Lottie & Dickie visit Mickey - Oct 2016 - Day 15: Epcot, MK & hometime

[lottie89]

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Day 15 – Epcot & Magic Kingdom

Saturday 22nd October 2016

The worst day of all, our final day

We had quite a late flight so we did have quite a lot of time before our ME, but it’s always such a sad day.

It was also a really cold morning which was a bit of extra sadness, like a hint of what was to come.

We got up at 7am and packed and showered, with the goal of leaving the room at 8.15am, however it ended up being more like 8.50am.
As we were packing, Rich had the horrendous realisation that we had left $100 of cash in our safe at RPR! I can’t quite remember but I think this was a gift from my Grandma so I felt really awful that we’d forgotten about it, being the cashless millennials (think Rich just scrapes into the millennial bracket) that we are. We called RPR but apparently it wasn’t found, so I do wonder if housekeeping nabbed it. Great tip for them if so!


Last morning posing - I think this rose was from V&A's

We headed down to bell services to put our bags away for the day, and jumped on a monorail to Epcot. As I write this I realise I’m really going to miss the transportation options from Yacht Club and VGF. Being able to choose between walking/buses/monorails/boats is amazing. We are staying at AKL this year which is a dream come true, but I imagine we’ll be making lots of use of Ubers/Minnie Vans to avoid too much bus waiting around when we’re in a rush.

There was a big bag check queue at Epcot but it moved quite quickly, and we were through the tapstiles at 9.30am. It was already a 45 min queue for Soarin’ but we got in it, and were actually off in 40 mins. One thing I am going to make sure we do this year, is get up early and get to parks for rope drops, especially as we only have one week. It is always worth the effort of getting up – we’d have been able to have a 5-10 min Soarin’ queue if we’d made it earlier.



Few pics on the way in

We got the same seats as our last ride, where the screen looks a bit warped. I’ve since learnt that it’s B1 we should ask for, so I’ll make sure we always ask to wait next time.

Rich needed a loo stop afterwards, but he was gone for ages and I started to panic I’d missed him coming out and I was lost, so I stress-purchased a hot chocolate (guessing it really was quite cold?). Eventually he emerged acting as if he’d not just been gone for half the morning – obviously really needed that number 2 eh Rich?
We headed to Sunshine Seasons for breakfast and had a breakfast platter, but we swapped the cinnamon French toast for extra potatoes. Must have been in a savoury mood.


Breakfast platter

We went to watch Turtle Talk next which we found really funny, we just missed the show before so we waited and got the front bench for our one. A big bald adult sat on the carpet in front of us, think he missed the memo about it being the kids’ area.


Wow - sweatshirt weather

We headed to Journey into Imagination next which had a 30 minute wait. We decided to do it anyway as we had missed our FP+ earlier in the trip. Figment is super nostalgic and reminds me of my ‘90s trips with family, but the tbh we actually found him quite annoying and the ride is a bit rubbish. Will probably only do it if we don’t have to queue for more than 5 or 10 mins this year!


Love the jumping fountains


Rich's photoface

We decided we wanted to buy a keyring for our new keys, but didn’t find the selection all that great. Rich wanted a small one so was considering buying a BB8 lanyard clip and using that instead, but decided against it in the end.

It was getting quite warm now thankfully, and we decided to head over to WS for some last F&W moments. Wow – it was SO much busier on a Saturday and the food booth queues were massive compared to our other trips. I don’t blame the locals for piling in on weekends because I would definitely be there most weekends if I lived nearby. The booth queues moved pretty quickly though and it didn’t really ruin the experience, although the walkways were pretty packed.

We went to Canada first and each got the filet mignon, a lager for Rich and an apple ice wine for me, which was tiny and cost me $6 so I probably wouldn’t get it again. I’ve written that we ‘found keyrings in shop!’ but with no further context, so I’m guessing maybe we bought something in Canada?


Yum - I hope they have these this year


Living my best life (with my tiny wine)

Mexico was our other booth of choice where we ordered a beef enchilada, a shrimp taco, a pineapple margarita and a jalapeno margarita (the latter for Rich, obvs). This was to be our last F&W purchase so I made sure to really savour the food and the moment. We both absolutely loved the Food & Wine festival and it was a huge factor in us returning in September this year. Sooooo excited to go back and to experience it with my sister! I love that many of the menus and booths change each year as well so lots of it will be new for us to try.


Beef enchilada


Shrimp taco

We restroomed and then did a bit of last minute shopping, where we Rich chose from F&W tea towels for his parents and a Mickey head wine stopper for us (in use right now, as I enjoy a glass of red with my Sunday afternoon trippie writing). We were served in the shop (it’s the big shop on the water as you go into the WS, not sure of the name of it) by a Liverpudlian CM who really didn’t like his job – he told us this. Normally it would annoy me to have a CM not being very Disney, but tbh it was quite funny and a very British attitude and we appreciated his honesty and that he felt he could open up to us haha.
We said our sad goodbyes to our beloved Epcot and headed to the front of the park to catch a monorail to MK, handily there was one waiting for us so we were on the way quite quickly.



Some last minute Epcot shots


Spotted the Jesus skywriter from the monorail

When we got to security there was an English guy really kicking off at the security guards and swearing at them. I’m not sure what it was about but he was really going for it. It’s so bad to get so angry and to swear so loudly in such a family area, really annoyed us.

We finally made it through and headed straight to Liberty Square to get a spot for the parade. We got a really good place by Sleepy Hollow, although there was no shade so we were in the blazing sunshine while we waited. Didn’t want to complain though knowing we were heading back to England October weather!

