Mike's 50th - Gulf Coast, WDW and New York, June 2014 - Part 10 - Last Disney day

[Mike Jones]

DAY 10 – Blizzard Beach, Sweet Tomatoes and more Epcot!

Monday 16th June.

I wake up at 6:00 but my better half appears to be very weary, and I leave her to sleep in for a bit. A quick look out the window confirms that it is another lovely day in prospect, so I quickly dress and walk down to the Boardwalk for a wander. Apart from a couple of joggers, an egret and the odd cleaner or three, I have the place to myself.

Not sure if this one will work – iphone panoramic setting:

I head back to the hotel at 7:00am. Amanda is somewhat easier to rouse now, and after another in-room breakfast of bagels, juice and coffee, we shower, dress and head out for the car, taking the long route to the car, round the western end of the Boardwalk. The light levels have obviously risen considerably over the last hour.

It’s just after 8:30 when we reach the car, and the journey to Blizzard Beach only takes about 10 minutes. We park very close to the entrance in the almost empty lot, and wait for admission at 8:45.

After hiring a locker key, (and forgetting to hire towels!) we deposit our gear (including iphones, so virtually no photos here today) and wait for the rope drop at 9:00am. Blizzard Beach is probably our favourite of the water parks, due to the scale and number of decent rides. I prefer the theming at Typhoon Lagoon, but after the initial novelty of the huge wave generator has worn off (about three attempts at body-surfing the wave usually does it for me, during which I generally swallow large quantities of chlorinated water and scrape off large quantities of lower body skin on the fake sand bottom!) I find that there isn’t enough else to do, as we’re not ‘lounger’ types.

We make our way straight to the lower left side of the park, and pig out on the rides before the crowds build up, first riding Downhill Double Dippers, then repeat riding Snow Stormers and Toboggan Racers several times each. We watch the young teen males on Summit Plummet for a bit, for which there is a fair line already, before climbing up to ride the next-best slide, Slush Gusher. Great fun! I have done SP before, but found it bruised my hips a bit, so now avoid it.

Our adrenalin itches scratched, we walk round to the wave pool, pick up a couple of tubes and spend a pleasant 20 minutes or so, bobbing around and enjoying the sunshine. Eventually we tire of trying to stay in the same part of the pool, so leave the water and cross to the lazy creek. Very restful! We do the usual things: trying to build headrests/footrests from the junior tubes, pushing each other under the sneezy man’s explosive evacuations, and continue round the park for a couple of circuits.

 

[Mike Jones]

Right, that’s enough! I’m hungry again now, and there’s a definite plan to take care of that today. We recover our stuff from the locker, by which time we are effectively dry, so hey, that saved a couple of bucks on towels, eh? After returning the key and collecting our $5 deposit, we leave the park just after 11:30 and head to Sweet Tomatoes off the 192. As it’s just at the start of the lunch period, the restaurant is reasonably quiet, although it does get a lot busier during our visit.

We stock our (single) plates with a mound from the salad bar (whilst observing other people filling two plates each!), pay our $8.99 each, plus a water (Amanda) and a coffee (Mike) for a total spend of $25.

I fully intended this to be a green, healthy and fairly light lunch, but, as always, I am unable to resist the siren call of a free buffet, sigh. I top up my levels with two bowls of soup, some pasta, rice and baked sweet potato (delicious!! Who knew?), focaccia, pizza and finished off (almost literally, I was nearly exploding!) with several sweet muffins, chocolate sauce, frozen yogurt and a few sprinkles! Oh, and 3 cups of coffee. Amanda had a bit of soup, one piece of bread and one muffin! To save my blushes, I am only posting one more photo from this feast of excess!

We drive back to the Boardwalk at 1:15 and self-park. It’s still hot and sunny, and we’re hoping it stays that way all day for a change! We dump our swimming gear in the room, and by 1:25pm we are walking down the ‘river’ path to the Studios. I phone my parents in the UK while we walk, as they have just returned today from 2 weeks in Madeira.

It only takes 20 minutes to arrive at the park and get through the bag check.

We have some Fastpass+’s, the first one being for Toy Story Mania at 2:35-3:35, so there’s a bit of time to kill. The park is pretty busy, and most wait times are longer than my tolerance threshold (20 mins!) but the Backlot Tour is always a walk-on so in we go, at 2:00pm.
Hmm. They’ve changed stuff here… the first part, with the boat/torpedo/explosions/flames/waves and other effects is no longer interactive! What’s all that about? The only pleasure here is watching the terrible acting and near drowning of unsuspecting members of the audience, and now all they do is narrate it! Pah!

