Charlotte's First Very Merry trip to WDW (Dec 2017) Day 7 - Cape May & Festive Fun at Epcot and HS

[vics18]

Index is here


Thursday 7th December

Remember the last 6 mornings where we’ve all been awake before the crack of dawn? Obviously we’d long ago stopped setting alarms. This morning we had a breakfast ADR at 9.50, myself and Martin woke up when Charlotte started to stir at….. 8:50am!

PANIC!

Bearing in mind it took us 2 hours and 45 minutes to leave the room yesterday, I’m thinking there’s not a chance in hell we would make it. Luckily we had got into the habit of getting our stuff ready the night before, so we got ready as quickly as is possible and legged it out of the door, down the 85 miles of corridors, through the lobby and out to the car!

Our alarm clock let us down!

We were planning on parking at Hollywood Studios this morning, as that’s where we were going to end up tonight, and walking back to the Beach Club but clearly this was out of the window now.

New hat

We managed to park up easily at Beach Club, did a speedy walk into the lobby and joined the not insignificant queue for Cape May.

As we were waiting, the cast members asked us all to move to one side to let some paramedics come through. For those of you doing Dibb TR bingo, that’s the 2nd lot of paramedics I’ve seen in a Disney resort so far.

As we finally got to the podium it was 9.50am on the dot. I have no idea how we managed to make it on time, but we did! We were given a buzzer and went over to the little sitting area where Disney Jr was on the TV. The lobby was really busy, particularly in this area with people waiting for Cape May. Charlotte sat on one of the little chairs for a couple of minutes but then wanted to explore, so we decided to go and park the stroller and sort out the stuff we needed for breakfast (autograph book – must remember autograph book!) then we would be ready when we were called.

We were paged after around 10 minutes and taken to our table. The girl who walked us over talked us through the buffet as we walked. There was lots of choice and we couldn’t wait to get stuck in. Our server came to take our drinks order, she wasn’t very friendly but she wasn’t rude either. We both ordered juice and a water for Charlotte’s cup (in the dash to leave we hadn’t filled it up.)

I went up to the buffet first to get some stuff for Charlotte – I picked her some melon, fruit loops and a Mickey waffle and a couple of blueberry muffins. On my way round I saw a boy of around 10 off to the side, who was the patient the paramedics had arrived for. He was on a stretcher with a BP cuff on, and looked OK, although his Mum looked really upset.

I picked up a plate of food for me too. At the Mickey waffle station I bumped into Goofy who was looking at the buffet, and gesturing at the waffles then himself – think he was trying to say they should be Goofy waffles! Haha! I told him I though Goofy waffles were a great idea and carried on picking my food.

Lottie picked at her food, and got very excited when Goofy arrived at the table next to ours, but when he was finished there he carried on walking and did another loop round the tables and booths nearby before arriving back at ours! I suppose they have to try and prioritise people who have been there longer, but she didn’t really understand why he hadn’t come to see her and was saying “Goofy all gone”. But he did come back after a few minutes, and the interaction was really good. He took ages with her. We don’t have many pics as we decided to do some video of her meeting these characters.

Martin went to get some food and said he was impressed with the choices. He was laughing at me because I finally got some bacon to try and absolutely loved it (I don’t like fatty bacon so thought I wouldn’t like it – but obviously as you will all know, it is super crunchy and delicious not rubbery and fatty) I tried to pretend he hadn’t been telling me I would like it for many years because it annoys me when he’s right (he definitely was though).
I was also crazy about the whipped butter with jam on a mickey waffle - so yummy!


I got another plate and got Lottie a banana. Minnie came to see us next. She was wearing a very snazzy outfit, but didn’t hang around for long. My friend had booked to go to Florida for the first time in February and was going to tell her kids on Christmas day, so I asked Minnie to sign a Christmas card to give to her to help spring the surprise, as Lottie already had a couple of Minnie signatures in her book.

(Sorry all these character pics are so poor - they're screenshots from the videos we took)

We could see Donald wasn’t far away so Martin nipped up to get a final sweet plate for us. Some of the pastries were amazing!
Donald came shortly afterwards and stayed a bit longer than Minnie, but it still not a very long interaction. She was dancing with excitement to see him. When he walked off to go to his next table she followed him and I had to pick her up and take her back to our table. She got a bit upset, bless her.

Where did that duck go?

Our server came back for the first time since we arrived and we asked for the bill. I think we only left a 15% tip for her as she had literally only brought us a glass of juice and never come back!


We had another look at the carousel in the lobby, I took Charlotte into the restroom and got her changed into some comfier park clothes. We headed over to the International Gateway and into Epcot.

Charlotte was really tired, but Martin wanted to get her one of the soft toys she had liked in the shop the previous day. He went in and chose a little Minnie for her, which she was delighted with.

