TheLittleKatie
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2014
Day 2
Thursday 1st September 2016
Part 4 – DIS-meet and The Diamond Horseshoe!
After lunch we used our fastpass at Buzz.
I did a little better, and Jamie did a little worse
Then we headed to our next fastpass, stopping briefly for some photos at the Partners Statue.
Our next fastpass was for Splash Mountain!
My favourite ride in the whole of Disney!
YAAAY.
It was so good to be back.
Just thinking about Splash makes my heart so happy
During the ride we heard the family in front planning to DAB for the photo.
So, without them knowing…
Hopefully this was amusing to them after the ride.
And my dab is pretty on point if you ask me
I saw these cute clothes in the Splash Mountain gift shop!
I like the grey sweater but I didn't buy it, which I kinda regret.
After a zip-a-dee-doo-dah day at the Magic Kingdom we headed out of the park at 2pm.
We walked through the Emporium and found this really weird Mickey toy…?!
Just pull the arm and...
We left the park and headed aaaall the way down to bus stop 16.
There were some big rumbles of thunder because Hurricane Hermine was on it’s way tonight!
It was set to hit a little further north of Orlando but that didn’t stop my mum from worrying, and telling me not to leave the hotel all night
Soon we arrived back at the Lodge.
We entered through Zawadi Marketplace and walked through to the lobby.
Remember how yesterday when we were checking in, Br’er Bear, Mr Smee and King Louis were strolling around the lobby…
Today Pooh, Geppetto, Stitch, and MICKEY MOUSE were meeting and greeting!
I have no idea why they were out!
It would make a bit more sense if they were like, Lion King / Jungle Book characters
But I was not complaining at all!
I waited approximately one minute to meet the big man himself, in our own hotel lobby!
Woooo!
We went to fill up our mugs at The Mara.
I’m glad the whole outdoor walkway is covered because it was now POURING rain.
Hello Hermine!
We grabbed some diet cokes from the lounge and got back to the room at around 3:15pm.
The animals were all huddling under the trees to escape the rain which was cute!
At 4pm I had plans to meet a couple of my favourite DIS-ers!!
Jamie was hardcore napping so I freshened up and headed out.
So here’s a little back-story as to how this DIS-meet (my first official/organised one) came about!
I’ve been following Karen’s (@dancingtodisney) trip reports – starring her sister Rachel (@RachelDoesDisney) – for a long time.
Karen wrote in her trip report that she’d bought the Cogsworth clock, and I told her I really wanted one to go with my Lumiere light!
BUT
I asked her if it ticked, because clocks that tick loudly really bug me, and I would be really annoyed if I spent a lot (I think it’s like $80?) on a clock, to just end up taking the batteries out
Karen then inboxed me telling me that the original one she’d bought had a defect where the pendulum was knocking on the side, making the ticking even louder, so Disney had sent her a brand new one.
So she offered to give me the faulty one – which makes a lovely ornament without the batteries – completely free of charge!!
What an absolute angel she is.
This was the perfect outcome for me – no ticking AND $80 still in my pocket!
It also turned out that the end of their trip coincided with the start of ours, and her and Rachel were staying at Kidani!
This one afternoon was really the only time we could meet, so we made it happen!
We decided to meet at Victoria Falls Lounge here at Jambo House for a cocktail!
Here's a picture that I took a couple of days later of Victoria Falls Lounge.
I found the girls sat along the back wall
Meeting Karen and Rachel was so much fun!
They’re both so funny, friendly, and just generally really likeable humans!
Karen and I both had a Captain’s Mai Tai, and Rachel had a Pina Colava!
We chatted for about an hour and a half but the time flew by!
It was a shame they were leaving in a couple of days because it would’ve been fun to have some park time together after getting to know each other!
Hopefully we’ll cross paths again sometime
And here’s the Cogsworth they brought for me!
It was so kind of them to bring him all the way to Florida when I’m sure they had limited luggage on their flight.
Thanks so much Karen and Rachel!!!
