Do They Know it's Christmas? Helen&Andy:Nov17 - Day 6 - GF, Contemporary, Epcot & Disney Springs

[HelenJNT]

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Day 6: Grand Floridian, Contemporary, Epcot, Disney Springs

“That’s more like it, Pork Chop”

Hurrah! We both managed an eight hour sleep. I was awake before Andy and was treated to one of those terrifying moments where I happened to be looking at him as he opened his eyes and he started, hard, at me, in apparent terror, as though he had never seen me before in his life. I know I don’t always look my best in the morning but there was no need for that. He told me he was disoriented and didn’t know where he was. I just thought it was time for me to get up and put on some make-up.

Three hours later (not all of which was spent applying makeup) and we were more or less ready to leave the room. I have no idea what we were doing during this time. Faffing, drinking coffee, watching a bit of the weather channel? No idea. We were quite tired still and just didn’t seem to have much get up and go. It didn’t really matter though as we had a “free” morning – our fast passes weren’t until the afternoon.

Eventually we got up and went, and we left the room at about 09:30, noting that Animal Kingdom Lodge STILL didn’t know it was Christmas as there was not a bauble to see.

We did note that the mud effect on the walls looked more like a scene from Stranger Things.

It was really dreary today and actually quite chilly – too chilly for just shorts and t-shirt. I realised – too late – that I had forgotten a jumper but didn’t bother to go back and as I had it in the back of my mind that I was going to buy a hoodie that I had seen in Epcot on the first day, and rather liked.

We’d obviously done too much faffing and drinking coffee as, after waiting at the extremely busy bus stop for about 10 minutes – with the time for the bus getting later and later according to the electronic boards, I soon realised that I was never going to make it to the Magic Kingdom in any comfort (I didn’t want a repeat of the Pee Butt scenario, thanks) and scampered off to use the restrooms in reception.

I was as fast as I could be but obviously when I came back, Andy was just sat all alone at the bus stop as a bus had been and gone without us. Still, I think it was a small price to pay. This morning we were off to do a bit of a monorail loop and have a look at some of the Christmas decorations in the Magic Kingdom hotels. Thankfully, a bus arrived fairly promptly and we boarded it and got a seat. It was 10am by this point.

It was looking very grey and drizzly by now – we’d been watching the weather apps on our phone and knew it was likely to rain today but had sort of ignored the warnings, preferring to believe that the overall reputation for November being the driest month in Orlando. I said something about this to Andy and he replied “that’s more like it, Pork Chop”, which properly made me laugh out loud. Turned out it’s not what he said at all, what he actually said was “I think we’re going to have to buy some ponchos”, which for some reason sounded exactly like “that’s more like it, Pork Chop” to me. Writing this down loses something in translation but we were off and laughing so hard that tears were coming out. I genuinely thought he’d conceived yet another new and unflattering nickname for me.

The bus took a while – I managed to get a photo of the slip road traffic all backed up this time:

On the way into the Magic Kingdom bus stop area, I spotted a bus bound for the Grand Floridian. The original plan was to walk to the Contemporary and start our morning there as we had heard good things about the Contempo Café and wanted to have breakfast there but the weather was looking very ominous and we took the fact that there was a bus already there as a sign and ran down to get on it.

As we boarded the bus, from the middle doors as we had approached from the back, the very officious driver turned to us and just yelled “and where do you think you’re going?” to which the McFly response was “The Grand Floridian, please”. Made me feel very small and a little embarrassed – we’re quite capable of getting on a bus when it says clearly on the front where the destination is. Maybe we didn’t look like GF clientele, but no need to be rude.

The bus took off straight away and we were the only people on it. Unsurprisingly, the grumpy driver didn’t try and make conversation with us, and after a few moments we were pulling up at the Grand Floridian. We’d visited a few years previously and hadn’t really fallen in love with the hotel – I seem to remember thinking at the time that it kind of reminded me of the Titanic, but this time around we liked it far better. I don’t know whether this was because we are a bit older and the deco is more our style these days, or whether it was just that it was beautifully bedecked out for Christmas and looked simply lovely.

Of all the Christmas trees we saw on this trip, the ones here were my favourite.

They just looked classy and classic and whilst I am about as far away from a pink girly girl, I loved how pretty they were.

There was also no missing the gingerbread house in the corner of the reception as well – it smelled amazing in there!

