Rammed 2017 (I'm so shiny) Day 5

[wizzo]

Day Five - 20th August 2017


The index is HERE

While I didn’t (and never will) have Buffalo Wild Wings’ ‘Blazin wings for yesterday evenings dinner, my first note of the day reads……

‘Woke at 5:20am and parted company with last night’s wings’

I think that’s the first and last toilet story for this holiday. I love chilli and am absolutely addicted to it but certain chillies go through me like the bloody Euro Star! It NEVER puts me off though, that’s the strength of my chilli habit. Let’s move on eh?

Everyone else was up shortly after 7am. News on the TV was that of the two Kissimmee police officers gunned down yesterday. Every time we come to America it hits me that the root cause of all their problems comes down to the ‘The right to bare arms’. It’s sad and there’s no going back now. There are millions and millions of guns out there. Most of which would go underground if you banned them.

Once dressed, we headed to Epcot. My notes tell me we were there 25 minutes before rope drop, so I’m guessing that would be 8:35am.

With only one day in each park and limited fast passes, the plan was to sprint to Test Track first and join the stand by. We more or less walked straight into the first room full of people picking their cars with only a very slight wait of a couple of minutes.

Lynn and Lauren’s car beat ours yet again. Maddy and I haven’t beaten them yet. I’m going to have to Google the best setup for next time and basically cheat.

Coffees and pastries was the order of the day and we went to Joffreys for a change. I had a wander over to take a last couple of photos of ‘Ellen’ as it was always known in our house. So sad to see this one. Lynn not so much, she couldn’t stand it!

Full of coffee, smoothies and donuts, we left Lynn in the sun and went to use our fast passes for the newly renovated Mission Space.

If you haven’t been on it yet, it’s some new HD footage (mainly on the green less intense) and some cosmetic/actor changes. Goodbye Gary Sinsie. It’s still exactly the same ride.

We actually did the standby line on green and then used our fast passes for Orange. Both would have been walk-ons if it wasn’t for someone puking on the ride as we watched the briefing. We had to move all 10 rows to another briefing room and watch it all again. Then a teenager passed out while we were watching the second briefing and we had to wait for him to be carted away too!

It was now 10:40am and we picked Lynn up from the bench she was attached to and used our second set of fast passes on Soarin’. Even Lynn went on and she didn’t scream once this year. We later found out it was because she had her eyes shut the whole time.

We then joined a 30 minute Living with the Land standby line at 11:05 despite having fast passes for it for 11:20. Made no sense to me but Lynn said “We’ll be on this long before 11:20! ”

We boarded bang on 11:20.

Lunch was next and we just can’t see past the Electric Umbrella’s French Dipped Burger at the minute. It’s easily WDW’s best quick service burger in my humble opinion (and beats most of WDW’s gourmet burgers too).

Next we went to the old Honey I shrunk the audience theatre and watched the selection of Disney Shorts that were running. We had seen most of them but it is a great selection.

Then we took a tour with Dame Judy and were treated to a breakdown and 10 minutes stationary in Arabia! Aren’t we lucky!

We then exited (don’t worry we’re coming back!) in favour of going to Target for some essential and back to the hotel for a freshen up. I don’t have any photos in Target (just the drive there) but I can tell you that we bought water, make up, fizzy pop and a Gators T-shirt for me.

You can thank Maddy for those photos!

We all had showers, chilled, had a beer (not the kids) and set off back to Epcot (minus the car) at 4:15pm.

Thankfully the bus was toe nail free this trip……which was nice.

Once at Epcot, the plan was for the kids to complete a load of Agent P missions while Lynn and I had a few eats and drinks and watched the world go around.

That’s not exactly how it panned out. If you’ve ever seen Micky Flannigan when he goes on about going out, you know, there’s “Out…………and then there’s OUT OUT”

And in his words “I wasn’t even going out and I ended up very much OUT OUT”

We started in Mexico and the kids played Agent P on an iPhone for the first time. A lot easier than those ‘communicators’ you used to have to get and return.

Lynn and I started our evening with Avocado (me) and Passion Fruit (Lynn) margaritas. I hated the Avocado Margarita the first time I had it and as I love Avocado and everyone else raves about it, I had to try this drink again. I do think I had a bad one the first time as this one was a lot better!

I didn’t notice until I paid for the next drink but the barman in Mexico gave me change from $40 when I actually gave him $30. Result! I tipped him - Disney can afford the $10 loss.

While were in Mexico it decide to rain. The kids went on the Three Caballeros while we chilled and drank our margarita’s and then Maddy started a Duffy on a stick while we waited for the rain to ease off. At this point the night was looking like a bit of a damp squib.

