My November Disney Trip Haul

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the only good thing about unpacking after a holiday is being able to get out all the cool things you bought during your trip. I can leave my clothes in my case for days but I’ll always be digging out souvenirs as soon as I step in the door.

To be honest, it felt like I bought a lot more on this trip than I actually did, mainly due to the fact that I actually bought quite a bit for other people, and also because I splurged on a lot of non-Disney purchases, so while my credit card took a bit of a hit, I’ve not got much to show you today, but what I did buy, I love.

I have been waiting for Disney to release a proper Mrs Potts teapot for FOREVER. I know Primark released a knock-off money box and various other products, but I’ve really disliked all of the ‘dupes’ that have been going round, so when I walked into Village Gifts in Fantasyland and saw this beauty on display I knew I’d be coming home with her! My only gripe is that the Chip that comes with her is a lot smaller than the Chip teacups, and probably too small to be used as an actual teacup, but I’ve decided that he will be the little sugar bowl for my now complete tea set! She’s also fully dishwasher safe!

How adorable is this little Mickey? I’m a sucker for Alex and Ani, but I especially love this bracelet because its a bit different with a sliding charm rather than a dangling one, which makes it a bit more practical for wearing day to day, whereas my other ones can be a bit too jangly! PS. They also had a Minnie one, and both are available in gold as well as silver.

Much like a trip to Lush, I love a trip to Basin in Disney Springs. I love looking at the different soap designs, but I especially love snagging a bargain with their variety bags. These bags contain off-cuts of 3-4 different soaps, but whereas you’d pay $5-8 dollars (weight dependent) on a single slice of one soap, these bags vary from $3-4 and you probably get a little bit more soap out of it, as well as getting to try a few different ones!

My final purchases were also from Disney Springs, but this time Uniqlo. First of all, I’d highly recommend hitting Uniqlo if you’re after Disney t-shirts – they have so many designs which are all really cute, and they’re a fraction of the price of the shirts you’ll see in the parks – but what I actually bought was trousers! They had a whole wall of these sweet 3/4 length culotte-style pants in various prints but all featuring little Mickey heads in the design. I chose two different pairs, the first being the all-over Mickey print, and then I also picked up a more subtle striped print that has tiny little hidden Mickey’s dotted randomly over it. They’re so comfy, and they have pockets!

My other US purchases were primarily makeup, and if you’re interested in seeing what I got keep an eye out as there’ll be lots of review posts coming up soon!

Twitter / Bloglovin / Instagram

November 20, 2017Lottie 2 Comments

Lottie and Matthew Do Disney: Days 14 and 15

As it was our last full day here, we were up bright and early for a breakfast reservation at Crystal Palace and as the park seemed to be pretty quiet, we went straight from there to Big Thunder Mountain – which was practically a walk-on – before going to our first fastpass of the day, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.

On somewhat of a rollercoaster trail, after that we decided to go standby for Space Mountain, which claimed to be a 55 minute wait, but I definitely don’t think we waited that long, although I may have been too distracted by playing the video games that they have in the queue to notice the time go by! For some unknown reason, some of the lights were on, which meant we could see some of the crazy track, but not all of it – I’d love to ride it with all the lights on just one time, but I’ll settle for that for now! To kill a bit of time before our next fastpass, we hopped on the TTA Peoplemover for a quick spin around Tomorrowland, and then made our way back across to Liberty Square for Haunted Mansion.

Once we’d said farewell to the grim grinning ghosts, we walked round to Frontierland station and rode the train back round to Main Street USA. Lunch was on the cards now so we went to Pinocchio’s Village Haus, and then also grabbed ice cream from Plaza Ice Cream Parlour where I got a cookie sandwich the size of my face, but as it was so hot it was all melting too quickly for me to take a photo!

Due to the heat, and whatever my stupid cold/flu thing is, I was starting to feel pretty rotten again, so we headed back to the hotel so I could have a nap, and then went for a final swim in the resort. We also made an impromptu dinner reservation at Grand Floridian Cafe, which meant we decided to get a bus to Animal Kingdom so that we could then get a bus straight to the resort, but due to some confusion and a hideously long bus line, once at Animal Kingdom we decided to just get an Uber!

Dinner was great; I’ve had breakfasts as GFC before and loved it and dinner was no different. As it was our last night, we decided to splash out and get cocktails too – I had a Florida Sunshine which was so yum! From the restaurant, we could even see the fireworks from Happily Ever After while having our dessert!

After dinner we had more transportation nightmares as the monorail was temporarily closed, so we piled on a bus to Magic Kingdom, which then actually dropped us at Contemporary, and there was some sort of accident at the bus stops at MK and an ambulance present so all sorts of delays meant we didn’t get back to our hotel til really late..

