Friends Reunited - TRIP REPORT!! - COMPLETE

They say Doctors make the worst patients ;)

Purely based on that cocktail Paradiso 37 is now on my must do list!
 
Oh dear Dr what are you like!

Haha, a pain in the derrière, that's what ;)

They say Doctors make the worst patients ;)

Purely based on that cocktail Paradiso 37 is now on my must do list!

That is a very true saying :)

It will be a must do every trip of ours from now on - good food and such a good atmosphere as well! They also have a number of stands outdoors which you can buy those mammoth cocktails from too. They also sell beers in souvenir glasses where the refills are half price. You have to go for it because it's such good value. Or that's what we tell ourselves... :rotfl:
 
Paradiso 37 was a possible on the list for my trip with Sian - it's now a definite!

I can't believe how bad your feet must have been, you poor thing. What's the betting you didn't follow the advice and go to the care centre :rolleyes:
 


I had a cucumber margarita last time I was at Paridiso 37 and it was amazing!

We just ate appetisers but really loved it

Such a great and often over looked place :)

Poor you with your feet, hope you got them sorted out quickly
 
Enjoying all your updates- you look like you are having a fab time in all the pics - hope your foot gets better soon :goodvibes
 


I had a cucumber margarita last time I was at Paridiso 37 and it was amazing!

We just ate appetisers but really loved it

Such a great and often over looked place :)

Poor you with your feet, hope you got them sorted out quickly

Mmmm, that cucumber margarita sounds lush! :goodvibes Definitely an overlooked place! We need to start a fan club :rotfl:

Enjoying all your updates- you look like you are having a fab time in all the pics - hope your foot gets better soon :goodvibes

Thank you :goodvibes We really did have the best time ever!


The next update may be a little late - am heading to a conference in Glasgow for a couple of days tomorrow. Having an absolute mare figuring how to take my stuff on the plane, and I leave home in four hours... I have an A0 research poster to take with me and present, and Easyjet have told me that I won't be able to take it rolled up as hand luggage :guilty: it's literally just a piece of paper!!

Anyhow, just wanted to apologise for the upcoming delay :goodvibes
 
Typical EasyJet- any excuse to charge for hold luggage and they'll take it!
Hope you and your poster have a good flight and have a nice time in Glasgow. My son will be doing his FY1 in Glasgow - wonder if he will be at your conference:)

Look forward to next instalment when you get back:thumbsup2
 
Typical EasyJet- any excuse to charge for hold luggage and they'll take it!
Hope you and your poster have a good flight and have a nice time in Glasgow. My son will be doing his FY1 in Glasgow - wonder if he will be at your conference:)

Look forward to next instalment when you get back:thumbsup2

Yes, typical Easyjet indeed - I bumped into one lady when we were in the airport. She was also going to the same conference (I noticed she had a poster tube with her). Because she didn't check it in straight away, she was stung like £50 to put it in the hold :scared: I'll stick to conferences a bit closer to home in the future!

Yes, you never know - its a small world :) I'm at the Association of British Neurologists conference in the SECC if that rings a bell?

Good luck to your son starting FY1 soon - I wonder if he's as terrified as I am?! :rotfl2:
 
I'm at the conference too! I read your whole trip report on the way up this morning on the train. Loving your report thank you :)
 
I'm at the conference too! I read your whole trip report on the way up this morning on the train. Loving your report thank you :)

Wow - small world! Hope you enjoyed the conference :) Glad you're enjoying the trip report; I'm enjoying writing and sharing it!



I arrived back from the conference during the early hours of this morning. I'm just finishing up the next day of the TR and will post it later tonight.

Here I am at the conference with my poster entitled: Probing the potential for functional recovery in patients with neuromyelitis optica using visuomotor practice.
(It's more interesting than it sounds :goodvibes)

 
Your poor feet - I really sympathise! Paradiso 37 sounds lovely, burger looked amazing, nom xxx
I'm craving one of those burgers now... actually I'm just craving any Disney food! The boring cheese and salt and vinegar crisps sandwich I just made just doesn't compare :rotfl:


Photobucket was being a right slow-poke last night - have just managed to upload the photos now and so next instalment is coming right up :goodvibes
 
05/05/2013: OHANA MEANS FAMILY​

We decided to make it a bit of a lazy morning today – we were all pretty tired, and the girls didn’t arrive back until around 3am after the run.

By the way, they had a great time at the EE Challenge last night! It was a mixture of solving clues and with tackling obstacles along a 5k route. There were lots of CMs along the way cheering everyone on, and a bunch of characters too – they said they were pretty much the fastest character meets ever! A great experience though!! They were in the last group to be set off for the race as they had picked the slowest run time beforehand, meaning that they didn’t end up finishing until around midnight. They then had a great time doing some of AK in the dark, especially Expedition Everest. They topped off all their hard work with a McDonald’s at 3am! Their medals looked amazing; you could open them up and they had a compass inside!


