October 2017 – OutandAbout

Day 11 Busch Gardens & parents day off

The Parents Day
The kids went off early this morning to go to Busch Gardens while Frank, Mary, Bob and I had a quiet morning? Bit of washing, cleaning and a hoover round before we set off to look for a golf outlet shop, however, without internet or maps it’s very difficult to find places. We didn’t find it but we did find an outlet park and had a wander around and Mary treated herself to some new shoes. Leaving here we headed for Florida Mall so Bob could buy a new iPad from the Apple shop here. It took some time to do this as they took his old iPad that has no Wi-fi on it, in part exchange so they had to format it and then set up the new one and transfer everything. By this time it was way past lunch so we stopped for an early dinner and then a bit more shopping for Bob and then home. The I-4 was chocca again so it took over an hour to do a 20 minute journey- so much for a chilled relaxing day and some sunbathing by the pool !

The Kids Day

To follow …

Day 10 Hollywood Studios

So with our 3 free fast passes each we arrived at Hollywood Studios which used to be MGM. Not too busy so hoping it won’t have long queues today.
Our first stop was Starbucks for coffee as we had left home a bit later but caught lots of traffic as there had been an accident on the motorway. Trying to find our way into the park via a different route to save sitting in the jam was fraught so we need a calm coffee before we set off on the rides. Adi and the boys wanted to do the Tower of Terror

and luckily they had fast passes because without them they couldn’t ride it as they also had technical problems! They soon joined us again and we wandered round the shops until we came upon a StarWars outside stage set. Lots of people had gathered to watch the show and when it finished we continued to watch the story of Walt Disney’s life in a theatre. Checking the plan Indiana Jones stunt show was about to start so we sat to watch the 30 minute show. Not sure if my memory is faded but I feel that it’s not as dramatic as it was 20+ years ago? The boys enjoyed it though so that’s what we are here for. Next was the Star Tours a virtual 3D space ship ride followed by a street show of characters playing a gang doing a quiz show, lots of audience participation and fun.
The boys were in need of another thrill ride so Rockin n Rollin rollercoaster was next up –

mary, Bob and I decided to miss out on this as the Star Wars ride had upset my tummy. Glad I did because it turned you upside down and went backwards ugg! Instead we had an ice cream sitting people watching in the warm sunshine.
Beauty and the Beast show was due to start soon so we hung around and found seats. Unfortunately I had a couple of really rude people behind me who kept talking so I couldn’t hear. I turned round and stared at them firstly but when this didn’t work I turned again and told them to shush. Lovely show 30 minutes of singing, dancing and telling the story. Charlie however said they didn’t do the story right they missed out loads – bless .
While we were still near the tower of terror and the rollercoaster ride and had free fast passes Adi and Dan went in the tower and Lucy took Charlie on the rollercoaster once more.
Time to move on to a different part of the park and have a go at the Toy Story shoot em up ride. Even though this was aimed at younger children we had a great time shooting targets as we moved round the course and Adi got highest score of 170,000 points.
We tried to see the Frozen show three times but each time we were either too early or just missed it so we carried on to the muppets 3d show and it’s still the same after all these years !
We had done several photo shoots during the day with different characters as we came across them as you will see when I can get the photos to load up onto the blog – having 1 or 2 technical hitches ourselves.
Charlie was desperate to go crazy golf and had been asking for a few days so we decided as this park doesn’t have much else we wanted to see we could leave and get an early dinner at Applebys (recommended by Lucy) then go crazy golf.
The first Applebys we came across we went in and ordered, looks nice, food selection good but quality wasn’t 🙁 . Shame because Lucy sent hers back, mine was dry and everyone else said it was just ok. Never mind Pirates Cove Crazy Golf here we come.

Best part of the day, great fun, lots of laughs everyone got at least 1 hole in one and Bob got 4 in a row! By now it was way past 10pm and we were all tired.

Day 9 Animal Kingdom

I have been looking forward to this park as it wasn’t built when we last visited Disney some 20 + years ago, the weather was lovely, sunshine and not too hot or humid.

