It's The Greatest Hits Tour August 2018: Day 8 - Universal Studios, Ale & Compass & Epcot

[moosha]

Day 8 - Saturday 18th August 2018

An earlier than usual start to today, I was up at 5.30 am because we had to finish packing. I always find getting in the last few bits that I can’t pack until the morning we leave (pyjamas, toiletries and cosmetics) takes longer than I expect because I always end up needed to reshuffle everything. So I’ve learnt to give myself more time than seems reasonable to avoid rushing and panicking. Mat got coffees from Emack and Bolio’s and assisted where I would let him.

Possibly my least favourite thing at the Hard Rock Hotel:



Getting the girls up was still proving to be a struggle. One of them (probably Freya) responded to ‘time to get up now’ with ‘six more minutes’ which made us laugh because of the randomness. Once they were up, Mat and the girls had cereal and we left at 7.42 precisely for our last early admission and last visit to the Universal parks this trip.







We had decided to do The Mummy first this morning but changed our minds again and carried on to Diagon Alley. I think I just fear a long wait at Gringotts if we go to The Mummy first.

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We dropped our stuff off in the Gringotts lockers quickly and efficiently and headed to the entrance where we realised Seren had forgotten to change her prescription sunglasses to her glasses. She didn’t fancy experiencing the ride extra dark so we sent her back to swap them.

Gringotts this morning was pretty much a walk-on and for some reason they were doing the annoying photos in the line before 9 this morning. We told the guy directing people to the photo booths that we didn’t want the photo taken thank you very much and he sent us straight ahead to the line for the elevators. The camera flash is so bright we don’t like the way it gives us all white spots in front of our eyes after we’ve had the photo taken that we’re never going to buy anyway. And this way we got ahead of like 20 people in line while they had their photos taken haha.

We were allocated row four which I think might be my favourite place to ride Gringotts. The drop is more exciting than row one but you still get to be at the ‘front’ for the screen action when the vehicle splits into two cars. The only part you don’t get to see as well is the dragon bit because the cars are back together at that point.

We said goodbye to Gringotts for this trip and then the girls met the Knight Bus conductor









We then did our usual walk back to The Mummy. We all rode once and then the girls wanted one last ride on it before we left Universal.





















After this very brief trip to the park for our two favourite rides we walked back to the hotel, sad to be leaving Universal but excited to be heading to Disney.

















We went back to our room for the last time and Mat called Luggage Services for someone to come and collect our stuff.











I went down to check out and the reception lady asked if we’d enjoyed our stay. I told her that we had but mentioned that we’d not had any hot water in the shower most mornings and some evenings. She apologised and took $20 off the bill which I thought was a nice gesture. Weeks later when I was having trouble getting the TopCashback cashback paid on the booking, I wondered if the discrepancy in the bill amount was the problem but when I did some research it appeared lots of people were having similar issues with TopCashback. I’d been using them for a couple of years with no problems but this Expedia booking was rejected for no reason and when I followed up and went through the process of disputing it, they were very unhelpful and refused to pay. I read online that quite a few people had had legitimate large cashback transactions declined, even after using them like I had successfully for a long time. They were so unhelpful and it infuriated me that they had just refused to pay a fully legitimate claim for something like £180. After that I stopped using TopCashback and moved to QuidCo which has been working so much better (no missing transactions) and they seem to pay my Expedia claims quicker than TopCashback.

Anyway once I had checked out, the girls and I sat in the lobby for a few minutes while Mat sorted the luggage and brought the car round to the front door with assistance from Luggage Services. It was two days after Aretha Franklin had died and the Hard Rock had a little tribute to her in the lobby which we thought was a nice touch.



As we left we all agreed that the Hard Rock is definitely one of our favourite hotels to stay at anywhere, and we’ll always choose to stay there for a Universal parks visit.

We drove to our beloved Super Target at Millennia to stock up on water, sunscreen and cereal (again) and then set off down the I-4 to Disney. That first drive to Disney is always so exciting, and we felt so grateful that we still had two weeks at Disney to look forward to after a great week at Universal.



