Who we are:
Me (Fiona) 41 – Commando and Food Planner and Holiday Booker.
DH (Steve) 41 – He really does not like the cheese of Disney! Has got rather keen on golf since our last visit.
DD1 (Kate) 17 – I am ashamed to say that she wants to know if there is a hairdryer everywhere we are staying…shame on her!!
DD2 (Laura) 14 – The Fantasmic Laura of old.
DD3 (Sally) 10 – she will out park the lot of us…… and needs the least sleep.
Pre Trip Report Saturday 16th December 2006 - Monday 1st January 2007
Day 1 Sat 16th Dec Are we nearly there?
Day 2 Sun 17th Dec AK and Boma.
Day 3 Monday 18th December 2006
Up late today at 7am, that sodding air conditioning. Can’t sleep with it, can’t sleep without it (a bit like men really!) Wish they could put central air con in the moderates and values!!
The only thing worse is our eldest’s predisposition to using the hair dryer every morning, what a drone. Anyway we rouse ourselves, have some breakfast and catch the bus to EPCOT to arrive for 9.45am, still lovely weather. (High 70s, 23-25degrees)
Everyone chases over and gets FPs for Soarin’. Don’t they? We did. Well I dispatched the Fastpass Dasher whilst we slowly walked over to Mission Space. The queue time went from 10 up to 15 mins whilst we were waiting, come on Dasher!! Another new one for us, we all did the orange Intense one. Definitely an experience that we weren’t in a hurry to repeat, but glad we did once. I was very worried we’d crash having a spare seat in our “capsule” how would we get there OK? I’m sure we will have played in attractions on the way out, and the shops are a nightmare with girls in tow. It was the take off pressure on the stomach, I don’t get motion sickness at all, a different kind of “icky” feeling this one.
Test Track next, the single rider line made it worthwhile waiting (10 mins), we still ended up in only two cars, we often get split into a 3 and a 2 anyway as we are an odd number.
Soarin’ had a huge queue, which I gather is normal, even with our FPs it was 20 minutes. Kate and Luara got Row 1 seats, we all thought it was fantastic, I lifted my toes out of the water and ducked the golf ball. Shame about those dangling feet. We picked up 5 more FPs, but the return time was around 6.30.
More food, this time our 11.30am lunch was Sunshine Seasons Food Court. A change to have some “fresh” offerings, even the odd vegetable here, hurrah!! We shared 4 CS meals again, they were all good.
Asian Two Entree Items and Two Sides $9.69
Caesar Salad with Oak-fired Chicken $7.59
Rotisserie Chicken Flatbread with Wild Greens and Tabbouleh $9.09
Rotisserie Beef Flatbread with Wild Greens and Tabbouleh $10.09
1 Key Lime Pie (mousse texture, not as good as Flame Tree BBQ)
1 Cheesecake – this was the best!!
1 Chocolate Cake
1 Marshmallow Brownie
4 drinks
1 beer
We “rode off” lunch by sitting on the nice peaceful “Living with the Land” boat ride, quite an enjoyable ride and I am not a gardener but would relish a lush veg patch to “pick to order” for dinner. I just wish gardening was as instant as Disney gardening seems to be.
Living with the Seas was our next pavilion, and the new Nemo ride, as far as I can remember it was “alright!” However, “Turtle Talk with Crush” was just starting, so we went in expecting a toddler meet and greet or something. Boy was this funny, I think it was almost voted best attraction of the week for us. I wish we had managed to return to see if the comedy was just tripping out the same over and over or if Crush really did have the skills to make every show different. This is a must see! Definitely a ROTFLOLAPMP experience.
Honey I Shrunk the Audience and the obligatory trip on Spaceship Earth finished off our Future World tour. With a 6.40pm Le Cellier time, and a world to walk round, we carefully people watched and gave away our five Soarin’ FPs for 6.30pm to a deserving family (well one with a similar make up to ours!!) they were ever so grateful!!
