I was inexplicably and annoyingly awake early again. We felt the need for a proper breakfast and after wandering to the relevant building we had a 10 minute wait for a table. I went for a random bowl of fruits and museli type things and some toast.
Our usual beds at the beach had gone. I decided against violence and let them stay on them and we took the next set of beds instead.
From there we could stare at them in an intimidating manner. After some resting we both walked up the beach but we couldn’t get too far as the seaweed was pretty bad in places. Once again we were thankful for our resorts efforts.
Once back at our beds I finished my third book of the trip and then we watched the volleyball, both to admire the ever increasing levels of competitiveness and to make sure any rogue balls did not hit us which has to be an ambition in most situations.
We went in the pool again for a bit and we had a Baby Guinness each.
We stayed on the beach till 6. We weren’t out till 8 and there was no wait for a table at the Asian restaurant.
We went crazy tonight and ordered two starters as the portions looked smallish. I had a Beer. The food here was excellent and it turned into our favourite of the trip.
After eating we headed to the theatre for a The Voice competition. This had the a big chance of being awful but it was very good fun.
After the show we walked to the lobby bar where some live music was happening. We took a seat across from a young couple who turned out to be two lovely Germans and we chatted with them for a good while, humbled by their mastery of the English language. They were recently engaged and proved to be lovely company over a few drinks.
A light breakfast of coffee and a pastry around 9am after a decent sleep. Guess what? We went to the beach again. On the way we nipped to the onsite shop as we had run out of toothpaste. I say we, but such matters are the sole responsibility of Louise and she had woefully under stocked for the trip in this area.
You can only imagine how we laughed when the chap at the till asked us for $18. Yep we paid £15 for a toothpaste. For that money I was expecting new teeth to start growing.
Just to mix things up today we shared a club sandwich for lunch after some lazing.
More beach ensued. Feeling guilty that we had not made use of all the food options on offer yet I went and got some meat from the poolside barbecue and a pizza from the pizza oven. The pizza was lovely but the meat was a bit fatty for me.
Whilst waiting for the pizza to be ready this chap was sunbathing and eating pizza.
After lots more beaching we wandered back to the room around 6 followed by our usual routine to get ready. Have I mentioned how much we loved the turndown service. We would get stupidly excited to get back to the room once it had been done.
Out at 7.30. Bordeaux tonight and we had a twenty minute wait so we got a drink in lobby.
We actually waited 40 minutes so there were two drinks.
We had our bouches amused before Cauliflower and onion soup.
Lamb for me and chicken wellington for Louise.
Once done we headed to the theatre for an acrobat show. There was a lot of impressive dangling from silks.
With that done we headed back to the bar for one more. It was incredibly hot and humid tonight so we were glad to get back to the room and bed at 10.45 for the air con.
I was inexplicably awake at 5.30!! With seemingly no prospect of more sleep I lazed and scrolled until a more civilised hour.
One we were ready we headed to the Coffee shop for brekkie around 9. We encountered two iguanas on the way. Latte and cinnamon roll and blueberry muffin. That was our breakfast order not the Iguana’s names.
You will be shocked to hear we went to the beach. The morning passed without incident until we shared a club sandwich for lunch.
More beach until we moved to the pool in the late afternoon. We had a couple of drinks in the pool before, you guessed it, returning to the Beach.
We were back in the room around 5.30 for our usual CNN and after sun session. Usual showers and getting ready etc.
We were out at 7.15 and we headed to the main pool for tonight’s Asado show.
It was a bit slow to start and it seemed to keep stopping but it picked up towards the end.
Once it was done we did the short stroll to the beach as we clearly hadn’t spent enough time there. The moon and the decor looked lovely.
It was time for food so we wandered to Portofino. We passed the half hour wait at the lobby bar.
We woke hungry so breakfast was required but not before saying hello to the locals.
We tried some beds at the main pool just to add some variety and we got the last two beds. However we did not stay long. There was no breeze and we just accepted that we preferred the beach and moved to our usual beach spot.
We rested all morning and had no need for lunch. We did have a few drinks though. There was some reading and I paddled in the sea. These extremes sport holidays are exciting aren’t they?