However, we were on a mission for breakfast and sought out the Gasparilla Island Grill, which is the quick service at the GF. It took us a while to find it actually as the GF footprint is vast and we didn’t realise we had to walk outside to get there. I would imagine that might be a bit of a nuisance if you were staying there.

I was ravenous and ordered the bacon and cheese croissant sandwich, which came with some Tater Tots (hurrah!). Andy couldn’t see anything he fancied that didn’t contain pork so he asked a cast member whether they could make him a wrap and leave out the bacon but they said it would take about 15 minutes – all the rest of the food was just sat there, kind of unappetisingly under a heat lamp. Andy couldn’t be bothered to wait so just passed on it. We also grabbed a couple of orange juices.

As we were walking to the back to try and find a seat, who should we spy but Everything-Is-Awesome Man from the other day! He was sat on his own, wearing a pair of zebra print ears and looking a bit forlorn. I have no idea where his wife and kids were and I did actually feel a little sorry for him – but was kind of torn as I was also thrilled that we weren’t going to be subjected to one of his noisy monologues about how awesome his breakfast was.

We weren’t overly impressed with the Gasparilla Island Grill really. It was tiny and the tables were really close together. I didn’t like that you couldn’t tell how long the hot dishes had been sitting around for, and we didn’t feel like it had that much of an atmosphere really. I’m also not wholly sure what possessed me to get a croissant sandwich as I have said before that I don’t like croissants all that much and it made the sandwich just too sweet. Please, Disney, stop putting everything on croissants or flatbreads. I ended up just pushing the croissant to one side and eating the bacon, egg and cheese omelette type filling with the tater tots and it was fine like this.

After this, we went back into the main reception to get a better look at the gingerbread house. It was really quiet there that morning and we got chatting straight away to the ladies who were working in the shop there. They told us that their best seller is the gingerbread shingle slab, so we bought one of those and also a bag of the peppermint bark as I have never tried that and I really like minty chocolate. The two items combined were $24.00!

Andy immediately set to and ate his gingerbread shingle. The thing was pretty big, larger than my hand – and I have big hands. However, it was no match for his sweet tooth and before we knew it he had despatched the entire thing in one go. I was allowed a taste and it was very different to English gingerbread – it was more moist and like a thinly rolled out dense ginger sponge cake with a thin layer of dark chocolate on the base rather than ours, which is basically a ginger biscuit. Anyway, some impressive eating there by my husband:

We then went up the stairs in reception to catch the monorail over to the Contemporary.

The GrandFloridian knows it’s Christmas.

The bag check station didn’t take too long and we managed to walk straight on to a monorail.

I was offered a seat, as a man with his family said he was trying to teach his kids to be gracious to ladies and whilst I thought this was nice, I hoped they didn’t think I needed a seat – it was just a big breakfast. I got chatting to a lady in our carriage who was taking great pleasure in telling me about the time one of the monorails broke down on a hot day and how everyone was slowly starting to cook inside, which I thought was also kind and thoughtful of her given that the monorail had paused for no reason and we sat there for a good ten minutes.

Eventually we made it to the Contemporary, and we had no idea where we were going.

We were first in the queue for the lift but we didn’t know which button to press and then it got even more confusing as when the lift arrived, the front and back doors both opened, so for some unknown reason we just walked straight through it, then had to double back on ourselves.

Eventually we made it to the 4th floor. We always get terribly lost in the Contemporary, I think mainly as it feels very much like an airport to us. I appreciate it’s great to be able to walk to Magic Kingdom but I have to say, if we ever had the funds to stay in one of the lagoon hotels, this would be our last choice. It’s so expensive and we just don’t really get the feel of it. Maybe we haven’t done it justice and properly explored.

It’s only looking back on these photos that I’ve realised we didn’t actually find the Christmas tree at the Contemporary. We got side tracked by the shop.

I made Andy try on some ears which he protested at, as you can see, he didn’t quite put them on right, and I spotted a red jumper that I really liked and was thinking about buying as I was freezing cold by this point, but Andy noted that it was in fact a pyjama top and not outerwear. I still think I would have worn it regardless but he deterred me from buying it.

