Returning to Jamerica! Day 2 - Magic Kingdom & Crystal Palace / Applebee's

[JoJo88]

"Returning to Jamerica!" November 2013

INDEX

Day 2 – Magic Kingdom & Crystal Palace / Applebee’s

Friday 8th November

Psssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Slowly regaining consciousness after a pretty decent night’s sleep, I was acutely aware of a familiar sound. For those of you unsure of what that sound was by my attempt to recreate it (Psssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh), it was the sound of water. More specifically, it was the sound of rain water, heavy rain water. You have GOT to be KIDDING me!

A quick peek at the time told me it was just after 4am. Simon must have heard my sighs and heavy tutting as he was soon awake too, and before long the boys had joined us in the humungous bed in the humungous master suite - surely they couldn’t hear me from their room?! It wasn’t long before they were badgering us to go in the pool so I pointed out the sound I could hear coming from outside and was soon voted the one to check. I crept across the floor and peered out through the blinds, only to discover that the ground outside was dry, and there was nothing falling from the sky! The sound that had been tormenting me for the last 20 minutes or so was the sprinklers! Hurrah! So to celebrate, we did what we had been waiting to do for soooooo long……

A first day early morning dip in the pool!

It was so warm, and so welcome. That is until my Mum stepped outside and spotted something a bit suspicious floating about in the pool. Simon grabbed hold of his noodle (no, not THAT noodle, a swim noodle ), and flicked whatever it was my Mum was pointing at out of the water. As it landed by the pool’s edge, it became twice the size it had been whilst submerge, and unfurled 8 very long, very hairy legs. This did nothing to rid me of the reservations I’d had about the villa the night before, and as it was still quite dark I scrambled out of the pool, preferring to wait until I could see what I was sharing it with before getting back in.

I went upstairs to get myself ready, enjoying a shower in a cubicle bigger than my entire bathroom at home! Everyone else soon followed and once we were all showered and dressed, we still had a bit of time to kill before the rest of the world woke up and we could get on with our holiday!

After a very small bite to eat for breakfast, the boys went to investigate the games room properly, gravitating towards the table tennis table as I knew they would. We all love a game of ping pong, and it was up there as a massive plus point when we were choosing which villa to book.

On walking back through to the kitchen to start gathering snacks for the day, something to my right caught my eye. It was under the dining table, and like its little brother earlier, it was huge, and black, and also had 8 legs. Simon was quickly summoned to remove the interloper - in a completely kind & humane way I’m sure (I didn’t stick around to witness it), and I carried on with getting ready, but rather more tentatively than before.

I packed the rucksack with grapes, apples, bananas, Honey Buns, little individual pots of Pringles and Ritz crackers, as well as a couple of bottles of cold water, plus frozen bottles of water to keep in the car, ready for when we returned from wherever we had been. This was a tip I’d picked up from the Dibb before our first visit and proved to be invaluable. Quite often when heading back to the car park the boys would announce they were thirsty, understandably, and so having ice cold water ready for them when we got back to the car was a Godsend. Also in the rucksack was sun cream, caps, sunglasses & wipes. I also kept a small pot of sun cream in my own bag so that I could top up the protection when waiting in line without having to rummage around in Simon’s sack too much

By 7am we could no longer contain our excitement and so bundled into the car and pointed it in the direction of Magic Kingdom – woooohooooo!

Just look how excited he is! (At least Mum looks happy there, lurking in the shadows!)

First day tradition (this is our third trip, we’ve earned the right to use the word ‘tradition’ now ), has always been to head to Magic Kingdom for an early breakfast at the Crystal Palace with Pooh & friends, and this year was no exception. Once again I’d been lucky enough to bag us an ADR 6 months before, although this time it was slightly later at 8.20am rather than 8.05am, but that didn’t stop us from setting off so early!

