Ellie was up again in the night with her cough, so it was another restless night – and we were up early at about 7. She was fine in herself - it was just this annoying cough keeping her up at night! As usual we headed down to breakfast for about 8 and she was raring to go after some food and popcorn - like you do!
As we were leaving breakfast just after 9 we saw an empty bus pull up, rather than run the risk of not being able to get on again, we hotfooted it to the room grabbed our bags and headed back down to get there before the park opened. The next bus came at about 9.25 and wasn’t much busier – so I think it must be from about 9.45 to 10.30 the buses seem to get rammed.
It was obviously meant to be because as we were going through bag check I suddenly remembered the linberty app and logged on and kept refreshing to try and get a ticket for Jack! Thankfully I managed to get a ticket for in 20 minutes time!
We were soon met with this sight again.
We headed through the ticket turnstiles and took a few pictures of main street as we went.
I really did love the Halloween decorations around the park.
We weren't sure how the ticket system worked and we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss our slot so we headed straight over to Frontierland. There was already a huge que forming to meet Jack and when the Cast Member came out he had to turn all of them away because they hadn’t pre-booked on the app, which was now showing as full. I did feel for them as it's only written in tiny writing on the map and was only by chance I had remembered that morning!
It wasn't long before our ticket number was called and we headed in to join the short que at 10.05. We waited about 15 minutes and we were finally at the front. Leah had been so desperate to meet him I was feeling pretty emotional at this point
She asked him if he would be at the Halloween party tomorrow and he told her he would, and said he was looking forward to seeing her costume (I think this was the moment she set her heart on meeting him tomorrow too). She also told him she met him as Sandy Claws when she was 5 and he asked if he had given her scary presents because he got in a lot of trouble for that. I think she would have stayed all day chatting to him.
He actually signed as well which he didn't when we met him at MK in 2016.
We waved goodbye promising Leah we would try and see him again tomorrow! As we left we saw Phantom Manor was only a 5 minute wait and I really wanted to ride after it's recent refurb so we jumped on.
I hadn’t done this before the refurb so I can’t compare but I really love how it’s done! Here's a few badly taken photos!
Next up the girls wanted new pens so we headed to a nearby shop and took a few photos in Frontierland on the way.
Leah got some coco-inspired ears which were 50% off at the bargain price of 8 euros! She also got a Pluto pen and Ellie chose a Lion King pen. The que in here took forever and was so frustratingly slow so I ended up sitting outside.
Once we had finally got out the shop, we met up with the others and headed to grab a FP for Peter Pan. We were given the time of 15.20 to 15.40. The kids spotted Hook meeting not far away so we jumped in line, the que was about 15 minutes and we had a nice view of Skull Rock.
The villians are always a fun meet!
Next up we headed for Jafar where the que was about the same – we have never met Jafar before so the girls were excited to get him ticked off their list.
Once we were done with Jafar, we headed back towards the hub. On the way we saw some CM’s with a pin trading board so Leah traded one of hers – I can’t remember which one she got though. We didn't do anywhere near as much trading here as we did in WDW.
Once back in the hub we saw the Halloween parade was starting soon. So, we sat the kids on the kerb and stood behind them while they had a couple of snacks. As we got closer to the parade time the pushing and shoving got worse – the CM’s must get so frustrated repeating the same things over and over. There were people standing in the road and when the CM told them to move they just stood in front of the kids – as they were still on the road the CM said they would still have to move so they attempted to stand on the kids until the CM said they would have to go round to the back rather than stand on people who had already been sitting there!
We survived though and the parade was really good - the floats were well decorated for Halloween and there were some cool characters on them, like Huey, Duey and Louie!
I loved Mickey and Minnie's outfits
Dan wasn’t too fussed about watching the parade, so he had waited behind us where Stitch meets as we were planning on meeting him when it finished. Once the parade had passed we rounded the kids up and joined the crowds, one second Leah was holding my hand and then the next second she wasn’t and there was just a sea of people.
We split up and I ran back to where we had been sitting for the parade but of course there were people everywhere. We found her at the back of the Stitch que – which wasn’t far at all from where Dan was (by the front of the meet and greet area) but because of the people everywhere we couldn’t see her, and she couldn’t see us. I think it was the scariest moment of mine and Leah’s whole life. I am lucky that we have gone over this scenario so many times, and they are told to stand still until the crowds disperse and then find a CM.