Parking has been a problem in some parks because we had to ask for space nearer the entrance for Franks scooter but we weren’t allowed blue badge parking as we didn’t have a sticker and then there was Adi’s car too. In this park Mr Jobs worth didn’t want to let them in so Adi just drove past him !

Through the gates and we are in the park, it’s really busy today so we head for the Tree of Life and went inside to watch a short show – Its a Bugs Life – funny and entertaining. Outside Russell the Cub Scout was doing a photo shoot so we joined the queue and got photos,

next we found Mickey and Minnie, Balou and Timón also out for photos. Time for a Starbucks coffee stop before heading to Dinoland where some of us went on a rollercoaster which was for little ones apparently, so we swiftly left this area and bumped into Donald Duck – another photo shoot – and then Goofy and Pluto too –

we have memory maker with our Disney tickets so all professional photos are free – making the most of it !

Our first fast pass is Everest – a run away train – I quite like these type of rollercoaster rides so I happily jumped into the carriage and whoosh we were off but 30 seconds later I thought I was going to die !!!!

The train stopped at the top of the Everest Mountain and then travelled backwards for maybe 15 seconds OMG this isn’t a thrill ride it’s a Horror Ride !!! Not going back on here.

We hadn’t taken anything to eat with us so we decided to stop for a bite of lunch before it got busy but must say it was a ripoff . Crisp packet with a tablespoon of crisps in it,

a dry chicken wrap for 10$, drinks expensive – adi bought 4 cheeseburgers and 4 drinks and the bill was 83$. Time for the next fast pass on he Navi River ride – the normal queue was around 120 mins but we were on in 10 mins – great – NO – very disappointing not interesting in fact very poor. Had we waited in the normal queue for this I would have been furious. As we came off we noticed that Avatar ride was only 75 mins wait, as this is the most popular ride and impossible to get fastpasses for we ran round to the end of the queue.

We waited and waited and after an hour we were told that there was some technical problems and they were trying to repair it. Ok we thought we have waited an hour might as well wait a bit longer …. an hour later – everyone is getting annoyed and a few people starts to leave the queue – we continued to wait and at 2 and half hours we kept thinking we must be nearly there, the next corner? Eventually we arrived at the head of the queue and spoke to the guy sending people to the ride and asked about the delay. Apparently those people who had fast passes, who would only be Disney Resort Guests, were given priority – fair enough, but they were letting in 50 fast pass guests to 5 other guests ! When we had finished the ride, which was fabulous, we realised we had missed our 3rd fast pass of the day so we went to Customer Services and Adi and I gave them the full disappointed routine, children fractious after 3 hours waiting, spoilt our day etc.. and they gave us 3 fast passes each for the next day. Thank you Disney for being so understanding. Definitely need a pit stop for ice cream or coffee before heading off to the safari ride but the light was going and when we got into the safari truck it was dark so we only saw silhouettes of elephants, rhinos, lions, giraffes etc. however, we enjoyed the ride but it was getting chilly so we went into the shop to get warm and ended up spending money haha .

Long day, some great bits and some very annoying bits but overall not bad.

Day 8 Discovery Cove

Beep beep beep 5.45 am – what a god forsaken time to be up on holiday ???

However, everyone except Frank and Bob were up and ready to go at 6.30am. (The men were going to play golf again today).

This was an expensive extra to our holiday, to swim with the dolphins and enjoy a day at Discovery Cove – hope it’s worth the £200 each? !!!