We headed out of High Grove, joining the very west end of Hwy192 a minute later and soon we were enjoying the familiar sites from two years ago, even though, like the night before, it seemed like we’d never been away. We used the Sherberth Road short cut and before long we started to see the only road signs in the world that can make my heart skip a beat

The only downside of using the short cut is that you don’t get to see the main Walt Disney World arch

But that’s okay, you do get to see this one

I won’t pretend to have noticed at the time, but looking back on old photos, it seems the arch has had a bit of a makeover as the background used to be pink. I must have missed that newsflash!

We paid the $15 parking charge, Simon pulling over so that my window was by the booth so that I could have my first CM encounter of the holiday, and 26 minutes after leaving High Grove we were parked up, in quite possibly the jammiest parking space in the lot (do you think I’m a natural with the lingo? ).

We made our way to the T&T Centre, a short hop, skip & a jump away, stopping for a quick photo on route (which also seems to have become a tradition):

2013

2011

2009

At least Daniel has now grown into his shorts!

As it was still early, my first choice of transportation across the lagoon, the Ferry Boat, wasn’t yet open and as none of us were in the mood for a swim, the monorail it was.

After a pleasant ten minute or so rail trip, we disembarked and made our way down the ramp towards bag check & the turnstiles. I can’t be sure, but as I approached my particular bag checker, I swear he spotted my Kipling bag with all its zips, pockets and compartments and rolled his eyes. I don’t think any of them have searched every single compartment during the one check, but never fear, over the two weeks I’m sure they had it covered!

Over to the left of the turnstiles we could see people milling about and rightly assumed that they had early morning reservations like us. We flashed our confirmation email and after I dished out everyone’s tickets, we were introduced to the new & improved turnstiles. We held our plastic tickets up to the Mickey scanner, had our fingerprints scanned, waited for Mickey to flash green for go and finally, almost an hour after leaving the villa that morning, we were in!

Let the Memories Begin!

Continued in the next post...

[JoJo88]

Continued from above...

I absolutely love the entrance to Magic Kingdom, especially at Christmas time, walking under the station and seeing the candy cane garden, and the toy soldiers in Town Square ready to welcome you. So of course, you’d expect me to have loads of photos of this particular view wouldn’t you? I have none!

But this is what I’m talking about

I’m not going to lie, those first steps into Magic Kingdom do get me a little choked up, but I’m old enough & ugly enough now to not try and hide it nor care what anyone* (*my kids) thinks. And I know I’m not the only one, isn’t that right Simon?

I may not have taken any photos of Town Square itself, but I did manage to get a couple on the way through:

I love how Daniel has unknowingly (I think!) grabbed Minnie’s nose!

We made our way up a quiet Main Street, again, quite emotional that we were back once again and about to embark on two indulgent weeks of fun.

It’s not a bad way to start the day is it?

The boys got into the spirit of things too by skipping up the street and twirling themselves round lampposts

Daniel's failed attempt at ‘Bunny Ears’

Not quite tall enough yet, are you buddy?

We made it over to Crystal Palace and let the reservations desk know we were there. We milled about with everyone else, waiting to be called in.

It was a lovely crisp, fresh morning. There was a slight chill in the air, but it had the promise of turning out hot later on.

Put it this way, it was a lot more promising than last time

We didn’t wait long before being called in and for the third visit running we were shown to the same area of the restaurant, and for the second visit running we were shown to the exact same table – what are the chances?! We didn’t have the delightful Tammy as our server this time though, instead we had equally lovely Cathy and she quickly took our drinks order, tea, coffee, apple juice, chocolate milk, OJ and then let us loose on the food.

Despite our reservation being for 8.20am, by 8.10am I’d had a quick shifty round the buffet and was back to the table with this plate of truly scrumptious goodies

Jackpot baby! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, those strawberries are the best in the world. I was most disappointed that there was no cream to go with them but I asked Cathy and she soon returned with a little pot for me.

We all enjoyed a variety of the different offerings, mostly baked goods for Adam, strawberries & waffles for Daniel, fruit for Simon and an omelette for Grandma. That’s not all we had, but that would have been the main choices.

We didn’t have to wait long for the characters to come round, and first up was Pooh – there’s a joke in there somewhere but I wouldn't dare be so predictable

Followed within a couple of minutes by Piglet

I love how you can see in the mirror that the boys both have their arms right round Piglet.

