Day 8 ~ Downtown Disney & Ohana

The plan today was to go to Altamonte Mall after hearing about its great Abercrombie sales. But unfortunately the tiredness was really catching up with us now and none of us surfaced until 8am. In fact it was Paul that woke me up at 7:55am this morning telling me that I had to speak to my Nan.

I mentioned a bit about my Nan on travel day; how we’d popped in to see her on the way to the Hilton and she was really worried about us going on such a long flight... Well my Dad’s fiend, John (A.K.A Jonny Pops) had arranged to go and pick her up one morning and take her back to he and his wife’s house in Milton Keynes for brunch so that she didn’t get lonely. Johnny Pops had left me a massive long message on my Facebook wall a few days previously which had us all in stitches. He has such a funny (be it warped) sense of humour. He wanted us to all come on the laptop and chat to my Nan at 1pm (their time) which unfortunately for us was 8am USA time. So you can imagine my panic when it was nearly 8am and everyone was still sleeping! I ran into the living room, turned my laptop on followed by the kettle and went to wake my mum and dad up.

After a little while they eventually showed up on Facebook and we had a chat but their connection kept getting lost. Mum told them how good the flight was, how clean everywhere is, how she’s been on a rollercoaster and what a fantastic time we were having. Then they went for their egg and bacon while we all ate cereal and toast!

Oliver went in the pool for a bit while Amelia watched from her highchair on the lanai. She kept shouting “BOO” and Oliver jumped in the pool each time she said it. She was wetting herself laughing at him! We all finished our breakfast, I put on some washing and got dressed and ready to go out. We thought we would try Premium Outlets today, having passed them 4 times already whilst driving to other places, but for some strange reason we couldn’t find them today! I blame Paul’s shocking sense of direction! We settled on going to Downtown Disney, (which we planned on going to after Premium outlets anyway). This pleased Tracy as we had mentioned DTD about 20 times since we arrived and she kept asking when we were going. I showed her some pictures of cupcake Vinylmations before we came to Florida and she couldn’t wait to buy them. Oh, and for those of you who commented on her Minnie Mouse nails on day 7... here’s a close up of them!

The heat hit us as we got out of the car. It was 32° today! Mum was moaning that it was too hot and her feet hurt. She had got massive blisters over the last few days and was really sore. Good job I was sensible enough to bring blister plasters with us! She didn’t really want to come out today so the atmosphere wasn’t great.

We walked around some shops. Dad sat on a Harley Davidson and tried on a turkey leg hat. He was still determined to get a turkey leg before we went back home

Then we went into D Street to get Tracy’s cupcake Vinylmations.

Amelia loved it in here and sat at the table looking at all the different designs. So much in fact that she had a complete melt down when I tried to get her off the chair. A lady came over and asked if she’d like to do some colouring and went off to get her a colouring sheet and some sharpies... not the greatest medium for a 2 year old and she ended up colouring her T-shirt as well, but it kept her quiet at least!

I never really “got” the whole Vinylmation thing before we went in D Street. I didn’t really know what they were, but I can now see how people get hooked on them. There were so many I would have loved to have bought. Oliver had his eye on a Perry Vinylmation. I told him we would see how much money we had at the end of the holiday though as we were sure to be coming back here again.

Next we went to the Candy Cauldron. Snow White is one of my favourite Disney films, so I loved the theming in here. We bought some of Minnie’s Bake shop Character Cookies which Amelia loved and Oliver got a bag of jelly beans.

We went in Hoypoloi but I had to go back outside with Amelia as she was trying to grab everything off the shelves! Tracy went in Something Silver and we waited outside for her as it was really busy in there. Paul said about taking him to Disney Quest. We had Virgin Amaze Me tickets which also gave free entry to DQ. As I went to get the tickets out of my purse I realised that they weren’t in there. I suddenly felt sick. I thought back to the last time we had them which was Epcot two days previously... Paul had taken them when he stormed off. I asked him where he put them and he said they would probably be in the pocket of his shorts back at the villa. I felt even sicker as I pictured the shorts hanging on the washing line in the games room as I had washed them before we came out this morning. He said he would go back and find them and I told him to make sure he brought his phone with him so he could call me when he got back to DTD. Up until now it had been left in the safe every day. I was absolutely livid. Any normal person would put the tickets in a safe place, like a wallet or something. I hate the way he just shoves important things in his back pocket for any pick-pocketer to help themselves to.

