Our WDW adventures & Halloween Disney Cruise 2008

Probably a bit (or a lot) too much information.....or the evolution of our Disney / Florida obsession

Grab some popcorn:: this might be a long one!

Our story begins way back in the distant mists of time, when a trip to Disneyland Paris back in 1996 with my two then very young children and my parents, initiated my love affair with Disney theme parks. I have never been anywhere with so much magical atmosphere, amazing entertainment, and something just totally wonderful which I could not put my finger on  

Our story jumps forward a few years to 1999, when Tony and I were planning to get married and had reserved a couple of weeks in June for our honeymoon. Then I made the decision to go back to University and train to be a nurse, and we decided to put our wedding plans on hold for 3 years. However, in the meantime, my parents had booked to take my two children, Taryn and Daniel (then aged 8 and 5), to Disney World at the same time as we would have been going to be away on honeymoon. We still had the 2 weeks booked, so decided surreptitiously to book 2 weeks in Florida and meet them there as a surprise for the kids. I soon as I got off the plane in Florida I fell in love…with the landscape, the atmosphere, the people, everything …. That first trip we concentrated on Disney parks, and as far as I was concerned, the magic wand waved once more and I was well and truly hooked.

Unfortunately financial restraint restricted our holidays during my nurse training, and we had only managed a 2 night trip to Disneyland Paris with our 4 children in 2000 (my family had now doubled in size since meeting Tony in 1997).

This is what they looked like back then - outside Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland Paris:

Before long it was 2002, I was a qualified nurse and we began planning our wedding and honeymoon! When we started thinking about honeymoon destinations at the beginning of 2002, the only acceptable choice for this special holiday for me was Florida, but I felt guilty planning a trip to Florida without the kids, so we decided to go twice…..Orlando in April with all the kids, just as I finished my course in way of celebration, and then again, but this time to the Florida Keys, for our honeymoon in the October.

The April trip was unfortunately only for 10 days, and because we had recently been to Disneyland Paris and with limited time we thought we might just concentrate on Universal Parks with Busch Gardens, SeaWorld and Wet and Wild. This we did, and although we had a great time, I missed the Disney magic.

In 2003 I returned to University to train to be a midwife, and holidays were once again put on hold for a while. Fast forward now to 2004, and I started to think about a celebratory trip for when I finished my midwifery training in spring 2005. What better place for a celebratory trip than Florida - the lure of Disney was too much for my feeble mind to overcome, and despite considering a number of options, Orlando won through and we spent a wonderful two weeks in a villa and had an amazing time in the Disney parks, and a perfect day in Discovery Cove.

All 6 of us in Discovery Cove:

2005 also saw the first of our trips to Disneyland Paris at Halloween, with a very enjoyable evening spent at the Halloween Soiree in full pirate costume! pirate: On this trip I made the wise decision to purchase annual passes :yay: , and not only did this make financial sense, it also raised the temptation bar a few notches – with conversations along the lines of  “ well why don’t we pop over to Disneyland Paris, after all, we have those annual passes and we really should make good use of them ” cropping up every time we had some time off from work. Needless to say there followed a series of trips to Disneyland Paris that year, Christmas 2005 (well, it would be lovely to see Disney at Christmas before the kids are too old….. silly not to really, what with those annual passes and all), July 2006 (well, it would be great to see the fireworks and stay in the parks until midnight…..silly not to really, what with those annual passes and all), Halloween 2007 (well, we had such a good time last year, and Mickey in his wisdom had decided to extend our annual passes at no extra charge for another year….silly not to really) and July 2007 (for the same reasons as 2006, before it gets boring!).

It's amazing how you can even visit a Disney Park 5 times in 18 months and it just never gets old - there is always something new which catches your attention and the Disney magic is always there   

It would be nice to say that I woke up on the morning of departure feeling rested, relaxed and raring to go - once again this was not to be part of the plan. This was basically down to the fact that DH and I had to share a room with DS Daniel, as the Holiday Inn basically didn't have 4 bedded rooms, only 3 bedded rooms, of which we had booked two. Daniel had drawn the short straw and was sharing with his parents, although that short straw was definitely aimed at me! Daniel was so restless, he was up and down to the toiket about fifty times, moving about in the bed all the time, moaning that it was uncomfortable. At one point I swapped beds with him, and then after another hour he wanted to swap back. The TV had a digital clock and I saw it say 02:05am, 02:30am, 03:00am, 03:30am, 04:15am, 04:30am and then I must have finally fallen asleep as I next saw 05:45am. At which point I gave up trying to sleep as the alarm was set for 06:30am. Next time we will stay at home, get up early and travel to the airport the morning we fly - the idea of a relaxing pre-flight night in an airport hotel is a myth as far as I am concerned!

