This was a morning with another early start as we were going back to Magic Kingdom to try our luck again to ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and so we were out of the villa by 7.40am. Today Barry and Ellie were off to Islands of Adventure although Barry was very poorly and was running a temperature. He dosed himself up and they went off as well at about the same time.
Another $25 car parking fee later and we were walking to the TTC to catch the monorail to the park. Disappointingly the Mine Train was already broken when we got into the park and not working and so we headed to ride Splash Mountain instead. This was likely to be the last time we ride it in its current form and it is overdue for an overhaul and retheming from the now very unwoke Songs of the South theme to what I still consider to be a strange choice of The Princess and the Frog.
We walked straight onto it with our lightning lane pass. We were quite enjoying the ride and almost in The Laughing Place part of the ride before the 50ft Drop when the ride stopped. We sat for a while and then eventually all the lights came on followed a while later by an announcement saying they were would be taking us off the ride.
Neil was not happy as it meant another ride not completed and more time wasted. I was more relaxed as I was looking forward to what happened next and seeing the ‘backside’ of the ride. Eventually they came along with a large ‘tool’ to release the drop bar holding us in and then escorted us out of an emergency exit down some stairs outside behind the ride itself. We were in area where they kept the spares for the ride. It was a well-practised routine by the staff. One person designated to scan our tickets to give us a free lightning lane pass as compensation was already in place whilst another was handing out free bottles of water.
From here we wandered to over and joined the queue for Haunted Mansion. It was quite long but moving quite quickly. The ride was fun but when it stopped for a while, I thought we might be evacuated again but it soon got moving again.
We then had a break for drinks whilst Neil went and re-rode Splash Mountain successfully this time. We regrouped and rode Pirates for the second time this trip before heading all to ride Thunder Mountain which seemed even better this time around.
By now it was getting very hot and so I was pleased that we decided to go to The Enchanted Tiki Rooms next. I still think it is really twee and shouldn’t be fun but it is a classic and strangely enjoyable.
Then it was time for our ride on the Jingle Cruise. We had a great skipper and she made me laugh a lot – like when she told us we were passing through a grove of Humbugs and if we were quiet, we would be able to hear the going ‘Bah’. Well, it tickled me anyhow. It is another Disney classic either with or without the Christmas makeover.
On our way out of the park we stopped at Casey’s Corner for Neil to have a Hot Dog. Karen took the opportunity to grab herself a coffee from Starbucks.
After leaving the park we caught the monorail around to the Polynesian Resort where we had a leisurely look around. I just love this Hotel even down to its smell. Then Neil went and got both me and himself a Dole Whip. I had a Raspberry one and it was really good.
Back at the villa we spent some time as usual in and around the pool hearing about Barry & Ellie’s disappointing day at Islands of Adventure. Basically, they had had to queue for hours to get onto anything and with Barry still feeling poorly they had called it a day early.
After a long debate we decided to head back to the Magic Kingdom in the evening so that Karen could see the fireworks. It was not an easy decision given that it takes 50 minutes from the villa to the park. However, the journey was quite easy and we arrived about 45 minutes before they were due to start. I found a seat at the end of Main Street whilst Karen & Neil went to find an optimum spot to watch from. Whilst I had a good view of the fireworks from that area, I could not really see the light show at all which Karen & Neil reported to be extremely good.
For our evening meal we decided that it would be too late to go to a restaurant after the fireworks and so instead I ordered a delivery from Buffalo Wild Wings. This arrived about 5 minutes after we driven back to the villa. It was really delicious and we all wolfed it down.
We then had a drink whilst watching another episode of Shark Tank. We also started reading about Tropical Storm Nicole for the first time and hoped that it would not impact the last few days of our trip.
