To WDW from the UK - May 2010 About This Page:

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This trip report took me 2 weeks to write, and includes a week spent in Dallas with my brother and his family, included by popular demand! If however you wish to skip this part of the report, feel free to scroll down to Day 7 - Thursday 13 May.

I hope you enjoy reading my trip report!

DALLAS & FLORIDA TRIP 2010 FROM THE UK!

WHO :
Carolyn – Trip Planner, 2nd trip to Dallas, 10th trip to WDW
DB – Partner of above, never been to Dallas before, 3rd trip to WDW

WHEN :
Dallas : Friday 07 May to Thursday 13 May 2010
Florida : Thursday 13 May to Saturday 22 May 2010

TRAVEL METHOD :
Personal car / aeroplane (American Airlines) / rental car

ACCOMMODATION :
2nd week : Disney’s Pop Century Resort

PLANNING :
This was a trip to spend almost a week with my brother and his family in Dallas, followed by an internal flight to Florida to stay at Pop Century for just over a week. I was actually quite late in booking all sectors of this trip, I usually plan to make bookings about 12 months in advance, but I didn’t book the hotel and flights until December 2009, followed by booking the rental car in January 2010, although I had made my dining reservations in November ’09 at the required 180 day point. Unusually for us, we had quite a strict itinerary for the Florida part of the trip, as we would only be there for 9 full days, and had 2-day Universal tickets plus tickets for Cirque du Soleil, as well as 7-day Disney tickets. We usually visit Florida for at least 2 and more often 3 weeks at a time, so we are not usually restricted to a very structured touring plan. It will be interesting to see how we deal with doing Florida ‘commando’ style this time, which we have only done on one previous trip before!

DAY ONE – FRIDAY 07 MAY
Plan – drive to Heathrow Airport in London, park the car, shuttle bus to airport, fly with American Airlines to Dallas Fort Worth airport
Actual – so we got up at 4.00 a.m. to drive the 100 miles or so to Heathrow Airport from home. Ugh. Showered, drank a gallon of coffee, loaded up the car with our 2 suitcases (one of which contained an extra empty case for goodies to bring back!), and made really good time getting to London, getting there by about 8.00 a.m. We parked in the pre-booked parking space and caught a shuttle bus within about 5 minutes. Plan going well so far!

We grabbed a luggage cart and found the AA check-in desk. There was only a very small queue to check in, so we didn’t bother with the automated self check I kiosks. Check in went very smoothly, and now we were luggage free, we could head off for some breakfast! We found a little café that was offering breakfast items, so DB had a full English and I had scrambled eggs on toast. With cups of tea and coffee, this was very expensive at around £16 in total, as portions were not particularly large. Still, it was hot and quite tasty, so it did what was required of it!

After breakfast we went through customs, then had a wander through the duty free shops on the other side. We went into W H Smiths to pick up some magazines and water to take on the plane with us, then headed for our gate once it was announced.

Boarding began about 20 mins later than we had been told, but seemed to go quite quickly once it started. We taxied into position on the runway, and then the pilot made an announcement that due to the ash cloud from the volcano in Iceland, ALL air traffic from Heathrow was being funnelled out of the UK through a narrow opening leading South to Spain! So instead of our flying North then veering left towards the USA, we were going to have to take a long detour South over Europe, before turning right and flying up towards the North again. In addition, because of the sheer number of aeroplanes leaving Heathrow airport, we would have to sit on the runway waiting for a slot to leave for an hour! A collective groan went through the passengers, as we settled in for an extra long wait on the tarmac. I fell asleep at this point.

Just over an hour later, I woke up as we were trundling down the runway ready to take off. The normally smooth takeoff seemed really long and laboured, but that could just have been our over-stretched imaginations! The flight, which should have lasted for 9½ hours, actually took 12 hours including 1 hour of waiting to take off, and we did have quite a lot of turbulence, which may have been due to the amount of air traffic using that particular route on that day. I spent some time completing my arrowword book, then read my magazines, the in-flight magazine, the duty free magazine, the TV guide magazine, and even the air safety leaflet, before moving on to try and find something to read on the sick bag. To say we were a bit bored was the understatement of the year! For the first time ever, I didn’t take a book with me, as I always take one and never read it – big mistake this time! The TV screens were not on the seat backs, they were above us in the aisles, with one positioned level with us and therefore not visible, and the next one being quite a long way down the aisle, so also not being very visible; plus, they were very small screens, which didn’t help! And then to top it all, the selfish guy in front of me put his seat back into the reclined position the second we took off, and left it there THE WHOLE TIME we were airborne!! This meant that when the meals were served, I couldn’t actually get my tray to sit flat enough to put the food on, until the nice steward asked him to put his seat up while I ate, which he did for a while.

We were very impressed with the AA aircrew. The stewards were all that little bit older than the slim young things we are used to, and they were very casual and laid back. We liked them a lot, they had a very good attitude. As soon as they heard the announcement of us being held at Heathrow airport for an hour after boarding, they immediately went to the back of the plane and brought out drinks and snacks for us all. We were also impressed with the quality of the meals on board, and the frequency of being given drinks. Well done AA!

Anyway, we eventually landed almost 4 hours late. My brother was meeting us at Dallas Fort Worth airport, and I hoped he had been monitoring the flight from home and hadn’t been sitting in the airport for 4 hours waiting for us! We disembarked quite quickly, then went into the customs area. The first thing I noticed was that the soundtrack to Illuminations was playing in the background! I have experienced this before in Orlando International Airport, but this was in Dallas! There were also video screens placed around that were showing a lovely and really inspirational “Welcome to the USA” film, which was fun to watch.

And we did get to watch it – several times. This is because, despite there being hundreds of people in the customs lounge, there was only one officer on duty on the ‘international traveller’ side of the lounge. Great. We joined a fairly short queue, which rapidly became a MASSIVE queue behind us, and waited. Now, before flying to the USA, we had been told that we had to complete ESTA immigration forms online before we flew. This would mean that instead of a green form and a white form being given to us to complete prior to landing, we would only have to complete a white immigration form.

Not true.

On the aeroplane, the stewards did not seem to understand what the ESTA form meant, despite my having a ‘completion confirmation number’ from ESTA. Therefore, we completed a green immigration form between us, as we were travelling together, and a white customs form each. Got that?

So we get to the front of the customs queue (after a 40 min wait!), and DB goes up first to the customs officer, then goes to beckon me over. However, as we are not married and therefore have different surnames, it turns out we should have completed a green form each! Argh!! I was sent to the back of the room to find and complete a green form of my own, so I stomped and muttered my way past the staring and jet-lagged, milling crowds, to the shelf area at the back of the room. Fortunately, there was a lovely customs assistant there, who helped me by finding the right form for me, then ensuring I completed it correctly, and made me laugh a bit too – bless him! I was a touch overwrought by the time I got to him, but he really helped to make me relax a bit more by being really kind and friendly.

The customs officer had told me to bypass the queue and go straight back to him when I had my form, so I did this, and again he was really kind and nice, dealing with me quickly and efficiently, which was lovely.

We then collected our luggage, and excitedly went out of the ‘arrivals’ area to find my brother. He was waiting just outside the door! It was so good to see him again, it has been 5 years since I last saw him (he comes over to the UK to visit periodically, as he has lived in Dallas for over 20 years now). He drove us back to his place in Heath, about 40 mins away from the airport. Bless him – he had made us lasagne and salad! I didn’t know my brother could cook! I was way too tired at this point to have anything to eat, but DB had some lasagne, and we both had a glass of wine to help us relax. We said hello to my one nephew, the other one was in San Antonia with his mum at a school choir competition (which they won!). After wine and a relaxing chat, we headed off to bed, completely exhausted by all the travelling …….

DAY TWO – SATURDAY 08 MAY
Plan – whatever the day brings
Actual – I woke up at 5.40 a.m. for a bathroom visit, but was able to go straight back to sleep afterwards, and didn’t wake up again until around 8.30 a.m. I expected my body clock to be all over the place, but I think staying awake as much as possible yesterday, then not going to bed until after midnight really helped me to adjust to the time difference. We unpacked, put together the gift bags I had brought for my family, and then had a lovely long shower. We sat in the lounge and chatted until my brother got up (he is a night bird!), and then he made us some coffee and we chatted a bit more. He then drove us around his neighbourhood, as I hadn’t been to Dallas for 20 years and DB has never been there, and my brother has moved house twice since I was last there! He lives in a really lovely neighbourhood, the houses are beautiful and really individual.

We went back to his place and had a quick tour of their house and land. He and my SIL run their own website building and design company, they work from home, and bro has an office in the garden, which is a great idea! My SIL has her office in the house. Their house is really lovely, very big and so prettily decorated. They have a pool and cookout area, and their garden leads down to a wooded creek. There is a massive garage too, and lots of room for the boys to hang out in their own den area upstairs.

We picked up my nephew (N1), before heading out to Taco Bell for lunch. I have waited a long time for this – we don’t have Taco Bell in the UK! I got 3 crispy tacos and a pink lemonade, and DB had a tostado and iced tea. From there we dropped N1 back at home as he was meeting a friend, then drove to a nearby yacht club, (which is based on the shores of Lake Ray Hubbard, the largest lake I have every seen in my life, ever! It was humungous!!), where my brother volunteered DB to help skipper a yacht in a race!! Heaven only knows how they managed this, there were 4 of them in the crew – DB had never sailed before, bro had only sailed 3 or 4 times before, there was some guy called Dave didn’t really know what he was doing, and the main skipper was fortunately an expert – and they managed to come 3rd in the race, despite having been facing the wrong way when the race actually started!! Anyway, they had a great time and I was proud of them, I took lots of photos of them every time they sailed past me! The guy who skippered their yacht had given me his club number, and told me to get whatever I wanted from the club house, and charge it to him. Such kindness from someone I didn’t even know.

I spent the 3 hours while they were racing sitting on the deck of the yacht club, sipping water and then coffee, enjoying the sun and just relaxing. The staff and other customers of the yacht club were absolutely lovely, really friendly and chatty, considering I was a complete stranger to them. Eventually, they began setting up for a wedding that was taking place that evening, and even though they didn’t say anything to me, I began to feel in the way a bit, so I took myself off for a stroll along the water’s edge. I was a bit sunburnt by this point anyway, so felt the need to move around a bit, and shortly afterwards my boys returned.

They drank a quick beer, then we drove back to bro’s place to plan our evening. He decided to treat us to a cookout, so we went to their local supermarket, Kroger, to pick up ribs and vegetables. I took the opportunity to pick up some doughnuts, Cheetos, Lays, and some wine. Back at the house bro cooked the ribs with some amazing Hickory Brown Sugar glaze, and also put something spicy on the veg! The ribs were fantastic, really tender and tasty, we enjoyed them a lot, along with more glasses of wine. We chilled and relaxed until my sister-in-law (SIL) and youngest nephew (N2) got back from San Antonio around 9.30 p.m. Despite not having seen me since he was a baby, N2 had bought me a gift from San Antonio of a lovely hanging ornament shaped like Texas! How sweet of him.

I gave out the gift bags I had brought with me. I got the boys t-shirts with “Birmingham, England” on them, plus other goodies including Fry’s Turkish Delight, something they apparently really love but can’t get in the USA! Everyone loved their gifts, and after the boys had gone to bed, we sat outside by the pool and talked until nearly 1 a.m., before heading for bed.

(I hadn’t seen my nephews in many years, and they have grown up into lovely boys, a real credit to their parents. They are now aged 15 and 10, and are really sweet, we really enjoyed meeting them and would have liked more time to get to know them better.)