And finally 10 minutes later we met Tigger

Eeyore was also doing the rounds but he was at the opposite end of the restaurant and as we had finished our attack on the buffet, we decided not to wait and asked Cathy for the bill, which was as follows:

4 x Adult Breakfasts: $91.96 (because at the grand old age of 10, Adam is now an adult! )
1 x Kid’s Breakfast: $12.99
Tax: $6.83
Total: $111.78
And we left a total of $133 to include the tip.

After a quick restroom break, we made our way outside and sent Simon on his first Fast Pass quest to Space Mountain while we headed left towards the other two mountains. But as it was still only 8.45am we got as far as the entrance to Adventureland where a Wicked Wench gave us all a brief history lesson, although I can’t for the life of me remember what it was about, so that was a waste of time wasn’t it?! However, a little bit of education for the boys while they were waiting wasn’t going to do them any harm, although I’ve just checked with Daniel, and he can’t remember what she was talking about either. Perhaps none of us could understand the weird Piratey, Irishy, West Countryish accent she was speaking in!

The boys beat a hasty retreat from the strange lady with the even stranger accent and amused themselves nearby

until the rope was dropped at around 8.55am

and we were marched through Adventureland until we diverted through a shortcut opposite the Swiss Family Treeshouse to Frontierland where we were stopped by yet another rope and a bunch of residents from the Wild West. We were only kept there for a brief moment before we were on the move again, Yeeeehaw!

Continued in the next post...

[JoJo88]

Continued from above...

The plan had been to meet Simon at the entrance to Big Thunder Mountain either before or after riding it, but as he was nowhere to be seen (having no doubt been involved in his own rope drops), we went on without him.

Not a great photo I know, but look, no other people!

We took our seats on a near empty train, and settled back for our very first ride of the holiday.

And it’s usually during these first few rides of the holiday that it truly starts to sink in that we’re really here. The grotty travel day is over, everything we booked and paid for has turned out to be fine, no nightmares at the airport, car hire desk or villa. No dramas with park tickets, and so now all that’s left is to relax and enjoy what we’ve looked forward to for so long.

Big Thunder Mountain was brilliant as usual. It’s not what I’d call a white knuckle ride, but it’s so much fun, and quite a long ride too, and I really do love it. But not at the front. It’s not so good at the front.

Once back outside we met up with Simon and so decided to go straight back on. Well, it would have been rude not to! Afterwards we made our way across to Splash Mountain, checking out the Fast Pass & Wait Times machines on the way……

All gone now I’d imagine………

It was still only 9.15am by now so we were doing well I’d been getting myself a little bit wound up by reports of the new FP+ making it impossible to get legacy Fast Passes with decent return times, particularly as when the FP+ was first introduced onsite guests were able to use both the new kind and the legacy Fast Passes. However, by the time our holiday came round, the majority of onsite guests could no longer use the original FPs, and so I decided to just relax about it, what will be will be, and as it turned out, we barely noticed a difference at all.

I seriously love Splash Mountain. And like I said just now when talking about Thunder Mountain, it’s a real ‘we’re here now, all that’s left is to enjoy it’ moment. I had my camera in my hand the whole way round and managed to snap a fairly decent (for me) photo just before the big drop

We didn’t manage to escape the splash at the end but we didn’t suffer too much, unlike the poor bloke in the front row who must’ve somehow bashed his nose, as when we saw him get off the log (snigger), he was bleeding quite badly, but was soon ushered away by a CM, I assume for treatment (and to sign some kind of disclaimer )

We then started to make our way over to Tomorrowland to use our FPs for Space Mountain. The boys wanted to stop for a photo in the stocks, so we waited for the person before us to have her photo taken, and as she finished and the boys took their positions, she decided to stand right between me, the photographer, and them. I said ‘excuse me’, nothing. I said ‘excuse me’ again, still nothing. And that’s when I realised I’d encountered my first numpty of the holiday, as there I was, pointing a camera at my offspring when she turned round, looked me up and down and said ‘oh I’m sorry, do you want me to take a picture for you?’. Er, no….. I’d just like you to not be in the one that I am trying to take. She mumbled something to her other half who I overheard saying that I’d asked her a few times to ‘excuse me’.