We went back to the monorail as Andy was quite keen to be getting on with the day – I don’t think he enjoys exploring the hotels as much as I do. We had had to readjust our plans once we had started at the Grand Floridian. The original plan was to start at the Contemporary, work our way round in a clockwise direction and then get the boat over to Wilderness Lodge, and get the bus to Epcot from there. However, we had underestimated how long the whole thing was taking, especially as the security chaps at the resorts were just so chatty (which was lovely, don’t get me wrong, I liked it) so once back on the monorail, we decided to sack off the Polynesian and the Wilderness Lodge and just go straight to Epcot.

We disembarked the monorail at the TTC and changed straight onto an Epcot one.

I love coming into Epcot by monorail, it’s so cool to get the panoramic views and I like the voiceover as well. I’m really excited to try out the new gondola system when it goes live in the next few years – apparently you’ll get a really good birds-eye view of World Showcase.

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[HelenJNT]

By the time we came down the ramp at Epcot, the rain had finally broken through and it was hammering it down. However, rather than allow us to wait at the first bag check section, we were all taken on a bit of a walk away from there and directed to another security station on the other side. All these years and I had no idea it was there! Anyone else? I guess it was the one for guests arriving from the car park rather than the WDW transportation system.

Anyway, I was on my own as Andy had gone through without a bag. This was a pretty horrible wait as there was no shelter, I was only wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops and I was more or less soaked to the skin in no time. There was a big family in front of me who were ponchoed up to the nines but taking forever faffing about with around 1,200 backpacks and I was resigning myself to a long and soggy wait. Luckily (for me) the teenage son in the party saw the state of me and took pity, ushering me in ahead of his family. I only had a small bag and probably a hangdog expression so I thought that was really kind of him, especially since I then overheard his mother giving him a massive telling off for letting someone in ahead of them. Thanks, lady, you meanie. Very different to the chap on the monorail who had made a point of teaching his son to be a gentleman.

I found Andy fairly quickly and we made an immediate stop at one of the shops as you go in, where I purchased the hooded top I wanted and also a couple of ponchos ($10 each, ouch!), or “Mickey Macs” as I will always think of them as. The white ones are a little more discreet but I did like the original yellow ones. I was very damp and starting to steam a little bit so I tried one hoodie on and it was too big but it was sticking to me and I was in a bit of a panic so I just ended up buying it anyway.

Hey, it’s cosy, even if the arms are way too long. I’m not consistent in Disney sizes at all – I have an XL jumper from the last trip that is way too small for me (I bought it without trying it on), and this hoodie was a medium and pretty roomy, so I always make sure I try everything on these days.

We didn’t know what to do with ourselves really as Epcot is probably the worst park to be at on a wet day – there aren’t any shows to camp out in and the aim of today was to go and eat our way around the Festival of the Holidays food stalls and we were already realising this was going to be a bit of a challenge.
There was only one thing for it – it was Figment time.

There wasn’t much of a wait and we were soon directed to stand in a spot waiting for a ride vehicle. There was a family of four to the left of us who were obviously meant to be in the back row of the ride vehicle but when it turned up, the kids pushed in front of us and sat in the front, where we were meant to go. Oh. A cast member spotted this and wasn’t having any of it, and very loudly instructed the family to sit side by side in the back row – we did say to just let them go and that we would wait for the next one but she was adamant, and shouted at the boys to move to the back row. They were really whiny about it and we felt very awkward.

Ugh, Figment. I think this photo of Andy which I took immediately afterwards sums it up really.

It was time for a rest, which in itself wasn’t overly noteworthy apart from the fact that once we had both finished and were walking away from the restroom area, a man touched Andy on the shoulder and shouted “I like your hair!”

Pardon?

“I LIKE YOUR HAIR!” <points at Andy’s hair then walks off>
Erm, cheers dude.

To be fair, it made us both howl with laughter and I think every day on and since the trip, I have made a point of saying “I like your hair” to Andy, in a poor attempt at an American accent.

It was too wet to be constantly getting my phone out, and as a result, I’d misread the time of our Soarin’ fast pass and thought it was 13:25 so we headed into the Land pavilion, only to be told we were an hour early. McFly…

With that, we decided to head to World Showcase to get our planned festive snacking extravaganza under way.

The first booth we came to was the Feast of the Three Kings. I have always quite liked the three Kings, they have the best outfits, bring excellent gifts and would be welcome at my stable at any time.

