They were massive pains in the behind. My parents went with my sister and her family last year and they were tearing their hair out. That why they are coming with me and Joe next year, and no doubt it will be my turn to tear my hair out!
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Blizzard Beach Day 8
It was hard to believe we’d been in Florida a week already, the time had flown by 
But here we were, it was Saturday again and today we were going to Blizzard Beach. My original plan had us going to Typhoon Lagoon (my favourite of the 2), but not long before our trip I checked for changes to Extra Magic Hours, and TL was now opening early on a Saturday. So I had switched the water park days around. Lucy and Dan had told us they weren’t coming, because there would be nothing for the children to do - that would be the children who we could hardly get out of the pool to eat 
Everyone wanted a later start, I told them we didn’t need to be at rope drop but we would need to be there fairly early to get sun beds and to go on the slides before it got too busy. It would have been a good day to go out for breakfast, but it was clear that my mum and dad really didn’t want to eat out at all if they could help it. So we ate in the villa and finally made it to BB by 10am.
It was already busy unsurprisingly, it was red hot again with no rain forecast. We hired lockers - we’ve never bothered before but I read recently somebody on Lines had their backpack stolen at one of the waterparks and I didn’t want to take the risk - and we went to look for sunbeds. We managed to get 5 and a couple of chairs in a shaded spot near the Polar Pub, right in front of the wave pool. My mum and dad hadn’t got sun cream on, so we left them and me, Steve, Joe and John got in the wave pool - it felt so good to cool down 
Sean had come with us to the park but said he didn’t want to go in the water so he stayed on the sunbed with his iPod.
It wasn’t long before my little adrenaline junkie wanted to do Summit Plummet. None of us did, and we tried everything to put him off but he wasn’t having any of it, so off we went.
The wait was supposed to be 30 minutes, but it seemed much longer. We amused ourselves by pointing out landmarks in other parks, we could see Expedition Everest, the sorceror’s hat, Spaceship Earth - we couldn’t see MK at all though. We also spotted my mum and dad in the queue for Teamboat Springs. Joe had decided what order we had to go in - Steve, then Joe, then me, then John. John really, really didn’t want to do it, and was considering walking back down the queue once Joe had gone 
The anticipation waiting at the top was just awful, I had butterflies in my stomach. As I sped down the slope I screamed my head off, I was scared to death…and then it was over. The photopass photographer at the bottom was a nice touch too 
Joe had loved it, he was jumping around with excitement, but the rest of us unanimously decided we would never do it again! We had to ride Teamboat Springs next to calm our shattered nerves - that was fun.
Then I think we got in the Cross Country Creek. It took ages to get tubes but finally we were off. It was absolutely full but it was still relaxing, the only problem was that we had no idea what exit we had got in at! But luckily we recognised it when we got back there. We had another quick dip in the wave pool, then decided it was time to eat.
We got back to our sun beds and my mum and dad were already there, they had just eaten. I went back to the locker with John to get our money and go for the food - I was wearing flipflops but he had bare feet, I had to abandon him halfway as his feet were burning on the hot concrete! We got burgers at Lottawatta Lodge and headed back.
As soon as we’d finished eating, Joe wanted to get back in the water but we explained he would have to let his food settle. Steve and John buried him up to his neck in the sand which he loved - we have a photo of Sean buried from our previous holiday and Joe had wanted to do it too ever since he saw it. Then a passing guest gave him a bucket and spade so he built sandcastles until we could swim again.
We had another dip in the wave pool, then we wanted to do the Toboggan Racers which we’d seen from the queue for Summit Plummet. The wait said 15 minutes, and we knew you picked the mat up at the top, so we set off up the steps. We had seen a huge queue at the bottom of the steps for mats, but we assumed that was for another slide. Sadly it wasn’t. The conveyor belt that takes the mats to the top was broken. We made our way back down, and asked somebody who had just got a mat how long they had waited - 30 minutes. We couldn’t be bothered waiting that long, it was too hot. So we went to Runoff Rapids instead, where we only waited a couple of minutes for 2 person tubes. Joe wanted to do it alone of course, but when we realised how slow that line was going we persuaded him to ride with Steve instead. Then we got back in the Cross Country Creek to get back to the front of the park.
