365 Questions

So, here we are at the end of another year.  I have already started a 365 day photo challenge and have also found what is supposed to be prompts for a 5 year journal.  I guess the idea is to answer the questions each year and see how much your answers, and you, change.  Anyway, I’m going to see how I go.  I have printed out the questions for January and February and am going to do my best to answer them each day.  I won’t necessarily blog about them but I will answer the questions to the best of my ability on paper, in a notebook, and then aim to transfer them into a blog at least once a month.

If you’d like to get the questions for January, you can find them here.

 

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Photo Challenge …

OK, yes I’ve set myself up to fail again by admitting that I am going to try to do a photo challenge.  I’d like to post more on Instagram and never know what to post without making too much like I’m trying to sell my Tupperware.  So, I found a 365 day photo challenge on Pinterest which was posted in 2017, I think.  It looks quite fun and, rather than waiting until Tuesday to start on 1st January, I started with today’s prompt of “wreath”.  I have also posted the photo below:

When I went to get the image, I realised I’ve already included it in a blog post! 😀 😀 😀

Opening Show and Epcot

Finally, here we are with our final day – Day 9

To be honest, it’s so long since we were there that I’ve forgotten what happened and, unlike most of the other days, I didn’t make notes in a draft post on my phone or kindle.  I also didn’t take any photos!

Anyway, I know we finally made our way to the opening show at Magic Kingdom.  It was the one thing which the Boy wanted to see and we almost missed it!  We just missed a bus from the resort and had to wait for the next one, which was running late.  It definitely felt like home, lol.  Anyway, we managed to get to Magic Kingdom in time for the show.  Partly because I thought the show was at 8.45am and it was actually 8.55am.  While we were waiting for the opening show, we got a photo in front of the Castle.

After the opening show, we went into the Christmas shop to get our new tree decorations.  I think the Man would have bought more if we could have fit them in the suitcase to bring home.

As it was our last day, we couldn’t arrange for our purchases to be sent to the resort for us so I took the package back to the resort while the Man and Boy went for a ride went on a bendy bus!  I told them to get off the bus and have a look around the resort it goes to but they didn’t so they ended up back at Magic Kingdom a lot quicker than me.

When we finally met back up at Magic Kingdom we took the monorail to Epcot for lunch and a last ride on our favourite attractions.

We didn’t do much on our last full day as I needed to get back to the resort to do the last wash load and pack.

One last thing, while we were waiting for the Magical Express on Thursday morning, rather than sitting around the resort until 2pm, we went to WinterSummerland, again!  Mini golf at Disney World is a great way to kill some time, especially when it is included in the price of the UK’s ultimate ticket 🙂  The Boy, the Man and I also improved our scores each time we went too.

All in all, we had a fab holiday and are already planning our next trip.

Slinky Dog, Toy Story Midway Mania and Reflections of Earth

Sorry for the delay but here is the penultimate “holiday” post.

To be honest, I can’t remember much about day 8. I know it was Tuesday and I know we went to Hollywood Studios for what was supposed to be a quick trip to go on the new Slinky Dog ride, Toy Story Midway Mania and Rockin’ Roller Coaster. With the wait times, we couldn’t get any fastpasses, I think we were in there for about 3 hours.

I remember what we did in the morning now … mini golf, again! This time we tried the winter course at Winter Summerland.

After Hollywood Studios, we decided to walk to Epcot rather than wait in the long queue for the boat. It only took about 25-30 minutes to walk and it was a lovely stroll.

We didn’t really have a plan for Epcot except the Man wanted to see the American Adventure show so we went to see what time the next show was. As it happened we had 45 minutes to wait so, as there was a quick service restaurant next door we decided to have something to eat and then go into the show. Obviously I’m not American but I love the attractions which teach me a little bit about the history of the US, even if it is probably very biased.

After the American Adventure we went over to Test Track for a return time. While we were waiting the Boy and I went shopping. I wanted a 2018 decoration for my tree and a 2018 pin (I’m still looking for the pin). Then it was back to Test Track for a ride in the dark – awesome!

