Our WDW adventures & Magical Happy Halloween Cruise: Day 14 completed - 01/2010 pg 19

[HelenSB]

Sarah! just not fair your photos are soooo much better than ours,cant wait for the next installment Funnel cake yummy......
Andy and Helen

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Sarah! just not fair your photos are soooo much better than ours,cant wait for the next installment Funnel cake yummy......
Andy and Helen

I don't think so - although I don't think I have seen all of yours yet !!!!

Hope you'll be bringing your holiday DVD for a public (well us) premiere in May!
We will roll out the red carpet in anticipation!

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Day 6 : Return to Epcot (Part 1)

Today I woke up at about 08:30, but because of the flagging stamina of my troops I decided to give them a lie in this morning. Today the plan was to hit Epcot before lunch, and then stay until late to watch Illuminations, with dinner at one of the Boardwalk restaurants. While everyone was still in the land of nod, I pottered around the apartment, packing away a few bits and pieces and popping a few things in the washing machine. Eventually the troops materialised and we managed to be on the road by 11am, and there are no prizes for guessing where we ended up for our late breakfast - Dunkin Donuts. Soon after that we arrived at Epcot:

We grabbed fast passes for Test Track and rode Mission Space and I spent some time taking random photos of my family from a distance.

We also came across a bunch of crazy chefs who put on a bit of a show for us - they were brilliant and really entertaining!

We then wandered over to the Living Seas where we rode Finding Nemo and spent a while engaged in some Turtle Talk with Crush, which was very cute. We then whiled away some time watching the fish in the aquarium while waiting for a suitable fast pass return time for a post-dinner ride on Soarin. We managed to grab fast passes for 7pm, which seemed about right.

By now it was time to ride Test Track, so this we did, and then grabbed a bite to eat for lunch. As it wasn’t long since our breakfast donuts, we chose a snack lunch, which was hot dogs and crisps (chips to any US readers among us) for Tony, Stephen and Louise,

and Mickey Ice cream sandwiches for Taryn, Dan and myself - as you can see I feel it’s always important to stick to a healthy diet wherever possible.

A very happy Tony after having his lunch:

While we were eating I also tried to take some arty scenic photos:

We then went into Imageworks and spent some time sending silly emails to friends, as you do, and then Tony, Louise and Stephen went into Honey, I shrunk the Audience, while Taryn, Dan and I chilled out by the fountains, watching the world go by and taking photos.

We had this photo pass photo taken by the fountain:

We then wandered into the World Showcase, where the girls stopped for a chat with Alice in the UK,

Before we headed for the Boardwalk area to find somewhere to eat dinner.

(continued in next post due to excessive number of photos!)

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Part 2 - Epcot continued.....

This was our first time to see the Boardwalk and it really seemed a lovely place to stay, well themed and very relaxing. We wandered along, just enjoying being there, and perused the menus in the various restaurants along the way. I quite fancied the Big River Grille, but as we have the pleasure of having the four fussiest eaters in the entire world in our family, we opted for the E.S.P.N Club for dinner, as the menu choices seemed to suit everyone.

The meal was excellent and the service faultless, although to be honest I could have done without all that sport (although apparently E.S.P.N. is something to do with sport, so if I had known that maybe I would have expected it).

The place is filled with TV screens, and even in the restroom, well the ladies restroom I can vouch for, but the guys tell me the men’s room was the same. It felt a bit strange answering natures call while watching baseball but each to their own! The beer pitcher came with a funny jug thing which held ice and kept the beer cool, which was a great idea.

The other highlight of this meal was the Rocky Road dessert - highly recommended!

After dinner we wandered about the Boardwalk and took yet more photos of everyone just chilling.

It was just such a lovely evening and I really felt happy and relaxed as we wandered back towards Epcot, just enjoying being there. I love moments like that.


