Four Brits hit the world the TR! ~~~Completed 28/11~~~

[DisneyJo]

Well I thought it was about time I started this TR as I’ve now been back all of 2 days :rotfl2: If you want some light reading check out my Pre TR here! (http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1442917)


OK some quick introductions…..

Me, Jo a 34 year old SAHM who loves WDW and is totally addicted to the DIS boards, just ask my DH :lmao: This was my sixth trip.

DH, David a 35-year-old PGA Golf Pro. He is gradually coming over to the Disney side and can’t believe how much he enjoys it.

I have 2 DD’s Jess, 11 and Ellie, 9. You’ll find out all about these 2 as my TR progresses :rotfl:

This trip was our second as a family.


D Day was Monday 13th August 2007 and we were going for a fortnight. We stayed at CSR and were lucky enough to have free dining. All ADR’s were made in February, Touring plans were sorted, thanks to a little help from TGM, we were all set to start our 2 weeks of fun :goodvibes


The alarm went off about 6am, although DH and I had been awake for a while, those adverts where the adults are more excited than the kids are so true :rotfl2: We managed a quick brekkie and shower before the taxi arrived at 7am. We had to take the back route to Gatwick Airport as the M25 was at a complete standstill but we still made good time and went straight to Virgins bag drop as I’d already checked in online :thumbsup2


Pretty uneventful security checks and we were soon chilling in the departure lounge browsing the shops etc. The DD’s and I have a tradition of going to the Body Shop and smearing our arms in all the body butters so we smell, well, imagine about 5 strong scents on our arms and be thankful you’re not sat next to us. :lmao: Well would you believe the staff were hanging around the samples, maybe they knew we were coming ;) So smelling normal we headed off to the gate and the flight was all on time :yay: We watched several films including Shrek 3 and Blades of Glory. Lunch was meatballs and rice and tea was a yucky sandwich. We also received an ice cream during the films :)


The announcer was hilarious he was saying about a passenger on board who had a serious nut allergy so could everyone keep their nuts covered, well the whole plane was in hysterics :rotfl2: He then went on to say about no smoking on board or in the airport and if any one found where they could smoke could they please let him know as he was dying for a smoke :rotfl: Lastly as we were landing he said due to US regulations no dairy products, meat products or big bags of maltesers are allowed to be taken into the country so must be left with him!!!!!


So we safely arrived at MCO pretty much on time at 3pm, we headed to the passport control which always takes ages, get to the front of the queue when Ellie announces she feels sick, yeah right, so we tell her just to sit down and what do you know she’s sick :eek: all over the floor :eek: Now this is where I definitely become mother of the year, there are soooooo many people behind us that I find a bag and the lady behind gives me tissues rather than take her to the toilets, I know I’m a wonderful mum aren’t I but hey we didn’t lose our place in line :rotfl2:


Big excitement for David when we spotted Nick Faldo, a top English Golfer, collecting his luggage too!!!!


We found the ME desk pretty easily and I joined the queue of about 10 people, it moved pretty quickly too and everyone was getting Have a magical day, well guess who got a have a nice day :mad: :rotfl: The bus was waiting and as we were getting on the CM said “How are you doing” i the Joey way to the girls, I thought that was slightly weird! We were the first stop :yay: and there were only 2 people in front at check in. :thumbsup2 We didn’t get what we asked for but the next building along 7B in the Ranchos it was right near the bus stop and our quiet pool and only a few minutes walk from the dig site pool, so it was OK. Why is it though that the first try at finding your room you always take the long route :mad: First thing to do after travelling for over 12 hours is a swim and oh my, how good does that feel :cloud9: Food was the next stop and although we had the DDP we still shared 2 cheese burgers and fries as it was past midnight UK time so we were struggling to stay awake! Back to the room to find our luggage still not there so the girls went to sleep in their birthday suits :rotfl: This was after Jess had her turn at feeling ill!!!! The bags finally arrived at 8.45pm so I could finally crash too, so I just missed the 9pm that I was aiming for :rotfl2:

Up next, how early can we wake up………

[natalielongstaff]

great start Jo !! you have one week to finish them all :thumbsup2

poor Ellie :hug: i hate travelling so she has my sympathy

[irongirlof12]

excellent start. we are staying at CSR!

I sincerely hope you kept your nuts covered for the flight!

Did your DH :jumping3: at seeing Nick Faldo ?

[saratogagirl]

great start Jo, looking forward to more

[Minniespal]

Great start Jo, looking forward to reading more.

[jockey]

Great start looking forward to more!:thumbsup2

[florida sun]

Great start Jo, Looking forward to more:thumbsup2

[TinkTatoo]

Great start and looking forward to reading more

[lorapinky]

look forward to reading more:thumbsup2

[KayleeUK]

More please Jo :)

[DisneyJo]

Did your DH :jumping3: at seeing Nick Faldo ?
Just a little :rotfl2:


Thanks for the replies everyone, not sure when day 1 will be up as I'm buying the PhotoPass so need to wait for that :goodvibes

[BRobson]

Great start Jo :thumbsup2

[CHEK]

Great start, thanks for sharing :goodvibes , My DD did exactly the same this year but she decided to be sick just as we we're about to land at Manchester :rolleyes1

[fizz13]

:rotfl: Oh Jo, you really made me laugh, can't wait to read more:thumbsup2

[Ware Bears]

Great start :thumbsup2

Your poor DD :grouphug:

[disneyholic family]

can't wait to read more!! :thumbsup2

[angel659]

Great start jo.

Were you flying with VA? On my return journey we had a little girl who had a nut allergy. Nobody could eat any nut bars etc throughout the flight.?

Sounds great so far. I love the arrival feeling of the holiday.

[DisneyJo]

Were you flying with VA? On my return journey we had a little girl who had a nut allergy. Nobody could eat any nut bars etc throughout the flight.? We were Michelle I think it's great that they announced it :goodvibes

[DisneyJo]

So we’ve safely arrived at WDW and raring to go well except the jetlag :rotfl2: Two things I forgot to say, upon arrival I had 2 packages waiting, one from my good DIS friend DisneyLand_Mama (Tracy) which was a whole bunch of LGMH’s which she had printed my DIS Boards name on and even tied LG ribbon on them for me :thumbsup2 Thanks T :hug: The other was 16 pins that I had purchased from an Irish e-bayer and she kindly sent them to CSR for me :yay:



Side note to those of you who didn’t read my preTR before I went to WDW I had a cyst come up on my eye so in all the photos just ignore the fact I look as though I’ve been punched OK, David’s not a wife beater really :rotfl2:



After a good nights sleep I look at the clock to see 4am :eek: Now I know we need to leave the room early to get to our Epcot ADR but not quite that early :rotfl: So I managed to doze until 5am and then 6am when I just couldn’t stand it any longer and had to get up, we were all ready by 6.45am and were soon off to the bus stop. DH took a sneaky photo :rotfl2:
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000394.jpg


We were off to Norway to dine with the princesses, I booked this as last trip Ellie didn’t get to meet her favourite Princess Belle and I knew it was almost guaranteed she’d be there! It was lovely walking into a deserted Epcot and here are a couple of crowdless photos
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000398.jpg
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000400.jpg


We arrived at Norway slightly early and only a couple of minutes after checking in we were called and we were first :yay: And guess who was waiting for us ……….
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000403.jpg


It made Ellie’s day and I was so happy (I had managed to keep this meal a surprise!) We were then seated and were allowed to go straight to the buffet this comprised of fruit, pastries, cold meat and cheeses. Here’s a photo of my plate, near enough the only food porn I took as the family weren’t impressed!!!
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000406.jpg


A big platter of sausages, bacon, eggs and a cheesy potato dish followed but most importantly Princesses!!!! We saw Aurora, Jasmine, Snow White and Mulan all of whom were lovely although it seemed Jasmine was eager to finish her shift even though it had just started :confused3


Continued in next post!

[DisneyJo]

I love the expression on Ellie’s face in this one :goodvibes
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000416.jpg


So after a wonderful start to our holiday I was itching to get going, rope drop had happened 10 minutes ago you know :rotfl2: But as we’re leaving Norway we spot Mary Poppins by the water with no queue :yay: So we just had to see her and oh wow she was amazing, she was chatting away to the girls and was hilarious did you know when flying she prefers to travel by umbrella but it makes her arm ache a little :lmao: When it came to taking the photo she said to the DD’s in her poshest voice come along now chins up, no slouching :rotfl2: She was so on :thumbsup2
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000426.jpg


So now our mission was Soarin, Soarin, Soarin and now we were 20 minutes behind RD, I go ahead and get FP’s for all of us and we go do Nemo (walk on), this is so sweet and at one point it really feels as though you’re going under water, the last scenes are so clever too! We queue for the first Turtle Talk like good little TGMer’s and it’s great, Ellie refused to sit at the front with the kids :confused: This is the kid who danced on stage in front of hundreds of people in our local Panto last year, weird! Now the plan now was to dash to TT to get FP’s and then back but it was just too darn hot so we didn’t :eek: I know straying from the plans already :rotfl2: So much to the girls disgust we went to the Land whilst waiting for our FP time, I like this ride although I definitely remember it being longer and going into another greenhouse :confused3 Here’s the obligatory MH pumpkin photo :rotfl:
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000432.jpg


We jump off and it’s Soarin time :yay: We zoom on and what do I hear up ahead a big cheer and 2 dream team members telling the line ahead they had won ears, oh my goodness am I upset, it’s ridiculous isn’t it but I wasn’t happy that we had been so close, but ……………………………………

[mandymouse]

Great trippie Jo, and lovely photos too. I look forward to reading some more

Mandy :)

[KayleeUK]

More please :)

Great pictures of your DD's.

[natalielongstaff]

love the Mary Poppins pic :thumbsup2 your girls are so pretty

[irongirlof12]

awww, your piccies are fab, loving the report so far :thumbsup2

[CHEK]

Great report :goodvibes , your DD's look like they are having a ball. My DD's enjoyed meeting Mary Poppins too, she was lovely :)

[jns]

great start
looking forward to reading more

[DisneyJo]

So there we are standing in the queue for Soarin with the Dream Team giving out ears to the people ahead and I’m gutted, I say to David OMG can’t believe how close we were to the DT and he’s like who? WTH how is this man married to me? :rotfl2: So I explain all about them etc and that is how I won my lanyard in the post for goodness sake! So with me still sulking we walk around the corner, the one just before you’re told which line to stand in and the DT still have an arm full of ears and we get them too :yay: I was so excited whereas most of the people didn’t have a clue about YOAMD and how lucky they were :confused: It was really sweet as when we boarded our glider the CM congratulated us, but we still had to stash those little beauties safely away :lmao:

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000433.jpg


So all happy with a spring in our steps, well mine anyway, we head over to TT, now remember we were having an earlyish day due to jetlag and that the original plan was to go get FP’s before Soarin but it was too hot, well we get there at about 11am and the FP return time was 4pm :eek: we were going to be long gone by then and as the standby was about 40mins we had to miss one of our favourite rides at WDW :mad: Jess and I did go score some MS FP’s for later though :rotfl: So what to do? What to do? We headed to Figment (a childhood fave) and the line here was enormous too :eek: So we went to meet him instead with no line :yay:

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000435.jpg


He was so cute, he kept tickling us and pointing at our ears and putting his thumbs up! When we came out (the figment meet is in a nice little air conditioned room) it was hot, now remember this was our first day so it was hotter than hot. The girls saw some kids playing with some fountains and decided it looked a good way to cool off.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000439.jpg

It got Jess right on the head :rotfl2:


We grabbed some ice creams to eat in the shade before we headed off around the world. Ellie wanted to do the masks so off to the Kidcot stops we went starting with Canada. To be honest we didn’t really explore the countries much, I know, but we knew we’d be back and today’s mission was the masks, oh and a bit of stalking :rotfl2: Before I left I found out that another TFW DISser would be in the same parks as me for the first 3 days so I was keeping a look out for her :thumbsup2 So we gradually get our stamps and get to Japan where it was only 20 minutes until the candy lady, which the girls love, so they position themselves in front of her cart ready for her show. Last trip they were lucky enough to be chosen and both received a candy animal :yay: She was much stricter this time and each family was only allowed one which really is better as more people can have one :) But the girls were lucky again and asked for a unicorn, it was so cool to watch her make this and amazing when she made the twisted horn so clever, all the time she talks about the hot candy, yummy candy etc. Here she is making the girls unicorn.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000441.jpg

For some reason we never took a photo of the girls with their unicorn :confused:


Continued in next post here (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=20613843&postcount=105)

[DisneyJo]

We continue round the world getting more stamps, stopped and got Ellie some Disney Crocs and jibbetz which she had wanted for quite a few weeks. When we got to China we decided to do the film which we’d skipped last time and most importantly it was cool!!! We have about a 5 min wait, go into the cinema and as we’re the only ones in our line (you have to stand) I put all our bags down. Now what do you think was in those bags? Yep the unicorn and the stupid lady standing in the row in front of us decides to duck under the bar and she stands on our bags breaking the unicorns neck and knocking the horn off :eek: :rotfl: Now why she had to come under the bar is beyond me and the girls were upset about the unicorn but really it was quite funny how often can you say that your unicorn’s horn was broken off? :rotfl2: As we’re leaving China I comment to DH that we haven’t spotted ZoryLee yet and he’s so pleased so guess who I spotted only a few seconds later :yay:

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000444.jpg

It was so cool to meet another DISser even though her stalking skills weren’t very good as she walked straight past me :laughing: We had a hug and a quick chat, her friends felt the same as David regarding the DIS boards :rotfl2: And we were off again, DH and J did Maelstrom whilst E and I did the Mexico ride. I personally like the new Mexico ride with Donald I found it quite boring and very out dated before! Our FP time for MS was up so we headed there next and after about 5 mins we were orbiting the Earth, even though we did the wimpy green side this ride is great, I always wanted to be an astronaut as a kid and this is probably the closest I’ll get :rotfl2: Our tummies were now rumbling so we headed to the Electric Umbrella where we shared some chicken strips before catching the bus back to CSR for a nice cool off in the pool.


Our evening was pretty boring we caught the bus to DTD where we browsed the huge Disney store, whilst in there the heavens opened and we witnessed our first Florida storm, it was all over within about 20 minutes though and we just looked around the store some more. We ate at EofS after the good recommendations here and they were right it was delicious, we shared 3 meals, a meatball sub, BLT and the Montagu which had beef and turkey. They were all tasty and plenty for the 4 of us, we took the desserts home for breakfast. We then had more than a 20min wait for the bus :eek: and were tucked up in bed by 9.15pm!


Up next can I keep the P&PP a secret??????

[wicket2005]

Lovely report, looking forward to reading more.:)

[Tiggery]

More More :thumbsup2
Great report. Its good to get really detailed ones like these I'm glued :surfweb:

[natalielongstaff]

love your lime green lanyard :)

[spencem]

Great report, I love the detailed ones with pictures it really takes you back.:thumbsup2

[cazzie]

Great report and lovely photos. :goodvibes

[DisneyJo]

Ahhhh you're all so kind :goodvibes

Nat I got the lanyard from the DIS there are a load of us who have got them to help us spot each other, they're so bright it worked several times :) It's a bit late for your next trip but I can give you details of how to get one for your next one!

[DisneyJo]

Wide awake early again but this time 5am instead of 4am, woohooo we’re getting better :rotfl2: Today Jess was celebrating her birthday, she had chosen which park we visited, where we went to eat and which rides (well as long as they fitted with TGM ;) ) we did!

