A Month Long Adventure to the USA! About This Page:

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JOINT BIRTHDAY & ANNIVERSARY ADVENTURE 2011 FROM THE UK!

WHO :
Carolyn – Trip Planner, 11th trip to WDW
DB – Partner of above, 4th trip to WDW

WHEN :
Boston : Saturday 22 October to Friday 28 October 2011
New York : Friday 28 October to Friday 04 November 2011
Florida : Friday 04 November to Friday 18 November 2011

ACCOMMODATION :
Boston : Howard Johnson, Fenway Park
New York : Country Inn & Suites, Queens
Florida : Disney’s Old Key West Resort

PLANNING :
We began planning this trip 12 months ago, beginning with the trip to Florida when we received notification from Disney of some really good special offers for UK residents, staying in a couple of the original DVC locations. Therefore, we booked 2 weeks at Old Key West, with park-hopper tickets and – wait for it – FREE DINING for the duration of our stay! This was the icing on the cake for us, we had never considered the Dining Plan before as we thought it would restrict our park touring plans, which tend to be a bit ad-hoc. We were also unsure as to whether it would work out for us financially before, but to be offered it for free was amazing! We had the Basic Dining Plan, which gave us one snack, one counter service, and one table service credit each per night of our stay.

Having secured the Disney part of the trip, we began looking at ways to extend the trip as a celebration of our 10 years together, and also to incorporate our ‘big number’ birthdays (mine last year and his next year). We finally decided on a month long trip, with the first week in Boston (where DB had been before, 17 years ago, but I had never been) and then the second week in New York (where neither of us had been before), followed by the Disney part..

Many planning breakfasts in a variety of venues ensued, in order to get the planning right! (The one where we had to sit down with a spreadsheet, notepad, and two WDW guidebooks just to plan where we wanted to eat 12 months in advance took nearly 4 hours!!) We had only ever eaten in quick service restaurants before, so wanted to take the opportunity to try lots of new places while it was free – figuring that in the unlikely instance that we might not like a particular meal or restaurant, at least it wouldn’t have cost us anything.

Dining decided, we then planned the parks we would be in according to the dining plan, including a couple of slower days for shopping and swimming, and taking into consideration the ability to park hop. We had to decide the times we wanted to eat as well, so that I could make the reservations when the 180 day window opened up, which I duly did online with absolutely no problems at all, being lucky enough to get every single reservation we had wanted!

We then spent the next 6 months trying to get a bit fitter, by going swimming 2 or 3 times a week, and to the gym 2 or 3 times a week too. We are both somewhat overweight and desperately unfit, and previous visits to WDW have left us both exhausted and unable to cope with all the walking. DB had a slight health scare at one point last year, and that made us both change our eating habits, then he started going to the gym just before Christmas 2010, and finally persuaded me to join him in April. We are not ‘gym bunnies’ and will never be super-fit, still having a tendency to laziness and over-eating, particularly at weekends, but we really quite enjoyed feeling fitter and healthier, and we tried really hard to eat much more healthily during the week in the preceding months before the trip. As a consequence, we both lost 40 or 50 lbs in 6 months, and felt SO MUCH better. We plan to continue this regime in 2012.

We really enjoyed planning the whole 4 week trip, it was great fun, and because we started it 12 months in advance, wasn’t too exhausting!

I will begin the trip report with a brief description of what we did whilst in Boston and New York, before going into a more detailed report for the Florida part of the holiday. For those who wish to skip straight to Florida, please feel free to scroll down to Day 14, Friday 14 November. However, if you are going to skip down, you may want to also read Day 9, Sunday 30 October, first, as this will explain a bit of what happens in the Florida section of the report.

DAY ONE – Saturday 22 October
Plan – Drive to Manchester airport, fly to Heathrow airport in London, and then fly from London to Boston, Massachusetts
Actual – So after getting up at 4.00 a.m., we topped ourselves up with coffee and headed north of Birmingham to Manchester. The drive only took an hour and a half, and we were soon dropping off the car in the pre-booked, long-stay car park. I had done online check-in the day before for our first flight, with British Airways, and this was only a short flight to London. Therefore, we dropped our luggage off at the bag drop desk, and headed for the gate. I had hoped we would have time for breakfast at the airport before we boarded, but everything seemed to take so long that we were in the gate area before we realised it!

The flight to London was pleasant, and only took just over an hour. I like short haul flights that don’t go too high – watching different parts of land that you pass over is so interesting.

Because we were then flying on to Boston with a different airline, we had to collect our luggage again. There were only 3 other people collecting luggage with us – everyone else was flying onto other destinations with the same airline! Therefore, our luggage was out really quickly. But not before we watched a child’s paperback book make its lone journey round the carousel a couple of times ……

Again, I had done the online check-in with our next airline (Virgin Atlantic), so we did the bag drop thing and headed out into the airport looking for breakfast. I bought a bottle of perfume in Duty Free, then we found a nice bistro where we had delicious BLT sandwiches and fries, lemonade and coffee.

The flight to Boston was very smooth and trouble-free, and we enjoyed some really nice food aboard the plane. One new innovation that we LOVED was the ability to choose from loads and loads of films, and begin to watch them whenever we wanted to, (seat-back TV screens!), as well as being able to pause, rewind, fast forward, etc. the film. We are used to films starting at a set point/time, and if you miss a bit because you are distracted by being offered a drink or food, tough! We decided to watch a film called The Zookeeper together, then played some video games and listened to music. The flight went reasonably quickly – it was about a 7½ hour flight.

We landed in Boston, and once again collected our luggage. We were very tired at this point! We found a place to get a taxi, and were amazed at the road system in Boston – most of the major roads are underground! What a great idea, although incredibly confusing if you don’t know which roads go where, which obviously we didn’t. Anyway, we had our trusty taxi driver to take us to the Howard Johnson, Fenway Park!

The hotel was okay, a bit tired looking in places, their free Wi-Fi wasn’t working, and we not only didn’t have breakfast included with the stay, but they didn’t even have somewhere to buy breakfast from in the hotel! The only restaurant there is a Chinese one, and the guy working reception recommended that we didn’t use it at all!! Okaaaaay ……. If you say so!

Totally exhausted, we made coffee in the room, which was really quite nice and looked to have been refurbished fairly recently, before walking round the corner to a CVS we’d spotted earlier to pick up bottled water, snacks etc., and then collapsing into bed ……. We had now been awake for approximately 24 hours, and were a bit tired!

DAY TWO – Sunday 23 October
Plan – Unpack, explore, check out Freedom Trail
Actual – We woke up around 5 a.m., but managed to doze off again for another hour. We gave up trying to sleep longer at this point, and got up to shower and unpack. We asked at the front desk for directions to the nearest subway station, which was only a few minutes walk away. It was a really nice walk, down the side of Fenway Park, (the home of the Boston Red Sox!), over a bridge with interesting views of, well, a big road really, and then round the corner. And – oh, look! A Dunkin’ Donuts!! Right, well that can be our new daily breakfast venue then.

We had sausage, egg & cheese on biscuit, and a side order of hash browns, along with coffee. Yummy! We don’t have Dunkin’ in the UK, nor biscuits, (‘biscuits’ over here are your equivalent of cookies), so we really enjoyed these. Plus the coffee there is really good, not too strong or harsh. The only issue we had is that they had trouble understanding what I was ordering! I think I am fairly well spoken, without a local dialect, but every single day the servers managed to get some portion of the order incorrect. One of the days I actually resorted to speaking SLOWLY and more LOUDLY because, obviously, that helps. Oh no wait – it didn’t. Ho hum, they were very apologetic and quick to put things right each time, anyway.

After breakfast we headed into the subway station, and got 7-day unlimited travel tickets for $15 each. Bargain! From there, we headed to Boston Common to begin the Freedom Trail. We bought a guidebook, but declined to join an official tour, wanting to do this at our own pace. However, we ended up more or less following (at a distance) the tour around anyway, although we tried to avoid them and not listen to what the guide was saying – after all, we hadn’t paid to go on the tour!

Following the famous red line, we began at a burial ground, (where we heard the tour guide say, “The British are coming!” and we waved, grinned like idiots and quietly called, “Yoo-hoo, we’re over here!” behind his back!), followed by (not necessarily in this order) a couple of museums, a quick walkthrough of Quincy Market and a Christmas store, (not technically part of the Freedom Trail!), Paul Revere’s house, The Old Meeting House, North Church, and one more burial ground. We also looked in surprise at what was supposed to be the Old Corner Bookstore, but was now actually a Mexican restaurant.

The walk took us most of the day, but we were about three quarters of the way through at this point and too tired to carry on! We had stopped halfway round at another Dunkin’ for coffee and a muffin, and now got the subway back to the Common, where we walked to Cheers bar for a burger and fries, Sam Adams (for him) and pink lemonade (for me). It is a lovely place, full of atmosphere and really attractive, and the food was great. We had a quick look at the merchandise but didn’t get anything then, reckoning we would be back before the week was out.

We headed back to Fenway Park, going to CVS to stock up on some coffee bags (we were getting through the hotel ones quicker than they were being replaced!) and a jar of coffee creamer, plus some essential peanut butter M&Ms. Back to the hotel, coffee, sleep!

DAY THREE – Monday 24 October
Plan – Whale Watch cruise (“We guarantee you will see whales!”)
Actual – We woke up at 5.30, then 6, then finally at 7.00 a.m.! Time travel really takes some getting used to. We got up, had showers, breakfast at Dunkin’, then caught the subway to the harbour area for our pre-booked Whale Watch cruise. It was a glorious, sunny day, although a little cold, but the sea was (allegedly) really calm, and (allegedly) this was ideal whale-watching weather.

Two and a half hours later, where despite having had sea-sick tablets in advance I had still had to spend most of the trip on deck with the wind in my face, trying desperately to keep my breakfast down, we docked back in the harbour without have seen one darned whale. The company were very apologetic, and kept saying this never happens, not when it is such good weather and so calm, but we never even saw a ripple in the water. We had sailed around the whole area where the whales normally play and feed, but nothing. The views as we sailed out and back in again were lovely, and we had learned a lot of new facts about Boston, but we were still rather disappointed not to have seen any whales.

Still, never mind, we thought – their motto is “We guarantee you will see whales!” and this is followed in very small print on their leaflet by “or you will receive a voucher for another cruise free of charge!” As we disembarked, we were given a slip of paper offering said free cruise – which expired in May 2012! We were not going to have time for another cruise before we left Boston this time, and we certainly wouldn’t be back before May 2012, so this was pretty much a waste of time. The vast majority of people on our cruise were from all over the world or elsewhere around the USA, there was not one local person, so the voucher offer, in our opinion, was a bit useless for most visitors. (Most of us surreptitiously sold the voucher to a guy on the docks who was paying $5 each for them, probably not legally, but none of us could use them again. This is not something I would normally do or condone, but there are sometimes exceptions to my morals!)

We walked round to Quincy market for Lobster rolls, which I had never had before – yummy! They were gorgeous! (But expensive!) Then we went back to the harbour area to go into the Aquarium, and got half price tickets as we had been on the whale cruise, which was nice. The Aquarium was lovely, we stroked rays, saw sharks, electric eels, seals, penguins etc. I liked the way it was laid out, you basically walk upwards round a huge circular central tank, and at the top you can look down and see the sea turtles and rays, before taking a slightly different circular route down.

When we left there, we went to a nearby Dunkin’ for coffee and donuts, before taking a slow walk back towards the hotel, although we caught the subway for the last couple of stops as we were tired! We had iced coffee and snacks in the room, watched TV, and read a little before bed.

DAY FOUR – Tuesday 25 October
Plan – Hire cycles, ride to Harvard University
Actual – We were up early today, grabbed a quick breakfast at our local Dunkin’, before getting the subway to a cycle hire place. We hired two great bikes, complete with helmets and bike locks, for a 24 hour period (although we knew we wouldn’t be keeping them overnight), for a very reasonable price.

We began our cycle ride, following the map we had, and it was really lovely. We cycled alongside a river for several miles, looking at various artwork and landmarks, before arriving in the Harvard area. We walked the bikes through the University grounds, stopping to rub John Harvard’s foot for luck and take some photos, before starting back. There were a lot of roadworks going on, which made for a slightly scary ride back, and we stopped at a Dominos for lunch and a break from the traffic at one point. I had a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich, and DB had a cheese & bacon ranch sandwich, with soft drinks. We finished the ride, and returned the bikes to the hire place, having had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Neither of us are regular bike riders, and this was the first time we had ridden bikes together – it was such fun, even if I was a bit wobbly at times!

We then picked up the Freedom Trail from where we had left it on Sunday, and finished it off, which we felt happy about, before getting the subway to City Hall, where we collected our pre-booked tickets for a performance of Peter Pan. Yet another Dunkin’ for coffee and donuts, then back to the giant circus tent for the show, which was fab! We really enjoyed it, having wanted to catch a show whilst in Boston.

Back to the hotel, snacks & bed.

DAY FIVE – Wednesday 26 October
Plan – Salem
Actual – All week the weather had been gloriously sunny but cold, but this morning we got up to an overcast sky and the promise of rain (can you say freezing??)! However, we had plans to go to Salem, so we got up early, made a quick visit to Dunkin’, then got the subway to North Station and a train to Salem.

We were there by 8.40 a.m., so stopped at another Dunkin’ for coffee and donuts (see a pattern emerging here?). We visited The Witch Museum, the Witch History Museum, the Pirate History Museum, and the Witch Dungeon Museum, all of which was really interesting. In the middle of all that we stopped at Brothers’ Deli for beef and turkey club sandwiches with fries. Finally, we visited the main burial ground and the witch hanging memorial grounds, which were very moving and sad. Years ago I used to be a member of a theatrical company, and had been in a performance of “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller. To see all the familiar names from the play actually etched out in stone in the memorial grounds was a very chilling experience.

We picked up coffee and donuts to go, before catching the train back to Boston, where cold, wet, (the day had got steadily colder and we had experienced quite a bit of drizzly rain throughout the day), and tired, we headed for our hotel for an evening of rest! We again had snacks in the room and watched TV before bed.

DAY SIX – Thursday 27 October
Plan – JFK Museum, packing
Actual – Our final full day in Boston dawned cold and rainy. We weren’t really fully prepared for such cold weather, having checked the weather forecast on the internet before leaving the UK, we were expecting cool conditions, but certainly not the freezing weather we were getting! And we certainly weren’t prepared for freezing rain! My trainers leaked …….

We set out, as wrapped up against the cold as we could be, and after our usual breakfast we picked up postcards and some Boston Red Sox socks for my daughter for Christmas (she has a thing about socks). We then caught the subway and a shuttle bus to the JFK Museum, where we spent most of the day. It is a fantastic place, so interesting, and they had an exhibition on there of Jackie Kennedy “In her own words”, which was lovely. We grabbed coffee and cake before leaving.

We headed back to Cheers, picked up some merchandise (including socks!), then ate there again. The food was just as good as before!

We then went back to the hotel to pack, as we would be leaving early the next morning.

It snowed overnight!

DAY SEVEN – Friday 28 October
Plan – Train to New York
Actual – We got up to a couple of inches of snow! Brrrr. We went to Dunkin’, found a post office and posted our postcards, then went back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and catch a cab to the train station. (One of our suitcases had a broken wheel courtesy of an airline in the UK, which made it really difficult to drag/carry, otherwise we could have got the subway to the train station).

The 4½ hour train journey to New York was absolutely lovely. Most of the way it ran by the coast, and we passed through several states along the way. It was all so pretty, particularly at this time of year, with the leaves on the trees all changing colour.

We arrived in a freezing cold New York, but there was no snow, fortunately. We had to wait in a queue for 30 minutes for a cab, as we had arrived at around 4 p.m., which is the time they all change shifts apparently, and no-one wanted to take us ‘over the river’ to Queens! Eventually, a driver agreed to take us, and what followed was possibly the most terrifying cab journey I have ever taken! He didn’t stop for other vehicles or anything, and swerved round like a maniac!! Still, at least he got us there in one piece – just!

The hotel we were staying in in New York was really lovely, newly refurbished, and best of all – their free Wi-Fi worked and breakfast was included! The area looked a bit dodgy to me, but it turned out to be completely safe and fine. We dropped off the bags and then walked round the corner to the subway station, buying the same type of pass we had had in Boston, but this time it cost us $30 each. Never mind, we think it is still good value. It was getting late by now, so we found a local deli and got Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches, fries, and slices of cake to take back to the room, where we unpacked and eventually fell into bed.

DAY EIGHT – Saturday 29 October
Plan – Orientation day
Actual – We overslept a little this morning, and couldn’t seem to get going very early. Eventually, we went to the dining room for breakfast, which was really nice – we had sausage, scrambled eggs, toast, yoghurt, mini muffins, coffee, and orange juice.

The weather reports had been saying it was going to be cold and damp today, with snow tonight, so we thought we had better get going before the weather turned against us. We walked to the subway station and got the train to Times Square. By this time it had turned absolutely freezing cold, and then at 11.00 a.m. it began to snow quite heavily. We donned our ponchos and began to explore.

