Friends Reunited - TRIP REPORT!! - COMPLETE

[Tinkerbell1989]

Awesome start!

 

[Linda67]

Loving this TR already - you girls look like you are having so much fun!

 

[irenep]

Great first day

We always have to go to MK on the first day too no matter what the busy day predictions look like. Just wouldn't be right going somewhere else.

 

[BethEJo]

Amazing start! Hook and Smee are scarrryyyy!!

I've been caught out at disneyland california not accepting my driving license as ID and wanting my passport - I understand its policy but at the time when it's standing in the way of me and a mojito on a hot day!!!

They really are, aren't they?! I wonder why their faces are like that and they don't just have the full heads like the other characters?

Awesome start!

Thanks

Loving this TR already - you girls look like you are having so much fun!

We really were, and I'm gutted it's over! There's lots more fun to come though

Great first day

We always have to go to MK on the first day too no matter what the busy day predictions look like. Just wouldn't be right going somewhere else.

I totally agree, there'd be something wrong with the world if I didn't go and see the castle during the first day! We also have to do it on our final day too

 

[disney_princess_85]

Oh dear, the service at BOG sounds awful! I understand that they have loads of guests to seat but there's no need for rudeness.

I've made the same mistake with unsuitable shoes before so I know exactly how you felt.

Great photo of the little girl! It looks like a promotional shot.

 

[BethEJo]

Oh dear, the service at BOG sounds awful! I understand that they have loads of guests to seat but there's no need for rudeness.

I've made the same mistake with unsuitable shoes before so I know exactly how you felt.

Great photo of the little girl! It looks like a promotional shot.

The unsuitable shoes has to be a girl thing

Thanks Lauren

 

[BethEJo]

29/04/2013: EVERYTHING EPCOT!​

You might recall me saying this in my PTR at the beginning of this thread:

Like many of us here, I do love to plan. I see myself as a bit of a Monica, and get a major kick out of planning; and not just for Disney, pretty much just anything where I can create some sort of schedule or itinerary! Therefore, we pretty much had all of our ADR requests sorted 4,000 days out

Well& thats usually true, but I well and truly failed my Monica status today... more on that in a sec!

**********​

Again, our body clocks were slightly off (except for Tanya she only had a one hour difference to deal with ) and we ended up waking early. However, we didnt start getting ready until 8am and left the room by 9am.

My blisters were still excruciating but there was no way I could let them put a dampener on things this early on . I again covered them in plasters, which seemed to last no longer than 10 minutes, threw down the painkillers and powered through! We headed to the bus stop and caught the bus to Epcot (in my head, Epcot was where I had on the itinerary for today, with an ADR there this evening for dinner)

Excited to go to Epcot!​

As we arrived at the entrance, we found the now usual CM that holds up a big sign, directing paper tickets one way, and guests with the plastic room keys/park tickets (and soon bands I assume ) in the other direction to use the new turnstyles. The line for the old turnstyles for those guests with paper tickets was huge! We were relieved that we werent going to have to wait in that however, that relief didnt last long! Whilst the new entrance lines looked short, it took a while. There is now no barrier as such; you simply hold your card up to the Mickey head on a post and it starts flashing. The new finger pad then starts flashing next to it, you pop your finger on, and *hopefully*, the post turns green and you walk on in. Not sure what was going on, but posts seemed to be going down periodically and no one could use them until the guest relations CMs that are stationed at each post could tap away on some special iPhone and sort it out!

As we walked in, I was instantly drawn in by the huge topiary! It was so cute, and I was happy to be here for the Flower and Garden festival! I was excited to see what else they had inside!

Emma was sporting the Minnie Mouse look today!​

We had some Photopass pictures taken at the entrance topiary and then headed straight to The Land to grab some Fastpasses for Soarin' - my absolute favouritestest ride in the wholest and widest of worlds ! It was now around 9:40am and the line was showing a 40 minute wait. Seeing as we were there, we decided to grab some breakfast at Sunshine Seasons. Jo and I both indulged in a breakfast panini, whilst Emma and Tanya had a bagel with cream cheese! They really do do breakfast well in America! I never bother in the mornings back at home, but here, it's pretty much my favourite meal of the day!!

