Day 14 – Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon and back to HS – Friday 16th May

The alarm went off at 6am. A real killer. We’d only gone to bed at 10 to 1. My FitBit said I was restless for about half an hour so it informed me I’d only had 4 hours and 38 minutes sleep. Not good. I don’t cope well without sleep, neither of us do. It took us a while to get out of bed but we managed it in the end.

The morning routine went as usual, however, we were unfortunately skimping on the sun cream as we were nearly totally out of it and wouldn’t be buying anymore at this late stage in the holiday. We still put some on. I forgot to mention earlier on but Liam has brought some thick Banana Boat suncream about half way through the hol. However he didn’t like how hard it was to rub in so he’d been using my spray stuff most of the time. This meant our last resort was this thick stuff. We nicknamed it the Blue Man Group suncream. Every time Liam put it on he’d literally be blue. This stuff was disgusting, he’d have tons of blue cream wedged into his beard and sideburns constantly, ewwww. So from now on Liam should be known as simply Blue Man Group. Think Arrested Development, if you will .

We left late, as usual, arrrgh. Today it was bad though as we’re didn’t leave the hotel until about 20 to 8 and our ressie was for 8.10am. It seemed to take forever to get to HS and we weren’t parked up until 8.10, oops. We got to the Sci-Fi Diner at 8:20am and waited a short amount of time to be called. We were shown through, had our photo with Darth Vader and then a really nice lady showed us to our table.



I was thinking what a good waitress she would be, but then remember she was most like a ‘hostess’ just seating new parties, which was a shame, because from the moment we sat down this breakfast took a downward tumble.

We were sat in the back of a car, with a family of four in front of us. I was glad we were in a car and not on a table, I pointed the tables out to Liam and we agreed it would really spoil the experience for us.







We had a table next to us so were worried that’s where she was leading us originally. Some Storm Troopers were going around the room, but only a couple. It was a huge room, and they were very far away from us. Our server, Laura, came out to give us menus. She was miserable, the most unfriendly person we’ve ever come across over there and she didn’t smile once. There was no explanation of the menu given, it was just shoved in our faces.

We didn’t have much time to consider what we wanted as we were still in awe taking the place in once she left, having never been in the Sci-Fi Diner before it was all new to us. We got distracted by taking the mic out of her to each other and having a bit of a laugh about the situation – little did I know at this point the service here was literally going to drive me to tears.

I noticed a party of 8 came and were seated on the non-car table next to us. Laura didn’t smile much at them either, but seemed generally more perky, spending plenty of time going through the menu, answering questions, explaining the options. I spose her mind was on the big fat tip she thought she’d get from a party of 8, little did she know we considered ourselves to be quite generous tippers on this holiday for those that deserved it. She took our drinks orders and starer order at the same time, about 2 minutes after she’d given us the menu. I hadn’t even read the menu really so I just decided on the spot. I got the yoghurt granola thing and Liam had the fruit.

She brought the starters straight out with the pastries.





About a minute after that, and while we were stuffing our faces, she arrived back to ask for our main order. Well I hadn’t looked at the menu, again, as I was too busy eating my started, quite clearly. So I picked the first thing I remembered from looking at the menu online, the salmon and Liam had the stuffed French toast. Liam’s fruit cup was a glass cup, with about 12 pieces of melon, 1 grape and 1 raspberry in his words. He was offended as he says melon is the cheapest fruit lol. My yoghurt was nice tbf, no problems there. I ate my pastries as I’m greedy but Liam left a couple of his. The chef brought out our mains rather than sour faced Laura. We were quite confused as the family of 4 in the car in front had been there much longer than us but there mains didn’t arrive until after ours. Generally, it looks as though they were having a nice, slower paced meal, and being left to eat at their own pace, whereas we were being rushed out the door and not given chance to recover from our starter.

It was all just shoved down on the table and things were pushed with the plate to make space for it.