Kisses

We went over the bridge into France.

I'm still awake!

We reclined the stroller seat and put the sun hood over and she was soon fast asleep.


I had brought the little Chip and Dale festive scavenger hunt map with us so we decided to get started on that, and have a little mooch round the countries checking out the other “Festival of the Holidays” stuff as we went.

We were chatting about how much we liked the dining plan but how poorly we were doing with our snack credits, and when I checked on MDE we had 35 left!

We found our first Chip and Dale wreath in Morocco and put our little sticker on the map.

I know this activity is aimed squarely at children but we thoroughly enjoyed it. It was nice to take the time to explore the shops and the little areas inside the pavilions.

Santa and Mrs Claus were sitting in a lovely little area in America.

I got a Rosa Regale in Italy, and we got some caramel apple fritters in a vain attempt to start using our mountain of snack credits!

If you didn't eat on a bin, were you even at an Epcot festival?

We carried on meandering, and when we got to Norway Lottie woke up refreshed and full of beans.

I changed her in the (very nice) restrooms in Norway and we carried on to Mexico.

Mexican Donald was just arriving so we zoomed down and got in the short queue to meet him. Charlotte was beside herself when she saw Donald, saying his name over and over again. As the family in front of us left, Donald walked over to us at the front of the queue, took her by the hands and led her over to the meet area. She was being so cute with him, stroking his fur (feathers?) and waving, giving him big hugs.

We kept our eyes open for the Chip & Dale wreath in the pavilion while we mooched around, but couldn’t see it. We decided to have a little go on the Gran Fiesta Tour - there no wait as usual and Charlotte loved this. I think it was her favourite so far.

When we came out, we went into the little shop to see if we could see the decoration but no joy there either! The CM in the store could obviously tell what we were looking for, winked and pointed back at the main pavilion. I left Martin with Charlotte watching the activities that were going on and scooted back in to see if I could see it.

Eventually I spotted it – it was by far the hardest one of them all to find!

When I came out, I showed Martin the picture of where it was – he agreed it was the hardest one to spot so far. I think if we had started this hunt in Mexico we might have given up straight away!


Back into Future World now. There was a vocal group on the fountain stage.

We stopped at one of the little snack carts and got a Mickey ice cream sandwich and a cranberry sprite – this stuff was so good! Wish you could get it all the time. We had a FP for Figment coming up so we sat on the little wall outside and finished our snacks. Lottie tried the ice cream sandwich and loved it – that was never in any doubt was it?

They had a little walk about while I video called home, then we went to experience Journey into Imagination with Figment – a first for all 3 of us.

What is there to say about this? It was OK! The song was irritatingly catchy of course. I had seen videos of the ride before and knew that near the end there was a big bang so I covered Charlotte’s ears when I knew it was coming. Seems I should have told Martin too as he jumped out of his skin!


They both had lots of fun in the play area when you exit the ride, in fact we had to drag Charlotte out of it!

We had fastpasses booked for Soarin’, so headed into the Land next.

We were still early so decided to go on Living With the Land again first. There were some CMs putting up decorations inside!

Once we came off our FP window was open, so Martin said he would take Charlotte over to the Living Seas for a look around at the fish while I rode Soarin’, then I could meet them and swap. I barely waited at all to board, and was on the front row of the middle glider – score! I really enjoyed the new version, all the smells were great and it was definitely clearer and more vivid pictures…plus I love the soundtrack…but I think I prefer the original! I can’t explain why – maybe it’s a nostalgia thing?

Anyway, I headed over to the Seas, where Martin said I had got the better deal going first as he’d had to deal with a particularly grim nappy situation! Off he went and me and Charlotte had a little explore round the seas.

WDW holidays are so tiring

We went upstairs to the manatee recuperation area and stood for a few minutes watching them swim around and come up to the surface to eat some lettuce. An idiotic American woman was cooing over the “walruses” . Lady, my 17 month old knows that they’re manatees and she can’t read the MASSIVE signs up at the back that say MANATEE AREA all over them.

We took this as our cue to leave and see if Martin was done yet. I retrieved the stroller, seeing this as we passed by – it was absolutely huge!

Charlotte was very amused to see this squirrel rummaging around and jumping from stroller to stroller. She was giggling, saying “silly squirrel”.

As I pushed her up to the sign near the Land where we’d agreed to meet, the vigilante CM at the front actually jumped in front of me and barked "you can't take your stroller inside". I told him that I wasn't intending to, we were just going to sit on the side of the walkway and wait for somebody. He reluctantly let me pass but watched me to make sure I didn't go inside! After a couple of minutes I could see Martin making his way down towards us. He said he also enjoyed the new video, but didn’t think it was as “swoopy” as the old one. Make of that what you will!


