mkingdon
Obsessed...and admits it!!
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2002
- Messages
- 408
Previously on this tour...
Introduction
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six 25th August 2007
An early night. Don’t you just love them? Just the phrase itself conjures images of naughtiness, and young couples doing what comes naturally.
Well last night was no different, and our early night was full of what it should be.
Louise spent 20 minutes getting the sheets and covers “just right” and then fell asleep within seventeen seconds. I dribbled all over my pillow, blew off twice and apparently kept Louise awake from 2am with my snoring.
The joys of married life.
However, the one real benefit of that early night was that three of us are awake by 7am. Louise has in fact been awake most of the night. She isn’t a great sleeper at the best of times, and she finds any bed apart from her own a problem, when it comes to sleeping.
I have a similar issue myself. The bed I sleep in has to be roughly rectangular and fairly close to flat, or I stand no chance at all of anything like twelve hours sleep.
Emily it seems wanted to stay in bed, but keen to put this early rise to good use (tricky with your two kids in the same room…if you know what I mean!
) then we were taking no prisoners today. The plan was to “mop up” the parts of MGM we couldn’t do the other day, as half the western world was in the park.
So that meant doing more or less every ride in the park.
Having literally dragging Emily out of her bed, by some strange miracle we are all dressed and out of the room by 7.50. Breakfast is sacrificed, because –
a) not twelve hours ago we had consumed our own body weight in pasta and pizza
b) I had promised the troops a breakfast at Starring Rolls in MGM, once we had made satisfactory use of the early rise.
So the Froot Loops are untouched this morning, and we drive the short distance to MGM.
The car fights me as I turn in the opposite direction of the Goodings supermarket, and several members of their staff are out looking for us, as we did not report in for our daily visit. There’s time yet!!
We park in the Movie section….along with the half a dozen other sad gits who are here this early.
We are in walking distance to the main gates, which is just as well, as the tram was operational, but sat waiting to fill up…which would have taken about an hour.
We wander across the car park.
My ladies are NOT morning people!
So we are at the gates by 8.05. This is a new record, and we approach the entrance. I’m pretty sure the rides won’t be open yet, but we can perhaps go in the shops, get a coffee etc.
It was shut!
Not happy.
It doesn’t open till nine. I’m about as popular as Jonathan King at a Boy Scout camp, as the females of the group give me….the look.
Not to worry, we have this wonderful “shop” just outside the entrance that we can look at…for 55 minutes. Oh yes, it does only seem to have seventeen items in it.
So we browse…slowly, trying to pass the time of day. After half an hour or so, and having watched everyone else try to get in and be told they don’t open until nine, we join the embryonic queue at the gates.
At 8.45 stuff happens and we are allowed in. Only to be restrained at the junction of Sunset Boulevard by a rope….across the street that is, not around me.
It is a weird scenario really. Everyone just wants to go and do stuff…but the CMs are being very chatty, and then a “show” starts, with some film type characters and a family from the crowd.
The family are from the UK, and are therefore looking mortally embarrassed to be involved, and the characters have trouble understanding them too.
Not soon enough, the “performance” is over, and we are unleashed. Apparently running is punishable by back to back viewings of Stitch’s Great Escape, so I for one am strolling nice and calmly.
The plan was for me & Rebecca to do TOT, and the whimps are going to do R&RC. So here is Rebecca just entering the hotel bit.
No time to stop for any formal poses I’m afraid. We snap and run, snap and run!!
We are in the second “room” and second elevator of the day, and thankfully we have something to hold onto. Last time I took the kids on we had the front row, and I had hold us all down with just the power of my buttocks.
This is a great ride, and we both laugh as we are thrown up and down a few times. We exit and wander off to R&RC, and decide to walk up into the shop to meet the others. They exit after a couple of minutes, and tell us they have secured FPs for R&RC starting at 9.45. Good stuff…I’ll have them fully trained yet.
Rebecca’s choice now, which means the Great Movie Ride. We tried twice the other day to find a queue too long to tolerate. The rule is, if the queue is longer than three loops of those movie clips, then it is a no go.
Being early in the day, we just escape with two run throughs, and we are on.
Emily still puts her head down when the alien appears, and I think she always will. “It’s a puppet!!!”
Breakfast by this time is well overdue, so I despatch the females to Starring Rolls, with Louise getting a little familiar with this charging stuff to your room thing….she has become quite attached to her room card over the last few days. So I no longer hold all the power in my fanny pack…ahem….and she can be sent off alone into the great unknown to do stuff like buy drinks and food.
I wander over to Ariel. She just will not stop phoning and emailing me so I need to have a word in private, and let her down gently. I secure a fastpass for a later show, which is some consolation for her.
I then join the others and they are in queue with some suitably unhealthy items selected. Of course our queue has the numpty who wants to query everything, and we stand around for precious moments being taunted by the calories dangled before us on our tray.
I do the British thing and tut and shuffle about from one foot to the other for a bit, and then get served.
We find a table outside the Brown Derby and tuck into our muffins and Danish. Very tasty, and so nutritious that I’m sure we’ll be hungry again in about six minutes.
It is 10.40 by now and time for our FP for R&RC. Being the veterans that we are, we all pull suitably silly faces for the picture at the start of the ride. Also, being a practiced skinflint I simply take a picture or two of the ride photo as we leave.
Continued....
Introduction
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six 25th August 2007
An early night. Don’t you just love them? Just the phrase itself conjures images of naughtiness, and young couples doing what comes naturally.
Well last night was no different, and our early night was full of what it should be.
Louise spent 20 minutes getting the sheets and covers “just right” and then fell asleep within seventeen seconds. I dribbled all over my pillow, blew off twice and apparently kept Louise awake from 2am with my snoring.
The joys of married life.
However, the one real benefit of that early night was that three of us are awake by 7am. Louise has in fact been awake most of the night. She isn’t a great sleeper at the best of times, and she finds any bed apart from her own a problem, when it comes to sleeping.
I have a similar issue myself. The bed I sleep in has to be roughly rectangular and fairly close to flat, or I stand no chance at all of anything like twelve hours sleep.