We would have had time to pay the Haunted Mansion a visit but neither of the boys wanted to ride, particularly Daniel who has been traumatised by it on both previous holidays. Simon wasn’t bothered either and so we decided to give it a miss.

Nobody wanted to ride this either

Heathens, the lot of them…..

We took a slow wander round to Space Mountain, bypassing the Fantasyland expansion, saving it for another day, although to be perfectly honestly, there wasn’t really that much there to tempt the boys with anyway, although I did want to have a look around at some point during the holiday.

When we got to Space Mountain we discovered it had ‘gone tech’ and were told that we could use our Fast Passes at any time which was quite handy. We decided to try out something we hadn’t done before, the Carousel of Progress. Adam was completely against going on, claiming it to be boring before he’d even set foot inside, but funnily enough, he was the one singing the song for the rest of the holiday “it’s a great big beautiful tomorrow”……..

We quite enjoyed the sit down, but doubt we’d rush back to see it again – unless we wanted a bit of a cool down in the air-con.

Space Mountain was still suffering its technical hitch and so we went for another sit down, this time on the People Mover, another ride that Adam was reluctant to join us on, but of course, he had no choice!

From there, we could see that Space Mountain was finally back up and running and so we went to join the very small FP line which was outside the building, although Mum declined and had a wander while she was waiting. There was a slight hold up as a few people were having problems with their Magic Bands, which was frustrating as the CM could easily have seen that we had Fast Passes in our hands and waved us through, but that would have been far too simple. Instead we had to wait for the other guests to fish their paper FP confirmations out of their bags to prove they had booked. Eventually we were let through though and followed the meandering walkway round to the loading bays. I got nominated to ride on my own while the rest of them went in one car. Daniel was a bit nervous and so wanted Simon to sit behind him so he could hold him in!

My memory of Space Mountain was that it can be a bit rickety and that the front seat can make your legs get bashed about a bit, so I was glad to find myself in the back seat. A fun ride as usual, and when we ‘landed’ I waited for the others to arrive and find out the verdict. Thankfully Daniel still loved it, as he had done last time (you can never tell with him!) and even though we had one FP left, Adam didn’t fancy riding on his own so it went to waste and we went to find my Mum.

It had turned into a lovely warm day, and as we topped up the sun cream, Adam decided he wanted to cross one of the things off his ‘must do’ list. Turkey Leg! We grabbed a couple of drinks nearby and headed back to the turkey leg cart near Country Bear Jamboree.

Turkey leg purchased ($10.25), Adam held it aloft like the true prize that it is

And we grabbed a pew nearby while he tucked in

He enjoyed it, but wasn’t blown away by it. I’ve just asked him if he’d have another one next time, but he did that usual pre-teen thing of shrugging his shoulders, so I’ll take that as a maybe. I had a try but it had too much of a smoked taste for my liking, and the very pinkness of it put me off a bit. Simon also tried it as did my Mum, but Daniel was the one who surprised us most of all. He can be quite reluctant to try new things, so when asked if he wanted some, I really didn’t expect him to say yes. But he did, and he loved it! Poor Grandma was tasked with pulling bits off for him but she didn’t mind, meanwhile Simon & I kept the local wildlife (birds) away!

It was approaching 12 o’clock by now, and after a quick freshen up we decided to call it a day, but taking the longer way round through Adventureland back to the exit, stopping for a cool down on the way

We took a slow stroll back down Main Street, calling in on the shops along the way. Adam wanted some Goofy Taffy, another thing ticked off his list, so picked some up in the Emporium. I say picked some up, we did actually pay for it too ($7.41) 

By 12.30 we were really starting to flag and so the sit down on the monorail was very welcome. In fact, for Daniel, it was extremely welcome

Going…. Going…

Gone!

