Trip Report Didn't we JUST do this?

Yup. We did. Yup, 2nd trip in a couple months. In June, we did a rather unique trip for our clan. Playing the vague role of chaperones, but really just a safety valve, and doing what amounted to an adults only trip was pretty cool. Then we got home, and we got to talking, and dates showed up on RCI, and my parents had some extra RCI points b/c of no traveling for 18 months, and we wanted one more family vacation before our daughter heads off to college.

Need I say more? So, we are back at Old Key West from August 20-27. Hot on the heels of two weeks of me teaching marching band camp, our daughter saying goodbye to many of her friends going off to other colleges (her college starts very late - we drop her off on Labor Day weekend for a week of freshman orientation - classes start a full week later), and lots of online teacher training for whatever the new school year holds.

We decided to put the impetus of planning on our daughter, so she has picked our days in which parks as well as most of our table service meals (we jumped in with a couple ideas). If you've never followed along on our trip reports, I'm a rather... well, let's just say excessive planner. So, being a bit hands off this time is tough for me! But knowing that our original plans for the past two summers included an extended trip around Europe and college tours of the northeast and California, both of which had to be canceled - well, she deserves to have a little control over something!

Obviously, no control over the masking situation... but we did totally fine last July!

Normally, I'd wait until the week before our trip to start the Pre-Trip portion of the proceedings, but I'll be teaching marching band from 8am-5pm for the next couple weeks and the mental state upon return home those nights is fragile at best! The few days before we leave are not quite as intense, but I don't foresee a ton of PTR time during those days. So, here we are. I'll check in tomorrow or Friday with the basics of the plan!

 

[brifraz]

Happy August 22nd everyone! I have no idea if there is anything worth celebrating today, but we are certainly having another excellent day at WDW. It's 2pm and we are doing our regular afternoon break in the room (and maybe the pool shortly) after a good Studios morning. I don't have a whole lot of pictures from this morning, but a couple unique ones and I'll share what I've got!

The morning started with the 6:45am alarms so we could try to get Rise of the Resistance passes. We had three devices going - one outside the room on cell, one inside on cell, and one inside on Disney Wifi. The outside one on cell won the day - that was @MeffysMom. Here's her two views from the morning.

We then got ourselves ready for the day with some breakfast in our room and getting cleaned up and dressed. We headed over to Studios at about 8am (9am opening). Went right into the parking lot (again all the way at the far end of the first row...two days in a row) and then right into the park with no delay. And by 8:30am we were riding the Tower of Terror. And somehow, we got an elevator all to ourselves. As of right now, the ride photo is not linking correctly for us, but hopefully we can get that figured out and share the picture as we sat in three separate rows!

After ToT, it was over to Rockin' Roller Coaster which was also a walk on at that point. As we were heading out of Sunset Boulevard, we stopped in one of the shops which we had heard carried the Purple Wall Loungefly Backpack (a major shopping target of our daughter) but no luck. But... yes luck! The CMs there helped us track one down at World of Disney and they put one on hold for us to pick up later. That took a little while, so it was a little bit after 9am when we hit our next attraction, Midway Mania. We always ride with myself and our daughter on one side and @MeffysMom on the other side. And @MeffysMom always wins (usually by a lot). Not today! Our daughter won with over 225,000 points - a personal best by quite a lot! Next we headed to the Millenium Falcon which was only showing a 15 minute wait. Of course, by the time we got there it was a 20 minute wait and about a minute after we got in line it started showing a 40 minute wait. Regardless of all that, we were in line for about 15 minutes total so it was all good! There weren't any other small parties near us in line so we got a cockpit all to ourselves and decided to have a little fun by trying to crash as much as possible and not shooting particularly well either. FYI - even if you do that, you will still get one coaxium cannister. But we did manage to get the ship down to 3% and our final score was a bit low:

After that ride we shopped a bit in Black Spire Outpost and then visited with the Muppets. If you have never spent a viewing of MuppetVision 3D just watching the Statler and Waldorf audio animatronics, I would encourage it. They are quite funny and react to pretty much everything that happens on screen. The attention to detail in that attraction is just great. And, while I know there are no 'effects watch' threads for it - the smoke for the two times Waldo drives off was actually working today as well as some additional lights on the penguins cannon.

