bits of planning that are the milestones in the countdown.
With us heading for Mexico and an all inclusive experience I have nothing to do other than ensure I have the appropriate attire for our activities that might even fit me. On Friday, not being allowed to work, I found myself in the unusual setting of a retail location and did cast my eye over some suitable long trousers for the posher restaurants at the resort which insist on such. After about twenty minutes of pushing things around racks I left with a pack of socks and nothing related to the holiday.
There’s plenty of time yet and I as ever I hold onto the hope that I will lose fourteen stone “in a daaaaay” before July and any wardrobe additions now would be wasted. Socks however, will fit me whatever shape my body is in.
Conversely, not having to keep up to date on all the happenings at our destination to understand what attractions might be closed and what format and price this week’s FastPass system may take is liberating. I’m not saying we’ll make a habit of it but this relaxed approach to going away to relax is definitely a change and in some ways welcome, especially with work being stupidly mad at the moment.
I am even thankful that our chosen resort does not operate a reservation system for their restaurants. I am an animal of extremes! The absolute extent of my pre-holiday activity has been watching the resort post on Instagram.
I really don’t want to wait four years before returning to the US so let’s hope something happens over there to return things to something approaching normality. It may just be my soft lefty liberal echo chamber on social media but I am seeing lots of articles detailing large downturns in tourism to the US. It’s a real shame that ordinary folks in the relevant industries will be affected, unless of course they voted for him, then not so much. Maybe the downturn in numbers will see some keener prices for flights and more offers from Disney and the like, but I suspect any downturn from the UK market won’t be significant enough to make that much of a difference.
So as we enter the season of bank holidays, allegedly higher temperatures (although nobody seems to have told the weather up North), power washing your flagging and unavoidably visiting DIY shops and garden centres I find myself with nothing holiday related to do. It’s different, but I’m not too sure whether that is good or bad different. I am absolutely looking forward to our change of pace and plans, mostly because I am just sick to death of being cold!
I’ll just have to spend the next few months browsing lightweight chinos online I suppose and call that holiday planning.
Another week whizzes by. Work for me was full-on in terms of hours spent, complex stuff to deal with, and having to spend an unwelcome amount of time physically in the office. Insult to injury, indeed. I’ve said it endless times before, but I will say it again: How I did that commute five days a week for decades is beyond me.
There was also a team-building night at Junk Yard Golf in Manchester, followed by a curry. Whilst always grateful to the company for spending money on stuff like that and actually enjoying it to some extent once I’m there, they are not essential for me to want to work somewhere.
Still, I came joint first at the golf and enjoyed the food, so I should probably stop moaning about it and show some gratitude.
Louise has had less fun this week. Having worked last weekend and a good number of days on the trot, she had all this week off and had lots of plans.
Instead, she’s been pretty ill, and we ended up in A&E on Friday evening after her GP sent her there to hopefully get sorted.
Fearing a couple of days in the waiting room, we did OK. She was triaged within an hour and then was given an appointment with a doctor a couple of hours later, so we were able to go home, get some food, and go back at the required time. Another hour or so and we’d seen the doctor and were on the way home with Louise reassured it was probably nothing too serious.
She did have to go back on Saturday to pick up the prescribed painkillers and other drugs as the pharmacy didn’t have them in stock, and they gave her an IOU. Ironicall,y that took longer than the previous evening as she was given duff info about the opening times and spent several hours wandering the hospital, filling out forms, and generally waiting around just to get her hands on the all-important meds.
Hopefully, with those secured, her recovery will be swift. She certainly feels better today than yesterday.
Emily has been away from home doing some house and dog sitting for a friend who has gone on holiday to Italy. This is Pablo.
If this kind of work funded trips to Disney, I think she would happily do it full-time.
I’m still a little concerned for her August Florida trip as the US continues its rapid descent into anarchy and chaos. I know I have, without doubt, over-thought and over-egged potential issues for tourists to the Sunshine State, but it’s clear I’m not the only one, as stats are starting to emerge from the US of sharp declines in tourism this year. Hopefully, that just results in smaller queues and the same trouble-free experience as we are all used to.
It doesn’t feel like this level and rate of chaos can be sustained for four years but what do I know. Often, very little indeed.
Sunday again. Another post to come up with when it was only about six and a half minutes since the last one. Clichés are clichés for a reason and the one about time going by too quickly once you are of a certain age certainly rings true.
At least that brings July closer more quickly and our two weeks away from the work routine and for me a break from ” can you see my screen”, “jumping on a call” and “circling back” to things I didn’t want to deal with the first time round. I’m not doing anything manual or even important but at times it really does burn you out.
For Louise, it’ll be a break from things much more gruesome, somber and depressing of course, but that has never stopped me bemoaning my comfortable office based first world problems.
Aside from work taking up far too high a percentage of last week than I’d like, we also took delivery of the previously teased band video for Mustard. Yeah, another bloody video to inflict upon you. It’s the first with our new singer and we’re pretty pleased with the results. Do not fear, I shall only put you through the short one-minute version. If you want to see the full six-minute marathon you can seek it out.
This weekend has been an uneventful one as Louise is working both days. It has just been me and Bean, our elderly cocker spaniel, as Woody, the sausage dog, has gone with Emily to her boyfriend’s in Liverpool where he has been barking at anything and anyone daring to invade his space as is his way.
Emily often takes him off for weekend adventures and for such a little thing, you wouldn’t believe how much calmer the house is when he’s not around.
Bean. bless her, is getting on a bit now. She’s lost a few teeth and is going a bit grey around the edges but she’s still pretty sprightly and long may that continue. She loves the one-on-one attention when Woody is out of the way too.
My plans for today are not very expansive. I have a few songs to learn for a band rehearsal this evening and a football match to watch, which as a Liverpool fan is equal parts exciting and terrifying in equal measure at the moment, as I want to believe we’re going to win the league but daren’t allow myself to just yet. Bean and I will venture out for a wander at some point too.
In other news, I have seen a fair bit of content online about Epic Universe. Well, to be accurate, I have seen the exact same footage from about a dozen vloggers. I have to admit to being pretty ignorant about the whole thing at this point, having no parks in our foreseeable future. The bits I have seen look impressive, even if I don’t know exactly who some of the characters are. I’m sure we’ll make plans to go at some point, although, if I understand it correctly, the Express thing you get from on-site stays do not apply here which makes it a little less appealing. Once the initial crowds (50% of which seem to be content creators) die away, it’ll be on our list, I’m sure.
If anyone goes in the near future I’d love to hear your take of course.
I shall go and do my chores, learn my songs, walk my dog, and watch my football. Enjoy your Sundays.
There’s some cosmic irony to us all losing an hour’s sleep on Mother’s Day. As if it commemorates the plight of most mothers to never properly sleep ever again. Here’s wishing all mums a lovely day and we’ll be taking mine out for tea later as tradition dictates.
Don’t worry, I can’t do another post this week about the relatively simple decision and task of changing our holiday plans. All we have left to do now is wait, anticipate and turn up at the airport which is a pretty different experience to your typical Florida trip as we all know. Oh wait, there is an app I may need to download at some point that gives me vital information about the resort so I need to make plans to reserve several minutes to do that.
