Disney Trip 2016 - day 3 - part 2 - Epcot - World Showcase

We started on the Canada side, took a few polite pictures of the totems, and then looked around the United Kingdom. We popped into The Toy Soldier, listened to the band a bit, and I popped into the market looking unsuccessfully for some Jelly Babies.

We walked by France and Morocco, talking a few brief photos and then we moved on to Japan.

We spent a bit of time in the Japan gift shop, with Gee being moved to tears at the selection. Cheryl was so moved that she bought Gee a lovely kimono. Shan also bought one along with some sandals ad toe socks. Gee and I also bought toe socks as well and had everything shipped back to the room.

At this point it was already 8:30 and starting to get dark. We moved along a bit and found a spot near the American Garden Theatre to wait for the fireworks.
I picked up some udon noodles and some teriyaki chicken from Katsura Grill and brought it back while we waited.
The fireworks over the water were very nice. We were under some trees but still had a good view. We were by where they parked a floating ball platform but Cheryl knew that it moved to become part of the show so opened up the view.

Afterwards we moved past the American pavilion and looked a bit at the Italian pavilion while Cheryl picked out some beautiful Italian masks.

We took some shots of the train set up by Germany in the dark and then moved on to China. Shan had really wanted to see the Terra Cotta Warriors but the displays were closed. We also found out that they had moved on and no longer had them.

Things were closing down so we went past Norway and Mexico, again only stopping briefly for a few photos and then made our way back to the entrance for our bus ride home and to our room.

Gee and I went to the shop around 10:30 pm to pick up our bag from the day before, and I bought a refillable mug - purple. Gee already has a blue one, Shan has the red, and Dee's bought the green one earlier today,

He was asleep when we got back to the room. Everyone else went to bed early to up early the next day, but I stayed up a bit to write up day two and three while they were still fresh.

We had worn our Canada shirts to Epcot - Representing! A few people said hi because of them - fellow Canadians as well as a nice couple from Minnesota we met while in line for Spaceship Earth. As well, I got a few people asking about the Figment hat - fellow fans.

Disney Trip 2016 - day 3 - part 1 - Epcot - Future World

Tuesday was Epcot day. The kids were slow to wake so Shan did some laundry. D3 was still sluggish but we catch a bit of breakfast at 11 am at the hotel on our way out and caught the bus to Epcot.

We started off at the Art of Disney but managed to barely resist buying anything.

Our next stop was our first Fast Pass - a Character Meet with Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie. Then we went and got pictures with Beymax. The line for Joy and Sadness went from short to very long while we waited the 15 minutes for Beymax, so we skipped them.

We went over to Future World west and, after a 10 minute line, did The Seas with Nemo & friends, and then spent some time looking at the tanks. D3 got some pictures of a "sad" seahorse. As we were leaving, Shan discovered that she had left her hat on the ride but was able to claim it.

We moved over to The Land and, after a quick 10 minute wait, did the Living the Land tour. Shan loves gardening so quite enjoyed seeing what they are doing. Soaring only had a 30 minute wait so I said that this was our big chance. It did not disappoint. D3 (who dislikes falling), and Shan (who dislikes heights) both enjoyed it. We made sure that they were not sitting on the end.

We had a bit of time, so we were able to finish up the west side with Journey Into Imagination with Figment. This one had a wait of about 15 - 20 minutes. Another classic ride. No-one else in our party knew who Figment was but I did.
In the gift shop, I bought a Figment hat, and had 2 mini monorail cars, a set of buses, and the Star Wars rideship sent to the room.

After that, we made our way around to the Future World East, cutting briefly through the Mouse Gear gift shop. Another quick look around still proved fruitless for some Tron cycles.

We got to the Test Track for our second Fast Pass, making the 11o minute wait only a 10 wait. D3's designed car beat the girls' car 203 to 199.

After a bit of discussion, and some pretzels, as D3 was winding down, we did the Mission: Space. The Green mission was a 5 minute wait and the Orange mission was a 10 minute wait. D3 sat out, and the girls did the Green mission, and I did the Orange mission. D3's feet were hurting.

After 15 to 20 minutes in line, we all did the Spaceship Earth. It's another old ride that holds up well.

After this, D3 went back to the hotel to eat, shower, and get to sleep early for our Universal trip early Wednesday, and we carried on to the World Showcase. He was supposed to text us when he got back to the room, but didn't. He missed his stop but the bus driver got him back to the Riverside entrance.

Batman Miniatures - Suicide Squad

It’s been a while since I talked about BMG. I’m still excited by the game but still haven’t been able to play. I have a bunch of Heroclix figures to use as proxies but haven’t been able to build any buildings or scenery yet to give it a go. Plus, there is so much choice over which gangs to buy, it is hard to decide without trying it.