Ellie and I headed off to fill our mugs from the PM at about 6.45am, as we left our building a golf cart was going passed so we hitched a lift and within moments we were there :yay: We also picked up a badge for Jess from reception. Just a side note most breakfasts were either cereal bars that I’d bought from home or dessert (mainly croissants) from the night before! We were soon ready and off to the bus stop, when we arrived at MK a CM called us over and the girls were made honorary Princesses for the day :woohoo: They received a magical moments certificate, a special ring and they had their photo taken which was put into an album which the Princesses look at each week apparently! A nice way to start the day :cloud9:
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000455.jpg



We quickly went through the turnstiles and got a prime spot for the opening show, I know it’s cheesy but I love that first Mickey sighting :yay: After the show we headed for space mountain, we found a great uncrowded shady route by turning right at the ice-cream parlour and going through the Tomorrowland Terrace Noodle Station :thumbsup2 We now split up with me being the FPV and David and the girls riding Indy Speedway (sneaky way of avoiding that one hey!!!) I watched as they drove past and took their photos.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000481.jpg
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000483.jpg
Don't you just love how David waving is covering up Ellies face :rotfl2: Oh and they also were given a driving license :yay:


We then walked straight onto one of our favourite rides Buzz and Ellie won with 47200 points :faint: Not sure what happened there, I’d read up on where to aim and everything :rotfl: We then headed to Pooh (walk on) then PP which was our longest wait of the day at about 10 minutes. As we were leaving I noticed Philarmagic were letting out so we walked straight on to that one too :thumbsup2 I love this show, the songs, the smells, the incredible effects and even getting splashed, I always jump out of my skin with the champagne bottles too :rotfl2:


Continued in next post.

[DisneyJo]

It’s now time for our SM FP’s and it’s just me and Jess riding, the other 2 are too wimpy, now Jess loves rollercoasters BTMR is a breeze and she made me go on one at a UK theme park with 3 loops twice in a row so she was really looking forward to Space. We were on pretty quickly and it was much jerkier than I remembered, here is Jessica’s opinion of it……

Well I hated it because it was too dark as mum says I love roller coasters but not in the dark!!!! It was the most jerkiest ride I have been on so far, especially when you can not see what is coming up a head of you so that’s why I hate it the most!!!

So after our ummm fun trip to Space we go to find D & E who had been on IASW I know but at least J and I didn’t have to do it :rotfl: Now we had agreed they would meet us at the exit of SM and they weren’t there so we headed to IASW. By the teacups Jess spotted Alice and the Mad Hatter whom she had never seen before and as she is now older I let her stay in the queue whilst I continued searching. I eventually found them by SM but on the RHS near the entrance :confused: We must have missed each other and David thought the quickest way from IASWA to SM was via the castle :confused3 BTW he said he saw ZoryLee going into SM and never said Hi :mad: So we dash back to get Jess who was at the front of the line at last and she was also the last! The lovely CM had given Jess a princess bookmark and tattoos and some for Ellie too.
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000492.jpg



Next stop BTMR which we FPed and waited 10mins for splash, the biggest soaking was right at the start when another boat came down the slope :rotfl: It was now about 11.30am and we were starving so headed to the infamous CHH where as normal we shared :lmao: Well except for DH who had the Tuna sandwich all to himself. The girls and I split 2 of the chicken and fish combos and even that was waaaaaay too much food, we couldn’t manage dessert so again it weighed the backpack down, which of course D carried. :rotfl2: Off to ride BTMR and what is it with people sitting on the rails so you can hardly get past :confused: I know DH accidentally ;) knocked a few with the bag :lmao: Also when we got our FP’s the return time was for about 40 mins after we got them yet the queue was 30 mins, why do people not use FP? Oh well more for me then :rotfl2:


This finished up our morning in MK and the girls still had no idea about the P&PP :yay: We were back to CSR by about 12.45pm for a well deserved nap and swim!


Here are a few photos of the Dig Site pool at CSR.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000452.jpg
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000451.jpg
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http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000448-Copy.jpg

[irongirlof12]

how nice for the girls being made princesses ! fab day :thumbsup2

[DisneyJo]

We took a nap, yes we actually took a nap, the girls even changed into their pyjamas :rotfl2: We had about an hour and a half sleep and were back on the bus at 3.45pm not bad timing as I wanted to get to MK for about 4pm :yay: Now the girls still had absolutely no idea about the party and as we arrived at the MK the driver announced that the park would close at 7pm due to the P&PP, I said this to the girls and their little faces dropped I then went on to say well it’s lucky I’ve got tickets then :yay: I got 2 huge hugs and they were so excited!


We walked up towards the turnstiles and as we had tickets we went to the RHS where a red carpet was laid, we were handed our booty bags and picked up maps. We headed straight for POTC as I’d heard this gets really busy later and we were on in under 10 mins, wow this is so much better after the refit, I love the opening waterfall bit and it just all looks much more realistic, Jack Sparrow especially looks really lifelike :thumbsup2 We couldn’t believe when we got off that it was nearly time for our 5pm ADR at CP. Jess had chosen this, as her absolute favourite character is Eeyore and luckily Ellie’s fave is Piglet! We managed to watch the end of the castle stage show whilst waiting about 10 mins for our buzzer to go off. The food was nice and I really liked the pulled pork, the first time I’ve ever tasted it, it was so good I even went back for more. :rotfl2:

The characters here were great and Pooh had a serious crush on the girl at the table next to us, she was probably early 20’s, he kept coming back to see her, cuddling her, sitting next to her, and eventually pretended to propose to her :eek: :rotfl2: She was sitting with another girl of a similar age and they sure got lots of attention from those randy characters :lmao:

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000501.jpg
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http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000520.jpg


Then came the parade where all the characters invite kids up to parade around the restaurant waving flags, the girls both joined in.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000524.jpg


Continued in next post here (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=20753308&postcount=346)

[DisneyJo]

After our meal it still isn’t quite party time so we head off to Buzz, yep we love that ride maybe it’s the competitiveness in us :rotfl: And :eek: it broke down, but look at the cool photos we got :thumbsup2

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000530.jpg
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000532.jpg

We then headed onto the TTA or whatever it’s called now and we got to see them doing the finishing touches to all the party and treasure spots! We then went and watched these guys, bit of a blurry photo but it shows how quick they were moving :rotfl2:

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000537.jpg

We watched them for a while and it was really hilarious when they picked members of the audience to show their dancing OMG some of the dancing :lmao: Sure am glad I wasn’t chosen!!!! We then hit some of the treasure spots, some gave you candy (btw those little silver kiss things :scared: sorry :rotfl2: ) and the others bead necklaces each spot had a different colour, I think we got black, silver, gold, red, bronze and blue. We found every spot :yay: The girls met this character and I want you to tell me who she is??????

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000544-1.jpg

Ellie also joined in the dance party, maybe I did a little too :rotfl: she managed to get close enough to Flounder to get a photo too!

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000551.jpg

We also came across this, not sure if it’s there normally!

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000546.jpg


During the evening we rode PC x2, Buzz x2, Monsters inc x2, Carousel, SW, Tea cups and BTMR. We then grabbed ourselves a slushie drink and found a nice spot right in the middle of the hub where lots of people had sat down to watch the fireworks, it was great until 3 young people, about 18, came and stood in front of us literally just as the fireworks started, now if everyone was standing this wouldn’t have been an issue but we were all sitting on the floor including children in buggies and wheelchairs, everyone had a great view until they came :headache: So I asked her nicely if she’d move and she did but her BF said loudly stand there, block their view :eek: Why?????? I couldn’t stand up as then I’d block all the people behind so I watched with a partial view but OMG they are great fireworks, you are absolutely surrounded by them, awesome :cloud9: Our photos didn’t come out too great but here’s one.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000577.jpg

We then headed off to get a parade spot and again this is great, this and the fireworks are worth the ticket price! If you want to see some really great parade photos see LL and Janet’s TR’s, I’ll just show you the one we had to take of one of Ellie’s favourites Tinkerbelle!

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb54/disneyjo73/P1000600.jpg


We did a few more rides before heading home at 11.50pm, so glad we had that nap and lasted this long :thumbsup2

Up next AK!

[Chilly]

great report so far Jo, no idea who that character is!

[irongirlof12]

fab piccies, looks like you had a great time:)

[CHEK]

Great report:goodvibes , I want to go back NOW!! :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

[mark&sue]

What a brilliant start to your holiday.

Looking forward to reading more


susan

[DisneyJo]

After our very late night last night we were having a later start than usual, I went to the PM to get us all some brekkie, caught the cart and was there within minutes :thumbsup2 I loaded up the tray and went to pay, I put all the food and bottles of juice next to the till and :mad: the tray slot is not big enough for the trays and it all fell on the floor :headache: Luckily everything was boxed up or in bottles but how stupid :confused3 Oh also I got a bit upset this morning my eye was getting quite bad and when I was waiting at one of the stations to get breakfast I chatted to a lovely English lady but I could see her keep looking at my eye :sad: So I get back to the room and just burst into tears, I know bit of an over reaction but I was so down about my eye and what with chucking my food everywhere and probably a bit of tiredness it just became too much. Well David didn’t know what to do, this was so out of character for me, and the girls were really shocked too. It really made me realise how insensitive we are to other people, I would actually have rathered people just asked what was wrong, rather than stared!!!!


OK so all tears were mopped up and we headed for AK even with our late start we were there by 10.45am not too bad I thought :) We headed straight for the safari to get FP’s as this is one of DH’s favourites so a must do today. We then walked the trail whilst waiting. The girls kept themselves busy :rotfl2:

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At the gorillas they measured their hands.

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We still had loads of time before our FP (the down side of arriving late!) so we had a look at the time for the rapids, it was baking already and we needed a cool down! But it was way too long so we headed into the Flights of Wonder show, I know lots of you hate this but I like it even the cheesy tour guide, well maybe not that bit so much :rotfl2: David wasn’t quick enough putting up his hand to be chosen to sit on stage and the owl swoops directly at you, the lady next to us got chosen and she loved it, maybe next time! After the show our time was finally up that we could grab another FP so I went and FPed the rapids, with strict instructions that we would meet at Safari! We had an awesome driver who was really in character, which makes it more fun, David took a ton of photos but here are just a couple…..

It looks as though he’s going to ram us :eek: :rotfl2:
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Those darn ostriches
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And right at the end I made him take one of us :lmao:

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Continued here (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=20816131&postcount=424)

[DisneyJo]

After seeing lions we now became one in the LK show, this is a lovely show full of vibrant colours, acrobatics and amazing singing and yes I do sing along, sorry to those sat next to me, I do try and keep it quiet though :lmao: There was a sweet little girl in a wheelchair who was chosen to lead the giraffes and she had the hugest smile on her face, it was so cute.

We were now hungry and went to Pizzafari, which we actually enjoy, Tusker and Flame tree just don’t appeal, we wanted a light meal. Also I remember the ceaser salad here being nice. We ordered 1 pizza and a ceaser salad yes we’re sharing again :lmao: And both were yummy and just the right amount for the 4 of us. One great tip I got from the DIS was that cups of water are free, yes something at WDW is free :rotfl: So when we ordered drinks we always got at least one bottle of water to take away, always ask for large, a cup of fizzy or lemonade and always a cup of water. Dessert here is frozen lemonade which the girls loved, better than choc cake in this heat IMHO.

We thought we’d try our luck with EE FP’s but at 1.30pm they’d all gone, oh well another day. But we did see this go past….

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And the girls reckoned Minnie waved just at them!

Off to use our Rapids FP and we were on in literally a few minutes, we love this ride, the UK doesn’t have the weather for anything like this :rotfl2: It’s always fun to try and work out who will be the ones to get absolutely soaked and today it was Jess :lmao: But she loved it :goodvibes Don’t have any photos, sorry.


It’s now half an hour before the next Nemo show but would you believe the queue went past the big yellow dinosaur so we skipped that as I’d read if it was past that you probably wouldn’t get in :faint: So we walked onto PW instead, well Jess and I did, David and Ellie went in search of some shade. Wow is this a jerky ride, it would have been great if it wasn’t jolty but Jess liked it so that’s all that mattered. Ellie found this dinosaur whilst waiting.

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We also walked onto triceratops or whatever the dino dumbo is called, the CM was from DH’s home town of Norwich but the girls refused to say anything to her, not sure why they’re not really that shy :confused:

It was now close to 3pm and the original plan was to stay and watch the parade and go straight to Spoodles, but we were so yucky and sticky so headed home instead for a much needed swim instead.


Here are a couple of PP photos we had taken that day.

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We were lucky enough to have a Simba one taken…..

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Anyone see anything missing???? :rotfl2: I couldn’t believe it when I saw Simba missing :lmao: Good job my good DIS friend DM is handy on the computer, thanks so much DM :hug:

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Now that looks better doesn’t it :thumbsup2


To sum up even though we weren’t at AK for long that day we still got most of what we wanted done :thumbsup2

Click here for next installment (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=20872299&postcount=499)

[DisneyJo]

When we returned to our room there was a message saying we had 2 parcels waiting so whilst Dave and Ellie went to grab towels and refill our mugs Jess and I went to the business centre to see what we had :yay: One was a parcel from DisneyLandMama and it was 2 mistymate fans that she had bought from Walmart for me :thumbsup2 And the other was a little croc called Felicia who we were adopting for our holiday :goodvibes

After a refreshing swim the girls had a little bite to eat :lmao:

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We had made these at Goofy’s in DTD 2 days ago, Ellie had a rice crispy head dipped in milk chocolate, smothered in sprinkles, drizzled with caramel and cookie crumbs added to the top :sick: The CM had not realised Ellie wanted half sprinkles half oreo crumbs so added 2 lots!!!!! Jess went for a much healthier crispy head dipped in chocolate just with sprinkles and chocolate :rotfl2: You’ll be glad to hear they took another 2 days to finish!


Once washed and dressed again we caught a bus to Epcot, the plan was to get TT FP’s if they had any to use on the way home but that was a silly expectation really and they were as we thought they would be all gone. So we walked to the International Gateway and caught a boat to Spoodles, this was the first stop. On our way David turned around and said “We’re not meeting any mad DISser’s tonight are we?” :rotfl2: now up to this point we’d only briefly met Zorylee, little did he know what would happen later in the holiday :lmao:


We were sat within a few minutes and I was quite impressed, I thought the atmosphere was great and loved the whole feel of the restaurant :) Overall the food was nice but Jess and I found it too spicy, we had the Kabobs and wish we’d asked for the sauce on the side, the waiter said to David about his meal being spicy (which David said it wasn’t!) but never warned us :confused: I had the Crème Brule which was nice, Jess was meant to order off of the adults menu but really wanted ice cream and this is what they brought her……….

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Once our tummies, well David’s and Ellie’s, were full we had a mosey around the Boardwalk, I love this area so peaceful, relaxing and pretty. We wandered a few shops, grabbed a box of doughnuts using a SC for our breakfast tomorrow, watched a great entertainer who balanced a ladder on his chin and just chilled out! We decided to go check out the mini golf near the Swan hotel, for those of you who don’t know just walk between the swan and dolphin and keep walking, it’s just the other side of the road! Well the fun one (Fantasia Gardens) had a 30 minute wait which we decided was too long but the tough one (Fantasia Fairways) was a walk on but the CM said it was really difficult, would take 1 ½ hours, really tough etc etc well I really wanted to pull David’s PGA card out and say do you think we’ll find it hard :lmao: But I didn’t :lmao: Anyway we decided that this it was too late to start that course and we headed back. We decided to catch the bus to MGM but took a few photos on the way……..

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Felicia really wants to stay here one day!

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At MGM Jess traded pins, she chose a Lion King one and the CM told her that it was a keeper and not to trade it as it was a limited edition and only 1000 were made, well done Jess :thumbsup2

We were home to CSR by 9pm watched a little Tele before dreaming of which water slides we’d be zooming down tomorrow :goodvibes

Click here for next installment (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=20922726&postcount=532)

[DisneyJo]

Today was a water park day :yay: Last trip we went to both water parks but we loved BB best so that was the plan today. The water parks have EMH’s every morning and although I normally avoid them like the plague this was different. We ate some doughnuts and cereal bars for breakfast washed down with pink lemonade, very healthy :rotfl2:


We boarded an empty bus, one of the huge perks of CSR is that the buses were very rarely crowded even after fireworks, and we were soon at BB, it literally is only across the road. We waited about 10 minutes before the park opened and we got our wristbands and we were in. We had decided not to take any valuables with us and just chuck our stuff on a chair and save a few bucks :rotfl2: David kept our KTTW in his sealed trunks pocket.


So plan for the day, rides, rides, rides :rotfl: We got into the near enough empty queue for the chair lifts, shows how empty it was as we didn’t even have a single rider with us :thumbsup2 We were nearly at the top and :eek: we stop, now have I told you that my oh so brave hubbie is scared of heights and it is a huge accomplishment for him to get on here in the first place, well as we’re swinging there for absolutely ages, me and Jess are spotting lizards, watching daft people going down summit plummet just having a nice girly chat whilst David is holding on for dear life whilst trying not to show his fears to Ellie :lmao: We literally were stopped for 10 minutes and all I was thinking was we were losing valuable EMH time!


