UKANGEL
Champagne Girls Rule!
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2002
- Messages
- 2,808
....the Pre-show...
Directed by:
Angel (Mandy) Control freak, veteran of 14 trips, organizer extraordinaire
Chunkster20uk (Mark) also a control freak, and chief driver
Produced (& financed) by:
Dad Grandpa Clampet lovable, impatient & grumpy
Mum Grandma Clampet also loveable, much more patient and not so grumpy (but very hard of hearing)
Choreography:
Isobelle (Izzy) age 12, already a Diva
Chief Jester:
Elliott age 14, a lovable 6ft 4inch streak of lightning
..and starring..
Becky 19 my dd, beautiful, talented, takes after her Mum
Paul 22 - Beckys bf, no idea what hes let himself in for .
Tracey my little sis, hates planning, and being told what to do
Chris BIL see above
Jess 17 chief mourner, pining for her bf back in Swindon
All the holidaymakers have done Disney before, sis & family just once in 2001, for Mum & Dad its their 4th visit in 6 years, Paul was here 10 years ago and Mark, Becky and I have racked up nearly 30 trips between us ..
Day 8
Friday October 26th
and its the day youve all been waiting for! We wake up today to a fiasco. It seems that HRH staff, in their haste to get rid of us, has given us someone elses bag as well as all our own. We have no idea how this has happened, except that we all thought the bag was someone elses in the family you can imagine how many there were! It did get very confusing at the time too.
Anyway, we now have a bag belonging to a German family complete with their passports and everything!!! Flippin heck how bad do we feel?! Chris has already phoned the hotel only to be told a Manager will call us back later in the day. Were not happy with this, one because the family must be distraught by now, and two we have a date with Magic Kingdom today! It was the fault of the Hard Rock staff who put our name on this poor persons bag, and we call again and suggest they send a courier down to us to collect the bag, at their own expense. Three phone calls later I realise we should have asked for our friendly Manager we met yesterday by name! They eventually agree to our suggestion as we are very loather to drive the 50 minutes there and 50 minutes back again .this sounds selfish in retrospect but it was such a long way, and not our fault. We did find out that the German family were staying a few days at HRH thank goodness, so not checking out today and hoping to fly home at least!
In the end we leave the bag with the reception desk in the clubhouse with strict instructions. Mean while, the 4 of us in our car head off to MK, as we wont have long today we have a dinner booked at Victoria & Alberts tonight, at the Grand Floridian; I gave Mark the choice for his birthday, either the dinner or another night for us at HRH and this is what he chose.
Leaving the villa, we arrange to meet the rest of the gang at 10.00 by Walts statue in front of the castle. We get to MK pretty early and its a bit quieter than we expected so can ride Space Mountain first.
The stand by queue is only 10 minutes .and thats mostly the walk up to the loading bay! Theres 4 of us so Becky gets stuck in a rocket on her own which seems silly as shes the littlest one among us, but I think Paul wanted us to look after him on this poor baby!
They both loved this but I now think its pretty tame; still managed to laugh and screech my way round though. I quite missed the pre show though, I think its pretty well done and very cute.
Back by the castle we get some drinks and prepare to wait. I just know theyre not going to make it by 10, so when Becky & Paul start to fidget I suggest they head off on their own. Lucky I did. The show in front of the castle starts (a Princess show?) but is cut short as something goes wrong apparently to do with some fireworks?
The Clampets are true to form and at 11 oclock yes, thats one hour of waiting for us .Tracey, and 2 sprogs turn up. Turns out theyve had one heck of a morning and she cant believe we waited for them I can imagine what would have been said if wed not turned up though! Their morning went from bad to worse after waiting ages for the HRH to get their act together; as they got in the bus they realised some lovely dog owner had allowed their dog to c*** all over our lawn and the kids had walked through it and into the bus .15 minutes to clean shoes, bus and lawn thank you very much Mr Dog Owner!!!! Then Mums walking stick broke its a collapsible one .and thats just what it did .collapsed on her and she has dreadful trouble without it. Tried to suggest she should have a scooter but she refused so spent most of the next day or so trying to mend it. Lastly, as they went to enter MK, Mums ticket wouldnt work apparently it had somehow become demagnetized! Honestly, this would only happen to my poor Mum! She had the last laugh though as they gave her a new one that had Tinkerbell on ..I was sooo jealous! Its scotched my big idea of having a family portrait done in front of the castle anyway as we cant get everyone here together now ..