So the alarm woke everyone else up at 06:30am, and we showered and got ready to leave. I sorted out the overnight bag and took it to the car, put the car in secure parking, paid the bill of £140 for the 2 rooms and the car parking, and then we caught the shuttle bus to the airport at 08:00am. Here are the kids looking wide awake, bright eyed and raring to go on the shuttle bus:

We arrived at the airport about 10 minutes later and decided to head straight through security. This was painless and quick, although Daniel ended up getting searched, after the security had asked Tony for permission first. First stop was breakfast, so Tony grabbed the full English, Stephen a cajun wrap, Louise and Taryn chocolate muffins and Daniel and I had Danish. With coffees and juice this gave us no change from £30 - ouch! We struggled to find a table as it was really busy around the breakfast bar, but mainly because
there were a lot of tables crammed with uncleared trays and used plates and rubbish, and many people were resorting to taking the used stuff off the tables and just piling them up in corners on the floor. It was incredibly messy and not typical of Manchester airport, but obviously there were staffing issues, as I never saw anyone clearing the tables while we were there.

After breakfast we wandered about, browsing in Boots and WH Smiths, and the kids bought magazines for the flight. After that we just waited at the Gate, and I took a few photographs:

This is what I was going to be trusting our lives with for the next 8 hours:

waiting patiently at the gate:

Eventually it was time to board, and this was a ver efficient process for once. On the way onto the aircraft we were given bottles of water and free magazines, which was a nice touch. We were also given more bottles of water during the flight. The flight was uneventful, thankfully, as I am always relieved to get off. I missed the meal as I was in the bathroom, but when I saw what Tony had on his tray I wasn't too bothered. No worried - I had bottled water and chewy peardrops and that was to ensure my survival!

The aircraft (an airbus something-or-other) had seatback TV, and apparently Nintendo and other games, but the games bit wasn't working in our row, much to Daniel's disappointment, and he had to make do with the movies, TV and his own DS. I did mention it to the flight attendent, but he said we should be grateful that the movies bit was working as some passengers didn't even have that working - so it was like it or lump it! The flight attendents didn't really seem to be enjoying their job that day, as they were all very moody and disinterested (we have since heard that BMI are stopping their long haul service from Manchester in January and maybe they were a bit preoccupied and worried about their future)

Here are the kids enjoying the flight:

I watched a film called "Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging" which was actually quite entertaining, and then I listened to Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks on my MP3, as I find this particularly relaxing. I didn't manage to get any sleep, and before long it was time to land at Chicago.

We disembarked the aircraft and then went to pick up our baggage, clear customs and loaded them back into another check in area. We had a long line for immigration, and they asked lots of questions about our jobs, where we were staying, when we were leaving the USA - and then they did the finger scan and the photograph. We then had to find our way to another terminal, via a airport transport system, and we eventually found ourselves in the correct place for our flight to Orlando. At this point the kids, most of whom hadn't eaten any aircraft food, were hungry so we invaded the nearest food counter to our gate which sadly happened to be McDonalds - and our first meal in USA. T think I just had a cinnamon bun and an iced coffee.

This passed the time until our next flight was called, and we boarded the aircraft - the airline was "TED" which seemed to be a budget airline along the lines of Easyjet. There were free soft drinks and water but all food was charged and there wasn't anything inspiring on offer so I was glad we had gone for the McDonalds in the airport. This was a 2 and a half hour flight, and we were all split up, but the girls managed to sit together and I sat with Daniel, while Tony and Stephen managed to cope on their own! I tried to sleep, but couldn't, and before long we were landing in Orlando, and although I was totally shattered and aching and very sore in the bladder dept I felt that euphoria immediately wash over me as we touched down in Orlando - it felt like I was coming home!:cloud9: :cloud9:  

It was great to land in Orlando and have no immigration, but we were once again to be thwarted by the dreaded Car Rental. I left Tony and the kids to wait for the baggage, while I headed off in search for Budget Rental. Last time in Orlando we had major problems with Dollar, so this time I had opted for Budget, When I arrived at the Car rental area - guess what - no line at the Dollar desk, massive line at Budget! Looks like the whole of the flying population had switched alleigance! So once again a long wait in the line, and Tony and the kids arrived with thankfully all of the baggage, always a moment of relief when it all arrives safely. About half and hour later we made it to the desk, and surprise surprise there were no 7 seaters available and we would have to wait :mad: - had I just gone back in time 3 years ....this was exact same problem we had with Dollar in 2005 - talk abour deja vu.

