The Home In Time For-Ty Tour 2010 Day Two 21st August

[mkingdon]

Previously on this tour...

The bit before we go
Day One


Day Two – Saturday 21st August

We were all up predictably early today, bearing in mind the five hour time difference. Louise tells me she was woken at 4.17 by that large thing flying around in the bedroom. I apologised, but apparently she meant the large ceiling fan that made a distinct clanging noise on its highest setting.

Having gone to the vast expense of securing a three bedroomed villa, Rebecca had forced Emily to share her room. Rebecca, as last year, was frightened in the villa, mainly as she thought the patio doors looked like those in the Scream movies. Emily, bless her, was less than impressed, as Rebecca snores it seems.

So we are all up and about, eating some sort of breakfast and chatting until the hour becomes more recognisable. Rebecca points out that Louise looks like the lead singer from the Prodigy, with her new short haircut, which was perhaps a little less styled than it could have been only just having got out of bed.



Typically in previous years, it would be at this stage that the girls would be asking us every seven seconds if they could go in the pool yet. Just one more sign recently of my advancing years, and the changing shape of parenthood with two teenagers is that they did not want to go in the pool, as they didn’t want to ruin their hair, and have to wash it again.

With little to worry about in that regard, I was straight in, even before the sun showed itself, followed not long after by Louise. This was around 6am.



Simply majestic!



Stunning!



A stray ball. Perhaps I should have invested in those new swimming shorts after all?



Arty.



After about two whole lengths of the “Olympic” sized pool, I needed a rest.



Louise demonstrates her usual grace and dexterity mounting the lilo. Can you spot her? As you can see my mounting skills cannot be questioned.





After lots more stray ball and mounting action we decide it is time to get dressed.

Breakfasts are finished, showers for those with little or no hair, and by 8.05 we are out of the door.



And off down Funie Steed Road



I give Rebecca the camera and tell her to take “interesting” shots as we approach Disney.

Emily also has her new camera, which was a recent birthday present, so they are both snapping away from the back seat. That reminds me, I’ll use some of Emily’s pictures from time to time, giving her the appropriate credit, unless they are really good then I shall pass them off as my own.

I am still sulking as her camera is now actually better than mine!







You know by now, that it is not in my nature to be tight with money. This is why I didn’t mind at all that the parking had gone up again, to $14. Had this been a UK theme park I would have staged a three day sit in at the entrance in protest. However, the magic of Disney worked again, I hand over my dollars with a smile, and we move on to Pluto 11.

The CMs are expecting us, and have left us a whole new row to drive to the bottom of.



As many times as I have been, and no matter how early I arrive, I cannot control the urge to power march to the monorail, or in fact anywhere once anywhere near a theme park. It may be my competitive streak, not that I have one, or just my relaxed, non control freak demeanour, but it cannot be helped or stopped. Well it can, and it usually is by Louise handing out a rollocking and telling me to wait for her.



After the monorail ride, each straining for the first sight of the castle…oh wait that was just me, we arrive at the gates to MK at 8.50, just in time for the show to start.







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I know the Princess and the Frog characters are new at this, but someone needs to have a word with her about how to welcome guests of a morning!



Then after one of those small step shuffles that you have to do in a crowd who are all trying to get to the same place through a small walk way, we see a very welcome sight indeed.



I had consulted the girls on which ride they would want to tackle first, and they had given the universal signal of all teenagers, the shoulder shrug. I had therefore; Derren Brown like (without the silly ginger goatee) planted the suggestion of Space Mountain. The trick I used was to say “How about Space Mountain”. Unable to resist such genius they had told me we had to do Space Mountain first.
So, unusually for us, we turn right at the top of Main Street and head towards Tomorrowland.



For some odd reason the queue for Space Mountain is all outside of the building, but after a minute or two, we are allowed in, and the ride is a walk on.

Emily doesn’t do smiling pre PM.



The ride has had a pretty major refurb since our last ride, and we could tell, with the ride feeling longer and more satisfying, which reminded me of something Louise had said the previous evening.
Being in the area, we do Buzz next.



One of these years as I get older, the girls are going to beat me. Was this to be the year? Absolutely not! You cannot begin to appreciate the enormity of the magnitude of the defeat that I inflicted upon them. Did some mention me being competitive?

My gloating was cut cruelly short as we had to go into another attraction, Monsters Inc Laughfloor, which, of course had no real queue, in which I could remind the girls of their absolute hammering. No justice!

As I said, with no real queue we are in more or less immediately.


We are not picked out by the cameras, which is a relief to the girls I must say.

After this we had a wander up to Fantasyland, past all the boards hiding the new developments.





Philharmagic is also a walk on, or walk in, I should say, so we do.


An interesting development this year was Rebecca’s willingness to carry Ryan around. Perhaps she feels I am too old and frail to do it now. It is the first stage of the handover of trip responsibility to the young folk. In a few short years I shall be sat in the back seat, blowing off and asking if anyone has seen a big neb. (You will have to read previous reports to make sense of that one)





If you have read any of my previous reports, you will know my intolerance of anyone who does not MOVE ALL THE WAY TO THE END OF THE ROW! Therefore I shall draw a veil over the pure hatred and animosity I felt towards the numpties we had to climb over to get to the end of the row. I would bring back hanging for such an offense…wait I said I would draw a veil….

The time was approaching for our meet with Jakki, Steve, Aodhan and Naimh (Jakki, I just got up, walked to the mantelpiece and checked the spelling of Aodhan from your card! ), so we walked down by the side of the castle towards Main Street.





Whichever photo you think is better, I took it!

It may surprise you to know that we had arranged to meet in the Bakery. As we join the queue, some strange woman we don’t recognise leans over and says hello. Turns out it is half of Jakki, and she has left the other half somewhere else!