I woke up around 9am this morning, but the others were still out for the count. I started to get ready whilst the others woke up and decided they’d spend a little down time next to the pool this morning. As appealing as that sounded (plus it was sunny for the first morning in a while!), my foot was still a mess and I decided I’d have to finally make the journey to the pharmacy.

I caught a bus to DTD and then a Lynx bus to the area just past the Crossroads and walked to Walgreens. I ended up buying so many various dressings and tapes that I could pretty much open up my own first aid station now! I also managed to pick up some Neutrogena make-up that I can’t buy here in the UK, and some flavoured cigariilos for my Mum. I also stupidly bought four big bottles of Gatorade and iced tea. D'oh! These were super heavy in my rucksack. Funny that! When I started making my way back I realised that I had just missed a bus, so decided to keep on walking from Crossroads straight back to DTD. It wasn’t the longest of walks, but boy did it feel like it now the sun was out! I decided to drink one of my Gatorades to lighten the load and because I was parched – I felt like I was training for the army or something, marching along with a heavy rucksack on my back! I also managed to acquire another blister. Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhh! It seems that any shoes I own are not made for walking more than 20 minutes in! I vowed that I will never come to Florida without a car in the future!


Not a bad job, even if I say so myself! It definitely helped!

Finally, I got to DTD, and again had just missed a bus to OKW. Whilst I waited for another I managed to devour half a family bag of cheese Bugles that I had also picked up from the shop! I sat next to a group on the bus; it looked like they had not long arrived as they asked me about the bus route when we pulled into OKW. We all got off the bus at South Point, and they continued walking next to me as I walked to the back towards building 55… were they following me haha?! We jokingly commented that this was too weird, as we ended up being in rooms next to each other!

I arrived back at around 12.30 and saw that the girls were still by the pool. That morning, when we woke up, we all decided that we’d go to DTD that afternoon. Now that the girls were comfortable in the sun though, they weren’t sure if they wanted to leave. Tanya and I decided that we craved an Earl of Sandwich too much however and we headed back to the room for her to get changed. Emma also quickly changed her mind and decided she’d come with us. Not many people can resist an Earl :rotfl2:! Jo however, is just too much of a sun worshipper!

We caught a bus to DTD and headed straight to EoS – I decided I should try something new, and went for the holiday sandwich (turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberries) – it was gurrrrrrrd! Where's the drooling smiley?! :rotfl: I also had some potato salad and a cherry Coke. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the thick, creamy potato salad and the super sweetness of the cherry coke over here or whether it was due to the fact that I had eaten so many cheesey Bugles a couple of hours earlier, but I was only able to manage half my sandwich. Shock horror :scared1: - that is inheard of for me!!! I wrapped the remaining half, and decided it’d make a good breakfast tomorrow morning.




After lunch we did a spot of shopping. First was the Memories/Art of Disney store; when I was here a couple of years back I remembered them selling some really nice pens which I thought would be nice to get, what with starting a new job and all. Tanya also wanted to visit her friend who now worked here. We were both out of luck however – Tanya’s friend was on break and the pens were no longer in this shop. I had to take a photo of this though (my Mam enjoys painting, and painted a copy of the original Girl with a Pearl Earring for an exhibition)…


The Daisy version…


…and Johannes Vermeer’s original

Not too dissimilar! :rotfl:

Next we headed to the pantry shop… when I get my own place, I will be spending a lot of money in here on future trips! I want all the kitchenware! I loved the coffee range, and ended up buying a container of around ten pots of differently flavoured Disney coffees. Since returning home, I’ve already made my way through the coconut crème and caramel toffee flavours….mmmm! They are very good and smell gorgeous! Next to try is the cinnamon pecan flavour – I’ll report back!

I was also about to buy the ceramic coffee mug that was insulated like a travel mug and with a plastic lid. However, Tanya told me that during her program, when stocking these mugs in the shop, she noticed that the rubber seals kept popping off the top so that the lid was not watertight. Phew - this made me decide not to buy the mug. I had bought a different travel mug at Disney in 2011 and started using it to drink coffee on my drive to work. I always used to get dribbles of it down my tops and at first thought I was just being a messy puppy and considered investing in a bib :lmao:. Eventually, I realised that the threads in the mug’s lid had worn slightly after a few uses, and the coffee was coming through the seal and down my top. I wasn’t going to splash out on another mug for the same thing to happen… I’ll get a reputation as a dribbler! People already think I’m weird without having stains all down my shirts! :goodvibes

We headed over to Trend-D next – I’m so glad that I was never a CM working here, as I’m sure I would have spent all my wages before the end of a shift! We also bumped into Nick whilst he was working. He looked very authoritative and managerial in his shirt and tie and various phones and beepers on his belt – he didn’t get the third degree from me this time around though! (I've also just found out that he's been offered a full-time position as a Leader after his Professional Internship program ends - great news!) After a quick chat, we headed over to the World of Disney and had a good look around.


