19 Years Later- October 2017- Day 11- Magic Kingdom and Ohana Dinner

[xAimeex]

So it's been a while! I'm sure this report is long forgotten but it has always been in the back of my mind that I never completed it! I have always said I would never abandon a report and it would really have annoyed me if I'd never managed to complete this one! My old laptop died a while ago and for a long time I didn't replace it as to be honest I use my phone for everything so it didn't feel necessary and then work was super busy again and it just fell into the background of life priority's really!

I'm uploading the last 2 days tonight and that is it for this report! Even if no-one reads these days based on the fact it's from a trip that happened over 2 and a half years ago, that's fine, I'll be able to know that should I or the family ever want to relive the memories from this trip we can now do so in full!

I hope everyone is well in these crazy times! I don't know what to make of it all to be honest! I never would have believed that something like this could have happened this year, the world felt so normal at Christmas and into the new year! Hope everybody is staying safe and taking care!

Since we went on this trip, we returned to Florida for another family trip in 2018, we also visited Disneyland Paris for my 30th birthday last year (yes I'm in my 30's now, 31 as of a couple of months ago which is crazy! I was 23 when I wrote my first trip report on here and I don't really know where that time has gone!) and then I finally got to introduce my boyfriend to the magic of Disney on another trip to DLP for Halloween! We had amazing times on all of these trips and with the exception of my 30th birthday trip, I took notes for them! I also have another incomplete Paris report from when Lauren and I visited in August 2018!

I'd love to do reports for at least our 2018 Florida trip and possibly mine and my Stuart's first trip but trip reports do take up a lot of time and I've been mad busy with work, especially with the kids being off school for so long as I have been home schooling them (my Nanny paye company advised that nannies were allowed to work if their employees chose not to furlough them as it's a job that cannot be done from home in case anybody was wondering) and now the summer holidays are upon us, so I don't have a lot of free time! I may possibly write up the travel day for 2018 just to relive a travel day this year seeing as that's off the cards (personal choice, we don't want to travel via public transport this year but full acceptance and respect to those who do ) . Then try and complete the rest of the report to upload in one go, I have no idea! I think I'd feel guilty to have that be the one Florida trip (since I started writing) that doesn't have a report. It would be hugely outdated so of little interest to most but as I said it's so nice to have the option as a family to relive trips.

I have rambled on enough now though! Thank you to everyone who was following along with this trip before I stopped writing it, sorry for abandoning it for so long! Also apologies if you do read it and the info is totally out of date, obviously Disney is completely different during these current times anyway but lets hope it's not too long before it's safe for some normality to return.

Oh also I started the writing of this day over a year ago and then completed it over the last few weeks so there may be a point where that is obvious I'm not sure!


Day 11- Wednesday 25th October 2017- 1900 Park Fare Breakfast, Magic Kingdom, Ohana Dinner and a Chilly Night in Magic Kingdom

We woke up at 7:30 today for our last full day. We all got up this morning as Mum and Dad were joining us for breakfast at 1900 Park Fare over at the Grand Floridian!

We left the room at 8:15. The cold front had well and truly hit so there was no air con on in the corridors or lobby! In fact, it felt more like they'd turned the heating on! It was toasty warm!

Our reservation was at 9:05, so we'd decided to get a taxi there so that we didn't have to get up early and rely on the buses.

We picked up a taxi outside the hotel and were on our way at 8:20.

1900 Park Fare is a character buffet. At breakfast the characters are Alice, the Mad Hatter, Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger so a real British mix! These characters may have changed of course since, seeing as this day was over 2 and a half years ago now .

Dinner here is (or was) Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine and the Ugly Step Sisters.

We found it really hard to choose between which meal to do here. We couldn't fit in both and in the end we decided we preferred the breakfast characters to the dinner ones.

We arrived at the Grand Floridian at 8:35 so plenty early. It's always nice to have a bit of time to explore this beautiful resort!


DSC01321 by A Disney, on Flickr

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We sat and relaxed in the lobby for a little while before deciding to check in early at 8:50.

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We were seated straight away so that was a bonus.

I absolutely adore the theme of this restaurant! It has a Victorian theme which fits in perfectly with the rest of the Grand Floridian but is much more whimsical than the other areas of the hotel; there are carousel horses and an organ. The chairs look like hot air balloons and it's feels bright in there with the pastel coloured wallpaper.

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Once we were seated we were served POG juice (passion fruit, orange and guava juice aka jungle juice) which we all absolutely love so that went down well!

We also had hot/soft drinks. Mum had coffee, Dad hot tea, Lauren chocolate milk and a coke for me.

As it is a buffet we all went straight up to get our food.

It had your fairly standard Disney breakfast buffet items, Mickey waffles, pancakes, bacon, sausages, fruit, yogurt, sticky buns, toast, cereal etc. But also had its famous strawberry soup which I was eager to try! You can also get gummy bears because who doesn't want gummy bears at breakfast! I was also excited to try red velvet pancakes as I hadn't seen them anywhere else before!

I did take some buffet photos which it seems a little pointless posting in current times as who knows when self-service buffets will start operating again but sometimes you just need to look at pictures of yummy food, so I’m going to add them anyway

DSC01348 by A Disney,on Flickr

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I took a picture of this as at the time as I thought what an absolute waste of plastic it was and the effect on the environment whereas now it feels like things like that will be more normal for the time being


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Strawberry Soup!


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A bit of seasonal décor!

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I couldn’t remember seeing eggs benedict at any of the other breakfast buffets before


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I always thought I’d really like the cheese blintzes but I tried one once at Chef Mickey’s and it didn’t live up to expectations sadly

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Any buffet that has a self serve dish of cream cheese frosting has my approval! This was delicious with the red velvet pancakes!


Out of all of us, I spent the longest at the buffet as there was lots I wanted to try!

By the time I got back, Mary Poppins was already at the table!

I quickly changed my Alice ears for my Mary Poppins ones! They were from Imaginears UK and they're so cute!

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Lauren was chatting with her about how maybe I need a nanny because I was spending too long at the buffet hehe.


