Day 3 part two - Halloween party

Well we're back from the Halloween party, and a good time was had by all!
Picking up where we left off, a DVC van came to pick us up just after four o'clock, and we went to see Nikki. She was helpful as always, and we enjoyed looking at the model rooms for Bay Lake Towers - looks like somewhere else to add to the list of "must visits". Nikki also very kindly gave us a grand total of 30 Fastpasses to use between the five of us. They are on special cards which we can insert into the Faspass machines rather than putting our park tickets in. The best bit is that irrespective of what the Fastpass return time says, we will get Fastpasses which will be active almost straight away. The only downside is that they are expire at the end of Sunday, so we could be having a busy few days!
We got back from Saratoga at about half past five, and came in deliberately loudly just to make sure that Jake was waking up! We had some bagels / sandwiches / fruit for tea, and then headed to the Magic Kingdom for the Halloween party.
In summary, the party was great! We had a nervy moment whilst waiting for the parade, thinking that Jake was going to run out of steam, but we were wrong, and he kept going admirably, and we left the park at about 11:30. The rain started during the evening, and was pretty hard by the time we left, but it didn't dampen our enthusiasm.
During our time at the Magic Kingdom we managed to:

• go on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
• see a show at the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor
• collect about a hundred-weight of candy during the evening
• watch the Boo-to-You parade
• visit the Haunted Mansion
• watch the Hallowishes fireworks
• see Mickey's PhilharMagic
• go on It's a Small World
• go to Alice and the Mad Hatter's Treat Party (lots of candy collecting)
• drive around the Indy Speedway
• ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority
• have another go on Buzz Lightyear.

No wonder we're rather tired now. I don't think we'll be having a very early start tomorrow morning!

Day 3 so far - Hollywood Studios

Posting rather early today, as we're off to the "Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party" at the Magic Kingdom tonight, and I doubt whether I'll still be in blogging mode after that!
We were up a little later this morning (or at least I was) and had a breakfast of toast and doughnuts in our room before heading off to Disney's Hollywood Studios, or MGM as was.





Our first stop had to be collecting fast passes for the new Toy Story ride, and it seemed that everyone else in the park was doing the same thing. We arrived at about half past nine, and there was a fifteen minute wait just to collect the passes. While I waited, everyone else went over to the Jedi Academy to stake out a place near the front.
By the time I got there the show was just starting, and the selection of academy students had just begun. Despite our shouts and waves, unfortunately Jake didn't get picked, but we enjoyed watching the show anyway.





At least, we did until at the end Jake said that he was feeling sick, and so we beat a hasty retreat to the restrooms. After a comfort stop and a drink of water we decided that the best idea would be to go to the Indiana Jones stunt show as it was in a shady, undercover arena with lots of fans blowing cool air around. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough and Jake was a little "unwell" just before the show started. On reflection, we put it down to a combination of factors - tiredness, jet-lag, and standing in the heat to watch the Jedi Academy show. Still, he seemed to perk up and thoroughly enjoyed the Indiana Jones show.





Afterwards, there was some debate as to whether we should give up at least some of our fastpasses so that one of us could bring Jake back to the hotel. Jake seemed keen on coming "home" but equally didn't want to miss out on the Toy Story ride. In the end, a compromise was reached whereby I would go back to the car and fetch Jake's DS from the glove compartment so that he could play on it whilst waiting for our fastpass time slot to come around at 1pm.
When I returned from the car park, a table had been claimed at the dining area on Sunset Boulevard, and so Jake played Lego Batman on his DS whilst John and I queued for some inappropriately named "fast" food. Still, this meant that by the time we'd had lunch we were able to head over to the Toy Story ride. We were glad of the Fastpasses when we saw that the standby queue was showing a wait of 100 minutes, as our wait in the Faspass line was only about ten or so.
The ride is excellent, and got a thumbs up from all of us. Scores ranged from 30,000 to just over 100,000, and I will spare people's blushes and not say what order they came in!




