Day 9 - Princesses, Potions and no panic

[BevS97]

Photos
Day 9

Day 9 is normally when the panic starts to set in. The OMG our holiday is nearly over and we haven't done anything on the list panic. But this year things are different…. This year we are having a 3 week holiday. OK, I know, I shouldn't gloat, but it is definitely making a difference to this second week. I have ruined so many second weeks feeling upset because it's nearly over rather than just 'going with the flow', so to speak.

Today, we time to spare, and no pressure to achieve anything, we sleep in, late. Really really really late. We get up, potter around, watch some TV, I do a bit of my trip report. Basically nothing happens, at all until about 11 o'clock, when we decide we ought to make a bit of an effort and do something.
We decide to go to Epcot and have a wander around World Showcase. We walk down to the boat stop, but theres no sign of a boat so we opt to walk. As we are walking over, we see the kids Pirate cruise being attacked by Pirates. It's looks good fun.
We enter through the International Gateway, and pick up a Kim Possible ticket for Norway. This is the only country we haven't done yet. It's 11:30 and KP is booked for noon, so we start heading in that direction, but first we stop and explore Canada. We tend to walk straight through Canada, but this time we explore a little, and I take some photos. I am on a mission to take a lot of photos today. O Canada is due to start, and I'd heard it was worth watching since they changed the film. It was pretty good. Maybe not a headline act, and you have to stand so it fails my 'sit down in the cool' criteria, but it was quite amusing and made me think about a visit to Canada so I guess it did it's job.

We exit the show and the girls pick up some Duffy Bears to colour. It's going to be one of those sort of days, wander, look, colour, wander some more.


As we walk across the 'gap' in World Showcase, the kids spot Duffy Bear so they decide that they want to meet him. There's quite a long line, so we send them off to wait and Phil and I sit on a wall and drink a frozen Cappuccino. It's nice but not quite as nice as the Float from MK, I'm still trying to find that again. I may just have to return to the MK so I can have another one.

Whilst we are waiting, it's hot. Really unpleasantly hot, and then it starts to cool down quite rapidly. It's a welcome relief, but it can only mean one thing. The rain will be on it's way soon. When the photos are taken, we are back off to Norway. Skipping past Mexico, sorry Mexico we will see you again another day). As we enter Norway it's just starting to spit. Unfortunately, this means they have closed Kim Possible. I guess computers in the rain isn't a great combination.

We decide to ride Maelstrom, as do quite a few other people due to the rain. We haven't ridden this for years and none of us can really remember what it's like. it's not bad, a little bit like Pirates without the jolly singing. We emerge from the ride into an absolutely packed giftshop. It's not just raining, it's stotting it down. We peruse the shop for a while, and debate our options. Eventually I decide to make the $33 investment for ponchos. I figure, either it rains all day and we will need them, or sods law applies and it will stop raining in 10 minutes, in which case they can be seen as a reasonable investment.
The rain slows a little so we set up walking, but as we near the African drinks area it starts again so we dive under cover and wait a little while. The park appears absolutely deserted, which is strange as it was packed 15 minutes ago. Rain slows again and we head off, our destination is Japan for lunch, but we are having to dodge the worst of the rain, so we pop into Italy for a while to hide from more rain. Eventually we make it to Japan, and discover they have closed the Yakatori House for refurbishment. There is a temporary stand but it's got no seating. That's not going to work in the rain.
We ponder the situation, there is the American Pavilion on one side, and the Morroccan on the other. No one wants burgers, so we head for Morocco and the Tangierine Cafe.
They have a couple of platters on offer, and we aren't exactly sure what's what so we order a Shawarma platter, and a Chicken Wrap platter to share, and then if we need something else, we will get more later.

The Shawarma platter comes with a huge chunk of bread and some hummus, and the kids dive into that. The bread is soon gone, so I go back up to the counter to see if we can get more bread. It's not on the menu but we get 2 big pieces for $1.35 By Disney standards that's a bargain and we think we would eat here again and just order bread and hummus for the girls.
We polish off the entire meal, the plates are even wiped clean. Everyone likes a different part, so it's a real collaborative effort. I think we will eat here again.

After dinner, one of the staff comes over and talks to Molly. He writes her name in Arabic on the back of her Duffy Bear. We take a bit of a walk back through the pavilion, there is loads to see. The kids do some colouring and I take loads of photos of the area. Just like Morocco, it's a bit of a rabbit warren with lots of different rooms and areas to look at. I am amused to over hear someone trying to barter with the Disney staff. It might look like Morocco, but there are no deals to be had here!

