It's all about the mouse - 13th August 2018 day 13 TL and HS

[Goldia]

Welcome to the It’s all about the mouse trip report. We are a family of four and this is our 4th trip to Orlando. I'm Abby, my DH is Dave and our children are Max (13) and Kate (11). This trip is all WDW and we stay inside the Disney bubble for the entirety of our holiday.

If you haven't read the previous day it can be found here

This day was Max’s choice of park so obviously we were off to a water park and then Hollywood Studios in the evening (which I had guessed correctly way back at 180 days out). Due to the never-ending supply of snack credits I was pretty pleased Max ‘chose’ to go to Typhoon Lagoon as this meant we could also go to Disney Springs...like this wasn't my plan all along!

I did swap out the RnR FP though for a Frozen sing-a-long FP...I know it's a complete waste of a FP.

We had some of the Cali Grill sweet treats for breakfast this was yummy!

The kids and Dave all realised this morning that they had somewhat scabby feet, yuck. I think this was because they spent so much time in the water yesterday. We decided that Dave was being a bit of a drama queen as when we asked to see where the skin was flaky he couldn’t find it and said that he couldn’t remember where it was.

No, I can't see what he means either, but he really wanted me to take a photo of it.

Oh and yes we are at the bus stop but I promise there were no other people around

Kate had a bit of flakiness on both feet and one foot had a hole in it so I put a plaster on it.

This caused some hilarity (well we thought so). Kate was telling Max about her plaster and the fact it was covering up a hole in her foot.

She said “it looks like Grandad’s blue tape” fair enough it was blue and did look like blue tape. Max thought she said “it looks like Grandad’s boo-tay”. We were cracking up as already mentioned, fortunately we were the only ones there.

We caught a bus just after 9am to Disney Springs. We were the only people on the bus again and we had the back seats as we like to have warm butts…it can be a little bit chilly sometimes with the air con on the buses.

The kids were happy that I allowed them to go to Starbucks again for frappe milkshakes, plus I thought we may as well also all get something to eat too 8 snack credits, BOOM. So that’s how you do it! Although I shouldn’t brag as we still had 31 snack credits to spend before the end of tomorrow.

Kate had a cake pop (yes it was teeny tiny, but she loved it). She had a strawberry frappe drink.

Max had a double chocolatey chip frappe and a chocolate brownie. The brownie was heated up and he really liked it.

Dave and myself also both had a bacon cheese pastry each. I’d already had lots of the leftover desserts from Cali Grill for breakfast.

Dave had a latte.

I had an iced vanilla bean coconut milk latte.

There was a bus already waiting at the bus stop so we quickly got on that, we had to stand but it’s a fairly quick journey from Disney Springs to Typhoon Lagoon. We arrived at pretty much bang on 10 am and grabbed some sun beds in our favourite spot between the entrance to Mis-adventure falls and Typhoon Tilly’s.

We went on the family raft ride first as we were so close to it and then onto Crush and Gusher and did all 3 slides.

Max, Dave and Kate went into the wave pool and I went off to find out when Lilo and Stitch would be out for signing autographs and Stitch was already there. I grabbed Kate’s autograph book and went back into the wave pool to try and get their attention. Eventually they came over to me apparently they hadn’t noticed me!

Kate was a bit worried about getting Stitch wet as she hadn’t dried off at all, but I’m sure he didn’t mind.

Then the three of them went off to do Humunga Kowabunga and then back into the wave pool.

I took the opportunity to grab a frozen strawberry margarita and decided it would be silly to pay for it when I could have it for free with a QS credit so I had a chicken waffle sandwich and a packet of crisps.

Unfortunately being the complete klutz that I am I managed to knock the cup over and spill half the drink before I had even had so much as had a sip of it! What you can see in the photo is what was left after I grabbed it and picked it up off the lounger.

How annoying. The chicken waffle sandwich wasn’t that great, I wouldn’t bother having it again and the crisps are crisps there’s nothing to say.

We met Lilo and this was another fun little meet and greet.

Afterwards Kate went back into the wave pool to find the boys. We were starting to get hungry (well the others were but I’d had my packet of crisps and chicken sandwich). We didn’t want to eat at TL though as I wanted to try out D-Luxe Burger, so we had one final lap of the lazy river and then got ourselves ready to go.

I think this was a first for us as we had NO rain at TL, we always seem to get a little bit of rain when we’re there and huddle under an umbrella. But not today.

We ordered our food and then found a table and the food was brought over to us when it was ready.

Dave had a beer as the drink with his which was poured straight away. The rest of us had milkshakes which were brought to the table for us when they were ready.

