He Has No Idea What He's Letting Himself In For! Day 2 - MK & Epcot

[Guest]

Right, here we go, first proper day and first experience of Disney! This day took AGES to write up! Joe keeps saying to me that I need to finish this so I can get going on my pre-trip for this year I asked him if he was saying this so I would be typing to Dibbers rather than talking to him about it but he said no so think he might be quietly getting into the spirit of things Hi Joe if you're reading So I doubt anyone will get through this, but here goes...

I had been awake for a short while just after 4am but had nodded off again and typically didn't want to wake up when the alarm went off at 6am. 11am UK time, being true to form with the lack of jet lag traveling west! I have very few memories of getting up and ready but I suppose we must have! Notes say I got up at 6.10am. I do remember singing a Disney song in the shower and thinking that I would have to sing a different one every morning... don't think that happened! I was pleased to find that my Kipling was an ideal size and everything we needed fitted in perfectly

We were running late and I knew pretty early on that we were not going to make it for rope drop at 8am as Joe was being a slowpoke and wouldn't get up. We decided to investigate the coffee shop in the lobby as one of us had taken leave of his normal senses and was starving within 10 minutes of getting up... However, we decided not to bother as the options didn't look great. What also contributed to the decision was that we did get an orange juice ($2.40) and even though there was no queue we waited ages to be served by the most lethargic server ever who barely even glanced at us, let alone use a “please” or “thank you”! We must have been feeling reckless as we decided to buy something at MK!

Anyway, enough grumbling, we were off to the Magic Kingdom! We found the car, after me pointing out every state I was seeing on the number plates on the way through the car park. There was a good number and some of them from the crazily far away states like California! Joe was a bit non-plussed by my excitement for state plates but not to worry, I soon converted him!

We got to the car and had a bit of a faff trying to find the switch to move the drivers seat forward. Joe's passenger one was manual but my drivers side was all fancy and electronic. Joe eventually had a go and pointed out that I hadn't tried one of the levers every direction, and the one direction I hadn't tried was the one that moved the seat!

I didn't take any photos of the car until later, so you'll have to wait for that (sleepless nights I am sure until you see my snap of a black Ford saloon!)

Now as I mentioned in the previous day, I did NOT enjoy the drive from the airport to the hotel. However, when we had stopped the night before, I had sat in the car while Joe ducked out for his first US smoke and done something very unlike me. I had a word with myself.

I can be a bit stressy if something doesn't go well initially and can make stuff into a big deal, and on top of that I can be a bit of a nervous driver. But I had sat in Fenny (I had already named the car Fenchurch and for the life of me I can't remember why! ) last night and told myself that the first drive would be the worst as it was dark, I was tired and driving an unfamiliar car on the “wrong” side of the road for the first time. I had to drive for two more weeks and I knew if I let myself get stressed about it it could have really put a dampener on things in the days to come. So I had told myself not to be stupid and forget about the first experience. And you know, it only bloody worked! I remain unreasonably proud of myself that I stayed calm the rest of the time and was loving the driving by the end. Hope I can apply this new found self-discipline to other life areas!

We set my phone up and handily enough by the time we got to the car park exit it had got a signal and was pointing us the right way down I-Drive. To show how quiet I-Drive was at the start of December, I only realised the day before we left the hotel to go to Universal that I could have been turning right on the red all this time (we turned right out of the hotel every day and I had been turning right on red at other lights no problem, it was just the hotel I had a mental block at) but I had never been tooted at as there were never any other cars about! I think perhaps there was one hapless tourist who patiently queued behind me one day clearly none the wiser!

We got to the Magic Kingdom without incident although my notes say Joe developed his hatred for the sat nav at this point- he hated the voice and the fact it kept telling me to do stuff in “three tenths of a mile”. It was shaping up to be a lovely hot day. Our parking attendant gave us a good strategy for which rides to go on (our notes say) but I can't remember what that strategy was! I was amazed as a driver at how slick the parking was, as you drove along it seems very natural and like there was no way you'd ever end up anywhere other than that exact area they wanted you in at that point, but clearly they change the cones etc as the areas fill up. We were in Simba 12 and we got on a tram pretty quickly and set off. We were tickled at how often the CM repeated the area we were parked in, they really don't want you to forget!

By this time we were almost out of time for our first Fastpass at BTMR. Silly me had obviously overestimated our jet lag potential! So I had a dither as to whether to take the ferry for our first look at the park or the monorail for speed. We went for the monorail and got to the gate at about 8.35am.



