In Summary

This holiday was probably the best weather we've yet had. Mid to high 80's constantly. Almost no rain, we had a few spots one day, it wasn't even a real shower, just a few drops. Otherwise we were totally dry. The only thing that marred the weather was during the last few days when the forest fire smoke created a misty haze that tended to hang around well into the day, spoiling the mostly blue skies.

We both liked the car. Although impractical for most people (including us) with it's tiny boot, the fact we could use the back seat for extra storage in the last day was a big help. The fuel economy was not too bad for a US car. I measured a couple of fill-ups on the car's trip computer. Both came out around 17 and 18 Mpg. That's a lot better than the 12-14 I was getting for the SUV in 2005. It also looked a lot nicer of course. :)

We'd both tried to incorporate as many new things as we could into this holiday.
Here's some of what we did new :

• hired a convertible car
  
• stayed overnight at a second hotel
• had dolphins chase us on the Sea Screamer
• went for a sail on the Kai Lani
• visited behind the scenes at Disney
• tried around half a dozen new places to eat (none were bad)
• rode a Segway!
• drove an airboat
• visited Blizzard Beach (it was closed in 2005)
• visited Kissimmee
• visited Cocoa Beach
  

A couple of things we had planned on doing but didn't manage for one reason or other

• visit Daytona Beach
• take a helicopter trip
• see Eeyore !!
  

Yes, despite twice visiting MK to search for Eeyore, he stayed hidden from us this time around.

We'll find him in December... watch this space.

Trip Home

Hot Lips was the name of the 747 that took us home. It was by far the busiest night flight I've had. Some sleep was had but most of the time I was playing Puzzle Quest on my DS :)

Once back on the ground (and the pilot had been allocated a parking space!!) we just had to wait a short (90 minutes) for the Gatwick Flyer coach to pick us up.
This came as a bit of a shock to us both. Yesterday we'd been in temperatures of 32'C (89'F) and today we were told it was 9'C (48'F)!

Back To Universal

For our last couple of hours before flying we returned to Universal Studios. There were still some school groups about, but nothing like the masses from IOA.

Wait times were short generally. I think the longest were JAWS and Shrek 4D both around 20 minutes.

Finally though, 4pm arrived and we left for the airport.

Downtown drop-off

Our final day started with an early visit to Downtown Disney to drop off our cases.
As you can see, we managed to get all our cases into the car but only by using the back seat!

The queue at DD was shorter than 2002, but it still took us almost a hour to get through it. That did include a small reshuffle of the packing as both the cases were a few Kgs over the 23Kg limit. Fortunately, both the bags were slightly under.

Last Day

The next post will be most likely be made after we arrive home (or perhaps at the airport) as today is our last day in Orlando :(

We're pretty much all packed up now. Just need to check out of the hotel and drop the 4 bags off at Downtown Disney before heading back to Universal for a couple of hours.

Islands Of Adventure

We were greeted to an unnerving site this morning as we arrived at Universal. Row after row of coaches lined up in the parking area. Worse still, there were hordes of school kids getting off them all wearing matching t-shirts. That could only mean one thing - SCHOOL VISIT!!!!!


Indeed, we must have counted 20 different class of 2007 school trips / school band outings / mystery outings / well done for getting good grades outings all wearing their own distinctive t-shirts and all as noisy as hell!
Needless to say, this caused chaos especially around the entrance and all the trip leaders tried in vain to control their charges. I could live with the chaos, but the accompanying increase in wait times for rides was another thing entirely!!!

I managed to get onto the Hulk ride, but ignored the Popeye and Spiderman rides as they had stupid wait times. Instead, we headed to Jurassic Park.

I decided to have a go on the river ride. Once the ride had been fixed (it broke down whilst I was in the long queue) I was placed in the front row of the boat. Of course this meant I got hit with the backwash from the big drop at the end of the ride!
I'm just about visible in this shot with my arm up. It wasn't the splash that got me wet through, more the wave that the boat created that washed up and over the bow, covering my front completely. Luckily, I had my wallet and phone in a protective bag. Just in case!