While on Muppets, our Boarding Group got called (about 10:40am), so we headed back to Batuu and headed to Rise of the Resistance. Always a great adventure!

In terms of those effects, we got one thing we had not seen before - in the last Kylo Ren encounter (he is standing in front of you and 'force grabs' your car and then things explode, ceiling collapses in front of him), we saw the B-mode for the first time. You don't face where his AA stands, but instead face a screen and a tie fighter with Kylo 'stares you down' for a minute until it gets hit by another ship. We also didn't get the lightsaber coming through the ceiling, but in terms of story telling - if Kylo is on a tie fighter it wouldn't make any sense for the lightsaber to be there so we think that is intentional.

It was about 11:30am at this point and we were ready for our lunch at Sci-Fi Dine-In.

The food is never amazing, but it is a lot of fun and silliness. Since it is so dark, I just have the one food picture of the onion rings (the girls then both had hamburgers which they enjoyed and were well cooked and I had the salmon burger which was very good). After the onion rings, a couple of pictures of the entertainment for you!

After finishing up our lunch, we headed out of Hollywood Studios so we could stop at World of Disney to get the elusive backpack and now we are back in our room for rest and relaxation! Oh, and one more thing. Something quite unique and as far as I know something that hasn't really happened. During the 1pm Boarding Group release... we got a second boarding group. @MeffysMom was just curious if it was possible (we know it wasn't possible in the past). Much to our surprise, we will likely be riding Rise again this evening. And I'll see you a bit after that.

 

[Songbird76]

JapanView attachment 581561

Morocco
View attachment 581562

France
View attachment 581563

UK
View attachment 581564View attachment 581565

Canada
View attachment 581566

Lagoon from Canada
View attachment 581567

Lagoon and Italy from between Canada and Showcase Plaza
View attachment 581568

Imagination
View attachment 581569

Certainly love some of the photo capabilities of the iPhone 12!

This morning we are heading to Hollywood Studios with Rise Boarding Group #32 in hand. See you later.

Love these night pictures!! Wow....It's so beautiful. I love the world showcase at night, all lit up.

 

[brifraz]

Love these night pictures!! Wow....It's so beautiful. I love the world showcase at night, all lit up.

More coming at you shortly from Studios!

 

[brifraz]

Okay, when I left you yesterday we were back in the room relaxing a little bit after our Studios morning and getting ready for our Studios evening. But first the relaxing! After an hour or so in the room with the girls napping and me posting/reading, we headed up to the main pool at Old Key West for a little lounging and swimming. You know that things aren't all that crowded when we had a couple choices for three seats together at the pool! We went with the lighthouse area... well, just because we did.

Oh, and we also got some dinner. Which, if you've ever been along for our trip reports before you know what is coming. Except we didn't get a picture! Yup, the Gurgling Suitcase and the pulled pork nachos. And we are very glad to actually be able to sit inside now!

That's master bartender Roberto in the background. And we would have gotten food pictures if we hadn't been so incredibly hungry!

At about 6:15pm we headed back to Hollywood Studios and started our evening with a visit to Mickey and Minnie (and Goofy as well). One little note about ride conditions - the very second scene in the actual ride, where M&M run their car into the switch, was not really working. Their car was stationary and had already hit the switch - made it a bit odd when you first drove in.

While in line for MMRR, our Boarding Group was called for our second ride on Rise of the Resistance. The queue was quite empty as we went through.

Here's the ship they put us on for evacuation. Looks like a pretty sturdy vessel.

