Change of Plans...

Apologies but the weather dictated a change in plans. Not sure looking at the forecast whether we will get a chance to fit this in now...

So we decided to head to the Mall at Millennia to finish our essential shopping.

It's a very impressive Mall with all the top designer brands and had two real draws, firstly a store named after a fruit and secondly The Cheesecake Factory. Yes Grandad you are now the proud owner of an iPad.

The cheesecakes above were eaten by Mrs J, Miss H and myself. Miss B has a photo of hers which I will add once I have it.

Very indulgent but well worth a visit.

We then headed back to the villa for lunch before heading to Hollywood Studios. As we hadn't planned on visiting this park today, I took the liberty of booking some Fast Passes whilst I was waiting outside the shops.

Whilst we were riding Star Tours the rains descended accompanied by lightning and thunder. It was so bad we were prevented from exiting the ride. That has to be a first for us...

Left the park at around 7.30pm, stopping at Public for a quick shop.

Not sure of the plans for tomorrow, we had planned to go shopping but given the last two days, that is not going to happen...

On Safari

It was a big day for Miss B today as AS results were out. We'll leave it to Miss B to share the news, but we all wore 'We're Celebrating' badges today at the park.

Today we headed for Animal Kingdom, with our first fast pass at 9.30am, which was Kilimanjaro Safari. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any giraffes...

The Fast Passes were close together today, so next up was Dinosaur - great ride and story and once again made us jump.

Final Fast Pass was Expedition Everest which is awesome. Mrs J tackled the ride without her usual margerita for Dutch courage. At the top of the climb you can see the progression of the Avatar land.

After a few more rides it was time for lunch and we had pre-booked a table at The Rainforest Cafe. Miss B and Miss H both kept up their tradition of buying a T-shirt. Better still, they were in the sale. In the words of Miss B - Nice...

Before we headed in to eat it started raining and continued after we exited the restaurant. It was then I heard the words I dread... Let's go shopping... 

We headed to the Premium Outlet at the top of International Drive. Miss B and Miss H managed to leave Victoria's Secrets after about an hour, which is about a 100% improvement on last year.

I won't bore you with all the grizzly details, but we got back to the villa at 20.40pm - you do the maths...

Tomorrow is a new adventure, we are heading somewhere we haven't been before. You know the drill...

Speed Demons...

It's fair to say that this mornings park isn't one of Miss B or Miss H's favourites, which is a shame as I think it is really underated. So this year we have split things up doing it in half days.

So this morning we did our 3 fast passes and 3 additional attractions before calling it a day.

Spaceship Earth was up first, an enjoyable sedate tour through History.

First up on the Fast Pass choices was Test Track. Miss B and I teamed up against Mrs J and Miss H.

We went for a speed demon - nothing but raw power whilst the competition appeared to just build a pretty pink car.  No need to state who won...

We absolutely love this ride - the acceleration and the ovetall speed is a blast.

Our second Fast Pass was a character meet. We went and had our photos taken with Mickey, Minnie and Pluto. When in Rome...

Before our final Fast Pass, we visited the Land and rode Living With The Land and watched The Circle of Life. The girls really enjoyed this... Not...

Our final ride and Fast Pass was Mission Space Orange. Mrs J sat this one out. It's understandable given the g force involved. At take off you can't lift your arms - it's a really weird feeling.

So having tortured our daughters for the morning we headed off to Typhoon Lagoon.

Whilst the girls tackled the rides I headed for the Lazy River and proceeded to bob round and round, watching the world pass me by.

Two hours into our visit the sirens sounded for everyone to vacate the pools and whilst it wasn't raining, it seemed like rain had stopped play for the day. So we headed home via Super Target and Dollar Tree, to jump in the pool.

Before we could enter Super Target the rain arrived and we had a thirty minute down pour.

After messing around in the pool and showering we headed out to eat. We had booked a table at Bahama Breeze, one of our must go to restaurants. Alas, we didn't have a great meal. Mrs J had to send her meal back as it was cold.

Unlike Longhorns at least they re-cooked the dish, the problem was that by the time it arrived, the rest of us had finished. The waiter was fan and got the Manager over, who apologised and took the meal off the bill.

Bit of a shame, as it dampened the mood.

I will leave you with a couple of pictures, our wheels and the pool. Pop back tomorrow...

It's A Hard Rock Life...

Everyone was up early this morning, so the plan was to get to Universal Studios for 9.30am. That was wishful thinking, as everyone else had the same idea.