Since it was far too hot to queue for slides, we got back in the wave pool. Steve got Joe on his back and swam to the deepest part (Joe is a good swimmer but not used to waves, and Steve is 6’4 and a very strong swimmer) as Joe wanted to get the full force. John and I stayed where we could stand up. At first everything was fine, I could see Joe was loving it. But then Steve starting letting the waves wash over him instead of staying on top, so they were crashing down on Joe’s head - after seeing it twice I realised he wasn’t getting chance to breathe, and John saw it too at the same moment. We swam across to them, shouting to Steve but he obviously couldn’t hear us, John got there first and pulled Joe off Steve’s back and out of the water to breathe. He swam back towards the shallows with him, while I was asking Steve what on earth he had been thinking of - but I was way out of my depth and started struggling too, Steve ended up having to drag me into the shallows too. Luckily Joe was fine, but I was really upset and wouldn’t let him go deeper than chest height again. We had a few near drowning incidents in the villa too - on 3 or 4 occasions Alex slipped through his rubber ring when Dan was supposed to be watching them, one time John happened to go out to the pool and saw him under water, another time Joe was in the pool too and pulled him out - no wonder Lucy didn’t want to risk the water park. Anyway, we hung about in the wave pool for a while and then decided to get out.
My mum and dad were already getting dressed, they had had enough and we agreed. I was shocked to see it was 4.30, I thought it was more like 2pm. We went back to the villa where Lucy and the kids were in the pool and we all jumped in with them - even Sean.
When Steve got out of the pool he slipped in a wet patch on the kitchen floor and smashed his head into the wall. He started feeling sick and I was really worried that he had concussion, he said he was ok though and it was the pain making him feel sick - he had landed on his arm and twisted it too. I kept a really close eye on him though, and we ate at home again as he wasn’t fit to go out. We were all exhausted anyway after swimming all day and the intense heat.
We all got an early night as we had a long drive in the morning - to Busch Gardens!
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Are you never tempted to do a trip just with Joe? Sorry interrupting again.
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There is no problem at all with interruptions! All questions and comments are more than welcome, at least then I know it’s being read 
Next year was supposed to be just me and Joe, we had decided while we were still on our 2016 trip. Then last year my mum was telling me about their awful holiday with my sis, and I said to her that after this 2012 trip I had sworn never to go away with anyone else again and I was really looking forward to it just being me and the kid. And her face just fell, and she said she had been about to ask if they could come on our next trip because they’d had such a rubbish time and knew it would be better with me. At the time I think I just mumbled something! I didn’t want them to come, my mum never wants to split up! But I felt bad not inviting them when it came to the crunch.
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Maybe you can negotiate one day with them and the next, just you and Joe.
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Before I booked, I said to them that there would be times when we wanted to do different things, maybe different restaurants, or we’d wake up and decide to swim instead of doing RD, and we’d all have to roll with it and not take offence. They agreed, so we’ll see! I think mornings we’ll all want to do the same, after that is anyone’s guess.
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Been reading your '12 report. Your fam sounds a bit like my fam & friends haha. Your Joe is adorable (realize he’s older now, but I’m sure he’s still adorable).
Your thread has given me the excuse this morn to procrastinate a big housecleaning project, blech. So thank you for that & thanks for the laughs.
It’s funny, b/c our problem children (otherwise known as ext fam inlaws) would be same age as your parents & as me really. They are not joining us this trip, bless their hearts. 'nuf said.
Ext fam that is joining are same age(s) as your Sis’s fam, and they are a joy- we had a test run trip to White Mtns last summer (I take no chances re Disney trips heehee). Had a trip with a former boyfriend (now just close friend) once. That was interesting, in the way of I won’t travel w him again haha.
So 9 of us this trip, usually 5. It’s going to be epic, so psyched.
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Happy to help!
Very wise to have a test run - my sis didn’t have kids on our previous extended family trip and we assumed she would be on board with following plans etc. I tried and tried to get everyone together to discuss expectations but they were highly resistant. That was unfortunate! But it sounds like your trip will be a lot of fun!