Tracy eventually emerged from Something Silver having bought some really nice cupcake earrings. We all walked around, looked in the shops and took photos.

Can’t remember why, but for some reason we split up here. Not sure where Tracy and Mum went, but I remember meeting Dad and Oliver in the Lego Imagination Centre about 10-15 minutes after they went in. I struggled to find them so I took Amelia in the little room where you could build models. There was a Duplo area, but she was far more interested in the actual Lego, particularly the little men.

I eventually managed to get her out of there and into the main shop which was hard work. I distracted her with some Snow White Duplo which she took an instant like to and carried the box all around the shop. She got the Sleeping Beauty set for her birthday and I wanted to get her some more anyway. Just wasn’t sure if we’d get it home as the box was quite big.

We walked around looking for the others and I took a few more snaps...

We found Dad and he was about to buy Oliver a Lego set so he said he would get Amelia’s one too . Oliver got Kai’s Blade Cycle and Amelia got Snow White’s Cottage; Both $14.99 each. I think that’s quite a bit cheaper than they are in the UK.

Oliver showed me the model he had just made at one of the little stations in the centre of the shop and I took MORE photos!

While Dad was paying, Amelia sat at one of the little stations next to a little American girl, probably about 6 years old. Amelia picked up a few pieces of Lego from the trough in front of the little girl and put it on her plate. The girl then scooped all the Lego to the right hand side so that Amelia couldn’t have any. She was pulling such a horrible face at her she could have been sucking a lemon. Amelia, innocent as she is, tried giving the girl a little orange Lego brick, but the girl kept throwing it back at her. I said “She’s only trying to play with you!” but it made no difference. They were HER bricks and she wasn’t sharing them with anyone. I felt a bit sad for Amelia. She’s only 2 and loves playing with older children, but since being in Florida, some of the American kids had been quite nasty towards her. I picked her up and told her we would go and find Grandad.
A little while after I thought I would go and have a look outside to see if Paul was on his way back. He had text me a while earlier saying he was on his way back and I expected he should be here any time now. I told him we were in the Lego store. As luck would have it, I just spotted him walking through the crowds and thank heavens he had found the tickets in the pocket of his other shorts and not the ones I had washed, so we still had Disney tickets! Woo-Hoo! He said that while he was at the villa he noticed a big pipe just outside the pool door was spraying water everywhere and there were also 2 toads in a hole next to it! He phoned the management company, although I didn’t hold my breath for it being fixed. Our hot tub was still leaking every day despite reporting it and we had been unable to use it since we arrived.

We all met up and went in the World of Disney store (my favourite shop in the world!)

We must have spent over an hour in here! Tracy found some more Cupcake Vinylmations and I searched for the photo frame I had been looking for since we arrived in Orlando, without success. We bought another box of Minnie’s Bake shop Character Cookies and Amelia ate most of them!

Dad pointed out a large group of women with young babies. They were all gathered in one section of the shop and all had name badges on; Obviously a meet up of some sort. A baby forum equivalent to a Dibb meet maybe?

When we’d finished up in here, we went to Ghirardelli’s for drinks and ice cream.

 We went in the wrong entrance and wound up in the shop where we were all given a free sample of Ghirardelli Squares with caramel filling. OMG, it was to die for! I considered buying a bag to take home until I saw the price. I think they were about $20 a bag! Plus they would only have melted in the heat.

We went outside and back into the restaurant side and ordered a small frozen latte for Dad, a small latte for Mum, a small coke float for Oliver, a Domingo (with no nuts) for me (shared with Paul and Amelia) a large latte for Paul and a bottle of water for Amelia. Tracy ordered a Nob Hill Chill which sent Oliver in fits of giggles and it became another one of those phrases that was used throughout the holiday (we’re so immature)! The lady gave Amelia a colouring sheet and some crayons and I picked up some spoons, straws and napkins and what I thought was a little plastic dish so I could scoop some of my ice cream out for Amelia so she could have her own bowl, but felt really silly when I got back to the table and realised it had a hole in the bottom. It was one of those dome lids that go on cups with a hole for a straw! I went back and got a plastic cup and another spoon as she’d dropped the first one on the floor.

The Domingo was the best ice cream I have ever eaten in my life! I didn’t want it to end! It consisted of vanilla ice cream surrounded by bananas, topped with hot fudge, whipped cream, chopped almonds and a cherry.  I wish I had taken a photo of it. I had already eaten a third of it by the time Tracy got her camera out though!

Tracy enjoying her Nob Hill Chill!

