Charlotte's First Very Merry trip to WDW (Dec 17) Day 9 - Tusker House, Mall, 'Ohana & MK

[vics18]

Index is here

Saturday 9th December

Once again the alarm (real, not tiny person) woke us up. Despite our relatively early night last night, it was very difficult to get us all up and dressed this morning, think the busy days had started to take their toll!

Bubble wand helped to perk her up.

Disney holidays are tough!

Because we were all knackered and not very motivated, we didn’t have time to do any packing so I was glad we’d made a start last night!

When we did our usual routine of opening the patio to see what animals were outside it was clear there had been a change in the weather – it was pretty cold and raining quite heavily. When we got to the car the temperature was reading 56 degrees, it had been 86 yesterday!

Today we had that extra ADR at Tusker House that I managed to get a few days ago, so it was off to Animal Kingdom. It had stopped raining by the time we parked up so we walked up to the park, it was pretty quiet, despite being a Saturday I think the cold weather was keeping people away! We stopped for a PP in front of the Tree of Life, which resulted in one of our favourite photos of the whole trip…..

Yep it’s another “kiss her on both cheeks” magical moment. Even the photographer creased up when she looked at it on the screen! Look at her eyebrow!

We carried on round to Africa and found the check in for Tusker House.

They gave us a pager so we took some pics of Lottie while we waited.

#Tuskerhousewall

At some point I checked MDE and that photo with us kissing Lottie had come through and we were hysterical laughing at it. We waited around 10 minutes before our pager went off and someone showed us into the restaurant. Thankfully I remembered to put the raincover on the pram as while we were inside there was evidently some biblical rain!

As soon as we went into Tusker House we both really liked the look and feel of it. I loved the way the buffet area was set up like a marketplace.

Our table was in the corner but with lots of space round so it was perfect.

Again we felt a little bit out of the bedlam of the central area of the restaurant. Our server, Robin, was one of the best we had in our whole trip. She poured us some jungle juice (nice but tooth achingly sweet) and told us that when the characters are at the table in the corner opposite to ours we have 5 – 10 mins before they’re at our table. It was so handy knowing this so we could plan when to get food and get her ready for the characters etc.


I went and got some food for Charlotte (toast and melon to start off with) and a few bits for myself (scrambled eggs which weren’t that good, bacon, sausage patty, a croissant, a Mickey waffle and some tater tots!) There was so much choice, all the standard breakfast stuff with lots of lovely fruits, krispy kreme donut holes, plus some other tasty dishes like carved ham and a couple of curries! As I was getting our food Donald went past, off for a little rest.

When I got back to our table, Martin said he had just been to the table in the corner so would be coming to us shortly.

When Donald came back he came straight to our table and Charlotte was very happy to see him!

She was fascinated that he was wearing a hat!

They had some hugs then we lifted her out of her chair so she could see him properly. He spent lots of time with her and signed her book.

Goofy was up next, and Charlotte again showed no fear and happily gave him a big hug!

There was a little dance parade around the restaurant now, with Daisy leading all the kids. Donald was in the line too having a little boogie. Martin took Charlotte so she could do it too, she was happy to follow the other kids and it was very cute to watch.


Once they came back to the table, it didn’t seem that there were any characters imminently so Martin went and got some more food – he was also impressed with the food and we agreed we liked it better than Cape May.


I got some cheerios for Charlotte and a couple of Mickey waffles for us to share (side note – whipped butter is just the best thing ever!) As I sat back down a CM nipped over to give us a 5 minute warning for Daisy visiting us. Martin (who was sitting next to Charlotte) said he needed to change her, and it couldn’t wait! So now we were in a race against the clock! He whizzed her off with all the nappy changing gear, so I could stall Daisy if she arrived before they got back. Which she did! I hugged her and asked her to please wait, which she kindly did. Thankfully Martin flew back into the room with her 30 seconds later and Charlotte was delighted to see Daisy!

Look at her little face

Poor Martin was sweating, think it was the most high pressure bum change he’s ever done haha!

Last, but not least, Mickey came to visit and as usual Charlotte was very pleased to see him.

Kisses

The lovely family at the next table offered to take a picture of us all with Mickey, so I returned the favour when he went to them next.

We paid our bill using 2 table service credits and left a nice big tip for Robin as she was excellent.

