Day 9 - My birthday! Hollywood Studios, T-Rex Cafe and Magic Kingdom - Sunday 11th May

Today we woke up and it was my birthday! I woke up at 8.30am feeling a little poop from drinking the night before. I’d gone to bed with a bottle of water next to me though so kept making sure when I woke up in the night I took a big drink! Once I was properly awake I shook Liam and shouted “It’s my birthdaaaaaaaay!” and eventually he woke up too.

While I went into the bathroom he got my presents ready for me. I came out and sat on the bed and he gave me a Chamilia bracelet with the ‘Believing is just the beginning’ charm already on it.



Aww I’ve already decided this is a special bracelet that I ONLY buy charms for when we’re in Disney World. Next time I’m going to get the ‘Dreams really do come true’ charm, because it’s my dream to go back. Hehe, yes I plan things like this! He also presented me with a Tigger toy! I’d had my eye on him in the Disney Store but Liam had said I wasn’t allowed him as I had too many cuddly toys already. This is what he went off and brought yesterday.



It’s soooo cute! I just wish I had the matching Pooh. Once we have kids I want to have a classic Winnie the Pooh nursery, so this would be good for that hehe.




From Be Our Guest on Friday!

I then sat on the bed and opened all my cards from various family members, they had given me to bring over with me. I had $170 in total in them all so I decided I could use that to buy another Chamilia charm.





I skpyed my parents for a while then and by the time we were ready we didn’t leave the hotel until 10.30am. We were in Hollywood Studios parking lot for 11 something.

The funniest thing happened on the tram! We were sat on it waiting for it to leave, when I pointed to Liam that I’d spotted a cute little turtle walking across one of the empty car parks. A while later everyone else around me started to notice the turtle too, and we’re pointing and laughing.



But eventually, to everyone’s horror, it was getting closer and closer to the road! Arrrhhh! Every time a car drove past, it would stop, and pop all of its legs back into his shell hehe. But then once one car had gone, he’d pop back out and start crawling closer again. Eventually he was right on the road! Oh no. A car started to come towards it and didn’t seem to be slowing down, everyone on the tram started squealing and shouting and not wanting to look and then luckily, the driver stopped the car. He got out and picked the little turtle up! A Disney security van pulled up and picked this guy up and they drove over to the woods to put him in. Everyone gave them a huge round of applause! The guy on the tram tannoy said “And now’s he gonna eat him” Haha, I thought that was so funny, I laughed so much. It was the way it came out with his accent and everything. I think this was the most thrilling part of the day at HS!

We didn’t have time for breakfast in the room so we thought we’d try and do IHOP on the way here – no luck, the wait was 40 mins so we headed straight for HS. Anyway, by now we were starving so we headed straight into Starring Rolls Café. I had a cherry Danish and Liam had a croissant with strawberry jam. We shared an apple juice.



The man behind the till wished me happy birthday and the lady commented on my unusual name, I don’t think they have many Hazel’s in America. It’s quite an old lady name hehe. The man then tried to guess my age, saying 21, I said no 23 haha. He was close though.

We headed straight to the Animation Class but they said the next showing wasn’t for 25 minutes. I didn’t want to waste too much time so we wandered over to One Man’s Dream instead. We’d never been in before but I really wanted to. It was quite interesting, and the film was good, I really struggled to understand Walt’s accent a lot of the time though. I was a little distracted though because a kid in the screening sat in front of us kept talking and asking his parents questions and generally being loud. And then grossly, a woman behind us started scratching her leg really loudly! It was such a horrible noise and it went on for ever, then it stopped, and then it started again!

We were a little disappointed the screening was ruined. I don’t think I took anything away from it because I couldn’t hear. I can’t remember anything about it now.



We went back to the drawing class again and now it was going to start in 15 minutes. We decided to go have a go on the machines in that building. We did the one which told you which character you are, pretty accurate if you ask me. I got Maleficent and Liam got Cogsworth! He is SOOO Cogsworth, I laughed so much when he got that.

After that we went and sat down outside the doors. In the class, we took a seat in the middle and the animator said he wanted to try and do a new character for everyone. So he started reeling off the different ones we could draw and said if you’ve drawn it put your hands up. Basically, someone put their hand up for everyone. There was one couple that kept their hands up constantly. Liam said she was in the queue to get in and had a bunch of drawing in her hand already so obviously they just keep doing it and walking back through haha.

In the end it was settled on Tigger. That was ok to draw but really hard! He was going quite fast, obviously because they’re on a time limit, so I found it hard to keep up! I don’t think I have a picture of our pictures and I can’t for the life of me find them now . We needed to leave after that because of our ADR. Our ressie was at 3pm and I think by this point it was about 1pm but I wanted to arrive early to be on the safe side. We went back to the car and got to Downtown Disney at about 2pm. We got parked up ok, surprisingly, outside Cirque du Soleil, so the opposite side to where we needed to be!