Eventually we soldiered on to Norway, had two of their Toasted Porter beers (Lynn hated hers and I drank most of it for her).

We needed a lining on our stomachs at this point as we were both getting a taste for the drinks on offer and were almost, accidentally, starting the marathon drinking session that is ‘Drinking around the World’

We got the Beef Noodles (disappoint that this in no longer in the broth) and orange chicken to share from the Lotus Blossom Cafe.

We then went to Joy of Tea for the Curry Pockets (excellent) and to drink we had Tipsy Ducks in Love (sensational).

The Tipsy Duck in Love is iced tea, iced coffee, chocolate syrup and a big slug of Jim Beam Bourbon. This is now my favourite drink in Epcot by a country mile. I’ve always like this type of chocolate cocktail which is what is it. If you like a Mudslide, you’ll like this. Lynn was not keen.

The kids continued with Agent P’s China adventure and I watched the word go by getting ever so slightly merry.

You’ll notice it was still raining (light) but we weren’t remotely bothered now 😊

Once you’re drinking around the world you notice all the other people doing the same. There was a group of four American lads across from us leaning against a fence and forcing their Tipsy Ducks in Love down them. They’d clearly started at Canada and were nearly finished. They were in a bit of a state. Three managed to finish their drinks but one lad was really struggling to get his down.

When I walked to the bin to dispose of our ‘empty’ cups I said to him “Come on, you’ve only got a beer in Norway and a shot of Tequila to go……you can do this! ”

He looked at me with slightly bloody shot eyes, laughed and said “I was done at Germany!”

We set off for Germany.

Rain still wasn’t bothering us!

I joined quite a big queue for beer in Germany. In front of me was an American desperately trying to pronounce the name of the grapefruit beer he was going to order. Time and again he tried and failed to say ‘Schofferhofer Grapefruit Beer” (he too was slightly tipsy).

I leaned in and said to him “Do yourself a favour, save the embarrassment of asking for it and go for the Ocktoberfest instead, it’s easy to pronounce and taste a s@%t load better! ” He laughed his head off and said “Okay, I’ll take your advice. You look like you know your way around a beer”. Looking back I think he meant FAT!

We weren’t even halfway around the world and I’d already made two new friends. I’m a social sort of a bloke anyway (hopefully the Dibbers I’ve met in the UK and USA would testify to that) but when I’ve had a few, I make a lot more friends. Shy, I’m not!

At this point Lynn skipped another beer so I got an Ocktoberfest and we sat at a table in the court yard while the kids did yet another mission.

When they returned we set off for Italy where the plan was for me to skip the Prosecco while I finished my beer.

I only found out the next day that Lynn was flagging at this point and we shared the Prosecco but Lynn actually just kept passing it to me without having a drink. So I’d had all of that one too!

I was making all the right noises about being sensible myself at this point but so far, I’d actually had a drink in every pavilion.

My notes reveal that Lauren had Cannoli in Italy but I can’t remember that. I presume I bought it for her.

Next up was America. Lynn was back in the game here and I got two of our all time favourites to drink…..Red Stag Lemonade. We chose frozen too. The kids had ‘American Dreams’

We sat in the theatre to watch a vocal harmony type group sing while we drank our drinks. Two things will strike you in the following photos….

a) The sun came out. It was a beautiful evening
b) I’m still able to take a decent photo even when slightly inebriated

We’d had such a brilliant time so far tonight. As always time was flying. I was conscious that I was in the running for drinking around the world without even trying here! We had to pick up the pace.

We made our way to Japan where Lynn skipped a drink again and I downed a Saki. This is the only photo I appear to have of Japan was as we made our way to Morocco.

Morocco was even worse for photos. I queued for a drink while Lynn and the kids went to France to secure the next drink! Lynn was determined that I should have a drink at every pavilion (she loves seeing me drunk and taking the wee wee the next day).

So I had a ‘Royal Blue’ at Morocco and had most of it down me by the time I caught up with Lynn and the girls in France. The Royal Blue was bloody lovely. It was just another alcoholic slush. It was VERY blue however and dyed my tongue dark blue in the process. Way worse than any normal slush does.

Upon finding Lynn, I downed the last of my royal blue and joined her in the queue for Grey Goose Slushes.

It was in the queue that I got chatting to two English lads in their late 20s who were also drinking around the world and also starting to be a little worse for wear. When I recount this story I refer to them as Joel, his brother ‘errrrrr’ (because I can’t remember his name) and their mother Ruth. When I exited the queue (they were in front of me) and they grabbed me and introduced me to their mother ‘Ruth’. Ruth was in a wheelchair, she greeted me politely enough but was clearly ≈≈≈≈≈≈ off at being trapped in a wheelchair, being pushed from bar to bar while her sons got steadily obliterated.

