Coast to Coast 2014 - part one About This Page:

[Silvercat]

Cast : Carolyn, trip planner extraordinaire
DH, goes along with all plans, thankfully

Experience : Carolyn : 14th trip to Walt Disney World (over a 25 year period), 1st to Disneyland
DH : 7th trip to Walt Disney World, 1st to Disneyland

Resorts : Fairfield Inn, Anaheim
Private villa, Orlando
Disney's Saratoga Springs, Orlando

Transportation : Many, many planes …… And a rental car

Dates : Anaheim – Saturday 25 October 2014
Orlando – Saturday 01 November 2014

PLANNING

Part of this trip had been planned since about June 2013, which was a 2 week trip to visit Disney World again, at the end of November 2014. However, in September 2013 I learned that my job was to be displaced, and I would be being laid off from work the next year. They gave us a time frame of : 04 June 2014 – last day in the office, to be followed by 3 months' gardening leave, with a final leaving date of 04 October 2014. We therefore decided that we may as well extend our holiday to a 4 week period, taking in a visit to California first, followed by a week offsite to visit Sea World, Kennedy Space Centre, etc., and then 2 weeks on property as originally planned.

(Actually the visit to California was planned like this : DH – "ooh, we could go to California!" Me – before he had even finished the sentence, I had already Googled "hotels near Disneyland", and was busily looking at potential dates!)

I had been with the company for nearly 9 years, so knew that my final payout would be quite good – enough to be able to add on some extra special treats for us during our holiday! We discussed various things we would like to do, and decided on a visit to Discovery Cove in Orlando, as this was something we had always wanted to do but the price had put us off before.

After much research online, I therefore booked us 7 nights in the Fairfield Inn, Anaheim, which would be followed by a flight to Orlando and 7 nights in a private villa, (rented from someone I worked with), and all this was added onto our already-booked section at Saratoga Springs.

Over the next few months, a HUGE amount of planning had to go into this holiday. I had to plan our first week carefully as we could only buy a maximum of 5-day tickets, but would be there for 7 days. I had to add Mickey's Halloween Party tickets, a Fantasmic Dessert Party, a World of Colour Dining Package, and also we had originally talked about exploring a bit on our mid-week day off to maybe visit a beach somewhere. In the end, we realised this was a bit over-ambitious, and stuck to the idea of having a day off to relax and spend time by the pool at the hotel, as well as doing some Downtown Disney shopping.

The second week I had to plan for Sea World, Discovery Cove, Kennedy Space Centre, Aquatica, Celebration, Legoland, Old Town or Downtown Kissimmee, City Walk at Universal, and a shopping day.

Weeks 3 and 4 would then be a round of dining reservations, (we had the free Dining Package), and FastPass+ reservations – what a logistical nightmare!

Time to book the airline tickets. I rang our usual airline, Virgin Atlantic, and learnt that I could book all our flights with them as one continuous booking. So, because of their flight patterns, I had to book this : Flight One – Manchester, UK to London UK; Flight Two – London, UK to Los Angeles; Flight Three (one week later) : Los Angeles to Orlando; Flight Four (3 weeks later) – Orlando to Manchester, UK. After all this, I nearly forgot to book bus transportation from LAX to Disneyland, and it wasn't until my DH asked me how we were actually getting from the airport to Disneyland that I realised I hadn't done this! I went online and quickly managed to get return bus tickets for the Disneyland Express, phew!

I bought tickets online from my usual retailer for Disneyland, Discovery Cove, and Kennedy Space Centre. They had an offer on that included free tickets to Legoland if you spent so much with them, so we qualified for those easily. The Discovery Cove tickets also included 14 consecutive days of free admission to Sea World and Aquatica. I placed the order, and they promptly rang me to ask if I was aware that I had bought tickets for Disneyland and not Disney World – which I thought was very good of them! I assured them that I knew what I was doing, however, and they quickly despatched my order.

We did our usual thing of spending several frustrating hours trying to decide which Disney World restaurants we wanted to visit this time, ditching a couple from last year that were fabulous, but we could live without this year, and adding a couple of new ones. The trouble is that we have never had a meal we didn't enjoy at any of the restaurants, and so trying to decide which ones to drop in favour of trying somewhere new, so that we can make the most of the dining experiences while we can still get the free Dining Plan, is just so difficult!

Anyway, we finally managed to make our decisions, and at the appropriate time windows I went online and booked them all, happily managing to get almost all that we wanted, except for House of Blues at Downtown in Orlando. It wasn't available on the day we were looking at, (and when we eventually got to Downtown, there were signs up saying that it was closed for a private party), so we opted for Splitsville instead. We hadn't experienced either of these restaurants before. I did manage to get a dinner reservation for Be Our Guest, but not on the day I wanted, so had to do some juggling around with our plans in order to accommodate this.

Dining reservations made, I then had to wait another couple of months before I could book Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party tickets, and then the Fastpass+ reservations for the days we were there, fitting them carefully around our dining plans. I was also at that point able to book the Disneyland Fantasmic Dessert Party, and a World of Colour Dining Package, choosing to dine at Ariel's Grotto. I also got Mickey's Halloween Party tickets for Disneyland.

I had spreadsheets of what we were doing when for each week, which I printed off, and then I also had packing lists, shopping lists, and the list of what was in our Owner's Locker box, so we didn't duplicate anything we were taking with us. This was slightly complicated though by the fact that everything we would normally take to the USA with us was in our Locker box, and we would be in the USA for a week ON THE OPPOSITE COAST, so unable to access the box to start with! This meant I had to take very small amounts of shower gel, deodorant, sunscreen, etc., all the stuff we would normally have in our box, just for the first week we were there. I reckoned that "it never rains in Southern California", so I wouldn't need umbrellas or ponchos, and we could get away with taking just one week's worth of underwear as not only did we have some (clean!) underwear stashed in our box, but we would also have laundry facilities in the villa and at Saratoga Springs, so could do some washing while we were there. I arranged to have our Locker box delivered to the villa the day after our arrival, as we wouldn't be getting to Florida until early evening on the Saturday, and the box would be left outside all day, albeit by the back door.

We packed about 2 weeks' worth of clothing, travel-sized toiletries, etc into two suitcases, (with room to spare!), and then put these two suitcases inside another two, thus giving us 4 cases to bring back with us. I pre-paid our airline for the two extra cases, as we knew we would be doing our usual thing of buying lots of Christmas presents for friends and family while over there.

One more item arose on the planning agenda – I have an online friend who lives in Texas called Robin, that I have known for over 10 years now. She was due to go to Disney World with her husband, (Larry), sister, (Paula), and brother-in-law, (Wes), in October 2014, but then had a small medical issue resulting in a couple of operations, and they had had to reschedule their vacation. For the first time ever, it looked as though we were going to be in Florida at the same time as each other! We added each other to our My Disney Experience accounts so we could see each other's plans, exchanged cellphone numbers, and hoped that we could meet up at some point.

Finally, all the planning seemed to be complete. Nothing to do now but wait ….. (Oh, and try to find another job once I had thoroughly enjoyed my summer at home!)

DAY MINUS ONE – Friday 24 October

Plan : Drive to Manchester

Actual : I had a job interview on the Monday of this week, for a really great-sounding job that would be a promotion for me, with a higher salary and better benefits. The interview went quite well, I thought, but you never can tell really. Two days later they called me back for a second interview, and asked me to bring my passport. I went back on the Thursday, met with one of the firm's partners, and spent most of the interview chatting about Disney, (he had honeymooned in Disneyland Paris, apparently)! Within an hour of my getting home, they were ringing me up to offer me the position. I had to immediately fill in a massive form from a screening company, as my new employment is with a legal firm, and then on the Friday morning the screening company began emailing me asking for copies of my qualifications. Um – I haven't seen these certificates for quite a number of years, they are probably in the loft somewhere, and I am about to leave home for a 4 week vacation!! Luckily, they were very understanding and managed to screen me without copies of my qualifications. Happily, I was now due to start a new job the day after we got home from vacation.

Anyway, after a bit of running around to get everything finally ready, we headed off for Manchester around lunchtime, which was when we had aimed to leave, for the 1½ hour drive. We were staying overnight at a Premier Inn at the airport, using a secure car parking system whereby a company comes and collects your car from the airport, stores it securely in a locked and covered car park, then delivers it back to the hotel on your arrival back. Transfers from the hotel to the airport, a 5 minute car journey, are supplied by a local taxi firm for a small fixed fee.

We hit quite a lot of roadworks along the way, resulting in it taking us almost 3 hours to get there, but we found the hotel easily and were really impressed by the place. Our room was huge! This hotel is apparently used a lot by businessmen, so it really was of a very high standard. We had some sandwiches and snacks I had brought from home, quick showers, and were so tired that we were in bed and asleep by 9.00 p.m.

DAY ONE – Saturday 25 October

Plan : Fly, fly, and bus ride ….

Actual : We got up at 3.00 a.m. – ugh. We packed up our travel clothes from the day before, put them in a bag and left it in the trunk of our car, and were outside waiting for our taxi by 3.45 a.m., after dropping off our car keys at the hotel reception. The taxi arrived a few minutes later, and I have no idea why but I told him we were going from terminal 2. He looked at me quizzically, but took us there anyway. When we pulled up, I checked the paperwork again and realised I had told him the wrong terminal – we were supposed to be at terminal 3! Not to worry, he laughed about it and quickly took us to the right terminal, which was only 5 minutes away.

I had done online check-in the day before, so we then went to bag drop, before heading for our departure gate. We still had an hour and a half before boarding, (we like to get to airports early and spend some time relaxing there, rather than rushing and risking being late!), and weirdly there were no food outlets anywhere near our gate, so DH picked up a coffee from a nearby vending machine, and we managed to get online for 30 minutes for free, with our iPads, using the airport Wi-Fi. I then read my Kindle for a while, and DH napped a bit.

Eventually, we boarded quite a small aeroplane for our 35 minute flight to Heathrow Airport in London. We were seated right at the back of the plane, so were first in line for coffee and a bacon roll when the stewards began serving! The flight was quick and painless.

On arrival at Heathrow, we boarded a bus that had parked on the tarmac next to our plane, which drove us to the next terminal we needed. We were checked in through to LAX, so didn't need to collect our luggage or visit check-in again. At the next terminal, I went into Boots to pick up some tissues and bottled water, then we went in search of breakfast.

We found a nice-looking but fairly busy Frankie & Bennie's, where I had some toast and DH had a small cooked breakfast. I was feeling a bit nauseous by this point as I was over-tired, so I didn't actually eat much of the toast but wrapped it up in a napkin for later.

After breakfast, we headed for our gate, and when we got there we boarded pretty much straight away, only pausing momentarily to put on our flight socks.

