Wednesday 20th May

[07:42]

Watching the TV reports of storms overnight - possible tornado in a county north of us. Dangerous sea conditions at Cocoa Beach (we left just in time). Some areas of Northern Florida got 12" of rain in one day yesterday. Apparently Orlando got 5.25" of rain yesterday (compare that to 7.5" of rain when Hurricane Faye hit Florida in 2008).

One good news, the drought affecting most of Florida has been wiped out overnight.

Oh, and currently, it's not raining!

[09:15 +1]

We popped out to the pool for a quick 15 minute splash about. It's only the second time we've had a chance to use the pool since we've been here. With all the poor weather recently, we though we should take any opportunity that came along.

After that we headed off to Walt Disney World.

Whilst reading the timetable on the way over to the park, I was dismayed that Space Mountain was closed for, it appears, quite some time. Linda was also beside herself...

Initially, we did quite well - although we'd not arrived early - we did a couple of rides in the Tomorrowland area quite quickly. We then moved on to the Fantasy part and saw the lines for Peter Pan and Pooh Bear, both were over 40 minutes :( So I moved on and got some fast paths for Splash and Thunder mountain). We stopped for a bite to eat then returned (via Pirates) to Splash Mountain which was the first of the fast paths I had.

It was then that the rain returned. With force.

Weather forecast for today had been along the same lines as Tuesday, but in the end it was a little different.

Instead of being constant moderate to heavy rain. This time we got longer sunny spells broken up by very heavy downpours. Added to that there were significant spells of thunder and lightning. It was this lightning that caused all of the outside rides (including Splash and Thunder) to immediately close. This was shortly before I arrived at Splash Mountain.. So I stood there for a short time talking with the ride attendant. She pointed out the number of lightning rods in the area, there seem to be at least six on Thunder Mountain alone. (I spent the rest of the day noticing these little spikes on lots of the high locations!).

Whilst the rain and lightning continued I waded back through the walkways (it's odd just how fast they flood - especially the walkways at the bottom of hills) to get to Linda who was waiting by the Pirates ride in the dry. We re-did Pirates, as that ride wasn't closed (walk on ride!).

Finally, however, the rain slowed and the lightning stopped. The attendant had told me if there are any lightning strikes within 5 miles of the park they close the outside rides, so the weather office in WDW must have given the all clear as Splash Mountain opened up soon after. I used my Fast Path and got on the fourth boat out.

We were going fine, the outside part showed it was raining a little more, but nothing that appeared too bad. However, thatmust have changed whilst we were inside the ride as, just at the bottom of the big climb to the main drop the ride stopped. We were told to wait for a while. Eventually there was a large clap of thunder that we heard even deep in the ride. Finally, a couple of attendants arrived to walk us out the back of the ride back into the main park.

The rear of Splash Mountain looks very industrial (check the photos at the bottom).

As a result of the evacuation (as they referred to it as) I got hold of a couple of 'ultra fast path' tickets valid for a single ride on any ride, any park until the end of May. They might come in handy in the next couple of days!

I finally managed to get on Splash by waiting until the rain lightning stopped once again and getting on the standby entry. Thunder mountain was also almost empty (mind you, it was still raining!) so I did that also.

We found the rain had moved a lot of the people off home so the ride times were a lot better - even Peter Pan was only 20 minutes (although in reality, maybe only 10). So we took advantage of this to complete our 'must-dos'.

We had a character dinner booked for the evening, once more at the Chrystal Palace with the characters from 100 Acre Wood.

Plenty of time to have a nice meal and stalk Eeyore.

By the time we left, the park had been closed for about 30 minutes. It's a perfect time for photos.