Florida Holiday Blog

When we woke up this morning it was cloudy and raining and we put the telly on for the weather forcast and apparently a ‘Tropical Low’ was passing over today.

We had no choice but to go out anyway as we had got an ‘NASA Up-Close’ tour booked for 10.30 at Kennedy Space Centre. We headed off in the car towards Kennedy and it was raining all the way there! Neither of us had seen rain like it and it was so bad that when we got there at some places in the car park the rain actually came over our trainers!!

We went and got our tickets sorted out and then went in. As we had some time to kill before our tour we headed over to the new ‘Shuttle Launch Experience’. This was fanastic! Our simulator which can take about 40 - 50 people had 5 people in it!!

After this we headed out on our coach tour. This was very informative and it was just a shame the weather was so bad as at the photo stops rather than taking some time to look it was a quick picture and back on the coach.

The tour went a close to the shuttle launch pads as the general public can get which is 1/2 mile. The main tour finished at the Apollo Centre. We speant some time here looking at the Saturn V rocket and seeing the movies. After some lunch we headed back to the main visitor centre via the ISS building.

Once back at the main centre we saw one of the Imax movies. After this we decided to start heading home as it was still raining!

As we didn’t have any reservations tonight we went to Sizzler.

Today we had arranged to meet our friend Lowell, who was the cast member that we met last year when we did the backstage magic tour. Matt and Lowell have kept in touch over the past year so had breakfast with Lowell.

We had a nice breakfast at the Maya Grill and after Lowell left to go back to work we decided to head to the Factory Outlets.

At the outlets we both bought a new pair of trainers and had a good look round the rest of the shops before heading back towards Disney. We stopped at Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney for lunch.

After an afternoon at the pool we had dinner at the Maya Grill and then headed Epcot.

Tonight we decided to start on the World Showcase pavillions and finished the evening by watching Illuminations.

It was a nice relaxing day in between two very busy days!!

Posted by: Tracy

This was our first visit to MGM this trip and we had an early dinner booked at Mama Melrose. We booked Mama Melrose and the Fantasmic package which included reserved seating for the show 8:00 Fantasmic show.

We ate at Mama Melrose last year as part of our Backstage Magic tour and really enjoyed hence our reservation. Our meal was just as good as last year.

Once we finished dinner we had about an hour before we needed to be seated in the Fantasmic theatre, so, as Muppets 3D is next door, we watched that.

It was then time to go over to Fantasmic theatre and upon showing our reserved seating tickets were allowed to enter via the backstage route. Fantasmic is probably the best Disney show at the moment and combines animation, live action, fireworks, puppets and just about every thing else you can think of, in to a 30 minute show.

After Fantasmic headed out of the theatre and in the direction of Star Tours. However, just as we were going past Indiana Jones we realised that they were still letting people in for the last show of the evening which was in about 5 minutes time. We went in and found a seat, amazed that it was so empty, only the middle blocks of seats were being used. We had never seen so few people in there! This show never changes!!!

After this we did go and ride Star Tours, then we also did The Great Movie Ride, The Magic of Disney Animation and the Tower of Terror.

By this time the park was almost closing so we decided to beat the crowds, get back on the bus and return to the hotel. It had been a long day!!

Posted by: Tracy

We got up early this morning as we had booked the Keys to the Kingdom tour which started at 8.30am in Magic Kingdom, meaning we had to leave the hotel by 7.30

Keys to the Kingdom is a backstage tour and teaches you a bit more about the Magic Kingdom. It covered a small amount backstage however tended to focus on the attractions themselves a lot more than the Backstage Magic tour we did last year.

During the tour we went on three attractions: Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Carribean and Hunted Mansion.

It was not just the normal ride, for example on Jungle Cruise our tour guide, Patrick, took over the mircophone and we were treated to the usual bad jokes but also information on the workings of the ride.

On both Pirates and Hunted Mansion we talked a bit about the ride before going on and Patrick gave us things to look for whilst on the ride. After we came off we talked a bit more.

We got to have a look around the Utilidors again which is always interesting!