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Thanks @missoverexcited. Last trip w the problem “children” was interesting, sounds like your Sis & crew haha. The other seniors & a few more seniors & a few assorted added cousins from Jacksonville decided to join us last minute, argh. It wasn’t a fun situation. Thankfully, only 4 of them showed up, just for 2 days & were fun to be with for the most part.
Although the Jax crew decided we all should “wing” MK the day they joined us there (they showed up 11am w no fpps). They’d been at same hotel as us, but said they’d “meet us there”.
Luckily were able to use most of our fpps by time they got there, which was basically time for our ext fam lunch. It was a weird day, but they’re a fun crew, so we didn’t mind too much “winging” for that day. More than 1 day’s park with them would have been too much for planner me though haha. I would be tearing my hair out by the roots soon enough, I’m sure.
This is 3rd trip w my grown Ds & his fam, so fun. The added 4 will be fab on this trip. We’re all on board with very early days for AK & HS, at bookends of the trip. They all love how PTP works in the parks, all on board with our sacred afternoon pool /rest breaks. Bless them.
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Perfect!
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Busch Gardens Day 9
I don’t know how many people who visit WDW go to Busch Gardens, but we have done on all our trips - we have family near Clearwater who we have stayed with overnight and gone to BG with the next day. This time that wasn’t really feasible though, imagine 8 adults and 4 children decending on you 
It was hard enough to squeeze us in when there were only 8 of us altogether. So it was to be a day trip instead. We had downloaded directions and it should take around 70-80 minutes, we decided to set off about 8am. Considering how many times we had missed or nearly missed our exits I wasn’t that confident, but amazingly we set off more or less on schedule and arrived about 9.30.
We didn’t have any kind of touring plan, we were winging it and hoping for the best! Lucy and Dan took their kids to Sesame Street Safari of Fun, while the rest of us decided to do Gwazi in Morocco, a wooden coaster, since it was right there. The posted wait was 10 minutes but it was a walk-on. We were surprised that at the loading platform there were no CMs directing you where to go, it was a free-for-all, but we assumed it was because it was early and still quiet - it wasn’t, this continued throughout the day. My mum kept saying “they wouldn’t do it like this at Disney, they would be telling you which bay to stand in” It was a really really rough ride, fun, but I wouldn’t want to do it again in a hurry. Sean had wisely not bothered riding.
We walked through the Bird Garden and Sesame St to Stanleyville.
Our first priority there was SheiKra which we had never been on. Joe begged to be measured for it even though we knew he was too small and sure enough, he hadn’t grown an inch in the last 5 days! So Steve, Sean and Joe went to the Stanley Falls Flume instead. The wait was about 10 minutes for SheiKra, we weren’t too impressed with it though. The big drops were pretty terrifying but the rest was just meh. When we got off we had a wait for my boys, but we got to see them coming down the drop so that was good.
While we waited there were some street dancers setting up in front of us, we watched for a while as Joe really likes dancing. Then we went to the Tanganyika Tidal Wave as Joe was disappointed he hadn’t got very wet! My mum and dad absolutely refused to do it and the rest of us weren’t keen - the last time we had been here, John had to buy a new T shirt - but it was another roasting hot day so we thought we would dry out. We all enjoyed it and we didn’t get too drenched, which was a miracle, the water was raining down all around us.
We walked up to Jungala next. We looked at the tigers and orang-utans, and visited the information centres. I love the white tigers! Joe went to play in the Treetop Trails, while we all had a nice sit down in the shade.
I’m sure the play area used to be dinosaur themed, I remember Sean playing on it with my little 3rd cousin (? some kind of cousin anyway) back in 2000. Not that Joe cared, he loved it. Then we all rode Wild Surge - a kid sized version of Doctor Doom’s Fear Fall, or TOT but outside. Oh my goodness, kid sized didn’t mean less intense - even though it was tiny you got tons of air time, I think the height was actually a disadvantage as your stomach didn’t get chance to get back to its normal place before it was being thrown about again I’ll definitely skip that on any future trips!! We calmed down with a wander round a gift shop. Then we went to the Bengal Bistro for some lunch. I thought it was a lot more expensive than Disney, but it was good food, my parents were glad of some fries with no skin on.
