You Can Never Overplan (May 2008) - Day 15

[Siddex]

Day 15 - The One Where We Said Goodbye To The Magic (Kingdom)
Wednesday 28th May 2008

Today was gonna be a long one, our last couple of days in Florida and lots of fun was planned. We were going to MK for a character breakfast and then staying until the bitter end or Wishes as it is usually called!

Everyone was up and ready to go by the meeting time today (7.30AM), quite surprisingly we only left 10 minutes late this morning.

We had the usual routine this morning of waiting for James. As much as Pops has his evening routine of getting me to stop at the 7 – 11 every night for his cigarettes, then James had his own morning routine. Every day he would be the last to leave the apartment and then every day we would have to send him back to shut the door! Time after time he would wander out in his own little world and leave the apartment door wide open! You would of thought that after the first couple of times he would of learnt and shut the door behind him, but NO, every day religiously the call would come from the van – ‘James – DOOR’!

We parked up and took the monorail to MK (for speed and this was our 3rd time in this park!). Everyone into the park and up Main Street without any incidents. Oh! I did lose the restaurant though! I swore it was on the right at the top of Main Street but no it was on the left! I am sure in Paris it is on the right and that’s why I went in that direction to find it!


Thought I would throw in another castle picture just in case anyone has missed them!


Tink just comes out of nowhere!

We checked in and there was quite a queue, but we were called and seated very soon at 8.30AM, this was only 5 minutes after our scheduled time, a record for this holiday!

The character interaction here was very good (probably the best all holiday), but I think this was helped by the fact that Ella was warming to the characters and not running away from them screaming!


Blowing a kiss to Piglet.


Giving Winnie a BIG cuddle.

Grams met her idol – Eeyore (who she models herself on!) and everyone really enjoyed this meal and the experience. But again we found we were rushed through and this was not cheap. The total bill was $147, which included a 18% gratuity. This meal scored:

Mark – 7
Maz – 4 (not a Winnie fan!)
Pops – 7
Grams – 7
James – 7


Our last Disney day and now Ella decides she is OK with the characters!


Grams’ Favourite


Now, either Eeyore is smelling a bit or Ella is blowing him a kiss!

Incidentally, I have since found the receipt for this breakfast and we were finished 9.10AM. So that is 45 minutes in total, no wonder I had indigestion when I left here!

Continued below...

[Siddex]

... Continued from above.

Once we were finished, it was park time, the plan today was to do the stuff we had missed on the previous 2 trips and also then do the stuff we liked again.

We went over to Tomorrowland first and all went on Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor (5 minute wait). James and I, then did Stitch’s Great Escape (over rated), we left Pops for a ‘rest’ while the rest of us went on the Astro Orbiter. Well I say we all did it, Grams bottled out after queuing up and going up to the ride area. So basically, she queued 20 minutes to ride up and down in an elevator.

Look at James’ glasses in the next photo, He found these last week and had been wearing them religiously every day. It was only on the last day that we told him that they were ladies glasses!


Look at the ‘cool’ dude in Girls glasses.

After the Astro Orbiter, we sent James (now minus glasses!) for some fast passes for Space Mountain and then we grabbed Pops after his ‘rest’ and we all rode TTA, a nice change of pace. While we were slowing down we thought we would give Carousel Of Progress a try.



That song! Even while writing this it has popped back into my head again (took 3 days to shift it last time). C’mon everyone... ‘There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow’ Well at least it was cool in there!

All except Maz and Ella (guess what – too small!) now went on Buzz Lightyear. I think I won but I can’t remember the scores, but they were not very good! While we had been on this, Maz and Ella had been meeting stitch. It now appears that Ella is over her character phobia a whole 2 days before we go home! But the silver lining is, I have used this as a great reason to return in 2010.


Look! Smiling while in the vicinity of characters!


If only I could have one of these installed at home.

Our fast passes for SM had now become active so myself, James and Maz (that is not a typo!) went to ride it. It went tech, while we were queuing and this spooked Maz, so she took the ‘exit of shame’ just before the ride and went to find the others while James and I rode. We found it very good, although a but bumpy.

Ella had managed to acquire a new friend while we had been away. When we left she looked like this


Moody young lady.


One bribe later and now all is well with the world.


‘Theme Park Face’ strikes again!

We had now officially completed Tomorrowland and it was only 11.30AM – result!

Continued below...

[Siddex]

... Continued from above.

On the way to Mickey’s Toontown Fair, Ella spotted the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway, there was no way we could get past this without her having a go. So we duly queued and let her swerve and jolt her way around the circuit, with me as her lucky passenger! Maz’s whiplash had cleared up from last time (Day 8), so she had to endure another circuit with James. The olds sat it out and once again the kids loved this ride.

Once in Mickey’s Toontown Fair we headed for Goofy’s Barnstormer and everyone was due to ride this except Pops. This ride also went tech while we were queuing and they shut the ride, we were given anytime fastpasses as a consolation, so I banked them for later.

Ella hassled us to go and visit Minnie’s and Mickey’s houses again, so we headed over there. This was not as enjoyable as the other night when we had the houses practically to ourselves as today they were HEAVING!