As we boarded, we spotted a young male steward who had been on the same flight as us from Manchester, and with whom we had exchanged a few words on that flight. He immediately recognised us, we said "hello" to him, and thought nothing more of it. We found our seats, put our bags into the overhead luggage bins, and settled ourselves down for what we knew was going to be a long flight. Suddenly, 'our' steward appeared, (we think he was based in business or first class) with a couple of (proper glass) glasses of champagne for us! He told us he had to look after his fellow Mancunians, (we didn't like to tell him we were from Birmingham!)! We thanked him, and felt very spoilt! Take-off was very smooth, and for the first time in ages I wasn't at all worried about take-off, probably due to the glass of champers!

The flight was indeed long – 11½ hours, but it was very smooth, with only occasional bits of turbulence, which didn't last long. We had some lovely views out of the window, surprisingly, as normally we only ever see the backside of clouds! We flew over ice fields, and mountains covered in snow. DH told me this was Greenland, and I was really impressed – we were quite literally at the top of the world!

The meals we had on this flight were really good, we felt that we ate incredibly well for airline food. We had a bag of pretzels and some coffee, then lunch was chicken in a mustard sauce, mashed potatoes, roasted peppers, (which I don't like so DH had them!), a side salad, a roll and butter. About 30 minutes after lunch we were given a tiny Gu pot dessert of passion fruit mousse, although it tasted more of mango than anything else, and was lovely! As time went on, we had a mini Fab ice-cream bar, a slice of pizza, and then a couple of hours before landing, we had a sandwich, bag of crisps, and a mini millionaire's shortbread dessert. We were also given lots of coffee, orange juice, water, lemonade, and orange cordial.

We amused ourselves by reading for a while, before watching a couple of really interesting documentaries on the seat-back TVs. We watched one about the eccentric performer, "Divine", and then another one about the music manager, Shep Gordan. We also watched the film, "Malificent", which we really enjoyed. We may also have dozed a bit, between shows.

About half an hour away from landing, 'our' steward reappeared with a plate of tiny cakes, which looked like they had come from first class, for us! And again, just before we actually landed, he came back with more champagne, which really helped the landing to be perfectly smooth and worry-free! As we disembarked, he blew kisses at us – we loved him!

We made our way to customs, where the officers there were really friendly and chatty, which was a bit unusual – they are normally a bit dour and serious with us. Our cases came out quickly, and we checked the printed-off directions I had for getting to the Disney Express buses. They were easy to follow, and we found the bus-stop relatively quickly. There was a bus there that was getting ready to depart, and we just managed to get on it, which was good. As we had flown towards the airport earlier, we had been really excited to see the Hollywood hills with the famous "Hollywood" sign on them, and now we saw it all again from the bus – we were really tired, but very, very excited!

It was about a 40 minute journey to our hotel, I did think we would probably sleep on the bus but we were like a couple of small children, much too excited to sleep! We drove around the perimeter of Disneyland, we knew this because we kept seeing things we recognised, like the Tower of Terror and Space Mountain. The bus did a couple of stops at other hotels, before pulling into the very pretty Fairfield Inn. We got off, collected our luggage, and went inside.

First impressions were very favourable, the hotel looked really lovely, very 'Disney-fied', although the pool did look a little small. The staff were absolutely lovely, really jolly and happy and friendly, which was what we needed as by this point we felt like we had been awake forever! I had booked a King Bed room, and they said they were really sorry but all those rooms had gone, but we could have an accessible room instead if we liked, as they were a bit bigger and still had a King Bed in them. We happily said yes please! Our room was on the ground floor, just round the corner and outside from reception. And we had free Wi-Fi!

The room was fab! It had a massive bed, which was really comfortable, and a very big shower room. We loved it! We did the bare minimum of unpacking, and wanted to go out and explore the rest of the hotel and area, but we were just too exhausted to do anything else really. Taking into account the time difference, we had been awake for nearly 24 hours by this point, so DH just fell into bed and checked his emails etc., while I had a quick shower, and then joined him. We were asleep by 8.30 p.m.! We were briefly awoken by the sound of fireworks at some point, but then went back to sleep and didn't wake up until about 6.45 a.m. the next day.

DAY TWO – Sunday 26 October

Plan : Explore Disneyland, Fantasmic Dessert Party

Actual : so by 6.45 a.m. we decided we had slept for long enough, and were really excited to start our day. We got ready for the day, brewing some really nice coffee in our room, and not bothering to unpack much – there wasn't time!

The walk to Disneyland was so easy – we walked out of the front of the hotel, turned left onto the main road, walked for about 3 minutes, turned right and crossed the very busy road at a pedestrian crossing, and we were there! There was a long driveway with bus stops either side of the road, and then we could see the Disney parks – Disneyland was on the right, California Adventure was on the left, and Downtown Disney was straight on. I was a bit emotional at this point, knowing that we were about to see Walt's dream, his original park.

We paused at the ticket kiosks to collect our Fantasmic Dessert party tickets for later, as I only had an emailed confirmation of the booking. We were told that we didn't need actual tickets, and the email would do.

We then turned right, and entered Disneyland, not long after rope-drop. Wow. We walked past the tiny train station, and as soon as I saw Walt's apartment, above the fire station, I began to cry. I could feel him there, all around me, in the park. There is a light burning in the window for him, I presume in case he feels the need to return there. It was just so atmospheric, it was lovely.

We rounded the corner of Main Street, and saw the Castle for the first time – it was so pretty! Really cute, and with a snow overlay too, although everywhere else was decorated up for Halloween. We loved all the Halloween decorations. We nipped into the little candy store to pick up some Rice Krispie Treats for breakfast, before walking slowly right down the middle of Main Street, to the Jolly Holiday Bakery. DH went to find a seat while I picked us up some coffee, and admired the treats they sell in there – we have to have something from here at some point!

We sat outside in the glorious sunshine, enjoyed our coffee and breakfast, and tried to study the map and the times guide that we had picked up on the way in, although this wasn't easy as we couldn't stop looking around us at everything – we just couldn't believe we were really here!

We began our adventure by walking through the Castle, before exploring inside it. There is a really pretty Sleeping Beauty diorama in there, which we had a good look at, up and down stairs. We eventually exited into Fantasyland, had a quick look at Peter Pan which was already showing a 50 minute wait, and went to Mr Toad's Wild Ride, something we really used to enjoy at Disney World. It was showing a 20 min wait, which was about right, but we thoroughly enjoyed this fun little ride!

Next we wandered round to Toontown, which was really well themed, we liked this area a lot. (We had to walk past the sadly closed, "It's a Small World", ride – I had really wanted to go on this, knowing it was one of the original rides developed, but I also knew in advance that it would be closed for refurbishment while we were there). Roger Rabbit's Spin was showing as 10 mins, so we rode that, and it was loads of fun! We explored Mickey's House, and then met him at the end with a minimal wait. We told him it was our first time in California, and he seemed quite pleased that we were there!

Because this park was a lot smaller than we are used to, it was really easy to walk from land to land quite quickly, so we soon found ourselves in Frontierland, where we picked up FastPass tickets for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We were quite hungry by this point, and found ourselves near the Stage Door Café, so we stopped for lunch. DH had chicken nuggets and fries, while I got something I had been looking forward to for a long, long time – one of the famous Disneyland hand-dipped corn dogs! It was HUGE! And very delicious. I just about finished the whole thing, but DH had to help with the fries. We also got some coffee (him) and lemonade (me), and a bottle of water.

After lunch we walked round to Pirates of the Caribbean, but it was down, so we continued round to the Haunted Mansion, but this was also down! We knew we really wanted to see the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay on this, but we also knew we had the rest of the week to try and see it, so we weren't too worried at this point.

We meandered round to Splash Mountain to watch the boats for a few minutes, but didn't fancy getting wet today, so then continued round to Big Thunder Mountain as we were now just within our FastPass window. We loved this ride! (It is one of my favourite rides, anywhere) It was really smooth and very fast! I loved the fact that the basic ride and storyline are the same as in Orlando and Paris, but some of the decorations and little touches are different.

Next we went to the Casey Junior Circus Train, and rode that after a very short wait, before wandering round the petting zoo, happily patting sheep and goats and pigs. (We couldn't reach the donkeys!). There was a Halloween Carnival at Big Thunder Ranch, which we had a look around, it was really lovely in there with a very party-like atmosphere. We spotted Donald Duck, and although we don't normally bother much with the characters, we made a bee-line for him as I had a small gift for him. (I had hoped we would see him somewhere this week, although I knew we could find him in Epcot, near Mexico, if all else had failed!) I had bought him an 80th birthday badge earlier this year, which I had hoped to give him in June on his actual birthday date, when we were in Disneyland Paris; unfortunately, we didn't see him at all on that trip. So I handed him his badge and wished him a belated Happy Birthday – he was delighted! He made a big fuss of us, posed for photos, hugged us both, and showed everyone around him his badge. It was a lovely interaction.

Afterwards, we walked round the Matterhorn, promising ourselves we would ride this at some point, and headed into Tomorrowland. We picked up FastPasses for Star Tours, then queued for Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, which was showing a 25 min standby. We normally have a '20 min' rule for attractions, but made a couple of exceptions in Disneyland as it will probably be a few years before we are able to come back here again. DH beat me fair and square on this ride, I used to be able to win every time but for some reason, he has got better and better at this!

We decided to explore Innoventions next – the building is most strange, it looks like it was originally the Carousel of Progress building, and is a bit disjointed and meandering inside. We enjoyed exploring in there, but a lot of what we saw made no sense to us and we didn't feel the need to rush back again. Two exceptions to this were : 1) the Asimo show, which we filed away mentally for our planned "shows and parades" day later in the week, and 2) we sat in on a reading by a Cast Member of the Peter Pan story, which was greatly enhanced by light and projection effects, in a small room. The story and effects was lovely, and we noticed that the CM was very animated and theatrical, so we lingered afterwards in order to talk to her. It turned out she was a puppeteer, and would be moving to London to work on the Lion King show next Spring! We had a lovely long chat with her, telling her all about London and the show itself, which we have seen and loved. Eventually, we wished her luck, and left the building..

We fancied some ice-cream, so picked up ice-cream cookie sandwiches and sat at some tables behind the Jedi Training Academy to enjoy them. We watched the stage come up out of the ground, which was interesting from the back as you could see the actors preparing themselves for the action to come!

