And so it begins - Updated with Photopass Pics Post 189 - 04/01/2010

It's been a couple of days since I last posted as we haven't been in the villa much - and when we have it has been to sleep :lmao: - so for that I apologise.
Thank you to everyone who has commented so far. I am pleased that you are enjoying the report up to now.
So on I go....

....Friday we went to Epot. It wasn't a particularly early morning but we were still there for about 10.
Everyone agreed on route that they wanted to do Test Track first - so we made a bee line as soon as we got there. The wait time was the longest we had seen yet at 70 minutes. But with Grandma in an ECV because of her twisted knee and DS being able to use his GAC we were directed down the fast pass lane. The only dissappointing thing about the ride was that we were forced to have a couple of strangers from the single rider line in the car with us. We tried to explain that we wanted to buy the photo at the end but the CM wasn't interested. I understand that they wanted to get the wait time down for everyones sake - but how do they expect to sell the photos if they do this :confused3

After this a few of us went on Mission Space.

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I had never done this ride before as I don't especially like the spinny ones - and once the ride started I remembered why. The others enjoyed it but I don't think I will be bothering again :goodvibes

Next up - Soarin.
Caz, Daz and Jack had no idea what this ride was about so I knew they would enjoy it. DW had a feel good moment as we were queueing for this. We were walking down the fastpass lane when 3 girls jumped over the wall that seperates the standby line from the fastpass line. As we got to the CM at the front who takes your fastpass the girls started to protest that their fastpasses had been taken from them by a different CM at the front of the queue. DW then piped up "No they didn't. You jumped over the wall back there" :lmao: So the Cm sent them back from whence they came with their tails between their legs and staring daggers in our direction :thumbsup2

Once on the ride all we could hear from Sis and her lot was Wow - Oooh - Aaah. As we got to the part over the golf course I turned to Jack and asked if he could see the golfer. He looked and said he could and that he hoped he didn't hit us with the ball. As the golfer swung his club and the ball came towards us I let him watch it get closer, then at the last second I lent in front of him and put my hand in front of his face to protect him from the incoming ball. As I moved it away I opened my hand to reveal the golf ball that I had just plucked from the sky - complete with a Mickey Mouse stamped on it. His face was an absolute picture as I handed him the ball as a momento of his first ride on Soarin :thumbsup2. (I had been planning this for a couple of months and was pleased it worked out well)

We decided next to have a slow walk around the showcase and make our way around to Germany for our dinner reservation at Biergarten.

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Everything was as good as we remembered from last time. We all joined in the singing and swaying of the glasses when the Oompa band came on

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and the food was fantastic. It is a buffet type meal so here are a couple of pics of the sort of food on offer.

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After dinner we went on our way around the showcase again were we saw a few more characters. It was at this point that DD Taylor gave us a classic child comment. You know the one. The one that you find hysterically funny, but feel that you really shouldn't be laughing due to it's totally politically incorrect content.
As we were strolling along we saw Belle and a queue of people waiting to have their picture taken with her. As is the norm there was a cast member directing the line, making sure no-one pushed in and taking photos if needed. The CM in question, however, was - to use PC speak - vertically challenged.
DD's comment upon seeing this was "Isn't he with the wrong princess?".
Oh the innocence of it all. We all cracked up as DD looked at us with a totally bemused look on her face wondering what she had said that would cause so much laughing.

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We carried on around the park, ending up at The Seas where we went on the Nemo ride, had a talk with Crush and spent some time watching the dolphins, fish and other sea life before heading out of the park and off to Old Town.

Tonight at Old Town was classic car night and we got there for about 7.30. Plenty of time to have a look around the cars - especially as there were fewer of them due to the rain. It had been coming on and off during the day but nothing like we had been expecting so we felt quite lucky really.
DW and me also decided that we wanted to go into the old style photo shop and have our pictures done with the kids dressed as cowboys. This was a real laugh and really good fun, and we were so pleased with how the pics turned out. If I can get a couple of shots of them I will put them on here.
Once the cars had finished their drive by we all headed back to the car for the drive back to villa - and within 5 minutes of starting the trip there were 3 sleeping kids in the back. A long but fun filled day that everyone seemed to enjoy :thumbsup2

Saturday - a bit of shopping and another late night and I will post how all this went when we get back from IoA later.
 
Sound's like a great day :thumbsup2

Good for your DW at Soarin, I'd have done exactly the same! cheeky devils :rolleyes1, I can just imagine their face's when being asked for their fastpasses :rotfl2:

The golfball that you did for Jack was a lovely idea :goodvibes

Hope you had a good day shopping yesterday :thumbsup2
 
Good on your DW. I don't believe that rewarding that type of behaviour with silence is appropriate :thumbsup2

Glad to see Dizzy did not get eaten by the dinosaurs :)

Absolutely love the golf ball idea :goodvibes
 


Lovin your tr so far!! Bet your nephews face was a picture when you gave the golf ball - so sweet !!
 
