All the Disney food, fun and detours! A belated Sep-Oct 2017 report - Completed 12/29

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Earning My Ears
Joined
Apr 25, 2016
Hey everyone, I’m Brenton and it’s been almost 11 months since my last Disney Park Day!!

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Jokes aside, it didn't quite set in until a few months ago that it had really been that long since we got back from our last Disney trip, AND that I had made no effort to sort through photos, or think about writing a trip report. After our first trip in 2016 (see the trip report HERE), I made a conscious effort this trip to take a lot more photos, and made sure Steve took copious notes throughout the trip so we could bring you a better report this time around. So hopefully we will succeed… I’ll let you be the judges of that! ;)

Alrighty, so quick introductions as a refresher.

This is me and my partner Steve, I’m on the right with the cap and glasses.

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I have just turned 30 and Steve 29 and we love Disney! I work in a secondary school as their timetabler and graphic designer, and Steve is studying to become a primary school teacher.

After our big trip in 2016, we didn’t think we’d make it back to Disney for while, due to money and time constraints. Oh how wrong we were! Talk of a potential trip came about when I stumbled across a brochure from a travel agent, that had a special deal for a trip to California and Disneyland. I showed this to Steve, and it perked his interest as the price was very reasonable. I sent off a request to get an official quote for our preferred dates (working around school and university holidays), and as always the quote came back much more expensive than the original offer. We were both a little disheartened, but had psyched ourselves up about going back to Disney so much that we just said, “let’s make it work!” :earboy2:

I suggested the idea of looking at how much it would cost us to visit one of the other international parks (Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai or Tokyo) seeing as we had already been to Disneyland and it would be interesting to go to a new park. Well, after looking at flights, accommodation and park ticket prices for each, there was really only a few hundred dollars difference between all of the different parks (although there was a sacrifice in length of stay at some). So many choices! We both really loved Disney World during our first trip, so at this point I threw in the idea of pricing how much it would cost to go to Disney World too. We hadn’t considered it at this point, presuming it would be way over our budget. Turns out, not so much! While it was a little more expensive than the dearest international park, we’d actually get more time in the parks. So all within the space of about 48 hours we went from not going away at all, to having flights and a WDW package booked and partially paid for! What’s better than spontaneously booking a Disney trip? Nothing!!!

Take my money Disney!!!
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It turned out that our trip dates were nearly identical to our time at Disney World the previous year. Only downside to the spontaneity of the trip was that our 180 day ADR booking window had come and gone, and all the (budget friendly) free dining offers for the period appeared to have been snatched up. With this in mind we started booking dining reservations for the places we wanted to dine, intending to pay out of pocket. In a stroke of luck we managed to score a free dining upgrade for our stay a few weeks after initially booking our trip!!! As we had already booked way more table service meals than would fit into the standard dining plan, we decided to pay the difference and upgrade to the Deluxe Dining Plan… because who doesn't love ALL the Disney food!

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As a side note, we did do some maths in terms of doing the standard plan upgrade and just paying out of pocket for the extra TS meals; however it was more cost effective for us to go with the DDxDP.

Fast forward a few months and then we booked our fastpasses and before we knew it the time had come to leave for our trip!!

Apologies for the wordy introduction but once we get to Disney I promise that there will be a lot of photos coming!

Stay tuned for the next update and learn why we ended up spending over 32 hours in transit to get to Disney!
 
Travel Delays!

Our departing flight from Melbourne was at stupid o’clock in the morning… so we booked a night at the airport hotel to avoid the stress of finding someone to drive us to the airport in the early hours of the morning. Here’s our first meal of the trip, not quite up to Disney standard, but still they were actually nice nachos for a room service meal.

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It ended up being a nice relaxed evening at the hotel watching TV, as I worked on finishing off a piece of Steve’s costume for MNSSHP!

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Little did we know that we would be riddled with flight issues this trip from the get go. While waiting to board our first flight (Melbourne to LAX, usually 15-16 hour flight) things got interesting. They made an announcement over the PA stating that one of the flight crew was unwell, and therefore we could not fly direct to LAX, but instead had to land in Honolulu for a full crew changeover. Unfortunately we were not allowed to get off the plane in Hawaii, they literally just swapped the whole crew, refilled the plane with fuel and we were on our way again (making our time on the plane well over 18 hours!!). This delay did mean that we, along with what seemed like half the flight, missed connection at LAX. The airline did their best to try and get us to Orlando as quickly as possible, but for us it meant instead of a direct flight from LAX to Orlando, we had to fly from LAX to Denver, and then Denver to Orlando. It set us back a good 6 hours or so, which meant that we missed our first ADR of the trip, dinner at Boma. Originally we had a Hoop Dee Doo reservation in this place, but about a week before the trip we looked over our reservations and decided that rushing to HDD straight after checking into the resort might not be the best idea, and I am so glad we made that change! Side note, after finding out we had to fly into Denver I was even more annoyed at the situation, as Frozen: The Musical was playing that day and we were SO close, but didn’t even have time to see it! :P

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And so finally, after spending over 32 hours in transit, we landed in Orlando! We picked up our rental car, grabbed some McDonald’s, and made our way to Disney’s All Star Music resort to check in.