It was cloudy today but horrible humid. It felt about 1000 degrees, literally. I’ve never felt it so humid. I know I moan a lot throughout this report but this was probably one of the worst moments of the holiday. Obviously no moment is that awful when you’re in Orlando but jeez, this was bad. We had to keep dodging in and out of shops to stop me from passing out. Thinking back now I suppose the alcohol the night before wouldn’t have helped either. There was then the long agonizing walk between one end and the other, through the bit that was all restaurants and no shops so nowhere to stop and bask in the air con . At one point between the Lego shop and World of Disney I had to stop and steady myself. I’ve never fainted but I’ve never felt more like I was about to. My vision was blurring and my face went clammy – with COLD sweat despite the fact I was boiling. Liam said I went white as a sheet. So strange. I got into World of Disney QUICK and decided I needed to stay in the cool air for as long as possible.

So I had a long look round, which is never a bad thing in WoD. I had a look in the jewellery section but couldn’t see any Chamilia beads so I popped out to Tren-D to look. I asked a CM there and she said, nope, it’ll be in WoD! So off I traipsed back over there. It was there in a cabinet I hadn’t noticed before so I had a look but they didn’t seem to have much of a selection. They didn’t have as much as was in the shop where Liam brought the bracelet (I had gone in and tried it on to make sure it fit with him and then left the shop so he could decide on a surprise charm). They had had a Jiminy Cricket charm which I could NOT find in the whole of Disney World. I was a bit disappointed as I wanted to get it and know it was literally from Disney.

Then we went back into the Lego shop but it was a bit of a disappointment compared to 2012. Think they’ve changed a lot of the lines they were doing before. No more Spongebob lego, waah . Liam saw a Star Wars one for $299, and he seriously contemplated buying it, but later in the day he said he wouldn’t as £180 is far too much to spend on Lego, according to him lol.





We got to T-Rex at about twenty to 3pm and checked in at the desk. We were given a receipt straight away and told to get into the queue. Others were told to wait outside rather than join the queue, so I guess this is the advantage you get by booking an ADR. I went and had a brief look round the shop but didn’t see much of interest. I went back to the queue and waited a little, before decided I would go and look in the shop again haha. Just as I got back a second time, our name was called and we bypassed the rest of the queue.





We were seated in the jungle area towards the back of the restaurant. It was quieter here and there were way less people than at the front so we were happy. Once seated our waitress explained the meteor showers. I think about 4 or more went off while we were there and it gets real old! I ordered a tropical cotton-tini and Liam had a non-alcoholic strawberry lemonade which had berries floating in it, mmm. He had popped to the loo so unfortunately missed the waitress melting my cotton candy! It was super tasty! We ummed and ahhed on starters but got the Colossus Nachos for two to start. Liam wasn’t keen but it was my birthday and I wanted it lol. Once it arrived it was huge! Could have fed four people easily. I was super hungry when they arrived and stupidly I proceeded to totally fill up on nachos. Liam didn’t like it as it was swimming in cheese, but that’s just my type of nachos! They were really really tasty. Liam proclaimed the cheese was almost as terrible as a Beverly tent lol.

I then ordered the chicken sandwich while Liam had a burge and chips. Neither of us were hungry when it arrived. There were two big sandwiches on by plate but I only ate one and about two waffle chips! Liam did much better than me, managing about three quarters of his, all of his burger and some of his chips. He was stuffed to sickness. I so had my heart set on a chocolate extinction to celebrate my birthday but there was no chance of that. I also ordered a Caveman Punch with the special glass to keep, that was lovely too. The waitress asked if I wanted my meal boxing up so I said yes as I didn’t want to waste so much food. I packed it all up and she brought me a fresh glass and swilled my cocktail shaker for me to take him (you get this if you order a cottontini).













Liam paid as it was my birthday. It was $83 so he left $100. We left the restaurant and the day was still as humid as ever. We could barely stand it. We walked towards the car and Liam reminded me that I couldn’t really leave chicken in a boiling hot car all day and then eat it. I didn’t think there was much chance of seeing a homeless person I could give it to so I ended up throwing nearly a whole meal in the bin. Worst moment ever. Would kill for that meal now!

Once in the car we headed over to MK. As I was going through the bag check area the security guard noticed my birthday badge. He wished me a happy birthday and asked me how old I was, I told him I was 23 and all of a sudden he shouted, “Hey everybody, it’s Princess Hazel’s birthday!” and ordered everyone to wish me a happy birthday! Hehe, a bit of Disney magic. It was so funny, I told Liam all about it when we met back up.








Amazing! The best pic!