I had wanted to go to the Disney store while we were here, as it is newly refurbished and one of their flagship stores. So we found it quite easily, and went in there – wow! It is gorgeous! Two floors of lovely Disney-ness! We were in there for ages, making a mental note of things to buy when we had our shopping day later in the week. (Had we not been heading for Florida in a weeks’ time, this shop would have either made me deeply depressed at not going to a Disney park, or overjoyed at giving me my only Disney fix).

From there we visited the huge M&Ms store, which was great fun, and the Reeces store, which was a disappointment – very tiny, and with very little in the way of merchandise – certainly no socks, or clothing of any kind really.

We were now pretty wet, our trainers were leaking, and we were frozen, so merely to escape the cold and snow, we went to Madame Tussauds. We hadn’t been planning a visit there, but neither of us had been to one of these museums before, or certainly not recently, so we went in, battled our way through everyone else who had had the same idea as us, and spent a very pleasant and fun few hours wandering amongst the exhibits. We had coffee and cake halfway round, which is always a good way to warm up!

When we came out of there, we walked round Broadway for a little while, taking in the advertising for the shows that were on, and looking at the amazing lights. It was dark now, and still snowing hard. Not knowing about the discount ticket booth in the middle of Broadway, we went to the Foxwoods Theatre to hopefully pick up tickets for that evening’s performance of “Spiderman, Turn off the Dark”. The box office was open, and they had tickets, although they were in the stalls, tucked under the circle overhang, which meant that we wouldn’t get the full flying effect. We settled for those though, just glad to get tickets. We had read a lot about this show, how difficult it had been to get up and running because of the technical issues they had in the beginning, and because DB used to work in the technical side of performing arts, he was very interested to see the show.

It was now around 5 p.m., so we found a nearby Starbucks and went in for coffee. It was very crowded, although we were served quickly, and eventually a couple beckoned us over to sit at a table with them, which was nice of them. It turned out they were on holiday too, from Cork in Ireland, and we had a lovely chat with them for over an hour! They had been to New York several times before, so were able to fill us in on the best things to do and see, and where to get discounted theatre tickets from too.

We then headed back to the Theatre for the show, and it was absolutely incredible! We enjoyed it so much, it was fun and exciting and fast-paced, and just amazing! We loved it.

We left the Theatre at 10.40 p.m., and it was still snowing. Rather worried, and thinking it was never going to stop, we went back to the hotel for coffee and bed.

DAY NINE – Sunday 30 October
Plan – Bus Tour, Central Park
Actual – We were up bright and early this morning, and it had at least stopped snowing, although there was a good 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground. After breakfast, we got the subway back to Times Square again so we could purchase Citibus Tour passes from Madame Tussauds.

We got there and it was really crowded, so DB told me to go and get the tickets while he sorted out his camera. I got to the counter, and the lady there asked whether I wanted uptown or downtown tickets. I said I didn’t know, and she told me the difference between them, making the downtown tour sound so much more appealing than the uptown. I therefore purchased two downtown tour tickets, and, feeling pleased with myself, went back to where DB was ferreting around in his rucksack. “What did you get?” he asked. I told him, and also told him why I had picked those tickets. His face was getting longer and longer as I tried to explain how much more exciting she had made the downtown tour sound. Finally, he said, “I want to go to Central Park!” Now DB rarely makes decisions as to where we are going, although I always ask him where he would like to go or what he would like to do, but he always says it is up to me, so this took me somewhat by surprise. He stood there with a face like a petulant, sulky child, so I offered to get the tickets changed, if I could. He told me to go right back and get them changed! Feeling a little bewildered, I went back to the lady behind the desk and explained that I had inadvertently made the wrong decision. She said it was no problem, and changed the tickets for the uptown tour, which seemed to make DB happy.

We duly found the bus stop, and waited about 10 minutes for a bus. The weather was dry but still very cold, so what did we Brits do? We went on an open-topped bus tour, of course! It was really interesting, but we were certainly ready to get off by the time we got to Central Park! Our first impression of the park was that it was really, really pretty, particularly with all the snow around. The paths were all mostly cleared, with bits of slush in places, but the snow blanketing the grassy areas and trees looked lovely. However, we soon discovered that huge areas of the park were out of bounds due to falling trees and branches! It turned out that it hadn’t snowed that early in the year in New York for years and years, and because the trees were all still covered in leaves, the snow broke a lot of branches and caused lots of damage, unfortunately.

DB said that he wanted to go to the Strawberry Fields area, the memorial place for John Lennon, but as we walked towards it, it was barriered off from the public due to falling branches. We were able to walk around the outside of it, and as we approached a nearby bench, DB went over to it and began to wipe snow off it with a gloved hand. I assumed we were having a sit down for a minute, so waited till the bench was clear of snow and then delicately sat on a dry bit! He began ferreting in his bag again, so I just sat there and looked round at the beautiful views, all snowy and pretty. Suddenly, completely out of the blue, DB asked me if I wanted a sweet. I said okay, and held out my hand. He placed a lilac coloured M&M into it, which had my name printed on it! I looked at it for a second, then smiled and said, “ooh, look, it’s got my name on it!” At which point he puts a pale pink one into my hand, which had the words ‘marry me’ printed on it. I stared at it for a moment, not entirely sure what I was seeing. I looked at him, then back at the M&Ms. I looked at him again, and he is placing a beautiful, pale pink, crystal ring box in my hand, containing a white gold ring with a huge pink sapphire and diamonds in it. He is looking at me, hopefully. I begin to cry, and after asking him, “if I said no could I still keep the ring”, eventually managed to say, “YES!”

This was the biggest shock of my life. We have been together for ten years now, and have both had previous marriages that ended quite badly, so even though we had talked about marriage previously, I was fully convinced that he was too terrified to ever do it again. Neither of us has any religious beliefs particularly, so I had come to terms in my head with the fact that we probably would never get married. And then he does this, and astonishes the life out of me. Just goes to show, you can never trust a man to do what you expect him to!

After gathering my wits again, we slowly walked a bit more round the park, just admiring the views and enjoying being there together. We stopped at the little café for coffee and cake, before continuing to walk for another half hour or so. Eventually, we left the park and went to look at the Dakota Building, before crossing the road and waiting for the bus again. We boarded the next open-topped bus, and finished our tour of uptown, Harlem etc. We ended up back at Times Square, where we disembarked and went on a food hunt, ending up at Dave & Busters where we had Philly Cheesesteak sub, bacon turkey burger, fries, mac & cheese, and coffee. DB paid for this himself, rather than using our ‘holiday funds’, as it was our engagement celebration meal!

By this time we were tired and cold, so we made our way back to the hotel for coffee and M&Ms (both proposal and non-proposal ones!), and to open the engagement card from my parents and sister, that I knew nothing about. It turns out that DB had been to visit my parents the day before we left the UK, unbeknownst to me and while I was at work, to ask my dad’s permission to marry me. My mum quickly got us a card, anticipating I would say yes!

DB then told me that he had originally planned to propose at the top of the Statue of Liberty, but that it was going to be closed for refurbishment while we were there, so he looked to book a horse-drawn carriage ride in Central Park, but this would have had to be booked online 24 hours in advance, and when he tried to book it, because the weather was forecast to be very cold, the horses are not allowed out if it is too cold or too hot for them, so he was unable to complete the booking (they also ask for a mobile phone number, and he hadn’t got his phone with him on this trip!). He then thought of Strawberry Fields (as in “Strawberry Fields Forever”), but not only did I book the wrong bus tour in the first place, when we finally did get there, Strawberry Fields was closed off due to falling branches! He said he had almost got to the point of shoving the ring at me and saying, “here! Have a damned engagement ring!” It was so funny, after having taken 10 years to finally make the decision to propose, he was then being thwarted at every turn!

The end of a lovely day, made even more special by a wonderful man. Bedtime.

DAY TEN – Monday 31 October
Plan – Empire State Building
Actual – I didn’t sleep very well last night, (probably had stuff on my mind!), so we were a bit slow to get going today. We had breakfast in the hotel, then caught the subway to visit the Empire State Building. Wow – it was great! We zoomed up to the 86th floor within a few seconds, and we went that fast my ears popped. The views were fabulous, it was a clear, crisp day and you could see for miles.

After we had finished in there, we went to a restaurant called Heartland Brewery & Rotisserie for lunch, where I had chicken burger & fries, and DB had a buffalo burger & fries. We finished with New York cheesecake. The food was really lovely, but very expensive!

Next we headed for Grand Central Station, which is a really beautiful building, for a good look round and to take some photos, followed by pictures of the Chrysler Building, and then we went into Macy’s. We found a Starbucks in there and had a much-needed coffee break before exploring Macy’s.

We wanted to see the Halloween Parade, so began walking down the road we thought it was on, but we had to walk miles before we found the parade route! We managed to find somewhere to view the parade from, although it was hugely crowded. Once it started, it was great, and the party atmosphere was really exciting. People were dressed in the most amazing costumes just to watch the parade, and the floats and puppets and musicians were incredible! Eventually, we decided to try to start our way back out of the crowds, as the parade went on for a very long time, but it was almost impossible to get away from there. The police had closed off a lot of the roads, and everywhere we turned, we were being told to go different ways all the time. The information was confusing and contradictory, and the police really didn’t seem to know what they were supposed to be telling us or where to direct us to go to. It took us over half an hour to get out of the area, and we had to walk a long way down some side streets, but we finally got away and back to our hotel.

All the walking had left us totally exhausted, but APPARENTLY my snoring kept DB awake half the night. Hah! He should hear himself sometimes!

DAY ELEVEN – Tuesday 01 November
Plan – Relaxing day, shopping
Actual – After breakfast in the dining room, we went back up to our room and just relaxed, watching TV, until midday. We then got the subway to Times Square, where we went to the discount show ticket booth to pick up tickets for another show we were keen to see, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”. We managed to get tickets for that night’s show at a 40% discount, which was great.

We did some shopping at the Disney Store, (oh how I wished we had bought the Christmas decorations there that we saw previously though, as they had sold out by today!), the M&Ms store and Bloomingdales, got some postcards, and had burgers in McDonalds, before going off on a search for a Post Office. We hadn’t got very far before we spotted the massive, 3-storey Toys R Us, with a full sized Ferris wheel inside! The responsible adult in us keeled over and died, and we promptly forgot about the Post Office and went into Toys R Us. As we entered, an employee let DB drive a remote controlled shark balloon thing, which was great fun! They also had an amazing Wonka section with loads of sweets! We looked round there for ages, buying some sweets to eat in the theatre plus some chocolate to take home.

Eventually, it was time to leave and head for the theatre. The show was really, really good, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Daniel Radcliffe is an amazing actor, really funny, and the whole show was so much fun. Afterwards, on our way back to the subway, we passed another theatre that was previewing a play starring Alan Rickman, and as we walked past, he came out of the theatre to his adoring fans! I managed to fight my way past them, (they were all a little shy and hesitant, and I’m ashamed to say I took advantage of that!), and told him what an honour it was to meet him. I meant that, he is an absolutely wonderful actor, one of the greats in my opinion, and it was lovely to have the opportunity to thank him for many years of entertainment.

Back to the hotel, coffee and bed. Another wonderful day.

DAY TWELVE – Wednesday 02 November
Plan – Central Park Zoo
Actual – After breakfast in the hotel, we caught the subway to the nearest stop to Central Park that we could find. We had real problems actually finding the zoo, because of the fact that huge areas of the park were still out of bounds, and there appeared to be very few signposts pointing the way, but eventually we found our way there.

We went to see a 4D film first, about polar animals, which turned out to be parts of a BBC series that had been shown in the UK! We hadn’t seen most of it before though, so that was nice. We then explored the zoo, spending a lot of time with the red pandas (my favourite animal) – they were asleep in a tree when we first got there, but we wandered back there again after 10 mins and they were awake and running round, eating, washing – so cute! The same thing happened with the snow leopard – she was nowhere to be found the first time we walked past, but when we went back again a bit later, she suddenly ran towards the glass we were standing behind! She was gorgeous! She then went to the top of a rock and we could only see her backside, tail, and occasionally her ears, but DB had taken an amazing photo of her as she ran towards us.

The polar bear was asleep near the glass – he was HUGE! He stretched a bit, looked at us, then went back to sleep. It’s obviously hard work being that cute. We saw the sealions being fed, and the penguins, before going into the café and having chicken strips, fries and coffee. The weather was glorious, still cold, but bright and sunny.

When we finally left the zoo, we decided to walk down Fifth Avenue. We went into Trump Tower (we won’t mention the amusing ‘wind’ incident while we were in there) for a look round, and discovered there is a Starbucks in there, so stopped for a Peppermint Mocha, before visiting Tiffany’s and Abercrombie & Fitch, where I picked up a t-shirt for my DD for Christmas. (There was a gratuitously half-naked man posing in the doorway – disgraceful! I had to walk past several times to stare at him, before having my picture taken with him and everything!! Ahem.)

We then made our way back to the hotel, stopping at a Dunkin’ near the hotel for coffee and doughnuts to go, then watched some TV before bed.

DAY THIRTEEN – Thursday 03 November
Plan – Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Ground Zero
Actual – We had been planning to visit the Statue, but when we tried to book tickets in advance a couple of months before, we had discovered that it would be closing for major refurbishment the day before we arrived in New York, so we just got tickets for the ferry to the islands instead.

We got up early, had usual breakfast in the hotel, then caught the subway south to Battery Park. We got the ferry to Liberty Island and explored there, (being awed at the size of the Statue!), stopped for coffee and brownies, before catching the ferry across to Ellis Island, where we spent many hours walking round the Immigration Museum. This was a fascinating place, we learned so much there, it was really interesting.

Around late afternoon, we then caught the ferry back to Battery Park, where the intention was to visit the memorial at Ground Zero. However, we did not know that because it is still partly under construction, we were supposed to obtain (free) Visitor Passes in advance of our visit. A very nice steward told us we could get passes for the next day online, but we were leaving the next day, so unfortunately we missed our chance to pay our respects on this occasion, which was a real shame. Never mind, next time we go to New York, we will know to investigate this before we go, rather than just turning up. We took a few photos, but everywhere was closed off with high fences so we couldn’t even see anything of the memorial, so after that we just headed for the subway.

We were starving by this point, as we hadn’t eaten since the brownies on Liberty Island. Therefore, we exited the subway at Times Square and went back to Dave & Busters again, as we had really liked our previous visit. I repeated the Philly Cheesesteak & fries meal, DB got a BBQ burger & fries, then we shared a piece of cheesecake.

After dinner we returned to the hotel, to pack and check in online with American Airlines for the next part of our adventure, before bed.

DAY FOURTEEN – Friday 04 November
Plan – Fly to Florida!
Actual – We got up at 5 a.m., had quick showers and finished packing, before grabbing some bagels and donuts to go from the breakfast room. We then got a cab to JFK airport ($52!), and headed for the bag drop as the hotel had printed out our boarding passes for us the night before. However, there was an issue with our bags – they were both slightly overweight, and the steward wanted to charge us $100 each for them!! We were horrified at this, because we had already been hit with a $25 charge for each of the cases which we hadn’t realised we were going to have to pay. (I do lots of research before we go away, and always try to pay any charges in advance; however, I had clearly missed this one!). She said that it was a shame we didn’t have another case, as a third case would only have cost us another $35 instead of the $200 for the overweight cases; we both looked at each other, laughed, and promptly opened up one of our cases in which we had already stored our third and empty case, ready for the trip back from Orlando! She looked somewhat disappointed as we transferred stuff from the two overweight cases into this empty third case, as we obviously robbed her of her shockingly over-priced excess baggage charge – ha!

Anyway, crisis averted, we headed for security. This was also a bit surprising – this was an internal flight, but security took my two small bottles of water off me! And despite a hand search, they completely missed the plastic knives and metal nail file I had in my hand luggage ……. Not to mention the obviously terrifying bagels. Bizarre. We were then pulled aside and swabbed for explosives. Apart from the swabbing guy, everyone else was very rude, abrupt, and rather ignorant towards us.

Whilst I applaud any kind of security that makes it safer to fly these days, the inconsistency in security between different airports is quick shocking, and we did feel rather picked on – it was, I think, a little unfortunate that we appeared to have been selected randomly for several security issues at once. This all left us feeling a bit frazzled.

After this, the flight itself was very smooth and trouble free, and after landing in my favourite airport in the world, we collected our luggage and went to pick up the hire car. We had hired an SUV for a change, (we normally have just a full-size saloon – there is only two of us but we like a roomy car), through an online agency based in the UK that I have used before, and we ended up with Dollar. The rental process was very easy, and after turning down the pre-paid tolls and the extra insurance, and laughing in the face of breakdown cover, (we rented it from you, you fix it if it goes wrong!), we duly collected ourselves a shiny, white Ford Escape, and set out for the purple arches.

Still laughing in the face of breakdown cover, and after about 5 mins, the car suddenly died on us. We stopped laughing. We weren’t driving very fast, and were on a fairly deserted strip of road, so we just had a mild panic, restarted the car and carried on. DB thought he had probably done something wrong, and we were just so excited to be in Orlando that we dismissed the incident as minor. Remember this.

I had printed driving directions out to our hotel, Old Key West, prior to our leaving the UK, as we had never stayed there before. However, we missed the turnoff that we should have taken as it was just after the car had died and we weren’t really concentrating, so we decided to carry on driving and just follow the way that we remembered from our stay in a villa in the Boggy Creek area in 2007.

