Continued from above...
Once we were all fed and watered we headed back to the car and the villa for a cool down in the pool. Talking of the journey home, and something I haven’t mentioned before, is that we found yet another Sherberth Road short cut to use when heading ‘out’ of WDW. So, as you approach the junction to turn right to get back onto Hwy 192 from Sherberth Road, if the lights are on red, instead of waiting there, take the little road just before the junction which travels along the back of the shops, and then you can join the 192 a little further up. It only saves a couple of minutes, but means you don’t have to wait at the lights. Every second counts
After a splash around in the pool, we all got showered and changed ready to go out for tea. Bahama Breeze was our choice for the evening, so with the car practically on auto-pilot we made our way once again to Rolling Oaks.
We were seated in a little booth in an extremely quiet restaurant, looking forward to a repeat of our meal from earlier in the holiday. Our drinks order was taken and we were left to study the menu. That is until our server came along and asked if we would mind checking our seats to see if we could find a mobile phone. Funnily enough, I’d heard a muffled mobile ring a few minutes before which had seemed odd as there wasn’t anyone else sat anywhere near us. However, we couldn’t find anything and told the server as much. A few minutes later the manager came along and asked once again if we could check as she had been sat there earlier doing some paperwork and was sure that was where her phone must be. So once again we all scrabbled about checking, but no, no phone. Simon suggested she check in her car as it’s quite a common place for a phone to get lost so off she went. You’d have thought that would have been the end of it, but no, instead of leaving us alone, once again the Manager came back to report that she couldn’t find her phone…… Okay, we get it, you’ve lost your phone, but honestly, we do not have it. Really it would have been easier if we’d asked to move so that she could have got forensics in, but we didn’t………
Eventually though we were left alone long enough to decide what we wanted to eat and gave our order. I’m afraid I don’t have any photos of tonight’s food, but we had a lot of the same things as before so you’re not missing much
Simon
Cheese Burger with Yellow Rice & Black Beans $9.99
Key Lime Pie $6.29
Soft Drink $2.49
Mum
Chicken Cilantro Lite $10.49
Soft Drink $2.49
Adam & Me to share
Chicken Sliders $4.75
Cheeseburger Sliders $4.75
Chicken Quesadilla $5.50
Soft Drink $2.48
Kid’s Soft Drink $1.29
Daniel
Chicken Fingers $4.79
Kid’s Soft Drink $1.29
And because the appetizers were on a half price happy hour, we ordered more chicken sliders. Big mistake!
We barely made a dent in the first lot of sliders that we had. Firstly because they were huge, but also, unlike last time, they really weren’t very nice at all. The chicken in them didn’t seem as good and they were quite burnt on the outside. Not only was some of our food not up to scratch, but we had to wait absolutely ages for EVERYTHING, from our drinks, to our food, to the bill. Most of the food was okay, Mum enjoyed her Cilantro once again and Simon’s burger was nice, but the sliders were not, and the whole experience just wasn’t as good as usual.
The bill came to $65.66 (including tax) which is great value for money, even on an off day! And thankfully, as we’ve been to Bahama Breeze several times, this one dodgy experience won’t put us off going back. We’ll perhaps make sure our eyes match the size of our bellies next time though
We popped into Target afterwards as Adam wanted to pick something up for his friends back home, and I snapped a couple of pictures of the lovely veg & fruit platters they have in there. They look so appealing don’t they?!
Adam chose something for his friends, I forget what it was and we piled back into the car and went on our way to the Magic Kingdom.
We parked up (having to pay the parking charge – sometimes they just wave you through in the evening, but it wasn’t our lucky night tonight), and walked over to the TTC. We hadn’t taken the ferry yet and so that seemed like the right thing to do, especially with this being our last visit to the Magic Kingdom for this holiday
We didn’t wait long for the ferryboat, and were lucky enough to get near the front so that we could watch the view appear before us. It was dark by now but we could see the castle lit up in all its finery.
It was around 6.45 by the time we entered the park, and we took a slow stroll up (or is it down?) Main Street, turning right at the top to head to Tomorrowland. The boys knew we were there to see the fireworks and understood that it might be too busy for them to ride anything. However, when we got to Space Mountain we were delighted to see that the wait time was only ten minutes. And that usually means a walk on as it takes that long to get through the line! Not only that, there were still Fast Passes available, but we didn’t bother picking any up.