There were huge thunderstorms in the night but DB never even stirred!

DAY THREE – SUNDAY 09 MAY
Plan – whatever the day brings
Actual – I got up around 8 a.m. and taught myself to use bro’s coffee machine, then we had coffee and doughnuts in bed! Bro & SIL went to church as they teach at Sunday School (which was a bit of a shock to my parents, as they knew nothing about that!), and when they told us about it afterwards, it sounds like they do a really lovely job.

Bro had left a couple of items outside our bedroom door before they went out, which were a couple of things I had previously bought on eBay from the USA, and had delivered to them for us to collect on our visit. It was much cheaper to do it this way than to have them shipped to the UK! I had bought a WDW throw with the castle on it, that had only been sold as a special offer at Christmas 2009, and a limited edition lithograph print of WDW that was a cast members’ only special. Both items arrived in really good condition.

We hung around, sitting outside in the sun and playing with Rocky (the mad) Boston Terrier (my, how he loves his squeaky fries!), until bro & SIL returned, and then, leaving N1 behind to hang around with his friend G, the rest of us went to Souper Salad for a really great soup and salad buffet lunch. This was our first time at this buffet restaurant, and we loved it! It was cheap, but the food was really good quality and was an all-you-can-eat buffet. We had huge plates of salad, Sprite, and soft serve ice-cream with toppings for desert – yum!

When we were finished, SIL drove us to Downtown Dallas as we were all keen to visit the 6th Floor Museum. I was quite excited at seeing the offices of the Dallas Morning News newspaper, as I had been looking at that publication online for weeks before we went! We parked up, avoided the guys selling unofficial brochures and offering guided tours, and went into the Museum. The entrance fee is quite reasonably priced, and you get a headset to wear that has a recorded audio guide on it, which you can stop and restart at will. It is a very sad and moving exhibition, and it is quite chilling to look out of the window at one point and see white crosses marked in the road where the bullets hit JFK. There is one fantastic action-shot photograph that was taken by a journalist of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.

When we were finished with the museum, we walked to Deeley Plaza to examine the area more closely, then cut back across downtown to have a look at the oldest settler hut in Dallas, which is preserved as a landmark. We went back and collected the car for a driving tour of the Arts District, (which is really lovely, and very inspirational), coming across a random bronze sculpture of a herd of buffalo being herded by cowboys, which was fun! Then we drove down a street called Swiss which is the Historic District where merchants originally settled in Dallas, and the houses were absolutely glorious, getter larger and more sumptuous as the street went on! There was some kind of ‘open house’ event going on for Mother’s Day, whereby people get to visit other folk’s houses – that sounded like fun, but sadly we didn’t have time to stop and enjoy that today!

We drove back towards bro’s place via a gas station, where to my brother’s huge amusement I bought I corn dog to feast on in the car. Well, I love them and we can’t get them here! We stopped off at Wal-Mart to pick up supplies (I got more doughnuts (actually, doughnut holes – yum!) and Cheetos), before heading back home to order take-out from Chilis. We got fried chicken, fries and corn to share and it was all really good! We settled down with our food and watched a film that bro had taped called “Vegas Vacation” with Chevy Chase. I have seen other films in that series, but that one was new to me and we really enjoyed it. Bed around 11.30 p.m.

DAY FOUR – MONDAY 10 MAY
Plan – whatever the day brings
Actual – another good night’s sleep brought a day that was cloudy and windy, but dry. We had coffee and doughnuts in bed again, (although DB had a couple of cinnamon buns baked by SIL for the boys, who had left some – I don’t know how she does it, but she has this amazing routine in the mornings – up by 6.00, takes the dog on a power walk, comes back and bakes muffins or cinnamon buns or pancakes or waffles, gets the boys up, takes them separately to school, and then begins a full day’s work!), before rousing my bro from his slumber and getting him to teach DB how to drive his truck, which we were borrowing (a big red Ford). Bro also gave us directions he had printed off for us on how to get to an outdoor shopping mall called Firewheel, which was our destination for the day.

We easily got to Firewheel following bro’s directions, and we parked up and set off for a good look round. What a lovely place! There was a big Barnes & Noble, which we love but don’t have in the UK, so we made a beeline for there first. We stopped inside for a Starbucks iced coffee and peanut butter cookies, before browsing through the store for an hour or so. Then we visited Macy’s, a candy store where we bought peanut butter Twixs to nibble on, and a goth shop called Hot Topic. We picked up an Alice Cooper t-shirt for DB and a lacy choker for me, and I also got a purple rope bracelet at half price. By this time we were getting a little hungry again, so we found a great place called Charley’s Grilled Subs, where I got a Philly Steak sub with fries & lemonade, and DB got a Bacon 3 Cheese Sub with fries and coffee. The food was really good, we enjoyed it a lot. It had been so hot out that we didn’t realise how hungry we were until we began to eat!

After a late lunch, we walked round to a shop called Pier 1, which is very much like a store chain we used to have in the UK called The Pier, but which has now closed down as a result of the recession. I picked up a cream throw as a gift to SIL – she was fretting that the dog had damaged the throw she had on the spare bed (ours!) before we got there, and so I thought this could replace it. I also picked up a groovy, tiny pink tape measure for myself. When we got to the checkout, I asked if they accepted American Express Traveller’s Cheques, and they said they did. I made the cheque out to Pier 1, dated and signed the cheque, and handed it over to the cashier, who said she would just check with her manager that this was okay. I thought this was a bit odd – these cheques are pre-paid, and guaranteed by American Express, and in the 20-odd years I have been visiting the USA I have never had a problem with them before. However, to my horror, she came back and said she couldn’t accept it. This was a $50 cheque, and it was made out to them – now what was I supposed to do with it? I don’t think they understood what the cheque actually was, I think they thought it was a personal cheque. In addition, I don’t think they get many tourists in the area, so it is maybe something they haven’t come across before. Anyway, she suggested we take it to the nearest Chase bank, which was 5 mins away, to ask if they could cash it for me. Not holding out much hope, we walked over to the bank, and spoke to a really lovely gentleman who, after having checked and double checked that this was okay, got me to counter-sign the cheque, using the words ‘not for purpose’ on it, and then cashed it for me. They were lovely, really helpful and professional, and I was no longer panicking!

We went back to Pier 1 and, using cash this time, purchased the throw and tape measure, although part of me wanted to tell them to stick it and not bother!! After this, we had to go back to Barnes & Noble for more iced coffee to settle my nerves!

We drove back to my bro’s house, getting ever so slightly lost on the way. We knew we were on the right track when we saw the burnt out house! (The day before we arrived, a massive, $6million house that had been built a few mins away from bro’s, and had only been occupied for a couple of months, had burnt to the ground – it was an impressive wreck! We had noticed the smell of burning when we first arrived, it was still noticeable).

We sat around and chatted for the evening, with glasses of wine and iced water, just relaxing with my family by the pool. Another lovely day.

DAY FIVE – TUESDAY 11 MAY
Plan – whatever the day brings
Actual – coffee and doughnuts in the kitchen today, rather than lazing in bed! Sat outside for a while enjoying the sunshine, before bro emerged from his bed to give us driving directions to a western wear store called Sheplars. We had previously expressed an interest in picking up some cowboy boots for DB and a proper cowboy hat for myself, not something touristy and tacky. We set off but got a little bit lost, as we could see the store on the far side of the road, but we had no idea how to cross the freeway to get to it!

We got there eventually, and it was a really great store, with lots of exciting things to look at and potentially purchase! I found a fab cowboy hat, plain black but with a studded pattern under the turned up sides of the brim, and a narrow studded leather band around the top. It is lovely, and cost me a lot less than I was expecting to have to pay – I am really pleased with it! We were to be disappointed on the cowboy boots front though – DB has very high arches on his feet and couldn’t actually get his feet into any of the boots in his size. We tried the next size up, and even the next one after that, but to no effect. The only option was a pair of black lace-up boots, which looked more like his work boots than a pair of cowboy boots, so we had to pass on that. We did find him 4 lovely Wrangler denim shirts in various colours, so we got those. We also looked at jeans for him but they were all too long in the body and made him look like Simon Cowell!

We left there after over 2 hours, and went back over the freeway to Denny’s for a late breakfast/early lunch. Since I last visited Denny’s they have added a couple of new menu items, so we had a serving of chocolate chip pancake puppies with maple syrup to start with – these were yummy, and very hot! Then I had a Build It Yourself Grand Slam, which was another new option to me. I loved the idea of being able to choose my own items for this! I had bacon, sausage, pancakes, and scrambled egg with cheese. DB opted for an All American Slam, which came with bacon, sausage, hash brown, scrambled egg with cheese, and toast. We had coffee and iced water, and the total bill came to $22.

From there we drove to a nearby Wal-Greens to pick up a couple of items. I had lost my nail file, I think at the yacht club on Saturday, so I needed to get a replacement for that, plus we needed some itch cream for insect bites we had somehow incurred! We also found some Dr Scholl gel instep supports for DB, which I had never seen before, and which he thought would help his poor feet when he is at work!

Essentials got from there, we next went to Krogers where DB admitted defeat for the day and sat at Starbucks with coffee, while I went and picked up a couple of cases of bottled water (to replenish the water that we had kept drinking from bro’s fridge!), some milk, and a pack of Purex 3-in-1 washing sheets. I had never heard of these before, but the Disney discussion boards host a plethora of fans of these sheets for use when travelling, so I thought I would give them a go!

We went home then so that DB could have a nap, and I got a glass of iced water and sat by the pool with my feet in the hot tub (although it was actually cold, as the heater wasn’t working at the time!). After an hour or so both bro and SIL had finished work, so we all piled into SIL’s car and we went to Taco Casa to eat. I had an XL Taco, which was huge, and really tasty! DB got an XL Burrito, and we also had Sprite & pink lemonade. Total cost was $8.

SIL then took us on a short driving tour of Rockwall old town. This was so pretty, a typical old style American town with tiny houses with swings on the front porches and the Sheriff’s office on Main Street! It was so sweet, and people waved and smiled at us as we went by.

Finally, we headed over to the YMCA sports ground, where N2 had a soccer game. My brother coaches N2’s school team, (the Hawks), and they had a match against another group of 10 & 11 year olds. SIL had taken camping chairs and water for us all, and so we sat and watched the game. This was so much fun! It was really funny watching my brother run up and down the sidelines yelling instructions and encouragement to the kids, and they responded to him with, “yes coach!”. The Hawks won the match 2-0, with N2 scoring one of the goals! He is a great little player, not at all aggressive, but determined and talented too. In a complete reversal of roles, at half time N1 took me to the restrooms! It was lovely to chat with him for a while, as well. They are both such great kids.

(I can’t remember which day it was, it may have been today, but N1 wore his Birmingham t-shirt to school and apparently his friends all loved it! His teacher commented that she spent a while teaching in the UK, too.)

We really, really enjoyed our evening, and after the football match we drove home for a glass of wine and a restful chat by the pool, again, before bed.

DAY SIX – WEDNESDAY 12 MAY
Plan – whatever the day brings
Actual – up early again, showers, coffee, did a bit of washing so we would have clean clothes to pack later, then collected our driving instructions from bro and went out to Denny’s for breakfast. We had puppies to start with, then I had the same Grand Slam as before while DB opted for a Lumberjack Slam this time. Total cost was around $23, with coffee and iced water.

