England to Endor (via WDW!) - June 2010 TR UPDATED 02/19 - THE WAVE!

[Bookstamper]

Hello All! Can't believe it's over a week since we returned from WDW - so it must be time for a TR! I'm kind of new to this trip-reporting malarky (well, a failed PTR and loads of lurking aside) so and let's get started!

Intro: This post - just keep reading below!
Day One
Day Two Part 1
Day Two Part 2
Day Two Part 3
Day 2 Part 4
Day 2 Part 5
Day Three Part 1
Day Three Part 2
Day Four Part 1
Day Four Part 2
Day Four Part 3
Day Five Part 1
Day Five Part 2
Day Five Part 3
Day Five Part 4
Day Six Part 1
Day Six Part 2
Day Six Part 3
Day Six Part 4
Day Six Part 5
Day Seven Part 1
Day Seven Part 2
Day Seven Part 3
Day Seven Part 4
Day Seven Part 5
Day Seven Part 6
Day Eight Part 1
Day Eight Part 2
Day Eight Part 3
Day Nine Part 1
Day Nine Part 2
Day Nine Part 3
Day Nine Part 4
Day Nine Part 5
Day Nine Part 6
Day Ten
Day Eleven Part 1


So who's on this trip to the forest moon (and back)?

Well firstly there's me, Lizz, a librarian by day and Disney lover all the time. Here I am on our first trip to WDW back in December 2007, where it didn't take long to find some familiar things from the UK:

And my DP, Sal, who kindly puts up with my Disney obsession (and, I think, quite enjoys the holidays to WDW!). Here she is last November getting pally with Walt himself:

Here we are together back on our first trip to WDW, having just gotten Dream Fastpasses at EPCOT (ah, remember those....?). Funny story here: we had no idea about the Year of a Million Dreams on that visit so when we got approached by a bunch of Disney staff I figured we had done something wrong (and were about to be evicted from The Land....) or were being sold a timeshare, so we almost legged it! They must have thought we were kind of odd (or downright ungrateful) but once we'd figured out what they were, we were - of course - thrilled to be on the receiving end!

This was our FOURTH trip to WDW, and our first time staying at POP! And I've got to confess, we were a little nervous... having lived it up at AKL on our last trip (and being thoroughly spoiled by the experience...!) BUT no need to worry, POP was totally fantastic - and we'd certainly go back again if we get the chance.

So when did we go?

June 3 - June 15: 12 nights, baby!! Woohoo! Having previously been for 8 nights max we figured this would be a trip to relax on, chill out and smell the roses - boy were we wrong, there is just way too much to do at WDW!

I should just add a couple of notes before I get on with the reporting:

1) It was BOILING when we were in Florida. I mean truely scorchio. Hot even for Florida: 89 to 92 degrees everyday. So please excuse the sweaty photos, and general air of over-heating that pervades most of this report!

2) We had seriously under-estimated the weather whilst packing back in chilly old England. Accordingly I had 4 pairs of jeans (all unworn) and only 3 pairs of shorts, a few t-shirts and loads of unnecessary sweaters. Sooo...there were frequent trips to the laundry made and you'll see the same clothese being worn on diifferent days of our trip, some over and over again! But I faithfully promise that they WERE clean. Just so you know.

3) Our visit co-incided with Star Wars Weekends: so the force may be strong throughout this TR - you've been warned!

OK, on with the actual trip report:


DAY ZERO: JUNE 2nd

We'd been counting down the days til our Disney vacation for what seems like forever. Here's our countdown calendar at the 30 day mark:

Finally, we had just one more day to go - which I had taken off work. My folks had very kindly agreed to look after our dog so I drove over to their home (about 2.5 hours from ours) and dropped off the dog plus vast quantities of dog food, bedding etc. as we were going to be away for ages. Here's the dog looking sad as I was leaving:

Don't be fooled by the photo though, she had a blast with my folks - I think she's kind of missing them since we got back!

After that, I went home and finished packing - the night before I had discovered our airline had reduced the baggage allowance from 2 bags to 1 per person - nightmare! So much re-packing, re-arranging and sitting on suitcases went on, finally we were packed and ready to go!