It was now 7pm and we headed straight for Soarin as our fast passes obtained at 1pm had now become active. We sat next to a lady who said Soarin was her favourite ride ever - she told us to watch out for the hidden Mickey on the golf ball, and we managed to just about see it. We then had time for some shopping in MouseGear, and I deliberated over buying lots of things but talked myself out of them - I later regretted not buying them as I always do. I should learn to just buy things if I see things I like!

We then decided to wander over to the World Showcase to find a good place to watch Illuminations. As we entered the UK area a most amazing thing happened - it began to pour with rain! It amazes me how Disney manages to get every feature of the country to be totally authentic! I never cease to be amazed by Disney Imagineering!

Tony decided to do what comes natural in the UK, and grabbed himself a pint while we took shelter in the UK shop.

The rain eventually settled, we found a Photopass opportunity in France and had this photo taken, one of my favourites from the trip as it looks really natural... and no you are not mistaken - that is actually a smile on Stephen's face! (or could it be yet more imagineering magic!)

And then we found a spot on the side of the lake to watch Illuminations. This was as wonderful and inspirational as ever, and left me with tears in my eyes. After the show we slowly drifted back to the car, and it had been such a lovely afternoon and evening, slow-paced for once, that I really didn’t want to leave the park. I took my last attempt at an arty photo of Spaceship Earth on the way out:

And then we stopped for one final photo pass photo before heading our to the car park.

We found the car, and headed back to the apartment, where I tidied up and packed a few more things away before finally going to bed.

Tomorrow: shopping, Mickey’s Not so Scary Halloween Party and reunion with our special friends!

 

[jns]

some great photos there

yours are far better then the photopass ones any day
good to see you back writing up your report

 

[anewmac]

Love all the artsy shots, great job! I have a dress like your daughters and I love the bely idea... might have to try it... yet Im sure it will look much better on her then my much larger frame LOL... Cant wait to see/read more!

 

[dvc4life]

Sarah - love your photos! Those of Space Ship Earth are so cool! I'm glad you are continuing your report. Can't wait for the next installment and soon you will be posting about the cruise!

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Sarah - love your photos! Those of Space Ship Earth are so cool! I'm glad you are continuing your report. Can't wait for the next installment and soon you will be posting about the cruise!

only one more day to go until cruise embarkation day - and I have so many photos from the cruise portion of the vacation ..... I will try and post the next installment today.

 

[MICKEY'S DREAMERS]

only one more day to go until cruise embarkation day - and I have so many photos from the cruise portion of the vacation ..... I will try and post the next installment today.

OMG Sarah !!!!!!!!!
SO MANY wonderful photos !! and you all look SO GREAT !!!
I especially love the pics of YOU and Tony and all of those with Space ship Earth !! Really magic !!!! THANK YOU !!!!

Can't wait to hear ALL about your CRUISE ADVENTURES !!!

( I'm sooo looking forward to next August and MY Disney cruise to Tortola !!!)

laura

 

[diberry]

WOW Sarah! So many fantastic photos! I especially like the ones with the whole family - you all look like you're having a great time. Love the ones of Taryn by the fountains at Epcot too - such a pretty dress and she looks really lovely in it.
We usually end up in the ESPN club too - I know what you mean about the sport overload! The Big River Grille is nice too - we love to eat outside and watch everything that's going on. That photo of you and Tony on the Boardwalk is lovely too.
Loved your crack about Disney Imagineering and the rain in the UK area of Epcot!!
Looking forward to hearing all about MNSSHP!!

 

[jns]

only one more day to go until cruise embarkation day - and I have so many photos from the cruise portion of the vacation ..... I will try and post the next installment today.

Waiting hard to hear all about it


Have you started a pretrip report for your next cruise yet
see you are only 82 WEEKS UNTIL NEXT DISNEY CRUISE away

 

[TotallyAngelic]

WOW Sarah! So many fantastic photos! I especially like the ones with the whole family - you all look like you're having a great time. Love the ones of Taryn by the fountains at Epcot too - such a pretty dress and she looks really lovely in it.
We usually end up in the ESPN club too - I know what you mean about the sport overload! The Big River Grille is nice too - we love to eat outside and watch everything that's going on. That photo of you and Tony on the Boardwalk is lovely too.
Loved your crack about Disney Imagineering and the rain in the UK area of Epcot!!
Looking forward to hearing all about MNSSHP!!

