MONDAY SEPTEMBER 16TH
We were up reasonably early again, not sure why we don`t sleep longer, but once I`m awake, I usually never get back to sleep and of course we are still so very excited to start our days in Orlando, time passes so quickly so we do like to make the most of ever moment.
Showered and dressed we head down to the lounge where it was exceptionally quiet this morning, no Canadians to have fun with, they had already headed down to their conference so we tucked into the offerings starting with fruit and Tom had his croissants and I made toast with cream cheese and grape jelly, and of course tea made from the bags in the lounge which were just fine. I always have breakfast tea here but they do have a nice little selection.
And the breakfast options are just perfect for us, we very rarely eat a cooked breakfast unless it`s poached eggs with French Toast, but on a day to day routine the choices here will more than suit most people.
The little Danish Pastries vary most days as do the mini muffin choices, they do a lovely little raspberry and cream cheese one which again is one of the chef`s own recipe and it is lovely. I think if Kyle had been here this morning he would have had a few of those chocolate muffins!!! Although with breakfast he is very easy to please usually opting for cereal, unlike us!!
The lovely TM`s do replenish regularly and everything is always fresh and kept clean.
We didn`t spend too long this morning in the lounge, we headed back down to our room and managed to get sunscreen on when just as we were leaving our housekeeper was coming in, we have known her for years and she has worked this part of the tower since we have been staying here at least. She stops to thank us for the envelope we leave every day.
Often folks ask us about whether to tip housekeepers, some folks think we shouldn`t as officially they are not a tipped position....
Yes, indeed, we have always and always will tip our housekeepers and we bring envelopes with us and every day leave money in one of the envelopes letting her know it is for her and a big thank you written on it. Some folks don`t, but for us it`s just something we like to do. And leaving it every day means if there is a change of TM or they have a day off, the person who cleans the room gets the tip, leaving it to the end of a trip means the person who may have cleaned your room most often might not get it.
Now, we head off for some park time and had decided to go to The Studios, there was a reason but I forget why now, so we hopped it down to the boats and we got lucky and there was one there straight away, no waiting is ideal. It was hot, but quite dull this morning.
We had picked up our new AP`s over the weekend so they would be activated this morning and we had been told they had the extra 3 months on them which someone reported that deal had stopped but we definitely got the 15 months which is a good deal.
There weren`t that many people in line this morning and we were very quick getting through, usually we get stuck behind the family that haven`t signed their passes or they have some kind of delay, but straight through today, the facial recognition is much better than the older less efficient fingerprint system, much quicker.
It`s always lovely to get back into the parks again for the first time and we do take our time and slowly wander round to see what`s new and evern though we weren`t doing HHN it would be nice to see what was on offer there. But, again, mostly disappointed with merchandise apart from one or two things that we did buy.
Hello Kitty store had finally closed and will be a Wicked store very soon with the advent of the new movie which I am so torn about!!!
Wicked is my all time favourite show having seen it several times on Broadway and London I just don`t know if a movie will be able show the same emotion as the stage, however the merchandise will be popular...no pun intended of course
If you know the songs you`ll get it!
Although we have little to no interest in HHN anymore, we still enjoy seeing the displays and so on, but even they were a little disappointing this year, all very plain and uninspiring, especially when you compare to previous years where they had been very elaborate.
I think the only house we would have been interested in seeing was Insidious, everyone said it was magnificent and very well done with plenty of SA however they apparently didn`t put as much money or effort into the other houses and many folks noticed it, but for merchandise we had been asked to take back some Insidious shirts so we `d get them later in the trip.
I did see a Ghostbusters mug that we might get for Kyle, he said he didn`t want any shirts this time but he does like a large mug!!
Minion ride was delayed, we had planned to do that this morning before Tom went on RRR, I stopped that one a couple of years ago due to the headbanging it give you, even on the front row now, so we wandered on as we don`t like the newest Minion shooting thing, can`t quite find anything nice to say about it as we just found it pointless and boring and such a waste as they should have been able to do something so much better with that space!!