I needed an apple juice refill and once she noticed she came and snatched my cup, simply saying “Apple juice” to which I replied yes. She brought it back but didn’t say a word, just slammed down the cup on the side of the table and walked off again. As we ate our mains she came and took away the two remaining pastries. Why she thought it appropriate to clean away a plate which quite clearly still had food on it, I’ll never know. But Liam had decided he couldn’t be bothered with this breakfast anymore, as she was about to walk away with the pastries, Liam proclaimed she could take his plate too, even though he had over half of it remaining! She never asked if it was ok, or why he didn’t eat everything, if something was wrong? Nope. She just scooped up the plate and the pastries and I was left eating on my own, which was a bit weird. I ate a few more mouthfuls but I didn’t really rate it that much as it tasted overwhelmingly of cheese. And I love cheese. So it was definitely gone overboard with the cheese.

Laura brought the bill over while I was still eating. Great, try and shoo us out the door a little more, why don’t you? I left about half of mine too. She came and cleared it away and didn’t ask about my meal, why I’d left so much, why I looked utterly miserable every time she appeared to ruin our breakfast. Grrr! We hadn’t met any characters at this point. I think I’ve mentioned before we’re both shy and awkward but since we’d book to meet Star Wars characters I was damn well going to wait for them! Liam loves SW, so it had been a treat for him.

We’d only been in the restaurant 20 minutes. Can you believe that? I’m not exaggerating, it had only been 20 minutes. The family in front complained to Laura a couple of times. (Also you may wonder why I’m incessantly calling her Laura. That’s because I want her name burnt into your brain in case you ever encounter her in the Sci-Fi Diner – AVOID!) So the family in front complained that they hadn’t seen any characters yet, to which Laura replied, “Oh I know, it’s terrible isn’t it, I’ve complained.” So basically badmouthing the service she was giving. Liam was quite annoyed by that, as we both agreed when someone complains the one thing you don’t do it agree with them and bad mouth your employer!

Eventually the Storm Troopers headed over to us, but unfortunately, though the family in front had a lovely time, it was ruined and spoilt for us by Laura. At the moment the Storm Troopers headed over, she came over and asked if we were ready with the bill. I just told her we would need to pay by Travellers Cheque but left it at that as I was clearly not ready to pay up yet. She then left. As the Storm Troopers were finishing up with the family in front, we readied ourselves for photos. However, Laura felt this a good time to come back and hassle us to pay the bill again. I picked up my bag and rustled around for my purse, at which point Laura must have again taken the hint I wasn’t ready to pay and left us. I tried to fish the TC out but the Storm Troopers were getting closer so again I put my bag back down on the floor so I could relax and compose myself for the picture as I was somewhat nervous with embarrassment and awkwardness.

However, just as the Storm Troopers got to us, Laura AGAIN came back to hassle us. She AGAIN enquired about the bill and as she realised the Storm Troopers has arrived she offered to take a picture. We had been perfectly fine on our own as the nice family in front had offered to take a pic for us but she snatched the camera off of them awkwardly. She took the world’s quickest picture and disappeared again.

Once the picture’s on our table were done they stopped by the family in front for some interactions, on top of the photos. I was watching and looking forward to their interaction with us in a second. However, you guessed, Laura reared her ugly naggy head again, this time primed with a pen so she could FORCE us to pay. She stood at the table for 5 minutes while I fished in my bag for the money and change. While she stood there, the Storm Troopers waited to speak to us. It was awkward. She kept talking to them, but they ignored her. I’m glad Laura got some quality character interaction because I certainly didn’t. Eventually they just left because it took so long and she was stood in front of our table, almost guarding it. She watched me sign the TC and then listened in on us talking to eachother about how we’d pay the tip.

The bill was $102.22 which is just ridiculous for this shocking level of service. We gave her $103, and she seemed confused about not having a tip even though we stressed to her we would leave our tip on the table for her. Still, she was confused and said, “Oh? You’re done? You want change?” And generally just dillied about at the head of our table for ages. Until I said “We’ll sort the tip out, no we don’t want change, just take the money!” So she took it and that was it. I felt weird and horrible. One more character came over for a picture, but I was a little upset now so just pretended I was having fun.

