allie5
<font color=blue>WARNING! DHL men should be cautio
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2002
- Messages
- 1,572
Part 10 Premium Outlets, Wilderness Lodge Sleigh Ride
Main Players
Allie
Neil
Jessamy (4)
Daniel Noah (2)
Nanny Sylvie
Thursday December 16th 2004
Awake at 8am to an unusual object outside our window this morning. Its big, yellow, shiny and emitting WARMTH to our frozen bones anyone want to guess? No, not Nanny Sylvie dressed in a Disney Poncho holding a flame thrower, its the SUN! YIPPEEEE!
My first thoughts are to head to a park quickly, before it changes its mind and returns to wherever it has been hiding the last few days! However, the kids are still not 100%, though they are better than yesterday. As we have another evening thing planned dinner at the Whispering Canyon Café, followed by a horse drawn sleigh ride, we decide to keep things gentle again this morning.
Neil does a little survey of where everyone would like to go today. Imagine me, as Donkey from Shrek, bounding up and down shouting Pick me, pick me! I am just a tad desperate to get to the Premium Outlets as you maybe able to tell!
Bribe the kids, furtively whispering You can have a toy if you tell Daddy you want to go shopping
.
Hoorah, my plan, in perfect A-Team style, comes together nicely, and we are off to the Premium Outlets!
We do a quick pit stop for one of those yummy Macdonalds ham and cheese bagels for me and egg Mcmuffins for everyone else.
Its really refreshing to open the door of the Jeep and marvel at the warmth rather than wince at the cold today! We are all in T shirts, as Nanny Sylvies spookily accurate Pinecone (which I am offering to the BBC Weather service on our return) is open in all its true pineconey splendour today!
First stop, as always here, is the Character Warehouse. Stock up on some cheapo pins to use for trading (mmm, sneaky or what??) and get Jessie a pretty Minnie Mouse dress and Pooh PJs. Not a great deal here this year I do find these places tend to be quite hit and miss.
Buy both kids tons of outfits in Osh Kosh. I love their clothes and they are so cheap here. I can usually re-sell them on ebay, even after the kids have outgrown them, for more than I paid. Now, arent I a wife any man should cherish forever? Well, this is what I tell Neil when I spot a nice sweater I quite fancy
.
Neil buys some trainers in the Nike Store. He is a size 13 and can rarely find shoes at home, so he always restocks in the US. Trouble is, his shoes are MASSIVE and need a holdall of their own!
Whilst waiting for Neil to pay for his trainers, we are all sitting outside enjoying the sunshine, when a man appears from a nearby store and asks if we would like some Free fudge? Hmm, lets think about that for, oh, a nanosecond yes, actually we would, ta very much!
I, Nanny Sylvie and the kids enter the Fudge Factory and are offered samples of about 10 different types. Neil manages to find us and also joins in the sampling, though, as a diabetic, this probably isnt wise!
With our faces well and truly stuffed, we leave here feeling guilty we dont buy anything we were far to full to actually want to PAY for some!
We think we ought to start thinking about buying Christmas presents for those left back home as we had promised. My brother had requested a Versace belt, and lo and behold, there is a Versace Outlet here so that should be a breeze!
Neil takes the kids to the KB toys outlet and mum and I see what Mr Versace can offer us. Plenty, as it happened, as long as you didnt mind paying three figures for what looked like a black belt you could buy in Marks & Spencers for £20!!
An enthusiastic young man bounded over to help us and talked us into a more unusual one which was a snip at $145. Im gagging on my fudge at this point and he quickly reduces it by 20%, which, he informs me, is a fabulous buy. Is it indeed? Not sure his version of fabulous is the same as mine.
Well, I cave in as mum offers to go halves and this makes it more acceptable to the wallet! Our young assistant helpfully is the same size as my little brother and acts as a model, so we can get the right size. I christen him Daffyd, and am pretty certain he isnt the only one in the Village if you know what I mean!!!
(Only Little Britain fans will have a clue what I am talking about!!).
