Silver Anniversary Trip, Day 15

[spencem]

Sunday, January 26th, Magic Kingdom, change hotels and Hollywood Studios.

Quite a busy day today and a change from our original plans due to that discussion Julia and I had had a couple of days ago and a general over exposure to Hollywood Studios this trip. We’d originally been due to spend the whole day in Hollywood Studios today, with a lunchtime reservation at Oga’s Cantina and changing hotels on our afternoon break. Once we’d seen that actually they don’t serve anything like proper food in the Cantina we knew we’d need to eat elsewhere and Julia still didn’t like the look of any food in Galaxy’s Edge. We’d since changed our plans to spend the morning in Magic Kingdom instead and get lunch in Skipper’s Canteen as we had some credits left from Julia not doing a couple of meals and Disney providing another two for messing up at Tusker House. We were still hoping to get to Hollywood Studios tonight for our last Extra Magic Hours.

After a breakfast of cereal bars in the room we packed everything back up into our cases and a few bags. I spoke to Sandra who was almost ready herself and then she called down to Bell Services for both rooms. By the time I’d put our bags in the car Bell Services were up to take our cases away and store them for us. We did our last ‘idiot check’ and were out of the rooms moments before the 10am deadline.

There was little queue to get past security at the TTC and so we were quickly in. While some others made a quick restroom stop I went to get some coffee and something sticky from the deserted Joffrey’s hut by the monorail entrance. I had hoped to convert a Quick Service credit to 3 snacks, but the register wouldn’t let them do it. Apparently, the outlet has to actually serve meals and so take QS credits to have the ability to convert.


An hour from the hotel parking lot to Magic Kingdom entrance.

Once we were across to the park the first order of business was some shopping. Julia had picked a ring up from Magic Kingdom on our last holiday, but it was too big and she wanted a smaller one, plus some ear rings to go with it. Thankfully she was only looking at the jewellery in the Emporium and not in the jewellers on the other side of the street, so I didn’t have to worry about customs paperwork when we flew home in a week’s time.

We soon had what we wanted, I’d looked at a couple of tee shirts, but in the end decided I’d got enough already. We stepped out onto a busy Main Street and made our way up to Fantasy Land for our first FastPass on Small World. We’d not done badly booking FastPasses just a couple of days earlier with Small World and Pooh this morning and then Pirates after lunch.


Quite a few people.


It was quieter in the hub.


Shame about the light pole.


Crystal Palace looks lovely, shame about the food and service.


We had to use the side path due to the show running on the forecourt.


A little too much breeze for a reflection shot.


Fantasy Land was busy.

Our Fastpasses got us past a 30-minute standby line onto everyone’s favourite horror attraction. With it being so busy we were all four directed into the same row for our boat, which was quite the squeeze. The ride operator on the far side of the boat did look a little concerned and asked, “are you all together”? My reply of “we are now” didn’t ease her concern and Sandra had to reassure her we would be ok and were in fact related.


A slightly more believable London than the one currently being experienced.


I was a little too excited to see the ride saying goodbye to me, well it did mean the horror was ending.

Once back from our cruise around the world we had a look at MDE and saw that Journey of The Little Mermaid only had a 15-minute queue, which was about the shortest wait in the whole park. We headed that way and Brian got us a return time for Enchanted Tales with Belle on the way.


The mine train came past as we walked.


There was time for another set of photos before we went under the sea.

The queue seemed quite long for Little Mermaid, using parts I’ve never seen before. Normally this has been basically a walk on when we’ve been before. There was a little kid behind us that was nervous about going into the dark caves. Sandra soon sorted that out, he decided the scary mad woman trying to talk to him was worse than any cave and made his mum take him out of the queue. If only she could have worked her magic on all the people in front of us we wouldn’t have had to wait so long. We checked MDE again and found the wait time now showing as 45 minutes. We were about halfway through by this point and so stuck with it. There is a fun interactive game to play in the queue, telling the crabs which things go in which collection with a wave of your hand.


The queue is well themed with Ariel’s collection of junk.

