Tuesday: The One Where We Have Rumblies In Our Tumblies, and Delicious Hallowishes Pt. II

When I left off last time, we were ready for our first FP+...

We were still rather early for our FP, so we went for a stroll. It was lucky really that we were so early, as we walked straight out of Crystal Palace and into the crowds for the Move It Shake It Dance And Play It! Parade.


I can't help it. I'm addicted to castles and Mickey pumpkin wreaths.

Don't think that having a terrible view at the back of a crowd will stop me taking photos. Oh no. There will be photos. Jus not very good ones!













Fortunately they were busy "Vamos!"-ing so they were soon out of our way. To New Fantasyland!!

I'd seen Disney and Youtube shopping videos in the circus tent, so I had to see that! Well...heaven!! So much Disney goodness in one place. I'm actually pretty restrained when we're away, last time we didn't buy a single souvenir until the second week of our trip, and this time we pretty much did the same thing. Both times with the same result of flying around on our last day searching for items, because apparently I don't learn. Anyway. We wandered around browsing for a while, we only had one Disney souvenir request, and that was from my Grandparents who had banned us from spending money on extravagant souvenirs for them, all they wanted was a nice calendar. So obviously I had to find the very best one ever.  Sadly all I found today was one with ride posters on it, which for people who've never been to the parks probably wouldn't be all that exciting! My Nana just had cataract surgery in the weeks before we went, so I had to make sure I found the nicest calendar, now that she could see it! A lovely CM brought over a tray of treat samples, and told us to take whatever we wanted, as she had two or three different kinds of treats available. We don't need telling twice!! We tried a piece of Olaf cake-pop, a white chocolate marshmallow (ear? I can't remember now!), and a chocolate brownie of some description. Clearly I was not yet into holiday mode of photographing every morsel that passed our lips, as I don't have pics of them! My tastebuds were still in English Mode, so it all seemed SUPER sweet.

We hung around by the MagicBand supplies for a while eating our free treat samples, while I debated what to buy. MB extras were one of those things that, before we set off, I had picked out exactly what I wanted, but when I was stood there in front of them, I don't know...I wasn't so sure. It seemed an awful lot of money to spend on something I would only use for two weeks, and had no use for at home. I'd already asked before we set off and there was no way the gym could make my MB replace their faux-MB as a locker key, so I wouldn't really be using it when we got back at all. I wish they'd made the MagicBandits so that they fitted onto other things, maybe make them as a pin, where the rubber back was flat with a tube that came through the MB hole, and the pin clipped into it, so that you could wear them with a regular pin back at home (hey Imagineers...Are you listening to this?! Because if you ever do this, I will accept free samples of everything by way of payment, thank you very much).

Nicely topped up on treats, our FP time was fast approaching, so Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off we go! First up, Seven Dwarves' Mine Train!! I'm so glad we decided to FP 7DMT. Every time we passed it our whole trip, the queue was well over an hour. Perhaps we just have bad timing! It's a shame as I would have liked another ride on it, but never mind. Add it to the list of reasons we need another trip! 7DMT is my kind of roller coaster, I loved it! It felt like such a short ride, I think you should get two trips around the track rather than one! I also love this adorable video that came with our PP/MM package:



You also still get the ride photos too.

That's my "I'm having fun!" face, it really is! I absolutely loved it! You can see on the photograph how much further down my lap bar is compared to John's. The guy loading us into the mine train was NOT satisfied with my lap bar! I put it down to a just-barely-comfortable-but-still-pretty-tight setting. Safety first! He still wasn't happy! He kept ramming and ramming it, trying to get it to go down further. Seriously! I'm not that thin! Stop cramming! I know I'm short, but I'm hardly at risk of flying out if an emergency brake goes on. I had bruises!


I was in two minds about signing up for MM. I will say this: If we'd paid $170 for it, I wouldn't feel like we'd got our money's worth out of it, as a couple travelling with no children. We got plenty of photos, but some of them are awful (blurry, out of focus, bad lighting, etc), lots of duplicates, and we got one regular Magic Shot in two weeks. A lot of times we were told that they weren't doing them that day, one guy even implied that they were just for kids, and a few said that they couldn't do them. I'm fairly certain you can take a photograph of us all pointing at the ground, or looking shocked at our own hands. Hmmm. Perhaps there's some science that I haven't grasped yet. I really wanted the balloon magic shot, I know that, and we never got it. However, we joined a MM group, paid $30, and I feel we definitely got value for money out of that! I can see it being worth $170 if you have kids, or you do a lot with your photos (cards, scrap-booking, whatever), but we don't. It was nice to have someone take photographs of both of us without having to trust random strangers with my camera, but I would never pay $170 for the privilege. They take more than enough of my money for other things that I don't feel too badly about joining a larger online family and spreading the cost of MM. We got one absolutely stunning photo (I love it, anyway), that I would happily have paid $30 for on its own, that is headed for a frame in our lounge sometime soon!

Next Stop: Space Mountain!!


We were racing through the To Do List this morning! That's not to say I wasn't a little apprehensive about my first blast-off...


Do I look nervous? I was a bit nervous.


Again, that's my "I'm having fun!" face. Doesn't show, does it?! That and the fact that John looks like he's on the Magical Express rather than being blasted off into space. We really were enjoying ourselves, honest!