Finally, we ended the night with Reflections of Earth.

 

Christmas Is Coming!

I know I haven’t finished my “holiday” blog posts yet and for that, I’m sorry!  I promise I will finish the series (there are only 2 posts left).  I just thought I’d share my Christmas baking and craft with you first.  I got the idea from Becky’s post about Christmas Craft and thought I’d pinch the idea, and change it slightly.  These are the questions which NothingButKnit put on their post, which Becky used:

• Have you made holiday decorations for your home? What have you made? Do you have a tradition of making something every year?

• Did you craft for holidays when you were a child? Do you have a memory of something you made?

• Do you gift items that you make? Do you surprise the recipient or do they request something? How do you judge their worthiness? Have you ever regretted gifting someone?

• Have you seen a crafty project you’d like to make but haven’t?

Firstly, I haven’t crafted anything for Christmas, or any other occasion, for years.  However, this year, after visiting my parents and seeing my Mum knitting (and she gave me a hat and gilet she had knitted) and then seeing Becky’s knitting when we visited her, I bought a crochet magazine with wool and a hook (and knitting needles) because I liked the wreath on the cover.  I know how to knit but I’ve always been more of a crochet girl – I even got my knitters badge as a Brownie by crocheting a dress rather than knitting.  Anyway, I looked at the wool colours which came with the magazine and decided that they were too pale for Christmas so I went to a local department store which has a haberdashery and bought some more “Christmassy” colours.  This year I made a crochet wreath!!! 😀

The pom-poms are a little messy but as it is the first thing I’ve made, or crocheted, for over 15 years (and back then it was making cards or cross-stitch) I’m happy with it and am proudly displaying it on the back of my front door.

After making the wreath, I went on the website for the magazine I bought and found a few starter projects including a “mug hug”.  As we have a Secret Santa coming up this weekend and I need to provide 2 presents, I decided to make a couple of “mug hugs”.  I bought a couple of cheap mugs from Tesco and will put a couple of sachets of hot chocolate, marshmallows and chocolate Santas in them.

As a child we made paper chains and streamers out of tissue paper.  I used to make Christmas cards and, as I already mentioned, I used to cross stitch.  I cross-stitched designs to put on trinket boxes as well as cushions.  I haven’t cross-stitched anything for over 15 years as it takes so long and I don’t have time.  I think I still have about 3 or 4 unfinished projects which I really should get out and finish.

My main focus at Christmas when it comes to making something homemade to give as a present is baking.  I make a lot of gingerbread biscuits and will give them to my boss, my son’s carer, our butcher, take them to work and parkrun …

I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas!

Tupperware, Cheesecake and Fireworks

So, another day (day 7) dawned.  Today was the day I had been waiting for.  I got to visit Tupperware World, otherwise known as Tupperware headquarters.  I may be a Tupperware consultant but this actually wasn’t my idea.  I went along with it, of course, but I didn’t ask to go.  It was actually the Man who asked me a few months ago if I knew that the Tupperware headquarters is in Orlando.  Well, duh, of course I did and what’s more, anyone can go in and visit their gallery and shop.

I love the mottos they have on the wall on the way to the gallery.  The gallery isn’t very big but they do have examples of products from yesteryear as well as products from different countries around the world.  In the shop, I was very good and didn’t spend too much.  We had gone in with the intention of buying one specific product which we can’t get in the UK but also bought a couple of others.  It was a bonus when I got to the checkout to find that, as a Tupperware consultant, I got a discount too.

After Tupperware World, we took a drive over to Mall at Millenia so we could go to the Cheesecake Factory.  We went there on our last visit and enjoyed it. There is so much choice of food!  We all decided to have a burger and then came unstuck when our server asked how we wanted our burger cooking.  What?  We have no choice in the UK, it’s well done or well done.  We asked for medium but I think medium to well done would have been better.  I like my steak medium to medium rare but for burgers? Not so much.