With the lengthening queue time we now had a choice of either using our return time for Belle or our FastPass for Pooh, but not both if we were going to make our lunchtime ADR at Skipper Canteen. We decided to use the FastPass as the DAS return times are open ended. The FastPass got us around a 45-minute wait at Pooh and we were soon bouncing off to find the honey. Once we’d seen Pooh happily stuffed again we took a walk down to Adventure land and checked into the Skipper Canteen to be told they were running a little behind. The wait wasn’t too bad and we were soon seated by our comedian host.


We were in the first room, there are several others, all very well themed.

The restaurant is themed around the Jungle Cruise, with the same corny humour. We were asked if it was our first time eating, with them, we’d obviously all eaten before right? The couple next to us were warned that their table was bugged, the musical instrument that looked a lot like a recorder on the wall behind was recording everything. I really should have made some notes about the server, but she was very funny. The food was really good as well, we would be very happy to return here.


The Schweizer Slush, frozen apple and passion Fruit juice. Named for Dr Albert Slush.


My “A Lot at Steak” Salad.


Julia’s “Hardy Har Char” Siu Pork.

We both really enjoyed our mains, I got to try a little bit of Julia’s and it was delicious as well as melt in the mouth tender. My steak was also very tasty and the Chimichurri Vinaigrette salad dressing very good. Deserts were offered, with Julia going for Quick Sand! and me Panna-Connie’s Lime Delight. These were also a cut above the Disney normal with great and unusual flavours.


Julia’s Quick Sand (not quicksand) Jasmine Rice Pudding, Mango Sauce, Lemon Curd, Hibiscus Meringue, and Pineapple’.


My Panna-Connie's Congo Lime Delight, Lime 'Panna Cotta' served with Mango-Lime Sorbet, Fresh Fruit, and a Brazil Nut Cookie.

I think Sandra and Brian also enjoyed their meals, as I say we would happily return here and I think it is a bit of an unknown gem in the park. The unusual names for the dishes probably put a few people off, much like the dish names in Galaxy’s Edge put Julia off. Unlike in Galaxy’s Edge these dishes look perfectly normal when you get them, no odd food colouring here.

We had a little time to kill before our last FastPass on Pirates, so I spent it visiting one of the few Magic Kingdom attractions I’ve never done, the Swiss Family Tree House. Edward had done it way back in 2006 on our first trip, but it being one of the very first attractions we had gotten to I was still thinking UK theme park attractions and didn’t bother, expecting a collection of faded and broken props. None of the others fancied all those steps straight after lunch and so stayed of the seats at the base.


Nothing faded or broken here.


The top offers good views of the Tron construction.


Look the other way and you could be in the jungles of South East Asia.

Once back down I collected the others and we walked over to Pirates, where we found a photographer outside with no queue.


Yo ho ho, onto Pirates we go.


What a happy crew our boat had.

Julia and I were going to head out of the park now to get our luggage and then check into the Holliday Inn resort. Sandra and Brian were going to go and use their return time at Enchanted Tales and then head over to the Double Tree at Lake Buena Vista to collect a hire car before joining us at Orange Lakes later.

When we got to The Hub we found the 3 o’clock parade going round and so we took to the Emporium to race it down Main Street. When we got to Town Square we were just in front and on seeing very few people over by the park exit next to Guest Services we decided to wait and watch the parade knowing we were in a prime location to get away quickly when it finished.


The first float.


Things turned chilly.


There are some very elaborate floats.


Some sort of animated haggis.


The scary stilt people, otherwise known as false ceiling installers.


I see they brought their soldering machine with them.


Julia should have slipped him a Skittering Pig business card.


I’m not sure what this float is themed on?


The main mice themselves brought the parade to a close.

As I said we were in prime place for a quick exit and that’s exactly what we made as soon as the parade passed us by. We were quickly up the monorail ramp and on to the first train after the parade at quarter to four.


The traditional across the lake aspirational shot of the Grand Floridian.

Once back at our car we drove over to Port Orleans for what we thought would be the last time and collected our luggage before heading off property to the 192 and the Holiday Inn Orange Lakes Resort. This resort is so close to Disney that it actually shares a fence with Animal Kingdom. It is also huge, spanning both sides of the 429 toll road all the way back from the 192 to Flamingo Crossing.