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She was a fantastic Mary Poppins and we loved chatting with her! Before she left I asked, nanny to nanny, if she'd mind recording a little message for the children I look after. She did a fantastic video for them telling them that she'd just met their nanny and I was practically perfect in every way and that they needed to keep up their good manners and there might be a spoonful of sugar at the end of the day! It was so cute and perfect! I sent it back to the children's Mum to show them and they absolutely loved it! I’ve tried to upload the video, I’ve edited it as it had the children’s names in it, but hopefully this link will work!

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Next up was Alice! She was super cute and loved our outfits! She asked if our drinks would make us grow and I said I hoped so as then I could be as tall as Lauren!

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The Mad Hatter was next. He is always a really fun character to meet! He loved Lauren's top and ears! He asked why we had our bow ties on our heads and Lauren told him it's because we're all mad here!

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Tigger came to the table shortly after! He was brilliant too and pulled me and Lauren in for the biggest cuddle and gestured to Mum to take a photo of it! Then he got a selfie with her but I don’t seem to have that photo either! He kept giving us all kisses. It was a really cute interaction!

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Pooh doesn't come to the table (or at least didn't when we ate there). He had a separate meet outside with a photopass photographer that you could visit after your meal.

We carried on eating. The characters had come around in fairly quick succession after each other which I prefer as you know you won't be waiting around for ages to meet 1 character who hasn't made it round to you yet. I think it takes the 'pressure' off a little and you can eat your food and return to the buffet without having to decide if you'll miss a character while you're there.

We all really enjoyed the food here! Mine was an absolute sugar fest! We're talking red velvet pancakes with cream cheese frosting (these did not disappoint) and sticky buns with whipped cream! Plus my Disney breakfast favourite sausages dipped in maple syrup! To quote Peter Kay, it’s a taste sensation!

The sticky bun was a little hard but Mum had one that was perfectly gooey and soft, so I went back up to get a fresh one which was nice!

I really enjoyed the strawberry soup, it was essentially a strawberry smoothie in a bowl but there's nothing wrong with that!

I think I may have picked up the wrong plate as it looks tiny and I’ve had to squeeze all my food onto it! Sorry to those who find it weird to have savoury and sweet on the same plate! I did eat the breakfast pizza first but as mentioned I dip my sausages in maple syrup so the sweet and savoury thing isn’t really an issue for me hehe.

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We really enjoyed our breakfast here so would definitely recommend it! We all had a couple of plates each but I didn’t take pictures of all of the others.

Like most Disney buffets though, as much as we adore them, we most likely wouldn't eat here out of pocket. As great as the food always is we generally only manage 2 plates, sometimes more depending on where we've eaten earlier in the day (doesn’t apply at breakfast obviously hehe), and Disney character buffets are really expensive. I know you're paying for the character interaction too but often a lot of the characters can be met in the parks anyway. Don't get me wrong though we really had a brilliant time here!

We used 4 table service credits but it would have cost $153.36 OOP plus tip.

Dad sorted out the check while Mum, Lauren and I went to meet Winnie the Pooh!

He meets in front of the castle mural which is a really cute back drop!

Again we got some brilliant interaction here! He gave each of us the longest hugs ever! We also got some cute photos!

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[xAimeex]

...Continued


We left at 9:30. We don't waste time at buffets hehe. We were keen to get over to Magic Kingdom to make the most of our last full day!

Lauren stopped in the restrooms on the way out to change in to her Peter Pan outfit ready for meeting him later!

We headed up to the monorail stop. The queue for bag check here wasn't too bad at this time and we were soon waiting for the monorail to arrive to take us to Magic Kingdom!

We were on our way at precisely 9:48 hehe. Despite it only being a short journey we got chatting to a lovely American couple who were from Maryland which is where our American cousins live.

The lady was a redhead and was telling us that she'd had skin cancer 3 times and told us all to make sure we were all applying plenty of sun cream. Her husband told Mum and Dad they ought to make sure I had extra on being a red head too. We thanked them for their good advice (even though I'm not a natural redhead, it's still important to remember to reapply sun cream throughout the day!) and wished them a lovely rest of their vacation.

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The lines for the tapstiles at Magic Kingdom weren't too bad either given the park had been open a while already so we were heading on to Main Street just before 9:55.

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Despite how chilly it had been the night before and first thing it was now an absolutely beautiful temperature out! Not too hot but just lovely and warm and sunny!

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I loved the t-shirts this couple were wearing!


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Lauren and I wanted to have a look in the Emporium to see if they had the cream Minnie Mouse bow Christmas jumper we had bought in Hollywood Studios a couple of days before. We had tried them on and they were a little tight in the chest area so we wanted to see if they had them in a medium.

Unfortunately they didn't have them in yet so we decided to try the Christmas shop in Liberty Square instead as we'd seen them in there the day before.

They had them in stock here but unfortunately only had 1 medium left. I let Lauren swap hers and said I'd keep an eye out elsewhere for it.

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I must have this picture 100 times over by now but it is just one of the most beautiful views of the castle! I’m not sure how I feel about the recent paint job on the castle! In some pictures it looks completely garish! I don’t like the pink that much and this is coming from someone who adores Sleeping Beauty castle in Paris as pink is my favourite colour but it just doesn’t look right here. Maybe the pictures make it look brighter than it actually is but to me it was perfect as it was!

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There was a long line at sleepy hollow at this time!


After we finished here Lauren and I wanted to go and meet Ariel and Mum and Dad wanted to ride Haunted Mansion first as somehow they hadn't been on it yet this trip! So we arranged a place to meet up after and headed off.

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There was hardly a line at all to meet Ariel so we only waited 2 minutes which was a result!

She was a really cute Ariel and chatted with us for ages!

We discussed dinglehoppers and how the tiny one on my ears looked very useful! Lauren explained that I only needed a small dinglehoppers as my hair was much shorter hehe.

She was also very excited about the fact Lauren's ears matched her tail!

