Disney Feb 14 – Family Trip! Part 5

Day 6 (7^th Feb)

Today we started off with shopping at Premium Outlets. Paul and Tracey stayed at the villa with the kids. We got to the outlets for opening and started off at the food court – we had subway except for Kev who had a burger!

Many bargains were selected and we left at around 1. On the way back we got a message asking us to get more teabags – who drinks that much tea in Florida?! So we stopped quickly and got more supplies.

We finally headed over to the Magic Kingdom. I popped into guest relations and got our last set of paper fastpasses. Then I set off to sort our FP+ out – I had 3 goals today: get Leona to meet a princess, get Blake to meet talking Mickey and the kids to see Wishes....

So FP+ booked – I had to get the Cinderella FP+ for later than I had hoped – and we were off to Pirates of the Caribbean. It was drizzling again :( - we got to Pirates and Paul stayed off with Charlie (not sure why as he could ride).

Once we got off the ride it was announced that Paul and Tracey were going to go back to the villa with Charlie. Before though we had to go and get a jumper for Sharna as she was getting chilly.....

Back to Main St to the emporium and Sharna reappeared with a Minnie Mouse hoodie. We said goodbye to Paul, Tracey and Charlie and then went in search of food.

We decided to get dinner at Cosmic Rays and then cross off a few of the rides that we hadn’t yet managed.

We started at the Mad Tea Party and as we had some spare paper fastpasses Rob and I took Blake and Leona. Kev and Sharna didn’t want to ride!

We then took a little trip back to Main Street on the Railroad to save our legs. We headed into Town Square Theatre to meet Mickey – we got into the room and as expected Leona didn’t want to see him so when it was our turn Kev took her out.

Mickey did a magic trick for Blake which was quite funny. I had thought that talking Mickey would be creepy but actually he wasn’t :)

 

Continuing our quest we headed over to see Mickey’s Philharmagic – it was a nice break from the drizzle and oddly it was nice to be inside as it was warmer inside than out!

Up next was the Little Mermaid ride in New Fantasyland. We used another of our paper fastpasses – it was odd though because we got almost to the loading zone and they stopped loading for several minutes...not sure why and then they started again. Very strange...!

It was almost time for Wishes so we went to Gastons Tavern to get a drink and a snack. Leona wanted an ice cream so Sharna took her to a stand outside and as she was wearing her birthday button the CM gave it to her for free :)

We headed toward the back of the castle to watch the fireworks – we knew that it would be a slightly different view but it was much less crowded for the kids.  Bizarrely though there was a lot of low cloud/fog and none of the fireworks were visible :-/ Leona did see Tink though....

We abandoned the fireworks and headed in to meet Cinderella. Thankfully Leona wasn’t scared of the princesses and we got some lovely photos of her with Cinderella and Aurora.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did try and get them back in line for Rapunzel before the fireworks were over but they got distracted in the shop and people started flooding into the line.

We still had some paper fast passes so we headed back to Tomorrowland and took another ride on Space Mountain.

 

 

We were going to go around again but Leona didn’t want to so we did Buzz Lightyear instead.

 

 

Finally the kids wanted to buy some souvenirs – they had some gift cards and Christmas money so we went back to the emporium. Blake bought himself some pins and Leona got a princess dress.

We headed out of the park and got the tram back to the car at around 10pm. Amazingly Leona stayed awake for the drive home (we had bet her $5 that she would fall asleep – as she had every other night!)

 (FP+ 16.00 – 17.00 Pirates, 18.10 – 19.10 Meet Mickey, 19.55 – 20.55 Meet Cindy)

Day 7 (8^th Feb)

Today we were going home :( We had arranged a late check out from the villa so we got up and packed.

We had bought Charlie a pair of shoes yesterday that were too small so Rob and I headed back to Premium Outlets to exchange them.

We took advantage of being on our own to grab an early lunch and do a little more shopping – I got a new bag, some Disney jeans ($9.99) & a T-shirt whilst Rob got some polo shirts & jeans.

We popped into Super Target on the way back for a couple of bits then went back to the villa to help with the tidying plus washing and final packing.

Off to the airport – we checked in and dropped our bags. The flight was slightly delayed but was quite empty so we spread out a little. We had 2 rows of 4 and a 3 – so Blake and Leona could stretch out and sleep.

Unfortunately Charlie didn’t sleep very much so Sharna had a tough flight.

Back at Gatwick, Rob and I used the e-passport gates and set about collecting the bags, We had most of them before the rest arrived but had to wait for Charlie’s seat.

Off to the car park and we made our way home, we picked up the dog and then had a lazy day at home!

A few final thoughts:

1. FP+ is tough to manage for a 'large' group. It is harder to change times due to the number of slots needed and it is hard to get everyone to the right place at the right time. We did most things that we had planned on this trip but that was mainly due to the fact that we had the extra paper fast passes.

2. I still don't like FP+ even for a small group. It feels like a WDW trip is now just too much hard work - I feel like I'm attending scheduled meetings all day :(

3. I still love Disney but maybe my DVC points will be spent more at Disneyland or Hilton Head for a few years.....
That said....we have a cheeky trip booked in June (just me and Rob) to get one final use out of our Annual passes.
It was an absolute bargain for flight, hotel and car so we booked it :) I have tagged on one night at the Grand Floridian so hopefully we'll have a fab time!