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With the time now well after midnight, we crashed into bed, so thankful to be at Disney!
 
Following along! I enjoyed your last report so I'm looking forward to seeing how this one went :)
 


Wow - what a long long travel day! I'm exhausted just thinking about it! :crazy: Hope you got a really great night's rest so you could start enjoying your vacation!
 
Following! I enjoyed your last TR and am looking forward to this one. That is one long travel day, delays are the worst!
 


Day 1 - Part 1

Thank you to those that have commented and are following along! Now that things have settled down here with some extra work commitments being finished I am hoping to make updates to this report 2-3 times a week.


We most certainly agree that delays are the WORST! But the silver lining is that we knew at the end of all the traveling we would be at Disney, and so it made it a little more bearable.


Back to the trip report!

After our late arrival the night before, we decided to enjoy a sleep in and have a later start. We got up and were on our way by 10:30. It wasn't too long before we were at the TTC and on a ferry bound for the Magic Kingdom. After saving Magic Kingdom for the last park we went to during our first trip, we knew it had to be the first park coming back. Before long we were greeted by this familiar image we all know and love!

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We arrived in MK around 11:15 and spent a while meandering up Main Street. We had time to kill before our lunch ADR, so were in no rush to get anywhere.

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We caught the end of Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire on the Castle Stage before making our way over to Adventureland.

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I really enjoy wandering around all of the lands in Magic Kingdom, they are all themed so well and the soundscapes they have playing are awesome! I have managed to find some of the audio loops online and have them playing in the background sometimes when i'm working.

Our first meal of the trip was at Skipper Canteen, and by the time we got to the restaurant we were already drenched in sweat... I forgot how hot it gets in Orlando at this time of year!

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We checked in and were very grateful for the cold water and cups they have in the lobby. We didn't have to wait long before we were shown to a lovely table on the outskirts of the main dining room. Our server wasn't throwing around as many jokes as some of the others, but there were still a few good ones in there. We enjoyed just listening to some of the other servers at the tables around us having some fun.

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Now because we were on the DxDDP we each had an appetiser, entree and dessert to choose, so we decided to get the Pancakes (at the top of the photo) and Sea Shu Mi (the dumplings) to share. Both were delicious and would definitely recommend the dishes to people who are dining here.

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Our mains were Tastes Like Chicken. Yep, we both ordered the same thing. For me the chicken was quite nice but I wasn't a fan of the raw vegetables on the side.

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At some point I may remember to take a photo of the food before I start eating it! :P

After we had finished our mains they brought out the dessert menu for us to look at. I love how they even managed to carry the Jungle Cruise humor across to the menu itself!

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For dessert I ordered the Kungaloosh and Steve got Bertha’s Banh Bong Lan Cake. We ended up sharing them, but I definitely enjoyed my chocolate one better!

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Stay tuned for part 2 where I got a surprise that I had forgotten would be coming!
 
Love the food pics! We haven't dined at Skipper's Canteen yet but will definitely be on our dining list. "Backside of Menu" - how funny!
 
Day 1 - Part 2

Extremely full from our lunch at Skipper Canteen, we made our way to our first fastpass of the trip, Big Thunder Mountain... but on the way we passed this hideous sight!! :eek:

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Noooo!!!!!!! Splash Mountain was down for our whole trip! It’s one of my most favourite rides in the parks. When planning our trip we knew that it would be down for our whole stay, but I had forgotten about it, so walking past this was a surprise I didn't want!

After recovering from screaming out loud (in my head) due to the devastation, we jumped on BTMRR. You know what this ride is missing...a ride photo! There really needs to be one somewhere in there. Get on it Disney! :P

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Having survived the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness it was time to hear a bunch of tiny children sing at us... no, we weren't going to see the local production of Annie, we were headed to It's A Small World! I know it’s a bit of a love/hate ride, but I do enjoy it. I love seeing how each of the locations are represented in their own stylistic ways, especially our home, Australia.

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I was caught a bit off guard by the screens at the end of the ride.

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I knew they were there from our last trip, but thought they only showed names of people who had scanned in for fast passes (which we didn't have for this ride), I didn't realise the magic band technology had got to the point where they could track our location to a specific ride and know when we were passing that exact point! It really shows where the parks are heading in the future, especially if they are able to fully incorporate this into Star Wars: Galaxies Edge.

