At Last I See The Light - DLP August 2020 Day 3 Wednesday 12th August 2020

[Goldia]

Day 3 – Wednesday 12th August 2020

The plan for the day was to swap the parks and do Disneyland Park in the morning for extra magic time and then after our afternoon break we would go to Disney Studio’s.

We planned on taking the advice of mrsstitch and eating at Annette’s diner in Disney Village. I figured this would work well as the studio’s closed at 7pm an hour earlier than Disneyland and I hoped this would mean we wouldn’t have to queue too long to get a table in the restaurant.

The weather for today was the same as yesterday, very hot at 34 with a chance of a storm later! In the end we had a tiny sprinkle of rain just as we were leaving the park and we managed to miss the deluge by our perfect timing with dinner, but it sure was hot again.

A good night’s sleep of 7 hours, the alarm woke me at 7am and I got up feeling incredibly stiff and aching from all the walking yesterday. I sort of shuffled to the bathroom to have a shower. Fortunately I felt a bit more with it and many of the aches had gone after a shower. We decided that we would grab Starbucks from the hotel before heading to the park today as we now knew that NY Style Bakery breakfast would not be happening.

We grabbed our Starbucks, I had a cold brew and Kate had a Frappuccino with a chocolate chip and hazelnut muffin. I didn’t take any photos of these, we drank the drinks on the walk to the parks. It was really rather pleasant as it was warm but not too hot and the walk through the tree lined path helped to get my aching legs moving.

At the park the queues were loooonnng to get in.

There are lots of winding pathways with the social distance markers. We were directed over to the right of the main entrance down the side where you can leave your luggage.

It took us 10 minutes to get into the parks, and we were walking past Daisy at 8.40am.

It still takes your breath away walking up Main Street.

The beautiful blue sky, the music, the knowledge of another day stretching ahead of you.

We had decided in the queue out front that we would head over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad this morning as we hadn’t ridden that yesterday and we knew first thing there would be less of a wait.

The app said it was a 5 minute wait. But, the app was wrong, it was a walk on.

Hurrah, we love the wildest ride in the wilderness!

After this Kate wanted to keep going with the thrill rides, so we crossed back over the hub.

I convinced Kate to take some photos at the castle first though, it was just before 9am.

Of course the posted wait time of 5 minutes for Hyperspace Mountain was wrong, this was a walk on too.

I asked if we could have the back row and the cast member was happy to oblige us. Kate prefers the front row, but we had that on Monday and I fancied trying the back instead. It was fantastic.

As we came off we thought we’d give Star Tours a go and it was a good decision as it was just a 10 minute wait.

Kate was watching the cast member at the control panel as we were in row 1.

She was seeing how they pick who is going to be the rebel spy.

The coffee was making it’s way through and I really needed the toilet now, so I stopped off at the toilets near Phantom Manor. All the toilets seemed really clean with hand sanitiser at the entrances and many of the soap dispensers, taps and hand dryers are hands free so you just wave your hand underneath.

Onwards to Phantom Manor and this was posted at a 5 minute wait and I’m sure you can guess that it wasn’t a 5 minute wait it was a walk on! It was about 9.40am now and we were on our 4th ride of the day. Yay! We both really like the combination of French and English speaking on the rides too. Madam Leota speaks in both French and English and there are many examples of them alternating the language.

The darkness of Phantom Manor made me think of Pirates so we walked through Adventure Isle, stopping for a couple of photos on the bridge.

The wait for Pirates was posted as 10 minutes, but it was just the walk through the queue and we had no wait at all.

It was now 10.30am and we had a brief stop for a drink of water and to take the masks off for a little break.

As we were close to Peter Pan and the app said it was a 10 minute wait that was where we headed next.

Kate was very intrigued in the back story of the ride and she ended up doing a bit of research on this as we waited in the Peter Pan queue. I hadn’t realised how Phantom Manor links to Big Thunder Railroad and Thunder Mesa, we learnt a lot about the story behind poor Melanie and her lost loves. We both really enjoyed finding out more about Phantom Manor and agreed we would have to ride it again this trip to try and spot some of the things we’d read about.

On Peter Pan Kate really likes to look at all the little cars driving in London, you can see the headlights moving on the streets below.

Next up was a short 10 minute wait for Snow White. Kate was doing well at translating the displays.