Having enjoyed the ride, it was definitely time to come back to the hotel for a bit of a rest. Jake has perked up a bit, and is currently watching a bit of telly (or if we are lucky having a bit of a snooze) and fingers crossed he will be OK for the Halloween party tonight.
Nicky had a call from Nikki at DVC whilst we were at the Studios, and so we're popping over to Saratoga to see her in an hour or so (she is sending one of the DVC minibuses to pick us up).
Looking forward to the Halloween party, we just hope that a certain young man is feeling alright and has the stamina to enjoy it!

Day 2 - Epcot

As predicted, we were up extremely early this morning, and waited impatiently for it to get light (which it did just after 7am) so that we could take some photos from our balcony. We got some good photos of the animals on the Savannah, but decided that we were doing the right thing to move rooms given the overall view.








We headed out at about half past eight, having packed up the few things we'd unpacked, and left our bags in our room to be sorted out by bell services. We drove over to the Boardwalk (by a very circular route due to my not being used to starting off from AKL!) and went to Epcot via the International Gateway, which was a cunning plan of Nicky's to avoid queues at ticket booths. It worked a treat, and we were able to sort out 3 annual passes plus 2 8-day passes in no time at all.





Our first stop in Epcot was Soarin', closely followed by Spaceship Earth, before walking back around the World Showcase to Japan where we had booked for lunch at Tokyo Dining. Tempura was enjoyed by all, and Jake had his meal served in a Bullet Train!






After lunch, Jake made a beeline for the Japanese department store to buy up some Pokemon cards, before we took in the "American Adventure" show. Epcot is currently running a Food and Wine festival, and we studied some of the carts on the way round, and will definitely have to go back later in our stay and sample lots of them. We nearly managed to get Nicky past all of the wine stands!





By this point we were all flagging somewhat, as a result of the early start, and so we made our way back to the hotel and sorted out our room change. Unfortunately the hotel had mucked up, and after promising us a particular room were unable to deliver, and we are now in room 5202 which is directly above reception, and which looks out over "Sunset Savannah". I'm sure that it is just as nice as the room we'd been promised (and it is ideally located to be close to the amenities) but the way the process was handled by the hotel staff can be described as poor at best, and this combined with our weariness did lead to a temporary sense of humour failure!

We came upstairs and our bags arrived a few minutes later, so we were able to settle in and unpack. The savannah view still isn't perfect (but then, truth be told, I suspect that none of them are perfect, and we were probably expecting too much) and as you can see from the photos below, we can still see some of the building work, but it is definitely an improvement from the last one.






Once we were settled in, I took Jake to the arcade and loaded up a game card with some credits. Jake beat me at hover hockey, as well as having a go on driving, bowling, basketball, skateboarding, and so on. Once we'd had our fill (for today at least) of arcade gaming, Jake stayed at the hotel with Nanny and Grandad whilst Nicky and I headed off to do some shopping. Following the advice of one of the valet parking staff, we went to find a shopping area called the Loop, and went to a very new Publix supermarket to stock up on groceries, as well as to an Electrical store to buy a new DS charger for Jake (due to a mini crisis arising when it turned out that his UK charger wouldn't work here) along with a purchase from Carolyn's shopping list!

Nicky and I had a quick tea at Perkins before coming back to the hotel and hearing all about Jake trying out the swimming pool whilst we were out, although he hasn't been down the slide yet.

Plan for tomorrow is to go to the Studios in the morning, and then have a reasonably quiet and restful afternoon, as we have tickets for the Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow night.

