With downtime yesterday, I got a bit knocked of track doing this, but hopefully I'll get the next three days done no problems...
Day 3
It was a real struggle to get up. Prescription painkillers taken with a pint of beer perhaps wasn't the best idea. Luckily I'm a morning person and was still up and about before everyone else - kicking them out of bed.
So we missed the earlier breakfast slot and arrived at around 7:50... OMG! There was a queue coming out of the front of the hotel lobby which we thought must have been a couple of coaches of fresh check-ins... We barged in through them and then found out it was the breakfast queue!!!
30 minute queue for breakfast? Unbelievable. There seems to be a sweet spot before 7:30 and after about 8:15 where the queues vanish, but we hit the worst time.
Still it gave MMF and SSIL_Furie time to grab another photo and autograph.
Jessie's face really, REALLY freaks me out.
Breakfast [strike]theft[/strike] time accomplished, we managed to head off into the park in a decent enough time scale, missing Magic Hours (8-10) by just ten minutes :lol:
The idea of today was to "mop up" Disneyland Parc. Spend the whole day there until we'd all done everything we could possibly have wanted to do. I had my own plans, and SSIL_Furie had hers.
SSIL_Furie wanted to get photos and autographs. We'd seen Minnie doing shots as we entered and she also wanted to meet Rapunzel (I love how my spell checker wants to auto-correct Rapunzel to Rappel - what she did with her own hair :lol: ) . There were queues for both (and she hadn't yet realised that she could use the disabled card to bypass queues for meet and greets), so I asked MMF if he wanted the autographs, or to come adventuring with me.
So he left Madame_Furie to get the autographs (I did explain that was missing the point a little) and headed off on an adventure with me.
For those who don't know, this is the kind of stuff I love doing. I like the escapism a theme park (or wandering in the local woods) offers. A chance to get away from the queues, computers and norm for a while. I love it when a theme park offers the opportunity to just "do stuff". It's why I like Alton, Tripsdrill and LWV. Disney do it best though...
First up, we head under the castle for some dragon times. Dragon times are the best times!
I love the way it seems to be having a go at everyone standing around. It's not a superb animatronic these days, but it's still very well done. It's the quality I expect from Disney as a bare minimum...
We stopped off outside the castle for MMF to see if he was the future king of England. Instead, we just ended up with a picture that will haunt him in future years :lol:
I'd like to point out he was supposed to be wearing trainers, but they were still wet. He's got eczema so can't wear crocks without socks - not that he should be allowed to wear them anyway. I have reported Madame_F to the police for child abuse
Anyway, the adventure! Where else but... Adventureland!
I loved this area when I found it on my first visit - it's just so excessively pointless. Essentially Adventureland is just PotC, a restaurant or two, a "tree walkthrough" and Indy. Yet it takes up a massive part of the back end of DLP.
It's things like this that are so fab. It's almost a full scale copy of Captain Hook's ship. Skull Rock is huge and underneath..?
An excited chipmunk of a MMF desperate to explore the caves.
The caves aren't vast really, but they maze around brilliantly and have loads of exits, entrances, water features, hidden treasure spots, etc, etc, etc. It's brilliant just to get lost in for 20 minutes and enjoy being removed from it all...
One of several waterfalls
There's a superb rope bridge over to the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse walkthrough:
But even better, under the tree there's another set of caves and passages made up of the roots of the tree above. The entire area is superb. You are just completely immersed in a different world for that short space of time.
We headed around again and again, past Hook's ship and eventually to behind the sockets of skull rock:
Then round again finding more things we'd missed. We spent about an hour in total just wandering the area right up to Indy and back to PotC and out again. With it being spring the foliage was all lush and in bloom, the insects and birds making noises - it was divine.
The only thing wrong was the noise of somebody cutting apart a nearby rollercoaster
Anyway, I'd had a text from Madame_Furie to say they were finally at the entrance to Adventureland... There are at least three entrances to Adventureland, so that wasn't much help.
I asked which one, she said "the one by a camel". I assumed the one from the Agrobah area then
We met up and headed for Pirates of the Caribbean. MMF loves Pirate Adventure at DMP, so I was looking forward to seeing what he thought of the original. I remember loving the ride too on the previous two visits, so I was also excited.
Actually, brief stop while I mention DMP. No matter what you may think of the park, I noticed that they are at least good enough to take the urine from DLRP:
Back to PotC. We skipped the queue which was a shame and a blessing (55 minutes, but it's a nice queue and I needed photos) and got on pretty quickly.
I didn't take many photos, wanting to enjoy the ride, but I got one of the stranded kittens
Awwwww....
