theDIBB - Disney with the Dufflers - Day 9 - Girls/Boys Day, Downtown Disney and Raglan Road

Here you go!

Pre-Trip Report

Day 0 - The Day Before

Day 1 - Travel Day and Arrival at CBR

Day 2 - Magic Kingdom

Day 3 - Typhoon Lagoon and Bahama Breeze

Day 4 - Epcot and Via Napoli

Day 5 - Pool morning, Downtown Disney and California Grill

Day 6 - Universal Studios

Day 7 - Drinks around the world and Le Cellier

Day 8 - Hollywood Studios and the Hollywood Brown Derby

Day 9 - Girls/Boys Day, Downtown Disney and Raglan Road

Now this was a long awaited day for many in our party.

The girls were having breakfast at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian and the boys were playing golf, in a long awaited tournament entitled, ‘The Florida Open.’

The boys had talked about the Florida open for so long, they were all geared up and ready for it. OB is actually a fantastic young golfer, he’s on the Junior Team at a local golf club. Everyone was pretty certain that he would win. Nonetheless, the boys were planning backhanded tactics to prevent this inevitable outcome.

Neil and I had a trophy made at Christmas time for the winner of this little tournament.

Mum and Martin joked that they should perhaps just leave it at home given that it would inevitably return there. Turns out they were right. I wish I could tell you more about this tournament, but as I wasn’t there, I can only really guess at what they got up to. There are a couple of things I have been able to deduce.

1) Everyone played badly because the heat was unbearable. Neil even said that sweat was quite literally dripping off his cap at one point.
2) The order was as follows: OB, Martin, Mark, Sam, Neil and Jonathan
3) There was only one shot difference between Neil and Jonathan
4) The language displayed by Uncle Mark on the golf course was apparently quite shocking.
5) There was significantly less grass on the tee off on many of the holes after Uncle Mark had played his opening shot.
6) Sam had bought Disney balls for all of the golfers with little characters on them. So they didn’t lose them, they vowed to just use them for putting. Uncle Mark lost so many of his balls, he had to use the ball for general play. It didn’t come home with us.

A picture of the golfers.

Back to us girls...

I’d always wanted to go to a 1900 Park Fare breakfast. Not least because I’d heard such great things about the food but because there’s just something a little bit amazing and elegant about a Grand Floridian breakfast. Not to mention that we hadn’t yet ventured over to our favourite Disney hotel yet….

We got the bus to Magic Kingdom and then the boat over to the Grand Floridian.

We checked in to 1900 Park Fare who gave us a pager and said we could wait in the lobby.

In no time, our pager went off and we were greeted with a Photopass photo opportunity which was a nice surprise

And sat down at a table near the front of the restaurant. This was a truly spectacular breakfast. I absolutely loved it. There was so much choice. You could have everything from Lobster Benedict to a homemade omelette to breakfast pizza.

The character meets were very good although we didn’t manage to meet Mary Poppins (apparently she only seemed to greet those in the middle of the restaurant – boo!) We did, however, meet Tigger, Pooh and Alice.

Although we have to admit that we scarpered and rushed to pay the bill when we saw the Mad Hatter was on his way over. I know you’re not meant to avoid the characters and that naturally the whole point of a character breakfast is that you meet them and have pictures taken with them. However, after seeing his interactions with the guests at the tables around us, we concluded that a meeting with the Mad Hatter would just be plain awkward. He was nuts! I know this is the whole point, but we genuinely didn’t know what we would do or say in his presence. So we paid the bill and ran for it!

We got the monorail to the Magic Kingdom and Katie enjoyed her first proper trip up Main Street USA. We also caught the back end of the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It, parade, which I always enjoy. I was particularly pleased with some of the characters they had atop the floats including Lumiere and Sebastian the crab. Score!

Then we had a few pictures in front of the Castle.

And unfortunately, our first stop, after that big breakfast, was Splash Mountain! I had tried to get a later Fastpass but unfortunately, there were none available for that day. I enjoyed this Splash Mountain visit, mainly because Katie was here and no matter how much fun we had had on our previous visit, it wasn’t the same for me because Katie wasn’t there. What a soppy mess I am!

After Splash Mountain, we headed back through Fantasyland, showing Katie all the new additions, and went on Philharmagic. After that, Katie was keen to have an explore of the New Fantasyland. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was down AGAIN so we couldn’t even show her what that looked like going round. Nonetheless, we headed into Belle’s village and had a picture by the Gaston statue.

After that, Megs decided that she wanted to ride the Dumbo ride. I haven’t ridden the Dumbo ride in about twenty years. It was a surprisingly enjoyable experience. The new queuing system is very clever with the pager and the adventure playground. Ingenious by Disney when you think about it. However, we hadn’t anticipated that we may end up riding a different Dumbo ride and Megan and I had to wave wildly at Mum, Katie and Debsy who had waited by the nearside ride when we were riding the farside ride. They snapped us eventually.

After that, we had a Fastpass for Winnie the Pooh. We had planned to do all the fun, tame rides that day and save the wilder rides for the very last day in Magic Kingdom so we really went to town with Fantasyland. We actually LOVED Winnie the Pooh. The last time we’d been on it was, I think, 2007 so it had been a while but it was a really enjoyable ride.

At this point, it was nearing 2pm and we, eventually, heard from the boys. Neil sent me a message on Whatsapp saying that they had just arrived back. Helpfully, it wasn’t until like about half an hour later when Jonathan messaged Katie when we found out how it had gone and who won.

At this point, us girls left the Magic Kingdom and headed back to Caribbean Beach, meeting the boys, quite by chance, in Old Port Royale. The boys were having a spot of lunch. Us girls were still full from breakfast. Katie and Jonathan went off and rested for the afternoon as they had reservations at Jiko that evening. The rest of us made plans to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening at Downtown Disney. We had reservations at Raglan Road so that had always been the plan.

We went back to the room to get changed and showered and headed for Downtown Disney. But as was the running joke with Downtown Disney, the second we got on the bus, it started to throw it down. And I mean absolutely catastrophically, ‘this is the end of the world’ throw it down. Neil and I had invested in ponchos during our last visit to Downtown Disney (when again, it had chucked it down) so we just said to Mum, Martin and OB and the Dufflers that we would meet them at House of Blues.

Which, as you know, is right at the other end of Downtown Disney at the very end of West Side. And thanks to all the construction work at Downtown Disney, there is now only one bus stop…. In Marketplace. Cheers Disney! Really!

So after practically swimming down to House of Blues, Neil and I finally sat down and had a beer.

This was actually one of my favourite times of the whole holiday.

The music was fabulous, the atmosphere was great and we truly chilled out for a couple of hours.

Neil told me all about the golf game, I told him about the Grand Floridian and the Mad Hatter. It was just such a lovely hour. We also saw someone who Neil and I thought looked exactly like Martin.

Eventually, we caught sight of the rest of our party out in the rain and they joined us. OB, Sam, Megan went into Disney Quest and Neil joined them while I stayed at House of Blues with Mum, Debsy, Mark and Martin.

Our reservation at Raglan Road was for 7pm so they emerged from Disney Quest at 6.50 and we headed over to our favourite Irish Bar. It didn’t disappoint. We’ve always loved the atmosphere and buzz in Raglan Road. The food was also spectacular. We had a really lovely night.

Funny face!

I had the Lambo Italiano and Neil had the Fish and Chips.

We both had the amazing Dunbrody’s Chocolate Kiss for dessert.

After the meal, we had one more drink at the bar before heading back to the hotel.

A really wonderful day for us all.

Day 10 - Islands of Adventure and Bubba Gump is here