Thursday 13th February - Day 5
Sadly another terrible nights sleep for me - my ear was so so painful I couldn't get comfortable at all. I had some of those little hand warmers that you get from £1 shops and kept putting them on my ear as it was helping a little - I had to sneak the kettle into the bathroom so I could use it to reset them without waking anyone else up, would have been hilarious to watch I'm sure!! I gave up trying to sleep at 4am and started reading a book - had finished the whole thing by 8am when the others woke up lol. At this point I suddenly remembered that I'd popped some anti inflammatory tablets in the bag at the last minute but they were in a different pocket to the 'medicine bag' so took some of those and within an hour my ear started to feel better - couldn't believe it!!
Anyway, a quick look out of the window showed that it was absolutely pouring with rain - literally, throwing it down in bucket loads so we decided not to rush and have a lazy morning. When the cleaners arrived we were all still in pyjamas reading books, playing games and slowly starting our packing - they must have thought we were complete nutters being at Disneyland and vegging about in our pj's!!
We got washed & dressed and made our way to the parks at abut 11ish and the rain had all gone. We saw Goofy in his usual M&G spot and E wanted to see him again so we wandered over and hiding behind him was Donald Duck - yay, so so happy! Great photo ops here as Donald is so mischievous and was dancing with E. We then saw Goofy straight away - he is just brilliant, he pretended he was leaning on E's head but when E moved away he stayed in that position pretending not to notice he'd gone and then 'fell over' when he realised, just magical!!
We decided to take L over to Discoveryland next as we hadn't been there yet - the Autopia ride was shut (as usual, never seems to be open on my trips!!) and E is scared of the Buzz's Laser Blast ride so we hadn't really made much effort to visit up until that point. We had a good look round and then did a little shopping at one of the shops. We received a text from one friend to say that they were in the park too so we arranged to meet them at the Hakuna Matata restaurant in Adventureland in 20 minutes time. We wandered via central plaza in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle and I asked a cast member if there was anything special happening for Valentine's Day tomorrow - sadly not he said, which was a shame. It started to rain again at that point so when we met our friends we had to huddle under a doorway to avoid a drenching! Was so nice seeing them - had a quick chat with them about what we had all been up to and E told them all about his character meets! Was such a shame that we'd had to change most of our dinner plans due to illness and couldn't spend more time with them this time.
We left them as they headed off to Walts Restaurant and we were going to go to the Toad Hall counter service restaurant, via the Aladdin photo op, to share some fish and chips as it had been open the day before - when we get there though it was shut, boo :( They have little signs up now though that show which counter service restaurants are open instead and really the only one near us was Chalet au Marionette, which I've never been to before. We locked up the buggy and headed indoors - it was raining a lot so it was packed inside but we queued up and were served fairly quickly. There weren't many seats so we ended up sharing a large bench seat / table with another English family. I was very pleasantly surprised by the food - L and I both had the half chicken and chips meal deal and E had a children's meal, the food was nice, hot and plentiful and we all enjoyed it. I think it cost approx 40 euros. When we left it was still pouring with rain and there was hardly anybody about - was a bit eery actually seeing it so quiet! The Flying Dumbo's were closed, presumably because of the weather so we headed to the Mickey Mouse M&G - it's indoors so thought it would be a good place to keep warm and dry for a bit.
The wait was 30 minutes (I think everyone had the same idea lol) but it flew by as there is a huge cinema style screen with fantastic traditional cartoons shown on it - E was belly laughing watching them and has kept asking about them since we returned home. We had a lovely time meeting Mickey and when we left it had stopped raining and the sun had come out with a beautiful rainbow stretched over Fantasyland - it looked so special and like it had been put there especially for the magical effects :)
Time for another ride on IASW, where I managed to hang onto all of my possessions this time haha. Time was getting on a bit now and we wanted to see Descent of the Stairs in the Disneyland Hotel (sort of a mini character procession down the main staircase) as we had missed it on our arrival day due to the late train. It wasn't too busy when we first arrived but the crowd soon built with everyone waiting patiently at the bottom of the staircase - for some reason though the characters didn't come down it and there was no music like usual, they just wandered out of a door next to the lifts instead. Bit of a shame but still lovely. Today's characters were Tweedle Dee & Dum, Mickey, Tigger, Eeyore, Goofy and Gideon (from Pinocchio) - we've met all of them on this trip except Gideon so we rushed over for a photo and autograph and then decided to leave as it was busy and we wanted to get a space for the parade. A friend of mine booked the same deal as us for the same dates but because of all the illnesses (her and her children were poorly too!) we hadn't managed to meet up yet - I text her to let her know where we were and realised that she was in the hotel meeting characters, we had literally just missed each other, so frustrating!!
We waited about 45 minutes for the parade - it had stopped raining and the sun was coming out but was now freezing cold with a biting wind. It doesn't matter how many times you see the parades at Disney, they are still just as magical and L said she thought it was better than the one she saw in Florida a few years ago.
It was our last evening so I was desperate to stay and see Dreams, the night time show, but L and E were cold & all of our feet were hurting at this point so we agreed to head to the hotel for an hour to warm up and return later. We stopped at City Hall to see if we could bring our Cafe Mickey booking forward so we could eat instead of going to the hotel but they were fully booked until 10pm. Once back at the hotel, everybody was tired and wanted to rest before dinner. I was the only one who wanted to go back and wait for Dreams (E is still scared and doesn't want to watch - L is worn out!) so we didn't go back to the park and I STILL haven't seen it - more than gutted.
We walked back to the village for our 8pm reservation at Cafe Mickey and there was a huge queue however a lot of people hadn't reserved a table and were turned away - such a shame but really shows you need to book dining reservations before you go! We were seated upstairs, which is a first for us but it was really lovely, our table felt like it had more space round it and there was a great atmosphere. The usual characters were present - Mickey, Minnie, Tigger, Eeyore, Goofy & Pluto - who were all brilliant and really interacted with E, coming back to our table several times; he was bouncing off the walls with excitement. Pluto was also very happy to have a 'selfie' photo taken with us, which seemed to amuse everyone!! L and I didn't want the set menu but E had the children's one. We ordered a garlic pizza bread to share as a starter between the three of us (E wasn't fussed on the soup or salad option on the kids menu), L and I both had the fish and chips, E had pizza and we all had drinks - it was really very tasty and we couldn't eat all of our main course, probably shouldn't have had a big meal at lunchtime too! Total cost was 78 euros, which I was very pleased with as it can be very expensive to eat at Disneyland.
We took a slow walk back to the Hotel Santa Fe at 9.45pm (still big queues to get into Cafe Mickey at that point!!) - all completely shattered but we finished our packing and headed to bed sad that it was our last night :(
AFUK x
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