A Buffet With Character at The Magic Kingdom's Crystal Palace

Wednesday 20 April 2016. We are in Disney's Magic Kingdom and are heading for the impressive Crystal Palace restaurant where we have pre-booked a meal.

They describe it as a "Buffet with Character", because various characters from Winnie the Pooh will be coming round the tables as we eat. Well, they won't get any of my scraps...!

Eddie gives in his name as he made the booking and we take a seat on the benches on the tasteful veranda whilst our table is prepared.

This overlooks the central roundabout in front of Cinderella's Castle and this acts as the hub of the Magic Kingdom with paths to the four major sections of the park. Gardens and water features abound and consequently so do bridges. This is an excellent spot for a sit down when the legs get tired or the heat gets too much!

Even without leaving the comfort of the bench, this is the view you have whilst taking your ease. And as a big big plus, you are sitting in the shade and out of the heat of the sun.

Our name is called and we are seated at our table. Grace busies herself with the first priority - getting her autograph book ready in case Pooh or Piglet happen along!

Ah... She's spotted someone! The Crystal Palace has the feel of a large summer house. It was light, airy and cool - the last being quite a relief after the heat of the day outside.

The meal is a buffet so we can go and get whatever we want. But first, whilst we wait to order drinks - a quick round the table set of photos!

Eddie gets a photo all to himself with Tigger seemingly about to bounce into his ear... Okay, you had better prepare yourselves...

Oh, on second thoughts, there's something strangely attractive about these two...

Eeyore has the privilege of being the first character to make it to our table and is given a big welcome from a very excited Grace!

Mummy and Daddy get in on the act as well. Meanwhile our drinks have arrived and we can make our way in our own time to the buffet which has several cold cuts, a carvery section, a beef stew and lots of salad items. After a day spent entirely outside in the full heat of the day, I just picked a few things to nibble. The beef stew though was lovely. I'd have gone back for a bit more, but by the time all the characters had been round, my plate had somehow disappeared as I was distracted... I could easily have picked up another but...

Winnie the Pooh is the next one to come round. We had already met Pooh Bear and Tigger of course, but it didn't seem to spoil Grace's excitement at seeing them again!

Ooh! Piglet! Not seen Piglet, real and live and in the rind before! Incidentally, Gill's dress got many comments during the day. Miss Franny made it.

Piglet signs the autograph book with a clearly delighted Grace looking on. She has a plate of rather cold chips (sorry! - fries!) by now but it doesn't look as though she's bothered much, does it?

Then it is the turn of Tigger, who has a rather attractive security guard escorting him... The little boy behind is clearly impressed with Grace's lighting-up shoes!

We were only two days in and starting to wonder how long the autograph book would take to fill up!

Gill's birthday badge pays dividends as a cup cake with a candle is delivered and a card signed by all of the characters doing the round of the tables.

A joint effort is required to blow out the flame! A short while to sit back and relax and make sure we've seen every fluffy creature that wants to visit us at our table and then we head out back into the park. It is by now starting to cool down a bit and feels fresh with a little breeze.

Just outside Casey's Corner a white upright piano stands. Every now and then this amiable gent comes out to play it honky-tonk style. A favourite of every pianist around Disney seems to be Scott Joplin's piece, Maple Leaf Rag. Even though I never saw two pianists at the same place at the same time, there seemed to be a race as to who could play it the fastest...

The sun starts to get lower in the sky and we decide, having arrived for a breakfast at 8:30am, that it's time to head back to Caribbean Beach Resort. We turn the corner from Casey's and find Main Street U.S.A. already in shadow apart from the upper storey on the right.

Thus ends day two of our holiday. Tomorrow we can have a little lie-in instead of charging out and we'll have breakfast at the resort before heading out to EPCOT.

Disney World Holiday Index

Magic Kingdom: The Adventures of Winnie The Pooh

I'm still covering our first day at Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom and there will be one more yet to come to finish it. And then (wait for it...) another day in Magic Kingdom, because we only covered half of it!

Today's entry is pretty much all about the Winnie The Pooh ride. Don't expect too many photos of the ride itself, because I feel that would be unfair to Disney, though I'm sure there are plenty of pix to be found on a Google search. I'll limit myself to just one near the end and a zoom of the same photo.

We had no Fast Pass for this ride and the queue was going to be 60 minutes. This article takes a look at how well Disney handle their queue (or line) for this ride. At the start of the queue there is the tiny doorway to Pooh's house. It is small enough for children to enter without hindrance from adults... Inside is a little room with honey pots and Pooh's furniture.

More honey pots are stacked outside. The red tags next to Grace are given to random guests joining the line and are collected when they reach the ride proper. The interval between gives the ride operators the length of time to display for the queue. We saw times of 70-90 minutes for some of the big rides - whether it's worth that time shuffling forward for a 2 minute ride is up to you. For rides aimed at children though, the queue itself can be quite entertaining.

Here along the path of the queue is the house of sticks that is Eeyore's house. Again adults enter at their own peril!

Grace emerges unscathed. (It was on a subsequent visit to the ride that she bumped her head on Pooh's front door...)