Andy queued up to get a chilli beef tamale which we were excited to try as we’ve never had a tamale before.

I think we were expecting something like a taco, which it turned out not to be. It is sweet potato wrapped around chilli beef stew and then the whole thing is baked in a corn husk I think.

Sadly, this was a bit of a fail for us as we didn’t like the sweet potato all that much, although the beef inside was pretty tasty, but the guacamole it was served with was rather bitter and as a result once we had scraped out all the beef filling, the rest of it went in the bin.

Let down badly by the three Kings, we moved on, deciding to walk anti-clockwise – how rebellious.

We walked past the Yukon Kitchen but there wasn’t anything on the menu that either of us fancied and we only had an hour before returning to Soarin’ so there wasn’t any time for dawdling.

Taking World Showcase in reverse meant the next stop we made was France and I decided to try the Kir cocktail and the roast turkey dish. Once again, I was served by some ridiculously good-looking people in the booth there.

The Holiday Kir (boom boom) was delicious – sparkling wine and cranberry syrup. It slipped down beautifully.

The turkey wasn’t bad either but it wasn’t exactly gourmet. The gravy was nice but I’ve written here that it was essentially a better-than-average airline meal. Still, it was red hot and I was freezing and damp so it more or less hit the spot.

I noticed when I was sorting out my photos from this trip that I had a higher than average number of photos of the floor and I have no idea why. So, presenting to you, the floor of France:

The Kir barely touched the sides and I was getting a bit of a taste for expensive thimbles full of booze so I went to the booth at Morocco next, where I wanted to try the Andalusian Poinsettia cocktail.

On paper, it sounded great – sparkling wine, orange blossom and cranberry. As I was ordering it, a woman came up and kept repeatedly asking “what country is this?” over and over again.

Approaching World Showcase in the way that we did was probably a good idea on this day as the further reaches were far quieter at this point. However, this does not mean that I got my drink quickly. Once I had paid, I had to move around to the side of the pavilion where the food and drinks were being dispensed, and no-one appeared to know how to make this cocktail. I was standing there for ages while Andy was off somewhere sheltering under a tree (it was still pouring down). Finally, one of the team in Morocco consulted the menu and tasked someone with making my drink. It was like that scene in Love Actually where Rowan Atkinson is gift wrapping the present that sneaky Alan Rickman is buying. First the guy took off his plastic gloves, then went to the sink and painstakingly washed every finger. Then he tried to put on a new set of gloves but couldn’t as his hands were too damp. So he removed those gloves, sauntered over to the bin to dispose of them, then meticulously dried each digit before reattempting to put on some gloves. It took him ages to locate the ingredients too. For some reason, I could hear the music from Benny Hill going round and round my head.

After what felt like a million years, I finally got said cocktail…and it was vile! I was hoping that the orange and the cranberry would be the dominant flavours but it was really floral and tasted like air freshener. I don’t really go in for stuff like rose water etc, which is why I don’t tend to eat Middle Eastern food but this sounded a lot better on the menu than it was. It would have made a bathroom or kitchen floor smell amazing but I was struggling to drink it. Andy had a mouthful as well and said he didn’t like it either.

Opposite the Moroccan booth was the Japanese one which I thought looked pretty promising and Andy was egging me on to get the strawberry sake but I had just necked a glass of Zoflora and it wasn’t sitting very well in my stomach so I passed on Japan, making a mental note that I definitely wanted to go back there and try the sake and also the shrimp dish as both sounded great.

After this, we came to America, which had one of the biggest menus available.

Andy was all set to try the turkey dinner and I really fancied the pecan tart, but the rain was sleeting down and there wasn’t anywhere sheltered to take the food so sadly we had to pass on it, which was a real shame as we were pretty peckish and it all looked and smelled great. We compromised by ordering a beer flight.

As we were queuing up to order the flight, I noted that they were showcasing Kurt Russell’s wines here, one of which was called “Goldie”, which I thought was nice – I would like to have a wine named after me if you’re reading, Kurt. I didn’t want to order it though as I think it was a chardonnay – I always notice this in America; why so much chardonnay? I thought it went out of fashion as soon as people discovered pinot grigio?

Anyway, we got our beer flight, which consisted of a cranberry pilsner, egg nog white coffee porter and a peppermint stout. It was raining hard and as I said, there was no shelter, so we just balanced the drinks on a ledge and proceeded to drink them as fast as we could, which was tricky because as fast as we were drinking them, the cups were filling up with rain water.