I’m so excited I’m going to swim with a dolphin

We joined a small queue outside waiting for the doors to open. We were soon at the desk, checking in and were given an 8.30am slot for the Swim with Dolphins which was great as it’s best to do it in the morning before the dolphins get tired. Just enough time for a light breakfast then on to get
kitted out in our wetsuits and snorkels,

we arrived at Sand Dollar Cabana for our pre swim video 10 mins before. Then we were off to the Beach in our group of 9, to meet Kayleigh a 13year old teenager dolphin with an attitude ! The water wasn’t as cold as I expected and the wet suits helped but the floor of the pool was a bit slippy. We got to touch, stroke and feel the dolphin between the blowhole and tail- not her head as she wasn’t happy being touched there. Then one by one we got to hang onto her fin while she swam across the water – you could feel the muscle and power of her movements – fantastic. They did photos of everyone stroking her, kissing her and the trainer showed us some of the sounds she could make. A couple of times she just swam off to see what the other groups were doing but fortunately she did come back to us. Dolphins only usually live into their teens/early 20’s because of predators in the sea, but in captivity they can live to 40+. In the park they have 44 dolphins. Great experience highly recommended even though it was £200 each we had all food and drinks included all day, towels, sunbed, dolphin experience and use of all facilities – excellent!
Need something warm now so back to the restaurant for a cooked breakfast and a hot drink before the next activity which was to swim and snorkel in the reef – really cold water- where we saw 10,000 fishes swimming around us – pretty mind blowing when a stingray the size of a table umbrella glided underneath me followed by wrasse, angel fish, parrot fish and loads more – the colours were amazing. In one corner of the reef there was a glass wall and on the other side were the sharks ! One if them must have been 10ft long!!!
Time to get warm again so we all headed for the lazy river which had heated water … ahhh. A long slow current that wound its way through an aviary where amongst others, spoonbill, toucan, white peacock, budgerigars and lots more swooped the water and watched the humans floating past – excellent. Adi and the boys went round a couple more times while mary, lucy and I went for pina colada/lemonade and white cherry slushi – never had one before but this was lovely except for the brain freeze !!!
After lunch, a bit of peace and quiet and a short 30 minute snooze in the sunshine on my sunbed as we were up early. Another round of lazy river, watched the Otters playing and Marmosets hiding before we were thrown out of the park almost an hour after it closed. This has to be the best day so far. Hope Bob and Frank had a good day too???

Day 7 Aquatica Water Park

After the disaster of Disney’s Volcano Bay today we tried Universals Aquatica water park, an older park and reported to be much less busy. As we drove into the car park we were excited as there were hardly any cars there. We parked really close to the entrance after paying 17$ for each car and went to exchange our vouchers for tickets. We then realised that the voucher included free car parking so we got a refund and went to look for sunbeds. There were so many to choose from but the boys were off into the water and trying out the shutes. Once they had tried out a few they came back to the girls to tell us which rides to go on, which ones were wicked and which ones we might be scared on?? Some had rubber rings or mats to ride on, others you went down without but apparently some hurt your back or bum as you went over the ridges.

We all did the lazy river, but the other rapid river with lots of currents was so much fun and the water was warm. We all went on the tubes with mats and rings and Mary and I had a competition on loudest scream which the boys found hilarious. Mary, lucy and I returned to the sunbeds to relax, read books or in my case write the previous days blog. Adi and the boys kept going all day, punctuated with the occasional appearance to tell us which ride was the best, fastest or one we needed to go on. There were no queues so it was on, down and back round for the next, I have no idea how many rides they did but they were very happy bunnies! Weather forecast for the day had been thunder and rain again but so far it had been dry, if not a bit cloudy, however around 4pm it started to rain and it got heavy so we packed up and made for the exit. We were all hungry as we had only snacked during the day so we decided to go to the Florida Mall to have dinner and do a bit of shopping.

Sorry Tj, I just couldn’t leave without these for the girls.

Poor Lucy suddenly felt nauscious and dived off to the restroom, no idea what caused it but she needed to go home and go to bed so we drove straight home. When I opened the front door and stepped inside it was freezing – around 65 degrees and the air con was going. Couldn’t turn it up or change it in any way so I phoned the management office and after directions on how to turn everything off and back on again to reboot the system, we were back to normal and the temperature started to rise. Great service team.

Lucy had gone straight to bed with some medicine, so as it was nearly 10pm anyway we all followed. Hope she is feeling better in the morning as the alarm is set for 5.45am, leaving the house at 6.30 to be at Discovery Cove at 7am.