Trying to wait patiently when really they were starving! Then of course mum won't let them grab the milkshake as soon as it has landed because she wants to take a photo.

Max had a salted caramel shake. Kate had a cake milkshake. I had a smoked Bourbon shake. Oh my, this was the best milkshake I have ever had. I want another one right now! It's the one with the bacon in.

Yes it is a whole piece of bacon.

We didn't have to wait too long before the food arrived.

Max ordered a classic cheeseburger with only cheese on it and no salad. He loved both the burger and the shake.

Kate ordered a BBQ burger. Kate found her burger very difficult to eat as it was large and greasy and it was dripping. At the time she didn’t enjoy it too much, mainly because it was very messy to eat. Now, apparently this is the best burger she has ever eaten and she wants to go back this summer.

I ordered the El Diablo burger with chorizo I agree with Kate the burgers were tasty but they were tricky to eat. Dave ordered the Southern burger.

Unfortunately, me and Dave mixed our burgers up, doh! Mine wasn’t really very chorizo-y and then part way through the meal Dave mentioned that his burger was a bit spicy and that’s when we spotted the label on the side of the boxes. Oops.

I also ordered 2 sides of fries, so this meal was 4 QS and 2 snacks.

After lunch we went for pudding to Ghiradelli. Everyone has got to love the little freebie chocolates they give you when you walk in. I think I read recently that they have stopped giving out the chocolate samples, which is a real shame but they must have lost a fortune over the years in giving it all away. We used 5 snack credits here and got 8 bars of chocolate.

Then we went to Goofy’s Candy shop and used another 6 snack credits. We got 4 rice krispy Mickey heads with M&Ms on, 2 with white chocolate and 2 with milk chocolate. We also got 2 Mickey shaped cake pops.

The kids were wishing they had saved some spending money so they could buy one of the giant rice crispy treats.

These were $50 each.

These treats were all taken back to the room and were going to be packed up and taken to the next resort to eat as snacks when we moved to POR. When we eat these treats later in the trip there will be better close up photos, but I wanted to include them now as they are part of the daily balance for snack credits.

The buses were on our side again as there was a bus waiting for us at the bus stop to take us back to the resort.

We finished up the packing as Bell Services will be coming in the morning at 7.30am to collect the luggage to transfer it to the new resort. We got ourselves ready and left the room around 4.30pm to head to HS. The app had correctly predicted that there would be a bus in 2 minutes. There was no one on the bus again so naturally we got our favourite seats at the back of the bus.

When we arrived at HS the clouds above were very black and of course we had the huge long marathon of a walk from the bus stop to the bag check area.

We just managed to make it to Midway Mania where we had our first FP of the night as the rain started coming down.

We could see the lightning in the distance and hear the thunder but we just made it before the huge rain drops started.

Max scored 99,300, Dave 116,000 and my score was 107,000. I’m pretty pleased with the second place.

Kate had a much lower score that she didn’t want to share with us all after the ride, but of course you can see her score in the photo. She did want to brag about her accuracy as it was 41%, Max had 30%, Dave had 27% and I was second again with 37%. Girls win on the accuracy points.

The rain had pretty much passed on by so we went around to meet Star Lord and Groot as Kate had just 3 pages left of her autograph book, plus we’ve never met them before. The cast member said it was a 25 minute wait, but it didn’t look that long of a line to me and in the end it turned out to be 7 minutes as I timed it!

I hadn’t realised that Groot would not be able to sign, yes I have seen the Guardians of the Galaxy movie but I kind of forgot he was so small. Oh and I also hadn’t realised he wouldn’t say anything other than “Groot”.

Our ADR was at 6.05pm for 50s Prime Time Café which is a restaurant we’ve not eaten at before.

Pretty much all the holiday Kate had been worrying about whether we would get picked on at this meal as she knew that we could get told off if we had elbows on the table or if we didn’t eat all our food. When she was telling Dave about this I don’t think he really believed her, so I had to explain it was all part of the theming. I tried to reassure her that it would be fine and she shouldn’t worry about it, she said she might order a kids meal as she didn’t want to not eat it all and then get told off. So, there was quite a lot of apprehension going into this meal.

This is another restaurant that we had very little wait before being shown to our table. I managed to grab a couple of quick photos before in the lounge area when we were called in.

Hidden Mickey!

Nervously trying to not put elbows on the table or do anything that will invoke a telling off.

Our server explained that she was our cousin and that she wanted good manners from everyone, which meant please and thank you. She said we were not allowed any electronic walkie talkie devices at the table and that she would need the kids to help set up and lay the cutlery out. Both the kids were paying special attention to everything she said, they were a bit nervous about being told off. In the end we all behaved really well and were not reprimanded too badly.

