If I press the back button can we go to Orlando again?... last update 4/10

[petals]

Day 10 was our last Disney day but it wasn't the end of our trip...
The Plan for today was a special breakfast and then hang out somewhere in disney just basically spend last day in Disney.
So first we headed towards the Polynesian resort for our breakfast. We were a little early arriving so wandered around the shops in the lobby taking pics:

more hidden mickey's

Soon enough it was time to check in at our breakfast in:

Our server explained we were all cousins and got us seated pretty quickly and brought our breakfast... I took some food pics (not many)

My first ever Mickey Waffles:

First character over to us was Lilo, followed by Stitch and then it was time for the parade:

Pluto came over a few times.. He kept sneaking up on my mum who would jump really high I think he found this funny:

It took ages for Mickey Mouse to come to our table but I wanted to wait for him anyway. Plus we weren't in a rush for the day although our server did seem to get a little impatient once we'd paid the bill that we weren't leaving and seemed to be trying subtly to give us a hint she wanted us to leave. I didn't really care I paid for it and I wanted to wait for the main mouse lol
While we were waiting I was taking vids of the characters going around and at one point whatever Stitch did was a bit bad obviously because Mickey told him to go stand in a corner lol:

Stitch didn't agree with this idea and started dancing!
Eventually the main mouse made his way over to our table

and we had waited that long that we got second pictures with Lilo and Stitch. Stitch came over as we were leaving and gave us a big hug.
This breakfast was a bribe in the first place because mam didn't want to go to a character breakfast but she did say it was the best breakfast we'd had on the trip and the character interactions were brilliant. Totally worth it
After the breakfast we headed out to the bus stop to decide our next destination and I of course took some pics along the way:

Next up another first...

 

[petals]

Soon after getting the bus we arrived at:

We'd never been here before to properly explore I think when I was little and we went to disney we only went to the cinema at Pleasure Island as it was called at the time (we saw pocahontas ) But we'd never explored Downtown Disney properly. I of course got loads of pictures:

A ghostmas tree in the Christmas shop:

In Goofy's place:

I wanted one of those apples but they're huge and kinda expensive so passed on it:

World of Disney was HUGE:

I got lost and lost my mum several times and these dudes scared the sugar out of me going in the door lol:

But I like the way it's decorated:

I wanted to get this for my boys:

but the pup got a Mickey mouse collar instead which I don't have a pic of on the computer right now but i'll add it in when I find it
We stopped off in the lego shop to pick up something for my nephew and I played with legos while my mum browsed lol:

This is my little lego creation:

it's not very good but I was only messing really lol! While I was doing that though some dude came over and asked me if I would take his picture with my lego creation so he could pretend he had built legos in Disney.
After that we went to Portabellos to try out their Meatball bar because I'd been listening to a podcast on the way over on the aeroplane about Portabellos so we had to go there obv! While we were there the very friendly barman was telling us about the horrible love bugs and how they aren't even real insects they were invented by some university in Florida to try keep mosquitos (spelling?) population down! I don't like insects in general but they were everywhere when we went!
Anyways after food we went shopping for out last souveniors and I took more random pics:

Had a little bit of CM magic as well as was still pin trading and spotted a Bambi badge I liked but forgot the rule of green lanyards are only for under 12's but CM called over another CM gave the pin to her and then she traded it with me so love the nice CM's
As we were heading back to the buses there was some Parrots out at the Rainforest cafe:

We still had one park day left on our tickets so decided for the last few hours to go explore one of the parks a little bit more so we hopped on the first hotel bus to arrive got a brief glimpse of the hotel:

I so wanna stay there sometime but we didn't get to explore because just as we hopped off the bus the bus we were looking for arrived

Next up last few park hours but where....

 

[petals]

Sooooo last stop being Pop we hopped straight onto a bus to Epcot because I wanted to get a last few character pics. I had main fab 5 in different costumes like safari etc and wanted to get them in their original costumes and knew I would get that in character spot in Epcot plus we still had one day left on our tickets so off we went...