At 5:30pm I woke Jamie up and we got ready to go back to the Magic Kingdom!
Sorry mum, I know there’s a hurricane coming, but we have an ADR to get to!
We got the bus to Magic Kingdom and arrived at 6:25pm – 10 minutes before our reservation!
We both got pulled over for a security check, and the security guy said to both of us - totally deadpan,
“please move back behind the blue line”
So we were both shuffling back,
And back,
And back,
…
He smirked.
There was no blue line.
I stopped to quickly get a picture of the train station.
I angled it right,
Adjusted the zoom,
Adjusted the lighting,
3, 2, 1…
BE GONE.
Then we entered the park and made a beeline for Liberty Square!
Being on the dining plan meant we could try a lot of new restaurants this trip, so we started off with The Diamond Horseshoe!
I booked this after seeing a video review by the DIS Unplugged team.
I like the restaurant, it’s like an old dance hall.
I wonder if they ever do/did dinner shows in here.
The food was good!
We started with corn bread (or as we call it, dinner-cake) and a frontier salad (“tossed greens, tomatoes, onion, roasted corn, and cornbread croutons served with house-made chipotle-ranch dressing” – and there was cheese on there too).
Soon more food arrived onto our tiny table.
We got some corn on the cob, baked mac and cheese, BBQ pulled pork, smoked sausage, cowboy beans, carved turkey breast, and braised beef!
Yum!
Jamie liked the salad and the BBQ pork the best, and my favourites were the braised beef and beans.
It was a lot of food though!
We couldn’t finish it.
Our waiter came to tell us about dessert, and we asked him to just bring one for us to share so that we didn’t waste any.
Dessert was the campfire brownie!
It has melted marshmallow on top!
Overall I enjoyed what I could eat of this meal!
I probably prefer Whispering Canyon Café, which is a very similar concept to this restaurant.
But still, it was very nice!
Click for Day 2 - Part 5!
Thursday 1st September 2016
Part 4 – DIS-meet and The Diamond Horseshoe!
After lunch we used our fastpass at Buzz.
I did a little better, and Jamie did a little worse
Then we headed to our next fastpass, stopping briefly for some photos at the Partners Statue.
Our next fastpass was for Splash Mountain!
My favourite ride in the whole of Disney!
YAAAY.
It was so good to be back.
Just thinking about Splash makes my heart so happy
During the ride we heard the family in front planning to DAB for the photo.
So, without them knowing…
Hopefully this was amusing to them after the ride.
And my dab is pretty on point if you ask me
I saw these cute clothes in the Splash Mountain gift shop!
I like the grey sweater but I didn't buy it, which I kinda regret.
After a zip-a-dee-doo-dah day at the Magic Kingdom we headed out of the park at 2pm.
We walked through the Emporium and found this really weird Mickey toy…?!
Just pull the arm and...
We left the park and headed aaaall the way down to bus stop 16.
There were some big rumbles of thunder because Hurricane Hermine was on it’s way tonight!
It was set to hit a little further north of Orlando but that didn’t stop my mum from worrying, and telling me not to leave the hotel all night
Soon we arrived back at the Lodge.
We entered through Zawadi Marketplace and walked through to the lobby.
Remember how yesterday when we were checking in, Br’er Bear, Mr Smee and King Louis were strolling around the lobby…
Today Pooh, Geppetto, Stitch, and MICKEY MOUSE were meeting and greeting!
I have no idea why they were out!
It would make a bit more sense if they were like, Lion King / Jungle Book characters
But I was not complaining at all!
I waited approximately one minute to meet the big man himself, in our own hotel lobby!
Woooo!
We went to fill up our mugs at The Mara.
I’m glad the whole outdoor walkway is covered because it was now POURING rain.
Hello Hermine!
We grabbed some diet cokes from the lounge and got back to the room at around 3:15pm.
The animals were all huddling under the trees to escape the rain which was cute!
At 4pm I had plans to meet a couple of my favourite DIS-ers!!
