Tag: WDW planning

Return of The Crap

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Is this thing on? Testing, 1, 2…testing.

Hello again. Turns out I’ve had, and needed, a little break from the weekly blogging so apologies to anyone….anyone??? who missed these on the last few Sundays. It wasn’t really planned and just happened but it was very much required and unavoidable.

I return today unable to promise a weekly delivery but for now, mainly as I’m off work until the new year, we blog again.

Over the years I know I have regularly moaned about work being busy, but I was a young naïve fool, as only now do I feel justified in claiming that. In the late summer I was asked to take on some new responsibilities at work as well as my real job and it’s been carnage ever since. It’s involved some travel too with visits in recent weeks to London (a few times), Southampton, Birmingham, Leeds and of course our Manchester office which, with the commute as it, is qualifying as a trip all on its own.

I can’t say I am deliriously happy at work, but that’s not really related to the silly levels of busy, but more the over arching landscape since a new boss and some changes came around during this last year. Everything will pass I guess and when you’ve been there as long as I have, these Johnny come latelys don’t seem to stick around for the long haul so hopefully this is a temporary thing as I could do without having to find another job at my time of life.

So that work stuff meant that for the last few months I really haven’t had a minute to think about much else, and the prospect of sitting back at the laptop at the weekend to write this nonsense did not appeal. I’ve already been spending good chunks of evenings and weekends either working or travelling for work so I decided to not spend whatever free time I did have typing these posts for a bit.

How’s everyone doing? Well, Louise keeps on nursing despite not really wanting to, Emily still works with me and Rebecca, Tom and the boys are all good, with Rebecca now working part time in a local nursery.

Yesterday we went to see my Mum to commemorate what would have been her and my Dad’s 67th wedding anniversary had he still been with us. She’s doing well, is fit and healthy for someone in their mid 80s and she’ll be joining us for Christmas Day next week. Louise is once again working on the day itself and for a lot of the festive period, such is the life of a Community Nurse and she tends to volunteer to do/get stuck with Christmas Day as many of her colleagues still have young children and they want to be there for the big present unwrap.

Both of my readers may have been wondering if we have any holiday plans for 2026. Well, next year is a significant anniversary for Louise and I, as we will hit 30 years of marriage, so we are hoping to gift each other not one, but two holidays, if funds allow.

We have hopes of a return to Mexico and Secrets Akumal in April. We’ve paid a low deposit to secure our dates and have to decide by February if we’re going. It ain’t cheap so we’ll make a call then as to whether it is wise to once again blow all our available funds on overseas travel rather than more sensible uses. Our house continues to conspire against us financially so we’ll see what major bills hit between now and then before inevitable saying sod it we’re going anyway.

However, our main trip next year is a, perhaps surprisingly a Disney one.

In September we have booked to return to Florida, this time with Emily and her boyfriend. It’ll be an off-site affair in our usual villa, flying with Virgin and that’s about all we know at this point. Our boycott of the US was not an easy thing to lift, but after Emily went last year and found that inside the WDW bubble all was well, we decided we didn’t want the orange turd dictating our holiday plans for the next three years so we’re going despite our strong objections to current events over there.

So let’s see how long I can keep this blogging up, and I’d like to as I do like to look back on these things many years later, and to do that, I suppose I have to write them first!

Till the next time……

It’s A Nice Day For A Welsh Wedding.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Cheer up. Just two more of these things and you get a couple of weeks off from them being inflicted on you.

Yes the holiday is so close now I can almost smell it, literally. I don’t know if it’s only me but when the warm weather hits there’s a certain smell that I get that just evokes holiday. I used to think it was sun cream or Florida but I get it here too. It’s either that or I’m having a stroke.

Ahead of me are seven more work days and they feel like a marathon right now but this is always the way.

Other than wishing my life away it’s been another week of being busy at work and none of that is worth documenting here but at least I didn’t have to go anywhere and sleep in a strange bed.