Once we get moving again we walk straight on to Teamboat Springs, our favourite ride here, and it didn’t disappoint, we jumped straight into our own raft, remember we are completely dry, and OMG I totally forgot about those rollers at the top just before the raft is put onto the flume, they’re bumpy on your bum :rotfl2: Then we were off you zoom down a really wide open flume and the raft twists and turns and OMG that waters freezing first thing, now my wonderful ;) husband manages to steer this thing, he grabs the handles and uses his body so I’m the one going down backwards :mad: So I’m there trying to counter act it :rotfl2: We get to the bottom and oh so gracefully ;) we get out, why is so incredibly hard to get out of those rafts and keep your dignity :lmao:


So we get off and what do we do? Yep want to do it again but we didn’t want to risk a long chairlift queue so it was up those 698 steps (well that’s what it feels like) to the top and it’s another walk on :thumbsup2 We then caught the lazy river for 2 stops and grabbed 2 double rafts for Runoff Rapids, again another walk on, I went with Ells and whooped every time we went over a bump, she made me :rotfl2: When we got to the big pool I got off the raft and managed to tip the whole thing over and dunked Ellie, whoops, good job she’s a good swimmer :rotfl: We then all grabbed single rafts and were off again, once at the top we didn’t realise that single rafts had to go down the covered flume and Ellie, who did it in 2005 and loved it, totally freaked and refused :headache: So get ready to flame me, we told her to stay put and we rode down :blush: We then grabbed another single and a double and walked up again, we were slightly wishing now that there was actually a queue because our legs were burning from all the steps :lmao: So we find our little angel and she’s perfectly fine and all is well again. Ellie and I jump in the double whilst Jess and David go singularly. We decide that after 3 turns we really should go find another slide.

Continued in next post here (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=20922748&postcount=533)

[DisneyJo]

Caught the lazy river for one stop, we had this to ourselves :cloud9: Next stop was Downhill Double Dipper, we grabbed a ring and within a few minutes we were plummeting down, this is a great ride but near the bottom you go through a wall of water and ouch that hurts your face! Up some more steps to the Toboggan racers, we all lined up and I won :yay: David said I cheated and went before I was meant to, sore loser I think :lmao: David and Jess went again whilst Ellie and I went on Snow Stormers which is right next door. Ellie doesn’t like TR because she is the lightest so she never wins :confused: She loved SS but all those twists and turns hurt my back, obviously being short was good on this ride :rotfl2: On both rides you have a foam toboggan which you lay face first on holding the handles, now the trick on TR is to just kneel on it and when the CM says go you launch yourself forwards and down to get extra speed :thumbsup2 Oh just remembered that the first go on TR as I launched myself I missed the raft and scrapped all my knees on the way down :eek: at least I won though :rotfl: It was now 9.20am and we’ve done so much, I can’t stress enough you must get there early it’s great! We did another race down TR and David did win this time, it happened every time after that, that I would win right up until the very last moment and as we went under the finishing line he’d pass me :mad: Must be because he’s soooooo much heavier :rolleyes1 :rotfl2:


Back in the lazy river, why do the girls refuse to be lazy here? They swam and pulled us around in our floats. We then did the raft ride 2 more times and there was now a photopass man there.

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The girls wanted to play in the kiddie area…………….

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Neither of them could manage the one where you have to hold on to netting above you and step onto the icebergs, I think Jess managed 2 steps and Ellie 3 :rotfl2:

It was now 11.15am and we were starving, we had lunch at Avalunch as normal we shared, we had a hot dog and a Turkey club wrap, these came with a bag of crisps, drink and a choice of ice lolly, a good deal for a CS I think. It was all delicious and the girls enjoyed having some crisps rather than fries for a change.


We gathered our stuff had a quick dry off dumped our towels and headed to the mini golf. Last trip we played the Winter Course so this time we played the Summer one, sorry there are no photos as we didn’t want to leave our camera when we went to BB. Again we don’t get mini golf like these here in England so we have tons of fun. And with David being a golf pro things get a bit competitive, first hole Ellie and I get a 2 whilst D has a 3 and J a 4, E and I are beating D :yay: :rotfl2: Well it didn’t last long!!!!! Now things I’m afraid get really fuzzy sorry, I do remember that it was great fun but incredibly hot, D, E and I got 2 holes in one and J got 1 and the final scores were pretty tight Jess took 46 shots, Ellie 44, me 39 and David 37, way off the course record :rotfl2: I would highly recommend the course but maybe not in the middle of the day :rotfl:

Up next HDDR!

[KayleeUK]

Brilliant Jo :) Loving your reports.

[DisneyJo]

We had a nice well earnt rest out of the sun and about 4pm we headed to the front desk to pick up our tickets before catching the bus to MK, we decided to take the leisurely boat over to Fort Wilderness where Hoop dee doo review was being held. I never realised how much water there is out there, we passed loads of little speed boaters and most of them waved as they whizzed past. We were lucky to get a seat as several people had to stand!!!


We were there so early so we had a walk around, we found stables with about 6 horses in, these were huge horses not sure if they’re used in parades, but they were beautiful some had their tails all plaited. We were trying to find the petting farm but I’ve since found it’s gone, well they need to take the signs down then :headache: We came across a blacksmith and he was reshoeing a horse so we watched for about 10 minutes, it was really interesting how he shaped the metal, heated it up cooled it down etc I don’t think the girls have ever seen this done before and they couldn’t believe it didn’t hurt the horse when he hammered it on :rotfl2: BTW it’s not a good idea to wear flip flops here :scared:

So we go and check in and have the obligatory photo taken, I wish this automatically went onto your photo pass! We found a cool spot to wait, the girls did a bit of pin trading and we just people watched. Well you can’t believe the scene we saw, this mum started shouting at her kid, dragged her off threatening her with everything under the sun. They returned and only about a few minutes later it happened again but with smacking too :eek: but this time we didn’t see them return, not sure if they ever went into the show, whatever my kids had done I wouldn’t waste 2 TS credits each :rotfl:

We eventually get called and our seats (category 3 all I could get even though I booked 180 days out!) were upstairs but they were great :thumbsup2 We all sat in a row along the balcony and the stools swivelled so you could eat then turn around to watch! When we got there salad and corn bread were waiting for us, not too sure about the corn bread :rotfl:

Here’s Felicia waiting for it to start.
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Our waiter swiftly bought us our drinks and the show started. The actors came out with huge whoops and squeals it was really high energy, there was singing and dancing and silly jokes. They performed a silly song about ribs and chicken (well I think :lmao:) and our waiter came and literally slammed our food down, OMG I nearly had a heart attack :rotfl2: The food was served in pails and it was pretty tasty, you could have extras of any thing, we got some extra chicken which had loads of meat on :thumbsup2 Then it was the main part of the show, it was all clean innocent fun and even though we weren’t American we understood most of it :)

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They serenaded anniversary couples, honeymooners etc and sung birthday greetings. And before we knew it the waitresses were also on the stage singing about strawberry shortcake! Now this dessert was totally not what I was expecting, very different to here it was very cakey!

Even though we were sat upstairs we were still very much part of the show, the actors came upstairs too. After dessert washboards were handed out and the girls had a wail of a time playing these and twirling their napkins.

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I was so worried David wouldn’t enjoy HDDR but I needn’t have as he said it was the best thing so far :goodvibes


We grabbed the first bus we saw which was to MGM so we could transfer but just as we were leaving FW a girl near us suddenly screamed and her and her dad jumped off the bus, the rest of her family told us that she had taken out her brace to eat her food and had left it there :eek: The bus driver was really kind and waited and within a couple of minutes they were back and luckily they’d found it just as the CM’s were about to chuck it all in the trash!!! The whole bus cheered :lmao:


We did a quick transfer and were soon headed back to CSR as the girls were on a mission. Tonight was the premiere of HSM2 and we weren’t getting it here until September 21st so they HAD to see it :rotfl2: We made it back in time and I went off to the PM to refill our mugs, but on the way had a quick relax in one of the hammocks, there was a man playing the steel drums and as I swung looking into a cloudless sky the music floated across the lake, maybe I was starting to like this resort after all :cloud9: After about 10 mins I went and refilled our mugs and used 1 CS credit on 2 croissants and an OJ, yes I know what a bad deal that I could have gotten a steak etc but we just couldn’t eat all the food and this way we had breakfast ready in our room for tomorrow, so it worked for us :thumbsup2


The girls absolutely loved HSM2 and I think over the whole trip we must have watched it about 3 or 4 times!!!!

[DisneyJo]

Saturday 18th August

Just wanted to start today with this photo of Ellie :rotfl2:
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Today was Ellie’s day to choose what we did and where we went and she had chosen, 180 days ago, to dine with Cindy in her castle and the wonderful Mother that I am ;) I managed to book a much coveted ADR! But first we were on a secret mission, to get the girls to BBB with them not knowing! First a little back tracking, for the whole trip so far Jess had been admiring all the girls who had been to BBB I even had to lie saying that I found out about it too late and by the time I tried to book they were already full, can’t believe she believed I didn’t know about something in Disney :rotfl:

Well we had prepared the girls the night before that on our way to MK we would have to do a slight detour to DTD as David wanted to go to a golf shop which only opened on Saturdays :rolleyes1: Yes they fell for it :lmao: So we grab a bus and I’m praying no little girls will be talking about going to BBB and luckily we had it to ourselves, we arrive pretty early, we’d been up since 7.30am and eaten our croissants and had caught the bus at 9am our appointment was at 9.30am. So we amble around take a few photos.

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We wander into BBB and I spring the surprise :yay: They are soooooo happy especially Jess, we check in and the girls are given the leaflet with their names on and they choose their hairstyle, both choose Disney Diva, at least they didn’t go for the multi coloured hair!

We were seated pretty quickly, you go in to a salon type room with about 8 chairs and fairy godmothers everywhere, I’m glad we had an early appointment as I’m sure they get back logged! Ellie’s FGM was called Rosa and Jess’s was Bea, the girls got to choose what colour makeup, which face jewel, hair colour and clips they wanted and they got to keep the unused stuff :) They both thoroughly enjoyed all the pampering, OMG what have I done :rotfl:

A few mid pampering ones.
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Now before and after.
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[DisneyJo]

We then headed over to the Photo Studio as thanks to the DIS I knew that you could have the shoot added to your Photo Pass. We waited whilst Jasmine and Belle had there photos done and I was now wishing I’d insisted the girls had worn better outfits, especially Ellie who was wearing sneakers :eek: Here are some of those photos.

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In total about 20 photos each were taken and I know I’m biased but I think they turned out great!

After quite a bit of researching what was the best way to get from DTD to MK it was so simple in the end, we grabbed a bus to the Poly then monorailed over to the MK.

[DisneyJo]

So we’d made our way to MK at about 11.15pm and the girls were all Bibbidi bobbidi booed up, we had a date with Cinderella at 12.05pm so we had a little time, first a photo!

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Oh and one from our first day that I forgot :rotfl:
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We went and FPed Buzz and jumped on CofP I love this and can still remember it from when I was little. Come on everyone, you know you want to :rotfl:

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of ev'ryday
There's a great big beautiful tomorrow
And tomorrow's just a dream away

Man has a dream and that's the start
He follows his dream with mind and heart
And when it becomes a reality
It's a dream come true for you and me

So there's a great big beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of ev'ryday
There's a great big beautiful tomorrow
Just a dream away

Trouble was we were cutting it fine with our ADR and I found myself checking my watch all the time, even working out how long each segment took and trying to work out how long until we got off :headache: Luckily we were fine and made it to CRT a tiny bit early. We had to wait about 5 minutes to meet Cinderella and I can’t believe I forgot to put the free photo that you get onto my photo pass CD!!! So here is one of the ones we took

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The castle is so pretty with lots of stain glassed windows and beams, the restaurant is on the first floor and to get there you need to climb a spiral staircase that seems to go on forever. Lord and Lady young ;) were seated straight away quite near the middle of the room, our starter was quick to arrive and it consisted of a plate of meats, cheeses, salad and grapes, the girls I think ate a grape each :rotfl2: David ordered the pasta and I had the Major Domo’s pie, this was delicious tender beef in a rich red wine sauce topped with puff pastry, the only bit I didn’t really care for was the shredded vegetables which were a bit hard! The characters were soon announced and this is who we saw………….

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The Fairy Godmother was great and the first time we’d seen her, she was so “on” whilst chatting to the girls :goodvibes:

The girls had ice cream for dessert and loved the chocolate crowns :rotfl2:

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During dessert we had the wishing ceremony, the girls were told to hold up their wands and wishing stars that they’d been given when we arrived, to close their eyes wave the wands and wish. This was so cute and little lights sparkled all around the castle, sweet!

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Even Felicia had a wish!
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With the ceremony finished we were all stuffed and actually ready for a nap, but no time for that today, MK closed early due to another P&PP and we had a parade to catch!!!!

[Minniespal]

Lovely photos Jo:thumbsup2

[KayleeUK]

What Gorgeous Girls :) Beautiful eyes :hug:

[natalielongstaff]

just catching up with your report :) what lovely pictires of CRT :thumbsup2

[DisneyJo]

Thanks for the replies :grouphug:

[DisneyJo]

After finishing our meal we had a Buzz FP burning a hole in our pocket so we rode that before staking a parade viewing spot. It was absolutely boiling so a shady spot was essential, we had about 20 minutes before the parade started and we managed to find one outside the pin trading store underneath a planter. The girls asked if they could go look around the shop and this is one advantage of them getting older that I feel fine saying they can go together, also it was only about a metre away :rotfl2: Well Jess comes back all excited saying she was given a certificate for speed trading, so what does a good Mum do? Well send Ellie back in to see if she can get one too :lmao: She doesn’t get a certificate but she was lucky enough to get dream pins :yay: Now I explained that one was for her and one to give away, she replies that she wants to keep them both :mad: Again I explain, now she is an incredibly bright girl, top set for everything at school so what was so hard to understand? I went on about how standing right next to her ie Jess was someone she could share with. NO. OK Ellie you have to give one away and if not your sister then lets find someone else, eventually, literally it took about 5 minutes, she decided to let Jess have the other one, phew!!!

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It’s finally time for the parade and even with the mistymates it was scorching, we were all dripping :scared: Here are just a couple of parade shots for you, look at how close Hook was he sure scared the girls :lmao:

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By now we were in dire need of some icy cold refreshment so where do we go? To try the infamous Dole Whip of course :) David, Jess and I had the dole float and Ellie had a coke one. I did enjoy this, the pineapple juice was delicious but I’m afraid it wasn’t as yummy as I’d expected! David even said he’d have preferred a coke one :rotfl: But it hit the spot so I was pleased we got one! I ran and FPed JC then we rode POC, it kept breaking down so took a while to get on but at least it was nice and cool. David even had a conversation with 2 teenagers about sports stars salaries :confused: When it was our turn to board it broke down again and we waited ages, eventually it started and a huge cheer went up!!! We had a family of 4 behind us 2 boys their Mum and Grandma and they were hilarious, when we went through the battle scene they were shouting out duck etc it was so funny.


By the time we got off it was Jungle Cruise time, luckily we had a great skipper who kept us amused with corny jokes, you really have to listen though to get some of them! We had time for one more go on Buzz, yes we really love that ride, before heading out. Now we’d decided to go play golf again so we caught a bus to the Swan and then made the short walk over to Fantasia Gardens and decided to try our luck on the hard course, we must have looked more the part today though as no comments about it being too hard :rotfl2: We even have a few photos of this course as we hadn’t previously been to a water park with out our camera :lmao:


The Fairways course isn’t your normal mini golf, the holes look like miniature real golf holes, with green grass fairways, bunkers (although no sand anymore) and lots of humps and bumps. The holes are pretty interesting and I started off with a 2 whilst David got a 6 :yay: But as always I didn’t stay the winner. I did get a hole in one though on the fifteenth :yay: Final scores were Ellie 77, Jess 73, Me 66 and David 64 so he only just beat me! Par for the course was 61 so we did OK.