It was time for our Star Tours trip next, so we whipped out those FastPasses like true Jedi Warriors, and set off for Endor, or so we thought …… I don’t think either of us realised that the film in here had been updated like in Disney World, so we were pleasantly surprised to be pod racing and having a battle in the skies! Great fun. I also love the pre-show film, watching the antics of those little robots who are easily irritated and not very bright! And the stewardess-type robot, who bids you "bu-bye!" in a Tour-Guide-Barbie kind of way, prompting me to say it in exactly the same way to all the Cast Members I encounter on the way out, making them laugh!

Back round to Adventureland, Pirates is now working and is showing a 30 min wait, but we can see the line is constantly moving, so we join it. Most of the queue area is outside, which we discover when we finally enter the building and are surprised that we are nearly at the loading area! There is not much theming to this inside area, as it is so short, and we are also a bit surprised by the knocking on both sides of the door and window that you pass – maybe this is a traditional thing that people do here?

Anyway, we absolutely LOVED this version of Pirates! We loved the very first scene, where you are floating slowly through a swampy bayou, it is really eerie. Then the drops are quite startling, and we really enjoyed the fact that because it is such a large building, the ceiling is not visible, being obscured by clouds and sky effects. In the scene with the pirate ships, there is mist floating across the water, which really adds to the spooky atmosphere, and the whole ride itself is really long. We really, really loved the last couple of scenes with the burning, creaky boat timbers and the pirates fighting amongst themselves. Overall, we thought this was a really fabulous ride, well worth the wait.

We exited feeling quite excited about the ride, and couldn't wait to do it again! We walked round to the Haunted Mansion, but this had a 60 min standby queue and surprisingly, no FastPasses are available for this ride. We therefore just walked round the New Orleans Quarter, which is really pretty with lots of tiny shops, and we liked this area a lot.

We were a bit tired by now, so decided to ride the Railroad round the park. There was a train station nearby, so we battled against the tons of people with strollers, (who ignored the CMs' directions to fold them up before joining the queue), and waited a few moments for the next train to arrive. We really enjoyed the journey, and loved the Grand Canyon dioramas, which showed the Canyon as it is now, and then how it would have looked when dinosaurs roamed the Earth – fascinating, and so well done!

We went all the way round the park, back to New Orleans, where we disembarked again. We had a quick look around the lake to see where we would need to check in for our Fantasmic Dessert party later, then walked back towards the Hub in search of food. The afternoon parade was happening, but we were going to watch that another day, so we went to Refreshment Corner, (where Casey's would be in Disney World), to see what they had on offer. I got us both mac & cheese hot dogs, bags of Lays chips, and coffee/lemonade, all of which was very good.

A quick restroom break, and we went back to Adventureland. There was a store there that sold Animal Kingdom-type merchandise, so we browsed there for a while, finding several things that we thought we might like to pick up at some point.

It was now time for us to check in for our Fantasmic Dessert Party, and choose our seats, so we made our way to the podium and joined quite a long queue. Fortunately, this queue moved quite quickly, and we were soon at the front. We were asked for our tickets, and I explained that I had been told this morning by a CM at the ticket kiosks that I only needed my confirmation email. However, I was then told that I should have been issued with proper tickets this morning! I grumped about this a bit, as I had been led to believe they were not necessary, and the CM eventually accepted this, and let us choose our seats for the show. There were a couple of roped-off areas with maybe 30 seats in each, and we chose a couple of seats in the centre section, in the third row. We were told people in front of us were not allowed to stand, so we would have a good view.

We now had about 45 mins before we needed to be back at the viewing area, so we decided to check out Pirates again. It was showing as a 15 min wait, so we happily joined the queue; however, it took us 30 mins to get through, as it moved really slowly, and so as we left the ride, we had to speed walk the short distance back to Fantasmic to take our seats. We were seated by 8.50, and were given some coffee and cans of Sprite, and told we could order as much as we wanted of any drinks available. We were then given quite a large plastic box each, which was our dessert platter. There were loads of tiny, bite-size desserts in each box. We got a lemon tart, coconut swirl, chocolate fudge cake, cheesecake, a cookie with jam in the middle and a chocolate coating, some grapes, 2 packets of crackers, 3 mini Babybel cheeses, and a small slab of both Monterey Jack and cheddar cheeses. The show began at 9.00 p.m., and we nibbled our way through as much of the platters as we could! DH finished all of his, but I had to take the cheese and crackers back to the hotel with me, as I couldn't manage it all. We got more coffee, and thoroughly enjoyed the show – it was really lovely. This is DH's favourite show at Disney World, and he enjoyed this one so much that he had tears in his eyes at the end! I cry at any Disney show, so it was no surprise that I was blubbing by the end. We thought that the Dessert Party was well worth the money, the desserts were gorgeous and generous, it was really nice having a 'special' roped off area, and we appreciated the seats too.

(The seating area is a nice size, but they do cram a lot of seats into each area, so there isn't a lot of elbow room! It was slightly difficult to balance the big plastic box of desserts on one's knees, and deal with coffee and cold drinks at the same time, as there is not a lot of spare space. It is understandable that Disney would want to maximise capacity, as this means more income for them. There were notices up saying that tonight's show was sold out, but we had about half a dozen empty seats in our section – not sure whether that was just folk that had bought tickets and not turned up for some reason, or whether they keep a few seats back in case the President decides to make an unannounced visit at some point!)

About 10 mins after Fantasmic ended, we turned our chairs around and watched the "Dreams Come True" fireworks show that was behind us. It opened with the "Wishes" soundtrack from Disney World, and then other park and ride tunes were used. We really enjoyed it, although it did seem to have less of a storyline than we are used to.

We were really tired by now, it had been a very long day, and we decided to leave the park after the fireworks. However, we couldn't resist one last ride on Pirates again, (5 mins showing, but took 15), before taking a slow walk back to our hotel. After 14 hours in Disneyland, it didn't take us long to get ourselves to bed!

DAY THREE – Monday 27 October

Plan : Explore California Adventure, World of Colour dining package @ Ariel's Grotto

Actual : After a really good night's sleep, we were awake at a reasonable time and got ready for the day, having our usual coffee in the room before we left. It was another hot and sunny day, yay!

We arrived at California Adventure just after opening time, and were really impressed by this park, it looked so nice! As we walked in, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was doing a meet & greet near the entrance, so we once again broke our 'no characters' rule and joined the short queue to have photos taken with him. We had never met him before and it was lovely to meet Walt's original creation!

We picked up a park map and times guide, and made our way to Paradise Wharf for breakfast, as a quick look at the map showed this as one of the few places serving breakfast food. We originally planned to order the breakfast croissants, but then we saw the sourdough bread bowls with scrambled eggs, bacon, grapes and orange slices, so we managed to change the order to those, particularly as they were the same price. They were massive! And with hindsight, probably we should have shared one – I couldn't finish all the bread and had to wrap half of it up in a napkin, thinking I would eat it later, (it ended up in the fridge for a few days, and in the end DH finished it off late one night). The bread is made onsite, and is really tasty. We also got coffee.

After we had studied the map and finished breakfast, we began our exploration with a visit to Ariel's Undersea ride, which was listed as a 5 min wait but was a straight walk-on. This was really cute, the same as the one in Florida. We took a slow stroll through the Grizzly River area, which was really nice, just taking everything in.

Our destination was Soarin' Over California, with a 10 min wait. Wow – Soarin' with a 10 min wait!! We liked the queue area, it was really interesting – pictures and artefacts of all sorts of examples of flight and pilots, over the years. We scored the front row, and thoroughly enjoyed our flight. It was fun to watch Patrick in the pre-show say the whole sentence, "Hello, and welcome to Soarin' over California!", as in Florida he does this funny mouth slamming thing after the word, "Soarin'", where he has been edited! We enjoyed this so much, that we went straight back on again after exiting.

Next we walked round to Hollywoodland, where we caught the last bit of the Trolley Show, which was fun to watch. Monsters Inc was showing a 10 min wait, and we were keen to have a look at this ride as we hadn't seen anything like it before, so in we went. This was loads of fun, we really enjoyed it! At the end, just before you disembark, Roz asked a little girl sitting in front of us if that was her family with her, which seemed to surprise the family! (There is obviously some sort of clever technology going on here, Roz was able to address people directly, just like in the Turtle Talk with Crush show in Florida).

Muppets 3D was next, just enough time to watch the pre-show, and in we went. We never tire of this show, it makes us laugh at the same jokes every time we see it, even though we have now seen it often enough to be able to quote quite large chunks of the script!

Afterwards, we were on our way to Bug's Land, and as we passed the Aladdin theatre, they were calling for last few seats left, so we decided to give it a go. It was like a proper theatre inside, and the show was AMAZING! Absolutely Broadway-quality, and the Genie was just brilliant. It must be so hard to play that role, you have to be true to the character in relation to the film version, but make sure you are not just doing an impression of Robin Williams. The guy playing him in this show did such a good job, he was funny and very topical, and so quick witted. We had a great time in there, and we were really pleased we hadn't just passed it by on our way elsewhere.

We walked through Bug's Land, which was a fun and cute area, but didn't really have anything we wanted to ride in it, and as we exited, we were near the FastPass machines for Radiator Springs Racers. We knew we wanted to ride this, but had been keen to spend our first day in California Adventure just orientating ourselves and exploring, rather than trying to get on lots of rides, so up to this point we hadn't thought about trying for a FastPass. We went to look anyway, but the return times would have clashed with our dining reservation, so we decided to leave it for today. However, the CM there overheard our conversation, and said that as it was a quiet park day, there was only about a 35 min wait for Radiator Springs Racers anyway today, so we decided to go round there and check it out for ourselves.

Wow. We were totally blown away by Cars Land. Every single aspect and area of this land is unbelievably well themed, and it is so cleverly done! We really loved the whole area.

After a good look round everywhere, we joined the queue for the Racers, and it was indeed about 35 mins until we boarded. We couldn't believe how immersive it all was, the mountains behind the track were built up in such a way that you couldn't see any of the outside world at all, it really felt like you were in Radiator Springs!

The ride itself is incredible! We loved, loved, loved it! It was exciting, and interesting, and so much fun. There are elements of Test Track in there, but it is a lot more exciting and a longer ride than Test Track. We came out, and immediately ran back into the single rider line as there was almost no wait in that queue. It was fantastic! We didn't realise until after we had ridden singly that the two tracks go through a different 'car improvement' experience too, I got new tyres again, but DH got a new paint job! This ride immediately became our favourite at Disneyland, and came a very close second to my other favourites in Florida, too.

We were a tiny bit peckish at this point, so went into Flo's V8 Café for pie and coffee. DH got the pumpkin pie, and I had an individual apple & cheddar pie, which was so delicious I am determined to try and make it at home, (it looked like a fairly simple recipe).