Arrived

Well we have safely arrived at the Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas, and I am writing this from villa 5374!
Our flight went smoothly, the only annoyance being the unruly children on the row in front of ours. Jake was brilliant, and happily passed the time watching movies, listening to music, and playing on his DS. Virgin service seems to be slipping a little - when it came to time for tea, the fare on offer wasn't particularly appealing. For the adults there was a cheese and pickle roll (one small slice of cheese, no butter, and a vague stain of pickle) whilst the children had sandwiches, mini cheddars or some raisins, and yes, it really was "or", so Jake had some mini cheddars for tea. Thanks Carolyn for the bag of sweets, they were much appreciated at this point.
(In another slight annoyance with Virgin, when we arrived to drop off our bags at Gatwick, I was told that as a silver Flying Club member, I could use the special drop off line, with a much shorter queue, but I could only invite one guest with and the rest of my party would have to wait with everyone else. Now what exactly is the point of that. This letter that Nicky is planning to write to Mr Branson is just going to be getting longer and longer!)
We touched down at MCO at 6pm local time (11pm UK time) and we had the smoothest run through the airport that we've ever had, and we were out and on our way by about half past seven. The idea of Nicky and I going on ahead to the Budget desk was a success - there was no queue at all, and John and Margaret arrived with the bags just as we had finished with the car paperwork.
Our van seems nice, although I haven't had a chance to study it fully yet. It gets a thumbs up from Jake as it comes with a DVD player, and has one of the automatically closing sliding doors! No doubt we will have to buy a cheap DVD like last time, just so that we can have the pleasure of watching telly in the car!
We had one brief concern when the car display seemed to be saying that one of the doors was ajar, but having called one of the attendants over, we agreed that it was just a glitch and we were on our way.
Arrived at the hotel and took full advantage of the valet parking and bell services! We've been allocated room 5374 (and the adjoining 5372) which is right around to the left hand end of the horseshoe. Given that it is quite a trek from reception, and that the restaurants and pool are all on the other side, and given that we overlook one of the people pens and the new construction, we have applied Nicky and Miff's first rule of American hotel rooms, and not accepted the first room that we have been allocated. The only slight snag is that we can't move until tomorrow, but hopefully we are getting a room on the other side, closer to reception, and overlooking the "Uzima Savannah" (where, we are told, the baby giraffes are) and we should be able to move tomorrow.
This has given us an excellent excuse not to unpack, and so we've had a little explore of the hotel, a bite to eat, a quick trip to the shop (Jake has his first pin) and now it is definitely time for bed. It may only be 10:20 here, but that's nearly half past three at home which means we've been up for 22 hours!
No photos yet, but hopefully lots tomorrow!

Now boarding at Gate 13

One hour delay on the flight, but we've made it as far as the (very busy) gate now. We should be called in the next few minutes to board, so this'll be a quick post!
We found some new headphones for Jake in Duty Free so can plug him in to an ipod once we're on board. He can alternate between that and playing his new Batman Lego DS game (as well as a nice long nap too hopefully).
Our row about to be called, so more later.

Nearly there

So, in just 48 hours from now we'll be on our way, somewhere mid Atlantic on our way to Orlando. I think we may be arriving just as the Presidential hopefuls are departing, both paying a visit to Florida as one of the key states that they need to win. It'll be interesting to see how wall to wall the election is in the US. We may find ourselves somewhat insulated from it, being tucked away inside a semi-autonomous state within a state, but we'll see. No doubt there will be some good bumper stickers to look out for in the car parks.

Preparations continue. Lists have been made and house tidying has begun! We've even been to M&S and bought ourselves some dollars. The rate is pretty rubbish compared with our last trip, but looking for silver linings we bought at 1.6666, which makes the conversions nice and easy - $1 equals 60p. An additional bonus, offsetting the lousy rate, was that I found $150 in cash at home, left over from previous trips. It all helps! I did think about taking the 33 Singapore dollars along to M&S as well to see how many USD they'd give me for them, but decided that might smack of desparation!

We're off to J&M for roast dinner in a little while, and to hear from Heather and Andy about their cruise. It sounds like they've had a bit of a rough time, but hopefully the cruise company will give them a refund that they can put towards their next holiday.

Checking out AllEars, I see that the T-Rex restaurant at Downtown opened last week. The pictures seem to show that it is very much in the Rainforest Cafe mould, but the menu looks quite nice. Perhaps we'll give it a try.

I'm gonna love you

Watching Disney Channel with Jake yesterday morning, and there was a trailer for Hunchback films I and II showing today on the Cinemagic channel. The Hunchback II film had been on before, and the only thing that I could remember about it was that it had a beautiful song in it, so I set it to record.

Looking at the recording now, I see that the song is called "I'm gonna love you" and its sung by Jennifer Love Hewitt. iTunes don't seem to have a copy in their store, but here is a Youtube music video of it.