The Land, Sea and Wedding Trip Oct 2015 - Day 5, Typhoon Lagoon, Epcot and Akershus

[Lisa29]

The previous day, the Wedding Day, is HERE.

Thank you to everyone who has read and commented on the Wedding Day, and previous days, I really appreciate it.

Thursday 15th October 2015

After our very long day yesterday, we were hoping for a lie in. Those with young children will know that a lie in is really anything after 7am so we did well sleeping until 7.40am! We got up and the girls sat in the sofa bed playing with the toys they had gotten the previous day

We all had breakfast, got ready, faffed a bit and us, Ryan, Bethany and Piper left at 9.40am to go to Typhoon Lagoon, after getting some towels from the pool area to take with us. We called in at Hospitality House on the way out to check that we had charging privileges set up on our room, so that we could use the room credit we had. (We did.)

On our way to TL, we arrived just after 10am to find the car park not particularly busy. We saw Michelle and Jamie's car in the next row over to ours as we walked to the entrance. It didn't take us long to get in and we could see Michelle, Jamie and the kids a little way ahead of us, heading round to Ketchakiddee Creek.

We grabbed some chairs and loungers under one of the gazebo-type things and got ourselves ready to go and play. We didn't need to get lockers as Saxon needed a sleep so Michelle would be staying with him with all our belongings. We went into the kids area first

They had a go on some of the little slides and played in the shallow waterways that they have. Madison was too tall this time for the rubber ring slide she had loved in 2013. As she had already picked up a ring, the CM let her have one go, which she really enjoyed. Kaley loved this slide and had a few go's on it.

Once they had finished playing here we went over to the wave pool, taking Sydney with us. They had lots of fun playing on the two slides here while we stayed in the shallow part of the wave pool.

We didn't venture very far into the wave pool, the girls were all quite happy to just stay on the edge of the waves, rather than getting right into them.

Phil took a few photos of this beautiful park

We managed to get the girls away from the slides and went for a float around the lazy river. This was fun and we all enjoyed going around this. We got off at the shark bit but it didn't open until noon I think, so we just had a quick look but couldn't really see anything. We were right near to Humunga Cowabunga so Phil decided to have a go. The line wasn't too long, a good thing really, considering how quick the slide is!

We went back round to Ketchakiddee Creek and the kids played some more in the water. I think it was about 11.30am by now and we were feeling a bit hungry so we went over to Leaning Palms

The menu was quite varied really, with a few options which I thought was good for a water park

Phil, Madison and Kaley went to find a table whilst I went to order. They give you a menu at the start of the queue to look at. Think this is to quicken up the people who get to the front still not knowing what they want! I had the Island Burger with fries ($10.49), Phil had the Chicken Wrap with chips (crisps) ($9.49), and Madison and Kaley had a kids chicken nuggets, fries, cookie and water meal each, so that they could get the bucket and spade that came with it ($7.99 each). The desserts were a fruit cup ($3.79) and a key lime pie ($4.29), with the drinks being two diet cokes ($2.99 each). This should have cost $50.02 plus tax but we used 4 counter service credits.

When they passed me my trays of food, they had put a strawberry frozen lemonade on it. I said I hadn't ordered one but they told me to have it anyway

Phil and the girls loved this, they thought it was really delicious. They had got a great table, half in the sun and half in the shade so not too hot to sit and eat.

This was Phil's wrap and crisps

And this was the rest of our food

This was all good and we all enjoyed it. My burger was much bigger than it looks in the photo.

Once we had finished eating, we went back to where everyone else was and the kids played with the buckets and spades for a while. Around 12.30pm, we decided we were done and started to gather all our belongings. I don't think we ever do the water parks justice, but with Madison not being keen on anything that goes to fast, we don't really do the slides and end up getting a bit fed up. Hopefully whenever we go again, she may be a bit braver and try some of the slides as I'm sure she would love them. I love water slides so really hope she does like them one day.

Anyway, we all went and had showers and got dressed. When I came out with Madison and Kaley, the others were waiting and Dan and Dave had just arrived with Dave's family. We stood and talked to them for a bit then left the park.

We drove back to OKW and I have written in my notes that it took us ages to get ready to go back out. The three girls got another invitation for dinner

This was for dinner at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall at 5pm, with the Princesses. We were on our way to Epcot at 2.10pm and it took less than 10 minutes to get there. We parked in Discovery 25. There were people waiting for a tram but we couldn't see one coming so decided to walk and were at the entrance before we even saw a tram.

Continued in next post

[Lisa29]

Continued from previous post

Obligatory Epcot photos

We did the first thing you have to do when entering a park - stopping for PP pictures!

The girls dresses were some of my bargains from Osh Kosh I had ordered online and had shipped to Mockingjay Services - the tag said $30.00, they were in the sale at $9.99 but had an extra 50% off so I got them for just $4.99 each. Just over £3 a dress, I was so happy with them. They each had the dress in both colours too.

