Our busy day started at around 6.30am for the girls, the boys slept through the pontificating about which make-up went best with blah, blah, blah - we're not daft, you can't be asked your opinion if you're asleep, or feigning sleep. We had booked a taxi the previous evening which duly arrived and we were at Chef Mickey's for our 7.30am reservation - Mickey was taking photo's prior to seating and then we were shown to our table.
Only the chance to meet Mickey could wake the little 'uns from their slumber
I had read that the breakfasts here were nothing to write home about, but I thought that it was fine, though the breakfast pizza took a bit of getting used to - the vegetarian version much better, especially when accompanied by the very spicy salsa. Billy and Isabelle were extremely taken with the characters, Goofy, Pluto, Minnie and Donald came round and interacted whilst we had breakfast, we were sold on the photo album which I thought was decent value at $31. Overall, the kids were well happy and we were all well fed when we left approximately an hour and a half later, via the monorail to Magic Kingdom.
We headed into Tomorrowland as we hadn't visited here the other day, Buzz was a walk on and once I had wrestled control of the craft from Isabelle, my score was coming along nicely, thank you very much. Just as I had dreams of beating my best ever score, the ride broke down, and we were in the unfortunate postion of being under a speaker, so we got to hear "Intruders! Guards, sieze them! And their green friends!" over, and over, and over again for the next ten minutes. I had no idea who my green friends were either, which puzzled me greatly. The ride restarted, and through some computer blunder our scores had been reset to zero, so both Isabelle and I had about ten seconds to get any sort of score, which caused great embarrassment as we disembarked at the end of the ride, despite my protestations, I went from hero to zero.
I took Isabelle on Space Mountain whilst Billy and Caroline went on the Astro Gliders, Isabelle loved Space Mountain, it seemed a little faster than I recalled from previous visits, and whilst I enjoyed it, I do have nightmares about not being able to see the metal framework of the ride and live in fear of having my head taken clean off, which adds to enjoyment/terror/experience. We met up after these rides and had our photo's taken with Chip and Dale, re-rode Buzz and then went on Carousel of Progress. I think it's great that some of the old rides and ideas of Walt's are still going, and this is one of my fun must do's when I come to MK, I noticed a few differences from when I last visited, Isabelle said that the ride was 'absolutely awesome', Billy just liked the fact that you didn't have to walk anywhere.
We moved on and headed for Philharmagic, which the kids absolutely loved, it really is great seeing the little 'uns trying to grab the various images as they float tantalisingly in front of their faces. Of course, the dark setting allows dorks like myself to engage in the same behaviour and get away with it, though it backfired slightly when the apple pie came round and I took the spray of cinnamon straight up the nose. Everything beyond this point was accompanied with a hint of cinnamon. We had our lunch at Columbia Harbour House, I had the fish and fries (with cinnamon), Caroline had the fish and chicken combo, Billy and Isabelle had chicken and fries, I had an apple crisp pie which was really tasty - it was one of the best counter service meals we'd had so far, and thought that it was really good value on the Dining Plan.
I checked out the shop outside the Hall of Presidents as I wanted to see what I could get in the line of books or souvenirs, and was gutted to see that it had been taken over by halloween merchandise - I was on the verge of sulking uncontrollably until I noticed that there were a couple of shelves of Presidential souvenirs in the Christmas shop, so I picked up a book and a poster that will make the 'American corner' of my book shelves look a little more themed than they do already (I really am a dork!).
We then left the park just after 12 and headed back to the pool at OKW for a swim, we then got the boat over to Downtown Disney and picked up the bus to the Wilderness Lodge for our evening meal at the Whispering Canyon, though we did spot a celebrity leaving OKW as we pulled in...
With Buzz Lightyear-like reactions, the Purple Van Man was caught red-handed!!!
Arriving at Wilderness Lodge and walking into the main hotel never fails to take the breath away, it is in my opinion, the best themed Disney hotels by an absolute mile.
You can't fault Disney, they're always adding to the theming
The kids were quite taken aback and spent a while looking around, they loved the bridge and had their photo taken on it. I like to just sit on the settee's and just look at the sheer scale of the place, the totem pole, I love that there's a US flag flying inside as well, I always take a photo of it.
After we had a look around, we made our way over to the Whispering Canyon where we were seated, our server was very friendly and the atmosphere was soon buzzing. The kids were taken aback at having their straws thrown at them, especially Billy who seemed a little overawed by what was going on, but the Whispering Canyon lived up to it's reputation - Billy loved asking for the sauce, even more so when he got to pass the bottles on to another table.
Billy didn't get the joke, as this is the amount of ketchup he normally has on his meals
There were various celebrations going on which involved singing, there was a horse race around the restaurant, and the food was spot on as well.
William Hill were surprisingly reluctant to open a book on this race
One thing I saw which has stayed with me since we've returned back home, there were a family opposite our table, two adults and two girls. When we had got rid of our table full of ketchup, we had kept one bottle on the table as Billy likes to have at least three quarters of a bottle on his meals as a matter of course. About five minutes later, the mum came over to our table and asked if they could have the bottle, I was a little taken aback and said that they could, but I felt sorry for the girls that they had missed out on the fun of having the table filled with ketchup bottles, and then the interaction with other families when you had to pass them on. Maybe they were unaware of what the Whispering Canyon involved, but I guess it's not the ideal place for an intimate family meal - it totally lived up to its expectations for me, even if Billy took a while to realise that here he could get away with everything that is not allowed on the dinner table at home!
Rumours of a straw shortage were dismissed as hearsay
We all loved it here, and we enjoyed our walk through the hotel after to get the boat over to MK to catch the fireworks, a bit like the Polynesian the previous night, the Wilderness Lodge had placed itself on the short list for our next trip - it's going to take some chosing between the Poly, Yacht Club and the Wilderness Lodge! We also got to give Bay Lake Tower the once over as we sailed past...
We held this pose for a good two hours, as we were too stuffed to move
Back in MK we managed to notch up Snow White, Peter Pan, the carousel and Winnie the Pooh, we were wandering round to do Pirates again when the parade took over so we watched that instead, the floats were spectacular, especially that last one which was a tribute to the USA which went down well with the locals, Isabelle had never seen anything like it and said "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it!", summed up perfectly by an 8 year old. We moved back onto Main Street in time to get a decent spot for Wishes - I'm not a big firework fan to be honest, but Disney certainly do them in great style, and watching Isabelle in total awe and amazement at what was happening in front of her, (she was struggling to take it all in, but trying desperately hard to do so, her head darting here, there and everywhere, trying to keep up and not miss anything!), it was one of those moments when all the cost, sacrifices and compromises that happened in order for the trip to materialise, were made fully worthwhile.
The holiday signalled a two week ceasefire in relation to niggling and squabbling
We headed for home via the sweet shop on Main Street, where I am disappointed to report that my Scrumdiddlyumptious Willy Wonka chocolate bar did not contain a golden ticket. (I have yet to open the other bar that I sneaked without t'other mob seeing it, I will open, and report back when I get a chance to eat it in solitary confinement!