She still finds it hard to understand speaking, but I think that’s because this is faster and when she’s reading she can do it at her own pace.

We were called forward as a party of two here as there are 3 rows in the ride vehicle so we sat in the back row to ‘fill up’ after another party of two were in the front.

We had a look at Cinderella’s Fountain and in the little shops here.

As we’d done 7 rides already we weren’t in a particular hurry to get to the next one and we were happy to just soak up the atmosphere.

It was just gone 11am and we wandered through Fantasyland.

We found ourselves heading towards the castle as we wanted to climb the stairs and look at the Sleeping Beauty displays, but the stairs were closed off and we never did find it was open for people to head upstairs.

So we backtracked and wandered through Fantasyland. I spotted Tweedledum and Tweedledee and asked Kate if she wanted to meet them, but she wasn’t bothered.

All paths in Fantasyland seem to end outside It’s a Small World.

Well, we both love this ride, it was hot and the ride is nice and cool, our feet were aching and it’s a lovely gentle sit down in the boat. Plus the entrance said it was a 10 minute wait, but we could see there was no one in the queue so of course we went on Small World again.

There was a rainbow in the fountain, we were very excited to spot that.

Just a handful of photos of the ride today.

As we were going round I remembered that I hadn’t had any breakfast and then I spotted the perfect thing! Mickey Waffles!

Kate had hers plain with a bottle of coke and I had mine with Nutella and a Café au Lait.

This was delicious, no two ways about it, it was perfect sitting in the sun eating Mickey Waffles, that’s the life!

As this snack spot is so close and we like gentle boat rides we went on the Fairytale boat ride again, we were in a boat called Mary Poppins, which was fab.

And I think it’s the law that after you’ve done the Fairytales ride you have to walk on and do Casey Junior. So, that’s what we did. We were in a cage again.

I do love the train puffing “I think I can, I think I can” as you start the ride.

Next up was the Tea Cups as we felt our waffles had gone down enough to be able to stomach some spinning.

More hand sanitiser, I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but the hand sanitiser is everywhere. At the entrance of the queue and at the exit of every ride is expected of course, but also at every touch point throughout the ride so if you have to go through a push bar then there’s hand sanitiser, just as you’re about to get on the ride there’s hand sanitiser, at the entrance and exit of every shop and restaurant there’s hand sanitiser, at every till pay point there’s hand sanitiser. And I think that everyone did use the hand sanitiser too, it was sort of automatic really. While I think of paying, I paid for everything with my Halifax clarity card, I did not use cash once. It didn’t matter how little the cost was everything could be paid for by card, some I had to put my PIN some were just tap your card.

We decided that we would head over to Adventure Isle and then onwards to Indiana Jones as the app said it had a 10 minute wait.

On the way over we stopped off and had a look at the Aladdin walk through which was cute.

I don’t think either of us could be bothered to walk over to Indy, we’d done 11 rides now, we were hot and a bit weary, so we stopped off for lunch.

Hakuna Matata quick service was recommended by mrsstitch and it was a great recommendation as it was tasty. A bit of a queue out the front but it moved fairly quickly with a cast member on the door telling each group which cashier to go to.

Kate ordered the chicken wrap with fries a drink and a cake meal. The service in here was great as they let us swap the dessert which Kate didn’t fancy for an ice cream and said we could pick it up after we’d eaten our meals. She loved this wrap, but couldn’t eat all the chips so I helped her.

I had the chicken salad as I wanted something light due to eating the Mickey waffle about an hour and half earlier.

This was tasty too though and we enjoyed sitting in the shade for a while eating our meals.

We decided while we were there that we didn’t want to do anymore rides. Kate wanted to look through the shops on Main Street and we both wanted a rest back at the hotel so that was the plan for the afternoon.

Kate bought blue and red (raspberry and strawberry) marshmallows. We sat on the bench by the Disneyland hotel and listened to the music for a little while as it was cool in the shade and it’s just so nice to sit and watch the fountains and listen to the music.

We had a slow walk back to the room. Kate enjoyed the marshmallows and watched some TV.

You know you’re in Disney when you hear the Hey Jessie theme tune! It was the Hey Jessie episode when she heads to Africa. I think the first time we saw that episode was when we stayed at Old Key West in 2018.

We agreed to head back out at 5pm to go to the Studio’s.