Around 3pm we could see storm clouds heading our way. I checked my weather radar app and it said we had about fifteen minutes before it got to us. It was five.
We quickly packed up and headed for the room. We were mildly concerned that a group of swimmers out on a turtle spotting trip were left out in the water.
We got rained on a bit on the walk back until we reached cover and our room.
We sat on our covered patio watching the rain and listening to our yank neighbour talk to their Brit neighbours. We chuckled as our US friend told their Brit friends all about the Beatles, the UK and at one point he even tried a Scouse accent. Emily’s scouse boyfriend Mikey felt a disturbance in the force at that exact moment.
Once the rain passed we went for a swim in our pool and then started to get ready. We were out by 7 and headed for Akumart which is a weekly craft fair at the resort.
The food was BBQ style and very varied.
There were stalls of local fares and food.
After eating we browsed the stalls and inexplicably spent a fortune on two fridge magnets and a carved wooden stingray. The drinks must have been strong.
We walked back to the lobby bar and had some drinks whilst listening to an excellent singer.
Apologies for the bar staff being in the way for some of this video but it is worth watching the whole thing. She was excellent.
I had a week off last week as it was my birthday and the day got away from me. What do you mean you didn’t notice?
Than I returned to write today up and my notes are quite sparse and I didn’t take any photos during the day. Can you tell I had little to no intention of writing about this trip.
Anyway, I’ve started it now so we plough on.
We ventured to the proper buffet breakfast but I only had toast. After a later start and a sit down brekkie we got to the beach around 10.30. Then we did absolutely nothing of note but don’t take that as a negative.
There were two more sessions of competitive volleyball and at some point Louise had a stroll up the beach. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed doing literally nothing all day on this trip.
We were back at the room at 5.30. The usual ritual of watching the news, having showers and a relax in my resort robe ensued.
Out at 7.30 and we started with a drink at the lobby bar.
There was a show at the theatre at 8 so we headed there deciding to eat later. I understand that a five piece Mexican Beatles Tribute might sound weird but we loved it.
We chose the Seaside restaurant for dinner. It was pretty empty being later now and we sat at a table at the edge of the restaurant and spotted raccoons wandering about again. They are very cute.
Obviously feeding them would be stupid but as we saw the staff throwing them some bread we did too and then of course it wouldn’t leave us alone.
We didn’t mind.
The food was great too.
I opted for steak and it was massive.
I couldn’t finish it and threw a couple of pieces to our new friend. Eventually he jumped up and the wall at the side of me and stared at me. Then, maintaining eye contact, his very human hand reached across the table and slowly dragged the steak from my plate and ran off into the bushes.
I was delighted to be honest. I couldn’t eat it and I was very happy it would go to a good cause. It made our night.
Full and tired we walked back to the room, transformed into a mood lit delight by our turndown service and went to be at 10.30.
A later start today with us not getting to the beach till 10.30ish after the usual coffee and Danish for breakfast.
There was lots of reading and watching seaweed removal. To give them their credit our resort did all they could to move the seaweed out of the way. It’s a seasonal issue and beyond their control but they had a crew of men and trucks shifting it.
No lunch today as we just didn’t feel hungry enough after a late breakfast and we wanted to save ourselves for dinner. Our preference for the beach was justified again today with a lovely breeze making the silly temperature bearable.
Mid afternoon and I walked up the beach. The seaweed situation further up was pretty grim to be honest which increased my appreciation for our resort’s efforts.
After some more resting we went back to the room at 5.30. Showers. We both were nursing a fine collection of bites by now. Itchy was the main symptom. Somehow we would survive these horrors.
Out at 7.30 and we went to the main pool. Tonight was the Decades show and that was the glorious Starwberry Margarita with Tajin.
The buffet on offer was ok but we definitely preferred the restaurant food on offer.
I included that photo to show even the best photographers like me take a bad one.
The show was as you may have guessed a musical journey through the decades. We stayed till 9 and then walked to the lobby bar. We managed a couple more drinks before tiredness took over. We decided against going to the theatre show that was starting soon and instead went to bed at 10.30.
I struck out solo leaving Louise in bed and got myself a coffee and a muffin and then secured beds by main pool. It was busy and the pickings were slim.
