Off to the US - Part 1 Orlando

Wednesday 3^rd October to Wednesday 16^th October 2013

This is the second year that we have gone to Florida and we had plans to see a few different things this year – well we had plans, but the government shutdown sort of curtailed some things.

We did however manage to make it to Epcot and Magic Kingdom as well as Downtown Disney and then to Universal Studios.

We arrived on the Thursday – very late – about 9pm (local time) after leaving Manchester at 10am (UK time); so it was pretty late to bed and then we needed to be up early the next morning so that we could met Rebecca at Orlando airport – she arrived at 5:30am – we got there on time, trouble was the plane got there early, but the bags still had to get off the plane – so that made us on time again.

The view of the rest of the resort from our apartment

Sam managed to do her thing and get time off work as well as arrange for 2-day passes to Disney for all of us – one of the perks of the job – she did have to work one of the days, but only until 2pm.

Sam hard at work - just for a short while

When those two girls get together and coupled with Diane (the other big kid) then I had absolutely no hope of controlling them.

Before the 3 of them started to get up to no good

Fortunately this year we had decided to hire a car, so getting around was a whole lot easier than relying on buses as we did last year. There were no problems with driving on the other side – well, at least not from the drivers side – there were a couple of times when the passengers forgot that we needed to be on the right hand side of the road and panicked a bit.

Butterbeer moustaches - just a bit too early for Movember

With Hogwart's in the background

Like I said - up to no good - this one above and the one below

The resort was fabulous – even better than the one last year – the apartment had heaps of space and we mad use of the in-room spa.
Lunchtime at Magic Kingdom - Sam had arranged for a booking at one of the restaurants - which was soon to be invaded by some of the characters that she has had to be a "bodyguard" for (er I mean character escort) - they seemed to recognise her as we ate lunch - they made a beeline for her (and us)

The weather was excellent, if just a tad too humid – but overall we really couldn’t complain – even a nice day with a bit of rain to clear the air a bit and relax with a good book.

The time seemed not to go too fast but the week did have to end and we had to move onto our next destination.