Pints, Points, Photos & Plenty More - August 2017 Honeymoon - 10/08/17 - Day 10

[Leyfy]

Day 10 - Boardwalk Inn/Hollywood Studios/Narcoossees

Index
Day 9

So having had a reasonably early night after being shattered from the the long drive I got up about 8am. I had booked us a fastpass for Rock n' Rollercoaster between 9am and 10am but it looked pretty unlikely that we'd make it as we still had to drop the car off and get to The Boardwalk Inn, our final stop for this holiday. I went on MDE on my iPad and changed the fastpass to 3pm - 4pm.

Phil was tired and wanted to sleep in a bit and also said he didn't want breakfast. I was hungry so I made my way downstairs to discover it was a free buffet. The choice was absolutely huge! I loaded up my plate with scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages and also got a little bowl of fruit. I made my way into the seating area and it was absolutely huge! However, it was really busy and I struggled to find a seat. Eventually I found somewhere to put my plate down and I went to get an orange juice. When I came back I saw someone 'hovering' by my table - obviously not sure if it was free or not! I think the issue was that there was a lot of business people there and the tables were arranged in fours and they were sitting on their own.

I was just finishing my breakfast when Phil arrived. He said he wasn't hungry but said he'd like a coffee so I went and made one. There was only half and half left and no regular milk - blurgh! That stuff is horrible!

We drank our coffees and went upstairs to collect our stuff and check out. It was now about 9am and for the last time this holiday we loaded up the car with our suitcases. I had a pretty good idea where we were going but we fired up the satnav 'just in case' with the Magic Kingdom address and made our way down the I4 to Walt Disney World. Having had 8 days driving round unfamiliar parts of Florida it did feel quite exciting to see all the familiar landmarks as we made our way to The Magic Kingdom. We pulled up at the gates and explained we were dropping off the car, so we were waved through and told to 'keep left'. I pulled us into the car care center and as we'd prepaid for a tank of fuel, we didn't need to bother with filling up beforehand.

A sight confession - the day before in Miami we'd had a very slight prang in a car park which had left a slight black mark on the bumper! There was already a few marks on the bumper anyway and I was a bit worried when I pulled up that we'd be charged for this!

They didn't even seem to notice this so panic over!

Anyway, we unloaded our stuff and the guy on the desk asked us if we needed a ride.

"Yes please, The Boardwalk Inn.' I replied
"Boardwalk?" He replied, clearly puzzled.
"Yes The Boardwalk." Slight pause...
"Er, is that on Disney property?!" he replied again. Now I'm starting to lose my patience a little bit by now.
"Well, unless they've moved it since Christmas, yes!" I replied. Suddenly the penny seemed to drop - "Oh the BOARDwalk." He replied, pronouncing it exactly the same way.

He said it could be a 10 - 20 minute wait for a shuttle but one of the other drivers said he could take us then and there so we were soon on our way and at the hotel for 9.20am.

It was so good to be back!

I went to check in and our room wasn't ready so I got Phil to check the cases in, which unfortunately included my camera as I forgot it was packed way safely in my hand luggage. We collected our Magic Bands and the check in lady asked us if we were celebrating anything. Oh yes, I think we are

We were presented with these:

Magic bands acquired and told we'd get an email when our room was ready, we left The Boardwalk Inn and made our way to Hollywood Studios along the walkway.

We arrived about 9.45, so we might've *just* made the original fastpass! It looked pretty busy as we made our way into the park and not having any bags on us we were soon through the security lines and into the park.

It was pretty warm so we went to get a drink in Starbucks first of all and, knowing it was closing soon, we headed to the Great Movie Ride which had a 30 minute wait. In the queue we got chatting to an American couple in front of us who were on their first visit - they seemed to be amazed that people would travel to the US to visit Walt Disney World. Hmmm... let me think about that:

or:

This would be the the last time we'd ride The Great Movie Ride as it was shutting the following Monday

Our final ride was with the gangster scene - in numerous trips we'd only had the cowboy scene once.

An email then arrived on my phone informing us that our room was ready and I had a quick look at our location. Our next stop was then Star Tours using our fastpass and we were soon on, bypassing a healthy 40 minute queue.