Here's the only photos we got:









I said to Liam we should only leave $10, but he’s too polite so left $13. The suggested amount of 18-20% would have been $20 or more! We didn’t meet the rest of the characters because it had taken so long to pay and the meal had been so rushed and awkward. I felt horrible. It was an awful experience, with a horrible woman who didn’t smile at all. I don’t know how she got that job. It was the worst meal experience in both of our lives. She may aswell have just taken our plates away while we were still eating and shouted at us to get out. It was at this point, walking away from the restaurant in the heat, I started to cry. I’m not a complainer, but I said, I’m going to complain.

I was so upset, I couldn’t stop weeping. Liam’s not one to complain either so he didn’t want to come with me to Guest Services. I got in the queue while he went to take some pictures.



Eventually I was seen by a guy, I don’t remember his name, but he was from Norway. He could tell I was upset so took my over to one side. I said I wanted to make a complaint, through tears and deep breath. I explained the situation. Initially he said, “The first thing we try and tell people is that sometimes a character breakfast is rushed and you don’t get that much time with the characters.” I told him no, it wasn’t the characters, that was fine as we aren’t character people, but the waitress basically tried to shove us out the door! He took her name and said he would call the Sci-Fi Diner manager so they could come and meet me. I said that was best.

He went away for a long time. When he came back he told me he couldn’t get in touch with anyone there as there was an incident with an ambulance. No one could come and meet me. In hindsight this could have been a fob all. Either way he asked what he could do to rectify the situation. In an ideal world I wanted my $103 back. I paid $103 to be belittled and pushed to tears. However, I didn’t feel it was right to ask a totally neutral Cast Member for this – although I would have asked the Sci-Fi manager for this has they been bothered to come and see me. He suggested Fastpasses, which I assume now were to get rid of me. I just accepted them. So in compensation for our nearly $120 down, awful service and our 30 minutes of character breakfast (that’s $4 a minute payment, by the way) we got 2 FPs for Animal Kingdom. Real compensation.

I have no proof any of this happened, because when Laura took our payment, she also took our receipt. I didn’t feel right for the rest of the day, and I’ll never forget it. It was the opposite of Disney magic and I’m not one to wish ill but I really hope because I gave in her name, she was pulled up on her behaviour – purely for the sake of future guests.

ETA – I sent the whole above section straight to Disney Guest Services. A day later I had a lovely phone call from Jackie at WDW. She apologised profusely and refunded us in the form of a gift card to the value of $105. She was a little hesitant to refund as I didn’t have a receipt – I still to this day believe Laura took our receipt away so we’d have less ‘ammo’ if we did complain. I was put on hold for a little while and once Jackie came back she informed me she had found my booking confirmation on their computers and on this occasion she felt that was sufficient to grant us the refund. I couldn’t ask for anything more really and am so glad Disney are a company that values its customers. I was sad to read many other people had some pretty awful experiences at the Star Wars breakfast, and I can only hope if it returns it runs a little smoother. We plan to use our gift card for a booking at Cinderella’s Royal Table next year and hope that this time it’s a much better character experience – but more about that at the end of the report!

After the whole commotion I was a little upset, down in the dumps and quiet. I’m the sort of person who sadly dwells on things so I couldn’t get the experience out of my head. I wanted to have a look in Darth’s Maul since it would be full of Limited Edition bits and pieces I thought it would be good to go in. However, once we arrived the queue was tailing miles back and you could tell it was probably around an hour or me just to get in. I didn’t want to wait in that so we went to the Star Tours shop as I wanted to get the ‘I am the Rebel Spy’ top for my mom, as she had been picked on our last trip! I couldn’t find it in the right size though. I forgot I needed to check outside the Voyage of the Little Mermaid shop for a Dinglehopper for my niece so at this point we headed out to Animal Kingdom.

It was about 10.30am when we arrived but it was really, really busy. I don’t know why.