After our cruise around the world we got out just in time to catch the Festival of Fantasy parade. The sun was beating down on us by this point, but we managed to find a bit of shade near the Liberty Square Market. Throughout the whole parade all I could smell was people around us eating Turkey Legs, now I'm not a big fan of them so it was a little off putting, but at least the floats, costumes and music in the FoF parade made up for it!

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I’ve got my eye on you!!

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Aww the poor Maleficent Dragon... :oops: Hopefully it isn't too long before its back in action at the park in some form!

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Yes Minnie, own it!!! :D

I love the soundtracks of the parades at Disney, they do such a great job of blending all of the different songs together and incorporating various remixes.

With this being our second trip to Disney World, it was nice to be able to take things a tiny bit slower, instead of just rushing from attraction to attraction. We were able to meander around a little and take in the sights, and just look at the great work that the Imagineering Team put in.

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Our next fast pass was for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and boy were we glad for that tiny bit of air con in the mine.

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Although it’s a shorter ride, it is enjoyable, and I love being able to swing back and forth in the carts!

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After wandering past the Beast’s castle (don't you worry, we’ll be back there later in the trip), we made our way to Tomorrowland and Space Mountain, only to find it had just closed due to a technical issue. We didn’t get a chance to ride it today, as it kept going down every time we had a spare moment to ride it.

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Instead, we jumped on the People Mover and enjoyed a nice leisurely ride around Tomorrowland, AND even got to see inside Space Mountain with the lights on! :hyper:

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We had an early dinner reservation coming up, but had enough time to jump on something with a short wait, so we headed to Haunted Mansion which supposedly had a 20 minute wait.

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Unfortunately it turned out to be much longer than that. By the time we made it into the stretch chamber it had already been over 45 minutes, and there was still a mass of people ahead of us waiting to get onto the Doom Buggies! So we decided to take the quick exit and made our way to our dinner reservation.

Stay tuned for dinner, desserts and fireworks that ended our first day in the parks!
 
Well, so much for my 2-3 posts a week that I was hoping to do with this report! Don't you hate it when life gets in the way. Ah well, now that things have quietened down a bit hopefully updates will be a little more regular. :-)

Day 1 - Part 3


After leaving the Haunted Mansion without actually getting to ride it, we made our way to our dinner reservation at The Plaza Restaurant.

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Although we were on the DxDDP, we didn't want a huge amount of food as we were still a bit full from lunch, but our waitress was a little pushy with wanting us to order a lot of food and have constant milkshake refills. o_O We ended up with a milkshake each (which were nice!), shared the loaded fries as an appetizer, and then Steve had the cheesesteak and I had the cheeseburger for our mains. We didn't end up finishing all of the meal, and the food was a little meh. Most of it was rather dry / overcooked. :worried:

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Ah well, was still a nice setting. We would probably enjoy it more if we were just going there for a milkshake and snack.

After dinner we made our way back through Tomorrowland and rode The Carousel of Progress. I know I’ve said it before; it may be an old ride, but it hasn’t lost its charm, even when you do have to repeat the 1940’s scenes due to a technical glitch!

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Finally released from the Carousel we were determined to get our Haunted Mansion fix, and luckily it had a short wait time, so we crossed the park to head over there. I know a lot of people schedule their days so that they try and do parks in a big loop rather than criss-crossing all over the place, but we don't mind the walking and I find that every time I walk around the parks I find new and interesting things that I hadn't seen before.

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I love all of the statues and tombs in the ride queue.

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Up next was our first special event of the trip, the Happily Ever After Dessert Party. We both love doing these extra events at the parks, feeling that little bit of extra magic (even if you are paying through the roof for it!).

The desserts this year were really quite tasty. The mini cupcakes were nice and rich, the macaroons were splendid, the only downside was the biscuit base used for the s'mores inspired dessert and the strawberry shortcake were a little dry.

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After checking in for the party we had quite a bit of time to sit down and enjoy the desserts before we were escorted down to the viewing area.

This was our view for the fireworks and Castle projection show. You can’t really ask for a better view than this, and not have to fight your way to it or stake it out hours in advance is a huge benefit!

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We deliberately decided not to watch any videos on YouTube of Happily Ever After so we could get lost in seeing it live, and it did not disappoint. The new films they have included in the projections were a nice welcome change from some of the classics that seem to get used in all the displays.

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The fireworks have really been stepped up a notch!! I mean, come on! Just look at that snapshot!

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I’m glad to see they managed to get the castle in perfect focus, but not us... :P

While most other people were slowly making their way out of the park we took advantage of making some additional fastpasses on the fly and pretty much got to walk onto Winnie the Pooh with a fastpass!