We drove under the purple arches laughing and singing, with the hot Florida sun glinting off my beautiful new engagement ring – ‘happy’ was rather an inadequate word at that point!

Did I mention it was hot? Oh joy – no more snow, no more freezing rain or howling wind, and we had gone from 40 to 80º in less than an hour and a half.

We found OKW really easily, and thought it looked so lovely! It was all still decorated up for Halloween. We have only stayed in value resorts before, which are great in themselves, but this was our first time in somewhere like this! We checked in, and to our surprise and great delight, our room was ready! It was only 11.00 a.m., and we had been prepared to leave our bags with bell services for the day. We were given a package of exciting leaflets, information, maps etc., plus our Keys to the World, and the cast member checking us in then began plying us with badges – “We’re Celebrating!”, “Happy Birthday!”, “Happy Anniversary!”. Then I told him we had just got engaged, so he happily shoved another couple at us – “Just Engaged!”. Phew!

We followed the map and drove round to our room. It was on the first floor, with a balcony leading off, and was absolutely beautiful. We just felt so happy and relaxed, and the room being ready and so lovely was such a great start to the Florida part of the trip.

We had lots to do, so after exploring the room, we just dropped the bags and left again, (after pinning on our ‘Just Engaged’ badges!), planning to unpack later. We then went to Denny’s for a much-needed lunch – All-American Slam for DB, and Build-Your-Own-Slam for me! It was lovely, we really enjoyed it. Our server congratulated us on our engagement!

Next we went to Wal-Mart and picked up some bottled water, sugar-free drinks flavouring powders, essential Cheetos, etc., before heading for the Magic Kingdom. For Christmas last year I had bought DB a “Ride Along Experience” gift card for Richard Petty, and as we had never been there before, we wanted to check out the location, operating hours, any requirements etc., prior to his actually doing the Experience. They were great, really helpful, and once we knew what we would be doing, we left to go over to the Ticket & Transportation Centre to collect our pre-booked Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party tickets. There was no-one queuing at the ticket booths, and we went straight up to a cast member there. She had a bit of trouble finding my order, as it turned out that after payment had been taken, the order had not completed, but she was able to complete it and printed out our tickets for us. She was lovely, so helpful and sweet. More ‘congratulations!’ from her, as well.

We then drove back to Old Key West, stopping at Goods to Go (the fast food counter) to pick up refillable mugs and get some coffee in them, then drove to our room and discovered that we were about 2 mins walk from a laundry room, just by a quiet pool. We therefore unpacked, did 2 loads of washing, (which included the 4 pairs of (stiff) socks and one single sweatshirt that I had had to wear for a fortnight!) and relaxed a bit in the room.

Around 6 we left for Fort Wilderness Campground, as we had reservations at Trail’s End that night. When we visited WDW in 2010 we had eaten there on our first night, and any time we do something that we really like in our family, it immediately becomes ‘a tradition’, so it was obviously a ‘tradition’ that we went to Trail’s End tonight!

We were there about half an hour before our reservation time, so collected our pager (“Congratulations!”), and went to sit on the rocking chairs outside. We were feeling very smug with DB in his shorts and a t-shirt, and me in my floaty summer dress and NO SWEATSHIRT/SOCKS/SOGGY TRAINERS!

We weren’t there long before the pager went off, and we were seated in the upstairs area. We were quite hungry, and really enjoyed fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn with bacon, green beans, and gravy. We had a small second plate of the same, and I also tried pulled pork, which I’d never had before but really fancied trying. It was lovely! I hate the taste of barbeque food and sauce normally, but the BBQ sauce on this was sweet and tasty, I loved it. I have come to the conclusion that whilst I hate British BBQ sauce, American brown sugar hickory sauce is gorgeous.

We had a small amount of dessert, already being surprised at how much less we were eating than we had during our visit here in 2010, and finished our glasses of Sprite. It was a lovely meal, we really enjoyed it, and our server was very good. (This was a relief, as our last visit here had been a little marred by a less than stellar server, and our experience this time proved that this had obviously been a one-off.)

(Whilst I am not going to keep on repeating the good wishes we got from cast members and other guests for our engagement, do be aware that the word ‘congratulations’ was repeated regularly and constantly for the entire 14 days – to the point where we were beginning to get a LITTLE bit fed up with it!)

Once we had finished, we ‘paid’ with two table service credits, left a tip, then walked slowly round to the beach to see whether we could see Wishes from the Magic Kingdom, although we were unsure as to whether we had missed this or not. I hadn’t checked the time of Wishes before leaving OKW, and after hanging around for about 10 mins, we concluded that we had probably missed it (we had). We were tired and a bit chilly by this point, so we gave up and went back to OKW. We set a wake-up call for 6 a.m. before collapsing into bed! A long but lovely day.

DAY FIFTEEN – Saturday 05 November
Plan – Epcot
Actual – We were rudely awoken by Stitch telephoning us this morning! That was a shock to the system, but it did the job – we got up, put the coffee machine on to brew, showered, then went to Goods to Go (stopping to admire the Halloween decorations at Olivia’s, the table-service restaurant) to pick up refillable mugs. We filled them with coffee and then headed to Epcot, parking in Journey 3, just after rope-drop. The weather was beautiful today, hot and sunny, with the odd fluffy cloud.

As we walked through the turnstiles, I was a bit overwhelmed by my favourite park, and taking into account the fact that we were a bit tired anyway, plus I was a tad over-emotional about the engagement, I burst into tears. (Of joy, I hasten to add!) A cast member who was welcoming guests in looked at me, and said to DB, “is she crying ALREADY? Boy, it’s gonna be a looooong day!” We laughed, and I felt slightly less foolish! The Food & Wine Festival decorations were everywhere, and lovely to see.

We headed over to Living with the Land, and saw that Soarin’ only had a 20 min standby line, so we picked up fastpasses and then went standby. In reality we walked almost straight on, and got row 2. We came out, and went straight back on again, this time getting row 1, and again walking straight on. I was trying to memorise the order of the scenes in there, as I have the music on my MP3 player at home, and next time I am on the treadmill at the gym with gritted teeth and the Soarin’ music comes on, I want to be able to close my eyes and visualise the film! After this second ride, the wait time was now posted at 25 mins, but still looked short to us, so we went on again, row 2, with a 10 min wait. Finally, we used the fastpasses to ride and got row 1 again. We both really love this ride, and to have 4 flights back to back was amazing!

Time for breakfast – we went to Sunshine Seasons to see what they had to offer. We had already decided previously that we would pay for coffee out of pocket, rather than ‘waste’ snack credits on it (we drink a lot of coffee!). We began to peruse the breakfast offerings, but got sidetracked by the cakes, deciding to opt for chocolate mousse cake (me) and pumpkin cheesecake (DB), plus coffee. So we used our first snack credits to ‘pay’ for the cake! DB loved his cheesecake, we don’t get pumpkin offerings in the UK and he had been really keen to try something while in the USA, so my suggestion was that he try something pumpkin-based, and if he didn’t like it, well at least we hadn’t paid for it. However, he really liked it, and we therefore enjoyed our ‘naughty’ breakfast of cake!

(While we were sat eating our breakfast, we witnessed about 8 assorted cast members (servers, people from the tills, cleaners etc), led by someone who appeared to be management, suddenly and unexpectedly mob a young lad who was wearing a hat with a birthday cake and candles on it – they gathered around him, pointed at him repeatedly, sang “Happy Birthday” to him very loudly, and made everyone clap at the end! It was really funny, he was extremely embarrassed, but it was his own fault for wearing a loud hat and drawing attention to himself!)

Breakfast over, we rode Living with the Land, wanting something nice and gentle to let our food go down. There was a 10 min posted wait, which was fairly accurate, and we enjoyed this ride, as we always do. (I want a 10 pound lemon – I love lemons!)

From there we went to Test Track, which was showing a 20 min wait. We opted for the single rider line, and walked straight on without stopping, which was great. This is DB’s favourite ride, he loves it. Occasionally we have done the single rider line and have been put quite close together, but this time we were sent to opposite ends of the queue area. That was fine with us, as we knew we would ride again several more times before the end of the trip, and some of those rides would be together! We picked up fastpasses as we left for later, and then went to Mission Space (Green), which was a straight walk-on.

Having successfully piloted our spaceship down to the surface of Mars, we realised that it was now approaching 11.30 a.m., and we were quite hungry, so we went to the Electric Umbrella for chicken nuggets & fries, chocolate milk, & strawberry cheesecake (me), and Angus cheeseburger & fries, coffee, and a brownie (DB). Cost of all this? One counter service credit each, e.g. nothing. It was all very yummy, and exactly what we needed.

I was quite excited to see the return of Captain EO this year, as DB had never seen it and I remembered it as being quite good, so we now headed over for a viewing. DB loved it, and I had forgotten just how good it was – I loved it too! It was great, so lively and full of energy and passion. It did make me cry a bit though, for two reasons – one was that we had so recently lost the utterly amazing talent of Michael Jackson, and the second reason was that this film reminded me of the first time my (now grown-up) son had seen this, when he was 8 years old, and the fact that this film had single-handedly turned him into a huge and lifelong MJ fan. Two years ago I had spent almost two days on the internet, trying and then succeeding to get tickets for one of Michael’s comeback gigs in London. We had never seen him in concert and were so looking forward to it, before the sad news that he had passed on rocked the world.

Our fastpass window for Test Track had now opened up, so we went back there and had great fun riding together, before going straight back on again in the single rider line!

Club Cool was next for a quick sample of my beloved Vegibeta, and a few others, before we rode Journey into Your Imagination, which is harmless enough and mildly amusing, but still nowhere near as good as it was originally.

Feeling a little tired and ready for a bit of a rest, we headed for the Universe of Energy, which is a great ride and always good for a 45 min sit down! When we got inside the building, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that Disney have installed bench seating around the edges of the pre-show area – great idea, it should hopefully stop people from sitting on the floor and being in everyone’s way all the time. We found somewhere to sit and watched the start of the film show. However, the soundtrack was working but the visuals weren’t, so after a couple of minutes a cast member shooed us all out, saying that there was a technical problem and to come back later! We therefore went back to Mission Space and once again saved the mission.

We now browsed around MouseGear, looking for postcards but also admiring all the new merchandise on sale this year. We picked up a few postcards, but just window-shopped everything else, planning on buying stuff at a later date. We were very taken by this year’s special offer of a Mickey Mouse watch for $17.99 with any purchase over $40, and hoped to be able to get one each at some point.

It was now nearly time for our reservation at the Garden Grill restaurant, so we walked slowly over to The Land, and checked in at the podium. We were given a pager, and went and sat by the restrooms. Even though we hadn’t been told they were busy or running behind, we still ended up waiting nearly 30 mins to be seated, which was about 15 mins past our reservation time.

Anyway, we were seated on the upper level, and our server soon brought us some lovely bread rolls and sweet butter, before bringing out the platter of meat, fish, and potatoes and a huge bowl of salad. We loved everything, but DB particularly liked the fish (mahi-mahi) and I loved the steak and the mashed potatoes. (We were offered a second platter if we wanted it, but wanted to save room for dessert). For dessert we had warm fruit cobbler with vanilla bean cream, and a plate of ice-cream with Oreo cookies made into a Mickey ears shape. We had never had cobbler like this before, with an oaty, crumble topping, and despite my hatred of anything with cinnamon in it, I immediately fell in love with fruit cobbler! This had autumn fruits that were sharp and tangy, topped with a really crunchy and flavourful oaty topping. I was quite full from the main course so DB ate most of it, but I still really enjoyed what I had.

We were amazed, although we probably shouldn’t have been, by the amount of detail that goes into the BACK of the scenes in Living with the Land, which you get to see by dining in the Garden Grill

During the meal, we were visited by Mickey Mouse, Pluto, and Chip & Dale. We had never experienced a character meal before, and I was surprised that the characters spent time with us because we didn’t have children with us, and I thought they wouldn’t bother much with just two adults, but I was wrong! They individually came to our table, made a fuss and gave hugs and kisses, and posed for photos with both of us. The interaction was lovely, just enough to be fun without being too long and turning into embarrassing! Farmer Mickey joked along with DB when I told him that DB had eaten most of the cobbler, with both of them blaming me! Chip & Dale were hilarious! They are so badly behaved, it is really funny. There was a point at which Chip was at a table on the lower level, beside us, and we watched as he speared a big chicken leg with a fork and tried to shove the whole thing into a small child’s mouth at once! She couldn’t open her mouth for laughing, it was lovely! Then Dale came and sat with us, spotted my ‘Just Engaged’ button, and snatched up my hand for a look at my engagement ring. He then leaped up, and strutted up and down, holding out his own paw and pointing at it, in a ‘look at me, I’m engaged!’ kind of way! It was so funny. When he sat down again next to me, I passed DB my camera so he could take a picture, but dropped it on the table before he had hold of it properly. Dale immediately shook his head and pointed at me, as if to say it wasn’t his fault, it was mine! They were absolutely great fun, we had lovely food and really loved both the restaurant and the experience.

We were really full at the end of this meal, so we settled the bill with a couple of table service credits, left a tip, then set off for a slow walk around World Showcase, stopping for a look at the Cranberry Bog, and then beginning with Canada and walking anti-clockwise. We didn’t explore each country properly, leaving that for another day, we just slowly strolled round. When we got to Germany, we popped into the bar area to pick up a beer stein for an online friend’s husband, then made our way to the preferred viewing area for Illuminations (we had received a voucher for one viewing each in this area with our vacation package). The preferred viewing area was a fantastic spot, roped off, with just 2 other families in there, and stewarded by a cast member who would only let you in if you had a voucher. It was near the walkway for the boat dock, and gave an unobstructed view of the lake, fire barges and globe.

We chatted until Illuminations started, then DB began taking photos of the fireworks and laser show. I love this show, it is my favourite at WDW (DB loves it, but his favourite is Fantasmic). At the point where the music and fireworks reach their explosive peak, DB, who was on his knees balancing his camera on the railing to take pictures without using a flash, suddenly turned to me and proposed again! Needless to say, I burst into tears (again!) and said yes. He is not normally particularly romantic, but he was really excelling himself on this holiday!

After the show, we made our weary way back to OKW, set the wake-up call for the next morning, put our watches back by one hour (yay! Extra hour’s sleep!), and went to bed.

DAY SIXTEEN – Sunday 06 November
Plan – Richard Petty Ride-Along Experience, Magic Kingdom
Actual – Woken up by Stitch again, but the extra hour’s sleep had made us feel well rested and ready for the day. We showered, grabbed coffee in our mugs from Goods, and headed out to the Magic Kingdom TTC for DB’s ride-along experience.

We drove into Richard Petty Raceway, and after checking in at reception, DB was given a USB memory stick, directed to a row of suits hanging up, and told to pick one and put it on.

All suited up, we went outside where he was fitted with a crash helmet, and we waited for the car to be available. I stood in a viewing area to one side so I could take photos. After a couple of minutes, a rally car raced into view, they prised the previous guy out of it, and it was DB’s turn! He is 6’2” tall, and well built, so it was interesting watching him getting into this car through the window! He was given a brief safety talk, had his photo taken, and was introduced to his driver, (“Hi, my name’s Randy, you ever been in a racecar before?”), before whizzing off at a rate of knots.

This was a 3 lap experience, he had an out-lap, a middle ‘fast’ lap, and then an in-lap. Amusingly, I tried to take a photo of the car as he was on his ‘fast’ lap and all I got was the background – by the time the camera snapped the picture, he had gone!

DB absolutely loved this experience! He grinned all the way through it, apparently! He had had to give the driver his memory stick, which they plug into the car’s computer, and it records the trip with a camera facing him, so you can then buy a DVD afterwards of your experience.

He clambered back out again, and we went back into the reception area, (which is also the shop), to de-suit and pick up the photo. They had mounted his photo on a plaque, and it looked great, so we bought that and the DVD, which we were told would be posted to us and would arrive about 3 weeks after the event. We also picked up a Richard Petty long-sleeve t-shirt for him.

All in all, this was great value, and DB really enjoyed himself – as a Christmas present, it sure beat socks and a Santa jumper!

After this, we went to drive over to the top end of the TTC, but as we left the RP Speedway, the car stuttered to a halt again. We were only in the TTC car park area, and there were no other cars around us, so we tutted, rolled our eyes, and waited for a couple of minutes before restarting the car again and continuing our journey, parking the car, and catching the ferry across to the Magic Kingdom. The first thing we did, (after admiring the Christmas decorations and staring at Main Street and the Castle in all its glory for a minute), was to pick up rice krispie treats from the candy store, and sit on a little bench around the corner to enjoy our breakfast.

The park didn’t look too crowded today, and the weather was gloriously hot and sunny, with almost no humidity. The Christmas decorations had begun to be put up, there were garlands across Main Street and wreaths everywhere, but no big Christmas tree near the train station yet – I understand this doesn’t go up until the beginning of December, anyway. There was absolutely no sign of Halloween anywhere here!

