Disney with the Dufflers - Take 2 - Jul 2019 - Day 5 - Magic Kingdom and 'Ohana

[tracey1302]

Pre-Trip Report

Day 0 - Monday 1st July 2019 - Overnight at the Radisson Blu, Manchester Airport

Day 1 - Tuesday 2nd July 2019 - Travel day and arrival at Sapphire Falls

Day 2 - Wednesday 3rd July 2019 - Universal Studios and Hard Rock Cafe

Day 3 - Thursday 4th July 2019 - Islands of Adventure, Bahama Breeze and Bar 17 @ Aventura

Day 4 - Friday 5th July 2019 - Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure and our move to CSR

Day 5 - Saturday 6th July 2019 - Magic Kingdom and 'Ohana

Today, I awoke with the familiar buzz that I only get on our first morning in Disney - we were going to Magic Kingdom! Is this a buzz that everyone gets? There's literally nothing like the feeling of going to MK on your first day in Disney!

Me and hubby were up early, after a fantastic night's sleep in our beautiful CSR beds. These may have just pipped the SF beds... they were amazing. So amazing, in fact, that me and Mum both threw out all of our bedding since we've been home and bought new. We have all seemed to find that we just didn't sleep as well at home

We headed over to El Centro for what would come to be our standard CSR breakfast: a blueberry muffin, fruit cup and some ice water.

Ready for my first day in the Disney parks!

We met at the bus stop at 8.15am and were soon on the bus on our way to Magic Kingdom. Me and Neil took a selfie on the bus...

And the gang insisted that Uncle Scar get into the Disney spirit by trying on my Minnie ears.

In no time at all, we arrived at Magic Kingdom.

One of the amazing things about CSR is really its location. It had been one of the things that had put me off about the resort when we'd first been looking at hotels, as it looked a bit far out. And the fact that it's technically in 'Animal Kingdom Resort area' doesn't exactly fill you with confidence, but it's genuinely so central. No-where was really more than 10-15 minutes away, apart from maybe Disney Springs, which was probably 20 minutes.

We quickly went through security, scanned our bands and then... we were there!

It's pretty difficult to beat the Main Street moment, and as always, I got a bit emotional hearing that beautiful music and feeling the magic and happiness soak through my body. It hadn't been quite as long of a wait between visits, so I hadn't ached to see the Castle as I usually did, but even when we'd been on honeymoon, Neil and I had felt like the gang was missing, so it was so wonderful so feel like we were nearly complete as a Florida crew. I say, nearly, because... we were missing my sister, Katie, and her husband, Jonathan and now the newest addition to our family... my gorgeous little nephew William.

Anyway, slight sidetrack... we got this great Memory Maker picture

And continued to make the most of a reasonably quiet Main Street...

We headed for Philharmagic first, which always gets us in the Disney mood! However, the 3D on this is starting to be seriously dated. They need to update it, but not get rid of it. I love this show so much

After Philharmagic, we headed over through into Liberty Square.

It makes me laugh, as literally just this morning, I've been reading our honeymoon trip report, and the absolute disaster we had on our Magic Kingdom day. This still in memory for me, I felt I needed to make good on what the boys had termed 'Tragic Kingdom'. Things went significantly more smoothly for us this day.

As is tradition, we headed for Haunted Mansion.

I was quite amused when these pictures appeared in our MDE...as we hadn't known that they now took a picture on Haunted Mansion.

Not sure where Mark and Megs' picture is but never mind

Again, despite the look of these pictures () we all really enjoyed Haunted Mansion. A couple of years back (well, in 2014) I fell out with it a bit because I felt it had just got a bit crap... but I LOVE it again now. I think that's part of the fun of Florida, you have such different experiences of the rides as you get older.

After Haunted Mansion, we had a bit of time, so we managed to actually do Thunder Mountain! I don't have pictures but I promise, we did it!

After this, we headed over to Space Mountain. Mum, Uncle Mark and Debsy sat this one out but the rest of us really enjoyed it. It was awesome.

Sam's face on this one

Our FPs worked really well for us this day, as after this, it was time to call in our FP for Splash.