I am still getting drip-fed small crumbs of planning activity for Emily’s trip, though. They are doing the full Disney and Universal experience, so there’s a lot to think about. With a couple of first-timers tagging along, Emily feels the familiar pressure of being the planner, organiser, and expert for everyone.
We were never planning to do any parks had we stuck with Florida, so I had taken my eye off any park-related news since our last trip. It seems there will be a lot of stuff closed when she goes, which is less than ideal. Stuff like Big Thunder is down for lengthy refurb, It’s Tough To Be A Bug is no more, Buzz I think is going down for a massive upgrade, Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer’s Island are gone, Astro Orbiter is not back until “late summer”, Hall Of Presidents is down, (hopefully for at least another four years) Test Track is still down, and I even think the Walt Disney Railroad is closed. I’m sure there are more than I’ve mentioned, too.
One positive, certainly for Emily, is the re-opening of Voyage Of The Little Mermaid. It will be called The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure. That has been sorely missed.
Whilst it’s of course unavoidable, having so much unavailable at once is not ideal even for a regular visitor, but for first-timers who may or may not ever return, it’s a bit of a body blow. That’s without even thinking about the whole question of value for money for your now very expensive park ticket.
They will of course have a great time regardless but it seems WDW is in another massive period of change and regeneration which is good to see I suppose. Not all change in the parks turns out well (are you listening Stitch’s Great Escape?) but it is inevitable.
Speaking of change. Some things never do. I often document the constant parade of tradespeople wandering around our house fixing stuff. If you remember back far enough we had a leaky shower about a year ago that only got finally resolved about a month back when we had to rip the whole base out and fit a new one having exhausted all other options.
Shortly afterwards, the shower in our en suite started playing up, so our plumber, once he’d returned from his round-the-world cruise, which we had funded, popped back to sort that. We’d also spotted, due to us being freezing cold every night, that a couple of radiators downstairs were only getting warm across a three-inch slither at the top, and they needed replacing. So he came to do all that on the same day a couple of weeks ago.
All was well, we were warmer and they even looked nicer as we’d moved from the standard white things to the anthracite column ones to better suit the period of the house.
Anyway, yesterday I made a rare visit to our downstairs loo which is in a room we don’t use that often. As I opened the door and walked in there was an unusual and unwelcome squelch. I looked behind me to see perfect footprints in the carpet.
Panic set in as this was the same room which suffered badly from all our roofing woes a couple of years ago so I was initially desperately looking upwards for signs of water ingress. With nothing to see my attention turned to other sources of water and I soon discovered that the pipe leading into the new readiator was leaking pretty badly.
An hour of trying to vax up the water from the carpet and fruitlessly tinerking with a spanner and some connections on the radiator saw little difference and I resorted to piling towels near the source of the leak and trying to get hold of our plumber. Being 5pm on a Saturday I was not hopeful.
To his enormous credit, he was with us within the hour, made what turned out to be some simple adjustments, fixed the issue and left us dry again and with no charge for his services. I may gold plate him. Perhaps that was a perk of our titanium reward card recognising our levels of spend with him in recent times?
Anyway, today I shall be vaxxing furiously again, trying to turn the sponge on our floor back into a carpet.
Of course, you will know that upon discovering the issue, seeing the state of the carpet and becoming instantly furstrated at my inability to fix the problem, I was in a right strop threatening to either move or torch the house to the ground. Turns out that may have been another slight over reaction as ten minutes of a spanner in the right hands was all that was needed, aside from maybe a new carpet if it cannot be saved.
There’s a lesson there somewhere that I absolutely will not learn.
A week on from making the decision to change our holiday destination and it still feels like we made the right call. We’ve watched a lot of content about our new destination and we’re both excited about the trip now.
Our decision seemed to get endorsed a little during the week with the UK updating the travel advice for the US, albeit, just to be extra careful with your paperwork but I suspect those things aren’t done lightly.
I absolutely understand the sentiment that I see in many WDW Facebook groups that nothing has really changed, and lots of folks will, of course, still go ahead as planned, and I’m sure they will be fine. I think if we’d been at the peak of our (my) WDW obsession we would have made the same call.
I’m really hopeful that is the case, mainly because Emily is going in August and has no plans to change that. As worried as I may be about that, as Louise pointed out, she’s 30 in July and has been a gabillion times so I’m probably more concerned than I should be.
They are traveling with another couple who are first-timers and they have already had the lecture about how to behave at immigration. It always does depend on the agent you get as to how much interaction you could have but these days, with tales of them taking your phone to look for anti-Trump content, this is not the year to mess about it seems. If that was the case I would not make it past baggage reclaim.
Anyway, this year, for us, it didn’t feel right and let’s face it, we’re overdue a change in holiday destination so we’ve made the change and feel comfy with that decision.
Whilst it is very likely that those going to WDW will benefit from the Disney bubble effect and will not notice very much difference from any other year, it’s clear something is going on in the US that does not look great. Fingers crossed it results in nothing too nasty. We do very much want to return to our usual holiday destination and would rather not have to wait until the current administration is no more.
Since changing our booking, we’ve watched a couple of resort tours of Secrets Akumal on YouTube, and we’re delighted with our choice. It’s a bit posh, and one slightly annoying thing (the firstest of first-world problems) is that for many of the restaurants there, a slightly more formal dress code than I would normally like on holiday exists. This means that I shall have to wear long trousers on some evenings. Indeed, it means I shall have to acquire some long trousers suitable for warmer nights. There has never been the need to cover my knees of an evening in Florida and Mexico shall be denied the thrill of my legs after dark.
One thing that we are especially pleased with is the range and variety of cuisines from the restaurants at the resort. There are nine different eateries, including Italian, Mexican, French, Asian and your more general stuff. An additional plus is that there is no need to book a table, which seems odd for someone like me to say when I am usually online at 7am 90 days before a dining experience making sure we bag a table. But this is a different kind of trip and having to try and secure slots to eat that are not a buffet on a lie-down and do-nothing trip is one of the things that had put us off all all-inclusive trips previously.
From all the stuff we’ve watched the place never looks packed, there are sunbeds available with nobody up at 6am throwing towels down and you can walk up to any restaurant and be accommodated. Let’s hope it turns out that way.
The sunbed reservation thing is actively prevented it seems, with the staff insisting that even if you have beds and are going elsewhere for more than an hour or so, you take your stuff with you to allow others to use the beds.
Whilst everyone will of course make their own call on whether to travel or not, already it seems there has been a significant downturn in tourism to the US. Canada seems to be the main reason for this up until now. It’ll be interesting to see what all this costs the US in the end and you again have to wonder why the President would undertake anything to damage their own economy intentionally.
Whilst he will be OK of course due to the numerous ways in which his term will enrich him, it’s the folks who work in tourism who will be hit, hopefully resulting in fewer votes for his party in future, should there be any future elections!