The cranberry pilsner was absolutely delicious, I really like sour beers and this was absolutely up my street. We were also surprised with how good the egg nog white porter tasted as well as it sounded as though it should have been vile but it was very pleasant – had a distinct white chocolate hint to it which still sounds gross but it really wasn’t.

However, the bad apple in the bunch was the peppermint stout, which was just like drinking mouthwash, and I take my hat off to anyone who could have managed a pint of it.

Andy didn’t like it either - I resolutely refused to have any more of it but as you can see, he did his best to force feed it to me (no, this really isn’t your average family friendly trip).

Once we’d seen off the offending stout, we carried on going and walked past Italy.

I liked the sound of the apple fritters but the rain was really putting us off, so we carried on to Germany.

We quite fancied getting a mulled wine here but the queue was starting to build up and we knew we were against the clock with our fast pass so didn’t bother waiting. We did, however, stop for a while to watch the entertainment on the stage there which really was a sight to behold. Germany, you should be so proud. The singer and guitarist were doing some very strange synchronised dance moves and I don’t think it was meant to be funny but the crowd were in stitches. The song was fairly easy to learn too, they were essentially just chanting “de de de de schnell!” over and over again so we were all singing along.

Onwards, past China where for some reason Andy felt compelled to point to this menu item but I have no recollection why as he didn’t stop to get one.

We made it to Norway where we were pleased to see that eminent Norwegian fragrance designer Geir Ness (nope, us neither) was in residence, but got a bit star struck (may be a lie) and didn’t pop in to meet him.

We were planning to stage another attempt at getting some of the Icelandic lager here but once again the queue was quite long which I thought was strange seeing as that’s a permanent feature and wasn’t one of the holiday pop-ups.

Then we spied the diabetes-inducing menu for the Cookie Nook which I think was located off the path and in the big building I can never remember the name of…you know the one I mean. We didn’t really fancy any of it though which did surprise me as Andy has such a legendary sweet tooth. I think he was still high from his gingerbread shingle slab.

Our final stop on our whirlwind tour was Mexico, where we had a tostada from the booth there. It wasn’t much to look at but it was really delicious.

We grabbed a couple of forks and the lady there told us off, telling us that the authentic way to eat a tostada was with your hands and to bite into it together with your loved one. Sounded a bit risky to me and that we’d probably end up wearing it so we opted to do things the non-traditional way and break it up into pieces.

Either which way, it was really nice, and we wished we had had one each.

So there we go, how’s that for a not-very-relaxing speedy tour of the holiday kitchens? The whole thing took less than an hour. Had the weather been nicer, I think we would have sacked the Soarin’ fast pass and taken far longer to stroll around and sample something from each booth. There were some nice sounding things on the menus and I was a bit sad we didn’t really get to make the most of it, although the whole episode was so funny and we had such a giggle wading our way round that actually I wouldn’t swap the memory as we had lots of fun together.

We made it over to the Land for the opening of our Soarin’ fast pass and we were so happy to be back inside <insert dry Land pun here>. The wait time for the ride was ridiculous and must have had something to do with the rain as it hadn’t felt that busy in the park. I think it was up to about two and a half hours so we were pleased we were able to walk straight on.

I was next to an amazing woman on Soarin’, probably the best ride companion I had all trip (sorry Andy). She had her family had been waiting in the standby line as this was their first trip to the World and she hadn’t known to fast pass this ride. She was a fairly curvy lady and she was really struggling to put on her seat belt – I tried to help her and it was then I noticed that she had used the kiddie bit of the seat belt that goes between your legs and loops through the waist strap. She must have been in AGONY! She told me I could share the grab bar with her too and not to worry if she tried to hold my hand.

The ride lifted up and the lady was obviously feeling the results of her two hour queue and restrictive harness as when it started, all I could hear was her chanting “hold the pee, hold the pee, hold the pee”. I thought the section with the whale was likely to finish her off and I was mildly concerned that there was going to be yet another pee butt incident but I was so soggy by this point anyway that it wouldn’t have made any difference. Thankfully she was soon distracted by the ride and the “hold the pee” chant was soon interspersed with her shouting “Oh my god its beeeyoooutiful!” over and over. I assume she meant the Soarin’ video and not the fact that she’d finally had that much longed-for pee, but who knows?

