No Faith in Google Maps, Trust and Pixie Dust! A Feb 2013 TR! (Upd 21/10, day 1)

Sparkly

Starlight, starbright...
Joined
Mar 5, 2012
Welcome to my Feb 2013 TR, chronicling 10 nights of arguing, aching feet, Google Maps failing, lots of characters and some unexpected pixie dust, but a overall great holiday. Keep your hands, arms, feet and legs inside the vehicle at all times, supervise children and please, no flash photography.

Moving on, your cast:
Me- 18. Disney fanatic, always has room for dessert and loves meeting characters. Most likely to say "Ooh look! There's x!"
Mum- Don't ask age. Bargain hunter, master of The Look and voice of reason. Most likely to say something involving Dad and I shutting up, moving on or "No, you just had lunch!"
Dad- See above about age. Mobile phone obsessed. Too cool for characters and parades. Most likely to say "A character meet? I'll just wait outside."

So, onwards with the trip report. Day -1/the night before coming in next post.
 
"We would be able to have a good sleep at the Premier Inn if only we could FIND IT!"

Saturday, 9 February 2013

9th of February finally arrived in a flurry of packing (Mum), panicking (Dad) and sleeping (Um, me).

We spent most of the day packing and making final preparations for our holiday, stopping only for cauliflower cheese for lunch for Mum and Dad, and Uncle Ben's Egg Fried Rice for me. The former was much better then the latter. I had to throw it away halfway through because it smelt and tasted awful and opened my can of Heinz spaghetti.

The hours ticked by and finally we were finished packing and debating on what to do for dinner. I had a packet of crisps, some Belvita biscuits (I must be the only one who eats them at all hours, not just breakfast) and a fruit salad from Waitrose and my parents nearly had a sandwich, before discovering the bread was mouldy- AFTER making it!

So the car was loaded, a trip to the Co-op was made for drinks, sandwiches and crisps (well, and a Wispa bar for me) and off we went to the Premier Inn.

Unfortunately, we got lost (Oh, sorry, "mislaid") on the way and even ended up in the South Terminal 12 hours early! We were stopped for a spot check by some policeman which was the perfect opportunity to ask directions and we were soon on our way again.

I don't know how we did it, but we got even more lost and had to stop AGAIN to ask a group of workers this time how to get to our hotel.

Eventually we finally found it and went to go get checked in. Since it was £29 a room, we got two, so I could actually sleep without being disturbed by snoring! This is what my room looked like. My parents room was the same, but without a sofa.

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I used the 30 mins free wifi to check in on FB, The DIS and a couple of other websites and then listened to I've Got A Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas and Good Life by One Republic, and by the time it ran out I was ready to try and get some sleep! Trouble was, I was too excited! :D

I kept waking up in the night and a couple of times heard people upstairs thumping around and finally Dad's alarm. And so began Day 0, our travel day.

To be Continued..
 


Day 1- Magic Kingdom- "Which bright spark chose MK on a EMH day?"
Monday, February 11 2013

The day started abruptly with Dad's alarm going off at 1am in the morning. After banging on my parents door demanding they "turn that stupid alarm off!", I went straight back to sleep until I finally got up, got dressed, ate breakfast and was ready to start the day!

Unfortunately, in this family it's not as simple as that. Dad managed to forget to pack his shorts and so our oh so lucky family got dragged to the Walmart where we spent the better part of an hour looking for shorts.

Finally we reached the TTC and took the ferry over to MK! I just love the first sight of the castle over the lake, a very magical way to start a day at my favourite theme park.

Unfortunately, the day didn't start too magically. Although Mum had fun matching wits with the Mayor of Main Street I wanted to find a M&G, Mum just wanted to get on a ride and a massive argument ensured. The Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! parade provided a short distraction though, and it was great fun! Dancing to the music, waving to the characters. I wasn't expecting it either, so it was a nice surprise.

Eventually we got on our first ride of the day (even though it was past 11am now), Buzz Lightyear. Mum, as usual, got 999,999 (I still swear she cheats to get that) and I got over 40,000 thanks to Mum helping me and a lucky shot earning me 30,000! I was really happy because it was the most I've ever scored on the ride! =D

Afterwards, Mum got a photo of me "escaping" from the Evil Emperor Zurg-

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And then we went to meet Buzz Lightyear himself. He's not very cuddly but still very personable and we didn't wait too long to meet him, even though he took a short break.

Then it was onto a comedy show, Monsters Inc style. I sent in a joke and was a tad disappointed when it wasn't chosen- probably turned up in a show 2 weeks later! I hope Mike at least thought it was a good joke. ;-)

After that, we did a old favourite, Carousel Of Progress. I ALWAYS have to do this on a day at MK, and It's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow is always stuck in my head afterwards. =)

And then it was time to drop into Cosmic Rays for the traditional chicken nuggets for lunch. It was EXTREMELY busy and we had to launch a search mission for a table- eventually got one by the bathrooms. The place was full of tour groups and was consequentially very loud. There was a huge line for the bathrooms and I began to get VERY annoyed.

After lunch, we tried to go meet Merida..no luck, we had just missed her. We certainly didn't want to wait another 25 mins to meet her, so onwards we went.

A bathroom stop and a surprise encounter with Mum's besties, Pooh and Tigger later, and we came to the Teacups.