As we were packing up to go Donald popped by again

We had a FP for Na’vi River Journey which was active now so picked up the stroller and made our way round to Pandora. I wanted to get the ceramic tumbler from Starbucks on the way past, but the queue was huge! I asked if there was somewhere I could just pay for it, but they said I had to wait in the queue with everyone ordering their hot drinks. Silently steaming I did as I was told, made my way to the front, paid and got the hell out of there.

Once into Pandora we went straight over to River Journey, parked he stroller and joined the FP queue. The standby wait was 95 minutes.

What did we think of this ride? It was nice, calming, short! I’m telling you, if I waited 95 mins for it I would be very disappointed! Charlotte enjoyed it I think, and there were some really clever bits, but I’m not really sure what the story of it is (if there is one). We wouldn’t rush back to it, but glad we got to experience it on this trip.

That was it for our very short trip to Animal Kingdom and we headed out to the mall. We saw this sign on the way which reminded us of one of our favourite TV shows - Parks and Recreation.

Lottie fell asleep in the car, and we managed to get her in the stroller asleep too. The mall was heaving – a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon in December was not a good combo! We found a parking space near JC Penney. Martin got some cool T shirts here last time but didn’t fancy anything in there today. We checked out Think Geek and a few other stores.

I sent my brother this pic as he has a deep hatred for poor Nancy

We called into CVS as we wanted to pick up some Dramamine - we are off on a cruise in July this year as my cousin is getting married on board! (Sadly a P&O cruise, not a Disney cruise ) It's our first cruise so we don't know if we will get sea sick, so we wanted to stock up!


Justice was a little girl’s dream store so we picked up some Christmas presents for our 7 year old niece. (In my notes I have written ‘bought tat for Lola’ )

We went in a few other shops, I finally got my act together and picked some stuff in Bath & Body Works.

All of this please

If only these would fit in my luggage

Thought these were so clever - they were fragrance dispensers but had a little picture frame on the front!

Martin looked at the golf stuff in Dick’s (snigger).

This will never not astound me

Boats for giants!

We went for a look in the Crayola shop, where Lottie woke up.

We took this as our cue to leave and made the long walk back to the car park. Somewhere along the way she must have chucked her water bottle out without us noticing as it wasn’t there when we got back to the car. When we got back to Animal Kingdom Lodge we nipped into the shop and picked up a new beaker for her. Our ADR at ‘Ohana wasn’t until 6:30 so we nipped into The Mara and got a portion of chicken tenders and fries to share between the 3 of us to keep us going.

Back in our room Martin didn’t feel great and had to visit the loo a few times. I was trying to pack up some more stuff but Charlotte was doing her best koala impression and just wanted me to hold her. In the end I gave up, found some tablets for Martin and lay on the bed with Charlotte for a few minutes. She calmed right down and was happy to read a book while I got all our stuff ready for the evening.

Chilling out

There were some kudu deer right outside our balcony so we had a little look at those before having showers and getting ready to go out again.

On reaching the Polynesian there was a large queue for the car park, then we struggled to find a parking space. Once we eventually made it into the lobby we realised that we didn’t know where ‘Ohana was! I have been before but not for about 20 years! We asked a CM and they sent us outside! I had a sudden moment of clarity that it was upstairs so we hurried back in, found the lifts and went upstairs. We ended up being 10 minutes late due to all this so only checked in at 6.40pm. I apologised to the CM at the podium, she said not to worry about it and handed us a buzzer.

This was by far the least "Christmassy" resort we had been to. Still very pretty though.

We had a look round the shop and I picked up a pressed penny wallet for Charlotte.

It was a bit stressful around this area as it was super busy with people coming and going from the monorail, sometimes a big queue built up. It hit 7 o’clock and the buzzer still hadn’t gone off. I went and asked the CM how much longer she thought it would be, and she basically said that they would prioritise people who had arrived on time! I was seething about this – mainly because I do actually hate being late, so I was annoyed at myself, we were only 10 minutes late and it was all because of circumstances at the hotel – queuing to get in, parking and being sent on a wild goose chase for the restaurant by a CM of the bloody hotel! Aaarrrggghhh it’s making me mad again thinking about it! Martin was standing at the side of me, and could sense my inner rage, so he casually took my hand and pulled a bit, he’d seen a bench by one of the big windows in the waiting area where we could sit and wait.

This was much better as Charlotte could toddle about a bit. While we were sitting here some American bloke in the monorail queue started shouting for security repeatedly “Security! Security! You’re gonna wanna get security over here!” This was aimed at the CM at the ‘Ohana podium. People were looking around but there didn’t seem to be anything happening. The CM was asking him why he needed security, but he wouldn’t elaborate and just kept calling for security! While this was going on he kept his place in the queue, and carried on moving with it! It was so bizarre, me and Martin couldn’t stop giggling. Eventually he boarded the monorail and we never did find out what he needed security for !