This brings me to a question: exactly what is the point in booking your car in advance - when they never have the category of car you ordered waiting patiently for you to arrive - surely it's not rocket science in these days of advanced communications technology to co-ordinate reserved cars with arriving passengers. Obviously it is rocket science, or something equally mentally challenging.

Suddenly the car rental guy had a solution - he said he had an SUV, which would seat all of us and would have more room for the baggage than a 7 seater - so he sent us off to get the keys for this SUV. But when we arrived at the vehicle it only had 5 seats - spot the deliberate mistake - 6 passengers and only 5 seats - it just wasn't going to happen, so back we went to the little booth in the parking area and told the assistant - who was more than a little bit miffed that her colleague had basically fobbed us off to get his line down and must have known that the SUV had only 5 seats.

At this point she gave us the keys and bay number for another vehicle, which she said would have enough seats, and off we went to find it. But :scared1: :scared1: the bay number she gave us had a vehicle along the lines of a small coach sitting in it - must have seated about 10-12 people, and no way could I drive THAT. I went back to the booth and once again queried it, and she realised she had given me the wrong bay number, so a new bay number was allocated and I set off on my way once more. Finally, we came upon a white seven seater Dodge, and after we managed to get the luggage into the boot of the car, and the kids settled in the seats, I jumped in the front and we were ready to head off into the night. Only one problem - the layout was very different to my 2005 vehicle and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out where everything was. It was very strange having the gear shift up on the dashboard somethwere. Eventually we were out of the parking lot and we managed to get on the right road to Lake Buena Vista. The roads were quiet as it was by now 11pm US time. It was about 30 minutes to our resort - Cypress Pointe resort just off Apopka-Vineland Road, and we found it no problem.

We parked up and checked in, and went to find our apartment. It was really lovely and spacious, on the ground floor. It consisted of a two bedroomed apartment and a studio apartment which had an adjoining door. The only off-putting feature in the studio was that the bathroom and the toilet was open plan off the bedroom ( no door to the toilet ) which meant you had to get everyone out of the bedroom if you needed to use the loo! It also had a big kitchen with all appliances, a dining area and a sitting room with sofas and an enormous TV. This is the studio part of the apartment  where Tony and I lived:

Once we arrived in the appartment Tony and I headed over to the resort shop and picked up some bottled water and then we all decided to go to bed, ready for an early start tomorrow for The Animal Kingdom, and our first ever ride on Expedition Everest!:woohoo: :woohoo:

Epcot!

I woke up at 7am and immediately rattled the sleeping kids' cages - after all, we were in Orlando, time was valuable, and this was not the time to be wasting it by sleeping in. After a great deal of poking, prodding and ultimately violent threatening we managed to be out of the apartment by 8am and on our way to Epcot. On the way we stopped at our local Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, where we grabbed a selection of donuts, muffins, coffees and soft drinks for a very reasonable $20. I can highly recommend the maple frosted donut - delicious! By 08:45 we were parking up in the Amaze parking lot at Epcot, and we walked straight in to the park. Once again it was fairly quiet in comparison to our previous trips. We went first to Test Track, and walked on with no wait – I love it when that happens! We really enjoyed it, and we were able to scan our photopass card for the ride photograph – the only ride we were able to do this on, which was a shame, as it's a really good idea. I forgot to mention that we had pre-purchased a photopass CD for this holiday, which we were sharing with our friends the Balster family, and so we spent a lot of time harrassing the poor photopass photographers around the various parks – we were also on a mission to get at least one photograph where Stephen – eldest son - was actually smiling, and if any of you can spot one, well done!

After Test Track we headed for Mission Space, which is always a favourite, and being seasoned space travellers we headed straight for the intense training! This was great fun as always, and not really that extreme for us die-hards! We then spent some time in the space lab area attempting to send emails  – and I must remember that next time I actually need take a list of email addresses along with me ....the whole process takes a lot longer when you spend 15 minutes or so trying to remember everyone's email addresses, and it generally isn't appreciated by the other 5 million or so people waiting to use the terminals.