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As we'd been so quick to meet Ariel, Mum and Dad still hadn't finished at Haunted Mansion so we decided we'd walk over to watch Philharmagic while we waited for them.



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At some point this morning we must have popped on to Storybook Treats as I have this photo! Any excuse to look at Disney yummies so I’ve added the picture!


As we walked past the carousel though we could see that the ugly step sisters Anastasia and Drizella were meeting to the side of the castle, just opposite the Cinderella fountain.

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We'd never met them before but always heard they were funny to meet so we decided to see if the line was still open!

We were in luck as we jumped in line at 10:40 and as soon as we did the cast member closed the line behind us!

We messaged Mum and Dad to say where we were and they decided that they would head to adventure land instead as Mum wanted to ride the Magic Carpets as, like me, she loves these kind of rides!

They also went to see the Swiss Family Robinson tree house as they hadn't been up there since we were kids! Lauren and I had seen it a few years ago as grown-ups for nostalgia purposes as we loved the film as kids!

Lauren and I met the step sisters just after 11 and it was such a funny meet!

Obviously our chat consisted mainly about the fact we were sisters too!

Anastasia asked me if I liked having a sister and I said I did. She asked if I'd like another because I could have Drizella too haha I said I thought one sister was enough!

Lauren meanwhile was chatting with Drizella about who our mother's favourite sister was! Lauren said she was so Drizella leaned over to me and informed me that she had something to tell me and explained that Lauren had just said that she was our Mother’s favourite! Then Anastasia started arguing with her over who their mother favoured and it was so funny! They were perfectly in character!

I'd imagine they must be fun characters to act as you have that other person to work and play off of!

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Random castle picture but I love this angle of it too!


When we finished we headed towards Adventureland to meet Mum and Dad as we had a fastpass for Pirates of the Caribbean!

We stopped briefly in Liberty Square as the Muppets were performing their great moments in American history show which we hadn't seen before. We didn't want to keep Mum and Dad waiting though so only watched for a minute.

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Pirates was a 40 minute standby wait when we got there so we were glad to have a fastpass!

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It still took 10 minutes in the fastpass line.

We were sitting in row 1 and we got really splashed on the drop and by some of the canons! We couldn't recall ever getting that wet on it! Obviously it wasn't Splash Mountain levels of being soaked but still!

As it happened I was planning to do an outfit change after anyway!

We went to the restrooms next door to the Pirates gift shop as they're often quiet and also play songs from the film in there!

I was changing in to a Peter Pan themed outfit as we were heading to his meet next!

Mum and Dad were calling it a day after this as they had done everything they wanted to do in Magic Kingdom for the morning and were keen to get back to enjoy the lovely pool! As much as Mum and Dad love the parks they do really enjoy that down time back at the resorts too!

After we'd said goodbye we headed back over to Fantasyland to the Neverland Map where Peter meets!

It was 11:45 and he wasn't due out until 12, but we managed to be first in line!

It was for the most part a nice relaxing wait until we saw an American mother nearby grab her child's face and shout at her for not listening. It was horrible. We hate things like this and it's makes us feel really uncomfortable. We once witnessed a Dad shout at his small child (aged probably around 3) for playing with the ropes while waiting in line in Animal Kingdom before he took her off to the side and smacked her on the leg and told her that she was asking to be 'spanked' by behaving that way. It makes me want to cry as I just can't imagine ever physically disciplining a child. There really was no need for the mother to be so aggressive in this instance either. You wouldn't grab a stranger, or a friend even, around the face and force them to look at you so why on Earth would she do that to her child?!
Moving on! Peter came out at 12 and it was a great meet!

He was so excited about our ears! He said he loved all the pixie dust on Lauren's and was very excited that you could turn them round to see his shadow! He also spotted his shadow on mine and was very glad that his was facing away from Wendy's shadow so that she couldn't try to give him a kiss! He also said I should meet Tink wearing them as she doesn't like Wendy!

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When we finished here we were in to our fastpass time to meet Rapunzel and Tiana over at Fairytale Princess Hall!

Before we headed over we stopped in some restrooms to make yet another outfit change!

Lauren was putting on her Rapunzel themed top and ears and I had the most beautiful princess and the frog themed dress that I had ordered from Hot Topic to be delivered to Beth at Fairytale Personal Shopper! I ordered it in the same size I've ordered all my hot topic clothes in but sadly it didn't fit properly!

I should have tried it on before rather than in a restroom stall but I could barely get it done up over my chest and when I did there was a lot of squashing and it was neither comfortable nor flattering!

So I had no choice but to take it off, I was gutted as I loved the design on it so much!

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Beautiful Princess and the Frog dress!

It was a shame as I had to change back in to the Peter Pan dress I'd already been wearing for the Rapunzel and Tiana meet as I didn't have anything else with me but oh well!

I did have my Rapunzel themed bow from bad to the bow co. on Etsy so I put that in instead!

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We headed over to the meet at 12:10.

Once we were sent through to the room where you meet them we were stood behind a lovely family from the UK! Their little girl was really cute and was just so excited to meet the princesses, it was adorable! She was only little but she just walked right on over to Rapunzel when it was her turn, sat on the floor next to her and started chatting with her!

We were up next and it was a super chatty Rapunzel! We could barely get a word in edgeways! She did ask if we were having the best day ever which we said we were!

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Tiana was really lovely too and said she loved our outfits! We said we loved hers more and she told us Lottie helps her to get dressed up! As always with Tiana we then had a good chat about food; gumbo, jambalaya and of course beignets!

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When we finished here we decided to go and watch Philharmagic but it was down due to technical difficulties so instead we popped in to Pinocchio's Village House for a light lunch as we were still quite full from breakfast!

We used 1 snack credit for a serving of the bread sticks with marinara sauce to share! These would have cost $4.99 without tax OOP.

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We love Disney bread sticks and the marinara sauce is always yummy to dip them in so this was a perfect little snack to get us through!

Rather than having to ask for a cup of free ice water each they had cups of it lined up on the counter ready for you to help yourself to so we did that!

We went upstairs and sat out on the balcony again today!