Thank you Di - The whole rain thing was amazing - it was completely sunny in every other area of the World Showcase!

OMG Sarah !!!!!!!!!
SO MANY wonderful photos !! and you all look SO GREAT !!!
I especially love the pics of YOU and Tony and all of those with Space ship Earth !! Really magic !!!! THANK YOU !!!!

Can't wait to hear ALL about your CRUISE ADVENTURES !!!

( I'm sooo looking forward to next August and MY Disney cruise to Tortola !!!)

laura

Thanks Laura - when are you cruising? I need details (and lots of them!). I love Tortola - although the only time I have been there we never got further than the Pussers Rum bar where we had a jolly encounter with the British Royal Navy!

only one more day to go until cruise embarkation day - and I have so many photos from the cruise portion of the vacation ..... I will try and post the next installment today.

Whoops - didn't quite make it - will try again real soon.

Waiting hard to hear all about it


Have you started a pretrip report for your next cruise yet
see you are only 82 WEEKS UNTIL NEXT DISNEY CRUISE away

No - it's a bit too early for a pre-trippie! I need to finish this one first (and it might just take me 82 weeks!). What about you - you're cruising before me! Have you worked out how many weeks till you cruise?

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Day 7: Shopping, eating and MNSSHP with special friends!

I awoke at about 8am and all was quiet in the apartment. I could hear the rain falling outside so I got up, and sat outside on the lanai, where I caught up with some trip report notes. It was so peaceful to sit there when all was quiet, just listening to the rain falling onto the palm trees. Before too long my peace was shattered by Tony appearing on the lanai with a coffee. We were heading for some retail therapy today, before meeting our friends the Balster family at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party that evening.
Eventually the rest of the troops dragged themselves out of bed and after the usual ablutions we were all ready to head off for the Premium Outlets, which turned out to be just about 10 minutes away from the apartment. Regular readers will have noticed that we have broken the habit of the holiday and made no visit to Dunkin Donuts today - instead we decided to have breakfast at the Premium Outlets food court. Ever health conscious, Taryn, Louise and Daniel opted for fruit this morning - apples to be precise, but before you fall over with the shock - the attraction with these apples was the cinnamon and toffee, and white and milk chocolate coatings they were covered with! Still fruit is fruit and as it was the first healthy option to pass their lips in a week I was pleased. Here is the proof:

I’m afraid to say that the healthy trend was not continued by Tony and Stephen, who had hot-dogs for breakfast - shame on them! In anticipation of the up-coming cruise and a need to get into a formal gown, I chose to bypass breakfast and just had a latte from Starbucks - it’s amazing how cheap a Starbucks coffee is in the USA, about half the price of the UK equivalent!

It was then time to hit the shops - and my first target was the Character Premiere shop, where I bought a few discounted pins and a few other bits and pieces. We then bought some trainers and shoes in the trainer and shoe shop (funnily enough) and when we were waiting in line to pay, we overheard some people speaking in a very strange language - yes, they were speaking Welsh! So of course we had to introduce ourselves as fellow natives! We then browsed around the rest of the shops, but disappointingly nothing else took our fancy - and by now I was getting desperate as I still had no shoes to go with my formal gown for the cruise. By now it was approaching lunch time, and we decided to go to one of Tony’s all time American favourites - Denny’s.

We had a lovely lunch - the portions were enormous, and our server, who appeared to be well past retirement age, was amazing and really funny - she spent a lot of time winding up the kids!

Some photos of the small portions....