Of course, we couldn’t go to the Cheesecake Factory without getting cheesecake.  Unfortunately, we were so full we didn’t want it then.  Fortunately, you can get your cheesecake to go.  I wish I’d taken a photo but I forgot.

This was the last day we had the car so after dropping our shopping off at the resort, we took the car back to the rental company and then made our way to the Magic Kingdom.  As we were on our way to our first ride (Big Thunder Mountain Railroad) the heavens opened and the rain came down, hard.  So, we got soaked.  The rain didn’t last long though, it had stopped by the time we had come off the ride.  We then went to get a return time for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train as the wait time was 70 minutes.  We then received a little bit of Disney magic when the cast member asked if we wanted to go on the ride then/now and also have our return time.  Well?  Yes!  So we go to ride the mine train twice.

While waiting for the return time, we went to see the re-imagined Hall of Presidents.

Finally, to end the day, we went over to Bay Lake Tower to watch the Happily Ever After fireworks.  It was interesting to see the firework show from a different angle.  Great show.  My photos really don’t do it justice.

 

If you have missed my previous posts in the 2018 Disney holiday series, you can find them here:

Travel/ arrival day Home Away From Home
Day 1 – Epcot, Studios and a Surprise
Day 2 – Day 2 – Animal Kingdom
Day 3 – Jungles, ghosts, mine trains and magic
Day 4 – Legoland, shopping and Denny’s
Days 5 and 6 –parkrun, Mini Golf, Shopping and Rivers of Light

parkrun, Mini Golf, Shopping and Rivers of Light

On Saturday we were all up early for parkrun at Clermont.  Due to the heat they have a 7.30am start which meant leaving the resort at 6.30am to allow time for getting lost, stuck in traffic etc. It was a lovely course, shame about the humidity. I was dripping in sweat after about 2 minutes! Somehow still managed to finish in 33:40. Breathing was hard due to the humidity but Adam helped me around.  The Man didn’t fare quite so well as he found the breathing very hard and stopped at the fountains on the route on both the way out and the way back.  But we all did it!

After parkrun, we went back to the resort to shower and change before going out to play mini golf at Disney’s Fantasia course. As a bonus was that we found out that we could get in free thanks to having the Ultimate 14 Day park ticket.  Apparently, all UK guests with an Ultimate 7 or 14-day park ticket get one game of mini golf every day the ticket is valid :D.  We had a fab game and the Man only beat me by 1 point! Adam wasn’t far behind us either.

As we were having a day away from the parks, they get so busy on the weekend, we decided to go to Disney Springs for dinner.  To be honest, we don’t really like it now it’s changed. There’s too much shopping!  Also, there’s only one bus station now so you have to walk all the way through the shopping area to get to the buses from the Disney shops in the Marketplace. However, the pizza at Wolfgang Puck Express was lovely.

Sunday was a lazy day with a trip to Walmart for a browse. We weren’t planning on buying much as we’d already done the food shop on Friday. However, we picked up some doughnuts and then thought some muffins would be nice, oh and some more Cheetos to take home and some chocolate and sweets … Maybe we need a trolley then. They don’t seem to have baskets here otherwise I’d have picked one up. We then had a look at the clothes and decided to get some pyjamas for Adam and me.

After Walmart, we went for another game of mini golf, this time to play the summer course at WinterSummerLand. As we get one free game each every day we will hopefully go back for a 3rd game and play the winter course. The Man won, again, and Adam and I both got better scores than at Fantasia Gardens.

After mini golf, we went back to the resort to get some lunch which we ate while sat on our balcony. I’m going to miss this.

After avoiding the parks on Saturday, we decided to go to the Animal Kingdom in the late afternoon to go round the Maharajah Trek as it had already closed by the time we got to it earlier in the week. As we were going around one of the cast members was also waking through and he pointed out all of the birds in the aviary. He also, very kindly, suggested that I move when a bird landed on a branch above my head.

After the “trek” we went on the Everest ride before going around the safari, twice! Some great photo opportunities, especially of the giraffes and antelope.