We headed over to Frontierland, and Mum insisted on taking this photo of me in my happy place.

We headed over to one of our favourite rides.

We beeped into the Fastpass queue with no problems, as always hoping to get in line before the Argentinian tour group mass that seemed to have been following us around the park that day.

Whilst we moved toward the end of the queue, everyone started chatting about the ride photo, but I was a little more concerned about them fitting us all into one log! The last time we'd gone on (2014) we had managed it, but that had been when Oliver and Megan were both about a foot shorter than they were now!

However, we worked out our logistics and we managed it, and an absolute belter of a photo

Splash Mountain is just one of those rides, isn't it? It can't ever go. When I'm on that ride, I know I've arrived in Disney. From the pleasant cool of the water, to the cutesy animatronics, to the fantastic songs that we all know and love all the way around it. It's just such a special experience.

After Splash Mountain, we were all pretty hungry, so I suggested that we go to Columbia Harbour House, which was quite close. I'd been eager to try this place out for a long while and it always got such great reviews.

Me and Mum shared a gorgeous tuna sandwich and I got some chowder. Absolutely superb.

After this, we decided to all have a bit of a wander and do our own thing and meet back at Seven Dwarfs in an hour for our last FP of the day.

Me and hubby had a walk around Belle's village and started eying up some art work. We're thinking of moving house this next year and we really fell in love with all of the Disney Thomas Kinkade paintings - a lot of which were displayed in Bonjour.

Anyway, he took a picture of me near the Castle.

And it was soon time to meet up with everyone for a trip down the mines.

We had loved going on SDMT in 2014 and loved it again this time. It's such a fun ride to do, particularly when you're with a big group and do a singalong... which we do.

After this, we were all pretty hot and bothered and ready for some chill time. We headed back down Main Street and while Megan, Sam and Uncle Mark had a quick toilet stop, the rest of us got some really very lovely Memory Maker pictures.

After arriving back at CSR, we headed for our lovely Casitas pool, which was our absolute quiet haven. The big pool at CSR was fantastic, but it was often really busy, whereas the Casitas pool was much more chilled out, and obviously, much closer to all of our rooms.

When we had been on honeymoon, and even in 2014, a massive regret of mine was that I hadn't managed to get that many pictures in the water parks, and pictures of fun pool time. I definitely managed to rectify this, this time as I got a waterproof case on a lanyard for my phone. As some on here have already told me, my iPhone 8 Plus is already waterproof, but it was actually easier to have it in a case!

I dreamed of having some really fun underwater pictures, but Neil and I discovered (with some comedic results) that these are really hard to take

I couldn't seem to stay underwater long enough for Neil to take the photo, and then he kept making me laugh, which didn't help matters.

However, having the lanyard did mean I got nice fun pictures like this one...

... which I wouldn't have got otherwise!

After a dip in the pool, we headed back to our rooms to get ready for our first proper DDP restaurant: 'Ohana.

I have wanted to go to 'Ohana for actual years. Pretty much since I joined the Dibb and discovered what 'Ohana actually was and what sort of food they did. I love stir fry vegetables and noodles and all that stuff, but it was a really different sort of meal for the rest of the gang, so it was a risk... but first, we had to get there.

I mentioned at the beginning of the trip report that there were only two instances on our entire trip when the weather really got in our way. Unfortunately, this night was one of those nights.

We headed for the bus stop at about 5.40pm and it was absolutely throwing it down. Here's Mark and Debsy running to the bus stop...

It got to about 6 and all of the buses seemed to be running behind. The screens at the bus stop kept showing further delays. I managed to ring the front desk, who said they would ring 'Ohana for me and let them know we were going to be late.

We managed to get an MK bus at 6.30pm. Our reservation was at 6.40pm. We arrived outside MK at 6.40 but because of the awful weather, the boats weren't running.

I was massively stressed because we were so, so late and everyone kept asking me what we were going to do, and I honestly didn't really know. The queue for the monorail was really huge (because the boats weren't running) but it seemed like our only option, so that's what we did.

