Just-Pete
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2009
- Messages
- 121
A few reminders:
Pre Trip Report: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2200291
Journey/Arrival -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2218360
Day 1 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2219427
Day 2 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2220560
Day 3 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2221563
Day 4 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2224079
Day 5 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2227819
Day 6 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2228520
Day 7 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2230522
The Cast:
Me- Pete (27) Last WDW Trip Nov 07, with plenty of DLRP in between.
Jo (29) The second veteran from our Nov 07 trip, has also been to DLRP ten times in the last eight years
Kathryn (21) WDW Virgin, mad on Princesses, Alice in wonderland & Mary Poppins
Paul (21) Known as Kip, just along for the ride and cocktails if you ask me
Amy (23) Younger sister of Chris is over there working ,massive Princess and Tink fan. But she does hate all things HSM, so we may clash, eek!
Supporting Cast
Chris (25) On his year working in the Rose & Crown in Epcot
Kayleigh (23) see above
These two have proved very useful in the holiday planning / dining reservation department!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Day 8
Once everyone was up and ready we headed on down to the food hall, and given that the queues seemed a lot smaller than the past few days we all went for a selection from one of the counters, rather than just grabbing some cereal boxes and milk. The girls mainly went for a selection of waffles or pancakes. But I settled on the grilled ham & cheese. Which turned out not to be particularly grilled in the end. But it was nice enough.
Given that we were doing Typhoon Lagoon today we had repeated yesterdays pattern and come down, already dressed in our swimming attire. So filling up our refill cups once more for the journey, we set off for the bus stops. The annoying thing about the Typhoon Lagoon bus is that it also serves as a the Downtown Disney bus, so was naturally full. So we were of course standing However after what seemed like a particularly long bus journey we were disembarking at Typhoon Lagoon and heading up to the turnstiles to meet Chris & Kayles, who were both off work today.
It was now that Chris and Kayles found out that they couldnt use their staff passes here, or get any kind of discount, so instead joyfully handed over $47 each, and entered with us. Wed arrived here today earlier than we had got to Blizzard Beach, so taking that into account the park seemed quieter (plus I think TL is bigger than BB?) and we managed to secure ourselves a cluster of 7 loungers in one of the sandy fake beach areas. We spent some time arranging them and laying out our towels as well as finding the nearest lockers before heading off into the main are of the park itself.
As we wondered around, I was relieved to find out that we were yet to face the same scorching pavement issues as we had been forced to endure at BB yesterday. Our natural first choice was Castaway creek, which was heaving, and we almost had to enter a riot just to secure ourselves a tyre each to make our way round in. But once we did, we managed to spend a good fifty minutes or so, gently bobbing round the lazy river. Occasionally in smaller groups, and then catching up with each other to drift round as one big group.
After this we wandered over to the famous Wave Pool here. I stood for a while watching the waves, and realising that they really didnt exaggerate about this one. Now given that I possess all the swimming ability of a three year old, and the small issue of a complete lack of buoyancy I literally cant float. I decided to stay around the shallow-ish end, whilst the majority of the others disappeared up the front for fifteen minutes or so until they were exhausted.
Following the wave-pool, everyone except Amy & I went over to Shark Reef, where they scuba dived with real Sharks and tropical fish. Then once wed re-assembled it was over to the parks Quick Serve for a healthy mix of nuggets and burgers for lunch. After lunch we spent the next couple of hours between our loungers and one of the smaller pools where we generally indulged in some down time sprinkled with gossiping and chatting.
Then after a few random impulse buys in the parks store, Chris and Kayles set off for the staff bus, whilst we caught (a much quieter than earlier) bus back to ASM. We had a few hours to spare, and toyed with spending some more time at the hotel pool. But the sky was growing darker by the second, so we chose to stay in the rooms and avoid the storm to come. It was now that we all noticed Hercules was about to start on Disney XD so between getting changed and watching that, we were delivered nicely to 18:30, and time to head off again, this time to Epcot.
We arrived at Epcot and quickly made our way across to UK, where we were meeting the others to enjoy dinner at The Rose & Crown Now I have to put my hands up here and admit to being one of those people who moans about when people go on holiday to Spain or somewhere, and then insist on constantly going to English pubs, or only eating fry ups etc. But obviously this was Chris and Kayles work place, and that made it different.