The rest of the ride was abject disappointment. Like Phantom Manor, it just didn't live up to my memories at all. Don't get me wrong, it's 100 times better than the DMP version, but it's so dated and boring. I said above I expect the dragon as a minimum of what to get from an animatronic - PotC is severely lacking. I think maybe that's also what disappointed me about Phantom Manor - I've just come to expect more than poorly animated mannequins. Mannequins annoy me anyway, I find them a cheap and naff way of trying to create a theme.
So, mildly disappointed, we headed back through all the caves and rope bridges to hit Frontierland.
Stopping for a toilet break on the way of course. Then nipping into a shop while we were there... And we had to just go and have a look at the menu of a restaurant or three. But after an hour, we got to...
Big Thunder Mountain! Another ride I really enjoyed on my previous visits. Again, this is Disney doing what it does best. Huge scale theme as a centre piece for a ride that creates the entire theme for the area you're in. It's so hard to put across the scale of the entire thing.
Adventureland and Frontierland are an RCT players wet dream. It's exactly what you always want to produce when you're playing the games. Rides and theme that interact and look stunning. Disney have done it so well, it's glorious to just stand around and faff while not attempting to ride anything
We eventually managed to get in the disabled queue (main queue about 90 minutes) and had a 20 minute wait ahead of us. So we took the time to eat our [strike]stolen[/strike] packed lunch. Though I'm sure that it would have been just as good an idea to do it afterwards
The ride is still really good. It's a good mix of forces and "dark ride". It's got a good length to it, and it's always interesting. It works really well. There seemed to be a few bits of theming missing from last time though - sure it had a water splash and opossums previously.
We got off just in time to miss the boat trip around the lake. Madame_Furie loves the boat trip, so we had to wait for the next one. The queue was horrid. It's just a mass area that everyone crams into, then when the boat docks, they all surge forward to try and get through the gates onto the boat. It's like something from Titanic only without the torture of Celine Dion - that thought and remembering the man falling onto the propeller cheered me up no end
The boat was boaty. Some decent shots for the park guide, a big WTF about the geysers not working and a shot of the disappointing Phantom Manor...
As far as madame_furie was concerned, her trip to Disney was over... We should have just gone on a ferry to the Isle of White :roll:
We were now firmly in the realms of "we've done everything good and everything everyone wanted to do". It was early afternoon, so we got decided to just mooch around and see what took our fancy. We thought we'd plan ahead for dinner, and headed for Pizza Planet.
We got on the train from Frontierland (there's so much empty and unused space around the station) to the back of Star Tours. This station has always been closed before for "refurbishment". The floor tiles rocked and it felt really unsafe going down the platform - I guess they missed it last year, and the year before, and maybe the year before that? Down the exit to see what's going on at Pizza Planet.
What has happened here Disney? Captain Eo (or whatever it is) is closed and Pizza Planet looks like the kind of place urban explorers take photos of (I'm thinking Camelot...). The entire area is deserted and looks abandoned. We'd kind of expected it during the rain the previous day, but in the daylight, it looks dreadful.
So we headed in to Pizza Planet to find out what the low down was.
It's actually quite exciting going in to Pizza Planet. It's like the film and everyth...
Now, wait... It isn't.
It used to be a vibrant, exciting place filled with games, tables, cashier desks, characters, photo points, etc, etc. It was a great place. Now you're stuck on the side of a fence separating you from the actual restaurant area. There are cashiers ahead, serving nobody. We asked when they closed... Four. It's a buffet now too, hence the restrictions in entering the restaurant area. I think it was about 3:00 at this point and we'd just had [strike]contraband[/strike] delicious lunch and didn't want anything. If it had been a normal restaurant, we'd have probably grabbed a coffee and coke just to say we'd visited.
Instead, turned to leave... Only the doors to get out are on the other side of the barrier. You have to pay for the buffet to get out of the place!!! So we stood by the entrance doors (you couldn't open them from the inside) until some other mug came along and opened them (about five minutes :roll: ).
Such a shame.
So we found a kiosk, a rude member of staff and a cup of coffee - then headed for Autopia.
I've never been on this ride as it's always been closed the previous two times we've been for "refurbishment". I find Grand Prix at Blackpool a bit dull, but MMF loved it (and we only got a quarter of the way around Grand Prix before being evacuated at Blackpool) and SSIL_Furie was also looking forward to it.
It's actually a really great little ride. I like the two tracks and it's very pretty. Remind me never to let SSIL_Furie drive a real car though
Or MMF for that matter...
