Two for the price of one!
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Our first moving day had dawned. Again, we were up early, still not
having quite adapted to the time change. So, after taking showers,
we brewed some coffee and finished the leftovers in the fridge and
shared the rest of Tom’s cake, before packing up the last few items
and then calling bell services. It did not take long at all and all
our luggage was tagged and on its way to the Yacht Club. We took our
carry-ons with us to the car and put them in the trunk on our way to
the Magic Kingdom. We arrived at the Security checkpoint shortly
after 9am and joined the long line. |
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It was only about 10 minutes later we went through the scanners and
then scanned our Magicbands and headed into the park. It was a
picture perfect morning with the train in the station when we
entered and a beautiful blue sky above. Another wonderful day at
Disney. We slowly strolled up Main Street, peeked into a shop or two
and finally walked up and through the castle right into Fantasyland.
We still had a few minutes to kill so we stopped and watched people
trying to retrieve the Sword in the Stone. The actors were out and
finally a little girl was selected to try to pull the sword from the
stone. It was a really cute scene. |
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The
little girl was pretty surprised when she was the one to pull out
the sword. We all clapped and bowed to the little girl before
heading over to Peter Pan’s Flight, which had a line that started
even before the scanners. But it moved quickly and soon we were
flying over London and on to Neverland. After the ride we did not
have to walk far for our next ride, just across the street we
literally walked onto It’s a Small World. Once we got off the ride
our next FP was just kicking in and we walked right over to Seven
Dwarfs Mine Train and hopped on the next train out. Needless to say
we had a great time, and far too soon we had to get off again. |
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We had plenty of time before our next FP ride, so we walked towards
Tomorrowland and since The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh only
had a 10 minute wait, we got in line and rode that ride as well.
Next stop Peoplemover. We both love that ride, so relaxing just
sitting there and people watch. Now, all those rides made us
thirsty, so off to Starbucks we went again. But we did not get far,
as we walked right into the Move It, Shake It Parade. We stopped for
a while to watch, but then went straight to Starbucks. We had really
enjoyed our drinks the day before, so we went for repeats, Tom again
ordered the Iced Caramel
Macchiato, while I went with the
Iced Black Tea Lemonade
again. |
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We started walking with our drinks in hand, but were happy to find
some benches behind the Christmas Store and we sat down and enjoyed
our drinks. Drinks finished we slowly walked over to our last Magic
Kingdom ride for the day, Big Thunder Mountain. The standby line was
very long as the ride was about to go down for refurb in just a day
or two, so we were happy to quickly move through the FP line. Again
we were granted last row and enjoyed to ride in the best seats in
the house. Once we got off it was time to leave the park. We walked
back to the car, waved goodbye to Bay Lake Tower and drove over to
Disney Springs. |
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We had not been there since the second garage had opened and once we
had found the right garage we drove around in search of a spot to
park the car. Took us quite a while and once we had finally parked
our car we hotfooted it over to the Boathouse for lunch. We made it
with 5 minutes to spare and signed in. It took quite a while until
we were called and a table was ready. No problem, as it had given us
time to catch our breath again. Now we were following a greeter to a
table and were not happy. There were several “regular” dining
tables, but we were led to some of the “high chair” tables. I don’t
really feel comfortable in these bar seats, so we asked the greeter
if it was possible to get a regular table. |
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We got a really funny look and were told that this was the table
that was assigned to us. Yip, we know, but I’d rather …… It took a
while, but they were able to seat us at a regular table. There we
quickly settled in, a server handed us menus and took our order for
drinks and we were left to study the menu. It took us a little time
to decide on something, but there were a lot of yummy things on the
menu, so we decided to share a starter and then have a main course
each. After ordering the food, the server brought some soft
dinner rolls and butter
and we started munching on them, while we waited for our food. It
did not take long and our starter, the
Firecracker Shrimp,
Sriracha mayo, serrano chili and sweet peppers was brought to the
table. The helping was huge, but so tasty and quite hot. We both
kept eating and eating and soon felt a bit full and we had yet to
tackle our main courses. Tom had ordered the
Wild Caught Surf Clam Strips with
fresh cut fries and tartar sauce and lemon served in a dockside
bucket. My main were the
Coconut-Fried Wild Pacific White Shrimp with fresh cut fries and
orange-chili sauce served in a dockside bucket. We were still
working on the starter, when the main courses came out and the
starter and bread had filled us up already, but we did our best
working on the main courses as well. We were not able to finish it
all, but most of it was consumed. The server asked if we wanted to
think about dessert and we were way too full to even think about it.
So we just asked for the bill. Once it came I asked if they would
accept a Disney gift card and they did. So I handed her our gift
card and she looked at me funny. Guess what, what I just gave you IS
an actual gift card, even if it is shaped funnily. I had bought a
flower shaped gift card during Flower and Garden. She went to
process it and was gone for quite some time. Turns out that she did
not know how to process it and it had taken several servers and
attempts to get it to work. But in the end we were able to use it to
pay for our meal and then we headed back out again. |
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We strolled through some of the new areas before heading back to the
car at around 2.30pm. Our next destination was Disney’s Yacht Club
Resort and shortly before 3pm we arrived, passed the security booth
and self-parked the car. Not sure if the room would be ready we left
our carry-ons in the car and headed towards the front desk. No one
ahead of us, so we told the cast member that we had done online
check in and were just here to pick up our Magicbands. Didn’t take
long and we had our new Magicbands and our room was ready as well.