Yesterday I did leave the country as we had a gig in Wales. Denbigh to be exact. It was a wedding at an unnecessarily rural location. The last four miles, yes, four miles involved a single lane country road that did nothing for the blood pressure. It was, as you might expect a lovely location when we got there and we were surrounded by alpacas, peacocks and most importantly freshly baked pizza.

They were a good crowd and the dance floor was full from start to finish which is always lovely. I don’t know if it’s some sort of Welsh tradition but we witnessed our first ever conga to AC/DC.

That clip is quite short as I started filming before very quickly realising that I had to play in about nine seconds.

Being a fair distance away it was a late night and necessitated a lie in this morning. With Louise working and Woody away in Liverpool with Emily it’s just me and Bean today taking it easy. All I’ve done so far today is clean the kitchen, do the recycling, had the big shop delivered, got all my band gear out of the car and packed it away and had some toast. I suspect all international rock stars have similar mornings after a gig in Denbigh.

Speaking of the dogs Emily recently created these lovely pics of the dogs using some AI magic and I love them. So I’ll leave you with those.

Till the next time…..

Marlow and Memories

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Uncategorized

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.

Till the next time……..

Woody Worries

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

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.

Till the next time……..

A Post About Not Posting.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

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.

Till the next time…..

Capital Punishment

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

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.

Till the next time…..

Thank The Bank Holidays

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

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.

Till the next time…..

Oh Chino

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

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.

Till the next time…..

A&E I O U

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

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.

Till the next time……

Video, Vloggers, and Very Little Else

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

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.

Till the next time…….

Wet, Wet, Wet.

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

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.

Till the next time……

The Long Trousers

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

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.

Till the next time……

Bullet Bitten

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

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!

Till the next time……

Still Wrestling…

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

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 –

  1. Amend them to somewhere else that Virgin fly to ideally from Manchester for £500
  2. 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.

  1. 6am sunbed reserving
  2. Poor food selection/choice/quality
  3. 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.

Till the next time……

Chat WTF

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

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.

Till the next time……

Only Orlando?

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

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.

Till the next time……

Silly Second Thoughts

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Well done to all of you for tolerating what felt like a marathon trip report, certainly to write it. As the saying goes though, be careful what you wish for, as now, without the structure and (patchy) notes of a holiday to write about I’m sitting here with just a keyboard and my “creativity” trying to dream up something to write about.

Sure, I could just stop these blogs but if you have any sense of who I am, as tempting as that can be at times, I’ve been at this since 2009 now and being a slave to routine, process and stability is a cross I’ve carried all my life and I don’t see that changing any time soon no matter the impact or cost.

So on we go.

As all the “good” TV shows say……. still to come, news of any future holiday plans where I reveal if we have anything booked for this tear yet. So stay tuned for that.

I’m not going to mention work as it doesn’t deserve to be called to mind on a Sunday right now. Instead, with it fresh in my mind and my aching, ageing body, I was out gigging last night. Yes, I still do that stuff and I continue to play in bands. Last night was a wedding in exotic Clitheroe at a lovely venue called Eaves Hall.

If you’ve been around for any length of time you will know that I’ve played in Mustard (that’s the name) for a lot of years now and in recent years we’ve expanded our horizons by getting into the tribute band market. In a blatant attempt to boost the views of our brand new showreel video, with our new Pink, after a recent personnel change, I’ll post it here.

Stupid Girl (Pink Tribute) is the name of our tribute venture, available for all kinds of events and stuff, should you randomly have a need for a Pink.

This was filmed live at a recent gig in the famous Blackpool Tower.

We’re looking into adding to our portfolio of bands further right now so you never know, I may inflict another video on you in weeks to come, depending on how much I am struggling for content.

Anyway, on to the stuff that if anyone has any interest in what is written here, it’ll be this. Do we have holiday plans?

We sure do.

