The Ferret's Florida Funtime

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It sounds like a great trip! I need to get my butt over to Universal Studios. I've been in Florida for a year and 3 months now. I probably should make my way over to SeaWorld as well. Congratulations on the weight loss!!! You both look good!

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Thank you Mandy Big smile

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Mrferret wrote:
Thank you Mandy Big smile

You're welcome!

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I am really enjoying your trip report. Congratulations on your weight loss! You must have a lot of dedication and commitment to achieve such great results, so you certainly deserve that Disney trip and all that shopping!

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Thursday 16th

Late start again and off to MGM studios Laughing out loud
Straight on over to Toy story again (Donna won)
headed to the Writers stop again for an iced capaccino and a banana nut/pineapple muffin .
From here we grabbed a fastpass for Startours and then rode it straight away as the standby line was a mere 10 minutes.We got the Admiral Ackbar/Deathstar ride this time.
Next up .. Shopping break

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When our time had arrived we headed back over to star tours and got the Gungun/Hoth film

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King Fergus

Mrferret wrote:
Thursday 16th

Late start again and off to MGM studios Laughing out loud
Straight on over to Toy story again (Donna won)
headed to the Writers stop again for an iced capaccino and a banana nut/pineapple muffin .
From here we grabbed a fastpass for Startours and then rode it straight away as the standby line was a mere 10 minutes.We got the Admiral Ackbar/Deathstar ride this time.
Next up .. Shopping break

My Donna's favourite word.."Shopping"....Or as she says..."No stopping, let's go shopping". .. sad ...On Saturday I used my new multi glow Visa card..It starts off in blue and ends up in red... Cash

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We stopped for lunch at the Backlot Express and found out a very important piece of information.... We don't like spicy buffalo chicken nuggets .
After a few shops we watched the mid-afternoon American Idol Experience.The contestants were of varying talent and the young girl we both voted for won through to the nighttime finale.
After exiting we headed over to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid.
Next up Beauty and The Beast live on stage.
This is our favorite live show and is always well recieved.

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Friday 17th

Animal Kingdom Round 2
Once more at Natazhu we headed to the Safari fastpass machines and then got .
Henna Tattoo's (rebels that we are )

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With time still to kill we decided on breakfast.One Vanilla latte and apple and cinnamon muffin later (those pesky sparrows were back again Wink) our safari time was ready so we boarded the truck and set out.
As with the first safari we were very lucky and managed to get to see a whole bunch of animals .

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Great TR so far! Thanks for sharing! And congrats on the weight loss, you both look fantastic! awesome

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Time i got my lazy butt moving and finished this TR
Next up was my least favorite ride in the world.One day them dinosaurs will be real and we will see who is laughing then !!

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Next up was lunch at the Rainforest cafe,
We were seated in the coral reef section of the restaraunt and had chimi chacha's and Quesesilla's for starters followed by a rainforest burger and Bamba bbq beef wrap for mains.Very nice they were to.
Once back in the park . Having waited at the small rainforest turnstyle for an age then resorting back to the main ones.I would recomend using the main turnstyles to re-enter the park because if there is a problem at the other set the line rapidly builds up as there is only one in gate.
Down to camp MM for festival of the lion king.We were sat in the warthog section for the show waiting I hope nothing changes when they move this show over to its new location as its awesome.We then grabbed some liquid sustenance and sat down near Pizzafari to wait for Mickey's Jammin Jungle Parade.Once again a good time was had by all and the parade still looks colorfull and vibrant with the performers giving it their all.(its Donna's favorite).
After this was finished we followed it past the tree of life then exited for the hotel.Once here we moseyed on over to DTD and the AMC again.Star Trek into darkness this time (bit of a nerdfest for films this holiday).Was a very enjoyable film.Afterwards we mooched bach through Pleasure island and the marketplace to Earl of Sandwich for tea and a return to the hotel.

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Saturday 18th

Disney's Hollywood Studios today and that can mean only one thing... STARWARS WEEKEND clapping
Right from the off we noticed how extra busy it was.good luck to anyone attending the future weekends as this one was at a quieter time of the year.We took the stroll around and see what was going on option to start with.After this we headed over to the darth Mall for some event specific merchandise.This is located outside the park in a specially erected tent that you access through an opened gate just to the right of the RNRC queue entrances.There was only a few minutes wait to enter here and it was very crowded.At one point Donna got fed up of being knocked around and proceeded to say "calm down its only bloody starwars" eek
The queue to pay was actually longer than the queue to enter.Once we had purchased what we wanted(my wife bought more starwars merch than me Big smile ) it was coffee time so back to the Hollywood tower coffee cart.this is a great location for a rest up as it seems never to be too crowded and there is plenty of shaded seating available.We opted for a hazlenut latte and Blueberry muffin each.Whilst relaxing we opened our starwars vynilmation that we had bought . I managed to get Han Solo and one of the Red Imperial guards.Donna got an Ewok and emperor Palpatine.We found out a short while later that the emperor was the chaser. However the one that Donna really wanted was Wicket and she managed to trade straight away with someone who had said ewok.He seemed a bit bemused that she would trade the chaser so easily but it wasn't what she wanted so having it was no biggy.
next up the motorcade.