We all met in the bar and enjoyed some cocktails whilst we watched the Hat Lady sing and waited for our table to be ready. After a while though the table was ready and we made our way through the restaurant and outside to what the staff here call the lower deck and were seated at a table for eight, right down by the waters edge.
Again everyone seemed to have something different from the menu, but the majority of us did have the Scotch Eggs as our starter, as Chris and Kayles seemed to have been mentioning them at least once a day.
Again tonight was another example of Chriss planning all coming together nicely, as we enjoyed a lovely meal at one of the best tables in the restaurant, and all with a stunning view of Illuminations when it started. The only small issues were that for the first half of Illuminations, the speaker that served our area had failed, so the music was quite hard to hear. But it did kick back in for the second (better) half. And also it started raining during Illuminations, and those of us on my side of the table, closest to the waters edge, werent quite covered enough so got rather wet.
After dinner we made our way back into the restaurant for dessert. With Illuminations over, the park and all its establishments were quickly emptying, so there was plenty of room for us inside. Shortly after dessert was ordered though Kathryn started to complain of feeling sick. Which shed been mentioning on and off for a while since before dinner. But now she was fairly certain things were ready to take a turn for the worse. Since I also hadnt ordered dessert (Im not a big sweet lover) I volunteered to return back with her. So saying goodbye to the others, and many of the staff which Chris had introduced us to. We made a swift journey through the park and back out to the front where I took us straight over to the taxi rank and into a cab back to ASM. I knew there was no point flapping with the buses with Kathryn being this close to being sick.
We arrived back at the hotel safely and Kathryn ran off back to the room whilst I took care of paying the cab driver and took a wonder by the pool, taking in the last ten minutes of Bolt which was playing tonight on the big screen before getting back to make sure Kathryn was okay before getting into bed myself and curling up in front of the TV to wait for the others who arrived some 45 minutes or so later.
For the record, Kathryn was fine. It was just a one off thing, and she felt better almost straight away.
Pre Trip Report: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2200291
Journey/Arrival -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2218360
Day 1 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2219427
Day 2 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2220560
Day 3 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2221563
Day 4 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2224079
Day 5 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2227819
Day 6 -http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2228520
Day 7 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2230522
The Cast:
Me- Pete (27) Last WDW Trip Nov 07, with plenty of DLRP in between.
Jo (29) The second veteran from our Nov 07 trip, has also been to DLRP ten times in the last eight years
Kathryn (21) WDW Virgin, mad on Princesses, Alice in wonderland & Mary Poppins
Paul (21) Known as Kip, just along for the ride and cocktails if you ask me
Amy (23) Younger sister of Chris is over there working ,massive Princess and Tink fan. But she does hate all things HSM, so we may clash, eek!
Supporting Cast
Chris (25) On his year working in the Rose & Crown in Epcot
Kayleigh (23) see above
These two have proved very useful in the holiday planning / dining reservation department!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Day 8
Once everyone was up and ready we headed on down to the food hall, and given that the queues seemed a lot smaller than the past few days we all went for a selection from one of the counters, rather than just grabbing some cereal boxes and milk. The girls mainly went for a selection of waffles or pancakes. But I settled on the grilled ham & cheese. Which turned out not to be particularly grilled in the end. But it was nice enough.
Given that we were doing Typhoon Lagoon today we had repeated yesterdays pattern and come down, already dressed in our swimming attire. So filling up our refill cups once more for the journey, we set off for the bus stops. The annoying thing about the Typhoon Lagoon bus is that it also serves as a the Downtown Disney bus, so was naturally full. So we were of course standing However after what seemed like a particularly long bus journey we were disembarking at Typhoon Lagoon and heading up to the turnstiles to meet Chris & Kayles, who were both off work today.
It was now that Chris and Kayles found out that they couldnt use their staff passes here, or get any kind of discount, so instead joyfully handed over $47 each, and entered with us. Wed arrived here today earlier than we had got to Blizzard Beach, so taking that into account the park seemed quieter (plus I think TL is bigger than BB?) and we managed to secure ourselves a cluster of 7 loungers in one of the sandy fake beach areas. We spent some time arranging them and laying out our towels as well as finding the nearest lockers before heading off into the main are of the park itself.