The weather was bearable today, more like a good day in England type weather, which was just perfect and lovely to walk around in without a big clammy face. We headed straight to the Pangini Trail to have a look at the gorillas.




Stuffing my face as usual

We listened to the ‘keeper’ lady tell us about the environment they lived in and we talked amongst ourselves about the ethics of animals in captivity. Liam felt it necessary to quiz the keeper to see if she stumbled up! In his own words: “She kept going on about how the gorillas had all this space and there were two communities divided by a river but when I asked her more questions it turned out it wasn’t divided by a river at all, it was divided by a wall, which was made to look like a river going under a bridge.” So it’s all a sham – there you have it.

We were relieved the area was bigger than the SW polar bear’s area but still didn’t think it was great keeping several huge silverback gorrillas captive in a little space. We pushed forward to Everest.





It had a 30 minute queue so we just got into the single rider one. We didn’t know at this point whether we’d been given 1 or 2 FPs each so we were saving them to use for Dinosaur as we could just single rider Everest. The queue didn’t go slowly at all and we got on the ride quickly. We then walked to Dino and used our FP there. It went fine, I’d been dreading it saying we didn’t have FPs as I’d already used our allocated 3 for HS this evening. I tried to look a little more this time at the dinosaurs but I hate it and it’s scary! The picture makes me laugh so much though as I’m just looking into the middle distance trying to avoid the dino as you can see Liam whispering in my ear. He was saying, “Look at it, it’s right there!” And I was responding, “NO I’M NOT LOOKING AT IT!” Haha.



We were hungry now so thought we’d grab some first. First we had a look at Restaurant-o-saurus and we noticed the queue was miles out of the door! This was about 1 something and we said, we’re not waiting in that to eat! We decided to go and find somewhere else. We walked round to Flame Tree BBQ as I’d heard so many good things and I DEPERATELY wanted to eat there. However, the queue was even bigger here! Right out of the entrance. It would have taken us forever to get in and we were hungry but god how I wish we’d just got in the queue. Another one for next year.

At a loss for what to do next we just sat on a bench. I was still a bit down from this morning to be honest, I would never normally just sit on a bench in the middle of Disney at a loss for what to do! We discussed our options and bounded a few about. I said we could go mini golfing but that didn’t work as we were hungry. I suggested going to Epcot to eat but Liam pointed out it would be busy everywhere due to it being lunch time. Then we said maybe we could go back to the hotel and do some packing but we decided that was a waste of precious time as well as being a 25 mile round trip. We discussed the possibility of finding somewhere offsite nearby like an Outback but in the end decided we’d stay in AK and wait until lunch time was over.

At this point with the end of the holiday upon us and the experience of this morning I was getting totally burnt out. I just needed to sit for a bit and relax. We walked to the entrance of the park (in fact we’d walked her while discussing our options because another option had been to go and eat at Rainforest Café). And here at the entrance, we sat down on a bench and watched the world go by for a good 20 minutes. And at the point we were relaxed, good and ready, we headed back to Restaurant-o-saurus (OH how I wish we’d gone back to Flame Tree BBQ!). The queue was still out the door but shorter now and didn’t go too slowly. I had the angus burger with bacon and Liam had the black bean burger. They were ok but at this point nothing was that great owing to the fact the holiday was practically over . Liam enjoyed the burger, it was a veggie one, but as usual his two cents is this: “I’ve never tasted anything as salty as the chips apart from a spoonful of salt.” Which he hasn’t tried lol.


"I will never be happy again until we come back here" lol


"I refuse to be sad" Haha

Sorry in advance as this is getting to be a right downer now! But I was feeling depressed sat at the table thinking about work. Wondering whether I’d have a job to go back to or not. And think about the fact I had to be on a plane to Denmark at 6am Monday morning. I could not stop thinking about it, why I agreed to do it I will never know. It was destroying my soul according to my voice notes. Liam was happy though. After lunch we walked back to Everest and checking on MDE I noticed it said 1 used 1 remaining for each of us next to the FPs. Haha my notes here even say, “Not that it made up for breakfast, but still…” Lol, bitter. We thought we’d do single rider first anyway. We got some of my all time fav pics taken by a PP guy, we looked so natural! He was making us laugh!