We finally left this amazing land, and went back to Paradise Pier to do the Bakery Tour. According to various Disney websites, this was supposed to be closed while we were there, for refurbishment; however, it looked open to us! And a CM at the entrance confirmed the refurb had been pushed back by a couple of weeks. We got a tiny slice of sourdough bread as we went in, then enjoyed this walk-through of a working bakery, with TV screens narrating the story of the bread making step by step. The tour was a bit shorter than we were expecting it to be, but it was still very interesting.

We continued round Paradise Pier to Toy Story Mania, which had a 20 min standby line. We liked the posters advertising the different games lining the walls. As we drew level with the loading queue, I happened to glance up and saw a tour guide ushering a family through a shortcut. I was idly wondering about this, as it was the second time we had seen a tour guide with a group of people at Disneyland, and this is something we're not used to seeing in Disney World. I then happened to glance at the people being ushered, and thought to myself, "gosh, that guy looks a lot like David Tennant!" At exactly that moment, DH turned to me and hissed, "That's David Tennant!!" We surreptitiously stared a bit, and also recognised his wife, an actress who had played his daughter in one of the episodes of Dr Who. We couldn't believe it! Of all the places in the world he could have been with his family, he happened to be standing in front of us!! No-one else seemed to have noticed who it was, and as they sat in the Toy Story cars, the tour guide noticed us staring and shook his head at us – we can only assume he was trying to tell us not to make a fuss and draw attention to the family. We smiled at the tour guide a little guiltily, and made a point of looking around us in an innocent kind of way. I can understand that maybe Mr Tennant wouldn't want a big fuss making of him, as he was just trying to enjoy a family holiday, and we made sure we didn't ruin that for him. (Although DH did manage to get a couple of very surreptitious photos of him!)

We got onto the ride without spotting any more celebrities, and, as usual, I won the game. Worryingly, where I used to win this by a comfortable margin every time, DH was now starting to catch up with me a bit though ….

We carried on round Paradise Pier, browsing the shops and looking at the rides, although there wasn't anything else that we wanted to do here today. Eventually, we took 5 mins out and sat on a bench by Ariel's Undersea ride thingy, and unexpectedly the Pixar-themed parade went past us, so we watched it with no-one standing in front of us! This was a fun and enjoyable parade, I'm glad we were able to catch it this easily.

It was now time for our dining reservation at Ariel's Grotto, so we walked over there and checked in. We were seated quite quickly, and opted for outside tables, which were set up on a sort of covered pier beside the restaurant. Our server was very nice, and she quickly fetched us some nice cold drinks. DH had the Crab Chowder, followed by Lobster Tail & Tri-tip beef with mashed potatoes and vegetables. I had a gorgeous Butternut Squash Soup, and the Tri-tip beef (without lobster!). It was all extremely delicious. For dessert I had a crème brulee, that was served cold but was really creamy and easy to finish! DH had a chocolate praline cake thing with a chocolate-covered strawberry, that he said was really good but very rich. We don't normally eat 3-course meals, so we really struggled to finish everything here, but it was all very tasty. We paid for our meal and were given our World of Colour FastPasses.

After a quick restroom break, we waddled round to the preferred viewing area for the show. It wasn't easy to find, as there were lots of different viewing areas for different types of FastPass, but we eventually found it and it was positioned really centrally, which was perfect!. As we were a little early, we were able to stand right against the railings with no-one in front of us. We got chatting to another British couple standing next to us, and that passed the time nicely until the show was due to start.

We really loved this water projection and lights show, it was incredibly well done and the music was fabulous. We particularly loved the way the lighting on Mickey's Fun Wheel was utilised, and matched up beautifully to the music. What a great show!

When the show was over, the park was near closing time and we were shattered, having been there for over 12 hours. We left the park, and took a slow walk back to our hotel, stopping to pick up coffee for DH on the way from a McDonald's that we passed. A little TV, and we were in bed and asleep pretty soon afterwards!

DAY FOUR – Tuesday 28 October

Plan : Disneyland Park

Actual : We did the usual shower, coffee, out early thing, and were at the park around 9.30 a.m. It was another glorious, sunny day, although we did try not to let the single, fluffy white cloud in the sky mar our day ….

First up was breakfast. We went to the Jolly Holiday bakery for coffee, a pumpkin muffin (DH), and a Matterhorn Macaroon (me). My macaroon was really delicious!

We wanted to try and do new-to-us rides today, so the first place we headed for was the Haunted Mansion. This had a 35 min standby line, so we once again broke our 20 min rule and joined the queue. Oh. My. Life. The wait was so worth it! The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay is absolutely amazing! We haven't seen the film yet, but were familiar with most of the characters and the storyline, so we were still able to enjoy the theming. (I loved the snake who has swallowed a parcel!) We kept getting wafts of gingerbread scent as we went round the ride, I assume that is piped in for our delight!

We both really liked the actual HM building as well, it is very different to both Paris and Florida's versions and was really quite pretty. It fits in beautifully with the rest of the New Orleans area.

After we exited this ride, we walked to Tarzan's Treehouse to explore that, which was fun, and then went on the Jungle Cruise with a 25 min wait. The wait time was accurate, but it seemed like an awfully long queue – we went up, round, down, round again, and just kept twisting and turning around very narrow walkways. The ride was still enjoyable, and the piranhas that leap out at you are great fun!

We next walked back towards the hub, intending to ride the Matterhorn, but were distracted by Pineapple Dole Whips so we had to stop for a couple. We just kind of hung around at the entrance to Adventureland, enjoying our ice-cream and people-watching for a little while.

All full of pineapple goodness, we walked over to the Matterhorn, which looked to have a very short queue, although it was showing as 15 mins. In reality, we were on those sleds in about 5 mins. We thought this was a very fun ride, a bit rattly, and sitting on the floor of the ride vehicle at our ages isn't particularly easy on the back, but we still enjoyed it. It was a bit like Big Thunder Mountain but with a yeti involved. He does appear suddenly a couple of times, which made us jump and then laugh a bit!

Storybook Land Canal Boats was next, and this was a cute little ride with a minimal wait, but we did find it a bit difficult to follow what the CM was saying as she narrated the stories of the vignettes we were seeing – it wasn't her accent we struggled with, but the speed of her talking and the fact that her diction was appalling!

We then walked round to Tomorrowland in order to catch the next Asimo show. We joined the queue, and were soon seated in a small theatre. We really enjoyed this show, it had a cute story-line, but the obvious real star of the show is the robot, Asimo. He was incredible, and the whole thing is extremely entertaining.

After this we were ready for lunch, so stopped at the Tomorrowland Terrace for BBQ Bacon Cheeseburgers, fries, coffee and lemonade. This was all very good, and filled us up nicely.

In order to let our lunch go down, we then opted for a round trip on the monorail. We had to wait about 5 mins or so for the next train, but did enjoy the views as we rode round.

We wanted to ride the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, and as this doesn't have FastPasses, we had to join the 45 min queue for it. It was okay though, the line was more or less constantly moving, and it felt like we were on there in a reasonable amount of time. This ride was great fun! I remember this from Florida, but DH had never ridden it before, and he really enjoyed it.

Next was Big Thunder Mountain, which was showing 20 mins but was definitely only a 10 min wait, if that. We enjoyed it so much that we went straight back on again at the end!

DH wanted to see Great Moments with Mr Lincoln, as it was one of Walt's originals, so we headed back towards Main Street. Along the way, we came across a small area that was set up to celebrate the Mexican Day of the Dead, which was fascinating. We had a good look round there, taking some photos, before going to visit Mr Lincoln. We thought it was a fantastic show, so well done, and really enjoyed it.

We browsed round the art shop afterwards, before going outside to watch Mickey's Soundsational Parade, which was lovely.

By now we were very tired, had seen the shows and parades we wanted to, and were ready to call it a day. We took a slow stroll out of the park, and called in at a tiny grocery store, (called Harbor), we had been passing every day. DH was a bit hungry so we got him a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich which came with Lays, and a coffee. I wasn't really hungry so just got a bag of Cheetos, and then picked up a twin pack of Twinkies for our dessert. We were back in the hotel by 8.00 p.m., where we had our food, watched some TV, and were in bed and asleep by 10!

DAY FIVE – Wednesday 29 October

Plan : Day off from parks – visit Downtown Disney, swim in hotel pool

Actual : After sleeping the sleep of the truly exhausted, we did our morning routine and then went out for breakfast. After much discussion of Denny's versus IHOP, we decided on IHOP as we both love their pancakes a lot. I got an order of peaches & cream topped pancakes, DH got pumpkin pancakes, and we shared a side of bacon. We also got coffee. DH's pancakes looked amazing, they were topped with pumpkin cream, and he loved them! Mine was gorgeous too, although I had forgotten how filling they were and that last time I had had these, I'd ordered the small stack of 2 pancakes, and not the stack of 4 I was now faced with! I must try to remember this for next time – note to self : order the small stack!

Anyway, breakfast was very yummy, and we eventually set out for Downtown Disney feeling very full and more like going back to the hotel for a nap! We made ourselves walk though, and we did feel better for it.

Downtown is just a few steps further on from the parks, and we began to happily browse the stores there. I had wanted to visit Build A Bear to pick up a costume or two for my Duffy bear, so we started there. I got him a bright pink Minnie Mouse dress, some Minnie ears, pink sparkly shoes, a pink and purple tutu, an "I heart California!" t-shirt, and some Minnie Mouse pants with a cute little gap for his tail! (What can I say, I don't have a Shellie Mae bear yet!) However, when I went to pay for all this, the member of staff told me they didn't accept Traveller's Cheques – what?? How bizarre, you are based in a tourist area, and they are backed by American Express. They are also cheques that I have already paid for, and surely they are a safer alternative than carrying cash? I failed to understand how the company can have a problem with them. I complained a lot, but they still refused my cheques. In the end, I had to pay cash, which pretty much wiped out all the cash I had on me that day. I was not happy!

DH picked up a couple of pins he wanted from a cart outside, before we headed to Earl of Sandwich for coffee and a cold drink (apple juice and Sprite). It was a very hot day, and we were wilting a bit in the heat!

We wanted to explore the Grand Californian hotel, so we went for a look round there. Ooh, it is gorgeous! It would be lovely to stay there one day. There are fireplaces inside and outside, with big, squashy leather chairs to sit on around the fire inside and rocking chairs outside. We sat in the check-in area for a little while, and a Cast Member came over to check we were okay, then stayed to chat with us. She was very nice, and it was all going well, until she began to gently but persistently try and persuade us to attend a DVC meeting there. We said we didn't think so, but then she said she could fit us in now, if we were interested! We managed to dissuade her from this idea, and eventually had to get up and politely leave in order to get rid of her!