After lunch we headed back to the apartment, where the kids headed off to the pool for a last dip, and Tony and I headed to Walmart, in a desperate last minute search for some black sandals for me. Now those of you who have shopped in Walmart will know how enormous it is, and also how ridiculously disorganised and disorientating it is - although that may just be the effect it has on me! I feel like I am in a maze and keep going around in circles, and for some reason they don’t keep all of the same items in the same area of the shop. I could have really done with Jack Sparrow’s compass to help me find my heart’s desire - the shoe department. What makes it even more ridiculous is that I had been there a few days earlier and still couldn’t find it. Eventually, after what seemed like hours we found the shoe department and I managed to locate a pair of black sandals which would suffice. We hurriedly picked up everything else we thought we might need, and probably a few things we didn’t, and very conscious of the fact that time was ticking on, and we needed to get transformed into pirates for the Halloween Party, we headed back home.

The kids were getting ready for the party, so we quickly changed and became the crazy pirate crew we are deep down inside! It was already about 6:30, and we were supposed to be meeting our friends outside Pirates of the Caribbean at 7pm. This wasn’t looking good at all! We jumped in the van, and I drove as fast as the speed limits would allow to arrive at the parking lot at about 7pm. There didn’t seem to be many people in costume in the parking lot and Stephen began to panic - it had taken a lot of persuasion to get him to dress up in a costume in the first place and a lot of reassurance that absolutely EVERYONE at the party would be in costume! You can see by his face on this photo that he was far from impressed when he realised that we might have just been slightly economical with the truth:

In fact no one looks too impressed on those photos for some reason - miserable lot my family. We boarded the monorail and when we arrived at the Magic Kingdom station there were quite a few people dressed in costumes milling about the park entrance, which fortunately seemed to chill Stephen out a bit. On the way in we were given wrist bands, Halloween party guides and treat bags for trick or treating. There were cast members holding up Halloween party signs to direct the party guests in the right direction, as there were crowds of other non-party guests leaving the park. We then had a mad dash through the crowds to meet up with our friends outside Pirates of the Caribbean - but when we got there they were nowhere to be seen. We immediately began to worry because we were almost half an hour late and they may have got fed up waiting for us or thought we had been held up. We hovered there looking lost and suddenly were commandeered by 4 crazy pirates who had been hiding in the shadows of the building opposite. It was so great to see them again, and we couldn’t stop talking - I don’t think we paused for breath once in that first hour of meeting up! They regaled us with spooky stories of their night at the Universal Halloween Horror event - which was definitely not for the faint of heart - and Helen had the bruises on her arms to proof it! Here is our pirate crew outside Pirates of the Caribbean:

We hit the first Trick or Treat stop outside of the Pirates of the Caribbean, where cast members put a handful of candy into each of our bags, and then we headed to ride Pirates of the Caribbean - it was great to ride our favourite ride dressed as pirates! Unfortunately the cast members were far from piratey and not very interactive at all. After raiding the Spanish Main we raided the shop for weaponry and commandeered some swords - well to be totally honest, in reality we lined up in the store and paid for them like everyone else but that doesn’t sound very piratey either so for the sake of authenticity I‘d go with the first version!

Next stop, the Haunted Mansion - the cast members here were much more interactive and into the Halloween spirit - they had really good atmospheric make-up, and the spooky effects such as fog and eerie music around the Haunted Mansion were really effective. There was even a spooky ghost lady sitting in the graveyard! Unfortunately two of our pirate crew dropped their swords in the Haunted Mansion, and they may still be there to this very day. We hit another Trick or Treat stop outside the Haunted Mansion, and then we headed off to ride the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - always a crazy experience in the dark! A we entered the mine station it began to rain, and by the time we boarded the train it was actually tipping it down. This made the ride even wilder and crazier than ever and we ended up soaked through to the skin and very bedraggled.

We then headed over to Tomorrowland as some of the group wanted to ride Space Mountain, but it wasn’t running, so instead we had a whirl with Buzz Lightyear. By now it was time for the parade, so we headed for the central plaza to find a good viewpoint. On the way we encountered Davy Jones and there was a bit of a stand-off:

We sat down on the kerb side and waited for the parade, and I took a bit of video footage while waiting, and a photo of the girls waiting patiently.

