Star Wars, Bar Bores and No Chores...18 August 2017 - Day 1 - The day we changed our plans

[ladyofleisure]

So, everyone was up about 8am (we had planned a light breakfast in our room) then EMH at Magic Kingdom (a first day tradition of course). We then planned an early lunch at 1900 Park Fare to catch the Mad Hatter and Alice’s at brunch / breakfast.

Tia really likes Alice in Wonderland and I’d purchased myself some lovely new ears from Etsy and also some Alice in Wonderland themed ones for Tia to wear at breakfast which we had already presented to her. I think she was quite impressed.

I knew with some juggling we could rebook for 1900 Park Fare and didn’t mention it to Tia, but resolved to rebook and surprise her later on in the trip.

We had more brunches that breakfasts planned as I’d purchased some cereal and milk from Garden Grocer just in case anyone had the ‘early munchies’. At home all three need a few hours to come round after waking up and can’t face a big meal early in the day, so the plan was to leave everyone a couple of hours (for appetites to build) and that generally worked for us. Joe did manage a couple of Riverside Mill breakfasts though as he is rather partial to a Mickey waffle or a pancake smothered in syrup.

In our original plan we had three fast passes for Pirates of the Caribbean, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Haunted Mansion. We love all of them and Joe and I had still hadn’t seen a glimpse of Jack Sparrow in action so we were looking forward to that. We also thought if the queues were not too long we might manage a 7DMT. Sadly it wasn't to be today, but we did manage lots of rides later in the trip.

Instead, Antony and I were up at maybe 6am, I went to the laundry and washed all the previous day’s clothes (I’d bought detergent and softener from Garden Grocer) the washer and driers are super-quick and it’s very convenient to have laundry rooms so close to your room so it didn’t feel too much of a chore and I was able to breath in that Florida air while the laundry did its thing.

The laundry rooms do include dispensers where you can buy laundry supplies and also the machines you can purchase for the washer /dryers with a credit card or whatever and machines to book out particular washers or dryers. It’s very easy and a good system with nice new machines which have countdowns on them so you know exactly how long cycles will last.

Throughout our stay people were leaving spare supplies in the laundry and we did the same when we left as it’s nice to be nice and pay it forward.

Antony was reminded yet again of why he had made a good decision in marrying me as he was delighted to don those freshly laundered clothes, even if they were a bit too warm for the Floridian heat.

At this point we also discovered that he had forgotten to pack his favourite sliders which were still hiding at home (we have a hot tub in our garden and he wears them all the time outside going to and from the house, pottering about etc.) as he doesn’t find slippers comfortable.
I’d pestered him for days to pack them, and I’d presumed he had done that as I hadn’t seen lurking around. His face looked absolutely horrified when he realised that they were still sitting at home…double drat…. I suspect he might let me take charge of all the packing in future as he was crippled wearing his new ‘thong’ type flip flops – more on that later.

Worse things happen though so Antony promised to get some emergency shopping sorted before the heat got too much. So, after a light breakfast just for Antony and I (kids didn’t have any appetite yet), we decided on Walmart. We knew there was one fairly close by and we had decided to wait for a few days to pick our car up so we could have a few meals with alcohol (not knowing the case of the missing luggage would strike). Antony had worked as hard as I had in the weeks leading up to the wedding so we figured using the free transport and immersing ourselves in the bubble as we could on those first few days wouldn’t be a bad thing and with a car I would have been tempted to try and pack even more into the schedule.

So, before the shopping expedition (worse than any departing for Everest!) breakfast consisted of a snack box of carrots and celery for me (strange choice but I really didn’t fancy anything sweet yet) and a waffle bounty platter for Antony. We had left the small people sleeping in and we got to the Riverside Mill about 7am, it was really quiet. We would book preferred rooms again in future as we appreciated being close to the food court, especially during the afternoon storms. My ‘side’ of the carrots etc. was included with Antony’s bounty planter and was 1 QS credit and we used our refillable mugs for much needed tea and coffee and juice.

We woke the smalls up a bit later, and then had a little bit of a mix up. An Uber was ordered (we actually needed an Uber XL) so when the car turned up it had room for only 4 passengers rather than 5, I ‘volunteered’ to stay, the kids had holes already burning in pockets for their spending money and Antony REALLY needed to buy shorts and things as it was getting hotter by the second...

I had a blissful half hour with another coffee while sitting on a bench near reception awaiting their return! I am not a shopper and really enjoyed the chill time instead of the small people debating endlessly on which purchases to make…..

It was actually really lovely as a few tour groups turned up for check in with matching t shirts and the like which made me smile. All the children looked so happy - in that special way you know that only Disney magic can induce.

At this point I should also tell you that I booked when the free dining offer was on, but I upgraded the dining from QSDP to DDP when I rang and the price was ‘right’. I managed to share my magic with another lovely dibber who rang up (after I did) and they also saved a couple of hundred pounds and hopefully it worked for a few more people out there too….

I don’t know why or how the Disney pricing system glitches, I just feel fortunate that sometimes it does. So my advice if you are considering an update is to keep ringing them, and if they offer a price that doesn’t sound right and it is in your favour, book it straight away. I’ve benefitted hugely our last two trips. The children are all older but they love the character dining just as much as when they were little so for us it’s still worth it. We also had the $200 gift card to collect from Disney Springs which would help towards tips.