Nob Hill Chill - More than a milkshake! Two scoops of vanilla ice cream blended with hot fudge and topped with semi-sweet chocolate chips.

For all the drinks and ice cream sundaes/floats, it came to $38.50.

We left here and looked around Days of Christmas and then Team Mickey. Then we walked through the shop into Tren-D. I loved it in here and could have bought out the whole shop! Paul mentioned again about going to Disney Quest and he said he would take Dad and Oliver (anything to get out of a clothes shop with three and a half women!). We spent a while in here. I tried a dress and a T-shirt on and loved them both so much that I didn’t buy either I told myself I would come back for them at the end of the holiday if we had any money left.

Tracy wanted to look in a shop that I’m sure wasn’t there the last time we were in Florida; Little Miss Matched. It was a cute store selling quirky socks; mostly odd ones in packs of three. How jammy?! Most people on the planet tend to have 2 feet, so why would you want a pack of 3 socks? Obviously to make you buy two packs. We had a quick look around didn’t buy anything. There were so many other shops I wanted to look in, but we were getting really tired now, especially Mum, so we decided that we would make our way back to meet the others outside Disney Quest. We thought we would get a boat over to West Side but the queue was already huge and just as we got there, a boat was pulling away. With much persuasion, Tracy and I talked Mum into walking back. It didn’t take too long, but the heat slowed us down a bit.

Once outside Disney Quest, I went to get our tickets out of my purse but a lady outside told us we couldn’t take in strollers. Amelia was fast asleep and I didn’t want to wake her up. I text and phoned Paul but his phone kept going straight to voicemail. Mum eventually agreed to wait outside with Amelia so that Tracy and I could go in and find them. She wasn’t keen as her feet were killing her and it was SO hot outside and very little shade. We told her we’d be as quick as we could and went inside. I couldn’t get over how big the place was. There were 5 floors... how we were ever going to find them I don’t know. We walked around as quickly as we could, hoping they wouldn’t be coming down in a lift as we were going up the stairs. When we’d done three levels, we finally found Paul... or rather he found us! They had gone outside and Mum had told him we’d gone in to find them. So we made our way outside. I’m so glad I hadn’t gone with them to Disney Quest as I would have been bored out of my mind! The boys had a great time though and had also had a cheeky burger each! None of us (the girls) had eaten. It hadn’t even occurred to me before now as I hadn’t felt hungry. Mum had only wanted a drink in Ghirardelli’s earlier as she wasn’t hungry and my ice cream hadn’t really filled me up. We didn’t really want to eat much now though as we had a reservation at Ohana at 8pm this evening. We munched our way through another box of Minnie’s Bake shop Character Cookies and plodded back to the car, exhausted by the heat and were very grateful of the air con. The thought of the pool back at the villa was very appealing right now.

We arrived back at the villa at 6pm and went in the pool for half an hour. I also had a look for the toads but they hid in their hole when they saw me.

We got out the pool, showered, dressed and dolled up for our meal at Ohana. I made Amelia some toast with spaghetti and sausages that I had brought from home and a Dora the Explorer yoghurt that we’d bought in Publix as 8pm was going to be too late for her to eat. Not a great meal, but she hadn’t been eating much at all since we arrived and had just been picking at bits. She could have some of our food in Ohana if she wanted some too.

After driving the wrong way and missing a turning, Paul finally fought his pride and let me ask at the MK gate how we could get to the Polynesian Resort. He told us to follow a white car that was just turning in front of us and to follow the signs to the Poly.
We eventually found it and told the man on the gate that we had a reservation. He waved us in, but the car park was jam packed and we couldn’t get a space. I told Paul to just go back out and we’d get the MK monorail as I remembered it had stopped at the Poly on our first morning. We arrived JUST in time for our reservation. We parked up the stroller with some others near the check-in desk and was given a pager and told to wait until our table was ready.

We passed the time by taking photos. The resort was SO beautiful. I would love to stay here one day.

After about 20 minutes, our pager went off and we made our way into the restaurant. We were stopped next to the bar where they had set up a little display of the dessert and were told that we must save some room for this after the meal!

'Ohana bread pudding served a la mode with ice cream and Caramel Sauce

We were then shown to a table in the centre of the restaurant (table 42) with Cinderella’s Castle visible through the huge window in the distance. We were told we’d have a good view of the fireworks later on.