The last two miles to the park was absolute gridlock and so we didn't make it to the car park until 9.50am and then it took a further 20 minutes waiting to enter the car park. 

Not quite sure what the problem was, as all that is required is to roll down your window, handover $17 and take the receipt. 

Obviously this was a real challenge for the drivers in the cars ahead of us in our row.

So the big decision - which park first? We decided it needed to be Universal Studios, with our first ride being either The Minions or Grungott's Bank.

Given that the queue for the Minions was 90 minutes, we headed for Diagon Alley to find Gringotts.

The queue time was showing as 30 minutes so we headed in. It's fair to say we were undecided last year on this ride. It might have had something to do with the 3 hour wait to experience the ride. Ok it was raining really heavily and the ride broke down multiple times. As we came off we were all a bit meh...

It was a much better ride this time but personally it's not one of my favourites, I think it tries too hard and is neither one thing or another.

So onto the next ride which was Men In Black, which had a single rider queue. We were onboard within 10 minutes. I was top scorer by a country mile and managed for the first time to spin the other car, which was fab.

No guesses for where we headed next... Yes, it was off to the Simpsons.

As you can see from the photo, the weather has been lousy... Not.

We never tire of the Simpsons ride and we all come off the ride smiling.

There was just time for one more ride before lunch and it was a special request from Mrs J. Not one of the girls favourite s - ET.

So you have probably guessed where we went to lunch by the title of this post. Yes, you are correct, we went to The Hard Rock Cafe.

We've never had a bad meal at The Hard Rock Cafe - hope that's not tempting fate.

I went for the limited edition Tropical Burger which was sensational. I will try and look up the description and paste it below if I find it.

After lunch we took in Twister. I have to confess that I am a fan of this movie so this attraction is right up my street. Managed to stand in the wrong spot again, like last year, and got drenched. Oh well...

Miss B and Miss H wanted to ride the Rip Ride Rocket and Mrs J wanted to do some gift shopping so I went and grabbed a Starbucks and sat outside and watched the world go by.

Once we regrouped we planned to catch the Hogwarts Express to the Island of Adventure, but with a queue time of 90 minutes we decided to walk.

It was a really hot day today - one of the hottest we have experienced in Orlando. Would have loved to see the RealFeel temperature.

First up in IoA was The Hulk which Miss B and Miss H rode twice whilst Mrs J was getting some iced water.

A quick ride on Dr Fear's Free Fall before finishing off the day on the Spiderman ride.

On the way back to the villa for a swim we stopped off at Public to get some food for tea. Public is compared with Waitrose for the quality of the food. Will let you know what we think but it certainly looks good.

Stop by tomorrow to see what we got up to...

Frozen Studios

Everyone was up early again and today we had a job to do before visiting the park. We had to check in with the management company that services the villa. The form stated that we needed to visit the office, and it didn't open until 9, so we decided to head down there anyway. It was about a 20 minute drive down the 192.

We made good time and handed in the completed form only to be told we could have phoned it in... Oh well never mind.

So having completed our task it was off to the theme park and today's choice was Hollywood Studios.

This has two of our favourite rides but a lot has changed since our visit last year. Mickey's Sorcerer Hat has gone, together with the Back lot Studio Tour and the Art of Animation.

As alluded to in the title the park is heavily focussing on Frozen. If you are not a fan of the film...

Our first Fass Pass was Star Tours which is a great ride but dependent on which mission you get.

Next up was Twilight Tower of Terror, although Mrs J sat this one out.

This is my favourite ride at this park as each ride is different, and is such a rush. Plus this year, as well as a ride photo, you get a video....

We then decided to tackle the Aerosmith Rock n Roll coaster as single riders. It certainly cut down the queue time, which was at 40 minutes. Such a great ride which flips you upside down a few times in the dark, accompanied by Aerosmith classic tunes.

It was lunch next, we had made a reservation at the Sci Fi Dine In Theatre.

Imagine you have gone to a drive in movie at night. You sit in a car in two or three rows of two, watching sci fi clips while eating. A really enjoyable experience, really immersive... I'm really glad we chose to do this.

After lunch was one of Mrs J's favourite - The Great Movie Ride and as we came out, the line to meet Donald Duck was really short, so this had to be done.

Last up was our final Fast Pass was a re-run of the Rock n Roll coaster. With the clouds rolling in we decided to head back to the villa. The clouds didn't come to anything and we spent a great hour or so larking about in the pool.

