It's Universal...

The plan for today was to head back to Universal for the day. We were parked up by 9.30am and heading for the park.

Which one I hear you ask? It had to be Isle of Adventures as Miss B and Miss H wanted to ride the Hulk. I'm not going to list all the rides, suffice to say we rode all the favourites.

We had lunch at Mythos, which is a restaurant in IoA. It has won the best theme park restaurant for the last 6 years. Don't ask me who else was judged, I just know it is always busy and the food is fab.

After lunch we boarded the Hogwarts Express to take us to Kings Cross in Universal Studios.

Again we did the key rides and left the park before heading out to eat. The thunderstorms were rolling in.

We headed out to International Drive, very close to where we stayed when we first brought the girls to the States. A lot has changed but at the same time we recognised some familiar sights.

Tea was at Coopers Hawk Winery and Restaurant. A very nice eatery, but well priced. On the way home we were treated to an amazing lightning show.

I liken driving along International Drive akin to driving in Central London - absolute carnage.

We arrived home over 12 hours after we left this morning. A great day but very exhausting.

I will leave you with a picture I took this morning as I waited for everyone to get ready.

That's all for today... Pop back tomorrow if you feel inclined for an update.

Off on Safari

So today we returned to Animal Kingdom. We had our fast passes booked. First up was Kali River Rapids. Miss B sat this one out. Before we left the villa we offered Miss H a poncho but she declined.

She seriously regretted that decision... The people to the left of us escaped virtually dry but not Miss H. I think she suffered by sitting next to me and getting the run off from my poncho.

It really does depend where the raft is positioned when it goes over the drop.

The rest of the raft who weren't wearing ponchos were drenched. After removing my poncho I allowed myself a smug smile at those who ridiculed my attire.

Next up was our favourite ride of the park - Expedition Everest. Even Mrs J is enjoying it now and in the photos can be seen smiling.

We then sneaked in a quick ride on Dinosaur. We had also planned to ride Prime Evil Whirl but this has now closed. We are all really glad we rode it earlier in the holiday. I know it's more of a fairground ride but it is really fun.

Our final Fast Pass was the Safari. When we did this previously we didn't see any giraffes but this time was different and we got to see 5 giraffes, including 3 young ones.

It was now lunch time and we had booked an ADR (advanced dinner reservation) at...

The food was great, essentially Chinese, which made a refreshing change from chips - sorry I mean fries, as chips are crisps here. A single language?

Next was the inevitable question... What are we going to do now? After a lengthy discussion the majority decision was more shopping.

We headed for the other Premium Outlet at Vineland. We hadn't been here before but knew that it was fairly similar to its sister mall.

After a few hours it was time to head back to the villa. It was now raining so that ruled out a swim.

We headed out to Publix for essentials and filled up the car with gas...

We will review the plans for our remaining days to make sure we do everything that we want to.

Who knows where we will be tomorrow? I don't... Pop back and find out...

Off to Celebrate...

So one place we had promised ourselves we would visit was Celebration. It's a community town that Disney established - think Prince Charles and Poundbury. You get the idea.

It's a very charming, picturesque and tranquil place. We spent a couple of hours wandering around and taking in the town. As well as quaint artisan stores it has a Starbucks which we frequented for my daily coffee fix.

After this we had ice cream in a cup. Sea salted caramel, cookis and cream and chocolate fudge brownie in case you are interested.

We also tried and bought some home made macaroons. Not sure they will remain on my 'keep' list.

With the time rushing by we headed off to the Magic Kingdom as Mr J had booked Fast Passes.

The temperature soared again today to circa 40 with a 40% chance of thunderstorms around 3pm.

We had passes for Splash and Thunder Mountain, which both had wait times well over an hour.

After watching the parade we used our final pass, which was a meet and photo opportunity with Mickey Mouse.

It was then time to head home for a swim. As we travelled back it started to rain, so that worked out OK.

By the time we arrived home the rain had stopped.

We headed out after our swim to go gift shopping before heading to Publix.

We are eating in tonight ahead of our next day out.

Check back tomorrow...

The Result is in...

Firstly can I say that they take their mini golf very seriously at Disney. Our tickets allow us to play a free round as long as we tee off before four. No problem there then.

You are then allocated a tee off time. We had a wait of 30 minutes before being called to the tee.

Just over an hour and a quarter in blistering heat, the champion was displaced with yours truly claiming the win. The celebrations were so low key; they were non existent but I know :)

Shortly after we finished our round they closed the course because of impending lightning.

We headed back to the villa for a swim and despite a few rumbles of thunder, there was no rain.

After a shower it was off to Super Target for a few essentials, followed by tea at the Olive Garden.

Thought I would share a picture of the front of my car. It's classed by Avis as a full size car and is a Chevrolet Impala.

Pop back tomorrow if you want to see what we got up to...

Off to the Lagoon

As we have been experiencing storms mid to late afternoon, we decided as we were all up early to head for Typhoon Lagoon.

