The Bare Necessities - Day 13 Monday 12th August 2019 Disney Springs and Epcot

[Goldia]

Day 13 Our last day at WDW and we end with a good bye to Illuminations Monday 12th August 2019

Welcome to The Bare Necessities Trip Report. I’m Abby and I went to Orlando at the end of July 2019 with my husband David, our children Max (14) and Kate (12). We’ve been to Orlando before But this trip was different as we had my parents Jac and Tom with us, they will be referred to as Mum and Dad or Grandma and Grandad throughout the report. I was so excited to take them with us as this was their first time to WDW.

Day 13

This was our last Disney Day, but while we were sad knowing we would be leaving WDW tomorrow, we were also excited as it wasn’t the end of the trip We were checking into Royal Pacific Resort for 2 nights and we had passes for 3 days at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Mum is a big Harry Potter fan and this was the final wish granted of her 3 things she wanted to do on the holiday. We knew she would just love the theming in Diagon Alley and the train over to Hogsmeade and all the fun of these two parks. In all our previous trips we have never done both WDW and Universal in the same trips we've actually only ever been to the Universal parks on one trip in 2017 and so we were looking forward to that too. But once again I'm getting ahead of myself as that all starts tomorrow, so back to today.

Given that I wanted an early start tomorrow to check in and make use of our Express Passes (it's also our first time at a Universal hotel as well as the Parents) today was a slower start to the day.

I’ve just realised I don’t have a photo of the plans card for today , but it said no early start! Pool time until lunch then Disney Springs for lunch and shopping. Our evening was Epcot with 3 FP booked for Mission:Space, Soarin and Living with the Land then dinner at 6.30pm at Chefs de France followed by Illuminations. And in spite of the rain, that’s almost how the day went, just minor tweaks!

We dragged ourselves out of the room around 10am and decided we may as well each order our own breakfast to use 4 QS credits, we knew we had loads of credits so we just went for it.

Unfortunately our plan was thwarted as when me and Kate went to the till to pay up a family that were leaving offered to buy our breakfasts as they had credits they weren’t using. I said that we had loads of credits, but they were keen to gift us breakfast and in the end I figured being grateful was the best course of action so we thanked them for their generosity.

Kate had the breakfast muffin which had potato barrels (essentially tater tots) these were delicious. We all wished we’d got these. I had the berry pancakes again, which also were still very tasty, with the berry sauce, bacon and sausage on the side.

And here is a photo of Kate's muffin, it had egg, bacon, cheese. She really enjoyed it.

Max had chocolate chip pancakes with bacon and sausage.

Dave got an omelette with potatoes and bacon.

We got 2 margaritas and 2 red wines with the breakfasts. The breakfasts here were always good, lots of variety, we didn’t manage to get round to trying everything but I was always happy with what we got.

We spent a bit of time at the pool, Dave and me left the kids for little longer to go and pack the cases ready for the move tomorrow. We had to clear out the fridge. We packed all the little bottles of margarita and wine and threw away the perishable food. Dave had some of his cookie from Main St (he was too full to eat it yesterday). Well he didn't quite manage it all today either.

I decided to modify some of the fast passes. I got rid of the Mission:Space FP as we weren’t going to get to the park that early and I figured maybe someone else could use it. So, we now had just two booked Soarin followed by Living with the Land.

When the kids came back to shower they were sort of happy that he had saved some for them. Kate felt that you would need to see the size of what had been left, hence the finger in the photo.

They had one bite each apparently it was a good cookie though, so it was worth it.

We agreed to meet up with Mum and Dad at 1pm to get some lunch. We just made it with all the packing and then I realised I’d been a bit silly and packed the clothes we had set aside for the morning, so I unpacked them

We used the boat again to get to Disney Springs for lunch. It is such a lovely way to travel and much less chaotic than the buses the wait for the boat is what it is as you don’t know when the next boat is going to come as there are no screens. Plus, I think there’s something about the boats that just feels more laid back and less hectic than the buses.

In the end we barely waited a minute as we could see a boat coming along towards us.

There was no one on it and only one other family in the queue so we spread out and took in the scenery.

As Mum and Dad hadn’t had breakfast they were ready for lunch straight away. We weren’t hungry but are you ever really hungry with the DDP? We’ve never been to Wolfgang Puck Express before and as it’s right near the boat dock it seemed the perfect opportunity. Kate was disappointed that we weren’t going to House of Blues as this was one of her favourite meals last year (TS) and I had seen they served the pulled pork sandwich at the QS but I just couldn’t face the walk all the way over there.