This! I love it!

Once on Everest we were both on the same train, sat apart. However, I have no idea how this had happened but a lady behind me tapped my shoulder and asked if Liam was my boyfriend, as he was only a couple of rows behind me. I was confused so just said yeeees… Then she offered to swap so we could sit together! I don’t know whether she went with a stranger or whether they had an odd sized party or something but she moved for us! She was still sat behind her party so I guess she mustn’t have minded. So we got to sit together! Boy do we have some luck with single rider queues. Once the ride was over we made sure to say thank you again at the end.


Just sleepin'

We then did Everest again but this time with the FP. That was our last go on Everest! On each of the pictures we tried to do silly faces!



We bid the park farewell, never to return again in 2014 waah!

We got in the car at about 3pm and drove over to Typhoon Lagoon. It seemed to take ages! We arrived at 3.25 and weren’t in our swimming stuff so we had to run in and quickly get changed. Liam takes way shorter than me so he got the locker and everything sorted for us. We forgot to bring our sun cream with us, shock horror, (just as well or we both would have been Blue Man Groups) so we didn’t re-sun cream which is very unlike us! It was sunny but really kind of cold now.


Strutting my stuff haha



We got in the pool at quarter to 4. I was trying desperately to keep my head above water because once in the changing rooms I’d realised I’d forgotten make up wipes! So my makeup was streaming a little in the water as it’s impossible NOT to get your head wet here even if you try really hard. It worked for one wave but then I just got taken under on the second one while I was trying to take a pic of Liam! I gave up after that and kept going under.




Looks like he's making a seal noise lol


Now he looks like a toad haha

The lazy river was next and we got off to do the Storm Slides.






For some reason we thought playing peepo in the rings was hysterical


Peepo



Finally we did Crush n Gusher 3 times! Twice on pineapple and once on coconut. We really enjoyed it so much! Liam took some videos and it’s just such a good, unique water slide. Another top water park tip of ours is to stay until the end and just keep running on all the rides in the last half an hour or so, it’s the best thing!





It was now more or less TL closing time so we walked back to the changing rooms with a heavy heart. It took me a while as I had to wash my hair today and get fully changed rather than running to the car in wet things! Liam was out before me so he’d already taken the locker key back and collected out money. Once again it was only $1 for the locker!

We drove back over to Hollywood Studios and arrived at about 5:50pm. At this point my phone had died, the battery was about to go and MDE wouldn’t work at all so we headed straight to a FP booth to find out what time our FPs were for and wrote them down. We decided to head to Darth’s Maul as the queue would surely have gone down now, and it had. I picked up the Rebel t-shirt for my mom and got a Yoda cupcake.



The queue was huge and I’d already paid for the cupcake so I decided to leave the top and come back for it later, as our next FP for Star Tours was in 15 minutes. We walked back past the Backlot Tour and sat on a wall and ate the cupcake at lightening speed. God it was so good! Then we RAN to Star Wars and got on in the last 10 minutes of our FP window.





It was great as always. We decided after that we’d head to Pizza Planet for dinner again, as we love it so much. Since we were out of money at this point I paid on my credit card. I was shocked with the lack of chip and pin, I was expecting to have to sign something but nope, literally just swiped it! Must be so easy to fraudulently use someone’s credit card over there. After pizza we popped back to Darth’s Mail, again! I brought the t-shirt for my mom in a XXL which isn’t ideal but I figured she could wear it to lounge about! It was the only size I could get.

I then finally remembered to pop to the Little Mermaid shop for the Dinglehopper but in the place where they used to be was now replaced with Ariel flasks, nooooo! I resolved to look for one in Downtown Disney tomorrow.


I spotted this guy haha butt face guy

By this time it was about time for our Rock n Roller FP so we went and did that and once off it was 15 minutes until our Tower of Terror FP.