Consequently theyre all very grumpy and so are we after our wait. Decide we should all head off to the Runaway train (or BTMR) where of course its now heaving with people so we get fast passes and agree to meet back at our allotted time. I spot a US comedian at this point, I know his face from Whose Line is it Anyway but dont know his name so cant tell you who he was .not quite Liam Gallagher but its my small claim to fame!
Our next ride is Pirates of the Caribbean where theres only supposed to be 10 minute wait, unfortunately this is actually more like 20 but thems the breaks eh? The CM is uncharacteristically rubbish at his job and decides to squeeze 4 very large adults into one seat and so we have a very cosy ride with our fellow pirates! Time to make new friends! I do love this ride though, even more so now theyve added Jack Sparrow!
After this its time for lunch and for us thats Columbia Harbour House for clam chowder and a sandwich. Its very good value here and the chowder is lovely. Once were full we wander over to Philharmagic which is a must-see on every trip, truly a great Disney attraction imho; it involves most of my favourite Disney films & characters .Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Lion King. I cant miss it! I love the little details too, musical notes as handles on the auditorium doors for example its all in the details really, thats what Disney is so good at I think. As we come out we spot the Clampet gang just going in, good choice I say!
At 1.30 we meet up and use our fast passes for BTMR, we still have to queue for quite a while which seems wrong somehow, but whatever. We get to ride right at the back so thats a good result! Always great to hear sis screaming her way round the track too! On our first trip as a family, I got Izzy, who was then 5, to ride with me on this and she was traumatized for the rest of the trip and still hasnt forgiven me! This time she seems to enjoy it more though .and her big sister Jess sits by me and we have a great ride.
Shopping time for us after this and I buy a very cute Tinkerbell t shirt which I plan to wear to the Halloween party. Tiring a little by 3 pm, its pretty crowded now so we give dd a call and get her to meet us at the gate to escape the crowds. While we wait for them to appear I sit on a bench by the Town Hall and have time to appreciate all the Halloween details; the pumpkin decorations look really good especially.
Becky and Paul are more than ready to leave by now; this is not their favourite park I think, although when I find out Beckys made Paul ride IASW I do have to laugh. Time to return to the villa, have a nice swim and then get ready for our night out. Were glad to hear from the Club reception that a courier arrived to collect the poor German bag (!) and return it to its rightful owner!
After a peaceful swim I get to use the giant bath tub in Grandpas master suite. (I do have permission by the way) and have a nice long soak. I also have my own personal assistant to tackle my hair and make up (Becky) and bless her, shes wonderful .I dont straighten my hair half as well as she manages to! So, all glammed up were ready for a photo or two and then I find out that Mark has arranged for the others to give us a lift to the Grand Floridian in Big Red let me just replay that image for you Mark and I in our finery, clambering out of the Clampet Family Vehicle .them all waving and hootin and hollerin out the van at us . Got that? Knew youd like it!
It was really nice of Chris to drive us though, otherwise wed have a spent a fortune on cabs that night I think. It cost $40 to get home so double that and it gets very pricey!
Anyway, as described, when we arrive at the lovely posh hotel 2 very posh looking people are handed out of the van with lots of cat calls and whistles (thats the Clampets not the staff). To be fair the Disney staff didnt seem to turn a hair not in front of us anyway! We had a laugh at the car park barrier though when the guard asked if we were dining there and Mark quickly said oh no just us 2 ..the others arent allowed!