You order at the counter and then the food is brought to the table when it's cooked.

We used up 6 QS credits at WPE. Dave and me both had the Turkey club sandwich, I had the Caesar salad as my side.

Dave went with sweet potato fries as the side.

For our drinks I had Corona, Dave had Heineken.

Dad had a meatball pizza and a Budweiser.

Max got chicken tenders and fries with a coke.

Kate got BBQ chicken pizza and a coke. Of courses she couldn't manage it all, but there was no way we wanted it boxed up as we had way too much stuff that had been sitting in the fridge that we’d thrown away.

Mum had a salad and also got some sweet potato fries as a snack, plus iced tea as the drink.

Over lunch I tried to tally up Mum and Dad’s credits for their room with ours. The kids were looking at the MDE app on Mum’s phone and then helping me to count everything up. The TS were fine and were allocated to Chef’s de France later. We also wanted everyone to have breakfast in the morning before we left.

Max told Mum and Dad that they MUST eat in the morning as we were going to save 2 QS on their account and 4 on ours plus some credits for snacks to take with us. In the end they didn’t eat breakfast…but they did spend the credits on snacks to take with us (but that’s a story for tomorrow).

Mum had a look around the Christmas shop after lunch while the rest of us hung around outside.

Next stop was Goofy’s Candy Store to use up some of the snack credits. This was very easy! It felt a bit like supermarket sweep, you know when they have 90 seconds to grab what they want. For some reason we were doing it all in a rush, I don’t know why as we weren’t in a particular hurry and it was pouring down outside so there was nowhere to go when we had finished. But still we did our shopping in less than 5 minutes! 28 snacks used in Goofy’s Candy Store.

We used up all 8 snacks on Mum and Dad’s account. Leaving them with 3 QS credits, for breakfast and final snack usage the following morning.

Very poor photo of inside their bag, they had 4 caramel apples (2 peanut, 2 plain) plus some of the little boxes of cookies.

It was still torrential rain when we came out so Mum put her poncho on, with some helpers! Then they decided it would be a good idea to get under there with her.

We were only heading to Ghiradelli to spend more credits so we made a dash for it!

In Ghiradelli we spent another 5 snacks on 9 bars of the caramel chocolate and sea salt almond chocolate, plus one of the little packs of 2 squares of caramel chocolate. At the counter the lady said we could use 2 QS or 5 snacks, this was a no brainer as 2 QS can be broken down into 6 snacks so we saved the QS and used up the snacks.

We dodged the rain from shop to shop to get to World of Disney, which of course was heaving as everyone was in here sheltering from the rain. We gave it up and made our way to the bus station as the boats don’t run in storms.

We got back to the room around 3.45pm, which was pretty good. I took a photo of our haul.

And had a margarita.

Mum took a photo of the towels in their room, seeing this made me realise we hadn’t had any mousekeeping little touches this trip with soft toys, ears or towels.

We had a quick change and freshen up before heading out to Epcot.

Our first ride was Soarin. We didn’t ask for B1 this time, but it was still good. I brought our Living with the Land FP forward to use that up. This is a great ride and we hadn’t done it yet this trip so I was determined to get on here.

Next up we went to the Seas.

We had fun looking around the aquarium.

Then we made our way over to Turtle Talk with Crush and the kids and Dad had fun doing Mr Ray’s Pop Quiz.

I was also trying to book up a FP for character spot, by refreshing the app…I really wanted for us to be able to meet Minnie, but in the end it wasn’t meant to be.

After Crush it was raining once again, so we hotfooted over to Chef’s de France and checked in early. In the end we waited about 25 minutes which was about 5 minutes after our time slot.

This was a great choice as a last meal.

The service was pretty slow (compared to other WDW restaurants) but this suited us fine. In the end we were in the restaurant close to 2 hours as we came out at 8.35pm.

All the cocktails on this menu were included, from the $18.50 ones to the beers which were a third of the price.

This was one of the things Mum and Dad found a little frustrating as you can't have 3 beers which are $6.75 each instead of a cocktail, it's one drink per person regardless of the price. I think it wasn't the drink so much that they wanted to substitute, but they would have liked to swap a dessert for a starter so that they could share a starter and and share a dessert. I did try and explain that the credits didn't really have a 'value' as such as a credit could be used for a $35 steak main course or for a $20 pasta main course it was still 1 credit.

Anyway, back to today.

The four adults chose from the prix fix menu, so we had a starter, main and pudding. The kids wanted steak and frites which isn’t on this menu so they had a main and a pudding.