Max ordered a coke and Kate had a cherry coke. They're still a bit worried about doing something naughty.

I had the Mowie Wowie cocktail. Dave had an Ultimate Long Island Iced Tea.

The kids and me all ordered the chicken and mash.

Wow, there was a lot of chicken. Dave helped Kate out with hers. Kate wasn’t too keen on the gravy so hollowed out the mash to eat that.

She was a bit concerned that she hadn’t eaten enough of the meal to avoid a telling off, but it was fine (don't tell anyone but I took a hit for the team and put some of her sweetcorn onto my plate).

Phew, she escaped unscathed. The server joked that leaving corn is fine as it's not a vegetable so this was ok.

I was told off for having my elbows on the table, so was Max, which Kate thought was great.

Dave had the sampler meal. He enjoyed this but wasn’t wowed by it.

For our puddings the kids both had the chocolate brownie.

I had the peanut butter layer cake, this was amazing, but a way too big portion for me to eat it all.

Dave had the apple crisp a la mode.

The food was ok, but not the best we’ve eaten. Plus, given all the worry this reservation had caused prior to being in the restaurant and then during the meal I don’t think it was worth it for us as I'm not really sure it could be called an enjoyable experience. Unfortunately, nothing I said in the run up could convince Kate that she wouldn’t get told off and it would be alright and so I won’t book it again. It's a shame really as there was no problem with the food, but I guess the reputation of the restaurant was just too much for all her.

So, this is in the once and done category for us, which is pretty handy really as we have way too many in the ‘we MUST return to’ category and the ‘we really want to try’ category is pretty hefty too.

We went on Star Tours and then went around to Muppetvision, which was fun as usual.

The kids all messed around on the Star Wars speeder.

Taking it way too seriously

We stopped off at the little bar next to Oasis Canteen. I got a blue Long Island Iced Tea and Dave got a little cup of red wine.

The kids and Dave had fun in the little arcade playing Disney Infinity.

I had decided to FP the Frozen sing-a-long as we just didn’t have anything else we wanted to do. We’d done all the other rides at HS and we hadn’t done the sing-a-long yet this trip.

Some of the snow went up his nose!

It was great fun. The narrators we had were fantastic and the show was better than I remembered from previous trips.

While waiting for the show to start I got us a bonus fast pass for Tower of Terror.

On the way over we stopped off for a photopass.

We fast walked back to the Chinese theater after ToT.

While waiting for the Star Wars fireworks me and Max went over to Min and Bill’s and I bought 2 beers and used 2 snack credits for a coke each for Max and Kate.

We had a good spot to watch the show.

I really liked the projections and fireworks.

When we got back to the room we had a message on the room phone telling us about the OKW fun run. I enjoyed hearing these little messages about the resort and the events they had on, not that we actually made it to any of them.

And that is the end of the penultimate DDP day. We have done really well using up snack credits...albeit not all the food bought was eaten today. We still have check out day to use the last few credits up and then 2 days at POR.

Statistics for the day:

Credits Used: 23 snack, 5 QS and 4 TS. Hurrah for Starbucks breakfast, Ghiradelli and Goofy’s Candy! It must be a record for snack credits, well for us anyway!

Credits Remaining: 16 snack 9 QS and 8 TS. One more DDP day to go, will we get down to the magic 3 zeros?

Parks: 2
Rides: 3
FP: 4
Characters: 2
Steps: 22,616

Tomorrow we have another day that I had really been looking forward to. I was so excited for the move to POR and the Royal Room. It was sad to think there were only a couple of days left of the trip, but the Royal Room was spectacular and I’m so glad that we stayed there for a few days.

[MrsSilverStar]

I didn’t expect to see quite so many photos of feet but you never know what you’ll get on the Dibb

I’m very impressed with how many credits you got through today, bet the kids were thrilled they could go wild with their drinks and snacks!

Poor Kate with 50s diner, it’s very sweet that she cares that much about being told off.

Lovely that you’ve got a couple more days to go, I’ll miss your report when it’s finished...good job we’ve got DLP and then another WDW one on the horizon eh?!

[jothp]

Another excellent day and you certainly managed to get through the snack credits. We always start out trying to make sure we're not using too many, then end up with loads left! We usually spend them on lollipops for the girls to bring back for their friends.

We love the back row of the bus for keeping warm too. Also as a family of 5 it means we can all sit in a row together.

[Palm trees]

What a great day. You're doing well on your snack credits!

[caitlinsmummy]

at the grandad's boo-tay. I almost spat my tea out.

Disney Springs look so nice and peaceful.