I did not particularly want to do a spinny ride right after lunch, but I was dragged on anyway, me requesting that my parents did NOT spin the teacup too fast all the way. We all crammed in a teacup (Not comfortable for three adults!), and what did the rotters do? Spin it super fast. I thought I was going to revisit my lunch! =S

Then we staggered off the ride and onto New Fantasyland which I was excited to see.

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Our first stop was Dumbo! The queue didn't look too bad (It said 10 minutes. Yeah, right.), so we joined, only to find one of the Dumbos was out of service and so we waited 30 minutes just to get on the ride. Whilst we were queuing, we got chatting to a family which helped pass the time somewhat. When we finally got to the outside part of the queue near the loading area, the other Dumbo came back so it went quicker after that.

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I had not been on Dumbo for years (apparently I HAD been on it before, but probably not since our first visit) and it was fun soaring over new Fantasyland. It's very cutely themed and as we found, even better at night with the lighting.

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We gave Barnstormer a miss, and continued on through New Fantasyland.

I wanted to do the Pete's Silly Sideshow M&G, but the lines are too long so we gave that a miss too. I was starting to get very overheated- I was wearing long leggings and it was VERY VERY hot outside and VERY VERY crowded. I was in dire need of a drink and some air conditioning.

Looking at this, would you guess this was February? I wouldn't!

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Luckily Winnie The Pooh was just around the corner and our next stop. I always love this ride and always sing to Heffalumps And Woozles. After the ride I spotted a adorable little Eeyore plushie that I fell in love with, but Mum told me to wait in case I found it elsewhere.

We then wandered on through New Fantasyland's Beauty And The Best themed area, and Mum took LOADS of photos:

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I had read about Be Our Guest, and wanted to try it someday. Maybe next holiday?

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I just love it, it looks so much like Beast's castle in the movie <3

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And of course, Gaston has to feature somewhere. This is outside his tavern.

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And this castle belongs to Prince Eric of course. Now MK has three castles. It really is like a big fairytale come to life!

We went to try and go on Voyage Of The Little Mermaid, but the wait was a stonking 40 minutes. For a dark ride that basically retells The Little Mermaid. o_O Yeah. I guess because it's new and popular.

Oh well. Philarmagic was nearby and provided a much needed mood booster- I LOVE this show. =D Part Of Your World always reminds me of it.

Feeling much happier, we continued on to It's A Small Earworm..I mean World. =D Bit of a wait, but it was indoors, so wasn't too bad. They seem to have turned off the singing in every language so we only were treated to the song in the final room. Is it just me who gets a bit teary eyed in that last room? Mum asked a CM about it when we got off- apparently there was a sound clashing problem which I can understand.

Next we grinned grimly and visited the grim grinning ghosts at the Haunted Mansion. We got to do the interactive queue, which was lots of fun. We also managed to spot the Hidden Mickey on the dining table and I spotted the Hidden Donald on a chair. For once we didn't stop in the long hallways with lots of doors! Instead we stopped heading up to the attic.

We battled our way through Liberty Square into Frontierland, and I managed to get Mum on Big Thunder Mountain! Dad was boring and waited outside. Mum really loved this ride! It was great watching her enjoy the ride so much. I knew she would love it when she tried it!

Sadly Splash Mountain was down so I couldn't ride it, which is a shame because I really want to try it- I chickened out in 2012 :(

From there, it was Pirates time. When we eventually managed to get on, we enjoyed it as usual and only got a little wet from the cannonballs.

Then it was time for a break and a Dole Whip swirl! We sat on a bench near Crystal Palace and watched the sun set on Main Street USA. I wanted to do the Main Street Electrical Parade, but Mum's leg was starting to hurt badly so she couldn't possibly wait around to watch it. Plus everyone had pretty much taken most of the good spots to watch.

Mum asked a CM when it was due to start, as she thought she could maybe wait if it was nearly about to start, and the wonderful CM found us a great spot on Main Street to watch!

I was beyond excited, as this was the first time I had really got to watch it properly and danced to the music as Mum got out her camera to take pictures. I would have worn my glowstick bracelet, but I couldn't get it to work.

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I absolutely LOVED it, it was so magical watching it from Main Street. :thumbs-up

We decided not to stay for Wishes, and on the way out, Mum stopped at guest relations and enquired if they could possibly replace her Keys To The Kingdom pin that broke, and they did! Second dose of much needed pixie dust that day :)

We saw a bit of Celebrate The Magic on the ferryboat back to our car, and then watched a bit of Wishes before getting in the car and leaving to get some dinner.

We decided on Denny's, and we enjoyed it much more then eating breakfast there! Our waitress was lovely and very helpful. Parents ordered fish, shrimp and chips, and I ordered a everyday value grand slam- yes, breakfast for dinner! Pancakes, bacon and eggs. To drink we all had hot chocolate. It ended up costing us $18.80 with a discount, not bad! And I really enjoyed getting breakfast for dinner.

We got back to the condo bout 10pm and collapsed, watching a bit of TV and catching up on the computer with forums.

I probably went to bed about 11? 12?

In retrospect, I don't think we had as bad a day in the end. It started rocky, but towards the end we did have a good time, with some pixie dust.

(all pictures from today are by my Mum, as my own camera had problems and I lost all my photos from this year :()
 



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