Look at that sky!

We got into the main square and grabbed a map. I was so happy to be there but there was no time to waste, we needed to find Frontierland and BTMR! We skedaddled down Main Street and I veered us off to the left. Almost took a wrong turn but thankfully put ourselves right and got there with what must have been minutes to spare!

First experience with the FastPass machine was thrilling We went round the long long queueing system and when we got indoors I realised my schoolgirl error. I had not worn my contacts so had my prescription sunglasses on, which meant I had the choice of not seeing as it was too dark and looking like a wannabe with shades on indoors OR not seeing full stop, for I am extremely short sighted and didn't want to faff about putting my normal glasses on. I went for the latter, using Joe as a seeing-eye husband but that meant I didn't see the hand motions the CM was making and I tried to go the wrong way twice. Woops!

We didn't have any wait at all and I got firmly steered into the front row for our first ever ride in Florida! It was a great start, we loved it. The fact that we had rushed on meant that we hadn't seen any of the ride so had no idea what to expect and it was longer than we thought it would be too. A fantastic start!

I thought you got a ride photo with this ride so I checked with a CM who was stood talking to a colleague and he confirmed you didn't. As we wandered off Joe confirmed that I wasn't mad- the CM I asked had given me a look like I'd just asked what time the aliens come down and abduct us all! We reckoned it was maybe the accent.

At this point we were both keen for breakfast so we decided to have a wander and look for some. We strolled by Pecos Bill and then through Adventureland but nowhere was open which wasn't impressing a hungry Joe. I tried to tell him that 9am is not the kind of time they expect there to be a demand for chicken and chips but he was too hungry to admit I was right.

We briefly stopped at the camel from Aladdin as Joe had seen it spit out of the corner of his eye and was determined to see if he had been seeing things or not. Placated, we headed on and ended up back at the hub in front of the castle. I should say at this point that everywhere we had been was extremely quiet, we had barely seen a soul and everything was a walk on!

All change when we got back to Main Street and all the people who hadn't woken up as early as us had just arrived. I was sure we'd get something on Main Street and so we headed in to the Bakery. Historic moment as Joe had never been in a Starbucks before! It was pretty busy and the choice was pretty limited but at this point beggars couldn't be choosers so I decided on a pain au chocolat. Joe was looking at at the breakfast rolls but one menu seemed to imply that the bacon roll had egg on and the next one we saw said they didn't. We got to the counter and he asked, only to be aghast when the server told him that all breakfast rolls had egg on! Bit of Disney magic though and she promised she could get him one without egg

That and a bottle of coke came to $11.69 and we found a patch to lean on and eat our breakfast. I don't normally have pain au chocolat unless they're free, i.e. hotel breakfasts, morning meetings as I don't like them that much. It wasn't any better than a free one but was OK. Joe wasn't too taken with his bacon roll either. He is grumbling in the voice note about the, “needlessly fancy bread”. So far the food was not impressing us, and we kept forgetting to take photos of it!

Fed and watered it was time to do something more fun. Our FastPass window for the Haunted Mansion was underway (and almost over) so we headed back over the way we went at the start of the morning but turned right. I was keen for this as this day was the last day it was to be open before closing for maintenance.

We bypassed most of the queue which I felt a bit bad about as I had that the queueing system was almost an attraction in it's own right but we only had the morning here so decided to power through. They had some excellent CMs on this morning- they were properly creepy and obviously loving their job! Joe loved the paintings that were not quite what they seemed!

We had waited about 5 – 10 minutes by the time we got on. To be honest I don't think the FastPass queue saved us any time as the queue was more or less only at the point that the two queues merged. We hopped into our car and set off. If you read my later days about all the high thrill attractions I love the most, this might seem really daft but I was on high alert on this ride! I hate suspenseful things and being made to jump, like REALLY hate it. Can't understand why anyone would enjoy a horror movie for instance. As I had not read anything about any of the rides during all my research I had no idea if anything would jump out at me or not.

We remained unspooked though and our little friend at the end was probably the least exciting one, he was just chilling out on top. Joe loved this ride more than me, was definitely his type of thing. We turned left after the mansion and took a walk through Fantasyland as our next FastPass was Space Mountain, stopping at the Tangled toilets of course! This part was really quite busy and Peter Pan's Flight had quite a long wait. We both decided against It's A Small World so we pootled on, enjoying all the people watching and the warm weather.