Sadly, here's our ship after it was caught by the First Order and brought onto their Star Destroyer.

In terms of the ride itself, we got the two different ride sequences on our two adventures (front of AT-ATs in the afternoon and side of AT-ATs in the evening) and for the afternoon ride we didn't get the lightsaber through the roof but for the evening the Finn AA wasn't working at all. Both rides had the last scene with Kylo Ren in total B-mode (video of his TIE fighter instead of the AA and explosions).

After that, it was back for a second Tower of Terror ride on the day. Obviously, there was no line at all!

It was about 8:25 when we were back in front of Grauman's. Since the crowd was very light and line was so short, we decided to ride with Mickey and Minnie one more time! Pretty much walked straight into the Pre-Show room and then straight onto a train after that. We then came out and grabbed a spot for the projection show and I'll be back to share those pictures this afternoon. Right now, I need to get going because we are headed to Universal for the girls to get their Roller Coaster fix!

 

[cgersic]

The photos of World Showcase at night are splendid!!! You kids always have such a good time, so I love following along on your reports!

 

[brifraz]

Time for some moments from the Wonderful World of Animation show. I'm not sure that we have ever seen this projection show. That's pretty much what it is, with just a couple pyro moments. Lots of cute scenes from a wealth of Disney animated features. Fun and well done, but nothing amazing (well, except that the whole projection mapping technology is totally amazing to begin with).

After the show, we did our best salmon swimming upstream impression to get to our Oga's reservation that was for 9:25pm. There were a couple other parties doing the same so we weren't totally alone in going the wrong way. Once at Oga's we were seated in the very first booth on the left as you walk in and were told that would be sharing it with another party when they arrived. We have certainly done that before, but this would be the first time in the COVID era that we have shared, so it was a bit odd. They were very nice and also had teachers in their group, so we had a good time chatting with them, but still keeping a little distance between us. As always the drinks were enjoyable and the setting is always a good time.

That's a Slug Slinger, Blurrgfire, and Jedi Mind Trick in case you were wondering. @MeffysMom and I also shared a Fuzzy Tauntaun at the end of our visit. Speaking of the end of our visit - we weren't quite the last people at Oga's (unlike the other two times recently) so we didn't quite have the park to ourselves and we were not being escorted out by the last CMs in the area. But, we did still manage a few good night shots on our exit route.

Heading out of Black Spire Outpost, the moon was hanging out with one of the eponymous spires.

The Baseline Taphouse looking very calm and subdued in the late night lighting.

And, of course, the exit shot. Not quite as exciting as the exit shot that we got last trip (if you haven't seen it, please make sure to visit that trip report - @MeffysMom scored a really awesome lightning shot).

It's midday on Monday now and we just finished a morning at Universal which I will share about later. The girls are both already well into their afternoon naps and I think I might just do the same for once!

 

[macefamily]

Any visit to Cowfish planned ? That's one of our faves. And a trip to the Fat Tuesday booth afterwards for a 190 Octane.

 

[brifraz]

Well, big shock to everyone, that nap thing didn't happen. So, it's about half an hour later and I figured I'd get this morning's Universal adventures posted for you all to read on this Monday afternoon. Hoping that my reporting is giving you a nice diversion from whatever it is you really should be doing!!

We were up around 6:45am this morning so that we could make sure to get to Universal good and early. We have Annual Passes so we could do the early admission, but today it was just to the Studios side and just for Gringott's and Minions and those were not our top priorities. So we got ourselves fed and ready to go and drove on over to Universal in time to be at the front of the Islands of Adventure turnstiles at just a couple minutes after 8am. If you read the trip report from earlier in the summer where I got a bit... less just say aggravated... with Universal's lines, you will happy to know that being the first people in line meant that I didn't have any of that aggravation!

At about 8:50am, they finally opened up the gates and in we went. A brisk walk around through Suess-land and we were ready to hop on a bike with Hagrid. Every time I've ever ridden it, I have been in the sidcar with my daughter 'driving' the motorcycle so this ride was a different experience for me! Here are the girls as they just got going.

