Alll I can say is WOW!!!

[meldud]

Day 4

We decided on a gentle saunter round Future World at Epcot as all we had done so far was rush through to the monorail or the World Showcase or Illuminations. We didn't feel like we had seen much.

My DH LOVED the musical fountain... in fact he said if we win £7 million that my DD can have a pony, but he wants a musical fountain in the garden... of course we will have to buy a garden big enough to put it in! and the pony...

It was beautifully done...the water moving with the music...fabulous!!

Following a few suggestions on the DIS, we went to Innoventions where both my DS and DD had a go at making their own video game.
This was great ... I struggle to get my DS off the computer at home and he has to have a time limit, so a short burst with computer games for him was fun (without the tedium for us of waiting around for him to be finished ). They had to jump , run and do a victory dance all of which was sent to the video game. They then had to play the game with themselves in it and reach the end before the time ran out. We have been able to play the game again since we got home as we were able to email it to ourselves from there. How cool is that??

We made our way to Spaceship Earth...

...the queue was probably the longest we did in Disney, but seemed to pass quickly as we were continually moving... I remember feeling jealous of the people with misting sprays and standing strategically placed so they would spray me at the same time!!

A journey through the ages depicting the development of the computer from early writing to the present day computer... did I say before that my DS is into computers?? Guess who liked this bit??
I liked the part where you reach the top!! Another WOW factor for me!!
My DD liked the on screen quiz on the way down. She giggled her way through that section.

We were on our way back to the hotel and came across Captain E-O...well you kinda have to be a MJ fan to enjoy this very dated musical 3D film. I just thought it was a bit odd!?!

Quick break back at the hotel then off to DHS again.

We had a Fantasmic package booked at Hollywood and Vine. The buffet was very varied, not very hot... but quite tasty. I loved the berry cobbler for dessert and my husband enjoyed the lemon mousse.

We were concerned beforehand about the ticket for Fantasmic, but it was all organised at given to us at the table before we even had a chance to mention it. Everything was explained to us and we felt quite happy that we knew what to do!

We had a few hours to kill so we went to explore for a while. Honey I Shrunk the Kids Play area was very cool. The kids enjoyed sliding out of an enormous roll of film, hiding under huge grasses

and sitting on a gigantic ant!

We HAD to do Star Tours again... twice!! Tell I'm a good mother!!!

We also caught the end of the HSM parade this time too

both children are fans of and know most of the songs from HSM, so this was a hit too!

and finally Fantasmic. The kids weren't too sure about seeing 'another' fireworks show.... I tried explain how different Epcot and MK had been and that I would assume this one to be different again.

........one word.........genius!!!!!

Who dreams these things up..........

I think it ended up being their favourite show by the end. Fireworks, lights, water, boats, characters, flowers and the music..........can I say WOW again???????????????

Unfortunately I ended up taping most of it in small chunks so I wouldn't forget it.....so I don't have many photos of Fantasmic!! But I have rewatched the pieces I did record!!

 

[2Tiggies]

Oh I had been waiting for this update!

I also love the musical fountain at Epcot. It is really a case of chance - being there at the right time when it goes into action, but if you want to take a rest at any point this is a good place to do so as it is so worth the wait IMO.

So I take it your children enjoyed Fantasmic? Did you do a dinner package or did you just go through the regular queue?

I love your pics of the Honey I shrunk the Kids playground. It's a great photo op! Don't tempt me - I am watching several DLSR's on eBay as we speak

Your photos are awesome and it is so enjoyable sitting and reading your report and looking at your pictures. Definitely going a long way to getting me seriously excited.

 

[meldud]

Day 5 and Typhoon Lagoon

A short bus ride to Typhoon Laggon on a VERY hot day. We eventually found some sun beds to make a base, although we didn't really need them.

The first thing we did was cool off in the water. We kept hearing a huge bang followed by an en masse girlie scream!!



It was the tidal wave!! Wow... how are there not more injuries???My DD got knocked off her feet and carried so far into the shallows that she scraped her upper thigh quite badly on the rough flooring. It only took a couple of attempts for her to get used to how to land and how to not scrape her shins or feet along the floor in order to stand up. They absolutely loved it. I do think it requires one to one with a child though. There were quite a few very small children standing very deep in the water and boy it hits hard!!

We went for a wander after this and I have an urgent word of warning!!! Take shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is my only downer in the whole holiday and it could have really ruined our time away!!!!