Next stop was the car wash to get our filthy car cleaned up - ready for it's 12 day stay in the airport carpark. Once this was done, I headed off to pick Sal up from work where she'd been all day whilst I flapped around with dogs, bags and cars. Once we got home, we did some final checks ("er, whereabouts did you put that passport??"), checked in online for our flight. Then it was time to remove the final Mickey head from our calendar and get to sleep - ready for an early start the next morning, Disney World here we come!!

Coming Up: Goodbye Blighty, Hello Pop Century!

 

[Bookstamper]

DAY ONE: JUNE 3rd

We woke up early so ready to start our adventure to WDW! Our flight was leaving at 13:00 and the airport is 2-3 hours drive from our house, so the mission was to get on the road by 07:00. Did we make it? Well, nearly....

Here I am at the wheel listening to the radio and speeding us towards Gatwick International:

Nearly there....

Then, on the M25 we hit major traffic around 09:30 We were stuck for almost 40 minutes at a standstill and i was starting to get a little stressed out. What if we didn't make the flight? What if baggage check-in was closed?? Then, just as it seemed we'd never make it, the traffic cleared up and we were on our way again! Hurray!

We made it to the airport parking around 10:10, jumped on the bus to our terminal and were at the check-in desk by 10:40 - loads of time to spare, phew! Having checked in we had a little time before our flight so we got a few magazines and a sandwich, then waited for bording. Now Sal isn't a big fan of flying, in fact she downright hates it so I was kind of glad that they borded us on time and we didn't have too long to sit and worry! Getting on to our flight we saw another plane which had a Harry Potter themed tail fin to advertise the new Universal theme park area - cool!

The flight was pretty uneventful and VERY smooth Here we are mid-way over the Atlantic:

I whiled away the time watching Street Dance 3D (although in just the 2 dimensions...) and watching the flight map which they provide on-screen - are we nearly there yet?! Coming in to land it looked as if we were scheduled to arrive in a thunderstorm and sure enough it was raining like crazy when we landed - oh dear, I wondered if we'd made a mistake coming in summer

Undettered we got through customs and found the Magic Express desk - we got a cruise line ME bus and Sal was very impressed by the nautical seats:

Here we are on board, Sal was VERY relieved to be on firm ground again:

As you can see our bus was pretty quiet and we waited around 15 minutes for it to fill up a little bit. Then we were off and the movie started - I just LOVE this part of the holiday, having survived the flight and with 12 long days of fun ahead of us - woo hoo:

As we got nearer I made sure to look out for that magical archway (on our previous trips this has passed us in the dark and / or a blur) but not this time!

Our first stop was Caribbean Beach which looked really cool - would love to stay here some day. Then it was on to POP Century and we had finally arrived!! We legged it over to the check in and were really pleased to hear we'd got a room in the 60s section , on the 3rd floor - perfect!

We took our luggage round by the hippie dippie pool - our room was in the play dough building, but looking out the other side away from the pool (which worked out to be nice and quiet!)

Fraid that's all the photos I have from this first day - we had checked in around 17:00 and were now totally knackered. We checked out Everything Pop and got something to eat, then hit the sheets about 19:00, ready for an early start the next day!

Promise the rate of photos increases from here - next up: Star Wars Mania!

 

[Bookstamper]

Day Two: June 4th

So after a VERY early night on account a major jet lag I was woken up nice and early by my mobile phone alarm only it was a little too early....1am to be exact! Whoops! I'd forgotten to change the time zone and set it for 6am UK time...oh dear. So after a false start we went back to sleep and woke up again at 6am Florida time - that's more like it!

I was determined to hit up Everything Pop for an earlybird breakfast as we had Star Wars weekend at DHS to be getting to, but I guess it just wasn't to be. Sal and I charged towards the hot food counter only to see a little kid vomitting - all over the floor! EURGH! Poor kid, I hope she was OK - but it was enough to put us (and pretty much everyone else) off our food.

So hungry but ahead of schedule we were at the bus stop at 7:20 and arrives for EMH at DHS for 7:40 - bonza! Star Wars here we come!!

Our initial plan had been to bag an autograph FP for Lando but that pretty much came to a juddering halt when we checked out the queue - there must have been 200+ people already in line - many in full jedi costume, wow! Well, we just couldn't beat that so we got in for rope drop instead, and took a couple of pics waiting:

After 10 mins or so the rope finally dropped and we were off towards TSM (along with pretty much everyone else!)