For my 'delicate constitution' that is one of the better roller coasters to deal with. Up next was one that I thus far have refused to suffer through. Velocicoaster. The girls both love it and I have a feeling that maybe one day they will get me on, but it hasn't happened yet! They had a great ride, though. After that, we headed back into Hogsmeade and rode through Hogwarts with Harry and his friends.

By they way, so far, we hadn't really waited more than a few minutes for any ride. That was for Forbidden Journey and it was only because a couple Express Pass groups came through right as we were getting to the front of the line. On a side note, I really hope that when Genie Plus Plus Lightning Line Up Fastpass starts in a couple months, Disney still alternates between the paid line and the regular line.

That ride through Hogwarts always is a little rough on me, so we caught the train over to the other park. For transportation between parks it is exceptional, but as an actual 'attraction' I've always felt a slow train with a video screen was a little weak. We did enjoy our ride, though!!

By the way, those signs that say the train cars are all monitored... definitely true. Just a few seconds after this picture was the team member at the door telling me that I had to sit up during the ride.

Now on the Studios side, we needed to hit the other 'top 3' ride at Universal which for the girls is Rip Ride Rockit. Another hard pass for me. Feeling pretty good that it was only 10:30am and we had done the top priority headliners for our family meant we could decide what to do next at a somewhat leisurely pace. So we walked back to Diagon Alley and the girls rode on Gringott's. Generally I will do that one with them, but just wasn't feeling the need to this morning so I skipped again!

We then headed around toward Men In Black and Simpsons which were both showing 10-15 minute waits. As we approach, we saw that both rides had pretty decent lines outside the buildings which we knew meant that the wait was going to be on the plus side of those 15 minutes and we just weren't that desperate to do either. So we decided to head on out of Universal and get to our lunch reservation a little bit early.

For those not aware, Toothsome's Chocolate Emporium is one of our family favorites anywhere. We always have had excellent service, always enjoy the food immensely, and feel like the portion size to price ratio is one of the better ones in any Theme Park area. And, once again we were fully satisfied with the experience. It's funny that we like it so much given that none of us is a big chocolate person. In fact, the only chocolate in any of our meals today was a little bit in some of the bread!

Started with Brie en croute (with bread, berries, and almonds) which is specifically one of our favorites there. Delicious!

For the main course @MeffysMom and I shared a couple plates - the waldorf chicken salad and the margherita flat bread. Both were really enjoyable and more than enough food for the two of us (although we did manage to finish things off pretty nicely).

Our daughter decided to go all in with the Passholder Special meal - french toast with peaches, ice cream, and peach whipped cream. It was a little more dessert than lunch, but it worked pretty well for her!

Certainly not the healthiest lunch for her! But an enjoyable lunch for all three of us. No dessert needed - even though they have some really great stuff. We finished up lunch right at 1pm and then headed back to the room where we are right this very minute! We booked a dinner at Raglan Road earlier today as it is another favorite and we figured we didn't have a good dinner plan anyway. And then after that we will head back to Magic Kingdom for a couple attractions and then the fireworks. See you later!

 

[brifraz]

Any visit to Cowfish planned ? That's one of our faves. And a trip to the Fat Tuesday booth afterwards for a 190 Octane.

Funny you should mention it. Over the course of a number of Universal trips, we have never been to Cowfish. We talk about it pretty much every time as an option, but never end up there. Heck, last summer we actually DID plan to have a meal there, but they had not re-opened from COVID at that point. Today I made a couple jokes about Cowfish and maybe someday eating there... And I just looked up that 190 Octane - I'm not sure I can deal with grain alcohol at this point in my liver's lifecycle!!!

 

[brifraz]

The photos of World Showcase at night are splendid!!! You kids always have such a good time, so I love following along on your reports!

