Winging It - Disney without a dining plan May 2018 ***COMPLETE***
 

Intro and Day One

Eek, it’s almost two months since we went away and I haven’t committed a word to paper yet. So without further ado, here we go again.

Just a very brief intro – It’s me and my husband Sean again and the reason we’re winging it without a dining plan is that we’re now fully fledged DVC members, so learning to do things a bit differently now. Foodwise, all we did in advance was to make two ADRs, so let’s see how it all pans out. Last time I seemed to lose a lot of receipts, so this time I tried to photograph them at the time so I could give a better idea of what we spent.

Pre travel day wasn’t very exciting. We dropped our beautiful princess Jasmine at the cattery, tidied the house, changed the bed linen etc, then headed off to spend the night with Sean’s sister as she lives within spitting distance of Gatwick. I didn’t take any photos of the dinner she prepared for us, as she thinks I’m odd enough already but we had a lovely rib of beef, roast potatoes and a massive selection of vegetables.

And so to travel day. After a quick croissant and coffee we set off to Gatwick. No lounge on this trip as we’ll be flying in the cheap seats on BA2037.

The flight was on time and we were boarded and ready to go nice and promptly. First up was drinks and we both had a rum and coke. First fail too – no photo! The rum was stashed for later. I’m pretty sure we had a bag of those funny pretzel things too, but no photographic evidence.

Lunch was served about 90 minutes in. The choices were sausage and mash or veggie pasta. We both went for the sausage and mash. Also on the tray was a quinoa and kale salad, a roll and butter, a salted caramel cheesecake pot, cheese and crackers and a bottle of water.





Fine dining it wasn’t, but it was all ok enough that we ate it.

To drink we had a Spanish sauvignon blanc.



It didn’t taste great but that may well be the altitude rather than the wine; I often find wine tastes a bit odd in the air.

Mid flight mini Magnums were served. Always acceptable.



Afternoon tea arrived about an hour and a half before landing. The sandwiches were back to a decent size after the teeny weeny things we had last time and the accompanying flapjack went down nicely with a cup of tea.



After an uneventful flight we arrived at MCO about half an hour ahead of schedule and were met by:
No immigration queue, no kiosks in operation, no fingerprints taken, no customs, no kidding. Ok, there was a queue. It took three minutes.

We collected our bags, caught the Magical Express and were being Welcomed Home to Old Key West by 5:30. Bags dumped, a quick freshen up and off we went to the bus stop. By 6:40 we were in the Magic Kingdom and it was time for something to eat.

There are lots of places we don’t much like to eat in MK and a few that we like a lot, so after a quick visit to the Haunted Mansion it was straight to one of those – Columbia Harbour House. We ordered a clam chowder for me plus a trio platter for Sean, some of which I shared. To drink we just had iced water. At check in I'd been given a birthday button, which now earned me a song from the CMs and a birthday gooey chocolate dessert :tongue:





I always love to look at all the decorative items and pictures etc in Columbia Harbour House. Because I am a hornet I love this one.



After a couple of rides - Small World and Splash Mountain – we were getting pretty tired but there was one thing left to do before we headed back to OKW.





Before retiring for the night we invested in a refillable mug for $20.23.

Excellent, another report :) great start

Following. 😃

Kat

Thank you

Hiya :wave:

Excellent! We’re also without DDP this year for the first time in ages so I’ll be following with interest.

Welcome aboard

Yaay another new food report!

Great start. Major props for making it to MK on arrival night.

Can’t wait for more!

Day Two
 

We awoke early but not ridiculously so, and had a quick initial breakfast in our room – just some cereal and frusli bars we had brought with us. Our studio was in building 64, just a short stroll from Hospitality House, so Sean also popped down to Goods to Go for some coffee in the mug.

Magic Kingdom had EMH this morning, so this was our first destination. The wait for the bus was brief and it didn’t take long to get there. After a couple of rides while the queues were non existent, we made our way to Gaston’s Tavern for breakfast number two – a cinnamon bun, a LeFou’s brew and a coffee, all shared.





Not food related, but we had a very special job to do next. So it was back to Main Street to find a balloon seller. Having made our selection, we headed over to Splash Mountain with it. Just a few days before our holiday we were privileged to attend the celebration of the life our dear friend, veteran Dibber Geoffa. Now it was time to say a last goodbye by releasing the balloon at his favourite ride.








We watched until we couldn't see it any more, then went straight onto the ride with a FP. Geoff’s partner Darrin had urged us not to be sad, so we came down that final drop with a huge whoop and holler in Geoff’s honour.

For lunch we just wanted something small as we had an early dinner ADR later, so we chose Sleepy Hollow. I had planned to have a baked potato, only to discover that this had been discontinued a couple of months earlier. There wasn’t really anything else I fancied, so we just got a pretzel dog with chips for Sean and an iced water each. It did the job.





Before leaving the park we might have paid a little visit to Aloha Isle for a float and a juice.





The first of our two ADRs for this trip was booked at our home restaurant, Olivia’s. Although we had stayed at OKW before, this was our first visit to Olivia’s and we were looking forward to it very much. It didn’t disappoint. The theming was incredible, with so much to look at, and the food was excellent.



First up was some lovely fresh warm bread to share.



I had a mozzarella salad plus some of Sean's chicken and a diet coke.



Sean had buttermilk chicken and a coffee. This had been recommended to him by our friend Anna (Blondie1979). That girl definitely knows what she is talking about, it was delicious.



We also remembered to show our shiny new blue DVC card for a 10% discount.



For anyone who is interested in these things, there is an excellent Lou Mongello podcast where he talks to Jim Korkis about the back story behind Olivia’s, as well as lots of other geeky OKW information. Well worth a listen.

Final job of the day was to get the shuttle bus over to the Disney Car Care Center to pick up our hire car. Then it was off to WalMart to get some essentials for the room – wine, beer, juice, water, bagels, cream cheese, fruit, yogurt etc.

Thank you. If we arrive in good time and have enough ticket days we always like to go to a park straight away. We seem to sleep a bit better then and are less likely to be fully awake at stupid o'clock :d:

Oh wow, you're back with another report. Fab start, dole whip right up front!

How lovely to buy the balloon and release it at Splash Mountain in memory of Geoff. I'm sure this was a poignant moment.