A Not So Scary, Very Merry, Not So Solo, Solo Trip. Oct/Nov 2017. Day 2 - HS, POOL TIME, MNSSHP.

[stace&tink]

I woke with plenty of time to wash, and have brekkie before heading to Hollywood Studios for opening. My leg was sore from the fall yesterday and starting to bruise but it was really ok and not gonna stop me powering on.
I decided to go to Everything POP food court for pancakes. I remembered absolutely loving these on previous trips however this time they were way too chocolatey and quite sickly. The sausage and bacon was good though.

Once finished I went to catch the bus to HS. Perfect timing, a bus pulled in just as I stepped outside.
I was at HS in no time and straight into the park. I didn’t have a FP for Toy Story Midway Mania today so headed there first. Only queued around 10 mins. The guy I ended up riding with was a cocky git and not too happy at the end of the ride when I kicked his butt haha, I said “good game” and he couldn’t even look at me haha.

From here I went to The Stars Wars launch bay. I was only wanting to meet Chewbacca but the queues for both Kylo Ren and BB8 were also only 5 mins so I met them all. Chewwy was fab, Kylo Ren was intimidating and BB8 I just felt was a really awkward meet. But I’m glad I did them. There were also storm troopers marching around inside but I didn’t manage to get any good pictures.

Next up was Tower of Terror, I love this ride. Always find myself giggling away. I realised on this ride that I can actually be quite evil haha. The woman sitting behind me was terrified and screaming and crying, I was laughing so hard I was almost peeing.
Quick loo stop then another ride on my favourite Rock n Roller coaster.

Next was Beauty and the Beast live on stage, I had enough time to catch this show and still make my final fastpass – star tours.
Beauty and the beast was fab as always. I had a really cute family sat in front of me and their little girls (triplets) all kept turning around and waving a smiling while we were waiting for the show to start.

Last ride of today was star tours. An ok ride in my opinion but its not up there in my top 5.

Last stop in Hollywood Studios today was Mama Melrose for lunch. I had a 12.00pm reservation and after a successful morning getting everything I wanted done I was looking forward to some yummy Italian food.

I LOVED my meal here and would definitely eat here again if I’m ever lucky enough to have dining plan again.
My server (sorry I don’t remember his name) was very friendly and made me feel at ease right away being a solo diner. I was seated on a table for 2 on the end of a row and the family on the table next to me all said hello.
Fresh bread rolls were brought to my table first with some kind of oily dip. It was delicious. I had to stop myself from eating all the bread to avoid being full before my main even arrived.
I ordered the wood grilled chicken penne pasta for mains and cheesecake for dessert and a diet coke to drink. The chicken pasta was soooo good! The cheesecake let the meal down slightly. It wasn’t the greatest, however I was already so full that probably didn’t help with enjoying dessert. I would certainly eat here again and just try a different dessert.

I left a little tip and made my way back into the park. There was no March of the first order for a couple of hours, so having done everything else I wanted and with the weather being much warmed today I decided to head back to POP and have a couple of hours chill out time by the pool before MNSSHP tonight.

These ducks were waiting to go to POP too.

I grabbed myself a drink in my refillable mug and decided to go to the bowling pin pool. I was very close to both the bowling pin pool and the main hippy dippy pool but the bowling pin one was much quieter. As I’m getting older I’m realising I love peace and quiet every so often! As you can see it was very busy….lol!

I caught up with the ladies I would be meeting up with over the course of the holiday on social media…Julie-Anne and Vicki were doing the same as me, relaxing in the sun with their feet hanging in the pool, Kylie was at her airport hotel getting ready to fly out tomorrow…we all had a laugh at this…

I also facetimed my parents to rub it in that I was in the Floridian sunshine and having a fab time. (they did this to me all the time when they were there back in august – it was purely payback) also to see Tink. I always miss her when I’m away. (Tink is my dog for anyone who doesn’t know).

Time was getting on so I headed back to my room to get ready for MNSSHP tonight. Julie Anne and I were planning to meet at 5.30pm at the entrance to MK so we had time to get something to eat before the party actually started.

I cant remember exactly what time I left POP but I waited what seemed like forever for a bus and then the journey seemed to take FOREVER! The traffic approaching Magic Kingdom was chaos and we crawled pretty much the whole way.
I got through security, bag check, etc and got my party wrist band then sat and waited for Julie-Anne. After years of chatting over facebook etc this would be the first time we were to meet and there were a mixture of nerves (that she would actually like me in person lol) and excitement, because really I knew we were going to get on great and we had been planning parts of this holiday together for sooo long.
I was bounding as Tigger tonight and Julie-Anne as Pooh so I was keeping a lookout for any poohs heading into the park. I waited and waited and dozens of pooh bears passed me but no Julie-Anne, I was starting to think I was being stood up when she finally arrived lol. Turns out she had a mare getting there too.

Anyways, when she was finally through I could see her looking for me and made my way over waving like a loon. Instantly all worries of any awkwardness disappeared. I was greeted with the most massive hug ever and it was so so great to finally be meeting in person. This lady is an absolute doll and I’m so grateful I can now call her a very good friend.