After breakfast, we walked to Adventureland and headed for Pirates of the Caribbean, which was showing a 5 min wait time. However, instead of following all the people who were streaming into the left hand side of the entrance, we walked down the right hand side, swept past them all and walked straight onto the ride! For the first time, we got splashed a bit during the gunfight battle scene between the ships, too! We sang along and really enjoyed the ride.

Next was my favourite ride at MK, Big Thunder Mountain. We picked up fastpasses, then went into the standby line. It was posted as 20 mins, but we kept moving all the time and were probably on in 10 mins or less. It was great fun, as always! After our experiences last year with DB and his squashed legs, we now ask for a separate row each so he can sit slightly sideways and avoid having the curve of the lapbar crush his thighs. We almost always get to sit one behind the other, so we can still whoop and grin at each other during the ride!

Splash Mountain was next, showing a 10 min wait but again we walked straight on. This was lots of fun, and we didn’t get as wet as we have previously, although DB pathetically whined when we came off until I let him buy a new t-shirt, as in previous occasions! This one has Mickey on it with water dripping off him, and a legend of “My other t-shirt is dry!”. We had it shipped back to our resort, to save carrying it round with us.

We headed back to BTM to use our fastpasses, only to find it was down! We were told to come back later, so decided to break for lunch. We went to the Columbia Harbour House for lobster rolls, chocolate cake and coffee/chocolate milk, (one counter service credit each), and sat upstairs. That is a lovely seating area, really quiet and underused. We sat up there and looked down on all the people who suddenly donned ponchos as there was a brief rainstorm!

DB also pointed out to me the darker coloured brick walkway through Liberty Square. Before this holiday, we had purchased a “WDW – Little Known Facts” type of book, which he had read avariciously before coming away, and he was constantly saying, “did you know …..” to me, before regaling me with some fact or another that I quite often had not heard before. Although it was really interesting, it became a running joke that every time he turned to me and began a sentence with, “did you know …..”, I would give a fake scream and run away! Anyway, apparently the brown brick walkway represents the sewerage that would have run through the streets at that period, as they did not have sanitation the way we do now! Fascinating ……

After lunch, (which was really tasty but nowhere near as good as the lobster rolls we had had in Boston, but hey – free lunch!), we went to the Haunted Mansion, which was showing as a 20 min wait but looked quite crowded. We avoided the interactive queue, figuring we would do that another time when it was less busy, and were therefore on the ride within 10 mins. I love the ghostly footsteps at the beginning! At the end of the ride, a ghost took off our heads and temporarily swapped them round, which was funny!

As we came out, people were lining up for the parade, so we stood in front of the stocks in Liberty Square, where we were slightly elevated and had a good view. The parade was really lovely!

Once that was over, we went back to BTM again, which was up and running by now. We used our fastpasses, explaining that we were outside the time window due to the breakdown earlier, and thoroughly enjoyed the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness once more!

We wandered back into Fantasyland, and saw that Its A Small World was showing as a 15 min wait, so went into the WRONG side – oh wait, they changed it! It was weird going down the ramp on the far side to get ONTO the ride, instead of off it. The queue was more like 25 mins than 15, and we wouldn’t have bothered if we’d realised it was going to take that long, but we still enjoyed it, singing all the way round.

We looked at Peter Pan next, but that was showing a ridiculous wait time, so went to Mickey’s Philharmagic instead, which we both loved. As we left IASW it was pouring with rain again, so we dashed across to the Philharmagic theatre, along with lots of other people who were trying to avoid the rain! We looked at the Winnie the Pooh ride, but it was also showing a long wait time, so we headed instead into Tomorrowland, where we rode the TTA twice in a row with no wait time and without having to get off between rides!

It had stopped raining by this point, so we went over to Buzz and picked up fastpasses, went on the Carousel of Progress (lovely!), before heading back to the hub to watch a really sweet (but quite short) show in front of the castle, which culminated in sparkly lights all over the castle, (I think it was called Castle Dreamlights). A cast member had told us earlier that this would happen at around 6.45, and it did.

We went back to Tomorrowland then to use our Buzz fastpasses, (he thrashed me – how did that happen??), before going into the standby line for a rematch – 20 mins posted, more like 10 mins. Ha, I beat him that time! We bickered our way (not seriously) to the TTA again, before slowly making our way back towards the Crystal Palace for our dinner reservation, taking lots of photos along the way. It was dark now, and Cinderella’s Castle looked absolutely beautiful – all shimmery, glittering lights, which changed colour slowly and was just gorgeous.

We only waited for about 5 mins after checking in at the Crystal Palace before being seated, although it was quite busy. The food was amazing! We really, really loved this buffet, there was this fantastic dressing that was made with zinfandel wine, sesame oil, mandarin oranges and honey – it was incredible! I tried some peel & eat shrimp, and discovered that it annoyed me – it was just so fiddly! We had various salads, beef and turkey, and some mac & cheese. I also tried the cinnamon & lemon infused rice, which was really tasty. The food was absolutely lovely, and we then managed to eat our own body weight in tiny, bite-sized, delectable desserts!

The character interaction was great fun, we were visited by Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh, Piglet (I hate Piglet, for some obscure reason, but was very good and managed to pose nicely for a photo with him without stabbing him with my fork), and finally my favourite, Tigger! He moved DB’s arms into a position of ‘manly companionship’ with him for the photo, rather than any of that soppy hugging – it was great fun! There was one point where we watched an interaction between Pooh and a small child in a high-chair. The child was a bit dubious about Pooh, but Pooh was so gentle and slow and careful with this child that it brought a tear to DB’s eye!

Completely full, we ‘paid’ with two table service credits, left a tip, and began a slow walk around Cinderella’s Castle, taking photos of the sparkly and icy lighting as we went. (We had missed Wishes, it was on while we were eating). We stopped in front of the castle to take photos of the Partners statue, and while DB was on his knees taking the photo, which came out beautifully as the castle was sparkling behind the statue, he proposed again! What a sweetheart.

We walked slowly back down Main Street, (via stopping briefly in a side street to listen to tap dancing and piano lessons courtesy of DB’s “did you know”), and back to the monorail, which arrived shortly afterwards, taking us back to the TTC and our car. We drove back to OKW, and stopped at reception to pick up pomegranate lemonade and coffee in our mugs, and also to collect a t-shirt that DB had bought the day before from Test Track that we’d had sent to the resort, before heading back to our room and bed.

DAY SEVENTEEN – Monday 07 November
Plan – Animal Kingdom
Actual – We were up bright and early with Stitch again this morning, and after showers and coffee, we rang my sister and my parents to check all was well at home, which it was.

After a chat to them, we headed out for the day via Goods for coffee in the mugs. Weather was once again hot and sunny with no humidity. The Animal Kingdom entrance appeared to be quite crowded, and we had quite a queue to get in there, although once we were in, wait times appeared to be quite low (20 mins max). We went to Pizzafari in search of breakfast, and picked up Bounty Platters - scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, breakfast potatoes, and biscuit, plus coffee, for a counter service credit each. They were yummy! The place was pretty empty, there were only another couple of families in there.

Suitable refreshed, we then went to It’s Tough to be a Bug, which I had only ever done once before as I hate having substances sprayed in my face, and the last time I had done this, years ago, the bug spray had made me panic. However, this time I reckoned I would be ready for it, so was a brave bunny and went into the theatre. We only had a 10 min wait before being ushered in, and I coped with it really well! I quite enjoyed it too, considering I am not a big fan of bugs of any kind, particularly spiders and beetles.

After this we went to the Kilimanjaro Safari ride, (10 min wait), which was great – we had 3 or 4 giraffes come right up to the jeep, they were really close to us! We saw all the usual suspects, including a baby elephant or two, but didn’t see any lions this time. We love this ride, it is different every time we go on it.

From there we walked the Pangani Trail, but were disappointed not to see many gorillas, although we did see a baby and mother briefly at one point. Next was Flights of Wonder, which we had never seen before, and as we approached the theatre we saw that the show was about to start, so we nipped in and found a seat quite easily. The show was fab, we really enjoyed it! It is so funny, and also amazing, when the birds fly really low over people’s heads.

We grabbed a quick coffee, before heading over to the Festival of the Lion King show, which we really love and hadn’t seen for ages, before walking the Maharajah Jungle Trek. The tiger enclosure was great, there was one tiger lying across the top of a stone bridge watching another one walk round her, roaring and making all sorts of interesting noises. A keeper said she was just attention-seeking! We got some great photos of them. The bats were also really active, and we managed to spot the Hidden Mickey on one of the male bats (if you don’t know about this, don’t ask if you are easily offended!)!

I would have liked a ride on Kali River Rapids, so we began to make our way over there, but once in the queue DB changed his mind as we knew we would get very wet, and there would be no time to dry off before our dining reservation. We had a slight disagreement over this, but I did see his point of view and we left there, planning to return another day.

It was by now nearly time for our reservation at Yak & Yeti, so we headed over that way, taking our time and enjoying the atmosphere of a nearly empty park (our reservation was at 4.45, and the park closed at 5). We checked in and were immediately taken to our table, noticing that the restaurant was rather quiet, but extremely attractive. We loved the décor of the place, it was fascinating!

The food was fantastic. DB had Duck with Anandapur Glaze - roasted half duckling, orange wasabi glaze, jasmine rice, stir-fried vegetables. I had Shaoxing Steak and Shrimp - skirt steak, tempura-battered shrimp, jasmine rice, stir-fried vegetables, chilli plum dipping sauce, I gave the chilli plum dipping sauce to DB as I don’t get on with chilli – he loved it! Everything was beautifully presented, and so tasty – it was very high quality food. We both loved the jasmine rice! We finished with mango pie, served with fresh whipped cream and raspberry sauce – this was A-MAZING and we could have easily eaten a second serving, had we not been full to bursting! This was one of the best meals we had had so far, and we took joy in ‘paying’ with two table service credits and a tip.

When we left the restaurant, the park was closed and virtually empty, apart from the odd cast member wandering around. It was lovely to slowly stroll out, taking photos as we went. We didn’t notice any security guards or cast members following us to encourage us to leave, and no-one hassled us. To be fair, we didn’t attempt to wander off anywhere, just headed slowly for the exit, so maybe if we had tried to go anywhere else in the park, we would have been stopped at some point, I don’t know.

It was still only 7.00 p.m., so we decided to go to Downtown Disney to do a little shopping. It was a bit difficult to find somewhere to park, but the DD area itself didn’t seem too crowded. There were also Christmas decorations up here too, it was lovely. We went to World of Disney and picked up some kitchen ware for ourselves, some presents for family back home, a couple of nice watches and some silver jewellery. DB needed a new watch, his had never been the same since he washed my parents’ conservatory roof last year! We got him a lovely bronze coloured one, with a brown and green strap, very Animal Kingdom-like, and not expensive at all. I had been given some money for my birthday earlier in the year, and had saved it for this trip, so I got a lovely watch with a shocking pink plastic strap, and a more subtle one with a rhinestone-ringed face and a black leather strap. I also picked up a gorgeous silver bracelet with swirly Mickey head links, (that match the tattoo I have on my foot), and matching earrings. We also picked up some postcards.

Eventually, we staggered over to Ghiradelli’s for chocolate buttons, peppermint bark squares, and chocolate bars. We were given a free peppermint bark square as we went in, which I think is a new line, as I haven’t seen it there before. It was yummy! So we bought a big bag of them for Christmas.

We left DD and headed back to OKW, via Goods for coffee and lemonade, some cold medicine tablets from the shop as DB was feeling a bit unwell, and the collection of DB’s Splash Mountain t-shirt which had been delivered to our resort store, before going back to our room to write postcards (I had 8 Fairy Godmailer cards to send!) and collapse into bed.

DAY EIGHTEEN – Tuesday 08 November
Plan – Hollywood Studios
Actual – Up early with Stitch again, then showers, coffee, and toasted leftover bagels from the New York hotel for breakfast! Bit cloudy today, but still warm and dry.

We set out for the Studios which wasn’t too far away, but when we were in the middle lane of a 3-lane section of road, the car stopped again! This was serious this time, we had traffic racing past us on both sides of us, beeping horns and shouting at us, but there was nothing we could do! We tried to restart the car and it just would not go, so DB got out and stood behind it, waving vehicles past us on either side. We tried to push the car off the road, but it when it had stalled, DB had put it into ‘park’ and now it was locked in that gear and just would not budge. He waved frantically at Disney bus drivers, who waved back and carried on! After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only about 5 mins or so, a white van with the Disney logo on pulled up behind us. The driver hopped out, put on a hi-vis jacket, and began talking into a mobile phone as he waved the traffic around us with a bright red flag. I went round to tell him what had happened, and he said he had contacted security for us, who were on their way. Meanwhile, DB was frantically trying to start the car again, and by some miracle, it started. I asked the Disney guy where we could pull off and he directed us to drive to the next set of traffic lights then turn right, into the fire station, where we could park at the back. He then followed us there.

He was really lovely, and we forgot to ask him where he had come from – we don’t know whether he had found us by accident, or whether one of the bus drivers had called him for us. He said that security would be with us shortly, and to stay put till they got to us. He was so kind and helpful. He told us that when he first saw our car, he thought it was one of their security vehicles, because they use the same make and model of car, but then he realised it was guests in trouble! We felt so fortunate that this had happened on Disney property because they had immediately been able to help us – if we had been on a main highway anywhere else, we don’t know what would have happened!

He left then, and after a few minutes a small truck from the fire station pulled up, and a very nice young lady asked us if we were okay. We explained the situation, and she left. I presume they have security cameras around and had to check that we weren’t up to no good!

About 5 mins later, a Disney security officer turned up in a car, and after going over the story again, he offered to accompany us back to our resort so that we could contact the rental company, assuming the car would start again! It did, so we babied it back to OKW, thanked the security guy profusely, and went back into our room to call Dollar.

The rental company went through a series of questions, then said that they would send a tow-truck out with a replacement vehicle at no extra cost to ourselves. They were very apologetic, and at no point did they say that we should have taken the car back after the first time it broke down! They promised it would be sorted out in less than 2 hours. I rang the front desk to warn them that we were expecting a tow-truck, so they could let security at the gate know.

DB settled down to surf the internet, watch some TV and doze, while I sat on the balcony and read my Kindle, enjoying a bowl of Cheetos while out there. Exactly one hour and 20 mins later, the front desk rang us to ask if we were expecting a tow-truck! With the minimum of fuss and paperwork, we then had a replacement vehicle, exactly the same as the old one, but with a full tank of fuel rather than the half tank we had in our old one – the car also worked properly, which was a bonus! It wasn’t until we began driving this new car that we realised how much had been wrong with the old one – the fuel consumption was way better in the new car, various warning systems worked when we didn’t realise they hadn’t been working before, the locking system was better, etc. There was obviously a major computer fault on the old car. (And upon our return home and an email to the rental agent, we got a $200 refund and the promise of a discount on any future hire with them). All in all, we lost 3 hours that morning, but it could have been a lot worse – either one of us could have been seriously hurt.

So we now set out for the Studios, feeling much happier but rather irritated with ourselves that we hadn’t done something about the car sooner! Anyway, we parked up in Stage 43 and walked to the entrance. Once through there, we walked to Toy Story Mania, not holding out much hope, and were right – all the fastpasses were gone for the day. The standby time was posted at 40 mins, which wasn’t bad but was more than we wanted to wait for at that point, as we had already lost 3 hours today. Therefore, we walked through the Streets of New York, (which was weird as we had just been to the real one!), to Star Tours, which was showing a 10 min wait. We thought this was excellent, considering it was by now midday!

We absolutely loved the new Star Tours films! It was in 3D too!! We experienced it once, then came off and virtually ran round to do it again. I loved the different endings, it was ace! And it is so exciting, you don’t know which bits you are going to get at the beginning and the end. We were watching the pre-show and thought it was really funny – we loved the bit where the little robots keep doing things wrong and then one bonks the other on the head – excellent!

Lunchtime was making itself apparent by our rumbly tumblies, so we went to the Backlot Express and DB got a turkey & cheese sandwich with fries, followed by marble cheesecake, whilst I opted for chicken nuggets & fries, and a strawberry parfait. We also got coffee and chocolate milk. All very tasty, and two counter service credits later proved there IS such a thing as a free lunch!

Next up was a visit to Muppet Vision 3D, which was fun as usual, and then we went to the Great Movie Ride, (seeing a bit of a parade on the way, where I waved sadly at Lotso – I so wanted to meet him this trip, but never did). GMR was showing as a 10 min wait but there was no-one in there when we went in! After a couple of minutes, they let us into the area where you load into the cars, and I asked for the Western version. We were directed to the right hand side and told to wait there, where we had a 5 min wait. Cast members occasionally came up to check we were okay and chat for a bit, and then we were loaded into the front seat of a car. It was WAY better than the Gangster version, although that opinion could be influenced by the fact that I hadn’t seen the Western version for many years, and DB had never seen it. Anyway, it was lots of fun and we really enjoyed it. I think the problem we have with the Gangster version is that we can never understand what is being said half the time, and we have seen it so many times that we are very jaded about it.