Now I'm not usually one to get all sprinty but we sure did get a move on and whilst most people joined the standby queue we made a bee-line for the FP machines. Result? A FP for TSM with a return time within the hour (just!) - excellent!

With FPs safely stowed we could relax a little and finally hunt down some brekkie! My favourite place in all of DHS is the Writer's Stop - I just love the interior, it kind of reminds of Central Perk / local coffee hangouts, and that's where we headed, after a brief stop by the Library (of course!):

After refuelling we took a little time to check out the photo spots near TSM - here's Sal at the mercy of Jabba the Hut:

By this time it was stil only 8:30 and I sensed that an extra-hours trip to Endor might be in order, before the Star Wars fanatics turned up in force! Sure enough Star Tours was a walk on, and we grabbed a few hurried photos as we boarded:

Well we never made it to Endor, but it sure was a fun ride. I'd only ridden this once before and forgot how cool it was, albeit fairly tame. On our way out we saw some pretty big queues had started to form for Star Wars character meet and greets. Checking our handy SWW guide map I could see that R2MK was supposed to be doing greetings near the American Idol pavillion so we headed in that direction.


This particular meet and greet rotated between 4 seperate characters so we jumped in line not knowing who'd be there when we reached the front: Mickey and R2, Minnie (as Leia), Goofy (as Vader) or Stormtrooper Donald. Well, we really wanted to see Donald or R2 so we kept our fingers crossed and just as we were nearing the front who should come out.....

YES!! At that point we decided that we would try to meet with as many different 'Donalds' as possible on our holiday - so stay tooned, you'll see quite a few!

After meeting with Donald, right outside the Great Movie Ride we checked out the area where they have celebrity handprints and found several Star Wars stars:

It had been quite the morning for Star Wars stuff, and we still hadn't ridden TSM - up next!

 

[jane2073]

Sal and I charged towards the hot food counter only to see a little kid vomitting - all over the floor! EURGH

We were staying at POP too and got there just in time for the clean up! Yuck!! We took our breakfast to go!

 

[Bookstamper]

Hi there, thanks for reading! Sorry you also got to witness that in Everything Pop - good call to get breakfast to go!

 

[binkytell]

your getting me very excited for our trip..only 11 more sleeps

 

[Bookstamper]

DAY TWO cont.

So after posing with Donald it was finally time to hit up TSM. On our last visit Sal had scored a cat and was determined to reach Deer-level this time. I was still stuck on Beaver - and although I LOVE TSM, I'm really just not that good a shot. Here we are waiting in line (the only downside to FP is that you miss Mr Potato Head!):

Did we acheive our dream scores? Well, not quite....

But we were certain that we'd be back later in the week - there was lots of time left to improve!

As we exited TSM, we figured we had around 50 minutes before the first Star Wars motorcade parade. Hmmm...that didn't seem long enough to queue for ToT or RnR, so instead we jumped right back in line at the Star Wars character meet and greet, this time hoping to see a different character.

We were pleased we hadn't waited any longer, because right then a CM came up and informed us he was closing down the line - we were the last ones in, good timing or what?! phew! The characters all had to feature in the motorcade so they'd be heading off shortly - but not before we got to pose with Mickey and R2MK, I just love his Mickey ears!!

As we were stood right outside the Great Movie Ride we figured there was time for a quick visit there as it was a walk-on

Now we have ridden this on each of our previous visits to Disney, and NEVER gotten the cowboy themed version. This time I felt confident we'd get it but it wasn't to be: we just missed out! We were seated in the front row of the second set of moving vehicles (which was pretty cool being in the front row) but as the first set moved on to the Wild West, we got stuck in Gangster town AGAIN! Hang on to those wallets and purses.....

After GMR we headed out to score a spot for the Star Wars motorcade and found a great place just opposite American Idol. And wow, did we take a lot of pics - coming up next!

 

[Bookstamper]

your getting me very excited for our trip..only 11 more sleeps

Hi there! Thanks so much for reading! Your trip must be just around the corner now - how exciting!!

 

[Bookstamper]

DAY TWO cont.