Around the world we go, ambling slowly and a stop in all the shops, and taking in whatever was happening. We concentrated on other things….Steve was keen to try out this little idea of drinking your way around the world, the one a certain Stringer guy recommends…..I did help him and he is mortified that we didn’t succeed!
Norway~ Beer plus an Iced Pretzel, snack Credit (funny combination!) and an Apple Danish for one child or other.
Mexico~ Beer and an obligatory Frozen Margarita. These take a lot of drinking, and to avoid brain freeze take it slowly, Steve and I sat in the sun on the terrace whilst the kiddy winks rode El Rio Del Tiempo. I like that ride and another “miss” for me this holiday. We will have to return!
China~ This was a find, the boy done good, a warm Plum Wine, I loved it but he didn’t. What a shame. Sally found Mulan and Mushu with no queue too, she counts this as her “magical moment” but the rest of us aren’t so jealous this time.
Germany~ to make up for China he had to have a Becks.
Italy~ There was one of those whistling acts going on, the whistling mine ones, quite funny especially when you’ve had a couple of drinks on a weekday afternoon. It was either here or France where a glass of red wine was purchased.
American Adventure~ lets say we failed here, the crush for the Candlelight Processional drove us on to
Japan~ Hot Saki, not to my taste but Steve liked it. Laura tried a Tangerine Kaki Gori as her snack, I had read lots of rave reviews for these, I must have read them on April 1st, it was yuk, kaki, disgusting. Shaved ice with neat Orange E numbered syrupy gloop poured over it, tasted like a foul cough medicine. Even Laura who likes things like that hated it!!
Kaki Gori and Hot Sake in Japan. Note the perfectly lined up EPCOT sign, a total fluke!!
Morrocco~ was lovely as ever, but we had scaled back on the drinking, after all it was only 5.30 pm and we don’t want to wreck dinner.
France~ we did have the wine in Italy, not France, we were being sensible by then.
United Kingdom~ living in the Cotswolds this does look strangely like a morphed ”home” to us, even the pub looks like our local and Steve was going to by pass it. Emphasis on the “was” as Off Kilter was about to start in Canada at 6.15pm, and I had good bench seats, you can’t go to a gig without beer, right. Beer wasn’t as good as back home and he muttered about the price (that’s my job!)
Canada~ Watched half an Off Kilter performance, they were just as good as 5 years ago, I think the band members were the same, how do they keep it going? I was dragged to my feet, very sore and stiff by now, we checked in at the podium for our 6.40pm Le Cellier dinner. I had spent months drooling over this meal, the others had no idea the careful balancing that had gone into my dining plan choices for them. After a short wait we were seated right over the far side of the “cave”, a lovely table. Our server was very personable and we had a fabulous meal. The three types of Canadian bread to stave off the hunger pangs were good, but I make bread in the bread machine every night at home so not as much “to die for” over the bread as what came after. We ordered 4 TS meals (and that extra plate)
Crab and Salmon Timbale - smoked salmon layered with Canadian rock crab, mascarpone cheese, and citrus syrup $11.99 – this was lush
Prince Edward Island Mussels (x2) - served chowder style with Applewood smoked bacon and potatoes $9.99 - scrum yum gorgeous.
Steakhouse Caesar - baby romaine, sour dough croutons, creamy Caesar dressing $5.99 – waste of an appetizer choice, but Laura insisted and it was a very poor Caesar Salad.
Le Cellier Mushroom Filet Mignon (x2) - Baby Bella wild mushroom risotto, white truffle and herb butter sauce, topped with fried parsnips $27.99 – as good as it gets, served just right medium rare. Steve and I didn’t waste this on the children, we both ate the lot, although to be the fair the steak is actually a sensible size here.