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We parked ourselves behind a group of ECV's (who said they were good for nothing).and watched the motorcade go past .. lots of characters and storm troopers of all colors.

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Didn't really recognise all the "stars" in the cars only Jeremy Bolloch (Boba Fett) and Ray Park (Darth Maul).
Having sweated away for a good 45 minutues (the weather was scorchio) we headed to star tours via a drinks cart.
The line for Startours was only 10 minutes (yet TSMM was 110 minutes during a SWW ??????? ) so we hopped on the shuttle one last time.
We then wandered around checking out both the dark and the light side taking photo's of the characters around.

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We then headed back to the resort and our own shuttle for an emergency trip back to the mall to get a few items that we had forgotten (someone needs to get a mop for that 18 car).Then it was down to the golden corral for tea and a Dunkin Donut's coffee to take back to the hotel (we don't like Dunkin coffee).
Back at homebase we 99% packed the suitcases so we didn't have to panic pack them tomorrow.

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Sunday 19th
Magic Kingdom
Once we had arrived we headed straight to Buzz Lightyear as we had not done this yet.I managed to get the top score within about 2 scenes so spent the rest of the ride aimlessly shooting at stuff.However the camera's had broken so couldn't get proof mad .
Next up we took a stroll down to the circus to meet 4 out of the fab 5 (we had met Mickey at MGM).With only a short wait time to see each character it went really well and we had a great interaction with all of the characters.Back round to the Little Mermaid and hopped on a clamshell with again a minimal wait.On exiting we decided to sample LeFou's brew (would be rude not to).Very nice.
Onwards to the Haunted Mansion still looking good inside and had the obligatory crying kid in the stretching room.
When we headed on over to buckle our swashes but found they were exiting people from the queue (ride down people ride down).After a bit of a mooch we found ourselves over in tomorrow land when it started to drizzle so we hit up Cosmic Rays.The place was packed and there was a queue to get into the lounge where Ray was singing... We found a balcony area overlooking the castle still had quite a few empty seat so parked here to watch the people doing the "rain panic".
Once we had eaten we headed via the hub (and past this cheery chap playing in the puddles)

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Once this show had finished we decided to wait out for the 3pm parade right in the area outside the Christmas Shoppe.The rain had passed and the sun had come back out so it was a nice pleasant wait,
The parade duly rolled past and we realised we had chosen a great place to watch from as there was no-one opposite us so the characters all tended to come past and wave , hi 5 , indicate that they would like to scratch Donna's Tinkerbell Tattoo off with his hook eek eek

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After the parade had finished we took leave of the park for a few hours to re-charge for the evening and recycle my trainers .... Waterproof they are not .
We returned to the magic for just after 9 pm.Only carrying my wallet we strode straight through the no bag line and into the park.It felt a bit weird not having a bag of any sort.We headed straight up main street so i could get a last corn dog fix muchlove .We then watched the castle projection show and Wishes from just in front of the Crystal palace.
After this it was around into Adventureland for a walk on Jungle cruise .Love this ride after dark as it really changes the experience.Next up Pirates (hopefully).What ever was wrong from earlier had been fixed and all we had to wait was the time it took us to walk the queue.
One thing from this holiday that shocked us was that we didn't encounter any flash photography on the rides.
We then headed back to our new favorite spot to watch the late night Main Street Electrical Parade.
This parade was possibly the most fun one i have experienced for a couple of reasons.
1.All the parade performers seemed to be more fun (not sure of the right word to describe it)
2.We had an awesome cast member that appeared from out of the shop.He got the whole area clapping to the music , woooing repeatedly and he loudly interacted with all the on parade performers who then interacted with all around him as well. awesome
After the parade and with slightly sore hands we went to It's a Small world.Nice update since we last rode.
Next a quick swim over to Ariel and with a walk on we did this one last time.
As we were well into the Extra Magic we headed on over to Frontierland and Big Thunder.
Next up . Big Thunder then on to ..Big Thunder followed by a quick spin on Big Thunder and a ride on Big Thunder .... Finally we went on over to ... Big Thunder biggrin .Yes that's right folks 6 times on the trot with the only injury sore ribs from laughing so much . We did one complete trip on the train with our eyes firmly closed and that was a wild ride indeed.We were going to attempt number 7 but the park was closing so we headed down Mainstreet one last time Sad(
Back on the bus we finally got back to the resort at about 1:45 am Tired Sad(