Waving goodbye and thank you, we strolled hand in hand into the beautiful reception area and were greeted by a little old man who looked just like Jimmy Cricket! He declared us his love birds of the day as we were holding hands, and shook our hands and was so sweet just that little bit of Disney Magic, you know.
Up to Mizners Lounge, which is GFs cocktail lounge, for pre-dinner drinks we really enjoyed being back here. I wish we could have stayed here the night this time too. Mark popped into Victoria & Alberts to let them know we had arrived, but we knew we were very early. Dinner was booked for the second sitting, at 9 pm and it was only 8.15, so plenty of time for those opening cocktails then!
2 pomegranate cosmos later (yum) we wobbled our way into one of our favourite dining places. Its almost wrong to call it a restaurant really; its more like dining in a special club or dining room. We were led to a small side room, beautifully decorated in gold and with dark red roses on every surface. There were just 5 small tables in here and a lovely fireplace by us so it really was intimate and just perfect for us. Our servers introduced themselves, as Beth & Bill (not quite V & A) and handed us our personalized menus, inscribed with Happy Birthday to Mark on his, all prettily scripted in gold, on a black menu. We had called ahead to let the chef know I am very allergic to mushrooms and this was discussed immediately. My own menu was slightly different to Marks and had the items with mushrooms left out and alternative ingredients included a great touch. (I should note here that we had asked the rest of the adults if they wanted to accompany us but they declined .Id love to have seen the chef whip up a 6 course vegan menu for Becky though no doubt hed have done her proud!)
We didnt need the wine menu as we intended to go with the wine pairings, as wed done on our previous visit in December. That way you get to try lots of different wines, and we found the wine server on both occasions very knowledgeable.
The menu was even more fabulous than last time and its hard to try and choose from the lovely things on offer; this is not a cheap meal by any means but my goodness it is Disneys best, and one of the best Ive ever eaten. I hope you can see from the picture what was on offer but the items include such delicacies as walnut oil seared duck with hearts of palm, huckleberry vinaigrette and fourme dambert fondue and thats just a starter! Minnesota elk tenderloin with stewed petite French lentils and corn, kurobuta pork tenderloin and belly with banana squash ragout and seared wild turbot with toasted capers and meyer lemon are just a few others on offer ..and I finished with the mango blood orange gelato with micro mint which was absolutely delicious and very refreshing, and then best of all .Tanzanian Chocolate Pyramid, Hawaiian Kona Chocolate soufflé (every bit as good as on the cruise, ladies) and Peruvian chocolate ice cream and puff pastry .a chocolate lovers heaven!!!!!! :tounge:
As for the alcohol we drank we started with a glass of champagne and finished with the fabulous coffee they serve in their quaint coffee makers (made freshly at your table) .the coffee by the way is imported from Surrey! In between there were many, many glasses of wine, so many I had to give some to Mark (he didnt seem to mind) as I couldnt keep up with them all this time. (Maybe it was those cocktails!) The portions of food are of course very small, but even so we were feeling very stuffed and very squiffy by the end. Mark had also ordered the white truffle as a special treat (hes wanted to try it for ages) and had a glass of 10 year old tawny port to finish. I dont how we managed to meander out of that place. Several hundreds of dollars later (its only money right?) well not quite, but seemed like it and very happy, we bade our good byes, picked up the beautiful rose they presented to me, our gift of baked-on-the-premises bread (which is more like a cake and delicious) and were all done and all done in too.
An excellent evening was had by us both and Im sure the cab driver who drove us all those miles back to the villa was very pleased with the drunken tip he got!
Oh yes, one small comedy moment Id forgotten .Mark got a very severe case of the hiccups half way through the meal and just couldnt get them to stop. (Yes I know its not surprising). In the end Beth went to see the chef and came back with some lemon, bitters and sugar on a spoon, which is apparently a very good remedy! Of course as she returned to the table they suddenly stopped, but it was very nice of her anyway.