When we got to Philharmagic the wait time was showing as five minutes so we decided to give it a go. The CM said it was about to start so we needed to hurry on but I got a few pics. The place was totally deserted!



We took a seat, feeling bad for not filing to the end but there were only maybe 25 people in the whole auditorium and we were the furthest over people so didn't feel so bad. We got a row to ourselves! I think Joe was a bit disappointed as his eyes really do not agree with 3D but I usually enjoy it. Sadly I don't think we were in the right place for it as it didn't really work for me either, I had to screw my eyes up a bit to see properly. We both enjoyed it though, and I liked the “interactive” nature of it and Donald at the end.

Of course we had to have a look at the pre-requisite gift shop after and I got what I expected to be my first (but ended up being only) ear picture (Joe has said he'll read this so I expect this pic will be temporary as he will make me take it down!)



It was startling how little I recognised! Of course there is a heavy Donald Duck presence in that shop but I didn't recognise the newer characters/programmes at all. For the first time ever I was ready to leave a shop before Joe was and ended up following him around waiting for him to finish!

No purchases made as we agreed best to do it when were staying on site (a strategy that meant we got no Disney souvenirs in the end!) and we meandered on, past the carousel and arrived at Gaston's Tavern. As this was the first time that we weren't in a hurry to do something, we decided to crack out the Memory Maker card! Sadly the sun was pointing directly into our eyes so we're looking even less photogenic than usual! She must have sensed my excitement though as she had me do a magic shot:




Happy to have got some photos (and me being happy that Joe was willing to pose for them!) we walked on and found the Little Mermaid ride. The queue time was 20 minutes but we decided to go for it. Turns out it was actually a walk on but the queuing system is so long it took almost 20 minutes to get to the front! For the first time of many this trip we commented on how horrible it would have to be to queue all the way round and how we would be totally unwilling to come in peak season.

We had someone with limited mobility in front of us which turned out to be a good thing as we hung back to make sure they didn't feel rushed and it meant we got to take a closer look at the stuff in the queue. Soon though we had our own clam shell and we were on our way! Some very unskilled camera phone photos to follow!





With the song now embedded in our heads we found ourselves in the circus area. Here I took a few more photos:



We took stock, looked at the map and decided to head to Space Mountain for our FastPass. We went by the speedway and Auntie Gravity's, again just enjoying the heat and the fact we were there! There was a brief scrum at the FastPass machine as a giant family with a fleet of strollers were trying to get through. In the end the CM seemed to give up and let them all through- probably because, again, the FastPass queue wasn't really saving too much in the way of time.

In no time we were on our way. It's not the best of rides to get in and out of if you're not exactly a graceful individual like myself! I LOVED it though, definitely shot up there to No. 1 ride so far this trip! Giggled to myself the whole way round. Joe thought it was a bit dark and prefers the thrill of seeing what's coming but he loved the theming- he had been really taken with all the theming so far.



In the gift shop after there were lots of CMs with badges to give out so we dithered over which ones to get. The kind CM said we could have more than one so I helped myself to a birthday one and a first visit one. One of the funniest moments of the holiday came as a bolt from the blue here- as I was considering my choices I heard the CM ask Joe if we were celebrating something. Now, as I mentioned in the pre-trip report, there was lots of justification for this trip- my 30th, Joe's graduation, our first anniversary, so what did he say? “yeah, we've just got engaged!”


The CM must have seen the look on my face (and maybe the fact that I was wearing a wedding ring and don't have an engagement ring...) but she pretended she hadn't and wished us a cheery congratulations, as well as handing him a first visit and “Just Engaged” badge. I couldn't get out of there quick enough so we sidled off and the minute we were out of earshot I burst out laughing. His excuse was that his mind went blank about all our legitimate reasons and he wanted a badge so he found himself blurting that... I haven't let him forget that to this day.

Luckily in the same shop there was another, more apathetic CM manning a till with a big tub of badges and a Sharpie so Joe manned up and swapped to an anniversary badge and I wrote my name on my birthday badge. With a still red-faced Joe we made our escape, pleased to have some badges!

