Saturday 12th August

Saturday in Disney and we are moving hotels. This move is a lot less stressful than previous moves! No scrambling to the airport, no running all our luggage through Chicago. Just pack the suitcases and let Bag Services transfer between the hotels.

We had until 11am to get out the room and pack, we ended up doing all the packing in the last hour and getting a bit rushy. We couldn’t get to the new hotel till 3pm so we headed to Disney Springs for some shopping and food.

On the way to Disney Springs, Mummy found out about Fantasmic! Dining Packages. This means dinner plus a stage show for one price. The price will not be mentioned, but the restaurant Hollywood and Vine had character meets (big win) and great reviews for the food selections.

Mummy was on the lookout for the best “spirit jersey”

The boys spent time looking around the biggest Disney store in the world.

We took photos of things Nate wanted for his birthday, Daddy took the boys to the Lego store while Mummy quickly bought them! Similar to the other day, getting into the Lego store was challenging. Again, Daddy refused to queue in the baking sun to look around a shop.

In front of the Lego shop there was an area for kids to build and play Lego. This was enough for the boys and they enjoyed themselves throughly.

Mummy got a ping from the Disney app saying our new room was ready! We jumped on the bus and headed to Disney’s Art of Animation.

We got checked in and found that not only had our bags arrived, but they had already been taken to our room! Winning! The boys in the other hand…

We checked into the Finding Nemo family suite, so perfectly placed. It’s directly outside the swimming pool and only a 2min walk to the Skyliner. The size of this hotel meant that certain rooms (Little Mermaid) could mean a 10min walk to the Skyliner station.

It’s interesting what you get used to. When we were at All Star Music we moved around on the Disney buses. Now we have the Skyliner, we can’t imagine going back to the buses. We were at Hollywood Studios in no time and got to take in the views of Disney.

We did a whistle stop tour of Hollywood Studios before we headed to the restaurant for dinner. Yes, it’s expensive but it’s air conditioned and the food is good quality. The cast member on the door stated “We would like to welcome the Hunter Family”

Turns out as everything is gearing up for Halloween all the characters would be dressed in Halloween outfits tonight. We were told we would see Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto. The boys are peak excitement!

We sat the boys facing the restaurant, mainly so we could see their expressions when the characters walked around!

Nate had one moment where he smiled and said “I don’t think the characters are real” to which we dismissed and largely ignored.

Our friend the Goof

Nate even surprised all of us by asking Goofy “Where is Donald?” and then proceeded to perform a pitch perfect Donald impression that made Goofy laugh and gave Nate a giant hug.

The main man!

Elliott wanted to tell Mickey his joke!

The boys were very excited about getting two new autographs from Minnie Mouse and Pluto!

Minnie had the best autograph and even posed for a Mummy picture. Mummy was complemented numerous times throughout dinner about her Little Mermaid outfit.

Nate needed to eat a bowl of carrots to get ice cream, he spent the time making this face.

We finished up our food and grabbed some chocolate and vanilla swirl ice cream.

We took a quick walk through Toy Story Land, before arriving with 5,000 other people for the show.

We made it to the show, it’s in an open air theatre, it’s 25min long and it’s 27 degrees at 9:30 at night! The heat is something else here.

We had an awesome medley of Disney songs and appearances from Mickey, Elsa, Moana and Aladdin. The videos were projected into enormous water fountains. The technology again is top notch!

Characters came on floatillas around the water, weaving between the firework stations and the crowd edge.

Mummy’s favourite

We left before all the evil characters arrived, with Nate’s bad dreams we don’t want anymore fuel for that fire.

We were supposed to be doing rope drop tomorrow, but after getting back at 11pm that isn’t going to happen. Chilled morning followed by some Hollywood Studios sounds like a plan!