Sauteed Shrimp - oven dried tomatoes, Applewood smoked bacon, linguine, fresh arugula and Black Diamond cheddar cream sauce $22.99 – also declared superb by Laura and Sally
14 oz. New York Strip Steak - with sautéed leeks, frisee, and roasted Yukon gold potatoes, and finished with veal demi glace $26.99 – Kate enjoyed this and shared with Sally and Steve
Smoothies were allowed as drinks so 1x Mango and Cranberry Smoothy (without cranberry on request, typical Laura), 1 x Sour Apple Freeze (Sally thought it a bit “odd”) and an Iced Cappuccino (divine according to Kate). I had a glass of rather stunning red wine, the recommended pairing to the Filet Mignon, at $11 a throw it was a good job it was stunning (Jackson Valley rings a bell?). Needless to say I didn’t share that. A couple of beers too of course, and Steve had a coffee, he had a taste of each dessert only, which were:
Crème Brullee Sampler. Good but tiny, 2 or 3 different combinations of Brulee, only a teaspoon of each.
Chocolate Whiskey Cake (Signature offering) x 2. Very dark, rich and luscious, not dried out and tasteless or too sweet as chocolate desserts often are.
1 x S’mores creation – it involved ice cream, banana, marshmallows and various other bits and pieces, the “bees knees” according to Sally.
The DDP part of the bill was $230 excluding tips which are included with the plan. Le Cellier was well worth it’s reputation and we decided we would keep our Candlelight Processional Package booking here for Friday lunchtime, our opinion did change on Friday, but for now THIS meal was “ace”.
We were too tired by now to wait an hour for Illuminations, so we walked back to “our” bus, admiring the Christmas Tree and Corridor of Light, Dancing Fountains and general atmosphere. POR is fabulous, but the Bus Stops are always the furthest away ones, that hasn’t changed!
Too tired and full to swim, a bit of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” on TV and another early night. We probably have done too much so far but the first four days are by far the best chance we will see the 4 main parks whilst they are less crowded, next week will be pandemonium!
Tomorrow: Magic Kingdom and Narcossees (or Downtown Disney and Riverside Mill!)
Day 4 Tues 19th Dec MK and Narcossees
Me (Fiona) 41 – Commando and Food Planner and Holiday Booker.
DH (Steve) 41 – He really does not like the cheese of Disney! Has got rather keen on golf since our last visit.
DD1 (Kate) 17 – I am ashamed to say that she wants to know if there is a hairdryer everywhere we are staying…shame on her!!
DD2 (Laura) 14 – The Fantasmic Laura of old.
DD3 (Sally) 10 – she will out park the lot of us…… and needs the least sleep.
Pre Trip Report Saturday 16th December 2006 - Monday 1st January 2007
Day 1 Sat 16th Dec Are we nearly there?
Day 2 Sun 17th Dec AK and Boma.
Day 3 Monday 18th December 2006
Up late today at 7am, that sodding air conditioning. Can’t sleep with it, can’t sleep without it (a bit like men really!) Wish they could put central air con in the moderates and values!!
The only thing worse is our eldest’s predisposition to using the hair dryer every morning, what a drone. Anyway we rouse ourselves, have some breakfast and catch the bus to EPCOT to arrive for 9.45am, still lovely weather. (High 70s, 23-25degrees)
Everyone chases over and gets FPs for Soarin’. Don’t they? We did. Well I dispatched the Fastpass Dasher whilst we slowly walked over to Mission Space. The queue time went from 10 up to 15 mins whilst we were waiting, come on Dasher!! Another new one for us, we all did the orange Intense one. Definitely an experience that we weren’t in a hurry to repeat, but glad we did once. I was very worried we’d crash having a spare seat in our “capsule” how would we get there OK? I’m sure we will have played in attractions on the way out, and the shops are a nightmare with girls in tow. It was the take off pressure on the stomach, I don’t get motion sickness at all, a different kind of “icky” feeling this one.
Test Track next, the single rider line made it worthwhile waiting (10 mins), we still ended up in only two cars, we often get split into a 3 and a 2 anyway as we are an odd number.
