Day 16 - Back once again like a Floriday Master - Busch/Millers/MK

[Man v Disney]

This morning was an earlier start as we were heading over to Busch Gardens and then surprising the kids at MK, assuming they have given us the extra day it looks like on the app.

We were ready and headed out by about 8.25am, the drive over was expected at about an hour and a quarter. It was pretty much right and we pulled in, paid for parking and got the tram over to the entrance by about 9.50am. As we drove over we saw the power line 'not so hidden' mickey!

We were in before 10am and Eliana and I hurried to where the crowds were being held in the park as we hoped to get on Cheetah hunt early. As soon as the rope dropped I expected to walk quickly, but there was actual running, so we joined in and went straight to Cheetah Hunt. We got there with only about 7 people ahead of us and once the test runs were done on the ride we were on the first one to go. We chose to go on the back row as you could choose the row. We loved this, very quick and smooth. It was a great start for her and she loved the ride.

After this we headed over to meet Han and Josiah at Scorpion as this was to be the kids first ride together. Unfortunately, although the park opened at 10am, the back of the park didn’t open until 10.30 with some of the bigger rides opening at 11am. Han and Josiah had been and had a look in the animal care centre and taken some pictures in there too. As the bigger rides didn't open until 11am it meant that we had some time to fill so we were the first to ride the carousel, there were only the four of us on this! The ride operator still had to go through all of the safety stuff once Eliana had found the horse she was going to ride.

We followed this up with a go on the Bumper Cars. As there was no line we got to ride twice. The operator was brilliant and gave really good commentary, egging us on to take each other out and describing how each person was taking out the others. He was fab!

Our next stop was Scorpion as it was nearly 11am, Han sat this out though. Busch Gardens does have some seating near the rides, fortunately there was some near this ride. The ride was delayed in opening for about 10 minutes and we noticed just how hot it was today. In fact, while waiting I got a notification from the Fox 35 weather app we have been using which warned that it could have a feel like temperature of 107 degrees. It certainly felt like it was heading that way!

Once we got on the ride we were on the first one of the day. A good ride and one we enjoyed together. We went straight on again as there was little queue, with the kids riding the front row. They really do like Scorpion! We came out to Han who said at this point ‘her sweat was sweating’ – the seating was not in the shade – maybe she needs some new cooling accessories?

The kids followed this up with Sand Serpent. Han and I sat this out as we remembered this ride from last time and we have memories of it being rather jerky and a bit of a bone shaker – like the Primeval Whirl’s evil cousin or something like!

I went onto Kumba as a solo rider after this. There was a queue for the front row with all of the other rows completely empty and so I went straight for the back row. A really good intense ride with 6 inversions.

By this point we had finished off the water we had brought and were getting thirsty and so agreed to do a further ride then sort out some food and drinks. We all went on Congo River Rapids and after seeing some of the other riders come off the rider soaked we decided to get our ponchos out - well, Josiah and Eliana decided to risk the ride without ponchos. They soon realised their mistake! Even with the ponchos we got a little wet. Eliana got the worst of it and was absolutely soaked right to the skin. It was like the water was attracted to a couple of people and one of those was Eliana! Josiah wasn’t quite as bad but still got majorly wet.

After this I went to go on Sheikra, although the queue for this was really big and as were we are coming back next week I decided to give this a miss and do it next time.

I met up with the others at the food venue and we got a refillable cup and a cheeseburger filled pretzel to share which was amazing. The pretzel was $9.99 and the cup cost $14.99 and you get free refills on the day you get it. Over the day we refilled the cup 6 times meaning that we saved a fair bit of money as each drink cost $3.99. We can refill next time for only 99 cents each, saving us even more. Well worth getting.

As Eliana didn’t fancy the pretzel, we went over to another snack bar and picked her up a foot long hotdog with ketchup for $9.75.This filled a hole and we followed it up with a trip on the train to let our food go down. I had drunk quite a lot of the soda and was feeling better as I had felt pretty rubbish… to be honest, I didn’t feel great for quite a bit of the day, Han checked later and thinks I probably had heat exhaustion over the day.

After we got off the next station I went to ride Montu and agreed to meet the others at Cobras Curse. Montu was a walk on and I loved this ride, it also has 6 inversions. As soon as I got off this I went to meet the others at Cobras Curse. This was stated as a 35 minute wait, but we were through the ride and off in 25 minutes. Josiah hadn’t quite realised what the ride entailed and despite this he really enjoyed it.