Even more exciting was the fact that we were returning to our favourite Disney resort, the first one the girls had stayed in on their first trip in 2012.



We pulled up at the gates to the Yacht Club and were greeted at the gate with a ‘Welcome home’ from José who was lovely and friendly.



Mat dropped the girls and I off at the door and then went to park the car while we went to check in. The check-in desk was nice and quiet and we were greeted by Emily who was an absolute babe. She said she loved the girls’ Harry Potter shirts and we said we had just come from Universal. She was really excited to talk to us about our time there and said she loved ‘the castle ride’ but hadn’t ridden Gringotts yet. She said she was going to find us a nice room that was clean and ready for us and she spent a bit of time choosing before she said ‘Oh this one’s lovely, I like this one.’ She also checked that our new MagicBands were all set up correctly as we were apparently ‘a lovely family.’ And finally she gave us tips on the new Toy Story Land, telling us to only visit early morning or late at night, firstly because of the crowds but also because of the lack of shade.

The room we had been allocated was on the third floor and was quite a way along the corridor from the elevators which was perfect as there was very little noise from people passing in the corridors.



When we got into the room we realised we had been upgraded as we had only paid for a woods view room but we had a water view. Look at the beautiful view we had.





We also had a day bed with bedding and I think this meant we had a little bit of extra space than a standard room.



I couldn’t have been happier; we were in our favourite Disney hotel in an upgraded room and the recent room refurbishments were outstanding. Firstly there was no carpet which made me very happy as I have a bit of a hotel room scuzz phobia (I won’t walk on a hotel carpet barefoot or in socks for example, l have to have shoes, slippers or flip flops on.) A hotel room with no carpet is always an absolute winner for me.

The room refurbishments at the Yacht Club were a massive improvement both in terms of design and practicality.









There was so much storage in the room. The bathroom was lovely and the showerhead was massive (and nice and powerful.) We took some time to unpack and the girls sat on the balcony and wrote their journals which they had been doing intermittently and pretty much gave up after this point. Freya also did some school work.





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[moosha]

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Random photo of Seren's Magic Band:



We had arrived in the room at 11.30 am and had lunch booked downstairs at 1 pm which worked out perfectly (it’s almost like some planning goes into these trips.)

We were excited about lunch at Ale & Compass as we’d read good things about the restaurant and knew it had two vegan options on the menu, both of which appealed. We also appreciated the fact that the restaurant was on the site of the former Captain’s Grill, where we’d had our first Disney meal in 2012 during which Freya fell asleep with her head on the table mid-meal (but luckily not in her food.) To be fair she was four and it was about 7.30 pm on arrival night. Obviously we had to have a good laugh about it when we returned to the scene today.

The restaurant refurbishment, like the rooms, was lovely. We had a short wait in the lovely lounge area...





...and then we were quickly seated and met our server Jaimie who was very sweet.





We ordered drinks: Mat had a Manhattan which he said was excellent, I had a glass of Prosecco (got to love the Dining Plan including alcoholic drinks now), Seren had apple juice and Freya had a bottle of Evian.





We were back on the dining plan having not used one since 2015 (I think) so we had to refamiliarise ourselves with the ropes, which I think have changed since we last had dining plan anyway. As I’m writing this about 18 months after the trip, it’s all a bit hazy but I think I’m right in saying we were allowed entree and dessert on the regular dining plan at table service restaurants. We asked Jamie about the situation with vegan desserts (as in, do they do any.) She went off to check with the manager and returned to tell us that they could offer Rice Dream (basically packaged dairy-free ice cream) for dessert or they could switch the dessert for an appetiser. Well a modified version of one of the appetisers since as with the desserts, they also didn’t have any vegan appetisers on the menu. Having checked the menus for the restaurants we would be eating at during our 10 days on the dining plan, I was pretty sure this was going to be the case at most of them. Which is fine, we don’t really eat desserts so we’re not bothered about missing them, but I was a little concerned about the ‘value’ of our (free) dining plan if we were only able to have one of the two courses we were entitled to. I can’t actually remember how it turned out at the other restaurants so I guess we’ll find out as we go through, but we were very happy with how accommodating Ale & Compass were today.



