It has just been one of those days today – we had planned to go out tow water park before Amy and Jason arrived, but after breakfast it became clear that the rain clouds and wind were not going to leave any time soon. The evaluation was that it would be too cold to go to a water park and boy was that a smart piece of thinking…

So we thought about shopping for a few minutes and then when we realised that the Pirates League was a none starter – we called them for an appointment at anytime during this week and found that there were no places at the inn :-(. This made up our mind to head into Magic Kingdom and check out the Pirates of the Caribbean ride out for ourselves.

The ride itself was actually pretty poor in many respects, although clearly has cost a small fortune to build, the shop outside had some incredible gear in it. sadly, Elliot needs a medium for the outfits and they only had small and x-small in stock. Apparently more stock in tomorrow so fingers crossed….

We wandered around most of the park and went on a few other rides in futureland – more fun here tomorrow 🙂

The boys are really tired and have just not caught up on their sleep patterns so hopefully another good night tonight will help with this.

We decided to head out to Tampa today, destination Busch Gardens.

We had breakfast on the way and were in the park by 10:30 and theirs were ready for playing in the hot room by about 11:30 🙁

The weather was nice but not ridiculously hot – 90 degrees when we left at 15:45 but still plenty of cloud cover to keep the sunburn at bay…

Oliver fell asleep sitting next to Grandma with his hands n his ears on the train ride – apparently it was too noisy for him and hence the hands on ears – however not too noisy to fall asleep :-). Then a little later on he was talking about when he had a train ride last night 🙂 Think about it – pretty funny…

After lunch Elliot was adamant that he wanted a ride on the serpent (or similar named) roller coaster that was just outside the lunch place – we thought about it and went on with him – it actually went upside down and he was good with this – however when it rocked around left to right as it slowed down etc, he was less happy about it – it might just be that he avoids roller coasters for a while from now on…

we all played in the Sesame Street section which was for the smaller kids – ie adventure play park and the like. Olly really did not want to leave this section.

When it came to leaving the park, neither of them were prepared to walk – they both claimed a need to go back to the hotel to sleep :-(.

So, as we plan ahead for our time with the Folks, we realise that there is no way that we will do a single full day in Disney, let alone 5 of them consecutively…

The final thing for the day is that Vicky and I nipped down to Downtown Disney to get the park tickets and to ask about the Pirates League thing for Elly – a session where he gets made up in costume and makeup as a pirate – seems that we should have booked it 2 months in advance so we are somewhat worried about whether we will actually be able to get one scheduled for this week :-(. Please cross your fingers for us… 🙂

This being the first day of the vacation, we decided to nip out and get some essential shopping done – water, drinks, drinks cups,circuit and general snacks for the week.

So, following a nutritious breakfast at Denny’s we head out to target just a little north of Orlando itself – located handily next door to the Mall at Milenia 🙂

We had literally only just arrived and had picked out the fruit that we needed. the boys were playing up as they just wanted to go in search of the toys that they knew were in existence in this particular store. Poor Olly however, had a different urge and need that he could not hold back any longer…. The poor mite stood just next to the raspberries and strawberries, having delivered a small raspberry of his very own that ended up with him in a bit of pain and lots of gooey brown stuff in his shoes and down his legs… :-(. Simon picked him up, held him sideways (so as to prevent any more from seeping out) and took him straight to the toilets which were thankfully not far away. The clean up operation commenced although ended up in his getting a brand new pair of shorts from Target and new shoes later in the day – the faucets and paper towels together with the hand soap in the labs were not getting the, clean sadly. Poor Olly seemed ever so embarrassed by his little accident and Elliot was quick to blame too much chocolate on the unfortunate incident.

Anyway, mummy and Grandma spent a couple of hours in Nordstrom rack while daddy, granddad and the boys head into the Mall to do some electronics shopping :-). A little later Simon turned up with a shiny new Apple IPad (not called the iPad 3 even though that is what it is).

We managed to get to wander around the premium outlet mall down by the hotel and then went to Chuck E Cheese’s to play for a while, and finished off with dinner at a small pizza place on International drive.

Hopefully the boys will get a good night sleep tonight as tomorrow we are heading out to Busch Gardens over in Tampa 🙂