All FastPasses done and we were thinking of heading for lunch- but we were tempted in by a 5 minute wait for the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. I couldn't resist seeing if Joe was picked to be “that guy”- not that I knew what that meant as, as I mentioned before, I had tried not to read too much about each ride so as not to ruin any surprises. I also got a red card which was entirely useless as it was a walk in and I handed it back less than 60 seconds later! There was a bit of time spent waiting in the holding pen, which was great as we got to read all the noticeboards and take some photos:





Again, when we got in there were only about 5-10% of the seats taken. We both loved how interactive it was, it was so clever! Even better, we weren't picked to be involved. We had a good crew even though there weren't many of us and the people they picked really gave it their all, except Boo who went all shy.

Luckily we managed to laugh enough to save the day and were delivered back outside. At this point we really needed to be heading so we started heading towards the exit, stopping to take some pics of the castle.



Very quiet at the castle!

Outside the castle Joe asked if we had the time to go back and do the Haunted Mansion again since it was our last chance. Time was looking v tight so we decided against it and walked back to Main Street, where we were just in time to watch the holiday singing performance from the tram.







We got back to the square and saw Mary Poppins and her penguins in a quiet corner. We decided not to get our photos taken, but the fact we thought about it and I since regret not doing it was a surprise as we had agreed we didn't want to meet any characters. Obviously being Disneyfied already! Joe went off to find a WC while I decided to ask how best to get to Beaches 'n' Cream. The helpdesk seemed mega busy but it was just full of huge groups so I saw a lone CM waving madly at me through the scrum. She was so nice and advised me as we were doing Epcot anyway, best to go and park there and just walk through to the Beach Club. She also pointed out all the places in the World Showcase she loved and where the best beer was to be found- I did not ask her about this, she must have thought I looked like I needed a drink! She also told me England was best for it and clearly did not think I was from England myself- for the second time today I found myself wondering what accent the CM thought I DID have.

On telling her what time our ADR was her eyes popped a bit and she advised us to go “NOW. Like, right now!” so I thanked her and ran to find Joe, stopping for this one pic which I'm really glad I did.



We went back to the monorail station and got a whole monorail carriage to ourselves!



We waited a short while for a tram back to the car with one other couple- it was so quiet at MK today! Back to Fenny and we set off to Epcot- it was well signposted and we were soon pulling up- with only a brief panic when Joe realised he had absent-mindedly “filed” the parking pass and the Epcot attendant was looking at him expectantly! What seemed like 10 minutes later he found it and we were fine.

Unfortunately we had to wait a little bit for a tram but bag check was quick and we were soon briskly trotting through Epcot. We barely looked at anything as not only were we starving but we were also late! When we got to the Epcot gates a CM cheerily clocked our badges and said that he hoped we'd enjoyed our first visit- ha, it had been 5 minutes of power walking! We got to the Beach Club and proceeded to get a bit lost and couldn't find it- I maintain to this day we'd have read the map better if we hadn't been so hungry! We were loathed to turn right as it always seemed to be going through the private pool but clearly we missed a good turnoff as we ended up overshooting and retracing our steps.

We arrived only seven minutes late- pretty good going! We were given a buzzer and sat outside watching everyone enjoy the pool and feeling jealous as the heat was getting up there by this point! We waited for about 5 minutes and were shown in to a table in the middle of the diner. It seemed like everyone there was also from the US and it was here for the first time like I felt like we were the first Brits discovering Orlando- Epcot later did nothing to get rid of that feeling!

I had a classic hamburger with a cherry Sprite and Joe had the Cuban sandwich and a Coke. They were fine, nothing amazing and not too impressive given the price- still waiting to be blown away on the food front! I remembed pics, but not until we had started on them:





The servers were also pretty mixed. One of them was very cheery and got us all singing Happy Birthday to a man sitting next to us who was celebrating his 90th birthday in Disney (good aim for the future!) The whole place took part and it was really lovely. However, five minutes later another server, who had been storming around thunder-faced since we got there quietly announced that it was also someone at her table's 5th birthday and we should all say Happy Birthday to her. No singing, no nothing and she just dumped a cupcake down on the table and left again! We only noticed this as we were sitting next to both tables and thought the treatment was a bit unfair! One of the CMs clearly a lot happier to be there than the other!

Luckily we didn't overdo the mains so we were able to order this bad boy:



We finished a lot more of it that we expected to but sadly I forgot to take an after picture! Notes say we managed more than half of it- good job! The notes say we paid ($46.81 before tip) and left, after having had the concept of tipping explained to us! I don't remember this happening but I guess the accents and the “first visit” badges must have made us a concern!

Continued in next post...