We also went for a look round the Disneyland Hotel, as that looked lovely too. There were characters out and about all around the ground floor in there, with hardly any guests around, so we took the opportunity to pose for photos with Pluto and Goofy, before spotting Minnie – I showed her the outfits I had bought for Duffy, she seemed quite happy with it all!

We went into the small store in there, and I asked the nearest CM if they were happy to take a Traveller's Cheque from me as I had had an issue with them in Build A Bear. She seemed surprised by this, and said she was sure they were wrong and should have taken the cheque. I told her it had made me rather cross, and she seemed quite unhappy about this and went off to find a supervisor to report this to. Anyway, having established that I could use my cheques in there, we went ahead and picked up a couple of items – I got a set of Mickey measuring spoons, and 2 or 3 pins for gifts.

After this, we explored the World of Disney store, where I got some Disneyland t-shirts as gifts for family, and DH bought me a gorgeous Disneyland snow globe (early Christmas present) and a pink casual jacket, with a furry lining, and "Disneyland 1955" embroidered on the back. (I have the same jacket from Disney World, in a light brown colour). This was a late birthday present!

We had sufficiently recovered from breakfast enough by now to consider a late lunch, so we went back to Earl of Sandwich where DH had an Hawaiian BBQ sandwich, and I had a Holiday Turkey sandwich. We also shared a pot of potato salad, which was really tasty, and had coffee.

We were finished with the shopping by now, and it was around 4.00 p.m., so we took everything back to the hotel, changed into swimwear, and went to the pool. We then spent a good couple of hours in the pool and the hot-tub, neither of which were too crowded, and had a thoroughly relaxing time, it was lovely.

At around 7.00 p.m., we went back to our room, showered and dressed, then set off to explore the hotel a bit. We found a Pizza Hut outlet a few floors up, but weren't at all hungry, so left there and went back down to the reception area, where we found a very small hotel store. For a small shop, they had quite a large amount of food items and other assorted necessities, and the prices were cheaper than the Harbor Store! We got some Cheetos, Lays chips, pineapple Fanta, and a bottle of pink lemonade, and took this all back to the room, where we relaxed and watched TV, enjoying our minimal dinner, before having an early night. Needless to say, our 'relaxing day off' had been rather full-on!

DAY SIX – Thursday 30 October

Plan : Final day at California Adventure

Actual : For some strange reason, we both had quite a disturbed night's sleep for the first time this week, although we were still up early this morning. We did our usual thing of showers, coffee, and out to California Adventure in time for rope-drop. (And in actual fact, we did indeed have to wait with quite a large crowd to be allowed in).

Our first aim this morning was to pick up FastPasses for Radiator Springs Racers, but unfortunately that seemed to be everyone else's first aim too, and the queue for the FastPass machines was rather big! However, it moved down really quickly, as lots of FastPass machines were open, and we soon had our FastPasses, good for about an hour later.

We went straight round to Cars Land after this, and rode RSR through the single rider lane, getting onto the ride really quickly – yay! (The standby line was 105 mins!!) We then went to Flo's V8 Café for pie and coffee, getting the same pies as we had had before as we had liked them so much. As we ate, we were watching the RSR cars race past us, but suddenly the ride stopped. It got going again after a couple of minutes, and then stopped again. Then it started again, and then went really quiet for ages, with no cars coming round. We finished our breakfast, and went to see what was going on.

The cars were being loaded as we got there, so we handed over our FastPasses and joined the queue. The ride must have stopped again, as the cars suddenly stopped leaving the loading area. After about 15 mins of waiting, we were told it had broken down and would not be operating again immediately – we watched lots of folk who were already on it, being evacuated. We spoke to the CMs because we had already handed over our FastPasses, and there were lots of others in the same boat, so he went off to find a supervisor. The supervisor appeared soon afterwards and handed out Fastpasses which he dated, and said they would be good for any time that day, assuming the ride got back online again. Some people were a bit irritable and cross with the CMs, but it wasn't their fault and they didn't deserve to be shouted at!

We walked slowly through Cars Land, taking lots of photos, and paused to pick up a chicken verde bread cone for DH from the Cozy Cone Motel, which he said was delicious. (As I was waiting in the queue for the bread cone, I saw a tiny, bright blue hummingbird in a nearby tree – I've never seen one before! He was gorgeous, so cute!)

I also got a fabulous Christmas tree ornament for my daughter from the store there – it is a star, made out of little spanners! Cars is one of her favourite Disney films, and we thought she would love this decoration – we were right, when we gave it to her a few weeks later, she did indeed love it!

We stared at Mater's Junkyard Jamboree for a bit, wondering at the fools who seemed quite happy to be spun to death. Then, after DH had finished his cone, we walked round to Condor Flats and Soarin' Over California. The standby line was 25 mins, so we tried the single rider option. This was very quick, but felt weird to both of us – we are used to riding this together! So we then did it again, but in the regular standby line.

We walked round to Paradise Pier, as I was hunting for the Corn Dog Castle. We found it, but it was much further round than I had remembered, and DH was quite smug because he had suggested we head to the right to get there, where I insisted it was to the left, and got my own way. We then had to walk all the way round the Pier to find it! Anyway, I ignored his smug little face and sent him off to find a table, while I queued for a huge corn dog for me, and a cheese stick for him, plus coffee. He loved his cheese stick, while my corn dog was everything I dreamed it would be ….. Yum!

Ariel's Undersea thingy was next, with no wait whatsoever. Cute. Toy Story Midway Mania only had one side running, so was a 30 min wait, but we love the ride so waited anyway, and for the first time in forever, DH won! Clearly, my trigger hand was defective ……

We popped into Ghirardelli's to see what they had got, in particular we were looking for milk chocolate drops, but they didn't have any. They did have a couple of new and interesting looking bars of chocolate, which we made a mental note of, and we got a really, really tiny, free caramel sample. It is part of their new 'minis' range which doesn't look spectacularly good value for money, to us.

We checked out Radiator Springs Racers next, which seemed to be running again, but the FastPass queue was HUGE, and standby was 80 mins, so we went to Hollywood Land, and rode Monsters Inc, twice in a row with only a 5 min wait. We enjoyed this so much that we promptly went back on for a third time! I LOVE the room of doors, it is exactly like I imagined it would be in real life, and is amazing! I remember seeing the film for the first time, and desperately wanting to visit the room of doors, I thought it was incredible – and here I was, actually in there!

I also love that when you enter the Chinese restaurant, cool air is blown over you that smells of ginger and soy sauce, which really enhances your experience. It is such a fun little ride! At the end of our second ride, Roz asked me if the guy next to me was my husband, and then laughed at me!

We went back to Radiator Springs Racers again, and this time braved the still quite long FastPass queue and rode, using our complimentary Fastpasses from earlier. We only waited for about 20 mins in the end. I got the new paint job side, for the first time! When we got off there, we walked straight round to the FastPass machines again and picked up more FastPasses for later on.

Afterwards, DH reminded me that I had previously wanted to try and get a Kitchen Sink ice-cream purely for the 'Mickey Pants' container, so we went to Clarabelles' Ice-Cream Parlour where we got scoops of Mocha Almond Fudge ice-cream, topped with hot fudge sauce, caramel sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry – yum! I was a bit concerned that this would be really huge, but it turned out to be exactly the right size to share, we loved it! We cleaned out the container as much as possible with spoons and fingers, then wiped it with a napkin so we could take it home with us. (It is now nicely washed out and residing on my kitchen window-sill, awaiting some herbs being planted in it!)

Soarin' was next, 10 mins wait on standby so we rode it twice in a row. Still lots of fun!

It was dark by now, and we were in our FastPass window for Radiator Springs Racers – we were really looking forward to riding this in the dark, and it didn't disappoint – it was even better, if that was possible! The FastPass and single rider queues for it had gone down a lot, but the standby was still at 60 mins. We absolutely loved this in the dark, it gave the ride a different perspective. We did get the tyre change option again, though!

After this, we strolled slowly around the park a little, taking lots of photos and just winding down really. We went into Ghirardelli's again and bought some bars of chocolate, dark with cherry flavour, and dark with mango flavour, before taking a slow stroll back to the hotel shop and picking up more Lays chips, and some pineapple Tango. TV and bed followed shortly afterwards!

DAY SEVEN – Friday 31 October

Plan : Final day at Disneyland, Mickey's Halloween Party

Actual : We had a much better night's sleep last night, and slept in a bit this morning as we knew we had a very late night coming up, followed by a very early morning tomorrow. While DH got himself ready for the day, I did online check-in for our flights tomorrow, pre-paid for 2 suitcases, and rang the Disneyland Express to book our pickup time, then quickly got ready for our day.

We walked to the Disneyland Park, and went to the Jolly Holiday Baker for pumpkin cupcake, (DH), a Mickey bat cookie, (me), and coffee. We went through the map to see what was left to do here today.

After breakfast, we walked to Fantasyland and rode Pinocchio, Snow White's Scary Adventures, and Mr Toad's Wild Ride in quick succession – all had 10 min or less waits, which was great. We love Mr Toad!

When we were here last, riding the train round the perimeter, we had passed a theatre at one point where there seemed to be singing Princesses, so we now set out to find whatever that show was. We went to the Fantasyland Theatre, but it was showing something called Mickey's Magical Map, which we didn't think was the right show. We walked around Fantasyland a bit more, before DH convinced me that this was indeed where we needed to be, so we had to race back in order to make the start time of the show. We seated ourselves at the back of the theatre, just in time. What a lovely show this was! Totally unlike anything else we have seen at Disney, it had Princesses and maps and journeys and Mickey becoming a proper sorcerer at the end! It was so cute, we really enjoyed this and were glad we made the effort to go and see it.

We walked round to Frontierland to check out Big Thunder Mountain, and it was only a 20 min standby so we happily rode the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness, before checking out the Haunted Mansion – ugh, 40 mins, longer than we wanted to wait really. We knew that we stood a good chance of getting on this tonight, when the park was limited to Halloween Party guests, so we went for a late lunch at the Stage Door Café. DH had chicken nuggets and fries, and I had my last corn dog of the week, again with fries; we both had coffee. It was all very good!

Our intention had been to leave the park around mid-afternoon, but we couldn't resist one last visit to Pirates of the Caribbean, as we just loved this ride so much, so we did a quick 20 min standby and were soon Yo-Ho-Ho-ing with those pesky pirates.

We knew we had to leave for a short while, so we eventually dragged ourselves away and headed down Main Street, stopping in the Emporium to pick up a Halloween Party t-short for DH on the way. Back at the hotel, we did our packing, although we hadn't really unpacked much all week, preferring to spend our time in the Disney parks instead! We then rested for a little while, with DH taking a nap, and me doing online check-in for our rental car tomorrow.