MMF "enjoying" Autopia
Max Damage from Carmageddon
With another land complete and a couple of hours until the parade (SSIL_Furie was desperate to see it from the disabled area), we headed to Fantasyland to see what else there was to do - come on, you all know what's there to do, but everyone is to be kept in suspense
I loved the shaped hedges, this one in particular.
I guess Fantasyland is the most traditional "fair" type area, but there's still some superb theming. It does remind me a lot of a "premium" Blackpool and I wonder how much inspiration the Thompson's took from the original Disney Park?
We hit up Alice's maze first. Both SSIL_Furie and I really like this. I don't know why I like it so much, but I do. I love the film, I love the book, I like mazes.
It's got a real cartoon atmosphere about it, with some neat little bits of theming here and there
We spent quite a while in the place (Madame_Dyspraxia strikes again), but with MMF and me waiting at the end mostly
Then it was... Excitement time!!!
CRED!!!
The infrequently caught Casey Junior coaster (not that I count it as it's powered
).
I couldn't remember if we rode this on our first visit. I remember the area and it does ring a bell, but at least now it's confirmed - proof!
The pair of them wanted to be in a cage... Finally, we're on the same hymn sheet
Sadly, they weren't - everyone is equally as disappointed then
It's actually a great little ride. It's more train ride than coaster, but it's absolutely, definitely a coaster. It's really quite long and there's lots to see. Well worth hunting out
It was time then for the parade, so we faffed for a while to make sure that we had to fight through crowds to get SSIL_Furie to the disabled viewing area. For viewing things, you can only have one other person with you - so SSIL_Furie too MMF with her. Madame_Furie found somewhere to watch.
I don't want to bog this report down with medical issues and stuff, but it's wart and all - so tough (and also has some value I think). I was in agony. My back was killing me. I can't support myself standing still or sitting without a back rest - so the last two days had finally crippled me. I passed my camera to MMF and found a wall to sit down against (if my legs don't bend though, I get sciatica right down my arse and legs and my legs go numb for an hour or so, but it's better than the lower back pain).
So I spent the show on the floor wishing for food to be able to take some painkillers with (the prescription painkillers I take send me loopy if I don't take them with a meal - they do if I take them with a meal actually ,but properly loopy without :lol: ).
MMF managed to take the shot of the week though. Little sod :lol:
Family_Furie made there way to me (it was easy, I was the beached whale the crowds were avoiding
) to inform me that nobody was really hungry, and could we maybe wait a while before having dinner?
Okay, well if I'm suffering, you lot bloody can too!
There was a breakdown*. It elicited this response from MMF:
Hahahhahaha! And now whenever he annoys me, I play the song on my phone!!!
I love the little signs at the end showing cultures swapping things:
I'll give you legal whore houses and legal drugs, you can give us a communist state?
Cake or death?
We shall bring rape and pillage with our longships. Please, accept our fans!
Still no sign of food on the horizon and suddenly everyone had a buring desire to ride Dumbo and the teacups :roll:
Though it's hard to work out which is Dumbo (I suspect it's me)
There was a degree of "lost spacker card" faff for fifteen minutes (It was in SSIL_Furie's pocket all along). and then we finally headed for some dinner at about 7:30 (remember, this is two hours after I collapsed in a heap due to pain).
Most of the food places were closed and MMF was badgering about the all you can eat BBQ buffet at the hotel. I suggested somewhere closer in the Disney village. There was a slight problem though.
We seemd to have over spent by about 200€ somehow, so were feeling skint. I was hungry enough to eat a scabby dog though, so it needed to be something substantial. We headed for the village, but everything was outrageously priced (as we'd found out at Rainforest Cafe on Day 1). There was a Wild West bar though doing all you can eat BBQ. It was about the same price as the hotel, and sounded good. I'd decided to pay by card if it was a set amount.
Unfortunately, as I was finding this out, the rest of Family_Furie had discovered "SHOPS!" So I waited another 20 minutes for them to arrive. By the time they did, there was no room at the inn... So I hobbled back to the hotel with family_furie for their all you can eat BBQ buffet.
I wasn't keen. It was 28€ a head and the hotel food has a bad reputation. It was also almost 9:00 by this point and pain and hunger had given way to a desperate need to curl up into a ball like a hedgehog and sleep until next spring.
The food was actually... Not good, but "fine". There was a lot of choice and while none of it was really nice, it wasn't unpleasant either. So we ate our fill and [strike]stole[/strike] ate puddings until we were fit to burst. I finally got my pain killers and it was another late night before another early morning. I was trying to get to bed early so we could get to the breakfast before the pain of the huge queue... I'll leave you in suspense as to whether we managed it or not
*Yes, I think I will sue them