[Guest]

Continued...

Now outside, we re-applied sunblock and watched the pool for a bit, enjoying the sun. Everyone looked as if they were having a whale of a time. We waddled back along the way we came until we reached a smoking zone, so while Joe was unable to move from the smoking bench I got my photo on:







I heard Joe talking to someone and he later told me he'd been receiving marriage tips from a lady smoker who had seen his anniversary badge- so many mentions of it throughout the trip already, even CMs hurrying past us had been wishing us a happy anniversary! She said she had been married for 32 years and happily married for 5. With her wishes for better luck then her behind us we ploughed on and arrived back at Epcot.

We had a quick browse through the UK and sneaked a peak at Winnie the Pooh and Tigger doing a character meet in a nice air conditioned room! Joe made a voice note saying he saw more red phone boxes in the fake UK than he's ever seen in the real UK! Then it was on to Canada, where we had a more thorough look round our spiritual second home. We toyed with the idea of doing O Canada but decided against it for some reason. After a browse round the shop (pricey!) we stopped and listened to a Canadian band performing some festive hits:



We then found ourselves back at the Christmas tree so we took a left and headed back into Future World. Joe did at some point today say that “we've pretty much done everything over there” before we had seen anything else in the World Showcase so I don't think he was a fan, lack of rollercoasters wasn't doing it for him! Don't think it helped that it was dark when we went back either.

Getting ahead of myself there though! By now after our arduous trek from lunch I was parched so I steered us into Club Cool. We dutifully tried them all, even Beverly! Yuk! My favourite was the Inca Kola, which didn't surprise me as I had heard it called Peru's Irn Bru before and I am a fan of the Bru! Joe liked the Vegebeta but didn't like the Fanta Melon, which in the voice note he likens to “a Barcardi Breezer melon without the benefit of alcohol”- a scathing review indeed!

We look another left and found the FastPass kiosk. There weren't many available but we grabbed one for Turtle Talk then ploughed on and found The Seas with Nemo & Friends. We had sooo been looking forward to this as we both love the movie and our favourite part is the seagulls. Therefore, as the ride was quiet (10 minute wait stated), we had to stand for ages until someone walked into the ride so that I could see the seagulls flap and take a video.



We then went in ourselves, making the seagulls “mine?!” again and found it to be a walk on- again noone else in the queueing system with us. Took a few photos here:



We really enjoyed the ride, it was cute and I imagine if you had a small fan to take in they would have been beside themselves. As it was *we* were reasonably beside ourselves!

We spent quite a long time looking at the aquariums and the shark exhibits after, and I was tickled with one of the manatees being called Big Joe. I was also tickled as I was stood looking at the eels as another tourist came along and really was not having any of the eels, she was not a fan whatsoever (don't really blame her, they are creepy looking!):





We took so long here that we almost missed our FastPass window for Turtle Talk, but it didn't matter as we arrived 10 minutes before a show started and standby/FastPass was the same. We scooted along to the end of a row and noticed that noone else did, an exasperated CM was urging everyone to move along but everyone was suddenly selectively deaf.

I don't think we had a very good group of people in with us for this attraction. I can see it being absolutely hilarious but Crush was having a hard time getting any chat from anyone! We saw the potential though and like the Laugh Floor loved the idea and the execution, so we decided we'd come back here when we returned to Epcot.

Next we found ourselves in the Land building. Soarin' had a high wait time posted so we bought some juice in Sunshine Seasons and decided to go on Living with the Land as it was a walk on. Once was enough for me, but I enjoyed seeing some of the Halloween and Christmas decs:





Joe was not a fan. He went as far as saying he “hated” it in the voice note. He seems to have a problem with the idea of farming and basically forcing on produce, especially living produce like fish etc. I must admit I didn't really like the fish tanks in this ride either. I had no idea he had such a problem with the idea of farming though, especially as I am a farmer's granddaughter!



This selfie says it all

Soarin' was still posting a 45 minute wait and although the wait times hadn't been accurate so far we headed back outside. It was now pretty dark and we both found that Epcot was not very well lit! We ended up in Journey Into Imagination. Joe likes Monty Python so he was happier with this than LwtL!

