Day 9 Sunday 28th January 2018 Part 3 – Kona Cafe
So I had a bit of a moment with our dinner reservation this evening.
We originally had an ADR for the Skipper Canteen, however I looked at the menu right before we set off, and realised that the only thing I had really wanted to try (the beef pasta) had been taken off the menu…
We’d eaten at Skipper Canteen before and hadn’t been overly impressed by it, but I’d heard good things about that pasta and it looked really tasty, so I wanted to give it another chance.
But since they didn’t have that on the menu any more we didn’t really want to go.
As it was now less than 24 hours before our reservation we thought we couldn’t cancel it for free any more, so I went down to chat to the front desk about it.
I explained the situation and asked them if there was any way we could get around the cancellation fee.
They said to avoid the fee they could swap the ADR for something else, yay!
So I ran back upstairs to consult with Jamie.
We had a quick look at what was available at such short notice, and we decided to go with Kona Café!
So the front desk booked that in for us for 8:20pm!
At 7:30pm we put on our ponchos and headed out into the rainy evening.
My poncho is so retro
Once again a boat was at the dock waiting for us, so we didn’t have to wait out in the rain at all
We got on the boat to the Contemporary to get the monorail to the Polynesian!
The monorail stopped at the TTC, then we departed at the Polynesian!
It was very busy as always, but it’s a beautiful lobby!
The Magic Kingdom fireworks had started too, and you can see parts of it from this lobby!
So cool!
We had a stroll around the resort before checking in for dinner.
Kona time!
We had eaten here twice before when we stayed at the Polynesian in 2015, once for breakfast and once for dinner.
Breakfast was reallyyy good, but unfortunately I didn’t have a good time at dinner.
I had ordered the duck and it was so chewy I could barely eat any of it
I’d heard Kona was a hidden gem for many people so I was really disappointed with that experience.
However I was excited for this because I had my heart set on some sushi!
But first, BREAD.
Kona bread is so good, it’s pineapple bread and comes with macadamia nut butter
For our main courses, Jamie ordered the strip steak, which looked really good, and he said it tasted great.
And I got the large sushi sampler!
It was made up of tuna poke (in the cucumber), nigiri, sashimi and California roll!
Basically all my favourites, it’s like this was made for me.
This makes me hungry just looking at it.
I love sushi so much.
It was so nicely presented and colourful and just fantastic.
Then I got the chocolate fondue for dessert!
The chocolate was really rich and gooey.
Apart from one of my strawberries being dead, this was also so good!
Jamie got the coffee cremeux!
He thought it was a bit too rich, but I tried it and thought it was really good.
I’m so glad we were able to have a good meal at Kona Café.
After a bad experience a couple of years ago, this ended up being one of my favourite meals this trip.
I would love to go back some time!
After dinner it was STILL raining, ugh.
We decided to just get a Lyft back to the Wilderness Lodge.
We actually tried getting a Minnie Van, but the guy at the front desk said it wouldn’t work with our international phone numbers
We arrived back home at about 10:15pm.
Jamie kept storming off from me for no reason
The electric water pageant came by…
There were also some late night fireworks, which were apparently a rehearsal for something
That’s a wrap on another day at Disney!
Good night!
Day 10 Monday 29th January 2018
Part 1 – Whispering Canyon and Hollywood Studios
Good morning!
Today was our first time being late to an ADR this trip, and it was downstairs in our own lobby, at 10:30am
There were no excuses really.
We were only 5 minutes late so it wasn’t too bad!
We were having breakfast at Whispering Canyon Café today!
We love the dinner here so we were excited to see what breakfast had to offer
We were soon seated and we got some coffee.
Our server was called Tom, he was a funny and good looking chap.
He looked a bit like Christian Bale
Tom brought us a skillet of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, potatoes, sausage gravy, waffles and syrup
I asked Tom for ketchup, and he did the longest, most drawn out “kettttttttch-uuuuuuuuup” ever
Really soon after we had to pick it all up and take it to another table
The breakfast food was delicious!
I love Whispering Canyon.
We will definitely be back!
After our meal we got some water from Roaring Fork (how boring) and sat in the room for a little while.
I sat out on the balcony, and at one point Jamie came to show me his food baby
After our stomachs had settled a bit, we left the room at 12:30 to go to Hollywood Studios!
We got a bus all to ourselves!
We arrived at Hollywood Studios and got some cute photopass pictures at the entrance.
YAY.
We entered the park and had a look in some of the stores.
I decided I was DEFINITELY going to buy these gloves later
Jamie loves this Baymax.
Baymax is the wallpaper on his phone
We headed over to Star Tours and saw the Jedi training academy on the way.
Both Darth Vader and Kylo Ren were out in full force.
We rode Star Tours and got the exact same two scenes as last time!
And Stacey boasts that there are over 50 different adventures we can experience!
AND I wasn’t the rebel spy again.
What rotten luck.
There was a really funny lady sat behind us who was screaming so loud though, so that was fun.
Then we went to see the 2pm showing of Beauty and the Beast!
Day 10 Monday 29th January 2018 Part 2 – Hollywood Studios and Jiko
Next we went to use our fastpass at Rock n Roller Coaster.
Jamie got a personalised message in the queue!
But $7? Is that all he’s worth?
We sat in the very back row of the ride, which is the best place to be in my opinion.
Emphasis on the “RATTLE” in the picture above…
We wanted to hold our arms up during the ride, but it rattled my head from side to side so bad, and the shoulder restraints crushed Jamie’s shoulders, so we both ended up holding on to alleviate the pain!
I love this ride, but Jamie doesn’t understand how anyone taller than him (6’1”) can ride it, it hurts his shoulders so much!
Next we had a fastpass for Tower of Terror!