From there we drove to Southfork. I had been a HUGE fan of Dallas having watched it on satellite TV in the early ‘90s, and on my only previous visit to the city of Dallas in 1989, Southfork had been closed, so I had never been here before. I was very excited about this trip, and wore my newly purchased cowboy hat today too!

We parked the car, then walked into the gift shop to purchase tickets to the tram tour, ranch and museum. Again, I thought this was very reasonably priced. The tram tour didn’t depart for about another 20 mins, so we browsed through the museum after pausing to have our photos taken in front of an enormous illuminated “DALLAS” sign.

The tram tour was fun, and ended at the ranch, where we were given a brief talk on the history of Southfork Ranch, before being let loose to explore on our own! Wow! We poked round all the rooms, stood on JR’s balcony (the same balcony that he used to eavesdrop on everyone plotting against him from!), took loads and loads of photos, before I swept dramatically down the staircase pretending to be Sue Ellen (my favourite character!) while DB filmed me on the camcorder – that is a bit of film that will never see the light of day outside our house!! We went outside and sat by the pool for a while, before paddling in it a bit, then went to Miss Ellie’s Deli for coffee and a choc chip cookie. I picked up some souvenirs from there, and we went into a store called Longhorns & Lincolns to do some more shopping. Jock’s actual Lincoln Continental is in there, so we took yet more photos and then bought a Southfork licence plate and guidebook, and a couple of pins.

After that we walked back round the tram route to the museum, where we saw the main characters’ horse saddles and watched some ‘best bits’ videos, before purchasing our tour photo that was taken earlier. Finally, we walked round the first gift shop properly, buying some Dallas pasta for my daughter, and some postcards. I also got a really cute Texas shaped necklace for myself.

By this time, we had been there for 4 hours, and had seen everything we wanted to, so we bid a sad farewell to Southfork and drove back to Firewheel. We had seen an Old Navy store there a few days ago, but hadn’t had time to visit it at the time. My dad loves Old Navy stuff, so I wanted to pick up a t-shirt for him for Father’s Day. I got him a really nice one, and we also got a pair of pale grey joggers for DB. We had a quick look round the popcorn store, but didn’t buy anything as it was all a bit expensive for just popcorn!

We drove home, met up with bro & SIL, and planned our evening. First thing to do was the dreaded packing, as we had to leave early tomorrow morning and I didn’t want to be tackling the packing then! That took about 40 mins and was reasonably straightforward, as we hadn’t bought a huge amount of stuff while in Dallas.

We got changed and bro drove us all (except N1, who had homework to finish!) to a relatively new area called The Harbour District, which is really pretty and on the shores of Lake Ray Hubbard. We went to a Tex Mex restaurant called Gloria’s, and luckily managed to get seated quite quickly – it was really busy in there! Within seconds of our being seated, a waiter brought round baskets of warm tortilla chips and 2 types of dip, a salsa and some kind of smooth bean dip, which was really lovely. We got halfway down it all and they brought us fresh chips & dip again!

I ordered steak quesadillas, with cheese, salad and guacamole (which I had never tried before but didn’t like!). DB had chicken & spinach quesadillas, and we both ordered a beer to go with it. N2 had some kind of chicken nugget thing, and bro & SIL shared a platter of assorted stuff. The food was outstanding, really fresh and hot, and the service was absolutely exceptional – we were so impressed with this place. They replaced the soft drinks really quickly, before they were even finished. Total bill was $78 including drinks, which I insisted on paying in full as thank you to bro & SIL for looking after us so well.

We had a slow walk around the Harbour area, looking at the fountains and sculptured stonework. Eventually N2 said he needed to use a restroom, and we just happened to be near an ice-cream parlour called Cold Stone Creamery. I told him that SIL and I would go just inside and pretend to be considering buying ice-cream, so that he could nip in and use the restroom, so we did just that, leaving the men outside to chat. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of actually reading the menu, and then caught sight of the ice-cream cupcakes. Oh dear. They looked irresistible! SIL insisted on buying a box of 6 for us to share (so I blame her entirely).

We drove to Krogers so that bro could pick up some beer and wine, and he also wanted to get a firelog. This was a novelty – it is a compressed paper log that only costs a couple of dollars, and is made from recycled paper, but it burns for about 4 hours – what a good idea! We went home and he put the firelog in the fire basket by the pool, and we sat out there for a couple of hours just drinking wine and chatting, after demolishing the cupcakes of course! Bed at about midnight. What a delightful way to end our week with my family.

We both had such fun in Dallas, it was lovely to spend time with family members I hadn’t seen for quite a long time, and we felt relaxed and happy, ready for the next leg of the trip!

DAY SEVEN – THURSDAY 13 MAY
Plan – fly from Dallas to Florida, pick up rental car, check in Pop Century, drive to Fort Wilderness Campground
Actual – I had to set the alarm this morning, for the first time this trip! We got up around 7, had quick showers and finished the packing, then sadly said our goodbyes to SIL and N1 and N2. I gave SIL the throw I had bought for her in Pier1, before she took the boys off to school in bro’s truck. We loaded up SIL’s truck (which has more room inside), then bro drove us to the airport. We didn’t encounter any heavy traffic, and made good time getting there.

Bro parked up and came inside with us (he had to use a restroom, apparently!), and we hugged him goodbye. I was upset, but not too tearful. He went off to the men’s room, and we stood in the queue to check in our luggage. However, just before we were called up to the desk, bro came back out again to leave, and waved at us – this was the point at which I burst into tears, realising it will probably be a long time before I see him or SIL and the boys again. I don’t think he saw me getting upset though, which was good!

I was sufficiently recovered by the time we got up to the check in desk, and after a small incident which involved one case being 2 lbs overweight and us having to redistribute stuff into the other case, we were checked in and heading for the gate. We found it quite easily, and settled down to finish off the box of doughnut holes we had brought with us for breakfast! However, before we were able to board, it was announced that there was something wrong with our plane and the gate was changing! We didn’t have to go far, but this did result in our taking off an hour late. I had been prepared for gate changes after reading some internet forum discussions about AA, but I suppose this one was unavoidable if there was something wrong with the plane. The flight was quite cool, I like flying over land, it is really interesting! We had some coffee that they brought round, and some peanut butter on Ritz crackers that we had brought with us.

We landed after just a 1½ hour flight, although we had then ‘lost’ a further hour because of the time difference. The luggage seemed to take ages to come out, and then we had to wait a while for ours to appear! We headed for the Dollar Rental desk to pick up the rental car. I had purchased a pre-paid platinum package from a company I found on the net, Carhire 3000, for a really good deal. I had wanted to get a Chrysler Sebring, and this company offered one at a good price, then they gave me the platinum package at a really good price too! This included an extra named driver, and the first tank of fuel free. I was fully braced for the ‘hard sell’ tactics we usually encounter when collecting rental cars at this airport, all the horror stories we would get about extra insurances we needed to buy, etc. However, apart from wanting the main driver’s passport, driving licence and credit card, the rental guy asked me only two things – did I want pre-paid tolls, (no, once we had headed towards Disney property, the only time we would be using toll roads again would be on our return journey!), and did I want roadside assistance, (heck no, you rented it to me, if it breaks you can replace it!!). Easiest rental we ever got! He gave us the paperwork and told us where to collect the car from.

So we go outside and get our first breath of hot Florida air! We went over the road to the parking garage, grinning all the way because we were on our way to Disney! We got to the Dollar area of the garage, but it was almost empty of rental cars. The only one parked there was a white Hyundai, which didn’t look particularly special to us. We stood by it for a bit, then began to put the luggage in the trunk, thinking we would probably have to have this one. I opened the doors to look inside to decide whether or not I would be happy with this car, and there on the passenger seat was a handbag!! Suddenly, a woman comes hurrying towards us with a look of panic on her face – she had been trying the car out, but her family had decided to get another car and she had walked off without picking up her handbag! She was very relieved to get it back.

Anyway, while all this was going on, the rental car company drivers began bringing freshly cleaned cars back into the garage, and the first one they brought in was a silver Sebring! We promptly claimed that one as our own, and hefted the luggage out of the Hyundai and into this one. We settled happily into it, then looked behind us just as we left and a gold coloured Sebring that was much prettier had just come in – we gave up and left in the silver one, we had had enough at this point!

For the first time in all my visits to Florida, I had forgotten to print out directions to the hotel from the airport. We had already asked at the Dollar desk which way to go to get out of the airport and towards Disney, and they told us. We found the Disney arch easily enough, but I had naively thought that Pop Century would be clearly marked from there. Well, either it wasn’t, or we just didn’t see the signs – we ‘oohed’ at going under the purple arch, then spent the next 20 mins driving round looking for the resort! We found it eventually, after being forced into a lane that took us to the entrance to the Magic Kingdom – we just drove up to the parking kiosk and apologetically told them we were there by accident, and they directed us round in a circle to get out again.

We parked in the guest car park, and went in to check in. I hadn’t bothered about doing this in advance, as I knew it wouldn’t take long to get checked in, and it was around 5.00 p.m. by now, so the room would be ready. I had requested a room in the 70s section, with a King sized bed. We were given a room in the 80s section, (7316), with two double beds instead. Ah well, I know they can’t guarantee requests.

We drove round to the car park nearest to our block, and then took the luggage up in the elevator to find our room. This was so exciting! There was a little towel dog in the window waiting to greet us! (We left him in the room all week though, as I am never sure whether you are allowed to take these or not – isn’t it technically stealing if you take them?). We thought the beds looked a bit small, but the room itself was lovely, and there were hidden Mickeys in the wallpaper in the bathroom, the shower curtain, and the carpet! We had to get a move on now though, so we just dropped off the luggage without bothering to unpack, and went back to the food court so we could get refillable mugs – we love these and they pay for themselves really quickly as we get a lot of use out of them! We both got coffee in them, and left the food court.

Following the direction signs, we then drove to Fort Wilderness Campground, as we had a reservation at Trails End Buffet. This was to be our very first meal in a Disney restaurant other than a fast food restaurant, and we were really looking forward to this. I had made a reservation there 180 days ago using the on-line reservation service, which had proved really easy to use.

We parked the car and waited for a shuttle bus to take us to the far end of the Campground, where the restaurant is located. One came along within 5 mins, and we really enjoyed the journey through the campground. It looks like a lovely place to camp, it would be nice to stay there one day. When we got off the bus, we still had a little while before our reservation time, so we had a wander around a couple of kiosks and looked at the pins etc., before checking in at the podium. We were given our very first pager, and went to sit on some rocking chairs on the porch! We were loving this!

We only had about a 10 min wait before the pager went off in a display of flashing lights, and we were shown indoors to our table. First impressions were positive, we were liking the look of this place. We sat for a few minutes before our server came to us, and she did seem a little terse with us, but we ordered 2 adult buffets and 2 glasses of Sprite. She told us to help ourselves from the buffet, and while we were gone she left us glasses of iced water. We went up to the buffet – and I must say we were really impressed by the choice and quality of the food here. It was lovely! I had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, sweetcorn, macaroni cheese and gravy to start with. DB got more or less the same as me, but also tried some other vegetables as well. We got back to the table and the server finally turned up with the Sprite. She was less than stellar really, but we didn’t take much notice as we were serving ourselves to the food anyway. The food was yummy, and we went back for seconds. Having polished off the second plate, we then hit desserts – soft serve ice cream with a sprinkling of (I think) Reece’s Pieces for me, and a plate of brownies and mini pastries for DB. The whole thing was really lovely, and we would definitely go there again, feeling it was good value for money.