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After getting all sticky with Pooh in the hunny pot we got to ride Big Thunder Mountain twice! It really is a different experience riding it at night. Not only does it feel a lot faster, but you get some great views of the park all lit up.

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It was now past the official park close so it was time to make our way back to the hotel. Its so nice walking around the park after close especially today as most of the lands had appeared to clear out quite quickly.

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There was still quite a crowd as we made our way down Main Street.

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While we were walking to the ferry we passed a CM with a microphone that was directing people where to go, and he told us there was a bus that went straight to the TTC from Magic Kingdom...what?!...I’ve never heard of this before! :eek: We rushed to the bus bay where this bus supposedly was, and viola, we had made it back to the TTC in about 10 minutes. So much better than the cattle herd situation waiting for (and on) the ferry!

It was only about 10:30pm at this stage, so we decided to swing past Disney Springs for a bit of a browse, as we knew we wouldn’t have a lot of time to get there this trip. I saw a set of Haunted Mansion statues in The Marketplace Co-Op and just knew I HAD to have them!! We ended up going back later in the trip so I could buy them.

After some more browsing (and telling myself that I do not have enough money to buy everything in the Art of Disney store!), we made our way back to the resort. We picked up our refillable mugs, then fell into bed and slept well!

Such a full day 1, stay tuned for the start of day 2!
 
Day 2 - Part 1

Our second day we were up nice and early to get to Epcot in time for rope drop.

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Look who we were greeted by on the way in...Squirrel!!!!!

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While we were waiting for rope drop we were entertained by the trash can drummers. Unfortunately we were too far back to get a decent photo, but they sounded great!

Soon as we were let loose you could see the majority of the crowd making their way straight through Future World (presumably to get to Frozen), we however made our way left and straight to TestTrack.

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I love all the various models on display in the queue, and Steve enjoys getting to design his own car.

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After TestTrack we had our first fastpass of the day, Spaceship Earth. Ahh the soothing sounds of Dame Judi Dench, just what you need first thing in the morning when you are still a bit sleepy! :angel:

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We didn't fall asleep though, we were laughing too much at the videos! When we rode it on our last trip it didn’t take our picture, but this time it did. Mine was pretty reasonable, but Steve’s photo was just hilarious, and it only got funnier as each new scene came on! :rotfl:

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Breakfast was our next order of business for the day, but as we entered The Land pavilion we saw that Soarin’ was only a 20 minute wait! How could we pass up that opportunity? Come on Krunk, don't give us that look... it’s not our fault we pretty much just walked on the ride! :hyper:

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Breakfast was at Sunshine Seasons. We both had the Breakfast Panini, and it certainly hit the spot. We ate here last year for breakfast too, and it’s just a great spot to get a quick bite to eat that’s tasty. I happened to be wearing one of my Disney t-shirts I had bought for the trip (which you can see in some of the photopass photos later on this day), and got some great comments from the serving cast members here!

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Our last ride in Future World for the day, and our next fastpass, was Journey into Imagination with Figment. We didn't get to ride it on our first trip to WDW, so it was great to finally experience it, and boy is it an experience! I love Eric Idle’s humor and he didn't disappoint... loved him as the moon at the end of the ride.

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Oh look, it's Weebo!!!!

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Steve had some fun with the interactive games after the ride. :P


We made our way back to reality and left Figment behind as we headed into World Showcase.

Stay tuned for our trip around the showcase!
 
Day 2 - Part 2

It was time for us to start our trip around the world showcase!

Have I mentioned that I enjoy seeing the couple of little nods to Australia around the parks? Here’s the next one, the Australia booth at Food and Wine festival.

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Mmmm Lamingtons, although the ones we have back home are a bit more appetising, they have whipped cream and strawberry (or raspberry) jam inside them.

Our first worldly location was Mexico!

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We really enjoy the indoor locations at Disney where you can walk in somewhere and immediately feel like you are transported to an entirely different location, and boy do you get that in the Mexico pavilion.

We went for a ride on the Gran Fiesta Tour with the 3 Caballeros, and I still can’t make up my mind if I actually enjoy the ride or not… it’s cute I’ll give it that, but I just don’t like how it's mostly projections / screens after the temple scene. :confused3

After leaving Mexico we strolled right past Norway and onto China for our lunch reservation. We were a little early and the restaurant hadn’t quite opened yet, so we took advantage of the time to have a look around the China pavilion.

I really enjoy looking around the Shanghai Disneyland display, and in particular seeing all of the concept artwork and models.

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Don’t you think this Adventureland cast member costume looks a lot like Flynn Rider? :scratchin

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We even had time for a couple of photopass photos and even got a picture with Mushu!

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It was now time for our lunch reservation at Nine Dragons. I tried to take a picture of the menu at every restaurant we dined at, most of the time I remembered but some of the photos turned out a bit blurry so I won’t include those ones in the trip report!