Louise didn’t know where I was so went to our usual spot on the beach and messaged me. I joined her there as there was zero breeze by the pool and we stayed on the beach every day from here on in.
Volleyball happened with the male competitiveness growing. We were in mild danger of stray balls a few times which is never nice.
Lunch time came around and we shared a club sandwich and chips. It was delicious.
I read for most of the afternoon and volleyball and ice cream happened again. We stayed on the beach till 6.
This little chap hung around with us all day.
After showers etc we were out around 8. There was a half hour wait for a table at The Patio which was the Mexican restaurant. We waited with a drink in the sports bar. In there were the most scouse family on the planet. The bar staff did a better job than us of understanding them.
I had Tortilla soup and the beef.
Pork belly and lamb for Louise.
We went a bit mad and ordered 2 tequila shots from the premium tequila trolley. Louise assured me it was fanstastic. Having never had tequila before I couldn’t comment.
Once we’d eaten we wandered to the theatre but there was no show tonight. Back to the lobby bar instead for drinks. Bed at 11.30.
A more civilised awakening time today thankfully. I left Louise in the room and made the effort to secure us some beds around a pool as we fancied a change from the beach today. I took the opportunity to do a full resort stroll too.
It took me a long while to choose two beds that might give Louise the sun and me the shade and they turned out to be more in Louise’s favour.
This was the quiet pool.
We lazed and spent a good amount of time in the water as the sun was pretty brutal.
We had a raccoon sighting which would be a common occurrence.
We had a drink or two and then Lunch by the pool. Nachos and burrito.
The next beds to us which had been empty yet reserved all day had a lovely couple from California arrive. We chatted for a bit. They asked what “Europe” thought of what was happening in the US so we gave them our view and explained why we were in Mexico and not Orlando. They explained that despite being US citizens from birth they now felt the need to carry their passports everywhere as they were not white. That bit hit home.
At some point the Spa folks came round touting for business. We declined but Louise still got a head massage.
Then ice cream man came around with his cart.
We moved to one of the other pools around 4.30 for the last hour for reasons I can’t remember.
Back to the room at 5.45. Showers etc.
We made our way down to the main pool to check out the Mexican show and buffet that was on.
We decided against it and walked to the Mexican restaurant. Alas it was closed. We found out they close it when the Mexican show is on as if you want Mexican food you can get it there.
Several steps later and we were at the Asian restaurant.
With a twenty minute wait for a table we walked several more steps to the Sports bar to wait. Espresso martini for me and a mescal and wine for Louise.
The food was excellent. Spring roll chicken satay to start.
Sweet and sour and mixed teppanyaki for mains.
We wandered back to the lobby bar and watched a harpist. After he had finished we had a wander around the resort and sat by the main pool for a bit getting feasted on by biting things.
Back to the lobby bar again. I went back to our room to deal with a pressing issue. Luckily our room was steps from the bar!!
I briefly joined Louise again but it was bed time and sleep was welcome.
Rather than the buffet breakfast we headed to the Coffee shop around 7. Coffee and a Danish each.
Mexico appears to have bigger lizards than Florida.
We loved seeing these guys almost every day too.
This will get repetitive really quickly as we headed to the beach again but for variety we chose some beds a little closer to the shore. That’s when we realised that all this seaweed could produce the odd waft of an unpleasant smell.
With no breakfast to speak of we were hungry nice and early so we walked up to the Sea Side Grill restaurant by the pool at 11.45.
I had the Toast Trio, a trip to the salad bar and Fish Tacos. I would never normally order that but when it’s “free” I get a little more daring.
Louise had a goat’s cheese stuffed chicken thing.
Beer for me and a Margarita for Louise.
Back to the beach again. We considered doing a pool for the afternoon but there were no beds with shade available which is a non-negotiable for me.
Reading and resting followed.
Towards the end of the day I went for a stroll up the beach then we went back to the room around 5.25.
Once there we went into the swim up pool for the first time. Our turn down service person came and made our room all delightful and ready for the evening and honestly this ritual became a real highlight of the trip.
We didn’t make it out for dinner till 8.30. Bordeaux was our choice tonight. French of course.