The only slight downside was our server – she had virtually ignored us all evening, and then as we were finishing desert, she attempted to whisk our plates away before we were completely finished. This is something DB hates, and it immediately put him on edge. Then she took away his glass of iced water without saying a word to him! We stared after her in disbelief, then he muttered something to me about ‘how rude’. She returned a minute or so later and slammed a fresh glass on the table by him, saying “I thought you were done with the water!” before turning and leaving again! She then brought the bill, and told us that the gratuity wasn’t included on it. No, and it never was either, as we left the exact money and declined her invitation to leave her a tip! I have never done that before, but just felt that she was definitely lacking in basic manners, never mind Disney magic.

Anyway, we left the restaurant and went back to one of the kiosks to get a Fort Wilderness pin for DB, before walking slowly down towards the beach area. We stopped for a quick look around a trading post type shop that we found, before a slow walk along the beach towards some loungers with very few people on them. We sat down on a couple of loungers and had a nap for half an hour! It was lovely, so relaxing. The temperature had dropped a little and we were comfortable without being cold. There were a few kids racing about on the beach, but nothing that kept us awake!!

At 9.45 the Electrical Water Pageant came past us, which was really sweet. Then at 10 p.m. Wishes began at the Magic Kingdom, and the music and narration was piped in to our beach via hidden speakers. I had known that this would happen, and had planned it as our ‘something new to do at Disney’ for this trip. This was so nice, and a fitting end to our first day at Walt Disney World.

Afterwards, we walked back to the bus stop, and caught a bus back to the car park, before driving back to Pop Century. We stopped off at the food court to pick up coffee and hot chocolate in our mugs, then went back to our room to unpack and fall into bed at around midnight!

DAY EIGHT – FRIDAY 14 MAY
Plan - Epcot
Actual – I was too tired to sleep very well last night, so woke up feeling physically worn out. However, we had a lot to achieve today, so we had to get up when the alarm went off at 7.30 a.m.! We settled into our routine for the week today, which was I take a shower while DB walks over to the food court for early morning coffee in refillable mugs, then I sit and drink mine while he showered.

Our plan today was to head for Epcot, but as there was a shuttle launch planned from Kennedy Space Centre today at around 2.20 p.m., we had wanted to try and see that as well. On our way out we stopped at the Classic Hall to ask at reception where the best place to go to watch the shuttle takeoff would be, (the space shuttle Atlantis was due to make it’s final launch today), knowing we wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near Kennedy. (DB went to fill the mugs again while I asked this question!) The very helpful cast member I spoke to told me that he had heard 200,000 people were heading for the area and it was more than likely we would just end up stuck on a freeway somewhere in the boiling heat for the afternoon! We thanked him and decided to go to Downtown Disney for breakfast, to discuss the situation.

We ended up at Earl of Sandwich – I love this place! DB got a ham, egg & cheese sandwich, and I had a bacon, egg & cheese. We both had coffee. It was really quiet in there at that time of the morning, and we were served quickly. We took our food outside to sit at the little tables set up there, and watched the squirrels in the trees.

After breakfast we walked around Downtown a little, venturing into Once Upon A Toy (nice, but sells the same stuff as is available in World of Disney!), TrenD (very nice, had some very different and cool clothing for young adults), Ghirardelli’s for a quick caramel chocolate square sample, (and they have lots of new stuff, which we will buy later in the trip!), and World Of Disney (who also have lots of new styles of t-shirts, which were lovely!). We didn’t buy anything at this point, planning a shopping trip later in the week. We walked past the Lego shop and the now closed McDonalds, and went into the T-Rex Restaurant for a look round. The dinosaur animatronics in there are incredible, and the baby woolly mammoths are just so cute and almost crying out for a cuddle …… We stayed for the meteor shower, and then left.

We drove back to Pop to put the camera batteries on charge (this was the only day we forgot to do it the night before!), and discovered that DB’s battery charger was not compatible with USA electrical currency, despite having an electrical converter. We were heading for Wal-Mart next anyway, so just added a new battery charger to the list of things to get!

Down the 192 we went, and to Wal-Mart. We picked up a case of bottled water, a new battery charger, and some pink lemonade water flavouring sachets. We then drove round the corner so I could show DB where the Give Kids the World village was located, where I had spent some time in 2008 working with a UK charity that took a group of terminally ill children there for a holiday. From there we went back over the 192 to the Nike outlet store to pick up some trainers for DB, (2 pairs of really nice Nikes for $60 in total – bargain!), and when we came out we had a brief encounter with a British family who asked us for directions, not realising we were British ourselves! Fortunately, we have an excellent tourist map that we got from a British cartographer who produces and sells these maps online, and we were able to show them where the Buena Vista shopping village was and how to get there.

We hung around the car park drinking coffee from our refillable mugs for about 10 mins, before watching Atlantis whoosh off into space over our heads. That was exciting! We could see the flames under the shuttle and the big white plume of smoke, it was amazing! We probably wouldn’t have been able to see any more than we did had we attempted to drive closer to Kennedy, anyway, so we were happy with that.

Back to Pop we went to drop off the shopping and pick up the cameras, and we also refilled our mugs while we were there. Then we drove to Epcot, parking in Create 45. I knew it was Extra Magic Hours tonight, so didn’t feel too bad about not going there until later in the day.

I had bought a Pal Mickey from eBay a couple of months ago, having wanted one for years, and stupidly not buying one when they were on sale in the parks years ago. He is a bit well loved, but I was assured he still worked, so I took a chance and bought him anyway. Well, as we approached the entrance to Epcot, he giggled and vibrated – I pressed his hand, and he said something like, “Hey, Epcot! I love this park!”. Wow – he knew where we were!!

The park seemed to be very crowded. Following ancient family tradition, we went on Spaceship Earth first of all (my favourite Epcot ride). There was a 15 min wait for this, which wasn’t too bad, and we were constantly moving. When I visited alone in 2008 on a day off from my charity work (how grand that sounds, but it wasn’t really!), I had experience the new Spaceship Earth with the computerised ending, and hadn’t like it much. However, sharing it with DB, who hasn’t seen the new ending before, was lots and lots of fun! We had such a laugh together at our choices, and it was much funnier sharing this with someone.

It was around 3.30 p.m. by this point, and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we decided to go to the Electric Umbrella for a quick bit to eat. I got chicken nuggets & fries with orange soda, and DB had a bacon cheeseburger, fries & coffee. We looked in vain for the honey mustard mayonnaise in little cartons, but couldn’t find any. I eventually went back to the food counter and asked about them, and was given two cartons of a new mustard mayonnaise they are now using – it was just okay, nothing like the old one that we used to love.

Well rested and fed, we went into Mousegear as DB had decided earlier in the day that his camera case wasn’t big enough to carry everything he needed in the parks, such as bottled water, hat, sunscreen etc, so we went looking for a rucksack or something. We had already searched World of Disney and not found anything suitable. We found a really nice rucksack in Mousegear, plain black but with a brightly coloured embroidered WDW logo on the front of it, and I also picked up a really lovely canvas shopping bag with bright orange handles and edgings that was on offer for $11 with any other purchase over $10.

Next we headed for The Land, and cancelled our 7.10 p.m. reservation for The Garden Grill, as we knew we wouldn’t be hungry enough in time to take advantage of this. This was only the second reservation I had ever made at WDW, and whilst it had seemed a good idea at the time, when I made the reservation I had no idea our day would be scheduled around a shuttle launch and thus mean we would eat a very late lunch!

We picked up Fastpasses for Soarin’ which were good for later tonight, and went on Living with the Land (10 min wait). I love this ride, it is so relaxing and interesting, and I love seeing what they have growing in the greenhouses at the end. I remember getting off this ride once a few years ago and being offered a chunk of cucumber that they had grown in there!

We left The Land, and went to Journey into Your Imagination, which was showing a 5 min wait but was a straight walk on. I last went on this ride in 2008, and in the trip report from that visit classed it as ‘lame’. However, DB had never been on this before, and going on it with him therefore gave it a different feel – we really quite enjoyed this ride! It seemed fun and cute, rather than lame and boring. I guess I was comparing it to the old Imagination ride that had Figment and the Dreamfinder, but with nothing to compare it to, DB really quite liked it.

Coming out of there, we looked at Honey I Shrunk the Audience, figuring we would have one last go on this before it got converted to Captain EO, but it had closed a day or so before, so we’ve obviously missed it. Never mind, we had done this one before several times, and again DB has never seen Captain EO, so that will be something to look forward to on our next visit.

We asked a cast member how EMH worked, as I haven’t done that before, and she explained they don’t do a wristband system or anything, you just get asked to show your room key before you board a ride. Okay, then.

So next would be DB’s favourite ride in The World, ever – Test Track! This was showing as a 70+ min standby line, and Fastpasses were for later in the day, so we just went into the single rider line. We walked straight through the queue area, straight through the briefing room and out the other side without stopping! We didn’t even have to wait at the end of the line, as soon as we appeared, a cast member ushered us into a car, together! I know they do stress that you will be separated, and we don’t mind that, but just occasionally you do get seated together. This was a great ride, as always, and we got off and walked quickly back round to do it again! Single rider queue again, but this time we were put in the same car but one in the back and one in the front.

From there we went to Mission Space, doing the Green side, which had a 5 min wait time, though this was slightly nearer to 10 mins. DB talked about possibly trying the Orange side for the first time at some point, as he doesn’t suffer from motion sickness, unlike me!

When we came out of there, it was almost time for Illuminations, so we walked quickly towards the lake to find a good place to watch from. We ended up just past Norway, as we were feeling tired at this point and didn’t want to battle our way much further – everywhere was very crowded and we figured that by standing towards the back of the walkway, we would be able to see over people’s heads and have a reasonable view of the fireworks etc. We were right, and had a lovely view out across the lake. (DB had wanted to get a margarita from somewhere around Mexico, before the booth closed for the evening, in homage to a friend of his who had told him on Facebook that the margaritas in Epcot were his favourite drink. He left me there and trotted off, but had left it a little late and it was closed by the time he got there, so he just came back to me in the end). I love Illuminations, it is my favourite of the Disney firework shows. I think it’s the music that gets me every time!

After the show was over, we did salmon impressions and swam against the tide of people leaving the park, beginning a slow walk around World Showcase. We stopped in Germany to get some coffee, where I was served by a lovely cast member with the same first name as me, so we exchanged a few words about this! When we got to America, we got a funnel cake to share, and sat in the American Gardens Theatre to eat it.

Feeling suitably full of sugar and fat, (yum!), we continued our gentle way around World Showcase until we got back to Canada, not really exploring each country but just ambling slowly by and appreciating the atmosphere. It was 11 p.m. by this point and our Soarin’ Fastpasses were up and running, so we headed back to The Land and bypassed the 40 min standby queue to go on my second favourite Epcot ride. It was really lovely, and to be honest, this is battling quite fiercely with Spaceship Earth to be my number one Epcot ride.

Pal Mickey had been great today, telling us lots of facts about the different lands and rides, and alternating these with some really corny jokes. He was lots of fun!

We finally left Epcot at 11.55 p.m., feeling completely exhausted. We drove back to Pop, not even able to refill the mugs as it was so late, and were just about to fall into bed when we noticed that DB’s insect bites were swelling up into water blisters. Rather than risk accidentally knocking them during the night, I opted to sleep in the second bed in the room. I was also having trouble with the severe aching in my legs and feet, and worried that I would be very restless during the night and would probably disturb DB if we were in the same bed, too. We set the alarm for 7.00 a.m. the next morning, and were asleep very quickly that night.