We were seated front and centre, perfect!
LOVE IT
Next we went to see the Frozen sing along!
This was so hilarious the when we saw it in 2016.
We had two really funny historians telling the story last time, but sadly that wasn’t really the case this time.
It was still funny, but we didn't think the two actors had quite as much comedic chemistry.
It was still enjoyable though!
I filmed the final part of the show and sent it to my friend Fran. She loves Frozen
It was now 4pm so we headed out of the park, stopping to watch the imperial march on the way.
The kid at the end is cute!
We also called into a shop, and I bought my Kermit gloves!
And Jamie bought these giant yellow slippers that look like Mickey’s shoes
He wears these all the time!
On the way back to the Wilderness Lodge I recorded the tune that plays on the bus, because me and Jamie enjoyed its simplicity and we sang it many times on this trip
Welcome home!
We took the elevator with another man, and he was really enthusiastic about my Minnie Mouse shoes.
He said his 19-year-old daughter would love them
He said they were from the Jersey Shore and all they wear are Vans.
Hello Artist Point
Jamie was goofing around as usual...
There's never a dull moment with him!
We went back to our room to freshen up, but we didn’t have long before we had to leave for our dinner reservation at Jiko!
We got a boat to Magic Kingdom then a bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge.
We stopped at Kidani first and people were grabbing their strollers to get off the bus, but there was a whole fiasco of “IS THIS JAMBO HOUSE???” going on.
I kept saying “no” but apparently no one could hear me over themselves repeatedly exclaiming “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS IS. IS THIS JAMBO HOUSE?”
Then the bus doors closed and split up a family and it was just general chaos.
BUT ANYWAY.
We finally made it to the real Jambo House at 6:55pm, 5 minutes late for our ADR.
So we rushed down to Jiko!
And we were seated no problem.
Our waiter today was called Nasser from Marrakech and he was a really good waiter. He topped up our water even when it was ¾ full already
The bread was delicious!
I ordered a sparkling wine and Jamie got a glass of red wine.
Mine was $17 and Jamie’s was $21, but we got them included on the dining plan!
I thought there was a $16 limit on drinks, but maybe it’s more here because it’s a signature restaurant?
We both ordered the filet mignon with mac and cheese, cooked medium rare, and it was AMAZING.
I love this meal so much
It also came with Brussels sprouts which I usually hate, but even they were delicious!
For dessert, Jamie ordered the Malva Pudding, which Nasser had recommended. It was a tiramisu type dessert… it was spongy and soaked in amarula.
I got the Kilimanjaro, which was like a chocolate mousse on a thin but rich chocolate brownie with bits of pistachio and stuff.
I don’t know I’m not a food critic.
But it was TASTY.
We had a really great meal at Jiko, this might be my favourite signature restaurant.
IS THIS JAMBO HOUSE?
We left the hotel and walked down to the bus stop to head back to the Magic Kingdom.
And buses came and went for everywhere else
Then when a Magic Kingdom bus finally showed up, the driver said he couldn’t take anyone as the park closed at 8pm, and it was now 8:30pm.
We told him we were just going there because we wanted to take the boat back to the Wilderness Lodge, and asked if he wasn’t going back…?
He said he was going back but he couldn’t take us, and instead we would have to get a bus to Disney Springs (which we’d seen two buses come and go for already), and get a bus to the Wilderness Lodge from there...
He said it was because they were trying to clear out the Magic Kingdom because it had closed.
I don't want to say that I didn't believe him incase he'd been told this silly rule by his superior...
...but I just couldn't fathom how that could be correct?!
We reiterated that we literally just wanted to go straight to the Wilderness Lodge boats.
The boats run right outside our room so we know that they continue to run until at least 11:30pm.
But he said no.
UGH.
Surely it’s up to the cast members at the entrance of Magic Kingdom to not let us in to the park, not the bus driver?
This made no sense.
The driver was quite snappy and it was all a bit frustrating…
Anyway, instead of going allllll the way across the Walt Disney World Resort from one side to the other (literally… Animal Kingdom Lodge to Disney Springs) then waiting for another bus to the Wilderness Lodge, we just got an Uber because it was cold and he’d made me grumpy
Our Uber was way better than that bus would’ve been anyway.
The car smelled so good, it was warm and cozy and he had loud jazz music playing.
It was great, I wanted him to drive me around forever
When we got back to the room we heard the Electric Water Pageant going on SO LOUD.
Oh my goodness, it must've woken up some kids.
I swear it wasn't usually this loud.
The first 30 seconds of this clip are taken INSIDE our room with the door closed!
I wasn't complaining though!
We enjoyed the show before heading to bed.
Day 11 Tuesday 30th January 2018 Part 1 – Animal Kingdom
Good morning, good morrrrning.
It’s a perfect January day, chilly with blue skies
We were taking a really quick trip to Animal Kingdom today!
We went to get a bus at around midday.
I really like this monorail shot I got!
We arrived at DAK at around 12:30!
First on our agenda was lunch at Harambe Market!
Jamie waited in line while I went to find a table, bless him.
We both got the beef gyro flatbread which was really good!
Although neither of us cared for the corny beany thing that came on the side.
Then we went to use a fastpass at Flight of Passage!
Stay hydrated…
GAH I love Flight of Passage so much!
This was only our second time riding and I noticed so much more this time around.
I also looked around and saw all the other riders in rows up and down to the side of us.
It was cool because I didn’t really know the layout before.
Anyway, this is one of my top 5 attractions now for sure!
And that was it for our very quick visit to Animal Kingdom today!
It was now 2:15pm and Jamie wanted to watch the football (soccer!) at 2:45, so we headed out of the park!