Daffyd minces to the till with our belt and tries his very best to flog us some Versace perfume for $20, but we decline. Im still recovering from the shock of paying nearly £80 for a belt!! Next year, my brother gets a Mickey T shirt and thats final!
Reunite with Neil and the wee ones, who (and this will go down in the annals of history as a very rare day indeed) cannot find a toy they want in the toy shop! Just as well, as I have to tell Neil how much I just paid for a belt!
Scrape Neil up from the sidewalk and steady his walk for a few minutes as he gets over the shock and head into the food court for a snacky lunch. We dont want too much as we have quite an early PS at the Whispering Canyon Café this evening (5:10pm). Kids have chicken and fries for a change. Neil has something noodley from the Chinese, Nanny Sylvie opts for stealing fries from the kids and I have a Philly steak sandwich.
Leave around 1pm for the short drive home where we immediately put Daniel down for a nap.
Neil and I pop to the Publix for some essential supplies that have run low. A Villa with no Zinfandel, Bud Ice or diet cherry coke in the fridge is clearly in need of attention!
The ladies at the Publix are lovely as always and load the bags, carry it out and load the car!! They arent allowed tips, even though we try to give one! WOW I think Mr Tesco should take a few leaves from Mr Publixs book! Makes a change from a grumpy teenager asking Do ya want me to pack ya cold stuff? with all the sincerity of Osama Bin Laden sending a birthday card to George Bush.
Back to the villa, restock the fridge and awaken Daniel. Its 4pm so we decide to head over to the Wilderness Lodge for a customary snoop and shop before our meal!
Last year we had terrible trouble getting past security here, but today there is a very pleasant female, blonde security guard who lets us in with no parking permit! Neil reckons she moonlights as one of Santas Saucy Helpers in the Jolly Holly Days parade! Smack him hard and proceed to find a parking space.
Once in the hotel, we find out exactly where we need to pick up our sleigh from later. We are told there is a special section of valet parking set aside for it and to simply wait outside. Good job its quite mild tonight!
Explore the hotel, marvelling at the enormous Christmas tree in the lobby. It was huge and we had trouble getting it all in one photo. This place really looks the part at Christmas, and was probably the most festive of the resorts we visited.
I like the gift shop here, so plenty of time was spent browsing! There is also a very impressive Pin Stand at the Wilderness Lodge, which I urge fellow Pinsters(not sure what the collective name for Pin Collectors is, so I made one up!) to visit if given the chance!! Naturally, several pins were bought for both mine and Jessies Lanyard. Pin total is now 16. Eeek!
Wander over to the Whispering Canyon Café, which actually doesnt open till 5, so there were quite a few people waiting. Check in and we are one of the first parties to be seated.
The restaurant fills up quickly, and only 10 minutes after we are seated its practically full. Its VERY noisy as well, which upsets Daniel no end.
Although we have eaten here before, it was lunch time and the place was almost empty. I wasnt quite prepared for how loud it got, and in hindsight it was a bad choice to bring Daniel.
Fortunately, our waitress saw he was in some distress and kept things fairly demure at our table. She threw the straws at the kids to start and Daniel burst into tears which made her feel just awful I explained he wasnt good with noise and so she toned things down somewhat. I got the impression she would have been a total riot if let loose, but never mind.
We ordered the family skillet and a hot dog for Daniel. Neil makes the most of the bottomless milkshakes here and Jessie also manages a strawberry and chocolate one! Food arrives promptly and is very tasty.
Hot corn bread is brought up first, which is really Victoria sponge cake. Not sure quite how our American cousins can think this is bread, but when in Rome etc etc and we scoff the lot! There is also a big bowl of salad which I dont remember them serving last year. This is also very scrummy.
The skillet arrives with plentiful amounts of ribs, pork, chicken, mash, BBQ beans and corn on the cobs. Top up the pork and ribs as we polish those off pretty quick!
There is allsorts going on around us at one point the whole restaurant is made to go silent and a poor lady who got up to use the bathroom is publicly humiliated in front of 150 people! Fortunately, she was a good sport and found it hilarious. Be warned dont be the first person up to go to the toilet here, unless you enjoy being brunt of a huge joke!