We touched back down again and I helped the lady out of her seatbelt – she was gone out the door pretty quick! She was brilliant. We had another fast pass, I think for Nemo but we felt we had already spent sufficient time under water today so binned it and headed for the exit.

We had a really short wait for the bus which was most welcome but it did take a while to leave the park as three mobility scooters were loaded.

I don’t have a note of what time we got back to the room but I know we got changed straight away out of our wet clothes and I think we got into bed to warm up, ate some peppermint bark and tried not to fall asleep.

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[HelenJNT]

We left the room at about 5pm, warmly wrapped up for the evening, although it did look like the rain had stopped. I was wearing my Spaceship Earth leggings that I had bought prior to the trip but I did wish I’d bought the silver ones (mine were yellow, pink and purple) when Andy looked at me strangely and asked me if I was going to put any trousers on, as at first glance, he thought the leggings were my naked flesh. Charming.

We had toyed with the idea of going over to the Magic Kingdom but quickly parked this plan when we looked on the app to find fast passes were few and far between, and even It’s A Small World was at a record 60 minute wait.

Gulp. So, instead, as ever when it’s raining, we decided to head for the cinema, after grabbing some dinner.

We arrived at Disney Springs at about half five and unlike the other day, located The Polite Pig with ease as it’s really near the entrance from the bus stops.

I really like this new concept of “fast casual” that Disney are rolling out. OK, so you have to queue to order, which is usually a relatively convoluted affair, but then you get proper plates and cutlery and the food brought out to you when it’s ready. No reservations, no having to wait for the bill when you want to get going, and no tips – it works for us! It’s one of the reasons we weren’t worried at all about only having the quick service plan this year as we felt we had a great variety of food to choose from, especially at Disney Springs. And it also goes to prove that it isn’t all burgers and nuggets – I didn’t have nuggets once, and in the whole time we were there, we only had one burger. At the time though I did know that we weren’t eating enough, especially for all of the walking we were doing, but this had more to do with the fact that we were eating at weird times during the day so weren’t always hungry. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next time when we are back on the table service plan as I definitely think we’ll be downgrading a lot of our table service credits to have more quick service or fast casual meals. Doesn’t matter when you’ve got it for free.

So, anyway, back to The Polite Pig. This is a bbq place that obviously specialises in meat and the whole menu looked great so it was really hard trying to narrow down what we wanted. It was marginally easier for Andy, who, as I mentioned before, doesn’t eat pork but there was a whole wealth of choices for me. I ended up choosing the hoagie, he had the beef brisket sandwich, and we agreed to share a portion of waffle fries which I think were an extra snack credit. We got a couple of bottles of water as part of the quick service meal deal, which we decided to save for later. We also ordered a couple of their draft beers, the Lone Palm Golden Ale. Side note but we were starting to realise when Americans list something as “golden” or “pale ale”, I don’t think it’s pale ale as we know it but is actually a lager. Our beers were tasty enough but definitely on the lagery side of ale.

We found a table with ease and the restaurant was really nice, it had a kind of New York feel to it with lots of exposed brick.

It was busy but not too noisy and there were lots of older people there, we didn’t see too many young kids. I don’t know if that was due to the menu or just the fact that we struck it lucky.

The condiment station was good, with the usual ketchup, mustard and mayo and they also had a range of other dips to try out. I think there was a honey bbq one and a black pepper one and the latter was definitely our favourite. Was nice that you got these without having to pay extra, unlike a review I was reading of STK where they charge extra for condiments. I mean, I don’t like ketchup at all myself but it’s basically a human right in a restaurant that serves chips, no?

Our food arrived and it looked fantastic. Andy wasted no time getting stuck into his brisket sandwich, which he said was delicious. Small trauma when it dribbled all down his new white top which he had never worn before….and never will again as I haven’t been able to get the stain out.

My hoagie was slightly harder work. I’d seen on the menu that it came with pickle relish but I had wrongly assumed it would be on the side or something. I wasn’t expecting it to all be mixed in with the cheese sauce, so I spent most of the meal picking out tiny lumps of gherkin before I could eat the rest of it. It was a shame I hadn’t asked for it without the relish as the sausage was absolutely divine.