Giggling and wobbling, we made our way into the villa (where we found someone had left the keys in the lock .heavens!...good job it was us not the local burglars!) and to bed by 1 am ..what a lovely night hic! :thumbs-up
Directed by:
Angel (Mandy) Control freak, veteran of 14 trips, organizer extraordinaire
Chunkster20uk (Mark) also a control freak, and chief driver
Produced (& financed) by:
Dad Grandpa Clampet lovable, impatient & grumpy
Mum Grandma Clampet also loveable, much more patient and not so grumpy (but very hard of hearing)
Choreography:
Isobelle (Izzy) age 12, already a Diva
Chief Jester:
Elliott age 14, a lovable 6ft 4inch streak of lightning
..and starring..
Becky 19 my dd, beautiful, talented, takes after her Mum
Paul 22 - Beckys bf, no idea what hes let himself in for .
Tracey my little sis, hates planning, and being told what to do
Chris BIL see above
Jess 17 chief mourner, pining for her bf back in Swindon
All the holidaymakers have done Disney before, sis & family just once in 2001, for Mum & Dad its their 4th visit in 6 years, Paul was here 10 years ago and Mark, Becky and I have racked up nearly 30 trips between us ..
Day 8
Friday October 26th
and its the day youve all been waiting for! We wake up today to a fiasco. It seems that HRH staff, in their haste to get rid of us, has given us someone elses bag as well as all our own. We have no idea how this has happened, except that we all thought the bag was someone elses in the family you can imagine how many there were! It did get very confusing at the time too.
Anyway, we now have a bag belonging to a German family complete with their passports and everything!!! Flippin heck how bad do we feel?! Chris has already phoned the hotel only to be told a Manager will call us back later in the day. Were not happy with this, one because the family must be distraught by now, and two we have a date with Magic Kingdom today! It was the fault of the Hard Rock staff who put our name on this poor persons bag, and we call again and suggest they send a courier down to us to collect the bag, at their own expense. Three phone calls later I realise we should have asked for our friendly Manager we met yesterday by name! They eventually agree to our suggestion as we are very loather to drive the 50 minutes there and 50 minutes back again .this sounds selfish in retrospect but it was such a long way, and not our fault. We did find out that the German family were staying a few days at HRH thank goodness, so not checking out today and hoping to fly home at least!
In the end we leave the bag with the reception desk in the clubhouse with strict instructions. Mean while, the 4 of us in our car head off to MK, as we wont have long today we have a dinner booked at Victoria & Alberts tonight, at the Grand Floridian; I gave Mark the choice for his birthday, either the dinner or another night for us at HRH and this is what he chose.
Leaving the villa, we arrange to meet the rest of the gang at 10.00 by Walts statue in front of the castle. We get to MK pretty early and its a bit quieter than we expected so can ride Space Mountain first.
The stand by queue is only 10 minutes .and thats mostly the walk up to the loading bay! Theres 4 of us so Becky gets stuck in a rocket on her own which seems silly as shes the littlest one among us, but I think Paul wanted us to look after him on this poor baby!
They both loved this but I now think its pretty tame; still managed to laugh and screech my way round though. I quite missed the pre show though, I think its pretty well done and very cute.Back by the castle we get some drinks and prepare to wait. I just know theyre not going to make it by 10, so when Becky & Paul start to fidget I suggest they head off on their own. Lucky I did. The show in front of the castle starts (a Princess show?) but is cut short as something goes wrong apparently to do with some fireworks?
The Clampets are true to form and at 11 oclock yes, thats one hour of waiting for us .Tracey, and 2 sprogs turn up. Turns out theyve had one heck of a morning and she cant believe we waited for them I can imagine what would have been said if wed not turned up though! Their morning went from bad to worse after waiting ages for the HRH to get their act together; as they got in the bus they realised some lovely dog owner had allowed their dog to c*** all over our lawn and the kids had walked through it and into the bus .15 minutes to clean shoes, bus and lawn thank you very much Mr Dog Owner!!!! Then Mums walking stick broke its a collapsible one .and thats just what it did .collapsed on her and she has dreadful trouble without it. Tried to suggest she should have a scooter but she refused so spent most of the next day or so trying to mend it. Lastly, as they went to enter MK, Mums ticket wouldnt work apparently it had somehow become demagnetized! Honestly, this would only happen to my poor Mum! She had the last laugh though as they gave her a new one that had Tinkerbell on ..I was sooo jealous! Its scotched my big idea of having a family portrait done in front of the castle anyway as we cant get everyone here together now ..
