We'll we're home, a little later than expected but back no less. No doubt you will all be eagerly awaiting news of our first ever trip to Walt Disney World well here goes....
Day 1 - Tuesday 21st
We had a little bit of a delay to our outgoing flight but we made really good time through immigration & passport control (something we'd been warned could take hours) and we arrived out our lovely villa around 8pm.
Day 2 - Wednesday 22nd
First stop was the Magic Kingdom - we made really good time the first morning and managed to tick off some of the long-wait rides (Dumbo, Pooh & Peter Pan) without hardly any queuing.
We had arranged to try and meet up with Paula & Gav at some point during the cross-over in our holidays and as it happened we did it our first full day. We kept it a surprise from Amy and the look on their faces was priceless. I really don't think any of them realised they were so far from home!
Day3 - Thursday 23rd
We visited MGM Studios on day 3 and Ben was very excited to see Lightening McQueen - he even gave him a big kiss. The studio's was probably the least popular park with us so this was our only visit but we had a lovely time and Amy really enjoyed the Muppet 3D show.
Day 4 - Friday 24th
It was Animal Kingdom today - a first for all of us. My goodness it was hot in there! It was hot anyway (a rather sweaty 92 degrees on average most days) but someone told us that Animal Kingdom runs 5 degrees hotter cos of all the plants.
We tried out lots of new things in here and our favourites were: Kali River Rapids (you got drenched but you also got cool!). The Kilimanjaro Safari (Ben fell asleep on this one!). Everest (well Steve liked this one but Grandad came off looking a bit green!) & the Lion King Show (where Ben had a good bop!)
Day 5 - Saturday 25th
This was our first "off-day". We had Disney tickets for 7 out of the 10 days only but we thought that it would be good for the kids to have some down time at their age. Steve hit the outlet malls and managed to spend a small fortune in the Ralph Lauren factory outlet store.
As it turned out we were all much more tired after an afternoon spent playing "Chase Ben Around the Pool" that we all had an early night!
Day 6 - Sunday 26th
A special day today. We stayed in a little later and headed to Epcot around lunchtime for a "Princess Storybook Lunch". This was held in "Norway" and you got to eat traditional Norwegian cuisine whilst Ariel, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella & Jasmine milled about signing autographs and posing for photo's. Amy was in 7th heaven.
Later that day we headed to the Magic Kingdom for the Wishes fireworks show. It was our only late night as Ben completely missed the fireworks and Amy only just about managed to keep her eyes open for it!
Day 7 - Monday 27th
This was supposed to be another "off-day" but we decided to take a trip to Seaworld instead. This is a different kind of park to the Disney ones as it is much more educational. Amy & Ben enjoyed the Killer Whale show (Amy was quite taken with the star of the show - Shamu) and all the adults thought the Dolphin & Whales show was very spectacular. The only problem with this park is that the distance you have to walk to get around it is immense and you can't do nearly half of it in just one day.
Day 8 - Tuesday 28th
Back to Magic Kingdom today to try out some different rides. We did Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain & The Laugh Floor (an interactive comedy show which was very clever). We also caught the "Dreams Come True" parade in the afternoon which was very well done.
Day 9 - Wednesday 29th
Animal Kingdom today were Ben had another little sleep on the Safari ride. They honestly couldn't believe he fell asleep during it and neither could we - it was very, very bumpy! Nana finally got up the courage to get wet on the River Rapids and ironically hardly got splashed at all!
Day 10 - Thursday 30th
Our final off-day. Some last minute shopping - we had to buy two more cases just to bring back all the Disney merchandise! and preparing for our trip home.
Day 11 - Friday 31st
Home time! We checked our suitcases in at Downtown Disney and then headed back to Magic Kingdom to do all our favourite rides one last time. We arrived at the airport at around 5pm only to find out that our flight home had been cancelled! It was general chaos with hundreds of people trying to figure out what was going on. Eventually we were bused to a nice hotel about 20 minutes away and told to come back to the airport the next day at 12noon.
Day 12 - Saturday 1st
Well we decided to make the best of our extra days holiday so we brought swimming costumes and spent the morning in the hotel pool. At 12:15 we were all bused back to the airport again and discovered that we had a 6 hour wait until our flight later that night. It actually didn't take that long to pass really but we were all very ready to go home by that point.
Day 13 - Sunday 2nd
So here we are back at home a full 24 hours later than planned but having enjoyed a wonderful holiday. The kids were impeccably behaved the whole time and no least the way in which they handled our unplanned extra day. We can't wait until we go back.