Time for a quick photo of the family enjoying Epcot:

It was now time to head over to the Land Pavilion for our very first ever ride on Soarin – but don't get excited just yet – there was a 40 minute wait and we all know what that means – FASTPASS!
So fastpasses duly acquired we decided to have a look at Living with the Land, which was interesting, informative and pleasantly relaxing. After all the extreme excitement and white knuckle thrills of Living with the Land, the kids decided they needed some more action and headed back to Test Track, while Tony and I decided to have a look at  The Seas – with Nemo! This was very cute and while obviously aimed at the younger guests,  it was very clever and I loved the bit where the  animated fish were projected into the aquariums with the real fish. I would love to see something like “Crush's Coaster” from Disneyland Paris in this area, as having a more extreme ride in keeping with the Nemo theme would really be the icing on the cake! We then wandered around the aquariums and said hello to the dolphins, and this was a really relaxing way to spend half an hour. Looking back I didn't appear to take many photographs today, but I was obsessed with getting a decent shot of spaceship earth and the monorail, and these are 3 of my attempts, although I must apologise for the angle on the third shot – my attempt to be “arty”:

Before long it was time to meet up with the kids at our designated meeting place “Club Cool” - previously known as “ Ice Station Cool”, and as the kids were nowhere to be seen, we decided to taste some of the weird and wonderful offerings, and the only one which was remotely pleasant was the watermelon based drink, which I think was from China. The rest of them were horrible! The kids then turned up and wanted to try the drinks,
 

while I wandered outside and for the first time ever noticed the fountain was doing a display to music. This was really impressive, and I can't believe I have never seen this before, in all of my trips to Epcot. Sometimes I must walk around with my eyes shut! It was now time for our fastpasses for Soarin, so we went back to the Land and  got in line. We waited about 20 minutes, even with fastpasses, and the waiting area was particularly  uninspiring, but once we got on the ride it was so worth the wait. It was amazing, and so relaxing and peaceful – I could have stayed on there all day. I thought this ride would have been even better if they had splashed water at you when you drop down into the sea where the people are surfing and again on the river. I felt as though my feet were going to get wet, and it would have enhanced the whole experience if they actually did.

By now a certain member of our party  started to mention lunch, and there are no prizes for guessing who, so we decided to have a wander into the World Showcase and see if our tastebuds would be tempted by anything on offer in the Food and Wine Festival. We wandering slowly around, passing through Canada, and the UK, before stopping in France to watch the street entertainment. This was really amazing, escpecially as there were probably 3 more chairs which you can't see on the photo:

In Japan we managed to see the sweet-maker in action, and once again this was really impressive. I have always wanted to wander slowly around World Showcase, taking in all the entertainment along the way, but for some reason the kids and Tony always seem to want to hurry, especially when on a mission to find food. As we weren't tempted by any of the Food and Wine stalls, it was no surprise that we ended up eating at the Liberty Inn in USA, as always! It was fairly quiet in this area, and it was quite relaxing sitting outside enjoying our meal, watching the world (literally) go by! After lunch I persuaded everyone to watch American Adventure, which is something we had never seen before – it was very cleverly presented, and although obviously a sugar-coated version of American
 history, it was interesting and I suppose qualified as an educational experience, which helped to relieve the guilt I was feeling for taking the kids out of school for a few days.

We wandered, or rather whizzed around the rest of the World Showcase and back into FutureWorld, where we wandered around Innoventions and went to Spaceship Earth. I enjoyed the new ending, as I love anything interactive, but nearly came to blows with DH as we were fighting over who was  controlling the buttons to determine our future. We then sent some emails home again, although these never actually made it across cyberspace, probably due to incorrect email addresses being entered. It was now getting on for 5pm and everyone was feeling a bit the worse for tiredness, so we decided to head on home, stopping for a photopass photograph or two on the way out.

We were hoping to visit Walmart on the way home, but I had no idea where the nearest one was in this locality, so we popped back to Cypress Pointe and asked at the reception. Needless to say it was back in the direction we had come from, but easy to find and about 15 minutes drive away. We spent about 2 hours in Walmart, most of which was spent trying to find each other, as the shop was so enormous and so disorganised. We bought lots of stuff, including some very additive-laded halloween cookies with bright, almost illuminous orange cream in them, and I managed to find a pair of coffee coloured sandals which matched my cruise semi-formal dress perfectly, and at less than $10 – result! There were also some black sandals which would have been adequate for my formal dress, but I decided to wait until we had been to the Premium Outlets, as I was holding out for something a little more dressy.          

After sending out several search parties and one St Bernard rescue dog, complete with brandy, we eventually reunited our party and headed home, stopping off briefly at the Disney outlet at Buena Vista Factory Outlets on the search for discounted pins, but our mission was unsuccessful – not a pin in sight! We finally arrived home at about 8pm, but were far too tired to go out for dinner. We were definitely lacking on the stamina front. The kids and DH decided to go for a swim on the pool and then bought pizza from the resort shop, while I headed straight for my bed and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Tomorrow – we are off to Hollywood!