Haha, Liam: "Bored"



We had a nice sit down and waited it out on a bench, since we were in the area. A little while later we thought we’d chance it and go and check if it was time yet so we got to the Tower and scanned our bands, the CM told us we had 1 minute to go! So we waited and finally got in.





ToT was great this evening! In the little pre-show room the ride attendant was staring at Liam, for ages, stood right next to him. They had a staring competition and he kept mouthing and repeating the words from the TV and then he’d go and stare at other people around the room! He stared at me for a bit and then another family but he always kept coming back to Liam and saying stuff to him and staring haha. It was so funny! We got in the queue and before you knew it we were in the lift!

This was hands down the best time I’ve ever been on ToT, the atmosphere was great. We had some really fun people in the lift with us who were screaming and shouting and taking the mic, it was so funny! They were screaming so loudly as we went down. At the end of the ride where the doors open and the CM always puts their face to the door, everyone in our lift just burst into a round of applause! He looked so shocked but he hammed it up, taking a bow for us! We were cheering so much that the woman for the lift opposite turned around and was going, “What the heck?! I didn’t get that!” and then she encouraged everyone in her lift to cheer for her! As we walked away our CM muttered funnily, “Why does everything have to be a competition?!” Lol. We really love ToT in the dark and the experience really made us think about the little aspects that make a ride so great. For example, we said how on ToT truly a lot of the time it’s the reactions of people in the lift that make it for you, and this was definitely the case on this particular ride. Best ToT ever! I seem to have lost the picture from this ride

It was dark now and time to venture down to the hat to watch the special Star Wars fireworks. Liam had a bit of strop as before it all kicked off they were having a bit of a rave right near the hat with a DJ and he wanted to get in the crowd and party but I said, no way we’ll never get in and then we won’t have a decent space for the fireworks! He was a little upset. Eventually the little fireworks pre-show started and while it was vaguely interesting jeeez I just wanted the fireworks to start so we could run to ToT for one last ride! The fireworks were pretty good but not really your standard Disney fare, the finale was great with so many going off at once and your heart pounding really fast.


Waiting for fireworks... Haha wth does Liam look like!


Firewooooooorks now please







Once finished, we bombed it back down to ToT and got on one last time. Amazing, as always and everyone was screaming and shouting and whooping! The CM who seated us all was using a really fake English accent and did a really creepy laugh as the doors shut!



So it was over… we’d done our last ride, sigh .

We decided to go and have a sit on the wall just outside where you go for Fantasmic. We both sat and took it all in and thought about the fact that this was our last moment here for a long time. At this point of course we had no idea when we’d be back so it was ultimately depressing, though we’d both pretty much agreed we want to come EVERY YEAR! I just kept thinking how depressing it would be going back to work. We watched the world go by for a long time. It was peaceful, but sad.





Eventually we had to leave . I got a bit teary on the way out and we spoke philosophically about life. We pinky promised each other we were going to have a fun life, unlike any other! And that once back home we’d be more spontaneous as we’d have more money now we weren’t paying for this holiday (that went out the window as soon as we got home and came up with the most ambitious plan known to man!).

We got to the car and were stuck in, quite literally, the worst traffic jam I’ve ever seen at Disney. Each street out of the car park was lined with people trying to get out of HS, people kept weaving in and out of lanes to get out quicker and we must have been just stuck on the car park a good 20 minutes. We arrived home at 11.07pm. Liam ran into reception to ask when check out was and disappeared for 10 minutes! I was a bit worried as I was waiting in the car alone in the dark. In the end it turned out someone in the queue in front of him was faffing and the receptionist wouldn’t just answer Liam’s quick question until this guy was sorted. It turned out we had to be out by 11am. We were too tired to do any packing so we decided it best to have an early night and get up early in the morning to pack.

So that was our last day. It was really sad, but really good, mostly. I said in my notes: “I don’t want to go home, booo!”

Tomorrow… Downtown Disney & Going Home!