Five Little Ones Take the Adults - Day 15, Crystal Palace, MK, DTD, Raglan Road, Swimming & Shopping

[Lisa29]

The previous day can be found HERE

Disclaimer, I have lots of photos!

Wednesday 9 October 2013

We had an early start on our last full day as the alarm was set for 6.15am. We got up not long after the alarm went off and got ready to go out.

Madison had been saying for the last few days that she was upset that they hadn’t had an invitation from Winnie the Pooh and today was finally the day that they got that invite! She was very excited to get the invitation and know that we were going to Crystal Palace for breakfast.

I called and ordered a taxi for 7.30am, and this arrived right on time. We had the driver take us to the Contemporary, rather than the TTC, so that we could walk to Magic Kingdom and save getting the ferry or monorail. We were in the park by 8am.

It was a rather cloudy morning

As everyone knows, the whole point of the early Crystal Palace reservation is to get the empty Main Street shots so we spent quite a bit of time having photos taken

I love Kaley’s cheeky face here

Posing for a magic shot

And the actual magic shots!

Happy people

I love how happy my Mum looks here

The Mastercard, priceless slogan definitely applies here to her.

Since we booked this holiday, my Mum had this dream of seeing her grand-daughters walking down Main Street together and finally, on the last full day of our holiday, she got to see it happen, bless.

This one is a bit blurry but has all of them in the one picture

Phil had hung back a bit to get some photos

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[Lisa29]

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Another castle shot

We stopped for some more photos, as we were now closer to the Castle, as you do!

Finished with taking photos, we went to Crystal Palace and checked in a few minutes late for our breakfast ADR.

View from outside Crystal Palace

We sat on the benches outside the restaurant while we waited

This looks like a picture frame

Kaley got excited as she spotted one of the characters inside

Kori wanted to look too and she was excited to see Tigger

We didn’t have to wait long before we were being shown inside

We had a row of tables, I think we had four tables of 4, all right next to each other which was perfect.

Piper being cute as usual

We all had juice and helped ourselves to the buffet. I had bacon, sausage, corned beef hash, breakfast pizza, breakfast potatoes, potato casserole and breakfast lasagna. Wow, that all sounds weird!

I think most of those options are on this plate!

I followed this up with puffed French toast, a chocolate and plain sugar scone and an apple Danish. I’m not sure what the other thing is on the plate

This was all quite nice.

It took a little while for the characters to come around. First up was Tigger

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[Lisa29]

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Followed very quickly by Piglet

I love how happy and excited Kaley looks

Now, this little girl eats strawberries and grapes most days of the week so I have no idea why she decided to do this!

I love the look on her face here!

I’m sure holding the knife, fork and grapes will make it easier!

We had already asked for the bill so had to get this sorted. I mentioned yesterday that we had noticed there was something wrong with our remaining child credits so we needed them to sort this here. When Mum and Dad had taken the girls out a few evening’s ago, they had used one of Madison table service credits for Sydney so we needed two child’s credits coming off Michelle’s room for this meal, with none coming off ours. It took a bit of explaining but they finally understood what we were saying and processed the bill so we had the right number of TS left on each room.

The cost was $23.99 per adult and $12.99 for Madison and we used 3 table service credits. Our share of the tip was $11.

We sat waiting for ages for another character. Eeyore got quite close to us then the parade they do around the restaurant started so he went to join that. Finally, at 9.35am, over an hour after sitting down, Eeyore came to our tables.

Piper loved him

Madison had her usual big hug

We had to wait a bit longer for Pooh Bear but he was worth the wait as all the girls loved seeing him

We left the restaurant just after 9.45am. Anyone wanting a quick breakfast in here beware that it may not be an in and out in an hour meal!

Two big cheesy grins!

We didn’t have any particular plans of where we were going or what we wanted to go on so asked Madison. She wanted to go and watch Sydney go on Splash Mountain so we went over there. We had all gone our separate ways at this point so we met up with them on the bridge. Jamie took Sydney but they came back a few minutes later as she had changed her mind. She had been on it the year before and loved it but she wasn’t as keen this time around.

We separated again at this point and we walked through to Adventureland. Kaley was running/walking/skipping and was loving it. It was fairly quiet in this part of the park and it was good to let her run ahead of us. Madison wanted to go back on the Swiss Family Treehouse so Phil took her and Kaley on

From here we went back to the castle hub to watch ‘Castle Party’ (Madison’s name for it from 2010)

I went to get fast passes for the Pooh Bear ride then went back to meet Phil and the girls who were still watching the show. When this finished, we went to the Arribas shop, though my receipt shows as Crystal Arts, to get a couple of personalized photo frames

I have coloured in where our surname is, it isn't a strange colour

These were $39 each plus tax including the personalization. They are expensive but these are the things I don’t mind paying out for on holiay.