Day 6 Universal Studios

It’s Sunday already and as the chance of thunder is 70% we decided to change the plan of a water park to Universal Studios as most of the rides are inside. Of course the weather during the day was lovely and warm and the only rain we had was late afternoon, well timed as we sat having an ice cream under a big umbrella.

The park opened at 8am but closes at 5pm so some quick planning and we were off. First problem, someone left the entrance tkts in the house -…….returning to pick them up we lost Lucy and Adi so we ended up driving to the carpark on our own, fortunately we bumped into them as we walked from the carpark to the entrance of the park.

We entered the park, took a right and then a left and found the Transformers ride at only 10mins wait so we all hopped on. Whoosh …. a virtual ride where we were helping Optimus Prime save the world! The boys had spotted the big rollercoaster next door but with a cart being dragged vertical up a pole before being thrown down, round and upside down through the ride, I declined to go on, along with Bob, Frank and Mary – enjoy kids …
Can we go to Harry Potter Gringotts ride now PLEASE? I was so excited to go and it was only 15min wait so we bypassed other rides to get to Diagon Alley and ride the Escape from Gringotts Bank. The set as before was amazing, the boys brought their wands and after the ride we walked through the shops and did magic spells in the windows of some of them.

Feeling hungry now so looking for a snack and I’ve spotted Starbucks nearby but Men in Black ride had no queues and was closer so we rode that first, once again saving the planet from destruction!
After a break we set off again, backtracking to The Mummy which had a 30 min queue, lots of dark passageways led us up to the carriage that took us round the ride, scaring us a bit as we ducked away from mummies, scarabs and goolie things.
It was now nearly 3pm so we positioned ourselves on the route of the Parade, right next to the Race Through New York with Jimmy Fallon ride – another virtual ride. Must say I’m pretty much getting overload on virtual rides.

Frank was worried about the charge on the mobility scooter so he took it to customer services and they plugged it in for him while we rode a few rides. We made our way to the
Shrek show while he was doing that. This was a sequel to the shrek movies where he has to rescue his Fiona from the evil lord who is a ghost trying to kill her so she can be his ghostly princess. Some funny bits but as it was in a theatre the whole chair shook and bumped with the movements and they weren’t very comfy- I think the hardness of the seating has deteriorated throughout the day!
One of the longest queues of the day was the minions ride,

50 mins at one point but it had gone down to 35 so we joined it. Funny antics as we were trained to be minions. By the time we came off the ride it was around 4.30 and the park closed at 5pm and we wanted to ride the Hogwarts express train to the Island of Adventure Park before it was closed down. However, Frank wanted to ride the big rollercoaster and queuing was down to 10mins so he did it with Adi and the boys – not sure if he enjoyed it though !
As we approached Kings Cross the queue said 55 mins ! As Frank had the scooter we were sent through a different gate and into a lift where we were processed through in about 10 mins and we were on the train, in a carriage just like the ones in the film – so happy !

We emerged 3/4 mins later in the other park.

Time now to finish off the rides we didn’t have time for last visit.
The Poseidon adventure was excellent, walk through tour with Taylor, the professors assistant who has to take control because the Professor has gone missing. Our Charlie got picked to be Taylor’s assistant so if anything went wrong it was Charlie’s fault haha! As we explored and found the Trident so that Neptune could fight and beat the bad guy and therefore save the seas from evil.

After all that saving we decided ice cream was essential and as we sat down under a big umbrella the rain came! 10 mins and it was gone and we could continue to the weird animal Carousel in Dr Seuss land and Cat in the Hat ride.

The boys still hadn’t done the Terror Drop ride so they joined the 25 min queue but were done in 10 mins. They also wanted to do the Hulk rollercoaster again in the dark so as it was 7.30 ish “the parents” decided to make for home, picking up something for dinner on the way and the kids could come straight home when they were done. Ha! Picking up a small basket of shopping – 5 mins – paying for them 20 mins ! So annoyed, a woman with a bag full of discount vouchers and an extremely slow cashier caused blood pressure to raise and they didn’t even apologise for keeping us waiting, Publix your service is crap !!!
Cup of tea, food and bed I think such a lovely day up until this. Tomorrow is water park Aquatica hopefully not as busy as Volcano Bay was.