We arrived at the Ticket and Transportation Centre at 8:55, and jumped on the monorail. The excitement was building as we passed through the Contemporary Resort and saw the new Bay Lake construction site. Before too long we were pulling into the Magic Kingdom station, and we stopped for our first Magic Kingdom photopass picture outside the park entrance:

and once through the cursory bag check and the turnstiles we were there - walking down the most magical street in the world - Main Street USA. The Halloween décor was understated in comparison to what we were used to at Disneyland Paris, but good all the same:

We stopped on Main Street for one of many Photopass opportunities:   

Our first port of call in the Magic Kingdom is always Pirates of the Caribbean - my favourite ride in my favourite park - what more could a girl ask for? (answers on a postcard please!)

This was our first visit to see our pirate friends since their territory was invaded by the notorious pirates, Captains Sparrow and Barbossa, and we were looking forward to the new experience. The Davy Jones illusion was very clever and the Capt Jack Sparrow character at the end of the ride was amazing - absolutely brilliantly done with the voice and everything. Even though I love this Pirates ride, it always pales in comparison to the Paris version - the scenes always seem to be in the wrong order and with only one drop it always seems to be missing something, and of course it is a lot shorter. That said - I  wouldn’t miss it for the world. After our encounter with the pirates we decided to try our luck with Brer Rabbit and friends, but this was not running, so instead we jumped on board the wildest ride in the wilderness, and indeed wild it was - although not as extreme a ride as Paris, it feels much more rickety and you feel you are going to come off the tracks at any moment - which really adds to the experience.

We then went to see if Splash Mountain was running yet, and as it wasn’t we grabbed some fast passes and then jumped back on Big Thunder Mountain as there was only a 10 minute wait. Now on to another favourite: The Haunted Mansion. On the way we snapped these unsavoury characters - anyone got any rotten fruit....

Now The Haunted Mansion had also undergone a few enhancements since our last visit. I didn’t remember there being speakers in the Doom Buggy relaying messages from the Ghost Host. A lot of the spooky effects seemed new - I certainly didn’t recall the footsteps on the stairs, the library and the attic room with the photographs of the murderous bride from previous visits, but maybe they had been there all along and I was just spooked! Our ride was interrupted by playful spooks right next to the really creepy pop-up heads in the graveyard, which was a bit unnerving. I just love the theming around the Haunted Mansion, and took a few photos:

We then recovered from the spooky encounter by a repeat ride on Big Thunder to blow away any remaining cobwebs, and then we noticed Splash Mountain was operating, so everyone except Taryn and Daniel (remember the wimp gene) jumped into a log and set off for the laughing place ……. it always amuses me that just before you go over the big drop there are vultures perched above you with very hopeful expressions on their faces. Two seconds later I was a lot soggier than I had been previously and we jumped out of the log and grabbed fast passes for later.

By now it was time for a change of scenery, and we wandered into Fantasyland to see Philharmagic - another favourite of mine. This show never ceases to amaze me and I just love it! It is my favourite 3D show by a million miles, and in fact is the only one where I keep the glasses on the whole time, as there are no scary surprises! After the show we were planning to head for Tomorrowland via Toontown, and on the way into Toontown we passed this prize exhibit from Mickey’s garden:

We soon realised that we couldn’t get to Tomorrowland via Toontown, but while we were there we decided to ride the Barnstormer with Goofy, which was good fun, but I can honestly say that if you blinked you would have missed it! In the line there was a little girl with an amazing hairstyle, all spikey and orange with glitter and pumpkin confetti etc in her hair. Her mother said she had been to the Bibbiddy Bobbiddy Boutique and it had cost $60!

We then retraced our steps to find the correct direction to Tomorrowland, and once there we headed straight for Buzz Lightyear Laser Spin, which I have always loved, but I found a lot more dated after having ridden the Toy Story Mania ride at Hollywood Studios. I also get annoyed as the guns don’t detach from the vehicle like they do in Paris, although I don’t really know why I’m bothered by this as it doesn’t improve my aim to any degree. My score, as always, was embarrassingly low, and I think even Tony, who always thinks he is the hot shot of star command, was on this occasion, beaten into submission by Taryn!   

I have never noticed these cute guys before either:

After facing the evil Emperor Zurg and his minions, we planned to visit the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor for some comic relief, but by now our fast passes were due on Splash Mountain, so instead we headed back to Frontierland, taking a few photos on the way:

It was time for another stomach churning descent into the Briar Patch, and Taryn and Dan took another wild ride on the Big Thunder Mountain railway. By now we all had rumbles in our tumblies, and decided to pop into Pecos Bill’s for some lunchtime refreshment. The food was really nice, as they had a great salad and toppings bar (fried onions and mushrooms) for the burgers etc. Taryn and I had a chicken wrap each which was enormous and the rest of the guys had the burgers.

