And When Did You Last See Your Father? - Day 12 (Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party & More)

[Guest]

We are a family of three - me (April), DH (R.C.) and DS (Poot - who turned 10 on this holiday!). We visited Orlando and Sanibel Island, travelling from Gatwick on BA.

DH has his own business and could only join us for part of the holiday (hence the title of this trippie!). He’s not really a theme park sort of chap, but he enjoys it down on the Gulf Coast.

For our week on Sanibel we were joined by my DM (Judybat) and her husband (Hans).

Trippie Index Here


Day 11 (Epcot, Garden Grill, Be Our Guest and Magic Kingdom Three-dux) Here



Christmas Party Day (What?) ! The Best Day!


This was a day that Poot had been looking forward to for a long time. If you read Days 3 & 4 of this report (Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Halloween at Port Orleans French Quarter) you may remember that Poot had been the Mad Hatter for Halloween - and today he was going to meet a brother hatter...at 1900 Park Fare.


It was also Election Day in America...and we overheard some interesting conversations…

EEK!


We also saw some rather provocative shirts…

In fact, we saw a rather (!) heated discussion between two women wearing ^^^ said shirts…


Heavens, it all makes the politics here look positively…

Poot had a themed shirt for today, too. Look out, Brussels sprouts!

But first, let’s have breakfast:


Today was the first day we had a real problem trying to get to Magic Kingdom in the morning.

Our breakfast rezzie was booked for 9:30 - we went down to the bus stop around 7:45.

As we stood at the bus stop, we watched two FULL Magic Kingdom buses drive right past us (at Congress Park). The little bus timetable would show the bus a minute or two away - and then it would show it 20 minutes away (i.e. it would show the NEXT bus).

After this happened twice, we decided to get an Epcot bus and then get the monorail to MK. There were four scooters waiting for the Magic Kingdom bus when we hopped the Epcot one - Heaven only knows how long it took for those poor souls to get to MK!

My Epcot plan worked out OK, but because you have to go through security at Epcot before you get on the monorail - it did take a while (still, it felt better to be MOVING, rather than just standing at a bus stop that was getting more crowded by the minute).


At Magic Kingdom, we got the boat to the Grand Floridian; we arrived at the hotel just a couple minutes before our ADR time. I was excited to see the giant gingerbread house being assembled in the lobby.

I’ve always wanted to see the gingerbread house - I hoped construction would be completed before we left WDW…


Now I’ve never been to 1900 Park Fare before, but in my mind it was...ornately Victorian. Except for the organ and the chandeliers - it could have been any hotel coffee shop. It’s stupid, I suppose - but I just expected it to be GRANDER (pun totally intended)...

We were taken straight to the table nearest the door (sigh). Our (rather harried) waitress was with us very quickly; she told us to help ourselves to the buffet - as the characters would be a while in getting to our end of the restaurant.


I should state my prejudices at the outset - I am not a great lover of American breakfasts.


Well, except for you, streaky bacon - we all know how I feel about you…

We had a wander up to the buffet - can you tell Poot likes capers ( ) ?

He had bacon, sausage, a sweet roll (with pecans), a potato puff, home fries, salmon, dried cranberries - and five hundred capers.


All this was consumed quite rapidly. Poot said it was good, but he expressed no real interest in going and getting more of anything - or indeed anything else. I tried a bit of his potato puff - that was pretty tasty.


I went for:

This plate was bacon, sausage, ham (SO MANY NITRITES! Eek!) a half-slice of French toast, a biscuit with gravy, some bread pudding and two of the ubiquitous cheese cubes.


It was all just OK. I LOVE good biscuits and gravy, but this biscuit was so dry, an OCEAN of gravy couldn’t have helped. Nothing else really merited much attention - either good or bad. I tasted everything on this plate, but the only things I finished were the bacon and the cheese - I needed something savoury.


I don’t want to put you off - you can get eggs AND omelets to order at 1900 Park Fare, and the Eggs Benedict have a devoted following. But neither of us are really “egg people”...