Tower of Terror was posted as a 20 minute wait, we decided to go for it as it is a great ride and we love it.

We crawled through the queue which snaked outside.

Once again the TV room was not playing and we just walked through there. In the boiler room we were sent up the stairs to a lift.

While waiting we were listening to the voices in the walls, one of them said “Help, can you see me” that plus the lights dimming and then going back up and then dimming again all help to get you in the mood for the ride. Actually the wait was more like 40 minutes in the end, but we were finally assigned to a lift and a row. The front row! I decided I was feeling brave and I put my hands up. It was great.

We went over to Ratatouille next. This was good again, we didn’t wait long.

Once we came out it was very cloudy, but this meant the lights that had come on in Toy Story Land looked great.

RC racers was showing as a 40 minute wait, once again I wasn’t disappointed to not ride.

We spotted that Slinky Dog was a 5 minute wait so that’s what we went for.

There were no people in the queue here, we just had to wait for the next ride.

I took a photo of the Perspex screens that have been put up in all the ride queues. This means that as the queues snake around you’re not coming face to face with anyone. They were built around the normal metal railings.

Crush was saying it was a 40 minute wait so we went to the Flying Carpets of Agrabah which had no wait at all.

It was 6.50pm as we got on this ride and we decided we would head over to Tower of Terror as we got off the ride to get in the queue before the park closed.

Kate sat in the front and was controlling the up and down of this ride.

Tower of Terror said it was 10 minutes, but there was no queue that we could see so we knew we would be straight through to the boiler room. At the entrance a man was having a big argument with the poor cast member. He was trying to convince him that his son was tall enough to ride and the cast member was saying no. I felt really sorry for the cast member, he called his supervisor and we managed to shuffle past into the queue.

We went upstairs again and were assigned the same position on the front row again. While we were waiting for the lift doors to open a cast member snuck up behind Kate and made her jump. This was really funny and quite unexpected as I thought they wouldn’t do this at the moment. The cast member did stay a metre away and was just lurking behind Kate who hadn’t realised she was there. So, even with social distancing they can still scare people which was brilliant.

And Tower of Terror was out last ride of the day it was fab and I didn’t hold on at all. The little girl on the ride was telling us “They know you’re here, don’t scream” and then at the end of the ride she said “I told you not to scream, next time be quiet”. This was different to the version we had earlier that evening and it was really good to have a different ride.

As we came off the ride it was starting to spit, but it didn’t stop me getting a photo with Walt and Mickey.

Mickey and Minnie were waving good-bye to us as we left the park.

On the way out the cast members were lined up either side of the path and we passed through them as they cheered and clapped us out of the park, which felt really special.

We tried out Annette’s Diner (TS in the Disney Village) which was another of mrsstitch’s recommendations. It was perfect timing as there was no queue outside and just as we arrived the rain really started coming down quite heavy.

We were soon shown to a table upstairs and decided on our drinks.

A cherry sprite for Kate and a cocktail for me.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the cocktail though as it had a lot of juice and I’m not a big fan of juicy cocktails. I still managed to drink it mind!

I had a burger with chicken strips, bacon, cheese and of course the burger. It was huge.

Kate had a bacon and avocado burger with a huge pile of fries.

We both loved these burgers, they were delicious. There was no way we could eat a pudding though after that as they were massive portions.

Fortunately the rain had stopped while we ate so we had a dry walk back to the hotel room. Kate put as many red and blue marshmallows together into one pot as she could to take home for Max and then ate the ones that didn’t fit as her pudding.

The Disney Channel had moved onto Descendants 3 tonight after showing the first one Monday and the second movie yesterday. Kate has seen these all before and I’m told the third movie is not a good movie at all. But she still watched it.

I washed our masks every evening, we had multiple masks and rotated them each day. We also made sure we took some spares into the parks with us in case one got lost on a ride or blew away or something, but that never happened and we didn’t have any problems with them. We’d have preferred not to wear them, but they also weren’t as bad as we thought they would be.

It was another great day, with the longest wait being our first ride on Tower of Terror. We had a real fun day today and lots of very tasty food with the Mickey Waffles, Hakuna Matata chicken wrap at lunch and then the yummy burgers at Annette’s. Not quite as many steps today as yesterday, but still we were very tired and I knew I’d be aching again the next day.