After lunch we whizzed back to Tomorrowland to see Sully and Mike at the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor - this was really funny and well presented and I highly recommend it. One thing I have never ridden in Tomorrowland is the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, and so this was our next port of call. This was very relaxing and a good way to get a different outlook on the park and interesting to see inside Space Mountain, as it is highly unlikely I will ever see the inside of Space Mountain by any other means. Here is Dan relaxing on the TTA:

We then wandered over the watch the Dreams Come True parade - a really excellent parade and I managed to video it while Taryn took some still photographs - as I have yet to work out now to do both simultaneously.
Here are some captured moments from the parade:

After the parade we all stopped for ice-cream, complete with chocolate Mickey ears:

except for Dan who wanted to try funnel cake, which comes highly recommended on the DIS. We stopped at Sleepy Hollow for this, and it was decorated with atmosheric halloween pumpkins:

The CM at Sleepy Hollow was very generous with the icing sugar and the cinnamon, most of which Dan ended up wearing by the time he finished the funnel cake.

Before.........

and after.......

Near Sleepy Hollow we found another Photopass opportunity, this time with a very good photographer who had us get into all sorts of poses with the side view of the Castle as the backdrop. She even asked DH and I to kiss each other, while the kids acted horrified - although this probably didn't involve too much in the way of acting. ( I think DH was even more horrified, but he must have thought what the heck, this is Disney, and he didn‘t put up too much of a fight!). Before you get too worried - the kissing photo will not be shown to avoid upsetting anyone with a delicate constitution! These are a couple of our best photos from this photo shoot:

After this we decided to ride Pirates again, and our visit to the Caribbean coincided with one of Captain Jack Sparrow’s pirate tutorials. This was really good fun - and Capt Jack was very true to his character, with good Capt Jack mannerisms and he looked very much like the real thing, which basically meant I was glued to the spot until he finished his routine. I was very disappointed when I put up my hand to join his pirate crew and I was sadly rejected because they were only recruiting mini-pirates on this occasion - us wenches were surplus to requirements. He was the best Capt Jack character I have yet encountered - far better than the rather camp version we saw in Paris, and far far better than the very unrealistic Capt Jack we were to meet on the Disney Magic.

We then decided to do a couple of attractions we have never managed to do in the Magic Kingdom, Jungle Cruise and The Tiki Room - as we felt it was important to give recognition to these “retro” attractions. We grabbed some fast passes to the Jungle Cruise and went first to the Tiki Room - this was very cute and all the young kids in there seemed to love it - my two lads were very worried when the CM asked them to stand up and dance at the end - the look on their faces was priceless, and the CM replied “ Oh stop being boys!”. I think they were very relieved to escape from the Tiki Room - I was less fortunate in being unable to escape from the song, which stuck in my head for the rest of the day. We then hit the Jungle Cruise which was amusing in a “retro” way, but our boat guide appeared really bored with the whole thing, and some of the jokes were so bad they should have been thrown overboard.

Once off the boat it was time to stake out a spot for the Spectromagic Parade, and on the way Taryn, Louise, Dan and I decided to visit the spooks in the Haunted Mansion, while the more daring Tony and Steve headed for Space Mountain. We arranged to meet at Casey’s Corner to warch the parade.

The view turned out to be ok, but we had one of those very officious CMs nearby who was insisted on coming in front of my camera view every five seconds to move people on, every time they stopped where he deemed they shouldn’t be. So there will be some serious editing required to remove the CM’s head from my Spectromagic video.

Some after dark photos of some Halloween characters:

We moved up to the Station end of Main Street to watch Wishes, my all-time favourite Disney firework show, and one which generally has me in tears throughout. It was truly beautiful and seemed to be longer than the Paris version, although there were no images projected onto the castle like they have in Paris. The fireworks were spectacular, and actually produced images in the sky like smiley faces and star shapes and of course hidden Mickey shapes. I didn’t video Wishes on this occasion, as I wanted to try out the firework feature on the camera, but unfortunately the results were disappointing and this one is the best of the bunch (which sort of indicates how bad they came out)

We managed to whiz out of the park immediately after Wishes finished, so as to avoid the crowds piling towards the exit, and the lengthy wait for the monorail, and it was a good plan, as we made it back to the apartment by 8:45pm. We decided to walk down to Chili’s for dinner, and we were really impressed. I don’t think I have ever seen such an extensive menu, and it was really difficult to make a decision on what to eat. The food was delicious and there was plenty of it, and everyone enjoyed their meal. There was a guy wandering round making balloon hats, and a very interesting “shot glass” dessert, where you were given shot glasses with samples of the desserts in them for only $1.99 per shot glass. We had an excellent server and I would really recommend Chilis for a relaxing yet fun atmosphere and great value food. After dinner we walked back to the apartment, winding Tony up on the way about spotting alligators in the lakes that we passed on the way home.