Finally at 7.20 our buzzer went off! Woohoo get me some noodles! We were taken to a really nice table, not at a window but only a row away so we could see the castle through the windows.

They brought food out to us before we even ordered our drinks which we found a little strange! The bread, pot stickers and wings, noodles and veggies. These were all delicious and we especially enjoyed the delicious noodles and veg – we were so ready for vegetables!

The skewers of meat came round and we both had chicken and steak. The steak was my favourite, Martin preferred the chicken, which Charlotte liked too. He likes prawns but didn’t get any here as they were “in their jackets!”. We asked for a small plate of noodles and veg as we just wanted a bit more, they brought us out another massive bowl and our hearts sank! We knew there was no way we could eat it all. Eventually we gave in and admitted defeat. The famous pudding was brought out, I have to be honest it looked stodgy as hell but when we tried some it was light, and frankly bloody delicious. Our server brought Charlotte a rice krispie treat so she enjoyed chowing down on that, and did try a bit of cake too.

So a real mixed bag at ‘Ohana. The experience before it wasn’t great, the service felt very rushed, but they were very friendly and polite and the food was tasty. We didn’t do it any justice – should have starved ourselves all day! We would try it again I think, maybe not next trip but one day!


Due to our delayed seating we probably wouldn’t be able to make it into Magic Kingdom in time for Happily Ever After, so decided to watch it from the Poly beach then head in to the park afterwards for a couple of hours as it was open until midnight.


We had a look around downstairs at the Poly, and I changed Charlotte and took her dress off, putting her in some warm comfy clothes. We headed outside to the beach and grabbed a lounger to sit on. Charlotte wanted to play in the sand and walk around so one of us was on duty while the other hung out on the lounger (under a blanket I might add – it was chilllllyyyyyy)

After a couple of minutes the electrical water pageant went by.

Martin was so nervous about Charlotte being on the beach after dark, following the tragic events at the Grand Flo not too long ago and wouldn't let her go more than an arm's length away from him.
At first we were the only people on the beach but a couple of families joined our viewing gang over the next few minutes. Eventually Happily Ever After started, and Charlotte sat on my lap to watch it. We got wrapped up in the blankie and huddled up with Martin on the lounger. It was a very nice show, but I have a feeling that due to the use of projections in the show it’s best seen in the park itself, so I will reserve final judgement until we see it there!

Once the fireworks were all done, we went back into the Poly to catch the resort monorail into Magic Kingdom. There was no queue and one turned up within a couple of minutes. Charlotte was really tired so we headed straight up to the hub as I wanted to get a family picture in front of the lit up castle.

Once that was done we laid her stroller back and got her all cosy and comfy with her blankie. She was soon fast asleep. I wanted to go into the gift shop in Storybook Circus to see if they had any Dumbo stuff that we hadn’t seen elsewhere, so we headed over there via Tomorrowland.

They had LOTS of Dumbo stuff, but nothing we hadn’t already seen, so we picked up some Goofy Candy Co sweets to try and use up some snack credits. There were only 2 CM with tills open, and both were participating in the longest transactions in the history of the civilised world. You know when you reach the point that you’ve invested so much time in waiting to buy 5 bags of sweets that you can’t walk away? That was us. After what seemed like 3 hours we were finally served and back into the freezing night. Seriously, the temperature had dropped even further, and the park was practically empty. We walked back towards the castle and caught some of the projections which were amazing.

As we had got our photo, Charlotte was asleep and we were so cold, full and knackered we decided we might as well head home. Against my better judgement I decided to go into Starbucks for the second time today but this time to actually buy a hot drink. You know how empty the park was? It’s because everyone was here.


It actually didn’t take too long to get to the order point and I ordered a snickerdoodle hot chocolate, because the name amuses me. I waited what seemed like an eternity for it to be ready. When it finally was, I fought my way through the hordes of people still waiting and back to Martin. Stepped out onto Main St, took a sip. It was coffee. What the hell?! I couldn’t even be bothered going back in there, maybe if I’d paid actual money I might have, but as it was I’d used a snack credit so I just chucked it in the bin.