Wish shop fronts were like this in the UK!


Posh ears!


I still regret not buying this!


There’s nothing cuter than Duffy in a Goofy hat!

We ended up at the jewellery counter (as usual!) – some of those earrings cost over $4500 :scared1:. One day my friends, one day! I then picked up the bits and bobs that I needed to get for people back at home: a gift for my friend Michelle to thank her for lending me her underwater camera, some postcards for my Disney friends back at home who unfortunately couldn’t make this trip with us, and some sweets and biscuits for my cousins and grandparents. I also found the nice pens that I had been looking for – I decided on the perfect pen, it was all sparkly and shiny and I loved it! However, it didn’t have a pocket clip on it, and I knew I’d probably lose it after one day on the job! Pens are a commodity on the hospital wards you know! I left it for now and decided I’d buy one the next time I returned to WDW in a few years. Instead, I opted for your standard big Mickey head pen – no one could get away with stealing that one from me :rotfl2:!

The afternoon had just flown by, but we were back at OKW for around 5pm.

We had reservations at Ohana this evening, and planned on going into MK afterwards for Extra Magic Hours. We got ready and headed to the bus stop. Emma suddenly remembered that we were doing MK tonight, but couldn’t possibly do so in her current dress. She ran back to get changed, but of course in this time, an MK bus turned up which we were hoping to catch. She got back but luckily we didn’t have to wait too long for another to arrive. We hobbled to the monorail, and again ended up stopping twice in the middle of the tracks for traffic clearance. We were making a habbit of this! We eventually made it to the Poly, and checked in at 7:15, so just a teeny bit late. Phew!

We noticed that in our car in the monorail, there were two older men who were talking about hoping to eat at Ohana this evening but without a reservation. They ended up being infront of us in the line at check-in and we heard the CM turning them away. A lady behind us in the line also overheard this and interrupted to tell them that as luck would have it, two members of their party were no longer able to make dinner at Ohana this evening so they were welcome to fill in those two spaces and have dinner with her and her family! They’d obviously never met before, and this was just so sweet! Only in America!

It didn’t take long for us to get called in, and we were all in awe at the restaurant – especially when the hostess mentioned this was practically like a meat buffet but we didn’t have to get up to get our food; it would just be brought to us! Perfection - all the makings of a great restaurant! We sat down and before we'd even spied the drinks menu, we had already decided on four Lapu Lapus. We also ordered some soft drinks, and soon after the appetisers arrived.






We now tucked into the bread – Jo and I were impressed! Coconut and pineapple, are two of my favourite flavours. And who on Earth doesn’t like bread?! :rotfl: Therefore, three for three! Tanya and Emma were not so keen… The appetiser also included salad, honey-coriander chicken wings and pork fried dumplings. The chicken was very sticky and messy (which is in no way a bad thing!!), and we were really greatful for the hot hand towels. That’s when we realised that we hadn’t used our hand towels at the Spirit of Aloha dinner show the other evening – we had definitely been doing something wrong there then! My guess is eating ribs with a knife and fork haha… Both the chicken and the dumplings were good. I didn’t have a favourite when it came down to taste, but overall I slightly preferred the pork dumplings purely due to the fact that they were easier to eat!




Next was the meat. Oh the meat! So much meat! Again, never a bad thing! Mr Atkins would have been proud tonight haha! First the prawns arrived, then the chicken, then the steak and followed lastly by the pork. This was all accompanied by noodles and stir fried vegetables. I was surprised by how much I'd managed to escape fries this trip! My favourite out of this lot was definitely the prawns. Possibly due to having so much meat over the past week, but they were soooo good irrespective of that! The pork was also gorgeous, but it came at the point where I had eaten so much of the other stuff that I couldn’t squeeze it in! I of course managed to have a taste though! Bethy’s tip for Ohana: pace yourself. You don’t know is going to turn up next!


Prawns, noodles and veggies

Continued in the next post...
 
Also, the food was so good that we kept forgetting about our Lapu Lapus! We just didn’t know what to eat/drink next?!