First off went to England and found a bouncy Tigger and Winnie the Pooh in the back of a little shop with a ridiculously small queue. I think maybe there was one person in front of me SCORE!!! I have no idea why maybe it was because it was about 6.30 then or something I don't know but wasn't complaining! The interaction was fun and the flower pen I had went down a treat! Pooh bear smelled it and gave it to Tigger who sneezed! I had no idea when I brought that pen that the characters would have such a cool reaction to it. I only brought it because it matched the book ha ha!

Anyways after fun with Tigger and Pooh we headed back to character spot and stopped off in Canada on the way to browse and look for pressed pennies:

Then character spot where again the flower pen went down a treat. Donald gave me the pen as if he was giving me a flower. Pluto smelled it. I loved this pen a million times more after this trip lol!

see pluto smelling flower

Goofy was being eh... Goofy because I had pigtails in and I think he thought they matched his ears so he got me to hold them up for the pic while he did this with his ears so we matched:

After the character spot fun I was talking to mam about my pressed pennies and noticed how the countries on world showcase seemed to each have their own pressed penny and how it would be cool if we could get them all but wouldn't have time this trip... She just said why don't you try to get them so eventually set off on what I like to call my "sprint around the world" to try get some and but decided that wherever I got to by a certain time would head back then because she wanted to leave at 8.30.
So mam went off to find a bench to rest on and because I already had Mexico from a previous trip my first stop was China and of course I took pics along the way while searching:

Germany took the longest because the CM went missing when i needed change for the machine so then quick dash to Italy:

Before heading to America:

A run to Japan:

I have not seen Monchichi's for years and wanted one but no time to stop for one lol.
Also thought these were pretty:

Next Morocco:

before a quick dash to France whose pic didn't turn out to well
Then the international gateway because as I learned along the way China and Japan's pressed pennies aren't in the world showcase pavillion they're in the international gateway:

Funny story there. I had just legged it around the park looking for machines as quick as I possibly could. Went to the counter in the International gateway to get change and shiny pennies from a really nice CM who asked was I collecting them and then handed me a list of all the shops and exact locations and exactly what pennies were where in Epcot.. WHEN I WAS FINISHED GETTING THE ONES I WANTED!!! I did think it was funny though and have it for the next time to get the ones that weren't country pennies as such
After that I think it was 8.20 so I legged it back through England and Canada and back to my mum who was amazed that in two hours I'd met seven characters and been to the entire of World Showcase and were headed back to the bus lol!

Last Disney day was a go with the flow day but worked well we saw new things and it was fun! Plus I saw many parts of Epcot I hadn't before and if and when we go back will take the time to explore alot better than my quick dash through.

So thus ended the disney side of or trip so we went off to the hotel to pack and have some disney treats

but our trip wasn't over we had another four days somewhere before we went home.....

 

[that's nice]

I'm glad you enjoyed your breakfast at 'Ohana!

I can't believe you never had a Mickey waffle before!!!!

Like all your DTD pics! How weird that the guy wanted to use your lego creation as his own.

Sounds like you really had a nice night in Epcot. You really go a lot done is a short amount of time!

 

[petals]

I'm glad you enjoyed your breakfast at 'Ohana!

I can't believe you never had a Mickey waffle before!!!!

I reckon we've gone around the parks with our eyes closed for the first three times. We didn't go to any character breakfasts before and before I read disney forums I didn't even notice half the restaurants in the parks On the plus side though it gives us new things to try everytime we get to go now

Like all your DTD pics! How weird that the guy wanted to use your lego creation as his own. :

Yeah it was a little strange. I was only messing while mam picked something out for my nephew as his present request was lego but still I got to use an iphone for two seconds lol!

Also on weird people I forgot to say in the Magic Kingdom day in Toontown outside Pete's Garage there was a really creepy CM at the pin stand like literally everytime I moved he was kinda leering over me. Mam came over to me because he was freaking her out as well. Was just one of those strange things. Normally find CM's really nice and helpful. Oddness!

Sounds like you really had a nice night in Epcot. You really go a lot done is a short amount of time!

Yeah we did all that in 2 hours I couldn't believe it Still though next time we go I'll give Epcot a full day so we can do all the shows and stuff in it we've never done before.