We had an ADR coming up at the Rose & Crown in about 30 minutes so decided to take a slow walk round there. I ummed and ahhed about this ADR – seems a bit silly to visit from the UK then eat in the UK pavilion in some ways, however Charlotte loves fish and chips so I knew she’d eat well here, we just decided to go for it. We checked in with a lovely Scottish CM called Taylor. She was so nice and chatty, and made a sticker sash for Charlotte. I tweeted @wdwtoday a cast compliment about her later on with this picture…..

If you don’t know about this, it’s a really nice way to recognise cast members that have given great service or created pixie dust in some way.

While we were chatting she recommended the burger to Martin (Welsh pub burger - Angus Beef Patty with Welsh Rarebit Sauce, Branston Mayonnaise, Bacon and Beer-battered Leeks) so he decided to go for that, and obviously me and Lottie were going to share the fish and chips. We were seated inside but with a view of the WS lagoon through the windows and when Chris our server came over we ordered drinks and food as we had already made our minds up! He brought Charlotte's iced water in a little cup with a lid which was so handy! The food here was really good, so we were glad we had decided to come after all! I asked Chris why the fish didn’t come with peas, and he said you have to buy them as a side for $5! Very sneaky Disney.

Martin said he was too full for dessert but I got the ‘Chocolate Nougat bar’ (Inspired by the Popular British Candy Bar made of Nougat and Caramel covered in Milk Chocolate) Basically a Mars bar but with a crunchy base. It was AMAZING! Chris said it was new on the menu and had been really popular. Obviously I also had to share this with Charlotte as I can’t have anything in peace anymore! We paid the bill with credits and left Chris a 20% cash tip, he brought us drinks in cups to go which was really nice of him.

We would definitely eat at the Rose and Crown again. We were talking about it only the other day, saying we could maybe try to eat around Illuminations time so we could go out onto the terrace and watch them there, think that would be pretty amazing - maybe next trip!

UK Santa

We wanted to finish off the Chip and Dale hunt, so visited the last countries we needed, ending in Canada!

Complete!

We walked over to the Outpost store nearest to Canada to exchange our completed map for the prize. Very annoyingly they didn’t have any there, and she told us we had to walk all the way back to Pin Traders! Normally we wouldn’t really be bothered but we needed to go out of IG and get the boat to Hollywood Studios, so it was sending us very much out of our way. I had a little rant at this point (to Martin), Pin Traders wasn’t even marked as somewhere you could collect the map prize from – why didn’t they get CM to walk a load over to the Outpost store which was officially where you were supposed to go?! Anyway, first world probs and all that. We did a bit of a power walk up to Pin Traders, got our prize (some badges) and quickly turned round and walked back the way we came and carried on to International Gateway.

At some point during this exercise Charlotte fell asleep, and luckily when the boat came for HS there was enough room to keep her stroller up at the back of the boat so she could stay asleep.
A random American lady started regaling me with a story of how she and all her family were going off on a cruise tomorrow, and all the birthday celebrations it was for, plus they were hoping someone in the family was going to propose to their partner. She was very nice and friendly, but her voice was a bit shrill, and I was just smiling and nodding to try and get her to stop talking so she didn’t wake Charlotte up! She took the hint eventually and the rest of the journey was lovely and peaceful.

They must always have to walk and stand in this order

Our second visit to HS was to mop up the bits of Star Wars stuff Martin hadn’t gotten to see on our first trip, plus as we were here in the evening we wanted to catch the Christmas offerings – Sunset Seasons Greetings and Jingle Bell Jingle Bam show.


We headed straight to the Star Wars launch bay once in the park, we couldn’t go in with Charlotte asleep in the stroller so I told Martin we would go and have a look at the stuff on Sunset Blvd – the Tower of Terror projections etc. and he said he would message me when he was done. I strolled over and parked up at the end of the street. It very cleverly done. The projections changed, so there were some Toy Story ones, and some Muppets ones, then the Tower looked like it was gift wrapped etc. There were screens up too which were playing associated videos – the Muppets Swedish Chef ones were definitely my favourite! They were also spraying snow out and it was a very nice, festive atmosphere. At one point , I looked down and Charlotte had woken up and was just lying in her stroller taking it all in! I lifted her out so she could see a bit better and we watched for a few more minutes.

Martin was messaging to say he was in the queue to meet Chewie and had seen some cool parts of the Launch Bay that we missed when we visited the other day.

I popped Lottie back in her stroller and we walked back to the Star Wars/Disney Jr area. She spotted the Doc McStuffins meet and greet area which was themed to her clubhouse/clinic so I let her run round and play in there (Doc wasn’t meeting any more it was probably past her bedtime!)