I did hear about the new Flash and Arrow expansion with rules to cover the Flash characters as well as rules for vehicles. Or, at least, rules for a vehicle – the Batmobile. I should be able to extrapolate rules for regular vehicles from that – including the police van that they offer. I haven’t picked it up yet but I was aware of it and was going to pick it up after the holidays.

I didn’t even hear about the Suicide Squad box set until last week. It has the Task Force X as well as a Joker crew, plus a slim rulebook, scenarios, and two double-sided buildings. The value seems high on this one. I’m not a huge fan of either team, but it’s such a good deal that I will probably pick this one up as well early in 2017.

Mice are like cancer

After living in our house for 15 years, we can no longer say that we haven’t had mice. The boy had heard noise in his ceiling so we bought some poison pellets for them and put them out in little trays that I made out of tinfoil. I also bought 4 tubes of caulking and sealed up whatever gaps I could find in the foundation, including putting almost two tubes into D3’s window sill.

I also made extra poison trays out of the old Cheer detergent scoops that we had stacked up when we were still able to get powdered Cheer. I cut the bottom centimeter off the scoops and cleaned them. The down side about poison is you can tell it is being eaten but don’t often see the results.

I picked up six of the spring traps. Not the cheapie wooden ones but some upgraded plastic ones. I also picked up a bottle of scent bait to use in the traps.
These proved pretty good. Mice tend to leave a trail of feces on their paths so we placed the traps along these.
We caught two greys one night, and then another grey as well as a larger brown one a couple of nights later.

They had been into a small bag of nachos. We packed the chips in the laundry room into a storage tub. In the pantry, they got into some pop tarts and a bag of vegi sticks so all the non canned food there went into more bins.

The next week we picked up two more spring traps as well as some of the electronic noise night lights to use in the bedrooms and the kitchen. Then we found some rice around by the bin. Somehow they had gotten in the bin so we tossed the rice, and stacked boxes on the bin.

We caught another small brown one night, and another small brown on another night. Then one of the spring traps was triggered but did not catch anything. After a few more days, still none caught, but finding sign, and D3 was still hearing noises. We have not caught another mouse in the spring traps.

We picked up another four pack of the electronic noise makers to cover most of the other rooms. We also bought some of the glue traps to try those. Over the next two weeks we caught three more brown mice in the sticky traps. They are a bit more freaky to find still twitching compared to the dead ones in the spring traps.

It's been a week since the last one was caught. We haven't seen any more signs, and D3 hasn't heard them anymore. I don't know if we are again mouse free, or only in remission.

Disney Trip 2016 - day 2 - part 2 - Tomorrowland/plus

We started with Space Mountain. D3 waited in line with us but did not want to ride it so he sat out. There was a bit of a scramble in the line at the last moment so Shan ended up being in the front seat. So now she hates us all.
The roller coaster in the dark was interesting. Not being able to see where you are going really intensifies the experience. For Shan, all roller coasters are dark rides as she always keeps her eyes closed.

After Space Mountain, we did the People Movers. The wait was only about 10 minutes. Some people don't like this one but we did. It gives a nice overview of Tomorrowland. It even gave D3 a glimpse of Space Mountain - which we all agreed that he would not have liked.

Next we moved on to the Carousel of Progress. This was another classic that lived up to the history. We were able to walk directly on to the ride.

Cheryl wanted us to do the Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, and had been talking about it for the last two days. It was only a 10 minute wait and the ride was okay. I got the high score - even beating my FPS son.

We popped in to the Merchant of Venus and I picked up a foam Tusken Raider Gaffi Stick for $20. The clerk was new so we were unable to ship it back to the room and we had to carry it, D3's book, and the rest for the remainder of the night.

We got in line for Stitch's Great Escape but they told us that the ride was 20 minutes long and that we would miss the fireworks so we left and made our way to the center courtyard for the night-time fireworks show.

Afterwards, we went back to Tomorrowland and walked back on to Stitch's Great Escape. It seemed a bit dark for Stitch - which makes sense when you learn that it had been rethemed from the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter. With the seats, where you are locked in, it does seam as though Stich it right behind you in the dark

To finish up our day, we had a 10 minute wait and did the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which had some great thing to keep kids busy while waiting.
Then we made our way back to Liberty Square and walked on to the Haunted Mansion. Another classic ride satisfying the history. I would have gone again, but D3 was done for the day again so we left, again going by the carousel with no line but not stopping.

We took the right bus home, but got back too late for a snack - about midnight.

Disney Trip 2016 - day 2 - part 1 - Magic Kingdom - Frontierland / Liberty Square / Fantasyland

We got up and had breakfast at the resort. I had an omelette at the omelette station.

Back at the Magic Kingdom, we started at the station and took the train around to Frontierland. We took the raft to Tom Sayer's Island and looked around there. There is not much to it, but it is one of the classic parts that we wanted to see.