Our next stop was Congo - sadly the Congo River Rapids was closed, but I was looking forward to Kumba which is a great coaster. Joe wasn’t tall enough again, so he lined up with Steve and Sean for the Ubanga-Banga Bumper cars while we went on to Kumba. The wait time was zero which seemed unlikely even though we had walked on to everything so far…and sure enough, it was actually down due to lightning in the vicinity. We had gorgeous weather there with not a hint of rain or storms but it must have been close. We weren’t sure what to do so we joined the queue while my mum went to ask if the CMs had any idea when it would open again - they said they didn’t. So we decided we’d wait 10 minutes and see what happened before going back to meet the others. Only a couple of minutes later it reopened. As the queue started moving a woman barged past us with her daughter and I made a sarcastic comment loud enough for her to hear (I can’t remember what it was but you can be sure it was both witty and cutting 
) - we had seen a lot of queue jumping in all the parks but this particular day it was very bad and I was getting sick of it. She turned back and said she had been in the queue when the ride went down and so actually we were all pushing ahead of her John jumped in then and told her that she should have stayed in the queue, it had been her choice to leave it, and she wasn’t any more important than the rest of us standing waiting and she should get to the back of the line. She moved to behind us, still having cut in front of 20 or 30 people but if they wanted to let her do it, that was their problem. Embarrassingly, we ended up next to the same woman in a queue at MK 3 days later 
We walked on to the ride and it was fantastic! When we got back to the bumper cars, Steve and the boys weren’t there. We had a quick look around the area but couldn’t see them so we just had to wait - about 15 minutes later they reappeared, they had been in the next land Timbuktu getting drinks as apparently they couldn’t wait 5 minutes for us to get off the ride. I was so annoyed with Steve, it was so thoughtless.
But he wasn’t the only one to be thoughtless that day…
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Busch Gardens Day 9 continued
Next we boarded the train at the Congo train station. Only a couple of families were waiting and there was loads of room on the train so we picked the right station - the others were really busy. The train took us back through Stanleyville where there was another station, around Timbuktu and past Nairobi and Egypt, and through the Serengeti Plain. Though it was a nice enough journey, I was disappointed that we didn’t see many animals. There were a fair few giraffes and zebras, but not a lot else. They were all there somewhere but not in our sight unfortunately.
We got off the train back in Congo and walked over the bridge to Timbuktu. Joe really wanted to go on one ride in particular here, Phoenix, which is like a pirate ship but actually goes upside down and leaves you hanging there. We got drinks first, then I took him on it. Though the line was quite short, it still took at least 15 minutes to get on. He really enjoyed it though. My mum and dad couldn’t believe it, everyone thought he would come off it crying, but he’s made of stern stuff - like his mum It must have been 2.30-2.45 by now because Mum and Dad went to meet Lucy and Dan for the 3pm Iceploration show. I love ice-skating and I probably would have really enjoyed it but I was out-voted by Steve and John and the kids who would have rather poked their eyes out with sticks. So I suggested we would see the 3pm Pirates 4D show and we would meet up at 3.30pm at the giant tortoises in Nairobi which was the mid point.
Joe immediately told me he didn’t want to see the show, he wanted to ride Sand Serpent which was your bog-standard wild mouse. We tried everything to talk him out of it but he was determined. So into the line we got, except for Sean who opted to stay at his nice shady table with a drink. The wait was posted as 20 minutes but there were 5 cars so we thought the line would go quickly…until we realised only one of the cars was on the track at any time, meaning the line was only moving by 3-4 people every couple of minutes. I was tearing my hair out by the time we got on. I wish I could say it was worth the wait but even if I’d walked on I would have felt short-changed. Annoyingly, we now didn’t have time to ride Scorpion which looked pretty good - if the wait had been 10 minutes we would have done it and been a bit late meeting my parents but as we passed the line was huge.
We got to the giant tortoises and had a look at them, we took photos from various angles, my mum and dad didn’t turn up.