There are pony races for the kids, napkin waving, crazy servers moving crates of ketchup and giant buckets of soda around. Even just watching it all was fun! Even Daniel got used to it in the end and was smiling by the end of the meal. One of the loudest servers came over and put his cowboy hat on his head which he loved! In the end it was a success, but I think it will be somewhere the kids will enjoy even more when they are that bit older!
Cheque was $115 inc tip which we thought was OK for the 5 of us.
It almost time for our sleigh ride so we move ourselves outside to await its arrival.
At exactly 7pm, bells are heard and the sleigh appears from the darkness, splendidly lit up with fairy lights! Kids faces are a picture! They cant believe they are getting to ride in this!
The couple in the sleigh dismount and we go over to the driver.
Now, had our driver been twenty or thirty something, I would have sworn he had possibly partaken in the misuse of an illegal substance. As it was, our driver was pushing seventy, but appeared to be living on a different planet to the rest of us.
When I approached him he smiled and went back to grooming his horse. I cough loudly and tell him we have a reservation. Another smile, more grooming. Wait a polite amount of time and try a more blunt approach..Excuse me, we have a reservation for 7pm. Do you understand me? (I wondered if he couldnt understand my estuary English many Americans cant)
Another smile. A confused look, then a light bulb seems to ding above his head and he retrieves a list from the nether regions of the horse. I dont dwell on exactly where it was plucked from.
Hmmm, now lets see. A reservation you say eh? Another 5 minutes is spent while he tries to find my name and when he does eventually find it (strangely, in the part of the list marked 7pm) he is incredulous.
Oh, YOU DO have a reservation. Isnt that just dandy, why dont you folks climb aboard then. Its as if he isnt expecting anyone to show up and actually RIDE his sleigh!
The fact we are on the list does seem to rouse him out of his own little world and he offers to take our picture when we are on board. There are blankets provided and its all quite cosy!
Finally, we are off! Everyone together now - Sleigh bells ring, snow is glistening, walking in a winter wonderlaaaaaand!! Well, there was no ACTUAL snow, but it was that festive, there could have been!
We have attracted quite a crowd and feel like royalty waving to the commoners as we glide past on our magnificent chariot. At least 10 kids are heard wailing But I wanna ride that Daddy as we go past. No chance kids, I booked this months ago!!
Once out on the trail, things get very dark very quickly! We head into the woods and allsorts of creatures can be heard from the thickets. Its actually quite spooky in there there are no lights and you cant see the hotel either. You would never guess you were about a mile from the worlds biggest theme park and about 500 yards away from a massive hotel!
Jessie is not keen on the dark, but we keep spirits up singing Horsey Horsey and chatting to our driver (he was called Kelly) who seemed to have returned to the real world now. We notice a lot of the trees are down due to Hurricane Charley. Kelly said there was a tremendous amount of damage done in WDW and they havent got round to any of it that didnt directly affect the parks or hotels.
We also got some background info on Travis our horse. He used to be in the Magic Kingdom parade but is now semi retired and lives at Fort Wilderness. He works 3 nights a week and the rest of the time is spent grazing in the fields in a sort of horsey retirement home. I wonder if they play bingo and short mat bowls on their nights off?
We trot round for about half an hour and it really is very pleasant. Its quite mild (well, after last night, anything would seem mild!!) and we dont need the blankets.
There is only one embarrassing moment, when I ask how old the horse is, Jessie then enquires to how old the driver is! Fortunately, he was a tad deaf and didnt hear that bit!
Back to the Lodge, we dismount and tip Kelly, who has returned to Planet Sleigh Driver and looks at the money as if it is magic beans or something!
Smile sweetly and retreat quickly, glancing sympathetically at the family trying to now communicate with Kelly that they had a ride booked. Kelly was now happily grooming his horse and ignored them totally! Avoid the giant wee done by Travis as we leave, though Daniel thinks this is wonderful and we are made to hear the chant Horsey wee wee for the entire journey home!
Arrive back home at 8.30pm. We are total lightweights tonight and are ALL in bed and asleep by 9.30pm! This is good as I want an early start tomorrow for a big blitz on the Magic Kingdom!