When we got back to the room we were greeted by YET ANOTHER TOWEL ANIMAL
Day 11 Tuesday 30th January 2018
Part 2 – Magic Kingdom
We got back to the room in time for Jamie to watch the football, and I went to Magic Kingdom!
While I was waiting for the boat I saw the singing captain again!
A boat came along and I got to Magic Kingdom at around 3:45pm!
I went up to the train station, then down to the castle.
I was texting my friend Alisha back home and sent her some photos, we wished she could be here with me!
Then I went to Liberty Square and watched the Muppets show!
I strolled around a bit, and I stopped by Splash Mountain to see if it had reopened from its loooong refurb yet, but ALAS. STILL CLOSED
Then I went back to the hub to get a spot for Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire!
I stood behind the flowerbeds, which I realised was the perfect spot for castle shows and fireworks.
Even the tallest man couldn’t obstruct this view!
The flowers in January are so pretty.
I love the yellow and purple
Day 11 Tuesday 30th January 2018
Part 3 – Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire!
Here’s a castle show photoshoot!
I really like the Princess and the Frog part and the Tangled part of this show!
I left during the Frozen part
I don’t hate it, I’ve just heard Let It Go way too many times so it’s gotten a bit stale with me.
Day 11 Tuesday 30th January 2018 Part 4 – More Magic Kingdom
It was now 4:30pm so I started to leave the park.
However I got distracted (or I just didn't want to leave!) and I decided to look inside the train station on the way.
I can’t believe I haven’t really looked inside of here before!
This bright pink thing feels a bit… out of place
Well the obnoxious colour of it anyway.
The train pulled in while I was in the station, so I decided to get it over to Frontierland Station hoping to see the inside of Splash Mountain...
However they’d covered it up while the refurb was going on!
Obviously.
I should’ve anticipated that.
Oh well, I had a pleasant ride anyway!
I got off at Frontierland and looked in the Briar Patch store.
I love this photo frame, if it didn’t have the text on the picture I’d buy it and have it just as it is.
(I’ve actually done this before with a different Splash frame I got a couple of years ago).
Or maybe I’ll just stop being cheap and buy a ride photo for it
I love Splash so much I WAS SO SAD IT WAS CLOSED.
I was praying so hard that it would reopen on schedule for our last day!!
OK, now it’s almost 5pm… Time to leave!
On my (second) way out my subconscious refused to leave AGAIN.
So I stopped to watch the flag retreat.
It was lovely.
Afterwards I felt so patriotic towards a country that isn't even my own
Then I finally got the boat back to the Wilderness Lodge.
When I got off the boat I texted Jamie to come out to the balcony…
Day 11 Tuesday 30th January 2018 Part 5 – Trail’s End!
This evening we had a 6:15pm dinner reservation at Trail’s End!
We got the boat over to Fort Wilderness at 5:45, and we got Martin, the singing captain! YAY!
He pointed out the shoe tree to us, I had no idea that that this was a thing!
(Cut version of the video with the shoe tree!)
The moon was so big this evening
Pulling in to Fort Wilderness:
I love him!
We headed straight over to Trail’s End and checked in!
I was really looking forward to this.
We’d never eaten here before, but I’d heard they did the same food as Hoo-Dee-Doo, and then some!
Our waiter was called Miguel and he was really nice and attentive.
He told us about all of the British TV shows he watched, and he asked if everyone in London does parkour all the time
No is the answer
Yum and wow, these food pictures make me so hungry!
It was so good!
For my first plate I got shrimp, mushroom, and tomato and feta from the salad bar, then fired chicken, beans, mac and cheese and pizza!
Then I got more mac and cheese, pizza and beans, and also mashed potato, baked salmon and broccoli!
Everything was so so good.
The only bad thing was the broccoli, which was so salty I couldn’t eat it.
But I loved everything else!
Jamie kept eating mac and cheese off my plate, to the point where he got some on his fork and I said,
“STOP! There’s a buffet right there!”
He was just holding a forkful of mac and cheese near his face looking shifty, and he said,
“I’m just kidding…”
…He paused for a second, then just shovelled the whole forkful into his mouth
GOD.
For dessert we tried pretty much everything!
I got red velvet cake, banana pudding, cookies, smores, and bread pudding!
Jamie’s plate isn’t as well-presented as mine
Yum and wow, we loved this meal so much!
This was instantly one of our new favourites!
I’ve also heard how accommodating they are for people with food intolerances.
We even saw the infamous chef out talking with a table, and he later brought out this huge hanging kebab thing!
The guest looked really thrilled with that.
I definitely recommend Trail’s End and I would love to go back some time!
Day 11 Tuesday 30th January 2018
Part 6 – Epcot EMH
When we left Trail’s End at 7:30pm it was absolutely freeeezing!!
We decided instead of going straight to Epcot EMH, we would get the boat back to the Wilderness Lodge, layer up and go from there.
Martin the singing guy was our captain again!
He makes me so happy!
Disney, give this man a raise!
Oh my goodness, this is going to sound absolutely insane, but when we got back to the room I put on a long sleeved top, a sweater, a thick cardigan AND a hoodie!
And I took some gloves
When I was back home packing gloves for a trip to Florida I thought I was being crazy.
We got the bus to Epcot and arrived at about 8:30!
We got a fastpass for The Seas, which allowed us to overtake exactly no one
After the ride we went into the aquarium, and the huge sea turtle was right next to the glass!
The little girl in that picture was adorable and she kept talking to us, but we had absolutely no idea what she was saying
We kept nodding along and acting interested, and then her mum said to us, “I have no idea what she’s talking about”
We kept catching the odd couple of words but it was just impossible to follow her
She reminded us of the “have you ever had a dream” kid in that YouTube video
Throughout the night Jamie kept quoting her like,
“um you um you wha- you whi- he’s DEAD… um you whi- EVANGELINE”. Too cute.
