Margarita or Bust - Son of Biergarten. Day 6

[Ms Finkelstein]

Thursday 7th October – Shopping and MNSSHP!

(Adopting Dr Nick Riviera voice)

"Hi Everybody!"

We are -

Me - Diane, Di, She Who Must Be Obeyed, The Donald lover, Disneyaddict and Master Planner.

Gordon - Grumpy, Gunter, He Who Must Be Ignored, Jasmine Stalker, Evil Queen Lover, Disneyfoodblogaddict, Provider of Funds.

Son - Ben, Thing 1, Wise Beyond his Years, Very Much like his Father (wherein lies the problem).

Daughter - Heather, Thing 2, Princess, Diva, Wannabe Emo, Never Knowingly Full.

You know the drill by now. For new readers, what will follow will be a long, rambling, probably incoherent retelling of a day in Orlando, crammed full with far too many photos.

Still here? For previous days see our Trip Report Index, if you want more of the same.

Hello again, onto Day 6 of our trip report. Hope you are all enjoying it so far. Today will probably have even more photos than usual because ----- A. It was the day we went to MNSSHP, and B. The Photopass CD has arrived! Yayy! I just know you can't wait!

There's a few video clips too, as well as the countless photos, so take your time as some of them may take a while to load.

Today we would be going shopping before heading to Magic Kingdom. Woke up about 7.30ish as usual and had a nice breakfast in the villa. I think I may have sat out to eat on our lovely balcony. Just me and my cream cheese and onion bagel. And orange juice.

After breakfast we headed out to our shopping venue of choice – Premium Outlets. We're not huge shoppers, and didn't feel the urge to go to any other malls, we like Premium.

Except Grumpy didn't today. He went into Nautica (his favourite shop), and didn't see anything A. he didn't already have, or B. in his size. Welcome to my world of shopping hell!

The same thing happened when he went into Puma. So he walked about with his face like a wet weekend.

Went into Skechers where we got the kids a pair of trainers each. I made sure they tried them on and had a good walkabout in them to make sure they liked them. In 2008 Thing 1 picked a pair of 'Z strap' trainers then never wore them as he didn't like the strap. Guess which ones he liked this time? I quickly told him to pick another style.

Thing 2 picked out a pair of Emo style sparkly ones, but again, this involved a great deal of decision making, sighing (from all of us) and folded arms (from all of us at some point). Happy happy joy joy!

Grumpy huffed about Nautica and Puma, while I went into Elizabeth Arden and purchased some nice make up with my birthday money. I also went into the Swarovski shop as there was a ring I really liked, but as it is still current stock they didn't hold it at the outlet store. I did see a lovely bracelet which I treated myself too.

Grumpy went back into Puma at this point and did get himself a Puma 'Germany' top he had seen in the Germany pavilion, but at half the price so that put a smile on his face.

We had a wander round some of the other shops and then Grumpy went into Nike where he was disappointed again. As it was now after 12 we decided to call it a day and head over to Magic Kingdom.

On the drive back home I started playing about with the radio as the station we were on had started playing some weird C&W stuff. It was at this point we made one of the most important finds of the holiday.

I happened upon MIX 105.1FM 'The Best Mix of Music from the 80's, 90's and today.' Don't know about the best of 'today', but it certainly played some stonking old tunes! It was just like being back at a school disco, or at the Piv in Ayr again. We had The Cranberries, Richard Marx, U2 (The Joshua Tree era – the only U2 songs I really like), Roxette, Bryan Adams, Men Without Hats, The Police, Sugar Ray, REM (the Out of Time and Automatic for the People era), Patti Smith (but only 'Because The Night') and Spin Doctors. Not to name but a few, but those literally appeared to be the only bands they played – over and over and over again.

I don't think we had heard the Spin Doctors twice in the past 15 years, here we were hearing them twice a day for 15 days! Not just the classic 'Two Princes', but also the slightly less well known 'Little Miss Can't Be Wrong'. We thoroughly embarrassed the Things by singing along loudly and sometimes doing little dance moves to the music for the rest of the holiday!