First things first, we headed over to Adventureland as we’d gone straight to Tomorrowland on Friday. We went straight into the Tiki Room. I couldn’t remember anything about this as I hadn’t done it in years and Liam never has. My god it was crazy, it made me laugh so much, especially the Tiki Masks on the walls! When they’re done their little chant. Me and Liam just kept nudging eachother, pointing at stuff and saying “That’s you, that is.” After the acid trip that is the Tiki Room we were going to queue for Jungle Cruise but it was 25 minutes and all outdoors. We COULD NOT stand outside in this humidity so headed straight for Pirates of the Caribbean. This was also 25 minutes but bearable on account of the queue being all indoors! The wait time was more like 15 minutes anyway, as the queue was moving pretty constantly. The ride was great as always. Except at the end there was a huge boat pile up! About 9 boats were stuck at the end, we were somewhere in the middle of it. Everytime a new boat arrived it would thrash the boat infront and in turn this would create a massive chain of boats thrashing eachother. You’d have to brace yourself every time you saw a new boat arriving.

To add, I had been dreading queues in MK today as it was American Mother’s Day. But it was totally bearable and no more busy than MK always is. I had horrible visions of the park closing due to reaching capacity, but it was nothing like that.

After PotC we has a FP booked for Big Thunder at 5:45pm so we headed over there as it wasn’t long after that. It was much better in the light as you could see what was coming at you, but in Liam’s own words: “Not in terms of fun cause it’s better in the dark when you can’t see.” In night time we seemed to get thrashed about much more whereas in the daytime we could see what was coming and brace ourselves so it hurt a lot less. I’ve got to say though, Disney really need a MAJOR refurb on all three mountains, they aren’t the smoothest, are they? Space was by far the thrashiest.

We had a FP for Splash coming up at 6:45pm and it was now 6:30. I said we should go down to Haunted Mansion and check for the queue time there but that was broken down (as ever!) so we went back to Splash and by then it was time to go on. The queue was 40 minutes long but we skipped it all! We didn’t really get wet but there were so many drops we didn’t remember, the worst bit is when you snake round the big drop near the start, then if the timings bad you get splashed by one coming down!


We kept our hats on hehe

We decided to head to Tomorrowland now via Philharmagic. We nearly veered into It’s a Small World but realised that was a terrible mistake as we’d get on it and immediately regret it and be just waiting to get off – we’ve both been on it enough times in our life! Instead we checked in at Haunted Mansion to see if it was back up and running but alas, it was still down. We headed down to Phil and at the start of the queue I was given the red tag! We walked quickly through the queue area and I handed it back in at the end, but the problem was we were then waiting in the pre-show area for aaaages as we’d just missed a showing. So the tags can’t be that accurate on that ride, surely? Once we got in it was amazing, of course, we really enjoy this. Liam said that’s what 3D should always be like and I agree.

Once in Tomorrowland Liam wanted to go on the Peoplemover but we first headed for our Space FP which was meant to be 7:45pm but at the front of the queue they told us it wasn’t time yet? We had waited in line for ages, there was a huge queue just for scanning Magic Bands and we think the machine had broken as they were using a tablet rather than the actual machine. So we headed to the People Mover instead which gave us a nice cool down. After that we headed back to Space and once at the front of the queue we were informed we were still early by 15 minutes and our FP started at 7:55pm. Now I don’t understand this at all. I think it was either a lie or a glitch in their broken tablet system as when I book FP I book all three in a row, I always do. Either way I didn’t want to leave it that late as I wanted a good spot for the parade so I headed to a FP kiosk and changed Space for between 10 and 11pm, so we could go after Wishes.



Main St was next on our list so we headed down there and staked out a spot. We got one just outside Starbucks, one row back from the kerb but luckily still able to sit down. We must have been waiting for the best part of an hour. I went and got us a Banana Strawberry smooth in Starbucks and a diet coke and we drank it and watched the parade once it started.











So not as good as Spectromagic. I didn’t like the parade at all! Once it was over we scarpered up the road so we were right in the centre, level with the ice cream parlour, so we could wait for Wishes.




Behind us!

Wishes is my fav. This was my favourite view too. We also absolutely LOVE Celebrate the Magic which we didn’t see on Friday. It’s such a good pre-show, in some ways I think Wishes is getting dated and the pre-show is actually better! What a perfect birthday evening, watching fireworks in the Magic Kingdom, ahhh.



After it we hopped over to Tomorrowland and finally did our Space FP.


I didn't know arm flab could make that shape

Once out we were going to go home but I said, let’s go in Monsters Inc. I really enjoy this! And everytime I was secretly hoping they’d choose Liam as he gets so fidgety about them choosing him hehe. I have to convince Liam to go in this everytime as he’s terrified of them picking him. But they didn’t. They were picking on an elderly lady called Barbara for ages, it was so funny! I was literally in stitches, this segment went on for about 5 minutes and in the end she just kept ignoring them haha. I’ve never laughed so much at it.

On the way out of the park we had ice cream, yum yum!



I had Birthday Cake flavour! And Strawberry. Liam has chocolate. We headed back to the car park on the monorail, holding on for dear life to our ice creams. It was super late by the time we were in bed, so we were veeery sleepy on Monday! What a great birthday!

Tomorrow… Epcot, Blizzard Beach and a scary Shopping Trip!