Friday 14th February - last day :(
We all got up showered, dressed etc and struggled out of our room with all of our cases at about 9.30ish - there was no EMH so there was no rush and we wanted to do the Studios this morning anyway. We left all of the luggage at the hotel storage room ready to be transported to the train station later and then started our wander towards the village, waving goodbye to the Hotels Santa Fe and Cheyenne as we went (literally - I'm sure other people must have thought we were loons waving and shouting goodbye to everything on the way!!).
The main aim of being in the studios this morning was to meet Mushu - E had not stopped talking about him since we missed him earlier in the week so it was today's 'must do' item and I was busily crossing everything I could that he would actually appear!! We were a bit early for the characters in Production Courtyard so we went over to one of the shows, Animagique, to see if we could watch that instead; sadly it had just started so we couldn't go in and the next show wasn't for another 45 minutes so we left that and headed past Crush's Coaster (only a 30 min queue - I need a trip on my own to do the rides!!) and went to see which characters were are out for Meet & Greets. It was Mickey Mouse on his own so E waited 5 minutes to see him again and we took a few snaps. Buzz wasn't out yet so we decided to wait as there was no queue at the time - there was just one English family in front of us on their first ever trip so we spent the next 20 minutes chatting to them about our trips and what they had done, whilst their son and mine compared autographs. I love how you can just chat to complete strangers as if you've known them all your life and it not be weird at Disney!!
Buzz came out to great fanfare and high five'd our boys on his way past as they were at the front of the queue and the Cast Member kindly stamped their autograph books because Buzz can't sign personally (big hands!!). E had a great time meeting Buzz again, he really loved the interaction and trying to copy his poses!
That done we wandered back to Production Courtyard to wait for the characters to come out. It was really damp, windy and overcast today & that horrible cold that seems to sink right down into your bones. We waited for five minutes and there was no sign of any characters yet so E got in the buggy and I wrapped him up in the little blanket I keep in it and I headed over to the little snack stop next to the Tower of Terror ride to buy hot chocolate & coffee for L and I. We spent some time looking at all the giant posters and E was talking a lot about Maleficent, pointing out all her pictures everywhere - as I mentioned he's scared of lots of things but for some reason he's really taken with her, even though we've never seen the film and to me, she looks quite terrifying!
After about another 10 minutes we saw some movement behind the gates and out came Ariel - our first princess :) E was happy because we met her when we queued at the Princess Pavillion last year (he refused to do it again this trip - 'it hurts my feet waiting that long for a princess Mummy') so he thought that she must remember him! She was lovely and really spent time chatting to him whilst she drew bubbles in his autograph book. Just as we were leaving Ariel, Mushu arrived - thank goodness for that!!! We rushed over and were right near the front of his queue line - E was over the moon and couldn't stop grinning. He kep telling L that Mushu isn't much bigger than him so he must be four too haha. Mulan was there too but E said he didn't want to meet her but L really wanted to see Mary Poppins and Bert so we queued for them and they were really talkative with E, spending quite a bit of time with him and asked if he lives near London as that's where they're from etc (good job he doesn't understand accents yet, they were decidedly un-English lol).
We spotted Aladdin and Jasmine over near Tower of Terror so we rushed over but the Cast Member said that he had closed their queue line but that they'd be back in 20 minutes time. By now E was absolutely freezing - whilst waiting for Buzz earlier on he had been running his hands up and down the railings in the rain water so his woollen gloves were soaked and by now his hands were blotchy and red they were so cold. A couple of days previously he'd spotted some giant Mickey hands for sale inone of the shops but I'd said he couldn't have them (meany Mummy strikes again), so L said that as he was so cold we'd go to the shop and she'd buy him some to warm him up so we headed into Studio 1 for some retail therapy. Two pairs of fleece gloves (one for E and one for L who realised she'd packed her gloves in her case), one pair of giant Mickey hands, a huge fleece blanket, a Peter Pan toy set, a long life Mickey bag and some sweets later we finally left the shop laden down with bags!! Sadly cuddly Sven and Kristoff were not to be on this trip, much to our disappointment but it did mean that we could buy some other stuff instead so there's always a silver lining.