Continued Below

[spencem]

It is a time share resort and so they try to run a scam at check-in to attempt to get you to sign up for a ‘resort tour’ presentation. You check in as normal but are then taken by a host to a different desk to collect you parking permit. It is at this desk that they normally attempt the sell. Today there was something off and the host we were picked up by got given the run around by the people on the other side of the room, getting sent from desk to desk before a manager intervened and made someone serve us. I’m not sure what his problem was, but he obviously couldn’t be bothered and just asked how many cars we had and gave us the permits. He also took one bit of paper off the host, swapped it for another and handed it back before she stormed off in a huff. I was quite happy with this result as it meant I avoided any argument. They probably called our apartment several times in the week asking us to do their tour, but we were always out and so didn’t take their calls.

We’d been allocated a two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of one of the blocks facing the 192 in the West Village. Now these might not be a prime location in terms of the views available, but it was in terms of a being very near to the resort entrance. As I said the resort is huge and if you are up the back by the Western Way it can take ages to get in and out as all the roads are 10mph with frequent large speed humps. There is an internal shuttle bus service to get around to the various water parks, pools, golf courses and restaurants that are on resort. We didn’t use any of these, not even the pool opposite our block.


The second bedroom, used by Sandra and Brian.


The bathroom next to their room, the master had an en suite.


The master bedroom.


The balcony offering tantalising views of the 192 through the screening trees.


The kitchen end of the living room.


The other end, doors out to the balcony. TV is on the right past the hallway bulge.

Julia and I soon had our luggage upstairs in the lift and settled down for a quick nap after a bit of unpacking. There was a washer and drier in the hallway between the two bedrooms and Julia soon had those in use as well. We could hear the 192 from our room, but only quietly through the double glazing and it never disturbed us. There was a path and some trees between us and the road, so it wasn’t like we were right on the road anyway. We were very happy with the apartment and it was lovely to be able to stretch out into all that space after so long in a tiny hotel room.

We were beginning to wonder if Sandra and Brian had changed their minds about coming to the resort before meeting up for the evening when a very upset Sandra called me. It turns out they had got delayed getting across to the Double Tree and once they did get there discovered the car hire desk closes early on a Sunday, leaving them with no car. Sandra had called them only to get an extremely unhelpful person who said it was their own fault for not calling to check what time the office closed, their car had now probably been cancelled and they’d need to call BA in England since that was who it had been booked with. I agreed we’d go and get them and sort it out in the morning.

This we did and soon had them back at Port Orleans getting their luggage before we moved on to Hollywood Studios for Extra Magic Hours. Sandra said she wanted to see the Star Wars fireworks and the rest of us were quite happy with that and so headed into the centre of the park as soon as we got in.


The animation projection show was just starting as we got there.

Sandra thought she had missed the start of Star Wars, but I explained they have this little presentation first to check all the projectors are running properly. It wasn’t at all crowded and we got ourselves a decent spot, even arriving after show start. We moved a bit in the gap between the two shows. I’m sorry to say the Star Wars show has been changed again since I last saw it in 2018 and not for the better. When we first saw this in 2016 there were proper fireworks in the show, they had gone by 2018, probably due to Toy Story Land being in the way of where they were launched from. They had replaced the big fireworks with some big flame projectors and loads of lasers. Between 2018 and 2020 the flame projectors and most of the lasers had gone. The resulting pruned show no doubt is the reason you can now get a prime spot at show time. In 2016 you got there an hour early or you didn’t see everything. The only real way of getting a great view was to do a desert party, now they don’t even offer one.


The main show started a few minutes later.


The biggest fireworks still in the show.

We enjoyed the show, but much like the interim show in Epcot we wouldn’t go out of our way to see it again. I suspect it will disappear altogether soon, since having a Star Wars show on Mickey and Minnie’s ride makes no sense when there is an entire Star Wars land now.

The park closed to non-resort guests while the show was over, but since we’d only checked out this morning we were still able to use Extra Magic Hours and so headed off to Toy Story Land straight after as Midway Mania was only showing a 20 minute wait. When we got there the queue was actually a lot less than the advertised time, we didn’t stop walking until we got to the point FastPass and Standby normally merge at.