So when I left off we were waiting for the Star Wars motorcade to come by - it was around mid-day by this point and so hot but when we heard the Star Wars theme start up we couldn't wait to see the parade:

First came Jedi Mickey....and R2MK fresh from the character meet:

Minnie as Leia:

I'm not even sure who these guys are....but there were loads of them!

Here come the good guys...

And the crowd went wild for the Wookiee:

Vader got a few cheers too:

After the parade had passed through we headed to grab an ice lemonade and chill out a bit. Sal's favourite attraction at DHS is the Animation Academy so it was soon time to get drawing! We skipped the show and headed to the drawing studio directly, in the area outside they had a cool display of Toy Story 3 stuff:

We timed it just right as they were letting folks in Here I am, pencil poised:

Now on our last 3 visits we have drawn a duck all 3 times - twice it's been Donald and once Uncle Scrooge, so I was kind of hoping for a different character. Well as we got seated the artist said a special request had been received for, yep, you've guessed it.....Donald! Oh well, we learnt a whole load of new stuff about the history of Donald - would we have better luck next time?!

By now it was around 12:45 and we headed out of the park as we had a date at the GF!!! On our way out we browsed the shops and paused for a few more photopass pics:

We'd had a Jedi-tastic fab morning but now it was time for tea!

Up Next: A very royal Tea, and a trip to the Magic Kingdom

 

[ScrappyRN]

Love the report so far. I've never done the Animation class but it's on my list for August. We were the 6/10-6/14 and feel your pain about the heat!

 

[Bookstamper]

Love the report so far. I've never done the Animation class but it's on my list for August. We were the 6/10-6/14 and feel your pain about the heat!

Hi there, thanks for reading! You will love the Animation Academy for sure: if it's your first visit there you may also want to check out the show section where an artist tells you about how they designed Mushu which is pretty nifty!

 

[Bookstamper]

DAY TWO cont.

So we left off leaving DHS, headed towards the bus stops. We got in line at the GF stop and waited....and waited....and waited... To be fair, it was around 1pm and not a busy time of day but eventually we saw a bus to the TTA pull up so we jumped aboard into the air conditioned coolness! Our original plan was to transfer to monorail at the TTA but then I remembered reading about a beach walkway between the Poly and GF, and we did have a little time....

Sal took a bit of convincing but we headed off on foot in the mid-day sun, from the TTA to the Poly and then round Bay Lake:

Believe it or not Sal managed to get a massive splinter in her hand from the offending palm tree pictured above - doh! Splinters aside it was a beautiful walk and it was great to see the Wedding Pavillion up close.

Now I'm sorry to say that I did not take a SINGLE photo of our afternoon tea at the GF! Maybe I was delirious from the heat? Or perhaps the atmosphere was just a little too fancy? Suffice to say we had a great time and the tea was excellent (served with a velvet tea cosy - nice touch!) We both had the Buckingham Palace tea - and our server informed us that Prince Edward and Princess Sophie (from England) had been visiting the GF just a few months earlier - wondered if they had the Palace tea as well?!

After tea we hopped the monorail and headed back to POP, where our first towel animal was waiting in the window - yey!

The pool was closed due to a threat of thunderstorms so we chilled out in the room for a while and changed, ready for our evening at MK woo hoo! We were both really excited to visit MK for the first time this trip and we joined the late afternoon crowds streaming in:

The plan this evening was to relax and take in the details - we'd have plenty more early mornings to tick off the rides. So I grabbed a seat next to Minnie:

And then we headed to the area just in front of the castle, as Sal wanted to check out the small metal figures. On our last trip, this area had been ropped off due to Christmas decorations but this time it was all clear:

We found a whole huddle of photopass photographs around here so decided to get some shots, including our first EVER magic shot!! Don't take off with those balloons...

Next stop: a FP to infity and beyond....

Whilst waiting for our FP time where better to chill out than the TTA? We hopped aboard and enjoyed a relaxing ride:

So relaxing we may have gone round twice! I love how you get a whole new view of things from the TTA, check out the futuristic trees:

Now we had a few more minutes to wait so decided it was time to give Stitch a second chance:

Needless to say it was a walk on! We had ridden Stitch just once before in December 2007. Back then, when the seat restraints came down, I thought it was going to be one wild ride - boy, was I wrong?! Much like figment, I just don't get the attraction - but this time my expectations were lower and we had a good laugh!