Breakfast panini​

When we were there in 2011, it used to pour with rain everytime Emma and I visited Epcot! No joke! One day, whilst with a few friends, we decided to take shelter in The Land building, and ended up riding the Living With The Land ride. Well... let's say it wasnt our favourite ride... I think I literally nodded off at some point! Upside down tomato plants though - whhhooooaaahhhhh, calm it down ! It became a running joke that this attraction, every single time we passed it, had a 0 minute wait. And why, oh why, did it used to have Fastpass?! Can anyone answer that?

Well, Jo had never experienced the joys of LWTL, so we decided to take her on it. Imagine our shock when we saw that it had a 10 minute wait and there was actually a queue of people!

Thats supposed to say 10, but the camera cut half of it off for some reason.


This ride is so crazeeeeeeeeee!​

After riding it, Jo announced that she actually quite enjoyed it

Sorry to anyone who I might have offended in my making fun of Living With The Land! ​

Next we made our way over to Test Track, but on the way, I noticed that the little river thing in this area was empty of water. The ducks were just standing on the rocks, as if to say where did all the water go? I wonder what was happening there?

​

A photo we took along the way:

​

I liked the new theming at Test Track, but the queue music is still as repetitive and mesmerising I was happy to find!

We're gonna sit like this the next time we do the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor in MK; we'll get picked as the two-headed human for sure!​

We had a good laugh designing our cars for the new ride. Tanya and I went for a little purple number, with added sparkles and huge wheels. Jo and Emma went for... well, I dont know what they went for! it was some blue contraption with flippers instead of front wheels! Safe to say that neither of our cars fared well on the score boards haha! I liked how they kept the inside of the dark bit loosely similar to the old ride, but I really did forget how fast the car went outside! It took my breath away, and a number of hair clips shot out of my hair!

​

As we headed back over to The Land to use our Soarin' Fastpasses, we noted how nice it was not to have to rush around everywhere, to have no agenda and to just take our time. Yes we were only here for 2 weeks, but it was all so familiar to us. I dont think the girls would have been too impressed if I'd started whipping out military precision touring guides; I think they'd guessed thats what I was thinking when we were planning all this, because they kept reminding me: Beth, remember that this is a HOLIDAY!

We had an excellent position on Soarin' - we were in the middle section and in the second row! I love the ride regardless of where I'm sitting, but you can't deny that its just a little bit more excellent if you're in the middle!

Continued in next post...

 

[BethEJo]

After riding, we headed over towards the World Showcase with a quick look at some of the Flower and Garden stuff along the way. It was all so pretty and colourful!

Loved the new Monsters University monorail!


You can see the rain clouds starting to come in now; Epcot had caught on to the fact that Emma and I were there!

​

We decided we’d have a quick service lunch in Mexico today – more so because we were craving margaritas rather than food though! I had Tacos de Carne for lunch with the Churritos for dessert. A frozen lime margarita topped it off nicely - we certainly don’t get these back at home!

Tacos de Carne - smoked beef brisket tacos on fresh handmade corn tortillas with Pico de Gallo, lime and corn tortilla chips​

I also loved the churritos, but I would have happily have just had a pint of that caramel sauce that accompanied them ! Jo also joined me in having the Tacos de Carne, whilst Emma had the chicken version and Tanya had the nachos. It was a good choice for a QS meal; very different to your standard burger and fries. In fact, it turned out that we would hardly eat that kind of stuff during the next two weeks That’s not to say that we ate healthily though NOT AT ALL!

Whilst we were inside of La Cantina at Mexico, at around 2:00pm, it started raining – the first rain of the holiday. Noooooooo! We just decided to hang around inside La Cantina and shelter for a bit – we occupied ourselves by trying to finish our sodas – they were huge, as big as our heads!

Genuine head-sized Sprite​

After the rain eased up, we headed outside to the outdoor Margarita stand - now I wanted the multi-coloured one! I’m a sucker for bright colours! The strawberry layer was definitely the best!

