Some Magic before Marriage! Offsite Trip Report September 2018 - Day 1 - IHOP, MK, Olive Garden

[MsMinervaMouse]

Day 0 - Travel Day here

Today's the day! The day I finally get to go "home". Obviously I'm fully awake by about 3:30am. In the night, I'd got up to go to the toilet and fallen face first over my suitcase and grazed my wrist and all up my shin OUCH! Serves me right for leaving it in the middle of the floor.

Starting to show a bit by now

We got ready and hung around as long as possible as I didn't want to be eating breakfast at 5am, but by 6am I couldn't contain my excitement any longer so drove round the corner to IHOP. I've been to this IHOP before on my last trip in 2012 and was pleased to see it had had a refurb. If I recall, the old decor was PINK and old and gross. We were the only people there and only 1 server and 1 person in the kitchen which kind of surprised me, but we were seated and ordered some coffees.

It felt SO GOOD to be back, I almost started crying again. I hadn't even stepped foot on Disney property yet, but just knowing I had 14 days ahead of me full of absolute magic had me all emotional. Will was looking at me like I had 3 heads of course, but he was happy that I was excited

We both went for The Sampler, but we both left most of the pancakes. They're so yummy but I swear they expand about 10x in my stomach. Way too much!

Total came to $26.59 incl tax. We left a good tip. (For anyone that wants to know, we usually tip 20% unless the service is obviously rubbish, and sometimes round up to the nearest dollar if paying cash because I can't be bothered with receiving coins for change!)

We pull up to the MK gates and so far I've managed to hold it together, but as soon as we parked the car I burst into hysterical tears. (Can you sense that I'm a pretty emotional person yet? Hahahaha) Will of course starts laughing and gives me a big hug. I just can't believe I'm here!

We got the ferry over from the TTC. I knew the monorail would be quicker, and we'd already missed rope drop by a few minutes at this point because of my crying but there's something just a little bit more magical about the ferry and I thought it would be nice for Will to have the experience of having the castle come into view from the distance.

Even though we'd missed rope drop by this point, it was still relatively quiet and no queues to get in.

Obligatory pic!

I had originally wanted to run straight to SDMT but I was just so unexpectedly overwhelmed we decided to hang back and drink it all in a bit. I also wanted Will to get a 1st Time badge and he obliged

We slowly meandered over to SDMT and to our shock it was only a 35min wait! I was expecting it to be at least an hour by now, so lucky us! Back in 2012 when I was last in Orlando, New Fantasyland was still a building site, so I hadn't had the pleasure yet. From some of the reviews I'd read, I was expecting this to be cute but slightly underwhelming. I can't say it compares to RnR or Hulk, but there's some decent drops and the swinging action is pretty fun.

Now that that was out of the way, I wanted to head over to my absolute all time favourite - Haunted Mansion. I have 2 tattoos dedicated to it, so you could say I'm a pretty big fan! And of course, it didn't fail to disappoint.

I had a fastpass for Space Mountain booked for 11:55, so I knew we'd need to start heading back in that direction. We popped into Small Word on the way. Wills looked pretty confused through the whole thing. I can never decide whether I like it or not!

My favourite girls!

Now, I wasn't going to bring this up, but I'm a smoker. (Yes...yes..I know) By this time of the day I was in desperate need of a nicotine fix. The map on the app was showing that the nearest smoking area to Space Mountain is on the little trail between Tomorrowland and Storybook Circus. Usually the smoking areas have those big bin ashtrays, but there weren't any there. This being Disney, I didn't want to just light up in any old place, but this is where it said to go on the map. Other people were also turning up to smoke and just putting their cigarettes out on the ground which I thought was pretty gross, but there also wasn't a bin to be seen anywhere. It wasn't until the LAST DAY of our trip that I realised the smoking area was showing up wrong on the map! It's on the other side of Space Mountain, not on the little pathway. So many other people were turning up to take a smoke break, it must have been showing up on their maps at that location too. I just checked the WDW website and it seems the icon is back in the correct location now. Weird.

Anyway, enough about dirty habits.

We still had a bit of time before our first fast pass, so a quick spin on The People Mover

By this point we were SWELTERING. I knew it was going to be hot, but lordy it was HOT! A quick slush before our FP (Will was slightly obsessed with these by about day 3. Also note my now quite colourful rug burn!)

Weeeeeee!

