Easter was good times with Paul, Sue, Grace and Brandon just hanging out and spending time with the family. Sunday was spent celebrating Matt's birthday and also Easter - going to their church - lots of singing and a big service (1 of three that morning apparently).The Easter Bunny had been busy dropping lots of eggs around the yard - the pool and surrounding area seemed covered!! Sue Rok had arranged baskets for all the kids to collect them in and a feast was had by all!!
Monday we got up reasonably early and headed off to Orlando - Doris the GPS lead us in all sorts of directions but basically we headed up I 75 to Tampa - 175 miles of motorway - saw Alligator and Raccoon roadkill - stopped at Waffle House for cheap breakfast and then headed up I4 towards Orlando.
We were going straight to Disney as we could not check in to the Hotel until 4pm - Disney apparently owns land in Orlando the size of San Francisco so you can imagine it is absolutely huge - no thoughts that we will be able to see it all. Our first experience is trying to get to the Magic Kingdom - essentially the re-creation of the old Disney in LA. I'm keen to re aquaint myself with the Disney of my childhood memories although not too sure whether these are real or just remembered from family stories (I was four and a half when we visited Disney in LA on a world tour) Anyway does not really matter; just let's get in there!! Carpark was absolutely huge (like everything in Orlando), $14 and then a shuttle ride to the ticket booth on a carpark train - how are we going to remember where the car is parked - no worries as everything at Disney is well thought out and organised.
Two day pass for us all is approximately $1,000 NZ - who would have thought that 11 and 13 year old were adults - how did that happen?? Great service at the ticket booth and off we go with badges to say we are first time visitors and that Matt is celebrating his 8th birthday. Our first queuing experience - just to catch the monorail into the park!! We arrive to bag check, ticket presentation and then we are in and off to the magical world of Disney.
First stop Pirates of the Caribbean - just as I remember from the journals that Philip and Sue created when we were all children in 1969. While there were a number of things that were remembered - It's a small World, Tea Cups etc there were also all sorts of new rides that were thrilling and fantastic - the queues were something that I had never experienced before but we spent over 13 hours in the park. Firework displays, festival of lights, parades, we went on Splash Mountain - the Breer Rabbit story and then returned right at the end of the night when there were no queues and went twice more on the ride at midnight.
As always the heat has been huge for us to handle but all of the kids were really good - excited at the experience but also really good fun to be with. The food at Disney is varied and at times expensive from a local perspective but we found all sorts of things to eat and drink sharing meals which are normally huge.
Amazing the amount of people in wheel chairs and on mobility scooters - many that are not that old just either too big or lazy to walk - Disney is an unreal type of environment and everyone seems to be relaxed and having a good time - while beer is available at most of the drinks stands very few people are drinking and we just think that this is a difference in cultures between the US and NZ and makes the park a nicer place to visit.
Exhausted we left the park at 12.15 only for Doris to take us in some strange directions so settled into the Orbit One Vacation Villas in Kissimmee at around 1am. All of us were pretty tired having driven 3 and a half hours and then 13 hours at Disney.
How will we keep up this pace for the week?
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