Jamie was hardcore napping so I freshened up and headed out.
So here’s a little back-story as to how this DIS-meet (my first official/organised one) came about!
I’ve been following Karen’s (@dancingtodisney) trip reports – starring her sister Rachel (@RachelDoesDisney) – for a long time.
Karen wrote in her trip report that she’d bought the Cogsworth clock, and I told her I really wanted one to go with my Lumiere light!
BUT
I asked her if it ticked, because clocks that tick loudly really bug me, and I would be really annoyed if I spent a lot (I think it’s like $80?) on a clock, to just end up taking the batteries out
Karen then inboxed me telling me that the original one she’d bought had a defect where the pendulum was knocking on the side, making the ticking even louder, so Disney had sent her a brand new one.
So she offered to give me the faulty one – which makes a lovely ornament without the batteries – completely free of charge!!
What an absolute angel she is.
This was the perfect outcome for me – no ticking AND $80 still in my pocket!
It also turned out that the end of their trip coincided with the start of ours, and her and Rachel were staying at Kidani!
This one afternoon was really the only time we could meet, so we made it happen!
We decided to meet at Victoria Falls Lounge here at Jambo House for a cocktail!
Here's a picture that I took a couple of days later of Victoria Falls Lounge.
I found the girls sat along the back wall
Meeting Karen and Rachel was so much fun!
They’re both so funny, friendly, and just generally really likeable humans!
Karen and I both had a Captain’s Mai Tai, and Rachel had a Pina Colava!
We chatted for about an hour and a half but the time flew by!
It was a shame they were leaving in a couple of days because it would’ve been fun to have some park time together after getting to know each other!
Hopefully we’ll cross paths again sometime
And here’s the Cogsworth they brought for me!
It was so kind of them to bring him all the way to Florida when I’m sure they had limited luggage on their flight.
Thanks so much Karen and Rachel!!!
At 5:30pm I woke Jamie up and we got ready to go back to the Magic Kingdom!
Sorry mum, I know there’s a hurricane coming, but we have an ADR to get to!
We got the bus to Magic Kingdom and arrived at 6:25pm – 10 minutes before our reservation!
We both got pulled over for a security check, and the security guy said to both of us - totally deadpan,
“please move back behind the blue line”
So we were both shuffling back,
And back,
And back,
…
He smirked.
There was no blue line.
I stopped to quickly get a picture of the train station.
I angled it right,
Adjusted the zoom,
Adjusted the lighting,
3, 2, 1…
BE GONE.
Then we entered the park and made a beeline for Liberty Square!
Being on the dining plan meant we could try a lot of new restaurants this trip, so we started off with The Diamond Horseshoe!
I booked this after seeing a video review by the DIS Unplugged team.
I like the restaurant, it’s like an old dance hall.
I wonder if they ever do/did dinner shows in here.
The food was good!
We started with corn bread (or as we call it, dinner-cake) and a frontier salad (“tossed greens, tomatoes, onion, roasted corn, and cornbread croutons served with house-made chipotle-ranch dressing” – and there was cheese on there too).
Soon more food arrived onto our tiny table.
We got some corn on the cob, baked mac and cheese, BBQ pulled pork, smoked sausage, cowboy beans, carved turkey breast, and braised beef!
Yum!
Jamie liked the salad and the BBQ pork the best, and my favourites were the braised beef and beans.
It was a lot of food though!
We couldn’t finish it.
Our waiter came to tell us about dessert, and we asked him to just bring one for us to share so that we didn’t waste any.
Dessert was the campfire brownie!
It has melted marshmallow on top!
Overall I enjoyed what I could eat of this meal!
I probably prefer Whispering Canyon Café, which is a very similar concept to this restaurant.
But still, it was very nice!
Click for Day 2 - Part 5!
Last edited:
I'll be watching HEA for the first time next Friday and I know initial reviews are good, but right now I can't see myself loving it the way I loved Wishes. 
Google "great circle route".