As we came out of the GMR, DB looked uncomfortable and somewhat shifty, and told me he had a bit of a problem. I was most concerned, until I discovered why – he had had a couple of packets of mayonnaise left over after lunch, and I had told him to throw them away. Typically, he hadn’t done that, but instead had put them in the pocket of his shorts – where one of them had burst! He pulled out a hand that was dripping mayonnaise, but worse than that – he then showed me the car keys. I stopped falling over laughing and stared at them. There was mayonnaise in every crevice of those keys! These are the keys to the replacement vehicle we have just had to have. Keys which now will probably not work – aargh! I made him spit-wash those keys with a paper napkin, and we had to just hope for the best. I think I may have been overhead to say to him, “don’t make me thump you in the happiest place on earth!” Men. Never listen.

Voyage of the Little Mermaid was next, which was sweet, and then we carried on down to Pixar Place to check out the queue for TSM again, but it was still showing at 40 mins so we queued to meet Buzz & Woody instead. Time posted was a 10 min wait, which was about right, although it was in a very small indoor area, which was very crowded with excitable children! Anyway, we got photos taken with the boys, and it was fun.

We headed for the Backlot Tour, only to find it had closed at 5 p.m., e.g. 5 mins beforehand! So we went back to Star Tours, and after a 5 min wait got the best film yet – we had a sea monster stuck on the windscreen of our vehicle, he slid down in a heap of slime, and then we visited Jar Jar Binks’ underwater city, ending up on a water planet where we crashed into a spaceship with a long pointy nose, which ‘broke’ through our windscreen! It was fab, and very funny too!

We now split up, with DB going back to the car to change into smarter clothes before our evening reservation at the Hollywood Brown Derby, (by the way, the car keys worked!), whilst I first of all went back to a merchandise stand near the Muppets to buy a pink, furry hat with teddy bear ears for myself, (looked at it earlier and loved it!), and then went to Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster to pick up a fastpass for my DD, as this is her favourite ride and it is a family tradition that I get her a fastpass whenever I go to Disney! When I got there, they had just closed the fastpass machines, but when I explained what I wanted one for, they gave me one that had been used earlier in the day – how sweet of them!

We met up again, and grabbed a Sprite to share, (paid for out of pocket), as we were feeling quite thirsty. We sat on a bench at the crossroads to drink it, then went into the Brown Derby in plenty of time for our reservation. We had a few minutes wait, then were seated at the back of the restaurant. We noticed that, despite what we had read about this restaurant, there were lots of people in casual dress here – DB needn’t have gone out to change into smart clothing!

Our server was lovely if a little over-effusive about the food! To be fair, the restaurant was quite quiet, and she didn’t have many other tables to look after. We ordered glasses of Sprite, and perused the menu, eventually opting for Roasted Free-range Ashley Farms Breast of Chicken - stuffed with serano ham, machego cheese, and spinach over a Fabada stew and tomato concasse (DB), and Filet of Beef - glazed with a red wine reduction topped with Cabernet and Roasted shallot butter, over white truffle forest mushroom whipped potatoes (me). The food was delightful, and we finished off with Chocolate Three Ways - Dark Almond-Buttermilk Cake Layered with Milk Chocolate Truffle Créme and White Chocolate Chambord (DB), and Grapefruit Cake - Light Layers of Yellow Cake with fresh Grapefruit-Cream Cheese Icing (me). DB’s dessert looked amazing, and he said it tasted really good too. My cake was light and fluffy, and the grapefruit frosting managed to be both sweet and slightly tart at the same time! We really enjoyed this meal, and the only negatives we had were that the portions were rather small, my beef came with mashed potatoes but no vegetables, and we definitely felt that this meal was not worth the two table service credits each that we ‘paid’ – the total bill came to a tad under $95! For two courses each and no alcohol, this seemed excessive to us, although the quality of the food was sublime. If the cost is supposed to reflect the perceived ambiance and atmosphere of the restaurant, it also fell down on these counts, as (surprisingly) the place was full of families with children, and with the exception of ourselves, no-one else had bothered to dress for dinner.

When we left the Brown Derby, the park was closed, so we slowly made our way out, taking lots of photos along the way, before heading back to OKW for coffee and bed.

DAY NINETEEN – Wednesday 09 November
Plan – Universal Islands of Adventure – Harry Potter!
Actual – We got up very early this morning, with the helpful assistance of Stitch! Showers, coffee, then to Goods to fill up mugs with more coffee. I must say that having this full-size coffee machine in the room was so lovely, we really took advantage of that. We are big coffee drinkers, so between that and the refillable mugs, we were able to stay well caffeinated during these two weeks!

We followed the map that was included in our welcome pack and found Universal really easily. We parked up in Jaws, then began the rather long walk to the parks. We had pre-purchased 2-park passes before we got to the USA, and they were good for 14 days from the first day of use, although we only anticipated using them for two days.

We went into the Islands of Adventure and headed straight for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Oh. My. God. This place is just incredible! We are big HP fans and were totally blown away by the detail and beauty of the WWoHP. It is extremely picturesque, and very photogenic! We wanted to explore it properly, but decided to head for the Forbidden Journey ride first. We sat in the ‘test seats’ discreetly placed near the entrance gate to check that we would fit, (still both being “well built”, despite the gym!), and all seemed fine. The ride was showing a wait time of 60 mins, but we agreed that we were sure it would be worth the wait, so joined the queue. The queue moved constantly, however, and took no more than 30 mins altogether, including putting our bags into a (free) locker beforehand. The queue area is just fantastic, you walk through Hogwarts Castle, and the attention to detail is worthy of Disney. We have never been big fans of Universal Studios, but this one section of the parks just has to be seen to be believed.

Having been thoroughly entertained on our way through the queue area, (we particularly liked the Dark Arts classroom where Harry, Ron and Hermione appear from under the invisibility cloak and talk to you), we entered the boarding area, requesting that we both have end seats (each ride vehicle has 4 seats, but the two outside ones are slightly larger than the inner ones). They seated us in our own car, with no-one in the middle of us, and pulled down the shoulder restraint bars – which, fortunately, clicked 3 times! (This is what it has to do to allow you to ride safely). The seats felt snug, but that helped to keep us feeling safe and not like we were going to slip out. I had also been a bit concerned as I was wearing flip-flops, but they told me to just cross my ankles and all would be fine – this was right, as it turned out.

Before we had time to draw breath, Hermione flung some kind of spell dust at us, and we swooped upwards! The ride was just amazing, very fast, with lots of swooping up and down, and giant spiders that spit and you and Dementors and a dragon that breathes fire at you and everything – we LOVED it!

All too soon, the ride was over, and feeling somewhat breathless through excitement, we went off in search of Butterbeer. I remembered a tip I had read somewhere about if the main serving stand was crowded, to look for the supplementary serving stand round the corner, but they were both quite busy, so we joined the queue for the main stand. We both had Butterbeer in a souvenir mug, and it was lovely! Very nearly how I expected it to be, and we loved the way the froth was put on afterwards and stayed on the top right to the end. I would have liked a very slightly stronger butterscotch flavour, but it was still really good.

Back to the Forbidden Journey again, which was now showing a 20 min wait, but in reality took about 10 mins – merely the time it took to stash our bags and walk through the castle. Once again, we loved it.

Next was Flight of the Hippogriff, showing a 5 min wait, but again that was just the time it took to walk through to the ride. As you walk through, you go past Hagrid’s Hut, and you can hear Fang barking and Hagrid shouting at him! The ride was, to be honest, a bit boring with not much to look at as you went round, and was extremely short, although a bit faster than I was anticipating! Worth doing once, and only if wait times are short.

After this we took some time to explore the shops, including the Post Office, Owlery, Honeydukes and Zonkos. We couldn’t get into Olivander’s Wand shop, it was absolutely rammed solid with a massive queue outside to get in, so we didn’t bother. We didn’t buy anything at this point, but made lots of mental notes of things to pick up later! The Monster Book of Monsters was fun, it is chained down, growls at you and tries to bite you!

We were hungry by now, as we hadn’t eaten yet, so we went to the 3 Broomsticks for lunch. We had Cornish Pasties & salad, and coffee (and it was a big shock to have to PAY for lunch!), which was quite nice, nothing special. The Pasties were tiny, individual ones, (we were given 3 each), and not very much like Cornish Pasties in the UK! While we ate, we kept looking around because every now and again, projections of bats flying around and witches on broomsticks kept appearing randomly on the walls. There was also a film crew in there at one point, interviewing people and getting them to drink Butterbeer, although they didn’t come anywhere near us.

After lunch, we left the WWoHP area and began to walk around the rest of the park, thinking that we would like to do the Poseidon’s Adventure show, but when we got there, it was between shows with another one not starting for 45 mins, so we hightailed it back to Forbidden Journey again! We went on it twice in a row, with it showing a wait time of 20 mins but it only taking as long as it took us to walk very quickly through the Castle. This time, we swapped seats and having ridden twice in the leading seat, (where I encountered spider spit), I now rode twice in the following seat, (where I missed the spider spit but encountered dragon spit instead!). We both definitely got a different perspective by swapping seats. After the second ride I was beginning to feel a bit queasy, as I normally suffer from travel sickness so had taken medication that morning, but it was wearing off by now, so we went to Honeydukes and blew $52 on chocolate frogs, Bertie Botts All-Flavour Beans, bags of sour snakes and peaches & cream jelly sweets, and a bag of Wizarding Mix (basically trail mix) as a present for my DD. We also got two bars of Honeydukes milk chocolate to eat the next time we watch a HP film together, as a deterrent against Dementors. (Since returning home, we watched the first HP film and ate our chocolate frogs, which were really yummy! They are completely solid chocolate, and that made them worth the $10 each they cost!)

We finally walked round the rest of the park slowly just before it closed, taking photos and just enjoying the atmosphere without going on any other rides, before leaving there and heading back to OKW.

We were scheduled to eat at Olivia’s that night, (according to my dining spreadsheet!), although we didn’t have a reservation, as I had read that it wasn’t necessary for this restaurant. That was right, as we were seated as soon as we arrived there and checked in.

We were brought a loaf of bread, and some sweet butter. The bread was absolutely gorgeous! We could easily have just dined on this. It was sweet and soft, and eventually I realised it had pineapple in it. Our waitress confirmed this, and asked if we wanted more, but if we had, we wouldn’t have been able to eat the rest of our meal! DB ordered the Pork Chop - Grilled Pork Chop with a Chipotle Barbecue Sauce with Smoked Cheddar Macaroni & Cheese with green beans, and I had Slow-roasted Prime Rib - served with Olivia's Potatoes, which were scalloped and had a cheese topping. We both had coffee, and Key Lime Tart to finish. It was all really lovely, we thoroughly enjoyed every bit of this meal. A couple of table service credits and a tip later, we popped into the shop to try and get some more cold medicine for DB, as his throat was now sore. The only one I could get that wasn’t for a cough, which he didn’t have, was a children’s grape flavoured syrup! I got that anyway, as it was better than nothing.

Eventually, we staggered back to our room for bed!

DAY TWENTY – Thursday 10 November
Plan – Kali River Rapids, Epcot, Fantasmic
Actual – We had a mission today to get quite a lot done, so got up early thanks to Stitch, had coffee and showers, and then headed out to the Animal Kingdom with a car full of dry clothing and a couple of towels, via Goods for the usual mugs of coffee!

We parked up at Animal Kingdom and whizzed in there, heading straight for Kali. We donned our ponchos and rode 3 times in total! It was great fun, and during the second ride we made friends with the family who were on there with us, with everyone shouting, ‘again!”, as we got off, so we all ran round to do it again! It was lovely, thoroughly enjoyable, and after wishing our new friends a good day, we headed back to the car to dry off.

We got changed into dry clothing, then drove over to Epcot for the Food & Wine Festival. You may have noticed that we had hardly used any snack credits up until now, as we had paid for coffee out of pocket as we went along. Therefore, we intended to spend some snack credits now by eating at the Festival! This is what we had, in the order we had it. Each food item cost us one snack credit each. Unless stated, we both had the same item.

Australia : Grilled Lamb Chop with Potato-Goat Cheese Salad and Shiraz Reduction
This was very tasty, we liked it – the meat was very tender

Cheese (DB only) : Artisan Cheese Selection with Sweet Gras Dairy Thomasville Tomme, Delice de Bourgogne, PC Wyngaard Chevre Affineurs Goat Gouda
He loved it, but then he does love cheese!

Italy : Ravioli Di Formaggio all'Emiliana (Baked Cheese Ravioli with Creamy Beef Bolognese Sauce, Parmesan Cheese, and Melted Mozzarella)
This was gorgeous! And a very healthy serving, the best value for money in our opinion. We watched a small heron eating a portion that someone had dropped on the floor – he seemed to like it, too!

Singapore : Beef Rendang (a coconut braised beef) with Jasmine Rice
Yummy! Although the beef dish was a tiny bit spicy.

Canada : Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup (DB only), Neige Premiere (apple ice wine) (me, paid for out of pocket)
Yuck! I hated the soup! DB loved it thought, so he had most of it. I had the wine and it was lovely, very sweet but with a dry tang.

Dessert & Champagne : Moët & Chandon Rose Imperial (paid cash), and White Chocolate Macadamia Mousse with Dark Chocolate Pearls (also paid cash as only $1.50 each)
We got this as a celebration of our engagement, and both were lovely. We got a random guest to take our photo with the glasses of champagne.

In between Australia and the Cheese stands, we saw a meet & greet area set up for Duffy the Disney Bear. I love him, and had never met him before, so we queued up to say hello! We didn’t have to wait long, and once again, despite not having children with us, he made such a fuss of us! He wouldn’t let me go, particularly after I told him he was lovely, and he waved DB off whilst holding onto my arm! It was so funny. DB was saying, “so I’ll just go then, shall I?” and Duffy was vigorously nodding his head! We got some photos and eventually managed to get away, then went to the Margarita stand to get a margarita to share, which was very nice, very refreshing.

When we were standing at a table near the Dessert & Champagne stand, a couple asked us if we wanted their fastpasses for Soarin’, as they were leaving soon and couldn’t use them. Ooh, yes please!! That was lovely of them, so we tucked them away for later. (The fastpasses, not the couple ……!)

We were done feasting, so we walked over to the Universe of Energy, and were soon seated in the cool, comfy, dark …..zzzzzzzzz……..Oops, did we doze off for a minute there?? Must have been the champagne.

We grabbed a couple of quick coffees to wake us up, then went to Soarin’ to use our free fastpasses. We had a bit of a wait, and we got chatting to a lovely family in the queue. They were from South Carolina, and it was the dad’s 64th birthday. They hadn’t been on Soarin’ before, and hadn’t been to WDW since the now grown-up daughter was little. They were having a great time! We told them what to expect on Soarin’, and they absolutely loved the ride! (They sat by us in there).

After that, we left Epcot to go to the Hollywood Studios for the 6.30 p.m. showing of Fantasmic. We parked quite easily, but the park itself seemed really busy! We found seating for Fantasmic with no problems though, in the middle Mickey section towards the front, and I left DB there to go in search of ice-cream. I got a Mickey Ice-Cream Bar for me, and a cookie sandwich for DB, using snack credits.

The show was beautiful, as usual. This is DB’s favourite show at WDW, and whilst we could have stayed at Epcot for my favourite, Illuminations, I figured that we had already seen that once, and so to be fair, I made sure that we did Fantasmic tonight. I am such a thoughtful person, its no wonder he kept proposing to me!!

As we left the theatre, there was already a massive queue for the next show. We left the park and were originally going to go to the Pepper Market at Coronado Springs for dinner, but as we didn’t really know where it was and hadn’t thought to look for it in advance, we just drove back to OKW and went to Goods to Go for a burger, fries, chocolate cake (DB) and chicken nuggets, fries, Key Lime pie (me). Two counter service credits, and back to the room for bed.

DAY TWENTY-ONE – Friday 11 November
Plan – Blizzard Beach / Typhoon Lagoon
Actual – Our original plan today was to visit Blizzard Beach, as DB hadn’t been there before, but it was closed for refurbishment. Plan B was to go to Typhoon Lagoon, but upon reflection last night, we realised that we had both been there before, and lovely as it is, we had never had the opportunity to visit the pools at OKW before, so the day evolved into this.

We slept in a bit this morning, then after coffee we put some laundry on to wash in the nearby laundry room, before spending a very pleasant couple of hours (completely alone!) in the quiet pool. When the washing was finished, we put the underwear into the dryer, and spread the t-shirts etc around the loungers to dry in the sun! There was no-one else around, so we didn’t feel we were taking up someone else’s space by spreading out our washing. Another couple eventually arrived, but they sat quite a way away from us, so again we weren’t in their way. We did get into conversation with them at one point, they were from Scotland and were very nice.

Once the washing was all dry, we collected it up, left the pool area, and went back to our room for showers, before heading down to Goods for lunch of nuggets & fries and chocolate cake, (DB), and burger & fruit salad with lime & honey dressing, and key lime pie, for me. (Two counter service credits).

After lunch we went to reception to ask directions to the nearest Post Office, (we had a parcel to post to an online friend in Canada), and were given a map. We followed the map and quite easily found our way there, passing Saratoga Springs (our destination in October 2012!), and finding a back way round to Downtown Disney that we didn’t know was there! However, once we got to the Post Office, we discovered it was closed for Veteran’s Day! Hmph. Oh well. We will have to go back another day.

