Right, as it looks like we might have a little bit of a flight delay, as I sit here in the Delta lounge at MCO, it looks like I have a little bit of time to tell you about my car.
Despite setting my alarm for 7am, I snoozed away and did my best to ignore it until about eight, when I finally got up and started to face the packing. I face-timed with Nicky part way through this, and she found it highly entertaining to see the piles of stuff on the bed, as this is normally her job.
However, thankfully it all fitted in (by using the extra Disney bag that I'd brought with me) and by about 9.30 I was away, leaving my bags with at the hotel luggage service (with instructions to store one of the bags in the fridge until I returned!).
As I'd only been in briefly on my first evening, I decided that the Magic Kingdom was to be park of the day, and always keen to avoid parking with the riff raff (!) I took the car in to the Polynesian resort and parked there (scoring some photos of the Avengers monorail at the same time). I wandered through the hotel and took the resort launch across Bay Lake to the Magic Kingdom.
My first stop on arrival was at Frontierland, where after picking up a Thunder Mountain fast pass I took the raft across to Tom Sawyer island. Glad I went to have a look (even if the second island across the rope bridge was shut) but I can confirm we've been right not to put this too near the top of our "must do" lists in recent years! By the time I got back to the mainland it was almost time for my train ride, so I stuck around, taking a few photos, before heading onto the ride. I kept my camera out and took a few photos on the way around, just to prove that I'd done it (seeing as I'd not done any "thrill" rides at all on the trip up to this point). By this point it was coming up to midday, so Pecos Bill was the next stop (where interestingly, due to how busy the park was, the cast members were enforcing a strict traffic flow policy with only one entrance open, and cast members preventing people from staking out tables if they didn't have any food). The busyness didn't slow me down, as I walked straight up to a server, uttered the famous words, "pulled pork please" (is now a good time to confess to grandad about yesterday's chowder - I understand he already knows!), collected my food, and went straight to a table.
Refuelled, I headed to Liberty Square, as next stop was to be the Hall of Presidents. However, I'd obviously just missed one show starting, and the next one was in 20 minutes. So, rather than stand around and wait, I wandered off to take some photos (all of the little statues around the "Partners" statue in front of the castle, the mosaics inside the castle ...) before coming back when there were only a few minutes to go.
The show was great - I love all of that stuff (just like the American Adventure at Epcot). It may give a rather rose-tinted view of American history, but hey, it's stirring stuff!
Coming out of the show, the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It show was doing it's stuff in front of the castle, so I watched that for a little while.
Next stop Fantasyland, not for any rides, but for a quick inspection of how building works are coming along with "New Fantasyland" and there is certainly a lot happening back there. Took several photos of the building works for posterity's sake, and to compare with the finished article when we get to see it.
Came through Tomorrowland and back onto Main Street - the Castle stage show was taking place, so watched that for a little while, before bidding farewell to the Magic Kingdom (see you in six months!) and heading out of the park.
Got the monorail back to the Polynesian (just to complete as many forms of transport as possible on this trip!), picked up the car, and headed off to do some last minute shopping, firstly at Walgreens (again, no trip to Orlando can be considered complete without a trip to Walgreens, even if I didn't buy any chocolate malty balls (!), and then to LBVFS to grab a few bargains at Old Navy.
Final stop Downtown Disney where I had a chocolate malt, and picked up a few bits in World of Disney, and then it really was time to go. Stopped at the Hess filling station at Downtown, and did the usual dance of trying to pay with my credit card at the pump and failing due to no zip code, trying to fill up and pay inside and being told over the tannoy that prepay was the only way, going in and explaining that I didn't know how much I was going to put in because I had to fill up, leaving my credit card behind the counter, going back out, filling up, and coming back in to pay. Such fun!
A quick stop back at Pop to pick up my bags (one of them feeling encouragingly cool!) and then over to the airport (where I did some final repacking at the rental drop off to accommodate today's shopping), checked in, battled through the long lines at security (spotted Justin Rose in the line in front of me - took a sneaky photo on my phone!), and made it to the lounge at about 6.20.
And here I am now, expecting to get the 7.30 update about the Virgin technical problem at any moment ...
By the way, photo count of the day - 163 - I think that I will need to do some fairly severe editing before inflicting them on anyone else!
And the update has just come through re VS16 - and to quote from the announcement, "the update is that there is no update!" More news at 8pm.
Annoyed now that I packed my USB memory stick converter into my checked luggage, otherwise could have been syncing and uploading some photos now. Oh well, never mind - at least I can surf.
Will post this now - keep an eye on the twitter sidebar for further updates!