Main Players
Allie
Neil
Jessamy (4)
Daniel Noah (2)
Nanny Sylvie
Thursday December 16th 2004
Awake at 8am to an unusual object outside our window this morning. Its big, yellow, shiny and emitting WARMTH to our frozen bones anyone want to guess? No, not Nanny Sylvie dressed in a Disney Poncho holding a flame thrower, its the SUN! YIPPEEEE!
My first thoughts are to head to a park quickly, before it changes its mind and returns to wherever it has been hiding the last few days! However, the kids are still not 100%, though they are better than yesterday. As we have another evening thing planned dinner at the Whispering Canyon Café, followed by a horse drawn sleigh ride, we decide to keep things gentle again this morning.
Neil does a little survey of where everyone would like to go today. Imagine me, as Donkey from Shrek, bounding up and down shouting Pick me, pick me! I am just a tad desperate to get to the Premium Outlets as you maybe able to tell!
Bribe the kids, furtively whispering You can have a toy if you tell Daddy you want to go shopping
. Hoorah, my plan, in perfect A-Team style, comes together nicely, and we are off to the Premium Outlets!
We do a quick pit stop for one of those yummy Macdonalds ham and cheese bagels for me and egg Mcmuffins for everyone else.
Its really refreshing to open the door of the Jeep and marvel at the warmth rather than wince at the cold today! We are all in T shirts, as Nanny Sylvies spookily accurate Pinecone (which I am offering to the BBC Weather service on our return) is open in all its true pineconey splendour today!
First stop, as always here, is the Character Warehouse. Stock up on some cheapo pins to use for trading (mmm, sneaky or what??) and get Jessie a pretty Minnie Mouse dress and Pooh PJs. Not a great deal here this year I do find these places tend to be quite hit and miss.
Buy both kids tons of outfits in Osh Kosh. I love their clothes and they are so cheap here. I can usually re-sell them on ebay, even after the kids have outgrown them, for more than I paid. Now, arent I a wife any man should cherish forever? Well, this is what I tell Neil when I spot a nice sweater I quite fancy
.Neil buys some trainers in the Nike Store. He is a size 13 and can rarely find shoes at home, so he always restocks in the US. Trouble is, his shoes are MASSIVE and need a holdall of their own!
Whilst waiting for Neil to pay for his trainers, we are all sitting outside enjoying the sunshine, when a man appears from a nearby store and asks if we would like some Free fudge? Hmm, lets think about that for, oh, a nanosecond yes, actually we would, ta very much!
I, Nanny Sylvie and the kids enter the Fudge Factory and are offered samples of about 10 different types. Neil manages to find us and also joins in the sampling, though, as a diabetic, this probably isnt wise!
With our faces well and truly stuffed, we leave here feeling guilty we dont buy anything we were far to full to actually want to PAY for some!
We think we ought to start thinking about buying Christmas presents for those left back home as we had promised. My brother had requested a Versace belt, and lo and behold, there is a Versace Outlet here so that should be a breeze!
Neil takes the kids to the KB toys outlet and mum and I see what Mr Versace can offer us. Plenty, as it happened, as long as you didnt mind paying three figures for what looked like a black belt you could buy in Marks & Spencers for £20!!
An enthusiastic young man bounded over to help us and talked us into a more unusual one which was a snip at $145. Im gagging on my fudge at this point and he quickly reduces it by 20%, which, he informs me, is a fabulous buy. Is it indeed? Not sure his version of fabulous is the same as mine.
Well, I cave in as mum offers to go halves and this makes it more acceptable to the wallet! Our young assistant helpfully is the same size as my little brother and acts as a model, so we can get the right size. I christen him Daffyd, and am pretty certain he isnt the only one in the Village if you know what I mean!!!
(Only Little Britain fans will have a clue what I am talking about!!).Daffyd minces to the till with our belt and tries his very best to flog us some Versace perfume for $20, but we decline. Im still recovering from the shock of paying nearly £80 for a belt!! Next year, my brother gets a Mickey T shirt and thats final!