Fab pictures with Lilo and Stitch and that cocktail looks lovely, such a shame you spilled some of it though

D-Luxe looks so tasty, especially those milkshakes. Although, bacon in a milkshake, I just can't come to like it and I love a good bit of bacon

I heard the same about Ghiradelli, such a shame, it was a lovely little touch and a nice finish to a meal if you couldn't squeeze a pudding in I couldn't find any of the milk chocolate caramel bars when we went, we ended up getting the bags of mini's instead. My favourite is the dark chocolate salted caramel!

Poor Kate worrying about the 50s Prime Time meal but at least you've tried it and know it isn't for you. You all did so well with those meals, they were huge!

Dave's face on the Star Wars speeder I can't stop laughing, he's so into it haha.

Overall a fab day and you certainly used plenty of credits thanks for another awesome day xx

[Zomax25]

Awesome day! I suspect my daughter would be the same about Prime Time 🙈

[collybird]

I can’t get on board with bacon in milkshake, I’m sorry! I actually felt queasy at the sight of that huge slice of bacon, or maybe that was the foot pictures!? I don’t think I realise you could have a shake with a QS credit at D-Luxe, so I’ll keep that in mind.

Haha at Kate’s changing review of D-Luxe, I also found the BBQ burger impossible to eat, if we go back, I’ll have the Classic Cheeseburger, like Max.

The photo of you and Kate on the bus to Studios is lovely, she looks very like you there, and Max is still scowling and he’s not even in the photo. I always march to the back of the bus too; the AC is fierce and I like that those seats are warm. Nik is yet to suss out my cunning plan, as he loves the AC.

Poor Kate at 50s Prime Time, you can even tell she’s anxious from the picture with her looking at the menu. I’m with Kate on the gravy looking questionable, it looks like really thick Bisto, I am surprised as gravy in the US is usually much creamier. If we eat there, I’ll be sure to ask for it on the side.

Another great day, I think I've always thought of a water park day as a bit of a write off, but it's great to see you still actually managed lots of park time. Plus a bonus visit to Disney Springs.

[Cazzius]

That is some good going with the credits today - especially all the snacks.

Good idea to purchase snacks for your upcoming non DDP days. A shame you don't get the free sample at Ghiradelli anymore though.

Poor Kate at 50s Prime Time! I myst admit that's part of the reason that we will not be going there, plus I'm not so sure about the menu.

Great view for the Star Wars fireworks. I hope Max liked his choices for the day.

[Rescuer]

Another great day where you again seemed to do too much.

We've never been to Typhoon Lagoon, would you recommend it? Which is better there or BB, because dh can't swim I try not to set aside too much water park time, not because I'm a lovely wife and I don't want him to feel left out but because it means I have to do everything with ds and I end up knackered.

Great to see you got a good spot for the star wars show.

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by MrsSilverStar

I didn’t expect to see quite so many photos of feet but you never know what you’ll get on the Dibb

I’m very impressed with how many credits you got through today, bet the kids were thrilled they could go wild with their drinks and snacks!

Poor Kate with 50s diner, it’s very sweet that she cares that much about being told off.

Lovely that you’ve got a couple more days to go, I’ll miss your report when it’s finished...good job we’ve got DLP and then another WDW one on the horizon eh?!

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I'm so sorry about the feet, honestly I should have prepared everyone better for the fact you were going to be getting a face full of max foot plus of course I can no longer moan about all the other chavvy people you see at WDW doing disgusting stuff on buses or at the pool as today we were that family who were at the bus stop inspecting each others feet perhaps I should have edited that part out of the story, but it was also quite funny and I had to include Grandads boo-tay as we still laugh about it now.

The kids were did get a bit of a sugar rush at Starbucks before the water park, we had to use the snacks up somehow.

I'll be really sad when this report is finished, I kind of don't want it to be over. You're right though you can't get away from me, there will be more trip reports coming very soon

Originally Posted by jothp

Another excellent day and you certainly managed to get through the snack credits. We always start out trying to make sure we're not using too many, then end up with loads left! We usually spend them on lollipops for the girls to bring back for their friends.

We love the back row of the bus for keeping warm too. Also as a family of 5 it means we can all sit in a row together.

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I don't why I felt like I had to ration the snacks so much at the start...well I guess I do, I wanted to make sure we had some treats that were non perishable for the last couple of days, but we really needn't have save up so many!

I might have to start referring back row of the bus as dibbers row as it seems like a few of us like the warm butt of the back seat!

Originally Posted by Palm trees

What a great day. You're doing well on your snack credits!

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Finally we are getting into our stride with the snacks. Just one more day of spending left!