Attractions: 16
Step Count: 27,451

Next up tomorrow, day 4 our penultimate day. We’d decided that we really didn’t need to go back to the Studio’s as we’d done Tower of Terror three times, Ratatouille twice and although we’d only done Crush once neither of us could be bothered to queue up and wait for it. So it was decided that we would be back to Disneyland Park for extra magic time in the morning.

[MrsSilverStar]

Sounds like you had some lovely food today! I’ll have to remember all those recommendations.

When you were writing about the little girl on ToT, I thought you meant a child who was riding with you, and thought “she sounds creepy!” 😂 Great that you got different versions!

I’m very impressed with your stamina in that heat. I suppose you’re used to it with your August Florida trips but I don’t think I moved away from my fan once during that heatwave!

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by MrsSilverStar

Sounds like you had some lovely food today! I’ll have to remember all those recommendations.

When you were writing about the little girl on ToT, I thought you meant a child who was riding with you, and thought “she sounds creepy!” 😂 Great that you got different versions!

I’m very impressed with your stamina in that heat. I suppose you’re used to it with your August Florida trips but I don’t think I moved away from my fan once during that heatwave!

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Oh dear I obviously didn't explain what I meant very well! It was the ride video little girl...but it sounds like you figured it out though. I was surprised there were different videos, I know the ride sequence of drops changes each ride and that's part of what makes it so good but I didn't know the video was slightly different too.

The food recommendations were great today. The heat was ok, I don't mind the heat though, but I would have loved to jump in a pool and have a cocktail in our afternoon break. That would have made it totally awesome.

[Buggles94]

Sounds like another fantastic day I'm thinking a Christmas trip if I can't get to WDW (I still live in hope but am realistic...). Think this TR will be persuading many people to visit as soon as we are allowed to again. DD is desperate for one of the Mickey Waffles

[Rac20]

Another great day! It’s so good to be reading Disney trip reports again.😊 I don’t suppose Kate worked out how they decide who is going to be the Rebel spy did she?

[donna252]

Another brilliant day. I want to go to Disney so bad right now 🙈 its amazing how much can get done in the early magic hour. we are booked for dlp next July can’t wait but it seems so long away 😂

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by Buggles94

Sounds like another fantastic day I'm thinking a Christmas trip if I can't get to WDW (I still live in hope but am realistic...). Think this TR will be persuading many people to visit as soon as we are allowed to again. DD is desperate for one of the Mickey Waffles

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I really hope you get your Christmas trip given all the cancellations you've had to go through. But if the Orlando trip doesn't happen then I'm sure Paris at Christmas would be fantastic. It would be fantastic to see the parks at Christmas time. Those Mickey waffles were absolutely delicious. Cooked fresh for us and they tasted perfect, better than WDW

Originally Posted by Rac20

Another great day! It’s so good to be reading Disney trip reports again.😊 I don’t suppose Kate worked out how they decide who is going to be the Rebel spy did she?

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She was doing a fab bit of spying she saw that the cast member touched the face of one of the guests on the screen, so presumably it's just down to who the like the look of.

Originally Posted by donna252

Another brilliant day. I want to go to Disney so bad right now 🙈 its amazing how much can get done in the early magic hour. we are booked for dlp next July can’t wait but it seems so long away 😂

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We all need a bit of Disney magic don't we, at least you've got a trip planned, even if it is for next summer. The extra magic hour is well worth getting up for. We aimed to arrive at the parks by about 8.20am and the lines already looked long, but they soon dispersed and everyone went off to their preferred attractions. I think 4 rides in an hour is really good going and even at normal capacity we had good success in extra magic on our February trip.

[Michyloulou]

Another brilliant day, still getting loads of rides done. Those Mickey Waffles looked great!

[mrsdjh]

Nice to see you had Mickey Waffles and a cocktail today! Another great day for you both.

[Fuellady]

Another fun packed day today I've lost count of how many rides you did today... I know it was a lot! It sounds like you're both having a great time, and it seems so much easier to get around and to fit more in than at WDW. Have they restricted the amount of people in the park as it seems so quiet?

Lots of good food today as well. We ate at Annette's, and if I remember correctly it was one of our better meals (certainly better than Chef Mickey's ). The burgers look fab, huge portions and some nice snacks as well, especially your Mickey waffle with nutella