Jamie looking in a mirror after a meal at Trail’s End…
I asked Jamie to take a picture of me with Bruce, but he took this while I was behind the scenes.
I totally stole this photo idea from someone else here on the DIS
To the person who posted this originally, I appreciate you and I think about you whenever I see this Bruce
We went outside and caught some of IllumiNations.
Then we went into The Land, where we found Soarin’ at a 10 minute wait, i.e. a walk on!
We got the middle section on row one!
So we didn’t get the dreaded curve this time, although there are parts where we could see the top of the screen.
WOO.
Next we walked right onto Living With The Land!
I love this an unreasonable amount.
Then we went to ride the Gran Fiesta Tour, and the Mexico pavilion was literally empty, at 10pm during 9-11pm EMH.
We walked onto the ride and got our own boat
YAAAY.
I heard a rumour that they might be changing this ride to Coco, which is probably a good idea
I love Coco and I think that would work really well, although I would miss the Three Caballeros song.
Anyway, next we went to ride Mission Space!
A few years ago we did the orange team and it made us both feel so weird afterwards.
Jamie felt sick and I had a bad headache and felt dizzy.
BLEH no thank you.
We’re green teamers now!
I had a super dumb moment in line…
I saw this poster of the first family in space and I was baffled, I was like “why haven’t I heard about this???”
Jamie was just like “Katie… look at the date.”
I’m an idiot.
The fairly new green team adventure on Mission Space was kinda fun, it was the flight over the world which was pretty.
I thought it could’ve been a bit more HD though.
It just looked like a lot of twinkly lights!
To finish our night off, we went to ride Test Track!
When we were designing our car I got the top score for the initial line, but for some reason we couldn’t get the final score up to 232!
We settled for 231 and no “top score of the day”.
After Test Track it was a little after 11pm, so we headed back to the buses.
It was a successful EMH!
Look at this weirdo.
We got back to the Wilderness Lodge at 11:30pm.
More weirdness.
Disney delirium is real, people.
In a desperate attempt to use up some of our snack credits I got a chocolate chip muffin as a midnight snack
Day 12 Wednesday 31st January 2018 Part 1 – Citricos!
Good morning!
We slept in late this morning and chilled all day!
Jamie watched some football in bed.
I was going to go to Epcot, but I decided to rest instead
We were supposed to go see Fantasmic tonight, but the other day I realised that Magic Kingdom had extra magic hours tonight, so I switched our Citricos dinner from tomorrow to today so that we could go to MK right afterwards!
At 1:30pm I went down to Roaring Fork to get food.
I got Jamie the chicken focaccia and a chocolate milk and I used a snack credit to get a bagel with cream cheese.
I watched some YouTube and napped for a while. We got a couple of missed calls whilst napping, which we assumed was the DVC team since they’d called us before.
But then we got a knock at the door which Jamie answered, and it was two CMs saying they needed to do a security check…!
I guess they do a check with housekeeping each day, and this was the first day we’d had the “room occupied” sign on the door all day.
It was weird
They woke me up from my nap so I don’t think I was very welcoming towards them.
Later on we got ready for dinner at Citricos!
I had a bit of a packing fail here because I wanted to wear my black dress and blue jacket to Citricos, but it was too chilly!
Then I thought AHA, I have tights!
But I hadn’t brought any shoes to wear with tights.
All I had was open toe sandals, Vans, Adidas or Converse
So I just wore jeans, but I didn’t really feel fancy enough.
Oh well, by the looks of this photo I got over that pretty quickly
We went to get the boat to Magic Kingdom, and it was waiting right there to pick us up!
These boats are the best.
Our captain was really funny too, he was going at like 3mph and said “we’re about to go full speed, everybody hang on!” Then he screeeamed as he kicked it up to 4mph
We arrived at Magic Kingdom and went straight to get the resort monorail to the Grand Floridian.
The sky looked incredible!
The sun was setting right as we were pulling into the Contemporary.
Magical. The skies in January were so much nicer than the generally overcast Septembers we had experienced!
We arrived at the Grand Floridian at 6:15pm.
We were cutting it a bit fine so we weren’t able to explore at all, but the band were playing as we made our way to Citricos, and we walked past the sweet smell of Basin, so it was one of the best speed-walks of my life.
We checked in at Citricos and sat in the waiting area for a few minutes before being shown to our table.
I was so excited to eat here again!
We had only eaten here once before back in September 2014 and I had really enjoyed it, particularly the dessert.
It didn’t disappoint!
For entrees, we both got the oak flamed beef filet cooked medium rare.
So good!
It came with potato puree and something called DRAGON CARROTS.
What a concept.
Then for dessert, Jamie got the tirimasu, and I OBVIOUSLY got the warm chocolate and banana torte!
I had it last time and I was really looking forward to having it again!
YUM AND WOW.
So good.
If I’m not mistaken, both of us ended up with exactly the same entrees and desserts as the last time we ate here!
We really enjoyed this meal!
We settled the bill and I used the bathroom near Citricos.
I remember writing previously that the hanger for your bag in the cubicle was really high up and it was difficult to reach, and it just amused me that they’d moved it, so that now your bag is basically resting on the floor
It's like a "screw you" to all of us who moaned about it
I wanted Jamie to take my picture in front of the chandelier but this is as far as we got.
I don’t even know what this is
A kind lady probably noticed our struggle and quickly offered to take a photo of both of us!
Then we noticed a monorail had just pulled in, so we dashed through security and hopped on!
Day 12 Wednesday 31st January 2018 Part 2 – Magic Kingdom EMH
We arrived at Magic Kingdom at about 7:45pm, right when everyone was gathering for the fireworks, so it was BUSY.