We had one more activity before tea. As readers of our blog will know, we are great advocates of Super Target. Having said that the girls wanted to visit a Walmart Super Centre. There was one about 30 minutes away so we went for a visit. The store was the over side of the Kissimmee county line and had very few tourists. It was an experience and we are glad to have crossed it off our list.

We were back at the villa and had unpacked by 7.30pm.

So what is the plan for tomorrow? You know the drill...

At The House of Mouse

On our last two visits we have opened our Disney account with a visit to Hollywood Studios, so this year we (or rather I) decided to do something different.

We were all up reasonably early but not in time for rope drop, which was 9am. We arrived before 9:30, so not too shabby.

So today we chose The Magic Kingdom. We had already selected our Fast Passes - which were the trilogy of Mountains... You know the ones, Space, Big Thunder and Splash...

We started with the Buzz Light year ride which we hadn't done before, probably because of the standby time... We will definitely go back as it became very competitive, with Miss B taking the crown.

Next up was Space Mountain - we had a fast pass for this but the standby time was so short, we thought why not. If only we could obtain the audio from Mrs J's ride - it was absolutely priceless...

Following this we rode the People Mover, which has certainly changed over the years. Certain parts of the ride are much faster, not a thrill ride but quite different.

We then revisited the Speedway Raceway - Mrs J and I are still traumatised from our last experience being driven around by Miss B and Miss H. I have to be honest, this time round was fab but Miss B needs to be checking her mirrors more frequently - only joking...

Next was our first Fast Pass which was Big Thunder Mountain, one of our personal faves. Who doesn't like a runaway train ride...

After this we were all starting to get hungry so it was off to Cosmic Ray's Starlight cafe for burgers all round.

After lunch we decided to ride the teacups, it was a bit of a squeeze but we managed it, plus Miss B has a great video of us... Powered by Mr J the teacup was a-spinning!

It was then time for our second Fast Pass, Space Mountain, another great ride.

The Carousel was next but I sat that one out with Mrs J. We then went on two attractions we hadn't done before - Monster's Inc Laugh Floor and Stitch's Great Escape.

Suffice to say we now know why we hadn't riden these attractions before and won't be doing them again.

Mickey's Philha Magic was next up, which was fab.

Our final two rides were the Haunted House, followed by a re-run of Big Thunder Mountain.

The weather had been all sun today but by 6 it had started raining. We had already planned to leave and so this worked in our favour as the Heavens opened and we had thunder and lightning for about an hour.

A quick turnaround at the villa and it was off to Longhorn's for a meal. It didn't turn out great as Miss B's dish was firstly not as ordered and secondly undercooked. Miss B suggested it could be revived...Not good when her burger was requested to be well done.

When it returned the fries were awful - suspect they had visited the popty ping. That's Welsh for microwave. We raised this with our waitress who arranged for the meal to be deducted from the bill.

We won't be going back anytime soon, which is a shame as I had really been looking forward to it.

After our meal we popped back to Super Target for some essential shopping before returning to the villa.

We have our very first ADR tomorrow (Advanced Dining Reservation). If you want to know where and what we did... You know the drill...

It's Orlando Time

So it was an early start for our trip to London Heathrow Terminal 3. The alarms were set for 4 am and we were on the road by 4.30 as everyone was very excited.

We made excellent time and arrived at Purple Parking at just before 6.30, having stopped at Fleet.

It took us around 30 minutes to transfer to T3. A lot of that time was waiting for the minibus to fill up.

On arriving to collect our boarding passes we were informed that the flight was overbooked. We were asked if we would change flights...

We weren't sure but when they offered us a free upgrade to Premium Economy and some vouchers we decided to take them up on their offer.

So instead of flying via Atlanta we were now going via Detroit... So much for my pre-travel planning...

In some ways it worked out well as the first leg was 7 hrs 30 mins followed by a 2 hr 2 mins flight. Despite leaving 40 minutes later than we would have, we arrived into Orlando as originally scheduled. Result...

What's more was that we had the last row in PE so no one behind us.

So I can add Detroit to that growing list of cities I have only experienced from the airport. Go Lions..

We had some problems sorting the hire car out. Firstly the queue...Secondly the car wasn't ready and thirdly when we went to find it, it wasn't in the space it should have been.

After playing hide and seek with a car that didn't want to be found, we were allocated a different car and headed for the villa. 30 minutes and 3 tolls later we had arrived at our destination, tired but safe and sound.

After dropping off the bags it was a quick trip to Super Target for some shopping. I'm writing this at 3am UK time - 10pm US time so that's all for tonight folks...

What have we got planned for tomorrow? Come back and see...