Saturday 3rd April
Breakfast at Ponderosa again - and the same waitress we remembered from our previous trips - Sherri very good at her job. Headed to Animal Kingdom and arived at 8:20 am. Went straight to the safari ride and found that everyone else had
the same plan! Massive queues - but they moved quickly. Found that a few rides broke down during our visit - e.g. Dinosaur & Primeval Whirl. Had ice cream again for lunch. DS had a sundae and DH and I agreed to share a 'double scoop ice cream' - which we assumed was 2 scoops. Wrong! The CM taking the orders asked me what flavour we wanted - so I said one chocolate, one vanilla. This puzzled her, and she started to get annoyed with me - but I didn't understand what she meant. Anyway in the end I just said 'vanilla' which she accepted. I then went to the next hatch where her colleague was serving the ice cream. He had heard what had been going on and explained that a double
actually means 5 scoops! So he gave us 3 choc and 2 vanilla! What confusion!
Saw the new Expedition Everest under construction - looks like it will be a great ride. Went on the raft ride and got absolutely drenched. A family from Yorkshire were in the raft with us and were trying really hard not to get wet - but failed totally - it was so funny!
We left around 4:15 and went in the car to look at the Beach Club resort. Another lovely Disney resort. Had burgers, onion rings and shakes in Beaches & Cream food was quite good. However, after all the heaps of praise about it on the DIS, we were expecting something bigger and better. A family had ordered a 'Kitchen Sink' sundae which literally comes in a (only slightly smaller than life-size) kitchen sink and has every ice cream, sauce and topping you can think of! DS also ordered
a sundae but found it all too much. Service was fast and friendly and prices were quite reasonable. We then walked through the International Gateway to Epcot and went on Test Track as single riders - due to large queues. Great fun! Clocks were going forward so went back to condo - bed at 9:15 pm! Too
tired to wait to see Epcot fireworks. Decided to save that for another night.
Sunday 4th April
Got up at 6:30 am - all ready and out of the door by 7:30 am. Decided to try Cracker Barrel for breakfast - as a change from Ponderosa. A new one has opened on the 192 since our last trip. Special of the day was 'Cherry pancake Sampler' which came on 2 plates! 2 large freshly-made pancakes with cherries and cream on one plate and 2 fried eggs with bacon and hashbrowns on the other plate - all for $5.99! Very nice, fresh & tasty. Coffee was less than $1 per cup too with unlimited refills. Cracker Barrel is an interesting place to go into - part shop (with all sorts of unusual country-style things for sale) & part restaurant. Breakfast for 3 came to less than $20.
Drove to MGM and arrived before the park opened. Were in a large crowd being held back by the CMs with a rope! When the opening time came, everyone ran (despite pleas not to!) towards Tower of Terror & Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. DS and I ran to ToT while DH got FPs for RnRC. Queues steadily built up during the day. DH suffers from motion sickness and in the past has not been able to enjoy a lot of the rides e.g. on our first trip Star Tours made him feel really ill. This time (after recommendations on the boards) we bought a ReliefBand for him to counter the motion sickness. He actually used it and went on Star Tours and felt fine! The backlot tour was still on - although we had expected it to be shut due to plans for a new car stunt show which they are planning to open in a year or so
We were all starting to flag a bit by now and decided to leave at 3:00 pm for a rest back at the condo. We returned to the park for 6:00 pm for our Priority Seating at Hollywood & Vine. Slight change to menu from last year - but very good (and excellent value). Went on the Great Movie Ride which we thought was considerably better than the last time we went on it 3 years ago.
Decided to head towards the arena for the Fantasmic show at 8:30 pm. A British family in front of us kept us amused (unintentionally). They had bought one of those light-up gadgets which you tap words into and then whizz round to show a sentence or phrase.They couldn't decide what words they wanted to display - and then when they did they had difficulty spelling them. It kept us in fits of giggles behind them until the show started - but they didn't even realise! Just as well really!
After the show we headed back to the condo again for showers and bed.