​

I could feel it going to my head now – shocking I know, just after a couple of frozen margaritas! What can I say though, the hard slog of my final year of medical school really has made me into a lightweight ! However, for some more sitting-down-time we decided to do the Gran Fiesta Tour Ride since Emma and I had never done it. We had a little look around inside the Plaza de Los Amigos first, and noticed the restaurant; it looked really pretty and I’d love to dine there one day! We quite enjoyed the ride – I do love the Three Caballeros though and was excited to read they would be coming to Mexico soon for some Cinco de Mayo and Limited Time Magic celebrations!

Yesss! I’ve got the bigger sombrero – I win!​

Continued (again) in next post...

 

[BethEJo]

We then walked back towards Future World. On the way over, we decided to check out Mousegear – definitely one of the best Disney shops, and it’s always a bad idea to head in when you’ve vowed not to buy too much Disney merchandise this time! I came out with a rubber mickey head keyring for Rachel here on the DIS, as her old one had broken, and a cute little princess mickey head key topper for myself.

As we were about to leave the shop, I put my sunglasses on and thought something looked a little strange. I’d only gone and lost a lens out of my favourite Marc Jacobs sunglasses – I was gutted! They were the nicest sunglasses I had found for a while and had worn them religiously since I had bought them last year. I had no idea what had happened but noticed there was a little crack in the frame and I couldn’t find the lens anywhere! I hate to sound like a drama queen, but I can’t survive without my sunglasses; bright light drives my head crazy! A CM noticed, and pointed me in the direction of the Disney sunglasses available in the store – I had a look, but nothing really appealed. I really just wanted something plain and dark, not brightly coloured and covered in Mickey’s (sorry Mickey, love you really!) – I was out of luck. The CM also mentioned that they did 'higher-end' non-Disney sunglasses over in the Test Track shop – he was not sure which ones they were, but I decided to check it out anyways.

*sniff*​

Before heading over towards TT, we decided to do Spaceship Earth – it’s another ‘must do’ every trip! Small fact about me: one of my most favourite words in the world is geosphere. You can’t say I don’t give you anything! I swear, the bit where you come down backwards at the end in all the twinkly lights: if you put your head back, you have the perfect napping conditions!! Naaa, but seriously, I love it – it soothes me lol! Jo and I were gutted though – our video of the future didn’t have our faces in it, just the cartoon ones. Ah well, we weren’t meant to be the stars of that movie today! I wonder what had hppened…

Now we had done SE, we headed to the TT shop and found the sunglasses display case – there wasn’t much of a selection but they did have a pair of plain black Rayban Wayfarers. I had always loved this style of sunglasses, and have always wanted a pair; now I decided that if I was going to get a new pair of sunglasses, I may as well do it properly and treat myself! And so that's how I ended up with a pair - probably one of the most expensive emergency purchases I have had to make in a park! The only problem, was that my brother saw a photo of them that I had posted on Facebook, and now also wanted a pair. I decided to wait until I headed to the mall though so he would have more of a choice – gee, I’m a good sister when I want to be haha!

After making my purchase, we were now right on time for our other Soarin’ Fastpass that we had picked up immediately after riding this morning. This time, the seats were even better; again we were in the middle, but this time on the top row and so no feet dangling above us! C’etait parfait! I swear, the umpteen times I rode this in three months in 2011, I never got seated in the middle section, and always seemed to be in the bottom row! It’s like it was waiting for us to return! I will never, ever get bored of this ride – the soundtrack, you guessed it, is another favourite of mine. It fits best when I’m driving through the mountains back at home! All I need to add to the experience, is someone sitting in my passenger seat, squirting an orange in my face!

Next we did the Seas with Nemo and Friends – there was no line at all and we just walked straight on! I love singing along at the end; “in the big bluuuuueee woooorld”! And also the little starfish stuck on the tank window that gives you little facts as your clam shell exits the ride! We also decided to do Turtle Talk with Crush – none of us had ever seen it before, but I did know that it was some kind of interactive thing. I had remembered reading on here about some funny experiences that people had had there, so I was keen to see it! And we were glad we did; we were in tears! The questions the kids ask really do make this show – it’s all so sweet! One little ‘dude’ stuck up his hand, and Crush chose him: “what’s your question dude”? There was a pause, and then a few ums and ahs, and then the little boy announced:

“One time, I couldn’t swim because Tommy had the floatie, but then… but then… but then I went upstairs… and… and… and... and then I swam” ​

There was utter silence for a few seconds before the whole room burst out laughing! Crush thanked him for his story and was pleased that the little dude could swim if he went upstairs! Kids really do come out with the randomest things, and I miss working with them so much! We vowed we would return the next time we visited Epcot!

