The One With All The Birthdays - Day 9, Marceline tour MK

[RobynPrincess]

It was another early morning today. The alarm went off at 6:25am, I peeled my eyelids back and propped them up with matchsticks and started to get ready We made sure everyone knew last night that we had to be up early and out on time this morning or we would miss our tour (that we had already booked and paid for and that would surely be fully booked for the rest of the trip) but we still ended up leaving late! I was getting my knickers in a right twist that we would miss it, some might even say I was a bit yelly and moany but I'm neither confirming or denying anything... I'll leave it up to your own imagination hehehe

We drove over to the MK car park which was almost completely empty and parked up. Only the resort monorail was running so we hopped on that, we were on with lots of CM's, including loads of Grand Floridian Mousekeeping in their cute peach outfits (I love the housekeeping outfits in GF). Unfortunately the monorail didn't sense my mood and the fact that we were late and halted at the GF for ages not moving! Ahhhhhhh! This was not helping my nerves or stress levels! I quickly messaged JoAnn who was doing the tour same tour along with us to let her know we were still coming. We then we moved on so I lost wifi signal and didn't see if she got my message (nor did I see her reply which said they hadn't even let guests who were on tours into the park yet so we needn't worry). We then paused again just outside the MK station waiting for further clearance = more stressing, ahhhh!

When we did finally arrive we raced our way over to the left turnstile to be let through for the tour. We headed into the park and checked in and we were all given headsets and our name badges. JoAnn and I found each other and had hugs before the tour started, was so lovely to meet her finally after chatting online for so long We waited for a minute or 2 for everyone to arrive and then it was time to start our tour at 8am!

I won't go into huge detail about the tour here (not least cause I'm hoping to write an article about it for WDWFGU's) but also I don't wanna spoil it for anyone thinking of doing it. But what I will say it that it was a BLAST! We all loved it. It's such a good value tour too, worth every single cent. Our tour guide Matt, was from Connecticut and he was a total babe, so knowledgeable and obviously loved his job, if anyone gets him as their tour guide then they are super lucky! We went into parts of MK that weren't officially 'on stage' yet which was neat but meant we had to be careful what we could take pictures of. We rode on the Haunted Mansion along with Matt who pointed things out to us all the way through. We also got to ride Winnie the Pooh (this time without Matt) and then CoP once again with Matt guiding us through.

Here are a few pics I did manage to snap on our tour.

















Anne photobombing us hehehe







The tour finished up bye CoP at 11:30am (half an hour over the advertised tour time). We took it in turns having a quick chat with Matt to thank him for the amazing tour. JoAnn and I grabbed a pic too



I managed to nab a fastpass lunch today at Be Our Guest but the only time I could get for us wasn't for quite a while yet, and we were all starving (having had no breakfast. So we headed over that way to ask on the off chance that they might be able to let us in early... JoAnn also had a fastpass for lunch so we all made our way over together.

JoAnn asked one of the CM's mulling around if we might be able to go in early but he said no, so I asked someone else who said yes (I know, I'm very cheeky hehe). To be fair the CM who said no to JoAnn didn't really seem to know what was going on bless him so it wasn't like we went above him to a manager, we just went to someone who looked more like he knew what he was doing (the first CM was on crowd control in the area). But yay! We were allowed in early! Thank you nice CM!

We made our way in, ordered and paid for our food and found a table in the main ballroom (somewhere we have never sat before). Before long our food found us I must remember in future how big the portions are, we all got a sandwich each but I totally could have shared. I went for the good old turkey sandwich, which was as lush as always, and the now discontinued passion fruit puff this has to rank as one of my all time favourite dessert in all of WDW so I'm really sad to see its gone

 

[RobynPrincess]

Once we had finished our lunch we snapped a few pics and then said goodbye to JoAnn, she stayed in MK as she had some fastpasses but we were all shattered from the early mornings so we decided to go back to the hotel for an afternoon nap lol We hopped on the boat back to the TTC and made our way back to Kidani.



Back in the room Sy and I slept for about an hour and a half and woke up at about 4pm. Everyone fancied a quick mooch around the shops so we headed to the 'other' premium outlets at the top of International Drive. When we arrived at the shops we agreed a meet up time and then we all split up ready to shop shop shop! I managed to buy more in the Disney store, Yankee Candle and bath and body works took a hard hitting too. Even managed to grab a few Christmas presents. All in all a successful trip! We met up with the 'rents back by the car and headed off in the search of dinner.