Shopping, eating and MNSSHP with special friends!:hug:

I awoke at about 8am and all was quiet in the apartment. I could hear the rain falling outside so I got up, and sat outside on the lanai, where I caught up with some trip report notes. It was so peaceful to sit there when all was quiet, just listening to the rain falling onto the palm trees. Before too long my peace was shattered by Tony appearing on the lanai with a coffee. We were heading for some retail therapy today, before meeting our friends the Balster family at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party that evening.
Eventually the rest of the troops dragged themselves out of bed and after the usual ablutions we were all ready to head off for the Premium Outlets, which turned out to be just about 10 minutes away from the apartment. Regular readers will have noticed that we have broken the habit of the holiday and made no visit to Dunkin Donuts today - instead we decided to have breakfast at the Premium Outlets food court. Ever health conscious, Taryn, Louise and Daniel opted for fruit this morning - apples to be precise, but before you fall over with the shock - the attraction with these apples was the cinnamon and toffee, and white and milk chocolate coatings they were covered with! Still fruit is fruit and as it was the first healthy option to pass their lips in a week  I was pleased. Here is the proof:

I’m afraid to say that the healthy trend was not continued by Tony and Stephen, who had hot-dogs for breakfast - shame on them! In anticipation of the up-coming cruise and a need to get into a formal gown, I chose to bypass breakfast and just had a latte from Starbucks - it’s amazing how cheap a Starbucks coffee is in the USA, about half the price of the UK equivalent!

It was then time to hit the shops - and my first target was the Character Premiere shop, where I bought a few discounted pins and a few other bits and pieces. We then bought some trainers and shoes in the trainer and shoe shop (funnily enough) and when we were waiting in line to pay, we overheard some people speaking in a very strange language - yes, they were speaking Welsh! So of course we had to introduce ourselves as fellow natives! We then browsed around the rest of the shops, but disappointingly nothing else took  our fancy - and by now I was getting desperate as I still had no shoes to go with my formal gown for the cruise. By now it was approaching lunch time, and we decided to go to one of Tony’s all time American favourites - Denny’s.

We had a lovely lunch - the portions were enormous, and our server, who appeared to be well past retirement age, was amazing and really funny - she spent a lot of time winding up the kids!

Some photos of the small portions....

After lunch we headed back to the apartment, where the kids headed off to the pool for a last dip, and Tony and I headed to Walmart, in a desperate last minute search for some black sandals for me. Now those of you who have shopped in Walmart will know how enormous it is, and also how ridiculously disorganised and disorientating it is - although that may just be the effect it has on me! I feel like I am in a maze and keep going around in circles, and for some reason they don’t keep all of the same items in the same area of the shop. I could have really done with Jack Sparrow’s compass to help me find my heart’s desire - the shoe department. What makes it even more ridiculous is that I had been there a few days earlier and still couldn’t find it. Eventually, after what seemed like hours we found the shoe department and I managed to locate a pair of black sandals which would suffice. We hurriedly picked up everything else we thought we might need, and probably a few things we didn’t, and very conscious of the fact that time was ticking on, and we needed to get transformed into pirates for the Halloween Party, we headed back home.

The kids were getting ready for the party, so we quickly changed and became the crazy pirate crew we are deep down inside! It was already about 6:30, and we were supposed to be meeting our friends outside Pirates of the Caribbean at 7pm. This wasn’t looking good at all! We jumped in the van, and I drove as fast as the speed limits would allow to arrive at the parking lot at about 7pm. There didn’t seem to be many people in costume in the parking lot and Stephen began to panic - it had taken a lot of persuasion to get him to dress up in a costume in the first place and a lot of  reassurance that absolutely EVERYONE at the party would be in costume! You can see by his face on this photo that he was far from impressed when he realised that we might have just been slightly economical with the truth:

