Saturday 23rd May

[17:33]

We have packing to do tonight, so we could not afford to be out all day long. So we started the morning off (after a relaxing dip in the spa) with a short trip to Animal Kingdom. The second we stepped out of the car, the skies let rip with a fierce downpour that lasted five minutes.

We only wanted to go there to do the Kalili River Rapids ride and the Expedition Everest roller coaster. So we headed over to Kalili to collect some fast passes then moved on to Everest with its Single Rider Line. I joined the single line (Linda is a no-no for these rides) and started to wait. I'd heard single rider line itself was a possible 30-40 minute wait, but we had time as the fastpass was not for another hour yet.

About 10 minutes into waiting we were all ushered out of the ride. Even the people who'd been waiting nearly a hour on standby were cleared (they did at least get a Fastpass return ticket. I got nothing :(

It turned out one of the cars had got stuck at the point where it's at the broken rain line - basically at the top of the ride! It took about another 15 minutes for the car to be freed and the occupants to return to the entrance. I'd stayed hovering near the single rider entrance in the hope of getting back on once the ride reopened. There was another 10 or so minute delay before the ride reopened, however they had decided to keep standby and single rider lines closed whilst they delt with the previous people who'd waited in line and been turfed off. Luckily, my sad face at being told this must have triggered some compassion in the guy on the closed single rider line. He quietly slipped me a fastpass to get back on the main queue. What a cool dude!

The ride must be the most enjoyable on the Orlando circuit for me. Luckily it didn't stick either (I was on the second train out).

This gave us 30 minutes to get over to the Kalili rapids ride and use the fast pass.

We walked through the central part of the park on our way out. One sight which caught our attention was a woman dressed as a tree and on stilts and extended arm crutches. She kept on merging with the undergrowth for a while (she was covered in leaves) then slowly emerging to the howls of frightened 4 year olds. :D

We can pause for a few moment whilst Jason makes a "I wood" joke.....

Once out of the park, we stopped off at one of our old hotels Wilderness Lodge which was nearby. I'd just wanted to have a look at it without all the Christmas decorations that we'd seen when we stayed there in December 2007.

We then headed back to the Florida Mall to exchange a couple of items that we'd bough but had turned out to be faulty / incorrectly packaged. We then stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up some goodies for back home.

We're now back at the villa. Linda's going through the packing - I'm praying it'll all fit in the bags we have...

[21:29]

Most of the stuff is now packed - just a small number of items that are needed tomorrow are still out on the side.

We'd decided to go back to WDW tonight as it closes at midnight tonight. Monday is Memorial Day over here and this weekend is a sort of bank holiday for the Americans. As such the parks are extending their opening times.

So first we stopped at Perkins to have something to eat. Literally, as we got out of the car we could see lightning flashes to the north of where we were. We got into the restaurant and within a few minutes the rain came back with a vengeance. We sat eating and watching the lightning flash around us.

By the time we'd finished, the rain was still falling so, although the lightning had moved off further east. It seemed unlikely that the rides at WDW will be running, so we decided to call it a night and return to the villa.

Tomorrow, being our last day, we've going to drop our luggage off at Downtown Disney then we're going over to Sea World. Hopefully I can get a chance to ride the new Manta ride that opened today.