Breakfast at Ponderosa again - and the same waitress we remembered from our previous trips - Sherri very good at her job. Headed to Animal Kingdom and arived at 8:20 am. Went straight to the safari ride and found that everyone else had
the same plan! Massive queues - but they moved quickly. Found that a few rides broke down during our visit - e.g. Dinosaur & Primeval Whirl. Had ice cream again for lunch. DS had a sundae and DH and I agreed to share a 'double scoop ice cream' - which we assumed was 2 scoops. Wrong! The CM taking the orders asked me what flavour we wanted - so I said one chocolate, one vanilla. This puzzled her, and she started to get annoyed with me - but I didn't understand what she meant. Anyway in the end I just said 'vanilla' which she accepted. I then went to the next hatch where her colleague was serving the ice cream. He had heard what had been going on and explained that a double
actually means 5 scoops! So he gave us 3 choc and 2 vanilla! What confusion!
Saw the new Expedition Everest under construction - looks like it will be a great ride. Went on the raft ride and got absolutely drenched. A family from Yorkshire were in the raft with us and were trying really hard not to get wet - but failed totally - it was so funny!
We left around 4:15 and went in the car to look at the Beach Club resort. Another lovely Disney resort. Had burgers, onion rings and shakes in Beaches & Cream food was quite good. However, after all the heaps of praise about it on the DIS, we were expecting something bigger and better. A family had ordered a 'Kitchen Sink' sundae which literally comes in a (only slightly smaller than life-size) kitchen sink and has every ice cream, sauce and topping you can think of! DS also ordered
a sundae but found it all too much. Service was fast and friendly and prices were quite reasonable. We then walked through the International Gateway to Epcot and went on Test Track as single riders - due to large queues. Great fun! Clocks were going forward so went back to condo - bed at 9:15 pm! Too
tired to wait to see Epcot fireworks. Decided to save that for another night.
Sunday 4th April
Got up at 6:30 am - all ready and out of the door by 7:30 am. Decided to try Cracker Barrel for breakfast - as a change from Ponderosa. A new one has opened on the 192 since our last trip. Special of the day was 'Cherry pancake Sampler' which came on 2 plates! 2 large freshly-made pancakes with cherries and cream on one plate and 2 fried eggs with bacon and hashbrowns on the other plate - all for $5.99! Very nice, fresh & tasty. Coffee was less than $1 per cup too with unlimited refills. Cracker Barrel is an interesting place to go into - part shop (with all sorts of unusual country-style things for sale) & part restaurant. Breakfast for 3 came to less than $20.
Drove to MGM and arrived before the park opened. Were in a large crowd being held back by the CMs with a rope! When the opening time came, everyone ran (despite pleas not to!) towards Tower of Terror & Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. DS and I ran to ToT while DH got FPs for RnRC. Queues steadily built up during the day. DH suffers from motion sickness and in the past has not been able to enjoy a lot of the rides e.g. on our first trip Star Tours made him feel really ill. This time (after recommendations on the boards) we bought a ReliefBand for him to counter the motion sickness. He actually used it and went on Star Tours and felt fine! The backlot tour was still on - although we had expected it to be shut due to plans for a new car stunt show which they are planning to open in a year or so
We were all starting to flag a bit by now and decided to leave at 3:00 pm for a rest back at the condo. We returned to the park for 6:00 pm for our Priority Seating at Hollywood & Vine. Slight change to menu from last year - but very good (and excellent value). Went on the Great Movie Ride which we thought was considerably better than the last time we went on it 3 years ago.
Decided to head towards the arena for the Fantasmic show at 8:30 pm. A British family in front of us kept us amused (unintentionally). They had bought one of those light-up gadgets which you tap words into and then whizz round to show a sentence or phrase.They couldn't decide what words they wanted to display - and then when they did they had difficulty spelling them. It kept us in fits of giggles behind them until the show started - but they didn't even realise! Just as well really!
After the show we headed back to the condo again for showers and bed.
May have to try Crackerbarrel now.
