Thanks. I'll try to keep the geek quotient low
.
I've been very productive today, so Day 10 photos done, and Day 9 written up. I am NOT looking forward to Day 11. 693 photos to sort!
Day 9 - Monday 29/10 - Disney Quest, California Grill, MK EMH
Kids were keen to have a look round Disney Quest, and being a video game fan, I was too. DW isn't quite the fanatic the blokes are, but she likes the odd game. DQ doesn't open until 11.30, so we had a nice lie-in and a relaxing start to the day, before driving to DTD. Had time to have a quick shop around, including a look around the
Lego shop (I'm a big Lego fan).
We then headed to DQ for opening. We'd read a bit about it, but there are few reviews, so didn't have a detailed idea of what to expect. I've realised since getting home that although I took my P+S camera in, I didn't take a single photo. Too busy! Kicking myself a bit for that now.
You go through normal park turnstiles, then there are a pair of lifts that take you up to floor 3 (of 5). It's a bit of a maze inside - there are some regular lifts between all floors, but finding the stairs could be tricky - each floor is laid out slightly differently.
There are large areas of arcade machines, roughly in themes, but there are also some "rides". Kids had read about Cyberspace Mountain, so we headed here first (floor 2). This is a design-your-own simulator, very similar in concept to Sum of All Thrills in EPCOT. You have a much bigger choice though - there is a choice of about 20 section types (rather than 4), and you get to place about 12 in a row (rather than 4). The simulator itself is similarly on a robot arm, but on SOAT each passenger gets a hood with a screen, whereas this is one big box for both of you with a big screen. Works well if not quite so immersive. DW and I had a go as did kids, who also went back later for more. Goes fully upside down, if you so choose (of course we all did!).
Next thing we did was the Virtual Jungle Cruise (floor 1). We all 4 got in a raft, with a paddle each. This rides on an air cushion, and you are supposed to paddle to move and steer. It didn't seem to work very well! Maybe we were a bit rubbish, but it just seemed to follow a course no matter what.
We then did a Pirates of the Caribbean game. This was fantastic! You all get put in a room with a moving ship's deck on it. One person is the captain, who steers and controls speed. The others man the guns - there are 7 altogether, and you are expected to move about the deck to use the ones that are pointing in the right direction. Game is projected on 3 walls in 3D, so it's very enveloping. You shoot at other ships and sea monsters, collecting treasure when you sink each one. It's timed, and you get a score at the end. There is a bonus round where the captain gets to shoot as well. Definitely all loved this one, and stayed on for a second go (no queue at this point). Gets busy later in the day though - throughput is slow.
We then headed back upstairs to floor 3 and did Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster. This was a lot of fun. Its quite a large floor area, and you sit in 2-person enclosed dodgem-type cars. Left person steers and has a forward/backward lever (unlike a dodgem car the wheels don't go all the way round). The right person is the gunner. The pilot has to steer over balls on the floor, which are them scooped into a bin between the seats (bowling ball sized, but light plastic). The gunner has to put a ball into the top of his gun, rotate the loading bin with a side wheel which drops the ball into the cannon, then press a button to fire. If the ball hits the side of another car, they go out of control for 10s. It's a bit crazy frantic, and surprisingly energetic, but we enjoyed ourselves. Did this a couple of times as well.
There are a couple of virtual reality helmet games, where you put a helmet with screens on your head and do a team 3D thing. I didn't personally get on with these; the helmet was uncomfortable, and you didn't have a great deal of control of things - you had a handle or sword in each one that you could use, but the game itself was short and linear.
There were also a couple of other interactive games that I didn't try myself, although the kids had a go. Human pinball thing, and another simulator thing I think.
The rest of the place is filled with arcade games. There is an area of racing games (including a 10-man linked driving game), an area of physical games (guitar hero, dance dance revolution, etc), areas of shooting games, classic arcade games (original space invaders, pac man, etc). Whilst we were there they also had "real" versions of "Fix-it-Felix-Jnr", which is the 30-year old machine in the new Wreck-it-Ralph Disney film. Supposedly the only place in the world you could play it. Rubbish game, but kudos points for playing it
. Also area of pinballs, of flying sim games, and a few others.
Basically heaven for me and the kids
.
There is a typical QS place on the top floor with plenty of seating. Usual burgers, pizzas & hot dogs.
DDP taken. They had the most ridiculous dessert I'd seen yet - a chocolate brownie that must have weighed about a pound and probably contained 2000 Calories. Had to get 1 each on the DDP of course, but no more than 1/4 eaten. I had a cupcake cheesecake that was probably only 1000 cals. Lunch was the only photo I took!
Light lunch, Disney style...
After lunch, the kids went off by themselves, and we told them to report back to the Wreck-it-Ralph statue at 2.30. Which they did, so we gave them another hour. And then another. Ended up leaving at 4.30, so got 5 hours in there, and there were still quite a lot of machines I didn't get round to playing. Queues were all fine - there was pretty much never a wait. Promising the kids we would get back at some point, we headed back to OKW.
ADR this evening was for California Grill at 7.30, with a plan to watch Wishes from the roof at 9pm. Was our only Signature restaurant of the trip, so we got reasonably dressed up - I donned long trousers for the only time in the entire holiday! Timekeeping on our part was poor - we parked in the TTC as we thought we'd do MK after dinner, and then waited ages for a resort monorail, which then of course has to go 4 stops round to the Contemporary. Ended up checking in around 7.45 I think.
Still, no harm done, got shown up and seated fairly quickly. Server we had was really nice. You don't normally get appetisers with DDP, but the server said we could have the cheese sampler plate on it for some reason. Which would normally be $22 for 5 small bits of cheese! Was very nice indeed, but not sure I'd normally have a $22 plate of cheese as a starter! For main course, we both had the posh $48 steak (make full use of the 2 credits, obviously), and it was really very nice indeed. Kids both had 1/2 roast chicken, which we ended up helping them out with, was also very nice.
Just finished main courses when we got warning of Wishes start. Went out on the balcony walkway there, and did get a nice view, although it was packed. Didn't realise how far back some the fireworks are set off from, but you're kind of looking at it from the side. Great place to see them. Unfortunately there was no easy place to rest the camera, so although I tried to handhold a few, they were useless.
DW and DSs had the Vahlrona Choc pudding. I can't even remember what I had; but a safe guess would be cheesecake
. All lovely. Great food. Worth 2 DDP credits? Probably. I certainly would have dined there more given the chance. Would have loved to try some sushi there, I'm a big sushi fan.
MK was open from 10pm-1am on EMH, so we decided to travel all the way back round (4 stops again. Yes, we should have walked some dinner off).
This turned out to be a great evening. It started off reasonably busy, but emptied out a lot and we were pretty much walking on most rides. We did at least 1 villain each on SOTMK as well. We did end up having to do some indoor stuff just so DW could warm up - was really getting quite chilly by this point. Kids in fleece jackets!
We all stuck it out right to closing time. Final thing was riding at the back of BTMR twice without getting off at 1am
.
Once we'd done the journey back, with a closed monorail so shivering on the ferry boat deck, think we finally ended up going to bed at 2am. Good day though!
Sorry for a very light photo day. I will way overcompensate in a couple of days, believe me!
Next: Hollywood Studios, all day. Mama Melrose, Fantasmic.