"kids"

At Oga's last night, they did not check our IDs (nothing new there and bringing along a upper teen daughter doesn't help our image). The group that shared our booth did get IDs checked and two of the men were in their early 40s, so I'm guessing we don't even appear to be that young any more!!!

 

[meggo819]

Hoping that my reporting is giving you a nice diversion from whatever it is you really should be doing!!

Indeed!

 

[brifraz]

Just going to do a little catching up right now before getting to sleep.

Dinner at Raglan Road. We do love us some Raglan Road - the food is excellent, the beer choices are perfect for us, and the entertainment is always top notch. Not much to say except, enjoy the pictorial of our dinner!

First up is a couple of pints with the musical entertainment of the evening.

@MeffysMom had the Shepherd's Pie which is definitely one of her favorites.

Our daughter had the chicken pie which is her go-to meal at Raglan. And she subbed out the usual veggies for some chips!

I went a little off the usual Irish script for my dinner and had their current 'celebration of Florida' special which was a key lime salmon on a bed of potatoes and mushy peas - so still a little Irish style in there. It was awesome.

And I would be tragically remiss if I didn't post at least a couple pictures of the dancers. The first is a wide angle with two dancers on the main stage and one on the small audience center stage. The second is the impressive toes of one of the dances while right next to us.

After dinner it was over to Magic Kingdom we went with plans for at least one attraction and then the Happily Ever After fireworks from a prime location. But right now I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open, much less focusing on which of a hundred fireworks pictures to post! See you tomorrow, friends.

 

[brifraz]

After driving back to Old Key West from Disney Springs, we managed to catch a bus almost immediately to Magic Kingdom which got us in the park right around 7pm. As we went in, it was immediately obvious that it was a bit more crowded than it had been on Friday and that people were already getting spots to watch Happily Ever After.

There were really only two attractions on our potential agenda, Splash Mountain and Mickey's Philharmagic. Those were the two that we really like that we did not do on Friday night at the Boo Bash. After a quick check of the app we saw that Splash was currently down and lines were all pretty decent length, so we headed to Philharmagic. Of course, through the castle was already closed off and then the paths around the castle were closed right as we walked up to them - so we had to walk all the way around Liberty Square to get there - what's an extra quarter mile when we are doing 6+ each day?

As always, the film was fun to watch and we are quite excited that Coco is going to be added in a few months. As soon as it was done, we headed back toward the hub to try to find a decent viewing spot. And managed to get one of the best locations, at the ride in the road just past Casey's. With a good spot staked out and about 45 minutes until the show, we just sat and waited as the area around us filled in with people.

Of course, some of those people were going to have little kids on shoulders... and some of those people lacked the ability to stand still... and some of those people were quite polite (see, I mentioned both sides of things, it's not all negative). And we did manage to be able to see the show pretty well. @MeffysMom only took a limited number of pictures this time and many of those have heads in them, but here are a few of her absolute best on the evening - the first gives you an idea of the 'actual' view and the rest are slightly improved with just a little bit of cropping!

Yes, we were all a little wary of the number of people who were in pretty close quarters out there and a little annoyed at times as Disney tried to pack as many people as possible into not nearly enough space. But still an enjoyable viewing. After the show ended, we quickly snuck to the side of main street and grabbed a set along one of the 'garden' areas to wait out the main throng of masses headed to the exit. Just sat and enjoyed the view a little bit!

Once things had thinned out a bit, we took the side escape down the 'new' path between the Plaza restaurant and Tomorrowland Terrace - much less crowded than Main Street for sure! Of course, things did bottleneck a bit at the tunnel under the train tracks, but not too terribly bad. And, to our great pleasure we once again lucked out with bus timing and got on one right away. Although, I don't think the driver was quite used to the OKW route as he took the longest way possible to the resort from Magic Kingdom. But, all in all, a good evening of fireworks and fun! This morning we are up early and getting ready for some Animal Kingdom.

