Thursday

Just a quick post about Thursday coming to you from Orlando Airport as we wait for our flight to Montreal.

We started our day with a little shopping at Disney Springs. Lots of stores, big and small.
We spent a lot of time at the Disney Store! Here is a shot of the ceiling...

Once we found some cute souvenirs and a couple of t-shirts we grabbed our goods and boarded the handy dandy water taxi to our hotel then bussed it over to Epcot.

Tons of neat things to see and do here! We took in a breathtaking ride on Soarin' and then took a tour on Living with the Land which was a wonderful educational tour through the fish farm and greenhouses. Disney uses all of this vegetation in their landscaping and to feed the hungry masses. The fish are also served up by the creative chefs in all the Disney restaurants.

We were pretty exhausted and threatening weather was moving in so we called it

a day! There was a lovely double rainbow as we left which was the perfect touch to our absolutely amazing time here !

xo

Wednesday

As mentioned before, our lovely accommodations are at Disney's Port Orleans- French Quarter. In New Orleans, the French Quarter is the oldest neighbourhood dating back to the 1700's. This resort conveys the same charm with very friendly hospitality, easy listening jazz, carriage rides, and quaint French/Spanish style architecture. We are situated along the man made Sassagoula River with a meandering pathway for leisurely walks in the hazy sunshine. There are gorgeous Magnolia trees all over the property and quite a few tiny lizards that come out at dawn and again in late afternoon. We have been told by the riverboat captain that the lizards eat the insects. They do a good job because we haven't seen any bugs! (Not counting a brilliant green dragon fly).
 When we returned to the resort, in the afternoon, we were greeted by our friendly doorman, Arniel. He's fairly famous around here and rightly so. Arniel is the best! We got chatting, only to discover quite a bit of his family lives in southern Ontario! He is of Dutch descent and when we mentioned our sister in law's Dutch parents he fetched a Dutch magazine for us to pass along to her family!!
  Here's Arniel:
           

Grace and Molly received some colourful Mardi Gras beads after we had supper at the restaurant! 

We highly recommend a stay here if you ever come down this way. 😃

Theme park today was Hollywood Studios where we took in the Hollywood Classic Movies tour, The Muppets 3D, Tower of Terror, and Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular...just to highlight a few.

About that scary Tower of Terror inside the old Hollywood Hotel- Molly was really itching to give it a go...Grace not so much...so guess who stepped in to accompany Molly? Me, Kim!!

And guess what? We had a blast!!

Total adrenaline rush and we thoroughly enjoyed the creeky, broken service elevator's thrilling drops!!!

A couple more sights ...

We are off to Epcot and some shopping at Disney Springs on Thursday. 

xo

Tuesday

Our day began at 6:30 am with another already muggy 28c and clear blue skies. We grabbed a quick breakfast in our hotel room, packed our day bags and headed to the bus stop, this time for Disney's Animal Kingdom. Grace and Molly had  pre-booked the Dinosaur Attraction using the Fast Pass option which means we showed up for our designated time (one hour window) and head straight in past the longer line up.

Dinosaur is a thrill ride where you are recruited to help track a specific species and bring it back to the lab for studying. By the way, there seems to be a lot of recruitment on Disney rides! Hmmmmm, were we being brainwashed?😉 Well, let me tell you, I didn't need my caffeine this morning...this ride jolted me awake just fine!! We were seated in an open top Jeep type vehicle (indoors) that held 16 people. The "live" dinosaurs were all throughout the foreboding jungle as we were whisked along the path headed in the direction of... oh no, was that an asteroid headed our way ?!!!! We sped up and made it down the drop out of harm's way just in time. Phew, we arrived safely. (With hearts a pounding)

Next up with the Fast Pass was Expedition Everest, this time just for the teens! This is a large roller coaster. Molly was initiated on Canada's Wonderland Leviathan coaster in June while on a band trip.(Canada's largest!) This would be Grace's first.

Molly loved it and Grace was happy but said that's probably it for coasters for her. 😃

We all decided to check out Kali River Rapids, a 12 person round raft that pulls you up a steep incline then drops you hurtling through the rapids with plenty of splashing along the way!

After a beautiful Asian meal at Yak & Yetis air conditioned restaurant, we made our way to Kilimanjaro Safari. 

                              Great sights here!
As the heat pressed down on us (38c,humidex 48c) we called it a day and grabbed the bus to the resort. A gusty thunderstorm moved in delaying our evening plans a bit. We went over to Hollywood Studios theme park watching the amazing lightning show by Mother Nature with the Tower of Terror as a backdrop. How very fitting!