We popped back home to Old Key West - “Welcome Home” from the guards at the gate, before heading over to Magic Kingdom. Think the Things nagged us into going on the Monorail, which we did and promptly got stuck again.

It was about a 20 min delay, only enlivened by listening to the updates from the young female driver, who appeared to be in the midst of a giggling session everytime she announced anything over the tannoy. Don't know what was entertaining her, but I want some of it!

“Hee hee, We apologise for the hee hee delay, we are hee hee currently 3rd in hee hee line from the hee hee station. Thank hee hee You for your hee hee patience”. Was a typical update, and was accompanied by everyone in the carriage exchanging curious and slightly concerned looks.

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Plenty of time to check out the view.

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Stuck at the Contemporary.

Finally getting to Magic Kingdom at just before 2pm we hired a locker for our costumes for that night, as we planned to change later.

I had never noticed these posters before.

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We met the Mayor on Main Street, he was campaigning for re-election, and his opponent was playing dirty!

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And we caught some of the Dapper Dan's.

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Our late lunch/early dinner -”linner”? At Liberty Tree Tavern was at 2.45pm, but the Things were starving, so we headed over to one of our favourite snack places in MK – Sleepy Hollow where they got an ice cream cookie sandwich. Grumpy and I were tempted by a funnel cake, but didn't want to spoil our appetites for lunch. The Things have hollow legs/and/or tape worms so they have no issues with that.

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Snack credits used – 1. Remaining – 54.

After they finished we started walking through Liberty Square, we may even have gone to get FPs for either Splash or BTMRR.

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continued below...

[Ms Finkelstein]

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Don't know who the guy is, am sure he'll be happy to be featured lol!

We were at Liberty Tree Tavern for just after 2.30 to meet up with Michael and Susan for lunch/linner. Not too long of a wait, about 10mins before we were called to our table. Ben was our server today, so our Ben immediately started buddying up to him. Thing 1 likes to find out the names of the servers and then starts chatting to them like they've been friends for years.

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I had the Tri-Corner Sandwich which was lovely and very filling,
Grumpy had the Pilgrims feast which he really enjoyed, as did Susan I think. Michael had the Angus Chuck Cheeseburger with mushrooms and provelone cheese. The Things and Rachel had the Pita pizza with apples slices and fries on the side.

We all really enjoyed this meal. And we also got to see some of the 3pm parade as it went by the window.

EDIT to correct
For dessert Grumpy had the chocolate terrine, as did Susan I think, Michael had the sorbet, and I had the Ooeey Gooey Toffee cake with butterscotch ice cream. Apologies, but I seem to be missing photos of some of the food. Still, it's not as if there isn't enough photos on here at the best of times lol!

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Mine

For dessert the kids had the sundae and asked if it came with everything 'on the side' as it did at Le Cellier. Ben said it didn't, so cue slightly pouting faces, and me saying it didn't really matter as it would all taste the same. Ben then said he would make sure it did all come 'on the side' - “This is the Magic Kingdom, if they can't have it done here, where else could they get it?” He was really lovely.


Don't have the final bill total, but our share of the 18% tip was $11.28. though I think we went to just over 20% as he was so nice.

Table Service credits used – 4. Remaining – 20ad, 20 ch.

Coming out of Liverty Tree Tavern we split up and arranged to meet up with Michael and Susan at about 7ish outside Sir Mickey's.

At this point we went round to Adventureland via the wee shortcut next to the restaurant where we went on Aladdins Magic Carpets.


And then spent some time in the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. We had never done this before but the Things were really keen to do it this year. The film is one of my mum's all time favourites and she had been hunting for years before she finally found it on DVD and gave it to them for Christmas last year.

They eventually watched it and loved it! It's well worth seeing – it's a good old fashioned adventure romp and highly enjoyable. A proper family film in the old Disney style. A family are marooned on a desert island off the coast of America, build themselves a swanky townhouse style treehouse only with wreckage from the ship, and encounter South Sea Pirates, elephants, zebras, an anaconda and a tiger.. So all highly factual then.