Reunite with Neil and the wee ones, who (and this will go down in the annals of history as a very rare day indeed) cannot find a toy they want in the toy shop! Just as well, as I have to tell Neil how much I just paid for a belt!
Scrape Neil up from the sidewalk and steady his walk for a few minutes as he gets over the shock and head into the food court for a snacky lunch. We dont want too much as we have quite an early PS at the Whispering Canyon Café this evening (5:10pm). Kids have chicken and fries for a change. Neil has something noodley from the Chinese, Nanny Sylvie opts for stealing fries from the kids and I have a Philly steak sandwich.
Leave around 1pm for the short drive home where we immediately put Daniel down for a nap.
Neil and I pop to the Publix for some essential supplies that have run low. A Villa with no Zinfandel, Bud Ice or diet cherry coke in the fridge is clearly in need of attention!
The ladies at the Publix are lovely as always and load the bags, carry it out and load the car!! They arent allowed tips, even though we try to give one! WOW I think Mr Tesco should take a few leaves from Mr Publixs book! Makes a change from a grumpy teenager asking Do ya want me to pack ya cold stuff? with all the sincerity of Osama Bin Laden sending a birthday card to George Bush.
Back to the villa, restock the fridge and awaken Daniel. Its 4pm so we decide to head over to the Wilderness Lodge for a customary snoop and shop before our meal!
Last year we had terrible trouble getting past security here, but today there is a very pleasant female, blonde security guard who lets us in with no parking permit! Neil reckons she moonlights as one of Santas Saucy Helpers in the Jolly Holly Days parade! Smack him hard and proceed to find a parking space.
Once in the hotel, we find out exactly where we need to pick up our sleigh from later. We are told there is a special section of valet parking set aside for it and to simply wait outside. Good job its quite mild tonight!
Explore the hotel, marvelling at the enormous Christmas tree in the lobby. It was huge and we had trouble getting it all in one photo. This place really looks the part at Christmas, and was probably the most festive of the resorts we visited.
I like the gift shop here, so plenty of time was spent browsing! There is also a very impressive Pin Stand at the Wilderness Lodge, which I urge fellow Pinsters(not sure what the collective name for Pin Collectors is, so I made one up!) to visit if given the chance!! Naturally, several pins were bought for both mine and Jessies Lanyard. Pin total is now 16. Eeek!
Wander over to the Whispering Canyon Café, which actually doesnt open till 5, so there were quite a few people waiting. Check in and we are one of the first parties to be seated.
The restaurant fills up quickly, and only 10 minutes after we are seated its practically full. Its VERY noisy as well, which upsets Daniel no end.
Although we have eaten here before, it was lunch time and the place was almost empty. I wasnt quite prepared for how loud it got, and in hindsight it was a bad choice to bring Daniel.
Fortunately, our waitress saw he was in some distress and kept things fairly demure at our table. She threw the straws at the kids to start and Daniel burst into tears which made her feel just awful I explained he wasnt good with noise and so she toned things down somewhat. I got the impression she would have been a total riot if let loose, but never mind.
We ordered the family skillet and a hot dog for Daniel. Neil makes the most of the bottomless milkshakes here and Jessie also manages a strawberry and chocolate one! Food arrives promptly and is very tasty.
Hot corn bread is brought up first, which is really Victoria sponge cake. Not sure quite how our American cousins can think this is bread, but when in Rome etc etc and we scoff the lot! There is also a big bowl of salad which I dont remember them serving last year. This is also very scrummy.
The skillet arrives with plentiful amounts of ribs, pork, chicken, mash, BBQ beans and corn on the cobs. Top up the pork and ribs as we polish those off pretty quick!
There is allsorts going on around us at one point the whole restaurant is made to go silent and a poor lady who got up to use the bathroom is publicly humiliated in front of 150 people! Fortunately, she was a good sport and found it hilarious. Be warned dont be the first person up to go to the toilet here, unless you enjoy being brunt of a huge joke!