We went to see if they were outside the Kenya Kanteen which was the first place I had suggested, they weren’t. John was furious and thought we should just carry on with our day, but I persuaded him we couldn’t possibly do that - apart from anything else we had to go home with them, we couldn’t do that if we didn’t know where they were! But by 4pm I did agree that we couldn’t just stand there waiting for them, so we nipped into the nearby Curiosity Caverns, rushed round and went back again. Mum and Dad weren’t there, but a couple of minutes later we saw them coming from the Kenya Kanteen, complaining loudly that we hadn’t been waiting at the tortoises when they arrived. We were unimpressed, and pointed out that we had waited 30 minutes for them before taking a 5 minute diversion. If they had told us they wanted to spend some time with Bella, Faye and Alex we could have arranged to meet them later on rather than standing round waiting bored and too hot.
Squabbling done, we went to Egypt to ride Cheetah Hunt which looked amazing. The wait was huge, I think 60 or 70 minutes, but as we debated whether to join the queue or not (John, Joe and I really wanted to do it no matter what the wait was) we realised that it wasn’t running. It had broken down - this was particularly annoying as it had been running the whole time we waited for my parents… So we went to Montu instead. On the way we stopped and had ice-creams, then we left Steve Sean and Joe (who was too short again) in a sand pit/play area.
The line was only 10 minutes for Montu and it was probably the best coaster of the day, its an amazing ride and we loved it. As we got back to my boys, they told us Cheetah Hunt was back up. We wanted some air-conditioning first though, so we went for a look around Tut’s Tomb which was small but really interesting. We particularly liked the Medusa hats in the gift shop with snakes poking out.
As we walked back to Cheetah Hunt it went down again! We were disappointed but realised it was just one of those things, we weren’t going to ride it that day. So we went home.
That night we made it out for dinner again, we went back to our local Applebees which was delicious again.
This time we had space for desserts - the waitress warned us they were big enough to share so we only got 3 between the 7 of us (though Joe did have some ice-cream with his kids meal). I think we could easily have eaten one each, other than my mum who only had a bite. But we did get to see our local girl Rebecca Tunney on the GB Gymnastics team doing her beam routine on TV in there - she was the youngest British competitor in any sport and she did us proud
It had been an exhausting day but we were planning a bit of a lie-in next day before we did some of my favourite things - shopping, snacking, drinking, and of course saving the world Yes, we were spending the morning in Downtown Disney, before heading to World Showcase!
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Downtown Disney Day 10
I was really excited about going to Downtown Disney and especially going back to Epcot - nobody else in the family seemed to agree with me though 
I had to drag them up and out. Lucy and Dan had decided they weren’t going back to Epcot but they would come to DTD…they really weren’t in any rush to get ready though! I was tearing my hair out when we eventually set off about 9.30. My dad moaned all the way there that the signposting was no good - he couldn’t seem to get his head round the idea that if the sign says straight on, you keep going straight on until there’s a sign telling you to turn. He refused to drive to the car park we wanted - at Marketplace - because of it. So instead of parking up at the shops which is where we were going, we parked at AMC and walked! Though they had their buggy with them, Lucy let Faye and Alex walk too - it was the longest walk ever! They must have taken nearly 45 minutes and it was sooo hot!
We had a look round the Lego store, but weren’t too impressed. The only thing I really wanted to see there was keychains - we have a Legoland near me in Manchester and the shop there has a massive selection of keychains so I was expecting bigger and better, but I was sadly disappointed, I don’t think they had any character ones at all. Luckily Steve has bought me a Wonder Woman one since we got back 
Then it was on to the main attraction - World of Disney! I was in heaven, I could have spent all day there, not to mention thousands of pounds! I had to restrain myself since I didn’t have either of those, but I got lots of stuff. My mum and Lucy and her kids were loving it too, but the men in our group were really there on sufferance…
A long time later I found Steve, Sean, Joe and John, and suggested going to Ghirardellis for a sundae. It was so hard to choose, but in the end I got a Gold Rush, and Steve and the kids had a World Famous. They were all delicious! John picked a peanut butter Quake Shake, he said it wasn’t what he expected because it was quite lumpy, not as blended as he thought. I tried it and it was nice, but I agreed it needed to be smoother.