Julia had put her coat on watching the fireworks and Porg wouldn’t stay on her slippery coat, so he had to perch on my shoulder the rest of the night.


I did ask, but sadly they had no Porg sized 3D glasses.

Porgs are no good at midway games and he was no help at all, Julia scored 176,300 to my 132,400 this time through the ride. Once we got off Brian got us a return time for Slinky before we headed over to Galaxy’s Edge. In hindsight we should have told Brian to just get a return for two as the whole reason we were here was to give Julia the opportunity to wander Batu with the low crowds. As it was we just headed into Docking Bay 7 to grab some food.


The land does look fantastic at night.


The inside of the restaurant is very well themed.

When I ordered the girl on the register read out my remaining dining plan credits and told me I had just one snack remaining before correcting herself to say that technically I had two remaining snacks, one credit and the other sat on my shoulder. I had the ribs and a Moof Juice, remembering to ask for it with no ice this time. The ribs were very good indeed and the juice much nicer without a cup full of ice. Julia, having eaten a full meal at lunchtime didn’t have anything.


Smoked Kaadu Pork Ribs, Sticky Pork Ribs, Blueberry Corn Muffin, Cabbage Slaw.

Once I’d finished my meal I went off to the popcorn stand to use that last snack credit while Sandra and Brian finished their meals. I asked if they had any spare empty bags and straight away the cast member asked if I was going to split the portion or wanted it ‘to go’. I said I was going to take it back to my hotel and so she showed her colleague who had looked bemused at the question what I wanted to do and slipped the empty bag over the top of the normal one upside down to make a neat square sealed package.


It was now very quiet in the marketplace.

As I said at this point Julia and I should have waved the other two off and went for a wander, but we got caught up in the short queue times and so headed back to Toy Story Land. I did offer to walk the queue for Smuggler’s Run with Julia, having heard how well themed it is, but the queue time was still showing 40 minutes and Julia didn’t want to stand that long.


The sign as you come back up the hill from Batu.


As close as I’ve come to riding Buzz’s spin’n’puke.


Still an hour’s queue deep into Extra Magic Hours.

Once we had ridden Slinky we only had about 15 minutes left of the night and so when Brian enquired about a return time at Toy Story he was told to come right in. Once again the actual queue was much shorter than the advertised time and we essentially walked straight through the queue area. Sandra’s knee was acting up, so she asked if we could go to the single track to avoid the stairs. The cast member explained that track was already closed down for the night and instead sent us to the empty wheelchair station to save the stairs. This time through Julia and I sat on opposite sides of the car to earlier and our scores from earlier were almost exactly swapped as well, I got 176,100 to Julia’s 134,000 this time.

The park closed as we were riding and so there wasn’t time to ask for a re-ride, instead we made our way out of the almost deserted park.


Goodnight Woody.

I had a single Quick Service credit left and Sandra had a couple, so she tried to use them at the only kiosk left open in the park, the one at the base of the tower by the entrance. The cast member there was confident she’d be able to convert QS credits to snacks to let Sandra get 6 bottles of soda to drink over our last week, right up until she tried to do it and discovered the buttons weren’t there on her register. She did make a call and that’s when we discovered the rule about the outlet having to sell meals to allow conversion. Sandra was able to get two drinks with her remaining snack credits, but the QS credits went unused. I did offer to go over to Disney Springs, but neither of us could be bothered for so few credits.

We did call into Target on the 192 for stuff like bread, jam, butter and milk for the morning and got back to the hotel about 11.20 where some tea was had while Sandra and Brian settled into their new accommodation.


Back to the index.

[mick]

That was a busy change over day :spin but you got lots of rides done

Joan

[spencem]

Originally Posted by mick

That was a busy change over day :spin but you got lots of rides done

Joan

See more...

Thanks, yes this one was a busy day.

[Palm trees]

What a great day (apart from the car issue). I am impressed at you fitting in two parks as well as changing resorts!

[spencem]

Originally Posted by Palm trees

What a great day (apart from the car issue). I am impressed at you fitting in two parks as well as changing resorts!

See more...

It was a good day, we didn't spend long at the second park, just over 2 hours I'd guess.