As we wondered around, I was relieved to find out that we were yet to face the same scorching pavement issues as we had been forced to endure at BB yesterday. Our natural first choice was Castaway creek, which was heaving, and we almost had to enter a riot just to secure ourselves a tyre each to make our way round in. But once we did, we managed to spend a good fifty minutes or so, gently bobbing round the lazy river. Occasionally in smaller groups, and then catching up with each other to drift round as one big group.
After this we wandered over to the famous Wave Pool here. I stood for a while watching the waves, and realising that they really didnt exaggerate about this one. Now given that I possess all the swimming ability of a three year old, and the small issue of a complete lack of buoyancy I literally cant float. I decided to stay around the shallow-ish end, whilst the majority of the others disappeared up the front for fifteen minutes or so until they were exhausted.
Following the wave-pool, everyone except Amy & I went over to Shark Reef, where they scuba dived with real Sharks and tropical fish. Then once wed re-assembled it was over to the parks Quick Serve for a healthy mix of nuggets and burgers for lunch. After lunch we spent the next couple of hours between our loungers and one of the smaller pools where we generally indulged in some down time sprinkled with gossiping and chatting.
Then after a few random impulse buys in the parks store, Chris and Kayles set off for the staff bus, whilst we caught (a much quieter than earlier) bus back to ASM. We had a few hours to spare, and toyed with spending some more time at the hotel pool. But the sky was growing darker by the second, so we chose to stay in the rooms and avoid the storm to come. It was now that we all noticed Hercules was about to start on Disney XD so between getting changed and watching that, we were delivered nicely to 18:30, and time to head off again, this time to Epcot.
We arrived at Epcot and quickly made our way across to UK, where we were meeting the others to enjoy dinner at The Rose & Crown Now I have to put my hands up here and admit to being one of those people who moans about when people go on holiday to Spain or somewhere, and then insist on constantly going to English pubs, or only eating fry ups etc. But obviously this was Chris and Kayles work place, and that made it different.
We all met in the bar and enjoyed some cocktails whilst we watched the Hat Lady sing and waited for our table to be ready. After a while though the table was ready and we made our way through the restaurant and outside to what the staff here call the lower deck and were seated at a table for eight, right down by the waters edge.
Again everyone seemed to have something different from the menu, but the majority of us did have the Scotch Eggs as our starter, as Chris and Kayles seemed to have been mentioning them at least once a day.
Again tonight was another example of Chriss planning all coming together nicely, as we enjoyed a lovely meal at one of the best tables in the restaurant, and all with a stunning view of Illuminations when it started. The only small issues were that for the first half of Illuminations, the speaker that served our area had failed, so the music was quite hard to hear. But it did kick back in for the second (better) half. And also it started raining during Illuminations, and those of us on my side of the table, closest to the waters edge, werent quite covered enough so got rather wet.
After dinner we made our way back into the restaurant for dessert. With Illuminations over, the park and all its establishments were quickly emptying, so there was plenty of room for us inside. Shortly after dessert was ordered though Kathryn started to complain of feeling sick. Which shed been mentioning on and off for a while since before dinner. But now she was fairly certain things were ready to take a turn for the worse. Since I also hadnt ordered dessert (Im not a big sweet lover) I volunteered to return back with her. So saying goodbye to the others, and many of the staff which Chris had introduced us to. We made a swift journey through the park and back out to the front where I took us straight over to the taxi rank and into a cab back to ASM. I knew there was no point flapping with the buses with Kathryn being this close to being sick.
We arrived back at the hotel safely and Kathryn ran off back to the room whilst I took care of paying the cab driver and took a wonder by the pool, taking in the last ten minutes of Bolt which was playing tonight on the big screen before getting back to make sure Kathryn was okay before getting into bed myself and curling up in front of the TV to wait for the others who arrived some 45 minutes or so later.
For the record, Kathryn was fine. It was just a one off thing, and she felt better almost straight away.