After we touched back down and collected our ride photos on our MagicBands, it was time for something altogether more relaxing. Time for a great big beautiful tomorrow! On our way through Tomorrowland we spotted Chillin' Phil, just chillin' by the misting blasters.


Why is he Chillin' Phil? No idea. He just looked like a Phil to me!

I love Carousel of Progress. Sure, it broke down for about 15mins, but you can never see the exact same scene over and over too often, right? Did you notice that we have the same names as the husband and wife? I didn't until this trip! I guess when you hear something that often you notice new things! We should SO have done that for one of our MNSSHP costumes. Next time, maybe. I know someone went as the whole family in their 4th of July outfits, they were in my Trip Planning group on FB. Their outfits were amazing!!

Will we ever escape Carousel of Progress? Will July 4th become our Groundhog Day?! Find out next time!

Is Pumpkin Really THAT Great, Charlie Brown?

America. Every September.

56 sleeps 'til Christmas! :D

Sorry. Now that you all hate me...Let's move on.

For the past few years, I've been signed up to emails from 100 Days To Christmas. It's a great site, with some useful hints, tips and recipes. But it's also American, and largely Autumnal, and thus, pretty obsessed with pumpkins.

I'm going to confess right now. I don't get it. Pumpkins are fun. You can carve them, decorate them, light them up, maybe even coat the seeds with delicious things to mask the taste of pumpkin seed and roast them in the oven. Beyond that? I fail to see the attraction. Pumpkin to me tastes a bit like turnip. Even cooked, they taste a bit like turnip. They also smell a bit like turnip. I actually read on the Disney Parks Blog that:

"One of the most fun things about fall is all the pumpkin-scented goodies."

Really? Autumn is fun because things smell like root vegetables?! OK then. You know I love my candles. Even they're at it with the pumpkins. By my reckoning (and I have extensive collections of candles, I'm practically an expert right here), Yankee Candles "Fall" range (what's wrong with "Autumn"? Too many "u"s for you? Why isn't Winter, when everywhere is covered in slippy ice, called "Fall", since that's what everyone ends up doing? Anyway...) includes the following:

Pumpkin
Double Pumpkin
Super Sweet Pumpkin
Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin Spice
Vanilla Pumpkin *
Apple Pumpkin
Pumpkin Cream
Pumpkin Buttercream
Pumpkin Wreath
Pumpkin Patch Swirl
Harvest **
Harvest Welcome **

** Main scent listed...Pumpkin.

But it's not just the smell. I get emails from various craft and food/beverage places which I won't list (some of which may or may not pay their taxes...), and they are ALL about the pumpkins. Pumpkin chocolate cookies. Pumpkin Spice lattes. Pumpkin cookies. Pumpkin Pumpkin icing. Pumpkin Soup. Pumpkin Stew. Pumpkin Pasta. Pumpkin Cheesecake. I would imagine they are all very interesting. But really? You are not enjoying the pumpkin at all. You are actually enjoying the spice, which, from what I can tell, is basically this:

1. 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
2. 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger.
3. 1/8 teaspoon of ground allspice or ground cloves.
4. 1/8 teaspoon of ground nutmeg.

So I thought "You know what? I'll give it a try!" Not wanting to recreate The Starbucks Gingerbread Debacle of 2012 (I decided to try the new flavour when I saw it advertised as "Coming Soon", but between then and it actually arriving in stores I'd built it up to be totally delicious and wonderful in my head and, when I tried it, it tasted like lebkuchen not English gingerbread and I really hated it and I'd wasted £3.50 on something too gross to drink) I searched for some nice recipes, and found my spices, and asked lovely husband to pick up some canned pumpkin (as recommended by numerous people, because apparently the pumpkins in the UK are grown for size rather than taste)...And this is where I hit somewhat of a snag. No. Canned. Pumpkin. Apparently we really are all about playing with our food when it comes to pumpkins, and the idea of actually eating them is somewhat alien. So, it was back to the original purveyor of pumpkin product OCD in the UK: Starbucks.

I have to confess, I have mixed feelings about the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice range. Pumpkin Spice cake is basically just very expensive parkin with pumpkin seeds on the top. Sorry America, this is nothing new in Yorkshire, we've had it for centuries. Delicious as it is, it isn't worth the money when I can get nicer, and cheaper, from elsewhere.

Fortune and incompetence smiled on me with regards to the Pumpkin Spice Latte. I hit up Starbucks and ordered a Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. By the time I got back to work and took a sip, I realised that whatever was in my cup, it definitely wasn't a SCHC. The lovely Barista who replaced it for me free of charge informed me that I had just inadvertently tried a PSL. Thanks Starbucks! :) Mission accomplished with zero effort/expense. Which was a good job, because it was pretty gross.

I have to say, I didn't like PSL at all and I still don't understand the hype. Maybe it's because I don't drink coffee. Maybe it's because it's a little gross. Either way, I will be sticking with my SCHC until the Toffee Nut Hot Chocolate comes back for Christmas (or, traitor hat on, Costa's Black Forest Hot Chocolate).

Happy Halloween, and enjoy your PSLs, or whatever other seasonal goodies take your fancy (and make some parkin, it's way better than the Starbucks version).

* Here is where I got bored of writing the word "Pumpkin" and started copying and pasting it in.