It's stopped raining now, and the sun is coming out. Katie wants a funnel cake for dessert, so we backtrack a little to America.
Katie gets her funnel cake, and we sit and eat it whilst they do a bit more colouring on the masks.
Funnel cake eaten, we are off to France. The kids go and find the colouring station, i take silly photos of Philip and then as we are leaving we see a Photopass photographer, so we ask her to take one of the family with the Eiffel Tower in the background. This woman cracks us up, she is photographing a family before us, and takes 100s of pictures of them, and then takes the daughter off to one side and takes some of her alone, then she proceeds to shows all of us the photographs and tells us how great they are. She's not even our daughter but we have to admire the photos.
Eventually we get our family photo taken, then she takes some of Phil and I, then of the 2 girls, the poses seem to get sillier and sillier, but eventually we make our escape!

We can see loads of characters on the path back to the Boardwalk, so the kids run around with their Autograph books. Unfortunately, by the time they get there it's time for the characters to go in for some cheese, so we don't manage a picture, which is a shame as 'the big cheese' himself was there, and in his best costume.

We walked back from Epcot, and have a rest in our room for a few hours. The kids watch some classic American tv such as the Brady Bunch.

After a few hours just chilling out, watching tv etc, we get changed for dinner. We are meeting up with our friends at Applebees, and I want to go to Premium Outlet beforehand as it's close by. The kids aren't enamoured of the idea, but I'm the mom and I win

We get parked up at Premium quite easily and do a spot of shopping. First we look in the character outlet. I hate buying anything within WDW until we've been here, as it's annoying to see it later for half the price. We don't get very much, but I buy a cruise pirate t-shirt for $4 which will do me for Pirate night on the cruise.

Molly wants some Geox for school, so we find the Geox shop, and a frankly extremely unhelpful sales assistant. They don't have a great deal in plain school shoes for girls (they have some great ones for boys) but he is quite rude and offhand.

Our third and final stop is a shoe shop and Phil gets some shoes, and we get Molly some school shoes for half price, so a result. It's just been a whistle stop tour of Premium Outlets, and there are quite a few shops I would have liked to visit but didn't get time. The kids just don't have a lot of tolerance for shopping, so I have to do it in short bursts.

We find the car and take a look at the map. Applebees is right next to the entrance to the Premium Outlet's, but it looks like it will be impossible to get there without doing some fancy U-turns, so instead we head the otherway out of the outlets and go right around the block, it's quite a bit further but no complicated lefts across the traffic.
We get in an ask for a table for 8. They look a bit worried and say there will be a short wait. We expected that and we chat with our friends awhile. Eventually we get a table. It's been a bit of a wait, but we're not really in any hurry.

I've been looking forward to the boneless chicken wings in here, and they don't disappoint. They were delicious. I had a steak and mash which was ok, Phil had a salad, Katie had meatballs and Pasta and Molly had mac and cheese. We were too busy talking to take any photos.

For dessert we all had mini desserts, chocolate mousse or hot fudge sundaes.

It's was very nice, but I think the starters are better than the main courses. Next time I think I'll just order a bunch of appetisers instead.

All through dinner, Molly is still talking about a midnight swim, so when we get back to the Boardwalk we meet up for a swim. It's not quite a midnight swim, but it's pretty close. It's about 11:30pm when we finally get them out of the water and up to bed. Molly is thrilled to bits with her midnight swim and thinks it's great!

[MFras23]

We love our midnight swims! Glad you had a good day despite the rain.

[Milner]

Lovely day apart from the rain.

[summersun]

shame about the rain

[Ms Finkelstein]

Sounds like you had a great day, despite the rain, but at least it didn't last too long!

Late night swims are great lol!

Di x

[Tartan Tigger]

Great day.

[ThumperThistle]

Great day. Don't you just love diving in and out shops to dodge the rain.

[Guest]

Not long now and we will be taking the Walk from the Boardwalk to EPCOT... really cannot wait.

Love reading other peoples trip reports... just admire all the work and imaginationn that goes into them... So Thank you

[Glee Fan]

Finally, she got her midnight swim! Excellent

[disney owl]

another full day.

Saw the photo but who is Duffy Bear?