So our trip over was pretty good for a 33 hour marathon. Christchurch to Sydney on Jetstar, 5 hours at the Qantas Lounge( great food, yummy salads, and gelato) then Qantas to Dallas Ft Worth which is a loooong flight. got a couple of hours sleep, which is good for me! 2 hours at DFW (BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and iced tea for dinner -Hello America!) and then American Airlines to MCO.
Picked up our Hertz Rental and navigated our way to Windsor Hills, arriving at 10pm.
Our 3 bdr, 3 bath townhouse with plunge pool is great- so much room, which has been invaluable while we all sort out our body clocks.
DS10's bedroom - you want more Mickey??
How 'bout a Mickey TV?
I planned Day 1 in the parks with jet-lag in mind. We all woke super early, around 4 am, so were ready to roll by 6 no problem
We had breakfast at Bob Evans which is a chain of kind of " down home" style diners which we had gotten to know many years ago when DH and I drove around the US for three months. Pork breakfast products are their specialty: sausage, bacon etc, so you know you will get a good breakfast at Bob's! We were at AK about 30 mins before rope drop and exchanged our card tickets from UT for the new RFID readable plastic ones.
The heat at 8am was already freaking me out a little-we have already had our first winter frosts back home, so going from 5 degrees on Friday morning to 30 on Saturday was a bit of a shock..and then there.s the humidity....
Being at AK so early meant we knocked off Everest and Kali River Rapids pronto and then headed over to do the safari. It was a little underwhelming- nice enough, but we have a great safari park at home, where you can feed the giraffes and get right up close to the rhinos, so... But this was why I chose AK as our first day park, and I knew we could do what we wanted to by early afternoon so we could bail when everyone got tired and cranky!
We had BBQ for lunch at Flame Tree which is a lovely setting and I cooled off with a frozen chai from Anandapur Teas, which was a great recommendation from the Disney Food Blog.
After checking out the Lion King and Nemo shows and doing the animal trails and Dinosaur, we were ready to head out at about 2pm. We drove to Publix supermarket and bought our usual crazy American breakfast cereals for the boys (a US holiday tradition!) plus some waffle mix for the Mickey waffle maker the boys had already spotted in the kitchen of the house!
Then it was home for a nap and swim before heading to our 7pm ADR at Ohana. As you can imagine, 7pm on Saturday night, it was a zoo, but we were seated pretty promptly and enjoyed the meal, especially the prawns and chicken wings...mmmmmm....
I don't know if it was kosher or not, but we doggy-bagged one of our loaves of coconut pineapple bread and had it for breakfast this morning- it is good toasted!
Today we are off to HS and plan on doing a full park day as we have a dinner ADR at the Prime Time diner- hopefully letting everyone sleep in means we will last the distance!