jillrobinson
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2005
- Messages
- 6,953
Having finished our scrummy hotdogs, fries and chocolate brownie, we decided it would be a good idea to go back to the hotel get changed and collect our coats, as our feet were wet and it was rather cold.
We caught the shuttle bus, SL, NPB and the New York hotels share a bus so it's quite a long winded journey to get around all 3.
Even the buses have banners decorations.
Kitted out with dry clothes and shoes, we returned to the park, did a couple of Fantasyland rides, and POTC then headed back to the castle stage to watch the parade. I completely missed the first float, it was empty around by the castle stage so we were in the 2nd row, with empty spaces in front of us when a family with 3 little girls arrived and sat behind, so I asked if they would like to sit in front of us, by the time we'd passed them over to the front Mickey and Minnie had gone by, the little girls were so excited they kept standing up, but mum leant over and said something to them, (I think they were German or Dutch maybe, I couldn't understand) and they sat down and didn't move again and mum said to me "now you can see well too", at the end of the parade the tallest of the girls said "Thankyou" to me which made me feel quite humble, she could speak my language and I couldn't even recognise hers.
Anyway for those yet to to see it the parade is superb even my 2 boys liked it !
The pirates are so funny, they all link arms and spin around in a circle and then fly off in all directions,
but the Villains float still remains my favourite, so I'll just post a pic of that one.
After the parade we headed over to Frontierland and Phantom Manor, I still love this ride even though we've done it numerous times and every time I have to go and listen for the heartbeat at Boot Hill cemetary. It was around 5.30pm by now and with the park closing at 6.00pm we decided to join the queue for Big Thunder Mountain - it was a long queue, and they only let another half a dozen people on after us. We didn't leave BTM until about 6.50pm, the CM asked us if we'd like to go around a 2nd time as there wasn't enough people left to fill up the train, so that was a nice treat. It was strange walking though the almost empty park, and seeing CM's leave at the same time.
Although you can't tell from the photo, the candles on the castle are lit, I didn't realise they were going to preview the Bougillumination this evening and I can understand the concerns being raised on other forums about the decision to stage the show at 6.00pm. The effect is far better when it's darker as we found out the following evening.
All in all we'd had a really good first day I'd anticipated that the park would be very busy and I was really surprised - it wasn't, we'd accomplished loads. The plan now was to return to the hotel, freshen up and go to cafe Mickey for our 8.30pm reservation, but when we got back to the hotel Liam announced that he wasn't hungry and was tired and wanted to go to bed. Jamie and I were starving so after a bit of negotiation with Liam and a call to the Reservations line, I cancelled CM and arranged to go to the Beaver Creek Tavern at the hotel.
I'd highly recommend this restaurant, 26 euros/head for adults, I had the Sirloin Steak as a main dish, jamie had the spare ribs and was amazed to see it was a whole rack of ribs served with a variety of sauces, he said they were great. Liam had the fish steak off the kid's menu for 12 euros which he managed to eat half of. There was a huge buffet choice of starters including L'escargots, I know someone was asking about their availibility in the park. We didn't try them, until recently we had a pet Giant African Land Snail called Trevor, he was very tame and would sit in my hand whilst I washed his shell and be hand fed, as Jamie said eating a snail would seem like cannibalism! We did have the prawns, and they were delicious although Jamie couldn't get the hang of getting the insides out and Liam was disgusted that we could eat something that was looking up at us. I was disappointed by the time it came to desserts by the fact that I was full and could only fit 2 of them, I had a strawberry mousse tart which was delicious and a piece of almond cream spongecake - equally nice, Jamie had the mallows with a custard type sauce - Liam sulked and wouldn't eat anything, he really was shattered. The bill came to 82 euros which was very reasonable for the amount of food available and included 3 cocktails, non alcoholic for the boys of course. Back to the room and today housekeeping had left us a bubble bath and some soap, so I had a nice soak and by 10.30pm we were all in bed and I didn't hear a thing, until Goofy rang the following morning.
We caught the shuttle bus, SL, NPB and the New York hotels share a bus so it's quite a long winded journey to get around all 3.
Even the buses have banners decorations.
Kitted out with dry clothes and shoes, we returned to the park, did a couple of Fantasyland rides, and POTC then headed back to the castle stage to watch the parade. I completely missed the first float, it was empty around by the castle stage so we were in the 2nd row, with empty spaces in front of us when a family with 3 little girls arrived and sat behind, so I asked if they would like to sit in front of us, by the time we'd passed them over to the front Mickey and Minnie had gone by, the little girls were so excited they kept standing up, but mum leant over and said something to them, (I think they were German or Dutch maybe, I couldn't understand) and they sat down and didn't move again and mum said to me "now you can see well too", at the end of the parade the tallest of the girls said "Thankyou" to me which made me feel quite humble, she could speak my language and I couldn't even recognise hers.
Anyway for those yet to to see it the parade is superb even my 2 boys liked it !
The pirates are so funny, they all link arms and spin around in a circle and then fly off in all directions,
but the Villains float still remains my favourite, so I'll just post a pic of that one.
After the parade we headed over to Frontierland and Phantom Manor, I still love this ride even though we've done it numerous times and every time I have to go and listen for the heartbeat at Boot Hill cemetary. It was around 5.30pm by now and with the park closing at 6.00pm we decided to join the queue for Big Thunder Mountain - it was a long queue, and they only let another half a dozen people on after us. We didn't leave BTM until about 6.50pm, the CM asked us if we'd like to go around a 2nd time as there wasn't enough people left to fill up the train, so that was a nice treat. It was strange walking though the almost empty park, and seeing CM's leave at the same time.
Although you can't tell from the photo, the candles on the castle are lit, I didn't realise they were going to preview the Bougillumination this evening and I can understand the concerns being raised on other forums about the decision to stage the show at 6.00pm. The effect is far better when it's darker as we found out the following evening.
All in all we'd had a really good first day I'd anticipated that the park would be very busy and I was really surprised - it wasn't, we'd accomplished loads. The plan now was to return to the hotel, freshen up and go to cafe Mickey for our 8.30pm reservation, but when we got back to the hotel Liam announced that he wasn't hungry and was tired and wanted to go to bed. Jamie and I were starving so after a bit of negotiation with Liam and a call to the Reservations line, I cancelled CM and arranged to go to the Beaver Creek Tavern at the hotel.
I'd highly recommend this restaurant, 26 euros/head for adults, I had the Sirloin Steak as a main dish, jamie had the spare ribs and was amazed to see it was a whole rack of ribs served with a variety of sauces, he said they were great. Liam had the fish steak off the kid's menu for 12 euros which he managed to eat half of. There was a huge buffet choice of starters including L'escargots, I know someone was asking about their availibility in the park. We didn't try them, until recently we had a pet Giant African Land Snail called Trevor, he was very tame and would sit in my hand whilst I washed his shell and be hand fed, as Jamie said eating a snail would seem like cannibalism! We did have the prawns, and they were delicious although Jamie couldn't get the hang of getting the insides out and Liam was disgusted that we could eat something that was looking up at us. I was disappointed by the time it came to desserts by the fact that I was full and could only fit 2 of them, I had a strawberry mousse tart which was delicious and a piece of almond cream spongecake - equally nice, Jamie had the mallows with a custard type sauce - Liam sulked and wouldn't eat anything, he really was shattered. The bill came to 82 euros which was very reasonable for the amount of food available and included 3 cocktails, non alcoholic for the boys of course. Back to the room and today housekeeping had left us a bubble bath and some soap, so I had a nice soak and by 10.30pm we were all in bed and I didn't hear a thing, until Goofy rang the following morning.
