Day 3 - Back once again like a Floriday Master - HS/Sci Fi/Epcot/Le Cellier

[Man v Disney]

Good news to start! Eliana’s arm is fine and other than a bruise, nothing to worry about after her fall last night. Her trip reporting will resume at the end of today’s report. Also, I put at the end of the last report that today we were doing Hollywood Brown Derby and Fantasmic – nope, that’s tomorrow! Our days are merging!

This morning was another early wake up for me and Han, both awake by 4.20am… Josiah and Eliana both fared better and woke around 6. They soon went over to top up their resort mugs once they had got out of bed – they’ll miss that when we move to the villa.

We left the room around 7.45am ready for a morning at Hollywood Studios. We had heard that the queue in the mornings was crazy with people rope-dropping Slinky Dog and by the time we got there the crowds were forming already. At 9am on the dot, the let us start walking in a very well managed way, towards Toy Story Land which is where I got my groove on and zoomed to get a DAS return time for Slinky. There was the usual craziness, people running through the gardens at the side of the path to get ahead!

This ride in particular was one of the reasons for us wanting the pass. Josiah had been desperate to go on it but after last year in Paris we knew that a wait for something ‘unknown’ past 15 mins and he would get too anxious and leave the queue.

The return time we got was for 10.14am and in the meantime, Toy Story Mania was showing as a 5 minute standby time. Even though we had a 9.15am fastpass for it, we decided we would go on then with such a short queue and then use the fastpass.

It turned out to be literally a walk on and we loved it as much as ever. I won but my arm was properly aching for the rest of the day!
When we got out, we decided we still had enough time for another ride before using our fastpass so headed over to Alien Swirling Saucers. It was showing 10 minutes in the standby line and that was quite accurate – which pleased us as there really wasn’t much shade in the outside bit of the queuing area and the weather was HOT!

We were allocated our saucers and started the ride…and then suddenly stopped as we were being told to get off and move to the other track. This was great fun, but didn’t really last much longer than the first attempt. Anyway, two for the price of one.

We used the Fastpass for TSM now and the queue was a lot bigger - so glad we did it this way round.

- Spot the difference in the queue area!

Slinky Dog Dash was next and the queue for this one went really quickly. It was a really smooth ride and we all loved it (well, not Han as she is not a fan of launch coasters, so she didn’t go on it). Josiah said it was his favourite so far. The pass really is allowing him to try rides and get them done before his nerves kick in and he leaves the ride queue. Thank you Disney.

It was around this time that Han, while waiting for us to do Slinky realised that one of her holidays nails looked a bit funny. I don’t know if you can see on the photo but the white nail with Mickey on has a pink tinge and she is pretty sure it’s due to her fetching pink poncho yesterday! She says she quite likes the marbling effect!

We realised then that the whole time in Toy Story Land we hadn’t had a drink (oops) so we went to the Market and asked for some free Iced water. We took it round to the ‘Incredibles’ area and as we were drinking it we got a photopass done , high 5d Mr Incredible and watched a bit of the Incredibles show before going to meet Edna Mode. This was stated as a 15 minute wait, but took us 5 minutes in total. She was a good egg and spent quite a bit of time with us.

It was at this point that we realised a clash. We could go on Star Tours in a couple of minutes when our FP opened at 10.45. However, we were a good 5 minutes away and were due for lunch at Sci Fi Diner at around 11am, so we decided to cancel Star Tours and do that after lunch.

Now we hadn’t had much breakfast and were all feeling hungry. This was one of the restaurants in advance which seemed to get marmite reviews. Unfortunately for us it didn’t go too well! We were in a car, which was cool, but on the very front row, which meant it was hard to actually watch what was on the screen without straining to look upwards. It was also really dark but the contrast of the darkness around our food and looking up at the bright screen soon started to be a literal headache.

We ordered our food and enjoyed the movies while we waited. Again, the lack of lighting in the car made the meal really difficult to eat for me and Han as we had quite a few components to our meals.
Han & I shared the Appetiser Sampler which we asked to swap the Buffalo Tenders for Szechuan Tenders (also came with shrimp and crab fondue, nachos to dip and fried pickles), both kids went for the tenders starter – one with BBQ sauce and one plain (3 guesses who!).