I had checked the times guides for character meets and knew the Fairy Godmother was due back out soon so we went back up Main Street and followed the small path to the left of the castle to join the line.

We didn’t wait too long before she came out

She was amazing, I would say the best character we came across on this trip. She spent so much time talking to the girls and she wrote each of them a little message in their autograph books

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[Lisa29]

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We had a quick look in the Princess shop across from the castle then I took Kaley onto the Pooh Bear ride as Madison didn’t want to go on. Phil, Madison and Kaley went onto the carousel next.

After that big breakfast this morning, we decided we needed more food! We walked round to Columbia Harbour House. We got two chicken nuggets and chips ($8.69 each), one chicken nuggets and fish ($9.29)

and one Anchors Aweigh Sandwich (tuna sandwich) ($9.19)

For dessert, we had two yoghurts ($2.19 each), a chocolate cake ($3.99) and the seasonal cobbler ($3.99)

We got two diet cokes ($3.19 each) and two orange juices ($3.79 each) making the total $68.86 and we used four counter service credits.

When we were done here, we walked down Main Street and went into the Baby Care Centre to change Kaley. We had gone the whole trip without a Starbucks so called in the Main Street Bakery to use another counter service credit. We got a brownie ($3.49), apple slices ($3.49) and a venti double chocolate chip Frappuccino ($5.49). Great value, although very sweet, on the dining plan.

I went back into the Arribas shop to pick up our photo frames while the other three shared the Frappuccino outside.

If I had won the Euro Millions on Friday I would definitely have bought one of these!

What a price tag on that! It is stunning though.

I wanted some Disney Dollars so went to Guest Services to buy some

From here, it was time to say goodbye to Magic Kingdom. I don’t recall it being too sad at the time but it has made me very emotional writing about it now. We left and went to the our bus stop

Madison was happy to pose again

We were on a bus and on our way back to SSR around 1.40pm. Random picture alert, at some point during the morning, Mum and Dad had taken a ride around the monorail

Anyway, we got back to SSR and settled Kaley for a sleep. We tried to get Madison to have a rest but the best we could do was get her to sit for a few minutes watching the TV. Phil took Madison to pick up yesterday’s purchases from Artist’s Palette while I had a quick nap. I got up at 3pm and sorted some more of the packing. We got ready to go back out and the others got back just before 4pm.

We left around 4.15pm and walked to the boat dock. We had just missed the last boat they were running as they were closing the waterways for Dragon Boat Race training so we walked instead. Madison and Kaley were taking it in turns going in the pushchair. Kaley did lots of running again and Madison had shoulder rides from Phil and had my Dad carrying her at times!

A few of us were going to go on the Characters in Flight balloon but it was closed as it was a bit windy. Mum and Dad offered to take Madison and Kaley with them so that Phil and I could go and do a bit of shopping so we gratefully accepted.

We went to pick up the baubles we bought yesterday from the Christmas shop then went into Goofy’s Candy Co to use up some snack credits. We bought 13 bags of sweets! We got 6 bags of chocolate coins ($3.45 each), which we used in the girls stockings at Christmas, 2 packets each of gummy characters and Mickey head licorice ($4.95 each) then some hard candy, jelly beans and another I can’t work out from the receipt ($4.95 each). Phil took some of these to work with him when we got back and we ate the rest over quite a few weeks!

We went into Once Upon a Toy next to buy some Christmas presents for the girls. We bought a Cinderella wand and bag set ($19.95) and a set of reading books ($9.99) for Madison

And for Kaley, we bought a baby Tigger with a blanket ($22.95) that she had seen a wanted a few days earlier

Along with a small Disney bus toy ($7.95) and a Small World bath toy set ($14.95) that she plays with every time she is in the bath

We had been looking for most of the holiday for a CD that had park music on it and finally found this

Which is a 5 disc set that we bought ($59.98). Expensive, but it is nice listening to them in the car with the girls. Madison sings along with me to Wishes which I love hearing.

Phil had been considering buying the Disney Infinity characters and finally made the decision to buy as many as they had available. He was happy to get these and Madison loves playing Infinity with him at home.

Shopping finished, we went to meet up with everyone at Raglan Road for dinner. We were seated quite quickly in the room kind of behind the bar at two tables just across from each other. We were brought out some soda bread with dipping oil

This was lovely and reminded me of having it years ago at my Nana and Grandad’s. Phil and I ordered diet cokes ($3 each) and water for the girls, then placed our food order. I forgot to ask about the soup so when the server came to take the order from Mum’s table, she asked and oh my goodness, the soup was colcannon soup! I was so happy, I have been waiting 6 years to eat this again since our honeymoon in 2007! Mum ordered this for me ($6)

It was so delicious and well worth the 6 year wait!