It was a great quality, chunky smoked sausage, not dissimilar to a bratwurst, and I really loved it – it definitely hit the spot. The cheese sauce and mustard were a great combination and I would definitely order it again, only without the gherkin relish. Dear me, Americans really love their gherkins, don’t they? I wish I did too as fast food life would be significantly easier.

Not really a lot to say about the waffle fries – they’re fairly Ronseal, aren’t they? They were nice enough and we enjoyed dipping them in the various sauces but for $4.00 or a snack credit, the portion was perhaps a little measly. Still, it turned out to be the perfect amount for us to share so really, wanting more was just greed over need.

After we had finished, we walked over to the cinema. Going to the movies is a regular staple of our Disney trips. I know people think we’re barking when we’ve paid all that money for park tickets but sometimes you just want to get out of the bubble for a couple of hours and sit in the peace and quiet and the dark for a bit. Plus the full bar and excellent snack selection may or may not have something to do with it. I always think Vue could do well to take a look at AMC and see what they’re doing.

Turned out to be a bit of a nightmare though as the queue to buy tickets stretched back miles and miles. We were about 45 minutes early for the showing we wanted, which was the 19:30 Murder on the Orient Express, but we knew from looking at the queue that there was no way we were going to make the start of the film. I overheard the man in the queue saying “I am NEVER coming to Disnyworld during the holidays again.”

Andy spied some self-service ticket booths over to the right so he held the place in the queue whilst I scampered off to try and beat the system. There was barely any queue for these and I was feeling very pleased with myself. Chose the screening and our seats and selected the payment option. So far, so good. Until the machine read the chip in my card and promptly flashed up “Sorry, we can’t accept international credit cards at the self-service machines, please visit the kiosk to purchase your tickets”. I think I went full on Dick Dastardly at this and even clenched my fists. Computer says no, indeed.

Back to Andy I went, who had moved no further forwards in the queue, so we made the executive decision to leave it, as any other movie would have started too late for us to stay awake. Our mood wasn’t helped by Disney Springs suddenly knowing it was Christmas, and loudly piping out Cliff Richard (his songs, not the man himself) from the speakers. Nothing worse than some unsolicited “Saviour’s Day”.

Down but not beaten, we had a little look around the shops. Every time I picked something up, Andy asked eagerly “would you like it for Christmas?”. Love him. I think he was struggling to find me something this year as I was a bit useless and couldn’t really think of anything I wanted so he didn’t have a lot to go on.
We toyed with the idea of heading into Epcot to see Illuminations but it was a bit half-hearted and I don’t think either of us wanted to deal with the post-firework bus scrum.

Before we knew it, our feet had taken us on our well-trodden path to Jock Lindsay’s Hangar Bar. I made a big point in the last trip report that we hadn’t spent enough time just relaxing with a drink as the FOMO pressure to be in a park or on a ride or constantly doing something was too great. It was a little different on this trip though – partially as it was so busy everywhere, but mainly as we had the satisfaction of already knowing we were coming back next year, and it was amazing what that feeling did to alleviate the pressure of feeling like you need to crack on and keep busy at all times.

This was the first time we had sat out the back on the decking of the Hangar Bar – it’s a huge area! We’d never explored outside and we were really surprised and pleased.

Lots of tables and it really does reaffirm my opinion that this bar is a total hidden gem. We’ve never struggled to get anywhere to sit and the staff are always amazing – attentive but not in your face.

I ordered a margarita which was very good, and Andy had a beer.

It was really nice out there on the deck; we had a good view of the water and the boathouse and it felt quite secluded as we were off the main drag.

Despite all the rain and the disappointment with the cinema, this actually worked out better for us as it forced us to just stop and chill out and we experienced that really nice “we’re on holiday, isn’t this great?” feeling that we only usually get with a relaxing holiday in the sun somewhere.

However, this feeling of zen was relatively short-lived as a lady came up to us and sat down at our table. She was all decked out as a fortune teller and she looked amazing. My first thought (as I am unable to suspend my disbelief, even in Disney) was “oh fabulous, trust us to acquire a nutter” but she explained that she did work for the bar and was doing free tarot readings if we were interested. Andy and I have never gone in for anything like this and we knew it would only be a bit of fun so we said yes, of course. I think Andy was a little taken aback as I am terrified of audience participation and prefer to keep myself to myself, but the margarita must have been kicking in.