It was OK – it definitely filled a hole but they didn’t make the swap to szechuan and no one was around to ask to change so we ate them anyway.

Next up were main courses -Han and I both had the BBQ Platter, Josiah had BBQ burger and Eliana had the American cheeseburger (hold the cheese, onions and tomatoes so basically an American Burger).
They both enjoyed theirs but our was just too many ‘bits’ to enjoy it, plus it was all a little bland. We both ended up leaving quite a bit and we all declined dessert as all the above had ended up giving Han a headache and Josiah felt a bit funny too.

The meal came to $213.95 and we gave a 18% tip of $31.06 which we put on our gift card again.
Food: 6
Service: 6
Ambience: 8
Total: 20 (Eliana wanted to score higher but I’m sure she will explain that later)

Leaving here it was time to split up. We had booked Rock n Roller Coaster for me and Eliana while Han & Josiah were hitting the big time with Muppets 3D. We veritably skipped to RnR which we were so excited for and... it was closed! We headed to meet the others at Muppets and found out that Han had had to go to First Aid to get some paracetemol for her worsening head before making it there.

Han has the My Disney Experience app on her phone so when we caught up with her she could see that Eliana and I had been given an open FP for anything except Slinky so we headed to Star Tours, stopping for a photopass pic on the way. It was a film we had seen before but Eliana was the ‘Rebel Spy’ which pleased her greatly.

We headed back to meet the others at Muppets and the 20 minute sit in the dark air con had helped Han’s head already. We decided though that this would be our time to leave to head back and try to have some rest before dinner tonight.

Getting back to the villa, Han straight away went to sleep and I took some tablets too as I wasn’t feeling great (more overnight sleep and much more water needed from this point on – we have learnt our lesson) while Eliana & Josiah went and topped up everyone’s mugs.

Fast forward 2 hours and we all felt much more refreshed and at 4pm we decided to leave to do our daily (it seems) Walmart trip! Josiah had seen my shoes and decided they looked good so wanted his own pair and also, Han had accidentally squeezy-squashed a bit too much and sprayed his new pale blue t-shirt with droplets of blackcurrant. She tried to tell him it was a stylish pattern but he wasn’t having any of it so a new t-shirt was on the cards!

Off we popped to Walmart and into the trolley went the shoes and t-shirt... and shoes for Eliana, and new hat for Eliana as she had left hers in Sci Fi, and headache pills, and sinus spray. Once again we came out with far more than we went in for! Josiah also bought himself a hoody for back home which he loves.

We then realised that our reservation for Le Cellier was only 35 mins away and we still had to battle through Orlando traffic at 5pm so headed to the car and joined the queues. While in the car, Han logged onto the app and booked us a Soarin’ Fastpass for 7.20pm. Thankfully we pulled into the Epcot parking lot at 5.25pm and hot footed to Canada through some light drizzle (the weather had been great today).

We checked in and were seated quickly with our drinks orders taken (Eliana – coke, Josiah – OJ, Han – peachy mocktail and me a raspberry mocktail).

We had already looked at the menu and knew what we wanted so had a munch on the lovely pretzel bread while we waited for the food to arrive.

For starters Josiah went for the oysters, I had the beef tartare with Asian Flavours, Eliana got the watermelon salad and Han had the artisan cheese plate (and ended up with Eliana’s as she hadn’t realised the watermelon has so much other ‘stuff’ with it).

One word – delicious! It was my favourite dish so far for sure.
Mains then came out – Han, Eliana and I all had the filet mignon (Eliana’s with fingerling potatoes rather than the mushroom risotto) and Josiah had the dumplings in broth. Eliana cut into her steak and went into raptures as she had it her favourite way – super rare! She ate every last bite and I have to say, I agree with her. One of the finest pieces of meat I have eaten. Josiah and Han both loved theirs too so all round, a success.

