<Insert humorous title here> WDW Jan/Feb 2014: Day 10 - Second Helpings of Fufu

[Stewboy]

Index

This morning we were off to visit that silly ol’ bear and his friends for a spot of breakfast at Crystal Palace. Fortunately the Magic Kingdom version of Crystal Palace is a heck of a lot nicer than the South London version. If you’ve never been, don’t bother!

Breakfast was booked for 8.10 so it was another early start. We decided to get the bus again as we felt this would be quicker and easier than driving.

Fortunately the Disney bus gods were smiling upon us and we were on board and in the park before we knew it. Getting into the Magic Kingdom before 8 o’clock is pretty special and seeing the park (almost) empty you get to appreciate just what an amazing place it is.


Me and Isabella on Main Street, U.S.A. at 7.55am


Isabella enjoying the freedom of Magic Kingdom


Say "cheese" Jo


"Put me through to the Pentagon!"


Mummy and Isabella cuddles


Family selfie


Crystal Palace - definitely not in South London

After previous character dining shenanigans we were a little worried about how Isabella was going to react to a giant Pooh… stop sniggering… honestly, you’re all so childish…

We didn’t have to wait long to find out.

The answer?

Not great.

She liked them from a distance - she waved and said “There’s Pooh, there’s Tigger” etc.

But when they came over she wanted nothing to do with them except Piglet, who got a cuddle when he came over, probably because he’s little (comparatively).

The buffet itself wasn’t anything special and so all in all not a particularly enjoyable breakfast experience. As far as breakfast buffets go I think 1900 Park Fare and Play ‘n’ Dine at Hollywood & Vine are better.


Silly ol' bear


The most wonderful thing about Tiggers...


Well, we got one photo of her with a character at least


Dunno...


Miserable old git... and Eeyore

We then had a tough decision to make. Do we go for dinner at Chef Mickey’s tomorrow, or do we cancel and go somewhere else. We really enjoyed it last year, but if Isabella freaks out again with the characters it’ll be a massive waste of time. We know she doesn’t like Goofy or Pluto, and Donald is probably borderline, so we decided we would have to cancel it later when we get back to the room.

With breakfast done we decided to head over to Adventureland and ride the Magic Carpets of Aladdin. Isabella loved this ride last year so we thought it would be a good one to start the day off with.


"Over, sideways and under... "


Photopass family photo in front of the castle

Next up was the Jungle Cruise which we had FastPasses for. Our CM was a girl called Sarah and she was very good. In the same way that a good CM can make The Great Movie Ride (almost) bearable (see yesterday’s rant), this ride really needs a CM with some personality and she had it. She was enthusiastic without being annoying, and was funny too. Good work Sarah!

We then headed over to Tomorrowland. This is another area that needs some TLC, in my opinion. It either needs to be obviously retro futuristic i.e. a 50s and 60s idea of the future, or actually futuristic, which requires it to be constantly updated to stay fresh. At the moment it appears to be stuck somewhere in between, I’d say in about 1983...

Anyway, we popped into see the one eyed monster Mike Wazowski at the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor (now with added Monsters University references) before doing something we’ve never done before…

Tomorrowland Speedway.

I know!

In ten visits for me and 14 for Jo, neither of us have ever been on it.

Jo reckons it’s because if you’re childless and you drive at home then there’s not really any point, although I’m sure there’s plenty of DIBBers who disagree (please direct all arguments to my wife).

Well, anyway, this time we thought we’d go for it.

The three of us shared a car and Isabella steered whilst I did the pedals and Jo took photos. Isabella’s steering was about as good as you’d expect from a 2 year old, but still better than Jo’s... her joke not mine I hasten to add!


Woohoo, speedway...

So what did we think of it? Well, I’m glad I’d not been waiting all this time to ride it because it wasn’t really worth a 10 minute wait let alone 10 years! Regardless to say, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t at least 10 years before I bother with it again, although I did like the scenery around the track.