The parade was great and we were really impressed by the fire-breathing dragon!



Couple of parade shots

We still hadn’t chosen a Christmas decoration and it was our last chance, so we headed to the Christmas shop next and chose a really cute Donald Duck one. I love getting all of my Disney decorations out each year and making sure they all have prime spots on the tree.
We hadn’t got FPs for Epcot because we wanted to get a Splash one for the afternoon and weren’t sure we’d manage it if we had to get one on the day. It’s one of our favourite rides in MK – perhaps joint favourite with Big Thunder. I love that it is so long and has so many drops. We didn’t realise at the time, but this ended up being our last ride of the trip, sad times.


Last ride


Beautiful MK

Not sure why but Rich decided at this point that he really wanted a corn dog. However even with some Googling we couldn’t source one, so he had to go with corn dog nuggets from Casey’s Corner. I’ve written that the fries were delicious but no review of the corn dog nuggets!


Corn dog nuggets

We had a Space Mountain FP+ at 4.35pm, but decided against it as we were a bit worried about time. The standby queue was 145 mins! It was definitely one of the busiest days of the trip. I was very sad to miss it and really dragged my feet on that last walk out of the park. We stopped for a few Photopass pics on the way out – despite the busier park the queues for the PP were non-existent, perhaps because the crowds are mainly locals who don’t use it?


Busy Main St.


We really developed some great tans over the two weeks


Waving goodbye


Gazing goodbye

Walking out of the park for the last time is such a gut-wrenching feeling, especially not knowing when you’re going to be back. Rich really took some persuading for our September 2019 trip but I think 3 years is a decent gap, and it’ll probably be our last trip without kids in tow. Now that’s it all booked he’s really excited and I’m so glad. There is sooo much new stuff that’ll be open when we go – Pandora, Toy Story Land, Galaxy’s Edge, the new Mickey & Minnie ride, the new Harry Potter Ride, Jimmy Fallon, Fast & Furious, loads of new places at Disney Springs, Happily Ever After…the list goes on! So it definitely won’t be a straight repeat of our last trip. I’m also ridiculously excited to be going with my sister, Emily & her bf Jorge. We live close to each other in London so spend loads of time with them anyway and always have such a good time, WDW is just going to be next level!

Anyway I’ve gone off on a tangent…so we’ve just left MK and I am pretty sad. We just missed a boat and then got bored of waiting for the next one as it seemed to be taking forever, so moved over to the monorail instead, but we just missed a monorail as well, and ended up waiting another 15 minutes for the next one! We were getting really worried about time as to get to the GF you have to do the whole loop so it felt really long.

We tried not to worry too much as we thought Disney might pay for a taxi as their transport had been pretty unreliable – worst case we’d just have to pay for our own taxi.

As it happened we had loads of time and everything was fine. The band was playing in the lobby when we arrived and I did all I can to soak in the moment. We browsed Basin for a while and I bought a spearmint lip balm which I kept on my desk at work for ages and thought of the GF every time I used it. We headed to bell services to get our cases but were sent to valet to pick them up instead.
As we were walking to get the Magical Express, we got a text from Norwegian saying our flight was delayed until 11:10pm! It was supposed to be at about 7.55pm I think, so it was quite a hefty delay.
We went to concierge to see if we could get a later Magical Express, but after some Googling it looked like they might not extend the check-in window. It might have been okay but we didn’t want to risk it so just got our original ME at 5.50pm instead.


One last goodbye

There was a really interested documentary on the bus about the tumble monkeys in FOTLK, and I was really annoyed when it was interrupted for a totally OTT safety video.

The journey to the airport was uneventful, and at check in we were offered 2-4-1 upgrades to PE. It would have cost us $400 which is still pretty expensive, although we seriously considered it in order to have more chance of a few hours of sleep on the plane. After a couple of minutes of discussion we realised we should probably be saving money to do our new place up, so decided against it!

We headed to security where our Magic Bands set off the scanners, sad times.

My final bullet point in my notes reads:
“Got seats and wrote notes and waited – wished we had lounge access”.

And with that, this trip report ends. Did we get delayed any more? Did we eat anything? Did we sleep on the plane? Who knows!

I do know that we got picked up from the airport, went home to my mum and dad’s house, packed their car full of boxes then drove up to London, where we moved into our new flat. I was still wearing my bun from the theme parks the day before and moving house felt a world away from the Magic Kingdom!

That night we sat on the floor with our backs against the radiator, ate a takeaway, popped open a bottle of champagne and toasted to our future in our new flat

Spends: no idea, this day didn't go on our emailed receipt as we'd already paid up!

Thank you so much to anyone who has read along as I wrote this trippie over a span of 2.5 years! Potential record for slowest trippie ever. I’m really glad I finished it as I really love reading it back. My sister has recently read it and requested I write one for our September trip, so check back in 2022 to read that one

[christybell]

Haha... at least you did get it finished! Loved reading along, thanks for sharing!

[Palm trees]

Thanks for sharing your holiday with us, I've enjoyed reading along. Although it's sad to come home it must have been quite special to move straight into your flat.

[DiddyDan]

What a brilliant trip report! Thank you so much for sharing with us ☺️ We were there the same time and it’s crazy to think how long ago it was! it was lovely to hear about your engagement, so massive congratulations! Looking forward to your next trippie x

[Nesbits]

Really enjoyed reading along. Have a great 2019 trip.