We took the back walkway on the right which took us straight to Tomorrowland.
So we went for a ride on the PeopleMover!
“Welcome to the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, your quiet and carefree highway in the sky.
We invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy your grand circle tour of Tomorrowland!”
I was singing along to Out There from the Hunchback part of the fireworks!
That’s been one of my favourite Disney songs for years and I’m still so thrilled that they put it in the show!
I didn’t expect that at all.
In the part of the PeopleMover that’s in complete darkness Jamie kept lighting up his phone under his face making scary faces
It was too dark for me to notice that one time he had moved really close to me, then lit up his phone under his face again, and I genuinely screamed
Ugh I hated that so much, it really scared me.
After the PeopleMover, we got in line for Buzz, which turned out to be a walk-on!
Jamie got 999,999!
I got pretty close, considering I was sat on the right hand side which is much more difficult.
When we exited Buzz, the Go The Distance section of Happily Ever After was playing
I love it!
But we didn’t watch for long because Buzz still had no line!
So we rejoined!
This time I sat on the left…
And I did much worse
This makes no sense.
After our second ride on Buzz I checked MDE, and saw that Seven Dwarfs Mine Train only had a 10 minute wait…
So we headed over there, but unfortunately the fireworks had JUST finished, EMH had just started, and apparently eeeeveryone wanted to ride the mine train.
By the time we got there the line was out of the entrance, so we went back to Space Mountain, and that turned out to be the same!
So we joined the 10 minute line at the Tomorrowland Speedway instead.
Jamie had wanted a go at driving after my terrible performance a few days ago.
Below is the only picture I managed to get on the Speedway
OK I admit it, Jamie is a much better driver than me
Whenever his steering would wobble slightly I kept going “YOU’RE OVERCORRECTING!” – which is what he kept yelling at me when I was swerving all over the place the other day
Then we decided to just join the big line at Space Mountain.
They were scanning magic bands at the entrance (one person from each party) so I think that made the queue look bigger.
It actually didn’t take long at all.
As we were heading into the building Jamie was ranting about the new Star Wars movies, and the two guys in front of us overheard him and turned around, and one of them said,
“…Star Wars?!” They were fun guys.
We all made friends, and the three of them enjoyed ranting together.
They turned out to be a married couple, and one of them had proposed on the Hogwarts Express at Universal!
What a dream
They really loved Harry Potter, we talked about Disney and Universal and other theme parks.
They told us about Cedar Point in Ohio, and we talked about a UK theme park called Alton Towers, which they actually knew more about that we did!
Anyway, we loved them, here’s one of them sat in front of us on the ride
(I always try to find the camera, and fail every time).
Next we thought it would be fun to ride Thunder Mountain in the dark!
We stopped in the hub to get a picture in front of the castle.
We forgot to turn on the flash, and Jamie took this first photo at exactly the same time that another family took a picture WITH flash… How weird!
Ok, this is better.
I look so redheaded!
We walked across the bridge to Liberty Square, then the walkway by the river to Thunder Mountain
YAY THUNDER.
The wait was posted at 20 minutes but I think it was shorter than that.
We were waiting at the loading area when the train pulled in, and I saw the boy who was sat in what would be my seat having a full on coughing fit all over my lap bar
I was really grossed out and I was just watching him thinking ohhh godddd I don’t want to sit there.
AND THE DISNEY GODS HEARD ME.
All of those people exited, then the train was reversed right out of the station!
Then a different train full of people pulled in!
And the person in my seat looked perfectly healthy
How odd!
I’ve never seen a train be reversed out before, how lucky that it happened the one time I see someone germing all over my seat
God must have seen my grossed-out face and said
Woo.
I really like outdoor rides in the dark.
We walked back past Splash and I noticed the water was running, but there were no logs yet…
It was almost 10pm now and the park was quietening down
However we stopped by Seven Dwarfs Mine Train again and the CM told us the line would be 45-60 minutes!
So we went to Pooh!
Wooooo Pooh.
After the ride Jamie bought his little cousin a plush pooh, then we walked through the castle and I had a little photoshoot
We headed out of the park at around 10:20pm.
I wanted to walk through the shops down Main Street but they were all closed
Then I wanted a snack from the Confectionary but that was closed too!
I thought everything stayed open late during EMH since people tend to buy merchandise as they head out of the park at the end of the night
We got the trusty boat back to the Wilderness Lodge, and arrived home at about 10:45pm.
We grabbed our mugs from the room and headed back downstairs to fill them up.
I wanted to go to the mercantile to buy some hand sanitiser and Jamie wanted something for a scratchy throat, but this shop was closed too!
We were not having much luck.
It was supposed to close at 11pm but it was 10:58, how rude.
We went to Roaring Fork and just got snacks for the sake of using our credits
We currently had 38 snack credits and it was the Wednesday before we leave on Saturday
I got one of the incredible magical cookie bars and Jamie got a pain au chocolat!
I also picked up some peanut butter just for fun.
I love peanut butter.
Turns out it doesn’t go well with magical cookie bar though.
I realised I was just dipping a bar of sugar into a pot of sugar so I didn't do that for very long long.
We also had a fantastic cup of tea, which was memorable enough to write about.
We used two English breakfast tea bags and a splash of half and half milk.
They were Twining’s tea bags though.
Although they’re officially the Queen’s tea bags, they’ve got nothing on Yorkshire tea
I always complain about not being able to make a good cup of tea in the US, but now I think we’ve cracked it!
We ate our treats, watched some Stacey and tidied up the room a bit, then headed to bed at around 00:30.
Sadly Jamie woke up very sniffly so we had a slow morning.