Around 6.00 p.m., we got changed into our Halloween Party costumes. I had a zombie bride long white dress, veil, bunch of black roses, and a white lace choker with a blood-red sparkly stone centrepiece. I smeared black eye-liner under my eyes and adopted a mad, obsessive bride expression on my face for the night! DH wore his orange "Psycho Ward" shirt, added some tattered black Mickey ears on a headband, and again smeared black eye-liner under his eyes; he also smeared bright red lipstick around his mouth, and borrowed some of my psycho expression for his face! I made sure to pick up our Halloween Party tickets email, and we got back to the park at around 6.30 p.m.

We scanned our tickets and were given wristbands and goodie bags, so we then picked up a Party map and set out to find some Trick or Treat trails. There were lots of them, and what impressed us the most was that when we have done this Party in Disney World, there has been one treat station per trail; here, there were 4 or 5 treat stations per trail, which resulted in our getting an entire tote bag full of candy! We had to keep stopping to empty our goodie bags into my tote bag. We had chocolate bars, bags of fruit-flavoured candy, pretzels, Cheezits, yoghurt coated raisins, baby carrots, cheesy puffs, dried apple slices, all sorts of yummy things!

We absolutely loved seeing all the costumes that people were wearing, there were some astonishingly good ones, and some really inventive family ones, too. I kept saying the "hurry baaaack!" line from the Haunted Mansion bride to CMs, which made them laugh.

Probably the most tiring treat trail we found was the one in the Monorail Station, because we had to walk all the way up the ramp to the station itself! But we think we explored all the trails over the next 5 hours. We also rode Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates, and the Haunted Mansion, all with around 20 mins wait each. We sat on a kerb near It's a Small World to watch the parade, which was lovely, (if a bit short), and nibbled some of our Party treats while we waited. (I also discovered an absolute LOVE of Cheezits, which I had never had before). We then walked round to the hub to watch the special fireworks.

By the time we had done all that, it was 11.45 p.m., and the park was due to close shortly, so we made our weary way back to the Fairfield Inn for the last time, bidding a sad farewell to Disneyland. We did the last bits of packing, putting our Halloween costumes away, completely filling my small hand luggage suitcase with Halloween Party treats, and fell into bed.

DAY EIGHT – Saturday 01 November

Plan : Leave Anaheim, fly to Florida

Actual : We got up with the alarm at 4.45 a.m., having had very little sleep! We had a quick wash, cup of coffee, got dressed, checked out of the hotel, and were standing by the bus stop in front of the hotel lobby by 5.30 a.m.

The Disney Express shuttle bus arrived on time, and we boarded a bus full of sleepy people. A video of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas was playing on small screens around the bus, so we half watched the middle of the film for an hour, before arriving at Terminal 5 of Los Angeles airport. We disembarked, collected our luggage, and headed for bag drop. None of our bags were overweight, luckily – this was something I had worried about, as they were near the weight limit when we flew out, and we had added to them a bit in Disneyland!

Luggage free, we went off in search of breakfast. We found a snazzy little diner, where DH got a breakfast bagel with egg, sausage and cheese, and I had pancakes and bacon. We both had much-needed coffee. The food was really good, hot and fresh.

After breakfast, we headed for our departure gate, where we had a short wait. When I had done the online check-in yesterday, I hadn't been able to choose a seat assignment for us, it just kept saying this would be done when boarding. I asked about this at the departure gate, and was told it would be done shortly. Nothing happened for a little while, we sat around and checked emails etc on our iPads, and I thought I would ask again. I went back up to the gate desk, and was given two boarding cards (and no explanation as to why they hadn't called us up to collect these!). They had assigned us separate seats! I queried this – if the flight had been an hour or two, it wouldn't really have mattered, but neither of us was keen to be separated for the entire 5½ hour flight! I was told that the flight had been oversold, and they were already looking for passengers to move to a later flight, so they had just had to assign us whatever odd seats were left. I moaned about this a lot, (I HATE this over-selling of seats thing!), and eventually they juggled things around and gave us two seats together, in the exit row – nice, we thought, extra leg room! We boarded and got ourselves settled.

However – my seat belt was too small for me, by about an inch. (I also hate the way aeroplane seat belts are all different sizes, you would think this would be something that was fairly standard! The majority of them fit me just fine, but there are the occasional exceptions to this). I asked for a seat belt extension, and was told that if I needed this, I would have to move seats!! We were both really fed up with Delta by this point. We had to swap seats with the people sitting behind us, apologising profusely to them for the inconvenience.

We finally took off a little late, and throughout the smooth and uneventful flight we were served a variety of free coffee, soda, water, peanuts and pretzels, although no actual meals. Due to the late take-off, we landed about 30 mins late at Orlando International Airport. We had also lost 3 hours due to the time difference, so it was now 6.00 p.m.

Our luggage came out quickly, we collected it and got the monorail across to the main terminal building, (we love this little monorail!). We went to the Dollar car rental desk, where it became apparent that online check-in was a waste of time, because we went through the exact same process as we always do when picking up a rental car. The guys there seem to have dropped the extra insurance upsell thing now, they haven't done that to us for a couple of years, but they now have other things to try and scare you into! First of all he tried to get us to upgrade the car for a bigger one, but we had already booked a full-size car, for 2 persons and 4 cases, so that didn't work. Then he tried the satnav route, but we already have our own in the Owner's Locker box, so I said no to that. Aha – he had a better idea : try to scare us into buying a Sunpass or whatever the toll pass thing is called. He said that most toll booths are now cash free, and we would need to have a pass or we would be fined! He pointed to a laminated map on the desk, which I studied intently while DH was busy filling in forms. It clearly showed that the vast majority of these cash free toll booths are in Miami and South Florida, and we knew we wouldn’t be going anywhere near there this year, so I told him we didn't need a Sunpass. He frowned at me like I was making the wrong decision, and asked if I was sure. I said yes, I was sure, and he shook his head at me – twerp. I'm not some green tourist who hasn't done this before, this trip was my 14th to Florida over a time period of 25 years, if I don't know what I'm doing by now, I never will! Okay, if the toll booths all over Florida do ever become cash free, then I'll get a pass thing in advance, but I'm not giving the car rental companies any more money than I have to. We did pay for a full tank of gas, and he assured me that the cost was comparable with off-site gas prices, which is quite good because a few years ago they used to charge us $6 a gallon if we pre-paid for it! (Over the next couple of weeks, I checked gas prices wherever we went, and they were a touch cheaper than we paid Dollar, but not significantly).

We finally got the paperwork sorted out, and headed over the road to the parking garage, and to the Dollar section. We had booked a Dodge Avenger (or similar), but there didn't appear to be one to choose, so DH opted for a dark grey Chevy Impala, which he was pleased with as he had been fascinated by the name of this car for many years! It was really nice, very comfortable and plenty big enough for us.

DH loaded up the cases, and I dug through my paperwork folder and found the driving directions to the villa we had rented for the next week. We set off, and the villa was only a short drive away really. We basically headed South out of the airport to the I4 West, went past Celebration and the Mickey Mouse Power Pole, down a couple of junctions, came off at junction 62, and the villa was about a 5 min drive from there, on a small and fairly new estate.

We found our particular villa, and of course by now it was quite late, we were tired and hungry, and we couldn't get in! There was a small lock-box by the front door, with a keypad. We slid the cover up, and punched the security code into the keypad. Nothing happened. We assumed that this released the door lock, so we tried and tried to get the door open, keying the code in several times, but to no avail. The management company for the villa was closed by now, so we couldn't ring them for help. We stood there for a couple of minutes, at a loss as to what to do next, when luckily our next-door neighbours arrived home. The got out of their car, and said hello to us – they were British! We pounced on them, and asked them to help us, explaining that we couldn't seem to get the door to open.

This is the embarrassing bit – the guy came round to our door, shut his eyes while we put the security code into the keypad again, and then instead of trying to actually open the front door, he OPENED THE LOCK-BOX, where the front door key was nestled, sniggering quietly to itself at us. Oh for heaven's sake. We felt so stupid! But neither of us had dealt with a lock-box before, and we were tired and hungry, which does affect one's judgement – this is our excuse, and we're sticking to it! I told the guy who had helped us that I didn't care how inappropriate this was, and I hugged him. He was very good and didn't laugh at us to our faces, but made sure we could actually open the door using the key before he went back to his family, with profuse thanks from us.

Anyway, we finally got into the villa, and ran round like a pair of over-excited children, exploring each room. There were 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a private pool, full kitchen, lounge and garage, plus a laundry/utility room. We dragged our cases in, and set off out again to go to the Publix supermarket we had passed on the way. We got some hot fried crispy chicken, cold potato salad, a half gallon of milk, and a couple of large bottles of soda. We also got some Krispy Kreme doughnut holes – yum!

We took our dinner back to the villa, where I had to reboot the internet server in order to access the free Wi-Fi, before eating dinner and watching TV for an hour or so. We finally went to bed around 10.00 p.m., it had been a very long day, but we were happy to be in the next part of our adventure!

DAY NINE – Sunday 02 November

Plan : Get organised, and relax!

Actual : We slept really well last night, and the clocks went back during the night so we got an extra hour in bed! Consequently, we got up quite late for us, around 9.00 a.m., had showers and then coffee and doughnut holes for breakfast, sitting out on our patio by the pool. Our Owner's Locker box was delivered around 11.30 a.m., and we unpacked both it and our suitcases. It was quite exciting seeing what was in the locker box again, even though we had had a list of what was in there, it is still nice to see the odd little things we hadn't listed and had forgotten about, (like the tube of vanilla-flavoured Carmex sunscreen I had been looking for at home!).

We relaxed outside by the pool for another couple of hours, then made ourselves go out and drove to Publix again, where we picked up some dishwasher tablets, toilet rolls, a loaf of bread, stick of butter, huge bags of Cheeto's and Lays chips, some antacids, and a small tub of Carmex as I only had the sunscreen one with me and I am completely addicted to the stuff, I can't live without it. I was also on the lookout for some credit for the AT&T GoPhone I now had with me, thanks to our Locker box, but Publix didn't have anything under $50, and I really didn't need that much!

We drove back to the villa, put away the groceries, made more coffee, and went back outside to relax by the pool again. DH was busily browsing the internet, while I was doing online jigsaws, it was really lovely. It was the first time in over a week that we had had chance to relax and rest!

At some point in the day a very nice gentleman came to clean the pool, and we got chatting to him. It turned out he was British. We discussed the various merits of moving to Florida to run your own business, versus staying in a cold and miserable England. It was an interesting chat!