We arrived at the Polynesian at 7.10pm, which, considering the queues, was actually pretty impressive. We quickly checked in with 'Ohana, who were absolutely fine with our lateness as they had heard from CSR reception (ah, Disney, you are wonderful ). We lounged around in the buzzing bar area, and I finally started to relax.

The Dufflers were eating as a 4, and we were eating as a 5 that evening. They were called in very quickly (after about five minutes), but we had to wait for about 30 minutes. It was quite difficult, because we didn't really know whether to get a drink at the bar, as we didn't know how long we'd be waiting. I think Neil and I did end up getting a drink, but I can't be sure.

Anyway, eventually, we got sat down, and despite our initial wait, we absolutely LOVED our experience at 'Ohana. It was well worth the wait. The waiter arrived and took a drinks order - I went for a Lapu Lapu and he also brought pineapple bread and salad with a beautiful fruity vinegarette dressing. So fresh and so tasty.

After this, he brought our drinks. My Lapu Lapu was gorgeous but oh, holy god, this was so unbelievably strong! I can pretty easily sink back a few large glasses of wine at home and not feel a thing but this? I was absolutely ON MY ≈≈≈≈ after about two sips of this cocktail. I don't know what on earth they put in it!

The waiter also brought our noodles, vegetables, chicken wings and pot stickers. OH MY GOD. Those pot stickers. I am literally drooling at the thought of them. Everything was just so beautifully seasoned and so, so tasty!

They came around frequently with the steak, chicken and prawns (shrimp, as they call it) and we just absolutely loved it all. I think the chicken was my personal favourite. I don't know what they cooked that in, but my God, if I could have it every day for the rest of my life, that would do me just fine. I really want to have my dinner at 'Ohana tonight... and we have a couple of frozen pizzas from Aldi. Great

Some of us managed a bit of pudding - mainly for the sauce, I'm not going to lie - but we were really absolutely stuffed from our mains.

After this absolutely sensational meal, we all marvelled over the fact that 'Ohana was only a 1TS credit, but also the fact that we had never been there before. It was just incredible. 'Ohana is officially on the list.

The Dufflers had finished their tea a little earlier than we had, and so had had a chance to explore the Poly a little. They'd spotted the terrace outside and its fabulous view of the Castle (and therefore fireworks). I hadn't really planned on watching the fireworks at this time. Firstly, the view was okay (but not great). Secondly, it was quite busy and crowded so I didn't think we would be able to hear the music properly and thirdly, as everyone knows, given that Mum, Martin, OB and the Dufflers hadn't seen HEA before, they should really be in front of the Castle for their first viewing.

But everyone decided they wanted to stay, so that's what we did. Neil got a mojito from the bar...

However I was absolutely off my face from the Lapu Lapu - seriously, I can't stress enough the ridiculous effect that this drink had on me so I had a Sprite. We had a walk around the Poly and I kept telling Neil that he needed to work harder so we could stay there

We did watch the HEA fireworks and this was the view...

So... not great. But hey ho, we had a few more opportunities to watch it yet, so I wasn't fussed.

We decided to head back to MK to get the bus home, but couldn't resist a pit stop at the GF.

Mum, Martin, OB and the Dufflers decided to stay for a nightcap, but me and Neil were pretty tired, so we headed back. I was... believe it or not... still drunk from my one Lapu Lapu

I was, however, of sound enough mind to take this really lovely photo of our gang looking down at the stunning GF lobby.

A truly magical first day in Disney.

Day 6 - Pool day, Disney Springs and The Boathouse is here.

[prettymiarose]

What a great day! Just read your last day also & well done for sticking with the queue! Can’t wait to ride it next year! So much fun going as a big family which we always do. Takes a bit of planning but worth it

[MrsSilverStar]

Those underwater photos are hilarious! Love the one at the GF at the end of the night.

I know which cocktail to suggest to DH

[arosiem]

I have just binged your trippie up to now - and now I have Disney blues all over again and want pot stickers right this second!

[Rescuer]

Great Disney day.

I’m firmly in the no thanks camp for Ohana after a not great experience there. Glad you all had a good meal though as there is nothing more disappointing when you are looking forward to something.