Day 5 Golf, Resting & Kennedy Space

Ah a rest day for the parents – well some of them. Lucy,Adi and the boys were planning to go to Bucsh Gardens today but as they arrived home around 11pm last night, they couldn’t get up early enough. They left the house a good l hour later than planned and then appeared back at the door 5 mins later having decided that it wasn’t worth the hour + long trek now as the park closed at 5pm. Change of plan – go to Kennedy Space centre today and Bucsh Gardens next week. We waved bye to Frank & Bob too who were playing golf down the road today. Mary and I sighed with the quiet and started collecting washing to do, making beds, cleaning bathrooms and generally tidying up . Once everything was organised we showered and had breakfast and a cup of coffee before settling on a couple of sun beds with our books.

Frank and Bob returned around 3pm, tired and hungry so we had a snack to keep us going and decided to go out for dinner around 7pm. We tried a Perkins cafe up the road and a mooch round a shopping centre afterwards before coming home for a cup of tea and and a few games of pool in the garage!.

The family returned from their day out, full of the excitement of a space centre and with a different car – a white one – Dodge- lots of gadgets- Adi happy. Apparently a light came on the dashboard on the way home so they called at the airport and just swopped it.

Weather was lovely today, much less humidity but forecast for next few days is thunder and high humidity so not sure if we can stick to the plan for tomorrow.

Night night, happy dreams xxx

Day 4 Universal Volcano water Park

Up and out early again today, to the new water park at Universal – then we realised the Park doesn’t open until 10 am. We were there not long after opening but I think they must let all the resort guests in early as it was already packed. Next was the tikitaka bracelet we all had to wear and touch it onto the totem pole by a ride we wanted to do, to then be told it would be a 40 minute wait – go and play in the rapids, lazy river or beach area until we were called (by the watch buzzing). Almost an hour later the buzzer went off and we went back to the ride to wait another 15 minutes on the stairs up to the ride before getting on it. A 5 person ride down a shute in a turtle boat, however, there was a weight limit and not ANY 5 people could ride together, so as a family we had to split into 3 and a 2. Only now after doing that ride could we tap in with the watch to book another ride but now wait time was 170 minutes for some rides. At lunchtime we wandered over to one of the restaurant cafes and stood in a very long queue to order pizza and salads. The salads were in a fridge to “pick up and go” but this meant get it yourself and join the food ordering queue to pay for it! Requesting a hot drink we were told to go to another cafe as they only did cold drinks here. Must say we won’t be coming back to this park and we will be leaving some serious complaints with the park. However, the boys just enjoyed playing in the water and digging in the sand as children do.

Adi wanted to go to International Drive to see some old cars that were being shown off so we drove to the area and drove up and down looking for it. Having no success we stopped at a hotel and asked the consierge who informed us it was at Old Town Kissimmee! Back onto the I-4 motorway and 20 minutes later we pulled up into the Old Town. The first thing the boys saw was a go kart track but they had to wait til we had perused the cars and checked out the Town. Not much to see, a band playing country music , bars, cafes, touristy stuff and a brawl by some drunk people, so we headed back to the go-karts. Personally I thought they looked far too fast for the boys but Daddy and Grandad Frank wanted to go on them too so they jumped into their seats and were off. Dan raced in front, Charlie and Grandad Frank clashed and Daddy just couldn’t quite pass Dan so after some 10 mins they came to the end of the race.

Us Grandparents weren’t wanting to eat a big meal now as it was almost 9pm so we decided to head off home for a light snack

while the “youngsters” went off for Mcdonalds burgers and a bit of outlet shopping. Tomorrow was grandads golf day and Nannies day off ???