Over dramatic? Probably. All I will say is that we’ve started re-watching the Handmaid’s Tale in preparation for the final season which should be out soon. Whilst we’ve always loved it, on this second time of watching there are elements more akin to documentary than drama.
And on that bombshell, I shall leave you to your Sundays.
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!
I appreciate that many of both of my readers will not have slept well all week, waiting on the next crucial update in my self-inflicted dilemma of where to spend two weeks on holiday. I’ve done nothing but turn down interviews with major news outlets, conscious that I should only be giving updates here.
The news from Virgin Arlantic was as expected. We could cancel but at sizeable cost. So our options if we wish to not use the flights we have booked are –
Amend them to somewhere else that Virgin fly to ideally from Manchester for £500
Cancel for £700
Whilst not life changing in the overall context of the cost of any trip we may end up going on, those amounts are painful enough to mean it isn’t a simple decision, especially when all this may be a ridiculous over reaction and our original trip would probably be no different to any other we’ve been on despite the absolute buffonery and malice coming out of the White House.
All the signs point to the usual cycle with this orange idiot. Something is announced, the news is dominated by it for days and then it gets walked back due to the consequences or reaction or it was never going to happen anyway and, in the example of tariffs on Canada and Mexico it just facilitates some nice insider trading for the billionaire’s club who were able to watch the stock market crash for a bit, buy a load of cheap stocks and then make immediate paper profit once the tariffs are “postponed” and the markets recover.
So we haven’t made a decision is what I’m saying. There has been fairly extensive searching for alternatives and once again I’ve come across the ususal TripAdvsior issues where any place we think looks nice then has too many reviews talking about the kind of stuff we hate on holiday.
6am sunbed reserving
Poor food selection/choice/quality
Butlin’s style “entertainment squads” round the pool
Maybe I’m just looking wrong, but these are not cheap package deals.
The best thing to do of course is go off personal reccomendation and a friend and colleague of mine has just returned from a work incentive prize trip to Mauritius. It was incredible and I’ve even been looking at the hotel they all stayed at. For roughly the same all up cost of the Orlando trip, once we count spends etc, we could do that, although I suspect it would end up being a little more as it’s only Half Board, not All Inclusive, but the blocker here is the travel.
Flight options are either a gruelling 24 hour marathon indirect from Manchester via somewhere like Istanbul or direct via Gatwick. For Northern monkeys like us that is pretty challenging. Getting the train to Manchester can be hard enough, never mind from our local station, to Manchester, to Euston, then two tubes to Gatwick, with cases and hand luggage. That doesn’t sound like fun, especially on the way back on the wrong end of a 12 hour night flight.
The resort (Sugar Beach) does look stunning though.
So for now, even I’m bored of hearing about it so we’re sitting tight for a bit. We don’t need to really do anything until May when we have to start paying balances for stuff like the hire car. Perhaps if I just decide not to watch the news for a bit I can just be oblivious to the seemingly intentional journey into war and global recession and just go and enjoy brunch at Wine Bar George as the good lord intended.
Sticking with the plan would certainly be the easier option as the thought of going through the hoopla of cancelling with Virgin, waiting for the refund etc and then starting again with a place I know little about sounds like a time sponge.
I shall draw a close to this post so you can all give your eyeballs a rest from the constant rolling they must understandably be driven to do reading this stuff. Enjoy your Sundays.
You join me live, as I sit in the Virgin Atlantic chat queue, trying to find out how punitive the terms would be should we cancel our flights for July. As uncomfortable as we would be giving the current US administration our hard earned and as outraged as we are at the horrific state of affiars there, we are not rich enough to wave goodbye to many thousands of pounds on that principle. I’m not sure if that makes us tight, amoral or a bit wishy washy but it is what it is.
Another week passes where a new low is found by the orange piss ant and at the speed at which things are going to hell in a hand cart, who knows what we may be flying to in July. It is time at least to understand all of our options and if cancelling gives us any better scenarios than changing to a new destination for at least £500.
If we could cancel it would at least give us a wider choice of alternatives not bound by where VA fly to from Manchester. We could of course just take any refund we may be afforded and bank that and save the money, but, well you’ve been reading this stuff for too long to know how likely that is.
I do strongly suspect that the terms of the booking will mean we would lose pretty much everything and having shelled out for Premium, that’s a high price to pay for principles and maybe an overblown concern that any of what is happening would affect a holiday.
I should know the terms of course, as I accepted them when booking. What was weird is that post booking I didn’t get any form of confirmation email from Virgin, in which I would expect to find said terms. I can see the booking on their website and in the app but what happens if I cancel seems to be buried so deep I have yet been able to uncover it.
It is of course very unlikely that I will have my answer before I finish typing up this week’s note of despair. Covid aside it would have been impossible to imagine having reservations about visiting what has been our second home for decades just a few short weeks ago. I’ve always at least tried to keep politics out of this blog but at this point there is no balance or other point of view to consider, so if I lose a reader or two it’ll be for the best.
I have no clue what Trump’s end game is really, other than to destroy everything so badly that he can somehow justify declaring martial law and suspend elections. Anything else makes little sense.
With a low expectation of getting any money back I haven’t really considered alternatives too strongly yet. Somewhere hot, with that elusive mix of being peaceful yet with enough stuff going on, with a direct flight and if at all possible without the hellscape that is a coach transfer from the airport of multiple hours and with no sign of any Agadoo style “entertainment” staff telling me how to have fun.
You can see why we keep returning to Florida!
I continue to wait for someone at Virgin to talk to me, so I shall leave you to shake your head in disbelief at how ridiculously seriously I take holidays and can over react in the most impressive way.
Another week of crazy from over the pond and I have seriously started to look into what alternative options we might have for our summer trip that didn’t involve the lottery of US airspace.
A “quick” web chat with Virgin (nope, there was a huge wait of course) and it seems whatever we do, it’ll cost us £250 each to amend our flights, plus any fare difference so it’s not something to do lightly.
Ignoring the cost for a second (and I really never will), we face the challenge of the limited options that Virgin offers for flying from Manchester. If we stick with our original dates, and we really have to due to the enormous amount of time it took to identify a suitable window for Louise and me plus Emily as our house and pet sitter and then get Louise’s time off approved, then there is almost nothing they can do directly.
Caribbean options would seem to make the most sense, but to get to somewhere like Barbados or Jamaica on our dates, flights are indirect and a lot more expensive so it becomes prohibitive. We can’t go to Dubai in July as we will melt in the 40-degree-plus temperatures and I really don’t fancy Mumbai or Johannesburg, as lovely as they may be.
Cancun would be somewhere we’d consider but again on our dates that is indirect via Atlanta, although at a similar cost, so in effect that looked like our most likely or only option.
Then we would get into the doom loop of scrolling through endless hotels and their reviews trying to overcome my aversion to unfamiliarity to try and find somewhere affordable, clean, and maybe even impressive to stay for the same budget as Drury Plaza.
However when taking that option a little further, for some reason the return flights have two changes, so that is blown out of the water too.