For mains, Madison had grilled chicken with chips and veg ($11)

She shared this with Kaley and they enjoyed it

Phil had the fish and chips ($19)

I think he enjoyed this. And I had the Serious Steak, which was 10 oz sirloin with Irish whiskey marmalade glaze, with basil oil, mash and beer battered onion rings ($28)

This was really good too.

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[Lisa29]

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For dessert, Madison had Strawberry Delight ($5). I don’t have a photo of this and cannot recall what it actually was. I had Ger’s Bread and Butter Pudding ($8.50)

This was so good but I was already quite full so couldn’t eat much of it. Phil had Fluffy Lemon Clouds, which was lemon tart with meringue ($8.50)

He enjoyed this too. The restaurant was very busy and service wasn’t the quickest here, but the food was delicious and for me, worth the wait. The total was $86 plus tax and we used our last three table service credits. Our share of the tip was $16 and I paid for my starter which was on Mum’s bill.

The Irish dancers were coming around the restaurant to dance in each room and they stopped just across from us to dance

They were really good and Madison really enjoyed watching them. After settling the bill, we walked back through the restaurant and stopped for a few minutes as the dancers were performing again on the stage. I would have stayed for longer but we had promised Madison we would go swimming so we said goodbye and walked back to SSR as the boat wasn’t there.

We went to the Grandstand pool and got changed into our swimming stuff which we had taken with us.

We had a great time here and were really annoyed with ourselves that we had left it to the last night of our holiday. Kaley and I liked the hot tub. We stayed until 8pm then made our way back where Phil took a photo of this

This seemed to be here most days, in the area outside the lift on our floor. Getting back to our room, we found this

Our Magical Express information for the next day.

We got the girls into their pyjamas and Madison got really upset because she didn’t want to go home. She was crying her eyes out because she didn’t think her wishes had come true! We finally managed to calm her down and they went to bed.

Some more last minute shopping was needed, so Dan, Marie, Ryan, Bethany and I left before 9pm to go the Premium Outlets. We went to the newest bit first and I bought more Havaianas in Saks Off 5th ($14.90 inc tax) and then went into North Face to buy a waterproof coat for walking to school and back. They had 50% off most coats and I got a removable fleece lined, waterproof coat for $121.40 inc tax which has been great over the winter.

We met up again and drove over to the main shopping bit and I bought the same medical toy kit I had got Kaley for her birthday for Madison for Christmas, some clothes for me from American Eagle and then spent almost $200 in Osh Kosh B’gosh on clothes for both girls, including a really nice, thick winter coat for Kaley. I also finally managed to get them outfits to wear on Christmas Day which I hadn’t managed up to now.

We were finished and on our way back just before 11pm. I showed Mum what I had bought and then logged on to the Virgin website to buy an extra bag. While doing this I noticed that Kaley wasn’t on the booking and had a complete panic. I tried ringing and couldn’t get through; I was on hold for ages. I gave up waiting and did some more packing.

We had rather a lot of these to bring home

We had to do some re-packing as our biggest case was a bit over. Finally, we had most of it done so I decided to try calling Virgin again. I think I chose to make a new booking thinking that they would definitely answer the phone. They did and the guy was very helpful. As Kaley was now a child, rather than an infant as she was on the outbound flight, she had her own booking reference number that I should have been given. Happy and satisfied that she would be flying home with us, I thanked the guy on the phone and decided to go to bed! It was after 1.30am and of course I struggled to sleep.

Next, our last day, Day 16, Downtown Disney and the ‘Sad Bus’ to MCO and Home is HERE

[Milner]

Good read. Love the photo frames.

[Jessika]

What a lovely day, your pictures are gorgeous. Thank you for posting.

[Lisa29]

Originally Posted by Milner

Good read. Love the photo frames.

See more...

Thank you. I really like all my frames.

Originally Posted by Jessika

What a lovely day, your pictures are gorgeous. Thank you for posting.

See more...

Thank you!

[Guest]

Hi Lisa! How did it get to your last full day already?

Great Photopass pics of you all down Main Street and in front of the Castle, lovely to have some of the whole party.

Looks like a lovely breakfast at Crystal Palace, we've enjoyed both our visits there. Sounds like you got your dining credits sorted out easily enough.

Dinner at Ragland Road looks yummy, especially the puddings!

We really enjoyed the Grandstand Pool when we stayed at SSR too, the hot tub was sooooo nice. Glad you were able to get some peace of mind about Kaley's flight, I can imagine that was a bit worrying at the time.

[DiddyDan]

I can't believe you've only got 1 more day to write!

We had such a busy long day that day didn't we?! I love the photos of the girls on Main Street and it made me laugh what you put about mum