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And my hole in one hole!
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We enjoyed it but wouldn’t recommend it to non-golfers, as it’s not as fun as the other courses!

We wandered back to the Swan and caught the first bus, which was to MK, then we transferred to CSR, it was now 8pm so we went to the PM for some food. This took forever, the girls shared a cheeseburger, whilst David and I shared Chicken Fajitas, by the time I finally got them the girls had already eaten their meal. The fajitas were huge and even with us sharing we left nearly half of it! We chose croissants for dessert, which we would eat for breakfast tomorrow. We had time for a swim and were in bed by 10.30pm.


Tomorrow we hit MGM, would Jess ride TOT with me? Would she survive RnR? Would we have any DIS sightings?

[natalielongstaff]

oooh i hope jess was brave enough to ride TOT :thumbsup2

[KayleeUK]

Awww I hope Jess is brave :)

[DisneyJo]

We were up and out early again today and were at MGM by 8.50am, we joined the crowds (actually they weren’t that big!) watching the opening show we made sure we were on the right hand side ready for the ToT/RnR dash! The plan of action was that Jess and I would go ride ToT whilst the non-riders Ellie and David would get 2 FP’s for both RnR and ToT :thumbsup2
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We walked straight onto ToT and got the back row, I thought it was great nowhere near as scary as I thought my stomach didn’t even go :rotfl2: But Jess hated it (but now says she’d do it again :confused:) I think it was because it was another dark one! We met back up with the FPV’s and headed towards Star Tours, this was so funny last trip as Jess thought we really had gone into space :lmao: Again another walk on. We quickly met up with Kim Possible, who had no-one waiting! Backlot tour was next but the demo wasn’t running (I got to participate in that last time and was eager to get David chosen) so they just showed us a few explosions and stuff, not exactly very exciting! As we did the tour all the cars and bikes were warming up for the LMA show which was pretty cool. Oh yeah as we stood waiting a man, sorry didn’t get his name, spotted my LGMH and said oh I DIS, but that was it!!!! We ran into these guys next.

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It was about 20 mins before HSM but it was so crowded, I asked the girls what they wanted to do and they were desperate to go draw some characters, we watched the pre-show which is quite sweet, whilst David and I waited the girls saw these guys.

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We were soon in and we got to draw Daisy Duck.

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Then the girls, Jessica’s at the top, Ellie’s at the bottom.

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The girls enjoyed it so much we had to go straight back and do the next show which was Mickey and yes one of them does look more like Pooh :rotfl:

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Again Jess at the top and Ellie bottom, as you can see later in our holiday we got them signed :thumbsup2

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On leaving the girls spotted Emile from Ratatouille.

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It was now 1pm and we were getting hungry so we grabbed a box of popcorn and headed to the B&B show, OMG how hot is it in there, when I stood up :scared: Jess and I then went to RnR she was so excited, as we got on it decided to break down, we were sat at the bottom of the hill for about 5 minutes and she gradually got more stressed and panicked, I had no clue when the ride would start up again and we couldn’t get off, I tried rubbing her knee to reassure her as with those overhead straps on you can’t really move much. I honestly thought she was about to cry! Eventually we’re shot off into the dark (yes a dark ride again you know where this is headed don’t you!) I couldn’t enjoy it as I was so worried about Jess and did manage to grab her hand at one point. Well the ride stops and I look at her and the lighting made her eyes and teeth a sort of greeny yellow colour and she looked horrendous, I honestly thought she was in a really bad way, her eyes almost looked as though they’d rolled back :eek: Then the tears came, but I was just so relieved she was alive :rotfl2: Oh I wished I’d had the camera to redneck the ride photo as it was hilarious! Poor thing though cried all the way back to David, people kept looking and I’m not sure if they were bad mother looks or awwww poor little thing looks :lmao: So it was decided that we wouldn’t be going on that ride again :rotfl:

We were now absolutely starving and knew there was no way we’d survive until our 3.50pm MM ADR so we grabbed a sandwich, chips and some cookies from Starring rolls, as we sat down David said hey that tables got a croc on it!!!!! So I grabbed Felicia out of our bag and went to say Hi, it was MikeS with Faolen. He was so nice and we had a little chat, he was with his wife and DD and we got this photo of the croc meet!

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If it hadn’t been for the croc I would never have seen him, so the croc works :thumbsup2

[DisneyJo]

It was almost parade time now so we went off in search of some shade again, we managed to grab a great spot next to a gun stall (why do they sell guns?????) It was a great spot and the girls got so much interaction, sorry there’s a ton of photos but I just had to show what attention the girls got from the characters!

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Sorry, I said there was a lot :rotfl: We were now really hot even though we’d been in the parade so we dived into Muppets, not our favourite but hey it’s cold!!! The lady was just shutting the rope but let us through so I still didn’t get to see the key under the mat! The show is OK but after you’ve done Philarmagic nothing compares! We then browsed a few shops before heading to MM. Now I knew that another DISer Lisa (Zigzagzerr) was also dining here so I kept a look out! Jess and I had Ceaser salad which was OK but huge, Ellie had salad and David had the Artisan breads which were ridiculous they could have fed us all for lunch :rotfl:

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After our starters I sent Ellie off to stalk ;) She did a circuit of the restaurant and reported back that she had spotted 3 people in lime green shirts, which I guessed to be them :lmao: So we went to say Hi and it was :yay: Lisa and her family were so sweet, we had a quick chat about, ummm not sure now must have been Disney though :rotfl: took a few photos and left them to eat.

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So that took us up to 3 DIS sightings today :yay:


I then had the chicken parmesan which was fine, David had the steak which he thought was nice and both girls had pizza and as they ate it all they must have been good too! D & J were too full for dessert much to the dismay of our waiter as he kept saying that the meal (we did the fantasmic package) was the same price whether we had dessert or not. E had icecream and I had the warm chocolate truffle cake which was really delicious but even I couldn’t eat it all :eek:


Now full we decided to head back to CSR and had the longest wait ever for a bus, so far we’d been so lucky I suppose we were due a wait! Anyway we were still back there by 5.40pm, D & J went for a swim whilst E played with her toys and I chilled in the room.

Not much time for a rest though and we were back to MGM by 7pm our waiter had said to get to the fantasmic dinner entrance about 8.15pm for the 8.30 show which I thought was really pushing it so after wandering around a little standing in the queue for GMR for 5 mins before deciding we’d never make it we headed there at 7.45pm to find the reserved seats already really crowded, we were lucky though and got good seats towards the back as far across as you could get. I’d come prepared and we played cards and ate skittles whilst we waited :)

Fantasmic was good and here’s just one photo for you!

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We made a quick exit and got straight onto a CSR bus. As we were getting off a young couple were so sweet and gave the girls their glowing necklaces, but they ended up just staying in the fridge for the next few days :rotfl2: It was then straight to bed for another early BB day!

[DisneyJo]

Another early morning, are there any late ones :confused: we’re at BB by 7.50am and we are now so sad we’ve got our own touring plan worked out :rotfl2: So just briefly we did the family raft ride twice, caught the lazy river to the runoff rapids which we did twice, one go on double dipper, toboggan twice. We then caught the chairlift up (shows how quiet it was there was no queue) did the raft twice more and we were done and back to CSR by 10.40am when normal people were only just arriving :lmao:

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We all had a quick shower before heading to DTD for lunch and DQ. Everyone wanted to try EofS again and we actually got a meal each today :faint: We didn’t eat it all though :rotfl2: The kids meals here are such good value, Ellie had a pizza sub which was the same size as the adult ones, a brownie and drink. We had a meatball sub and 2 BLT subs all very nice again!


We headed to DQ and I really don’t know why but we didn’t get any photos here :confused3 We went straight for POC as this often has a long queue and after about 10 mins we were in, you wear a special visor thing and you’re pirates trying to sink boats and pinch their treasure by bombing the boats. Jess wanted to be Captain and steer us but she kept going away from the boats we were trying to sink so I took over, not that I was much better but we won :yay: Next was the jungle cruise and we’re useless you sit in an inflatable boat on a big inflatable cushion and have to row. There is a big screen in front of you and you get sprayed with water and thrown around a bit, good fun but we didn’t get to the end :sad1: The people next to us completed the course so quickly :confused3 but they didn’t have as much fun shouting at their kids to row :lmao: We were now thoroughly exhausted but spotted Aladdin so jumped in the line, this is a virtual reality game, you’re trying to collect jewels whilst flying on a magic carpet, you had to wear a big hat thing (I know I’m so technical :rotfl:) and it was so cool as you could hear and see your team, we were all monkeys and David looked pretty hot ;) We managed to complete this one so we were getting better! Next up was the pinball game, OMG I haven’t got a clue what we were meant to be doing, you stood on a pad and holding onto a bar you had to jump around bouncing from side to side trying to move your ball on a screen, well I got more points than David so I suppose I must have been doing something right!!!! We then spent some time just playing the arcade games, basketball and the Starwars ride before we’d all had enough!


We had a quick browse through the Virgin store before heading to the bus stop. We sat and ate our EofS cupcake whilst waiting. We were off to Epcot and decided the best route was to catch a bus to the yachtclub and get the boat to the international gateway, it worked great we were there by 3.10pm and we had tons of time before our GG ADR! We saw these guys on our way in and I’m not sure why but Ellie didn’t want to see them?!?!

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Near Canada we bumped into these guys who had no line and Ellie joined in again!

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We were all so hot and found the McDonalds stand and all grabbed McFlurry’s these were huge about twice the size we have in England and a great snack credit. TT had a posted wait time of 40minutes but we had to go on and it really wasn’t that bad a wait. Ellie and I decided to act scared for the photo :rotfl2: When I PPed it though I pushed my card in too much and a CM had to go get it out from around the back, whoops :blush:

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We did a quick fly through Club Cool to try some more soda before walking on to Figment, no queue today ;) This is so nostalgic but I still prefer the original from when I was little! As we checked in at GG, making sure to ask for the lower level, we spotted MikeS again we shouted Hi and waved.

[DisneyJo]

We had good seats, the food was fine and the characters were great, Mickey even kissed my hand :love: Here’s a few photos…..

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The girls with their desserts as you can see Jess didn’t decorate her cupcake she just ate the decorations :rotfl:

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The only thing I was disappointed with was that you only rotated through the first bit of the Land I had visions of seeing the greenhouses, I know pretty daft :lmao: We had a quick look at Soarin but it was 75 mins don’t think so! Ellie wanted to do Nemo again which we walked on then walked straight onto TT, I guess all the crowds were at Soarin :rotfl2: The girls didn’t get chosen to ask any questions but one boy, probably about 10, asked “can we eat turtles” :eek: You should have seen Crushes reaction!!!!! Little brat :lmao: We had a nice leisurely look around the tanks, we saw tons of divers and the manatees!

We were tired now so just grabbed one last photo on the way out.

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Back at CSR the girls wanted to go buy some postcards, on the way we had a laze around!

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After much deliberation 10 postcards were finally purchased and 10 90cents stamps!!!!! We used another CS for 2 croissaints and an OJ and the CM actually remembered me because I use my credits strangely :rotfl2:

Wow when I read this back we did so much today and it’s no wonder we were in bed by 9pm :rotfl2:

[marias]

I just love your trip report - thank you for sharing.

It makes great reading with the photos, you feel like you are living it too.

Looking forward to more.

[KayleeUK]

Brilliant Jo You all look so happy :hug:

[DisneyJo]

I just love your trip report - thank you for sharing.

It makes great reading with the photos, you feel like you are living it too.

Looking forward to more. Thank you Maria, you've just made my day :hug:

Brilliant Jo You all look so happy :hug:
Thanks Kaylee :goodvibes

[DisneyJo]

I woke about 7am to see the privacy curtain shut and the bathroom lights on, fearing one of the girls was ill I got up and found Ellie sitting on the floor doing a puzzle book :confused3 WTH she was doing goodness knows :rotfl:


Today was shopping day and the girls had a huge amount of Birthday money to spend, they had both asked all their relatives for $ instead of a pressie and both received an astounding $370 :faint: Lucky girls, wish I’d have had that much spending money :lmao:


We ate the previous nights croissants in the room, wandered down to the main lobby, posting the postcards on the way, bell services got us a taxi and we were on our way to the Florida Mall. Is it just me or do you all hate seeing the money going up and up and up in a taxi :eek: It wasn’t too bad though at $40 including the tip.


Our purchases – I got some brown MJ crocs, sneakers and a wallet (yeah I know, how did I contain myself ;)), David bought a few polo shirts, sneakers, some ripcurl swim shorts and a hat (beanie), Jess got pink MJ’s & sneakers and both girls bought several DS games. We then found the Build a Bear shop and they were in heaven, everything was half the price it is in England (well all our purchases were) and they made the most of it! They both chose a new bear, well rabbits actually, even though I think they’re too old for any more stuffed animals they obviously don’t think so!!!! Then they splashed out on several outfits, Ellie got a bargain of 2 Disney costumes for $20 and named her bunny Tinkerabbit :rotfl2: We grabbed a bite to eat at some sub takeaway which was OK and by about 3pm we had had enough and taxied back to CSR, it was $40 again, maybe we’ll hire a car next time, if we’re brave enough, as I still didn’t get to a Target or Walmart!


We had a lovely swim back at the CSR quiet pool I think there were only 2 other people in it, I got some laundry done, I love the US machines you can just get so much in them, I also came prepared bringing my own detergent, conditioner and dryer sheets.


Even though we’d shopped all day we decided to dine at DTD, this may have something to do with David hating the PM.:confused: We had our longest wait, 30 minutes, for the bus but we finally got there! First stop well it was Goofy’s of course, we had more SC’s to use up :rotfl2: Between us, well the girls and me, we got a lovely piece of delicious fudge, which didn’t make it back to CSR :rolleyes1 some big sherbet straws, lolly’s and of course some more make your own rice crispy cakes!!!! We still had 30 SC’s left :eek: :thumbsup2


We decided to eat at WGPExpress, I got the Quesadilla which was nice but too much sauce on the top and the others had pizza which they said were lovely. We had cookies and Brownies for dessert, well we took them for later :rotfl:


A little back story, David saw a Chicago Bulls NBA cap in the sports store on our first visit to DTD but it was quite expensive, he even went right up to the counter to pay, well I said hang on until after our shopping trip as we may find it cheaper, uhh well nope we didn’t so whilst we were here he went to buy it and guess what, no caps :eek: Remember this!!!!



We caught the boat over and again went into the Virgin store where David and the girls bought loads of CD’s and more DS games, BTW the prices here were exactly the same as the Florida Mall. Here’s the only photo of the day of Ells and I on the boat yes we're both really windswept but I couldn't post without a piccie could I :rotfl:

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We were home by 9.20pm and ready for lots of stalking tomorrow :rotfl:

[DisneyJo]

We were up and out, breakfast in the room as normal, and we arrived at Epcot at 8.40am. We joined one of the many queues about 5 families behind the turnstiles, as we’re standing patiently waiting I notice a group of people right up the front all wearing the TFW lanyards, I just had to check them out and when I got to the front OMG it was my great DIS friend T (DisneylandMama) now she had been going on and on about stalking me and giving me a great big hug as I’m not a huggie person, so I did it to her instead :rotfl2: I think I took her by surprise, but it was just like meeting an old friend rather than a stranger who I’d chatted with on the internet :goodvibes It was not awkward at all, can’t remember what we chatted about though and we took no photos!!! The girls chatted non-stop and soon introduced themselves to T’s DD Maddie and they all got along wonderfully too. Eventually David wondered where in the world I’d gone and came to find us and he was soon introduced to his future golfing partners Andy and Waldo he didn’t know at this point what he’d let himself in for :rotfl2:


We headed towards the rope drop and the girls were having a ball with the characters, lots of interaction. I don’t know why but we just didn’t take many photos :confused3 Here are 2 of Minnie though.

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Our main aim this morning was TT and luckily so was T’s, funny that :lmao: But David was waiting for no-one so we joined the throngs all headed that way too. I grabbed some FP’s whilst we waited for TT to open, T was probably 30 people behind, those strollers sure do slow her down :rotfl: We were so early that we were able to skip the preshow and head straight for the ride. We love this ride, it’s one of the few rides that all of us absolutely love, so when we get off David suggests going again. Now I was in a dilemma whether I should wait for T and I did feel guilty when David MADE me go again, sorry T but I know your motto, don’t wait for no-one :lmao: So we make it round again and still only wait about 5 mins. Here are our daft photos.