What was good was the special tropical juice blend that the waitress brought round for us to try - she brought an OJ, too (which was fine). I’m not sure why we got one orange juice and one “special” one, though...

Even Poot liked the tropical juice (and you know how he really struggles with anything other than water) - I think it’s the same as POG juice (at O’hana) and Jungle Juice (is that what it’s called?) at Tusker House...it’s guava nectar, passion fruit juice and OJ. Tasty, but (again) very sweet.

We enjoyed listening to "Big Bertha", which played once during our breakfast:

From Wikipedia:

Big Bertha is an organ built in Paris and used from 1909 to 1955 in a Grand Rapids, Michigan amusement park called Ramona Park. The organ's instruments include pipes, drums, bells, cymbals, castanets and a xylophone, and are played by a piano-roll score. It plays short concerts periodically during mealtimes.


As we were finishing up our first plates (we tried a few more things later) we had a visitor:

This was a great Tigger, very mischievous!


Pooh stopped by next:

I know we already met Pooh and Tigger (so I could get my “bow” photo yesterday) - it hadn’t occurred to me until I saw Tigger in the restaurant that I could have brought TWO bows to breakfast this morning and just swapped them out for the different characters (saving us a 30 minute wait in 85 degree heat yesterday).

Because neither of us had been bowled over by our first selections, I talked Poot into sharing some of the restaurant’s specialties.

We tried the famous “Floridian Strawberry Soup”:

While delicious, I’m not sure that the soup felt like a breakfast food (being mostly heavy cream!). Instead it felt like dessert, as did the red velvet pancakes (complete with cream cheese frosting):

Poot had a bit of the bread pudding that I had earlier (he liked it), and tried his first blintz:

The above photo is from Chef Mickey’s - but they looked the same at 1900. Poot was rather horrified when he bit into the blintz...


“Mother - they’ve put sugar in this cheese!”


“Yep, that’s what’s in a blintz - sweetened cheese!”



...I'm a cruel mother.


I was sweet-ed out, so tried some of the corned beef hash - it was OK (but where was the lovely crust that is the best part of any hash?).


By now we were really finished with food, but we hadn’t yet seen Mary Poppins or the Mad Hatter. Our waitress came around with the bill and said she assumed we were finished. I said that we’d yet to meet two of the characters and she said:


Well, you can pay now while you wait!





It got even MORE awkward when Poot was (at last) meeting Mary Poppins and I saw the waitress check the bill envelope while I was trying to take pictures. Pretty silly!


Poot did enjoy meeting Mary P - she sat down and went through “her” page in his autograph book (I had two Sherpas carry it to the restaurant ):

Finally it was time to meet him whom we had come to see:

Poot was very eager to show the Mad Hatter “his” page - which was covered in special “As Mad As…” drawings. There was “As Mad As...Electric Socks” and “As Mad As...Pneumatic Spaghetti” - and a goodly few more. Poot’s not the world’s greatest artist, but he had tried really hard.

The Hatter was rather nonplussed to get so much attention, but he soon warmed to his task of coming up with some “As Mad As(es)” for the book.

I asked both hatters to show me their best “mad” faces:

I kid you not, the SECOND the Hatter moved on to the next table, our waitress was back with us, extending the check presenter. What the heck?!


The bill for the two of us was around $60, but we used 2 table service credits instead. I am usually a 20% tipper in America (if the service is good) - but today I left less. I realise that many people want to be in and out of Disney restaurants in forty-five minutes, but if a customer TELLS you they aren’t ready to leave - don’t argue with them (even passive-aggressively! ).


This morning, families could meet Alice in Wonderland as they were leaving the restaurant. We couldn’t meet Alice the night of the Halloween party - by the time we got to her the queue was closed for the night - so I was pretty pleased that Poot would have a chance to meet her in his Hatter costume here!

Sorry for the run-on sentence, English teachers everywhere...

We had some GREAT character encounters this holiday, but sadly this Alice was a bit...wet. And the interaction was DEFINITELY of the sign, snap and shove variety.