So – back to the Walmart tale, Antony and the offspring returned at 9.32am with various ‘emergency’ items, t-shirts, flip flops (I was amazed Antony picked them as I wear them but really didn’t think he would he is more of a slider guy - more on that later) and adaptors and the like, oh and another iPad charger to stop the kids having panic attacks that they didn’t have one each.

His total spend was $130 dollars plus tax of $8.73 which would have been great had he not forgotten a few of the things he really absolutely needed. Antony is not a list person, definitely not a list person so this was no surprise.

The new plan for the rest of the day would be to avoid the parks, just explore our lovely resort, check out the pool and chill a little. We were still feeling the pain of our mammoth journey. We were going to order an Uber later anyway to Millers Ale House and then watch the Outta Control Magic Comedy Show at WonderWorks (for those of you who haven’t been that’s on I-Drive near Ponte Orlando). The plan was after that to get an earlyish night while we were still coping with jet lag and the very long travel day.

It turned out to be a good plan as Antony had only spent $138.73 at Walmart so we definitely still had more shopping to do. So by this point the children were getting hungry again. We had the following meal credits to assist:

70 Quick Service, our 5 refillable cups, 140 snacks and 70 Adult Table Service meals.

We had barely made a dent in our allocation yet, so we resolved to make more effort. My notes say we went back into the Riverside Mill Food Court at 11am and the children shared eight chicken tenders and one sundae and we had 68 QS meals remaining.

We went swimming in the main pool for an hour and also relaxed by Muddy Rivers Pool bar. Starting our first proper day of the holiday off in style Antony and I had a couple of drinks first round was $23.51 and second was $13.85 – it was barely lunchtime so Antony had two but I just had the one and it went straight to my head. We just had beers which felt very naughty so early in the day. I still suspect it was the relief that we were finally in Florida.

We must have been feeling hungry today, as we were back in the food court (it’s very close to the pool) at 12.46pm for our next feast – we had a portion of bread sticks with marinara sauce (as a snack credit) a chocolate milk and a large pepperoni pizza with another eight chicken tenders. We were down to 65 QS meals and we shared everything. We were completely stuffed and it was clear that using these meal credits was going to take A LOT of work.

As it ended up no-one was too disappointed to have missed Magic Kingdom, it was definitely the right thing to do, and as it turned out it was the only time we were at the main pool or Muddy Rivers Pool Bar during the entire holiday. Mid-afternoon we had showers and a rest back before calling an Uber to take us to I Drive. This was just after 17.13pm as Joe bought a fresh orange juice from the Riverside Mill Food Court en-route to the Uber, his receipt told us we had 139 snacks remaining. I knew there was little hope for us finishing them all but we would give it our best shot! The Uber picked us up from the front porch of the hotel and we never had any trouble finding our cabs or when we were dropped off.

We arrived at I-Drive and had a little wander round and did some more shopping. We went to the Walgreens opposite the Rosen Inn at Pointe Orlando and bought shorts $9.99, a t shirt $5.99, more shorts $15.99 and more shoes for Antony at $14.99, yet again these were flip flop types without much support and I also bought myself an essential, a nail buffer – total $51.81 including tax.

I’d decided to book the Outta Control Magic Show again as we had booked it in 2015 mainly as a reason to go to I Drive and keep awake the first night without having to go to a ‘full on’ Disney show as its fairly small and less noisy in comparison. Joe loved it, he laughed along and the deal was good value with pizza, salad and dessert included as well as beer, soft drinks and wine for really very little cost (well free in our case) and Tony the magician is pretty funny. We hoped Cole would love it too and enjoy a quick look round Wonderworks and all the tat in the gift shop. We actually got the tickets free with our Universal 3 park tickets booked via Simon at OrlandoAttractions – Simon was fab very easy to deal with and our Universal tickets were £216 each. Very steep for just a few days but as we knew we wanted a Hard Rock stay we knew we would make the most of them and also wanted to try out Volcano Bay.

Anyways, back to the magic show - Cole was unimpressed, I think he was still tired and didn’t understand all the jokes as some of it was a bit too dry for him - but we all had a first ‘proper’ evening. Before the show which I think started at 8pm, we had shared (well everyone else did I don’t eat chicken zingers) some of those at Millers and watched some sport in the gorgeous air conditioned interior and had drink and a little rest after the shopping. Cole doesn’t eat pizza so we wanted him to have something before the show. Everyone else loved them too and it was great for him to get a bit of a chilli fix.

We had fab services from our Uber drivers both ways, they were both chatty and friendly and when we used Uber all holiday, the most we paid with tip was $30 dollars which is fab value I think from Disney to I Drive and remember that’s five people so more expensive as an Uber XL. There were those inevitable times when the traffic / weather was pretty bad.

We had all really benefitted from the rest day and fairly relaxed evening and were back in the resort for about 10pm, ready for a much earlier night. So we headed straight back to bed and watched a little bit of TV, I think this was the night we watched ‘Sharknado’ can’t remember the number but it was the one set in London – we didn’t watch it for long and we slept like babies…

Sincere apologies for the lack of photos - we lost use of our memory card, which pretty much sums up for me why the best laid plans sometimes just don't work out that way... still we were just happy to be back in the bubble, despite any curveballs that came our way..


Day 2