Yeah! We walked over to the elevator, went up and went to check out
our room. We walked and walked and walked some more and found that
it was at the very end of a corridor. |
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We opened the door and the room was really nice and after taking a
few photos I called to ask if our luggage had already arrived and
Tom went to the car to get the carry-ons. A few minutes later there
was a knock at the door and our luggage was delivered. The bellman
was very helpful, explained about everything in the room and let us
know that we should definitely ask for him specifically if we needed
some help. When Tom arrived with the carry-ons he was pretty
surprised that the rest of our stuff had already arrived. We took a
little break, freshened up a bit and then we walked all the way back
to the lobby and outside to walk over to Epcot. It was another
beautiful day and even though it was very hot and humid we enjoyed
the walk along Cresent Lake. Soon we had made it to Epcot with no
wait at all for bag check and were inside the park. Again, there
were quite a lot of guests, but it was still very manageable. We had
booked another FP after we had been on the initial 3 ones in the
Magic Kingdom, but we still had a little time until then. So we
strolled through the countries, then worked our way up to the
fountain and finally we had a good look around Mousegear. Then we
headed over to Mission Space. My Disney Experience had been right,
there was just a 10 minute wait and we grabbed an orange ticket and
hopped in line. Well, the wait was even shorter than those 10
minutes, because the only time we stopped was after we had been
divided into teams. Score. |
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Our mission to Mars was as fun as always and in the meantime our FP
had opened up. No long walk, as it was for Test Track. When I had
checked in the morning, I had been very surprised to find a FP for
it in the afternoon and had grabbed it immediately. Test Track still
had quite the line, but we walked through most of it until …. there
was lightning in the area and they had stopped the ride. We waited
and waited and waited some more and many of the other people in our
holding area just left but we stayed and while we waited I booked
another FP, this time for Spaceship Earth. After about 25 minutes
the ride was opened again and the line moved quickly. Soon we found
ourselves in one of the cars and off we went to test the vehicle. |
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Once we got off we scanned the Magicbands for the ride photo and
checked our car’s efficiency and then slowly walked towards the
exit, where Tom checked out all the new cars. Next stop Spaceship
Earth. We soon made it over and even though the regular line was
pretty short, why not use our FP and soon we found ourselves in one
of the ride vehicles, just to discover that they were very
uncomfortable for Tom’s knee, which he had hurt the day before we
had left on vacation. |
There was nothing we could do once the ride had started, so we tried
to make him as comfortable
as possible and enjoy the rest of the ride. We took a few photos of
our future and after we had gotten off, we watched our photos fly
home to the heart of Europe on the big screen. By now it was early
evening and we needed to get back to our resort. It did not take
long and we were back in our room. We had a drink, rested for a
while on the balcony and freshened up again before we were already a
bit late for our next appointment.We headed down to the lobby and
outside to the Yacht Club Marina. I had found a family on the
DISboards that wanted to share an Illuminations cruise and it had
all worked out. Once we made it close to the marina, I could see
someone get up and walk towards us and yes, it was the person from
the DISboards. We quickly got finances out of the way and then
walked right over to our boat, which was all decked out for a
birthday. Turns out it was the mom’s birthday and she had gotten
decorations as well. Our skipper was a young lady, who had been
working for Disney for a few years and was super knowledgeable.
First we started to drive along Cresent Lake, along the Beach Club
and past Seabreeze Point over to the Boardwalk, then we crossed
underneath the bridge and past the Swan and Dolphin and we were on
our way to Hollywood Studios. There were four adults on the boat and
three teenagers, who seemed to be very occupied with their phones,
but the adults enjoyed the comments and the sights very much. |
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Once we had enjoyed the sight of the Studios and heard about what
was new and that the new Starwars fireworks were absolutely
breathtaking, it had gotten dark and it was now time to return to
Epcot. Our skipper told us that she wanted to be one of the last
boats to arrive at the viewing spot so we could be towards the
middle of the canal and would have the best view. So we headed back
to Cresent Lake and finally crossed under the bridge that divides
Britain and France and there were already a few boats moored. Our
skipper tied our boat to the other ones and we were right in the
middle of the canal. We still had a little time and so she explained
on how they prepare for the fireworks, and what was going to happen.
Soon the fireworks started and it was definitely an awesome spot to
view Illuminations. |
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We really enjoyed it, sitting there, having a drink in hand and
nibbling on snacks. Once Illuminations was over our skipper asked if
we had a little more time and Tom and I had nothing else on our
list, but the other family had a reservation for Beaches and Cream.
Luckily it was late enough and we all agreed to take our skipper up
on her offer of taking us to Hollywood Studios again to watch those
fireworks as well. Two fireworks for the price of one. Score. It
took about 10 minutes to get to Hollywood Studios and when we
arrived, she positioned our boat so we would be able to have a
perfect view. It was funny to see that all but one of the other
boats had done the same and we were now all at the Studios. |
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I think we were not sitting there for more than three minutes and
the fireworks were going off. We had seen the Starwars fireworks in
March and they had been stunning but the new edition took our breath
away. We had been told about them but they were absolutely amazing
and lasted for quite a long time. Being outside the park we could
only imagine what they must be like from in front of the Chinese
Theatre. It got us all excited for the Starwars Fireworks dessert
party we had signed up for for later in the trip. After the
fireworks we made our way back to the Yacht Club at full speed, as
the other family needed to get to Beaches and Cream. |
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Once we arrived at the Yacht Club we tipped the skipper, said
goodbye to the other family and then walked back to our resort and
back to our room. We watched a little more TV, had some snacks and I
had some of the Coconut bar
I had bought earlier in the day. But it had been a long day and
around 11pm we were ready to call it a day. |
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