There are no signs up telling you to wear shoes. Now obviously stone and concrete gets hot... but there are no warnings to that effect. We had never walked up to the top before and had no idea that the sand would stop and that the water spray fans on the bridges on ground level wouldn't be there at a higher level.... in the sun!!!
We had no idea that there was no shade at all.............we walked all along the top, across a bridge with ridges in which were agonisingly hot and onto more concrete. We kept thinking that just round the next corner there would be a patch of shade or water or a different flooring which would be cooler but we were wrong!!!

Our feet were burning on the soles and my DS started screaming hysterically and my DD was just about to start a panic attack too.... I have to say that panic was setting in with me too. We ran and ran until we found shade, hobbled to some water and pretty much stayed there until we could put our feet to the floor again!!!! It was terrifying and we were lucky that we did not blister the soles of our feet. It took 24 hours for our feet to feel vaguely normal again!!

So this is my very serious warning to all............wear shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The QS restaurant was very good with my DD and her gluten allergy and the chef came out and made us promise that we wouldn't accept food from anyone except him!!
The food was ok, nothing special... but we were sat in swimming costumes with burnt feet... what did we care??? we just wanted to eat!

Later we tried a couple of water slides which the kids loved, but the queue was too long to wait for the family ride which we were all going to do. especially as our feet were sore and the sun was so hot. So we went back in the tidal wave for a while before calling it a day and heading home.

I have no pictures because we didn't take the camera.

 

[meldud]

So I take it your children enjoyed Fantasmic? Did you do a dinner package or did you just go through the regular queue?

Your photos are awesome and it is so enjoyable sitting and reading your report and looking at your pictures. Definitely going a long way to getting me seriously excited.

We all loved Fantasmic!! We did the Hollywood and Vine dinner package which we booked 180 days out. I am glad we did as we got to choose the show time we went to, others were trying to sneak in early and were being turned away!

It's not long now till your holiday now though is it... I am excited for you now!

 

[2Tiggies]

We all loved Fantasmic!! We did the Hollywood and Vine dinner package which we booked 180 days out. I am glad we did as we got to choose the show time we went to, others were trying to sneak in early and were being turned away!

It's not long now till your holiday now though is it... I am excited for you now!

I'm getting excited for me too! It is coming quickly now. I always say that my weeks seem to consist of Mondays and Fridays - everything between is a blur But the advantage is that the days are ticking over nicely. I hate to think what it would be like counting down if my days were less hectic.

What do you mean when you say you could choose the show time? I only ask because as far as I knew, you could only use your reserved seating privileg for the first show if there were two F shows in the evening. We are going without the dinner package. I just cant for more TS!

 

[Marks281172]

Great TR so far and great photos keep it coming!

 

[meldud]

I'm getting excited for me too! It is coming quickly now. I always say that my weeks seem to consist of Mondays and Fridays - everything between is a blur But the advantage is that the days are ticking over nicely. I hate to think what it would be like counting down if my days were less hectic.

What do you mean when you say you could choose the show time? I only ask because as far as I knew, you could only use your reserved seating privileg for the first show if there were two F shows in the evening. We are going without the dinner package. I just cant for more TS!

It was so long ago I can't remember... I just remember booking this one by phone.. you can't do it online. It may be that the one I wanted was the only one they book for anyway... I may have misremembered!! DH can't remember either! Sorry! I do remember that some people were trying to sneak in with their yellow cards and were told that theirs was for the later show and that they had to come back later and wouldn't let them in.

I know the closest time we could get was 4pm for the 9pm show, so we had a bit of time to kill in between. We booked it early too! 180 days out, so we were lucky.

The last couple of weeks really flew for me too as I was soooo busy... I can feel your excitement from here!

 

[crabbie1]

Mel Great TR.Just sat in bed reading it all. Roll on 18 days.
love fantasmic and even 180 days out couldnt get in for the package.Dont know if I will queue for over an hour for this.May just wait till its started and stand at the back.
Need to check the times.Going 28th sept and agin on the 3rd oct

 

[2Tiggies]

I know the closest time we could get was 4pm for the 9pm show, so we had a bit of time to kill in between. We booked it early too! 180 days out, so we were lucky.

The dinner package reservartions are early. They are doing lunch ones now too. I was asking because I wont do the dinner package but if they are now using some of the package reservations for a second show I might have to rethink my late show strategy.

 

[meldud]

Day 6

We had a lazy morning today with a late breakfast at the Captains Grille (again). Then a leisurely trip to Downtown Disney for shopping, dinner and Cirque du Soleil.