Soarin’ had a huge queue, which I gather is normal, even with our FPs it was 20 minutes. Kate and Luara got Row 1 seats, we all thought it was fantastic, I lifted my toes out of the water and ducked the golf ball. Shame about those dangling feet. We picked up 5 more FPs, but the return time was around 6.30.
More food, this time our 11.30am lunch was Sunshine Seasons Food Court. A change to have some “fresh” offerings, even the odd vegetable here, hurrah!! We shared 4 CS meals again, they were all good.
Asian Two Entree Items and Two Sides $9.69
Caesar Salad with Oak-fired Chicken $7.59
Rotisserie Chicken Flatbread with Wild Greens and Tabbouleh $9.09
Rotisserie Beef Flatbread with Wild Greens and Tabbouleh $10.09
1 Key Lime Pie (mousse texture, not as good as Flame Tree BBQ)
1 Cheesecake – this was the best!!
1 Chocolate Cake
1 Marshmallow Brownie
4 drinks
1 beer
We “rode off” lunch by sitting on the nice peaceful “Living with the Land” boat ride, quite an enjoyable ride and I am not a gardener but would relish a lush veg patch to “pick to order” for dinner. I just wish gardening was as instant as Disney gardening seems to be.
Living with the Seas was our next pavilion, and the new Nemo ride, as far as I can remember it was “alright!” However, “Turtle Talk with Crush” was just starting, so we went in expecting a toddler meet and greet or something. Boy was this funny, I think it was almost voted best attraction of the week for us. I wish we had managed to return to see if the comedy was just tripping out the same over and over or if Crush really did have the skills to make every show different. This is a must see! Definitely a ROTFLOLAPMP experience.
Honey I Shrunk the Audience and the obligatory trip on Spaceship Earth finished off our Future World tour. With a 6.40pm Le Cellier time, and a world to walk round, we carefully people watched and gave away our five Soarin’ FPs for 6.30pm to a deserving family (well one with a similar make up to ours!!) they were ever so grateful!!
Around the world we go, ambling slowly and a stop in all the shops, and taking in whatever was happening. We concentrated on other things….Steve was keen to try out this little idea of drinking your way around the world, the one a certain Stringer guy recommends…..I did help him and he is mortified that we didn’t succeed!
Norway~ Beer plus an Iced Pretzel, snack Credit (funny combination!) and an Apple Danish for one child or other.
Mexico~ Beer and an obligatory Frozen Margarita. These take a lot of drinking, and to avoid brain freeze take it slowly, Steve and I sat in the sun on the terrace whilst the kiddy winks rode El Rio Del Tiempo. I like that ride and another “miss” for me this holiday. We will have to return!
China~ This was a find, the boy done good, a warm Plum Wine, I loved it but he didn’t. What a shame. Sally found Mulan and Mushu with no queue too, she counts this as her “magical moment” but the rest of us aren’t so jealous this time.
Germany~ to make up for China he had to have a Becks.
Italy~ There was one of those whistling acts going on, the whistling mine ones, quite funny especially when you’ve had a couple of drinks on a weekday afternoon. It was either here or France where a glass of red wine was purchased.
American Adventure~ lets say we failed here, the crush for the Candlelight Processional drove us on to
Japan~ Hot Saki, not to my taste but Steve liked it. Laura tried a Tangerine Kaki Gori as her snack, I had read lots of rave reviews for these, I must have read them on April 1st, it was yuk, kaki, disgusting. Shaved ice with neat Orange E numbered syrupy gloop poured over it, tasted like a foul cough medicine. Even Laura who likes things like that hated it!!
Kaki Gori and Hot Sake in Japan. Note the perfectly lined up EPCOT sign, a total fluke!!
Morrocco~ was lovely as ever, but we had scaled back on the drinking, after all it was only 5.30 pm and we don’t want to wreck dinner.
France~ we did have the wine in Italy, not France, we were being sensible by then.