Of course there is the bread to start, mini baguettes and butter. Dad broke this up very fairly

I had the French Martini, vodka, Chambord, pineapple juice and lime foam. This was really delicious and I ended up having a second. Kate had a Shirley Temple, Max had coke. I'm not quite sure what he's doing to her face but it's the only photo I have of our drinks

Dave had a vesper martini, gin, vodka, Lillet. He liked this a lot. Mum had the Kir Imperial and Dad had the Kir Royal, champagne with Chambord and cassis respectively.

Mum and me both went for lobster bisque as the starter followed by salmon with cauliflower and potato puree for the main course. The lobster bisque was really good. Plus as it was wet and pretty chilly outside, we welcomed the warming soup! Even in August!

The salmon was lovely, but again way too big a portion and I couldn’t eat it all.

Dave and Dad had the French onion soup as the starter, which they both really enjoyed.

Huge bowls of soup though, so we were glad that they took their time bringing the main meals over. Dave had chicken, with tomatoes and mash as his main course which he enjoyed.

Dad had boeuf bourguignon with linguine.

Here are the kids steak and mountain of fries.

The server suggested that we were better off not going for the choux profiterole puddings as they were made in the morning and would be a bit soggy by now. I had fancied these, but decided to actually take the waiters advice and it paid off!

For the desserts both kids went for the Tarte au Chocolat, another dinner and another chocolate pudding and another that they loved.

Dad and me had the brulee and this was delicious, I really liked this. Plain and simple no tarting up it was great.

Mum had the meringue basket with fresh fruit.

Dave had sorbet, strawberry, raspberry and passionfruit with fresh fruits and a madeleine. He thought this was really good, again a big portion.

The meal for four of us would have cost $228, we used 4 TS credits.

It was a really lovely meal and one that we all enjoyed there wasn’t a single part of it that we would have changed and we were happy with our choices. We headed out and turned right just to walk off our meal a little rather than stake out a spot for Illuminations. We slowly walked towards Morocco and then onwards to USA, where we looked around the gift shop. We used the facilities and then Mum realised she had lost her bracelet . So, we raced back to the restaurant to see if it had been lost there and handed in, but unfortunately they didn’t have it and in reality it could have been lost anywhere this evening.

In the end we watched Illuminations by the crepe stand. Our last night at WDW and our last time ever watching Illuminations.

It was a good spot and the speakers were working properly and not cutting out, so we enjoyed it.

We headed out of the park, with a wistful look at Spaceship Earth, it always looks so pretty in purple.

We didn’t have long to wait for the bus back to the resort as one arrived moments after we got to the bus stop. Epcot is pretty close to FQ and the bus ride home only took 8 minutes.

And that was it our last WDW day . It had been a quiet day, spending time around the pool and taking the boat to Disney Springs. But a restful day was needed with a proper lie in so that we could recharge our batteries. A last hurrah at Epcot, really only popping in for a couple of attractions, dinner and to catch a last viewing of Illuminations. I was sad that this was our last viewing of it, but was a good night

Statistics
Steps 16,656
Attractions 3

Coming Soon
Next up tomorrow we check out of POFQ and into RPR at Universal, grab our express passes and head into US and IOA. Did we use up all of our credits before leaving WDW? Surely that's a no brainer! Was I brave enough for Rip, Ride Rockit? Did Mum marvel at Diagon Alley? Did we make it onto Hagrids? We managed 3 out of 4. You’ll find out in the next instalment coming soon.

[MrsSilverStar]

Ooh...I was going to guess which one didn’t get done but then I realised that I already knew and that would be cheating 😂 it must have been mentioned in your dining report!

Lovely, chilled last Disney day. Sounds like you managed to avoid the worst of the rain and still get everything done that you wanted to.
Our Goofy Candy haul would have cost $111 if paying OOP...madness. Most of it is still sitting in a bag in our spare room!
Glad you got to Illuminations one last time. Hope you enjoy the new show this summer (will it be in place by then? I’m totally out of the Disney info loop now the holiday is over!).

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by MrsSilverStar

Ooh...I was going to guess which one didn’t get done but then I realised that I already knew and that would be cheating 😂 it must have been mentioned in your dining report!

Lovely, chilled last Disney day. Sounds like you managed to avoid the worst of the rain and still get everything done that you wanted to.
Our Goofy Candy haul would have cost $111 if paying OOP...madness. Most of it is still sitting in a bag in our spare room!
Glad you got to Illuminations one last time. Hope you enjoy the new show this summer (will it be in place by then? I’m totally out of the Disney info loop now the holiday is over!).