We got to the monorail station, Charlotte had stirred a couple of times on the walk there from the park but we managed to settle her with a couple of shushes and pats. Now she woke up fully and started screaming her tiny baby lungs out. I lifted her out of the stroller and tried to rock her (realising in the process how big she had gotten since the last time I had rocked her to sleep, sob) . She just wouldn’t settle, she was so distressed and I could feel the eyes of everyone queuing around us boring into me. I can be a bit anxious, and often worry about what people think, I’ve gotten a lot better since being a Mum, but on this occasion I was thinking they were all judging me for having her out so late, as they hadn’t seen her fast asleep all snuggled and cosy in her stroller only 5 minutes earlier. The train arrived and we got a seat in the corner, Martin went into her bag and gave me some bonjela for her which I applied and gave her a dummy. Within seconds she settled and went back to sleep on my knee so I think she must have been having some nasty teething pains. I rocked her gently all the way until we reached the Poly and passed her over to Martin so he could carry her to the car. We didn’t want to risk putting her down in the stroller and waking her when it was only a couple of minutes until we reached the car and would have to get her out again anyway.

Bit quieter than a few hours ago!

Thankfully the journey home was without incident and we soon had her tucked up in bed.

Phew, that day didn’t end as we expected it to! More evidence, if any were needed, that just when you think you’ve cracked something as a parent, they will let you know that you still have very little idea what you’re doing!

Tomorrow is our travel day home so we’re off to Disney Springs to check in, then we eat some delicious food, visit Celebration and Wilderness Lodge before catching our flight home.
Day 10 - The End

[DisneyDreamer81]

That photo of you both kissing Lottie is INCREDIBLE! Actually laughed out loud - bless her!

We had Robin as our waitress at Tusker House too (we actually sat at the table of two right next to the table you had!) and thought she was great

You did so well to keep going as long as you did today, particularly as this was day 9!

[Lisa_Lollipop]

What a wonderful last full day... with so much yummy food! Tusker House looked brilliant, so many great photos of Lottie with the characters!

That photo of you kissing Lottie has to be my highlight of this whole report... hilarious!

Such a beautiful view from the beach of HEA, I bet that was such a magical moment being all snuggled up together watching it

Sat there is only one more instalment to go! xxx

[Goldia]

That photo is so funny it looks like Charlotte is utterly disgusted with you both for kissing her! I'm glad your experience at Tusker was so good, it's funny how a good cast member can make the experience so much better.

Oh and I love parks and rec! 2 great photos in one day. So sad this is coming to an end. It's been lovely to read about all your adventures.

[vics18]

Originally Posted by DisneyDreamer81

That photo of you both kissing Lottie is INCREDIBLE! Actually laughed out loud - bless her!

We had Robin as our waitress at Tusker House too (we actually sat at the table of two right next to the table you had!) and thought she was great

You did so well to keep going as long as you did today, particularly as this was day 9!

See more...

it's a cracker isn't it!

Ha What a coincidence! She was great, such a contrast with our server at Cape May!

Thank you! X

[vics18]

Originally Posted by Lisa_Lollipop

What a wonderful last full day... with so much yummy food! Tusker House looked brilliant, so many great photos of Lottie with the characters!

That photo of you kissing Lottie has to be my highlight of this whole report... hilarious!

Such a beautiful view from the beach of HEA, I bet that was such a magical moment being all snuggled up together watching it

Sat there is only one more instalment to go! xxx

See more...

It was great, as much as we enjoyed Cape May, Tusker House was our favourite experience we all loved it.

Haha it's a gem isn't it

Yep, magical memories for sure xx

[vics18]

Originally Posted by Goldia

That photo is so funny it looks like Charlotte is utterly disgusted with you both for kissing her! I'm glad your experience at Tusker was so good, it's funny how a good cast member can make the experience so much better.

Oh and I love parks and rec! 2 great photos in one day. So sad this is coming to an end. It's been lovely to read about all your adventures.

See more...

Haha I know we still crack up now when we look at it!

It was lovely, we all enjoyed it so much. That's very true.

It's so funny isn't it - it's our go to show if we need to laugh!

Ah thank you so much x

[mick]

A good last day

Joan

[sheluk]

Amazing photo and I’d have felt exactly the same at Ohana! The wait there is always annoying.

A shame you didn’t get to do everything you wanted on your last night but lovely day all the same x x

[Redrach1903]

Aw what a lovely last full day! Such a bummer that the weather turned though!

Love the photo of you both kissing Charlotte haha! Def a keeper!

Shame you didn’t catch HEA in all its glory, but hey, another excuse to go back

How good is the pudding at ‘Ohana? Droooool!

Xxx