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You can see how early it was as we had the car to ourselves :thumbsup2 Also I know it looks like we’re being lions in one of them but a few days before we went on holiday in the rugby the mascot did that pose so the girls and David thought it would be fun, I know we’re a weird family :rotfl:


Next stop was to FP and ride Soarin, as I went ahead the girls saw some Dream Team members and wondered if they had any pins to trade ;) Well the DT asked the girls some questions, one of which was about FP’s and Jess even told the DT that you could have 2 at the same time and he was so impressed he made the girls honorary Citizens of Epcot, they received a pin and were really happy :) They caught up with me and we decided to wait the 15mins for Soarin, especially as the DT had said they were headed that way, we didn’t see them though :sad1:

We rode the land, much to the girls disgust, then grabbed some Brownies and drinks, they weren’t very nice :scared: As we’re sitting there we see T and co come in and wave, as T comes down the escalator I go and apologise for blowing her off but she totally understood :hug: We ride Soarin again followed by TT again we end up with a single rider this time though :mad:

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I love how TT can be added to your PP, I hope they do all the rides!


Jess and I now had a mission to go to Space, whilst E and D went shopping. Almost a walk on and I had a WNTW (what not to wear) moment, but sorry no camera, a lady waiting for MS was wearing a strapless white lace dress :eek: It was a really pretty dress but not for park touring in August, at least she wasn’t at AK on the rapids :rotfl2:


We find D and E and my sweet little girl had bought me a pressie, I wasn’t allowed to see it until we got back to the resort, but just incase I forget to tell you it was a little cuddly Figment with magnetic hands and feet and now has pride of place on my fridge door, she even insisted on using her own money too :love:

[KayleeUK]

Love your Test Track pictures :thumbsup2

We have hired a car for the day before just to go shopping, it worked out cheaper that taxis and we visited Walmart too :)

Keep it coming!!!

[wils]

Having a lovely evening catching up on TRs and I'm loving yours! Jealous your DD met Flounder though ;)

[DisneyJo]

Love your Test Track pictures :thumbsup2

We have hired a car for the day before just to go shopping, it worked out cheaper that taxis and we visited Walmart too :)

Keep it coming!!! We intend to hire a car next year Kaylee, we were too wimpy this trip but I really want to shop at Walmart and Target :thumbsup2

Having a lovely evening catching up on TRs and I'm loving yours! Jealous your DD met Flounder though ;) Thanks Jo :goodvibes

[DisneyJo]

Wednesday Continued

So I’d left you with me and Jess having ridden MS and Ellie buying me a pressie :love: We decided to wander around Innoventions as we hadn’t been there yet, I know this may sound daft but we just ended up wandering around aimlessly! We didn’t know what we were doing :eek: We turned into them :faint: :rotfl: As we passed the Firehouse we heard lots of cheering, saw the dream team and heard mention of points OMG someone’s won the DVC was my thoughts :yay: until I read Jen and Tera’s TR and realised it was part of the game and they probably had won fast passes :blush: :lmao: Oh well for ages I was really happy for someone, maybe a tad jealous too :rotfl2:


I’d read loads about the make your own robot and we decided to try and find that, it happened to be in the opposite Innoventions from where we were!!!! After waiting ages in line then listening for ages about different types of plastics etc we were finally able to race our robot. For those of you that haven’t done this you are in teams, Ellie & I and David & Jess, on a computer screen you choose different parts for your robot it’s colour, name etc and finally after a little practice you get to race against about 10 others. You do this by running on a sensor pad, moving left and right and you can even jump by going on a certain part of the mat. It’s so much fun but incredibly tiring, D & J came 4th and E & I came 9th :eek: You also got to vote for the most stylish and best named Robot, we didn’t win those either :rotfl: We had fun though and that’s all that counts :) Whilst we got our breath back we made our plastic robots, now I never realised how big these would be and trying to fit all 4 in the backpack so David could carry them was tough going :rotfl2:

Back to the Land and as we were about to go down the stairs to Soarin I spotted a lady with short dark hair wearing tan coloured shorts with a LGMH tied to her waistband, before I had time to say anything though she was gone :confused3 So if that was you say Hi :wave2: We now did a final ride on Soarin grabbing more FP’s for later before heading back to CSR. When we got there, about 2.30pm, we saw this, our first and last funny thing by the mousekeeping!

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After a quick lunch of 2 shared cheeseburgers a swim and a shower we were back to Epcot by 4.30pm. Ellie wanted to do Nemo again, OMG how many times!!!!! And as normal it was a walk on. As we passed the manatee tanks they were for once both there :yay: I love Manatees and these 2 were being very playful, too playful if you KWIM :rotfl: The CM was telling us all about them and they turned out to be 2 boys :lmao: one of them had lost most of his tail in an accident, they also eat between 60 and 100 lettuces per day, that sure is a lot of salad, they’ll keep the Land ride in business :rotfl2:

It was now nearly time for our CR ADR ……………………………..

[DisneyJo]

After about a 10 minute wait at Coral Reef we’re seated, we have an awesome table right by the tank :yay: We were allowed to have speciality drinks here on the DDP so us girls all got Strawberry daiquiris whilst David got a coke :confused: It did come in useful later on when the girls shared his free refills as there are no refills on the special drinks :rotfl2:


Food wise Ellie had no starter followed by the grilled chicken, her reaction :scared: then the ice cream sundae, she would have so preferred the pizza but as the dessert was apple slices and she really wanted ice cream, chicken it was! Why on earth can’t they mix the meals? Oh well next trip she’ll be an adult anyway!!!!


Jess and I both had Caesar salad, way too big and too much dressing, followed by steak which was good. David had the crab claws followed by the shrimp pasta both which he said were OK, good but not great!


Dessert was Ice cream for Jess, as always a success, Crème Brule for me and Cheesecake for Dave, both us enjoyed our desserts, again not superb but nice. We’re so easy to please :lmao:


Throughout our meal we saw so many fish, I know we should have done we were under the sea!!!! A friendly Ray sat next to us for most of our meal and the turtle (DH’s favourite) swam past several times. Loads of divers went past and they were hilarious, blowing kisses, asking how our food was, waving etc. One was even throwing stuff in the air like confetti :rotfl:


I would definitely eat here again just for the view, I know we had a great table and I probably wouldn’t think the same if I was at the back. Here are a few photos, sorry they’re a bit dark!

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Tummies now full we head on out and the plan was to use our Soarin FP’s but :faint: we were just too full to go on it :faint: I know we had the much coveted Soarin FP’s and we didn’t use them, but we had already ridden it 3 times that day!!!!! We decide to have a relaxing walk around WS before going to our VIP Illumination seats at about 8.30pm. We stopped and browsed in a shop and Ellie discovered that the princess pins she was trading for were a CM set of 5 pins and she had just found her 4th one :yay: We hit the Mexico ride, much better IMHO, wandered around Germany, tried to convince the girls that the Haribo gummy bears were not a good SC as we could buy them cheaply at home, eventually I won!!!! We always have to look at the Steiff bears as the girls each have the limited edition one from the year they were born, DH and I have the 2000 one and I was given a really old one which is still in mint condition when I was a baby :thumbsup2 We never buy anything though, just like to look, nothing to do with the price you know :rotfl2:


In USA Ellie completed her set of Princess pins, she was so happy and so was David as he found a shirt for $7 :lmao: The girls had been dying to try a kaki Gori so Ellie got a strawberry one and Jess the Rainbow. Here they are, I think the sunset must have been reflecting off the ball?

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As we wandered past France I spotted Lisa and her family in the distance sitting at a table by the water I shouted Hi but obviously not loud enough, sorry Lisa I should have come over :blush: We had had enough by now so decided to just go to our seats, well a sloped bit of concrete :rotfl2: The VIP area is right in the centre between Mexico and Canada between 2 shops. It was screened off by lots of trees in pots and you had to show your ticket to enter. We staked our spot and I spent the next 25 minutes near the entrance looking for Janet, but never saw her, Janet where were you????? We had a lovely position near enough central about half way up the slope, we couldn’t understand the people who had gone right to the front next to a low hedge as they weren’t able to see whilst sitting down, well we soon found out. Literally 5 minutes before the fireworks started they opened 2 little side ropes and everyone ran through them to sit even closer to the front. We, and about a third of the other VIP’s, didn’t know about this and we all got a bit mad, it meant that people who had been there the longest no longer had the best seats :mad: They were literally crammed into this front spot so we just stayed where we were, still having a great view but with space too :cloud9: I think this really does need to be managed better, but for future reference if any of you go there you now know go to the front at the sides :rotfl2:


We still had a great view but I must say it isn’t my favourite show, the fireworks are great but the bit with the ball just goes on for too long and gets *gasp* boring!!!!

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Once it finished we managed to avoid most of the crowds, caught the first bus home and were back at CSR by 9.40pm. Another busy day!!!!!

[KayleeUK]

Boring!!!! How could you ;) LOL

Looks like the girls loved there Kaki Gori's :teeth:

[florida sun]

Jo, I have finally caught up with all your reports and they are brilliant and I love your photos, cant wait for more:thumbsup2

[natalielongstaff]

ive just caught up as well :thumbsup2 great reports Jo....keep up the good work !

[arieljasmine]

And me! Really enjoying your reports, Jo, and hearing about all your stalking! Sssh, I agree with you about the ball bit in Illuminations!

Laur's princess:

[Chilly]

Finally caught up, keep them coming!

[tazz23]

I started reading about 2 hours ago and got totally engrossed! Just realised its after 1am! :eek: :surfweb: Really enjoying the reports- Your DDs are so cute and I love the way you seem to stalk everyone :rotfl2:

[tazz23]

:confused: BTW who was that character from a few pages back??

[DisneyJo]

:confused: BTW who was that character from a few pages back??Glad you're enjoying my TR :goodvibes The character was called Arabella Wisp and apparently she is the clothes designer for the Princesses :confused3 I even googled her and didn't find anything about her except her being in another DIS TR :rotfl2:

[DisneyJo]

Thursday 23rd August

We really struggled to wake up this morning, all those busy days were obviously catching up with us! We waited ages for the bus but were still at AK for 9am, just missing rope drop. Jess and I headed straight for EE whilst Ellie and David went to FP the rapids. As we waited in the queue Jess spots T (DisneyLandMama) grabbing her FP’s so we shout and wave :wave2: saying we’d probably bump into them later, but somehow even though they were easy to spot ;) we never saw them :confused:

We were on in about 5 minutes, the queue area is really cool and I’m so pleased we managed to see all the “real” artefacts :thumbsup2 I was slightly worried about EE after the near death ;) experience on RnR but Jess loved it, no cool ride photos I’m afraid as I was too busy hanging on :rotfl2: My only complaint though was it was too short, could have done with going around again, there again I think I’m so busy making sure Jess is OK I don’t enjoy it myself, next trip yeah!

We make our way over to the rapids to see a huge line, as apparently it doesn’t open till 9.30am, but they’d got FP’s and were right at the front too :thumbsup2 We walked right on and got soaked, but who doesn’t enjoy getting wet in AK in the August heat? They were all eager to go on again so I volunteered to take some photos, I was wet enough already :rotfl:

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It was pretty hard to get the photos as the raft kept moving :lmao:


We didn’t really know what to do now, the girls didn’t want to do the safari again, we did it a few days ago, or walk the trails so we grabbed the train to Rafiki’s planet watch, we must have been on the fullest train of the day it was heaving and when we got there we decided it was just way too crowded so we got straight back on and rode back, at least we had a sit down :rotfl2: We were pretty thirsty now, I think it was about 10.15am and I really wanted a float from Tamu Tamu as I’d read they were yummy and came with a cute souvenir straw but they were shut, so was every other stall/kiosk we came upon :headache: Disney really are missing out on $ by not opening them earlier especially in that heat! We were headed for the first Nemo show (11.30am) and as we neared the queue we finally found a frozen lemonade stall just opening :yay: She was having technical difficulties though so just gave us our lemonades :thumbsup2 Now 10.45am so we jumped in line, behind about 60/70 other guests and leisurely ate. Well only a few minutes later they let us in and we had to throw our half eaten lemonades away, luckily they were free huh! We sat right in the middle and they were pretty good seats. Now the nightmare began, CM’s just kept letting more and more people in, every possible seat was taken and still they let more in it was ridiculous, these poor people just wandered round looking for seats, it was absolute madness!!!! Then after all that the show was delayed, one man started chanting “start the show, start the show” :eek: about 1/3 of the audience joined in the others were probably also think OMG so unDisney :sad1: Well eventually it started and I needed a few tissues, so did David but shhhhh I didn’t tell you that :rotfl2: It is a lovely show, bit long and not sure if it’s really worth the huge wait, but really cute, just wish you couldn’t see the actors faces so much!


We now needed another soaking so used our rapids FP’s, the people opposite got completely drenched, isn’t it fun when it’s not you :rotfl2: Lunch was at Pizzafari again and the CM recognised me from the week before, she was so nice and explained that the service was slow today as they had all the Tusker House CM’s training there. Again we had a caeser salad and 2 pizza’s followed by frozen lemonades, we knew we wouldn’t manage all the lemonades so gave one to the family beside us, still sealed, their kids were happy!

As we were leaving we bumped into this guy.

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Now we had a great idea, David wanted to buy some golf stuff as prizes for his kids competitions and I wanted to look at some golf clothes so we thought we’d catch the bus to SSR and look in the Pro shop. All went well until we had to find the shop, tucked away behind the main pool, but we walked the long way round and when we got there it was shut :mad: We knew the course was shut but so didn’t think they’d shut the shop too!!! Anyway it meant we could jump on the boat to DTD which we enjoyed.

Next up do we find the cap??????

[KayleeUK]

Yeah more to read :) Thanks Jo :)

[Chilly]

great rapids photos

[arieljasmine]

Great day, Jo, thanks for sharing. I can't believe in that heat there is nowhere to buy a cold drink, very silly. Glad you got the free frozen lemonades though :thumbsup2 I loved the rapids pictures too.

Laur's princess:

[natalielongstaff]

those frozen lemonades are lovely......especially when they are free :thumbsup2

[DisneyJo]

The boat docks at DTD and we’re straight to the sports shop, we look high and low, ask the CM’s and no cap, ummm maybe David should have bought it when he saw it :blush: Do you think he was happy with me? Oh well still a few days left and they said they have deliveries all the time!!!!


The pool was calling so we ignored all the shops and waited for an eternity for our bus home, the girls kept us entertained though telling jokes I’ll just share Ellie’s favourite.

Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill?

To get to the bottom :rotfl:


This was repeated several times on the way home followed by fits of giggles :lmao:


We all cooled off with a nice swim, filling our mugs at the dig site, that was one big plus of CSR that they had an additional refill station :thumbsup2 Before catching the bus to MK then changing over to the Monorail. We asked for the front but it was already taken, so had to jump in a normal carriage. The girls managed to get a seat but David and I had to stand which was fine until a man asked David to move so he could take a photo of his family sitting opposite him, we couldn’t believe he’d done this as DH had nowhere to go :confused: Some people hey :rotfl2:


Oh well we were soon to the Poly and checked in at O’Hana’s where we had the longest wait for a table of the entire trip, about 30 minutes!!! But we were lucky and managed to get a table so just chilled :)


We had lovely seats, right by the window over looking MK. Our table was soon loaded up with food but the girls and I were too busy learning to hula :rotfl2:

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We had to do it as that was the only way to get the leis :lmao: DH was lucky though as Jess was given 2 by mistake so he had a lei with out participating oh and he had first dibs on the food too :rotfl2: The food here was lovely, the wings especially, although as normal we didn’t eat much! The meat is brought to your table on big skewers and we tried all of it. The potatoes were pretty tasty too, it’s also great fun to see all the meat being cooked. At some point during the meal Jess joined in the coconut races.