I did want to be in one snap here too (more bow shots ). But this time I asked the photographer to photograph just our heads - so no bosom meets knees today!

My final thoughts on 1900 Park Fare - it’s a really good choice for egg people - or people who LOVE all the sweet American breakfast “treats”. The food wasn’t necessarily a good fit for us, but I can see how it would be for others.


The characters were the reason I booked this breakfast, and they had been good (though it was a shame that Alice had been so feeble). I was very glad that Poot got to meet another hatter - he really enjoyed that.


So I’m classing breakfast as DEFINITELY worth it on the dining plan and *probably* worth it if paying out-of-pocket - provided the characters are ones you really want to meet, or won’t be able to meet otherwise.


While we were posing with wet Alice, I had had an idea - so we hopped the monorail to Magic Kingdom and went to see this lady:

But not this kid, obviously. Hello! if this is your kid.


I think silhouettes are maybe the best value souvenirs at Magic Kingdom. For $35 or so we got TWO silhouettes (in glass fronted frames). I have one, and I gave the other to my DM. The silhouette lady gave me a brilliant suggestion - which I will now pass on to you.

Seeing Poot’s hat and my ears/bow - she said that lots of families get silhouettes at the Halloween party every trip. I probably wouldn’t put Halloween snaps up on my walls - but silhouettes, those I definitely would. They mix in so well with black and white photos.


Here is our silhouette; the artist made sure I only have one chin:

Poot was hot in his dinner jacket and top hat - so after completing one Sorcerers mission - we decided to go back to Saratoga for a swim.


One last (sweaty, sorry - it was SO hot) MK selfie in our glad rags:

Continues in next post with dinner at Be Our Guest, and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party!

[prettymiarose]

Lovely looks like a great character interaction

[Guest]

Originally Posted by prettymiarose

Lovely looks like a great character interaction

See more...

Thanks for that.

Tigger, Pooh, Mary P and the Hatter were great! I think Poot was at the perfect age for character chat this holiday.

I should be posting part 2 in the next hour.

[DisneyBride08]

Love reading your TR. I can't wait to read about the Christmas party as this is something I have wanted to do for years. Fingers crossed we will be able to do it this year. I have never seen the silhouette's before. What a great idea. I might get one of these of the children.

[Mel49]

Loving reading about all your adventures and love your writing style but have to apologise for being lax in commenting.
My DD is 10 and she is the only one out of my three who "might" help me indulge my passion for DIsney on our next trip (don't know when yet as awaiting another op first) and my DH, DS13 and DS21 only want to do Universal. Your experience at Cinderella's Castle and Breakfast with Mad Hatter sounded lots of fun and will be on my list for with DD as sound right up her street.
Thanks for sharing and look forward to reading more

[Guest]

Originally Posted by DisneyBride08

Love reading your TR. I can't wait to read about the Christmas party as this is something I have wanted to do for years. Fingers crossed we will be able to do it this year. I have never seen the silhouette's before. What a great idea. I might get one of these of the children.

See more...

Love the silhouette - I only wish I had gotten one when Poot was small.

Thanks so much for sticking with me. Party post up next!

Originally Posted by Mel49

Loving reading about all your adventures and love your writing style but have to apologise for being lax in commenting.
My DD is 10 and she is the only one out of my three who "might" help me indulge my passion for DIsney on our next trip (don't know when yet as awaiting another op first) and my DH, DS13 and DS21 only want to do Universal. Your experience at Cinderella's Castle and Breakfast with Mad Hatter sounded lots of fun and will be on my list for with DD as sound right up her street.
Thanks for sharing and look forward to reading more

See more...

Thanks so much - and better late than never!

I wasn't sure how Poot would do with so much Disney (he was ALL about Universal last time), but I think he likes them both equally now. Universal really does offer so much for older boys, I will be glad when Star Wars Land is open at DHS!

I think you might have to wait for grandchildren to get that oldest of yours back "into" Disney, though - I didn't see too many 21 year old men lining up to meet the 7 Dwarfs!