As we turned to go on RRR we saw it was also down with a delay and as always the poor TM were being asked relentlessly when it was opening up, they don`t really have an answer for folks so we headed forward.
We do like the little village area they have Minion themed though, it is very colourful for sure and although we didn`t try the Minion Cafe, we do plan to at some point, so many mixed reviews of it though, seems folks either love it or they don`t. It didn`t really inspire us to be honest and the menu didn`t exactly thrill us.
They do have the HHN menu`s up during the day too and several folks mentioned they would loved to have sampled some of the offerings, some do sound nice, but they are never quite as nice as they sound especially the pre made cocktails, very sugary and not very strong. But, they do theme them very well to the individual houses and always sound interesting.
It is quiet in this area this morning, we debate do we really want to go do Jimmy Fallon again and the answer is an astounding.....no. Maybe not as bad as F&F, but not for us. However the building is worth a wander through even if you don`t do the ride, it is very New York themed!
Whoever came up with the idea of putting a tiny potato on a spiral and charge $10 for it was a genius!!! They are amazing and quite fun to eat, but very clever and from memory the line for these little gems was always long, are they worth it...no, are they nice....heck yes!!!!
I remember years ago telling my mum about them when she was asking about the event.Trying to explain to someone about this potato, not even a very big potato on a spiral stick and you pay $10 for it, her face...
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Yep, you could see she thought we had lost our marbles and needed our bumps felt!!! But this is the woman who scolded me for buying ice many years back lol.....she didn`t understand at all!
The stalls are not as imaginitive or as elaborately designed as they used to be, you can really see where they have cut the budget over the last few years at this event.
We did like the Ghostbuster stalls, they did look like fun and many folks spoke of the marshmallow man you could buy during HHN, well some looked good other ones looked like a melted blob, so I guess it was a hit or a miss with that one. I love marshmallow so would have tried one for sure, friends got lucky and got some good ones!!
The Tribute store since they first started doing them have always been imaginative, decorative and downright beautiful at times from Mardi Gras, Halloween and Christmas they were always quite stunning to see and worth visiting.
I`m sure there are some that like it, I know there are some folks who it did impress, but not for us and I think this is where the lack of an Icon for the even was missed too. There should always be a specific icon for HHN.
I had promised my friend`s granddaughter Elise one of these Stay Puft Marshmallow men, but they were larger than I thought and we were limited with suitcase space, so I ended up getting one sent to the room and then wrapped it up and posted it directly to her, it wasn`t very expensive and she is over the moon with it!!! It would just have seriously prohibited future purchases for this trip if it had been going in the suitcases, so this was the best idea as she really wanted one.
It was so much easier when she was into Minions, but they`re for babies now apparently!!!
Aforementioned future Insidious purchases, well, a couple anyway
I about jumped five foot in the air when I first noticed these little blighters that weren`t really crawling on the floor, holy smokes one just caught my eye as I passed as they moved quickly and Tom of course thought it was hilarious and knew what my reaction would be as I hate bugs of any kind. Nice little touch though as cockroaches are a different kind of evil altogether, bleurgh.
There are always some nice HHN themed goodies in the stores, but as is usual with all these products, they`re never as nice as they look and this one we bought as one of Tom`s favourite childhood desserts is Black Forest Gateau so this appealed to him....very 1970`s here!!!
It was not as nice as it looked, not sure why they get these things so wrong. Their general baked goods are very nice, but this lacked much flavour at all apart from sugar and for $13 it just wasn`t worth it.
We chatted to the TM beside the baked goods for a time and it`s never nice to hear them quite disillusioned too, but some have been here a long time and know how it used to be too. They told us there was going to be some new products in the next day or so and we should pop back in, we would but only to be nosey.
Heading outside that kind of lingering mist had gone and the sun was now shining as it should be and the temperature had gone up too which was lovely.
Happier moments coming up
(fingers crossed pictures show up too)