Kenny, can you please explain the golf ball thing?:blush: I've never been to WDW, so I don't really get it.

Loving the updates, food porn and little details.:goodvibes
 


Thanks for all your comments so far - and DW was especially pleased that the Dis has her back where queue jumpers are concerned :thumbsup2

Apologies for being a little behind with the live (or not so live) report but there are a couple of good reasons for this.

We have had pretty full days up to know and haven't been gettting back until gone late so time hasn't been on my side.
Yesterday I had Saturdays details all typed up, hit the post button and got a message saying that my ticket had expired. :confused3 I then pressed the back button and was met with a fresh reply screen. By this time it was 9pm and as we have an early one today I decided to catch up tomorrow when we have a lazy day at the villa.
This morning is Crystal Palace for breakfast, followed by a couple of hours at MK, before coming back to the villa to change and get ready for Whispering Canyon and a Celebration Wishes Cruise to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. :love:
This isn't officially until tomorrow but they aren't showing Wishes tomorrow so we had to do it today.
Hang in there people and I will try to get all up to date by tomorrow :thumbsup2
 
Yesterday I had Saturdays details all typed up, hit the post button and got a message saying that my ticket had expired. :confused3 I then pressed the back button and was met with a fresh reply screen.

I had a similar problem in August, kept telling me to contact admin:confused3
After losing 3 (2 long) posts I decided to copy every post before hitting the button.
Happy Anniversary for tomorrow, are you wearing you badges? we wore ours every evening got a little cup cake and card at Crystal Palace, free champane at Turf Club Grill and a "Happy Anniversary" everywhere.
Matt has added Dizzy to his friends, we are both following him now, he looks to be having fun.:thumbsup2
 
Saturday 17th October 2009.

Today was planned as a shopping day - so as usual I wasn't particularly looking forward to it and would have given anything to be able to get out of it.
We were up earlyish and out for breakfast at IHOP.

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It was then off to Premium Outlets for the girls (and Daz) to get some retail therapy in. As we were driving there I was getting conscious of the fact that I was running out of time to think of a suitable excuse to avoid this, and had tried a couple out on DW to no avail. "It's not really my thing" "They don't serve Brits there" "Any chance I could stay at the villa and pull my teeth out with pliers" "Can I go to Hooters please - I've heard it is a really good owl sanctuary" - the usual stuff.
As we pulled onto the road that runs parallel with I-4 I thought it was time to start asking for some divine intervention. Now I am not normally a religious man - but extreme situations call for extreme measures - and as we passed the Mary Queen of the Universe church I looked over and uttered the words that men the world over have been repeating for hundreds of years
"Help me - help me now"
At that point we heard a loud rumbling from the back and the rear right dropped slightly. I checked my mirror and could see that we had....A PUNCTURE :)
Result - and thank you Mary.
After persuading DW and the others that I would be fine sat with the car they set off for the short walk to the mall while I sat and waited, in an air conditioned car, for Mr Repair Man. I got a phone call for Dollar confirming the location and it was at this point a thought occured to me that sent a shiver down my spine. DW was shopping. With my credit card. And no supervision. Talk about a change of opinion. They couldn't get here soon enough and when the man turned up to fix the tyre I did all I could to help him get it fixed and on the road quick. I practically sprinted through the mall to find her and was ever so slightly relieved to see that she had only had one bag.
I had learnt a valuable lesson that day - and will ensure that next time I keep my CC with me at all times.
After finshing at Premium we decided to nip onto I-Drive and have a round of mini golf followed by dinner at Bahama Breeze.

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The food was as good as ever - although it was pretty quiet as we were in there for about 4pm. The good side to this was that we were directed straight to a table. Here is a quick selection of some of the food we had.

West Indies Patties
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Island Onion Rings
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Flat Bread
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Baby Back Ribs
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When these arrived at the table Jack said I should not eat them as they are burnt :rotfl2: - but I can assure you they tasted delicious

Salmon - simply grilled
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Everyone enjoyed what they had - but we didn't leave room for dessert.
When we left we went back to the villa to pick up our jackets as it had turned cool and we were going to go to the MK to watch Spectromagic and Wishes.
I didn't take any pictures of this as I decided long ago that my skills aren't in the photography department, especially were night shots are concerned.
For the newbies in the group however they really loved seeing it all for the first time and were suitably impressed.
We were back at the villa for about 11 and straight to bed ready for the next day.
 
Sunday 18th October

Today was Islands of Adventure.