[Guest]

continued from previous post


We had a lovely swim in the Springs Pool and went back to Room 1812 to decide what to do for the evening. All that swimming had made us hungry, and it occurred to me that since we were very behind on our dining credits (curse you, lurgy!) - maybe we should try to get a last-minute table somewhere interesting…


And Providence was guiding my index finger as it slid across my phone screen, because up popped a table at Be Our Guest! Dinner was the BOG meal that Poot most wanted to try, but I had insisted on breakfast (my pre-park opening photos, you know ). So we snapped up the rezzie, and got dressed to go back to MK.


Tonight was a party night, so we only expected to be in the park for dinner. We planned to head over to Disney Springs afterward for a wild evening of pin trading, before settling in for the night with the Weather Channel’s Escape the Election programmes:

The Dapper Dans were out (I love them!) but they were already performing the Christmas show, so we decided to give it a miss. I wasn't ready for it to be Christmas yet...

Poot was excited to wear his special Election Day shirt - after arriving at MK, we had a sneaky stop in Liberty Square so that he could pose wearing it front of the Liberty Bell!

As I mentioned way back on Day 1, Poot was born in America - so I was VERY pleased when I saw this brand-new “Future President” shirt for A POUND at a charity shop in Hatfield.


Born in America - he really could be the president one day…the mind boggles!


Those of you who read my Boston/Washington trippie might remember that at the Smithsonian’s presidential exhibition Poot vowed that if elected his first act would be to...ban Brussels sprouts!

SO many CMs saw Poot’s shirt that day at Magic Kingdom and told him that they’d DEFINITELY vote for him. It was very sweet; he was really tickled. The front-line CMs really do make the holiday for kids.



Our Be Our Guest rezzie was at something like 4:55 PM - but because we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, we were pretty hungry. Even before 5:00 PM, the queue to check in was LONG - but we eventually made it inside.

Now this is an embarrassingly superficial thing here, but I just don’t understand that if Disney can make all the CMs at BOG (from check-in to the waitstaff) greet guests with “Bonjour” - why can’t they teach them to pronounce it correctly!


After the fifth or sixth BONN-JEW-ER I started to develop a twitch.

But I digress…


We were taken to a table in the Ballroom (I didn’t ask for a specific room). And - wow! - was it loud!

Not quite T-Rex loud (lol) but, geez...I’m guessing because the early dinners are much more popular with children, they are noisier...and I had to laugh when Poot said to me:


“Imagine what it would sound like if this restaurant were ACTUALLY in France! It would be so quiet!”


But that’s why I really liked T-Rex (and places like it) when Poot was small - I never had to give any thought to how much noise he made...


Our waitress tonight was middle-aged, and rather preoccupied with two BIG rowdy family groups at tables near ours. It didn’t matter to me tonight (we’d been to the restaurant before) but it might have been a bit of a downer if this had been our first or only visit.


We ordered Poot’s usual (tap water) and a Diet Coke for me. The waitress then really tried to push starters on us. I would like to try the French Onion Soup one day, but I knew we’d already have plenty of food with the two courses we had coming.


I am rather embarrassed to think about how many times I ordered steak on this holiday (but I really like American steak… ). I do think a small part of it was that it seemed like really good “value” on the dining plan. I didn’t think I would be affected by things like that - but I definitely felt a weird almost-pressure from myself...if pasta was $18, and steak was $40 - then shouldn’t I have steak - and get my money’s worth? It was an odd feeling…does anybody else feel this way?

I ordered:


Grilled Strip Steak - with garlic-herb butter and pommes frites $35

This looked lovely, but even medium-rare the steak was like shoe leather. A real disappointment. And the pommes frites were barely warm. Just like at Garden Grill, the best part of the meal were the beans.


Poot made a much better choice:


Braised Beef - served with seasonal vegetables, baby potatoes, balsamic caramelized onions, and crispy potato curls $32.00

This was really nice - the braising suited the cheaper cut of meat and it was lovely and tender. When he was finished with what he wanted, I ate the rest (my steak was pretty inedible). Yum.