And next is the see-saw pump. Gophers appear from under the vegetable plot!

Melons and pumpkins act as bongo drums! The kids loved this bit. So did some adults if there were no kids about... After ten minutes or quarter of an hour though...

This was a wire cage with lots of red ping pong balls which gathered into various troughs. Turning one of the wheels on each side of the bottom of the cage worked little spring-loaded hammers which shot the balls into the air!

Ok, we are now close to the ride itself. Riders sit in travelling honey pots around a grotto with scenes from the various Disney Pooh films.

Gill, Grace and Eddie were in one honey pot and Miss Franny and I got into the following one. Gill took this pic as we came through the blustery day section of the ride. Let's just take a closer look...

Ah yes... back to childhood...

We came out of the ride and left the EGGs (Edward, Gill and Grace) heading for the teacup ride and we went off to find a more tasteful type of teacup. Please note: tea in America is a wishy-washy affair. They seem to think it dissolves like instant coffee. Either that or they have a morbid fear of boiling water. I never really got to the bottom of it, even after sending one cup of lukewarm water back. The waiter returned with one still several miles away from being actually hot and said "That's as hot as you'll get it without me asking the chef to do it!"

You know what was in my mind don't you, dear reader. "I asked for boiling water - if the chef is the only one able to do it, why the **** did you not ask him???" But stiff upper lip prevailed and I thought it instead of saying it. He was obviously inwardly cursing Brits for a fussy race of beings anyway...

If you ask for tea you get a cardboard cup with water that you could happily dip your finger in without pain and a selection of teabags. The trick is to add at least two tea bags and move them constantly. It will go the right colour eventually but you will by then be able to just glug it down in complete safety.

I had a niggling suspicion by this point that a blister was starting to form on my left foot. I was right as it happened and it didn't stop us much, but it was nice every now and then to have a sit down. We found ourselves back in the shade close by Casey's Corner.

This is close by the spot where street entertainers leave the public area for a rest and to cool off and the marching band were still marching to a drumbeat as they passed our bench and nodded affably to us. The trumpet blowers were by now just blowing with the effort of drawing breath after a spell in the heat of the park!

We had a sit and a talk and then heard the sounds of music. The afternoon parade was about to go past. We'll watch it in the next article.

Disney World Holiday Index

Breakfast With Pooh And Poppins...

19 April 2016. It was our first full day in Orlando and Eddie had booked a breakfast at which we would meet some of the Disney characters at one of the other resorts.

This is the lobby of the Grand Floridian Hotel, where we were to have breakfast and meet up with Winnie the Pooh and Alice and a few others. The hotel looked absolutely the business; luxurious sofas, grand piano on the lobby floor and on the first floor balcony at one end, an orchestra stand. We would not have time to explore today with wanting to get into the Magic Kingdom park, but Fran and I thought it would make a good afternoon's venue for a sit down with a book! And that experience, with a look round some of the hotel's grounds will come later in this series.

But now it's time to head for the restaurant and be photographed and primed to meet a few favourite Disney characters. Grace has over the last year or two ensured that we had revised thoroughly for this task, so as to be able to recognise everyone who might come up to us...

Step up, Pooh Bear! Pooh has the privilege of being the first character to experience a fearless hug from Grace. If anyone not dressed as a Disney character spoke to her she went all shy and tried to hide. But a cartoon character or princess and she was off her chair and running towards them, arms outstretched!

Mary Poppins came round whilst Fran and I were coming back with loaded plates from the breakfast buffet. Fran joined in for a photo!

One of Grace's favourite films is Alice in Wonderland. So Alice had no problems with her being shy and refusing a cuddle. Actually Eddie and I would not have refused either, but for some reason we weren't invited...

Even the Mad Hatter with his rather disturbing nose had no problems getting instant friendship either! Ok, move on, let me have another bite of something...!

When Tigger bounced over to our table he decided to include the wrinklies in the celebrations!

He came to Grace, accepted and returned her hugs and signed her autograph book. Then he started to bounce up and down and she did the same which caused her shoes to sparkle and light up. Tigger got down on his knees to watch and point to her feet which she was really pleased about!

The meal had lasted about an hour and the food was very nice apart from the bacon which was as I remembered from a previous visit to Orlando in 1993. For some reason they like it cut so thin that you can literally read through it and the pieces contain twice as much fat as the tiny strip of meat. You never see the large piece of meat, just the fatty strip to the side of it. In any case, being so thin they cook to a crisp anyway. I always imagine Americans coming here and tasting bacon for the first time and being amazed. Or perhaps our way of cooking it revolts them as much as theirs does me... On a more positive note, the fruit juice was mango and it was so lush I could have drunk gallons of it! But I stopped after seven pints and had to excuse myself...

We came back out into the lobby of the Grand Floridian and made our way back to the first floor (the Americans call the ground floor "first" so properly I should have said second floor) to the Monorail station. We are now off to our first entry into Disney's Magic Kingdom which is where we'll be for the next article in the series.

Disney World Holiday Index