Apparently… we are imitating fish!​

As we left the show, we stumbled across the pretzel cart – they looked so good, especially the cinnamon and sugar ones that I had never tried. Emma and I decided we’d use a snack credit for one, and split it for breakfast the next morning – good shout Em!

We then headed over to do the Universe of Energy – this is getting kinda retro I know, but I love Ellen Degeneres and still find it funny! Stupid Judy! We sat down to wait the few minutes for the next show. However, I became conscious of the time – I realised that by the time it would finish, it would be around 7.30pm and we had already had our Rose & Crown ADR booked for 7.30pm (or so I thought...). On top of that, we wanted to check-in a bit earlier so that we could ask about getting the outdoor seating.

I checked the itinerary though and had a horrible shock… I was completely on the wrong day! We should have been at Hollywood Studios today, which meant we had missed our lunch reservation at 50’s Prime Time this afternoon. I had booked the Rose & Crown ADR for tomorrow. I double checked my reservations in the My Disney Experience app on my mobile – it confirmed what I had just read on my beautiful, colour-coded itinerary that I had now failed! I no longer had the right to call myself a ‘Monica’!

“Ummmm…. Girls…. There's been a bit of a mess up I’m afraid”

Luckily, the girls were completely fine with it; easy mistake they said! Although they made me promise that I’d go and actually check the plans every night rather than just guessing them from memory! It was just before 7pm now, so we decided to head over to the R&C anyway to see if they were accepting walk-ins. On our trek over, I cancelled tomorrow’s R&C reservation using the app, and made a new one for lunch at 50’s Prime Time.

We got to the R&C stand, explained the situation, and they said that at the moment, they were able to accommodate walk-ins, and that we should be able to get a table in around 40 minutes. Phew – this wasn’t long after our original planned reservation anyway! Whilst waiting, we decided to head into the pub for a drink – big mistake! Despite having the pleasure of minimal certain tour groups visiting in April/May (as opposed to the masses you get during the Summer), WDW had been taken by storm by a tonne of dancing and cheerleading groups. There had been a huge World dance competition at Epcot today, and every member of those groups that was over the age of 21 seemed to have descended on the R&C. The atmosphere wasn’t the greatest – they were all extremely loud, drunk and roudy. They were all over each other, and had no regard at all for any of the guests around them! They were disgusting – I’m from the valleys, and am used to seeing some pretty horrendous sights, but even I didn’t want to hang around in this pub. Lots of guests came in, saw what was happening and left again. However, the girls wanted to sit it out, as they wanted to introduce Tanya to a pint of cider and black We found a spot as far back in the corner as we could and got the drinks in – whilst the girls had their cider, I decided to try the Welsh Dragon cocktail – mmmmmm!

Welsh Dragon - peach Schnapps, Melon liquer, crème de menthe, orange juice and pineapple juice.
It clearly made me very happy!

​

Fifty minutes later, we were called for a table inside. Tanya was intrigued by the “British” menu, and ordered the shepherd’s pie. Emma went for the fish and chips, whilst Jo and I ordered the steak and fish. At the moment, I was a firm fan of ordering the most expensive thing on the menu! I really enjoyed the meal, but had never been so full! I’d never had gravy on fried fish before, but it was nice haha! Our table was pretty close to the pub area, and so it was still crazy loud during our meal, albeit a bit less so than earlier. The Hat Lady came over to our tables and apologised numerous times throughout the meal.

Grilled tenderloin and fried fish with Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, seasonal vegetables, Cashel blue cheese butter and red wine sauce​

We asked for dessert to go – it probably wouldn’t last very long, but it was worth a try. I opted for the yoghurt, fruit and granola. I should have chose something that would keep better to have for breakfast, but I had the yummy cinammon pretzel to look forward to! We really must learn to just say no to dessert if we don’t want it!