United Kingdom~ living in the Cotswolds this does look strangely like a morphed ”home” to us, even the pub looks like our local and Steve was going to by pass it. Emphasis on the “was” as Off Kilter was about to start in Canada at 6.15pm, and I had good bench seats, you can’t go to a gig without beer, right. Beer wasn’t as good as back home and he muttered about the price (that’s my job!)
Canada~ Watched half an Off Kilter performance, they were just as good as 5 years ago, I think the band members were the same, how do they keep it going? I was dragged to my feet, very sore and stiff by now, we checked in at the podium for our 6.40pm Le Cellier dinner. I had spent months drooling over this meal, the others had no idea the careful balancing that had gone into my dining plan choices for them. After a short wait we were seated right over the far side of the “cave”, a lovely table. Our server was very personable and we had a fabulous meal. The three types of Canadian bread to stave off the hunger pangs were good, but I make bread in the bread machine every night at home so not as much “to die for” over the bread as what came after. We ordered 4 TS meals (and that extra plate)
Crab and Salmon Timbale - smoked salmon layered with Canadian rock crab, mascarpone cheese, and citrus syrup $11.99 – this was lush
Prince Edward Island Mussels (x2) - served chowder style with Applewood smoked bacon and potatoes $9.99 - scrum yum gorgeous.
Steakhouse Caesar - baby romaine, sour dough croutons, creamy Caesar dressing $5.99 – waste of an appetizer choice, but Laura insisted and it was a very poor Caesar Salad.
Le Cellier Mushroom Filet Mignon (x2) - Baby Bella wild mushroom risotto, white truffle and herb butter sauce, topped with fried parsnips $27.99 – as good as it gets, served just right medium rare. Steve and I didn’t waste this on the children, we both ate the lot, although to be the fair the steak is actually a sensible size here.
Sauteed Shrimp - oven dried tomatoes, Applewood smoked bacon, linguine, fresh arugula and Black Diamond cheddar cream sauce $22.99 – also declared superb by Laura and Sally
14 oz. New York Strip Steak - with sautéed leeks, frisee, and roasted Yukon gold potatoes, and finished with veal demi glace $26.99 – Kate enjoyed this and shared with Sally and Steve
Smoothies were allowed as drinks so 1x Mango and Cranberry Smoothy (without cranberry on request, typical Laura), 1 x Sour Apple Freeze (Sally thought it a bit “odd”) and an Iced Cappuccino (divine according to Kate). I had a glass of rather stunning red wine, the recommended pairing to the Filet Mignon, at $11 a throw it was a good job it was stunning (Jackson Valley rings a bell?). Needless to say I didn’t share that. A couple of beers too of course, and Steve had a coffee, he had a taste of each dessert only, which were:
Crème Brullee Sampler. Good but tiny, 2 or 3 different combinations of Brulee, only a teaspoon of each.
Chocolate Whiskey Cake (Signature offering) x 2. Very dark, rich and luscious, not dried out and tasteless or too sweet as chocolate desserts often are.
1 x S’mores creation – it involved ice cream, banana, marshmallows and various other bits and pieces, the “bees knees” according to Sally.
The DDP part of the bill was $230 excluding tips which are included with the plan. Le Cellier was well worth it’s reputation and we decided we would keep our Candlelight Processional Package booking here for Friday lunchtime, our opinion did change on Friday, but for now THIS meal was “ace”.
We were too tired by now to wait an hour for Illuminations, so we walked back to “our” bus, admiring the Christmas Tree and Corridor of Light, Dancing Fountains and general atmosphere. POR is fabulous, but the Bus Stops are always the furthest away ones, that hasn’t changed!
Too tired and full to swim, a bit of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” on TV and another early night. We probably have done too much so far but the first four days are by far the best chance we will see the 4 main parks whilst they are less crowded, next week will be pandemonium!
Tomorrow: Magic Kingdom and Narcossees (or Downtown Disney and Riverside Mill!)
Day 4 Tues 19th Dec MK and Narcossees