 

[petals]

So Day 11 was a very tearful day!
First we were leaving Orlando. Our flight was at 12.30 so we didn't have long that morning to do anything. We got up finished packing and headed for the airport.
Went in search of pressed pennies in the airport before heading into security:
Kennedy Space Centre shop had no pennies

Neither did Universal shop but they did have lots of Harry Potter type food:

Finally found four pressed pennies in Seaworld shop

before getting our last Disney fix:

Oh such fun we had with our bags btw! We weren't heading home for another four days and already we had bought an extra carry on for all the clothes and stuff we bought. Then when we weighed our bags mam's was 53 kilos and mine was 44 so we had to open the bags take stuff out of her put it into mine such fun! When we moved the stuff mine was 46 and hers was 48kilos so that left us with what 6 kilos of space for the last four days if we bought anything else on top of two almost over weight cases we had mam's carry on bag and I had a carrier bag stuff with teddies (I may have gone a little over-board on the plushies ) and I had a stuffed backpack as well... Fun times
We got through it all though and through the very busy security area only problem we had there was Yankee Candles showed up as suspicious in mam's carry on... Don't ya just love airports!
When we eventually got to the gate our flight was delayed but then the flight time was shorter so it made up for the delay Soon we were in the air tearfully saying bye to Orlando:

And two hours later we said hello to New York:

We gathered all our luggage then had to go queue for a taxi to our Hotel. It was 50 dollars for the taxi to the hotel but soon we arrived at our very poshy hotel:

It was Hotel Roosevelt in New York.
We got settled in:

Angel (trip mascot) liked the bed but we thought they were very high up
Once we were all settled we headed out to explore even though we were still very depressed over leaving Orlando!

 

[petals]

Our hotel was about a 5 or 10 minute walk from Times Square so we headed up there:

Everything was very high up in New York:

The Disney store was closed as well for renovations or whatever so I was searching for ANYTHING disney to keep up my disney fix. I found Elmo but that wasn't good enough:

Then I spotted him:

I think he was ringing Minnie to come bring him back to Orlando
Anyways after that we headed for Madame Tussauds:
This one was my fave

With this one I wanted to know why there was Spice Girls in Wax and Nick Carter only got on the wall. I wanted a Nick Carter Wax figure
A Disney ish one:

And Hulk needs to be painted a bit more I think:

We even found Sponge Bob but I don't think he was wax lol

We stopped in Toys R Us on our way back to the Hotel:

 

[petals]

So day 12 was WET and we were still missing Mickey Mouse but decided to head out to see the city anyways.
We started the morning with a tiny bit of drama... When we took our showers the stopper got stuck in the bath as we thought and my mum tried to take the water out of the baath with the dustbin and then said she'd tell them at reception when we were going out. So she told the concierge and they grinned stupidly at her... apparently you only had to push one side of the stopper down on one side where we'd been trying to pull it up. Kinda funny after but at the time a little embarrassing
We had breakfast in the Hotel where I was very happy to find:

We had those in Ireland when I was little but for some reason they don't sell them over here now.
After Breakfast we headed off to Time Square where we got tickets for the Hop on bus tours and headed off to find a bus to go on the Downtown loop. The guide was very annoying and I wanted to gag her though as she spent more time talking about her own life. What we learned she had been working the night time loop for 6 months and this was her first time on the morning time loop in 6 months so she had had three hours sleep. had a sore throat and was from the Bronx so takes a bus and sub to Manhattan for work everyday. What it had to do with New York and the sites I don't know but sure... We did get little bits of info from her as she went along and remembered to tell us what we were looking at:
Crystal ball on time square which is used for to countdown to New Year is actually made of Waterford Crystal :

I was still trying to keep up my Disney fix and spotted this store on our video camera:

Our intention was to go see the Statue of Liberty but by the time we got there it was raining very hard:

and the visibility was very bad:

The rain was so bad even with our coats, jumpers and their free ponchos we were soaked through. We got off at Battery Park and got Hot Dogs while we took shelter from the rain for a while and tried to dry off using the hand dryers in the toilets
I took pics though of Manhattan Skyline:

We got back on the bus intending to go back to Times Square but they said last Brooklyn loop tour would be leaving as we arrived at the stop of that tour so we hopped on that bus instead and headed over to see Brooklyn:
These kids started shouting at the bus telling us to take pics of them so I did:

This pic is going back across the bridge to Manhattan:

While we were waiting for the bus to go back to Times Square we saw a few bride and grooms go by:

We felt sorry for the brides as their dresses were getting soaked and one even had wellington boots on under her dress lol
There was many strange signs around New York as well. This was an odd one I didn't quite get the point of:

Heading back to Times Square we saw Rockefeller centre:

We planned to go back there as we had tickets to go to the top.
Beside the bus drop off there's a huge M&M's world it was three stories high of everything M&M so we paid a quick visit in there:

I found Ireland

Every colour M&M:

After that we headed back to the hotel for food kind of a mistake. The Hotel as a whole was lovely. The room was nice and cozy and what not but most of the staff excluding the concierge were unfriendly and unhelpful. So we went into the busy bar area and asked if we could get food. Waiter said fine no problem we told him what we wanted and he told us to go find a table. I ordered sliders and when they arrived they looked pretty ok:

BUT they were half cooked and generally not worth the price we paid for them... I seem to remember them being around 16 dollars.. expensive hotel. I think it was the first and last time we ate dinner at the hotel. When the waiter brought them out after a 20 minute wait he gave out to us as well as he complained he couldn't find us. We were sitting right in front of the bar and the area wasn't huge so there was no reason he wouldn't have found us if he had of looked. Generally they were just unpleasant in the bar.
We went back to the room then for an early night and some dry clothes.

Next up a Wicked day!

 

[petals]

Day 13 started off a little less eventful but it was still raining
We took the downtown loop again to try go out to Statue of Liberty and took a few stops along the way. First up we visited the World Trade Centre site:

Across from that site is a small Cathedral called St. Paul's Cathedral which holds a memorial for the 9/11 tragedy. I was fascinated by this church because it was so close to the site and yet all that happened the church was two trees in the churchyard were knocked down. The church wasn't harmed in any other way:

After that we headed back to Battery Park:
This was taken from reckage of World Trade centre and is now a monument in Battery Park:

In the words of Dug... "SQUIRREL"

Today the sea was very choppy and since Mam and myself aren't great on bouncy boats and since we had a special evening planned we decided against going out on the boat to see Liberty as we were afraid it might make us feel sick and ruin the evening. Instead I settled on a faraway pic:

and cheated by taking sneak pics of postcards in the next shop we went into :

Next we headed back to the Rockefellar centre:

Where I went to the top but mam stayed on the ground floor. It was kinda odd going up in the lifts as they turn the lights out and have film clips playing while you're going up but nice view from the top despite poor visibility:
Central Park:

Empire State is in these clouds somewhere

After that we took a little stroll over to St. Patrick's Cathedral because it was close by and I was really bugged by the fact it looked really familiar but I couldn't figure out why. Was this used in a movie or something?:

We walked back to our hotel to get ready for our Wicked evening Got all dressed up fancy pancy and took some pics in the hotel lobby before heading back out:

Up to Broadway to see:

OH. MY. GAWD! It was absolutely out of this world. I cried when it was over because I didn't want it to end lol! It was simply amazing. Everyone should go see this. There were prop replica's in the lobby of the theatre as well so of course happy snappy here took some pics. My fave one:

Next up Disney fun in New York

 

[petals]

So Day 14....Our last full day of holidays it was sunny and visibilty was great... A perfect day to see all the sites of New York city...what had we planned a shopping trip!

We had already pre booked it and our tour tickets were up anyways so we went ahead to woodbury common:

Mam had asked the concierge in our hotel if there was any outlets in New York closer to our hotel and funny concierge said no madame in New York everything goes up, up, up. Outlets need space to go out, out, out so there's no room for them in New York. I took this pic in his honour

We got an early bus to Woodbury Common which was an hour and a half away from our hotel but we managed to arrive before the shops opened so we got some breakfast while we were waiting and I took pics of these:
place was decorated for halloween I thought the scare-crows were cute:

Then I found Mickey Mouse ready to drive me back to Florida

Also I haven't seen this dude for years but it's DINO!