We decided that it would be better value to get the appetiser rather than a scoop or two of packaged ice-cream (plus like I said neither of us really have a sweet tooth since becoming vegan.) So we went for the roasted cauliflower and romaine without the buffalo sauce as it wasn’t vegan. When it arrived, the cauliflower was nicely cooked but the whole thing was a bit bland without the sauce (as to be expected.) Jaimie had said this was a concern and between the three of us we tried to find a fix. Mat suggested some Tabasco sauce which worked well to give it some flavour. Jamie said she’d never thought of that but would use it in future for her vegan guests as it was a great idea.



Our appetisers had taken a while to come and our entrees were out quite quickly after that. Mat, Seren and I had all chosen the vegan burger (Seren’s minus the spicy vegan mayo) and Freya had fish and chips. The burger was a bacon cheeseburger (but all vegan obviously) with fries.



The actual burger was a Beyond Burger which we’d had before in New York and it was very tasty. The vegan cheese and spicy mayo were also delicious. The vegan bacon was Sweet Earth bacon and although I think it’s the only vegan bacon I’ve eaten, it was really good. Seren loved the bacon the most out of the whole meal. She’s been vegetarian since birth so has never had actual bacon and this was the first time she’d eaten any sort of bacon. The whole thing was served on two slices of bread rather than a bun. It was all really delicious. Freya had two big fillets of fish and managed one but she enjoyed what she did eat.



For desserts the girls both chose lemon meringue pies but when they arrived they were more of a cakey moussey thing which they didn’t really like.





Overall though we were really happy with our meal and had really enjoyed sitting and relaxing there for a while, especially after so much park time over the past few days. The total would have been $142.61 if we had paid OOP and we left a 20% tip for Jaimie.

We popped into The Market to pick up our refillable mugs and have a little look around. This little grab-and-go place was much needed at the Yacht Club as in 2012 we’d had to walk round to the Beach Club Marketplace for quick service items. The selection at The Market wasn’t huge and it was mostly pre-packaged stuff but it was definitely handy to have in the lobby should a snack crisis arise. This trip we had started buying cereal bars and dried fruit snack bars from Target to take to the parks for a mid-morning snack or just when we got peckish because we reasoned there weren’t many vegan or healthy snack items that appealed in the parks, and the girls are always hungry so they wouldn’t go amiss. This was obviously a lot cheaper than buying something similar from the likes of The Market.

So, refillable mugs. Seren chose blue, Freya purple, Mat red and me pink. Very happy that there were four nice colours available. Mat filled his with coffee which he said was fine, I treated myself to a cherry Coke and Freya got Fanta. At last I didn’t have to mind if she didn’t drink it because we weren’t paying for it. Seren just had tap water from the Freestyle machine which she said was really nice. We took the drinks up to the room and got ready. I'm sure I took a photo of our mugs but apparently not so here's the dodgy photo Seren took of her mug:



We took a couple more photos of the beautiful resort.







When I had planned this day it seemed like a good idea to go for the nice relaxing table service lunch, sort of as a buffer between finishing at Universal and starting the Disney parks. I had to decide whether we would use our 14 day tickets today or on going home day and in the end I reasoned we would be itching to get into a park today. Knowing that Epcot is a five-ish minute walk away made it a no-brainer for our first half day. I am definitely not in the ‘Magic Kingdom on the first day’ camp. We actually usually build up to Magic Kingdom and go there after all the other parks, although I usually make use of busy day guides too. Magic Kingdom isn’t even my favourite park; Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios are, but we build up to it because it’s the most ‘classic’ Disney I guess.















The Skyliner was under construction and we took this photo of the proposed route:



It was a nice quick and easy entry through the International Gateway and we were all very excited to be entering World Showcase.