By the time Stitch had escaped again, it was time to hit up Buzz -bring it on!

We are both cracking up in this photo as I managed to spin our ride vehicle around as we entered the last part of the ride, so we were facing away from the camera - whoops! We just managed to get things righted (or perhaps the vehicle moved round automatically?!) either way we ended up the right way....just! And Sal beat me comprehensively - I NEVER win at Buzz!

continued in next post....

 

[Bookstamper]

Next we wandered over to Adventureland - round by my favourite side of the castle:

Yo ho ho, our first stop was Pirates, my all-time favourite ride at Disney:

It was pretty much a walk-on and we had a fantastic ride in the front of a boat (I'd forgotten how long the drop is - and screamed a little, what a big girls blouse!) After our ride we checked out the gift store for treasure:

After a quick ride on the Haunted Mansion it was time for our dinner ADR so we headed to Liberty Square for some pilgrim fayre...When we got to LTT we saw the whole building was covered in bording and scaffolding, but the tree was poking out, which was pretty funny to see:

We had a short wait for a table and were seated in the middle of the restaurant - my nautical history isn't too hot but I'd say we were in an 18th century ships galley.....directly under an air con fan! I was very excited to see some olde worlde 3 prong forks:

The food was good as always but overall I think this was my least favourite meal of our whole trip. Service was definitely a bit hit and miss and I felt really rushed - I guess ours was a late ADR and they were pretty keen to get the restaurant cleared, so pudding was a blur!

As we headed out after dinner, the spectro parade was going by so we caught the last part, including sparkly Donald:

Sal wanted to see Wishes, so we decided to try and watch from behind the castle in Fantasyland. This was an interesting viewpoint, though perhaps not the best (hence pretty quiet!) A really nice CM explained to us that smaller fireworks explode from around the castle area and these would appear in front of us whereas the larger fireworks are actually launched from some way behind us. This meant we were pretty much surrounded by fireworks but not by people - excellent!! Although when the grand finale came around we did feel a little under siege!

After Wishes was over, the CMs re-opened the castle walkway and we headed over down Main Street towards the exit. We caught a bus straight back to POP - and were back in our room by 11pm. Phew! We'd had a fantastic day - and our holiday had only just begun!!

Up Next: The Big Kahuna strikes back!!

 

[TinksThree]

We were there the same time as you...June 5-10. We were staying at POP until I decided to upgrade to Port Orleans Riverside! Great report so far! (And it was so hot! But not as hot as back at our home! I was glad for that!!) So I am thinking...did you get to see Spectro/Wishes and MSEP/Nightastic? I know some people were lucky enough to see both!!

 

[Bookstamper]

We were there the same time as you...June 5-10. We were staying at POP until I decided to upgrade to Port Orleans Riverside! Great report so far! (And it was so hot! But not as hot as back at our home! I was glad for that!!) So I am thinking...did you get to see Spectro/Wishes and MSEP/Nightastic? I know some people were lucky enough to see both!!

Hello! Many thanks for reading! Hope you had a great time at POR, it always looks like great themed resort. We staed at POFQ last year and definitely want to check out Riverside in the future. And yes, we did see Wishes AND Summer Nightastic We were really lucky with timing. Saw Summer Nightastic from the Dessert Party - more on that coming up...

 

[Bookstamper]

DAY THREE: June 5th

We were noisily woken up by Stitch at 07:30 - all ready for our second morning at Disney World, woo hoo! Whilst Sal got ready, I headed out to Everything POP for some MUCH needed coffee (I think I was still feeling the effects of jet lag...) and on reaching the mug station the music was on, and CMs were dancing round: it appeared I'd arrived just in time for The 8am Twist Needless to say, I sat that one out but it was amazing to see other folks twist- that's one high energy start to the morning!

We'd planned a more leisurely day today - with a 09:40 ADR at Kona, my all-time favourite place for breakfast. So at 08:30 we wandered down to the bus stop and hopped on towards MK. From there we got the monorail, and I was delighted to see we'd be riding the TRON version:

Now the only bad thing about the Tronorail? The TRON transfers cover the cabin windows as well so it's pretty much impossible to take photos from inside, oh well! The monorail was pretty busy so we hopped off at the TTA and decided to walk from there...

