Highs, lows and somewhere in the middle

So the joys of the holiday now seem a dim and distant memory, the cases are unpacked (well almost), there are a few presents left to deliver but aside from that we are back to normality and are already wishing our lives away thanks to emails from Virgin and Walt Disney World offering us a great deal......hmmmm

I have spent the week pondering the highs and lows, and just be different the inbetweens as this may make planning the next holiday a whole lot easier. So here we go....

Highs
- The new premier inn at the North Terminal Gatwick, we normally stay at the Hilton the night before the holiday but can highly recommend this and its so much cheaper
- The new Test Track ride, a great improvement on the last version
- Port Orleans French Quarter, a great resort which is very quiet and we love the boat transfer to Downtown Disney
- The Celebrate the Magic castle show, I loved the Magic, Memories and you and this is just as good. On the nights there is 2 night time parades there are 2 showings
- Wishes, as ever incredible
- The shopping, we got some great bargains at the outlet and you cant beat a couple of hours mooching round Walmart (I think James would have spent longer in there but I was desperate to get to Magic Kingdom)
- Being able to park hop, I love the flexibility of being able to make decisions at the drop of a hat. If MK was busy we just hopped over to Epcot
- Getting to ride TSM twice within an hour, the first time with a 15 minute wait and the second time using fastpass

The inbetweens
- Virgin twilight check in; they have changed the opening time from 1pm to 5pm, we arrived at just gone five and queued for over 45 minutes. It definitely was less stressful than checking in on the day but we are so used to only queuing for 15 minutes max
- The dining plan, we had the quick service plan again this year and although its very convenient because you don't have to think about paying for food I am still not sure if you paid for it that you would get what you had paid for and as I said before for me its way too much food
- The economy seats in the bubble, its lovely that its so quiet up there but I really don't like sitting in a row of 3 as its awkward if you want to get up

The lows
- Immigration at MCO, we came in shortly after the first Manchester flight and queued for over an hour and a half to get through customs
- The flight home, no complaints with Virgin but we had plently of turbulance and then when we arrived we had to sit on the tarmac waiting for a stand
- Baggage reclaim at Gatwick, now I am not sure if this is a downside of doing the early check in at DTD but we waited ages for our bags....seemed to be some of the last off; and there was some muppet pulling cases off before they had been round the carousel
- Never getting to do Enchanted Tales with Belle or eat in Be Our Guest, this is part of the new Fantasyland expansion. Belle always had a minimum wait time of 30 minutes but the queue was outside and not all of it is undercover....as for BOG people were queueing up for lunch at 10.30 in the morning?!?!?!?? But there is always next time

So that's about it, now I can start dreaming of when we will be going back xxxx

All over for another year.....

The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind of cramming as much in as we could before we came home, the stress of packing, the never ending journey home and finally the joys of jet lag (I don't do well with a lack of sleep at the best of times but jetlag is my sworn enemy - why do I always wake up in the middle of the night and then struggle to get back to sleep?)

So how did we spend our last couple of days, the original plan was that Wednesday morning would be Magic Kingdom, back to the hotel to do packing in the afternoon before heading back to see Wishes one last time before we came home.....well that was the plan; however we decided as we were walking to get the bus that we would visit Epcot instead and ride Soarin (which is one of our favourites)

We had a good couple of hours at Epcot and got loads done before we headed back to the resort and tackled the packing; I have no idea why it is always so stressful but I would definitely say its not something I look forward to.....although this year we did have a little space left; damn you James I could have got my giant toy story peas after all!!!!!

That evening was spent at Magic Kingdom, I don't think we did any rides but instead completed the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game; if you haven't tried this it is a free to play spell based game that is a good distraction when the queues are long...before we headed to Main Street for Wishes (this is another tradition of ours that we watch it at the end of the holiday)

And then it was time to come home, we took a sneaky trip to MK again after we had checked in for our flight and saw Philharmagic, did a little bit of shopping and bless their cottons Disney decided to put on a parade for us as we were leaving....well it was on anyway but I am telling myself it was for us

What we weren't prepared for was the weather back home, our night time lows were nearly double the temperature back here....all in all the weather was amazing apart from one storm; and predictably this was at about 3pm, but as you can see the heavens did open

Next time I will try to give you the highs and lows.....xxxxx

It's getting hot!

Wow, how time flies.....I can't believe I haven't posted for a few days; so what have we done?