DAY NINE – SATURDAY 15 MAY
Plan – Magic Kingdom
Actual – the alarm went off at ugh ‘o’ clock, and we did the usual coffee/shower thing. We headed out to the nearest Walgreens first, and got some blister plasters, antibiotic cream and dressings, an international phone card, plus a sewing kit – Pal Mickey’s clip holder was coming unsewn! (I left him at Pop today, as I didn’t want to risk the clip holder coming off completely before I had had a chance to sew it up again).

We dressed DB’s bites and blisters, and then drove to the Magic Kingdom, parking in Pluto 27. It was really packed! The queue for the monorail was horrendous, so we went to the ferryboat instead. This was also very busy, but we managed to get on the next boat that came in.

On our arrival at the Magic Kingdom, which was slightly too late for the opening show, we did my absolutely favourite thing – walked under the train arches and into Main Street to see the castle for the first time. I love that! We went to the candy store and got Mickey ears rice krispie treats and peanut butter cookies to have for breakfast, and sat on a bench in the shade just around the corner. The Celebrate It! parade came past us while we were there, which was cute and fun, but very noisy!

(While we were in the Candy store, a cast member played a really cute game with us – he had tiny paper cups with mini M&Ms in them, all in sets of colours, and you had to guess the Disney character or characters from the colours – it was really hard, but great fun, and a small group of us eventually got involved in the game! At the end, he rewarded us with another cup of M&Ms).

After breakfast we headed towards Tomorrowland, and DB joined the huge queue for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, which was posted at 25 mins. This queue line snaked around outside, and it was a stiflingly hot day, so it was not very comfortable waiting there. I left him there for a minute and went over to get Space Mountain fastpasses, although we ended up not actually using these – I am unsure since the rehab whether I want to do this or not! DB is not a big fan of rollercoasters, and his jury was out on whether to ride this, too!

I rejoined DB in the Buzz queue, and eventually we got on the ride, after just over 40 mins of waiting. The ride was great fun, though, and I trounced DB in the scores! He claims this is because I play computer games and he doesn’t, but it sounded like sour grapes to me …..

After this we went for a quick trip on the Carousel of Progress. We both really like this, even if the final scene isn’t quite the cutting edge of technology that it used to be! A quick trip, well, two actually, on the TTA as there was no queue, and we felt ready to move on to Toon Town.

We walked down the side of Space Mountain towards the Railroad, taking photos as we went, and got ready to explore the mania that was Toon Town. To say it was a bit crowded is like saying Tigger is a little bit orange. It was PACKED!! We wanted to have a good look around, having not been here for a few years, as we knew it would be our last chance before it was closed down, but I guess everyone else was thinking that too!

We had a quick look round Mickey’s house, and were going to queue up to meet the Mouse himself out the back, until we peered inside the barn and saw the size of the queue! We gave up on that idea and went over to Goofy’s Barnstormer. Neither of us had ever done this ride, and we wished we hadn’t bothered this time! We queued for around 25 mins in the searing heat, for a not-very-interesting ride that lasted 1½ minutes in total. Oh well, you live and learn.

We got some coffee from a nearby snack shop, and walked over to Adventureland for a Mouseplanet meet. This had been advertised as a fairly low key get together of Disney fans from the Mouseplanet website, and just happened to be taking place on the first day we would be at the Magic Kingdom this trip. We found the gazebo just past the Adventure Isle sign where we were supposed to meet, and tentatively went inside. I was worried about approaching the wrong people, but it soon became obvious from the scattered few in there which one was MG, the guy who runs the Mouseplanet site. I shyly said ‘hi’, and then we chatted for a little while. We were soon joined by a group of around 10 other people, and then MG asked us a few questions, such as what did we like about the website, is there any way it could be improved, etc. He gave us Mouseplanet hats and buttons, and then after about half an hour we left. We had a lovely time chatting with this small but friendly group, and it was great to be able to talk to the guy who runs my favourite unofficial Disney website!

We were heading towards Pirates of the Caribbean, when DB spotted the Enchanted Tiki Birds. Uh-oh, he wanted to go in there. I protested mildly, but gave up and in we went. And once again, as per each and every time I have been in this show, DB fell asleep, leaving me to be “entertained” by the Tiki Birds on my own. Again. Grrrr. I suppose he could say he wants to do it again, as he has never actually seen the show in its entirety yet anyway!!

Anyway, round to Pirates we went, which was posted as a 30 min wait but was constantly moving, and probably took around 20 mins. We sang all the way round and thoroughly enjoyed this ride. When we were disgorged into the ubiquitous gift shop, I bought DB a new design of Pirate t-shirt, which is white with pale grey pirates all over it, and he bought me a book on how to speak Pirate. Aarrrrr, me hearties.

After a quick restroom break, we then went to Pecos Bills for a spot of late lunch. We both had burgers & fries, and very nice burgers they are in here, very tasty – but what makes it perfect is the fixin’s bar. Wow! Onions and mushrooms and bacon bits and pickles and tomato and lettuce, oh my!

We waddled over to Big Thunder Mountain, my favourite Magic Kingdom ride next. We picked up a Fastpass which was good for in about an hour. The ride was posted as a 40 min wait, but in actuality was more like a 50 min wait, and the ride felt very rough this time, for some reason. Maybe it was because DB has a back problem at the moment, and he seemed to feel every bump and turn! He also suffered from having his knees and one thigh squashed by the lap bar, because it is curved and therefore squashes one leg of each person when two of you are in one row. We need to rethink this one.

Next we went to the Hall of Presidents, eager to see the new addition of President Obama. We weren’t disappointed! Even though we are not American, we still really enjoy this show, and can understand how it makes people feel really patriotic. I love the way that the animatronics move in there, the way they all turn to look at whoever’s speaking and their hand movements etc, it is so cleverly done. We thought President Obama was really good in there.

DB was making ‘coffee’ noises, so we went across towards the Columbia Harbour House to see how busy they were. The place was heaving! I spoke to a cast member outside and asked her if there were any kiosks around where I could get coffee, and she said no, but I could get some in the CHH. I told her it was packed in there, and then said not to worry, and began to move away. She called me back and told me to follow her, then we weaved our way through the restaurant and to the servers at the very back, where she got them to get me a cup of coffee, and wouldn’t accept any money for it! That was so kind of her, and a truly ‘Magical Moment’ for us. I took the coffee back to a very grateful DB, sat him in the shade, and then dashed back to Big Thunder to use one Fastpass for my favourite Magic Kingdom ride – it was great! I would have used the other Fastpass to go again, but I had already had a 15 min wait in the Fastpass queue once and I didn’t think it was fair to leave DB sitting on his own for much longer! I went back to him, then went off to refill my water bottle at a nearby fountain – it was so hot and humid, we were getting through gallons of water that day!

We then checked the Haunted Mansion, but it was showing a 100 min wait, so we passed on that for now, moving round into Fantasyland. It’s a Small World was showing as 20 mins, so we did that instead. Cute. Next we moved onto Mickey’s Philharmagic, which is always a favourite of ours, and there was only a few minute wait on that one.

By this time, the first showing of Spectromagic was taking place, so we took advantage of this and checked out the Haunted Mansion again – now down to a more acceptable 30 min wait time, so on we went! Our car stopped just past the Grim Grinning Ghosts, and we were treated to some kind of horrible zombie thing leaping up from behind a gravestone for a few minutes, which stopped making us jump after about the twelfth time we saw him!

We walked through Liberty Square then to stand to one side of the hub for Wishes. We watched Tinkerbelle fly down from the castle! The firework show was lovely, but the hub was still really packed with people. After the fireworks, we got some coffee and chocolate milk from Sleepy Hollow and sat there for around 15 mins to rest and enjoy our drinks. By this time, Main Street was almost empty, so we walked slowly right down the middle of Main Street, USA, and stood by City Hall for the second viewing of Spectromagic, which was beautiful (again), and made me cry (again!). It was now 11.30 p.m., and time to head home. We caught the Resort Monorail (Gold) to get to the TTC and our car. Back to Pop, again too late for refillable mugs though! I was too tired to sew up Pal Mickey tonight, so we will have to leave him at the Resort again tomorrow, which is a shame. Bed, exhausted but happy.

DAY TEN – SUNDAY 16 MAY
Plan – Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Actual – Shower/coffee thing, then I rang my parents and sister, and my daughter, just to let them all know we were okay.

We headed out to the Studios and parked in Film 28. DB was really suffering with his back today, so I convinced him to rent an electric scooter at the park. He felt guilty about it, but it really was the best thing for him, as he just needed to rest it today. I was pleased with how easy it was to hire a scooter, and we put the cost on my credit card, figuring we could sort it out when we got home!

First stop, after the scooter hire, was going to be Fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, about which we had heard a lot but had never done before. I was astonished to see a proper queuing system just for the Fastpasses, and even though we were in the park really quite early, there was still a 70 min Standby wait at this point. We got the Fastpasses, and decided to look round for breakfast. We really fancied eating at the Backlot Express, but when we got there, it was ominously empty – that was because it doesn’t open until 11.30 a.m.! We bit back our hunger, and went to see what Star Tours was showing as a wait time. 20 mins, but we got ushered in the disabled entrance, so we more or less walked on. We were glad we did this ride today, as it will be the last time we see it with this film. It is definitely overdue for a change, but the old film was still fun today.

Next up was MuppetVision 3D, which is always fun, and had only just opened again after a rehab. There was a new pre-show film, which was ever so slightly different, but still made us laugh! With hindsight, we can’t remember what was new about it now, though!

Back to the Backlot Express we went, and picked up bacon cheeseburgers & fries, coffee and lemonade.

Suitably refreshed, we next headed over to the Indiana Jones show, but we were told that there was only standing room left, despite our having the ECV, so we decided to find something else to do and come back later. The ‘something else’ turned out to be the Great Movie Ride, which we both really like. Minimal wait, and we got the gangster side again, but couldn’t be bothered to ask for the cowboy side, even though we are assured it exists and you only have to ask! (Something happened on this ride that was common throughout the day, we noticed – DB parked up his scooter and limped into the disabled seating, and as I went to follow him, a guy who had deposited his wife/partner in her wheelchair in the seating area in front of us, pushed past me to sit in the row we had been designated! I politely but firmly chucked him back out again and made him go into the row with his other half. Cheek. This happened several other times throughout the day, on different rides – people would park someone in a wheelchair on the ride, then go to sit in the row behind, which was usually the one we had been given! We also noticed throughout this holiday that a number of times we would be designated a row on, for example, Peter Pan or Living with the Land, and the people on the row in front of us would try to take up the whole vehicle by splitting up and taking our seats! We had to keep getting them to move back to the row they had been given!)

Anyway, we checked out the Little Mermaid show, but we had just missed the start of a show, so we decided to try Indy again. This time we managed to get in, but we had to sit in ‘reserved’ rows right down at the front, despite it still being 20 mins till show time – the place was packed!

We enjoyed the show though, and then headed for a restroom break before hunting down some Mickey ears ice-cream bars. I had seen someone else eating one, and really fancied one then! We stood to one side by some trees and tried to watch the Block Party Bash parade, but people kept walking in front of DB’s scooter and we couldn’t see very well, plus we eventually got bored with the parade as it wasn’t actually moving, so we went to Pixar Place to use our Fastpasses for Toy Story Mania. We were sent through the disabled queuing area, which meant that although we saw all the fun props in there, we completely missed Mr Potato Head, which was a shame. And we still had to queue for 20 mins! Although standby was showing as 120 mins at this point, so I guess we had to think ourselves lucky! We really, really loved this ride, it was so much fun! I scored 115,000 and DB got 105,000, so it was a close run thing! I can’t wait for it to be less popular so we can go on it more than once a day!