Frank having a snooze

Day 3 Universal Islands of Adventure

Off to Universal Island of Adventure today, hoping that the ride queues aren’t too long as we don’t have fast passes for Universal parks. We did look at buying them but it was 65$ each so we decided to risk it and see how it went.

First ride was the Hulk 30 minute wait- great big green rollercoaster that shoots you out of a tube into a double twist and then proceeds to shake your body until you don’t recognise anything – mmmm think I will have a quiet coffee with Mary (Adi’s Mum) while the rest of them go!

Now something a bit quieter, Spider-Man virtual ride – suits me much better and everyone enjoyed it. Next up, time to get wet- as Bob and I don’t have ponchos, the boys donated theirs to us as they had quick dry T-shirt’s and shorts on. WHAT a waste of time, the first corner threw about a bath full of water into our circular boat and drenched me to my pants ! Haha fun ride but once you are wet it’s too late to worry … so best do the other wet ride now before we dry off.

decided to leave the park for lunch as it was just burgers, hot dogs or pizza at nearly 20$ each. Found a lovely grill restaurant in City Walk, lovely food just had to wait almost an hour as it was cooked to order.

Back into the park for Kong – much improved on the old King ride and more exciting.

Adi, lucy the boys and Frank wanted to get wet again as they saw the Jurassic log ride so bob mary and I watched and photographed them.

At last the queues for Harry Potter have died down and we are at 30 minutes. So off we all went, they really know how to entertain here. Right from the start, you wander through the “greenhouse”, the sets are amazing, the virtual people very real looking and lots to explore and look at as you wait in the queue makes the time pass. The ride was in a carriage and we flew all around Hogwarts and joined in a quidditch game, swooping and turning, chased by dementors, over hills and through the Hogwarts castle. The kids wanted to go in the Buckbeak train ride but Bob, Mary and I went to explore the hog warts village with it’s lovely snow covered roofs and brightly lit windows. When lucy, Adi and the boys joined us they bought the boys wands which, when pointed and moved in front of some windows, made magic. Great fun for all the children – expensive for all the parents. lol. Looking forward to the Hogwarts train ride on next visit as the park was closing now at 8pm but by the time we got out, walked to the car park and drove home it was late.

Day 2 Epcot

Another amazing day, it started with Lucy missing the table with a whole bowl of cereals in it – so clean up done and we were off to Epcot.

We couldn’t get fast passes for the Testtrack ride so our first stop was to join a queue at just after 10am and snake our way to the final ride at 11.30. Excited, we climbed in and we were off ……. 2 minutes into the ride it stopped in the dark as inclement weather (peeing it down) was causing the track to be unsafe …. We waited and waited in our car and about 15 minutes later we set off but the thrill of the ride had been dampened. Complaining about waiting so long to be disappointed we were given free return fast passes for later.

Next was the future world slow ride looking at the changes since the turn of the century – very educational. Soarin was the next ride with a fast pass – we love this as we passed the 60 + minute wait queue in 3 minutes and we were on the ride – the boys were amazed as we flew into a 360 degree screen on our “hangliders” climbing over mountains and along rivers around the world – well worth a wait. A stop for a bite to eat now and on to Nemo ride and the aquarium.

Adi had fast passes with the boys to Mission Space so the rest of us started the walk round the countries of the world. We hadn’t got far before they caught us up, excited about their ride and wanting us all to go and be spun around too – haha NO WAY!

We continued around the world, visiting Canada, the U.K., Norway – see pic Brit – Japan, China, France etc. stopping for ice cream half way round and watching the crew move the equipment onto the lake for the fireworks later in the evening.

On our way out Adi, Lucy and the boys decided to have one more ride on the Orbiter, a sort of space crafts on arms that went round – they weren’t impressed.

Everyone was hungry by now so we went for a drive to International drive and stopped at Denny’s – we remembered that we liked this restaurant chain from 25 years ago – but we were so wrong, the food was microwaved, tasteless and extremely oily – not going there again!

Finally home to the villa and the boys had to just have 10 minutes in the pool before bed. Funny how they suddenly seem to get lots of energy the moment we say bedtime ? Haha