26 August 2013
Day 17 (Saturday 24th)
"Searaycin'"

The plan today was to head off in the AM to EPCOT but we were all so tired that it seemed ages before we got ourselves ready to go out so a change of plan was needed.
I think, in a way, we're starting to wind things down a little. Apart from Universal Studios we've pretty much seen and done everything. We still need to do Star Tours at Hollywood Studios but apart from that we're repeating riding most things when we're in the parks.
It must have been after midday when we finally got going and decided to walk to the marina at our hotel to hire a couple of SeaRaycers to take out on Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake. These little boats are great fun and Josh rode with me while Jack went with Joanne (you need to be 14 to drive yourself) and we took a tour out around the lakes, right behind the Contemporary resort and past the front of the Magic Kingdom. It's such a buzz doing this and waving to all the people on the lake also riding around and enjoying the views.
After that we decided to knock a small job off our list and go collect Josh's school shoes from Junior Foot Locker at the Florida Mall.
First stop was breakfast/lunch at Olive Garden. It's a big Italian food chain restaurant but the boys and Joanne had never eaten there so we thought we'd give it a shot. Food was great, Josh finally ate a full meal but now it was Jack's turn not to eat. You can't win 'em all :-)
It was crazy busy when we got to the mall. On holiday you completely forget what day it is and today was Saturday...shopping day!
Way too busy for me...we grabbed the shoes, tried them on, had a quick detour to the Disney store then braved the big storm that was raining down on us to drive a few blocks down to Target. Target is a supermarket chain and Joanne wanted to check out the iPad cases as i'd got her one from there on another trip. No such luck on the case but we still came out $80 lighter after stocking up on some 'essentials'.
It was late afternoon now so we headed back onto the I4 to get back to Disney World and decide what to do in the evening.
We gave the boys the option of Magic Kingdom or The Neverland Club again. They wanted The Neverland Club! Can't believe how much they enjoyed that place. We think they wanted to go as Alicia would be coordinating there that night ;-)
After dropping them off at 7:15pm we just didn't know what to do as we didn't really have a plan. We quickly decided we'd have a drive down to Downtown Disney as the kids aren't huge fans of that and it would give us chance to have a quick mooch around and get some chocolate from Ghiradellis. MEGA busy down there (Saturday night!) but we managed to find a parking space eventually. This place is so popular and it doesn't help that they've closed half of the parking spaces to (I think) build a multi-story car park.
We did what we needed to do there (shops 'n' chocolate) then drove over to McDonalds for quick, cheap food. We had to rush that as we needed to pick the boys up at 10:15pm.
They had another brilliant time there and wanted to stay longer. They want to do it again another night but we don't think we'll do it. There's still lots of fun to be had in the evenings and we want them there with us for all that.
Bedtime now because Sunday was breakfast at The Crystal Palace at 8:05am so we were going to be up at Silly O'Clock....