 

[brifraz]

Good morning again! Coming at you live from Animal Kingdom. The girls are in the midst of a little Everest marathon and I’m just here for the WiFi! Actually I’m here.

We got into the park at about 7:20am and headed for our Everest Insanity. But at the Asia rope we were informed that it would not be open until a bit late. So we dashed over to Pandora and rode on an Ikran (we call them Banshees). Wait was maybe 15 minutes (listed at 20) which is pretty amazing. The app was showing Everest as open so the girls booked it back to Asia. I took my time!

And took some pictures on my way over. Love this spot.

Waited at the exit of Everest for a couple minutes and pondered why there is a tombstone sales location righ outside the ride.

Then I did my ONE ride with them.

As you can tell it’s a bit empty here. They are now on ride 4 or 5 with zero wait and I’m hanging out with some friends.

By the way, it is just now 9am and they are on ride #5 of Everest plus our earlier Flight of Passage.

 

[brifraz]

Oh... my mistake... that was their 6th time on Everest this morning. One ride in each car of the train. And they are now going on for a 7th time and then we are heading for the safari. They are insane. This is their first (front row) and second (back row) and my only (middle row) ride.

 

[cgersic]

Raglan is still my go to place. I'm a Smithwick's girl and I try to get something new to eat each time I go because it's all soooo good! The fireworks look amazing, and that last photo of the castle is gorgeous! I'm not a fan of the pink paint job during the day, but what they are doing at night is fabulous.

 

[erstwo]

Happy August 22nd everyone! I have no idea if there is anything worth celebrating today,

August 22nd is my husband's birthday! Loving the trip report!

 

[brifraz]

August 22nd is my husband's birthday! Loving the trip report!

That was it! Glad we remembered to celebrate it.

 

[brifraz]

Alright, sorry for the delay! Let's get back to Animal Kingdom from yesterday morning. First up is a couple pictures from the SEVEN, yes, that's right, 7 times that the girls rode on Everest. They rode once in each car of the train plus and extra up toward the front.

Just a different angle from near the top of the mountain.

And then a picture of the true tragedy of their seven (yes, that's right, 7) rides.

If you know, you know. Each time we ride, we quietly chant his name in hopes that he will appear. But, alas, it was not to be yesterday.

Once they had finally finished their mission, we headed over to the Safari for a ride with the animals. For some reason it looks more like I was the one who rode Everest seven times.

It was a good safari, with a good number of giraffe and elephants, but surprising the wildebeests were missing in action (although @MeffysMom saw a couple in the far corner of the savannah right as we entered). Here's the nearly infant giraffe - hard to believe they are this big when only a couple months old!

Also had a rhino trotting by the vehicle at one point. And if you look carefully you will see two cheetah prowling in the background - maybe they were a little hungry and hoping for rhino for lunch?

We were also quite happy that the lions were back out and their rocks were no longer being worked on like they were last month. All three were sleeping the morning away on the rocks while just a few feet away a springbok was grazing right on the edge of their area. Sorry, no picture of that one.

After the safari, we headed to the Maharaja Jungle Trek to see if the tigers were out. Just the one, sound asleep next to the temple window. It was about 10am at this point and our 'lunch' reservation at Yak and Yeti was for 10:30am, so we headed that way. I do realize that it was mainly the same thing over and over, but the total attraction count for the first couple hours in the park was 10 - Flight of Passage, 7 Everests, Safari, and Maharaja Trek.

I'm afraid we were a bit too hungry to pause for good food pictures, but here are the pretty drinks - prickly pear refresher and passion fruit lemonade.

For lunch we share a few plates - lettuce wraps, honey chicken, chicken fried rice, and pork egg rolls plus the fried wontons for dessert. We always enjoy the food at Yak and Yeti and this was no exception! After eating, we decided to heat back to our room for some early relaxation and down time. Although @MeffysMom and I chose to make a little trip up to the Gurgling Suitcase for an adult beverage and good company before resting.