In fact no one looks too impressed on those photos for some reason - miserable lot my family. We boarded the monorail and when we arrived at the Magic Kingdom station there were quite a few people dressed in costumes milling about the park entrance, which fortunately seemed to chill Stephen out a bit. On the way in we were given wrist bands, Halloween party guides and treat bags for trick or treating. There were cast members holding up Halloween party signs to direct the party guests in the right direction, as there were crowds of other non-party guests leaving the park. We then had a mad dash through the crowds to meet up with our friends outside Pirates of the Caribbean - but when we got there they were nowhere to be seen. We immediately began to worry because we were almost half an hour late and they may have got fed up waiting for us or thought we had been held up. We hovered there looking lost and suddenly were commandeered by 4 crazy pirates who had been hiding in the shadows of the building opposite. It was so great to see them again, and we couldn’t stop talking - I don’t think we paused for breath once in that first hour of meeting up! They regaled us with spooky stories of their night at the Universal Halloween Horror event - which was definitely not for the faint of heart - and Helen had the bruises on her arms to proof it! Here is our pirate crew outside Pirates of the Caribbean:

We hit the first Trick or Treat stop outside of the Pirates of the Caribbean, where cast members put a handful of candy into each of our bags, and then we headed to ride Pirates of the Caribbean - it was great to ride our favourite ride dressed as pirates! Unfortunately the cast members were far from piratey and not very interactive at all. After raiding the Spanish Main we raided the shop for weaponry and commandeered some swords - well to be totally honest, in reality we lined up in the store and paid for them like everyone else but that doesn’t sound very piratey either so for the sake of authenticity I‘d go with the first version!

Next stop, the Haunted Mansion - the cast members here were much more interactive and into the Halloween spirit - they had really good atmospheric make-up, and the spooky effects such as fog and eerie music around the Haunted Mansion were really effective. There was even a spooky ghost lady sitting in the graveyard! Unfortunately two of our pirate crew dropped their swords in the Haunted Mansion, and they may still be there to this very day. We hit another Trick or Treat stop outside the Haunted Mansion, and then we headed off to ride the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - always a crazy experience in the dark! A we entered the mine station it began to rain, and by the time we boarded the train it was actually tipping it down. This made the ride even wilder and crazier than ever and we ended up soaked through to the skin and very bedraggled.

We then headed over to Tomorrowland as some of the group wanted to ride Space Mountain, but it wasn’t running, so instead we had a whirl with Buzz Lightyear. By now it was time for the parade, so we headed for the central plaza to find a good viewpoint. On the way we encountered Davy Jones and there was a bit of a stand-off:

We sat down on the kerb side and waited for the parade, and I took a bit of video footage while waiting, and a photo of the girls waiting patiently.

We also had a photo pass moment in front of the castle, and the photographer took so long to try and get us all in the picture and to get it focused correctly, and this was the end result.

The parade was absolutely amazing - my favourite parade ever. I loved the pirates, the grave-diggers, and the Capt. Jack Sparrow and the Haunted Mansion floats in particular. We were thrilled when Captain Barbossa gestured over to us as his pirate crew! After the parade we stayed in the same place and waited for the Hallowishes fireworks. This was the best fireworks show I have ever seen - absolutely breathtaking - and all presented to a Halloween soundtrack!

After the fireworks we bid farewell to Andy, Helen, Rachel and Bethany, who had to get back to the Hard Rock Hotel via taxi and didn’t want to be caught in the crowds as we all had an early start tomorrow. I couldn’t resist a final ride on Pirates of the Caribbean,

and then Stephen and Tony went to ride Splash Mountain. By now it was time to leave, so we made our way to the exit via the Main Street shops, and then jumped on the monorail to the parking lot.

I had really enjoyed the Halloween Party - the atmosphere was amazing, and the parade and fireworks alone were worth the extra ticket price. The trick and treating was fun, particularly for the younger children, and riding the attractions in the dark and spooky atmosphere added an extra dimension. The only criticism was the lack of interaction from some of the cast members - such as those in Pirates of the Caribbean, and apart from during the parade we didn’t see any characters wandering around, but we may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That said, I would definitely do MNSSHP again as it was an amazing experience, and especially because we were able to share it with such special and like-minded friends.

Back at the apartment I did my last batch of laundry ready for the cruise and threw it in the tumble dryer, and then sorted out as much as I could before tiredness took over, and I fell into bed to dream of tomorrow and our long awaited first ever cruise on the Disney Magic. I was so excited I could hardly contain myself, as to be on the Disney Magic was such a dream of mine, and tomorrow it was really going to happen! Our plan was to be up really early, and away in the car by 7:30am, so we could have breakfast in Port Canaveral before entering the terminal at 10am or as soon as we could, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men and my family …….