There are pony races for the kids, napkin waving, crazy servers moving crates of ketchup and giant buckets of soda around. Even just watching it all was fun! Even Daniel got used to it in the end and was smiling by the end of the meal. One of the loudest servers came over and put his cowboy hat on his head which he loved! In the end it was a success, but I think it will be somewhere the kids will enjoy even more when they are that bit older!
Cheque was $115 inc tip which we thought was OK for the 5 of us.
It almost time for our sleigh ride so we move ourselves outside to await its arrival.
At exactly 7pm, bells are heard and the sleigh appears from the darkness, splendidly lit up with fairy lights! Kids faces are a picture! They cant believe they are getting to ride in this!
The couple in the sleigh dismount and we go over to the driver.
Now, had our driver been twenty or thirty something, I would have sworn he had possibly partaken in the misuse of an illegal substance. As it was, our driver was pushing seventy, but appeared to be living on a different planet to the rest of us.
When I approached him he smiled and went back to grooming his horse. I cough loudly and tell him we have a reservation. Another smile, more grooming. Wait a polite amount of time and try a more blunt approach..Excuse me, we have a reservation for 7pm. Do you understand me? (I wondered if he couldnt understand my estuary English many Americans cant)
Another smile. A confused look, then a light bulb seems to ding above his head and he retrieves a list from the nether regions of the horse. I dont dwell on exactly where it was plucked from.
Hmmm, now lets see. A reservation you say eh? Another 5 minutes is spent while he tries to find my name and when he does eventually find it (strangely, in the part of the list marked 7pm) he is incredulous.
Oh, YOU DO have a reservation. Isnt that just dandy, why dont you folks climb aboard then. Its as if he isnt expecting anyone to show up and actually RIDE his sleigh!
The fact we are on the list does seem to rouse him out of his own little world and he offers to take our picture when we are on board. There are blankets provided and its all quite cosy!
Finally, we are off! Everyone together now - Sleigh bells ring, snow is glistening, walking in a winter wonderlaaaaaand!! Well, there was no ACTUAL snow, but it was that festive, there could have been!
We have attracted quite a crowd and feel like royalty waving to the commoners as we glide past on our magnificent chariot. At least 10 kids are heard wailing But I wanna ride that Daddy as we go past. No chance kids, I booked this months ago!!
Once out on the trail, things get very dark very quickly! We head into the woods and allsorts of creatures can be heard from the thickets. Its actually quite spooky in there there are no lights and you cant see the hotel either. You would never guess you were about a mile from the worlds biggest theme park and about 500 yards away from a massive hotel!
Jessie is not keen on the dark, but we keep spirits up singing Horsey Horsey and chatting to our driver (he was called Kelly) who seemed to have returned to the real world now. We notice a lot of the trees are down due to Hurricane Charley. Kelly said there was a tremendous amount of damage done in WDW and they havent got round to any of it that didnt directly affect the parks or hotels.
We also got some background info on Travis our horse. He used to be in the Magic Kingdom parade but is now semi retired and lives at Fort Wilderness. He works 3 nights a week and the rest of the time is spent grazing in the fields in a sort of horsey retirement home. I wonder if they play bingo and short mat bowls on their nights off?
We trot round for about half an hour and it really is very pleasant. Its quite mild (well, after last night, anything would seem mild!!) and we dont need the blankets.
There is only one embarrassing moment, when I ask how old the horse is, Jessie then enquires to how old the driver is! Fortunately, he was a tad deaf and didnt hear that bit!
Back to the Lodge, we dismount and tip Kelly, who has returned to Planet Sleigh Driver and looks at the money as if it is magic beans or something!
Smile sweetly and retreat quickly, glancing sympathetically at the family trying to now communicate with Kelly that they had a ride booked. Kelly was now happily grooming his horse and ignored them totally! Avoid the giant wee done by Travis as we leave, though Daniel thinks this is wonderful and we are made to hear the chant Horsey wee wee for the entire journey home!
Arrive back home at 8.30pm. We are total lightweights tonight and are ALL in bed and asleep by 9.30pm! This is good as I want an early start tomorrow for a big blitz on the Magic Kingdom!
We are trying WCC in April must remember not to go to the Bathroom - legs must be kept crossed 