With hind sight we should have stayed on the bus one more stop as we got off the bus at the first opportunity... it wasn't until we left that we discovered that the bus stopped at a couple of places within the car parks .... so advice... read the maps before going!! haha


But guess what??.....yay... the first shop I saw was a christmas shop.... I was in heaven!!!! I had been in the store 3 minutes before finding something for my step-grandson!! (I am still in my 30's and not old enough to have a real grandson in case you are wondering... he is adorable though and was the object of our shopping for the whole two weeks we were in Florida!!)If we hadn't got off the bus too early I may never have known!!

We took a stroll down to Planet Hollywood where we had booked an ADR for a late lunch. The service was INCREDIBLY slow and it was just as well that we had three hours. We were seated quite quickly and then left to look at the menu for what seemed like ages. Finally someone took our drinks order and then went to get the chef. By the time the chef had been and gone and we had ordered it was about 45 minutes later.

The portions were the largest I had seen... I am sure that the staff thought we hadn't eaten anything. We had hardly made a dent in the plates put in front of us!

We ordered an appetiser (which would have done for a main course) and a main course (which would have fed two people). Then a dessert for us all to share (it was only supposed to serve 2).
The service between courses was slow and at one point we were going to threaten to walk out before dessert arrived... but we struggled to attract the attention of our server in order to do that.
We found that having the tv's on all the time, cut short any conversation we had started... the kids were glued and we weren't much better and looking around the other tables I would say that other families were having the same problem.

We eventually left about 2 and a half hours later....

...we just about had time to look in a couple of shops before heading to Cirque du Soleil.

The show was amazing... my DH and I saw Allegria at the Albert Hall back in 1998 and were gob smacked then! It was a very good show, especially the tumbling and trampolining...that was DH's favourite part. The kids enjoyed the clowns and the cycling. Although the cyclists got very close to those in the font rows and I don't think that was such a good place to sit. I enjoyed it enough to buy the DVD... remembering just in time that I needed a European one!

We slowly made our way back to the bus stop (still not knowing at this point that we could get a bus closer to where we were). But as we hadn't had much time to shop we had a good mooch through the ones we were interested in.
It was a good opportunity to buy all those holiday presents for family... Buzz Lightyear for my grandson and pins/pens for the kids friends. A T-shirt for my grandson....and a bag for the daughter of the friend who gave us a lift to the airport. A Christmas stocking for my grandson.... and Winnie the Pooh cookies for MIL. A hat for my grandso... I did say we went a bit mad on him!!

I really liked being able to send all the shopping back to the hotel at each cash register as it made it easier to shop in the next place without carrying bags around all evening. We had to wait until after 1pm the next day until collecting our purchases from the collection point in the Beach Club Marketplace. As we were out all day the following day we hadn't bothered going down to collect them and we had a message blinking on our phone letting us know that they had arrived. How polite!!

My son was quite keen to go in the Lego Imagination shop... but it was heaving and quite small and limited in stock, in comparison to the Big Shop at Legoland, Windsor. We have had annual passes for Legoland for about 4 years and now have Merlin passes so we can go there anytime we like.

We eventually made our way back to the bus stop and jumped straight on the bus that had arrived.... I don't think I have mentioned yet how lucky we were with transport the whole time we were away. I think the longest we had to wait was 4 or 5 minutes for any form of transport. Sometimes we had no wait at all!!

Anyway... now we discovered the error of not reading the map properly!! Oh well.... I got to go back in the Christmas shop while DH bought drinks!!

We all crashed when we returned to the hotel... shopping is soooo exhausting.

 

[2Tiggies]

I do love Downtown Disney! A shame your DS didn't get into the Lego Store. My DD has never been to Legoland but she loves Lego so it was heaven to her. I have never seen that place quiet .... EVER!!!! However she picked up some lego for a song and a dance there. Even at a 1/1 exchange rate I think it is a good deal.

Did you at least manage to stop and admire the enormous lego creations? I love the sea monster!!!

Oh Planet Hollywood ..... I have never been to the Disney one. I used to go to another one regularly with friends in my early 20's. Bring on the late 20s and I went back again and realised I had ... er, outgrown it (for want of a better explanation). Did the kids enjoy it though? Did they cater for your DD the way the other places did? I wonder if this could be why you waited so long - or did you feel it was the server rather than the chef causing the hold up?

I thought I would point out that you may not have been so silly with your bus stops at DTD. Although the buses often stop at PI, they don't always make the stop and if they are full at the Marketplace, they just head straight for the resort. So you could end up waiting a lot longer for your bus than it would take you to walk back to the Marketplace.

I am thoroughly enjoying your report! Looking forward to Day 7!!!!