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Both Steve and I enjoy some nice Chinese food and they didn't disappoint. To start we shared a serving of the Spring Rolls and also the Potstickers. Mmmmm deep fried goodness!:hyper: For our entrees, I had the Spicy Honey Chicken with Fried Rice, and Steve had the Kung Pao Chicken.

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I enjoyed the main, to be honest it was better than some of the local Chinese places back here at home. Steve wasn’t as complimentary about his, he said it was tasty, but if we go back he would definitely choose something different. We also had smoothies during the meal, specifically a Strawberry one and a Shang-ri La one, these were a little on the sweet side, but still enjoyable.

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For dessert we both went with the single scoop ice cream. I had the Strawberry Red Bean and Steve had the Caramel Ginger.

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Notice a trend here? I like strawberry flavouring, not so much strawberries themselves, just the flavor of them. Same with bananas, I love the flavour of the candy bananas you can get, but the real thing never lives up to it!

Anyways, after our big lunch we made our way back to Norway for our Frozen Ever After fastpass.

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This year things seemed to be running a lot smoother with the ride, for instance the Ice Giant actually blew smoke at us unlike last year where it didn’t. It’s still a great ride and possibly my favourite ride in all of Epcot.

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After the ride we had a look in the little Norway museum, and look, more little models!

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It was time to get some exercise and walk off some of the lunch we just ate, so we spent quite a bit of time wandering around the Germany and Italy pavilions, browsing in all of the shops.

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Day 2 - Part 3

We finally made it to the halfway point, the American Pavilion and were just in time to catch The Voices of Liberty before heading in to see The Great American Adventure. After going on the Backstage Disney tour at the end of our stay last year and the tour taking us behind the scenes of this attraction, it was great to see it from the front again and really appreciate everything that goes into making this show run. I made Steve and I sit close to the front so I could really see all of the finer details on the animatronics.

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Afterwards we continued to the Japan pavilion, but were greeted by dark clouds not too far away. We quickly made our way inside just before the rain started!:worried:

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It rained, and then rained some more. Gave us plenty of time to have a wander around the shops, but it did mean that everyone else had the same idea so it was a bit hard to move around.


Finally the rain let up and we made a quick dash from Japan to Morocco where we had a look around, before being tempted by the Belgium Food and Wine Stand where we each got a waffle with chocolate ganache and whipped cream. Sorry no photo of this one as there wasn’t anywhere to sit down and eat, so we just gobbled it down! :P


Now that the waffle had opened the door to our craving of desserts, we walked to the French pavilion and each got an Ice Cream from L’Artisan de Glaces. Calories don't count if you are on holiday...or at least that’s what I’m telling myself! :laughing:


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I had chocolate in a waffle cone (so adventurous I know!) and Steve had the candied peanuts and chocolate.


After a stroll through good old London town we ended up in Canada. We actually didn’t go into the Canadian pavilion on our first trip, so we enjoyed looking around for a bit before it started to rain, so it was a good a time as any to go and check out O’ Canada!

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I love Martin Short, he is just so funny! I loved him as the Mad Hatter in the ‘straight to TV’ Alice in Wonderland movie they made in the 90’s with Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat and a whole heap of other stars. Anyway I digress! O’ Canada! was both fun and educational, and was great to pass the time while it rained.

We decided to head back to the hotel to have a nap for the remainder of the afternoon before coming back for our dining reservation in the evening. We stopped by the Art of Disney store on the way out where I had a great chat with one of the animators who does character drawings they sell at the store and other locations around the parks. I ended up deciding which one I wanted to buy and then had another nice chat with the cast member who put the sale through, as he recognised my accent as being Australian.

We made it back to the hotel room around 4 and slept until 7:30pm before getting ready and making our way back to Epcot for dinner!

It was a pity we lost our great parking spot from that morning as it was a bit of a trek from the parking lot upon our return.

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We stopped and got a couple of photopass snaps from a lovely cast member. Funnily enough he was the only photopass cast member on our whole trip to ask if we were together and then got us to do a few couple shots. We don’t really make any extra effort to show that we are a couple when out in public, so it was nice when this happened and made us feel a bit special.:hug:

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We made it to the Rose and Crown for our late dinner reservation and asked if we would be able to get a seat outside on the patio. We had deliberately found an ADR for the latest possible dinner sitting so that we could enjoy our dinner and then stay there for Illuminations.

I was secretly hoping that a certain YouTube vlogger was going to be working that night at the Rose and Crown so we could say hi as we watch his videos, but it turns out he had taken a trip back home to the UK while we were there. Nevertheless we had a fantastic server, Jess. I started with the pasty and Steve had the potato and leek soup.