For lunch we had the rest of yesterday's chicken, and potato salad, then around 7.00 p.m. we thought we should go out and get something for dinner, but there wasn't anywhere close by, (we forgot about the Chilli's that we had passed on the way here!), and we really couldn't be bothered to drive round looking for something, so we ended up just picking things out of the Halloween Party treats, along with some Cheeto's and Lays.

DH decided he fancied a swim, despite the fact that it was now dark, a little cooler than we had been used to in LA, and the pool actually faced the wrong way to get the sun in the afternoon and wasn't heated. In he went. And about, ooh, 5 minutes later, out he got. He did swim a couple of lengths, before deciding that maybe this wasn't his best idea of the day!

We retired inside, where DH took a nice warm shower, and then after a little TV watching, we went to bed. We had had a lovely, relaxing, regenerating day.

DAY TEN – Monday 03 November

Plan : Legoland

Actual : Having had an excellent night's sleep in a bed that wasn't QUITE as large and comfy as last week's, but was still quite passable, we were up around 8.00 a.m. to shower, and have coffee and doughnuts for breakfast.

We set out at 9.00 a.m. for Legoland, and couldn't find it! Our satnav wasn't working at all, every time we plugged it in, it just showed an error message and said the battery was flat, and turned itself off again. We tried various ways to get it to work, but no dice. Irritating!

Therefore, we followed the written directions I had picked up off the internet, and after passing one small sign for Legoland, we drove for 11 miles with no sign of the park and no sign of any signs. We thought we must be going the wrong way, this was one long, straight road and we knew we were supposed to be on it, but just not in which direction we were going. DH was adamant it was the opposite way to where we were headed, so we eventually turned round and drove back to our original starting point on this road. Then we drove another 8 miles the other way, and STILL couldn't find the park or any signage. I finally managed to convince him we had been going the right way in the first place, so we turned round AGAIN and went back our extra 8 miles, then on the original 11 miles, and then just kept driving …… Eventually, we found the park – at midday!! It was MILES further on than we had thought. Luckily, the tickets had been free anyway, so we didn't think we had wasted a morning of potential park exploration, just several gallons of gas.

Anyway, we paid $14 to park and went into Legoland. The first thing we did was pick up a park map, and then get some coffee and a couple of cookies, (which cost a shocking $16 in total!). We consulted the map, and were a bit surprised to see that everything seemed to be either roller coasters, or little kiddie rides, there didn't seem to be anything in between. (I think we have been spoilt by Disney parks!) We went on the Skyview ride thing to have an aerial view of the park, and this was nice, but then we walked round the other areas of the park with nothing else to do!

Miniland was interesting, there were models of big cities such as New York, Las Vegas, Paris etc., all made out of Lego, and we enjoyed the Star Wars area too.

We were ready for lunch after Miniland, so found a kiosk selling hot dogs. I bought a very small and plain hot dog in a roll, and a bag of Lay's chips, each, and it cost me $14 for this, without a drink! We both thought this was dreadful value for money.

After lunch, we wandered round a bit more, not riding anything, and browsed the shops a bit too, although they were overpriced and understocked, in the main. The park itself wasn't overly crowded, either. By 4.30 p.m. we had seen everything there, and so we left, feeling very disappointed with this theme park. We did have a quick look round the large store at the end, and I bought a Michelangelo Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Lego key-ring for my daughter, for Christmas.

As we drove in earlier in the day, I had noticed a Taco Bell next door, so we went there for some food before leaving the area. I had 3 crispy tacos and a refillable soft drink, DH had 2 soft tacos, a cheesy potato burrito, a portion of Fiesta Potatoes, and coffee. This was quite a lot of food and drink, and cost me the grand total of $13! We thoroughly enjoyed it all, we really do like Taco Bell.

We managed to find our way home again after this, and watched some TV before bed.

DAY ELEVEN – Tuesday 04 November

Plan : Sea World, Universal City Walk

Actual : We got up fairly early, and I made us some toast and coffee. Using the landline in the villa, which gave us free phone calls as an offer with the booking, we rang my parents for a chat, as we hadn't spoken to them since we left, and wanted to check all was well with them.

After breakfast and a nice catch-up with family, we drove to Sea World, and paid $17 to park there. Again, the entrance tickets were free with our Discovery Cove package.

As we walked in, we spotted a Dippin' Dots stand, and DH expressed an interest in trying these, as he has never had them before. My sister tells a story of how she suffered brain-freeze eating some of these a few years ago! We got him a small portion of Cookies & Cream Dots, found a quiet bench near the Ray Pool, and he ate those while I had a quick look at the guide map.

He managed to smugly finish his Dots without brain-freeze, and enjoyed them. We then went to stroke some rays, and watched them for a little while, before heading for the dolphin pool. We uselessly dangled our hands in freezing water for ages, trying to stroke a dolphin, but unless we had fish, the dolphin weren't coming anywhere near us, so in the end we gave up and went to have a look at the underwater viewing area, which is lovely.

Manatees were next, followed by some very cute, tiny gators. We were nicely in time for the Dolphin Show after this, which we both enjoy as the show is more about the athletic aerobatics of the keepers, than about making dolphins jump through hoops.

Lunchtime beckoned, so after checking the dining options on the map, we walked quite a long way across the park to get to Mango Joe's. This was worth doing, as on previous visits, we have just stopped to eat wherever we happened to be, and this has resulted in very disappointing meals for us there before! There was a huge queue, so DH went to find a table, while I stood in the queue and got chatting to folk around me. DH had a bacon cheeseburger and fries, and I had chicken strips and fries, plus the usual coffees. We also shared a giant pickle! Lunch was good, we enjoyed it.

Afterwards, we went to see the sharks, which as well as a couple of outdoor viewing pools, has a really good walk-through area through a glass tube, with sharks, giant turtles, and lots of other cool fish. We paid a visit to the seals, who were having a very noisy conversation with each other, before queueing for an absolute age for a very disappointing "Empire of the Penguin" ride. I used to like the old penguin attraction, where you stood on a conveyor belt and were taken slowly past all the penguins behind their glass enclosure, but now they have spent a lot of time and money on this whizzo new attraction, that at that point had a 45 minute wait time. We were already getting close to the time of the last Shamu show of the day, and we really wanted to see that, but we thought we would have time to do the penguin ride and the Wild Arctic before Shamu.

So we stood in this winding, long queue that took us through fake icy rocks and snow, before depositing us four persons at a time in what looked like a lift. We stood there for a bit, nothing much happened, and then the doors opened on the opposite side to where we had entered, and we were ushered out into a loading area with these ride vehicles that I think were supposed to be boats. We had opted for the mild ride, I think the wild version was supposed to rock around as if you were actually on the sea. Anyway, nothing worked. The projections and film in the preview room hadn't worked properly, I think there was supposed to be something in the lift-like room, but nothing had happened in there, and now we were loaded into a vehicle that moved about 100 yards and then stopped, and sat there for about 10 minutes. We weren't given any information by staff, there were no announcements, we all just sat there like spare parts. Our vehicle eventually began to move very jerkily round in a circle, then it rolled into another room, along with another couple of vehicles. We all sat and faced a blank wall for a bit while automatic shutters whooshed up and down behind us, then the vehicles turned round again and went into a room full of frozen iciness and penguins. It was FREEZING in there! The staff were all bundled up in big coats, hats, gloves, etc., while us poor sunburnt saps were all dressed in flimsy summer attire! Everyone stared at the penguins who seemed very happy in their Winter Wonderland, for about 30 seconds, then left rather quickly before they froze to death!

We exited the attraction, deeply unimpressed, and in order to warm ourselves back up, quickly walked over to the Wild Arctic attraction. To be honest, this was also a bit disappointing – there was hardly any animals in there at all! The polar bear enclosure appeared empty, and the Beluga whale enclosure had two barely visible whales swimming around each other, nowhere near us. We got bored quite quickly and walked the very, very long way out. It just seemed like a bit of a nothing exhibit.

There were 5 mins before the last Shamu show, so we power-walked to the Stadium and quickly found seats. The show, One Ocean, was really lovely, we enjoyed it and it is always fun to see a killer whale soak the front half a dozen rows of seats/people!

The park was closed after the show finished, so we made our way out, and drove over to Universal's City Walk. (We got horribly lost though at one point, and had to virtually guess the right direction to go – luckily, we got it right!) We had to pay $10 to park, ending up in Jurassic Park, which wasn't too bad. We wanted to explore here as we had only ever walked through it quickly on our way to one of the Universal theme parks, and a lot of new eateries and stores had opened up there recently, so we really fancied a look round. We spend an hour or so exploring, and it was a fun and vibrant place to be, we liked it a lot.

We stopped at Cinnabon for a very healthy dinner of a caramel pecan Cinnabon for me, and a pumpkin spice Cinnabon for DH, and coffee. Both 'bons' were yummy!

After dinner, we stickily took ourselves for a good look round the new Universal store, which is quite big, but didn't buy anything. They had a fabulous array of Harry Potter merchandise, which was fun to look at.

We were quite tired by 9.30 p.m., so we left City Walk, drove home, watched some TV and were in bed by about 11.00 p.m.

DAY TWELVE – Wednesday 05 November

Plan : Aquatica

Actual : We were feeling really tired today, despite a good night's sleep, and to be honest, a bit lazy. Our free tickets to Aquatica weren't really inspiring us, so we decided to have a day off from touring today! I made us some nice, hot, buttered toast for breakfast, and we sat around in pyjamas for a little while, before changing into swimsuits and going into our pool for a couple of hours. This was fun, and very relaxing.

When we got out, DH had a shower while I had a lovely hot bath, the tub was huge and I had wanted to try it out! I only had hotel-sized bottles of shower gel, and no bubble bath, so I just poured a whole bottle of shower gel into the bath while it was running, to make for a bath full of scented foaminess!

We made more coffee and sat around outside for a bit longer, then decided we needed to go to Publix for hot crispy chicken, and potato salad. Just as we were getting ready to leave, there was a knock on the front door, which startled us a little as we obviously weren't expecting visitors! However, it was someone from the estate management company, come to check the fire extinguishers in the villa. We let them in, they escorted the extinguisher-checking man to the kitchen, checked appropriately and politely, and left.

Off to Publix, groceries collected, we drove home and sat back outside again!

This was a lovely day, and one we desperately needed really, having been in commando-tourist mode for over a week. We spent most of the day surfing the internet, I was also doing my online jigsaws, and DH napped a bit too.

When the weather cooled down a little and it was pretty dark, we moved inside and watched some TV, picked dinner out of the leftover chicken plus bits from the Halloween Party goodies, and eventually went to bed, feeling very relaxed and refreshed.