The little kids at the tables near ours were definitely making our waitress’ job a challenge - I decided not to complain about anything or ask for something different when I saw her picking the second plate up off the floor (where it, too, had been flung).


Tiny rant coming up...


Now we all have different ways of parenting - but to me, if dinner plate = Frisbee, then that child’s meal is OVER. Perhaps if the parents had put down their phones for thirty flipping seconds they could have, I don’t know, parented their kids…


I love my kid, I love kids in general - and I do NOT expect them to be tiny adults - but how will they ever learn how to behave in public if you completely ignore them and instead make restaurant staff into their babysitters?


Rant over.


If I had been trying to have a romantic meal with my DH, I think I would have been more than a little perturbed, but as it was I just felt bad for our waitress. Poot watched the ill-behaved children with wide eyes. Oh, boyo…

On a certain schedule, the Beast is introduced and walks through the restaurant to take up position in his “study”. As you can see, I was ABSOLUTELY ready with my phone - so I got this awesome snap:

Sigh.


We were not having a relaxing meal, but I wanted to try one of the cupcakes, so I was excited to choose from the dessert trolley. The trolley runner was Haitian, and he and Poot had a very funny conversation about what his mother back in Haiti would have done to him had he ever behaved like the little terrors behind us.


I would have had some bruises from her big wooden spoon, jeune homme, I tell you true...


In the end we both picked out cupcakes from the trolley. I have read that the brownie thing with the “grey stuff” is dry, so I was pleased to see they had:


The Master's Cupcake - chocolate sponge cake topped with Lumiere's special "grey stuff" $5

This was good - though the cupcake was just a plain chocolate cake - I do like cookies and cream frosting. Not a patch on that cupcake at Starring Rolls, though.

I’ll miss you, my friend...


I was hoping that Poot would pick something totally different, like the lemon meringue cupcake, or the strawberry one, but nope - he went for:


Triple Chocolate Cupcake - chocolate sponge cake, chocolate mousse filling, and chocolate ganache $5

I didn’t try this, but Poot said it was good, though not as good as mine (so I let him finish mine).


I was happy to finally try the grey stuff, so even though it hadn’t been FABULOUS, I was satisfied.


It took a goodly while for our waitress to bring the bill (‘cause she was BUSY) - we were definitely ready to go by the time she did. The bill was around $85; we used 2 table service credits and tipped 20%, but - again - more out of pity than recognition.


I was happy to walk away from our neighbours in the Ballroom and get in the queue to meet our host.

There was an Englishwoman in front of us in the queue (Hello! if that was you) and she had to wait alone, because her boyfriend was afraid of all the characters…


Get ready for the worst photo with Beast ever!

OK...I’ve now eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner at Be Our Guest. And the one I’d go back for is breakfast (especially a pre-park opening breakfast). The opportunity to be already be back in Fantasyland before the park opens makes it a really good choice.

But even though I don’t think I’d go back for dinner, I was glad we did it once. Worth it on the dining plan, definitely. Out-of-pocket, though...probably not.


We walked out of Be Our Guest into a very quiet park - the party would be starting soon. We decided to make our way to the bus (to Disney Springs).


Now you know that Poot can see a good pin at fifty paces, so when he saw a group of Magic Kingdom managers/big cheeses all wearing pin pouches he walked up to them right quick. He is always very polite when he asks...

Excuse me Ma’am, may I see your pins, please?

...but I was conscious of the fact that he had interrupted a meeting of some sort. The cheeses were very gracious and indeed one of them (Rachel, from Doncaster!) really took time to talk to him about his day - and all of his pins.


She then asked me what we were doing tonight - so I told her about our exciting plans (pins and the Weather Channel) - and she asked Poot if instead he would like to stay for the Christmas party.


Poot: Well, yes, but we haven’t decided if we’re going to go to the Christmas party. It all depends on how much money we’ve spent by the end of next week.


Geez, kid! Why don’t you tell her about the holes in your shoes, too!