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For our entrees I had the tikka masala, while Steve went with the New York grilled strip steak and a wine. Unfortunately lighting was a little dim where were sitting for any decent photos, but the meals were really nice. I love a good curry, and this certainly didn’t disappoint.

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Dessert was a no brainer decision for us, and we both went with the sticky toffee pudding.

I have to say it was a really nice and relaxing meal, and a great way to spend the end of a long day. Just as we were finishing up our dessert Illuminations started. Everyone on the patio stayed in their seats for the whole show and whilst we were not able to see everything, it certainly beat standing around for ages holding a spot somewhere around the world showcase lagoon (in the rain too!).

I know that people aren’t going to like me for saying this, but Illuminations isn’t one of my favourite shows, in fact it is probably sitting at the bottom of the list. :eek: I just don’t find it as engaging as other shows Disney puts on and I think it’s showing its age. Anyways that’s just my opinion of it, and Steve enjoys it for what it is.

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Once the show was over we let the masses clear out for a bit before having a nice stroll through an almost empty UK pavilion while we headed out of the park and back to the hotel room for a decent night’s sleep. We had to be up extra early tomorrow for our next rope drop!
 
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Day 3

We were up bright and early to head over to Animal Kingdom for Extra Magic Hours! It was still cloudy and a little wet, but we made it there ready to go for EMH rope drop.

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While we were waiting with the masses to be released into the park we were told that both rides in Pandora were down, and had been down the day before too. :worried: This was a little disappointing as we’d been planning on going to Na’vi River Journey before the crowds got too busy. Instead we made our way to Asia and rode Expedition Everest, which is our favourite ride at AK.

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It was now time for our breakfast at Tusker House. I’ve read some pretty mixed reviews of Tusker, but we both loved it. We didn’t have to wait too long before we were shown to our table. We were offered hot drinks, and of course their famous jungle juice! We had booked the Rivers of Light dining package, which our server gave us our passes for. The food was a nice mix of classic Disney buffet breakfast, and some African inspired dishes, but of course one of the big reasons we were there was to meet the gang!

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After meeting everyone and filling up on way too much food we were on our way to our first fastpass, oh look its Everest again! :hyper: Had to get in as many rides as we could!

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Next was a new ride for us, well sort of, Dinosaur. It was down for refurb during our last trip, but we did get to ride Indiana Jones over at Disneyland. The queue was great and really engaging, but the ride was a little meh :confused3. It’s definitely the less successful sister out of it and Indiana Jones.

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We headed over to our next fastpass, Kali River Rapids, but it was down. Luck was finally on our side and after a quick toilet break Kali was up and running again, so we stored all of our gear in the lockers and jumped on. We didn’t get as wet as some of the people we saw walking off the ride, but we were certainly not dry either! We had a couple of younger kids in the raft with us, and it was amusing watching how they were reacting to the ride, screams and all.

Today we didn’t really feel like doing any of the trails around the park, or watching animals, so we decided to head over to Pandora and have a look around the land. Walking into it for the first time was really impressive. Looking at all of the different plants (real and fake) and all of the ‘natural’ land formations was incredible!

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I did however feel like the land itself was a little small. In all of the promo pictures and video clips it comes across as being much bigger.

After we spent time looking around for a while Flight of Passage reopened after having been closed since park opening, and it was like a stampede as everyone rushed over to it. We thought it best not to jump in line as we had a fast pass later in the day, so instead we went to see if Na’vi River Journey had opened up, but it hadn’t. There were a few people already lining up just in case it reopened, so we took a chance and joined the line. It was only about 10 minutes later that the ride opened, and it essentially wound up being a walk on for us! :woohoo:

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It was a nice ride, certainly not worth waiting an hour or two for though. The level of detail they have crammed into the ride with all of the plant life was impressive, and it was great to see that most of the projection screens scattered throughout the ride were well hidden and blended in with the surrounds. The animatronic at the end of the ride is certainly the best animatronic that Disney has created to date. The movement of it is so fluid and natural looking despite its mechanics being confined in such thin limbs!

We spent a bit more time looking around Pandora and weaving around the crowds before making our way to The Festival of the Lion King. With this being our second time seeing the show I actually enjoyed it a lot more than the first time. It was nice again to see all of the specialty acts showing off and as always the Tumble Monkeys were a great laugh!

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After the show had finished and we made our way back outside, the heat started to get to us so we decided to head back to the resort to escape both it, and the crowds. We grabbed some lunch from the Intermission Food Court back at All Star Music, I had chicken nuggets and fries, and Steve had pizza.