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We were stuffed by now and didn’t fancy the banana bread and butter pudding basically because I don’t like banana’s or bread and butter pudding :lmao: So we asked just for ice-cream instead. OMG you can’t believe the portion of ice-cream they brought us :faint: It was delicious too, flecked with vanilla, I forgot to take a photo of it until after we’d eaten but you can get the idea!

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On our way out we browsed the shops and found that they sold the flashing glow cubes, I think they were about $8 for a pack of 2, so Ellie and I got some and have had great fun with them now we’re home, I know it doesn’t take much!!!!


We monorailed back to MK then transferred to our CSR bus which was driven by a psycho driver, we thankfully got back safely and it was off to bed :goodvibes

[natalielongstaff]

another Fab day Joh......glad you survived the pyscho driver :lmao:

i am the same as david with shopping ;)

[florida sun]

Great day Jo, looking foward to more:thumbsup2

[KayleeUK]

Hey Jo :wave:

Tell Ellie I loved the joke :thumbsup2

[Chilly]

The joke made me giggle!

[DisneyJo]

another Fab day Joh......glad you survived the pyscho driver :lmao:

i am the same as david with shopping ;) Thanks Nat, so you don't buy stuff as soon as you see it :rolleyes1 :rotfl2:

Great day Jo, looking foward to more:thumbsup2 Thanks Sue :goodvibes

Hey Jo :wave:

Tell Ellie I loved the joke :thumbsup2 Kaylee don't encourage her :rotfl2:

The joke made me giggle! Thanks Claire, thank goodness it was a clean joke :rotfl2:

[DisneyJo]

Another struggle to wake up, I think these long days are beginning to hit us but hey we’re 1000’s of miles from home in our happy place we need to go go go :rotfl2:

Today was another BB day, our third of the trip we love the water parks, after waiting a while for the bus we were there by 8.10am and it was empty, what a difference a week makes and the fact lots of the US kids have gone back to school :thumbsup2

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We did our normal touring plan, boring I know but it works for us! Up on the chairlift, raft ride, steps up to raft again, lazy river for 2 stops, tube’s twice, double dipper then onto the toboggans. David as usual kept beating me right at the last minute, it’s that big belly I’m sure ;) :rotfl2: Ellie kept getting upset though because she weighs the least she doesn’t even make the finish line, I think I said this previously but today she even cried :eek: Didn’t even help when I pointed out that I never won!

So we went back to the top and really annoyed the CM because we did our own race with our own rules! When the CM said go Ellie went we counted to 3 then Jess, another 3 I went then after another 3 (I’m sure he went after 1!!!!) David went. The CM really couldn’t understand what we were doing, obviously we’re strange :confused3 Well we all still beat poor Ellie but this time sprayed her in the face as we zoomed past, whoops, at least we tried hey :lmao:

DH and the girls did snow stormers next, it hurts my back, before we decided on a long laze in the lazy river, OK fair warning there’s TMI coming up, skip the next paragraph if you want to!

My eye has been really inflamed all trip, when I pushed the cyst you could see the pus inside my eyelid, what ever I did I just could not relieve it, well as we’re going around the lazy David looks at me and goes ewww your eye’s exploded :eek: It wasn’t much but thank goodness for chlorine and the fact we were the only ones in there, sorry BB :blush: BTW I had the cyst removed last month and it’s nearly healed, just a bit red still where I lost so many layers of skin due to the sun and swimming in Florida!

So we go almost all the way around the lazy river and decide it’s about time for another raft ride, DH was having a few problems with a contact lens, us and eyes hey :rotfl2: He thought he’d lost it but found it again, in his eye!!!!! He decided to walk up the 101 steps whilst us lazy girls caught the chairlift. We jumped into the single rider line and the girls were soon on their way. Now my turn and it seemed every group arriving was a 3, I literally waited for 10 chairs before finally a 2 came along :yay: I thought the girls would think I’d fallen off, lucky David was already up there!

We did another run down the rapids but this time had 2 kids in with us :headache: You can’t be silly with others in with you, also JMHO but these kids should not have been on their own, they were about the same age as my 2 and even though they’re both really good swimmers, both have their ½ mile badge, I would not let them wander a WP on their own :confused3

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The girls had some fun in the kids area, still couldn’t master the ice bergs :rotfl: one last float around the lazy river avoiding all those freezing cold sprays before we stopped for lunch. We ate at Avalunch again, this time we splashed out with 3 CS, we had the wrap again (not so nice today) the Southwest salad (nice but slightly strange combination of the mandarins with the lettuce) and a hotdog which Ellie mainly ate. These came with 3 big bags of chips which we ate 2 of and saved one, oh we got 2 large lemonades (way too much) and a large bottle of water which we also saved. We used a SC so we could all get dessert, 2 Mickey cookie sandwiches, yummy, and 2 Minnie Strawberry bars, I love the enormous strawberries in them :goodvibes

It was now about 11.30am and time for another round of golf :rotfl:

[The Fetherstons]

Hi Jo

You all looked like you had a great time.

Enjoying reading your reports

My husband craig is also a golf pro and his clubs came to disney with us.

Regards a newbee

Kerry Craig and Adam

[DisneyJo]

Hi Jo

You all looked like you had a great time.

Enjoying reading your reports

My husband craig is also a golf pro and his clubs came to disney with us.

Regards a newbee

Kerry Craig and Adam Hi Kerry you found my UK TR :yay: It's a bit shorter than the one I have on the main TR board, 82 pages I think :faint:

David played golf whilst we were at WDW, I'm on Friday at the moment and he played on the Saturday so keep reading :goodvibes

[mandymouse]

At last I have finally caught up

I love your DD's joke (bless her)

It sounds like you were having a fab time, and your photos are great too :thumbsup2

[KayleeUK]

Brilliant time at BB Eewwww about you eye!

[florida sun]

Oww your eye sounds sore Jo, so glad you have now got it all sorted and it healing well:goodvibes Great day and lovely photos:goodvibes

[natalielongstaff]

another great day :)

i never buy something when i first see it....in case i might find it cheaper :rotfl2:

[DisneyJo]

At last I have finally caught up

I love your DD's joke (bless her)

It sounds like you were having a fab time, and your photos are great too :thumbsup2 Thanks Mandy :goodvibes

Brilliant time at BB Eewwww about you eye! I know it wasn't very nice :scared:

Oww your eye sounds sore Jo, so glad you have now got it all sorted and it healing well:goodvibes Great day and lovely photos:goodvibes Thanks Sue :)

another great day :)

i never buy something when i first see it....in case i might find it cheaper :rotfl2: Thanks Nat and actually I always do that too and normally can't fine it cheaper just wasted several hours :rotfl2:

[DisneyJo]

We dried off and headed to the Winter-Summer Land Mini Golf, we’d already played the Sand course earlier in the holiday so snow Course here we come :yay:


This was the easiest of all the courses and as normal we had tons of fun, the girls loved being squirted on one of the holes when you got the ball out, they even volunteered to retrieve my ball too :rotfl2: The themeing at all the courses is just great!

We played the snow course and I had 6 holes in 1 :yay: DH had 9 though!!!!! The girls both had 2 :thumbsup2

So scores.........

Par 56
Ellie 46
Jess 45
Me 33
David 31!!!!!

Yep beaten again, that’s all 3 times :sad2: Well as we’re leaving you know they have the best score of the day on a chalk board well guess who saw that they were the best of the day, yep David so he asked if he could put his name up :rotfl2: That made his day and he even joked how he wanted to go back later to see if he was still the leader, I wouldn’t have put it past him either, but thankfully we were just too busy :rotfl:




So all golfed out we catch the bus home about 12.30pm, we showered and just chilled for a while, the girls played on their new DS games and I read a bit, not sure what David did :rotfl2:


We decided to catch an Epcot bus around 2pm and as I wanted to stop by the front desk, pay off some charges etc, we agreed that they would catch the nearest to 2pm Epcot bus and I would only get on if I saw them! Well OMG it was hot today, when I got to the stop of course an Epcot bus just arrived and they weren’t on it :mad: I almost melted waiting for them, even under the shade of the mod bus stop ;) About 20 minutes later they finally arrive and we were off.


The rain clouds were coming, oh side note we had been incredibly lucky so far having only had a tiny bit of rain in the 11 days we’d been there :thumbsup2 As we get closer to Epcot it got blacker and blacker so the girls get ready for our arrival, look how Ellie just has to get in the photos :rotfl2:

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As we arrive the rain really starts coming down but we have a date in Canada, so ponchos on and we’re on our mission. We arrive right on time and quickly check in, we get seated in Yukon right at the back of the restaurant, now I’d read that the tables were really close together in here but we didn’t think they were that much closer than other places :confused3


Our waiter explained all about where we were sat, sorry don’t remember any of it and that we could have smoothies or speciality drinks with the DDP but no refills. The girls both order some watermelon thing and I had a strawberry smoothie, David being adventurous had coke :lmao:


For entrée Jess and I had the tomato stack, it was OK, David had the shrimp again OK and Ellie had a garden salad, she still says the Spoodles one was by far the best, she became somewhat of an expert in the garden salad department :lmao: But we weren’t here for starters were we, oh no bring us the steak, well except my youngest DD who *gasp* doesn’t like steak :faint: Oh well saves me some money!!!!!


We all (except Ells) ordered the Grilled 5-Oz. Filet Mignon served over cream cheese mashed potatoes, finished with a roasted garlic demi glace, Jess ordered the sauce on the side though and oh my :faint: the steak just melted in your mouth it was the best steak we’d ever had, words simply can’t describe how wonderful this steak was :cloud9: Ellie ordered Hot Dog and said that was good too!


Dessert was surprise, surprise an ice-cream sundae for Ellie, I’m surprised she didn’t end up looking like a sundae :rotfl: Jess and I both had Smores which were not what I was expecting at all, they were basically 2 thick chewy cookies sandwiched with vanilla ice-cream with a big marshmallow sticking out the top, yummy though even though I did give my marshmallow to Ellie! David had the chocolate moose and said that was good too!

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We handed over our KTTW cards and paid 4 TS credits, don’t you just love the free DDP :yay: So overall opinion, well David wants to eat here every night next trip, so I assume he liked it :lmao:

[DisneyJo]

It was still chucking it down so we decided to go for a trip on the monorail, no front seat again, here’s a photo David took whilst waiting.

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As the weather was so horrid we decided that MK would be empty and it was :yay: We headed straight to our favourite Buzz and walked straight on 3 times in a row, one time Ellie wiped the floor with us with a score of 277,900! We then walked onto the people mover, I said to the girls that they must listen for paging Tom Morrow, so about 1 minute after it happened Ellie goes so when are they announcing it? Yep she listens well!!!! The rain was really coming down now so we couldn’t go far so where do we go? Yep Buzz again :rotfl2: I then put my foot down and much to their disgust I said no more Buzz. We went in search of a funnel cake but somehow just couldn’t find the shop so walked onto Philarmagic instead, well you have to don’t you :rotfl:


Now the thunder and lightening started and it was right on top of us, the rain was lashing down and the lightening was almost constant, we were stranded in the Philarmagic shop for at least 15 minutes, didn’t buy anything though :lmao: Before we dashed to IASW as it was a long ride and well it was better than being in the rain!!!!! Again we got stuck at the end of the ride, we gradually dashed between lots of shops, over all we were stuck for probably 45 minutes and they were closing the park for the P&PP, I felt so sorry for all those people coming to that, some of them were in big fancy costumes too!

The rain eased slightly so we made a wish in the fountain, finally found the funnel cakes and as we were all wet the sugar completely covered us :rotfl2: We were back on the CSR bus by 7.10pm.


David got off at our stop to get the mugs whilst the girls and I headed to the main stop and PM. The girls surprisingly got cheeseburgers and David and I shared a Chinese combo, OMG this was enormous. Again we just got croissants for tomorrow’s breakfast. The rain was still pouring and the internal shuttle golf cart was full but the nice CM said he’d come right back and get us. The girls thought it was pretty neat going on this in the dark and with all the covers down. It was straight to sleep for my 3 angels whilst I sorted out some candy for our DIS meet tomorrow. This only took me a few minutes but look what I found.

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Tired or what :rotfl2: I did take one of David fast asleep too but thought I’d spare you that one!!!!

[scottishsue]

Am enjoying your reports Jo ! Even in the rain Florida is magical !!!

[natalielongstaff]

:rotfl2: ive got a cute piccie of my two fast asleep after a busy day in the parks !

[KayleeUK]

Love that last piccie :)

[florida sun]

Great day Jo and love the piccie of the Sleeping Beauties:goodvibes

[DisneyJo]

Major TR change, David was just reading the golf scores and apparently they were the wrong ones, whoops, he still beat me though!

We played the snow course and I had 6 holes in 1 :yay: DH had 9 though!!!!! The girls both had 2 :thumbsup2

So scores.........

Par 56
Ellie 46
Jess 45
Me 33
David 31!!!!!

[DisneyJo]

Am enjoying your reports Jo ! Even in the rain Florida is magical !!! Thanks Sue, us mad Brits don't mind a bit of ran do we :rotfl2:

:rotfl2: ive got a cute piccie of my two fast asleep after a busy day in the parks ! Don't they all look such angels when they're fast asleep :rotfl2:

Love that last piccie :) Thanks Kaylee :goodvibes

Great day Jo and love the piccie of the Sleeping Beauties:goodvibes Awww thanks Sue :)

[Fiona R]

OMG Jo, your Disney history is so similar to ours (we are a family of 5, our girls were 11, 7 and 4 on first trip, 17, 14 and 10 on our third last Christmas). We went on our fisrt trip to POR, and loved it, I did a ton of planning on Deb Wills Site so we made good use of the holiday!! Found the DIS boards after our return and spent far too many hours dreaming of going back, which due to amazing flight deals we did the following year, to HRH, and Cornonado Springs!! Since then DH has never come off the golf course so for our last trip we returned to our first love, yep POR (with DDP but only 5 nights, then Villa then Dolphin for NY), book him plenty of golf and we all enjoy Fantasia Gardens and I was extremely cross to lose by 2 shots.....or something similar!!

It would be great to have free DDP, but there is no way I could stand August heat to get it!!

Where did we eat on DDP? Spoodles, Le Cellier twice, Kona Cafe........ and that steak at Le Cellier, it melts in the mouth you know!!

Unfortunately I have only just found your reports, somehow I have to try and read and find all the days!! Keep up the good work, it's taken me 10 months to finish mine this time!!:surfweb:

[DisneyJo]

Thanks for reading Fiona, we're back to POR again next year, just can't keep away and DH had requested Le C at least twice :rotfl2:

This report has all my days in it so easy to find :goodvibes

[DisneyJo]

Firstly David’s account of today! (BTW remember he's a PGA Pro!)


Got a cab from CSR at about 7.40am arriving at Magnolia about 8am ready for our 9am tee off. After paying and getting my rental clubs, which were Titleist and a Scottie Cameron putter, in the Pro shop I found Waldo and Andy. (DisneyLand_Mama’s DH and Dad) We made our way to the putting green, overlooking the course, which was very misty after the previous nights storm. Coming out of the mist there was a group of birds which we found out were turkeys, I thought these were the only Turkeys I would see today, I didn’t realise I’d be playing with 3 of them for 5 hours ;) :rotfl2:


I noticed a cart with a set of clubs and a lot of boxes of golf balls, these turned out to be Tony (LL’s DH) my playing partner! I thought he must be a good player to buy such expensive balls!!!!!


A fun time was had by all BUT………….


Upon finishing the 9th hole Waldo was convinced he knew the way to the 10th tee, he set off in totally the opposite direction to Tony and I only to have gone the wrong way! As we finished playing our shots Andy and Waldo reappeared making out they’d gone to find the bathroom, yeah of course :lmao:


After about 5 holes a new rule was brought into play that the highest score that you were allowed to get on a hole was double the Par. This was a bit unfair on Tony on the 12th when he made the only Par (excluding me) and the other 2 lost 2 balls each on a par 3 and both declared they’d made 6’s :rotfl:



Tony’s greatest achievement was on the 18th when he found a ball in the rough, this enabled him to actually finish the round as he’d lost the $60 worth of balls he’d bought :eek:



Waldo put his bad golf down to the fact that he didn’t have his trusty 7 wood, Tony preferred to hit into the water rather than on to the fairways and Andy well he just stood the wrong way round ;) :rotfl2:



Maybe it would have been better to play with the other Turkeys as they were the only birdies we saw all day :rotfl2:


All that’s been said though I can’t wait for our rematch :thumbsup2

[Fiona R]

ROTFLOLAPMP :rotfl2:

I am going to have to train DH on his blow by blow golf telling skills!! I notice there was no mention of scores, was that to protect those with more balls than sense?:rotfl2: :lmao: :lmao:

[Chilly]

Love the photo of the Sleeping Beauties!