Mum sat this one out as usual so just the four of us went off to ride, leaving Mum to enjoy the music that was coming from a nearby disco.
We had a fun ride as usual and as we were deposited back into the gift shop, the boys asked if they could go again, so we asked if they’d like to go by themselves which they did. It’s funny that Magic Kingdom is so familiar to the boys now that they don’t feel any anxiety in doing that kind of thing by themselves, and us too in letting them!
Saying that, we waited right by the exit so that there was no chance of missing them, but we did seem to wait an age, almost wondering if something had happened – a ride breakdown or something, and that they’d come out through a different exit! But no, eventually they reappeared and we then wandered over to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. We all went on this, Mum included, who I sat with. The boys sat together and poor Simon went all by himself. His ride photo looked a little like this…..
After Buzz we decided to head to our chosen spot to view Wishes - Main Street Station. It was about 8pm by now and already people were pitched up ready for the evening entertainment.
We got to the station and there were already people up there, but not so many that we couldn’t get ourselves a spot at the front railings. As we still had an hour to wait I volunteered to go off to Starbucks and get some drinks and snacks, and Starbucks, formerly known as Main Street Bakery (actually, it’s still known as MSB!), seemed like as good a place as any. Daniel had said he wanted some popcorn so I had a look in the shops on the way but all they had was the gift bag type flavoured stuff which he doesn’t like.
The queue in Starbucks was huge, but moved fairly quickly. Here’s what we had:
Mum didn’t have anything, instead she was going to make her own pilgrimage to get herself & Daniel a soft drink.
I had mistakenly thought the cookie would make up for the lack of popcorn for Daniel but he didn’t like it so off I trotted again to a nearby cart for a box of his chosen snack.
The station started to fill up quite a bit, and there was a lovely atmosphere up there waiting for the entertainment to start. I had a mess around with the settings on my camera to help pass the time
None of them were great, but I had no intention of trying to snap the fireworks anyway, instead I wanted to just enjoy the moment
I’ve since bought a new camera (so that Daniel can have the old one!), still only a point & click, but I’m determined to learn how to use it properly, and find out what all the settings mean! If anyone has any advice that they’d be willing to share, I’d be very grateful!
Before Wishes was due to start, we also had Celebrate the Magic to look forward to. This is where images are projected onto the castle with a fabulously emotional soundtrack to go with it.
Before the show had even started I began to feel a bit wobbly, and I could see on Adam’s face that he was feeling the same way.
At around 8.45 the beautifully lit castle went dark, the music started, and for around 15 minutes we were treated to a completely magical spectacle. The view from the station was slightly obscured by the Christmas decorations that were strung between the buildings, but it didn’t matter, they were easy to ignore. What wasn’t so easy to ignore was the tears that were flooding my eyes! And a quick look around at the others I could see that Adam had succumbed, as had Mum, but what surprised me most of all was that little Daniel was breaking his heart crying, which made me even worse!
Celebrate the Magic paved the way perfectly for Wishes, and to finally get to see Magic Kingdom’s trademark firework show was certainly worth the wait. We’d seen Holiday Wishes on our first visit, Hallowishes next time, but had never seen ‘proper’ Wishes before. If you’ve read my previous report
(Living in Jamerica - HERE) you might remember that on our first Florida holiday in 2009, on the day we went to MVMCP we had a phone call from home to say that my Grandma had passed away. Watching the fireworks that evening had obviously been very emotional, and on our return to Florida in 2011 and watching Hallowishes, I had also thought of Grandma. So, once again, staring into the distant sky watching the colours explode, Grandma was brought to mind, and once again I knew she would be up there smiling down on us.
Wishes was just perfect, and as it came to a close we made our way quietly down the stairs and out to the ferry port. I know that I was reminiscing over what had been a brilliant holiday, and I’m pretty sure the others were doing the same thing.
Adam is like me, he’s very sentimental and emotional and always has been, but Daniel completely surprised me with his reaction to what we had just seen.
The journey home was a quiet one, and once back at the villa we chilled out for a little while before heading upstairs in preparation for our last full day
Day 14 - Hollywood Studios / Longhorn Steakhouse