I forgot how intense SM was! I seemed to remember it along the lines of X: No Way Out (now Walking Dead) at Thorpe Park. Completely forgot just how much it whips you around despite only doing a pretty meandering 28mph. I screamed through the whole thing like an idiot

By this point we were getting pretty hungry, so I picked Cosmic Ray's for lunch. I've had Cosmic Ray's on my list of places to try for a while now, despite knowing that the food is average at best. And I was right. All I really wanted to do was see Sonny Eclipse serenade the diners whilst eating a mediocre burger dangit, but the place was so packed we ended up outside in the heat.

I opted for the pulled pork and Willsy went for the chicken and bacon. His looks absolutely horrifying looking at this photo! We piled our sad burgers high with lettuce, tomato and pickles from the fixins bar but there was no saving them if I'm honest

$31.54 incl tax

Our next FP was at 1:20pm for Peter Pan so we strolled over. No pics of this as it's way too dark. As cute as I remember, but I think some of the lighting effects need to be updated in here. Coming in out of the blinding Florida sun to some dimly lit model scenes does not a good combination make. I'm still glad we rode, but I'd probably only ride with a FP from now on, and may not bother on our next trip. Save those rides for our future trips when the kiddos arrive

Our next FP was Jungle Cruise at 2:30 so we wandered in that direction. A first for both of us, I've never ridden it before! But not before a ride on Pirates and a dole whip (another first!) during the Tiki Room!

I've seen so many videos of The Jungle Cruise on Youtube I knew exactly what I was in for. I have a strange, irrational fear of animatronics when they're in water. I break out in a sweat and want to throw up just thinking about it. I have no explanation for this at all, so you're welcome to join me in thinking I'm a complete weirdo. But since I'd seen so many videos, I was fine. No sweating or barfing! Our skipper was... fine. But I've seen much funnier!

By this point, poor Will was about to pass out from the heat so we went over to Pecos Bills to grab some more frozen drinks...RIGHT when the parade was about to start. Bad timing much! Absolute chaos. Took for-bloody-ever to get our drinks, and we could barely get out the door it was so crammed with people watching the parade. So, only one thing for it - another first - Country Bears!

This was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen in my life, but I loved it! That song "All The Guys That Turn Me On Turn Me Down" LOL! We happily sipped our drinks and sang along (or at least I did) to Davy Crockett.

By the time we were out Wills was feeling a bit better and the parade had passed. We went over towards Splash and watched the people coming down for a few minutes. I wasn't really in the mood to get wet as we were going to head off soon and the queue was about 50 minutes for Splash, so we skipped that one and went for BTMRR instead.

I'd only just taken Wills on his first rollercoaster in July, and he still wasn't sure whether he liked them or not, but he was mad for Big Thunder! Just the right amount of thrills for him. I think we managed about 3 trips around as the queues were only 10 or 15 minutes, but by the 3rd go, our feet were tired, we were exhausted, dehydrated and in desperate need of showers, so decided to call it a day.

My feet were hurting so much, so got on the train back to the front of the park instead of walking.

Back at our hotel, we showered, changed and hung out for a while. Since I was in the mood for a nice big glass of white wine spritzer, I suggested we walk down to Olive Garden. "It's not that far" she said. "It will be fine" she said. Yeah well...she doesn't know what she's talking about. It was about a 30 minute walk! My memory of i-Drive was clearly not what I thought it was, because it was WAY further than I remembered. Not one to shy away from a 30 minute walk of course, but since I'd walked about 10 miles around MK that day, I didn't really feel like any more walking. But nevermind, we got there eventually and were shown to a table.

I suddenly realised I wasn't in the mood for Italian at all. Neither was Wills. We stared at the menu like codfish. We ordered the free salad, which I believe is unlimited, and the breadsticks, but was utterly pointless as we were both so tired I'm not sure we were even going to eat our dinner let alone extras. Either way, the salad was wonderful and I was surprised that the bread sticks were actual BREAD! These were really good too.

I was so tired I forgot to take pictures of our food, but I had the Chicken Piccata and Wills had the Chicken gnocchi. Both were "fine".

$57.42 incl tax. We left a good tip.

We walked the loooooong walk back to the hotel. Got in bed. And promptly fell very asleep.

[Cinderella]

Great day!

[Goldia]

IHOP for breakfast is a perfect choice! We never seem to manage dinner out on the first day as we're shattered, you did well to get through it after your long walk down I drive.

[vampiress88]

Good read. Day 2?

Is it just me or does your OH facial hair look likes it’s grown from one picture to the next?