Consequently theyre all very grumpy and so are we after our wait. Decide we should all head off to the Runaway train (or BTMR) where of course its now heaving with people so we get fast passes and agree to meet back at our allotted time. I spot a US comedian at this point, I know his face from Whose Line is it Anyway but dont know his name so cant tell you who he was .not quite Liam Gallagher but its my small claim to fame!
Our next ride is Pirates of the Caribbean where theres only supposed to be 10 minute wait, unfortunately this is actually more like 20 but thems the breaks eh? The CM is uncharacteristically rubbish at his job and decides to squeeze 4 very large adults into one seat and so we have a very cosy ride with our fellow pirates! Time to make new friends! I do love this ride though, even more so now theyve added Jack Sparrow!
After this its time for lunch and for us thats Columbia Harbour House for clam chowder and a sandwich. Its very good value here and the chowder is lovely. Once were full we wander over to Philharmagic which is a must-see on every trip, truly a great Disney attraction imho; it involves most of my favourite Disney films & characters .Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Lion King. I cant miss it! I love the little details too, musical notes as handles on the auditorium doors for example its all in the details really, thats what Disney is so good at I think. As we come out we spot the Clampet gang just going in, good choice I say!
At 1.30 we meet up and use our fast passes for BTMR, we still have to queue for quite a while which seems wrong somehow, but whatever. We get to ride right at the back so thats a good result! Always great to hear sis screaming her way round the track too! On our first trip as a family, I got Izzy, who was then 5, to ride with me on this and she was traumatized for the rest of the trip and still hasnt forgiven me! This time she seems to enjoy it more though .and her big sister Jess sits by me and we have a great ride.
Shopping time for us after this and I buy a very cute Tinkerbell t shirt which I plan to wear to the Halloween party. Tiring a little by 3 pm, its pretty crowded now so we give dd a call and get her to meet us at the gate to escape the crowds. While we wait for them to appear I sit on a bench by the Town Hall and have time to appreciate all the Halloween details; the pumpkin decorations look really good especially.
Becky and Paul are more than ready to leave by now; this is not their favourite park I think, although when I find out Beckys made Paul ride IASW I do have to laugh. Time to return to the villa, have a nice swim and then get ready for our night out. Were glad to hear from the Club reception that a courier arrived to collect the poor German bag (!) and return it to its rightful owner!
After a peaceful swim I get to use the giant bath tub in Grandpas master suite. (I do have permission by the way) and have a nice long soak. I also have my own personal assistant to tackle my hair and make up (Becky) and bless her, shes wonderful .I dont straighten my hair half as well as she manages to! So, all glammed up were ready for a photo or two and then I find out that Mark has arranged for the others to give us a lift to the Grand Floridian in Big Red let me just replay that image for you Mark and I in our finery, clambering out of the Clampet Family Vehicle .them all waving and hootin and hollerin out the van at us . Got that? Knew youd like it!
It was really nice of Chris to drive us though, otherwise wed have a spent a fortune on cabs that night I think. It cost $40 to get home so double that and it gets very pricey!
Anyway, as described, when we arrive at the lovely posh hotel 2 very posh looking people are handed out of the van with lots of cat calls and whistles (thats the Clampets not the staff). To be fair the Disney staff didnt seem to turn a hair not in front of us anyway! We had a laugh at the car park barrier though when the guard asked if we were dining there and Mark quickly said oh no just us 2 ..the others arent allowed!
Waving goodbye and thank you, we strolled hand in hand into the beautiful reception area and were greeted by a little old man who looked just like Jimmy Cricket! He declared us his love birds of the day as we were holding hands, and shook our hands and was so sweet just that little bit of Disney Magic, you know.