My mum and dad, and Lucy, Dan and the kids had met up with us in Ghirardellis, and as usual took forever with their icecreams. Finally we were ready to move on to Once Upon a Toy…
I was really excited about this because my boys were going to get a surprise! They had no idea they were about to get their own lightsabres. When we went in, Joe wanted to play with the Mr Potato Heads, but I encouraged him as quickly as possible into the next room. He was thrilled to see the build-your-own lightsabres and begged me to let him make one even though he said he knew it was too expensive to buy, so of course I let him. When he was finished, I told him it was so good I would have to buy it for him - he thought I was the best mum ever! And of course Steve and Sean were not too grown up to get one either They all loved them, and I was so glad my surprise had gone to plan.
We sat outside a while while the children played in the fountain, though I was chomping at the bit to get to Epcot. My mum went to Pin Traders to look for a Piglet pin as she hadn’t found one at World of Disney, and when she got back (empty-handed) I thought we would be leaving. But Lucy wanted to go to the Xmas shop and mum wanted to go with her. Why are there Xmas shops everywhere?? I had avoided them like the plague because I love Xmas and couldn’t trust myself not to spend spend spend! But I figured it was meant to be… Steve, Sean, John and Joe stayed sitting by the fountain while the rest of us went to shop. I loved so many of the decorations, but I thought most of them were too expensive to risk breaking them on the flight home - we didn’t have much space in our carry on luggage and I could just see our suitcases being thrown around and opening them to find lots of smashed ornaments! But I got one cute bauble. As soon as I’d got it I was ready to collect the boys and move on. Mum and Lucy had other ideas though, they were still wandering round choosing 30 minutes after I wanted to leave.
Ideally I had been planning to eat at Earl of Sandwich before going to Epcot, but we were all too full after our sundaes, so we set off back to the car. After the walk to the shops that morning, we knew it was going to take forever. So Steve, John, Sean, Joe and I set off as fast as we could and stopped at the Hole in the Wall at Raglan Road for Baileys milkshakes! I was starting to get a headache from the heat sadly so I only sipped from Steve’s glass, but it was yummy! We had just about finished when the others caught up to us, I don’t think my mum was too impressed.
I didn’t care though, because I was too busy looking forward to OGMS and caramel 
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Epcot Day 10
So after a fun morning at DTD, we were going back to Epcot to see the rest of World Showcase. We arrived at around 2pm and Joe begged to do Sum of all Thrills before we left Future World. When we got there the wait was 40 minutes, but we weren’t on a tight schedule so we did it anyway.
Steve had told me by this time that he was fine going upside down on this as he knew there was no chance of him dying So we made the most of our second try - we went for a jet, and did the right option twice with the speed as high as it would go and still complete the move, then the middle option twice with the speed right up - you can go faster on the middle option. And this time the sum of our thrills was…990! Much improved from 270 on our previous attempt and better than anyone else’s! The funny thing was though that I didn’t enjoy it that much, it kind of paused between each move. I don’t think I would bother with it again, though I know Joe would want to…he got measured again hoping to have grown the extra inch to be able to go upside down
We walked over to World Showcase and split up again, Sean went with my mum and dad. It was coming up to 3pm by this time, and we had 4 Agent P missions to do, and 8 countries, so I suggested meeting up again at about 7pm. My dad replied that he didn’t think anyone wanted to stay that long… Well I did, I had been really looking forward to wandering round World Showcase, but since he was the one driving I didn’t have much choice but to agree to meet at 6pm. I was disappointed though.
We signed up to do Agent P in the UK. On the way we went to the Kidcot stop in Canada, but we didn’t fancy the film so we just carried on.
We’ve never spent much time in the UK before - we never really saw the point, apart from a quick drink in the Rose and Crown - so it was really interesting to have a good look round and go in the shops.