I think the thrill of the Speedway was too much for Isabella and in her excitement she ended up tripping over again and grazing her knee. So off we for another visit to First Aid - that’s two in two parks now. The Magic Kingdom First Aid, in case you ever need to know, is behind Crystal Palace near the restrooms and the baby care centre, but is not as good as the one in Epcot, so try and wait until you’re somewhere between Future World and Mexico before injuring yourself!

After that there was only thing to do... eat ice cream. We got a “Plaza” Ice Cream Sundae and an All-American Sundae from the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street, U.S.A.

As it was a really beautiful hot day, we sat outside the Ice Cream Parlor and shared. Isabella really enjoyed it and ate loads.


Dancing right down the middle of Main Street, U.S.A.


Sundae Yummy Sundae


"Mmmmm, nice"

Just as we were finishing, the Dream Along With Mickey show was starting outside Cinderella’s Castle so we wandered over to watch. Isabella enjoyed seeing Mickey and Minnie on stage but when they went off she lost interest so we moved on to Liberty Square to visit the Haunted Mansion. It was as good as ever, although I missed the hitchhiking ghosts not riding in the doom buggy with us.

Continued...

[Stewboy]

After Haunted Mansion we’d decided to leave but Isabella wanted to do one more ride, so we ended up on everybody’s favourite child-friendly-catchy-theme-tune-thrill-fest that is It’s A Small World. This was Isabella’s fourth time on this ride in her 2 years, that’s pretty impressive!


Dreaming along with Mickey


Haunted Mansion!


The stretching room

With the “It’s a Small World” song now stuck in our heads it was time to head back to the resort via the bus. One slight annoyance when it comes to the buses is that The Springs is the fifth stop in Saratoga Springs, so you get back to the resort then have to site on the bus for another 10 minutes whilst it visits all the other stops - it’s a big resort!

We eventually got back to the room after the usual stop off for coffee at Artist’s Palette and spent a relaxing couple of hours on the balcony whilst Isabella had her afternoon nap.

We did have a minor interruption when some CMs knocked at the door to ask if they could come and look at our view. Apparently, they were checking all the views in all the rooms on the resort because some of the views listed against some of the rooms were wrong. They’d actually come the day before too, at about the same time, so I had to tell them (again) to come back another time when my daughter wasn’t sleeping.

Whilst Isabella slept Jo did some FastPass+ rearranging via the MyDisney Experience App. As mentioned earlier we decided to cancel Chef Mickey’s for tomorrow night and instead booked California Grill. We’d talked about going there previously, but had disregarded it because we didn’t want to spend to two dining credits on it and also felt that it wasn’t right for Isabella. However, having seen it was available for the following night and discussed it, we decided to book it and we’d pay for it out of pocket.

The original plan for this afternoon/evening was to go to Mall at Millenia to do some shopping and then have dinner at Cheesecake Factory. Instead, we decided to use the spare dining credit we now had from cancelling Chef Mickey’s to book Boma again for this evening as we’d all enjoyed it so much last time. Also, as it was a really nice day today and last time it had been raining, we thought we’d actually be able to go out and have a look at the animals around Jambo House at Animal Kingdom Lodge.

So having changed our plans for this evening, we got ready as soon as Isabella woke up and drove to Animal Kingdom Lodge. We had a wander around outside and, as it was feeding time, we saw lots of giraffes, zebras, gazelles and antelopes all out and about.


A real giraffe...


Isabella's giraffe

Eventually it was time for our dinner and once again we thoroughly enjoyed the buffet. Once again I enjoyed the fufu and the spice-crusted beef striploin, which was amazing.

We also went crazy (I think it was the hot weather) and had some alcohol with our meal. I had a Sweetwater 420 Extra Pale Ale and Jo had a Margarita (of course).