I managed a go on duelling dragons, another roller coaster. Last time (2005) I'd ridden Ice, so this time I did Fire.

Queues were still long into the afternoon, so I was rather relieved when 4pm arrived and we started making our way out of the park. I'd reserved a table at the Hard Rock Cafe so we'd have time to have something to eat before the Spiderman film.

On arriving at the cinema, I discovered we were not after all, in the DLP version of the film (The Digital presentation). This was a disappointment to some extent, but I was told that the DLP version had already been sold out a while back. I've no idea what the cashier was trying to do when I booked my tickets then! I was told, however, that the quality of the film print I was going to see was very high as it's a brand new print (I'd guess under 20 showings) and indeed it was very clean.
As to the film, I quite liked it really. I'd say 7.5 / 10. I still can't get used to the US audience's tendency to "join in" with the film they are watching. All that clapping, whooping, Ohoh-ing all seems a little out of place to our British reservations :)

Back to the hotel - via one last open top drive through the night.

Linda's now packing up our cases ready for an early drop off at Downtown Disney tomorrow. Hope the weight is within limits!

Cocoa Beach

We had a 'spare' day today. So with the temperature still in the high 80s, we decided to head for the beach. Cocoa beach, on the Atlantic coast, to be exact.

As we approached, we started seeing signs warning of smoke and fog in the area.These were all due to the fact that not far North from Cocoa beach, there are still some heavy forest fires burning. They have been burning for a couple of days now. Since this area hasn't had any substantial rain for a while, the fires are moving at a rapid pace.
This photo shows the trail of smoke (they are NOT clouds) that extends from the fire locations right out into the Atlantic. It gave the sun a very hazy effect all day. At times you could smell a slight burning too.

It's the first time either of us has been to Cocoa beach. We took a little time to find somewhere to park. It was definitely worth it though.


It was a very nice beach. Beautiful sand, warm sea for the majority of the day, strong sunshine.
It even had rays playing in the edge of the surf. I kept a lookout for sharks!

Only thing it lacked was any real shade so we had to fight off the hot sun with just the lotion we'd brought. We ended up using 3/4 of a new bottle, just in the few hours we were there.

We stopped off, as you do in Cocoa beach, at the RonJon surf shop to get a couple of goodies. Then it was back to the air-con of the hotel room!

Return Of The Kingdom

As temperatures continued in the high 80's again today, we decided to go back to Magic Kingdom to finish some of the stuff we'd wanted to do.

As we arrived, the crowds were heavy already. OK, it was just after 10am, but hey - gotta have that breakfast!

Previously, we'd done the left side of the park, so today we started off in Tomorrowland and walked around anti-clockwise.

Queue lengths were actually quite short. I'd picked up a fastpath (well, two in fact) for Space Mountain, but TBH, they weren't really needed. The Pooh Bear (!) ride was longer in fact.

Speaking of Pooh Bear, he was out and about today doing the photo thing. Linda needed to say hello of course.










Spurred on by here attempts at Soarin' and Thunder Mountain, Linda then decided to brave... The carousel!

She barely survives!!

Those horses can be vicious at times :)






We also revisited (again) the Pirates Of the Carribean ride. It's been updated slightly to include the Johnny Depp character Jack Sparrow. He pops up in a couple of places!









We left MK around 13:30, popped into Downtown Disney for a short spend(!) then drove back to the hotel.

On the way past Sea World, this building site is announcing the arrival (next year sadly) of a water park called Aquatica. It looks interesting for another time...










In the evening, we went down to TGI Fridays.

Linda tried her first margarita. A little too fruity to go with the meal apparently. But it did look very cool!

Blizzard Beach

After Epcot, we headed to Blizzard beach, another Disney water park.