When the shops did open our first stop was Disney Store obviously.. I was suffering withdrawal symtoms from being away from Florida so needed a disney fix

We got loads of shopping including more twinkle toes for me (can't get adult sizes in Ireland mainly as they're kids shoes but I'm a big kid so for America selling them in bigger sizes)

and we got another bag to bring all our stuff home in. We shopped to much.. I'd say we should learn and not bring as much with us the next time but I know that we will make the same mistake next time because we can never decide what we want to leave at home oh well!
We left Woodbury Common at 3.30 to go back to hotel and I took some pics on way back:

Back in Times Square:

We had dinner in an Irish pub (getting in the mood to go home) and then headed back to hotel to get ready for our Disney evening because tonight we were going to see The Lion King on broadway:

It was amazing! But I was a little disappointed because I knew the script already ha ha! It was interesting to see how they brought it to the stage though and really really good show. I think I liked Wicked better though because I didn't know the script already. Lion King was still amazing though but the lady beside my mother didn't agree..... She went to sleep and snored through the whole show. I was shocked. Imagine going to a broadway show to sleep through it
Got this pic on the way out of the show:

Anyways after the show we headed over to M&M's world to get my final present for myself an NY M&M's hoodie and since I had the trip mascot with me took some pics there:

We went back to hotel then and packed.
This is the dog collar I had bought my pup in downtown disney:

Apparently I even took pictures while packing happy snappy and all that!



Next up storms coming will we get home at all?!

 

[petals]

So day 15.
We were all packed (with two extra bags for all our shopping ) and ready to go home but our flight wasn't until 8.30 that evening so we planned to make good use of our last day and head to central park for a stroll and find magnolia bakery for some yummy treats...
First we had one last bit of shopping to do before we checked out. Near our hotel on 5th Avenue was the world's biggest bear factory and since the trip mascot is a build a bear I had to go get his "pawsport" stamped (big child much ) So along to 5th avenue we headed:

and to this site:

Angel (trip mascot) even got a go in a New York Taxi

One the way back to our hotel we did a little bit of window shopping and I saw these cool bags:

I love the Santa one

Anyway back to the hotel we packed away last of our stuff and piled all our bags into the lift and brought them down to reception to check out and the very unfriendly receptionist said to us are you sure you want to check out because there's storms heading towards the airport and alot of the flights are being cancelled today. She said she already had several people book their room for another night and told us if we didn't do it there and then she wouldn't gaurentee us a room if we got stuck in New York. My mum asked her if she could ring Delta's desk at the airport and ask them about our flight as the American number for Delta wouldn't work on our mobiles. The very unfriendly receptionist said no but you can go put your credit card into our computer and use that. My mum said she didn't know how to work their computer and still receptionist remained unhelpful. We text home and our travel agent rang delta to see what the story was with the flights and in the meantime the concierge put our bags into storage for us and while mam was sorting our bags she told one of concierge about her worry over our flight being cancelled and he very nicely asked her the number and rang from the concierge desk to find out about our flight.
Eventually we were told our flight was still going on time but to keep a check on it as the storms were due to hit New York at lunch time. Our travel agent rang back and told us to check out of the hotel as well.

Mam then decided since these mad storms were meant to be coming our way she didn't want to go to Central Park because it was 15 minutes away from our hotel and we didn't want to be caught out in the stormy weather so instead we just took a stroll up to Times Square and browsed little shops there before just sitting in the middle of the road )not as bad as it sounds they had a seating area across from NYPD station so we sat and watched the bustle of New York for a while:

I thought this bus looked cool:

Soon it was time to say goodbye to Times square and head back to the hotel. On the way back I took pics of our poshy hotel as well:

My mum decided to have one last expensive snack in our hotel bar and got these cookies thinking she would share them with me:

They had raisins in them though instead of chocolate chips so I didn't eat any.
The major storms never came so we could have gone to Central park but was to late by then and at 5.30 we headed for the airport and this time had no problem with the bags both were under 50 kilos. There was 17 flights cancelled at the airport but all Delta flights were still flying out on time.
The flight home was shorter than it was meant to be and had cool in flight entertainment. Each seat had it's own screen and you could play games, watch television series like friends or whatever, there was movies you could choose from which were really up to date, cartoons or you could just watch map of how far we had travelled. I got excited because Eclipse was one of the movie options but I fell asleep so didn't get to watch it lol. I did take this picture:

and said to Mam do you think if I pressed the back button could we go back to Orlando (see trip report title )
I woke up briefly when they brought food around and played bejewlled while I ate lol but then slept the rest of the way home. I think jet lag started to hit on the plane! We got back to Irish soil at 9.30 the next morning and I took one final pic of my trip mascot in the airport:

like his hairband?
We then got the bus and headed for home. After a fun filled trip

 

[petals]

Well that only took 7 months to finish!
Thanks to those of you who joined me lurkers and posters

Also it's a little early but new Pre Trip Report:
I need Disney Therapy are you coming or not?

 

[that's nice]

Great report!

I am so jealous! I've been wanting to see Wicked for a while but we haven't had the chance yet. Melody & I saw Lion King in NYC before Juliana was around but we brought her last year to see the touring version of it- it was great but I think the NYC one was better.

That billboard was saying... 'Bonfires are a bit final' Meaning that if you have 'stuff' you don't have room for instead of setting it on fire, rent a storage unit.

You hit a miserable stretch of weather in NYC... sorry you never had the chance to make it to the State of Liberty.

I wish I can hit the back button and go back to Orlando.... DAILY!

 

[petals]

Great report!

Thanks

I am so jealous! I've been wanting to see Wicked for a while but we haven't had the chance yet. Melody & I saw Lion King in NYC before Juliana was around but we brought her last year to see the touring version of it- it was great but I think the NYC one was better.

Wicked was AMAZING! I booked that because some of the people in the musical society here had been going on about it for ages and I wanted to see what the fuss was about really. Didn't know what to expect but the end of the first act is like WOWSERS and it's just brill. I didn't want it to end!

That billboard was saying... 'Bonfires are a bit final' Meaning that if you have 'stuff' you don't have room for instead of setting it on fire, rent a storage unit.

Lol I just thought there was some random strange signs. We saw another about adobting a highway. We have those over here. We have strange ones as well but not those

You hit a miserable stretch of weather in NYC... sorry you never had the chance to make it to the State of Liberty.

I know weather was bad in NY but we just kept going as much as we could while we were there. We didn't mind missing Liberty because we would have preferred to miss it than feel sick going to the broadway shows. Hopefully we'll get back to it someday though

I wish I can hit the back button and go back to Orlando.... DAILY!

Me to
But I managed to sneek in a trip this year I'm going to MVMCP

 

[blessedmom4]

I am finally all caught up on this TR, what INCREDIBLE pics!!!! Loved all of the fun you had and the Monchichis I haven't seen in Years! The mad dash for pressed pennies, my brood would have loved that as well. I am all in a Disney mood now that I finally read all of the fun! I also loved the fun and photos from New York, I have never been, but it looks like a blast!

 

[petals]

I am finally all caught up on this TR, what INCREDIBLE pics!!!! Loved all of the fun you had and the Monchichis I haven't seen in Years! The mad dash for pressed pennies, my brood would have loved that as well. I am all in a Disney mood now that I finally read all of the fun! I also loved the fun and photos from New York, I have never been, but it looks like a blast!

Only spotted your comment now! Thank you. I haven't seen Monchichis for years either was surprised to see them all there but after my sprint around the world I have schedule two days to explore Epcot properly this year so I may end up with a new Monchichi depending on price I loved the Sprint around the world it was so random! I think with New York we loved it but prob would have been better going their first and then florida because we were a little depressed about leaving Florida for most of the first day we got there! Wicked on broadway was AMAZING though!

 

[petals]

I posted short videos from our Seaworld day on you tube

Hungry Sealion

Sound is a tiny bit dodgy in the second video but
Where's Shamu going to pop up next!

Enjoy