Up to Mizners Lounge, which is GFs cocktail lounge, for pre-dinner drinks we really enjoyed being back here. I wish we could have stayed here the night this time too. Mark popped into Victoria & Alberts to let them know we had arrived, but we knew we were very early. Dinner was booked for the second sitting, at 9 pm and it was only 8.15, so plenty of time for those opening cocktails then!
2 pomegranate cosmos later (yum) we wobbled our way into one of our favourite dining places. Its almost wrong to call it a restaurant really; its more like dining in a special club or dining room. We were led to a small side room, beautifully decorated in gold and with dark red roses on every surface. There were just 5 small tables in here and a lovely fireplace by us so it really was intimate and just perfect for us. Our servers introduced themselves, as Beth & Bill (not quite V & A) and handed us our personalized menus, inscribed with Happy Birthday to Mark on his, all prettily scripted in gold, on a black menu. We had called ahead to let the chef know I am very allergic to mushrooms and this was discussed immediately. My own menu was slightly different to Marks and had the items with mushrooms left out and alternative ingredients included a great touch. (I should note here that we had asked the rest of the adults if they wanted to accompany us but they declined .Id love to have seen the chef whip up a 6 course vegan menu for Becky though no doubt hed have done her proud!)
We didnt need the wine menu as we intended to go with the wine pairings, as wed done on our previous visit in December. That way you get to try lots of different wines, and we found the wine server on both occasions very knowledgeable.
The menu was even more fabulous than last time and its hard to try and choose from the lovely things on offer; this is not a cheap meal by any means but my goodness it is Disneys best, and one of the best Ive ever eaten. I hope you can see from the picture what was on offer but the items include such delicacies as walnut oil seared duck with hearts of palm, huckleberry vinaigrette and fourme dambert fondue and thats just a starter! Minnesota elk tenderloin with stewed petite French lentils and corn, kurobuta pork tenderloin and belly with banana squash ragout and seared wild turbot with toasted capers and meyer lemon are just a few others on offer ..and I finished with the mango blood orange gelato with micro mint which was absolutely delicious and very refreshing, and then best of all .Tanzanian Chocolate Pyramid, Hawaiian Kona Chocolate soufflé (every bit as good as on the cruise, ladies) and Peruvian chocolate ice cream and puff pastry .a chocolate lovers heaven!!!!!! :tounge:
As for the alcohol we drank we started with a glass of champagne and finished with the fabulous coffee they serve in their quaint coffee makers (made freshly at your table) .the coffee by the way is imported from Surrey! In between there were many, many glasses of wine, so many I had to give some to Mark (he didnt seem to mind) as I couldnt keep up with them all this time. (Maybe it was those cocktails!) The portions of food are of course very small, but even so we were feeling very stuffed and very squiffy by the end. Mark had also ordered the white truffle as a special treat (hes wanted to try it for ages) and had a glass of 10 year old tawny port to finish. I dont how we managed to meander out of that place. Several hundreds of dollars later (its only money right?) well not quite, but seemed like it and very happy, we bade our good byes, picked up the beautiful rose they presented to me, our gift of baked-on-the-premises bread (which is more like a cake and delicious) and were all done and all done in too.
An excellent evening was had by us both and Im sure the cab driver who drove us all those miles back to the villa was very pleased with the drunken tip he got!
Oh yes, one small comedy moment Id forgotten .Mark got a very severe case of the hiccups half way through the meal and just couldnt get them to stop. (Yes I know its not surprising). In the end Beth went to see the chef and came back with some lemon, bitters and sugar on a spoon, which is apparently a very good remedy! Of course as she returned to the table they suddenly stopped, but it was very nice of her anyway.
Giggling and wobbling, we made our way into the villa (where we found someone had left the keys in the lock .heavens!...good job it was us not the local burglars!) and to bed by 1 am ..what a lovely night hic! :thumbs-up
Definately makes a trip to WDW. Sounds like a great day after all the hassle with the bag