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I was hardly cunning with my teaser questions was I? I'm sure I did mention in the dining report.

Wow, good idea to tally up the OOP price for your haul. We munched all of ours apart from the chocolate from Ghiradelli over the last three days.

I've no idea how long Epcot Forever is due to show, it looks great on you tube so I really hope that it stays for our trip as I'm keen to see it in real life.

[mitch-fishguard]

Those snack credits, eh

[Tinkermom]

What a lovely last WDW day, thanks for sharing

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by mitch-fishguard

Those snack credits, eh

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Yep, tell me about it!

Originally Posted by Tinkermom

What a lovely last WDW day, thanks for sharing

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It was a slow day compared to others on the trip, but we still enjoyed it.

[Fuellady]

Lovely chilled out morning - I'm sure you needed it after all of your early starts. It must be so much fun choosing what treats to use all of your snack credits on towards the end. The food at Wolfgang Puck looks good too.

Your meals at Les Chefs de France all look lovely. I haven't read anything bad about this restaurant, it seems to be consistently good. Great way to end your WDW stay, along with watching Illuminations for the last time.

Looking forward to reading about your Universal days.

[collybird]

I’m so jealous of all of your leftover snacks, I’d have made great use of them. I was so sad when we ran out of snacks this year, it definitely changed how my snacking style as I couldn’t bring myself to pay cash for things.

That is so sad about your mum’s bracelet! Did you get in touch with Disney about it?

So sad that your Disney time is coming to an end but I am excited to see what you made of Universal after it being a stranger for so long, particularly how you felt about staying onsite. Nik was mentioning Universal again recently and whilst I know we’d enjoy any time spent there it is a hefty addition to the trip pricewise these days.

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by Fuellady

Lovely chilled out morning - I'm sure you needed it after all of your early starts. It must be so much fun choosing what treats to use all of your snack credits on towards the end. The food at Wolfgang Puck looks good too.

Your meals at Les Chefs de France all look lovely. I haven't read anything bad about this restaurant, it seems to be consistently good. Great way to end your WDW stay, along with watching Illuminations for the last time.

Looking forward to reading about your Universal days.

See more...

The spending of the snack credits was fun, the kids grabbed all the bags of sweets they like and saved a few credits for some really special cookies from the resort. They loved eating all the snacks the last few days at universal they kept us going while we had no free food!

I was pleased to end the Disney stay with this day, it was perfect with the couple of attractions, the fab dinner and then seeing illuminations for the last time was lovely.

Originally Posted by collybird

I’m so jealous of all of your leftover snacks, I’d have made great use of them. I was so sad when we ran out of snacks this year, it definitely changed how my snacking style as I couldn’t bring myself to pay cash for things.

That is so sad about your mum’s bracelet! Did you get in touch with Disney about it?

So sad that your Disney time is coming to an end but I am excited to see what you made of Universal after it being a stranger for so long, particularly how you felt about staying onsite. Nik was mentioning Universal again recently and whilst I know we’d enjoy any time spent there it is a hefty addition to the trip pricewise these days.

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You did really well to use your snacks up on proper food! I wish we could that. Still it was fun spending the credits.

I didn't think to tell Disney that she'd lost her bracelet, it was a birthday present from my Dad so she was quite upset actually, but as it could have been lost anywhere at Epcot it seemed a lost cause.

As you know we've done a few wdw only trips and my main reason is that the tickets for Universal would cost us the best part of £1000 for a couple of days, perhaps 3 days, but stil, thats a heck of a lot of money...at least the tickets we bought for last year were upgraded for free to APs so that halved the cost really. I really enjoyed the Universal parks this year. I'm glad we went. The onsite stay didn't exactly go to plan, but that was the weather not really anything universal can do about that. But we had fun and I'm glad to be going back next year, I'm not in a hurry to stay on site though as I know we can get a much cheaper hotel elsewhere...But those express passes were a real bonus! We loved skipping the line at every attraction. That was great.

Anyway, I should hold some of this back for the last few days. I can't believe I've written so much of it before Chritsmas, I've done really well at posting once a week this year. I'm hoping to finish it before the new year! It's been fun to keep posting each week. I won't know what to do with myself when I'm finished though

[caitlinsmummy]

I think Goofy's is a bit like that, a buzz. We were in a rush when we went but it felt like everyone else was too.

Wow you had a lot of rain today didn't you. Good thing it didn't dampen your spirits.

Sounds like a great last day. It's a good idea to spend the day recharging your batteries before a few days at Universal. I'm sad to see it end but I'm excited to see how you got on at Universal Xx