But as it was still early we decided to stop en-route for breakfast. There was only really one contender and that had to be IHOP.

The picture above was my breakfast treat and mighty fine it was. Miss H had the same minutes the eggs.

Made good time to Typhoon Lagoon and spent a good four plus hours enjoying the water park.

No one was very hungry as we had breakfast so we decided to skip lunch and do something else.

It was that time... Each year we play mini golf for bragging rights of the holiday. Reigning champ Mrs J agreed that today would be the time for this year's battle.

The venue for Mrs J's first defence would be Disney's Fantasia Gardens...

To be continued...

Isle of Adventures

An early start this morning as we wanted to be at Universal as near to rope drop as we could. We made good time and were parked and heading to City Walk before 9.30am.

We had popped into IoA earlier this trip, but this time wanted to ride as many of the attractions as we could.

Miss B and Miss H started with the Hulk as it had a standby time of 10 minutes.

Next up was Jurassic Park. It's a standing joke at home that this is on the telly on some channel every week and we watch it on a Sunday. Miss B decided to sit this one out. It's a great ride that kicks off with the gates opening to the title music. A great story and scenery leading up to the inevitable drop. Everyone is now a certainty to be soaked and Mrs J wore her poncho with pride.

Suffice to say that Miss H and I were a little damp. Not to be perturbed by this Miss H and I headed off to do the two remaining water rides Ripsaw Falls and Bilge Rat Barges.

We have to be honest and say that for these we donned our ponchos. We knew we would get soaked anyway but the ponchos would provide some protection... Miss H and I squelched round the park and even 9 hours later we still hasn't dried out, but how we laughed....

Next up was Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. The standby time was 30 minutes so we decided to queue up and experience the full ride. As we came off we requeued as single riders which took about 10 minutes.

Next up was a family fave Spiderman en route to lunch.

In all our previous visits we have managed to miss the restaurant in the Simpsons land. We corrected that omission today and went to Krusty Burger for lunch.

After lunch we managed the Simpsons, Gringotts and the Mummy before calling it a day and heading back to the villa for a swim.

There was a bit of a mix up with the queues at Gringotts and we somehow managed to end up in the Express Pass queue which meant we only had a wait of 15 minutes. We took this as Karma for our 3 hour wait last year.

We popped out for a lovely meal at Miller's Ale House and am writing this at the villa with a cold beer in hand. This is the life...

Pop back tomorrow for a further update.

Off to The Springs

So after a short discussion the plan for today was sorted.

We headed off to Downtown Disney, which is undergoing a massive reconstruction, before being relaunched as Disney Springs.

After arriving and easily parking, we headed to Starbucks for a morning coffee. We didn't bring any with us and haven't bought any at the shop - so this was a real treat.

After our coffee pit stop we browsed the shops and generally just people watched.

On our way round we made a lunch reservation and continued shopping.

Lunch was at Trex, it's owned by the same company behind the Rainforest Cafe but dinosaur themed.

Every 15 minutes or so there is a meteor storm and all the dinosaurs come to life and other effects kick in. The Ice Room changes colour for example. We have not eaten here before so this was a new experience and my favourite burger of the trip so far.

When we left the restaurant we spotted the weather warning. The tethered balloon ride was closed due to lightning and thunder being in the vicinity.

So we headed to Disney Quest. Not sure why but this was our first visit in 3 trips, 5 for Mrs J and me.

We had free admission included in our tickets. The normal daily admission cost is $45 per person. First up was the Buzz Lightyear ride. Essentially imagine enclosed bumper cars that hoover up footballs that arrive in the car for you to load in a cannon and fire at enemy cars. If you hit the target on the car it spins round for 10 - 15 seconds.

Miss B and I, 3 - Mrs J and Miss H 0.

Next up was human pinball where you stood on a platform and tilted and rocked it to control your ball. I top scored out of our family.

Next up was my favourite of the day - CyberSpace Mountain. You get to design your own roller coaster. I teamed up with Mrs J and we created an extremely fast and loopy roller coaster.

What Mrs J didn't realise is that you then ride the roller coaster. If your design loops, you loop. Before we were strapped in, we were advised that our ride had 7 loops. You should have seen Mrs J's face... But credit where it is due, she rode it regardless. You could buy the DVD but we decided to spare her.

After this we donned virtual reality helmets and rode magic carpets collecting gems and battling demons.

Our penultimate ride was in an inflatable raft on airbags that simulated the turns, waves and drops, whilst we needed to paddle to choose the direction.

Last up we donned 3D glasses and boarded a pirate ship to do battle with other pirates to collect treasure.

What can I say... A fab way to spend a couple of hours with everyone throwing themselves into the games. Great to see then running from one side of the ship to the other to fire the cannons.

As we left the rain descended so we headed for the car.

It's nearly two hours later and the thunder and lightning is still going. We have the lights on in the villa and the girls have changed into warmer clothes.

We have a shopping list prepared so will wait to see if it eases up, otherwise we will need to brave it.

Come back tomorrow to see what we've been up to.