Emily it seems wanted to stay in bed, but keen to put this early rise to good use (tricky with your two kids in the same room…if you know what I mean!

So that meant doing more or less every ride in the park.
Having literally dragging Emily out of her bed, by some strange miracle we are all dressed and out of the room by 7.50. Breakfast is sacrificed, because –
a) not twelve hours ago we had consumed our own body weight in pasta and pizza
b) I had promised the troops a breakfast at Starring Rolls in MGM, once we had made satisfactory use of the early rise.
So the Froot Loops are untouched this morning, and we drive the short distance to MGM.
The car fights me as I turn in the opposite direction of the Goodings supermarket, and several members of their staff are out looking for us, as we did not report in for our daily visit. There’s time yet!!
We park in the Movie section….along with the half a dozen other sad gits who are here this early.

We are in walking distance to the main gates, which is just as well, as the tram was operational, but sat waiting to fill up…which would have taken about an hour.
We wander across the car park.
My ladies are NOT morning people!

So we are at the gates by 8.05. This is a new record, and we approach the entrance. I’m pretty sure the rides won’t be open yet, but we can perhaps go in the shops, get a coffee etc.
It was shut!
Not happy.
It doesn’t open till nine. I’m about as popular as Jonathan King at a Boy Scout camp, as the females of the group give me….the look.

Not to worry, we have this wonderful “shop” just outside the entrance that we can look at…for 55 minutes. Oh yes, it does only seem to have seventeen items in it.
So we browse…slowly, trying to pass the time of day. After half an hour or so, and having watched everyone else try to get in and be told they don’t open until nine, we join the embryonic queue at the gates.
At 8.45 stuff happens and we are allowed in. Only to be restrained at the junction of Sunset Boulevard by a rope….across the street that is, not around me.
It is a weird scenario really. Everyone just wants to go and do stuff…but the CMs are being very chatty, and then a “show” starts, with some film type characters and a family from the crowd.
The family are from the UK, and are therefore looking mortally embarrassed to be involved, and the characters have trouble understanding them too.
Not soon enough, the “performance” is over, and we are unleashed. Apparently running is punishable by back to back viewings of Stitch’s Great Escape, so I for one am strolling nice and calmly.
The plan was for me & Rebecca to do TOT, and the whimps are going to do R&RC. So here is Rebecca just entering the hotel bit.

No time to stop for any formal poses I’m afraid. We snap and run, snap and run!!
We are in the second “room” and second elevator of the day, and thankfully we have something to hold onto. Last time I took the kids on we had the front row, and I had hold us all down with just the power of my buttocks.
This is a great ride, and we both laugh as we are thrown up and down a few times. We exit and wander off to R&RC, and decide to walk up into the shop to meet the others. They exit after a couple of minutes, and tell us they have secured FPs for R&RC starting at 9.45. Good stuff…I’ll have them fully trained yet.
Rebecca’s choice now, which means the Great Movie Ride. We tried twice the other day to find a queue too long to tolerate. The rule is, if the queue is longer than three loops of those movie clips, then it is a no go.
Being early in the day, we just escape with two run throughs, and we are on.
Emily still puts her head down when the alien appears, and I think she always will. “It’s a puppet!!!”
Breakfast by this time is well overdue, so I despatch the females to Starring Rolls, with Louise getting a little familiar with this charging stuff to your room thing….she has become quite attached to her room card over the last few days. So I no longer hold all the power in my fanny pack…ahem….and she can be sent off alone into the great unknown to do stuff like buy drinks and food.
I wander over to Ariel. She just will not stop phoning and emailing me so I need to have a word in private, and let her down gently. I secure a fastpass for a later show, which is some consolation for her.
I then join the others and they are in queue with some suitably unhealthy items selected. Of course our queue has the numpty who wants to query everything, and we stand around for precious moments being taunted by the calories dangled before us on our tray.
I do the British thing and tut and shuffle about from one foot to the other for a bit, and then get served.
We find a table outside the Brown Derby and tuck into our muffins and Danish. Very tasty, and so nutritious that I’m sure we’ll be hungry again in about six minutes.
It is 10.40 by now and time for our FP for R&RC. Being the veterans that we are, we all pull suitably silly faces for the picture at the start of the ride. Also, being a practiced skinflint I simply take a picture or two of the ride photo as we leave.

Continued....