We entered Magic Kingdom and before heading through the side party entrance, JA needed to see the castle from the end of main street. This was her first sight of the castle on this trip. From here we went through to the party entrance, had our first photo pass pic together and got our trick or treating bags and first handful of candy.

We headed to Columbia Harbour House for some dinner. Got a table overlooking the haunted mansion area and chatted about our journeys and holidays so far. JA had the lobster roll and I had the shrimp and chicken platter. It was all good.

While eating we realised that due to be caught up in the excitement of meeting for the first time JA never got her party wrist band so we went on the hunt for one of those next. We tried the Liberty Square ticket office but they’d ran out and directed us to a station set up near Philarmagic. JA was banded up in no time.
I can’t remember now if it was before or after that we went into Castle Couture and got pixie dusted. I think it was before as we went in their asking if that’s where we got the wrist bands from.

Now it was time to enter party mode. We didn’t really have a plan, which looking back probably wasn’t too smart. We knew we wanted to meet characters that aren’t usually about, collect candy and watch the parade, fireworks and hocus pocus show.
First stop was the Pooh and friends meet, as we were bounding as Pooh and Tigger this was a must do. We didn’t wait long at all, maybe 20 mins. This was a fun meet, however Eeyore did make us feel really bad that we hadn’t dressed up as him lol.

We headed to fantasy land as from the party map it looked like the area with the most character meets. All the queues were mental already though and neither of us were bothered about queuing ages for the likes of daisy and goofy.

We headed around to Adventureland as this is where we believed we could meet Jack Sparrow and Tarzan. Stopping at Haunted Mansion for a picture on the way. We both felt a bit silly doing these but it was quite funny and I actually really like how the picture turned out.

We joined the queue for Jack Sparrow as it looked like it shouldn’t take too long. We waited in the same spot for ages! JA went down to the front to see what was going on after a while and it turned out Jack was putting on little shows and taking AGES with every person he was meeting, I asked the CM how long they anticipated the wait time to be from where we stood and she said approx. 2 hours! Hell no! We left the queue and moved on. We did get a Photopass pic outside pirates though.

Ride times were also long and time was already getting on. We were starting to feel a bit deflated as it was becoming apparent we were not going to get a lot done tonight. I have been to MNSSHP twice before this and loved it both times, but tonight (being actual Halloween) was just way too busy for us.

We found Tarzan and Janes queue and were advised it was approx. 20 mins long. Great we thought so joined the queue. Typically we got 2nd from the front of the queue and the CM announced Tarzan and Jane were taking a break – for another 20 mins! We had kinda had enough and as we were perched on a wall decided to just stay and wait it out. It was a good meet, Jane was really good and made comments about me being a tiger…I had to assure them I was a friendly Tiger!

From here we decided to just focus on candy collecting until the fireworks and not worry about meeting more characters. We started to make our way over to Tomorrowland, and got stuck in the hub area while the 1st parade made its way around. We were planning to watch the later one. Again we felt we were stuck wasting time. Neither of us were really feeling the MK love at this point.
The parade ended and we rushed over to Tomorrowland to go through all the trick or treat stations.

We were quite successful with the candy collecting and did manage 3 full bags. (JA had a bag she was collecting for her son too)
When it was near time for the fireworks we got out spot on main street. The fireworks were brilliant and probably my favourite part of the party.

We went and did a few more candy stations before pitching up for the parade. We had read many times that the 2nd parade was much quieter than the 1st so didn’t worry about pitching up too early. That was a mistake… turns out on Halloween night this is not the case and the crowds for the 2nd parade were just as bad. We managed to get an ok spot but I struggled to get any decent photos.

We hung around on main street until the last Hocus Pocus show of the night, again we didn’t get a great spot, but by midnight we were both too tired to really care. The show was really good but I think I’d have enjoyed it more if I was closer to the stage and could see a bit more.

Once the show finished we headed out of the park both ready for our beds. I believe JA got straight onto a bus, I, however waited and waited and waited in a ridiculously long line.
If I remember correctly my head hit the pillow around 1.20am.

[unixgirl]

Love that you tigger bounded, my favourite character :-). Looks like the day was a lot of fun.

[Goldia]

What a long day. It sounds like you had a great time at the party.

[SmilingSammie]

Sounded like a good day up until MNSSHP. Shame that you had booked for Halloween and the crowds were crazy! Cool character meets though

[i love jack]

2 hours for jack sparrow! Wowzers!
Nice candy collection

[hross42877]

Great day and great Disneybounding!

[xxSmileyKyliexx]

Ah I love the pics of you 2 here those buses were the bane of my life! Look at all them sweets, nom nom 😋 xx

[Taffy1959]

Great day but shame you didn't get to do everything you wanted to at MNSSHP.

We did MNSSHP in 2015 around the 15th of October and it was so busy we hardly did anything

[disneydaft70]

The night that was... insane! Never again will I do MNSSHP on actual
Halloween, but that’s that off the bucket list and with gorgeous company xx

[NatsyNoo]

A lovely balanced day with some great pics. Shame the Halloween party didn't quite stack up to what you had anticipated. This was like our last experience and it has sort of put us off but seems like you still had a great time!