We drove along I Drive and found a Longhorns about half way down so decided to stop in there for dinner. As we had just been to the Outlets we decided to take all of our shopping in with us, I've read a lot of reports online about people being followed from there and cars broken into to steal the shopping so didn't wanna take the risk. It was a bit snug at the table with 6 of us big people in the booth and all of our shopping but we managed

This pic shows what we were all feeling like lol







I apologise for the next pic, I was told off on fb for having so many kissy pics lol I can't help it though I just love my hubs!



Our server was very.... strange, she didn't seem to understand what we were saying at all - like we were speaking in a foreign language all the time. Unfortunately this meant that she got a few of our drink orders wrong and my meal was completely wrong when it came and as we were on a bit of a time constraint we didn't have time for them to remake it so she took it back and took it off the bill but it meant I had no dinner. Everyone else enjoyed their meals though



We paid the bill sharpish and made our way back to MK for our Wishes Fastpass. This was a big mistake honestly, we were already later than planned and arrived on a very busy main street with 2 scooters (mine and mum's) and no where to go as it was rammed with people. I had dragged everyone back there so we decided to push through it and fight our way down Main Street to the fasspass area with the thought that at least there it wouldn't be busy... We got separated on the way so I told Sy to stay with his parents and just meet us in the fastpass area. I wasn't 100% where that was so I asked a CM who was really short with me, he told me it would have closed already and I should have got there earlier (we were still within the fastpass window) and just shrugged and pointed towards the hub, so we tried to fight our way there which was in the complete wrong direction from where we were. We ended up getting stuck as it was so busy there was no where to go with the scooters. And then of course I started to have a panic attack and to top it off, I started to cry This wasn't in the plan! I messaged Sy to say we were stuck, he was in the fastpass area and said there was plenty of room there and they were still letting people in but by this point I didn't know how we were going to get there or where it was.

My dad managed to make a path through to get me out, I followed behind and managed to get out somewhat till we found a nice CM who guided us the rest of the way, people really didn't wanna move though (they could see we weren't about to stop in front of them, not sure why they were so opposed to letting us through). I sobbed all the way out. I'm not good in crowds, it was stupid of me to even attempt Wishes tonight after seeing the crowds but I didn't want to let everyone else down when we had gone there especially to watch the! Once we were out of the main hub we were able to move we made our way to Tomorrowland Terrace as it was empty. We went up to the seating area and got dad a seat right at edge so we could see some of the fireworks. Sy was in a bit of a panic as he had messaged me and didn't get a reply and he knew I was panicking and upset, I had a stream of messages when I looked at my phone. I messaged him once I'd calmed down a bit and told him where we were. I said to stay where he was as the view would be good there but he insisted on coming over to us along with his parents. I felt better after some cuddles with Sy.

The view as it happens wasn't too bad. They don't play the music over here though so we couldn't hear much but we did see Tink fly overhead. After Wishes had finished we sat for a while waiting for the crowds to thin before we attempted to move. While we waited the second showing of Celebrate the Magic* came on so we moved down to the side of the plaza so we could see as there were trees in our view from Tomorrowland Terrace.



*After writing about this I've just put it on youtube and currently sat watching it now

When it had finished we waited a few minutes for the crowds to die down before making our way out to the front of the park, heading back to the hotel. Most of the crowds had in fact gone so it wasn't too bad making our way down Main Street.

Once we reached the end of MS, the Main Street Electrical parade was starting. Cliff wanted to watch so Sy and I said we would watch as well while Anne, Sian and Bill got the bus back to the resort (they got the bus and we took the car as they wouldn't have been able to lift mums scooter into the car being just my dad there and no other strong man ). MSEP was lovely and it was great to watch it with hardly any crowds too.







After it finished we made our way over to grab the boat back to the TTC, we were in luck as one was waiting right there! Woohoo! We were straight on the boat but we then sat/stood for 20 mins before we left which was a bit annoying as it was busy on the boat and a little chilly too (not to mention all those damn mosquitoes that are always on the boats at night). I'm not exactly sure what we were waiting for, it didn't look like we were waiting for a boat the other end but I'm sure we were waiting for something We moved off eventually and we were back to the car in no time.

We arrived back at the hotel by 12:20am and we were in bed by 12:45am. It had been another long and busy day

 

[stephensmum]

Another busy day with an early start, don't know how you do it. Your dessert at BOG looks good. Pity they're not still doing them.

 

[Rach78]

Another great instalment. Really enjoying following along.

 

[Disneymadhouse]

A long and busy day! I might give BOG a go for lunch as well this year, the turkey sandwich looks yummy!

Claire

 

[1andrea]

Looking forward to the next installment xx