We've not been to this one before.

In many ways it was similar to Typhoon Lagoon with a Lazy River, tube and mat rides and tall drops.

We stayed there until the park closed! It was very relaxing and enjoyable.

Segway Tour

This morning (early) we arrived at Epcot for a tour around the world showcase area. We were to be shown around on Segway personal transport machines.
These took a bit of getting used to. In fact, we had a hour of training indoors before being allowed to leave the safety of the training area.

Here you can see Linda trying out a slope on her Segway. She admits, she was terrified before she started training. However, patient training from the two guides, gave all if us the confidence to manoeuvre this machine about with reasonable adeptness.








Here is a shot taken by one of the guides. This picture was taken outside the American sector, looking back across to Spaceship Earth.

By this time we were both happily using the Segway.








The tour lasted 2 hours in total. A hour for training, a hour in the park.

We both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! A shame it wasn't longer.

MGM Studio

Today was spent at MGM studio.

We didn't arrive there until gone 11am, but although the main area seemed pretty busy, the attractions and rides were not as busy as they could have been - certainly less busy than Magic Kingdom.

First went to see the 'Lights Camera Action' stunt show. Lots of car stunts, fire, motorcycles etc.













Most dangerous was the fire stunt.

We followed that by the Indiana Jones show.
Using Fastpass and 'single rider' I got a couple of goes on Rock'N'Roll Rollercoaster - 0 to 60 in 3 seconds!

Temperature was very hot again today. No rain forecast for the next few days. It was very tiring to walk around all day so we stopped as often as we could.

On the backlot tour, I volunteered for the "Harbour Attack" show. This involved me and some other guys dressing up in waterproof (huh!) oils to act out some parts of an action scene. This time I got to be the mechanic (last time I got chosen, I was a deckhand) and this meant I had to act that the engine of our 'boat' had stopped, then call the captain and then get hit by 800 gallons of water from a nearby dump tank.
Needless to say, the oils were not as waterproof as they could have been!

Evening was taken up by waiting for the Fantasmic show. 90 minutes waiting for a 25 minute show!!! Still, we got a reasonable seat. We weren't the first in there by any means.

Clearwater Day 2

This morning we were up before sunrise and out to have a stroll along the beach area. It was pretty deserted of course, just the odd jogger.









Sunrise was at 7.01 this morning.













We had to check out by 11am, but the Sea Captain allowed us to keep our car in their lot - a great help as parking seemed to fill up really early in the day. Especially since the road works had removed one of the main car-parks to be used for the plant machinery.

So we took advantage of this and went over to the edge of the Motel area where you are right up against the marina. There we sat and watched the boats go by for a couple of hours. It was getting very hot by now - into the upper 80s. I tried to keep protected under one of the palms there, but I still think I caught the sun a little too much in one go.







By early afternoon it was time to move on. However, not before we did one more trip on the Sea Screamer. This time we went prepared - only the basic of items were taken with us and all in a plastic bag for protection. We were fully expecting to get sea spray over us again.
As for the dolphins, well this time we only had one run down the coast (we did 4 or 5 yesterday) but in many ways it was more spectacular today as we picked up a pod of 5 dolphins who followed us for a long time.
We did get very wet too. Within a hour of getting off the boat, we could wipe off salt from our arms and clothes!

Finally, it was time to head home. A laborious 2 hour drive home in the hot temperatures added to the sun burn somewhat! It was a relief to get back into the cool of the air-conditioned hotel room!

Clearwater Day 1

I'm writing this blog entry off-line as I'm not net connected at the moment.

I'm sitting by the side of the Clearwater marina, it's 08:05 and the sun is streaming over the waterway. It's actually quite hard to see what I'm typing the sun is so strong.
The first of the Pelicans has just flown past trying to catch up with one of the early morning deep-sea fishing boats that has just left. Linda is sitting next to me, shades on, reading her book on a lounger.