Again, indirect, but Toronto is within the same price range that we paid for Orlando (plus the £500 admin fee of course) but that’s a very different holiday and I know zero about Canada, other than having friends who know a lot about it. Perhaps one to explore further as a plan B but I’d be starting from scratch with no idea where to stay, what to do and how to do it. Maybe some people find that fun? 🙂
Sigh. I’ve written some first-world problem blog posts in my time, but this one takes the biscuit, dunks it into my tea and then drops it down my shirt.
So we may be “stuck” with flying into Orlando. That is a sentence I could never have predicted typing. Maybe I am being very stupid anyway as I would imagine flying to any of the other destinations involves US airspace so it does little to remove that risk however real or not it may be.
Then we only have to worry about things like hyperinflation, civil unrest and white supremacists.
On the bright side, at the rate at which the US is collapsing into chaos the orange turd may be flushed by July. You can live in hope.
For now, we sit in suck-and-see mode I suppose as swallowing the loss of the monies paid to Virgin already is not an option I’d like to consider.
If anyone who has perhaps changed their Virgin flights similarly in the past has any ideas I’m open to them of course, as well as any tips and info on Canada or other alternatives?
I suspect the most likely outcome is we stick with the plan as is, have a problem free lovely holiday and you can all shake your heads in disbelief at the nonsense I spouted in this post. Of course, none of this solves the real problem that Jellyrolls is closing/moving from the Boardwalk which is an issue much larger than the US descending into a fascist dictatorship.
In other news and in an attempt to end on a lighter, less ridiculously overreacting type way, when I inflicted one of my musical projects on you recently in the form of the video of the Pink tribute band I’m in I hinted that there may be another project in the works. Well, it has arrived!
Alongside the Pink tribute and Mustard (our main function/wedding type band), we have just launched an 80s tribute too. I of course am far too young to remember any of the songs from that era (honest) but thanks to YouTube I was able to learn them.
So I will leave you with the brand-new, Neon Vortex and the video we recorded live on one of the coldest days in January in one of the coldest rehearsal studios on the planet.
OK, change of plan. Not only did I make zero notes for today, but when I came to the photos I also remembered that on about the third photo of the day, the little red battery thing was flashing and the thing died just after lunch. I took this as a sign from above that I really shouldn’t bother. It was not of course just a sign that I’m an idiot and had forgotten to charge the battery for about a week.
So I’ll share the photos I did take and just summarise today.
It was Magic Kingdom of course. I had bought Multi-Pass and I think this was the day it worked out the best. We literally walked from attraction to attraction without delay or with time to kill in between. The park wasn’t that busy which of course helped and we got pretty much everything done.
My excellent memory did recall that we definitely took Monorail Lime….
OK, I lie…
It was about this time that I saw the battery flashing thing.
After a morning of rides, we had lunch in Cosmic Rays. Still one of our favourites.
Once nice and full, sensibly we rode Space Mountain, which is more endurance test than attraction for me these days.
I don’t know who those are behind me but they learnt a few new words during that ride.
I got to ride Buzz with Dougie again, ensuring another victory. They all count.
And we took a lap around the park….
Before being foolish mortals.
And then the camera died….
I know we did Philharmagic, Small World and Big Thunder, ate at Liberty Tree followed by Tron and fireworks.
And we were done.
Thinking about the trip as a whole, we did a lot, which knackered out the oldies and pleased the ride-obsessed youngsters. I went into the trip hating Multi-Pass and left feeling pretty much the same way.
Don’t get me wrong, at times it really made a difference to our day with two youngsters not high on patience, and it saved us from long queues or upset kids. However, I still absolutely object to the obscene expense involved in using the theme parks. Parking and ticket prices are bad enough, but this addition of an expensive chargeable multi-pass adds up to a LOT of cash to splash for what is still an excellent experience, but the value for money question is much more debatable now.
Overall, Florida is a much more expensive trip these days. There are global/economic things at play with inflation etc, but supermarket prices are super high and eating out is no longer the “cheaper than the UK” experience it used to be. None of that is really anyone’s fault, but it all adds up to food for thought (pardon the pun) when considering returning.
I’m glad we got to take the boys at these lovely ages. I hope they always remember it and, maybe, in the future, read this drivel and look back fondly on it. I will.
With apologies for the less-than-perfect ending, I give my thanks to those loyally reading along. Your perseverance is a marvel!
What’s next? An update next week, of course, but I’m not too sure full detailed trip reports will feature as they have in the past. If the process is beginning to feel like a chore to me then it’s probably time for a rest of this exact format and look to do something else to capture the events of our holidays, should we have any. 🙂
I’ve done a lot in recent years, so maybe it’s just a bit of trippie fatigue. We shall see.
We are nearing the end folks and it’s not going to be too pretty as I had at this point decided I wouldn’t be writing this trip up. That had meant that my notes for the last few days had been poor and today’s notes were especially so, but they still beat tomorrow’s as I made none! I’m regretting that now of course, tasked with remembering anything that far back and my change of heart once home was driven by not wanting this trip with the boys to be just a bunch of photos stored somewhere. I realised that I did want to capture everything after all.
Anyway, we shall do our best armed with some photos and my fading memory.
I can make a very good guess that we didn’t get up early enough to make rope drop or anywhere close. Why break the habit of a holiday? It was around 9.20 when we got to the gates, got in and encountered DeVine again. Yes, it was DAK today.
I’d done some LL booking at the villa but due to our later than planned arrival I moved our first one back as it was due to end at 9.45 and now it would start at 10.10. Of course, that first ride would be Everest,
Louise’s feet issues peaked so she was in an ECV today, so we convoyed our way over there and set up rider swap. I stayed out with Dougie, bought him some Chip & Dale snacks and we watched the world go by.
I then rode with Freddie.
After that, despite the adrenaline now being pumped through our veins I could sense low energy and tiredness in everyone so we stopped for some breakfast to refuel.
We ordered from here. The odds of everyone getting what they wanted when you have to order at such a window for six people are low, but I think we cracked it today.
We found a table in the courtyard area close to Tusker House and we all had this kind of thing (see, no notes).
As we were eating Rebecca suddenly jumped up and screamed. She’d been bitten by the largest ant I have ever seen and it hurt so much she was brought to tears. Various creams and portions from various bags were applied.
By the time we had eaten, our LL for the safari was due.
My selfie game is not strong.
Another very good guide and lots to see.
Now, we had about twenty minutes to kill before the next Lion King Show, so the boys’ faces were painted. Dougie was happier about it than he looked.
Freddie just played it cool….
As we walked over to the Lion King Freddie decided he’d rather do a “fast ride” so having just had his face painted he of course chose the Rapids, so Tom took him off to do that whilst the rest of us did the show.
Anyone who has read any of my reports knows my thoughts on this show, so I won’t repeat them, much. It was as excellent as ever.
We walked over to the rapids to meet Tom and Freddie. They had ridden once so now everyone apart from Rebecca and Louise rode, thankfully avoiding too much of a drenching.