French onion and cauliflower soup for starters.
But only after our bousches had been amused.
Small but lovely.
Steak for us both.
That was fruit tart thing and these, well you know what they are…
We stopped at the lobby bar for one drink and watched the band.
Awake at 3.30, which was nice. Dozed and doomscrolled till 6ish. Showers and got ready.
Once 7am hit we were first in line for the market cafe for buffet. It had a seriously vast array of choices.
Just the one plate as my body is a temple.
We walked down to the beach passed some shy fish…well they weren’t shy just coy.
The beach was pretty much empty at this early hour so we easily got beds but to be honest that would be the case all holiday regardless of time, on the beach at least.
We just relaxed and half slept for a while, with some reading thrown in.
At 11am and 4pm every day the staff organised a volleyball game that I did not take part in once. We watched it though and over the days it would get ever more competitive.
That cloud makes it look like I have a white tuft of hair. If only.
At some point we went for swim and got a drink from the swim up bar. A margarita for Louise and I had an Iceberg which involved beer and some form of alcohol slush.
Back to the beach. More doing nothing.
We had noticed immediately that there was a seaweed issue. Mainly as the hotel had a team of workers, a JCB and two trucks carting it away. It’s a seasonal thing and couldn’t be helped but at least our resort was shifting it. Others up the beach not so much.
We had a small pizza from the pizza oven between us around 13.30. It was lovely.
More volleyball watching at 4.
We were both tired today with the travel and jet lag so we didn’t do a lot. That didn’t change over the holiday so maybe those were just excuses today.
We went back to the room for showers around 5pm and a lie down which was different to lying down in the beach of course.
Out at 7. I stopped at reception to change some larger dollar bills into smaller ones for tipping.
We ate at the Italian, Portifino.
Espresso Martini for me and wine for Louise.
We started with the first two items on the menu which were a Caprese and a meat thing.
Parm chicken for me and lasagne for Louise.
We were full but shared a tiramisu.
We paid the bill….oh no, there was no need but we left a tip. We made it back to the lobby bar for one drink before having to give up at 10. Knackered.
We are back from Mexico! Whilst I did say prior to departure that there wouldn’t be a full blown trip report (and that is very much still the case) I will share some photos and information on what we did.
Most days we don’t do a lot so this will be mostly food related but hey what’s new.
Before we left I was unaware of Tajin. This changed early in the trip with my first strawberry margarita. It then became a consistent theme of our trip hence the title.
If you don’t want to plough through the detail of what is to come and just want a TL/DR summary of the trip, we loved it.
The resort, Secrets Akumal, was incredible. We would recommend and return for sure.
Anyway, using minimal notes and a few photos here we go.
Day one July 2nd
It was a painless journey to the airport and check in was a breeze.
Security was very quiet and we headed to the lounge at 8.15 courtesy of our TUI Premium tickets . I had two plates of brekkie.
Adhering to airport traditions at least for holidays where I don’t need to drive at the other end we had some free alcohol. Our first attempt was very crap draft alcohol. Beer for me and Prosecco for Louise. They were undrinkable so I went back and got two bottles of Carlsberg instead.
Louise had forgotten her reading glasses so we went to Boots to get some temporary ones and general flight stuff.
Gate A6 at 10.30. One of the last to board. Fizz was served as we sat down. We were of course 20 minutes late taking off.
I was so tired. I had felt stressed and unready in the lead up to the trip so this tiredness was probably a work hangover. My body gave in and all I could do was sleep.
Louise watched films. The food was Ok but I didn’t eat much.
When I woke up I watched the Better Man film and enjoyed it.
It’s a bit blurry and it was probably my tired stressed state of mind but that cloud looked like a dog.
The flight was 9.5 hours. Upon landing there was no gate available so we had a 20 minute wait on the tarmac.
Immigration not too busy. Baggage claim slow and chaotic. Then we had to go through the weird x-ray customs thing as I believe they were checking for vapes and e-cigarettes which we were told were not allowed to be taken into Mexico.
It was hard to find our taxi rep but we got there eventually but needed one taxi to take us to another terminal to get our proper transfer taxi.