[KayleeUK]

LOL at Davids golf day :teeth:

[arieljasmine]

Caught up again, Jo, thanks for sharing your lovely trip reports. Hope your eye was not too painful, it sounds really nasty. We did Le Cellier for the first time this year and loved it - I had the same dessert as you and my hubby had the same as your hubby! It wouldn't be Florida if you didn't get stuck in at least one thunderstorm!

Laur's princess:

[DisneyJo]

Thanks for all your replies they mean so much to me :grouphug:

[DisneyJo]

As you know David had gone off to play golf this morning and the girls and I were off to meet some friends for a swim. I also had a look at how many DDP credits we had left seeing that we were going home in 2 days and we had 2TS, 14CS and 26SC’s left :faint: we needed to get eating!!!!


The girls and I caught a bus to DTD where we were going to meet DisneylandMama (T) and her children Maddie and Evan. We had a wonderful bus driver who said that as we were the only ones on the bus that she was our own personal chauffer and she would take us exactly where we wanted to go! She chatted the whole trip and even bypassed TL so we got to DTD with tons of time to spare. As she was so kind I gave her a Cadbury’s chocolate bar which I had with me (In an insulated bag with ice in as I had bought all the kiddies some English sweeties!) and she was very grateful :)


As we were so early the girls and I went for a wander around DTD before heading back. We found that T was already there and the girls were so excited about meeting Maddie and Evan again. We waited and waited for a SSR bus (the boats weren’t running yet!) but none came so I had the bright idea that we could walk, well it wasn’t very far was it! :lmao: Now I know this is Florida in August but it seemed like a good idea at the time, until we went the wrong way :headache: Then poor old Jess got attacked by a falling tree cone which landed on her shoulder and made quite a mark!!!!


After walking for quite a while we worked out that we were lost :eek: So we asked a nice man for directions, well he was from the North of England and T just didn’t have a clue what he was saying it was hilarious but luckily I understood and we soon found the pool :rotfl2:


When we arrived I spotted someone in a lime green swimsuit it just had to be Lauralee131 (LL) and it was :yay: There were wet hugs all round, Michael her DS was such a sweetie and the kids all soon jumped in, swimming, sliding etc. We commandeered a row of loungers and jumped in too, well we had to cool off after our little walk didn’t we!!!!

T was a bit worried about Maddie and Evan not having life vests on so her and LL went off to get some leaving me in charge of 5 kids :eek: This really showed how close we had all become chatting on the DIS boards that they felt comfortable enough leaving their kids with me! OMG I needed eyes in the back of my head though, we stayed in the very shallow end and luckily Jess loves kids and helped a lot. Especially when the boys tried to go deeper!!!! Evan did get worried for a few minutes wanting his Mummy and he gave me such a lovely cuddle he was so sweet! After what seemed ages, I now discover they may have stopped for a sneaky smoke, they returned with vests so we could all relax!

We were also meeting PrincessV (V) who was checking into SSR that morning with her son Leo and Mum. Well we waited and waited and waited some more :rolleyes1 Finally she arrived and she got very wet as we all clambered out of the pool to give her a hug too :rotfl2: Her Mum was such a sweetie and very understanding of her meeting up with mad internet friends!

Here are some photos.

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Yep that’s Maddie under the water :rotfl:


Soon we were all hungry, plus I had some CS credits to use up ;) The girls and I actually got our own meals today instead of sharing :faint: From what I remember the food was reasonable but poor LL waited forever for her food as she had saved the table for us, sorry LL didn’t realise you did that, so we had all finished eaten eating way before she even got hers! We all laughed at V when she got her camera out for the food porn shots, a true DISer hey :rotfl2:


The kids being silly!

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We’d had such a lovely time but I’d promised the girls a bit of shopping in DTD and we then had to get ready for tonight’s big Lapulapozza meet so T, the kids and I caught the boat to DTD. Now if you don’t know, T is famous on the DIS for her “What not to wear” photos and OMG did we wish we had had our camera handy on the boat, there was a lady who looked incredibly scary she had big dark outlined lips, big hair and bright orange nails, I kept looking over at T dying to say something and trying not to laugh :rotfl2:


Our first stop was Goofys and I let the girls spend 7 SC’s each, they thought this was wonderful and spent ages choosing exactly what to buy. I bought 3 pieces of fudge, cookies & cream, pineapple (strange I know but delicious) and vanilla, I didn’t finish it all until I was back in the UK! T was busy making pretzel rods or something and Evan had fallen asleep so we said our goodbyes until later! The girls and I did a bit more shopping, again looking for David’s cap but they still didn’t have it :eek: It was now about 3.30pm so we did a quick dash back to CSR to get ready for tonight!



We get back to CSR where we go for a lovely swim, we catch up with David who tells us all about his golf game and what a ummm fun time he had :rotfl2:

Suddenly we’re running late goodness knows where the time went so we do a quick dash through the showers and try and make ourselves pretty before catching a bus to MK.

When we arrive an almighty storm suddenly starts, the wind is howling and the rain is absolutely chucking it down, guess who for the first time in 12 days didn’t have the ponchos with her, yep we were stranded :eek:

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We literally just stood there watching it pour down, every time we contemplated making a run for it the rain got even worse! The bus shelter was getting more and more crowded as buses were dropping guests off and we weren’t the only ones without ponchos!

[DisneyJo]

Suddenly David spots T making her way through the crowds, she was with another lady who I assumed to be Kristi (sorul82? Or S’Late to her friends) I introduced myself and gave her a big old hug, she seemed as lovely in person as on the DIS and her accent was oh so cute and just as she said it would be she sounded just like Joy from my name is Earl :goodvibes

Now T had come prepared, yes it was due to a mislaid backpack by her DH, thanks Andy, but it meant she had 2 ponchos and an umbrella :yay: So Ellie ducked under T’s poncho T even made a hole for Ellie’s head :rotfl: whilst Jess and I shared the umbrella, poor old David just had to brave it.

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We must have looked such a sight and we couldn’t stop laughing, we even had to take our shoes off as the water was just so deep, luckily that Floridian rain is nice and warm.

We made it to the monorail pretty damp but we’d made it in one piece :yay: It didn’t take long for the monorail to arrive and we were off. First stop was the Contemporary where David and the girls were dining with Mickey so they jumped off.

Quick Chef Mickey’s review……

They all had a great time, David said the food was good but not great but the characters is what you go for and they were good fun so that’s all that really matters! The other day I was reading a TR about CM’s and they had a photo of all the desserts and I said to Jess oooh did you try the MM oreo chocolate dessert, she replied what? Looked at the photo and would you believe they totally missed the whole dessert area :faint: Knowing my kids they were only focused on the ice-cream machine and didn’t see anything else :rotfl:

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OK I really don’t know how to write this next bit, this evening has already been written about several times by such fantastic writers so if you want the funny versions check out these links!!!! Also thanks girls I pinched some of your photos!!!!

Tracy's part 1 (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=20960768&postcount=459)

Tracy's part 2 (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=20960768&postcount=459)

V's (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=21004026&postcount=201)

LL's (http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=21013239&postcount=262)

So I'd dumped my family at the Contemporary and I was left with 2 mad wet women on the monorail. We arrived safely (haven’t been murdered yet ;)) at the Poly and OMG I think the whole of WDW were there that night the place was heaving! T quickly checked us in and we found LL and V by the bar already drinking :rolleyes1

Our buzzer went off pretty quickly and we were shown to our table, well via the dessert area, I didn’t need to see it though thanks to the food porn thread :rotfl2: We were sat at a nice big round table in the GASP centre of the room, OMG do they not realise they should hide us all in the corner :lmao:

Now the bit where I felt really guilty, everyone had brought such gorgeous presents for each other, literally big bulging gift bags, except me I gave them a chocolate orange :rotfl2: Ladies thank you so much for my very unexpected pressies and please warn me if you’re going to do it again!!!!!

Me and S’Late still holding her goodie bag!
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Our waiter came and took our drinks order, ummm what do they order do you think? Yep Lapu’s all round, well except me I’d heard they have coconut (which now I’m told they don’t) in which I don’t like! But as I’m such a lightweight with alcohol I just got a pink lemonade, sorry girls I know I was a let down, but hey someone needed to keep an eye on you all :lmao:

So soon our table was festooned with the first batch of those pretty pineapples, we were on a mission. You see many months previous when we were planning this little get together T typed that she would buy someone 21 Lapu’s instead of 2 and we never let her live it down and that was tonight’s goal 21 empty pineapples and with me not drinking them, well that was a lot of Lapu’s each :rotfl:

We all ordered, I know I had the sticky wings for appetiser and LL thought it was so funny that I ate them with a knife and fork rather than just pick them up like she did, well I’m obviously more lady like ;) :rotfl2: I do know that the pineapples were now empty so more were ordered, we (I mean they) were making a good start!!!!

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[DisneyJo]

We were all having such a fun time, can’t remember WTH we spoke about but there were tons of laughs and strangely those laughs got louder and louder, not sure why :confused3 At one point S’Late showed us her party trick of tying a cherry stem into a knot and wow it was a really cool trick that everyone had to have a go too. We were getting some very strange looks by now!!!

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Our main course soon came, so quickly in fact that our starters hadn’t been cleared away, do you think they were already trying to get rid of us? :lmao: I had the prime rib which as I expected was so gorgeous very tender :love:

I think about now there were cry’s of empty Lapu’s, not sure who from :confused: :rotfl:

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Somewhere around now T’s mobile went off and it was DM (Disneyolic) phoning from NY the phone was soon passed to me and it was so great to hear her voice, even though it was a funny old conversation as it was so loud and I couldn’t hear her very well, maybe that’s why I couldn’t really hear an accent ;) Anyway it was great another DISer could share our night!

Dessert time now and I had the oh so yummy white chocolate cheesecake, not sure what the others had they were too busy emptying pineapples :rotfl2:

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Oh at some point my darling husband, who I think by now had worked out that these crazy ladies weren’t axe murderers, came into the Poly, see he didn’t want me walking back to our CSR room alone late at night so he was going to wait to escort me home :love: Well he had the camera so he came to give it to me, also in all the rain excitement I had Ellie’s DS, they were prepared for a wait you see. But David being David he just kinda sneaked in gave me my camera and vanished again, so LL yes he was there :rotfl2:

The girls were now asking for more drinks and :faint: the Poly had run out of pineapples, I know how? And more importantly how on earth would we get to our 21 goal???? They had literally drunk the poly dry of pineapples. How’d that happen? Didn’t they know our aim for the night????

Our poor waiter was getting it from all sides about the pineapples, there were suggestions of pitchers so they could be refilled but apparently that would be unsanitary :confused: surely if you filled your own pineapple and only you drunk it then it would be fine??? Eventually the manager came out, oh whilst all this was going on a lady at a nearby table was really staring at us and the pineapples so LL turned around and gave her a big old wave, OMG I nearly died, I think she was just jealous, sheesh we weren’t being rude or anything just being happy! So the manager stood there explaining about the pineapple situation again and somehow it was agreed that the bar would make up more LapuLapu’s but in tikiman glasses. There was also an understanding that we could keep the special glasses if we vacated our table, now I think they really did want to get rid of us :rotfl:

So we settled up and did what we were told for once taking the tikiman glasses with us (well 4 glasses I didn’t get one!) on our way out we spotted another DISer Lisa (Castillomom) and gave her a big wave!

[DisneyJo]

Now we were meant to be meeting quite a lot of other DISers on the beach to watch wishes and we were late. We made it down the stairs but OMG it was still pouring so whilst LL and V went for a quick smoke T, S’Late and I lingered in the lobby bit. At this point T decides if she has anymore Lapu she would definitely keel over so she ummm watered the plants with it and swore me to secrecy which I totally kept till she blabbed on her TR :lmao:

I then hear a lovely English accent asking if I was DisneyJo and it was Claire (Fizz13) she was also with Michelle and Carly who had come to watch the fireworks, unfortunately Carly was feeling really unwell so they couldn’t stay :sad2: It was really nice meeting you girls even though it was very brief and I hope Carly soon felt better! I had to get Claire to meet LL though as they had become quite friendly on LL’s TR so we braved it outside and took these!

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It was still chucking it down so we just stood and chatted undercover near some stairs, again I really can’t remember what we talked about but just remember lots of laughter especially when a little frog decided to go in the Poly via the automatic doors. At some point David and the girls joined us, I assume they’d gotten fed up playing their DS’s, again there was much laughter mainly about the men’s golf that morning oh and I’m sure a certain DISer (LL) was flirting with my hubbie :eek: She kept doing something very strange with her straw :rotfl2: LY/MI LL :hug:

All of a sudden we hear loud boom’s, Wishes had started and without us realising the rain had stopped too, we dashed to the beach and watched :cloud9:

Before long it was time for the party to end, we saw a boat about to leave for the MK and jumped on after lots of hugs goodbye. It was a beautiful ride and we had to stop for this to pass!

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It was so neat to watch the water parade, especially out on the water with the boat to ourselves, Jess did freak a bit when we stopped and were just bobbing up and down though, I think tiredness was getting to her!

We hopped on a bus to CSR and were soon home and more than ready for our beds!


Endnote……

It was so great to meet up with such wonderful people it was so great that 5 strangers, who had only communicated via the web, just acted like long lost friends, I’m so pleased we arranged this meet and I can’t wait till August for the reunion with the chance to meet lots more of you too :goodvibes And you all needn’t have worried about me remembering outrageous stuff you’d done because I think you all remembered more than me :rotfl2:

[natalielongstaff]

great report Jo .......sounds like you had a great meet :thumbsup2

[KayleeUK]

Wow what a brilliant meet Jo :)

Shame you missed out on the Lapu Lapu :( I am sure you will do them proud next year ;)

[Fiona R]

More fantastic reports Jo. It's great meeting up with fellow DISers, my family think I'm odd too!! I can't believe you were nearly chucked out of the Poly, gosh no sense of humour there but what a great way to treat you!!

Keep eating, keep drinking, keep on at those little white balls and keep telling the tales!! I must admit to sneaky peeking on the main TR boards, but it's so hard to keep up with all your mates' and their comments that it's easier to read and comment on the homegrown board. :banana:

[arieljasmine]

A great meet, Jo, sounds like you had a crazy good time. :goodvibes

Laur's princess:

[DisneyJo]

great report Jo .......sounds like you had a great meet :thumbsup2 we had a great time thanks Nat :goodvibes

Wow what a brilliant meet Jo :)

Shame you missed out on the Lapu Lapu :( I am sure you will do them proud next year ;) Yep I was a real light weight, at least I could remember all the fun though :rotfl2:

More fantastic reports Jo. It's great meeting up with fellow DISers, my family think I'm odd too!! I can't believe you were nearly chucked out of the Poly, gosh no sense of humour there but what a great way to treat you!!

Keep eating, keep drinking, keep on at those little white balls and keep telling the tales!! I must admit to sneaky peeking on the main TR boards, but it's so hard to keep up with all your mates' and their comments that it's easier to read and comment on the homegrown board. :banana: Thanks Fiona, I still can't believe the Poly ran out of pineapples :rotfl2: Feel free to come and chat with all those crazy Americans at TFW chat the links in my siggie :goodvibes

A great meet, Jo, sounds like you had a crazy good time. :goodvibes

Laur's princess: Thanks Laur's we did have a great time and next years is going to be even bigger and better :thumbsup2

[DisneyJo]

Today was meant to be a nice lazy day, catching up on our favourite rides at Epcot before meeting S’Late and her family for a meal at MGM. That was until we decided to meet T, LL and V at MK for LOEMH at *gasp* 8am :faint:

We struggled to wake up but the girls had really fallen in love with T’s DD Maddie and so wanted to see her one more time, so they were up and ready before me today!!!