- visited all 4 theme parks: check

- been shopping: check

- got a little bit of sunburn: check

- suffered a bit of sleep deprivation: check

- seen some fireworks: check

- seen a parade: check

- got my foot run over by a stroller: check......wait what?!?! Seriously this happened while we were waiting to watch the castle show, the man didn't even seem to care - but thankfully I have another foot so its all fine

The weather has been amazing, most days have been in the upper 80's although we did have one amazing storm when we were coming back from Downtown Disney; it was a toss up between the boat or bus back to the resort. There was a queue for the boat so we hopped on the bus and thank goodness we did as the heavens opened and that would have been one soggy boat ride. We had torrential rain and there was one clap of thunder so loud it scared the life out of me (I did joke that new underwear was nearly required)

For a change this holiday we have made use of morning magic hours (the park opens 1 hour early for resort guests) and rode Toy Story Mania with less than a 15 minute wait and then today we went and rode the new test track - this is so much better than the previous version of the ride and I would highly recommend it

Everything here is as amazing as I remember, however there is one small problem; Disney seem to have taken all my favourite foods off the menu and there is only so many times you can consider eating Caesar salad before you start to lose the plot

Speaking of losing the plot I am thinking the holiday madness has started to kick in or maybe its just the thought that the holiday is coming to an end and it will be back to normality pretty soon 

Xxxx

Where shall we go today?

So, after what was the never ending journey we finally arrived at our hotel.....by the time we had checked in and grabbed some dinner we were both ready for bed; 21 hours after we had woken up! 

We woke early on Tuesday, I am sure when I finally managed to focus the clock said 5.20am, yep welcome to stupid o'clock. For a change I didn't wake James up and tell him it was time to go to Walmart as we had our phone to collect and we couldn't do that until 10am; so it was our one and only opportunity to have a lazy breakfast and we finally headed off to Walmart at about 8.30....and no this wasn't too early as we were still wandering around picking bits up when 10 o'clock came!

Once the shopping was done it was time to head to a park, we followed Disney law and made our way to Magic Kingdom which always has to be the first park you visit; unfortunately the rest of the universe had also had the same idea and the park was rammed. We grabbed fastpasses for The Little Mermaid and while we waited soaked up the atmosphere; on our way to ride we were amazed by the queue for the Be Our Guest restaurant - I had been reading that people were queuing for it but they must have had at least a 45 minute wait!

With MK so busy we hopped on the monorail and headed to Epcot which deals with crowds better, James did the single rider line for the new test track while I took a boat across world showcase lagoon....but there was a problem, we were flagging and there was a chance we might not make it to Wishes. But after a rest at the hotel and a temper tantrum from me that a four year old would have been proud of we hopped onto the bus back to MK at 8.30 and arrived with 10 minutes to spare - as always the fireworks were spectacular and well worth throwing my toys out of the pram for.

Wednesday - after a much better nights sleep we decided to head back to MK and do some rides; first stop Buzz lightyears space ranger spin which had a posted 5 minute wait. Bless James, his laser gun wasn't working and he only scored about 4500, me I scored over 900,000....it did help that we got stuck in the Zurg room.

I then had the genius thought that fantasyland would be rammed as the park hadn't long been open so all the other lands would be quiet....so off to big thunder we went (I didn't ride) next we hit Haunted Mansion which was a walk on - the final ride/ show at MK for today was Philharmagic.....my absolute favourite; it was obvious the family behind us hadn't done it before as they were surprised by some of the effects.

We went to the Polynesian for lunch before heading to DTD for some retail therapy (even though I had been to Walmart I still wanted to shop).....for dinner we took a leisurely walk along the Sassagoula River to Port Orleans Riverside; then an early night as tomorrow we are off to Animal Kingdom

Xxx

Funny how time flies....

I have a question, how can the same amount of time feel so incredibly different?

I go to work everyday and whinge that the day is dragging but in fact it would appear time flies by and I am just a moaning Minnie. The reason I have come to this conclusion.....a long haul flight. No, we didn't take a trip to Mars although right now I am thinking that may have been quicker than this but instead we are visiting the lovely USA.

Most people wouldn't complain about the opportunity to sit and watch TV for 9 hours, however that's fine when you have a nice comfy seat and the people around you are not expelling obnoxious gases; have they not read the Dibb code of conduct for flying?

I have managed to catch up on the voice from last week and watched Pitch Perfect which I thought was genius (thank you work for my free download) but most of my time has been spent watching the skymap; and I have an idea why can't it act like some game and the plane moves to wherever I want it which would basically be the destination about half an hour after take off!!!!

Yes I realise I sound a little mental but I promise this is no more than a bit of sleep deprivation and a sugar high....I didn't mean to eat all of the chocolate it just fell in ( that's my excuse and I am sticking to it).

There was just one thing I hadn't banked on and that was the effect of the financial cuts on the US customs service, 2 hours to queue was ridiculous; anyway I am sure after a good nights sleep and when the sugar rush has worn off, the flight boredom and the never ending customs queue will be a distant memory and I will be able to enjoy the magic........

xxxxx