I bought a new hand sanitiser from the Mercantile, then we went to get the bus to Epcot at 12:30pm
The bus took us via Fort Wilderness, and I was curious what this construction site was
We arrived at Epcot at 1:15pm!
We walked through Mouse Gear, I liked these cute Spring-time plushes!
We made our way over to Test Track to use our fastpass, stopping along the way to check out the chalk art that was part of Festival of the Arts!
I bet it’s a catastrophe if a rainstorm comes along.
We made a fantastic car at Test Track.
Jamie and I make a good team, because by some fluke I seem to be really good at getting the maximum amount of points when you draw the initial line when designing your car
Then Jamie is really good at the rest of the design and all of the add-ons, and doing the fast math (within time limit).
Then I think I’m quite good at the final paint work
Not that there’s any skill involved with that, but you’ve got to make it pretty.
And we got the top score and made the big screen!
After Test Track we walked through the festival centre and looked at the attraction posters!
We got the trio of hors d'oeuvres from the festival booth in that’s in there.
Then we went to the Mexico booth to get more of the lamb and the tacos!
The lamb was sooo good when we tried it earlier in the trip
The lamb in the dog poop bag is sooo good
Jamie preferred the tacos, but they had something sweet in them that I didn’t particularly like, but other than that they were good.
Then we went to Germany and got the beef again!
Yum.
Afterwards we needed to satisfy our sweet teeth, so we got a snack at Karamell Kuche!
The German guy who served us asked us whereabouts in England we were from.
He then turned to Jamie and said,
“You sound posh.”
He then turned to me and said,
“You, not so much. But YOU sound posh.”
I got an excellent Mickey treat…
And Jamie got something called a caramel butter bar, which was just pure sugar.
He hated it, so he threw it away and ate half of mine
Then we went back to Future World to use our fastpass at Spaceship Earth!
I had an interesting hairstyle in the photo it took of me
After Spaceship Earth it was time to head to Hollywood Studios!
Day 13 Thursday 1st February 2018
Part 2 – Hollywood Studios
We walked through International Gateway and got on a friendship boat to Hollywood Studios, and we arrived there in about 10 minutes!
We sat in the back and enjoyed the breeze and the views
We arrived at Hollywood Studios at around 4:30pm.
I had a bit of a headache at this point.
Sorry mum, I didn’t drink more water.
I got two coffees from Starbucks instead
Caffeine withdrawal is a real thing people.
It made me feel better!
At the register I learned that you can use snack credits for venti Starbucks drinks!
Excellent!
We had loads of credits to use, so I got a white chocolate macchiato for the taste, and an Americano for the caffeine
How cute are these Disney Starbucks cups
We sat at the Starring Rolls graveyard to drink our coffee.
I’m sad this place is closed now.
They did really nice sandwiches, and the red velvet cupcakes were amazing!
RIP.
Once we’d finished our coffees we walked over to Muppet Vision!
It had been a while since we’d seen it so we thought it would be fun.
YAY MUPPETS.
Muppet Vision was fun!
I’m a big Kermit fan, and The Muppets film form 2011 is honestly one of my favourite films ever but oh my goodness, the 3D at Muppet Vision is absolute hell.
And that little Waldo thing too.
Jamie and I enjoyed it though because we call each other Bean, and there’s a part where Bean Bunny runs away so all of the other Muppets are shouting BEAN??!! for ages
Jamie leant into me and went, “she’s here!”
Then we went in search of a turkey leg, but we couldn’t find them anywhere
Jamie Googled it and found a bunch of news stories about how it’s not sold anymore?!
He found it funny that this was newsworthy
We just felt like relaxing this evening, so we decided to head into Fantasmic early to get a good seat.
The show was starting at 7pm tonight, and I think we headed in at around 6:15pm.
We grabbed a beer each on the way in, which actually fixed my headache completely!
What a discovery.
I work in clinical trials, so I can confirm that this study is entirely valid.
We chatted and drank and I sent some pictures to friends.
Jamie went to get a second beer and almost didn’t make it back for the start of the show!
FANTASMIC.
Yaaay.
We hadn’t seen this show since 2015 so it was a lot of fun to see it again.
Even if it is trippy and weird and terrifying.
Day 13 Thursday 1st February 2018 Part 3 – IllumiNations and Disney Springs
Fantasmic ended at 7:30pm, so we had plenty of time to head to Epcot for IllumiNations at 9pm!
We got a boat from Hollywood Studios to the Beach Club, arriving there at around 8pm.
Jamie needed to use the bathroom (he’s terrible after a beer or two ) so we went into the Beach Club.
Plus I'm a Disney Hotel fangirl so I'll take any excuse to visit!
Hymie emerged from the bathroom and we walked into Epcot through International Gateway.
We were pleased to see that World Showcase was surprisingly empty.
We walked around to the America pavilion, and Jamie found a turkey leg at Fife & Drum!
I got myself a pretzel with cheese sauce from Block & Hans
My pretzel was fine, just a bit too salty!
I probably wouldn’t get one again.
Jamie enjoyed his turkey leg although the juices were super hot and were burning his hands
He was going, “mmm… owwww…”
At one point he was biting into it saying, “I will not be defeated… ARGH!”
We got a really good spot for the fireworks, to the right hand side of the theatre stage.
I had a feeling they would be getting rid of IllumiNations soon so I was glad to have an unobstructed view.
Jamie getting his stretch on
Show time!
WOO!
(As it turned out, this would not be the last time we would see IllumiNations as it was still around for our 2019 trip )
After the fireworks we headed back to the Beach Club to get a bus to Disney Springs.
The Tapestry of Nations music is so good. It's like quintessential Epcot to me
I always try to capture it!
A bus came literally one minute after we arrived at the bus stop.