I love that the ride is different every time with this so you always get a different combination of scenarios

When we got out it was boiling hot and we stopped to get a couple of drinks at Mic N Min's Dockside Diner. I had a frozen lemonade and Phil had a Sam Adams:

It was now time for March of First Order:

The park was very so we headed to the Muppets as that only had a ten minute wait until the next show.

The family in front of us looked for the key under the mat - it's the little theming things at Disney that really make it!

By the time we'd enjoyed 'A tribute to all nations, but mainly America' ( ) it was now 1pm and Phil was hungry as he'd not had any breakfast. We saw the quick service pizza place nearby so shared a pizza between us to fill a hole for the time being:

(it didn't come like that, I forgot to take a picture at first! )

We took a slow wander over to Tower of Terror as that was our next fastpass and we were soon on, bypassing a 50 minute queue:

It was now nearly 2pm and our Rock N Rollercoaster fastpass wasn't for another hour. There wasn't much else we wanted to go on and I wasn't feeling like I fancied Rock N Rollercoaster. I said to Phil to go on it on single rider as the queue was about 10 minutes, rather than 60 minutes for the standard queue. He went off to do the ride:

I waited for him in the gift shop at the end. When he arrived back we made our way to the front of the park and walked back to hotel. We collected our cases from bell services and made our way to the room. We'd hired a studio apartment and it was nice, but smaller than our room the previous year which was on the 'hotel' side. We sorted out our cases and got changed ready to go out. In the meantime there was a quick heavy shower.

We had a drink on Boardwalk waiting for rain clouds to completely blow over and then we walked through EPCOT, stopping for a quick photopass picture on the way:

We went straight to the front of the park to get the Monorail to Magic Kingdom:

We then swapped onto the resort monorail to get to The Contemporary. Our plan was to 'resort hop' round to Narcoossee's for our evening meal. On the way round we got our first glimpse of The Castle

We arrived at The Contemporary and made our way to the Outer Rim Bar. We ordered some drinks:

Drinks finished, we went back to the monorail, only to discover that they were now making everyone go through a metal detector to get on there! Sign of the times I guess

We got off next at The Polynesian and went round to Trader Sams.

I'd already had a glass of wine and didn't want to over-do things at this stage as it was only about 5pm, so I had a diet coke:

It was very pleasant but very warm sitting out there. The Poly seems like a lovely resort but it is very popular and it always seems very busy in there! Here are a couple of pictures from around the resort:

Our final monorail stop was at the Grand Floridian and we went into the Mizners bar. There is some *epic* wine in there, over $1000 a bottle

I resisted the temptation to order something that cost more than our flights over to the US and had a much more reasonable glass of Merlot instead:

Phil had a beer:

(Shock, horror! )

We had a good chat with the bar lady as well, who had friends in Wales. She also said we were eating in her favourite restaurant at The Grand Floridian, but I bet she says that no matter where you are eating there!

Their fantastic band started in the atrium behind us as we drank our drinks. We didn't realise Mr. Pumba75 had a secret life playing the double bass at The Grand Floridian in the band:

Drinks finished, we went to Narcoossee's for our 7pm ADR. Is it me, but no matter how many times I write the name of the restaurant I always manage to not put enough of one letter in it somewhere!

Spelling aside, beautiful setting:

We were soon seated and our server brought the menus over. He asked what we were celebrating and we said it was our honeymoon. We ordered some drinks:

We then had a look at the menus. I decided I really fancied some cheese so went for the cheese board:

Phil had the mussels:

Phil will tell you that my special skill is spilling wine everywhere and I have to admit, he's not wrong! (In the process of writing this I've managed to tip a glass of wine over the sofa already ) My special skill was in full evidence at this point as the wine glass slipped in my hand and I managed to spill it over both myself and the table

One of the CM's ran over and gave me some soda water, telling me that would help to mop it up and get rid of the wine stain

Wine cleared up as much as we could, our mains arrived. I'd decided to go for the surf and turf:

This was amazing!

Having had lobster the day before at Bahama Breeze I gave Phil a little bit of mine to try. He said it was like scampy at Bahama Breeze - this stuff was in a class of it's own!