Next up was the Backlot Tour, for which we had to wait for 20 mins before they even let us into the pre-show area. I think they were having problems of some sort, as they didn’t use guests in the pre-show show. I still enjoy this ride, but do miss the old, longer ride, when it used to go through the streets used for filming.

The weather had been very hot, humid and sunny up to this point, but it very suddenly went very still and close, and the sky clouded over as we headed towards Lights, Motors, Action. We just got under a covered queuing section there when the heavens opened and it absolutely poured with rain! Through the really loud thunder and the flashes of lightening, cast members kept making announcements about the show being delayed due to the weather, and there was some talk about cancelling it altogether, when it suddenly stopped raining. We all trekked into the arena, and the show went up about 10 mins late. The first cars came out to do the ballet section, and you could see how wet the ground was. One black car and the red car bumped into each other! I have never seen this before, they are usually faultless, but the wet floor obviously made a huge difference to the way the cars handled. It was only a slight bump, and they were perfect again after that. We really love the ending of this show, it is so dramatic!

When we left the arena, we slowly made our way over to the Fantasmic stadium ready for the 9.00 p.m. show (it was 8.00 p.m. at this point). There were already lots of people streaming into the stadium, but as DB was in his ECV, we got escorted by a cast member to the centre of the very top row, which was nice! I left DB there, and dashed off to get some refreshments, settling for a hot dog each, a pretzel to share, some cheese sauce for DB, and soda. We wanted coffee, but there is nowhere in the Fantasmic stadium that sells it, and I didn’t fancy trekking all the way back down to Sunset Boulevard for it. About 10 mins before the start of the show, it began to sprinkle with rain again, and I panicked and dashed over to the nearest concession stand for a couple of ponchos. The poor guy running the stand was slightly under cover, and had no idea it was raining until about 150 people suddenly bought his entire stock of ponchos!! $14 poorer, I went back up to DB, by which time it had almost stopped raining ...

We loved the show, it was amazing, as always. As we left afterwards, there was a massive area of roped off guests waiting to come in for the 10.30 p.m. show!

We were really tired by this point, so we decided to leave. We returned the scooter, and got the deposit put back on my credit card, located the car, drove back to Pop, got coffee in the mugs, then went to bed.

DAY ELEVEN – MONDAY 17 MAY
Plan – Universal Studios
Actual – today was our first non-Disney day of the week. We did the usual coffee & shower thing, then headed over to Universal, following the map we had. We found it with the minimum of trouble, despite it not being very well signposted, and parked in Jaws 217.

The park didn’t seem very crowded at this point, but throughout the day, we became aware of a lot of very big school groups that were hogging all the fast rides and food outlets. We had no idea that schools in the USA were a) breaking up for the summer at this point, and b) keen on taking all the kids somewhere cool for an end of school year treat! It wasn’t really a problem here today apart from the food outlets being crowded, as we weren’t heading for any of the big rides anyway.

I already had tickets for Universal, having bought them from a very good and reliable website a few months ago, so we went into the Studios and picked up a map. We were heading for the Terminator 3D show, but it wasn’t open yet, so we walked round the I Love Lucy Tribute exhibit. We found this very interesting and fun, despite not really knowing much about the show – we didn’t get it very much in the UK, plus we were too young to really remember the shows they did air here. It was obviously a really big deal in the USA though, and we really enjoyed this exhibit.

When we were finished, we realised that Terminator was due to start in 10 mins, so we went back over to it, only to be told it was now full! Therefore, we walked round to the ET ride, and did that instead. I love that ride, it is fun and quite harmless! (I should point out that DB has never been to Universal before, but I have been twice before). Next we did Men In Black – Alien Attack, where I once again trounced DB’s butt and then had to listen to him whinge about how I would always do better than him because I waste most of my life playing computer games …… Anyway, we continued our anti-clockwise journey and entered Amity via a restroom break, hoping for a visit to the Jaws set, but it was down for some reason – it had only just opened again after having been rehabbed, so I have no idea what was wrong, but it was definitely closed!

To cover our disappointment, we went to Captain Quint’s Boardwalk Snacks, and got some ice-creams (for breakfast – yay!). I got one called The Dig It, which was a sundae in a cup with vanilla ice-cream, Reece’s Pieces, hot fudge sauce, and whipped cream. It was gorgeous! DB got a chocolate ice-cream in a waffle cone, but because the weather was so hot and sunny, this melted really quickly and began to get him in a bit of a fluster, with ice-cream leaking and dripping out of the sides of the cone. He also had to battle an over-friendly and stoic little squirrel, who seemed determined to eat any ice-cream drops that hit the floor around our feet!

Calmed down and cleaned up, we continued through Amity, and went to Disaster. I remember this when it was the Earthquake ride, but I really like what they have done with it now, it is loads of fun. DB thoroughly enjoyed this, particularly watching the finished ‘film’ at the end with all the dumb-looking extras in it!

Afterwards, we continued round the park, stopping at Starbucks for iced coffee and frappacinos, while a massive thunderstorm raged outside! Once it had stopped, we went to the Shrek 4D show, which was hugely funny, and we really enjoyed. Their posters outside having a bit of a dig at some of the Disney attractions were very funny! When we came out after the show, we joined a small queue (mostly comprised of children, I am ashamed to say!) and actually met Shrek! I had my photo taken with him, he was lovely.

We stood and watched in amusement as a lot of poor souls shrieked their way round the Rip, Ride, Rockit roller coaster – it looked terrifying, and was way out of our cowardly league!

Round the corner from there was the train used in the Back to the Future film, and standing near the train was Doc Emmet Brown! Wow, that was exciting – I tried to stroll in a cool kind of fashion over to him, but in my head I was running towards him and shrieking – I love Doc!! He was great, really in character, and was riding this really wacky bicycle. Again, photo opportunity!!

Back to Terminator 3D again, and this time we were at the front of the queue for the next show. We had to wait about 20 mins, but it was a great show. While we were in there, there was another massive thunderstorm, but it had finished by the time we came out.

We began a pin hunt now, as DB wanted pins of all the rides/shows we had been on/seen. We went into the main Universal Studio store, but their selection of pins was shockingly small. We got general Universal Studios pins, but then we had to trek back round the park, looking for ride pins in all the individual ride shops! We managed to find MIB, ET, and a set of Shrek pins, but nothing at all for Disaster or Terminator.

Eventually, we left the Studios and went onto City Walk to pick up some refreshments before leaving. We went into Cinnabon and got coffee, a giant cinnamon bun for DB, and a Vanilla Bliss Cupcake for myself. These were yummy, if very sweet.

We limped back to the car feeling very tired, as we had had to circle the park twice today, but at least they have moving walkways to take your poor, battered body back to the car park! We drove back to Pop and decided to have our evening meal in the food court, with DB opting for a bacon double cheeseburger & fries, and myself having a cheesesteak wrap (I had read about these on the Disney fan forums and had been really looking forward to trying one!) & fries. Both were excellent, and we really enjoyed it all! The deserts didn’t really inspire us though – I had been keen to try the tie-dye cheesecake, but when confronted with irradiated blue, yellow, red and orange cheesecake, just couldn’t face it … We headed back to the room, where I made DB tape Stacey and her Top 10 Disney Attractions or whatever it’s called now on his camcorder, before lights out and both fast asleep by 10.30 p.m!

DAY TWELVE – TUESDAY 18 MAY
Plan – shopping and general rest day, plus Cirque du Soleil
Actual – we slept in until 8.30 a.m. this morning, we obviously needed the rest! We did the shower/coffee thing, then walked over to the Pop food court for breakfast. It all looked very yummy! In the end, we chose breakfast waffles with bacon and sausage, and maple syrup. The waffle was huge, and had ‘POP’ in the middle of it! The food court wasn’t as much of a zoo as I had been expecting, although it was about 10.00 a.m. by this point. We also got more coffee in our mugs.

We did a little shopping in Everything Pop, the merchandise store. We got Pop Century pins, some Minnie’s Bake House Peanut Butter Cookies, DB bought me a gorgeous snow globe, and we got a Mickey towel as a special offer. We dropped the stuff back at our room, then got in the car and headed out to Wal-Mart on the 192. We picked up drinks powders, boxes of Reece’s Puffs cereal, peanut butter M&Ms, some mini M&Ms so we could play the character game at home with family, a suitcase (yes, yes, I know – I do this EVERY time I go to the USA, but we didn’t have a second really big suitcase!), some mini Hershey bars for work colleagues, Hickory Brown Sugar BBQ sauce and Ranch dressing for my Dad, Cinnamint toothpaste for my sister, some packs of Oreo cookies, 3 giant bags of Cheetos, and some Reece’s peanut butter cups. Most of this stuff was gifts for my family!

We took this lot back to Pop, then drove out to Downtown Disney, where we collected the Cirque du Soleil tickets I had bought online about 4 months previously, for the 9.00 p.m. show that night. The ticket guy was really funny, I told him I was there to collect some tickets, and keeping a perfectly straight face, he said “parking tickets? Speeding tickets? Airline tickets?”. He was lovely.

Back to the car we went, and we drove to the far end of the Downtown Marketplace. We went to Ghirardelli’s for coffee and ice-cream, which kinda replaced lunch really. I wasn’t very hungry and opted for a single scoop of Rocky Road, which the guy brought to me in a vase! It was HUGE! DB had a waffle cone of Chocolate Chip, which they kindly laid in a banana split bowl for him, to prevent a repeat of the ice-cream meltdown we had experienced in Universal Studios!

It was all yummy, and once we were done, we headed out to do some serious Disney shopping. We went to the Christmas shop, where we met 3 young college interns who were just about to begin placements in WDW. I got chatting to them as I overheard them discussing the little details in the store, such as the carpet that looks like floorboards, and they were comparing the little Disney details to the ‘not quite so detailed’ Universal theme parks. I turned to agree with them, and we got talking. They were so excited to be starting their placements the next day! Their enthusiasm for their upcoming work was just lovely, and I could tell they would make great cast members!

We picked up a tiny, furry Mickey Sourcerer hat Christmas tree decoration for my daughter (DD) from there, then went to the Pantry kitchen store, where I got a Mickey teapot trivet for us, and some Disney pasta for DD. Next was the Pin Trading Store for various ride pins, and then we went to World of Disney, where we got t-shirts, bracelet charms, and a Father’s Day gift card for my Dad, who will be visiting WDW next year. We loaded $20 onto the card, Dad will need to keep it somewhere safe until next year, but he will love it!

Finally, we went back to Ghirardelli’s for boxes of chocolate buttons and bars of chocolate, again for ourselves and for gifts. We bought these items last because of the heat outside – we didn’t want to be leaving them sitting in the car to melt!

We drove back to Pop, picked up coffee in our mugs, then went back to the room for a rest (or in DB’s case, a nap!). I heaped the shopping in the corner of the room with the rest of it, not worrying too much about the growing mountain of ‘stuff’ as we had bought a new suitcase anyway!

At around 8.00 p.m., we headed back to Downtown, and DB dropped me off at the far end of the Marketplace where we had been earlier, then went and parked the car briefly while I went into the Earl of Sandwich and got us some dinner. I had the Original 1762, which was gorgeous, and DB had an Hawaiian BBQ sandwich, which he also said was lovely. I got back in the car, and we drove down to the Cirque end, parking behind the big marquee. We sat in front of Cirque and ate our dinner quickly!