It was so lovely and warm and we had a perfect view of the castle! We felt so relaxed that we felt a bit sad that we were nearly at the end of this trip! Sometimes the quieter moments are just as perfect as the exciting moments going on rides and watching shows etc!

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When we finished eating I went to the restrooms and changed back in to my purple Alice in Wonderland dress as I love it so much!

We had a look on My Disney Experience to see if we could book a 4th fastpass. There wasn't much left to book for the next hour or two by this time so we grabbed some for It's a Small World as we had a bit of time to kill until Festival of Fantasy at 2! Also we booked the fastpass at 12:52 precisely and it was for 12:55-1:55 so we thought we might as well seeing as we were right next door to it!

The standby wait was listed as 35 minutes! I do think that was a little exaggerated but the line was back outside the entrance as we reached it. I’d say it was at least 20-25 minutes I'd imagine!

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We felt like telling people that if they checked MDE they could book a fastpass to start in 5 minutes and walk right on to it if they didn’t already have other fastpasses booked!

This ride for me is ultimate Disney nostalgia! It's a real marmite ride but I'm definitely in the love camp although I have more love for the Paris version!

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They were unloading a guest who was using a wheelchair a few boats ahead of us at the end so it took a little while to get off but we weren't in any rush to be anywhere which is quite a nice feeling as sometimes in Disney it feels like you're often thinking about when your next fastpass or ADR is. We don't mind that either but it's nice to just be able to wander and meander the parks without feeling like you have a time limit.

The lines were all fairly long by this time so we decided to head over to Liberty Square for a look in the Christmas shop as we were planning to watch the Parade from outside it again anyway.

We didn't buy anything but it's always nice to look at all the beautiful decorations and ornaments.

At around 1:30 we headed outside to get our spot. As with the day before this area was still fairly quiet and easy to get a front row spot right behind the rope!

While we waited we went on to MDE again to see if we could get a fastpass for the evening as we would be back after our Ohana dinner!

We managed to get Big Thunder Mountain 10:05-11:05 which would work out well timing wise after Happily Ever After and Once Upon a Time!


Soon enough it was 2pm and after a few minutes the parade reached us!


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The Main Street Philharmonic went by first!

As always we both took so many photos but it's just such a beautiful parade!

A couple of floats into it, a little kid opposite us dropped his popcorn lid beyond the rope and onto the parade route! He crawled under the rope and reached out to get it and I swear I have never seen a cast member move as fast as the one who spotted him and went to get him back behind the rope! It was a quick spot on her part as the parents were completely oblivious! Far too busy filming it on their phones to notice that their child could have been knocked down by a parade float!

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[B]Hook wasn’t impressed by our Peter Pan ears![/B}



Continued below...

[xAimeex]

...Continued


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As soon as the last float had gone by we jumped behind the end of parade rope and followed it down to the Liberty Square bridge. As soon as it turned left towards the castle we turned right and headed down towards the Emporium so we could fast walk through it again to reach the Barber Shop before the parade got there!

We timed it perfectly today and managed to see the entire parade again! It might sound crazy but we just love this parade so much, especially the music!

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Still unimpressed! Interesting hand gesture there Captain Hook

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We left at 2:45 once it had finished and headed to our bus stop.

The bus arrived at 3 but there were 4 ECV's waiting to get on which I think is the most I've ever seen at a single bus stop even in the evenings after the fireworks!

The buses can only fit 2 on so it was a case of first come first serve so the 2 that had arrived last didn't get on and had to wait for the next bus.

Once both ECV's that did make it on were safely strapped on board the driver let everyone else on.

We left just after 3:05.

We got chatting to the loveliest lady on the way back who was sitting opposite us! She was from Canada and owned DVC at Kidani Village! We had such a nice chat about Disney and then we chatted about the differences between living in Canada and Brighton where we're from. Obviously we were very interested to find out what it was like living somewhere where they have proper snowy winters! She had visited Brighton so we chatted about how she had found it!

It made for a really nice journey back! After dropping off at Kidani first and saying goodbye to our new friend, we got back to Jambo House at 3:30.

Mum, Dad and Lauren all had a little nap once we were back so I sat out on the balcony to watch the animals!

It honestly was the loveliest hour sitting out there. It was beautifully warm and I could see giraffe, ancoli cattle and ataks. It was just perfect.

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I woke the others at 4:30 as we really needed to get in a bit of packing time before heading out this evening as we wouldn't be back until late tonight and would have to leave the bags with bell services before heading out the next morning!

Packing always descends in to slight chaos in our family when travelling home! I was bringing back 2 suitcases plus my hand luggage so was trying to even everything up weight wise.

Also just being in one room meant we all had stuff everywhere while trying to pack it back in to our cases so the room looked like a bomb had gone off in it! This was probably the only time of the entire trip we could have used more space than a single room!

We had been planning to leave at 5 but by the time we'd spent a bit of time on the packing and gotten ourselves ready for the evening it was 5:10 before we left.

We were heading to the Polynesian for dinner at Ohana and in hindsight it would have been much easier to grab a cab or an uber but instead we decided to use the buses.

DSC01698 by A Disney, on Flickr
I loved my Stitch themed outfit!

IMG_2289 by A Disney, on Flickr

We agreed we'd just get on the first bus that arrived which was Animal Kingdom at 5:20.

Oh good, we thought, a short 5 minutes down the road there and then we can hop onto a Poly bus when it arrives.

In fact if the timings had worked out this would have been a great plan but of course due to Sod's law we had just missed a Poly bus when we pulled in to AK. We literally saw it drive away!

It was 5:25 when we arrived and we knew we'd probably have to wait the full 20 minutes for another to come. It was starting to feel pretty chilly out while we waited too and Lauren realised she'd forgotten to bring a jumper or cardigan out with her in the rush to leave the room.

Unfortunately though the next Poly bus didn't arrive for 30 minutes so it was 5:55 before we got on to the bus!

Our ADR was at 6 so obviously we were going to be pretty late to it now, whoops!

By the time the bus was full it was nearly 6 before we got out of Animal Kingdom.