We got there at about 10 as we decided there was no need to rush. The park seemed busy going in but we soon found out that most things were walk ons. Hulk had a 10 minute wait and Spiderman 20 minutes - but we had Express Passes so got on them all straight away.
Once in the park the crowds seemed to thin out and it was definaltey quieter than we had ever experienced it before.
Jack was in his element being surrounded by super heros and dinosaurs, and Brad and Taylor also had a list of rides that they love to do when they come here.
I think the only person that didn't enjoy a ride that he went on was Daz hen he rode Dr Dooms Fearfall. Luckily I was videoing him while he was on it so managed to capture his nerves as the ride built up to launch - and like a good BIL I put it on Youtube ;)

http://www.youtube.com/user/Pegasus928#p/a/u/0/XpnfC86WAYQ

Everyone got to do everything they wanted and we were also able to get some character photos without it eating too much into our park time.
Food here consisted of the odd hotdog and churro and by the time we had gone around the whole park it was about 4pm.
We had already decided to make today an early night as we had an early morning tomorrow, so we left and called in at Berry Town Centre on the way home for chinese and pizza, and we were all in bed by 10 :)

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Monday 19th October

Today was a very early start as we had a reservation at Crystal Palace for 8.45 and we wanted to get in the park early for some quiet shots in front of the castle.
We also had our Anniversary badges on - even though it's not officially until tomorrow because today was the only day we could get a Wishes Cruise booked for.
We got to MK by about 8.15 and all was going well.
We got off the monorail and as we made our way down the ramp DW and Sis were chatting away about the day ahead when WHAM - Sis walked straight into a lampost at full stride. It didn't take long for an egg sized lump to appear on her forehead and we were all really concerned for her. She insisted she was OK and refused to go and see anyone about it so we carried on into the park and took it in turns checking on her.
Once in MK we were pleased to see that our plan had worked and Main Street was empty of all but a couple of people.
We went to the castle and got hold of a couple of Photopass photographers and got lots and LOTS of photos done, in all sorts of poses so we are really excited to see how those turn out.

Here's a couple we took with our own camera.

Me and DW
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Caz, Daz and Jack
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Grandma and the Grandkids
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We then went over to Crystal Palace and checked in.
This was waiting for us on the table which we thought was a nice touch

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The food was typical buffet breakfast type so I won't put pics up of that, but our waiter did bring us over a celebration cup cake and card signed by the characters

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After a while the characters came round - which was one of the main reasons for being there - so we got plenty of pics with them.

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We left CP - suitably full up - and went and spent the next few hours in the park doing Haunted Mansion and other rides. They even persuaded me - against my better judgement - to go on it's a small world. words can't descibe how much I hate this ride but I had to 'man up' for the kids sake. As we were dragged along, being forced to endure the singing and dancing Chucky look-a-likes DD turned to me at one point and asked "Is this Spain?" to which I replied "No Dear - this is Hell" She took it quite well I thought :laughing:

We also did Thunder Mountain - which was a nice surprise as we expected it to be closed until November. DS did this for the first time ever - which made us nice proud of him as he normally never tries anything new like this - and enjoyed it so much he insisted on going on it again straight away.
This is Jack looking forward to BTM and Brad on his 2nd ride.

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Daz also decided he needed a hat to protect him from the sun and I made my suggestion.

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Unfortunately he didn't agree :confused3

We decided to leave the park and have an afternoon at the villa before our dinner, but not before stopping on the way out for pictures with these lovely ladies, and few other snaps along the way.

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Next up was Whispering Canyon Cafe and a Wishes Cruise but I will finish off the report for this later as we have to go out now and sort out the spare tyre for the car. We are also going to Beaches and Cream for tea before our concert out House of Blues.
 
Loving your trip report and photos ... looks like everyone is enjoying themselves.

I must ask where is IHOP ... those pancakes for breakfast look yummy :goodvibes
 
Kenny yet again a fantastic report- they are hilarious :lmao:
love the youtube- your poor bil!!:rotfl2:
great photos:thumbsup2
 
DD and DS want to go on Dr Doom. After watching the video think I am with BIL :scared1:

Sounds like your sister put on a brave face :goodvibes Wow that must have hurt :headache:
 
I must ask where is IHOP ... those pancakes for breakfast look yummy :goodvibes

Somewhere we have never eaten, we don't eat breakfast often but it looks good.
Nearest 2 to Disney
http://data.gointranet.com/cgi-bin/unitloc/ihop/locator.cgi?cpage=main.html&cu=bleonard&cl=360114

http://data.gointranet.com/cgi-bin/unitloc/ihop/locator.cgi?cpage=main.html&cu=bleonard&cl=360101

And nearest to Universal
http://data.gointranet.com/cgi-bin/unitloc/ihop/locator.cgi?cpage=main.html&cu=bleonard&cl=360156

Bahama breeze is somewhere else we have never eaten, everyone seems to love it but I am still not sure, maybe one day.

Loved the YouTube clip.
That sky behind the castle looks perfect, cold drizzly and miserable here today.
 

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