We next drove to the Nike Outlet store to pick up some trainers, and also got some joggers and a zip-up top for DB while we were there. The prices in there, compared to the UK, are fantastic. For less than $140 we got 3 pairs of trainers, 2 pairs of joggers, and the top – in the UK we would have paid 3 times that amount. From there we drove over to Wal-Mart and picked up a replacement suitcase for the one with the broken wheel, which was proving just too difficult to move around, and we also got various goodies to bring back for ourselves, my family, and my DD – cinnamon toothpaste, Oreo cookies, Cheetos, Lemon Drop lip balm, Carmex, special Christmas Coffee Mate, and sachets of water flavourings. I wanted to look around the clothing section in there, as they do a range called Faded Glory which I really like, but we were running out of time, so we left there and drove to Downtown for our dinner reservation at Planet Hollywood.

Downtown was really crowded, and as we approached PH, we saw something I hadn’t seen in years – a long line to get in! We were amazed at how crowded everywhere was, but fortunately we had a reservation – we don’t normally bother with booking as PH is never normally very busy! We checked in at the podium downstairs, and then still had a few minutes wait before being sent upstairs.

We had to wait a little longer upstairs, but were seated after about 5 minutes. DB ordered the half chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables, and I had the ribeye steak with fries and vegetables. When it came to ordering dessert, DB wanted a particular cheesecake off the menu, but was told he couldn’t have it on the dining plan! How bizarre. We asked why, and were told that it was something to do with the way they order in their supplies, some cheesecakes are ordered in individual portions, and some are whole. Therefore, he could have had one type of cheesecake but not the other! Slightly irritated by this, he finally ordered the key lime pie, while I had the strawberry cheesecake. The food was all very good indeed. We had only ever had sandwiches and burgers here before, so really enjoyed the opportunity to try something more extensive this time. We do love the atmosphere in this place, but the service was incredibly slow on this occasion. Two table service credits and a tip, and we left.

It was still only around 9.00 p.m., so we went back to Wal-Mart to check out the clothing section. We also wanted to look at a SatNav with USA maps on it, as the one we have at home doesn’t have a memory card or very big hard drive, and therefore we can’t upload new or additional maps onto it. We found one that is almost identical to the one we have at home, so at least we would know how to use it, and it has the whole of the USA and Canada on there. The price looked good, quite cheap, and when we got the assistant to check the price for us, it was on offer and therefore even better value! We decided to buy it.

I also found some great clothing – a lovely cream coloured fleece top with furry hood and furry cuffs, a black floaty top with shirring and nicely shaped short sleeves, and a long sleeved cream coloured Christmas t-shirt with reindeer on the front (which I consequently forgot to wear at Christmas!). I duly bought all three, before we headed back to OKW and bed.

DAY TWENTY-TWO – Saturday 12 November
Plan – Epcot
Actual – We were up very early with Stitch’s assistance this morning, as we had reservations at Akershus for a Princess Breakfast! We showered and had coffee, dropped the broken suitcase off in the trash room downstairs, then drove over to an almost deserted Epcot, parking very easily.

It was weird going through the turnstiles at 8.00 a.m., but very cool having our names on a reservation list before we went through! We walked quickly to Akershus, and checked in at the podium. There seemed to be a lot of guests waiting to go in, and there were certainly lots of little girls dressed up as various Princesses!

We were called in and taken to meet Belle, who was so pretty, and we had a couple of photos taken with her. Then we were taken to a table, and our server explained how the buffet service worked. We helped ourselves to small amounts of fresh fruit, pastries, bagels, cheese, and strawberry yoghurt, to which we added a spoonful of toasted oats & pecans. DB also had some cooked sliced meats. It was all delicious, and when we had finished, another server brought a big platter of bacon, scrambled eggs, sausages, and breakfast potatoes to our table. We could also have had a variety of breads and toasts, croissants etc., but we managed to eat the hot food before finishing with a small cherry pastry and we could hardly move! During the meal, we were brought a package of complimentary photos, (with one in a card frame), that we had had taken with Belle at the beginning of the meal. They were lovely, and there was enough to be able to give some to the family when we got home.

Characters that came round and met us during breakfast were Aurora, Mary Poppins, Ariel and Snow White. We were a little uncomfortable meeting the ‘face’ characters as opposed to the ‘head’ characters, as we had to look them in the eye and they weren’t as easy to cuddle as the furry ones! However, they were all very good and chatted with us for a while, posing for photos too, before moving on to the next table. The funniest encounter we had was with Ariel – she is DB’s favourite Disney character, and when she came over to us, I told her that she was DB’s favourite Princess. She smiled at him, and then I watched her as that smile became somewhat glazed and a faint look of panic appeared in her eyes, as he said, “yes, meeting you is a dream come true for me!” It was so funny! She is obviously used to adoration from children, but not from grown men!

All of the characters were really amazing with the children, but if any of the little girls were dressed as a particular character, that character made such a fuss of the girl, it was heart-warming to watch. I actually filled up with tears watching Ariel with one tiny girl who was dressed up as her, she was so gentle with the child, who was watching her adoringly, and she took her by the hand and led her round the room when they all did the Princess Parade. It was so sweet!

After applying two table service credits and leaving a tip, we finally waddled out of there at around 9.30 a.m., by which time the park was absolutely packed! This was the last day of the Food & Wine Festival, and we naively didn’t realise how crowded Epcot was going to be.

We went round to Soarin’, picked up fastpasses for later, and then joined the standby queue, which was showing as being 40 mins but was more like 30. We got the third row this time, which was a first for us (usually it is an equal split between rows 1 and 2), and were slightly surprised by how much lower in relation to the film we were! It was really interesting seeing the film from a different viewpoint, all the stuff at your feet was much closer! We enjoyed seeing this aspect, it was fun.

Next we went across to Test Track, ignored the 40 min standby queue and went instead for the 10 min single rider, which was about right. We would normally have done a second ride, but we had so much we wanted to do today, that we headed out after one ride and went to Mousegear to pick up a bit of shopping, which we elected to take with us rather than have it shipped back to the resort – I can’t remember why! We got enough stuff to enable us to get DB the ‘special offer’ watch today.

Next was Spaceship Earth, with a 10 min wait, and we attempted to pull funny faces as our photographs were taken, but for some reason mine wasn’t captured, so we vowed to repeat the ride at some point. We still enjoyed it, and had fun choosing our ‘future’ at the end.

Back to Soarin’ to use our fastpasses, and this time we got the front row, so had an interesting time comparing the different views to the last ride. Every time we had ridden Soarin’ on this trip, the scents were all quite strong, but none more so than the pine smell at two different points during the film. We reckoned that the person in charge of supplies for this ride had got a job lot of pine scented car air fresheners from a local garage!

DB then took the shopping back to the car, while I went back towards Mission Space to pick up some coffee from a kiosk there. I paid out of pocket for this again, rather than use snack credits. When DB returned, we sat on a wall by the Fountain of Nations and finished off our coffee.

We then began a tour of World Showcase, determined to fully explore each country, as we haven’t really done this before. We usually just skip past the ones that don’t have a ride or film, I’m ashamed to say!

We began in Canada, watching the film which was fun and lovely, and then I bought a leather bracelet from the kiosk outside, getting my name engraved on it. We briefly toured the UK, scorning all the way – it is a little bit idealistic! Particularly as we live in a city, which is dirty, crowded, noisy, and doesn’t have a period cottage or thatched roof in sight! Nor red telephone boxes or immaculate little gardens, come to think of it. Anyway, we had a quick walk around the maze, visited the restrooms, and then headed for France.

We watched the film in France, but unfortunately dozed off a tiny bit during the middle section (again!). After that we picked up a chocolate mousse each from the bakery, using a snack credit each, but struggled to find somewhere to sit. We went into the extended seating area at the side of the general shop, where all the tables were also full. However, most of them were full either with groups of people just having a sit down and not actually eating or drinking anything, or single people sitting at a table for 4. We ended up having to stand at a bin, balancing our cakes on the top of it, to eat from. We were not impressed! People were watching us do this, but no-one offered to move or let us sit with them at their tables. With hindsight, maybe we should have asked if we could join someone, but we didn’t like to at the time, being too polite to intrude.

From France we then moved on to Morocco, and I had never even been inside this land before, so had no idea how lovely it was! There was a souk which you could explore, with lots of tiny shops and market sections, it was really lovely. DB bought a small, jewelled box (unbelievably to keep earplugs in at his bedside! APPARENTLY I snore, although I have never heard myself!), which was pretty. The cast member put it in a white cardboard box, and then asked me what my name was – then he wrote my name in Moroccan in this really lovely, fancy way on the top of it!

Next we moved on to Japan, where we explored the newly extended shop. It is much improved, with a lot of Japanese arts and crafts for sale now, as well as a LOT of Japanese candy. There was an exhibition in another part of the building as well, which we had a good look around. This was a great land, we really enjoyed exploring this.

The American Adventure was next, but there was a 45 min wait for the next show, so we decided we would catch it at a later time and instead went for a look round the shop there. We got chatting to an English woman who runs the genealogy counter in Heritage Manor Gifts, and had a lovely long talk with her, she was really nice!

Italy only had restaurants, but we still walked around the fountain area and admired the architecture, before moving on to Germany. However, we didn’t stop there because we would be returning later that evening for our reservation at Biergarten. We were beginning to battle crowds at this point, there were HUGE queues at all the Food & Wine Festival booths, and I did a quick head count which showed that most booths had a minimum of 30-40 people waiting to be served. Shockingly, a lot of the guests appeared to be quite drunk, there was a lot of big groups of both young men and young women being very rowdy.

When we arrived at China, the acrobats were about to do a show, so we stayed for that. It was crowded but fun to watch. A quick look round, caught the end of the drummers, and then we moved on to Norway. Maelstrom was showing a 25 min wait, so we passed on that and had a look round the shops instead, before picking up coffee (and a school bread for DB). We sat in the dining area outside, which wasn’t too crowded, and just relaxed for a bit. I tried a bite of his school bread, but it was a bit too sweet and cinnamony for me.

After a good sit down, we left there and headed for Mexico, stopping to take some photos of Mexican Donald Duck on the way, (not easy to do when we weren’t actually queuing to meet him, and he was surrounded by kids!). I suddenly noticed that DB didn’t have his backpack on his back, so asked him where it was. He said he didn’t have it! We quite literally ran back to Norway, and began searching under the table where we had been sitting. A lady asked us if we were looking for a bag, and said her sister had just taken it into the shop. A frantic enquiry at the shop turned it up eventually! DB had forgotten that his wallet was in there too, but that was a good thing as his driving licence was in there so he was able to confirm his name and address to claim the bag back. Phew! We couldn’t believe that it was a mere matter of minutes between us leaving the bag there and it being placed with Disney security.

Anyway, we were very thankful that we got it back, and thanked the cast members and the guests who had handed it in. Ensuring that DB’s bag was now firmly attached to his back, we went back to Mexico and had a look around the beautiful carved wooden animals just inside the entrance, before having to leave there and go back to Germany for our dinner reservation. We had to almost fight our way back to Germany because of the drunken and rowdy crowds!

In June 2010 we had been to a friend’s wedding in Germany, where the food had been absolutely wonderful, and we were looking forward to comparing this to the food in Biergarten. We were seated as soon as we were checked in, at the end of a table for 8, although there was a family of only 4 also sitting there, so we had two empty seats between us and them. We both ordered glasses of Sprite, and were shown where the buffet was. We went up and began loading up our plates. The food choice was fantastic! We were really impressed by the range and choices on offer. I got some hot and cold potato salad, and both were delicious, and just like the ones we had had in Germany. We also tried breaded pork, pretzel rolls, various salads, mini frankfurter sausages, mac & cheese, braised beef roulade, and crispy pork roast, all with various dressings. It was all really tasty, apart from the roulade which had an odd texture, but we ate it anyway. We then had Black Forest Cake, Bavarian Cheesecake, and a tiny bit of Florentine cookie.

While we were eating, a Bavarian band came onto the stage and played some great music, which really added to the atmosphere. All in all, it was a really great experience with delicious food, and we would definitely go back there again.

We ‘paid’ with two table service credits, and left in time for Illuminations. Most of the crowds had gone now, with very few queues anywhere, and the park seemed quite quiet which was nice. We stood near Germany to watch the show, and suddenly a group of around half a dozen very drunk young women shoved their way past us to get to the fence, in order to take photos. One of them fell over and just lay on the floor, shrieking with laughter. They left after about 10 mins though, before the show started, so we were able to enjoy Illuminations for the last time this trip.

Back to OKW, bed.

DAY TWENTY-THREE – Sunday 13 November
Plan – Hollywood Studios
Actual – Up early again thanks to Stitch, and after showers and coffee, we went to the Studios, parking in Stage 43 again.

The first thing we did this time was head for Pixar Place to get fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, before joining the standby queue which was showing as 50 mins, but was more like 30 mins. We love this ride, it is just so much fun! We are both highly competitive, so cannot resist the challenge to try and beat each other. Each time we go on this ride, our final scores are really close, and we seem to alternate winning and losing!

After this we headed for the Backlot Tour, having missed it last time, but the queue was really quite long, and we didn’t feel like waiting, so we decided to seek out an early lunch. The Studios Catering Company was nearby but was closed, so we walked round to Pizza Planet, which had just opened. We both had a cheese pizza with salad, cappuccino cupcakes, and coffee (DB) & chocolate milk (me). Two counter service credits later, we left and went to the Muppets 3D show, which was fun and a good way to relax and digest our lunch.

We tried the Backlot Tour again, and the queue was much smaller this time, so after a 10 min or so wait we walked straight through the first bit with the simulated Pearl Harbour attack, and went straight into the props room. We spent a bit more time than usual browsing through here, as we are usually rushing through to get onto the ride, and it was really interesting! We got some great photos. We then boarded the trams and enjoyed the rest of the ride, although every time I go on here, I cannot help but compare it to the way it used to be, when you used to ride through the film sets and streets and it was a much longer ride. We had a good look round the AFI exhibition at the end, although not much had changed since previous years.

We then went to the Great Movie Ride, once again requesting the Western experience, and after about a 5 min wait were soon on our way. We enjoyed this as much as last time!

Feeling in need of something sweet, we went to Starring Rolls café for coffee (paid for out of pocket), and Butterfinger cupcake for me, and Red Velvet cupcake for DB (snack credits). We had gone there wanting the Mickey Ears Cookies, particularly the choc and toffee dipped ones, but they didn’t have any, unfortunately.

After we had finished, we went back to TSM and used our fastpasses, before going into the standby entrance as although it was showing a 60 min wait, we suspected it would be much less than that and were right – it was actually around 35 mins.

Quick restroom break, and then we headed to the Fantasmic theatre at around 5.45 for the 6.30 p.m. show. We were sat in almost the same place as last time, and again thoroughly enjoyed the show.

Next was the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, followed by a quick 10 mins in One Man’s Dream, which unfortunately we had to cut short as we were approaching our reservation time for 50’s Prime Time Café.

We hurried over there, only to find they were running behind time, they said probably around 20 mins late! Although they kept their options open by saying that it could be sooner, which I suppose stopped anyone from going off and having fun elsewhere instead of hanging around! Luckily we only had about a 10 min wait, and were seated in a really lovely kind of 1950’s American home dining room. We loved it there! Our server introduced herself as our ‘mom’, and soon noticed our Just Engaged badges. She made all our ‘cousins’ in the room applaud us! It was kinda embarrassing but really lots of fun! DB ordered Grandma's Chicken Pot Pie - a creamy cheese mixture of chicken, mushrooms, carrots, celery, onions, and peas topped with a flaky pastry, and I had Grilled Boneless Pork Loin - glazed with peppered mushroom gravy with mashed potatoes and green beans. We had a bit of a wait for dinner to arrive, and got into a conversation with a couple who were sat at the next table to us. They were from New Jersey, and were very interested that we had just been to New York! They were really lovely, we had a great chat to them all evening. Dinner was gorgeous, we thoroughly enjoyed it, ate all our veg, and therefore were able to have dessert! DB finished with apple cobbler, and I had cheesecake with strawberry sauce. Our ‘mom’ was great fun, she interacted with us just enough for it to be fun without being intrusive or annoying.

We really loved this restaurant, and when we left, the park was closed. We walked slowly back to the entrance, taking photos as we went (we loved coming out of restaurants late at night when the parks were closed, it made for great photo opportunities, and at no point were we rushed out or hassled by cast members). Back to OKW and bed, exhausted as it was very late at this point!

DAY TWENTY-FOUR – Monday 14 November
Plan – Universal Studios
Actual – Neither of us was feeling very well today, DB still had a cold which he had been nursing for over a week, and I had a slightly upset tum, which I think may have been brought about by the sheer amount of food we had been eating lately! We had been dosing DB up with the cold medicine we had, but it just seemed to mask the symptoms and he wasn’t getting better as fast as we would have liked. (This was the kid’s grape flavour Ibuprofen - it smelt DISGUSTING! But he said it was lovely – urgh!)

Consequently, we didn’t get going as quickly as we wanted to this morning, but we still managed to get to the Studios by around 10.30 a.m. As we went in, we met Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz! I posed for a photo with them, they were really great characters. We then headed to the ET ride, which I love, and encountered the first of many rude cast members here. He was brusque and clearly couldn’t care less about guests or his job, really. We ignored him and enjoyed ET.

