PudseyChancer
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2007
And so the first day proper in Disney, I set a habit (that I know Mel appreciated!), of rising early, 5.20am, which was a record, even for me. I killed this early awakening in fairness to my sleeping companions, by reading quietly for ten minutes, and then putting on the television, thus negating the need for me to actually get out of bed to wake them.
The plan had been to go to the outlets early evening the previous day to get some holiday clothes for my good self (there's no point paying £20 for Ralph Lauren t-shirts when they're £5 in Orlando!), so we needed to go there at some point as I'd not brought a great deal of clothes with me. After an unusually healthy breakfast of melon and grapes, we headed to Magic Kingdom, as this was a tradition of Char's, a first day visit to MK, and Gawd help anyone that suggested anything different!
The obligatory photo of the castle was ruined as there was a huge crane assisting in painting the castle, so the initial 'oomph' was lost, we headed round to Tomorrowland in the hope of avoiding the crowds surging for a spell on the two mountains, Big Thunder and Splash. Mel disgraced herself on Space Mountain, screaming like a little girl, which was the source of great amusement to Char, being the legitimate little girl on the ride. Mel's protestation that "she could see what was coming up", was quickly disproven by the fact that the ride takes place in pitch black darkness, an open and shut case m'lud.
We'd got a fastpass for Buzz prior to Space Mountain, and went on TTA to kill a bit of time, though when we came off, Buzz was a walk on anyway, so we didn't need them. At this point, I'll mention that Mel had been bragging about superior skills when it came to these sort of rides, and with me having shared with Char, who seemed to want to rotate our spaceship just so she could have a look around rather than shoot all the aliens, Mel was less than graceful in victory when it came to comparing scores at the end, so much so, that she didn't walk to the next attraction, (Carousel of Progress), she floated. We'll come back to that later!
We came off Carousel of Progress and the wait time for Buzz had miraculously risen to 45 minutes, we pondered going back on but decided against it, there was a family of three standing looking disappointed, so we gave them our fastpasses so they could go straight on, they were really chuffed and it was nice to spread a little magic, after all, who knows how the laws of Karma work?
We then went on the Jungle Cruise, a first for me, and we followed this with an early lunch, cheeseburgers for Mel and I, and Char varied her fixation on chicken, by opting for the nuggets rather than the tenders, I'll leave it to the experts (Char and Colonel Sanders) to discuss the difference. We then moved on to Splash Mountain which was great, as by this time it had got quite hot, so the splash was as enthusiastically received as ever. Big Thunder had broken down and fastpasses made acceptable for the remainder of the day, so we sloped off for a frozen lemonade, there would be other opportunities to ride Big Thunder later in the holiday.
At this point we headed out towards Downtown Disney, via a bus to Riverside and a boat to DTD, although we weren't staying here we were already contemplating changing next years booking for Pop Century, so this trip was going to involve a visit to a few of the hotels, again, something I'd not done previously, and which added greatly to my enjoyment of the trip. The boat ride was lovely, and gave a totally different perception of WDW to the one that I had had, the girls liked pointing out where they had stayed previously and were full of bits of info, some of it useful and entertaining.
A taxi to the Outlets later, my good friends Ralph Lauren (t-shirts), Levi Strauss (cargo shorts), and er.. Steve Nike (more t-shirts), replenished my wardrobe if not my wallet, and I was good to go, and WDW was spared the outrage of me doing the parks in my undies.
A couple of hours in the excellent pool at ASSp and we were ready to hit DTD once again, we headed for Raglan Road as having perused the menu's it looked like a great place, we wandered up, and booked a table and were given a 30 minute wait. At this point, I should point out that the only meal we had booked, was a meal at the Yachtsman Steakhouse for Mel's birthday, so we are proof that if you're flexible it is possible to get walk-ups at Disney restaurants, even with the popularity of the free dining plan.
For starters we had the Dalkey Duo, Mel had the Serious Sirloin, I had the Pie in the Sky, as I was determined to try and sample foods other than steaks and burgers! For the chicken lovers out there, the variation on the chicken theme for Char was Strips, rather than the previous Nuggets or Tenders. To wash the grub down, Mel had the Celtic Cocktail, I greedily chose the Flights of Beer (I had seen a picture on the DIS, so I knew it was four glasses of beer, ha ha) and Char had a strawberry and banana smoothie, her drink of choice throughout the holiday. The waitress optimistically brought the deserts menu, but we were out of the game having feasted on the sausage starter, but I struggled with a pint of Guinness just to be sociable.
Towards the end of the meal, an Irish band struck up a tune, but we were in a little room off from the main room, so we felt kind of out of it. The bill came to $140 including tip, and we were all full up and had enjoyed it immensely, we waddled back through DTD and got the bus back to ASSp, grateful for the fact that we were the first drop off, even the lure of some late night Seinfeld couldn't tempt us to fight off our slumber, and we were all knocking out zeds by 10.30pm.
Looking back on this day, I felt I had picked up on a lot of the Disney detail in MK that I had missed on previous trips, I really enjoyed rides like Jungle Cruise and Carousel of Progress, maybe because they were some of the older, original rides, and probably a little closer to Walt's ideas than some of the newer ones.