The lady, whose name I didn’t catch, first worked out my lucky number, which involved some very complex/made-up mathematical calculations on a piece of paper. My number turned out to be 7, which apparently is very rare (mmhmmm) and extremely auspicious.

She then started the tarot reading, which involved me picking cards from the deck. I selected the magician, which is apparently the best card (oh really) and was given the following information:

Someone has badly disappointed me, quite possibly someone at work.
I am very successful and have lots of power – I should think about starting my own business.
I am definitely going to have a promotion next year.

I’d be quite happy if all this were true so I’m quite alright with buying it.

She then did Andy’s reading, which was quite something. His lucky number was ALSO 7 (what a coincidence!) and this meant that we were written in the stars and meant to be together. She said she saw him as a photographer, particularly of archways and architecture, and that he was going to have a book of his photography published soon. This got a snigger out of me as I regularly take the mick out of Andy for his poor, blurry photos. Despite investing in a DS-LR, our New York album is chock full of blurry street scenes taken by Andy – who knew there was a market for this stuff? Also, hilariously, just before she sat down, Andy was trying to take a photo of me, and ended up taking a photo of his finger instead:

The lady then went on to tell Andy that she knew home was very important to him (it is) but yet she could see him standing on a hill outside a lighthouse, wearing a sweater. He’s also going to take a boat tour of the Greek Islands at some point. Hope I get to come too. It was making me laugh a lot as she kept describing him as this tortured creative artiste which is as far from the truth as you can get, although the frog once he drew in a game of Cranium could definitely be aptly described as “tortured”.

I know this photo is blurry by the way, but hell, apparently I’m not the talented photographer of the marriage.

After this amazing insight, we were starting to get a bit chilly so we decided against having another drink, and paid the bill and headed back to the bus stop.

The bus stops seem to be a bit of a lottery with no logic to them. I may have made a very snobby comment that I felt they should go in order of hotel class, with the deluxes having the shorter distances to walk, but I guess my Orwellian dystopia of some animals being more equal than others doesn’t really fit with Disney culture.

I don’t have any notes about how long we waited for the bus but I did write down that a kid on the bus had a light-up fidget spinner that she kept promptly dropping every time her mum picked it back up off the floor and gave it to her, so it was a fairly lengthy journey as this went on for the entire trip.

Other than that, we were back in the room by 10:30pm, and just conked out – it had turned out to be a pretty packed day in the end. I’m surprised we didn’t walk further actually but the stats don’t lie.

Essential stats:
1 park
4 attractions
19,000 steps

Please join us for the next instalment where we split the day over the two "half day" parks - Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, which can be found here

[rubberduckie89]

I am loving your report and always look forward to the next chapter!

[i love jack]

We had a similar day doing the monorail loop and I don't think we saw a contemporary tree either!
I'm laughing at love actually, 'can you be quite quick' but what a shame the drink wasn't up to much after all that
Shame it was a soggy afternoon but sounds like a nice relaxing evening.

[mick]

Lots done but shame about the rain

Joan

[Palm trees]

Sounds like a lovely day overall. You've got a real warmth to your writing style and the lady next to you on the ride sounds lovely! Your bit about the tarot reader made me chuckle too... love the finger photo!

[HelenJNT]

Originally Posted by rubberduckie89

I am loving your report and always look forward to the next chapter!

See more...

Thank you for commenting! I really appreciate it - pleased you’re enjoying the report. Hoping to get the next day up before going back to work (groan).

[HelenJNT]

Originally Posted by i love jack

We had a similar day doing the monorail loop and I don't think we saw a contemporary tree either!
I'm laughing at love actually, 'can you be quite quick' but what a shame the drink wasn't up to much after all that
Shame it was a soggy afternoon but sounds like a nice relaxing evening.

See more...

I always feel so lost in the Contemporary. Maybe we’ll have a better explore next year - we’ll definitely be returning as I have my sights on booking the Cali Grill lunch.

Oh honestly that drink was so bad. Should have had the strawberry sake just to wash it down!

[HelenJNT]

Originally Posted by mick

Lots done but shame about the rain

Joan

See more...

It probably wouldn’t have been a true Disney holiday without rain. Just a shame we timed it for something that really needed to be a sunny - or at least dry - activity! Still, we had loads of fun.