So satisfying.
We arrived at Disney Springs at 9:45pm!
We walked through Ghiradelli and got a free chocolate
Then we went to Goofy’s to use the majority of our remaining snack credits!
We got 8 giant cookies, 8 small chunky cookies and 6 rice krispie treats
The staff at Goofy’s must hate us
Then we bought a new small suitcase from Disney Tag in the Marketplace Co-op, to fill with snacks to take home
Then it was time to head home.
We boarded the bus, but then a SUPER drunk guy got on by himself and sat across from us near the back.
He wasn’t being disruptive or anything, he just had his head down and was mumbling a lot!
Before setting off home from Disney Springs the driver came up to him and said,
“Sir, is this your shoe?”
The driver was holding one shoe… we looked down and this drunk guy wasn’t wearing shoes on either of his feet!
He took the one shoe from the bus driver. He must’ve lost the other one somewhere along the way
We set off and he was slumping around and spreading his arms out and gurning the whole time.
The girl he had sat right next to got up and moved next to us, and the woman on the other side moved too.
We all thought he was going to vom, we were very surprised that he didn’t!
We made it back to the Wilderness Lodge, and found a towel flower in our room!
Here are all the treats we got form Goofy’s!
We were sad going to bed because tomorrow was our last full day!
Boooo
But it was supposed to be the day Splash Mountain reopened, so YAY!
Day 14 Friday 2nd February 2018 Part 1 – Splash Mountain Day!
Good morning!
And happy Splash Mountain day!!!
Today is our last full day at Walt Disney World, and the first day Splash Mountain was open after its long winter refurb!
Splash Mountain is my absolute favourite, so I was up bright and early at 7am!
When I woke up there was a golden glow coming in through the curtains as the sun was rising, and I could already tell it was going to be a great day!
We got ready and opened the door to leave, and were greeted by the dreaded Magical Express notice hanging on our door.
Noooo!
We threw it into the room and headed down to the boat.
This was the longest we had ever waited for this boat, ON SPLASH MOUNTAIN DAY, OF ALL DAYS.
What a tease.
It finally arrived at 9am, and we got to Magic Kingdom at around 9:15am.
We headed straight to Splash, and THIS was where we joined the line…
However they were still sending down empty logs, so once they opened the ride up we filtered through quite quickly!
The wait time said 35 minutes but we only waited 20
Hello old friend!
My main man…
Here we go!
Whatever you do, please don’t fling me in that briar patch!!
Honestly, thank God for the masterpiece that is Splash Mountain
I was even happy to just be in the shop at the end
Day 14 Friday 2nd February 2018 Part 2 – Magic Kingdom
After Splash we headed to Fantasyland for breakfast, and we bumped into BIG AL.
I think that might be the best hug I’ve ever had the pleasure of receiving.
I have this photo framed in my study at home
We said goodbye to Big Al and went to Gaston’s Tavern for a cinnamon bun!
I found a table while Jamie waited in line, the sweet boy.
Initially Jamie wanted to get one cinnamon bun each, to which I strongly protested
I think we were right to share one, they’re gigantic!
It was really really good!
It wasn’t too cinnamonny or too sweet.
It had the perfect breadiness and perfect cinnamonniness.
(Yes they are words, don’t be rude.)
Yum and wow!
We left Gaston’s, and I had a look in Bonjour Village Gifts while Jamie used the restroom, then we joined a 30-minute line at the Little Mermaid!
I think it was more like 20 minutes though.
A few days ago we’d seen the news that Ursula had lost her head in the Disneyland vesion of the ride, so we were pleased to see that she had it on today
If you know, you know
The Little Mermaid got us feeling relaxed and lazy, so we headed over to the People Mover for more relaxation!
Afterwards it was almost midday so the park was feeling a bit busy.
We saw that the Haunted Mansion had a 40 minute wait
But after waiting in a couple of lines that were shorter than the posted time, we were feeling optimistic so we joined the queue.
But GOLLY.
It was definitely 40 minutes.
If not more.
GAH.
Oh well.
We had some entertaining kids in front of us who were fun to watch.
And I also got to have a little Haunted Mansion photoshoot.
The ride is fun and I respect it as a classic, but to me it wasn’t worth a 40-minute wait.
I’d rather ride the People Mover round and round and round for 40 minutes
After the Haunted Mansion we went to get lunch at Pecos Bill!
We are big fans of Columbia Harbour House so this was actually our first time eating here!
Which is strange because we love Mexican food when we’re back home.
On the way over Jamie kept calling it Taco Bell instead of Pecos Bill
He always calls Columbia Harbour House “Broccoliville” due to their huge portions of broccoli, so when I corrected him from Taco Bell to Pecos Bill he started calling it “PECOLIBILL”
We went into Pecolibill, and the word I used to describe it when I was writing my trip notes at the time was, and I quote,
“PANDEMONIUM”.
Maybe that was slightly dramatic, but it was incredibly busy in there.
We both got the fajita platter, but there was absolutely nowhere to sit in any of the rooms so we just wandered around with our trays for ages.
We paid a visit to the toppings bar too, I got sour cream and Jamie got guac.
We both wanted cheese but there was none left
We eventually found a table in a corner of a room that felt really far away!
But we were glad to get started.
Please excuse my frantic dollop of sour cream.
But here is my fajita platter.
The food was pretty good, we were pleased with how much meat you get with this meal.
The whole experience just felt like chaos and kind of stressful though.
We’ll probably just stick to Broccoliville from now on.
After lunch all of the lines were crazy, so we moseyed over to Splash to wait for our fastpass window to open up.
Jamie sat down outside while I looked in the Briar Patch store.
Soon it was time to board Splash!
We were on the second row this time and got quite wet!