The Poly shares buses with the Grand Floridian but thankfully it drops at the former first so we were walking in at 6:20!

DSC01701 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01704 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01705 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01708 by A Disney, on Flickr

We headed up as quickly as we could and checked in at precisely 6:22 hehe.

The cast member said it wasn't a problem that we were late but that there might be a little wait for a table and handed us a buzzer.

This is fairly standard at Ohana anyway though we've found, they're often running late with ADR's.

We went to find seats over in the waiting area.

While we were waiting some lovely dibber's came over to say hello to us! It was macdonald and her daughter and granddaughter! I have only written down the names Laura and Scarlet which hopefully I got right, sorry!

They were so so lovely and we had a fantastic chat with them! It was a shame we didn't have longer to talk as we were having such a great conversation about Disney and each other's trips! It was definitely a bonus to being late as if we'd have been on time our paths wouldn't have crossed!

Unfortunately our buzzer went off so we had to say goodbye but it was so nice to meet them! We grabbed a quick photo before heading in though!

DSC01710 by A Disney, on Flickr

The cast member showing us to our table was really funny. After he did the whole Ohana means family speech, he asked if we were ready for a long walk and then proceeded to walk about 5 steps to our table hehe.

It wasn't the best table in the restaurant as obviously we didn't have a view out of the windows from there but we didn't mind. We've had amazing tables at Ohana before and other times been way away from the windows so it's just pot luck.

This ADR was a bonus anyway really as originally we weren't planning to eat here this trip. About 4 months after booking our ADR's we changed our mind and decided we actually really wanted to eat here after all!

Well of course trying to get an Ohana ADR 2 months out from a trip is easier said than done as this restaurant is still really popular! (Whether it still is 2 years later I don’t know, current times not withstanding). It’s a great use of 1 table service credit as you get so much food and it's so delicious!

I signed up to Touring Plans reservation finder! We had used this in the past to get a Be our Guest lunch reservation and it's a great tool! It's free too! You do have to sign up to Touring Plans (but not the paid membership) to be able to use it though. When an ADR becomes available that meets the criteria you’ve entered, they send you an email to let you know. It’s then pot luck whether you can get on to MDE quick enough to book it before someone else does! (Again apologies if this info is now outdated.)

I had a few emails for times like 3:45 or 9:30 which of course were either too early or too late but then one day about a month from our trip, I got lucky! I got an email to say there was a 6pm reservation and I was straight on the MDE app to try and nab it! Luckily it was still available and I managed to book it!

I digress, we were just happy to be eating at Ohana!

We had the famous pineapple bread first! It is so delicious! Lauren doesn't like it but Mum, Dad and I pretty much finished it between the 3 of us! We also started eating it before I remembered to take a photo, it’s rare that happens these days after all these reports but I guess it shows how hungry I was hehe.

DSC01713 by A Disney, on Flickr


Our server was nice too but spoke very fast!

We had the salad next, I don't like this but Mum, Dad and Lauren all had some! Dad still asked if I wanted any despite having never known me to eat a salad in my, at this point, 28 years of life hehe. They all enjoyed it though!

DSC01714 by A Disney, on Flickr


Our server also brought over the sweet and sour sauce and the peanut sauce for dipping!

DSC01715 by A Disney, on Flickr


Next up we had the chicken wings, veg, pot stickers and noodles!

DSC01716 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01717 by A Disney, on Flickr


Dessert aside, this is my favourite part of the meal! The pot stickers and noodles are so so delicious! I could honestly just eat these all night (followed by the amazing Ohana bread pudding still of course) and skip all the other bits from this meal! I’d forgotten how much I loved the noodles and it’s making me hungry thinking about them now!


The veg was broccoli and cauliflower which I'm not too crazy about and the chicken wings were a little chewy so I didn't each too many of those but the pot stickers and noodles were winning as always!

After this, the skewers were brought round. They had sweet and sour chicken, Szechuan sirloin steak and spicy grilled shrimp!

I don't normally eat a lot from the skewers here but I really enjoyed the chicken and steak today! They were both absolutely delicious!

I don't like shrimp but the others all really enjoyed these too!

Definitely one of our best food experiences overall at Ohana and we weren't even done yet!

Of course no trip to Ohana would be complete without their incredible bread pudding served with ice cream on top and a caramel and banana sauce! Absolute dessert heaven for me!

DSC01723 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01724 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01725 by A Disney, on Flickr


Lauren doesn’t like it though so she scooped off a bit of the ice cream before we poured the sauce over.

Mum, Dad and I all devoured the bread pudding though, even though we were absolutely stuffed! It really is one of the best Disney desserts! I would give anything to be eating it now!

While we were eating, they had a guy walking around playing the ukulele which added to the atmosphere! He played the Israel Kamakawiwoʻole version of somewhere over the rainbow/what a wonderful world! This is one of my favourite songs so that was lovely to hear!

He also encouraged anyone celebrating a birthday to stand up so he could teach everybody how to say happy birthday in Hawaiian! We told Dad he should seeing as we were celebrating his 60th birthday on this trip but he didn't want to hehe.

It's just such a lovely atmosphere in this restaurant and as I said the food was absolutely fantastic today! I was so glad I'd managed to eventually get the reservation!

We were all so full up by the time we asked for the check though! I felt like I needed to be rolled out of there!

The meal would have cost 183.18 OOP but we used 4 table service credits plus a $32 tip as our server had been really good and always quick with the drink refills!

I stopped in the restrooms after we left to change in to a dress and cardigan as it was now much too cold for a crop top!

We then had a quick look in the Boutiki shop to see if we could find a jumper or something for Lauren but they didn't have anything suitable so she decided to look in the Emporium once we arrived at Magic Kingdom instead.

We headed to wait for the monorail next. There was quite a long line for the security checks but it moved fairly quickly. While we were waiting we got chatting to a lovely American lady from Texas as she heard our accents and said how much she loves talking to British people so we had a really nice chat! She was telling us that she was here with 15 of her family as she and her husband had paid for their kids and all their grandkids to come so that they could finally have a big family trip all together! Honestly she was so sweet!

