There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow Shining at the end of every day
Another early and surprisingly foggy start to the day as we were heading to Magic Kingdom. This was to be our first visit here since 2019. Barry & Ellie were also making their own way to this park today as well.
We all left the villa around 7.30am and caught the monorail together to the park at the same time. I like the fact for that for some parks you are allowed through the gates before official opening time and allowed to wander and take photos even if the ‘lands’ themselves are still shut to all but hotel residents.
The aim for us this morning (Barry & Ellie had a different plan) was to go to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train when the rides all opened. By the time we got there it was already a 30-minute wait. I decided not to queue and instead found a table to wait for Karen & Neil almost opposite the exit to the ride.
The table was outside a café selling breakfast. The food looked not bad at all and nobody was complaining about the quality. I was just shocked again to see the number of Americans buying the trays of the Hot filled Croissants with tater tots, and then throwing most of it away. What a waste of food and money. Several times I felt like saying, can I finish that for you as it doesn’t look like you actually touched it, but I didn’t.
After about 45 minutes or so, Karen & Neil came back and were both really annoyed. The ride had broken down when they were over halfway through the queue. They waited a while and then gave up. They were grumpy (see what I did there?) they had missed the ride and wasted some precious early morning ride time.
I tried to cheer them up as we walked to Tomorrowland where we rode the Peoplemover. This is an unoffensive original ride which I still really enjoy.
Then it was our booked time through Genie+ to ride Space Mountain. Now to understand Genie+ which is a paid for version of the old Fastpass, you almost need a degree in Disney Studies. Fortunately for us, Neil knows exactly how to maximise the benefit from the extra cost we had apid and so we just let him tell us what we were doing when in each park.
Space Mountain was fine but, in my view, (and I will say this quietly) probably needs a major overhaul and by overhaul, I mean replacing.
We then used another Genie+ plus booking and went to Buzz Lightyear. I was thrashed by Neil. If it was done fairly, I would not have moaned, but he clearly had read up about a ‘cheat’ because within a few seconds he was over 100k ahead of me. Although he denied it, I could tell by the glint in his eye that he wasn’t going to share his secret with me. I need to do some online research myself before we ride it again.
It was by now getting very hot and so we headed back to Main Street where we had our daily Starbucks stop. It took Karen ages to get the drinks and us a long time to drink them as they were very hot. Neil was not impressed with more lost ride time.
Then we went and rode Pirates of the Caribbean which was as much fun as always.
Karen & I were in need of another rest and so were pleased that Hall of Presidents was next on the schedule. Amazingly we managed to sit a few rows behind Barry & Ellie but Neil wouldn’t let me call out to them. This is another attraction that should not really appeal to us being from the UK, but it always has done. It’s also in a nice cool theatre which also helps a lot. This was the first time we had seen the Biden animatronic, which managed to remember all of the words he was supposed to say and didn’t get lost on the stage – so it wasn’t that true to life. I would love to see a UK version of all this with all our Prime Ministers, although they would need a much larger stage
It was then time for us to have another cool down with a Dole Whip. We all had the strawberry version which was delicious and just what we needed and set us up for Thunder Mountain. This has always been a family favourite especially for Karen. Each time we come here then if she could only do one ride then it would be this. Even the potential pain from her holding on with her still recovering broken arm could not stop her. It was great fun as ever.
We decided to do one further attraction before leaving and chose Mickeys Philamagic. It had been a while since we had seen it and it made us all smile.
It was a long hot walk back to the car after the ferry ride across the lagoon. The car was like an oven and I could not touch the steering wheel. The weather was more like summer than we had come to expect in November.
Barry & Ellie were already back at the villa and in the pool when we arrived. We had some late lunch before I fired up the VPN to watch the match against QPR on Sky from Carrow Road. I quite enjoyed the game watching in the sun and having a half time dip in the pool despite the score ending 0-0. I thought I saw some improvement in the team performance, but time will tell.
Neil was keen on having a steak tonight so the three of us headed to Outback at The Loop whilst Barry & Ellie went back to Magic Kingdom. The service in Outback was not great tonight and it was very evident that they were very understaffed, but we enjoyed the food.
When we got back in the car it started to rain as we drove back to Disney to go to the Boardwalk. It got heavier and the forecast said it would be prolonged, so we abandoned and diverted back to the villa. We put the TV on as a storm hit overhead and knocked out most of the cable channels which meant we couldn’t watch the World Series. Instead, we made Neil watch an episode of Shark Tank that hadn’t been affected by the storm to his disgust. He was most disparaging about all of the people seeking investment.
I have just worked out this is roughly 23rd our visit to Florida (I have also been twice with work). That is 23 holidays of a lifetime which is still how we think of them. We don’t take the trips for granted and know how lucky we are. Whilst I am starting to tire of all day park visits (and that’s more down to age than the parks) I am still loving being here and everything to do with this trip. We love the climate and how relaxed we feel here. We already have one trip booked for next year and will probably book another as soon as we get our next air miles voucher.