When we found her she ran into me and burst into tears but I was so proud of her for not panicking and remembering what I had told her. We decided to head into the Stitch que and both needed a few minutes to calm down!
This was another first for us and he was such a great meet and was in his Halloween outfit too.
Next up we headed to Café Hyperion for a toilet stop – I didn't realise how huge it was in here! As we were passing through there was a dance group on, we decided to rest our feet for a while and watch some of the show. They were really good!
While we were sitting we made a plan of what we wanted to do next. I wanted to check out Philarmagic as I always enjoy this and the kids love the 3D bits so we headed there- the 4D effects were good but there is no Donald at the back of the theatre – we all looked at the end just in case!
Once we had finished in here it was time for our Peter Pan FP, as we passed Buzz we saw the FP time was for 8.30 which worked perfectly for our plan to be back later for the fireworks so we grabbed one.
We headed to PP and handed our FP tickets in – the FP que still took a good 20 minutes but it was much better than the 100minutes or so advertised as the standby time! It doesn’t matter which park you are at this ride is so popular!
Peter Pan selfie
the Hook scene
and I thought the mermaid scene was pretty
I enjoyed it once I was on despite saying I wasn’t fussed about riding it! Everything was at a super long wait time now – BTM was at 2 hours and even the FP que was backed up so we decided to head for the exit.
There was a bus waiting when we got to the stop so we all bundled on – it was packed again but we got back to the hotel at about 4.30 and chilled in the room watching TV and resting for abit. The plan was to head back out for the fireworks later once we had layered up.
At about 6 we headed back out – the buses weren’t too bad at this time so we managed to get a seat. Once we were in Disney Village we headed to McDonald’s which was busy but not unbearable (we had been to Venice earlier in the year and qued over an hour just to order food – this was no where near that bad thankfully!)
The kids had a happy meal each, Dan got a big mac and a double cheese burger and I got a CBO (Chicken, Bacon, Onion) which I really enjoyed! It cost about 28 euros which wasn’t bad for the 4 of us.
For dessert we headed to the waffle van I had spotted! I had one with caramel sauce and Dan had a beignet with Nutella – the two were 10 euros. The kids wanted a lolly from the stand next door and I caved and said yes and the total was 16 euros! I feel like I got ripped off there but my waffle was well worth the 5 euros!
We headed back into the park and it looked so pretty with all the lit up Halloween decs. We took a slow stroll down main street stopping to grab a couple of pins on the way – a sorcerer mickey one for Ellie and a Jack Skellington one for Leah.
Next we were back to see this guy.
There was a long que for the FP so we joined the end and when we were near the front a woman just barged up and walked straight to the front regardless of the huge que.
Although we did notice some people barging and ignoring any sort of queuing system – the CM's were brilliant at dealing with these types of situation. In this case she was sent to the back of the line.
I did better than before on this and got about 25,000 but still nowhere near the others. My aim must be atrocious but never mind I always enjoy it!
Once we were off the ride I hotfooted it to the shop as I had seen an Incredibles travel mug I wanted to get Dan for xmas earlier in the week and wanted to try and grab it without him seeing. Luckily he was distracted with a work call and he wasn’t interested in what I was doing!
When we came out of Buzz we headed to the toilets next to Plaza Gardens which were really quiet! And headed to the hub to stake out a spot for Illuminations. We were quite early but we got a good central spot next to the railings so the kids could have a fairly decent view too. The castle looks so pretty all lit up at night.
The kids all played clapping games on the floor and were giggling and laughing and didn’t moan about the wait once! Ellie started to get tired just before the fireworks started but she did manage to stay awake to watch them. The projections on the castle were really good as were the fireworks!
Once they were finished it was time for the scrum to get out.
At one point I thought I was gonna have to wait it out as Ellie was getting knocked everywhere by people pushing and shoving and backpacks but once the bottleneck had cleared it felt a lot better.
It wasn't long before we were in front of the hotel and the crowds has dispersed. The hotel looks so pretty all lit up.
When we got to the bus stop there was a bus waiting which we didn’t even attempt to get on but we managed to get a seat on the next one which was along shortly afterwards. They put more buses on at this time of the night which made sense!
The journey back was uneventful and we were back at the hotel by about 11. We headed straight up to the room to get ready for bed and we were all asleep not long afterwards.