After we finished our meal, our server came over to drop off the check and we got chatting. We had mutual friends: two girls that Emma and I had known from the UK who did the ICP with us, were now on the Cultural Represantitive Program at the UK pavillion. I also noticed that our server’s (Emma) name tag said that she was from Cardiff – I would never have guessed though, as she didn’t have a Cardiff accent. Luckily for her! She really was trying to persuade us to do the CRP – I would honestly love to do it, more than anything in the world, but I know that in my career now, it would be impossible to take a year out and do something non-medical related and then return back home to a job. Sigh. After we finished chatting, she asked us if we’d like to watch Illuminations from the R&C viewing area! YES!! It was quite an OK spot and I started to get excited. A family came and stood next to us at the wall. At first their child just sat on the wall, but I still could see most of it. However, the child then got down and the father decided to lean forward on the wall, completely covering my view. Thanks for that sir! Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get the shots I wanted this evening.

View across the Word Showcase towards Mexico

​

I still adored Illuminations though – who doesn’t?! It really is a tie between this and Fantasmic for my top nighttime show! If you were to ask me my favourite tonight, Illuminations would just tip it; if you were to ask me tomorrow night though, it would probably have switched back to Fantasmic!

As the fireworks finished, it started to pick to rain. As soon as we exited the park, the heavens really did open. Luckily, a bus was already there. We soon got back to OKW, but it was now raining even harder which I didn’t think was possible! We now also had the joys of lightening and booming thunder! Oh Floridian storms, how we have missed you! I whipped my shoes off, and hobbled back to the room whilst trying to keep my camera dry!

We all dried off, got ready for bed, and were fast asleep by 11pm, praying that this weather would calm down!

 

[Chilly]

How can you not like living with the land We always do it, we love it for some reason.

Glad you sorted your ADR mix up out. I'm with you on sunglasses, cannot live without mine, in our move mine got broken so i've had to buy a new pair but i'm not loving them so will have to keep an eye out for a better pair.

 

[Laurafoster]

Another fan of living with the land lol!

Im terrible for sunglasses. Even at home as soon as the sun peeks out i grab them. I had my eyes Lasered 2 years ago and now have quite a collection of them

Another great day though. Glad you managed to sort your ADR out.

 

[irenep]

Living with the Land is a must-do on our trips and I know what you mean about nodding off - we actually saw one of the operators sound asleep at his chair on that ride one time (just before the greenhouse). Funny thing is I have never seen anyone at that chair at all ever since! My youngest really loves LWTL so I took him on the Behind the Seeds tour a couple of years ago just so he could get a closer look at everything. Really interesting (if you like plants)

Shame about your sunglasses -but some nice Ray-Bans to make up for it can't be so bad. I am forever losing my sunglasses on holiday. Don't know how I manage it but every trip I have to buy at least one new pair

Great Day - look forward to more.

 

[BethEJo]

How can you not like living with the land We always do it, we love it for some reason.

Glad you sorted your ADR mix up out. I'm with you on sunglasses, cannot live without mine, in our move mine got broken so i've had to buy a new pair but i'm not loving them so will have to keep an eye out for a better pair.

It seems a lot of people love it - I'm definitely the minority! But then I again, I genuinely do love Stitch's Great Escape!

Hope you find a nicer pair soon and that you've all settled into your new place

Another fan of living with the land lol!

Im terrible for sunglasses. Even at home as soon as the sun peeks out i grab them. I had my eyes Lasered 2 years ago and now have quite a collection of them

Another great day though. Glad you managed to sort your ADR out.

No other ADR mix ups after this one thankfully!

I have no idea why I didn't take a spare pair of sunglasses with me, considering how much I rely on them but at least I got a new pair out of it!

Living with the Land is a must-do on our trips and I know what you mean about nodding off - we actually saw one of the operators sound asleep at his chair on that ride one time (just before the greenhouse). Funny thing is I have never seen anyone at that chair at all ever since! My youngest really loves LWTL so I took him on the Behind the Seeds tour a couple of years ago just so he could get a closer look at everything. Really interesting (if you like plants)

Shame about your sunglasses -but some nice Ray-Bans to make up for it can't be so bad. I am forever losing my sunglasses on holiday. Don't know how I manage it but every trip I have to buy at least one new pair

Great Day - look forward to more.