The tour lasted a little over 5 hours and included lunch at Columbia Harbour House.

It was very enjoyable and something we would definitely do again.

Posted by: Tracy

This morning we went over to Animal Kingdom.

We headed over to the Safari and grabbed a fastpass on our way to ride Expedition Everest. This ride makes the Magic Kingdom coasters show there age as it is so smooth.

We rode Everst and headed back to the Safari, however as our time wasn’t quite up on our fastpasses we stopped and had a look in the shop and I bought a stuffed Pluto dressed in his Safari outfit (he is being shipped back to the resort for me so I didn’t have to carry him!)

After then riding the Safari we saw ‘Its Tough to be a Bug’ and rode ‘Dinosaur’ it was lunch time. Animal Kingdom is very short of counter service locations and the only one that we were interested in eating in was closed as they had kitchen problems. So thought we would ride the Kali River Rapids however this had a 40 minute wait time so he decided just to head back to the hotel to have lunch and a swim.

Today’s photos can be found HERE.

Posted by: Tracy

Tonight we went to Magic Kingdom for the Extra Magic hours which meant that, for us, the park did not close until 11pm

We headed over to Magic Kingdom after our afternoon swim. As it looked like it was going to rain again we popped into the park to buy some ponchos and get our wristbannds before going to our dinner reservations at the Concourse Steakhouse which is on the Grand Concourse in the Contemporary Resort. So we had dinner whilst watching the monorail going overhead!

We finished dinner and then went up to catch the monorail back to Magic Kingdom and just as the monorail left the resort the fireworks were going off and it was a really unusual way to see ‘Wishes’.

Once we got back to the park we decided to try and do some of the rides we hadn’t yet managed.

Fortunatly the rain held off for the rest of the night so we had a very enjoyable evening.

Today’s photos can be found HERE.

Posted by: Tracy

This evening we were booked to go to the Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue. I would recomend this to anyone we had a blast!

The how is only performed by 6 people and lasts about 2 hours. The food was surprizingly good. We had a salad and cornbread (which was like a sponge cake but less sweet) to start, with Fried Chicken, BBQ Ribs, Mashed Potatoes and Cowboy Beans for main course. Dessert was Strawberry Shortcake.

After dinner the plan was to catch the Launch directly back to Magic kingdom, however as we didn’t make it onto the first boat we decided to the resort launch back to the Contempory and walk to Magic Kingdom. This turned out to be a very good decision as when we arrived at Magic Kingdom the other launch was just leaving in the return journey. The walk is very quick and nice from Contemporary so it was a nice addition to our evening.

We had plaaned to watch Spectromagic however Magic Kingdom was very busy so we decided to scrap that plan and went and rode Pirates of the Cariibean, Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain.

We rode ‘It’s a Small World’ just before it closed and when we came out the fireworks were just finishing so we had to make our way out with the crowds. This is the first time we have ever seena long queue for the bus back to Coronado Springs. We had to wait for the fifth bus

We finally got back to the hotel at 10.30 when the fireworks finished at 9.15.

Today’s photos can be found HERE.

Posted by: Tracy

This morning was Extra Magic Hour at Epcot so we decided to go and try and ride the rest of the Future World rides as we had to leave the park a bit earlier today due to going to Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue (more about that later though!)

Our first stop was Soarin as this ride always builds long queues early in the day. We got there and had a front row seat, both of us agreed we enjoyed thi a lot more this year than last.

We then went over and got Fastpasses to ride Test Track again and then while for our time slot to open went and rode Ellen Energy Adventure (which is 45 minutes long!!)

After going back to ride Test Track and on our way to get some lunch we stopped in the Epcot Character Spot. We met Mickey, Goofy, Chip & Dale, Pluto and Minnie. I kissed Chip on the nose so Dale wanted me to kiss him, then Chip wanted me to kiss him again and this went on a couple more times and said no to Dale who then throw my autograph book on the floor in a huff!!! It was really good fun!

It was then time for lunch and back to the hotel for our afternoon swim.

Today’s photos can be found HERE.

Posted by: Tracy