Well, what can I say about it. It was fun but... if I had paid the $99 one day ticket price to get into Epcot and all the attractions were like this I'd have been outraged! Also, we tried to make our own Figment at the end but the computers were suffering the effects of being hammered on by kids for many years! We got there though and took a photo of her:



Popped into ImageWorks next and found it a bit hard to work out what was going on! Thought it seemed better for smaller guests so moved on. We were going to try CaptainEO but were advised that a show had just started so we didn't bother to wait for the next one.

Back outside, we watched the fountains for a bit and enjoyed watching all the people that had lights and glowing things on, then got a bit lost before deciding to get some Photopass photos taken. There was a tiny queue but I'm glad we did as they came out really nicely.



On a roll, we found another photographer beside the big golf ball so did some more posing.





Spaceship Earth was showing a 5 minute wait after having huge queues when we arrived so we gave it a go. This was good, and I liked doing the survey at the end. When we got to the bit with the twinkly lights, I totally inadvertently made a really cheesy sounding “oooh” noise, sort of like a minion I suppose, and I heard the car behind us start laughing at my dodgy sound effects! Oh well.

Afterwards we enjoyed seeing our faces up on the screen- some of the pictures there were hilarious! We also had a go at some of the games there. I remember doing the driving one where Joe beat me and the game with the human body, where it was a dead heat.



After another brief wander we pitched up outside Mission Space, and with a 15 minute wait it would have been rude not to! We decided to go for Orange and made our way in. I was surprised to see the guy from CSI: NY looking a bit younger and telling us new astronauts what to do.

Seemed like a bit of a wait to finally be all the way through and given our assignments. We were with a kid of about 8 or 9 and his dad. His dad clocked our badges and asked how long we had been married for. On hearing a year he took a very serious look on his face, nodded towards the door and said, “I sincerely hope we make it so you can see two years.” His kid was loving it!

I had been laughing about the roles with Joe as he is an engineer so obviously he was hoping to be engineer but he was made navigator! I found this hilarious as I am the map reader of the partnership and Joe can, trying to be tactful here, struggle a bit when trying to get his bearings! I was the pilot (score, I am a frustrated pilot in an accountant's body) and the boy was the commander, after a swap with his dad who took on the mantle of engineer.

I was apprehensive about this one as I had heard about the vomit inducing qualities but thought it was great! Lasted just the right length of time though I thought! We all handled our duties admirably and made it to safety. We both admitted afterwards that we wanted to not push the buttons when it told us to see if anything different happened but didn't want our commander to tell us off (and I think he would've!)

By now we were hungry and I had planned for us to grab some currywurst over in Germany, as we have had it before in Berlin and both enjoy it. So we trotted off over there, at a fair pace. We galloped through Mexico, Norway and China, then stopped in Germany. I hadn't really planned on seeing the Candlelight Processional but Joe was a bit keen as there were lots of shows detailed on our guide and we hadn't seen any of them. So we made the decision to nip over and see how things were over at the American Adventure, then heading back to Germany for supper.

The World Showcase seemed busy, being the last day of the Thanksgiving weekend, and there seemed to be huge queue to get into where it was being held, but we could hear fine from the back. We listened to the music and started feeling a bit Christmassy! Just after we got there and nabbed a small spot Neil Patrick Harris came out. He looked so tiny as we were so far back but I still claim to have seen him. We were fairly being jostled by the crowds at this point so after about 10 minutes Joe said he'd seen enough and we went back to Germany, where we found the place that sold the currywurst and had one each, with a coke to share ($23.30).



I am going to sound like a broken record here but they weren't very enjoyable. Given we were some thousands of miles from the authentic thing though, and we were enjoying a meal outside at the good table we had been lucky to nab, we didn't feel like there was anything coming over us!

We moved over to a smoking area where Joe indulged and I got talking to a nice American lady. She was visiting with her husband and told us she just had a smoke in order to have a rest for a minute, as her husband was a, “total tour Nazi with really long legs” and had them going all day every day to cram everything in! She said her kids had even decided not to come with them as their dad tired them out! I then stood up and she told Joe that gosh, wasn't I all legs and I was sooo obviously the tour Nazi in this relationship! Enthusiastic agreement by Joe at this point.

After a brief spell sympathising with this poor knackered lady, her husband came back and we took our leave and went to find a spot for Illuminations. We got a nice spot just in between Norway and China, after getting some more photos!



We didn't have long to wait and the show started. I took some video and a few terrible photos that don't do any the show justice at all. In fact they're so poor that I'm not going to bother posting any of them but here is the massive Christmas tree!



