DAY 9: London

The boys had a later wake up today, due to the fact that they got to bed very late last night. Breakfast was between 08:00 and 09:00, and the boys could feast on unlimited pork sausages, bacon, mushrooms, hash browns, fried tomatoes, scrambled eggs and toast, with a variety of fruit juices and cereals. 

Chef and Meister were desperate to have a rehearsal with the boys to practise the songs we would be singing tomorrow evening. The producers of the show had also thrown a last minute song into the mix, and the boys had to learn that before the rehearsal tonight. There was not a venue at our hotel where we could rehearse, so Chef took the boys to Bloomsbury Gardens, a nearby park, where they could rehearse underneath the London skies from 09:00-11:00.

Thereafter, the boys went back to the hotel, and received lunch money so that they could go and have a little bit of free time before they had to be back at the hotel at 12:30, when we would depart for a bus tour of London.

Big Bus London collected us a short walk from our hotel, and the boys excitedly boarded the iconic maroon double decker tourist bus. We had the whole bus to ourselves, with a tour guide who told us about all the iconic landmarks of London as we drove past them. We marvelled at The Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral with its soaring dome, the London Eye – the world’s largest observation wheel, Tower Bridge with its huge central span lift, The Houses of Parliament – one of the finest Neo-gothic buildings in England, Big Ben (which is unfortunately under construction at the moment), and then we ended off the tour with a stop at the official residence of the Queen – Buckingham Palace.

On our drive back to the hotel it was just after 15:15, and the boys were very keen to go and explore the streets of London again before heading off to our rehearsal tonight. One boy asked me ‘Mam, can we go to a mall please?’, and I of course replied ‘There is no mall here in London’, after which the boy asked ‘So where do the people shop Mam?’ …….. such a boring place London, with its mall-shortages – the poor people who have to live here…..

When we arrived at our hotel, the boys were presented with gift bags and food packs from Disney. The boys were all very chuffed with the contents of the bags…

At 17:45 we were collected by Disney for our rehearsal at Glass Hill studios, about a 40 minute drive in the London traffic. We arrived at the studios at 18:40, and the boys had an inspiring rehearsal and workshop with the producers of the show. They are all very excited for tomorrow evening, and of course feeling so very privileged to be part of this historical celebration of one of the most successful and longest running musical shows on the West End.

Because tomorrow is a big day, and ultimately the whole reason for our tour to the UK, we decided that it was imperative that the boys got a proper night’s rest tonight, so that they could be totally performance ready tomorrow evening. Lights out was at 22:30.