I'll catch up with you later for the WET evening in Epcot.

 

[brifraz]

Good afternoon! Let's get back to yesterday and our post-relaxation adventures. Our plan was to rest for a little bit and then head into Epcot to do a few attractions and then we had Rose and Crown reservations to watch Epcot Forever. And for the most part, the plan worked out pretty nicely. We got in the car around 6:30pm and headed to Epcot. Radar was totally clear when we walked out of the room. But as we started driving a few drops of rain fell on the car. Halfway to Epcot is was a complete deluge but then when we got to the parking lot, back to just a few drops. Pretty impressive given that Old Key West is only a mile from Epcot (at most).

But, once we were out of the car and walking up to the gates, that deluge... yup, it managed to find us. We had been smart and had an umbrella, but it wasn't of much help given that the rains had brought some significant gusts of wind. Our daughter has the nice 'purple wall' rain jacket and @MeffysMom and I were sharing that umbrella, but we all were pretty darn wet when we got to The Living Seas. It felt pretty authentic that we were underwater with Nemo and friends! We were a little sad that the manatees had already gone to sleep for the night as we always enjoy visiting them. We did get to see quite a few rays and enjoyed the room with fish from Finding Nemo.

But, overall I feel like the aquarium has fallen a bit off in recent years. It does make me a little sad as I remember when our daughter was very young we would spend quite a bit of time in there looking at all the different fish and now there just isn't much except the Nemo exhibit and the play area. Although I'm quite glad that Turtle Talk is back.

The rain was a bit lighter so we headed over to The Land to watch Awesome Planet and then get another ride on Soarin'. No real wait for anything and I certainly do enjoy a good nature film! It was getting a little past 8pm and we wanted to get to our dinner at Rose and Crown a little early to make sure we got a table on the patio for fireworks. But, as we got past Imagination and toward World Showcase it became soaking rain time again. This time, though, it didn't really want to let up. We were seated right away and almost the second we sat down the first lightning hit - and it was quite close (no idea where, but extremely bright and extremely loud and almost no delay). It was quite the light show while we ate our dinner! We didn't get any great lightning pictures, but here's all the wet.

Okay, maybe it's a little tough to see on that how much rain was falling, but it was pretty impressive. And the lightning became very regular as we ate. Also got the announcement about halfway through dinner that fireworks were cancelled (we also found out today that the Boo Bash from last night had to be cancelled as well because of the rough weather). We started our dinner with the cheese plate which we always do enjoy.

Oh, and, of course a couple of pints - a golden (Bass and Harp mixed) and a Bass. For this meal, our food pictures are a little different. We always get these nice pretty pictures of food looking all kinds of fabulous, but if you just read the trip reports you might not believe that we ever actually eat any of it. So, here's the tomato basil soup. Very good and just a touch spicy which I really liked.

@MeffysMom always enjoys getting the bangers and mash and this night was no different!

Any our daughter really likes fish and chips and Rose and Crown has some of the best around (not sure which is better between R&C and Raglan). Three healthy pieces of fish and a good number of chips. And I helped her out a little.

For dessert, our daughter enjoyed the sticky toffee pudding - well, really we all did!

And while @MeffysMom enjoyed another pint, I decided to enjoy a wee pour of the Lagavulin scotch, which is one of my favorites.

By the time we finished it was a bit past 9:30pm and the park was pretty empty as we headed out. The rain had lightened up quite a bit, but was definitely still coming down. We did manage to get a few pictures, though!

And there was still a Photopass photographer hanging out by the tapstiles and taking pictures from under cover (but the picture subjects were still out in the rain).

Even with the cancelled fireworks and the thorough soaking, we still had a very good night. It's afternoon rest and relaxation time now and if I don't fall asleep, I just might get this morning's Animal Kingdom and Blizzard Beach time posted before we head to dinner.