It was quite romantic, even being surrounded by other holidaymakers and their kids, and I really enjoyed taking in the moment, a bit disbelieving that after all the trip reports I had read, we were experiencing things for ourselves!

All too soon it was over and everyone was heading to the exit. It was a bit of a scrum but still better than trying to leave a big event in the UK! We were able to walk to the car, where we left no problem at all (I was expecting congestion, Disney really knows how to handle crowds!) and arrived back at the Rosen. One voice note later and it was 11.30pm and we were both totally knackered after an amazing and jam packed first day proper in Florida!

Day 3 now here!

[gtyrel10]

Wow!

What a jam packed first day! I can't believe how much you squeezed in, that was amazing and food aside it sounds like you had a brilliant day.

That wasnt great about all your food, hopefully the next trip will have much more food successes. We were lucky in Epcot as we got to try the yummy food and wine goodies but not so lucky because of the massive crowds! I think your tiny crowds makes me so jealous we didnt go later.

Looked like Joe is really getting into it all, didnt take him long to become Mr Disney! Properly laughed at him telling them you got engaged that is so random!

Men's brain must just give up when put on the spot. Maurice had one of those moments in Bubba Gump, when the waiter asked if he knew what the run forrest stop forrest sign was and he replied "yea my wife was just tell... " then trailed off. He went bright red as we arent married and he has no desire to get married so i could see the panic in his face lol!

Anyway fantastic day and a fantastic write up! xx

[Yorkie Girl]

Wow, what a great day! You managed to fit so much into it

and congratulations on your engagement

[mick]

Great but busy first day

Joan

[Leia77]

I was exhausted just reading that! You did a lot thanks for posting!

[collybird]

Can't believe everything you did today, by the time I'd finished reading I'd forgotten it was your first day!

Such a shame you weren't enjoying the food. My boyfriend adores Beaches & Cream but I think it's a little overrated. We had the sausage muffins at Main Street Bakery and they were fantastic. Hope things get better.

[KittyBlackDog]

Another engagement? Does that mean you get a second wedding and honeymoon?

You packed loads in to your first day. Shame the food didn't live up to expectations/hopes.

Lovely report

[Guest]

Originally Posted by gtyrel10

Wow!

What a jam packed first day! I can't believe how much you squeezed in, that was amazing and food aside it sounds like you had a brilliant day.

That wasnt great about all your food, hopefully the next trip will have much more food successes. We were lucky in Epcot as we got to try the yummy food and wine goodies but not so lucky because of the massive crowds! I think your tiny crowds makes me so jealous we didnt go later.

Looked like Joe is really getting into it all, didnt take him long to become Mr Disney! Properly laughed at him telling them you got engaged that is so random!

Men's brain must just give up when put on the spot. Maurice had one of those moments in Bubba Gump, when the waiter asked if he knew what the run forrest stop forrest sign was and he replied "yea my wife was just tell... " then trailed off. He went bright red as we arent married and he has no desire to get married so i could see the panic in his face lol!

Anyway fantastic day and a fantastic write up! xx

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Thanks! So funny about Maurice's slip of the tongue as well, must have just been so relaxed in holiday mode that brain was not as engaged as usual! I was totally guilty of that myself!

Originally Posted by Yorkie Girl

Wow, what a great day! You managed to fit so much into it

and congratulations on your engagement

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Originally Posted by mick

Great but busy first day

Joan

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Originally Posted by Leia77

I was exhausted just reading that! You did a lot thanks for posting!

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Originally Posted by collybird

Can't believe everything you did today, by the time I'd finished reading I'd forgotten it was your first day!

Such a shame you weren't enjoying the food. My boyfriend adores Beaches & Cream but I think it's a little overrated. We had the sausage muffins at Main Street Bakery and they were fantastic. Hope things get better.

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Thanks all for reading, thinking back we were awake from 6am until about midnight- crazy for the first day!

Originally Posted by KittyBlackDog

Another engagement? Does that mean you get a second wedding and honeymoon?

You packed loads in to your first day. Shame the food didn't live up to expectations/hopes.

Lovely report

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Thanks so much for reading. It's an intriguing thought you've had there, good excuse for another holiday

[Mortimer Mouse]

Really enjoying reading along. Such a busy first day.

We love Epcot. You should give it another chance. Take your time wandering through the countries, perhaps do an Agent P mission as they're great fun. I think having the free DDP helps as well, as you can try out the food/snacks, without worrying about paying for them.