As we exited the ride, the app was telling me that Flights Of Passage was just 35 minutes, so we headed quickly in that direction. It was a long old walk. Rider swap was set up again so Louise and I sat out with Dougie and had a beer and a decent-sized pretzel.
It took them the best part of an hour to ride, then Freddie and I rode using the LL/rider swap and it took us fifteen minutes. I did some fiddling with our LLs to bring our Navi River slot forward to 4.45 from 6.50 to avoid more cross-park trekking as we had Dinsoaur at 5.45.
After Navi we walked over to Dinosaur, bumping into Donald, and Louise took Dougie on Triceratops Spin whilst the rest of us rode.
We walked over to meet Louise and Dougie and the boys had a couple of games.
A prize was secured.
We saw Everest was a walk on so we headed that way and it was….
Everyone rode apart from Louise and Dougie.
It was time to be leaving now, always a sad time to leave a park for the final time on a trip.
So I took pointless photos to commemorate the moment.
We took our time walking to the exit, looking at some animals and enjoying the sunset.
It would be just me and Louise for dinner tonight as Rebecca wanted the boys to get an early night as they were knackered. So they had a McDonalds and after showers Louise and I headed out for the Outback which is now in a new location further up the 192.
With no notes now to guide me, it looks like I had a steak of some kind.
As did Louise.
No desserts for us and were home in bed shortly afterwards, I’m sure.
It’s a rest day folks. By jove we needed one at this point. Our usual day two at Typhoon Lagoon (if you can remember that far back) was scuppered by some cooler weather so here it is now on day twelve.
Despite the tiredness, I was awake at 7am. There were showers and clothes put on and everyone was ready to go before we needed to. We got to the park at 10.25 and were through the gates at about 10.26. Volcano Bay could learn from that.
We had to pause at one of the shops as Freddie needed some new swimming shorts and whilst that was being done I impulsively went to see if any cabanas were left. In a rare stroke of good fortune that meant I could throw another few hundred dollars away, I got the last one and the folks behind me in the queue were very upset about that.
We were shown to our base camp by Ashlee who would be looking after us and we all settled in.
We filled up our refillables, dodging the customary swarm of wasps at the filling station. Louise and I relaxed while everyone else went off into the water. The weather was stunning today and it was lovely to do not much. It got so warm that Louise and I ventured into the lazy river for a lap to cool off.
That was pretty much the morning done until hunger brought everyone back to camp around 1pm.
We looked over the menu for lunch options and spectacularly over-ordered.
We went for the pizza and the chicken strips platter.
Both very, very tasty and we tried our best to clear as much as possible.
Once food was done, essential things were done to the little folks….
to allow a return to the water.
Louise took up a spot outside the cabana in the sun whilst I remained in the shade. Everyone else was off doing slides and stuff.
I took a brief dip in the wave pool to cool off and when I returned I found Rebecca and Dougie back with us. With it being nap time and Dougie’s need being slightly greater than mine I took him for a walk around the park in his stroller to get him to sleep.
Once he was away we went back to base and didn’t do a lot for the rest of the day. It was lovely.
Louise had a cocktail from Ashlee and around 5pm with the park closing everyone returned and dried off so that we could leave.
The journey home was weird. The Waze sat nav took us home through roads I had never seen in over forty years of going to Florida. The traffic was bobbins on almost all of them and it took an hour to get back to the villa. The route eventually brought us out onto the 192 up near Lindfields so I can only assume it was trying to spare us from some gruesome traffic on the 192.
There were more showers for all and more clothes before leaving again at 7.45 for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. As we drove along Funie Steed Road on our way to the 192 and then I4 I had to undertake an emergency stop for a rabbit that was skipping about in the middle of all the traffic. Doing that in a vehicle the size and weight of the thing we were in was no small feat and by some miracle, I managed to avoid the poor thing.
We double-checked on the way home when it was much quieter on the roads and there was no squished anything in that spot so it definitely got away.
It took 40 minutes to get to Lake Buena Vista and of course the restaurant was very busy.
We had a reservation though and we waited about ten minutes to be seated on an inside table. We started to read the menu and the bread service arrived and then the seater returned to explain we’d been put at the wrong table and would we mind moving?
We didn’t really but we’d just got Dougie into his high chair so it was a minor pain in the arse. The whole place was a bit chaotic this evening and the service overall suffered slightly because of that and this was an indication of that.
We were taken to a table outside which we didn’t mind at all having said at check-in we would take either.
Louise and I started with a Cheese and Spinach Dip
Tom and Rebecca a blurry Egg Roll Sampler
For Entrees, the boys had sliders
Louise and I shared the Nachos appetiser as our mains.
Rebecca had Orange Chicken
Tom, the Spicy Chicken Sandwich
There were a couple of milkshakes and wines and a slice of cheesecake to go (not each!) and it was a fairly pricey $240 for an off-site eatery. It was all fantastic food but as I said not the best service we’ve experienced here.
We called at Walgreens on the way home to restock on plasters and dressings for the injured feet amongst us and we were home and in bed by 11.30.
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.
We “slept in” until 8.30am today and as we were a boat ride from the action and had Express passes, I cared not one jot. We even took some time to have breakfast at the Tuc Tuc shop again.
Most of us had stuff that looked like this.
For reasons I cannot now remember I felt it important you saw the reception area at this point.
We headed to the water taxi….
Dougie was still very delighted with his Grinch…
After our boat ride, we entered Universal Studios at 9.30, after forcing Freddie to do the traditional “blinded by the sun” Universal ball photo.
Our first ride was to be the new Minions shooter thing, where Shrek used to be.
I barely knew of this ride’s existence, never mind what it entailed so we went in blind.
For anyone wondering what the ride is, think of Buzz Lightyear at MK, but you stand up on a moving conveyor belt. The technology is slightly more advanced than Buzz’s, and it is really good fun and something everyone can enjoy. They even have smaller guns for folks who are Dougie’s size.
With that done we crossed the street to the other Minions attraction. There was a huge standby queue and the Express looked pretty grim too. We were on in about 15 minutes. Tom had to sit with Dougie on a static seat due to his size…Dougie’s, not Tom’s.
With every passing day, my resemblance to this painting increases.
It was now time for Rip Ride Rocket, which, much like my resemblance to the painting above, my disliking of it increases with every passing year. In my younger days, there was genuine unfettered enjoyment of this thing, but more recently it is becoming an endurance test and an exercise in clenching. I was not too upset to hear it won’t be around much longer.
The riders were Freddie, Tom and me, with everyone else using Dougie as an excuse not to have to go through it. With Freddie along for this ride, I was not only concerned for my own safety but his as well. Anyway, he spent the ride with his hands up laughing whilst I was bearing down like someone in childbirth and screaming into the void as my body collected bruises.
Tom and Freddie went round to ride again and I absolutely did not, finding the others instead.
We had a look in Bake My Day (a bakery) and got Dougie some popcorn. With everyone back from riding, Louise and I took Freddie on the Mummy as Tom needed medical attention. This was not Rip Ride Rocket related. As often tends to happen with Tom’s feet on these trips he had blisters that were resembling World War 1 trench foot and he was really struggling. There were scenes when he was trying to take his socks off that I cannot describe here.