Rachel: Well, what if I GAVE you two tickets for the party tonight?


At this point Poot just looked at me, I’m not sure if he thought it was a trick question…


Rachel then removed two tickets from her pocket and handed them to me. Well, then the penny dropped for Poot. I never really know what he’ll say, but sometimes he gets it just right - and he looked up at Rachel with eyes like soup plates and said:


Oh, Thank You - EVER so much!


It was like something out of ruddy Dickens, I tell you…

And now here is where I feel like an ungrateful wretch. Because we were tentatively planning to go to the Christmas party (we had spent practically no money since the DDP started), I had brought with me from England special Christmas clothes, lanyards and pins.

Here we are wearing them at Universal:

But because it was about 6:45 - and the party started at 7:00 - there wasn’t time to go BACK to Saratoga, get the Christmas togs, come back to MK, blah blah blah - without missing out on a lot of party time.


I’m sure I sound like a complete MORON, but if we had our little Christmassy bits and pieces and had PLANNED to be “doing” Christmas tonight - I’m sure I would have felt much more in the spirit of the Season.


As it was, Poot was in his Election t-shirt and I was wearing my least flattering (but coolest, lol) dress.


I was very grateful to Rachel (of course!) but I felt rather discombobulated about all the change. You remember how well I do with change…



We had to exit and then re-enter the park in order to get our party wristbands, so we walked to the exit - fully expecting to see massive queues of people waiting to get into the party.

Maybe because it was a Tuesday in early November, maybe because it was Election Night (probably both), but the park was pretty quiet. I think nights like these are what people dream of when they think of the hard-ticket parties. We picked up a party map, got our special Christmas Party Sorcerers card

and then walked down the special path (it’s normally “backstage”) to get our picture taken.

We were handed some wrapped cookies at the end of the path:

They were the only "wrapped" cookies we got at the party. We took them back to Saratoga and had them for breakfast the next day. They were OK, though I like my Spritz cookies that little bit softer.


I asked Poot what he wanted to do tonight, and he voted for the parade and the fireworks. He had no interest in seeing the stage show, and I didn’t push it. After all, it was down to him that we were here at all tonight!


There was a bit of time before we had to get a spot for the parade - it really was that quiet - so we had one or ten goes on a totally empty Buzz Lightyear. We’ve never looked up any of the cheats, but while we were stuck in the “Zurg” room for a minute - we discovered one!

I’m now a “Galactic Hero” - and Poot wasn’t far off making it himself!

After Buzz we road the Speedway a couple of times - but my back can only take so much of Poot’s driving…


We headed off to get a spot for the parade. I typically like to watch the parade from Frontierland and that’s what we did tonight - but looking back I wish we would have staked out a spot on Main Street (so we would have seen the snow). Oh, well - it WAS nice to walk up to a spot just ten minutes before parade time (I waited for an hour for the Halloween parade - that’s what got those Argentinians in trouble… ).


The Once Upon a Christmastime parade was GREAT.

It was nice and long, too. I only had my phone, but here are a few snaps from our “spot”:

Poot’s favourite float was Wreck-it Ralph:

But I think I liked the tin soldiers best:

The parade finishes with St.Nick:

I had really missed the Electrical Parade during our visit, so it was a special treat to get to see another night-time parade (the night-time parades are my absolute favourite thing). And I liked the music, too (though it wasn’t quite as catchy as “Boo To You”).


While I was watching the parade I was conscious of how good it was, but I just didn’t feel “Christmassy” - it could have been July.


Next we did a couple of the “treat stops” - they were all serving different things for the first time this year. Both Poot and I agreed the best cookies were the chocolate peppermint ones:

We wandered down to Pirates of the Caribbean; I liked the lights!

Jack Sparrow was meeting across the way - and since I had the anvil/autograph book with me, I wanted to stop. I had made a page for Jack Sparrow labelled “RUM!” - and I talked Poot into waiting to meet him.