We could hear British Revolution but we didn’t see them, they had finished when we were near the stage. I hoped we’d be able to answer the phones but we didn’t hear them ring, there were a lot of people having their pictures taken with them so they probably weren’t on the hook! Once we had defeated Dr Doof, I had to call into the Tin Soldier to meet my faves, Pooh and Tigger! I couldn’t persuade Joe to meet them with me and I did feel a bit silly on my own as an adult, but then I thought “Who cares!! I’ll never see these people again!!” and it was fine.
We saw Alice in Wonderland too, but didn’t stop to meet her. I don’t think we saw Mary Poppins on this day at all but I have a photo of her so I’ll add it in! It could have been this day I suppose.
Next stop was France.
I enjoyed it here, it was very picturesque, but the Agent P mission took us ages for some reason, I think the sun was addling our brains. We were starting to get hungry so when we got near the patisserie we stopped in for a snack - I had an almond pastry and Joe had an eclair, I can’t remember what Steve and John had, but we all really enjoyed them. Again we skipped the film, we saw Marie and Aurora but didn’t meet them. We also watched a little bit of Serveur Amusant which looked fun.
Time was ticking on though! I’m not sure what time it was, but we didn’t think we would have time to do the remaining 2 missions and see all the countries/do the Kidcot stops too, so we reluctantly turned in our F.O.N.E. There was just one more stop to make before we could move on though - we had to get some OGMS 
We had been looking forward to them for months, and they certainly didn’t disappoint - yum!
We had a quick look round Morocco, did the Kidcot stop and me and Joe had our photo taken wearing fezes (Is that how you spell it? No idea!) with the camel.
We saw Jasmine there too. Then we went to Japan, where I was excited about shopping in Mitsukoshi. Before we went in though, we got a pineapple sake to share - not quite as good as the OGMS but pretty good all the same! We shopped for quite a while, Joe got a pokemon and we bought a few other things. I watched Pick a Pearl for a while, I was fascinated by it. I didn’t think I would wear the pearl in jewellery though, so I didn’t do it myself - maybe next time. As we got outside Matsuriza, the drummers, were just starting. I actually wanted to go in the exhibit which I think was about Spirit Warriors, but we didn’t have time…
So on we went to the USA. All we did there was the Kidcot stop. As we waited, black clouds were gathering and the wind was really picking up - we were praying for rain, we hadn’t had any since AK the previous Tuesday and we were all exhausted from the heat.
We went to Italy next, I think we only did the Kidcot stop here and took some photos. we were looking for a man holding a globe to make a hidden Mickey, the man who sold us our passport had told us about it when he saw our hidden Mickey book, but we couldn’t find it, and we were really running out of time so we couldn’t hang around. We saw Sergio while we were looking but we weren’t too impressed. It just started to rain as we left.
Finally we were at Germany. We stopped to look at the trains but they weren’t running, presumably because of the weather which had got much worse very quickly. So we dived into Karamell-Kuche, where we were delighted to find there was no queue. I picked a caramel pecan bar, Steve had a caramel chocolate marshmallow and Joe had a caramel chocolate fudge - it took quite a while to decide though, everything looked delicious. Then we ran across to do the Kidcot stop and get our final stamp in the passport - hooray!
We made our way back through China - where I had missed the acrobats again 
and stopped for a few minutes out of the rain in the Viking exhibit in Norway which we had missed the previous week.
Then we had to make a run for Club Cool where we had arranged to meet my parents and Sean. I had hoped that even though they wanted to meet up again at 6pm, that wouldn’t be the end of our day, but my mum had had enough so home it was. As we passed Spaceship Earth, Joe asked if he could go on it again because he likes the end where it shows you the future. The wait was only about 5 minutes but we were soaked and nobody else wanted to ride, so I persuaded him to skip it.
That night we went out for dinner. We really wanted a buffet, but we weren’t sure which restaurants had one for dinner, so we picked Houlihans as we knew it definitely had a breakfast buffet, and it looked really nice from the outside. Alas, it wasn’t a buffet at all, but it was a great meal, we really enjoyed it.
Coming up…Seaworld and some major meltdowns!
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Note taken…
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This report is amazing and should be read by everyone who is going with a big family group.
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You did so much.
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Yes, it should be titled ‘A Cautionary Tale’
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