First of all we walked to Norway and bought a chunky pen for autographs. We found this sign so obviously had to take a photo of Freya with it:



We then got in line to meet Anna and Elsa as the posted wait was only 15 minutes, even though it was 2.30 pm on a Saturday afternoon in August.







2018-08-18 16.14.06 by MooshaPie, on Flickr



Shoes:



The actual wait was only 10 minutes.



Before we came away I had suggested to Seren that she try taking selfies with some of the characters as she seems to spend about 70% of her life taking selfies. She tried it out here at her first character meet and got some great pictures plus she really enjoyed it.







Anna and Elsa were really into the selfies and the girls were buzzing when they came out.





I love the fact that the girls are still so into Disney and character meets even though they’re a bit older and even now 18 months later they’re still the same. I think taking selfies with the characters has definitely helped prolong their enthusiasm for character meets and Seren loved being able to share the photos on social media. After the meet she shared the pictures on one of her group chats and her twelve year old girl and boy friends were impressed. Definitely not too old for Disney.

We found a spot of shade and drank some cold water we’d brought with us in our trusty coolbag Caspar while we waited for our Frozen Ever After FP+ to become good. Once it was time we got in line and waited five minutes.





We all love this ride so it seemed like a pretty good choice for first Disney ride of the trip. Unfortunately I sat in a puddle and we got really wet on the ride but it’s such a cute ride, definitely my favourite Epcot ride and I think the rest of the family would say the same.

Afterwards we carried on walking round World Showcase.









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[moosha]

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We didn’t make many stops besides the USA shop, the USA toilets (best restrooms in Epcot fight me) and then Mitsukoshi because well it’s mandatory. We always spend ages in there as there’s so much to see and Freya especially loves Japanese / Kawaii culture. I bought us some little lucky owls (we usually buy a lucky cat or owl or two when we’re here), Seren bought herself some stickers...



...and Freya went off to look at the kimonos. She had always wanted a kimono and had talked about maybe getting one when we were here. I had a look at them with her and a lovely Cast Member came over and asked if she wanted to try one. Of course she did and the CM helped her with it, explaining that you should always wrap the left side of the kimono over the right. It looked lovely. The Cast Member went off to get her an obi (sash) to finish it off. By this point Freya was adamant she was buying it.





When we’d started looking at the kimonos before the CM came over, I’d seen a price tag for the design Freya liked and it was $40. The obi was an extra $6. When they put them through at the till it came to $76. I think the $40 had been for a much smaller size. Freya wanted to go ahead even though it was a lot more expensive.

So cute:





We popped into the Kawaii museum for a little look around and to enjoy another break from the sun. Then the girls got some pressed pennies from somewhere around the Japan pavilion. We wanted some tap water but had to go to three different places before we could get some. The kiosks don’t have tap water facilities so we were directed to Katsura Grill. It was so hot and the lovely cold water went down really well (and very quickly.)















Onto France and time for our first WS alcoholic drinks of this trip (I’m amazed we had been here so long without one by this point to be honest.) We knew we wanted Grey Goose slushes (of course) but I really couldn’t choose between the lemon and orange. I think I’ve had and enjoyed both before but was really struggling to pick which one to have today. There was a bit of a wait because everyone in the vicinity seemed to have the same idea as us. I am terrible at making decisions and I was kind of doing a bit of research while we waited trying to work out which was most popular. I think lemon just outnumbered the orange and the lemon appealed slightly more so I went with that. Mat had the orange. We sat on the wall outside Chefs de France and drank them. I tried both and was pleased with my selection but Mat preferred the orange. They are lovely though, so refreshing and tasty.







We had a FastPass+ coming up at Spaceship Earth so we walked on through the UK and Canada and then into Future World.











Mat and I sat together and my plan was to have a little nap after only getting three hours sleep the night before but Judi was too loud. Rude.

After SE (which Seren in particular is very enthusiastic about even after what seems like 200 rides on it in the last six years), we took some blueberry and bubblegum Insta wall photos.

