I took a few more cheeky snaps of the inside of the restaurant... the huge wood grill stove, the kind of cabana ceiling over our table complete with turtles and dolphins and the tiki-style pillars all around the room. It had such a lovely, calming atmosphere.

Our server, Houda, looked rushed off her feet, but we were never kept waiting throughout the whole meal. She explained how everything worked; we were their guests and would be waited on all night and could have as much of everything as we wanted. She also called us Cousins. She gave us a platter of Pineapple-Coconut Bread which was out of this world!

We ordered drinks and they were brought over followed by some mixed greens with mango-poppy seed dressing, honey coriander chicken wings and pork fried dumplings. I’m a bit of a salad dodger and hate anything green (I know, that’s really unhealthy, but I just can’t stand the texture) but I couldn’t get enough of the wings and dumplings. They were delicious! Just writing about them is making my mouth water!

After a while we were asked if we wanted more and we said we’d like some more chicken wings and dumplings and then she came around with skewers loaded with oak grilled chicken, barbecued pork loin, marinated sirloin steak and grilled peel - n - eat Shrimp. It was all so delicious! If there was one thing I could have changed it would be that the shrimp was already peeled as I find it so fiddly and it takes the enjoyment out of the food a bit. I do love my shrimp! Maybe i'm just lazy.  I don't like having to work for my food! Lol. The steak was also a bit too peppery for me. I had one more helping of chicken when they came round for a second time but I couldn’t manage any more after that. I was stuffed!

As we waited for our dinner to go down, a lady came out in Hawaiian dress and was talking to a couple on the next table to us who’s Anniversary it was. She got all the kids up and they paraded around the restaurant shaking maracas and were each given a lei. Oliver didn’t want to go up but Paul took Amelia as she was practically exploding with excitement watching it all.

Oliver eventually decided he actually did want to do it too so went up with Paul. He came back to the table a few minutes later saying he needed the toilet. We told him to ask the lady where is, who was now giving out more leis to all the children. Before he could even ask her, she had thrown a lei around his neck and then we watched as Oliver said something to her and she gave him another Lei! We were all laughing and assumed he probably said “Where’s the loo?” and she obviously thought he’d said “Can I have two?” LMAO. He confirmed our conclusion when he came back to the table laughing, then ran off to find the restrooms and then joined Paul and Amelia again afterwards. They did the limbo and the couple who’s anniversary held up the pole and then had to do it at the end I think.

They came back covered in Lei’s and Amelia actually kept hers on, as well as Daddy’s one on her head!

We all managed to force down a bit of warm banana bread pudding which again, was delicious! I did leave quite a bit though.
Most of the tables were emptying out now and it was almost time for the fireworks so we asked for the check. We didn’t have to pay for Amelia as she was under 3. We were charged for 6 adult meals and it came to $246.44 which included 18% gratuity as we were a party of 7 ($35.63) and $12.87 tax. So it roughly worked out $41 (£27) each. A little on the expensive side, but it was a great meal and a fantastic atmosphere. I couldn’t really fault anything and have put it on my list of places to eat again for our next trip.

I had read several trip reports before we came away where people had watched the fireworks from the Polynesian Resort’s beach, so we paid the cheque and left a tip for Houda and made our way downstairs. There were still guests swimming in the pool and a huge screen had been put up on the beach and there were loads of people watching Tangled on it. I soooo wished I was staying here now!

The beach was packed and there was nowhere to sit down, so we just stood along the wall and shortly after the fireworks began. We could faintly hear the music coming through the speakers. It was really good. Amelia wasn’t keen though. I remembered I’d put some glow sticks in my bag (another thing I’d brought from home!) and they kept her occupied. It wasn’t the fireworks, but the loud bangs that she didn’t like. She didn’t make too much fuss. She just refused to look at them!

We made our way back upstairs when the fireworks had finished, collected Amelia’s pushchair and went back downstairs.
Mum, Dad and I looked in the gallery at the amazing pictures (if only I could win the lottery!) and we sat outside on the sofas. Dad loved it in there and wanted to stay I think! Mum heard a lady tell one of the employees in the gallery to give some balloons to the first kids he saw outside and as luck would have it, Oliver and Amelia were the first ones he saw.

We waited for the monorail and made our way back to the car. Amelia had been so good and was still awake up until the drive home.

Paul’s Sat Nav-less detour on the way home took 1 and a half hours and we arrived back at the villa at 12:03am! Remind me never to let him drive in Florida again! We were all shattered so had a quick cup of tea and went to bed. Zzzzzz