The Grand Bro Trip (Orlando, Florida) - Day 9

This summer holidays, my Bro and I went on the trip of a lifetime! 2 weeks of amazing times on the Grand Bro Trip in Orlando, Florida.

Day 9, 3/8 (Wednesday)

Day 3 of Disney!

Today was our middle day at Disney and we had decided on Epcot for today. We were planning on making it a more chill day, as we didn't really want to do any of the rides. This meant we didn't need to wake up at 7am for any LL reservations and we got a bit of a later start. We took the monorail over to Epcot which was very nice. We were also looking forward to trying some of the international foods - although with the heat we weren't that hungry on any of our days. We decided when we arrived to go around the world first, then go back to the bits near the entrance at the end. First we got the Guardians of the Galaxy Photopass photo (which was very cool and they put Groot in it!) then we headed around, starting with Canada. Our first stop was the Australia booth! It's part of the Food and Wine Festival that was running at the moment and had a stand selling Australian dishes and cocktails. I couldn't resist starting my day with a lamb chop and it was excellent! It was served with a salt and vinegar crisp coating and mint sauce, so good. They also had lamingtons, which I was tempted by but I decided to save my appetite.

Then we headed through the UK. It was pretty funny to wander through those gift shops, selling Tetley tea and Jammy Dodgers at an exorbitant price compared to what I spend at home! Then we wandered around a corner, and there was Mary Poppins! She had quite a short line so we joined it and got to meet her. She was very sweet - she complimented me on my dress and said that Bert would like it because his favourite colour is blue. I curtseyed to her and we got a lovely photo together, although she must have been HOT in the heat with so many layers on!

We continued wandering our way around the world and our next stop was Japan! We loved the Japanese shop, we picked up some fun Japanese knicknacks and I got some peach gummy sweets that were so yummy! Then we found a quick service place in a sweet Japanese garden and ate lunch. We had sushi and I treated myself to a plum wine which went down very nicely.

After lunch we kept going around the world through Mexico and Norway, and just outside we found a place selling Frozen Cokes. It might have been the best thing we drank the whole time we were at Disney though, because it was so cooling. Our next cold room break was going to be the Pixar short film room, but when we headed in, who did we see but the big cheese himself, Mickey! So of course we joined the (surprisingly short) line to meet Mickey. He complimented my ears and the Bro shook his hand, and we got some amazing photos of it too. My favourite is of me hugging Mickey, when we're mid-hug. Lovely.

After meeting Mickey and the short film festival (some of which we remembered and some of which we didn't, but they were all excellent), we headed over to the Nemo section. We were looking forward to Turtle Talk with Crush, particularly as I had seen clips of it online with funny results. It's a really cool show where you chat to Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo. The voice and animation is don live, with a real person behind the scenes talking to, and having questions with, the audience. It was really enjoyable. After that we had a quick look at the animals in the aquarium and then popped onto the Nemo and Friends ride. We were joking after Rise of the Resistance last night about it being a dramatic ride and had our hands up in the air, and the Cast Member heard us and told us to put on our seatbelts. I knew he was tricking but he totally got my Bro, who looked down to find the belt! Got him.

After that we headed back to the Connections area where the biggest shop is. I had seen on our first walk through that there were some cool short sleeve button up shirts in the shop and picked one up for Richard (white with rainbow colourful Marvel logos on - and it fits perfectly!). After we did our shopping I needed the bathroom, and who did we spot on our way over to the loos but one Winnie the Pooh, in the garden with his net for catching butterflies! He was in the grassy area so we couldn't actually go to him but we took a selfie and he did an adorable pose in the background, plus we waved and blew kisses. Best bathroom break of the trip!

After meeting Pooh Bear we decided to head back to the Poly for an afternoon chill. Tonight was the long night open at Magic Kingdom (open until 11pm for regular peeps and 1am for us fancy resort people) so we were planning on heading back into the park later. Tonight was also our only chance left to catch the MK fireworks, as Monday was rained out, Tuesday we were at Hollywood Studios (and it rained as well), and we were out for dinner Thursday, and heading to the next resort on Friday evening. So today it had to be! We made it on the last monorail back to the Transportation and Ticketing Centre, but then the resort monorail was closed due to the rain. So we waited it out (it was already easing) and walked the 5 minute walk back to the hotel. I think it may have even been faster that the monorail would have been! At the Poly we used our free dole whip voucher - delicious - and did some pin trading as they have several board just in the resort shops.

Then we headed back into Magic Kingdom. First, we went straight to Pirates again - my 4th time of the trip. It fast became my favourite ride! Then the line for some of the others we wanted to try was shorter, so we headed to It's A Small World. It's... A lot. I felt like we had to do it because it is iconic, but it is a strange ride and neither of us really understood why there was such a long line for it most of the time. After that we headed over to the Storybook area for a highlight of the trip - Dumbo!

When we were very small (5 and 3 respectively), our parents took us to Japan and we went to Tokyo Disney. Dumbo is my Bro's favourite, even then (he has always loved elephants), but the line was so long that he fell asleep and it's a family story that gets brought out a lot (there's even a photo of him asleep in the stroller!). So we had to ride it together, take photos of Bro pretending to sleep in the (much shorter) line. Luckily we are just the right size to ride it together in one elephant, although I made th mistake of giving Bro the controls to go up and down. I filmed the whole ride (like a minute and a half) on my phone for posterity and sent it to Mum and Dad to give them a laugh! It was a really fun 90 seconds and we loved the memories we made in it too.

Then, we headed over to pick up our dinner. We had thought we were being really clever, ordering our Casey's Corner (hot dogs again!) for just before 9pm thinking that we'd be able to get a table outside and watch the fireworks from there. But of course many other people have that same idea, so instead we ate our hotdogs while I stood on tiptoes and looked through the table umbrellas at the castle to watch the fireworks. Despite this, it was still magical, with the music and everything almost reducing me to tears several times. We also had a sweet moment when the Bro and I turned to each other at the same time and were like, 'This is great. We are great bros. Best siblings ever.' It was pretty magical.

After the fireworks it was clear a lot of people were leaving (many with kids I would imagine), but we were thinking THIS IS OUR CHANCE TO GET SHORT LINES! So even though we were feeling quite tired we hotfooted our way over to the Haunted Mansion again - figured it was the way to go for a spooky night time ride. And actually, we were stalled on it for about 15 minutes at one point! then we headed over to one of the night time photopass location to get pretty nighttime pictures with the Rapunzel lanterns (some of the best photos of the trip!)

There was just enough time to go through Pirates AGAIN before we headed to bed and tucked ourselves in just after midnight.