Hi All
Thanks for the replies so far and I will do my best to keep up over the next couple of weeks - and answer any questions that you may have along the way.
Yes - it is still hot here. Personally I don't mind it at all. One advantage of being in the Middle East for the last 2 years is that I feel acclimatised to the heat. Mum is struggling with it though - and the humidity is a bit of a killer, but on the whole the group managed to keep going yesterday and didn't complain too much (apart from DS that is - but as an ASD/ADHD teenager he would find something to complain about if I gave him $100 to spend on anything he liked
)
Yesterdays plan didn't quite work out as we wanted to. We got to TTC at around 8.10 hoping to get the monorail to MK and stake out a good spot for the opening ceremony. Unfortunately (and this was the first bit of bad planning on my part) it was an EMH - so there were CMs at TTC not letting anyone through the gates until 8.45. We toyed with the idea of going to Epcot instead, but Sis wanted to see the castle on her first day so we hung around and waited for the gates to open.
Once inside the excitement began - especially for the newbies with us. Pluto, Daisy, Pinocchio (sp?) and Chip n Dale were all around the Town Hall so we stopped and got a few pics. We also caught Buzz Lightyear, Woody and Jessie and Lilo + Stitch. Most of these are on the Photopass card but I did manage to take a couple with our own camera.
Considering it was an EMH day we were quite pleased with how low the crowds were. We looked down Main Street and it was reasonably empty and most of the rides we went on were all walk ons
The only exception to this was Splash Mountain (due to the heat I suspect) - but even then we were on and off within 30 minutes.
After taking in some of the sights and doing a couple of rides we stopped for a snack and turkey legs were on the radar
We watched the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It parade at 11am. Me and DD decided to get in the spirit of it and join in with all the dancing. I dread to think what the video of that looks like as I am not the best dancer in the world but DD told me afterwards that she wasn't at all embarrassed by me - which was nice
We decided to leave the park at around 2 as we had a reservation at T-Rex for 4pm. We had hoped to get into Build-a-Dino before dinner but it took us longer to get out of the park than we thought. Not because of the crowds but because the newbies (and the rest of us too if I'm 100% honest) were still in ooooh and aaaah mode at everything we saw on route. We also bumped into the Mayor of Main Street so stopped and had a chat and some pics with him.
By the time we got to T-Rex we were too late to do BaD, but managed to get in a little earlier than our reservation time. Everyone was impressed by this place and the kids amongst us loved the theming and the meteor showers. Keeping them sat still for long enought to eat was the biggest problem we had here.
"Don't look behind you Grandma"
Nachos starter
The chicken pot pie - it looked a lot bigger in real life.
The Boneyard Buffet. Me and DW shared this - but it was the first day
Once dinner was done BaD took a bit of a hammering from all of us (Dizzy needed a new pair of shoes
) then it was a look around the World of Disney before getting back to the villa for an evening of swimming and chilling.