Our final morning was a lot more laid back. We got up, packed up the last of our things and checked out of the room, then grabbed some breakfast at Pepper Market before catching the bus to Disney Springs, as our park tickets were no longer valid. Instead, we went bowling at Splitsville, which was a lot of fun – instead of charging by the game as I’m used to, we were given an hour to play as many games as we could fit into that time, which was just over 3 for us!

After bowling, we had lunch at Planet Hollywood, and then had a last browse of the shops before undertaking the slightly embarrassing task of using up all of our remaining food credits in buying snacks and candy. We split our remaining credits between Goofy’s Candy Co and Ghirardelli’s, walking away with over $200 of goods for absolutely nothing – we had a lot of snack and QS credits left..

With that, we were on our way back to the hotel, and on the sad Magical Express to the airport. As with our flight out, we have a stopover in Dublin so it’s going to be a long journey! See ya real soon, Walt Disney World!

November 15, 2017Lottie 4 Comments

Lottie and Matthew Do Disney: Day 4

Today has been a pretty lazy day, so not much to report folks! We had planned to do Universal today, but decided on a shuffle of days so instead we had a bit of a lie in, then hit the resort gym for a short stint before grabbing some breakfast and heading to the pool.

We stayed poolside til about midday, then changed and headed to Disney Springs, where first on the agenda was lunch. I was dying to try out one of the new quick service options, so we decided on Blaza Pizza and OH MY GOD. A) this was a quick service credit on our dining plan and we got a whole pizza each, B) it was the coolest idea for a pizza place ever – think Pizza Hut crossed with Subway, and C) the pizza was so good! I’m still thinking about it.

After food, it was time for some retail therapy. I dragged Matthew on his first trip to Sephora, where he had to endure my umming and ahhing over what to buy and how much I could justify sending etc. I kept it in the double digits, I’m quite proud. After Sephora we browsed a few more of the stores, then hit Uniqlo where we both bought a few things, and World of Disney, then Basic and the Marketplace Co-op.

Once shopped out for the day, we got the bus back to the resort to dump our purchases, then headed out to Magic Kingdom. The sole reason for hitting MK tonight was so that I could watch Happily Ever After for the first time. We got into the park about an hour before the show time and still had to battle a little bit for a good spot, and sat to stake out.

I had mixed feelings. I mean, I loved it, but as many others do I had very strong feelings for it’s predecessor shows so there’s always that little twinge of sadness (RIP Celebrate the Magic), but it was still amazing. After the show we made use of the remaining half an hour in the park by doing Big Thunder Mountain, which is my favourite ride to do in the dark, before joining the crowds leaving the kingdom for the night.

November 4, 2017Lottie 3 Comments

February Disney Trip Day 7

Another day in Disney paradise! We kicked off the morning with breakfast at the Grand Floridian Cafe, although the crazy number of people trying to get into the parks meant we were half an hour late for our reservation, but the cast members were really understanding and it wasn’t a problem at all.

After a quick explore of the hotel grounds, we caught the bus into Disney Springs for a few indulgent hours of shopping which involved a lot of Sephora (haul post to come!) and of course some World of Disney and the other shops available. Disney Springs has been developed so much even in the year since I was last there, and it’s so beautiful now with new water features and pretty new shopping areas. We refuelled with an Earl of Sandwich, then got the boat from marketplace back to the hotel to ditch our shopping bags before heading out to Hollywood Studios for the remainder of the day.

With a little bit of time from entering the park til we could use our Fantasmic fastpass, we decided to abuse our Memory Maker and get a bunch of photopass photos in various places, then grabbed some popcorn before we made our way into the amphitheater, getting almost front row seats for the magic! Now, as we discovered, that does come with a little bit of spray if the wind isn’t on your side.. Of course the show was its usual amazing self, encapsulating some of my favourite Mickey moments and even Meeko made an appearance on the boat!

After Fantasmic, we joined the crowds in front of The Chinese Theater to watch the Star Wars fireworks, which I’d really hyped up to Sarah – the non-Star Wars fan – after I was wowed by them last year, but since the last time I saw them the display has changed a little and while it was still impressive, I wasn’t as completely blown away as I was last year. Then, to avoid the crush of people leaving the park, we stepped into the entrance area of Trolley Car Cafe for a little while and let the park clear a bit before we made our way out. This proved to be somewhat of a mistake, as when we arrived at our resort bus stop, the queue was CRAZY LONG. I’m talking maybe 3-5 buses worth of people, and that didn’t sound fun to us, so instead we queued for the French Quarter bus, and walked the path down to Riverside from there, tiring us out nicely enough for bed! Zzzzzzzz