She was dancing away when the theme music came on too. A couple of bratty kids ran in for a couple of minutes but thankfully got fed up and went again. While they were there, the little boy pushed Lottie out of the way twice and the Mum pointed to the animal poster on the wall and told her daughter (who was at least 5) that the whale pictured was a “big fish” . Once they left an older chap and his Grandson came over, he was asking where we were from. He made the mistake of mentioning that he and his wife were DVC owners so I was peppering him with questions! This was still going on when Martin came out and joined us, he rescued the poor man by suggesting we should all go and look at the Tower stuff and see the snow.

We stopped into the Star Wars shop on our way.

Before getting a bit closer to the Tower this time and watching the projections. Charlotte loved the falling snow and, again despite my misgivings about HS, this was one of the nicest moments in our trip. Feeling really festive, having fun together.

There were some announcements that there was going to be a show about the history of the movies on the Chinese theatre so we took a slow walk over there and found a spot easily.

I wasn’t too bothered about watching this so I went into the shop and had a little look around. They had some cool Jingle Bell Jingle Bam Tervis mugs so I decided if I enjoyed the show I would come back and get one! (Having a toddler roaming round means drinking out of glasses during her waking hours is a thing of the past!)

I rejoined Martin and Charlotte just as Jingle Bell Jingle Bam was about to start.

I enjoyed this much more than I expected to. It was really good and made me feel really festive! Originally I didn’t even put this in our plan to do so I’m super glad we ended up coming back to HS and seeing it. Charlotte wasn’t as enamoured with this one and stayed in her stroller watching videos of herself meeting Goofy, Minnie and Donald in Cape May that morning!

I nipped into the shop and got my Tervis, then we walked out of the park.

Remember our original plan was to have the car here now, but due to our unplanned lie in it was back at the Beach Club! The queue for the boats were huge so we decided to walk round instead. Due to the ongoing construction parts of this walk weren’t that pleasant scenery wise, but it was fine and we were soon at the Boardwalk. I love walking round here, especially in an evening it has such a “buzzy” energy.

The movie under the stars was Star Wars The Force Awakens.

We popped into Boardwalk Bakery but the queue wasn't really moving, I didn't know what I wanted and Lottie was starting to play up a bit and running away from me in there so just ended up leaving empty handed. It’s on our (ever growing) list of places to go back to though!

We made it to the car and were soon on the way back to AKL with a quick stop into Publix for some more fruit for Lottie and Martin got a couple of beers to have in the room. Back at the resort we went into Zawadi marketplace to pick up all the stuff we had sent over from our shopping spree at World of Disney, and I picked up the Animal Kingdom Lodge Holiday 2017 pin that Jo had messaged me earlier asking if I could get for her.


Safely back in our room we had showers, gave Lottie her milk and put her into bed.

I noticed these hidden Mickey's on the mirrors

We snacked on some cookies and had a beer before I went to sleep! Think Martin stayed up watching a movie but I haven’t noted which one.

Tomorrow – Magic Kingdom, Hulk Hogan’s Surf shop, and Disney Springs for some delicious food and Christmas tree fun.

Day 8 - MK, Hulkamania, Homecomin' & Tree Trail

[EJSakaAnna]

Little people love to give you a lie in when you're least expecting it! Cape May Breakfast sounds like a great character experience xx

[DISNEYLIZ]

What a busy day. I know what you mean about the miles of corridors at AKL. Charlotte is so cute

[Goldia]

A packed day today, sounds like fun. But I'm a bit upset Figment is just OK! What on earth are you thinking?

[vics18]

Originally Posted by EJSakaAnna

Little people love to give you a lie in when you're least expecting it! Cape May Breakfast sounds like a great character experience xx

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Haha so true!
It was lovely, would definitely go back
TFR xx

[vics18]

Originally Posted by DISNEYLIZ

What a busy day. I know what you mean about the miles of corridors at AKL. Charlotte is so cute

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It seemed like a long way to the lobby that morning let me tell you
Thanks so much.
TFR x

[vics18]

Originally Posted by Goldia

A packed day today, sounds like fun. But I'm a bit upset Figment is just OK! What on earth are you thinking?

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Haha! I'm so sorry
TFR xx

[foodie53]

Thank you really enjoyed your review of your day. Your little girl is gorgeous by the way! We are staying at the Beach Club this Christmas and we have pencilled in cape may for breakfast- will definitely book now as it looked really good-food and characters. Rose and crown is on our itinerary for Christmas Day so great to read a positive experience there.

[Minnie Mum]

Charlotte is so cute with her Minnie teddy💕

[DisneyDreamer81]

Ooh you got loads done today! I love the projections onto the tower, they look amazing!

Really enjoying your report x