It was back in early December that Louise and I had a fairly brief conversation about options which is unusual. Looking back on the many trips we’ve been lucky enough to go on in recent years, we have enjoyed them all, but one that stood for us was the trip we did in November 2023. This, despite the weather being absolute bobbins for most of it.

For those not keeping a detailed log of all our trips this was the one at The Drury Plaza near Disney Springs. It was so good that despite only originally booking ten days, as we neared the end of the trip we extended it to fourteen. Granted that was mainly as the weather in the first week was rotten and we felt a bit robbed, but all in all, it was just a lovely time.

So with that in mind and as we came to the end of our last trip, spending a few hours at Disney Springs, and realising how much we loved spending our evenings there choosing between the almost endless eateries and bars, it seemed a simple choice when discussing what to do next.

We saved ourselves the charade of me spending hours and often days looking around the world for other options that we could never be sure of the quality of and with us both being busy, we just booked it.

We are flying with Virgin on July 1st (we are taking no chances with the November weather this time) and staying at the Drury Plaza. We briefly looked at on-site Disney accommodation options, especially those around the Boardwalk but the exponential increase in costs just couldn’t be justified over the Drury Plaza despite the Yacht and Beach being one of my favourite places on the planet.

Whilst I baulk at the daily parking fees at the Drury (I couldn’t find a site to book through that offered them free as I did last time), the free breakfast every day more than covers that alongside other perks like late afternoon snacks and free drinks (that we didn’t partake in once last time), and overall it’s a cracking deal for a nice, clean, new hotel in a perfect location.

We have no plans to do any parks but of course, we do have a car and we will very likely be doing some “day trips” out to places and things to break up the arduous task of lying by the pool.

So that all seems simple enough right? Yeah, then the elections happened in the US and this may well be an overreaction, but with how things are shaping up over there in these first few weeks of the administration we have both expressed doubts and concerns about going to the US right now.

Why? Well, July is a little while off and if the shit show of the first few weeks plays out in a similar fashion until then anything is possible. Obvious concerns such as planes falling out of their skies on the regular are front of mind, alongside rising costs and tensions and it’s all a bit off-putting right now.

I’m sure it’s an overreaction as my dislike for the politics of the majority of Florida specifically has never put us off before and as ever, much of what is blasted out as propaganda is not followed through on or is backed down from, but I’d be lying if I said we hadn’t thought about a change of plans.

The sticking point (and I’ve not had time to look into it or talk to Virgin) is the flight which I assume is not easily changed to another destination without significant cost so we are in suck-it-and-see mode right now. By July, he might have invaded Canada, Greenland and Panama, given the Ukraine to Putin and imposed tariffs that mean an Espresso Martini is $65 a go.

Cost-wise, the risk is mitigated by our flight being paid for, as well as the hotel and car being locked in at the prices we booked at so it’s only really food and drink that could hurt us too badly. Assuming of course the US isn’t at war on multiple fronts and maybe internally too.

Maybe the solution to these concerns is to stop engaging with the news of it all and just go and have the holiday but the lunatics are in charge so ignorance doesn’t feel the way to go.

Stay tuned for updates as the weeks progress to see how geo-political events affect the more important matter of our thoughts on a holiday. This blog wouldn’t have it any other way.

Till the next time……

The Ump Me, Do You Need A Wee Tour 2024 – Day Fourteen Monday 28th October

by mkingdon, posted in The Ump Me, Do You Need A Wee Tour 2024

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.

Till the next time…..

The Ump Me, Do You Need A Wee Tour 2024 – Day Thirteen Sunday 27th October

by mkingdon, posted in The Ump Me, Do You Need A Wee Tour 2024

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.

Till the next time…….

The Ump Me, Do You Need A Wee Tour 2024 – Day Twelve Saturday 26th October

by mkingdon, posted in The Ump Me, Do You Need A Wee Tour 2024

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.

Till the next time……