23 August 2013
Day 15 (Thursday 22nd)
"The Magic Kingdom"

I've decided.....The Magic Kingdom is my favourite theme park ever. On this trip we've been here the most. Sometimes, after previous trips, I was thinking I was tiring of visiting here. I mean, you can only ride the same rides so many times without getting bored right?
It seems different this time around. Maybe it's because Jack can ride more things, maybe it's because Josh is older and appreciates it all a little more. I can't pinpoint it but we've had such great times in here this past 2 weeks. We must have ridden Splash Mountain 6 times already and we're not done yet...not by a long shot!
Today we chilled out in the room a little first and headed to the park just before 11am. First stop was to get fastpasses to return at 2pm to meet Mickey Mouse again. Then, as has become tradition, we grabbed a couple of Frappuccino's from the Starbucks at the Main Street Bakery. With the early afternoon heat they were finished by the time we'd checked out the passing parade and walked by the side of Cinderella Castle into Fantasyland. We needed to ride two Fantasyland rides that we had so far missed, The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh and my favourite ride in this area, Peter Pan's Flight.
Winnie the Pooh was first and it's always fun but luckily we didn't have to wait for 90 minutes to ride. It's only a 3 minute ride so you definitely need Fastpass access to make it worthwhile.
Peter Pan's Flight has always been a great ride if you like Peter Pan (which I most definitely do) and takes you in a pirate ship through the Darling children's nursey, over a brilliant model of London and into Neverland. The scenes on this ride are so brilliantly done and you really can get lost in the story of the movie.
We then headed to Adventureland to ride Pirates Of The Caribbean on the way to Splash Mountain. We made our first stop this holiday at Aloha Isle to grab a slice of pineapple and a DELICIOUS fresh pineapple juice. This has also become a tradition for us and I can't believe it's taken us 2 weeks to get our first one (must be the new Starbucks that's scuppered that).
It was now time to go meet Mickey again. Jack loves meeting Mickey Mouse, he always runs up and gives him a massive hug.
Off to the candy store next as Josh wanted a 'candy apple'. They don't make them so instead we opted for a Mickey Mouse Apple. A bargain at $10....especially as the boys had about 2 bites each and it ended up in the bin ;-)
We next rode on The Magic Carpets Of Aladdin. I've never ridden this even though it's been here since 2001. I think the reason we've never ridden is because I never liked it from the first moment I saw it. To me, they just 'plonked' it in the middle of Adventureland, a part of the park that has such a brilliant atmosphere and spoilt the whole vibe of this area. It totally obscures the view of the Tiki Rooms and is just a multi coloured blot on the landscape. There's already the fabulous Dumbo ride in Fantasyland which is the EXACT same concept with flying carpets replacing flying elephants. Anyway, i'm ranting. The ride was OK, the kids liked it and that was fine. I just hope they remove it one day.
Straight onto The Enchanted Tiki Room next. We haven't done this for about 10 years. It's one of the originals from 1971 although it was refreshed, I think, in 1997. It's a chorus of audioanimatronic birds that sing and chat with the audience. It's OK, we did it, we'll do it again in another 10 years :-)
Pirates Of The Caribbean! A 40 year old theme park ride. It's still fantastic. I would lose all the new references to Jack Sparrow and the movies though, it was fine the way it was.
And onto Splash Mountain. We will never EVER tire of this ride. It's the best log flume ride we've ever ridden and the theming is just tremendous. You can get great views of Cinderella Castle and you ride around and the indoor set pieces are mesmerising as you follow the exploits of Brer Rabbit. FAB!
After this we hopped (actually, i'm lying, we just walked) onto the steam train that circles the Magic Kingdom to head back to the entrance. On the way to the exit Joanne bought a frozen, chocolate dipped banana and we were on our way back to the hotel.
A quick trip to the room for the car keys and we were heading to TGI Friday's. Even though there's loads of these in the UK, Joanne always wants to go over here. It's the USA though...the food is better, the service is most DEFINITELY better and, of course, the prices are better. We had a great meal and our earlier plan to pop into Perkins for a mixed box of mufffins was put on the back burner for another day.
I've run out of clothes so we quickly popped into Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein for some polos and boxers (who can resist these bargain prices?). I bought some for now and a bunch of the 'next size down' to wear in the next few weeks when i've worked off all this lovely grub we've been scoffing. Then it was back to the pool for a late night dip.
And here we are now. I'm sat writing this blog while the boys are playing and Joanne is surfing the net on her iPad.
Why can't every day be like this?
Tomorrow should be very nice, it's a special day for Joanne and me. More about that later.
Right...it's 10:45pm and i'm off in the pool with the boys.
SPLASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!