Then Shan and D3 waited while Cheryl, Gee, and I went on Splash Mountain. It's more of a ride than I had thought, with The Song of the South storyline well depicted. The line had been about an hour for that one. When we finally go to the front, we found out why - they let about 100 Fastpass riders through to every 10 standby riders.
We didn't get the final splash though, as it had a problem 3 boats ahead and we had to wait, and wait. About 20 minutes later cast members came by and started unloading the boats from behind us. A poor little girl was in front of us. We pushed them to rush her out as she had to go to the bathroom.
We did get to see part of the ride that most people don't get to see - the backstage. Due to the problems, they gave us a mini water, and Magic Kingdom fastpasses to use later.
Outside, they wondered what was taking us so long but had figured something was up when they had turned off the water. Because our photopasses, we did get a photo of our boat going down the ride without us.

We moved over to the Pirate of the Caribbean, and waited about 40 minutes for that. It was pretty dark and they have updated it to add in a few Jack Sparrows. As fans of the movies as well as Monkey Island, it was great to finally see the prisoners tempting the dog in person.

Another 30 minute wait and we were on the Jungle Cruise. It's been one that we have see clips and photos from for decades and it was great to be on it. Our guide kept up a running commentary of bad puns that kept us chuckling the entire time. I wasn't able to get the iconic shot of the hippo spraying water however.

Both the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse were closed so I was unable to cross those ones off our list.

We hit the main courtyard in time to find a spot for the parade, We saw the new steampunk Malificent dragon. D3 was already a bit tired and sat off to the side for the parade in what shade he could find. Shan had bought one of the water-spray bottle fans. She proceeded to mist us with it - as I had predicted to Gee (and did not appreciate).

We moved on to Liberty Square. We stopped for an early dinner at The Diamond Horseshoe/Liberty Tree Tavern and had a family-style feast of turkey, roast beef, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy. Cheryl had an issue with her salad and they gave her a fastpass for 5. With dessert and drinks included, dinner was about $33 a person. It was a fine meal and a great way to cool off at the middle of the day.

We caught the Hall of Presidents just in time to catch the show. Another classic, and a very impressive show. I was too caught up in it to take many photos.

The Riverboat wasn't running and Small World was now boarded up for repairs.

We next got in line for Peter Pan's Flight. It ended up being about a 45 minute wait in line. I found it too long a wait for the ride, although the view of the city was nice. I found that the mast of the ship blocked sight and photos, and it was too dark to get anything more than a blur.
Taking a fastpass though would have missed the tour of the house which was nice to see at least once. The long lines through the kids' bedroom was also the only place where we saw major litter in the parks. Seeing Tinkerbell interact with the furniture was neat but it wasn't enough to make up for the wait.

Again we skipped past the Carousel.

On our way to Dumbo's we passed a Pooh and Tigger going to their ride. The four of us rode Dumbo's Wild Ride. It's not super exciting, but still one of the iconic rides that my wife and I wanted to see. After the ride, we got some pictures in the test Dumbo they had off to the side.

Gaby and I went off to ride the Tea Cups at the Mad Tea Party as the rest went into the Big Top Boutique. We were able to walk on to the ride and spun as fast as we could before heading back to join them. We got our purchases sent back to the resort and popped over to see Merida, but we had missed her so we moved on to Tomorrowland.

Grail Games Achieved!

I had a good chance to get a faded copy of the French version of Dune, which includes both of the expansions for about $100 but by the time I got back from holidays, it was gone.

I was able to get a copy of Dust online. It came from Spain. The picture in the listing was for the Fantasy Flight (English) version but they sent the Edge/Ubik (French/Spanish) version. Luckily, the components are language independent and the English rules are available online.

I also found a good copy of Blood Royale. It’s complete and in very nice shape. The event cards aren’t even punched and there are lots of sheets on the pads and the markers aren’t broken as so many are.

I had another chance and was also able to get a different copy of the French Dune for about $100. It seems like it might be missing one of the expanded Treachery cards – but I may reprint those in English anyways. While the Sandworm cover of the Avalon Hill game will stay on my grail list, the Dune game itself is now considered achieved.


This clears the main items on my Grail List.


I’m adding the Games Workshop Battle of Five Armies and Crime Lords by Steve Jackson Games to my Grail List. Doom of the Eldar, Bommerz over da Sulphur River, and Willow are being upgraded to my watching list.

The Battle of Five armies rules are similar to their Warmaster system – which was the fantasy version of their Epic rules. It came with a lot of tiny miniatures which should be easy to paint.

The Crime Lords is based on the Illuminati game system, which is one on my top ten games, but in a stand alone version with a mobster theme. I’ve been watching this one lately and it might be achievable sooner rather than later.

I still have the Mechwarrior Solaris VII sets for Medium, Heavy, and Assault packs on my watching list. As well, I still need cars to complete the WizKids RaceDay 2006, and a Servants of Thebes to complete my Arcane Legions set.