Clearwater is odd in some ways. It's idyllic right here where I am, but 50 yards closer to the beach and it's a complete building site - and is due to stay that way until 2009 from the plans we've seen. There's a live web-cam here that shows where we are. Photo 3 is just to the right of where we're sitting!

We spent the early part of yesterday travelling from Orlando to Clearwater. TomTom proved a godsend as we hit the Clearwater area. We were diverted at least twice due to closed roads. but TomTom kept us heading in the right direction.

We're staying at a small motel right on the edge of the main marina in Clearwater. The room is a reasonable size and quite well equipped. No internet though.

Once in the room we changed into swim wear and headed to the Marina to catch the 'Sea Screamer'. This is one of, if not the, largest speedboats in the world at the moment. It must be able to carry 50 people I guess. Their main trick is to go out into the Gulf Of Mexico and spot a pod of dolphins. They then get everyone to the back of the boat and churn up the water, producing a massive wake. The dolphins seem attracted to this churn and as we speed along, they dive and jump along right behind the boat, in and out of our wake.

As luck would have it, we sat right at the back of the boat and had an excellent view of the proceedings. I was a bit worried about the camera, as we did get sea spray all over us at one point (we had been warned and I did have the camera under my shirt, but we still got sprayed a few times. Fortunately, this spray stopped when we were doing the churn runs.
Got some pretty good pictures, mainly of wash, but some were from the dolphines as they played behind us.
Only down side to sitting at the back was we were partially deaf as we left the boat - the rumble of the two engines (I forget how many horsepower, but it was a lot!) was pretty loud wherever you were in the boat and we were sitting right on top of them!

Once back at the marina we went for a walk down to the pier and beach area for a hour.

Finally, at 18:00, we returned to the marina to visit our second boat. This was the "Kai Lani". She is a catamaran sail boat. Once we left the marina, the captain switched off the motors ans put up the sails. We then sailed around the Gulf Of Mexico for an hour until we'd watched the sun set. Once again, it was a glorious sun set here (as it had been in 2005). Got some nice pictures once again. There were only 12 of us on the boat, including 2 crew, so it wasn't busy at all. All in all it was a very relaxing way to spend a couple of hours. Best of all, nobody was sea sick!

We returned to the marina and found somewhere to eat before bed.

I've just noticed there's a low, but free WI-FI connection around here somewhere. I'm going to post this now and add some pictures later when I have a better connection.

Universal Studios

Today was spent at Universal Studios.
We did the usual rides, Terminator 3d, ET, MIB, Jaws, Earthquake, Twister, Beetlejuice (had to laugh when they kept referring to him as B.J.) and Shrek 4d.

Also, by the magic of 'single rider' I managed 3 runs of 'The Mummy' (in 25 minutes) before we headed out of the park.




We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe next door then popped into the cinema on City Walk.

They are doing almost 100% coverage of the new Spiderman 3 film on May 3rd. I think 15 of the 16 screens will be showing S3 at midnight, or very soon after.
Anyway, being an old fuddy duddy who most likely will be asleep by midnight ;) I've booked us to go see it on the 4th @ 19:15.
The cashier has also told me that the version of the film we're booked in to see is what she referred to as the 'UP' version. To quote her : 'The picture quality is so much better, it's like 3D only it isn't'.
I'm guessing it's a digital High Def. version of the film.

Should be interesting, whatever it is as I paid $2 over the normal ticket price!

Magic Kingdom

We spend a good few hours at MK, even though we arrived at around 5pm.

The place was quite busy of course. Wait times were in the region of 30-40 minutes for most things.

Linda went on the Thunder Mountain ride. She hated it! It wasn't so much the speed or the twists, more the rises and drops that freaked her out!


Saw the castle fireworks @ 10pm followed by the late Spectral Magic parade @ 11pm.

However, returning home was delayed thanks to roadworks on I4 :(

Wilderness Lodge

First off, however, we stopped off at the Wilderness Lodge resort. It's where we're going in December for a few days.