Once we were through security and on to the monorail she started introducing us to all of her grandkids who were all absolutely lovely too!

Her oldest son called across from the other side of the monorail and said- of course my mom found you guys out of everyone in the monorail line, she chats to any British people she meets, haha.

It made for such a lovely monorail journey chatting with them all!

We arrived at MK at 8 and wished them all a brilliant evening and rest of their trip!

Bag check wasn't too bad at this time and we were in the park at 8:05.

DSC01726 by A Disney, on Flickr

We knew that, again, we had left it really late to get a spot for Happily Ever After but we wouldn't have swapped dinner for waiting around on Main Street for an extra hour.

Mum and Dad decided that they weren't keen on the hustle and bustle of watching it from near the castle and I can't say I blamed them as when the cast members have you all squish up to make more room behind, the crowds are incredibly packed in. So they decided to stay up near the Main Street Bakery as they'd had a nice view from there earlier in the trip!

Lauren and I decided we would brave the crowds near the partners statue!

We found a spot just to the left of it at the edge of the curb.

DSC01727 by A Disney, on Flickr

Lauren still needed to go and grab a jumper as now it was dark it was really chilly out!

As I mentioned in day 10 (which I don’t expect anyone who read it at the time to still remember ) a cold front had hit Florida and tonight was the coldest we'd experienced all trip! It felt similar to the night we had attended the After Hours event in February 2017 on our Universal trip! We went on Mine Train 4 times in a row and by the last ride I felt like my cheeks and fingers were about to fall off from being whipped by the cold wind as we sped along!

Lauren headed off to the Emporium and I tried to take up as much space as I possibly could by moving my feet apart. I must have looked a bit crazy to the people sitting behind but you see all sorts in Disney so maybe not .

Lauren said she'd be as quick as she could! She ran in and grabbed a light green spirit jersey. She picked up a small but said it looked huge so ended up quickly trying on the extra small which was a better fit so she headed to pay.

The cast member who served her was really slow though so she was quite a while!

Eventually Lauren was back with me sporting her new spirit jersey! They had only been out a few months at this point so colours were fairly limited but Lauren loved the green one! She said it was absolutely mad busy in there with people buying jumpers so we knew it was especially cold!

It was 8:25 at this point and it already felt absolutely manic around us! I was very glad not to be trying to save a spot for 2 anymore!

Then of course around 15 minutes before it started the inevitable happened as we had expected! The cast members started calling for everyone to move forward as much as they could.

We tried to keep as good a spot as we could but everybody was very much packed in like sardines now!

I've said it before but I genuinely feel like this would be so dangerous in the event of an emergency! I understand that they want to fit as many people into the hub area as possible but to have everybody squish up like they do just seems so mad to me. The crush if there was ever an evacuation situation would be awful! It's bad enough before when everybody has found a spot with a modicum of personal space but forcing everyone to pack in closer towards the castle makes it even worse! I'm sure Disney know what they're doing and have risk assessed the heck out of what would happen in the rare event of an evacuation but still. (Seems funny to have written this given the current circumstances. I can’t see how they’ll be able to make the firework displays work while social distancing is still a thing).

I digress, our new spot still gave us a pretty decent view. We did have a couple in front of us with a son aged around 6 so of course only time would tell as to whether he'd be going up on his Dad's shoulders!

Literally 2 minutes before it started the people next to us got a phone call from their friends who were trying to find them so they all started putting their hands up in the air so their rude obnoxious friends could find them!

3 of them pushed and shoved their way past everybody behind us to squeeze into the already limited space we had!

Lauren and I refused to budge an inch! We and those around us had been waiting for an hour! There was not a chance we were going to let these people who'd decided they could just turn up 2 minutes before to get a decent spot shove us over!

They were American and all in their early 20's. We got the vibe from them that they might have been cast members and if that was the case, shame on them as they have far more opportunities to come and watch it than those people just visiting for a week or 2 or less in some cases.

Even if they weren't cast members, it’s still rude to just rock up right before it starts and push yourself in front of people who've waited for ages!

Part of the reason we hadn't watched it with Mum and Dad earlier in the trip was because we had gone to wait earlier and they hadn't been able to get there until closer to the start, so they just found a spot further back and watched from there rather than forcing their way through very dense crowds!

We did the usual British thing and tutted and shook our heads at them!

Luckily we didn't have time to be any more annoyed about it as the fireworks started and it was thankfully forgotten!

IMG_9970 by A Disney, on Flickr


It always feels a bit emotional watching your last fireworks show of a trip! We were so glad that Happily Ever After had lived up to our expectations as a replacement for Wishes! We'll always miss the latter, same as we will miss Illuminations desperately over at Epcot (maybe even more than Wishes!) but Disney are pretty good at not disappointing you when it comes to their firework displays!

As soon as it finished we walked straight down towards the castle to get a good spot for Once Upon a Time!

Unlike the mad crush to get a good spot for Happily Ever After, Once Upon a Time is a much calmer affair! I don’t know if some people don’t realise there’s a projection show after the fireworks (in my mind it would make much more sense to have it before like ‘the magic, the memories and you’ and ‘celebrate the magic’ used to be. I miss celebrate the magic so so much still) or people just aren’t as bothered to see it more than once, but it’s a lot easier to find a decent view without the huge crowd level!

This meant we ended up with a front view spot which is always a bonus when you’re short like me!

Mum and Dad caught up with us as the crowds dispersed, they’d had a good view of HEA!

While we were waiting the most bizarre thing happened! Now this is going back a good while ago obviously so I’ll backtrack on the story a little, this trip coincided with the timeframe that Disney first released their rose gold Minnie ears and everyone went absolutely crazy for them and they were selling out in minutes!

Rose gold ears however had been around on Etsy and Instagram for quite a while already (some say that’s where Disney took their inspiration from as they were hugely popular for handmade ear sellers). As you may have seen in photos from this report (if you can remember that far back) Lauren had ordered hers earlier in the year and we’d had a couple of people ask which store she found them in only to be disappointed when told they were handmade by someone!