DAY THIRTEEN – Thursday 06 November

Plan : Kennedy Space Centre

Actual : Right, back to commando-tourist mode! We were up very early, showered and dressed, and out to Kennedy Space Centre, which took about an hour to drive to. Just before you get there, there is a long causeway that you drive across, with the sea on either side of you. We love this part of the drive, and this time I saw a wild dolphin leaping in the water, and then a bit further on, I also saw a gator near a stream, just lying there and watching the world.

When we got to the Space Centre, we both thought that the entrance was either new or changed in some way, as it looked quite different to the last time we had been, last year. We parked up and headed for the entrance; I already had our tickets, as I had bought them in advance.

We went on the Bus Tour first of all, which is much more limited than in previous years, as they were gearing up for the launch of the Orbit rocket in a couple of weeks. This meant the VAB building was out of bounds, which was a shame, although we have had an extensive tour of this previously so we didn't mind too much. During the tour, we spotted a wild manatee, a couple of gators, and two eagles, it was amazing!

We disembarked the bus and had a quick look round the Apollo and Saturn rocket buildings, then caught the bus back as our primary objective on this visit was to see the new Atlantis shuttle exhibit, and we were keen to get there! Back at the main building, we picked up some lunch – DH got a burger and fries, and I had chicken tenders and fries, both were good but they didn't sell coffee at this location, so we had to settle for water. Again, we didn't remember this food outlet being there before, and we had to battle to stop the local birds from stealing our food while we were eating it!

Lunch over, we made our way into the new Atlantis building, and were completely blown away by the whole exhibit – it was breath-taking! There is a pre-show film on a huge screen, with very stirring and dramatic music that builds up to a crescendo. Then the screen lifts upwards, and you see the space shuttle in all her glory, displayed as though she is flying through space, with her payload doors open. It was so moving! We spent ages walking around the upper area, which also has a full-size model of the Hubble Space Telescope, and lots of exhibits of used spacesuits, information boards, etc. It was so interesting!

We got chatting to a really nice guy from our home town in the UK at one point, we had heard him talking to his family and recognised his accent as being local to us, so we had a good chat with him, before going on to the shuttle experience simulator ride. I do like this, because I convince myself in my head that I am an astronaut, blasting off into space to do vital, life-saving space work. I amuse myself so easily ….

We were finished exploring up here, so decided to move down a floor. To get to the lower level of the exhibit, you have two choices. There is a staircase, which I used, and then there was the route DH used – a massive slide, that takes you down to the ground floor at the exact speed and degree of descent used by the space shuttle! We did think at first that this was only for kids to use, but then we saw a couple of adults on it, so DH eagerly thrust his backpack and sneakers at me, leaping off into the great unknown – well, sliding on his bum to the ground floor, anyway!

We took a quick restroom break, then wandered round the ground floor exhibits. Atlantis looked so big from the ground floor, DH took loads of photos because she was just so photogenic!

When we were finally done with the whole exhibit, we left for a shopping session. The store was extremely busy as there was a school group in there, so there were small children EVERYWHERE! Although they were in the main quite well behaved, and not causing trouble or being overly noisy. We picked up some Astronaut Mitts oven gloves, (I have a pair at home from last year, and they are nearly worn out), a t-shirt for my son, and DH's missing space shuttle pin, (he has been collecting significant ones for a little while, and had been previously unable to find a pin of the shuttle we saw take off last year), so he was happy! Unbeknownst to me until I opened these on Christmas morning, DH had also bought me a Fisher Space Pen, (to use when I am an astronaut, obviously), and a really cool, tiny, clockwork moon rover, that sticks to the fridge using a magnet and then defies gravity by driving round the fridge door – it is fabulous, I love it!

Purchases paid for, we went outside, got coffee, and found some seats to get away from the hordes of kids for a while. We relaxed and enjoyed our drinks, before setting off to explore the rocket garden, which is always fun.

The Centre was closing by the time we had finished Rocketeering, so we reluctantly left the Centre and drove back home, not encountering any more wildlife, sadly. As we pulled onto our estate, we saw that Christmas decorations had been put up at the entranceway! They looked lovely.

We weren't very hungry, so just had some pretzels and Halloween goodies, and I packed a bag with the minimal stuff we would need for tomorrow. We watched some TV and were in bed at a reasonable time, as we knew we had a very early start the next day.

DAY FOURTEEN – Friday 07 November

Plan : Discovery Cove

Actual : Tickets for Discovery Cove are limited in number, so we had been quite pleased to be able to book a visit there. Your entrance ticket includes unlimited food and drink throughout the day, (including alcohol if required), one commemorative photograph, hire of towels, snorkel & mask, wetsuit or jacket, animal-friendly sunscreen, shower gel & shampoo, lockers, and unlimited access to all pools; the add-on is a dolphin swim.

We got up at 6.00 a.m., dressed in swimwear and light outer-clothing, and set off for Discovery Cove, which is situated directly opposite Sea World. (We had seen signs for it a few days ago, when visiting Sea World, so we knew exactly how to get there!)

We parked up, and headed in to reception, where we registered, were given our laminated passes, and allocated a 9.30 a.m. slot for our dolphin swim. We walked out of the back of the building, and there was a member of staff there with a sloth! We were allowed to pet the sloth, and took some photos of her, she was lovely. We continued round the pathway, and came across a coffee station, so stopped to pick some up, before having our photo taken by an official photographer, (this photo is complimentary).

We found the restaurant, and got some breakfast. We had egg & ham croissants with cheese, peach yoghurt, a bowl of fresh fruit, orange and apple juices, and coffee. It was all very good, and there was also a selection of breakfast pastries and muffins, although we didn't have any of these.

After breakfast, we walked around a little to orientate ourselves and just have a look around. One word of warning here though – the staff are extremely helpful, but a little too helpful sometimes – we found it difficult to just wander around as we kept getting stopped by staff asking us what we were looking for and trying to direct us somewhere! DH got a bit irritated by all this and was a bit short with one or two of them, after we had been stopped for about the fifth time in the space of five minutes! In the end, we gave up trying to look round, and just found the lockers nearest to our allocated dolphin bay, (Seahorse), where we left our stuff, before collecting sleeveless wetsuit jackets, and finding a bench at the cabana.

At about 9.20 a.m. we, alongside our companions for the 9.30 slot, were ushered into an open-sided room, where we were ticked off a list and then all sat to watch a short video presentation about how Sea World works, and what they do for animal conservation and rescue. We were then split up into groups of 9 people, and led to the Seahorse cove, where we lined up in water that was not particularly deep, but had an EXTREMELY slippery floor – DH actually slipped over backwards into the water! Luckily, nothing was injured but his pride.

A trainer then talked us through what would happen next, and then called the first dolphin over to us. We were shown how to do hand signals to get her to respond to us, doing things like presenting parts of her body for inspection, waving her tail at us, etc. This was great fun, and the dolphin appeared to really be enjoying herself. We stroked her tail, and the trainer explained to us how to tell the differences between the dolphins there by the differences in their tail shapes.

Next we were asked whether we wanted a deep water or shallow water experience, and those who chose shallow, me amongst them, were directed off to the side of the cove, to another dolphin and trainer. DH swam out to the deeper section, was shown how to correctly hold the dolphin's dorsal and side fins, and was then towed back to shore! We each got a turn at being towed back, which was a bit scary at first because of the speed, but very exhilarating! Those of us in the shallower water stood at the edge of a lip where just beyond our toes the water was much deeper, to accommodate the dolphin obviously.

We got to rub the dolphin's back to say thank you, and then fed her some fish. They did a sterling job of towing us all back!

We were then taught a hand signal that gave each dolphin a 'shelf' of hands to put her head on, so we could pose for a photo 'kissing' the dolphin, which was lovely, and then we got into couples with our partners, and the dolphin did a 'head-and-tail out of the water' pose for more photos. Before we knew it, an hour had passed and our experience was over! (We were originally told this swim experience would last about 30 mins).

After this, we spent the rest of the day snorkelling in a tropical pool that had huge rays and other large fish in it, and sharks behind sloping glass so that it looked like you were swimming over the top of them. I desperately wanted to try snorkelling, as I have never done it before, but I really do have a problem with putting my face into water. I tried, I really did, but despite the fact that I knew I could still breathe through the snorkel, I still panicked every time the water touched my face. Eventually, DH stood next to me with his leg touching mine, held my hand, and placed his other hand on my back so I could feel him there. The trust and feeling of security between us was enough to then enable me to put my face in the water and look at the sharks properly. He was laughing as I was trying to say, "Wow!" through a snorkel!

We also spent some time sunning ourselves on a couple of the many sun loungers around, drinking lemonade slushies and coffee, and nibbling on cheesy Goldfish crackers and Lays chips, before going to the warmer pool which had a sandy floor and was so relaxing. We went round the lazy river, which was a lot of fun but was also very deep in places, over 8' I think, so I was glad of the noodle I was hanging onto! It also seemed to go very deep and then shallow again with no warning, so I banged my shins on an underwater cannon at one point too – ouch! (or words to that effect …..)

Around 2.30 p.m. we were ready for lunch, so we headed for the restaurant again where we had a very tasty, fresh and hot meal. I got Hawaiian chicken with rice, and DH opted for the same chicken but with fries. We also got a huge pickle, and some potato and egg salad, to share. We followed this with Key Lime cheesecake, (me), and chocolate fudge cake (DH). We also got coffee and some orange Fanta.

After lunch we spent some more time floating in the warm pool, and then at 4.00 p.m. we realised we needed to collect our free photo soon, so we got dried and changed in the shower rooms. We intended to have showers when we got back home, but had we realised there was shower gel and shampoo in the shower rooms, I think we would have planned to shower there. Anyway, we headed round to the photo store and collected our complimentary photo, then decided to purchase the photo and DVD package which was quite expensive, but you do get a lot for your money – a DVD of the whole dolphin interaction experience, a lovely photo album, a CD of all photos taken, a set of printed off pictures, a picture frame, and a poster of whichever is your favourite photo.

We had a quick walk through the aviary, DH took lots of photos everywhere, and then after a final cup of coffee, we left as the park was closing.

Although in the beginning we had thought this experience was expensive, taking into account what you get for your money, and the fact that we were there from park opening to park closure and had a really full day of entertainment and events, overall I do think this is good value for money.

I believe you can also rent a private cabana for the day, although we didn't look into this, and you can also book an experience day without the dolphin encounter, which brings the price down a little.

I cannot recommend this experience highly enough – but just make sure you book it well in advance, as it does tend to sell out quite quickly. They limit the number of spaces available each day, although this does then mean that the park is never over-crowded, which is lovely.

We still had time to browse round the shop before leaving, managing to buy a t-shirt each and the inevitable pin for DH, before heading back to the villa, exhausted but happy. Showers, TV, snacks, bed.

(part two to follow)