We are coming back here tomorrow for a longer look. We all agreed that it might be our new favourite out of all the parks so far! We were treated to another round of fireworks as we waited for the bus home.

xo

Monday

Up and at 'em at 6:30 am to catch one of the hundreds of buses from our resort to the Magic Kingdom. We are staying in our home away from home at Disney Port Orleans - French Quarter. Upon check-in at midnight Sunday, we actually had to sign a waiver stating that we could not make our room "permanent residency"! Too bad because I do think I could live here quite comfortably. 😉
Disney operates an efficient bus service to and from all the resorts and theme parks that is essentially their own public transit system included in the price of resort accommodation.
We're about a 20 minute ride from Magic Kingdom. With this delightful perk, the stress of navigation and parking has freed Jay up to enable him to enjoy his surroundings without listening to his helpful back seat driver!

 So around about 8:30 we joined the masses and herd our way through very thorough security checks and spilled out into Main Street. For me, having visited as a kid, it was pretty hard to not be crying tears of joy in front of everyone...all the magic is still here and then some! While we oriented ourselves, Minnie Mouse was busy hugging her admirers and signing autographs. We started what was the beginning of a billion steps in the super muggy 37F Florida sunshine to reach the iconic Cinderella's Castle. Jay remarked on how it was so amazing to finally see the castle in person after watching it on our TV screens every Sunday evening as a child. Walt had spun his magic on Grace and Molly in the past with classics and newer Disney characters and they were equally drawn in by the castle.
   

Our first of many attractions was, of course, It's A Small World. We board our wee boat and set sail amidst the cheerful singing of a thousand global voices...okay, yes, you caught me...my smiling cheeks got a little wet here. 

Next was the Haunted Mansion which was eerily fun. 

From there we headed over to pay Jack Sparrow and his mates a visit at Pirates of the Caribbean and then onto Jungle Cruise. We rested a bit while cooling off with a Dole Whip ice cream. 

Boy it sure is muggy, as in walking around in a perpetual mist. 

By the way, we couldn't help but notice how clean, organized and efficient the entire Disney World is run...not a scrap of paper, gum, or spills is left anywhere and all the attractions line ups are handled equally as well. As a child I'm sure I saw that but with my adult eyes it really stands out.

At this point we were probably nearing one o'clock and due to the oppressive heat/humidity (feels like 46), we thought it best to take a break back at the resort pool! We were all getting a tad edgy and empty. After a refreshing swim we scouted out the water taxi service. 

Our resort sits on the Sassagoula River which enables the boats to ferry guests to and from our neighbouring resort and also to Disney Springs shopping mecca...again all included! 

When we had refueled, we zipped back up to the Magic Kingdom for some evening entertainment. This involved Stitch's Great Escape, a favourite of Grace's. It was a theatre in the round style animatronics. 

Unfortunately tonight, Space Mountain was closed so the girls will come back another night to try.

The nightly spectacular at the castle was about to start so we secured a spot and finished our fantastic day with a colourful, musical blast.

  

xo

Three Cheers!!!

Disney, Disney, and GO RAONIC !!

Milos Raonic is the first Canadian male to make it to the Wimbledon Men's Final. 

Hope we have time to watch it to the end but if not it's for a really good reason. Wouldn't want to miss our flight!

Hope to post each day depending how much time I have in the evening.

xo

Testing, Testing 1 2 3

This is a boring post to test my new phone. Nothing to see here. Move along in a nice orderly fashion.
Um, hello. You're still hanging around? Okay fine I'll put in a picture of Henry so it's not a total waste of your time! Lol

Doesn't he look thrilled?

This concludes the test. Now to hit publish and see what happens!

More excitement to come...2 more sleeps. :0)

xo

Packing

Well, we are down to just 3 more sleeps until we fly off to "the world of laughter, the world of tears, it's a world of hopes, and a world of fears". Ha, you're welcome! I know you're singing along with me right now!!
It's time to start packing. For someone like me who loves organization you would think that gathering all those cute little toiletry bits and bobs into one wee bag would be just up my alley...NOT!

It's gone like this-

There that should be good, oh wait, I forgot my hand lotion. (takes out one thing & replaces with lotion)...

 Hmm, will I really need icy cool gel for my sore ankles? Definitely,  we're probably covering 15+ miles/day at the parks... into the approved airline carry on baggy it goes. 

So, I've been doing the "Hokey Pokey" with the necessary comforts of home. Wish me luck. Maybe I can sneak a few things in amongst Jay's liquids, gels, and aerosols! Shhhh. 

Of course, we have been watching the weather forecast for the upcoming week. WOW, can you say H.O.T.?

This morning here in Mississippi Mills it is a pleasant, albeit a bit muggy 24°C. Apparently that is the nightly low temps for Disney World next week.

Florida sun is beauty but that heat is going to knock us out! Here's what I pulled from Accuweather:

Mon. 33°C feels like 46°C

Tues. 34°C feels like 44°C

Wed. 35°C feels like 42°C

Thurs. 32°C feels like 41°C

My wish is that Mickey can wave his magic wand and make us forget the oppressive heat! 

I am bringing along a nifty cooling towel which is certain to get a thorough workout.

Time to finish packing Catch up with you later!

♡xo