After this, we walked round to the Simpsons ride, which DB wanted to do. I had experienced this simulator when it was the Back to the Future ride, and knew it was very rough, so I sat in the sunshine and waiting the 10 mins or so for DB to ride and return to me. He enjoyed it, although acknowledged that it was very rough!

Next was Men in Black, which we both really enjoyed, it was loads of fun, and he won by miles this time! We walked round to Jaws, not knowing that this was to be the last time we would ever ride this, with the closure now looming. That was also fun, and we didn’t remember the shark in the shed from the last time we had been on this ride, in 2010. So far, we had not had to wait more than 10 mins for any rides, and the park seemed relatively quiet.

We were now feeling hungry, so went to Mel’s Diner for brunch. This was a bit of a shock, we had to pay for food! DB got a bacon cheeseburger with fries, and I got a grilled chicken burger with fries, plus we both had coffee. The food was good, but certainly not as good as we were used to in Disney; we had both thought this about Universal food before, it is okay, but nothing particularly special or overly tasty.

From there we went to Disaster, which is always fun, and then we stopped at the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Parlour for scoops of coffee, chocolate therapy, and chocolate peanut butter ice cream to share – nom, nom, nom!

The Shrek 4D show was next, we love that show, it is great fun, and was a good way to let our ice-cream go down. We had a quick look round the Universal shop and picked up a Simpsons ride pin, before seeing the Terminator 4D show, which was good fun but seemed a bit jolty this time.

We were now done with the Studios, so left there and went back to the Islands of Adventure. Guess where we were heading? The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – again! We did the Forbidden Journey with virtually no wait, (10 min wait time advertised), and enjoyed it just as much as before. However, without travel medication, I was only able to ride once as I felt a bit ‘ooh!’ in the tummy area! Therefore, I persuaded DB to leave me sitting on a bench outside while he took advantage of the low crowds and rode another twice. While I was sat waiting for him, I got into conversation with an also-waiting mum, who told me that they were from New Jersey and they lived in an area that had been badly affected by the snow that fell when we were in New York, losing power to their house for several days! Poor things.

(One thing we have both thought about since going on the Forbidden Journey is that we would have quite liked to have been slightly less excited about the actual ride, and taken our time walking through the queue area a bit more, letting others pass us if necessary. We could then have enjoyed more of the entertainment and theming in the castle itself, watching the full speeches by Dumbledore, and the Fat Lady, etc., instead of just dashing through as fast as we could, anxious to get onto the ride itself. Maybe next time!)

On DB’s return we decided to leave, as the park was almost closed, and we strolled round to City Walk to pick up a drink before heading back. We stopped at Cinnabon and got coffee and orange Fanta, which was expensive but refreshing.

We had a reservation at Trail’s End for tonight, we love that restaurant and had decided to eat there twice on this holiday, so we drove over there, parked up, and got the bus to the restaurant. Again, we only had a short wait on the rocking chairs before the pager went off and we were seated. We had the usual feast of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, pulled pork, beef slices, and corn. We also finished off with apple cobbler and ice cream. Everything was super-delicious! Two table service credits and a tip, no worries.

To finish off our evening we slowly strolled around some of the nearby campsite, admiring the Halloween decorations that people had put up. There were some amazing displays, plus a few hidden Mickeys! It was a lovely way to finish our day, before the journey back to OKW and bed.

DAY TWENTY-FIVE– Tuesday 15 November
Plan – Shopping day, Magic Kingdom for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party
Actual – We ditched Stitch this morning in favour of a sleep-in, which was much needed! Eventually we headed back out to the Post Office to try for a second time to post the beer stein to our online friend in Canada, and we were finally successful. We also sent some more postcards home.

After this we went to Denny’s for brunch, getting DB a Lumberjack Slam, and myself another Build-Your-Own-Slam, with bacon, sausage, scrambled egg with cheese, and pancakes. I also ordered a buttermilk biscuit on the side. In the end, I was too full to eat the pancakes, so asked for a ‘to go’ box. Our lovely server brought me the box and a couple of tubs of maple syrup to take out too! We boxed up the pancakes, and began our supermarket hunt for some holiday Coffee Mate – I had seen an advert for it, and wanted to get some for my DS for a Christmas gift. Wal-Mart didn’t have any the last time we were there, so we hit both Publix and Target before finding some (at Target). We picked that up, and also got some more cold medicine for DB, (generic, own brand, which was a violent shade of orange, and which to my glee he later told me tasted revolting - he normally loves all horrible-tasting medicine but this one was REALLY horrible, and he moaned every time I made him take it!), plus some mint M&Ms (I thought I saw these once in New York, didn’t get them at the time, but then never found them again and thought I was going nuts and had imagined the mint ones, till I saw them for sale in Target!).

We then took the shopping back to our hotel room, and picked up the brollies as the weather was very hot but a bit showery today. It had also begun to feel a bit humid for the first time this trip. Next we headed to Downtown to pick up some more shopping (bits and pieces we had seen previously but hadn’t got), but didn’t stay there long as we were heading for the Magic Kingdom next. (It never did rain again and thus we just carried the brollies round all day!)

We parked at the Ticket & Transportation Centre, then got the monorail round to the Grand Floridian, where we went straight downstairs and outside to walk round to the Wedding Pavilion. We wanted to pick up some information on Disney Weddings, although we were pretty sure that we would be getting married in the UK so that family and friends could attend our ceremony. However, we were toying with the idea of having some kind of ceremony at Disney just for ourselves at a later date, and therefore wanted to get a brochure or something. When we got to Frannks, the doors were closed and locked, even though it was only mid-afternoon. However, we were peering in through the doors when a very nice young man came out and asked if he could help. We explained what we were looking for, and he immediately found a brochure for us, and briefly explained the offerings to us. We would have quite liked to speak to someone properly and maybe have a look at what they had in the way of stuff in Frannks, but he was in the middle of a consultation and didn’t have any more spaces that day, so we thanked him and left.

We walked back to the Grand Floridian (via a dead frog on the walkway, that was lying theatrically on its back with its little legs in the air!), and had a look at the Gingerbread House that was now open, which was really lovely. We walked round it and took some photos, before going back upstairs to the monorail station to go over to the Magic Kingdom.

When we got there, we exchanged our tickets for wristbands, and then went straight up Main Street to Casey’s for hot dogs. We got a Chicago Style Hot Dog - topped with tomato slices, dill pickle, Chicago-style relish and banana peppers for DB, and Corn Dog Nuggets & fries for me, with both having coffee and brownies – 2 counter service credits. I had to ask for a hot dog meal but replace the hot dog with the Nuggets, in order to get fries with them, which was easy to do. (Two counter service credits used here). I then loaded up DB’s hot dog with lots of toppings on top of the toppings that were already there! He had gone to find somewhere to sit, not easy as it was quite busy at Casey’s at that point. I went outside and found him, and we enjoyed our food.

We now began our assault on the Magic Kingdom. We headed for Adventureland, but were stopped twice on the way to have our wristbands checked – fair enough, we thought. We went to Pirates with a mere 5 min wait, then to Big Thunder Mountain which was a straight walk on so we did it twice, then to the Haunted Mansion where we explored the new interactive area as it was really quiet there. It was fun and we played with all the interactive bits, but not something we would want to bother with frequently, although I did have a very funny moment when DB was peering closely at the tomb of Captain Culpepper Clyne and I heard a gurgling noise – I stepped back quickly, guessing what was going to happen next! Suddenly, a jet of water shot out of the top of the tomb and all over DB! Oh, how I laughed!! (As did several other people who were behind us at the time!)

After our doom buggy experience, and having had a stray ghost inflate our heads until they floated away, we went into the Columbia Harbour House and picked up sugar cookies and hot chocolate – yum. We wandered slowly through Fantasyland, not riding anything but just enjoying the atmosphere, and then went on the Peoplemover for a relaxing rest. We love this ride!

(We found that because we hit the rides when most people were watching the first showing of the parade, lines were really quite short and no-where was too crowded, which made it easier to move around the park.)

After this, we headed back to the hub, as a cast member had told us earlier that there would be a show at 8.45 there. It turned out to be a show called Castle Dreamlights, which was really sweet if somewhat short. Then we watched a showing of The Magic, The Memories & You, which was amazing! I loved where the castle turned into a rocket and blasted off! And it made me cry when they showed Walt, it was just so moving. This was followed by Holiday Wishes, which was gorgeous but finished me off completely and I found it hard to stop blubbing!

To help me recover my composure, we then went to Cosmic Rays for more hot chocolate, and the cast members there were giving away extra cookies this time so we had two each. We also got some apple juice as we were quite thirsty. (Me to DB – “if you ask the nice cast member nicely, he might give you some apple juice as well as hot chocolate”. Nice cast member nods and smiles at DB hopefully, and waits. DB – “please Mr Nice Cast Member, can I have some apple juice?” He got some.)

After a quick rest room break, we walked towards Frontierland to get into position for the parade, but everywhere was roped off and so we stopped in Liberty Square. We stood nonchalantly behind a cast member who was holding a rope and guiding people across the parade route from one side of Liberty Square to the other. 10 mins later, he stopped letting people through, and as he roped off the walkway, we rapidly walked directly behind the rope – which meant we were able to stand behind the rope and not have anyone standing in front of us! The parade was really lovely, very long, one of the best we have ever seen, and the toy soldiers were AMAZING! We waved frantically at Santa at the end, and I just hope he realised what a good girl I had been this year. We had a great view, the parade came straight towards us before turning left across Liberty Square, which meant we got some really good photos.

Once the final floats and dancers had passed us, (dancing reindeer – wow!), we walked round to Big Thunder Mountain for two last rides (I LOVE this ride in the dark!), both of which were 10 min waits, before calling it a night at around 11.45 p.m. We walked slowly down Main Street in the softly falling snow and twinkling Christmas lights, holding hands, and thrilled with the wonder of everything Disney.

Back to OKW and bed.

DAY TWENTY-SIX – Wednesday 16 November
Plan – Magic Kingdom
Actual – We slept in this morning (until 8.30!), but got up and going fairly quickly. We had yesterday’s left-over pancakes for breakfast, which reheated up perfectly in the microwave.

When we called into Goods to pick up our usual mugs of coffee, we noticed that suddenly Christmas decorations had begun to appear, both around OKW and outside Olivia’s too. We took lots of photos, and stopped briefly in the reception area to admire the big Christmas tree that had appeared.

The weather was once again glorious and sunny, but there was definite humidity now, which was very different to the last week and a half.

We drove to the Magic Kingdom (weren’t we just here a few hours ago??), parked up, and went to the train station first to ride the wonderful steam train on a full circuit around the MK. We were both very interested to see all the construction work in Toontown from the back side, and took some photos of what tiny bits of Toontown were left.

When we got back to the Main Street station, we disembarked and walked down Main Street, heading for Adventureland and Dole Whips! I couldn’t believe that we hadn’t had one of these up until now, darned dining plan! We were just too full all the time! We picked up two pineapple whips using two snack credits, and sat in the little covered area nearby to eat them.

Afterwards, we continued round to the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, which we hadn’t done before. This was fun! When we got off the ride, we spent an inordinate amount of time hunting around on the ground for the hidden Mickey made up of gems that a cast member had told me about earlier, but couldn’t find it until another cast member pointed it out to us. We felt rather foolish, two grownups walking around hunched over with our noses almost on the ground!

We decided to try the Enchanted Tiki Room as it had been refurbished since our last visit, and was no longer ‘under new management’, but I’m afraid it bored us to death. I’m sure it has its fans, but we weren’t two of them, sorry. However, whilst in there, we saw a guy who I am prepared to swear on my mother’s life was Santa on holiday. He was in an ECV, was a rather large gentleman in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and a Santa hat. He had the most amazing bushy white beard and hair, and kept smiling and nodding benevolently at everyone!

Pirates of the Caribbean was next, showing a 5 min wait but was a walk on, when we got off we ran (well, briskly walked!) round to go on again, and had a boat to ourselves this time!

After that we were ready for lunch, so we went to Pecos Bills for an Angus Cheeseburger (topped with bacon, onion rings, and barbeque sauce), fries, chocolate cake and coffee. It was very yummy! Completely full, we waddled slowly round to the Haunted Mansion for a quick doom buggy experience, and then went into the Hall of Presidents. (We missed the parade while we were in there, unfortunately). There was a little time to wait before the next show, so we explored the exhibits on display, which was really interesting. We thoroughly enjoyed the show once we got in there, as usual.

Big Thunder Mountain was next. We picked up fastpasses for it, good for about 30 mins later, then basically did 3 rides in a row, followed by our fastpass go. It was showing as a 10 min wait to start with, but the wait time was increasing each time we got off the ride and went back to the entrance, so it was a good job we had those fastpasses! After our last ride, we picked up fastpasses to keep as souvenirs as this is my absolutely favourite ride at MK.

Feeling a little dizzy, and also somewhat overheated due to the humidity, we popped into Pinocchio’s Village Haus for coffee and a sit down in the air conditioning, following which we took a slow stroll towards Cinderella’s Castle, hoping to be able to walk through the middle and look at the lovely murals.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to walk through it, as it was blocked off because of the forecourt shows, but we were able to walk all the way round it, and we found ourselves by the wishing well. It was lovely there, quiet and romantic, and no-one else was around. I sat on a bench to admire the well, and suddenly DB was on his knees in front of me, proposing again! He has taken soppiness to a new level on this holiday, he is so sweet!

We then walked round to Tomorrowland to ride with Buzz and defeat the Evil Emperor Zurg, (can’t remember who won, we had lost count of who was in the lead by then!), before one last trip round the TTA.

It was nearly time for our reservation at Tony’s Town Square Restaurant, so we walked slowly down Main Street, just happy to be there and soaking up the wonderful atmosphere. We checked in at Tony’s and were seated quite quickly.

There was a very lively family next to us, the sort that make comments loudly about everything their kids are doing in the hope that everyone will all look at them – we ignored them for the most part.

The food was fantastic – I chose New York Strip Steak, but was in the mood for spaghetti so asked if instead of potatoes and vegetables, I could get it with spaghetti and a marinara sauce – I was told, “of course!”. DB had Chicken Parmigiana - Lightly Breaded Chicken Breast with Marinara sauce topped with Melted Mozzarella over Spaghetti. The steak was gorgeous, really tender, and DB said his dish was delicious too. I finished with Tiramisu - espresso soaked lady fingers, whipped mascarpone and dark chocolate shavings, and DB had the Chef’s Seasonal Cheesecake, which turned out to be pumpkin, his new favourite dessert! We both had glasses of Sprite, and ‘paid’ with two table service credits.

When we came out, the park was closed (Wishes had not been on that evening), but we were just in time for the ‘Kiss Goodnight’ on the castle, so we wandered up and watched that. Guess what? It made me cry (again).

We headed back to OKW, tired and full, but had to then spend 2 hours sorting out all the stuff we had bought over the last 2 weeks, ready to do the dreaded packing tomorrow. We assessed what we had, transferred stuff from one bag to another and repacked some things too, folding up t-shirts a little tighter etc. We finally fell into bed in at around 1.00 a.m.!

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN – Thursday 17 November
Plan – Epcot
Actual – This was our final full day of vacation – boo! We got up as early as we could considering our very late bedtime last night, showered, had coffee, then headed over to Epcot for the last time this year.

We parked quite easily, and were amazed at how empty the park was! The Food & Wine Festival had now finished, and it seemed like almost overnight the park was beginning to be set up for Christmas! Where the cranberry bog had been there was now a display of poinsettias, with parcel and character topiaries, and not a cranberry in sight! The big Christmas tree was up and decorated, and all over the park were signs of Christmas – it was lovely!

We checked out Soarin’, which was showing a wait time of just 20 mins, so we picked up fastpasses and then rode it twice. After that, the wait time had gone up to 30 mins so we went to Sunshine Seasons for a bite of breakfast and to wait till our fastpass window opened up. We got coffee (paid cash) and also some berry cheesecakes (snack credits). The lady that served us the cheesecake was possibly the oldest cast member I had ever seen working at WDW – she was hunched, shaky, wobbly, and extremely elderly. When she brought the flimsy, paper plates of heavy cheesecake towards us, we stared at her and were instantly reminded of a British comedienne called Julie Walters, in a sketch called “Two Soups” (look it up on YouTube). We couldn’t look at each other because we didn’t want to laugh in front of her, so we just kind of snorted to ourselves in a childish manner and waited till we sat down before bursting out laughing! We had been convinced that the cheesecakes were going to slide onto the floor!

After this we went back to Soarin’ and rode using our fastpasses, then left The Land and headed over to Test Track. Wait time was 30 mins so we used the single rider line and went on twice with no wait. Lots of fun!

It was now approaching time for our much-anticipated reservation for Le Cellier, so we walked over to Canada, and approached the check in desk, which is at the top of the walkway that leads down to the restaurant. However, when we went to check in, we were told that they had a problem with one of the grills and they were running approximately 45 mins behind! We hesitated over what to do, but as I had read so many good things about this restaurant and had very high expectations for it, plus the fact that we weren’t starving hungry at this point, we decided to suck it up and wait. We therefore completed the check in, and walked down the lovely pathway, past the decorative lake and gardens, and into the tiny and crowded entrance area. The poor cast members were very busy, and had to keep stopping to graciously apologise to guests for the wait times. After about 5 mins of standing, another waiting couple were taken off to be seated, so at least we could sit on a bench while we waited.