Finally, the dessert came! Another fantastic bread pudding-based item officially titled ‘Ohana bread pudding’ served with bananas and caramel sauce. Also known as heaven on a plate! Oh yeah, and there was ice cream with it as well. Ooops, just drooling all over the keyboard here…


We really enjoyed the dessert, and all had quite a sizeable portion of it (you always have room in your dessert stomach right?) but still over half of it ended up getting wasted :(

This was definitely a highlight meal of the trip – I would have had no qualms whatsoever in paying for this out of pocket. I believe that it was thirty-something dollars per person to eat here which I think is really good value considering the atmosphere, the food and the fact that you’re dining in Disney! I would highly recommend, and I will definitely be returning! :thumbsup2

After finishing our drinks we settled the bill and headed downstairs to the jewellery shop as I wanted to take another look at the ring. This is not after a bit of palava with the bill where we had put in $60 in cash alongside the remaining balance on our gift card to cover drinks and tip. Our server returned saying we still owed him money and claiming that we’d only given him $40. There was a little bit of to’ing and fro’ing where I insisted that I had given him $60. I always collect the money from the others and count it numerous times at each meal. He eventually pulled the money out of his pocket, counted it, and sheepishly admitted that we’d given him $60. Thank you sir and good night :)

Before I move on, that reminds me about the gift card. As was (and is currently) the deal with booking with the WDTC-UK, we were given a $200 gift card in our Mickey mail. We decided that we’d use this on tips as it was an easy way to split it. Ages ago I read that someone on here did that and I thought it was a good idea! However, from our experience, when trying to use the gift card to pay the tip one of three things happened:

1) They had to go and consult a manager to sort it if we hadn’t ordered anything else alongside using the DDP. For example, if we hadn’t ordered alcohol/appetisers, using the DDP would bring the cheque to $0. On a few occasions our servers informed us that they would have to get their manager to sort it out and ‘to reopen up the cheque’ or something. It just meant it took a teeny tiny bit longer, but that was no odds to us.

2) If we had ordered alcoholic drinks with our dinner, we used to put cash in for the drinks and then the gift card in for the tip. There was never a problem per se with this if I recall correctly, but a few quizzical looks.

3) They said it was no problem at all, whether we had ordered something extra alongside the dining plan or not. They did it without question.

So. Whereas we never had a meal where they actually couldn’t do it (take just the tip of a Disney gift card), there were a few comments about it and I got the impression that it wasn’t the preferred way… Forgive me if I am wrong. Our original plan was once the $200 had run out on our gift card, we’d load an extra $100 onto it each to cover the tips for the rest of the trip. However, due to our experiences we decided not to follow through with this and just let the gift card run out, whilst paying the remainder of the holiday’s tips in cash. So, that’s just my two cents worth…

Back to the TR… :)

We headed down to Wylan Galleries to check out the jewellery again – I had finally decided that I wanted to get the ring. I hadn’t really been keeping an eye on my funds on my FairFX card and was afraid to use my UK debit card for a large-ish purchase, as I had forgotten to inform the bank that I would be in the USA before I left (I’ve had previous experiences where my debit card has been blocked when I've used it in foreign countries where I hadn't let them know prior). I also didn’t have enough cash on me to buy the ring in that way. I attempted to check my balance on my FairFX card using the ATM at the Poly but had no such luck. It looked like I would have to leave the ring for now and return (again). It was already 9.30pm and we wanted to get to MK for Wisheeeeeeeees (dream a dreeeeam…).

We caught the monorail and got a spot to watch the shows. I managed to get lots of photos this time! Warning: castle photo overload.






“I can fix this!”


“And at last I see the liiiiiight”


My favourite projection!


The man himself!
















After Wishes, we met up with some of Tanya’s old friends from the College Program and headed to the Carousel of Progress. We needed to do a ride where there was minimal movement and lots of sitting down involved – we were still stuffed (as seemed to be the general theme of the holiday thus far!). We enjoyed it as usual, and the song has been stuck in my head ever since. No kidding. There’s a great, big beautiful tomorrowww…

Next the group wanted to ride Space Mountain but there was a 60-minute wait advertised. At this moment in time, this ride was 110% not for me… bleurrggghhhh. I was more than happy to sit this one out and wait for the guys – it would have given me a chance to do a bit more exploring with my camera without having to feel bad that I was dragging people arround! However, they didn’t fancy waiting that long and they decided to leave it. We headed over to the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor instead – Emma and I love this sooooooooo much. Especially Roz! It was quite late however, and didn’t have quite the same atmosphere as it does normally when there are more guests around! It was still a hoot though – Sam and Ella entertained us with their knowledge of human geography, where every city in the world is home to the Eiffel Tower it seems, and Buddy wowed us with his ‘telepathetic’ness. Remember, you need to say your number out loud to the audience, but he can’t hear you because he has his eyes closed ;) I also loved Marty Wazowski and the addition of him now wanting to go to ‘Monsters University’. Does anyone have any info on how they actually do this show? It’s all so clever!!




Jo and I were really flagging by this point and so we decided we’d head back. The others didn’t think that was such a bad idea, and decided to join us. We had a couple of photopass pictures on the way out, and picked up some drinks and snacks on Main St. We weren’t getting through our snack credits as quick as we thought!! We arrived back in the room at around 12:30 and headed straight to bed, vowing that we wouldn’t eat ever again!

 

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