Isabella's dinner. Yum


Ooo look. Beer


Margarita


The beef striploin. Amazing

To anyone that’s not tried Boma, I’d definitely recommend it; it was our favourite restaurant on this holiday and we’re definitely going next year.

After dinner we headed “home” and there was a painstakingly dull sequence of events involving washing, remote controls, disappearing tea towels and lack of coffee which, having listen to myself repeat on my voice memo, have decided to spare you all the details of.

Once again I have failed to record the time we went to bed, so shall I pretend that it was about 10 o’clock.

Thanks for reading.

[JoJo88]

Fufu! You just couldn't resist the Fufu could you? You gotta get it when you can right?!

Fair play to Isabella, 4 rides on IASW in her 2 years, I haven't managed that in my 29 (ahem) years...

Great photos, I particularly like the one of you Down Under. I'm not being rude, one of your pictures is appearing upside down

Fab report as usual Stewpot, race you to the end...

Jo-who-isn't-either-of-the-ones-married-to-either-you-or-Brett-although-I-am-married-just-to-someone-else

TFS #dibbafterdark (but not if dark is after 8pm ).

[Stewboy]

Originally Posted by JoJo88

Fufu! You just couldn't resist the Fufu could you? You gotta get it when you can right?!

Fair play to Isabella, 4 rides on IASW in her 2 years, I haven't managed that in my 29 (ahem) years...

Great photos, I particularly like the one of you Down Under. I'm not being rude, one of your pictures is appearing upside down

Fab report as usual Stewpot, race you to the end...

Jo-who-isn't-either-of-the-ones-married-to-either-you-or-Brett-although-I-am-married-just-to-someone-else

TFS #dibbafterdark (but not if dark is after 8pm ).

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Haha! Thanks for the reply JoJo, it's always impressive to be the first. I think the Fufu title was actually Jo's idea - she's actually quite funny

I rotated a couple of the photo's in Photobucket, but not sure why they'd be appearing upside down for you, perhaps you had your computer upside down...

The race is on, guaranteed we'll both beat Brett... probably with our next trip reports

Which reminds me, I need to read your latest...

TFR.

BTW I'll still be awake for a few hours yet... ahh, who am I kidding, goodnight

[mick]

Another great day

Joan

[JoJo88]

Originally Posted by Stewboy

Haha! Thanks for the reply JoJo, it's always impressive to be the first. I think the Fufu title was actually Jo's idea - she's actually quite funny

I rotated a couple of the photo's in Photobucket, but not sure why they'd be appearing upside down for you, perhaps you had your computer upside down...

The race is on, guaranteed we'll both beat Brett... probably with our next trip reports

Which reminds me, I need to read your latest...

TFR.

BTW I'll still be awake for a few hours yet... ahh, who am I kidding, goodnight

See more...

Jo is hilarious! She's had me in stitches several times on 'T'!

It was the family selfie pic that appeared upside down. That is until I realised I was in the middle of my yoga routine when I was reading it - I must have been doing my Setu Bhanda Sirsana at that particular moment... #yeahright

Of course we'll both beat Brett. If he didn't spend so much time complaining about writing it, he'd be done by now

Jo

[Tartan Tigger]

Another great day.

[Stewboy]

Originally Posted by JoJo88

Of course we'll both beat Brett. If he didn't spend so much time complaining about writing it, he'd be done by now

Jo

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True!

Originally Posted by Tartan Tigger

Another great day.

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Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by Rollercolster

Phew - for a moment there I thought you were on about visiting Duffy !

Fab trippie - shame about cancelling Chef Mickey's but I reckon you made the right decision there not to mention having the bonus of the meal at Boma instead !

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Yeah, we were sad about Chef Mickey's but happy about Boma. Chef Mickey's is on next year's agenda

Thanks for reading Col

[summersun]

great report

[Stewboy]

Originally Posted by mick

Another great day

Joan

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Thanks for reading Joan

Originally Posted by summersun

great report

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Thank you