We were finally seated about 30 mins after our reservation time, although I had made sure that for all of our reservations we were around 15 mins early, so in actual fact we did have a 45 min wait. Our server was very apologetic, and quickly took our orders. We both opted for glasses of Sprite, and the New York Strip Steak, which was being served with cream cheese mashed potatoes. DB is not a big steak fan, and this was his first ‘steak dinner’ of the holiday, but he was very impressed – the meat was very tender and full of flavour. The mashed potatoes were outstanding! (Since returning home, I have made this dish myself, and it is just so tasty!) DB finished with whisky chocolate cake, and I had the most amazing, incredible bumbleberry cobbler with cheesecake ice-cream – the best dessert of the holiday!! I took a ‘before & after’ photo of my plate, and there wasn’t a speck of dessert left at the end! I would return to this restaurant again, despite the glitch at the start, and the fact that I was a touch underwhelmed by the atmosphere and décor, because the food was without doubt the best that we had experienced so far this trip. Because it was a lunchtime booking, it only cost one table service credit each, plus tip. This restaurant was definitely, in my opinion, worth the two table service credits it would cost to dine at in the evenings.

When we were done in Le Cellier, we slowly waddled our way over to Test Track again, picked up fastpasses for later, and then rode via the single rider line. After this, we strolled round to Spaceship Earth, which was a straight walk-on, and rode twice in a row, choosing different endings for our experience each time! The second time, we chose options that were the complete opposite of our actual preferences, e.g. we chose ‘work’ as being the most important thing to us, etc. The results were hilarious, particularly as we had managed to pull really amusing faces when our photos were taken!

Our Test Track fastpass window was now open, and it was so nice to ride this together for once! Much as we love the speed of being able to use the single rider lane, it does make it more special to be able to ride together occasionally! Next, we rode Mission Space (Green), which was great fun.

We walked back over to another viewing of Captain EO, (which still made me cry!), before a slow stroll around the World Showcase, just taking in the views and atmosphere. We stopped in the Port of Entry shop and picked up a large cuddly Duffy, a tiny Duffy on a keyring, and a gorgeous snow globe of the Partners statue. (I have a small collection of snow globes, but they are getting harder and harder to find now, I’m not sure why – perhaps they are out of fashion now, or not so popular as they used to be?) We had been looking for snow globes everywhere we went, but hadn’t found any at all up to this point. I was slightly concerned about our ability to actually fit this in our suitcases, we had already bought tons of stuff up to this point, but DB was confident we could get it back, so I let him buy it for me!

It was by now 6.00 p.m., so following a plan we had decided upon earlier in the day, we left Epcot for the final time (*sniff*) and while DB took the shopping back to the car, I picked up a couple of pins from the trading station near Spaceship Earth (a Lotso “I’m a Hugger” pin for my DD for Christmas, and a surprise “Fantasmic” one for DB also for Christmas!), before waiting by the monorail for his return. We then got the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom, arriving about 20 mins before the start of the Electrical Parade, which we hadn’t managed to see yet on this trip (and DB had never seen before).

As we walked into the MK under the train station, we could see that the park was really quite packed, although that could have been an illusion due to the sheer number of people already waiting for the parade. We more or less walked in and stopped where we were, moving slightly over to the right, and behind a row of people sitting on the pavement. After a short wait, the parade began just to our left, and was fantastic! I’d forgotten how much fun this was, and DB really enjoyed it too.

When it was past us and on its way round the rest of the park, we followed the crowds, salmon-like, up Main Street and towards the hub. We had a voucher for a preferred viewing of Wishes, the same as the one we had had for Illuminations, and so we fought our way through the massive crowd at the hub and to the Plaza seating area, which was roped off and guarded by a cast member. This was the preferred viewing area, and I have no idea how other people had got in there (there were about 15 other people in there), but I showed the cast member my voucher and she let us in. It was quite funny, there was a well-to-do family behind us who watched us go in, then asked the cast member how you got in there. She said you had to be a VIP! We smirked all the way down the pathway, and found ourselves a table and chairs with a lovely view of the castle.

We still had about 45 mins before Wishes began, so I left DB there and went back over to Casey’s to pick up some dinner. I got the same meal as we had had last time, a Chicago dog & fries for DB and corn dog nuggets & fries for me, coffee and brownies. The queue in Casey’s was HUGE and it took ages to be served! Then I had the issue of balancing all this food plus two cups of coffee on a small cardboard tray – the cast member was brilliant, he didn’t say a word, just loaded it all up carefully, including putting the coffee and the cups of fries into a cup holder, and made sure I had it all held securely before he let me go! I battled my way over to the fixings bar, balanced everything on the edge of the counter so I could get hot cheese and ketchup etc., topped it all off with cutlery and coffee creamer, then somehow managed to fight my way (very carefully!) out of Casey’s and back across the hub towards the Plaza. A cast member did try to stop me at one point, saying that it was a one-way system and I was only allowed to go DOWN Main Street on the side of the road that I was trying to go UP, but I pointed out that I was only going half a dozen steps to the preferred viewing area, and so he let me past.

The lovely cast member guarding the viewing area let me back in with my goodies, and I finally got back to DB just as The Magic, The Memories & You was starting. This was followed by Wishes, and the whole thing was wonderful. I couldn’t believe we had been in WDW for two whole weeks and hadn’t seen this firework show yet!

Afterwards, we took our time finishing our dinner while the crowds dispersed a little, before walking slowly down Main Street for the final time this trip, pausing to pick up a couple of last minute things from the Emporium, (a CD of the music from Wishes, a few pins, and a set of reusable sticky notepads of all 4 parks), before sadly exiting the Magic Kingdom. We caught an empty monorail back to Epcot, (which was fun!), picked up the car, and drove back to OKW.

Packing took us another two hours, but we finally managed to somehow get everything in (just!). The fact that we are able to pack like this is purely down to DB’s skills, he is a master at packing massive amounts of stuff into very small spaces! We had new trainers stuffed with small things, dirty laundry in carrier bags squeezed into tiny gaps, delicate items surrounded by jumpers, he is such a genius! Now we were just left with our nightclothes, and shower stuff for the morning, plus travel clothes.

We finally got to bed and slept the sleep of the truly exhausted!

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT – Friday 18 November
Plan – Fly back to UK
Actual – We got up bright and early, had showers and coffee, and packed up our final bits of stuff. We had wanted to be ready to go by 9.00 a.m. this morning for a particular reason – for the last 2 weeks, whenever we had been still in the room at 9.00 a.m., we had been watching a morning programme called “Live with Regis & Kelly”, and had really got into it! This morning was to be the last one for Regis Philbin, as he was retiring from the show after many years of co-hosting, and we wanted to see this special show. Therefore, by 9.00 a.m., we were sitting with cups of coffee and nibbling on leftover peanut butter M&Ms, avidly watching the sad departure of someone who a month ago we wouldn’t have known from Adam! Bizarre, the things you get into. Anyway, we really enjoyed the show, it was very moving!

We finally left the room at 10.00 a.m. and checked out, with no extras to pay. We had no table service credits left, but did have 8 snack credits and 8 counter service credits left. We got a last coffee in our refillable mugs from Goods, then reluctantly left OKW and drove to Downtown. We went into Goofy’s Candy Company and picked up 4 rice krispie treats to take back with us, and then spent all our remaining credits in the Earl of Sandwich on cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and chips (we were allowed 3 snack items for each counter service credit) – giving us a grand total of 32 items! The cast members were very good about this, and helped me pack everything into 4 small carrier bags. We took the goodies back to the car and shoved them into any small corner we could find in the suitcases, before finally closing the suitcases and locking them.

We then drove to the Virgin check-in desk situated behind the Cirque du Soleil arena, and joined the short queue to check in. We had to pay $10 each for the privilege, but it was worth it to lose the suitcases for the rest of the day! We had a total of 3 cases to check in, but two of them were overweight and one was quite a bit underweight, so despite them being packed to within an inch of their lives, we were able to redistribute a little so that only one was overweight and we ended up having to pay $50 for that. Not bad, considering we had been on vacation for a whole month!

Cases checked and boarding passes obtained, we drove back round to the Marketplace, parked up, and went to T-Rex for our lunchtime reservation. We were seated quickly, and ordered our lunch. DB had a Guac-asaurus Burger - beef patty with guacamole, a fried onion ring, pickles, lettuce, tomato, Pepper Jack cheese, and crispy bacon & waffle fries, and I had a Stegosaurus Steak and Cheese Sandwich - traditional-style cheese steak with sautéed mushrooms, topped with melted Monterey jack and Swiss cheeses served with lettuce and tomatoes on a toasted hoagie roll, & waffle fries. With hindsight, these meals were much too big for two people about to fly home, we were a bit tense and overheated, and I ate hardly any of my lunch. The waffle fries were lovely but they were huge and there were loads of them, plus they had some kind of paprika coating which I wasn’t keen on, and the size of the ‘sandwich’ I had had to be seen to be believed! I ate some of the steak and mushrooms, a bite or two of the bread, and a couple of fries. DB managed to eat most of his, but couldn’t finish mine, which is something he normally does. We had coffee as well. This meal was paid for out of pocket as, at the time, T-Rex wasn’t on the dining plan. Typical, the first meal we had actually paid for in 2 weeks and we couldn’t eat it all!

After lunch we had a good look round the restaurant, which wasn’t at all busy, then wandered round the gift shop trying to resist the urge to buy anything else, as we had checked in our luggage now! Even our hand luggage cases were full up!

We then had a slow walk round Downtown, letting our lunch go down and just taking in our last views of anything Disney, before heading out to the airport around mid-afternoon. We returned the rental car, realised we hadn’t left enough time to visit the Kennedy Space Centre shop at the airport which depressed me further, and then headed for our gate. Our flight was due to leave at around 5.30 p.m., which it pretty much did, and the flight home was quiet and uneventful. We watched the final instalment of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows together, and then listened to some really nice albums as we dozed for a few hours. We were woken up about an hour out of Manchester airport and given quite a nice breakfast, (although to our body clocks it was still the middle of the night!), and we landed around 8.30 a.m.

DAY TWENTY-NINE – Saturday 19 November
Plan – Collect car from airport, drive home
Actual – So now we had a slight problem – we had flown out from one terminal, (so the car was parked there), and landed in another. We had to get across the airport, and with no idea of how to do this, a comedy of errors occurred. We asked at ‘information’ – they gave us the wrong information, and we waited ages for a bus whose driver, when it finally turned up, rudely told us we were in the wrong place. We walked miles and miles through the airport, looking for the other terminal, and ended up at the train station terminal! Tired, fed up, and desperate for someone to point us in the right direction, we ended up using an information telephone we found and speaking to the shuttle bus company, who sent a free bus to collect us and take us to the car park!

We FINALLY got to the right car park, located the car, and rued the fact that the two of us had had to drag a total of 6 cases (including our hand luggage), one handbag, one backpack, a laptop computer, and an imaginary partridge in a pear tree for miles and miles across an airport in search of our one small car.

DB left me standing in a huge heap of cases and nipped over the road to get the car, which started with no problems and happily transported us the 1 hr and 40 mins journey home!

We tried desperately to stay awake for the rest of the day, going out to do some food shopping and home again for a bit of unpacking. The funniest was that we were watching TV that evening in shifts – one of us would be watching, the other would drop off to sleep for 15 mins, then vice versa!

SUMMARY

Weather – unexpectedly cold in Boston, horrifying in New York, then mostly beautiful in Orlando with the exception of the last 3 or 4 days, which was still sunny but HUMID.
Crowd levels – mostly low to very low, apart from the final day of the F&W Festival.
Cast members – better cast members than we had encountered for many years – all of them were wonderful, full of Disney magic, there wasn’t one that was miserable or short with us.
Universal vs Disney – what can I say – Disney wins hands down every time, with the exception of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which almost equals Disney.
General / Random Thoughts – losing weight & getting fitter helped with all the walking and our energy levels were massively increased during each day.

Also, eating more often and regularly, and also more actual food than we normally eat on holiday helped hugely with our energy levels – instead of being totally exhausted at the end of each day and struggling to carry on, we were able to keep going for longer and later as we took regular rest and food breaks. Normally, we storm the parks and only stop to eat when we are starving; this time, we HAD to time lunch to be around 6 hours before dinner, each day that we had reservations for dinner.

We had never eaten at any of the table service restaurants before, and the only counter service ones done previously were Casey’s, Cosmic Rays, Electric Umbrella, and the Backlot Express. Every single meal we had was incredible and we would not hesitate to eat at any of the restaurants we tried again.

Refillable mugs were great and more than paid for themselves – we used them on average of twice a day for 14 days.

This was an absolutely amazing month, and we couldn’t quite believe that we had done as much as we had! We came to the conclusion that we were going to need a vacation from this vacation ……

Coming Soon – the Disneymoon in October/November 2012!

[Colexis Mom]

Boy, you had a whirlwind trip! Sorry for the snow and cold in the Northeast! That was a major storm where we got 20 inches of snow here in Connecticut and lost power for 5-10 days! Glad your trip to Florida warmed up!

Congrats on the engagement! Have fun planning your honeymoon!

[lazanya]

What a fabulous trip!

[DawnK]

Awesome, Awesome trip!!! Great fun reading about my Favorite place to eat Dave and Buster's!!!! Congratulations on your engagement!!!

[Roxie2006]

I have really enjoyed reading your TR very much... Thanks you so much for sharing your wonderful experience..

[Cam22]

You all had such a wonderful trip! Congrats on your engagement!

[bsblady01]

sounds like you had a great trip

[chezp]

Congratulations on the engagement! I love the way that it happened - it turned out to be wonderful, even if it wasn't what he originally hoped to do.

And people say we have long trips! I'd seriously love to have a month off - but three weeks is about our limit with time off work...

One question I did have for you - you drove up to Manchester to take a flight to Heathrow. I was curious as to why you didn't drive to Heathrow, as the drive times from Birmingham are around the same?

[DrDolphin]

Sounds like a wonderful trip!! Congratulations on your engagement(s)!!!

[clio]

You guys had a great trip. I'd love to be able to have a month long vacation. Two weeks is about as long as I can take to one time.
Liz

[bluejn]

We really enjoyed your trip report i just sat here and read the whole thing aloud to my dear husband of 27 years, and it was so much fun reliving some of our trip through you. we are from ny, so we understand about the taxi cab, they all seem to drive that way, but we had to laugh. congradulations on your engagement and we wish you many happy years of marraige!

[ccmom]

I'm so glad I found this tr! Your proposal was lovely. I have to say that out of the whole month the thing I was most envious of was your meeting Alan Rickman. He's one of my very favorites.

[Silvercat]

Originally Posted by chezp

One question I did have for you - you drove up to Manchester to take a flight to Heathrow. I was curious as to why you didn't drive to Heathrow, as the drive times from Birmingham are around the same?

Thanks everyone for the lovely comments so far! I thoroughly enjoyed writing the report, although it was hard work - it took me 3 weeks overall, having to fit it in around work etc!

Chezp - we flew with Virgin Atlantic, and they only fly to Boston from Heathrow; however, as we were then coming back from Orlando 4 weeks later, so in effect not doing a 'proper' round trip, they only go from Orlando to either Manchester or Gatwick. So we couldn't fly out to the USA and then back again into the same airport without doing a short leg down to Heathrow first. We could have come back into Gatwick and then flown up to Manchester, or left the car at Heathrow, flown to Boston, then flown back from Orlando to Gatwick, and somehow got across from Gatwick to Heathrow, but this all was way too complicated!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Silvercat

Thanks everyone for the lovely comments so far! I thoroughly enjoyed writing the report, although it was hard work - it took me 3 weeks overall, having to fit it in around work etc!

Chezp - we flew with Virgin Atlantic, and they only fly to Boston from Heathrow; however, as we were then coming back from Orlando 4 weeks later, so in effect not doing a 'proper' round trip, they only go from Orlando to either Manchester or Gatwick. So we couldn't fly out to the USA and then back again into the same airport without doing a short leg down to Heathrow first. We could have come back into Gatwick and then flown up to Manchester, or left the car at Heathrow, flown to Boston, then flown back from Orlando to Gatwick, and somehow got across from Gatwick to Heathrow, but this all was way too complicated!

Oh of course - that makes sense now. I knew there'd be a good reason. It's annoying how just about every American Virgin flight bar Vegas and Orlando goes from Heathrow. I think we'll end up going out of Heathrow in December and coming back into Gatwick....

[Dlandmom2]

I'm only about halfway into your trip report, but I just had to stop and say CONGRATULATIONS and wow! This is one huge trip! You sure did get quite a bit done in Boston and New York! As I often kid chezp, I'm ashamed to say that you Brits have seen more of my country than I have!

What a great engagement! I love how it was all planned out, but even though it didn't work as planned, it was still a huge and successful surprise!

Now I'm going back to read the Orlando portion of your trip!