Afterwards, we went into the show. La Nouba is absolutely amazing – we just loved it. You have to watch everywhere at once, there are things going on all over the stage and sometimes all over the auditorium too, all at the same time! There were people on that stage who move faster than is humanly possible, in my opinion. It was fantastic! Tickets are somewhat expensive, but we thought it was worth it – the whole thing was mind-blowing. We want to go again now, just in case we missed something! After the show, we went into the gift shop and bought the DVD and a programme, making sure that the DVD would play in the UK. I asked for the Russian ‘aerial ballet in silk’ performer to be wrapped and sent to my room …. Well, he was rather lovely! It made the guy serving me laugh, anyway.

We drove back to Pop, stopping off at the food court for coffee and Sprite/orange soda, and then picked up our washing from the room and went off in search of the laundry. We found it quite easily, and there were lots of free machines, so we loaded up our washing, put in $2, and left it to itself for half an hour. Meanwhile, we walked around the resort a bit, exploring areas we hadn’t seen before and taking lots of photos. We discovered that the 80s pool was open 24 hours a day, which is great if you have excitable kids who can’t sleep, but not so great if your room is anywhere near the pool ….. We returned to the laundry a little later, and took the wet washing back to the room to drape around anywhere we could find in order to dry it. We finally fell into bed at about 1.00 a.m.

DAY THIRTEEN – WEDNESDAY 19 MAY
Plan – Magic Kingdom
Actual – up early again, showers/coffee, then drove to the Magic Kingdom. It seemed much less crowded today! We were still slightly too late for the welcome show, and were parked in Pluto 17.

We took the ferryboat over to the MK, and then made our first stop the Candy shop for rice krispie treat breakfasts, which we ate seated on a nearby bench.

We headed up Main Street, pausing to watch a couple of minutes of a show that was taking place on the Castle forecourt stage, before turning left into Adventureland. A pirate training class was taking place near the Pirates ride, and we stood and watched that for a few minutes so I could drool over the Captain Jack Sparrow character, I mean, take some photos of the characters, yes, that’s what I mean …..

Pirates of the Caribbean only had a 5 min wait, so we did that twice in a row, the second time using my brain and taking the right hand queue, which appeared much shorter and was, giving us a boat all to ourselves! Out of there and round to Splash with a 15 min wait, (yay! Didn’t get as wet as I was expecting!), then to Big Thunder where we picked up Fastpasses for later, then went in the 20 min standby queue. We had separate rows in the cart for this, as we reckoned it would be more comfortable for DB to sit in the middle of the row rather than squashed to one side. One of the cast members here was a bit of a pain, as when she directed us into rows, she put us quite far apart. When we objected, she replied with something along the lines of at least we were in the same train together! We ignored her remarks and shuffled ourselves about to be in the same cart, if not the same row. This ride was so much fun, as DB could finally relax and enjoy the ride as he was comfortable, which meant I got more out of it too.

We were starting to feel a bit hungry, so I came up with a plan. The next ride we went to was the Haunted Mansion with a 5 min wait, and then we went to the Columbia Harbour House for lunch. We both really like this place, the food is so tasty and it makes a change from the burger and fries routine we had fallen into! I had the Anchors Aweigh sandwich of tuna, mayo, lettuce & tomato and a chocolate milk, and DB had a BLT & chicken salad plus coffee, and we both really enjoyed our lunch.

In order for our lunch to settle, we decided carry on round to Fantasyland, where we rode It’s a Small World (15 mins), Mickey’s PhilharMagic (5 mins), and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (posted as 20 mins, but was more like 40!). Peter Pan’s Flight was showing a wait time of 50 mins, so we decided to pass on that ride for this trip.

After the Pooh ride, we walked through the castle to watch the parade. We stood in front of the forecourt stage and had a very good view, with only a small group of children in front of us. The Muppets’ Voluntear pre-parade came through first, and it was really cute – I love Miss Piggy, and she waved to me! Then the Celebrate a Dream Come True parade came past, and true to form, it made me well up a bit. Any Disney parade makes me cry like a baby, I’m afraid!

After the parade, we swam against the tide and went to Cosmic Rays for coffee and iced cappuccino. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin was showing as a 10 min wait, so we did that, and DB finally beat me – I think there was something wrong with my laser gun, ahem. TTA was next, and was so quiet that we asked to stay on for a second round, and were allowed to. I really love this ride, it is so relaxing.

Space Mountain had a 20 min wait, so we got DB a cookie, sat him in the shade, and in I went on my own. DB has done this ride before, but the TTA journey through it showed it as being much darker in the ride than he remembered, and he isn’t a big fan of roller coasters anyway, so he opted to pass on this one. I don’t like anything that tips me upside down or goes too high, but I had always loved Space Mountain before so reckoned it would be fine. Eek! It was definitely darker, and because the track is now smoother, it seemed faster, but that could just have been my coward gene kicking in! Anyway, I did enjoy it, but once was enough for me!

We had a quick look round the SM shop, then walked to the Toontown Train Station via the lovely, quiet little walkway down the side of SM. A train came into the station within 5 mins, and we rode it to Frontierland, where we ignored the 40 min standby line for Big Thunder and whizzed up the Fastpass lane! We got separate rows again, and it was great fun.

Quick restroom break before going back to Pirates for another ride, and this time it was a straight walk-on. Dole Whips were calling us, so we responded to the call and got some! However, this wasn’t enough to fill us up – we seemed to be eating more today than on previous days, for some reason. We therefore went to Casey’s for corn dog nuggets & fries (me), and hot dog & fries for DB, plus coffee.

Exhausted, we thought we would call it a day at this point. We had already seen Wishes once, and were too tired to stay for it again, so we walked slowly down Main Street through the Emporium, picking up some gifts along the way. There is a new design of t-shirt out this year, which is a classic Mickey design with a 1970’s look to it. It is really lovely, and comes in a range of bright, vibrant colours. We got DD one in a deep blue, and I very nearly got myself an orange one, but changed my mind in the end. Now I wish I had got one!

We caught Monorail Orange to get back to the car, and drove back to Pop, picking up coffee from the food court on the way to the room. Unfortunately, DB placed his mug on the bedside table and told me to watch it while he pulled the bedclothes back. I stupidly sat and stared at the mug in a comedy way, while he pulled back the bedclothes and overturned the mug! Coffee spilled all over his bedclothes! It was around 11.00 p.m. at this point, and we didn’t feel like waiting for Mousekeeping to come out and change the bedding, so while I walked back over to the food court and got him more coffee, he mopped up as best as he could and then just slept on slightly damp bedding for the night.

DAY FOURTEEN – THURSDAY 20 MAY
Plan - Epcot
Actual – up early, showers/coffee. I left $2 and a note for Mousekeeping to apologise for the coffee on the bed incident, and then we drove to a nicely quiet Epcot, parking in Imagine 66. First stop was at the Land pavilion, where we picked up Fastpasses for Soarin’ good for later in the day, then walked through the standby line of 25 mins. Back to Spaceship Earth and a 15 min wait, although we never stopped and were actually onboard in around 10 mins.

A late breakfast was calling us, so we stopped by the Electric Umbrella and both got a bacon double cheeseburger & fries with coffee and lemonade.

Breakfast finished, we went on Ellen’s Energy Adventure, as we hadn’t done this ride for a long time and we needed a bit of a sit down to digest our food! Oh, and we do really like this ride, too! We only had a 5 min wait before the next show.

Next was Mission Space, green side, with a 5 min wait, and then we headed for Test Track. We picked up Fastpasses for later, then bypassed the 50 min standby line and went into the single rider line, which was showing as no wait at all! And that was right, we walked straight on again, scoring separate cars this time but still really enjoying the ride.

Afterwards we went into Club Cool, as we hadn’t been in there in 2007 (our last trip to WDW together), and therefore DB hadn’t seen the new incarnation from Ice Station Cool. I love the Vegibeta from Japan, to me it tastes of apricots and is really refreshing. DB was quite keen on the Mezzo mix from Germany, he said it reminded him of the coke and orange he used to drink when he went to Germany years ago. Then – hah! I got him to taste Beverley without telling him in advance what he was getting!! Oh, how I wish I had pointed my camera at him just at that moment …….! He pulled a few peculiar faces but then declared that it wasn’t that bad, actually – somehow, I didn’t quite believe him.

When we left Club Cool, we were hit with the realisation of just how hot it was today, so we sat on the edge of a flower bed under the monorail track to cool down and rest for 5 mins. We began to walk round World Showcase starting with Canada, which is the opposite way to the way we usually go round WS. We meandered slowly round, taking in each country, and went over the bridge towards France. We noticed the walkway between the Boardwalk and Epcot for the first time, it looked really nice and we vowed to try it one day. We also spotted a bicycle and some artists materials by the river, which we hadn’t noticed before too.

We got to France and explored the shops, before going into Impressions de France to watch the film. We had to wait about 15 mins before the next showing, so DB posed for a photo with a lovely stone gargoyle just inside the doorway, pulling the same face as the gargoyle has, and making other people who were waiting to see the film laugh! The film was nice, if a little idealised, but we did keep dozing off as we were really tired today! After the film we went to the Boulangerie Paitisserie, which was the whole reason for us beginning our tour of WS anti-clockwise today. We hadn’t been there before, but I had read a lot about it on the internet, so we went in there – wow! Where to start? Eventually, we settled on an apple tart for DB, and a Napoleon (cream and pastry slice thing) for myself, plus coffee. It was gorgeous!!

We carried on slowly around the World, catching the end of the candy lady and the start of the drummers in Japan, and had a look in the shop there to see if we could find any rice candy, about which I had read good reports on the ‘net. We couldn’t find any though, the whole place seemed to be full of Hello Kitty stuff, which was a disappointment, so we carried on with our exploration of the World.

When we finally got to Norway, we decided to ride the Maelstrom, which was showing as a 20 min wait. However, when we got inside, the line moved fairly constantly, and we were aboard our Viking longship within 10 mins. This was lots of fun, and despite the fact that I have been on this ride many times, it still managed to startle me somewhat when it dropped backwards for a short way!

Afterwards, we sat outside the video room waiting for it to open, and DB managed to bang his head on an overhanging windowsill slightly. He claimed he was traumatised, so we ran through the video room when it opened and headed for the Kringla Bakeri og Café to console him with coffee and a bun. He got a School Bread on my recommendation, (again, read about on the ‘net!), and said it was really tasty. I had something called a Cream Fruit Puff, which was gorgeous – choux pastry filled with cream and forest fruits, and it must have been good for me because there was fruit in it ……! It was enormous, and we both felt a bit guilty about having had cake products twice in one day. Still, we were on holiday, and we were walking a lot too, so we probably walked it off (yeah, right!).

A quick bathroom break, and we waddled off to Futureworld again. We went to Mission Space, where I went on the Green experience and, for the first time ever, DB did the Orange experience! He doesn’t suffer from motion sickness like I do, but it still took a lot of courage for him to try this. Afterwards, he said he really enjoyed it and would do it again, but maybe not STRAIGHT after eating his own body weight in cake again! What I find really funny about this ride is this – if you are on the ride with less than 4 people, or the other people on theire with you don’t really know what they are doing, and some of the ride buttons don’t get pressed when you are told to press them, does anyone else panic slightly and begin pressing other people’s buttons and switches for them? No? Just me then??