Toontown Fair was now complete and it was just after 2.00PM, we went through into Fantasyland. The only thing we wanted to do in here was Philharmagic, as Ella and I missed it the other day when she needed her comfort break. We waited 15 minutes for this but everyone enjoyed it, even those that were seeing it for the second time.

As the time for the parade was approaching, we decided to go down Main Street and stake out a good spot for the parade. We found a nice shaded spot on the corner of Main Street near the Main Street Vehicles. We grabbed a drink and sat down on the kerb and waited. The shade was much needed today as it was blistering hot! The kids were called up and entertained by a CM (who looked very hot). The parade eventually reached us and was very good, we took lots of pictures (but I am only going to subject you to a couple).


Pre-parade fun.


The main man.


More of the gang.

After the parade had passed we had about an hour to kill before we had to leave for Ohana, so we went into Adventureland as I don’t think we had even been in here yet!

We all rode POTC and enjoyed it. We got ‘photopassed’ outside POTC and look how hot we all look, as mentioned before it was stifling today.


One hot looking family and not in a good way!

Next I made everyone go into the Enchanted Tiki Rooms, you should of seen the looks I got! Still it was inside and an entertaining way to spend 20 minutes, don’t think we will be doing it again though! We just had time for a quick go on the Magic Carpets Of Aladdin (for Maz, James, Ella & I) before we left the park.

We grabbed the monorail and headed over to the Poly, we loved this resort (so much more than the Contemporary), it seemed very luxurious. We found Ohana’s quickly and we checked in for our meal even though we were about 25 minutes early. Even though it was very busy in here we were seated within 10 minutes and served by Cousin Joe! In fact, everyone was related in here as they were all our cousins!

The food in here was, in a word – incredible. I forgot the DIBB tip, of not filling up on starters, but I could not help myself as they were all gorgeous. The main courses were of similar standard and were lovely, the meat was cooked to perfection. Grams did not like this meal as she is a vegetarian and did not like the whole skewers of meat paraded before her eyes or her food choices (noodles – I believe), but everyone else loved it. I got roped into joining in with the entertainment by the children (Maz seems to disappear at these times, before magically re-appearing a few minutes later armed with camera!).


Oh! Your back are you? And you have the camera as well, eh?

Overall I would highly recommend this place (as long as you are not a vegetarian) even though it was quite expensive (well in Florida terms). Our total bill was $228, which included the 18% gratuity. Once again I found they tried to rush us, but this time we put our feet down and took things at our own pace! We were in here for nearly 1.5 hours, which is a Disney meal record for us!

Continued below...

[Siddex]

... Continued from above.

We left the Poly and made our way back to MK, arriving just after 8.00PM. It had nicely cooled down by now and was a lot more manageable. We went back into Adventureland and checked out the wait for Jungle Cruise it was still 45 minutes (it had been over 60 mins earlier). We decided to use our anytime fastpasses on this, so Pops sat out while the rest of us went on.

This was quite enjoyable but made even better by the CM driving the boat, who was absolutely nuts! He gave the kids a lecture about staying in school or they would end up in dead end jobs ‘like those at Disney’. Mmmm! Don’t think Walt would of approved! He also went into one about the TV show Lost, he slated it A LOT, don’t think he was a fan! I sat there open mouthed at some of the things he was saying, he did not seem to be in a good place! Highly entertaining though, made the ride for me!

We checked out the queue times on SM and BTMR, but still too long on both of them, so instead we staked out a place for Spectromagic .

Spectromagic duly arrived and then kept on arriving! This thing just went on and on and on! We did enjoy it but desperately wanted to get a decent spot to watch Wishes from. We could not cross the path until the parade had cleared and it went on forever, eventually at 9.45PM the parade had cleared and the walkways were open, the race was on!


Well it arrived and then


Went on


And on


And on some more.


Hurrah, last float!

We had 15 minutes to get over to the front of the castle to secure a prime viewing location for Wishes. I went in front and cleared a path for the others using the buggy as a form of battering ram. We made the castle in under 5 minutes and found a decent spot on the bridge right in front of the castle. At 10.00PM Wishes started, we saw Tinkerbell start the whole thing off. We love this show, but it was spoiled slightly by the constant noise all around us. There seemed to be a lot of people talking during the performance, I remember dead silence when we saw this in DLRP a couple of years ago.


It may look like we are in the parking lot, but I thought it was a close spot.


Wishes.


More Wishes.

After it was all over we joined the thousands of other people leaving the park. The masses moved quite quickly and in no time we were back at the van and on our way back to the apartment. We made it back to the apartment by 11.30PM, no 7 – 11 stop requested tonight – I don’t know why!

A very long but enjoyable day, but HOT, HOT, HOT over 90®F. Tomorrow was our last full day in Florida (where has the time gone?) and we are going to SeaWorld.

[Juliemack]

what a shame they're coming to an end, - that last photo is fantastic

[Guest]

Another great report with lovely photos.

[Guest]

What lovely pics... love the moody lady one...

[luxorsun71]

another great day,lovely piccies

[angieanguk]

Another great report and pics!

[Ms Finkelstein]

You packed loads in for your day, and the photos of Ella with the characters are great - she really got into it!

WOW - 45 mins for a character meal! We must be hated over there, as we always were in for an hour - hour 1/2 plus! Bit slow, eh!

Di x