The transfer was just over an hour and felt like a high speed car chase. I was messaging folks back home from the back seat and felt car sick so had to stop and concentrate on not ruining the taxi.
Check in was a dream. We were seated with a concierge who sorted everything. There was lovely champers whilst we did all the paperwork.
We were escorted to room 8105. It was a huge beautiful room. We unpacked and then Louise passed out and went to sleep.
I had a brief wander around the resort but it was so hot. I was soon back to the room and asleep by 9.
Well, as punishment for daring to go on holiday, last week at work was one of the worst I’ve experienced in all the decades I’ve been sucking this shit up to pay the bills. Just two more similar days to go before I can pretend to not think about it for two weeks.
I can feel the stress coursing through my body and my neck and shoulders feel like I’ve done something that is very bad for your neck and shoulders.
All that meant that yesterday was also stupidly busy as I had to do some work that has to be finished before I go and I’m in meetings for every hour God sends from the start of Monday to the end of Tuesday and then start to try and prep the stuff I prep for the holiday. That meant printing off the stuff we might need (I’ve been over cautious as this isn’t our familiar journey) and can I say, how is it that in 2025 AI can do your job for you but we still can’t build printers that print? I also filled the rucksack, which won’t be Ryan for this trip. Louise says he’s too scruffy to go a resort like ours and I gave in as his role is solely for US based trips. Instead I’m taking son of Ryan, the brand new exact replica Louse bought me a few years ago.
Filling the rucksack is faffy, ranging from the essential passports and docs to the relevant phone and watch chargers, camera, kindle, painkillers, money and credit cards etc.
What I also learned this week was trying to order some US dollars in specific denominations appears to be impossible. I tried a load of websites and nobody gives you the option to request smaller bills (these dollars are only for tipping folks) so in the end I had to go old school and rock up the local post office and ask them to give me the smallest they had. They were still mostly too big.
With Louise out working I was also in charge of doing multiple washer loads, mainly of the dog’s bedding, and our bedding despite the fact that our house sitter is Emily, who lives here. I waited in for a delivery for Louise, which I “missed” as when it arrived, the chap rang the bell and then seemingly sprinted to his van and drove away by the time I walked the thirty steps from the couch to the front door.
Then I had to do some mowing up on the field as the grass was getting ridiculous despite me attacking it with a strimmer for the past week and I had to at least cut some walking paths in it for when Emily walks them whilst we are away.
I took delivery of an obscene amount of pet food for the dogs and cats and then nipped to the supermarket to get enough food to feed us until Tuesday and then I made tea.
It was a busy Saturday and today is looking similar. I’ve done some more work this morning, wrote this clap trap and then I have to go to a shop to collect an order Louise clicked last night and then go and see my Mum.
Anyway, as it always does, time will pass, I’ll get through work and we’ll be off soon enough. I’ll probably share some stuff on the Mkingdon Facebook page whilst away so do what you need to do if you want those. A day by day trip report is unlikely as it would be (more) boring than a US trip and I almost certainly won’t have time to write it, but I will of course share thoughts, highlights and food in some way.
My recent tour of the UK continued last week with a couple of days in Marlow doing things considerably less fun than playing bass to people. Work required my presence and so 450 miles of driving, a night in a Travelodge and two days of meetings made up most of my week, as I was off on Monday.
I think/hope that might be it for travels until after my next proper travels to Mexico but with a couple of weeks still to go, who knows. Work is a bit like that at the moment.
My night away did afford me an expenses paid meal at a place called the Giggling Squid in Marlow which was very nice, even if the main course I chose snuck up on me with its spice. A wander down by the Thames on a summer evening did beat more recent trips of staring at a concrete tower block in London with a Tesco meal deal, but I’d still rather be at home.
My pre-holiday prep is complete with two deliveries this week. Louise has “toiletries” to procure, mainly sun cream, but it’s almost time to get the cases out. I am unusually anxious about the trip as I lack my normal levels of certainty of what is to come. Louise’s uncertainty was I suspect none existent until Friday’s Air India crash and now all of her long held fears around flying are re-surfacing.