This Jack was very good - but I didn’t know the meet was miked. While it was funny to hear the banter between Jack and the adults - I think the microphone made many of the kids (including Poot) a bit too nervous. He went up with his little prepared line:

How do you celebrate Christmas on a pirate ship?


...but hearing himself broadcast put paid to any real conversation. Too bad. I think I get what Disney was trying to do here (entertain people in the queue), but it just didn’t work for us.


By now it was time to go and see the fireworks - it was FAB to walk up to the hub and see that everyone was just relaxing and sitting down (on the grass, on the pavement, everywhere). We found a spot on the pavement and settled in.


This must be what it’s like watching entertainment in Japan. It was so, SO nice to just sit back and watch without constantly having to defend/police our “spot”.


Fireworks:

We went and had a couple of gos on the Mine Train

and then met the Hundred Acre Wood gang (seriously, again - but this time they were wearing scarves ). I love Eeyore - so the wait was worth it to me.

By now it was nearly midnight - I asked Poot if he wanted to hop in the queue for Sandy Claws (say yes say yes) but he didn’t.

We decided it was time to head for the exit. I am TOTALLY kicking myself for not going into the Emporium and looking for the Event Party Music CD (‘cause it’s like Ł35 on Amazon), but we didn’t. Poot was shattered.


We had a fifteen-or-so minute wait for the Saratoga bus tonight. By now it was after midnight and lots of people in the queue were checking their phones for the election results (not me!). There was a palpable tension in the air...I was glad when the bus came. It was a strange, utterly silent journey back to Saratoga. Poot fell asleep on my shoulder after just a couple of minutes on the bus. I felt dreadful having to wake him when we got to Congress Park - but he weighs 80 lbs - I just can’t carry him anymore.


Of course I didn’t know we’d be coming back so late - so I didn’t have my glasses. With Poot nearly unconscious and me nearly blind, we made our stumbling way up to Room 1812. I tell you it must have looked like I was contributing to the delinquency of a minor…

And so to bed...after I put a plaster on my toe. Stupid kerb!


I’m sure I have come across like an ingrate in this post…I was VERY, VERY grateful for the party tickets, and we did have a good time. But the whole evening just felt “off” to me. Maybe it was that we missed out on getting to wear our special kit, maybe it was the fact that it wasn’t Christmas - it was an 80 degree night in early November - and maybe it was the weird Election Day tension in the air. Whatever it was, thanks for understanding...

Day 13 (Disney Quest, Disney Springs, Roaring With Mickey and Citricos) is HERE

[Mel49]

I bet you got the sprinkling of pixie dust in the form of the MVMCP tickets because Poot was so polite unlike the ragamuffins around you at your meal who sounded delightful !
You seemed to get plenty done and enjoyed the parade and fireworks so althogh not in the plans was an unexpected way to spend the evening

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Mel49

I bet you got the sprinkling of pixie dust in the form of the MVMCP tickets because Poot was so polite unlike the ragamuffins around you at your meal who sounded delightful !
You seemed to get plenty done and enjoyed the parade and fireworks so althogh not in the plans was an unexpected way to spend the evening

See more...

Ragamuffins! Now there is a word I haven't heard in a long time - love it!

I am usually proud of Poot's manners - he's a good lad.


It was pretty funny - after about the fifth "freebie" this happened:


Poot: Mother, you know how you always say "Virtue is its own reward" ?

Me (suspicious because he hates it when I say that to him): Yes...

Poot: I think I've been getting other rewards, too.



Seriously though, how badly behaved are some of the other guests if "please" and "thank you" get you Christmas Party tickets?!

Thanks for stopping by again, Mel49.

[collybird]

I think tiredness probably contributed a lot to you feeling a bit out of sorts, it was obviously not your intention to stay out so late.

Your autograph book looks so awesome and a lovely keepsake.

A real shame about Alice because she's usually great! I do agree about the food at 1900 Park Fare though, probably the weakest of the breakfast buffets. We've never been wowed by the food at Be Our Guest either, although the soups are great - particularly the leek and potato.

I literally LOLed at Poot informing the CM of your penny pinching ways.