We missed the 8am opening but only by 5 minutes so not too bad, as we wandered down Main Street we saw T’s parents TE and Waldo trying to get into the Main Street Bakery, it was closed though and the whole of Main Street could hear them rattling the doors :rotfl2:

I thought our best bet of finding T and family was to check out Dumbo and :yay: I was right and they were already flying!

The girls soon got reacquainted and found some characters.

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The LOEMH’s were really great the characters were out in force playing games with all the kids, mine didn’t join in though as I told them it was for the little ones!

Sometime around now T got a call to say that V and LL had arrived, I was really surprised to see that LL’s DH and DS weren’t there, apparently they were still asleep!!!!

We now hit a couple of rides, Pooh first followed by PP, it was so sweet as on both rides the 3 girls rode together, Jess and Ellie sandwiching Maddie in the middle of them :cutie:

After PP we asked Evan if he wanted to chose a ride, big mistake, he dragged us all on IASW :eek: I think this was where Leo decided he wanted to do SW so we split up for a while. This time Jess and Maddies sat together.

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So cute!

It was now nearing 9am and we desperately wanted to get some more rides on TT done as today was our last park day, so after lots of hugs we said goodbye to the DisneyLandMama family vowing we would meet again. T phoned LL to find they were on IASW so we waited a few minutes so we could say bye to them too.

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We agreed to meet up again in August 09!!!!!

We made our way out of MK and you know what we weren’t sad at all, we had spent so much time here in the last 2 weeks, had many happy memories and we knew we’d be back one day, plus Epcot was calling :rotfl:


Upon leaving the MK we caught the monorail to the TTC then to Epcot, we just managed jump on one that was about to leave so we were at Epcot pretty quickly.

First stop was to get TT FP’s we then asked the girls if they were happy to do the single rider line, which they were, so within a few minutes we were at the front of the queue. The CM working here was a complete pain in the neck though, he deliberately split the single riders into completely different cars, I know, I know it was a single rider line and in no way did we expect to sit together but when there are 4 of you you expect to have at least 2 of you in the same car. He purposely put people the furthest cars away from each other :confused: Oh well it didn’t matter we had loads of fun as usual although you can’t be silly when there are others in the car can you :rotfl2:

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We headed over to Soarin and the FP time was already too late in the day for us so we jumped into the normal line, it was actually pretty fun playing the games and only took 20 minutes. Today’s ride was slightly different though as we all noticed the smells were a bit off, the pine forest smelt of orange and visa versa :rotfl: We still loved it though :goodvibes

Off back to TT and this time all together :thumbsup2 On the way out we let the girls explore the cars a bit, the American cars are quite different to ours, for a start they’re much larger!!!!


On our way out I spotted Elton, yeah I know Elton :lmao: Now if it wasn’t for my American DIS friends I would never have know who he was and for those of you that don’t he’s the Dream Team CM who is on the US adverts. Well he was escorting some lucky guests into TT via the back door, wonder if that was all they won or if it was part of a big prize :confused3

We grabbed a bite to eat at EU, I think we had the normal chicken strips and burgers to share, MouseGear was just opposite and we still had my nephew to buy for so in we went. After lots of browsing we bought Oliver a lovely cuddly Mickey Mouse and a MM plate and cutlery set. The girls bought a few bits and I treated myself to 2 fridge magnets, yep I pushed the boat out didn’t I? :rotfl2:

The time had come to leave Epcot for the final time, but honestly there were no tears, I really think having the 2 weeks there and knowing we will definitely be back stops you from being upset, or maybe I’m just hard and have no feelings :rotfl:

[DisneyJo]

A long swim and laundry was what was planned for this afternoon, I know we’re going home tomorrow but I worked out that to get the laundry done now would save so much work once home also it really didn’t cost very much!

The girls went off to refill the mugs whilst David and I chilled (Oh and did laundry :lmao:) in the pool. Now the most bizarre thing happened, a man probably about 60 walked up to the pool, he had obviously just arrived, well he started doing handstands at the side of the pool, he must have decided he didn’t like that area so went to a grassy area the other side of the pool and did a few handstands again. He then flipped over into the crab position and stayed like that for ages :confused: David and I just kept looking at each other trying not to laugh too much. Well it didn’t stop there, the man moved to the pool, he was still dressed in normal shorts not swim ones and didn’t have a towel, he stood right on the edge of the pool backwards and did a back flip :eek: So much for the no diving signs, I suppose it didn’t say anything about back flips :rotfl2: He repeated this about 3 or 4 times before shaking himself off and leaving!!!! Literally a few minutes later the girls returned with the mugs and they really didn’t believe us :rotfl:

We had a lovely lazy couple of hours swimming and playing, fitting in the laundry too! At one point I took a load of laundry back to the room and totally went to the wrong room, I only went up one flight of stairs instead of 2, I wondered why my key wouldn’t work :rotfl2:

All rested we showered and we were soon off to MGM, this time though we made sure we’d packed the ponchos!!!! We had an ADR at 50’s PT and were meeting S’Late and her family, we were originally booked at Teppanyaki which was still shut so we were lucky to get this although we were now a table for 4 and a table for 5 we hoped we’d be able to dine together!

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We were pretty early arriving so tried again for the GMR but once again the queue was just way too long, we obviously weren’t meant to ride it this trip! So what to do, what to do? Oh why don’t we just do a bit more browsing, as we wandered, buying a few golfing bits, the girls were asked if they’d like to be princesses for the day, they got to write a note to their favourite princess and got stickers and a cardboard crown :)

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It was nearly time for our ADR so we made our way to 50’s and checked in well half checked in anyway, S’Late wasn’t there yet and the place was packed so we just kind of hung around, this place really does look like the old US comedies I used to watch as a kid, so cool!

A little while later S’Late her DH and children turn up and we get shown to our table which was for 9 :yay: They’d managed to sit us all together :thumbsup2 Our waitress was nice, not too strict which actually was pretty good, well I thought so anyway!

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I ordered the strawberry milkshake which was absolutely gorgeous, so thick and really yummy, it was huge too. For appetiser I had the onion rings which were enormous but I did get some help eating them :lmao: For main course I ordered the pot roast, this was the first time I’d ever had it and OMG the meat was beautiful so tender but the veggies on top were so hard :eek:

At some point during the meal poor Jess spilt her drink and she was actually terrified of being told off that she switched seats with David, now she loved the idea of 50’s and didn’t mind deliberately getting told off actually being told off was another matter!

Us adults hadn’t finished all our meals (well they were huge) so when our waitress saw she fed us :eek: It was funny though, David was first and she even made the choo choo noises then S’Late’s turn followed by me. She really loaded the fork up including those yucky veg :scared1: But it was all good fun.

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The dessert menu here is in a viewfinder, you know those toy camera’s that you hold up to the light which we had as kids. I chose the angel cake, again never had it, and it was nice but I was so stuffed with the other courses that I didn’t eat much.

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During the meal S’Late’s DD and Ellie became firm friends she even gave Ell’s a bracelet, which I think she’d made, poor old Jess got stuck with the boys though and I think she thought they were a bit too silly for her, boys hey, hope she stays that way for a while yet :rotfl2: I think we were a bit of a disappointment to S’Late’s DH as we weren’t into Star Trek and Monty Python but we found other things to chat about!

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The heavens had opened again but we were prepared and after lots of hugs we braved the rain and found the bus home, we had been so lucky with the weather this trip but it was still a bit sad leaving our final park on our final day dodging the puddles!

[Fiona R]

Three parks in a day, quite impressive!! I have read so many Sci fi Diner reports now, but it still doesn't appeal, really must be brave and try it!

...and it's far less depressing to go home with clean washing, especially in the winter when we have been! Nothing worse than shorts hung on the radiators when it's piddling down and dark outside!!

Shame your holiday is nearly over, no more trippies for a bit!:surfweb:

[arieljasmine]

Great, busy day. I love the idea of the theming of the 50s Prime Time, but that sort of "entertainment" terrifies me :scared1: We always try to cram in three parks on our last day. But opposite to you I always cry - a lot!

Laur's princess:

[fizz13]

Hi Jo, finally took the time to get caught up on all your adventures:banana: What a fantastic time you've had with all the DISers, and I think you all had a blast. Shame I'm grinning like a cheshire cat in my piccie:lmao: but I was very excited to meet you all. btw the pot roast is my fav entree in all of wdw, glad you liked it, sadly i quite like those veggies on top too:laughing: Will have to pop over and say hi to the others on the thread soon.

[Chilly]

I loved the pot roast as well.

What a great Dis Meet you had, it sounded like a lot of fun.

[DisneyJo]

Three parks in a day, quite impressive!! I have read so many Sci fi Diner reports now, but it still doesn't appeal, really must be brave and try it!

...and it's far less depressing to go home with clean washing, especially in the winter when we have been! Nothing worse than shorts hung on the radiators when it's piddling down and dark outside!!

Shame your holiday is nearly over, no more trippies for a bit!:surfweb: Fiona we went to 50's Prime Time not SciFi (I want to try that next time though!) and the food was nice, I was wary about going as I wasn't sure about the humour but it was all good fun!

Oh doing the washing was a great idea, for about £2 I went home with tons of clean clothes :thumbsup2

Thanks for reading :goodvibes

Great, busy day. I love the idea of the theming of the 50s Prime Time, but that sort of "entertainment" terrifies me :scared1: We always try to cram in three parks on our last day. But opposite to you I always cry - a lot!

Laur's princess: Thanks so much for reading Laur's and 50's terrified me too but it was all good fun :goodvibes

Hi Jo, finally took the time to get caught up on all your adventures:banana: What a fantastic time you've had with all the DISers, and I think you all had a blast. Shame I'm grinning like a cheshire cat in my piccie:lmao: but I was very excited to meet you all. btw the pot roast is my fav entree in all of wdw, glad you liked it, sadly i quite like those veggies on top too:laughing: Will have to pop over and say hi to the others on the thread soon. It was great to meat you too Claire even though it was briefly adnd you don't look like a Cheshire cat at all you look lovely. You must come and say Hi :goodvibes

I loved the pot roast as well.

What a great Dis Meet you had, it sounded like a lot of fun. The pot roast is delicious isn't it and obviously very popular with us Brits :rotfl2:

I did have a great DIS meet well several they're so much fun :goodvibes

[DisneyJo]

Today is going home day, we or should I say I did most of the packing yesterday and it sure was a struggle, we had an extra case with us and I really didn’t think we’d bought that much but we only just fitted it all in :eek: Next time we take 2 extra bags :rotfl2:

We weren’t catching the ME till about 1.30pm but with a long flight ahead of us really didn’t want to go to a park and get all hot and sticky again. Mousekeeping had allowed us to have our room till 12pm so we went swimming, well except David who decided to nip to DTD to see if they had his cap yet, ummmm no they didn’t!!!!!!!!

The girls and I had a lovely swim I the quiet pool and for about an hour had the pool to ourselves :cloud9:

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The girls started having handstand competitions to see who could stay up the longest and I was the official judge, they both won some and both lost some, phew that was lucky :lmao:

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Whilst the girls were doing this, it did go on for a while, a lady and her DD were also swimming and the Mum said for her DD to try, she was about the age of my 2 but bless her just couldn’t get her legs up so her Mum decided to show her how to do it, you’ve never seen legs flailing all over the place in all your life it was so funny, well me being non-competitive had to do my handstand and ummm got to about 40 seconds, she wasn’t impressed :rotfl:

It got to about 11.30am and we decided we’d better go get showered and pack the last few things before calling to get our bags taken down.

We went and had our final Disney meal and as we had a couple of CS credits left I asked the CM if we could have some rice crispy treats instead, well she gave me 9 :eek: they totally filled my bag up and I daren’t show David :rotfl2: We used our final few SC’s in the shop on some chips and cookies and :faint: left our refillable mugs on top of a garbage can, we didn’t have room for them in our luggage, wouldn’t use them at home and knew we wouldn’t return to use them again!!!!

We still had a while before our bus so we found a nice bench near the convention centre, sat the girls on the carpet and played go fish, lots of people smiled at us as they went past, they either thought aww cute or weird English people :lmao:

Pretty uneventful trip home, we spent several hours at MCO playing more cards and browsing the shops. Our plane on the way home was called Jersey Girl and poor old David didn’t have a working TV neither did the 3 people the other side of me and all they got was £25 ($50) worth of duty free :headache: He wasn’t too bothered though and we arrived back to Gatwick near enough on time. Our taxi was there to meet us and we were soon home!!!!



Thoughts on CSR.

CSR is a very beautiful resort and not as big as I was expecting, we were one of the furthest away but were still within a 5 minute walk of the main building.

The dig site pool was nice, not as good as I was expecting though, I always like to have quiet pools as you often have them to yourself!

CSR is a convention hotel and this really didn’t bother us, our first week it was the gospel workshop of America (or something like that) and it was actually quite nice as they often sung on the buses and were really happy. The second week was some irrigation convention but we never saw them and the last few days was an insurance company who had obviously paid for the whole family to come, as there were a lot of families with balloons etc.

Buses, these were on the whole great, they were never crowded and the CSR bus stops were never that far away at all the parks. Maybe because it is a convention centre less people use the buses which made them less crowded :confused:

Pepper Market :mad: I really didn’t like it and if I wasn’t on the DDP would have not wanted to tip the staff as they hardly did anything, the few times we did eat there the food was good but very slow and the girls had often finished their meal before we even got ours. Also all the CM’s seemed to tell you different things about what was and wasn’t included on the plan!

Saying all that we did enjoy our stay there but personally we preferred POR where we’re staying next year!


Final thoughts.

This was an amazing holiday; I was worried the magic would be less as it was our second trip (yes I know it was my 6th so I should have known that it wouldn’t!!!!) but I think it was actually more, phew :rotfl2:

All the planning paid off and we rarely waited in any queues, we really learnt how to play the FP system, always making sure we got a new FP before we used the current one, also many times we used them late and the CM’s always told us we could!

To actually meet up with people I’d chatted to on the DIS was fantastic it was like meeting long lost friends rather than brand new ones. Our meets were great fun and I can’t wait to do it all again next year and meet even more of you. :goodvibes

Even though we were there for 2 weeks and packed loads in we still missed so much, some on purpose some not, we never did get to see the HSM show or the GMR and I still think there’s loads more to explore in WS oh and I’m sure we could have gotten another ride on TT to make it up to 15 rides :rotfl2:

When we got home we decided to go back in 2 years time and to do a cheaper holiday summer 2008 well a few weeks later David told me to book WDW :yay: I didn’t need asking twice so we’re staying at POR from 14th to 28th August with free dining again :yay: And the big DIS meet is already arranged for the weekend around the 24th, WDW had better watch out :rotfl:

[natalielongstaff]

oh I can't beleive your trippie is over !! its been a great read, im so pleased you had such a great time :thumbsup2

[arieljasmine]

Thanks so much for sharing your reports with us, Jo, I have loved reading them. We were not overkeen on CSR when we stayed there, so it was interesting to see what you guys thought. I did see an armadillo there one night though, and I haven't seen one anywhere else! Happy next trip planning :goodvibes

Laur's princess:

[BRobson]

Thanks for a great trippie Jo :goodvibes There are some lovely photos of your family - roll on next year eh ;)

[Fiona R]

Great reads Jo (and I am mortified I have mixed up Sci Fi and 50s Prime Time, never been to either, and neither appeal. But I should know better!)

Your thoughts on CSR were exactly ours, and when you return to POR it is even nicer than you remembered!!

Lucky you going again for free dining, yum yum!! :woohoo:

[DisneyJo]

Thank you all so much for reading and your kind comments :goodvibes

[Chilly]

Great trip report and lucky you going back next year, have fun planning!

[Minniespal]

I've really enjoyed reading your trip reports ~ Thanx for taking the time to share them with us.

[DisneyJo]

Thanks for your kind replies Claire and Flo and with nearly 4000 views I know there are lots of lurkers out there too, so thanks again for reading everyone :goodvibes

[KayleeUK]

Jo

Wonderful trippie loved it :) Thank you for sharing it with us, you have a gorgeous family :) Looking forward to next years one already;)

[tennisfan]

I have just read your whole report. I really enjoyed it. It sounds like a fab trip. I loved the photos & your daughters are very pretty:goodvibes

Thanks for sharing it.