Han and I ordered desserts, Han and Josiah decided to share the warm pecan maple butter tart and I had the Maple creme brulee and I decided that ‘Eliana’ would like a Mousse to go.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, these too were amazing and we ended the meal satisfactorily full but very happy campers.

I know some don’t rate Le Cellier partly due to the tables being close together but we had been put at a corner table so didn’t experience that too much so it didn’t bother us too much.
Food: 9.5
Service: 9
Ambience: 8
Total: 26.5

The meal came to $360.81 with a tip of $67.76 - so glad we have the Deluxe Dining Plan!

We strolled out of Le Cellier and the others headed towards Soarin while I went to get a return time for Test Track which although was showing as a 70 minute wait, our time was 7.44pm – only 30 mins later.

I met the others at Soarin and we had a short wait before heading in to enjoy our flight. This is one of those rides that makes you feel good inside (anyone else think that?) – we ‘soared’ over the Great Wall of China, the pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, elephants, seas. I love the smells they pipe through and as we got off we debated which smell was our favourite – Han’s was the grass smell over the elephants but the rest of us liked the sea smell over the ocean.

We ‘landed’ and Han had booked another fastpass as soon as we scanned into Soarin’ for Eliana’s all time favourite ride – Spaceship Earth! It was pretty much a walk on as the park was emptying now due to closing in around an hour, but we all sat back and listened as Dame Judy guided us through our past and into the future. Always good fun.
Again, Han had booked us another fastpass, this time for Nemo so we made plans to meet her there after our Test Track ride (she does enjoy TT but after her meal didn’t think she could face the fast bit).

Unfortunately Test Track took ages so Han ended up cancelling Nemo and coming to meet us so we could head home, looking at the evening lighting on the ‘golf ball’.

It was then that we realised that in our haste to get to dinner, no one had actually looked at where we parked so we found our car using only our instincts (and the beeper on the remote) and drove back to Caribbean Beach.

When we got back, I decided that I’d try ‘Eliana’s’ Mousse but first had to go to the main food area to borrow a spoon. It had melted somewhat but was still delicious.

Han changed our Boma booking to 8.35am from 8am tomorrow morning in the hope that we may sleep later and I started writing this up, failing pretty quickly while the need for sleep overtook me.

Tomorrow: Boma, EPCOT, Hollywood Brown Derby and Fantasmic (probably Walmart too knowing us).

Eliana’s Brilliant, Spectacular, Amazing report:

Today I went to Hollywood studios, Sci-fi diner, Epcot and Le Cellier. At Hollywood Studios I went on: Toy story mania, Aliens Swirling Saucers, Toy Story Mania (again...), Slinky Dog Dash (super duper good ), Incredibles meeting point (a lot of fun), Sci-fi diner was (in my opinion) Brilliant food-8/10- and the movies were... interesting...! Then I went to rock n’ roller coaster which was closed.  So we got a free fasspass+ and me and dad went on Star Tours ( I was the rebel spy)- It is my favourite Hollywood studios ride!-, Then we travelled back to the villa and rested for a few hours.

We then travelled to Epcot and we ate at Le Cellier – The steak was SO GOOD AND IT WAS PINK! All the food was brilliant though. 10/10 food. Then we went to Soarin’ and it was phenomenal! , We then went to Spaceship Earth and it was very good! Finally we went on test track and I found it very speedy (Its the fastest in the WHOLE of Disney). We then went home and fell asleep.

[Suzieee]

Hi y'all! See what i did there? 😉😆
Sounds like another fab day... but this time i am not sold on the food. Steak Tartare?! That was the butt of our year 6 Leaver's Play... and an no-no from me! (9months of living in frnace taught me to tolerate raw beef... but never a choice!)
Today is is warm and rainy. Im sat in costa in dungaree shorts, flowery wellies and a raincoat. Festival look! Looking forward to tomorrow's post. Love you all! (So pleased the pass for josiah is working out xx)

[PixieBoot]

Super day! Meal looked fab.

[OB1LukeLucas]

A shame Sci-fi wasn’t quite as good as expected, I always fancy eating in there but can never decide if I want to be unable to see what I’m eating! Le Cellier looks great, I could happily eat those desserts now.