After riding and running repairs, we all met up and walked over to Diagon Alley. I cannot tell you how much this trip cost, but when Freddie walks up alongside you and grabs your hand, it really doesn’t matter too much.
I have a similar photo deep in the trip report vaults of one of the girls doing this down Main Street. It’s lovely.
We stopped for some more traditional photos along the way.
Louise and I sat out with Dougie whilst everyone else rode Gringotts.
He really enjoyed getting his photo taken on this bike, so much so that it proved very tricky to get him off it to let others have a go.
Before the second riding of Gringotts, we wandered to get some food which turned out to be a “pasty” (Diagon Alley is clearly nowhere near Bolton, the pasty capital of the world as they were not really pasties) and a drink.
Then me, Louise, Tom and Freddie rode Gringotts. It really is an impressive ride, and queue for that matter but for goodness sake I wish they could improve the audio. I’ve ridden it a lot now and never once heard more than a few words from the Potter characters.
Rebecca and Dougie were over near Men In Black so we walked that way.
There was a need for food so we walked over to a pizza place near ET. I ordered a random selection of pizza slices and bao buns and had another wrestle with one of those fancy drinks machines, eventually managing to get some liquids in cups.
Once done with the food we all went onto ET. It is a genuine mystery that this ride has remained open and untouched since day one (I think). There are rumours that Spielberg only agreed to the ride with a clause that said as long as he was alive the ride had to stay. It is clearly very dated now and has no relevance to the younger folks so it’s all a bit weird. They still take your name as you enter which does nothing for the queue, but the boys enjoyed it for what it was.
Louise and I sat on a wall in the sun whilst everyone else explored the new kids area, riding Trollercoaster.
Next, we did Men In Black, (not a euphemism) with Louise staying out with Dougie.
With four of us riding we were seated in two rows that normally accommodate three people. When this happens I try to shoot two guns at once to improve my scoring but it just seems to make me twice as bad. This is a great ride and clever idea, but I just wish there was more “feedback” when you actually hit something. It all feels a bit random. Maybe the competitive Dad in me is over thinking this!
Across to the Simpsons now, with Louise again volunteering to sit out. The wait with Express was longer than it should have been but the queue areas here are always fun.
It was coming to the end of the day now, so Louise and I walked with Dougie back to the exit giving Rebecca, Tom and Freddie a chance to quickly do their favourites again. They rode The Mummy and Rip Ride before meeting us at the exit.
Whilst we waited I was doing some plan juggling for the last few days, changing some dining reservations and activities to balance out the changes we’d made so far and hopefully get the most out of our remaining time.
We got the water taxi back to RPR, picked up our luggage and drove directly to CVS, having abandoned them for a full 48 hours. Tom needed ongoing blister care stuff and my notes as ever say we got bits, but whatever they were it cost $90!
We drove directly to Teak Neighbourhood Grill for dinner.
We ordered some appetisers “for the table” which were Mozzarella Sticks/Circles and Spring Rolls.
For entrees….
Louise – French Dip
Freddie – Grilled Cheese
Me – I had a Brazillian, which would really chafe over the next few days
Rebecca- Quesadilla Burger
Tom – Donut Burger
Dougie had Nuggies
There was a very odd vending machine in the corner which did mystery packets of random stuff. Freddie’s sunglasses you see there were included but there were also old newspaper clippings and games etc. Very odd but it kept the boys amused for a bit.
The food was excellent and with a decent tip, it was $170 all in.
We were home within 40 minutes and in bed shortly after 10. A couple of very good Universal days.
I think today was our earliest get up, so please be suitably impressed as we reverse off the drive at 8am, Universal bound.
Of course, it took almost an hour to get up the I4 and arrive at Royal Pacific. We self-parked, grabbed the stuff we needed for the park and headed into reception to check in.
I’ve walked past these frogs a lot over the years but have only now noticed they seem to have “their lipstick out”.
The ladies and kids took a seat whilst Tom and I went to check-in. It always seems to take longer than it probably should to do that here. The queue was small but the level of faff and keyboard tapping does seem excessive. Having given all the info when booking, it does seem odd that I am now writing names and email addresses on scraps of paper.
Anyway, after some real confusion about who was in which room, we were done, had our Express passes and popped into the shop for breakfast.
With food on board, we walked down to the water taxi.
Just outside the gates we did a quick check of Freddie’s height and he was so close to being able to ride the Hulk, but not quite there yet.
I had hoped to have us stepping foot into the park by 10am. It was 11am as we did so.
Having chosen Islands of Adventure for today we headed straight for Suess Landing whilst Dougie was still awake and onto Cat In The Hat.
There was no queue but we still used our Express to get our money’s worth!
Dougie loved it in much the same way the girls had at his age. It is a banger for the two year olds. Hit followed hit as we went straight onto the Carousel now, and Louise and I recognised a bit of a special moment as we clearly remembered taking the girls on this at very similar ages.
There was much concern, sorry I mean hilarity as Louise took about five minutes to dismount. I know that sounds like an exaggeration but she was in this position for many minutes and we were unable to help as we concentrated on not wetting ourselves laughing and in my case also making sure I got it on camera.
Naturally, One Fish, Two Fish was next. Louise and I rode together and I was the perfect gentleman by making sure I sat on the inside of the fish and had full control of our height. Louise was very grateful for the cooling effect of the water I subjected her to.
As we wandered now towards the Circus McGurgus thing, The Grinch appeared, preceded by his helper/host…
This was very fortunate as Dougie is obsessed with The Grinch. It played out perfectly as after a brief little show with Thing 1 and 2, he took up a position for a meet and greet right in front of us and we were first in line.
and this happened….
and he stayed like that for many minutes….
He was in heaven and it took some persuading for Dougie to let go and let somebody else have a photo.
Once that was done, we rode.
Staying at one of the Universal hotels that give you Express is expensive, so it feels hypocritical to praise it after moaning about Disney’s Multipass stuff, but the experience is excellent. It takes away all the stress about crowds and also doesn’t require military planning and constant app use and juggling of reservations. Universal for us is typically a couple of days maximum so it’s a different kettle of fish to our Disney park touring, and it works brilliantly. Right now, the Disney experience is complicated, expensive (as we want to go to their parks roughly ten days in a 2 week stay) and stressful.
Onwards we marched to the Potter stuff.
It was busy in Hogsmeade but not the crazy crowd levels we have encountered in the past so we did get some chance to take in the theming rather than just concentrating on avoiding other bodies.
After a quick Butterbeer everyone went on the Hippogriff so that Dougie could ride another coaster before succumbing to his impending nap.
Next everyone apart from me and Dougie went on the Hogwart’s ride. I took a long walk around the park until Dougie fell asleep.
Upon my return, I rode with Louise, but Freddie turned down a second ride, not being too keen on what he’d experienced. Upon riding it, I could appreciate why a six year old may not be its biggest fan.
Now, it was time for….