Phil took a photo of Madison in the same pose as she did on her birthday in 2013.

Phil wanted to get a photo of Madison 'holding' the Epcot ball

I think he'd have had to lay on the floor to get it to work though!

Kaley didn't particularly want to pose for photos now!

We walked into the park and decided to use one of our free FPs for Spaceship Earth. I hadn't ridden this in years and Phil, Madison and Kaley had never been on it.

I remembered from reading other peoples trip reports that our faces would show up during the ride so told Phil to have his phone ready to take a picture of theirs. They were both done on phones so aren't the best

The ride stopped for a couple of minutes while we were on it but it didn't cause any issues. We all really enjoyed it and will definitely ride it together again.

We decided to go over to Innoventions next, and used our second free FP at at the Character Spot. First up was Mickey, with hugs as usual

We had some photos with just the girls

Then Phil insisted that me and him jumped in too

He was lots of fun and we really enjoyed seeing him. You can see in these photos the baby Pegasus Kaley is holding that we bought yesterday.

Next up was Goofy. I'm not overly fussed on him, I find him annoying in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but he was great fun. He made such a fuss of the girls and loved his page in their autograph books

Once he had finished and they were saying goodbye, he seemed to notice their hair and decided to have some more fun with them

I made a point this year of filming all our character meets and these had been great ones so far.

Last up was Minnie. We had to wait a few minutes as she needed to go and check on her cookies that were baking . Incidentally, Goofy had to go and take a phone call from Max just after we had seen him.

Signing her page in their books

A picture with just Madison and Kaley

Then we went in for a photo too

Minnie was great too. She didn't want to say bye to the girls and kept waving and blowing kisses at them.

Continued in next post

[Lisa29]

Continued from previous post

We walked over towards the Land area. We stopped for a few minutes as Phil wanted to get a photo with the monorail going around, but he wasn't in luck and we didn't want to wait around for very long!

We walked over to the Land

And went inside. Madison spotted that the cool ceiling decoration was the four seasons

We still had a bit of time before our Soarin' 3.40-4.40pm FP so we decided to use our final free FP on Living With The Land

Phil was recording the ride on the GoPro (he did this on most rides we went on) so I was responsible for taking the photographs. I took lots (I love this ride), but will just share a few

I thought this Halloween/Fall/Thanksgiving display was brilliant

We all really enjoyed the ride. It is one of my favourites, I love looking at everything they are growing, especially anything that ends up shaped like Mickey.

It was now time to use our Soarin' FP. It has been a long time since we have ridden this and I don't know if the process has changed but we waited for ages considering we had FPs. I wrote down that we were walking through the line at 3.59pm and we lined up waiting for row 1 at 4.17pm. I'm not sure if it should take 20 minutes when using a FP but it did end up being worth the wait. Having the front row was perfect for Madison and Kaley's first ride and they loved it, especially Kaley. I imagine the upgrade for this will make it even more popular.

From here, we walked round to Club Cool

We had fun tasting some of the different flavours. I usually like the pineapple Fanta one but it tasted a bit off, flat maybe. I found the floor really sticky too which I wasn't impressed with!

We walked towards World Showcase, stopping for more PP pictures

We walked past the cranberry bog and stopped for more pictures at the Food and Wine Festival topiary display

Continued in next post

[Lisa29]

Continued from previous post

We took a slow walk around to Akershus for our 5pm ADR. A few minutes after we arrived, Mum, Dad, Ryan, Bethany and Piper came so we went and checked in.

We were called in almost immediately and only had to wait a couple of minutes for our photos with Belle. Again, we had photos of just the girls first

Then we had a photo too

We were seated in the main area, the same as last time, but at a table to the left as you looked at the room, by the window.

Very pretty front cover of the menu

And the actual menu

Our server was Felipe and he explained the menu, how the starters were the buffet station and that the Princesses would come around the room. He took our drink orders and told us to help ourselves to the buffet. We didn't get any photos of this, sorry. I had some bread, salad, asparagus, salmon and potato salad. It was nice, I'm not really into fish and there was a decent selection of this on the buffet, so good for those who do like it.

Based on my photos, Cinderella came around before our dinner came out. She signed their autograph books

Then they had their usual photos, a pose

And then hugs

After this, our food came out. Madison had the macaroni cheese

Unfortunately, this was not good. It just tasted like plastic square cheese that had been melted and mixed with pasta. Madison didn't like it and we couldn't ask her to eat it as we thought it was awful too.

Kaley had the meatballs and mashed potato

This wasn't very good either, and Kaley hardly ate any of it.

Phil had the Oven Roasted Chicken Breast - sauteed garden vegetables, fingerling potatoes and red pepper puree

Phil really liked this and ate just about everything.