We rested back in our room for a bit and had a chat about our plans for the rest of our days at the parks. We had managed to cover everything we wanted to do in Epcot in one day, so didn’t really need the second day that we had planned to spend there. We were thinking about what other parks we could do on that day, and an idea came up… how much would it cost us to go to Universal for a day? After some quick price and money checking we were sold on the idea… Universal it is! :bitelip: So I bought Steve and I one day tickets to Universal with Express Passes so that we would be able to get through both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in one day. The only impact the change had on our previous plans was cancelling a breakfast reservation at Garden Grill, and moving our Hoop Dee Doo booking to a later show time. This was all made very easy with the help of a wonderful cast member at Guest Services at ASMusic.

It was time for us to head back to Animal Kingdom for our dinner ADR, last fastpass and Rivers of Light... but unfortunately the universe had other ideas for our evening.

We arrived back in the park and headed straight over to Yak and Yeti for our ADR. We really enjoyed it the last time we were here so it was a must do again. There was a bit of a wait before we were seated, but we eventually got a table. Last time we lucked out on our table as we were up on the second level away from a lot of the large groups, but this time we were sat in a side room with a couple of large family groups with lots of kids. Now normally kids don't bother me, but the largest group in the room had all of their adults sitting at one table and all the kids were on their own table and left to run riot, which they did. Lots of yelling, screaming and running around, which kind of put a downer on our experience as there was no way to tune them out.

For the meals we started with the Dim Sum basket to share, followed by (another) Tikka Masala for me, while Steve had steak again lol! :rotfl: We both had smoothies and ended the meal with sorbet for dessert. The food was on par with the last time we ate there which was good, it was just the other families around us that left a sour taste in our mouth as we left the restaurant.

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It was very quickly approaching our fastpass time for Flight of Passage so we hightailed it across the park and jumped in line. Wow the queue for this ride is so long, even being in the fastpass line! At least there was a lot going on and plenty to look at. I wish the fastpass line also had the option to go past the Avatar in the stasis tube as it looks really cool!

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We finally made it to the preshow and then onto the ride, and I was quite impressed with it. It's great to see how technology has improved over the years and when it all comes together well in an attraction it really shows. The seats were a little uncomfortable and the air blowing on my face caused my eyes to water up a bit during the flight, but it was still enjoyable. Both Steve and I agreed though that we certainly wouldn't wait the 2-3 hours in the standby line for it.

As we exited we discovered the weather had taken a horrid turn for the worse, and it was pouring down. We bought a couple of ponchos from the Pandora merch store as the rain wasn't letting up at all, and made our way out of Pandora. This was very disappointing as everything I had been reading online was saying that the land really comes alive at night, but we didn’t get to fully experience it.

Rivers of Light was unfortunately cancelled that evening due to the weather so we made a quick stop at Island Mercantile, so I could pick up one of the small Yeti plush toys, before heading out of the park.

It was still early so we went down to Disney Springs to do some shopping, picking up a few souvenirs before making our way back to the resort to turn in for the night.
 
Caught up - sounds like you had great days at Epcot and AK... until the rain showed up! :guilty:

Excited to hear about your spur of the moment Universal day!
 
Alright, lets get back into this trip report! Didn't realise it had been well over 6 weeks since my last post :( but now that work and life things are starting to slow down a tiny bit lets get the rest of this report done before we leave for our next trip...only 25 days and counting!!!


Day 4 - Pt 1

Another day, another early start for what was going to be a very long day. Today we were back at the Magic Kingdom, and to start our day we had a Pre-park opening ADR for breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table. We arrived at the gate to the park only a couple of minutes before our reservation time as it took a little longer to get over there on the Ferry, and I was surprised at the number of people that were already lining up!:scared1:

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Last year when we did the same thing I seem to recall there being a lot less people, but ah well. We didn’t manage to get any deserted photos in front of the castle which I had been hoping for, but there's always next trip I guess!

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We checked in and had to wait a little bit before Cinderella came out to take some Royal portraits with us, but it gave me time to enjoy the decor inside the castle.

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Look who I found just chilling up near the roof!
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After our lovely portrait session (and no, we didn’t intentionally wear very similar clothes to each other!:laughing:) we were lead to the dining room and had a lovely table right in the middle of the room.

Both Steve and I enjoy dining here as we enjoy the food and the atmosphere. The appetizer of various pastries is always a winner in my book! For our mains, Steve ordered the Shrimp and Grits and I went for the Caramel Apple French Toast. Wow was mine sweet! Maybe a little too sweet for that time of the morning, but it didn’t stop me from finishing it all.

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Soon it was time to meet the princesses, and as always they were an absolute delight to chat to.

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After breakfast we made it out of the castle just in time for the official rope drop at the park. We headed straight to Tomorrowland and went for a spin on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin which was essentially a walk on! Naturally I won this round and by quite a bit too!:woohoo:

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I don't think Steve was overly impressed judging by this look, although its a little hard to see his scowl! :P
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Next we had our first Fastpass for the day, which was for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.