We headed back outside and E was showing off his giant hands to anybody that happened to walk past, much to their amusement! The characters were all having a break for now so we went to test out the scream machines at the Monsters Inc set and E gave Mike his traditional cuddle plus an extra one for a friends little boy back home . We wandered down to show E the Moteurs, Action, Stunt show area to see if he would give it a try later on (well, you never know!!) but of course it was a no! I was excited to finally find the raining umbrella though (a prop outside one of the shops that actually rains!) but it's not raining, presumably because it's winter and there was enough of it falling out of the sky already! Back we went to see which characters were out and as we walked back we saw Gaston from Beauty and the Beast striding across the courtyard to Aladdin and Jasmine's spot, right by us. We've never seen him before so we waited and were second in the queue; E was a little bit nervous - Gaston was huge and of course talks in this big, booming voice. When It was our turn, Gaston shouted to E 'come here boy, what are those ludicrous hands - are you a mutant?!' at him, E and I were in fits of giggles (not sure what L thought at this point haha) as he ran over and got his book signed. Gaston was AMAZING!! He is my favourite face character by far now, he was so so in character and the cast member playing him obviously loves his job. He got E to pose with his giant hands in the air to show everyone and then as we were getting ready to leave he said to E 'who is that ridiculous woman with you, shoo, go on, take her away' - I haven't seen E laugh like that in ages and I had a huge lump in my throat, close to tears it was so so special. Since we got back he keeps telling all of his friends about Gaston telling mummy she was ridiculous and needed to shoo lol.
As we were putting the autograph book away Aladdin and Jasmine wandered over with their Cast Member who had a little tiff with the cast member with Gaston as he'd 'stolen' their space - Aladdin and Jasmine didn't seem to care and wandered off underneath the portico (the bit with the chairs and tables) to find their own space and their cast member ended up chasing after them! They found a great spot in front of the arches, looking back into the courtyard - I think they should just leave it to them to find a suitable spot next time haha. When it was our turn Aladdin chatted to E whilst Jasmine signed his book and then they swapped - but disaster, the pen runs out! Argh, clearly had too much use this week lol. Aladdin asked the cast member if he could have another pen and he wouldn't let E leave until it was signed, which I really appreciated. They then showed him how princes and princesses pose in Agrabah so he could copy them.
We'd had an amazing morning in the studios but we took E's pen running out as a sign to leave and headed back to the main park to find somewhere warm for lunch. Lots of goodbye waves to everything again as we leave!
It was about 1pm by this point and we were all a bit cold and damp so we decided we needed somewhere nice to sit and enjoy lunch. We settled on Plaza Gardens, which is a buffet restaurant at the end of Main Street - for some reason it's never really appealed to me before but I am so glad we tried it, it was lovely! We queued for about ten minutes and then paid the cashier, before being shown to a table by the waiter who took our drinks order to get. We had a fabulous lunch at the buffet, there was so much to choose from and E loved watching a man carving pictures into watermelons in the central section. I wasn't sure if refillable drinks were included in the price but L and I both asked for another drink expecting to pay for it but we weren't charged for them so presumably they were.
We spent just over an hour in there and would definitely go back again, shame we didn't try it before really! We then had a final wander round the lands (to wave goodbye obviously!!) and did some last minute shopping in Main Street before saying a sad farewell to the park. We went to the village to grab some drinks and snacks (brownies) for the train ride home from Earl of Sandwich and had a last look round the shops, trying on fabulous ears / hats in the Disney Fashion store and then that was it, time to head to the train station to collect luggage and board the train home :(
So, it had it's ups and downs but despite the illnesses we still had a fabulous week - it didn't stop us too much and looking back, it was nice to come home a little rested instead of completely exhausted for a change!! There were lots of things that I wanted to do that we didn't manage (Dreams & Stars and Cars to name just two - trying not to be too gutted about that!!) but, we have never ever seen so many characters out and about and had such fantastic interaction with them all so really, really can't complain.
Now to plan the next trip ;)
AFUK x
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