We chatted for a while and then headed off as we had two countries to do and it was nearly 9pm. The plan was to get right round and leave during the fireworks (we’ve seen illuminations a thousand times and we wanted to catch an All Star bus without having to wait a week!).

By the time we got across the bridge and into the UK we had more or less run out of time. We had to make the decision to skip a pint of Harp or Guinness and head to Canada instead. So my accidental drinking around the world would come up just one drink short! I wasn’t worried, I was sozzled and it gives me the excuse of having another go sometime in the future.

So we headed to Canada and I joined the queue at the stall near Le Cellier to get a Labatts for my final drink. It was here I made yet more friends….

‘Brad from Tallahassee Florida’ was behind me in the queue, upon hearing me order my beer and chatting with Lynn he tapped me on the shoulder and said “We just love your accent, keep talking” he was sozzled, way beyond me.

We chatted to a very drunk Brad and his friend and their female companions. At one point I was talking about the kids and how they love Florida and his daughter came up briefly and spoke to him, she left and I went “Is that your daughter then?” to which he replied “No man! That’s my wife and started laughing” She looked bloody young but we are in The South I suppose, for all I know she was also his cousin!

I have no idea why but Brad and I were talking about Shila le Beouf and he thought my use of the phrase “He’s lost the plot” was the best thing ever. It’ll be his new favourite phrase by now. He’ll be the talk of Tallahassee! He seemed to really like my brand of miserable old git humour. He kept saying to me “Keep talking dude, you crack me up” it was a proper man crush brought on by beer. He was also the one that pointed out my massively blue tongue by shouting “Dude, what’s up with your tongue? You look like you’ve been blowing a Smurf! ”

Brad’s ‘wife’ was also mortal as you can probably tell from the following photos taken by my kids (Who aren’t my cousins or married to me).

No sooner had we taken those photos do I hear someone bellow “LOOK, THERE’S PAUL AND HIS WIFE MICHELLE! ”

'Michelle'? Lynn made a lasting impression then!

He shouted it so loud that half of Epcot turned around to see what was going on! It was Joel, his brother ‘errrrrrr’ and their mother Ruth. They parked Ruth and it was bear hugs all-round and I introduced them to Brad and the ‘girls’.

I wished I’d got a shot of everyone together. It’s the biggest regret of the holiday. It would have looked like the cast of ‘The Hangover Part 7’. It would have been a whole host of drunk people, some children (some married, some not) and Ruth parked in a bush with a face like thunder.

Instead the kids managed to capture one of Joel, errrr and me.

As we took this photo I asked them if they were Dibbers and they looked at me like I’d asked them if they were Doggers. I took it to mean they weren’t.

We all stood there with our Labbatts as the fireworks started and no sooner had our drinking adventure started…..it was finished. The English lads pushed Ruth near a fence, the Tallahassee crew did likewise and we made a hasty retreat to the bus stops.

I don’t know if I’ve done tonight justice or not. I’ve tried to take my time writing today because it was one of our best ever. Lynn would say that’s because you were drunk and talking to anyone who even looked in your general direction.

We were the first ones in our bus queue (although we weren’t alone) and soon back at the resort (9:30pm). Two of us had the munchies so we went to the food court.

We bought various food but my notes let me down here as they only say ‘Lauren had a hot dog and chips’

We were soon in bed. Some of us still clothed. I know this as I woke up at 4:30am still fully clothed and with my contact lenses still in. They took some getting out, I can tell you and that was the end of a VERY memorable day. We’ll be talking about this one for years.

Tomorrow – The aftermath of ‘Drinking Around the World’, Magic Kingdom and an Eclipse.

[Flimsey]

Brilliant as usual, Cheers 🥂🍷🍻🍺🍸🍹🥃🍶🍾

[Scotty]

Sounds a lot of fun but oh my goodness you are going to be hearing about that for ages and I hope your head wasn't too sore in the morning.

[Twinklestar1]

Fantastic day (and night)

So many new friends - an international diplomat

[jocat]

What a fab day! Love all the friends you've made while drinking your way around the world.

I giggled through your report, right up to the point of you waking up with your contact lenses still in - it’s not good to peel them off your eyes in the middle of the night is it? You can tell it’s happened to me before can’t you?

[KittyBlackDog]

Laughed all the way through today/tonight’s report.

looking forward to reading more

TFS

[jemima2]

That was a brilliant read 🍺🍾🥂

[walt4it]

Always a great day out drinking around the world - made for great reading and I hope your head was fine in the morning. although after the chilli disposal, that may be difficult

Great read as always

[hilz22]

Love it! Can’t wait for more days

[lemon-squeeze]

Loved it