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Monday 20th
Sad( Sad( Sad(

After the late night we were up for 7 am to load up the wagon and check in for our flights (boo).Once fully loaded and a room check was done to make sure we hadn't missed anything we checked out of our home and headed for Downtown Disney and the Virgin desk.We Checked our bags all the way to Guernsey Laughing out loud and got our boarding passes for the international flight and also the domestic flight the next day.Very impressive service.
With the flight not being until that evening we went to EPCOT for one last hurrah.
After entering we headed straight to the land pavillion to Fast Pass soaring and then hop on (it was only a 5 minute wait so seemed rude not to).
Whilst waiting for our FP we decided to have breakfast from the cafe here . Once we had quenched the hunger pangs we did soaring and then Living with the land.
Once out of the land we went to Test Track and with it being a 110 minute wait grabbed a FP for 1-2pm.Back across the plaza once more we went to say goodbye to Nemo and friends and grab ourselves one last whiff of skunk to take with us.
We decided to grab ourselves an Agent P adventure phone on the walkway to the world showcase.The CM looked a little bemused by two tattoo'd hooligans wanting to play this game .
We solved the Norwayanator problem and moved on to the Japananator Quest.Finally finishing with the U.K.anator. This is a complete re-jig of the Kim possible game and all the bits are the same just with a different thing on the phone.If you have kids and haven't done the Kim Possible one it is cool but if you have i would try and do ones you didn't do as the little ones might get bored.
We dropped the P.H.O.N.E off in the UK by posting it in the red letter box ( where else).
One last coffee from our regular cart later and we were heading out of WS.We took the oppertunity to grab a photo with Duffy and Donna bought a Flower and Garden Duffy .

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We headed over to Test track for our fastpass and got as far as the part where you get given an rfid card.There was a queue there waiting as there was a minor delay.We decided not to wait as we didn't know how long this was going to take . We turned around and gave back the RFid card and went back out the line.We gifted our fastpasses to a couple who had just seen the 120 minute wait for standby. As we headed out of the park we heard that it had just gone down until 7pm eek .Hope they managed to get a replacement time for our gifted passes.Quick stop in front of the golf ball for a photopass pic or two and it was off up to the airport.
We arrived with plenty of time to spare and handing the hire car back was no problem.Once up the escalator to heaven (never seen one escalator go so high) we went through security and waited airside for our flight.
We were travelling back to Blighty on Barberella.Once onboard we were treated to an hours delay as there was lightning and they couldn't finish loading the plane until it passed.
We had a good flight back (once the bickering couple next to us had gone to sleep waiting ).Upon arrival back at Gatwick we cleared immigration and headed to cafe Giraffe for a full english breakfast.
We went through into airside after this and had a good mooch through the duty free picking up some perfume Donna had liked on the way out and a couple of thank you gifts i had forgotten.
Our afternoon flight finally rolled around after only 1 costa visit and 40 minutes later we touched down in Guernsey to see our taxi (my Dad) waving from the airport window.
All in it was an amazing trip of firsts and we can't wait to go back again.
Thanks for taking the time to read all of my ramblings and hope it wasn't too boring.

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Lastly it's time to bombard you with a few of our favorite Photopass pictures

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Chilling at AK with Tink.
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Ralph and Vanellope
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Kerchow !!
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Bonjour EPCOT
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Great report and nice pics. Thanks for sharing.

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Very fun read! Thanks for sharing! awesome

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I had a great time reading your trip report......great writing....thanks!

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Mrferret wrote:
Saturday 11th

Seaworld.
Early start for the noble steed today as we were at the park before they opened parking by at least 20 minutes.
Once we had exchanged our vouchers for tickets we joined the line for the turnstiles.For park opening they play the American National anthem and this is where things went a bit south for a short while.I understand Patriotism and respect other nationalities and their anthems and will stand quietly until it is over. Some one however took exception to about half a dozen people that were in the various lines that had their hats on.He complained loudly and repeatedly for them to "remove your hats" "its disrespectful" .Surely its worse to be shouting over your own anthem ? and doesn't give visitors a good impression of Americans.(i wouldn't expect Americans to remove their hats during God save the Queen) .. Rant over.
First up was a quick picture in front of the penguin wall.
For those of you that don't know my wonderful wife and i have been on a low carb diet since June 2012 to try and improve or health.

Both of you look great, and younger, well done.

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