| Sunday 16 September | |
| In Detail
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Day 2 – Sat 16 September – Michael’s last day in his 30’s. We slept pretty well, I woke about 4am and Michael at 5am, Lauren at 6am, then we woke Brayden & Hayley at 7am to get to our breakfast booking at ‘Chef Mickey’s restaurant at the Contemporary resort. The girls apparently got up through the night a couple of times to get a drink, but were well warned not to wake up Mum & Dad so they had their drink then went back to bed…thank goodness. Another full on day, breakfast was fabulous. The restaurant was in one of the Disney hotels, Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Daisy & Donald were there, they all came around separately to everyone’s tables for photos and got some great shots – some of which are loaded here. Was not exactly a relaxing time, we were all loaded up with our breakfast food (self serve buffet), then a character would arrive at your table, so it’s everyone up, Lucas’ take a photo of us on our camera and some video, then quick swap for us to take photos/video of them. Michael reckoned we used more calories than we ate with all the photo to & fro’s. A great way to do it though, cause they come to you, when you’re at the theme parks you can wait for ages to get a photo with a character. They had amazing food selection, all the usual yummy ones – omelette/bacon/fresh fruit/cereals etc etc, as well as a few not so usual ones – peanut butter & jello pizza (ugh, I couldn’t bear to put it on my plate, but the Lucas’ had a slice each……even though they both only had 1 bite). They also had waffles in the shape of mickey’s head, and Goofy’s vegetable lasagne (for breakfast!) The people at the table next to us were a group of 10, that all had t shirts printed saying ‘Jordan’s 1st birthday party, Walt Disney World, Sunday 16 September 2007’ with a big picture of the baby Jordan on them. So there was Jordan, 1 year old sitting there with everyone in their t-shirts with his face on singing happy birthday to him……..and we thought our family was self absorbed!! No doubt by the time he’s 10 he’ll be very peeved that his family took him to Disney when he was all of 1 and has no memory of it. Hope Michael’s not too disappointed to see we’re not all wearing ‘Michael’s 40th Birthday’ t shirts tomorrow!! We then took a ride on the Disney monorail, that links several of their resorts with Magic Kingdom, was great for putting it all in perspective. Saw the Floridian Resort which looks absolutely fabulous (and where Lori-Lee & family will be staying in 2 weeks!) Then it was off to the Premium Factory outlets, got some shoes for kids, before heading to the water park in our resort. They advertise that it’s free for people staying here, so we thought we’d check it out. Were very peeved to arrive and it was free to walk in, but cost $7/person to hire a float to go on the lazy river ride – which was our favourite thing to do. We decided that was too much and we’d go through float-less (much to kids disgust). After a while, we started finding abandoned floats, after about an hour, we all had floats for free, which we were pretty impressed with, and the kids enjoyed way more than if Mum & Dad had just paid for them upfront. Even better was when you returned your float you got a card with free credits on for the arcade type games in the games room. Once they realised this, they not only returned our free floats, but as it was quite late and there were many abandoned floats, they went around the park and returned multipled ones…….so we now have heaps of game credits to use at some point. Funny how some of the unplanned things that start off as a problem can end up as a highlight of the day! Went to the supermarket to pick up supplies late afternoon, we all had a ball here, it’s always interesting seeing just how many different things they sell here. We were all picking up various weird items & showing them off to each other (except for Lauren, who had fallen asleep in the shopping trolley). Had a yummy home made dinner of spaghetti/sauce with BBQ chicken with the Lucas’ (their BBQ chickens have a much more smokier taste than ours). We were all set to watch the fireworks from our back window at 9pm, and then checked a schedule to see they were an hour early on Sunday so we’d missed them. Getting internet connection here is a pain. There’s a place at the resort we can use, but like everything here it’s miles away (resort so huge), and by the time we’ve got a chance it’s too late and Brayden needs to go to bed (and I need his help to load for the first time)…hopefully will get online in the next couple of days. The over-riding impression we all have so far is just how vast everything is here. You drive on huge multi lane freeways within the Disney property itself, there are just so many people everywhere………and this is September, can’t imagine how busy it is in their July holiday time. Keeping with the vast theme….Michael and I both feel like we’re positively waif like in comparison to the many many huge people here. Their food is so unhealthy – a slice of takeaway pizza that takes up a whole plate, everything covered in plastic cheese and so on. Their cars are all mini bus size, and there are millions of them. If a family like ours that is not particularly ‘green’ is shocked at the size and consumerism here it must be pretty blatant. Even at the supermarket it’s all multiple plastic bags, no such thing as the woven bags to avoid plastic that we have. |