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Jumping back on the MyDisneyExperience App we saw that Haunted Mansion had a very short wait time! Win! We made our way over there quickly, stopping for a quick group photo on the way, and before long we were whisked away in our Doom Buggy.

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I don’t know what it is about us, but we always seem to be travelling from one side of the park to the other to get on the next ride, as after Haunted Mansion we crossed back to Tomorrowland to get to our second Fastpass of the day, Space Mountain. After it being down for our first day at Magic Kingdom we decided to jump in the standby line first so we could get 2 rides in! The standby line was only a 15 minute wait, which was great and as soon as we were off the ride our fastpass window opened so we jumped straight back in line and rode it again! I don’t know whether it is age catching up with us or what, but riding it 2 times in a row was definitely enough for us at this point in the day!

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Both trips I have tried to get some nice pictures of the dioramas that you see on the travelator when you exit the ride but most of them turn out a bit blurry!

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We didn’t really have a lot else planned for our morning at Magic Kingdom, but we had some time to kill before our next fastpass so we went for a stroll through New Fantasyland and ended up jumping on Under the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid.

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It’s such a pretty ride.

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We also checked out Gaston’s Tavern and Bonjour! Village Gifts as we hadn't looked inside them before. Oh my, all the BatB merchandise! Had to stop myself from buying a heap of it!
 
Day 4 - Pt 2

We made our way to our last Fastpass of the day, which was Big Thunder Mountain! We love this ride!

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As we didn’t have a lunch booked in (we had an early dinner that evening), we stopped by Sleepy Hollow Refreshments as we had both wanted to try their waffles. We’d seen so many other people sharing their delicious photos of them!

It was a little busy there when we ordered though I luckily got my order quite quickly.

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Unfortunately for Steve they seemed to have misplaced his order and he was standing there for about 10 minutes whilst everyone else who ordered well after him got their food. When he finally got his order they ended up giving him an extra waffle to say sorry, but it looked as though they had just thrown the fruit at it as there was no care taken to its presentation!:guilty:

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Nevertheless they were really tasty and I think we will definitely be going back next time!

After our tasty snack we decided to make our way back to the resort for a rest. On the way out we caught the end of Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire on the main stage and also stopped by a few of the photographers on main street to get a few castle shots.

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It was a bit painful leaving this parking spot that was so close to the TTC! :eek:

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After a rest back at the resort we both got ready for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party. Just like last year, we decided to go all out on our costumes...well i decided to go all out and Steve followed suit.

Here is me before, and now after a bit of a shave and dressed up with a wig, costume and even a coloured in goatee! Yep, I’m Flynn Rider. 8-)

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And here is Steve as Sulley (Monsters University version)! It took a bit of convincing to get him to spray his hair, but I’m glad he did as it really ties the costume together. He wasn’t wearing the horns I made him in these pics, though he does in some of the other photos from this evening.

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Once we were ready we made our way over to the Polynesian resort for our ADR at ’Ohana! Both Steve and I were really looking forward to this meal as we didn’t get to dine here on our first trip. We drove back to the TTC and walked across to the Polynesian resort. This resort is so pretty both inside and out! Just look at the main lobby! One day we will have enough money to stay here! :yay:

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As we had an early reservation (4:30pm) we checked in and didn't have to wait long before our family of 2 was called out. We had a lovely chat with the check in cast member as she loved our costumes and were 2 of her favourite Disney characters.

We were sat at the far end of the restaurant and had a great view of part of the resort and the lagoon.

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We were very quickly presented with the pineapple coconut bread. Anyone who has read our previous trip report knows that I love Disney bread especially Disney cornbread, and this pineapple coconut bread comes in a close second in taste.

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We didn't really get too many more photos of the meal as we were both quite hungry and the food was delicious. So the salad wasn't anything to write home about, it was just a nice green salad. The starters dish was really nice. I’m not a huge fan of chicken on the bone so the chicken wings were just ok, but the Potstickers were awesome! Steve enjoyed both too.

We had the main meats come out next and Steve had all three, steak, chicken and shrimp, whilst I only had the steak and chicken. Our waiter was very prompt on coming around with additional meat to offer us and was very accommodating when he noticed that I preferred my steak more on the well done side, to the point where he made a couple of special trips back to the grill to get some well done steak just for me!

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Last in our meal was the dessert, and the reason why a lot of people go to Ohana! We had made sure that we had left enough room to be able to fully enjoy the bread pudding, and it was delicious.

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I know there are very mixed reviews about Ohana on the DIS, but we had a great time there and the food we were served was delicious. They had live entertainment for most of the time we were there in the form of a guy singing and playing the ukulele, and they also played the coconut game with the kids. We certainly will not hesitate going back there again on our next trip.

Coming soon (once the photos upload!) our time at MNSSHP!
 

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