Over to Test Track next. We picked up new Fastpasses, then whisked up the single rider lane (15 mins wait) for our first go. In different cars again, but still massively fun. Then we used our Fastpasses picked up much earlier in the day, being very grateful that Fastpasses are honoured for a long time after they are due to be used. This time we got to see the briefing room spiel, for the first time this trip! We also got to ride together, which was nice.

Over to Soarin’ to use the Fastpasses picked up this morning. This ride is just amazing, we love it. To this day, I can’t smell an orange now without thinking about this ride! We seemed to have a bit of a long wait considering we were using the Fastpass side of the queue, but it was worth it as we got the centre of the first row, which was great. I don’t mind going in the other rows, but it adds to the illusion if you can’t see feet dangling over your head!

We now went back to Test Track to use our final set of Fastpasses, and got the front row of a vehicle, which again is slightly better, in our opinion. When we came out of there, it was 8.50 p.m., so we walked quickly round the front of the Odyssey Theatre and round to watch Illuminations again. I cried. Again.

We now wended our weary way back to the car, drove back to Pop, and called in at the food court for coffee in the mugs. We also picked up a couple of peanut butter cookies, and got a lovely t-shirt for me that I had been looking at all week.

We got back to the room to discover a bag of towels hanging on the door, with a note saying that they were respecting our request for privacy today and had therefore left our clean linen on the door. What? We hadn’t requested privacy today! There was a ‘do not disturb’ card tucked into our door lock that we definitely hadn’t left there this morning, so we were completely at a loss as to how that had happened. We went into the room to find it exactly as we had left it that morning, which wouldn’t have been a problem had it not been for the coffee filled bed! We changed the towels ourselves and rang Mousekeeping to get them to come and change the bedding. About 10 mins later, two very nice young ladies came out and sorted everything out, for which I tipped them $2 each for having to come out at that time of night! We had no idea how this had happened, but there was no harm done at the end of the day. Time for bed.

DAY FIFTEEN – FRIDAY 21 MAY
Plan – Universal Islands of Adventure
Actual – usual coffee/shower thingy, then as our Disney park passes had now expired, we headed out to Universal again. Unfortunately, we missed the ‘secret’ and virtually unsignposted turnoff and ended up getting horribly lost! We each blamed the other, and whereas in the UK you can just turn off a main road or motorway, turn round, and go back the way you came, on this freeway every time we turned off it, we were on another freeway. We had to go through several toll booths, we were off our map completely, and eventually we had to run a 50c unmanned toll booth as we had run completely out of change! At the next toll booth, we tried to repay the extra 50c, but the attendant told us to forget it, and she directed us to where we were supposed to be going. I sulked, he moaned, and eventually we got to Universal, an hour after we were planning on getting there.

We eventually made up again, (but still continued to secretly blame each other), and headed for the Cat in the Hat ride (5 mins wait). This is cute and fun, although the cast member guiding people onto it left a little to be desired – she was grinning and waving, but at no-one in particular, and certainly not at any of the guests!

We walked through Seuss Landing to the High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride, which is also good fun, though this had a really long wait time – we must have queued for about 20 mins to get on this, despite it having a 5 min wait time posted. We were beginning to notice the effects of the school groups again …

After this, we walked round to The Lost Continent looking to do the Poseidon’s Fury show, but we had just missed the start of one, so we carried on round to the Eighth Voyage of Sinbad Stunt Show. This was fun for a bit, but the fighting continued on a bit too long, and there was a lot of noisy pyrotechnics in the show, making everyone jump a lot! Overall, it was just okay.

We explored the area we were in a bit and stopped for a quick coffee, before going back to Poseidon, and happily we were in time for the next show. I like this show a lot, it is very well themed and very interesting.

We came out of there and began to try and find the entrance to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was still fenced off and not due to open for another couple of weeks. We could see some steam coming from the Hogwart’s Express train, the top of which was just about visible above the fencing. We could see lots of roofs with snow on them, and by standing on a chair and from there onto a knee-high wall, I could just about make out some of the streets! It looks fantastic, and we are really looking forward to exploring it the next time we go to Florida.

We were starting to feel a bit hungry as we hadn’t eaten all day and it was now around 2.00 p.m., so we walked through Jurassic Park looking for somewhere to eat. We eventually found a fast food restaurant called The Burger Digs, which looked promising. However, it was completely full of school kids! They were, in the main, fairly well behaved in the queue area, and I sent DB round to find a seat while I ordered food. It took 30 mins for me to get to the front of the queue!! During that time, DB had found a seat outside, and told me afterwards that the kids were horrendous – screaming and shouting, having food fights, leaving excess food and rubbish everywhere, and they seemed to be completely unsupervised!

I finally got served, and ordered chicken tenders & fries for myself, and a grilled chicken & bacon burger & fries for DB, plus coffee. The food was good – hot and tasty, and I also got a side order of onion rings to share, which were delicious.

After our late lunch, we continued to walk around the rest of the park, but didn’t go on any of the rides as they were all a) packed with school kids, and b) big, roller-coaster type or big drop type rides that we didn’t particularly fancy going on. It was nice to explore the theming of the different areas, though, and we did really enjoy the comic book area, that was fun.

When we got back to the entrance to the Islands, we left there and walked across to Universal Studios to check out Jaws and see if it was running today. It was, and was showing a 10 min wait, so off we went. This ride was great fun, we loved it!

Having shrieked and laughed our way round this boat ride, we finally left the Universal area and went back to our car. We drove back to Wal-Mart on the 192 to pick up some more flavoured drinks powders, bottles of water for the journey tomorrow, subs for dinner, and some strange ham coleslaw thing, that we thought would be nice but was a bit odd …

Back to Pop we went, filled up the mugs with coffee, and then went back to the room to eat and watch TV for a bit. We ended up watching a bit too much TV, trying to put off the dreaded packing, and eventually began to pack at around 11.00 p.m. It took us 2 hours to get finished! We had to keep moving stuff around to protect delicate items, but also to distribute the weight as evenly as possible. We eventually fell into bed around 1.00 a.m., absolutely shattered.

DAY SIXTEEN – SATURDAY 22 MAY
Plan – return to the UK
Actual – we had set the alarm for 9.00 a.m. and we slept really well, not waking up till the alarm went off. Did the shower/coffee thing for the final time, and then I range American Airlines to double check that all was still well with the flights, as the volcano over Iceland had affected us coming out here and we didn’t know if it would interfere with our return flights as well. In addition to this, another major airline in the UK was planning a series of strikes, which could potentially have caused chaos as the UK airports, but this was called off at the last minute, so therefore wouldn’t create a problem. All was okay with AA, and they even gave me the gate numbers for our flights, so that was helpful.

We said goodbye to our room for the last time, and trudged down to the car with the luggage. We drove round to guest services, and checked out. We didn’t have any bill to pay as everything had been paid for in advance, and we hadn’t had anything extra while we were there. We then took the luggage round to bell services and left it with them for a few hours – they were lovely, sympathised with us being upset at having to go home, and offered us jobs hauling luggage around if we wanted them! I assume they were only joking, but given half a chance …..

Anyway, we then drove to Denny’s on the 192 for breakfast, and ordered our usual fare – choc chip pancake puppies with maple syrup to start with, then a Grand Slam for me and a Lumberjack slam for DB, plus coffee. I had joined the (free) Denny’s Rewards email newsletter a few weeks before we went to the USA, and they had emailed me a $5 discount coupon which I then used today. I was really pleased that this worked, as the bill should have been $22 today and I got five bucks off! We love Denny’s.

We drove back to Pop to pick up the luggage, then finally began the drive to the airport. The check-in desk was absolutely packed, with a massive queue that weaved halfway down the lounge area! We took one look at that, and headed for the self check-in kiosks, of which there were about 10, with several of them being available with no-one in a queue! We really easily checked in there, then queued for about 5 mins to drop off our suitcase, all of which were easily within the weight limits set by the airline.

We had a quick look around the NASA shop, then picked up some coffee and sat in the lounge area for about 20 mins, taking the opportunity to stretch out and put on our flight socks. We would have liked to have explored some of the shops in the airport lounge a bit more, but didn’t really have the time.

Eventually, we went through customs and to gate 6 to board flight number 1589 to Dallas. Take off was 10 mins early, and the flight was very smooth with no problems at all. We landed in Dallas about 10 mins early too, and then walked to the next gate, (after a quick restroom break), gate 33 for the 9.05 p.m. flight number 80 to London Heathrow airport. This was really easy to find, and we had a two hour break between flights, so we just got some coffee from a nearby McDonalds, and settled down to read for a while.

We boarded on time, took off bang on time, and flew quite smoothly to London. We did encounter a small amount of turbulence, but we slept quite a bit coming back, so didn’t feel too bad about it.

DAY SEVENTEEN – SUNDAY 23 MAY
Plan – collect car, drive home
Actual – we landed at Heathrow airport just after midday, and went off to collect our luggage. It seemed to take quite a while for our cases to appear, and then we discovered that security had cut off our brand new padlock to randomly search one of the cases! They dropped the bits in the case, along with a note saying they were not to be held responsible for any damage they caused! Well, thanks a lot. I know that security checks are a good thing, and are meant to help us all feel safer, but did they really have to cut off my brand new padlock and then wash their hands of all responsibility? I was not happy.

We got the shuttle bus to where we had parked our car, and somehow managed to struggle on and off the bus with a total of 6 suitcases between us, including our tiny carry-on ones. We took them back to the car in relays from the bus stop, which fortunately wasn’t too far away. I had pre-paid for the 2 week stay in this airport car park, (£86), but when we tried to leave, the stupid machine wouldn’t recognise the car numberplate and tried to charge me another £266! I had to go into the customer services office, and instead of apologising, the guy in there tried to blame me, saying I must have keyed in the wrong registration number when I did the booking! I was not happy. Again.

Eventually, he sorted it out, and we drove home with no further incidents.

SUMMARY

Weather – hot and sunny almost all the time, but more humid than we are used to in the USA. Occasional bits of rain, but nothing that affected our plans – there were only 2 days that we saw showers, and we managed to mostly avoid the rain!

Crowd levels – horrendous at the beginning, again much worse than we had been used to previously. This did get better, apart from the school groups though, which we experienced at Disney but much more so at Universal.

Cast members – quite a few that we met or interacted with seemed to have lost the Disney magic, being quite curt and less than top notch with us. A small handful were lovely, but by far the majority just didn’t seem to want to make our vacation magical at all! There were also quite a lot of older cast members being employed, who had a tendency to completely ignore guest most of the time.

Universal vs Disney – I have to say that Universal have the worst cast members I have ever seen! They yawned, they leaned against fences and walls and scenery casually, they slouched, they chatted amongst themselves and totally ignored guests, they waved listlessly while attending attractions without interacting with guests at all, they were on the whole awful. We also found the Universal parks to be quite tatty and dirty in a lot of places. They just don’t have the attention to detail that Disney has, and sometimes the theming is a bit suspect, or missing completely.

General / Random Thoughts – we never had to buy any more fuel for the car, which was great! We did a lot of running around in the car, but that one tank lasted us all 9 days. As we pulled into the airport to come home, the fuel gauge ‘pinged’ at us to indicate it was getting low, but we just returned it like that, as we had been told to.

We didn’t have time to use either the pool at my bro’s house in Dallas, or the pools at Pop Century, which was a shame. But there always seemed to be too much to do to spend time lounging in the pool! I wish we could have spent more time both in Dallas and in Florida, but then you can always say that about vacations!

Overall, we had a really great holiday, and now we have to start planning the next one!

I hope you enjoyed this, and thanks for reading!