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It was great 'seeing' the house and have the Things run all over it saying “Look, it's Fritz's room”, “There's the kitchen!”, “Listen to the Swisskapolka!” etc.

From here I went round to Splash with the Things whilst Grumpy decided against getting wet this time and would go for a wander. He was trying to collect the Nightmare Before Christmas vinylmations and Jack Skellington was proving elusive.

We had fun getting wet, and we did!


continued below...

[Ms Finkelstein]

Once we came off Grumpy texted to say they were giving out wristbands for the party at Tomorrowland so we arranged to meet him there. We handed over our party tickets and got suitably banded up, then me and the Things decided to do Stitch's great Escape as it was pretty quiet. Again, Grumpy abstained. Quite boring isn't he?

It was good fun, and not quite as disgusting or as scary as I had worried about. After Stitch we might well have done the Peoplemover again, after that we headed round to the hub and caught the end of the 'Move it! Shake it! Celebrate it!' parade and caught the show on the forecourt – which we just love and couldn't get enough of!

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Photopass alert!

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Never knowlingly under Photopassed lol!

We headed out of the park now to get to the lockers and then headed back in again after collecting our outfits. Presto chango in the toilets and we were all set!

Thing 1 – Commander Cody from the Clone Wars (we didn't bring his mask as I thought he wouldn't be able to wear it). He had killed General Grevious and took his lightsaber. Told you he had a whole backstory to it!

Thing 2 – Funky Batgirl Witch.

Me – Witch. It said Glamorous Witch on the package, but obviously Classy glam, not Klassy glam.

After all this we had to go back out of the park to put our normal clothes back in the locker. We were in and out so many times the CMs at the gates heads were spinning.

Heading back to meet Michael and Susan at Sir Mickeys, where we proceded to laugh at Michael's pitiful attempt at a costume. An eye patch and earring do not a pirate make.

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Arrr me hearties.

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Now now Ben, we've told you before, violence towards Daddy is not good!

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Susan and Rachel as you can see both had excellent costumes.

After making a quick stop of trick or treating we made plans to meet up later, I can't remember where they went but we stayed in Fantasyland for the moment.

We went on the Carousel, and the Things tried their hands at the sword and the stone, but no luck this time. In 2008 Thing 1 did pull the sword from the stone and was made Prince of Fantasyland for the day. He nearly gave himself a hernia trying this time, but no banana.


We decided to miss the first parade (with hindsight we should have watched both) and decided to go for Hall of Presidents, it had a 20min wait so we waited in the shop next door and watched the parade go by. Then we went back to HoP – only to find we'd just missed the show, d'oh!

We met up with Michael and Susan again and we decided to get some some photopass pictures before we did another ride.

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As you can tell, I love my borders!

continued below...

[Ms Finkelstein]

Haunted Mansion was next and it was good fun as always. Madame Leota was waiting outside as were some scary ghosties!

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Back to Fantasyland and we went on Winnie the Pooh as the wait was only 10mins, then we spotted some celebrities to pose with!

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She liked the lightsaber and started throwing out some 'moves'.

As you can tell, by this stage Michael was bored of his eye patch and had given it to Grumpy. Really, what was the point, no effort at all!

Michael and Susan went their own way at this point and we wandered round. We were a bit unsure what do – rides, or characters, or trick and treat (well, that was a no brainer really). We met the Wicked Queen from Snow White which was good as we'd never seen her before.

The Seven dwarves were out, but the queue for them was horrendous so we decided to skip that, as we did the queue for Daisy in her outfit and we just missed the White Rabbit from Alice, but hoped to catch him later when he came back out. Unfortunately we never did.

The Things wanted candy so we went on the walk from Toontown to Tomorrowland and filled up with sweets.

As we ended up in Tomorrowland we had to do Space Mountain, making sure I kept a hold of my hat lol!

Then we watched the Dance show with Goofy, Stitch and Chip and Pluto and the Things busted some funky moves on the floor man... All that was lacking was Disco Stu's goldfish platforms.