We finished the evening by watching Rivers of Light. Fab show! We had seen it earlier in the week (when I took a few photos) but we decided to keep the phones and cameras put away and just watch it. I’m so glad we did because there is so much to see and you miss a lot of it when you are looking through a “lens”.

 

Legoland, shopping and Denny’s

Day 4 of our holiday dawned and we waited for the shuttle bus to take us to pick up our hire car.  Fortunately for me, the driver of the shuttle bus was early and asked if we had everything we needed to get the car … driving licence, credit card etc.  Oh no!  I’d forgotten the credit card!  As I don’t use it, except when we are hiring the car, I’d left it in the safe in our room.  As I said, fortunately, the driver was early so I had about 10 minutes to run, literally, along a long corridor, up 2 floors (4 flights) of stairs to the room and back again to get the card.

As we were the only resort that the driver was going to we arrived at the Car Centre earlier than the time I’d booked the car for and, as there was no queue, we picked up the car early which meant an extra “day” and charges.  As I had prepaid for the car, I went back to the desk and asked about the extra charges and they said that what I had paid for was a special weekend rate but as we had arrived 30 minutes early we had incurred the extra “day”.  We said, OK we’ll just wait the extra 30 minutes and the form can be amended with the charges taken off then.  Of course, this being Disney (the Car Centre is owned by Alamo but on Disney property) they told us not to be silly and they would just amend the rate back to the weekend rate we’d booked.  We’re planning on taking the car back early (Monday afternoon rather than early Tuesday morning anyway).

We then headed out for our only non-Disney day for this holiday.  The Boy had asked if we could go to Legoland, so we did.  First, though, we needed some breakfast.  On our last trip, we’d been to IHOP for tea and decided that we’d try that for breakfast.  Oh my!  It was huge.  We all had the full breakfast with bacon, sausage, hash browns, pancakes etc.  I wish I’d taken a photo of it.

After breakfast, we carried on to Legoland.  To be honest, it’s not somewhere we’ll go again but I’m glad we went so that we now know that.  It was very quiet which meant we didn’t have to wait for anything.  It is very much geared to families with young (up to age 8 or 9) children as most of the attractions were aimed at that age group.  There were some “bigger people” rides but not many and they really weren’t that good.  They were very jerky and tame by our standards.  They are a good introduction to rollercoasters for children though.   Also, we had to remove all bags, including bum bags, and leave them by the ride in a cubby hole.  If it had been busy, I would not have done this especially as there was a sign saying that everything was left at our own risk.

The best bits for us were the minilands including Florida (Daytona Speedway and NASA), California, Las Vegas, Hollywood, New York and even Star Wars and the ski show. I realised when we went towards the ski show that I’ve been here before, when it was Cypress Gardens, back in 1981.  All I remember from that trip was the ladies in big dresses and the ski show.  The gardens were beautiful too and we went for a wander around them.

On the way out of Legoland, I saw this fun character (made of Lego, of course) carrying a toilet. I think he said something but I can’t remember what!

On our way back to our resort, we decided to do a little recon to find out where the parkrun is in Clermont.  For some reason, the maps app on my phone took us a longer route but it was interesting to go on the county roads rather than the highway.  It’s also good to know where we are going tomorrow.

After what was a long day, we stopped off at Walmart to do some shopping for breakfast and lunch food for the rest of the holiday followed by dinner in Denny’s. Burger for the Boy and me, a sizzling plate for the Man.  We even had dessert – apple crisp for the Boy, sundae for the Man and lava cake for me. Yummy! And I was still full 3 hours later whilst writing the draft of this post.

We then had an early night ready for an early start.  We’ll be up at 5.30 for 7.30am parkrun.

If you want to read the first 4 posts of this series, you can find them here:
Home Away From Home
Epcot, Studios and a Surprise
Day 2 – Animal Kingdom
Jungles, ghosts, mine trains and magic

Jungles, ghosts, mine trains and magic

Our third day was spent in the Magic Kingdom.  We were starting the day here, with the possibility of going on somewhere else later, because we had lunch reservations at the Liberty Tree Tavern.  We have eaten at the Liberty Tree before but had to cut it short when the Man started to feel unwell.  That was in 2014 and I couldn’t get a reservation during our last trip, possibly due to refurbishment but I can’t remember.