We also had a photo pass moment in front of the castle, and the photographer took so long to try and get us all in the picture and to get it focused correctly, and this was the end result.

The parade was absolutely amazing - my favourite parade ever. I loved the pirates, the grave-diggers, and the Capt. Jack Sparrow and the Haunted Mansion floats in particular. We were thrilled when Captain Barbossa gestured over to us as his pirate crew! After the parade we stayed in the same place and waited for the Hallowishes fireworks. This was the best fireworks show I have ever seen - absolutely breathtaking - and all presented to a Halloween soundtrack!

After the fireworks we bid farewell to Andy, Helen, Rachel and Bethany, who had to get back to the Hard Rock Hotel via taxi and didn’t want to be caught in the crowds as we all had an early start tomorrow. I couldn’t resist a final ride on Pirates of the Caribbean,

and then Stephen and Tony went to ride Splash Mountain. By now it was time to leave, so we made our way to the exit via the Main Street shops, and then jumped on the monorail to the parking lot.

I had really enjoyed the Halloween Party - the atmosphere was amazing, and the parade and fireworks alone were worth the extra ticket price. The trick and treating was fun, particularly for the younger children, and riding the attractions in the dark and spooky atmosphere added an extra dimension. The only criticism was the lack of interaction from some of the cast members - such as those in Pirates of the Caribbean, and apart from during the parade we didn’t see any characters wandering around, but we may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That said, I would definitely do MNSSHP again as it was an amazing experience, and especially because we were able to share it with such special and like-minded friends.

Back at the apartment I did my last batch of laundry ready for the cruise and threw it in the tumble dryer, and then sorted out as much as I could before tiredness took over, and I fell into bed to dream of tomorrow and our long awaited first ever cruise on the Disney Magic. I was so excited I could hardly contain myself, as to be on the Disney Magic was such a dream of mine, and tomorrow it was really going to happen! Our plan was to be up really early, and away in the car by 7:30am, so we could have breakfast in Port Canaveral before entering the terminal at 10am or as soon as we could, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men and my family …….

 

[diberry]

That was a brilliant read Sarah as always. You really packed so much into that day I don't know how you stayed so bright and perky all evening. But MNSSHP does sound fantastic and you all look great in your costumes. Brilliant photos too! Davy Jones looks really scary!
Looking forward to hearing all about your experiences on the Magic!

 

[jenn&nelsonrego]

Thanks for the update!

I can't wait to relive the cruise with you!!!!

 

[anewmac]

Loved it the costumes came out GREAT!!!!!!!!

Cant wait to hear about the cruise now!

 

[TotallyAngelic]

That was a brilliant read Sarah as always. You really packed so much into that day I don't know how you stayed so bright and perky all evening. But MNSSHP does sound fantastic and you all look great in your costumes. Brilliant photos too! Davy Jones looks really scary!
Looking forward to hearing all about your experiences on the Magic!

Thanks Di - The Disney atmosphere is what keeps me bright and perky! They should bottle it - would come in very useful over here where I am far from bright and perky.

Thanks for the update!

I can't wait to relive the cruise with you!!!!

Thanks Jenn - I will try and finish Day 1 today

Loved it the costumes came out GREAT!!!!!!!!

Cant wait to hear about the cruise now!

Thanks Drea.

 

[TammyNC]

Started your report this morning with my coffee and it was like reading a wonderful novel. I will be back, can't wait to hear about the cruise. We are booked for our first ever cruise on the Magic in March 2010.

 

[ibouncetoo]

Sarah, just found your report today and have had a lovely time shirking my household chores!

Can't wait to hear about your cruise adventures and I so much look forward to meeting you next year for 14 Days on the Magic.

.

 

[wilma-bride]

Just got all caught up and can't believe you're not even on the cruise yet. I am still waiting patiently to hear all about it