What we hadn’t experienced before was someone walking up to Lauren and offering her $50 to buy her ears! Double the cost of the park ears! Seriously! Lauren politely declined as she loves her rose gold ears and the seller who makes them personalises each pair along the inside of the head band so they had Lauren’s name on them anyway!

We always take our ears off for shows so they don’t block anybody’s view behind so Lauren held on to hers extra tight once the projections started at 9:45 hehe.

We love Once Upon a time and while I think I would still probably pick Celebrate the Magic over it because I love the soundtrack so much, OUAP also has a magical soundtrack and actually the quality of the projection is a lot better than its predecessors!

DSC01776 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01819 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01821 by A Disney, on Flickr


It finished at 10. Mum and Dad we’re heading out now as they were tired and wanted to finish the rest of their packing so they could visit Disney Springs the next morning so we said our goodbyes.

After standing out for so long we were both really cold so headed over to Carousel of Progress to warm up! Also we just love Carousel of Progress!

We walked straight in to the next show so that was lucky!

We adore this show in all its retro nostalgic gloriousness! In the intro there’s a line that says Walt Disney was as American as anyone can possibly be and I’d never thought about it before but this time I sat there thinking what does that actually mean?! What is American-ness measured in? Hehe

I was clearly in an observational mood this night as I’ve also made a note about the Halloween scene where Patty is talking to her friend on the phone while on the vibrating exercise machine. She says she’s going out with a guy called Wilfred and it sounds like her friend replies with “Wilfred, what a s**t”. It obviously doesn’t say that but I can’t quite work out what is being said!

IMG_9980 by A Disney, on Flickr

IMG_9982 by A Disney, on Flickr
The Christmas scene is our favourite!


When we left the nice warm theatre it felt bitterly cold! Not a phrase I ever thought I’d use to describe Florida! I had a cardi on but I should really have packed a jumper too, especially given the fact I had bought 2 already on this trip!

I was all spent up in terms of the dollars I had bought with me at this point and had been using my credit card for any additional purchases. I didn’t fancy shelling out for another jumper at Disney prices but it kind of felt like a “necessity” at this point (I say that in inverted commas as obviously describing buying a $50 jumper in the happiest and probably one of the most expensive holiday destinations on Earth to allow myself to spend a few more hours riding rollercoasters comfortably as being necessary just doesn’t sit quite right).

I was shivering though and the park was open until 1am so it was only going to get colder, so I caved and we walked over to the Merchants of Venice shop. They sold spirit jersey’s in here which as I said Lauren had bought earlier.

As also mentioned, the colour choice wasn’t great at this time as they were still fairly new. Pink is my go to colour generally and they did have it in pink but not the prettiest shade. They’ve since released it in some lovely colours and my pale millennial pink version is one of my favourite jumpers! Lauren and I have quite a collection of spirit jerseys between us both now, they are just so comfortable!

Same as Lauren, I bought mine in extra small as they were sized quite large. Having said that though we’ve found certain designs have come up smaller, our Christmas versions from 2018 for example seemed a lot shorter in the sleeves and I think we have those in a medium and others in small and extra small so we’ve found it’s best to try them on first before buying!

The cm who served us said they’d had lots of people coming in to buy extra layers!

We were in to our fastpass time for Big Thunder Mountain now so we headed up to Frontierland! I felt much warmer now I had a proper jumper on!

We reached the entrance to BTM at 10:50. We decided to wait for the back row seeing as it was our last time riding it this trip! As has been said many times before on the dibb, Big Thunder Mountain is so much better in the dark and better again at the back as it’s so much faster!

It was epic as always but the wind whipping as it went round was freezing!

We finished at 11:05. We decided to head to Philharmagic next to warm up! We stopped in the restrooms in Adventureland along the way and reached the theatre at 11:15

We’d just missed the next showing so had 10 minutes to wait but they let us through to the waiting area. In the past we’ve heard the CM’s ask people not to sit on the floor but they weren’t doing that tonight so we sat all cosy and warm in there as, like all the indoor areas tonight, they had the heating on!

The doors opened automagically at 11:25! When we’d watched the other day there had been some technical difficulty with the theatre backdrop (the part that makes it look like a much smaller screen with theatre curtains, that then lifts up as it converts into the large surround screen).

This issue hadn’t been fixed yet as when we walked in this part wasn’t down so didn’t have quite the same effect but the show was as brilliant as always! The cherry pie smell was also about 30 seconds too late so the pie was already off screen by the time you could smell it. That is probably one of my favourite Disney smells actually! I hope some of the Disney candlemakers on Etsy make this scent!

DSC01830 by A Disney, on Flickr


As we were in the area we decided to go on The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh next! It was listed as a 10 minute wait but was actually less than 5.

We actually didn’t mind waiting in lines tonight as at least it was warm in there!

We finished at 11:55. Mine Train was listed as a 50 minute wait still but this is one we tend to save until right before park closing!

Instead we wandered a little further up to Journey of the Little Mermaid which was a walk on! I could mention that it was lovely and warm on the ride but I’m sure you’re bored of reading about the fact it was freezing out now hehe. I love this ride! For us it’s impossible not to feel cheery while on it! Especially during the Under the Sea section!

We finished here shortly after midnight. We still had almost an hour until park close!

We chose Haunted Mansion as our next ride! It was a walk on! I always feel like Haunted Mansion is a little bit creepier when it’s dark out even though it’s always night time in there!


We finished just before 12:25. As we headed back in to Fantasyland we noticed that the line for the Rapunzel lantern photo was tiny! We’d had the photo taken earlier in the trip but decided we’d stop for another!


DSC01838 by A Disney, on Flickr
I love this area at night!

We both had our spirit jersey’s on now which were not the outfits we’d have chosen for this photo opportunity but I love how the picture of Lauren and I looking down at the lantern came out.