We continue on to the tram tour section..

and through Catastrophe Canyon, which is still pretty good.

We leave the ride and hang around the giant Coke kiosk to cool down, helped along by purchasing a Diet Coke and a lemonade. I post a couple of “oh, it’s soooo hot here!” messages on our Facebook group to irritate friends back in the UK.

Our TSM slot has opened. The standby line is stupidly long, as usual, but we are in, and out again, in 15 minutes.

Amanda is top dog today:

…and we each receive a nice Beaver as a reward.

Our next FP+ is for Tower of Terror, but not until 3:50, so we stroll across to Star Tours to check out the standby time. Ha! 50 minutes!!! Not a chance! As an alternative, we fill our water bottles at one of the free fountains and sit for a cool down and a people-watch at a bench near the Brown Derby, passing this pretty girl on the way.

At 3:50 we walk across to Tower of Terror, just as the skies darken and an ominous rumble of thunder sounds. Sigh. Not again!
Ok, into the ride….

Nothing new to say… I do love this attraction and never tire of it. We exit, to mainly sunny and still dry weather, at 4:05. Right, that’s it, let’s get back before the rain does start. We always enjoy the walk, but feel we should take the boat for a change of pace. There’s one in dock, and we head over – to discover that it’s suspended because of the weather! What weather? It’s hot and sunny at the moment!!!
Ok, back to plan A. We walk back to the hotel, and of course, it stays hot and dry throughout! Before going up to the room we visit reception to pay our room (Magic Band) tab. We check out in the morning, and if we don’t deal with this beforehand it will be charged to my UK credit card, with various costs and charges levied by the provider. Instead I settle up using my pre-paid cash $$ cash card. We’ve spent the grand total of $289 on the bands.

It is 4:45 by the time we reach the room. We have arranged to meet Cat, Colin and Mike later for drinks before the fireworks, but have time to enjoy a beer on our (hot, dry, rain-free) balcony first. At 6:15 we take showers and dress before heading down to the (hot, dry, rain-free) Boardwalk.

There must be another match on, as the line outside the ESPN bar is pretty big.

 

[Mike Jones]

We cross the bridge to Epcot and enter my favourite place for the last time this trip, sob! Vaguely puckish now, but only vaguely, we circle the lake towards the US Pavillion.

..and buy a couple of burgers from the Liberty Tavern.

At 7:30 we stroll to the Morocco pavilion to meet Colin, Catriona and Michael for a couple of drinks. Our original plan, discussed some months ago, was to do a World Showcase Drinking Tour, with a drink at every pavilion, but common sense prevailed eventually, due to our early checkout tomorrow, and we settled on meeting at the Spice Road for a hour or so before Illuminations.

We have a couple of rounds, and our friends also have some tapas. It's a pleasant and convivial time, after which we all head for the France/UK bridge to watch the fireworks.

Superb as always, and tinged with a little sadness as this will be our last viewing this trip and for some time to come. We all walk back to the Boardwalk Inn and say our good nights. Probably in an attempt to spin out our last night here, Amanda and I stroll round the lake for one final time before heading up to the room.

We drink our last bit of wine on the balcony before turning in at 10:30.

Goodnight all.

Mike & Amanda x

TOMORROW - Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, Bubba Gump's and Royal Pacific Resort.

 

[pampat]

Again, I'm following so closely, I'm sad to be leaving Orlando. Epcot is our favourite too, we love how the music and atmosphere just washes over you as you stroll around.

Pam

 

[Mike Jones]

Again, I'm following so closely, I'm sad to be leaving Orlando. Epcot is our favourite too, we love how the music and atmosphere just washes over you as you stroll around.

Pam

Thanks Pam. We are talking about future trips, and could pretty much leave the Disney experience alone for a while, except for Epcot.

 

[big cheeser]

PamPat's better half here - I'm also following your adventure with great interest - you two have very similar tastes to us - and I agree about being more interested in Epcot - it always seems to be more relaxing and aimed more at adults. Fascinated to see your NYC adventure. We usually spend some time in Manhattan after Orlando, especially as we like the BA daytime flights back to UK - makes recovery from the travel so much easier.

Cheers

Allan