As it was still quite early, and the car journey had given us second wind (or was that the turkey leg? ) we decided to call in at Target at Rolling Oaks to properly stock up. Beer & wine purchased (amongst other things ), and $98.49 later we were done. We’d promised the boys a pool float each, and after not finding anything at Target, we popped to Winn Dixie as we’ve always found them to have the best selection. We were right, and were soon the proud owners of a blinged up lilo and a whale (roughly $18 each).

We’d spent quite a lot of time at Target, it has a really good toy section, so the boys were happy, and I could spend hours there looking at all the different food items and treats, as well as everything else. So, by the time we got back to the villa it had gone 2pm.

Continued in next post...

[JoJo88]

Continued from above...

The boys got straight into the pool but neither Simon or I fancied it. I took the opportunity to send a quick email to Jackie & Arthur, the villa owners, just making them aware of a couple of things we’d noticed. Nothing major, and nothing problematic, just things I thought they’d appreciate knowing. I also asked them about the monsters we’d seen that morning, wanting to know if they were to be expected being so close to the water, as we’d certainly not come across them before. They were very quick to reply, and assured me that they weren’t the norm. I’d also asked a fellow Dibber on Twitter who had stayed at the same villa a few months before, who said the same thing. Phew! I’d much rather they were just a welcoming committee rather than permanent residents!

Once the boys were out of the pool and we were all showered & changed, at about 4.15pm we headed off out for our first Florida meal. Knowing that we would be feeling tired and not wanting to run the risk of face planting a bowl of chilli cheese fries, we kept it simple tonight, and went to cheap & cheerful Applebee’s at Rolling Oaks.

We were shown to a table near the window in a very quiet restaurant and studied the menu. After careful consideration, here’s what we went for:

To Share
Mozzarella Sticks $7.29

Don't worry, there were more, we didn't have to share two

Me & Mum
Chicken Tenders Platter $10.99 each

Simon
Cowboy Burger $9.99

Adam
Cheeseburger $8.39

Daniel
Kid’s Chicken Fingers (+ free drink) $5.99

And also 4 x Pepsi $2.49 each

Adam & I shared 3 dessert shooters $7.47

They were absolutely divine. So much so that since being home I have had to stop following Applebee’s on Twitter as they would taunt me on an almost daily basis with photos of these little pots of heaven.

Total bill came to $75.67 including tax (+tip)

The meal was lovely, Daniel declared his chicken tenders the best ever, although it was still early days, he had at least 10 more varieties to try over the next couple of weeks

We settled the bill and by 5.30pm we were on our way back to the villa. Thankfully it was too early for us to worry about the roadworks that had scuppered us the night before, and the journey home was swift.

No card games were had during this holiday – it just wouldn’t have been the same without my Dad and his dubious scoring system, so in its place was table tennis. We all retreated to the games room once back at the villa, me & Simon cracking open the Bud Lights and my Mum cracking open the wine, but it wasn’t that long before we all admitted defeat and made our way upstairs to bed, hoping that tomorrow would bring just as much fun as today

Day 3 - Animal Kingdom / Manny's Chophouse

[dixonsontour]

Great first day - looking forward to the rest

[Guest]

Fab! What a great first day. Can I ask what dates you visited?

[JoJo88]

Originally Posted by dixonsontour

Great first day - looking forward to the rest

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Thank you

Originally Posted by mancdisney

Fab! What a great first day. Can I ask what dates you visited?

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Thanks! We visited from 7th - 21st November last year. My favourite time to go

[Helen0705]

Really great first day with some lovely photos

[Lindaelaine]

Great read Jo , brings back happy memories of a fantastic trip , even though reliving it tugs at the heart strings .
Lovely picture of the boys sat in Applebees , happy days

Mum x

[Redrach1903]

Aww what a great first day! Nothing like that feeling of your first morning when you have all that fun ahead of you! Eeeeep!

Lovely pics of you all in the MK (even though some pesky woman tried to ruin one!)

Applebees is always a winner! Yum!

Thanks for sharing, looking forward to more x