I had the Red Wine-braised Beef - roasted garlic and cheddar mashed potatoes, seasonal vegetables and strawberry port demi

I really liked mine too. It was all really tasty, the only problem being that I think two Princesses came round just after we were brought our food so it wasn't exactly hot when I got to eat it!

The next Princess was Aurora. She loved her page in the autograph books

Again, the usual pose

Then hugs

Ariel was next up, signing their books

And posing for pictures

I think we managed to eat before the final Princess came round. This time it was Jasmine. She was very happy with her page in the autograph books. I think she tends to be a forgotten Princess so she was very happy

All of the Princesses were good, but they were all very fast when they came to our table. They really did seem rushed which is a bit of a shame.

Dessert was soon brought out. This is a shared dessert and was chocolate mousse, rice cream with strawberry sauce and an apple tart

My notes say 'dessert is a bit meh really' so we weren't particularly impressed with it. The pastry on the apple tart wasn't bad but I think it could all have been so much better.

For 6 adults and 2 kids (Piper is free as an infant and was able to order her own food which was good), the total cost of this should have been $413.14 including tax! Thankfully, we were on the dining plan so used 4 table service credits. Our share of the tip was $26.

For me, this is far too expensive a meal, at $53.99 per adult and $31.99 per child. We felt rushed with the meal and the Princesses were probably at our table for a little over a minute each. We were seated a little after our 5pm ADR time and were out before 6.20pm. I'd feel very aggrieved if I was paying for this. Our breakfast here in 2013 was a much better experience and though our mains were really good and tasty, we wouldn't come here for dinner again.

Continued in next post

[Lisa29]

Continued from previous post

We collected our pushchairs from outside and walked back around towards Future World.

On the way, we called in to Fountainview to get our Epcot Starbucks mugs. Mum bought them so she could get her DVC discount. It was $29.90 for 2 mugs and the discount was $2.99. Subtotal was $26.91, tax $1.75, making the total to pay $28.66. Well worth buying them using the DVC discount.

We had FP's for The Seas with Nemo from 6.05-7.05pm so went there next

This was a fun little ride and we all enjoyed it

We stopped at the 'mine mine mine' birds outside the ride and Madison, Kaley and Piper thought these were great.

Piper in particular, loved these and found them really funny

It was so fun watching her as it made her laugh so much.

We decided to make our way back now, first looking in the Art of Disney shop

I love all the different artwork in here. I would love to buy so much in there

We stopped for one last PP picture as we left

And Phil took a couple more on the way out

We had walked back to the car again instead of waiting for the tram, and were on our way back to OKW by 7.30pm. We were home very quickly, getting the girls ready for bed and they were asleep straight away, just before 8pm.

We spent the evening relaxing in front of the TV and I went through some of the things I'd ordered online. Dan and Dave came round for a bit and then the others got back from shopping. We stayed up talking and went to bed at around 11pm.

Day 6 - Hollywood Studios, the Boardwalk and Trattoria al Forno is HERE


DINING PLAN ROUND UP - 24/48 Table Service used, 12/48 Counter Service used and 1/48 Snack Credits used

[spencem]

Just caught up with your report, you all look like you're having a great time.

Totally agree with you on the price of the meal, if it wasn't for the free dining plan this year we would still not be eating very much in Disney.

[Buffton]

Really busy day! You got some brilliant family shots with the photo pass too, lovely!
I remember being annoyed that soarin' fast passes took so long, some of my family were waiting for us and thought we wouldn't be long as we had a fp , think it took 40 minutes altogether!
As always, thanks for writing!
Lizzie xx

[ShopandRide]

Another fab day. You must have all been exhausted after the wedding so you did really well to pack so much in. Love Typhoon Lagoon - really could imagine that I was marooned on a desert island there! I know the rides aren't as extreme as at Blizzard Beach, but I think it is much better for younger kids & just a more pleasant & relaxing experience. Lovely pictures with the princesses at Akershaus & am sure your girls were thrilled to meet them all, but what a pity that the food wasn't up to expectations & that you were so rushed when you were paying all that money. It just isn't good enough! Looking forward to the next instalment.

[Milner]

Another great read.

[Redrach1903]

Typhon Lagoon is so nice for a chill out in the sun! We don’t normally bother with much slides as we like the waves the best! Haha!

Love the photos with Mickey, Minnie and Goofy! Sounds like great interactions

I am so sad that Soarin’ will still be down when we go back in May. It’s one of my faves. The music gives me goosebumps!

Shame the girls’ tea wasn’t good and Ariel doesn’t look anything like Ariel hahaha! God that would have been one expensive meal if paying OOP!

Aww those photos of Piper giggling at the birds are SO cute!

Great read as ever Lisa xxx