I hope to take my parents next time round, and I know for sure they'll love Living With The Land - I definitely need to make sure they do the Behind The Seeds tour, as they are avid gardeners!

Not such a bad thing having to buy a new pair each time hehe

 

[Chilly]

It seems a lot of people love it - I'm definitely the minority! But then I again, I genuinely do love Stitch's Great Escape!

Your the first I know who likes Stitch's Great Escape!

 

[wilma-bride]

Bethan, Bethan, Bethan...so many blonde moments.

I am genuinely sorry about your poor feet. Having suffered from plantar fasciitis for the last 18 months, I know how bad it is when your feet hurt - and you can't exactly stay off them at WDW. I already know that they got better towards the latter part of the holiday so I'm glad about that.

So, the dance squads were worse than Valleys kids - speaking as somebody who is halfway through watching Series 2 of The Valleys, all I can say is

All in all, your Monical-less moment didn't turn out too badly in the end - well recovered, my dear Reading about your adventures is making me more excited for my own girly (albeit Mother/Daughter) holiday to WDW next year.

Standing by for Hollywood Studios - it is Hollywood Studios next, right?

 

[BethEJo]

Your the first I know who likes Stitch's Great Escape!

I'll pride myself on that

Bethan, Bethan, Bethan...so many blonde moments.

I am genuinely sorry about your poor feet. Having suffered from plantar fasciitis for the last 18 months, I know how bad it is when your feet hurt - and you can't exactly stay off them at WDW. I already know that they got better towards the latter part of the holiday so I'm glad about that.

So, the dance squads were worse than Valleys kids - speaking as somebody who is halfway through watching Series 2 of The Valleys, all I can say is

All in all, your Monical-less moment didn't turn out too badly in the end - well recovered, my dear Reading about your adventures is making me more excited for my own girly (albeit Mother/Daughter) holiday to WDW next year.

Standing by for Hollywood Studios - it is Hollywood Studios next, right?

Sorry to hear about your plantar fasciitis - I hope you find something that helps. And yes, really not an option to keep off them at WDW - I developed a serious limp lol! When I woke up, every morning the muscles in my legs were so tight due to my funny walk! At least now I have calves of steel pahaha

So glad we managed to sort out our little ADR mix up - the girls were really looking forward to trying the R&C so I'm glad they managed to get us in as a walk-up. Not long afterwards, we heard them telling some other parties that they weren't able to accomodate them.

You're going to have a great girly holiday! It will be here before you know it, and I'm excited to hear all about it I'm already starting planning for a 2015 trip with the family!

And in deed it is HS next - I'm writing it up right now

 

[BethEJo]

So, the dance squads were worse than Valleys kids - speaking as somebody who is halfway through watching Series 2 of The Valleys, all I can say is

Forgot to add:

I've been catching up on the second series since I've returned home. Would just like to make a disclaimer now that not all the valleys people are like that... just most of them I'm kidding, they're definitely the minority (I hope lol).

The dance people weren't quite as bad as the beasts you see on that show, but yes, highly annoying and crude nonetheless

 

[darthtatty]

So glad youre doing a trip report.

I agree the Modern Family Disneyland episode is very funny and weve watched it many times.

Sounds like you had a fab time, a few issues but when youre in WDW they dont annoy you for too long.

Some great pictures, cant wait to see more.xx

 

[BethEJo]

So glad youre doing a trip report.

I agree the Modern Family Disneyland episode is very funny and weve watched it many times.

Sounds like you had a fab time, a few issues but when youre in WDW they dont annoy you for too long.

Some great pictures, cant wait to see more.xx

Thanks Nic! I'm enjoying reliving it all again

And you're right, nothing phases you for long when you're there - wish I had that mentality at all times!!

 

[jjk]

Just caught up my DH loves Living with the Land we have to ride every time we go to Epcot , I booked him the Behind the seeds tour last year and it was fab. Looking forward to reading more