We started the day in Adventure Land with an excursion through the jungle, otherwise known as Jungle Cruise.  We had a funny guide.  I have found that the cast member acting as the guide can make or break this attraction.  We also went on It’s a Small World, Peter Pan’s Flight, Haunted Mansion, Seven Dwarf’s Mine Train (twice), Carousel of Progress (love this one, it’s cheesy but good), Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (I’m rubbish at shooting with a laser so would have happily given this one a miss but the Man insisted as he can beat me).

In Liberty Square, the Muppets have a new show.  It was supposed to be about how the Americans knew the British were coming (Paul Revere’s ride) but Miss Piggy kept interrupting.  It was funny, even though it’s about the Americans against the British. Whilst in Liberty Square, we went to watch the new, for us, Hall of Presidents show.

The Man and Boy went on the Speedway so that the Boy could have his “driving lesson”.  I think he’s getting better at steering but as I can’t see them once they leave the start I wouldn’t know.

We also went to Frontierland to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain.  I actually didn’t get too wet!  I did quite well with staying relatively dry on this trip, even on the wet rides.

Sorry this post, like the last, is a bit disjointed.  I didn’t have time to write a full, draft, post so wrote notes instead.  It really doesn’t lead to a well-written post when I do that.  You can find the first 4 posts in this series here:

Home Away From Home – travel day
Epcot, Studios and a Surprise – Day 1
Day 2 – Animal Kingdom – Day 2

 

Day 2 – Animal Kingdom

Welcome to our 2nd full day at Disney World.  Today we decided to spend the day in Animal Kingdom and save Magic Kingdom for day 3 as we had a restaurant reservation.

It’s a while ago and I didn’t write this at the time, I just typed bullet points into my draft blog post so this is going to be a bit disjointed.

I know that I couldn’t get fastpasses for Pandora – Flight of Passage so we went to get a return time.  Whilst waiting for the return time, we went for a stroll to see if there were any options for lunch (Animal Kingdom isn’t a good park for me due to all the spices on the food, I’m really fussy and the plainer the better for me) and walked past Kali River Rapids.  The wait time wasn’t very long so we decided to go on while it was still early enough for us to get dry.  Usually, I get soaked!  I mean, absolutely drenched.  The Man and Boy usually get wet on either the top half or bottom half and I get soaked on both top and bottom.  This time though?  I stayed relatively dry 😀  the Man got it!  I was so happy.  Now he knows how I feel.

I think we also went on Expedition Everest while we were over in Asia but to be honest I can’t remember.  We definitely went on it at some point during the day though.

We returned to Pandora for our return time at Flight of Passage and, after reading the safety information, the Man decided that maybe the ride wasn’t for him due to motion sickness.  So, he came through the introduction bit and then waited for us at the end.  The Boy and I rode Flight of Passage and it was good and I thought the Man could probably handle the motion.  When we finished I said this and we were taken through so we could ride again, this time all 3 of us.  I have to say, the second time around it wasn’t as good as the first and we won’t bother with it again.

After Flight of Passage, we went to Kilimanjaro Safaris which, as usual, was great.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see any lions as it was the middle of the day.

There is a new show which has replaced Flights of Wonder – Up! Bird Adventure. The show is very similar but with a different story.  We all enjoyed it and would happily go and see it again on our next trip.

As the food options aren’t particularly great for us at Animal Kingdom, we decided to back to the resort for a food break.  After food, and a little rest, we went back to the park to see the Festival of The Lion King and to do safari again (lions were out this time).

We ended the day by watching the new show – River of Lights. It was beautiful.

The bus driver who took us back to the resort was fun and entertaining. He told jokes all the way including “I am S your driver for today. We are going to Animal Kingdom Lodge with a journey time of approximately 8 minutes. We will be travelling at a maximum speed of 45 mph at an altitude of about 12 inches.”