From here we headed back to the castle as we wanted to get ready to see Hallowishes at 9.30. Photopass as we went of course.

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As did Michael and Susan at some point that night.

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They also got these cool photos.

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Beware of hitch hiking ghosts!

Deciding not to try the hub as the crowds were huge we decided to wait on the bridge to Tommorowland as the view was great from there. I went with Thing 1 to get some ice creams to eat while we waited from the ice cream parlour on Main St.

At the door we met a Jedi knight who was very courteous and held the door open for us (as Jedi's do), who had a nice chat to Thing 1 about his outfit. I would have liked to have gotten a photo of the 2 of them, but didn't have the camera. The Jedi got a root beer float and Thing 1 whispered to me “Ahh, root beer floats, that's what Jedi's drink”.

Grumpy and Thing 2 had double vanilla, and Thing 1 and I had double mint choc chip, though of course we did share them round.

Snack credit used – 4. Remaining – 50.

continued below...

[Ms Finkelstein]

Hallowishes was fantastic, I honestly don't know how else to describe it. The best fireworks show I have ever seen. Like Wishes and Illumination to the nth degree. The way they combined the lights on the castle, the music and the fireworks...brilliant. I'm struggling to describe here, loved it all. The photos don't do it any justice at all.

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I just love how it is so bright at the end, it's almost like daylight!

After this we headed over to the forecourt to see the 10.05 Villains show which was fantastic too, we decided to keep our positions for the parade and meet the Villains after the next show.

We didn't have the best view for the parade, there was people in front of us who stood up, but it was still good. Unfortunately we realised after though that there wasn't much light where we were so a lot of photos turned out very dark. And I'm crap at taking photos which didn't help matters really. That's why I've not posted any photos, there are already loads of the parade you can see online, I do just love this one of the headless horseman that came with our Photopass CD.

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We wanted to make sure we got really good spots near the front for the next Villains show as we wanted to meet the characters after so we hung about for the 15-20 mins or so in the forecourt till it started at 11.15pm.

continued below...

[Ms Finkelstein]

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Again, really enjoyable!

Afterwards we managed to meet Dr Facilier who was great, very spooky!

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Grumpy was adamant he meet Maleficent, think she would have been quite impressed with his technique for getting people out of his way to meet her!

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We wandered round to Adventureland after this as we thought it would be nice to go on Pirates, but it had just shut, so we had some Photopass instead!

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As it was nearly midnight now we headed out of the park and got the ferry back, taking advantage of the handfuls of sweets being given out at the exits.

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Laden down with our booty we headed back home, no TV for us tonight, straight to bed!

Hope you've enjoyed it so far, especially the hundred or so photos I've included! Don't be shy, pop in and say hello!

Di x

[scottishmum]

Great, the photos are fab, so are your costumes,
Would love to see Hallowishes, sounds amazing, really looks a good time to go.
Youve thoroughly made the very most of your holiday so far

[Guest]

A great day!..iam very impressed that you all managed to stay up past midnight. I swear we struggle to stay awake past 10pm at the very latest...most nights we are in bed by 9pm!

I think the early mornings I insist on take their toll on us..

[Ms Finkelstein]

Originally Posted by scottishmum

Great, the photos are fab, so are your costumes,
Would love to see Hallowishes, sounds amazing, really looks a good time to go.
Youve thoroughly made the very most of your holiday so far

See more...

Hi Jane!

You'd love MNSSHP, it was much better than we ever expected it to be! Especially Hallowishes!
I like to squeeze every last drop from it lol!

Originally Posted by Tracey92

A great day!..iam very impressed that you all managed to stay up past midnight. I swear we struggle to stay awake past 10pm at the very latest...most nights we are in bed by 9pm!

I think the early mornings I insist on take their toll on us..

See more...

Hi Tracey,

It was great fun, we were knackered by the end though. I'm not too into early mornings so that helps lol!

Thanks for reading!

Di x

[SugarRush]

Woohoo the next day has arrived and it didn't disappoint. Love the costumes. I'd love to go at Halloween. You are Just making me want to go even more lol x