The place was quite busy as we looked around - hopefully it's less hectic once we return. It looks a nice place though. Impressive lobby area.

Boggy Creek

Boggy Creek is a small place just south of Kissimmee. We went down there as they do an airboat service out onto the mash lands. It certainly wasn't the Everglades, but we did get to see some wildlife, including an alligator with newly hatched young. We needed ear-protectors though as the engine and fan make a lot of noise!



The boggy creek area was a very quiet (apart from the airboats) area on the edge of what I can only describe as an enormous boggy pond - it couldn't have been more than 8 inches deep in most areas.

After the ride, we drove back into Orlando, stopping off at the Florida Mall for a hour or two.

Back to the hotel to dump off our stuff then we headed for Disney to visit the Magic Kingdom.

Typhoon Lagoon

As temperatures rise slowly towards the 90s we decided to take a day out of the normal park visiting to visit Typhoon Lagoon, one of Disney's two water parks.

A peaceful day was spent floating along the lazy river or splashing about in the tidal pool.



Ahh, bliss.

Just popped back to the hotel to do our first lot of clothes washing :(

Now that's finished, it's off for something to eat.

Backstage Tour

We had our Disney "Behind The Scenes" tour. This took us to the places that visitors don't usually get to see. This included the set building area, costume design and production, Christmas storage area, underground utility corridors as well as other areas.
I particularly liked the peek underneath the animatronics show that is the American Adventure.


No cameras were allowed during most of this tour.

Lunch was included as well as chilled water during the day.

One handy thing was the supply of radio ear pieces that allowed us all to hear the group leader even when she was 20 feet away - handy as she didn't have the loudest voice! This worked very well until pretty much everyone's battery had died!

The tour started in Epcot, moved through MGM studio and ended at Magic Kingdom where we stopped to watch the parade. Only there did I manage to get any photos.



Once the seven hour tour was complete, we stayed in Epcot, where we were dropped off, and visited a couple of attractions.
We also managed to find our 2005 Leave A Legacy photo that is supposed to be at Epcot for 20-odd years.



Finally, at 9pm, there was the daily firework display so we stayed for that.

We had arrived very early this morning, so our car was parked near the entrance, which was a big benefit as we were both getting tired by now (so much so that we ended up leaving some of our shopping at Walgreens! We'll need to go and retrieve it this morning).

Animal Kingdom

We visited Disney's Animal Kingdom today. A very hot day but, touch wood, we survived without getting too burnt.
I got to ride Expedition Everest. In fact, thanks to the 'single rider' queue I managed to do it four times in around a hour. Not bad considering it was advertising 20-30 minute wait times on standby. It was a great ride too.



There was a guy who I saw a couple of times also queuing in the single rider line. He'd been on EE 15 times already. In fact he was telling people of 'hidden Mickeys' on the ride that he'd found. I also noticed he had a couple of Mickey tattoo. That's taking something a little too far I think! No wonder he was in the single rider line...

We again traversed the Kalili River Rapids and once again I took the full brunt of the slide down the biggest slope. In fact both Linda and I had rather wet tops by the time we'd finished. I got most of it down on video (I put the camera in a plastic bag with a hold for the lens) so that should be fun to watch later.

We also watched a new show 'Finding Nemo - the musical' which was actually quite good. The biggest problem was the queuing outside as it was mostly standing in the full sun. Not good at 3pm! Still we got really good seats, right alongside the stage's runway out to the sound pit. As I said, it was a good show too.

Quick meal before going back to the hotel. We were both flagging by then so we stayed in for the rest of the evening. That gave me a chance to watch the latest episode of Heroes live!

Trying out my new camera flash.

My Sony GN36 arrived from Amazon today.
I'm liking it already!!!

Fun with the dolphins.

Linda has fun with C.J. a 14 year old dolphin during her swim session.