This is such a pretty walkway, and we saw loads of wildlife en route: six squirrels and a rabbit! Plus there are some great statues in the grounds:

We entered the lobby at ground level and made our way up to Kona Cafe, where Sal spotted a cool hidden mickey (or maybe mickeys?) on the stairs:

Then we checked in at Kona Cafe and were seated almost immediately. The cafe was pretty quiet (I think maybe the later ADR time helped), and it seemed the perfect place to relax on a Saturday morning - life is good on vacation!

Sal ordered the tonga toast with fruit on the side (well, you've got to try and make it sound healthy at least?!), whilst I had the Big Kahuna! Neither of us managed to finish our breakfasts but all the food was great and service was - as always - really friendly. We also ordered a pot of Kona Coffee: probably the best drink on property! After brekkie we browsed round the Poly lobby and saw this great group of dancers performing:

This was really impressive to watch, as they all kept in time really well - including the most junior member, who can't have been more than 6! Finally chilled out and VERY full, we waddled out of the Poly and caught a bus to DTD for a little shopping. First up we headed to Design a Tee:

I could spend hours trying all the different fonts and designs in here but luckily the shirts were out of our budget, and Sal was really keen to check out the scrap book supplies instead! After that we headed to the cook store -where they had the cutest popcorn buckets on sale. Hmmm...now this was a tricky one, I SO wanted to buy them but with that one bag allowance on our flight home it pretty much came down to bringing our clothes back vs. buying the buckets!

They also had a whole range of great cook books in store - including a Star Wars recipe binder ("Darth Malt", anyone?) and the ever-popular "Cooking with Beer". We left before I could give in to temptation and headed for the Lego store....

This is such a cool store! We browsed around a bit and found a lego Death Star on display!

Then we found a cool 'make a lego person' section, where you could customise your own characters with different faces, hair styles, accessories (coffee cup or mini axe?) etc. Two of our good friends got married just a few days after our return and we decided to make them as a mini lego couple, to give as an extra wedding gift. That was really fun - but pretty time consuming (it's hard to find the right lego costume if you're not building a cop or medieval warrior!)

Next we visited World of Disney:

....where Sal was in the market for some new headware:

Then we nipped into Basin before heading over to the Pleasure Island area, walking past T-Rex as we went - do-ya-think-hesawus??

Over at Pleasure Island it was all change since our last visit - we saw the new RideMakerz store and headed over to check it out. As we got through the door we decided we'd made a mistake - there was the worst stink in there Ridemakerz? More like Smellmakerz!! To be fair I guess it was probably a problem with one of the nearby drains or something but we sure didn't stay long!

Up ahead we saw Disney Quest and decided we'd go check it out as it looked pretty quiet and admission was included on our KTTW cards. On our last few visits we've passed this but never gone in before - where we in for the time of our lives??? Not so much!

Sorry I didn't take any pics in here: to cut a long story short we went in, tried a dodgems-like game where you drive round in a buggie collecting cannonballs (bring on the whiplash!), then headed right out again! I'm sure this is a paradise for 13 year old boys, but not so much our scene! After that we decided a little pool time was in order, so we headed back to the bus stops - passing the Jenny on the way, moored up by Planet Hollywood (I'd never noticed this before!)

We arrived back around 14:00 to find our second towel animal awaiting us - yey!

Coming Up Next: Relaxing at POP and Hoop de Dooing at the Fort!

 

[Dug-says-HI-THERE!]

to resisting the URGE to shop. I try to UNDER pack, so that I'll have room to bring things home!

And OMG, is that THE Jenny, from FORREST, FORREST GUMP ?!? I must plan to get a picture of that next year!!

Can't wait to read more.....

 

[Bookstamper]

to resisting the URGE to shop. I try to UNDER pack, so that I'll have room to bring things home!

And OMG, is that THE Jenny, from FORREST, FORREST GUMP ?!? I must plan to get a picture of that next year!!

Can't wait to read more.....

Hi there, and thanks for posting! Good idea re. packing - perhaps next time I will just have to buy a load of souvies AND an additional suitcase to put them all in?!