Louise sat out with Dougie and the rest of used the Express line, which still took 30 minutes to ride. Freddie was understandably excited and nervous as we waited, as this would certainly be his most intense coaster to date. It was not helped by the ride going down for about ten minutes.
I have ridden this before a few times but for some reason this trip it seemed more terrifying than I can recall. Sure it’s fast and has all the loops and twists but never have I ever experienced the feeling of coming out of my seat as I did on this coaster. I was genuinely scared for my life. I am sure it has been tested and it is no doubt physically impossible to fall out but good grief I did not believe that as I gripped for dear life and screamed.
With that in mind, it made perfect sense that I rode again immediately, this time with Louise, Freddie, and Tom. It was no less scary.
In need of some blood pressure soothing, we chose to ride the Jurassic Park River thing next. It was a walk on with or without Express.
After riding it was time for some snacks, so I bought a random selection of whatever the closest booth had to offer.
I didn’t know what that one above was but it turned out to be a very lovely sweet pastry type thing. I was more shocked to discover the one below was savoury after taking a large bite. It was potato and meat and Freddie also had a taste, loved it and devoured the rest.
Whilst I was busy eating, fiddling little fingers seized the camera.
On to Kong now and it was mildly surprising to find that Dougie could ride it. We bypassed a pleasing standby queue with our Expressness and rode. Despite the very gory and gruesome content of this ride Dougie was fine. It probably isn’t ideal for little ones to be honest.
We chose to bypass the water rides, as we were soon to be sat in a restaurant and did not want to be freezing to death in wet clothes in brutal AC. So we carried on walking through the park, to get back to the Spider Man and Hulk rides.
We were devastated to see that Spiderman was down for maintenance and would not be open during our visit. Meeting Temu Wolverine was not really compensation for that fact.
It was my turn to sit with Dougie now as everyone went off to ride Dr Doom. Despite us being minutes away from our dining reservation, like all good grandparents, I got him a huge lollipop from the shops.
He approved of my decision….
When everyone got back, I was delighted to hear that Louise had not ridden, and had sat out on a bench near the ride entrance and I could have ridden after all.
Next, we all rode the Storm Force waltzer thingy.
Louise and I had Dougie in with us so could avoid the excessive spinning that was going on in the other cup by Tom and Freddie.
We had time to repeat Cat In The Hat and One Fish Two Fish on our way to eat at Mythos….
Upon arriving at Mythos it was not busy and we were seated immediately. It is heavily themed around Mythos type things, if anyone has a clue what that is.
Rebecca and Tom had a milkshake and Louise a wine, with everyone else on soft drinks.
I started with a Mezze Platter….
Louise had a “dipping thing” according to my ever reliable notes.
Tom had meatballs….
and Rebecca had Hummus
They were all lovely. This Mediterranean style of dippy stuff and breads is right up my street.
For mains, I had Chicken Kebab with Cous and Cous.
Rebecca Lamb Burger
Both of the boys had pizza and Louise had a Grilled Cheese in Soup
Tom had Pad Thai, but a plaster and some talc would probably sort that right out.
The boys finished with a shared banana split and there was a creme brulee that a few of us dipped into. It was all very delicious with very good service but of course came at an elevated price which was to be expected when dining in the parks. It was around $400 including tip.
It was dark now. Freddie wanted to do Velocicoaster again, so Tom took him off to do that. We strolled over to the water rides, picking up a Grinch for Dougie…
as that was the plan after the boys returned but Popeye’s Bilge Rats had closed at 7. We waited for quite some time on a bench near Dudley’s as it turned out that Velocicoaster had gone down and it was taking them a long while to ride. As Rebecca had Tom’s phone to save him the bother of the locker nonsense, we had no way to get in touch like it was the 90’s or something.
Eventually, we decided to walk to the park exit in case they had gone there a different way and the park was closing now anyway. Louise took Dougie off to the boat whilst Rebecca and I waited for Tom and Freddie. Once we’d found them we set off to the boat to find Louise and Dougie sat on the one just leaving as we arrived.
The next boat was about ten minutes later and we thankfully got on board and headed for bed. We had done well over 20,000 steps today and were absolutely exhausted.
It’s rare to report on a first these days when it comes to a Florida trip but here we are. The plan hath not decreed it so but with the earlier changes due to the weather, more flexibility was required today and we moved our Volcano Bay day to today. For Louise and I, one of those rare firsts.
I didn’t get up until 8.45 am, which was right around the time we probably should have been parking up at Universal but I’d been up in the night and had not slept well so it was as unavoidable as it was undesirable.
This resulted in a very poor 10am departure and once again our journey was blighted with traffic that was less than ideal. It was bad enough that the drive took 45 minutes, but what added insult to that injury was as we pulled up to the toll booths where you pay for your parking for Volcano Bay, I don’t know why, but there was a huge queue that was just not moving at all.
My frustration and anger (mostly at myself for the late start) started to build and the 30-minute wait just to pay for parking was not improving our start to the day.
Once parked up, we had to board a bus to the water park itself. This was relatively painless, but my mood had darkened sufficiently to see this as a problem too.
Once off the bus, there was a sizeable walk to get somewhere close to any water. At this point I was wondering if Volcano Bay actually existed or if it did, I suspected it was located in one of the Carolinas.
I had to go to guest services to sort our tickets and then we were given a Tapu thing and finally, we were in. It was midday.
You can imagine that the availability of sunbeds and shade was not abundant at this time so there was a long, hot, frustrating trek around the park trying to source some. It was made so much easier with us having a stroller, which of course always work well on sand.
I spotted a set of beds large enough to accommodate us all and we made camp. It felt like very hard work indeed to just get into the park. The day was to get better but the herding cattle approach to getting folks into the park was not something I liked. Compare it to Typhoon Lagoon where you park about six feet from the entrance and stroll in and I would say it could be simpler.
Suncream was applied….
then everyone apart from Louise was off into the water, thankful to now be able to have some fun.
Being in unfamiliar surroundings, I felt unsettled, which probably should be added to my “reasons I need therapy” list and says a lot more about me than I would probably like it to. There’s a reason we keep returning to Florida. After a dip in the main pool, I returned to Louise as everyone else went off to do some slides.
I rested a bit until everyone returned around 1.30. We mobile ordered lunch and then went off to eat it.
Me and Rebecca – Turkey Wrap
Louise – Pulled Pork Sandwich
Tom, Freddie and Dougie – Pizza
Picking up the food was fine but I had a falling out with the drinks machine and had to go back and get another cup as the fanfangled machine just spat syrup all over the first one and me.
Some escaped Lays were appreciated by the wildlife.
Now fed, Louise and I returned to our encampment. Tom, Rebecca and Freddie went off for more rides and I walked Dougie around in his stroller until he fell asleep. That was a good way for me to get a good tour of the park anyway.
With him napping, I went for a couple of loops around the lazy river, finding a very comfortable position on a double-ring thing, which I believe is also the name of a film. I was dangerously close to falling asleep on a few occasions, but the tactically placed ice-cold drips and sprays kept me alert at the appropriate times.