Day 14 Friday 2nd February 2018 Part 3 – Disney Springs
After Splash Jamie decided to go back for a nap as he’d had a bit of a cold (he felt much better after a nap so this was a good idea.)
I walked up Main Street with him and he left to get the boat back to the Wilderness Lodge.
I had a look in the Emporium but I couldn't find many of the things I wanted to buy.
So I made an impulsive decision to head to Disney Springs!
This was a bit risky because it was now 3pm and I wanted to head back at MK for 6pm to get a good spot for the fireworks...
Like the absolute PSYCHO that I am.
But I went to Disney Springs anyway.
I walked over to the Contemporary because the bus between MK and Springs doesn’t start running until 4pm… for some reason.
Right when I was approaching the Contemporary a Disney Springs bus came around the corner, WOO.
I went to the Marketplace Co Op first, and I bought an Up postcard from the Wonderground Gallery
I love the Disney Centerpiece shop so much
Sadly I didn’t buy anything there though.
On my way out of the Marketplace I recognised the famous smell of the Beach Club, Grand Floridian and Contemporary…
It was coming from a stand selling diffusers and candles!
So obviously I bought two large candles
They’re so good, it’s EXACTLY the same smell as the hotel lobbies.
I love them!
Then I went to World of Disney, and I bought so much!
I bought a spirit jersey in navy.
Everyone around the park was wearing the orange one at this time, but I just don’t think I would wear that outside of the Disney parks…
I still wear my navy one all the time though!
I also bought a retro Mickey Mouse t-shirt, because I’d seen a photo of Hila Klein wearing it and I love her
Great detective work here I must say
I also got a Beauty and the Beast notebook that looks like an old VHS!
Monorail highlighter pens…
A magnetic grocery list to stick on the fridge…
I’d actually wanted to get one of these when I was back home, before I’d even seen this one!
And lastly I got this cute couples mug set as a gift for our friends Rob and Fran
I wanted to continue shopping after this and go over to the West Side, but my bags from the first two shops were already too heavy
So I walked back to the bus stops, and there was a Wilderness / Contemporary bus right there!
I had to stand but it was worth it to not have to wait for the next one.
Day 14 Friday 2nd February 2018 Part 4 – Magic Kingdom
When I got back to the room Jamie was asleep, so I crept in, set down my bags, and took our mugs to Roaring Fork.
I got myself a Diet Coke and got Jamie some water, then I headed to the fourth floor balcony at the back of the lobby.
I sat out there and wrote some trip notes and drank my DC until Jamie messaged asking where I was.
I got back to the room at about 5:30pm and Jamie got up and ready.
It was our last night and I REALLY wanted to get a good spot for Happily Ever After at 8pm.
Once Upon A Time (which I don’t really care about) was on at 7:15pm so I wanted to beat the crowds that would gather for that.
So we headed back to Magic Kingdom at 6pm!
By some miracle we got a spot right where I had identified a few days earlier, right behind the flower beds in the hub
We had a while to wait so we sat down and browsed the internet for a bit.
We watched Once Upon A Time but I’m not very impressed by it, I think it’s a bit boring.
There doesn’t seem to be a story or anything, it’s just random clips and songs, and the main song isn’t very catchy.
But maybe I’m just bitter because I really liked The Magic The Memories And You, and Celebrate The Magic.
BOOO no claps form me.
8pm rolled around and Happily Ever After started!
It was so good to see this show on our last night!
Afterwards we made our way through the firework crowds and reached a huge bottleneck at the entrance to Tomorrowland, then a huuuuge line at the Space Mountain fastpass entrance!
We stuck it out and I got to sit in the front row!
It felt SUPER rickety this time.
At one point I had a vision of Space Mountain being on the news the next morning because my car had flown off the track.
Anyway here’s me being sad about going home tomorrow
After Space Mountain we QUICK TIMED it over to Columbia Harbour House.
We weaved by so many people and got there at 8:58pm
We knew from past experiences that they were very strict about closing at 9pm on the dot.
Jamie had a lobster roll and I had a chicken pot pie!
The green beans were covered in butter today, they were really tasty!
We sat upstairs with a view of the Tangled bathrooms
Then we found a fastpass for Seven Dwarfs so we left Harbour House and headed over there.
We had so much fun riding Mine Train!
Maybe partly because it was night time, and partly because I’d just envisioned myself flying off the Space Mountain tracks (this was so smooth in comparison!)
Also the boy behind us kept yelling “oh baby” but with a really drawn out “baby” (like “ohh bayyyyybeeeeee”) and it was just so weird and hilarious to us
We quoted that several times
Then we walked through the castle and down to the hub.
I felt emotional because we heard a girl in her early 20s on FaceTime to her mum, and she said,
“isn’t this great mom! It’s like you’re right here in Disney with me!”
Ugh it was so wholesome.
We got the boat back to the Wilderness Lodge and took our mugs down for a refill.
We stopped by the Mercantile first, and I bought a Wilderness Lodge zip-up hoody and three boxes of Minnie’s Bake Ship cookies as snack credits!
The woman in front of us at the register had SO many bags of Goofy’s Candy Company sweets and jellies, she must’ve been using up about 30 snack credits like we had done.
After she’d paid and had them all bagged up, she turned around to us and the other couple behind us in line and she said,
“In the spirit of Disney!” and gave us all a bag of candy each!
Disney really brings out the best in people.
And there were Jamie and I, cramming OUR 30 snacks into our suitcases
We got our drinks from Roaring Fork, I got tea and Jamie got a hot chocolate.
Then after procrastinating a little longer, we packed up our room!
After packing about 90% and showering, we finally went to sleep at around 1am.
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you guys are my favorite to read up on !
so we had a slow morning.