MK_RAPUNZELLANTERNSC_20171026_405814362288 by A Disney, on Flickr

MK_RAPUNZELLANTERNSC_20171026_405814362289 (2) by A Disney, on Flickr

MK_RAPUNZELLANTERNSC_20171026_405814362290 by A Disney, on Flickr

The photographer did individual photos too. I decided I wanted just one picture of me in the nice dress I’d picked out to wear so I took off my jumper and cardi for the picture. I know I said I wouldn’t mention it again but it was cold, very cold! Thankfully the photos were taken quickly and you can’t really tell my teeth are clenched to stop them chattering in the photo I don’t think .

MK_RAPUNZELLANTERNSC_20171026_405814362291 by A Disney, on Flickr

MK_RAPUNZELLANTERNSC_20171026_405814362292 by A Disney, on Flickr


MK_RAPUNZELLANTERNSC_20171026_405814362293 by A Disney, on Flickr


MK_RAPUNZELLANTERNSC_20171026_405814362294 by A Disney, on Flickr


When we finished here we popped in to one of the fantasyland shops to warm up!

We wanted to go on Peter Pan’s flight but it was still listed as a 20 minute wait. Might have been shorter as in our experience we’ve found sometimes they exaggerate wait times as it gets closer to park close but we didn’t want to risk it. We love the ride so much but it is a very short ride to wait so long during extra magic hours.

Continued below...

[xAimeex]

...Continued


Once we’d warmed up we decided to head over to Mine Train. It was also listed as a 20 minute wait but considering the wait times it sometimes (at this point) still got we were willing to stand in line for this! We just hoped we wouldn’t be stuck in the outside part of the line for too long.

We got in line at 12:40 and did have to wait outside for a little bit but thankfully the line moved quickly and we made it on at 12:52 so less than the 20 minutes listed!

We were sent to row 9 which is the second to last row! We had discovered on a previous trip that like BTM this ride is so much better at night near the back of the train!

MK_MINETRAIN_20171026_8116296568 by A Disney, on Flickr


We finished at 12:56 which was good timing as they don’t shut the line until bang on park close so we jumped straight back in line!

Thankfully we didn’t have to wait outside at all this time!

We made it on at 1:03 and even better this time were sent to row 10, the very last row!

MK_MINETRAIN_20171026_8116296280 by A Disney, on Flickr


It was 1:07 when we finished.

As we had done quite a few times on previous nights on this and other trips, we went to find a cast member we knew from Instagram. He’s mentioned earlier in this trip report if you can remember that far back and those of you who are on Instagram probably know who I’m talking about.

I would never have believed that coming to write this part of the report would have been such an awkward thing to discuss, but at some point last year some not very nice information came out about this cast member. I haven’t been on Instagram for quite a while now so I’m not sure exactly of the ins and outs of it but from what I read at the time he was actually fired from Disney because of this and deleted all of his social media.

I won’t be mentioning him by name again in this report but I can truly say we never experienced a side to this person that was anything but nice and genuine. It shows that anyone can have 2 sides. It’s not that Lauren and I are naive at all, in fact we’re very cautious as people but we were very friendly with this person who never gave us any reason to believe he wasn’t a genuinely good human so we were really sad and shocked by what came out. He knew our parents, we’d taken our friend Jasmine to meet him, we even spent time with his fiancé on our trip in 2018. We were all really shocked to be honest but I’ll say no more on the matter as this isn’t really the place for that.

As we had done on other nights we spent time with this cast member chatting Disney.


DSC01853 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01854 by A Disney, on Flickr


We stayed until it was time to close down the castle. We had watched this cast member close the castle doors before and honestly it is a really magical thing and I’m trying not to let anything now overshadow those memories as they were happy magical moments.

DSC01872 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01874 by A Disney, on Flickr
They were moving one of the stage props from the Halloween Party as we watched the castle doors close


We headed down to the hub area after so that we could get some photos of an empty Main St! There was 3 other people still in the park too but we were all very respectful in allowing each other to get the empty photos we were all after.

DSC01881 by A Disney, on Flickr


Lauren and I took some photos lying down on Main St as we loved our photo of us sitting there last year with no one behind!

IMG_1806 (2) by A Disney, on Flickr


We slowly walked down towards the exit. The senior cast members are there at this time ushering you out but they’re very nice about it and don’t rush you too much!

DSC01898 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01899 by A Disney, on Flickr


After taking a few last photos we finally left the park at 1:50.

DSC01903 by A Disney, on Flickr


At this time there was no one waiting for buses. A cast member near the bus area asked which resort we were going to and walked us to an empty bus to take us back to Animal Kingdom Lodge!

IMG_0023 by A Disney, on Flickr


It’s always a little bit creepy being alone on a Disney bus this late at night (not totally alone obviously but you know what I mean hehe). We made it back to Jambo house around 2:10. We’d had a brilliant last night!

We were really surprised as we walked back up to the entrance to see how busy the smoking area was considering the time!

The lobby was empty at this time so we stopped to get some pictures.

DSC01910 by A Disney, on Flickr

DSC01920 by A Disney, on Flickr


We eventually made it back to the room at 2:20. Mum and Dad has gone to bed long ago so we got ready as quietly as we could and fell in to bed at 2:30!

Thanks for reading x

[donna252]

Wow fab day. I’m so pleased you’ve managed to finish your report. 🤞 we will get to read more of your reports soon x

[Mamie Baldwin]

How fab to see you back on the DIBB Aimee.

[LozzaManse]

Wow Aimee, so great to read about the end of your 2017 holiday! So much detail - you write the best trip reports! Would love to read about your 2018 trip now!

[eleele]

Hi! I was so pleased to find you’d posted the end of your trip report especially as new ones are thin on the ground at the moment!

Great photos, I love the one of you two lying on the floor at the end, what a fab shot.

A brilliant read as always, thank you

[aqualiv]

Yay I’m so pleased you have finished this!
I love your trip reports, your detail, the photos, your outfits and where you go to eat 🤗

[macdonald]

Hi Lauren and Ammie...it was fantastic meeting you too..and your lovely Mum & Dad...Hopefully we will meet again some time in the future......