Any last minute buying will need to be done outside of the next two weekends as she has somehow been rota-ed to work both of them. I’m at the stage now where I am scouring my work diary and counting how many really crappy things I have to endure before we go. Anyone else do that?
Aside from the mundane details of how I’ve passed the last seven days, today is Father’s Day which has been weird for me for the last couple of years of course. I think about my Dad a lot, but I suppose today is the a day when that is bound to happen more than it might normally.
I still don’t think I have fully accepted that I’ll never see him again. It’s very weird and for reasons I don’t understand I regularly play back those last few hours we spent with him in the hospital before he died. I somehow feel like I did it wrong or could have spent those more wisely even though he didn’t really know we were there.
Anyway, I love you Dad, and I miss you every day. It’s a cliché but if you’ve still got one, try to appreciate them as when they’ve gone and you think you can’t even remember their voice, you start to panic a bit and feel like you’re letting them down. Enjoy your Father’s Day and here’s mine as he would probably like to be remembered.
Another four day week leaves me wondering why we splurge them all at this time of year. I suppose it gives us all a chance to enjoy the lovely weather, unless, like last week, we reverted to mid winter up in the frozen north anyway.
With four weeks to go until our holiday our minds have turned to preparing a bit, and at least thinking about what we need to take from a clothes perspective as our needs will be different to a Florida trip to some extent.
I already actually wrote down in words my trouser buying experience a few weeks ago, so believe me when I say I shall also detail other irrelevant and uninteresting details about my wardrobe.
I did a “try on” yesterday, digging out the summer stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day since our last trip. I have a lot of holiday clothes. That may not to be too surprising I suppose, but having managed to drop a few pounds in my usual pre-hols preparation I do have slightly more options than otherwise I might.
So thankfully my need to go out and do any actual shopping is limited to stuff I can buy online like some shoes, a new cap and some socks. Yes, I am actually spending time writing this stuff down on the internet.
Louise enjoys the madness of a real shop so her buying started this week with a couple of dresses and some shorts.
The rest of the week was of course dominated by work as it always is. However, there was a mild drama on Friday afternoon. I was, as ever, on a Teams call with the doors open as the temperatures had recovered to at least double figures and the dogs were pottering about in the garden. All of a sudden I heard Woody yelp in pain and he came running to the door feeling very sorry for himself. It took a few minutes for him to stop crying and I got him inside and up onto the couch in the conservatory where he literally flaked out.
He was worryingly limp and his eyes glazed over. For a few minutes I was genuinely worried about him. I comforted him for a bit until he started to come round and after half an hour or so he was up and about again.
He’s been fine since so whether he was stung or stood on something, we have no idea. There was no sign of any damage and he wasn’t paying particular attention to any part of his body so it was a mystery. He took himself upstairs to his proper bed for an hour or so and then seemed to be fully recovered. We went out for a decent walk yesterday and he was absolutely fine. It was all a bit strange.
He’s now gone over to Liverpool with Emily to spend the rest of the weekend there at Mikey’s where as you can see he struggles to settle!
Emily’s prep for her August WDW and Universal trip continues. They have booked Mickey’s Not So Scary and have what looks like an action packed and fun plan.
They are taking some first timers with them who of course are listening to almost all of Emily’s advice. However, she did share some shocking news this week. Apparently the newbie couple have bought new trainers for the trip but are refusing to wear them until they get there despite Emily’s advice and pleadings to wear them in. Is this the most rookie of rookie mistakes for a WDW newcomer? It’ll end in tears.
Sorry there has been no time today for a post even though you are now reading one.
I’ve been out at a music festival with my band mates. Not to worry I thought, I will take some photos and videos of the day to post instead. Then I forgot as things are always hectic when getting set up and ready to play in the very short time afforded for such things.
All I managed was this brief backstage clip ….
We just did half an hour of 80s tunes and it went pretty well. It was a charity festival for Cancer charities. The weather could have been kinder of course but it was dry if a little windy and chilly as bank holidays tend to be.
Now I’m planted on the couch watching Liverpool and waiting for them to lift the Premier League trophy. Add to that not being in work tomorrow and I’ve had worse Sundays.
So apologies for the size and quality of this micro blog and enjoy your Monday off if you get one.
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.
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.
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.
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