We had a quick look round at this point and saw a small area set up honouring those who have served the country. It was in a quiet little area and really well kept. We also found a little plaque in a shop which sums Josiah up quite well...

Knowing our evening plans, we decided to head home (we have another day here next week to catch more things) so the last thing we did was the ‘Turn It Up’ ice show which started at 3pm. The ice dancers were good, although we felt the show was a bit disjointed and not as good as the old show which we recall involved a grandfather and grandson going on an adventure?

On our way out the exit we had another ‘small world’ moment when we saw a boy from Josiah’s year leaving too!

We headed back and had a good, easy drive to the Millers near Magic Kingdom. Our first fastpass was booked for 6.15pm and by now it was 5pm but we figured we could just grab some entrees and head out after.
We were seated straight away and chose quickly – Fajitas for Han, Philly Cheesesteak melt for me, Zinger wings for Josiah and mini burger sliders for Eliana. While we waited, we watched a bit of sport -mainly baseball for me and pole jump for Han and the kids.

The food was delicious and when the bill came we agreed it was worth the $51.36 (made up to $61 with tip) it came to.

By this stage Josiah and Eliana still didn’t know where we were going and the guesses were getting a little outlandish (stay the night in Cinderella’s Castle? Where did that come from?) so we finally told them we had 3 more fastpasses and a second ‘final’ night and they were made up (thankfully, as it felt a bit of a let down to us after the guesses!).

We parked – 3 rows down from last night – and got a very short tram ride to the temporary entrance.

We headed straight for our fastpass at Monsters Inc Laugh Floor which expired at 7.15pm – we entered at 7.14pm! Close call! We queued for a short time watching the funny video clips on the TVs and got good seats on an aisle, half way up the room.

The show was very good, very funny without having a laugh at anyone’s expense which is good – they brought people into it but in a very innocent and amusing way that wouldn’t offend. At one point, one of the monsters asked people to put their hands up if they knew where they came from and Josiah & Eliana were picked and they got up on the screen! There were quite a few ‘oooohs’ when they said they were from England and that allowed for some jokes from the monsters about the UK (or not – Eiffel Tower in London?).

Leaving there, I went to 7 Dwarves to get a return time to try to make that our last Disney ride (without the re-run of yesterday!) and met Han and the kids at the Dole shop where they were getting a pineapple juice. They wanted some iced water too but there wasn’t any there so we moved round to another seller where we got a coke and 2 iced waters to have before our Pirates of the Caribbean fastpass.

After a welcome rest and drink, we went on Pirates and enjoyed the ride although we were sure it was shorter! We had forgotten the little drop which I think you can tell from some of our faces in the picture!

Leaving here we went round the corner to Jungle Cruise and had quite a queue despite the fastpass. It was a ‘Villains’ after party night and it was packed with lots of people wearing black and purple! The cruise was a good one with our captain sarcastic, but funny, again not at anyone’s expense. It took a while for us to get off as the boat ahead of us had a motorised wheelchair to get off – we had seen it being loaded and were very impressed with how inclusive the ride was.

Just as we got off, the fireworks started. We had said originally that we wanted to leave during the fireworks after yesterday’s crush and wait but that wasn’t to be – we still had 7 Dwarves so that’s where we headed next. Han waited outside the ride and got some great pictures of the fireworks from behind the castle – the combination of the music and the fireworks, even without seeing the projections is fantastic and very moving.

7 Dwarves was great again and we are so pleased we got to do it once more, but with the good comes the bad and the bad was indeed a crush and looong wait, this time for the ferry, to get back to the transportation centre. It felt like ages but in fact was only 35 minutes but boy, were we glad to see the car!

When we got back to the villa, the only thing we could do was go out to the pool and dip our feet in, quietly though so we didn’t disturb the neighbours at 11pm!

It didn’t spoil our day though and we feel like we definitely finished Disney the best way and did everything we wanted to – and more over the 2 weeks.

Step count 19,527!

Tomorrow is a much easier day (for most of us) as we only have 2 plans – Josiah is doing his indoor skydiving that we booked as his treat instead of the dolphin swim, and meeting our friends, the Hopkins at Rainforest Café for dinner.