Monday 14th December 2009

No Fly Zone

[05:39 EST]

When I spoke to the Balloon guy last night he said that the forecast looks very good. "The only thing that won't let us fly is fog, so check outside before you drive over to us". So this morning, we're up early and I peek outside...

Oh dear.

Sure enough, when I phoned the guy again there's no flying this morning. :(

On the plus side, TV forecast says that today might be a record temperature for Orlando in December. 86' is the record set back in the 60s. They forecast 85' today with the possibility it might go higher. Right now, the only place I'm going is back to bed!

[23:36 EST]

Back at a more sociable hour, we left for Disney's Animal Kingdom. Even then it was still foggy outside, despite it being after 9:30 in the morning. In actuality, the fog didn't burn off until about 11am. After that, it was glorious sunshine but thankfully, not too humid at all.

First stop at Animal Kingdon was to jump on the Safari ride which didn't have a long wait time. From there we grabbed Fastpasses for the Expedition Everest ride. I jumped on a single rider whilst I was there (about 10 minute wait). We then returned to the Kalili River Rapids ride whilst the Fastpass tickets matured.

Linda bought her plastic bag (poncho) to keep her dry on the ride. Luckily, first time we did it, the weight in the ring was evenly spread so we were at the back of the drop and so avoided a massive drenching (unlike the poor sods sitting opposite us). Time was up on my Fastpasses, so I went back to Everest and rode both passes picking the front row each time. Indeed, over the day I did four fastpasses to Everest, each time picking the front row and, therefore, granting a single-rider person the chance to ride up front with me. I got a chatty older lady, a guy who teased his mate that he got a front row, a chinese boy who said nothing and another American woman who just screamed and said "Oh my God" a lot! It's such a great ride.We decided to try the river rapids once more too. However, this time we got landed with some parents and a mass of small excited kids. Needless to say Linda and I went down backwards on the big drop and caught the big wave. The photo was taken at the point of impact! I came out of it so-so. Linda, however, despite her poncho had pretty wet trousers after the drop. This was more of an issue than we first realised as, on closer inspection, Linda dug out her Sony Cybershot camera that appeared to have gotten slightly damp too (certainly not drenched). However, regardless it's now hanging near the washing dryer drying out as it currently refuses to work. There appears to be power, but the LCD is not coming on, nor is it doing anything camera related :(

On the walk back out of the park, we found a Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore character meet. We joined the (quite short) queue and got some photos done there.Back at the Villa, we changed our damp clothes and went into the pool for a hour or so. Finally, after 7:30pm, we again went back out, this time to EPCOT to see the fireworks at 9:30pm. The place was fairly quiet, so we got a pretty good view of the proceedings.We're planning a late start tomorrow, as it's our Mickeys Christmas Party, which means a late finish tomorrow night.