Tomorrow - MGM Studios, sorry, Disney's Hollywood Studios!
The plan had been to go to the outlets early evening the previous day to get some holiday clothes for my good self (there's no point paying £20 for Ralph Lauren t-shirts when they're £5 in Orlando!), so we needed to go there at some point as I'd not brought a great deal of clothes with me. After an unusually healthy breakfast of melon and grapes, we headed to Magic Kingdom, as this was a tradition of Char's, a first day visit to MK, and Gawd help anyone that suggested anything different!
The obligatory photo of the castle was ruined as there was a huge crane assisting in painting the castle, so the initial 'oomph' was lost, we headed round to Tomorrowland in the hope of avoiding the crowds surging for a spell on the two mountains, Big Thunder and Splash. Mel disgraced herself on Space Mountain, screaming like a little girl, which was the source of great amusement to Char, being the legitimate little girl on the ride. Mel's protestation that "she could see what was coming up", was quickly disproven by the fact that the ride takes place in pitch black darkness, an open and shut case m'lud.
We'd got a fastpass for Buzz prior to Space Mountain, and went on TTA to kill a bit of time, though when we came off, Buzz was a walk on anyway, so we didn't need them. At this point, I'll mention that Mel had been bragging about superior skills when it came to these sort of rides, and with me having shared with Char, who seemed to want to rotate our spaceship just so she could have a look around rather than shoot all the aliens, Mel was less than graceful in victory when it came to comparing scores at the end, so much so, that she didn't walk to the next attraction, (Carousel of Progress), she floated. We'll come back to that later!
We came off Carousel of Progress and the wait time for Buzz had miraculously risen to 45 minutes, we pondered going back on but decided against it, there was a family of three standing looking disappointed, so we gave them our fastpasses so they could go straight on, they were really chuffed and it was nice to spread a little magic, after all, who knows how the laws of Karma work?
We then went on the Jungle Cruise, a first for me, and we followed this with an early lunch, cheeseburgers for Mel and I, and Char varied her fixation on chicken, by opting for the nuggets rather than the tenders, I'll leave it to the experts (Char and Colonel Sanders) to discuss the difference. We then moved on to Splash Mountain which was great, as by this time it had got quite hot, so the splash was as enthusiastically received as ever. Big Thunder had broken down and fastpasses made acceptable for the remainder of the day, so we sloped off for a frozen lemonade, there would be other opportunities to ride Big Thunder later in the holiday.
At this point we headed out towards Downtown Disney, via a bus to Riverside and a boat to DTD, although we weren't staying here we were already contemplating changing next years booking for Pop Century, so this trip was going to involve a visit to a few of the hotels, again, something I'd not done previously, and which added greatly to my enjoyment of the trip. The boat ride was lovely, and gave a totally different perception of WDW to the one that I had had, the girls liked pointing out where they had stayed previously and were full of bits of info, some of it useful and entertaining.
A taxi to the Outlets later, my good friends Ralph Lauren (t-shirts), Levi Strauss (cargo shorts), and er.. Steve Nike (more t-shirts), replenished my wardrobe if not my wallet, and I was good to go, and WDW was spared the outrage of me doing the parks in my undies.
A couple of hours in the excellent pool at ASSp and we were ready to hit DTD once again, we headed for Raglan Road as having perused the menu's it looked like a great place, we wandered up, and booked a table and were given a 30 minute wait. At this point, I should point out that the only meal we had booked, was a meal at the Yachtsman Steakhouse for Mel's birthday, so we are proof that if you're flexible it is possible to get walk-ups at Disney restaurants, even with the popularity of the free dining plan.
For starters we had the Dalkey Duo, Mel had the Serious Sirloin, I had the Pie in the Sky, as I was determined to try and sample foods other than steaks and burgers! For the chicken lovers out there, the variation on the chicken theme for Char was Strips, rather than the previous Nuggets or Tenders. To wash the grub down, Mel had the Celtic Cocktail, I greedily chose the Flights of Beer (I had seen a picture on the DIS, so I knew it was four glasses of beer, ha ha) and Char had a strawberry and banana smoothie, her drink of choice throughout the holiday. The waitress optimistically brought the deserts menu, but we were out of the game having feasted on the sausage starter, but I struggled with a pint of Guinness just to be sociable.
Towards the end of the meal, an Irish band struck up a tune, but we were in a little room off from the main room, so we felt kind of out of it. The bill came to $140 including tip, and we were all full up and had enjoyed it immensely, we waddled back through DTD and got the bus back to ASSp, grateful for the fact that we were the first drop off, even the lure of some late night Seinfeld couldn't tempt us to fight off our slumber, and we were all knocking out zeds by 10.30pm.
Looking back on this day, I felt I had picked up on a lot of the Disney detail in MK that I had missed on previous trips, I really enjoyed rides like Jungle Cruise and Carousel of Progress, maybe because they were some of the older, original rides, and probably a little closer to Walt's ideas than some of the newer ones.
Tomorrow - MGM Studios, sorry, Disney's Hollywood Studios!
).
