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.