We chat in the queue, until we get down to the serious business of ordering. Quantity is the important factor here so I go big!



We take our treats over to Steve who is saving a table and about twenty five seats. Listen, if Steve wants to save a seat or two, I’m not going to argue with him!

Louise had something Danish-y I think, and then proceeded to “just want a taste” of mine. Seriously, just no! If I wanted just less than one cake, I would have ordered just less than one cake!

As we take our seats we are approached by another lady. I know, I know, it happens to me all the time, and it can get a little intrusive, but hey, with my looks it is a cross I have to bear.

Turns out it was Catriona (onlyholly) off of the Dibb, and she had read that we would be here at this time, so came along to say hello. I had actually met her once before in the Village Hotel in Bury, which sounds much seedier than it was, as Mike Jones was there too…oh dear, I think I’ll just move on quickly.

Jakki has two cakes, which is why she is so fat! Why she can’t control her eating like me I don’t know.



It seems we both had the same idea to get rid of the kids, as both ourselves and Steve and Jakki had got a fastpass for Space Mountain for all four of them, so we shove them into their hands and shoo them out the door.

Meanwhile we eat and chat. Well, I eat, and Jakki chats, until I have finished eating and then I can join in.

The kids return and are allowed cake too.



Jakki hands me a bag with my birthday present in, and warns me not to open it till the day itself.

As we are just about to say our goodbyes, another Dibber appears. Walt4it introduces himself, and we have a brief chat, and a handshake. How weird is the internet!

So in the end it was a like a sort of proper Dibb meet, although two thirds of the attendees only came to see Ryan, and to be frank I don’t blame them.

We finish saying goodbye, and wish them a safe journey back as they are more or less off to the airport from MK. We on the other hand, wander off to have lots more fun, and first on the list is…



This was another walk on, and after this we carry on around to Splash. This wasn’t, so we grab a fastpass, and walk over to the Haunted Mansion.



There is a small queue here, which means we are outside of the gates for a minute or two, where we witness two fully grown men, with Mickey Ear hats on, taking turns posing in front of the mansion, taking pictures of each other’s goolies….sorry I meant ghouly faces. Frankly the former would have been less cringeworthy.

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As we leave the ride, it is raining.



So we run to the shop next door and blow a whole $30+ on four plastic bags with a logo on the back.



This does however enable us to walk down to Splash to make use of our fastpass. Of course with it now raining, we don’t need it, as the whole queue has vanished.



Having not eaten for minutes, lunch is a priority.

We are closest to Peco Bill’s, so that settles that. We are in and we order –

2 x Taco salads for the grown ups
2 x Cheeseburger for the girls

I realise that this is two salads in two days for me now, but fear not, this was the most unhealthy salad in the history of salads, drenched in dressing and sat in deep fried taco, that had been deep fried again just for good measure.

Luckily, we picked a table very close to a young child who screamed all the way through our meal, at an increasing volume. However enjoyable that was, soon we had finished and had to leave.
Big Thunder time now. Those tacos just fly right through me!

I also got a fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain, which kicks in about an hour later. To kill some time we wander down to…



To be honest, we were all feeling it a bit now, and I don’t mean my Big Thunder. We wander around a packed Minnie’s house, and as we exit, we face the truth that we are done for the day.







We start to make our way to the exit, stopping to take some Castle pics.





Several aircraft are brought down by the glare of my trainers.


Most of these are Emily’s, and she takes an arty one of some balloons.


Via monorail, tram and gleaming trainer, we get back to the car, and in turn back to the villa. As we pull up we spot this chap on a neighbour’s lawn.



The rain has stopped by now, so we all head for the pool. As we take our places on loungers, some weird rain happens. Weird as there are no clouds, and it feels like a lovely light spritz, so we stay there until it finishes a few moments later.

After much needed resting, we play in the pool for a bit.
Louise spots some more wildlife though.



The girls get a bit giddy, and for some reason Rebecca ends up giving us a ballet recital, with added rubber ring.





Pardon my knees.



I am clearly the top mounter in our family.


I join the girls for a game of piggy in the middle, but to be fair it made a right mess of the pool so we played catch instead.

Hunger appeared soon enough and drove us all to showers and doing of hairs.

We are out by 7.30, and off to the local Olive Garden. As we enter, there appears to be several parties sat waiting, complete with buzzers. However, as we approach the podium and announce we are four, we are taken and seated immediately. Clearly, they don’t know who I am.

Once I saw the menu, there was but one choice for me. What restaurant in their right mind presents an option of…

Never Ending Pasta Bowl.

I had that. Technically, I can go back on any subsequent trip and continue to eat it.

Rebecca had the same, with Emily having lasagne. I wrote down that Louise had “some sort of pasta thing” which goes to show how tired I was at this point.



As ever here we loved the salad and bread to start.


Very soon we had eaten our fill, and our eyes were closing…literally, so we headed home.

We were all in bed by 9pm, and I can assure you that my mounting skills were nowhere to be seen.

Here's the index of all days

[thewatsons]

great report thanks for sharing

[Guest]

Brilliant Bring on Day 3...

[orlandobaby]

Wahoo! Keep 'em coming!

[Clare]

My sides are hurting from all the laughing - brilliant!

It was the stray ball that did it

[Reetser]

Great day! Do the family love all this minor celebrity status as well!

Can't believe the change in the girls with the morning pool ritual gone!

[Guest]

About time! Day 3 please! Great trip report.

[Toffeeman]

I look forward to the day that we bump into each other and I can introduce Ryan to Brian II (Brian I had to be retired earlier this year due to some drastically loose stitching!)