I wandered back to the beds to find everyone had returned and Freddie was keen for me to go on the Crazy (not Lazy) River now so off we went. The fact that you have to wear a life vest to go on this may suggest how fast this thing goes, but it was really good fun.
We did four laps in total before being thrown out as the park was closing.
My view on Volcano Bay improved throughout the day and to be honest I am not worth listening to when it comes to any sort of review on a water park. I don’t do the slides (more issues for my imaginary therapist to unpick) due to some bad experiences on dodgy water parks in the Med in my younger days, so I couldn’t tell you if the slides here are better or worse than anywhere else. For me, as somewhere to just rest and relax it’s simply easier to get to and into Typhoon Lagoon so I would probably stick with that in future, although the Crazy River was excellent. I would say that our long drawn-out entry experience this morning was very likely largely down to our own very late start and the weird 30-minute wait to pay for parking, which oddly cleared as soon as we were through.
We got dried and dressed and made our way out. Getting out and back to the car was a good deal easier than the earlier shenanigans.
However, the traffic was not, and it took over an hour to get home. I guess it was rush hour, with nobody rushing anywhere on the I4, of course.
Dinner tonight would be just Louise and I as Rebecca wanted to give the boys an early night and get packed for our Universal stay tomorrow. So after showers, we set off. Having not planned for this turn of events, we just set off down the 192 looking for inspiration and, driven by growing hunger, opted for the next thing we saw which was…
It was not busy at all.
We started with some kind of fried pickle type thing (my notes are poor and seem to get poorer from here on, as at this stage, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t bother writing this trip up, but here we are.)
I reached for the camera well into our eating of it.
Our entrees were a dipping beef sandwich thing….
with Louise opting for her “go to” cheesy pasta thing
The food was tasty and the service fine, but this was not a life-changing dining experience and we probably would not return. With it being a slow weekday the atmosphere was probably not at its best either with just a few tables occupied. It’s odd how that can make such a difference to a dining experience. The place being so busy you can’t get a table or decent service is of course no good, but when a place is as empty as this was, it gives the whole experience a bit of weird “vibe” and I’m sure we can all agree that I am far too old to be using words like vibe.
We drove home, did some packing for Universal, which was no doubt a lot easier than Rebecca’s and went to bed.
As shining examples of how to get stuff done early in the parks we are not that psycho blonde woman with four kids who keeps infecting my Instagram feed with her 4am wake ups and Stepford vibes. If you know, you know.
Today was probably the exact opposite of that but we were tired to it was a much later start. I had booked Multipass and stacked our LLs for the afternoon so we took our time and benefitted from the extra cash outlay, but not as much as Disney would.
It was 10.30 when we left the house. Less than half an hour later we parked in Mickey 312 and we trammed in.
I can’t say for certain that Dougie didn’t sleep in that hat.
We had a Fantasmic Dinner Package booked for this evening which involved lunch at the Sci-Fi Diner so we had no ride plans before that. We had a stroll of the shops and just took things in.
We checked in at the restaurant at 12.20 and were seated within 5 minutes.
We all ordered a milkshake which would count as dessert on our FDP thing, which was fine by us. And they were fine.
We paid extra(!) for an appetiser of Fried Pickles and then….
Me – Chicken Salad
Louise – A blurry chicken sandwich
Everyone else had burgers, which proved impossible to photograph as we were all sat in a car.
It was another pricey affair, as expected, but it did give us a “Fastpass” for Fantasmic later.
Our first ride of the day was Mickey’s Runaway Railway and everyone except Louise endured the 30 minute standby wait for that.
It’ll never be the Great Movie Ride, but it’s clever, and I suspect it takes a lot fewer CMs to run it than the previous ride here.
Next, it was time for our LL for Rise of the Resistance. As often seems to be the case, as we arrived the ride had just come back up which meant that even the LL queue was bedlam. The standby was at 3 hours, and that would rise to 4 as we queued. Tom stayed out with Dougie and it took the rest of us 45 minutes to ride.
I suppose this ride’s impressiveness and complexity lead to it going down a lot.
It truly is an incredible spectacle and feat of Imagineering but its instability means that idiots like us who paid to ride it get upset at still having to spend an hour doing so.
Tom and Freddie then rode much more quickly as the initial surge after re-opening had calmed down.
The rest of us walked to Tower of Terror for our next LL, and we knew at this point that Tom and Freddie would be late for our slot on that ride. I went to one of the Guest Services blue umbrellas and explained the Rise-induced delay to our plans and they kindly made our LL for Tower of Terror open-ended for any time today.
We took a seat and had a drink whilst we waited for the Rise riders to return.
With Dougie napping, Rebecca, Tom and Freddie rose TOT, then with Dougie awake again, Tom took Freddie on Rock n Rollercoaster whilst the rest of us took Dougie to see Beauty and The Beast.
Keeping Dougie entertained whilst we waited in the scandalous and persistent absence of Four For A Dollar, involved him having a go on the camera.
Once the show started, I took over on camera.
With that show enjoyed Louise and I took our turn to ride TOT. Everyone else headed back to Galaxy’s Edge where we were to meet them for our Smuggler’s Run LL. We were half an hour beyond our time slot, which stressed me out no end, but as we beeped our bands Mickey turned green and we were in after more very persistent measuring of Dougie, which he once again passed.
Dougie, much like myself had no clue what was going on, but enjoyed it nevertheless.
We wandered Galaxy’s Edge for a bit, catching a bit of a live show involving Kylo Ren.
Rebecca and Tom did a great job of resisting Freddie’s persistent urging to buy some form of very expensive plastic tat and then we set off for Toy Story Land and our Mania LL. This time I rode with Louise. Different competitor, same result. A bruising defeat for Louise.
We completed our rides for the day with the Holy Grail of LLs, Slinky Dog, and as a bonus, it was just going dark which makes most rides better in my opinion.
Dougie loved it. A great coaster, perfect in its intensity so that everyone can ride and enjoy it.
As we now made our way towards Fantasmic, the boys were bought the inevitable light-up toys and as we entered the stadium we stopped for snacks of drinks and popcorn before taking our seats.
This show continues to be one of the best experiences on WDW property. That finale gets me every time. It’s amazing what music can do to you. Rebecca was in tears and I wasn’t far off. Do not miss this show.
It was an easy exit and we made our way back to the car.
Having given Disney far too much of our money on food and LLs recently we headed off-site to eat at the cheap and cheerful Olive Garden. We arrived at 9.20 and were seated within about 15 minutes.
You know what we had to start….
I had the Tour of Italy, as usual.
Freddie had meatballs and spaghetti.
Both Tom and Rebecca had Lasagne
Louise, Five Cheese Ziti
Dougie had Pizza
With wines, iced coffees, sodas and tip, it was a wallet-soothing $160. It was all pretty good, although my entree could have been warmer. We do find this place to be quite hit and miss in recent years, but overall it’s decent quality food for a good price when your bank balance needs a break from WDW prices.
We were home by 11.15, with a great day in the bag, despite the late start.
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