 

[Bookstamper]

DAY THREE cont.

We arrived back at POP and unloaded our (not too extensive...) shopping bags: some bath bombs from Basin, 3 mini lego figures and half a frozen lemonade = a lot of constraint!

It was so hot oustide, we decided the pool was calling so set up by one of the pool-side tables with our towels, books and refillable mugs. I hit up the Petals Bar for some refreshments and we chillaxed for an hour or so....bliss! Now the only thing that could ruin my afternoon? Bird Strike!! I'm not a great lover of birds at the best of times, and those at POP seemed to be particularly beaky - and very persistent. We didn't have any food but nevertheless they kept hopping round our table, despite Sal's best efforts to shoo them away (and my best efforts to keep from screaming in fear!)

After about 20 minutes of bird flapping, the pool guards announced they were shutting down the area due to a risk of thunderstorms so we all moved off and FINALLY the birds got to run around on the chairs and tables........they seemed happy at last!

It wasn't really a problem that the pool closed down as we had to get changed anyway for the wildest night in the West...that's right folks, we were off to Hoop de Doo Revue! My favourite!! We were booked in for the 19:00 (or is it 19:30?) show, but wanted to explore Fort Wilderness a little beforehand. So at 16:30 (or thereabouts) we caught a bus to MK - and resisted the temptation to go in!! Instead, we turned ourselves around and after a short wait borded the boat to Fort Wilderness. We sat at the back - and although it may look overcast, it was still REALLY hot that afternoon:

The boat ride was great: I particularly like the bit where the channel crosses OVER the road and you can see all the cars driving through below! After a few minutes we arrived at Fort Wilderness:

FW really is such a beautiful resort and there seems to be so much going on there: at the beach they had volleyball set up, and loads of families were picnicing there. We decided to take a walk around and try to find the ranch, where I'd heard they kept the ponies and horses used at MK. Sure enough, soon we found:

Most of the horses seem to be engrossed in dinner:

But one came over to say hi:

We then walked round some other areas of FW, just chilling out (and admiring the golf carts!). Then, before we knew it, it was time to check in for the show:

We'd got category 1 seating (cat. 2 had sold out when we came to book) so I was so excited to get in there! But we still had a little time to kill so we jumped in line for a photo whilst we waited. This is taken by a PhotoPass CM but isn't included on the PhotoPass (which is a real shame I think, cause we really liked our pic....but not enough to pay extra). They bring it round to you during the show and you can then purchase it if wanted.

After the photo session, I headed to the bathrooms and Sal browsed the pin stand opposite Pioneer Hall. Now here's something funny: there was also a small kid in the store and a guy (unrelated), both looking at the pin board. The CM offers the kid a trade, and he can't make up his mind, so the adult guy gets a chance to trade first. The guy immediately picks a Cast Member exclusive pin and then turns to the kid and Sal and says "haha! This is an exclusive - you missed it. You snooze, you lose!" Sal thought that was hilarious! He obviously took his pin trading WAY (too) SERIOUSLY! Poor kid!

Finally it was time to head into the show, and we were seated at a great table for 2, up front on the left side of the stage. Our waitress was so friendly, and took our picture whilst everyone else got seated:

Then the entertainment got started and it was a hoot!! So corny, but I loved it - and they got everyone singing along:

At the end of the first half there is a great chance to join in and swirl those napkins!

The food was also really good - cornbread (which is like sponge cake for any Brits reading!), salad, ribs and chicken were all excellent and the mashed potato was fantastic (we ended up asking for seconds...). Plus the entertainment was fantastic - I would recommend HDDR to everyone. As an extra bonus after the show finished, busses were waiting to take us directly back to the resorts so there was no need to navigate the MK at closing time -

So on the bus (which dropped off at Caribbean Beach en route) we were back at POP in no time! It wasn't that late (around 21:45 I think) but all that napkin twirling and rib eating had gotten the better of me - I was knackered! So we headed off to bed early, all ready to conquer Everest in the morning!!

Next Up: Is that a Yeti I see before me?!

 

[TinksThree]

I so want to do the Hoop-de-Doo revue!! It looks like so much fun and it appears you all had a blast!!!