The last time we'd come here was the first night Phil had felt really ill from his now infamous brown recluse spider bite, so he had had a lovely dinner that he hadn't made the most of. He was desperate to have the same meal again and make the most of it! He went for the same as last time - the pork.

We werent going to order a dessert as we were so full, but they brought us out a free one

We paid the bill, which was hefty $240-odd dollars with 20% tip, but it was totally worth it as it'd all been amazing!

It was now about 8.30pm and we made our way out for our first viewing of 'Happily Ever After'. I'd heard something about watching it from the beach, but it turned out you couldn't see anything from there so we went back to the dock area by Narcoossee's.

Happily Ever After started and, as usual, I took far too many photos! Here is a little selection:

Wow! At this point I couldn't wait to see it from the California Grill, which was booked for our last night

Fireworks over, we wanted to get cab back to the Boardwalk but this turned out to be a complete nightmare! There were no cabs waiting and we were second in line apparently. We waited about 30 minutes and the blokes in the transport area were all very indifferent. A bus turned up for Hollywood Studios and we tried to get on, figuring we'd walk back. The bus driver refused to take us saying it was 'drop off only'. Well, that's what we wanted - dropping off?!

Eventually Phil went to complain and they called the cab company again. One cab turned up - there was another British couple waiting in front of us that had already lost one cab that had been called for them that someone literally got in as they were walking over to it! This was a seven seater and I suggested that we shared it - taking them back to Riverside first and us back to The Boardwalk Inn after. They agreed - then the guy who'd called the cab and said 'But it can only take seven people?" I looked for the hordes and masses that the couple were clearly hiding behind them and not seeing them, said 'Yes... and there is four of us!"



C'mon!

We had a chat with them in the cab - they hadn't really enjoyed their Disney experience which was a shame and it was nearly their last night. We told them to have a safe flight and they left us with their part of the cab fare.

Back at Boardwalk for just gone ten pm. Despite the difficulty getting the cab back we'd had a fantastic day overall!

Day 11 - Be Our Guest with the Pumba75s, matching t-shirts and drinking round the world at EPCOT!

[DISNEYLIZ]

Great day, the food looks fantastic. Shame about the cab.

[Floridaagogo]

My speciality is smashing wine glasses 😆😆 $ 1000 dollars for a bottle ... wow !

[i love jack]

Great day back at Disney

[Pumba75]

Ah, I've been rumbled!

[Leyfy]

Originally Posted by DISNEYLIZ

Great day, the food looks fantastic. Shame about the cab.

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Yeah, the cab was the only let down on an otherwise great day. The food was *amazing*!

Originally Posted by Floridaagogo

My speciality is smashing wine glasses 😆😆 $ 1000 dollars for a bottle ... wow !

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I've been known to smash a few glasses too, in my time!

Originally Posted by i love jack

Great day back at Disney

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It was, and fantastic to be back!

Originally Posted by Pumba75

Ah, I've been rumbled!

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In the words of Chandler Bing:

[collybird]

Ooo drooling over your Narcoossee's pictures!

What a drama over the cabs, I wonder if the new Minnie vans will be as unreliable! A real shame the couple you shared with hadn't really enjoyed Disney, they need a Dibber to plan for them!

[Leyfy]

Originally Posted by collybird

Ooo drooling over your Narcoossee's pictures!

What a drama over the cabs, I wonder if the new Minnie vans will be as unreliable! A real shame the couple you shared with hadn't really enjoyed Disney, they need a Dibber to plan for them!

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We saw a few minnie vans around - if they are reliable we'd definitely use them in the future

When we got in the cab I started with 'So, did you enjoy POR' (as we've stayed at PO:FQ twice and loved it) and literally got a rundown of all the negative points!

Was a shame the couple we met hadn't had a good time. We were sorry they hadn't enjoyed their time but also - we didn't want to hear how terrible WDW was on our first night

[2littleboys]

Great day, I loved Narcooses on our last trip, the surf and turf is up there with one of the best meals I have ever had in my life

[Leyfy]

Originally Posted by 2littleboys

Great day, I loved Narcooses on our last trip, the surf and turf is up there with one of the best meals I have ever had in my life

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It really was amazing! So glad I had it