We were a bit peckish by this point so decided to visit Sunshine Seasons in The Land knowing that it had a few good vegan options and it’s somewhere the girls like too. As it was towards the end of the day, there wasn’t as much available as I assume there had been earlier in the day. The girls both fancied a tuna croissant from the chiller cabinet but there was only one left. We spoke to a CM who said they would make up another one which I wasn’t expecting, it’s not Pret! Unfortunately neither of them ate a lot of it which was annoying as they may as well have just shared the one that was already made up. Mat and I both went for the vegan korma which was tasty but not quite hot enough. There wasn’t much choice of alcoholic drinks as part of the dining plan meal credit. It was whatever was in the chiller and from memory there wasn’t any wine (definitely not any red anyway and I don’t drink white.) I think it was just beer, cider or mixed cans of rum and ginger ale. We both went for the can and it wasn’t great. I have raw ginger every day in a fresh juice, and I really like the taste, but the ginger in this was a bit overpowering. I couldn’t finish it. The girls got chocolate chip cookies and bottles of water and everything went through as four meals and two snacks. The girls went back and got apples too as extra snack credits.









While we were sat in Sunshine Seasons we booked Nemo FP+ to use pretty much straight away. This saved us approximately thirty seconds of time in line before the FP+ and standby lines merged just inside the building. Mat and I rode together as the girls wanted to ride together. I quite like this little ride. There aren’t many rides I’m that bothered about at Epcot (Future World really needs the overhaul it’s having now) but Nemo is probably in my top half. We restroomed in The Seas and took a few photos.





As we came out of The Seas we had a little look in the shop and saw some cute Tsum Tsums that were Minnie, Mickey, Donald, Daisy and co dressed as sea creatures. They were so sweet and the girls were really into collecting Tsum Tsums at the time. There was some promotion on if you bought four so the girls chose one each and got one for a friend each.



It was about 8.30 pm by this point and the plan was to see if the Test Track line was short enough yet for us to contemplate getting in it. It was posted at 45 minutes and we guessed it was probably a little bit shorter in reality and that Disney were just trying to dissuade people joining it right before park close. It took about 25 minutes so our prediction was right. Just before we got to the design studio, there was a bit of drama. Two guys had pushed all the way through the line, claiming to be joining a party further up. They rather came unstuck when they got to the CMs allocating people spots outside the design studio as the people around them obviously didn’t know them and in fact seemed to be telling the CMs that they were queue jumping. One of the two basically didn’t say anything and looked really uncomfortable like he was ready to just leave but the other one was protesting that they knew someone up ahead (who by that point would apparently already be in the design studio had they existed.) Two Cast Members took them to one side and spoke to them for a few minutes. By this point we had been allocated our spaces outside the design studio and as waiting there seems to take an age, this was great entertainment. The reluctant guy had given up and left via the single rider queue but the pushy one was still trying his luck. He was saying something about how he had a FP+. After a minute they sent him on his way and he did the walk of shame out of the single rider line too.



Our car:



We boarded the ride about 9 pm and had the whole car to ourselves. I much prefer it at night as the outdoor part is more fun in the dark and you don’t get blinded by the bright sun when you go outside. When we got back to unload there was no one getting on so we were among the last people to ride that day. Unfortunately even though we scanned our Magic Bands at the ride photo (and you’re not even supposed to need to do that) our photo didn’t show up in our account which was a shame as it was a great photo and we had no randoms in the car with us. We did get someone else’s photo though. I’ve seen this happen quite a bit on The Dibb and elsewhere online and a few times during the trip we got other people’s ride photos as well as our own.

We’d had a great first Disney day and it was so good to be able to take the short walk back to the Yacht Club for showers and to crash into bed.

[disneywiseowl]

Thx so much for continuing this trippie. Just what we all need at the moment.
I have 2 daughters so your reports remind me of the ‘olden, golden days’ of the 90s, when mine were little & I always knew where they were!
😂