Day 1
Travelling all went to plan, waking kids up at 2.30am to get to Cardiff for our 6am transfer flight to Amsterdam, to pick up the 11.25 Martinair flight to Orlando International. Arrived excited and tired mid afternoon Florida time, after the usual
“would you like to upgrade”, and when I declined then being told there were none of our size cars left
we were upgraded free of charge to a humungous Buick SUV. Getting used to an automatic coming out of the multi storey down a tight spiral ramp was not fun after 12 hours travelling.
1st taste of US road signs (or lack of!), it really would be handy to get some advance warning of junctions, and to see where you are going other than “4 south” or “192 east” etc, anyway found the hotel on the 192 to pick the villa keys up, proceeded to our villa in Orange Tree via a short stop for essentials at Publix.
As soon as we arrived, kids straight in the pool, kettle on “where did we put the tea bags?”. Considering it was 11.30 at night in UK time the kids were running around like whirling dervishes, Lucy managed to run straight into the closed patio door, bouncing about six feet backwards – ouch!
Eventually got them semi settled and the boys discovered the PS2. nasty old me then confiscated the controllers.
Everyone eventually asleep – bliss!

Day 2
Matthew and Lucy awake at 5.30am, still investigating all the nooks and crannies in the villa and finding Disney channel, Nickelodeon and Fox kids on the TV.
Stuart then surfaced and asked if they could get in the pool at 6.30am. nasty old me again when I said no, not yet.
Decided to just try and find our bearings for the day, so after the kids had a go in the pool (when they also found the frog living in the pool drain), we went off out in the car for a drive around. Found International Drive, had fun looking at the buildings etc, decided to visit Florida Mall. Boys got themselves Converse basketball shoes, Lucy got a free makeover, all had snacks in the foodcourt (Inevitably Burgers for the boys!), and got seriously ripped off with an ice cream stall, didn’t realise till we got them that they were $5 each! Boys found some cheap playstation games, Lucy came away with loads of makeup etc, and I came out with an empty wallet.
Walking round it took me a while to realise what was missing – no cig butts on the pavement or in the flower beds. Perhaps the lizards take them away for nesting materials.
Got totally lost trying to get home and ended up in a very rough looking neighbourhood before rounding of the day with a MacDonalds (that’s got that out of the way!), realised that the boys had eaten burgers twice today, swim in the pool and bed.

Day 3
Today is Magic Kingdom day !
Raining when we arrived, was determined not to let it spoil things, so I didn’t put my pack-a-mack on which worked, as it stopped raining and the sun came out (apart from an evening thunderstorm this was the only rain in our fortnight). Kids got their 1st of many autographs from the Mayor and we headed to the top of the park like all the guide books say. Split up for a while with me taking 6 year old Lucy on the teacups, Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh etc and Diane taking Stuart(12) and Matthew(10) off to Thunder Montain, haunted House and Splash mountain.
Met up again, Hot Dog for lunch then off to the excellent 3d show, all of us on Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, then off to Future world.
Mid afternoon by now with everyone flagging, so its off to the villa and the pool, followed by an enormous Chinese home delivery.
Day 4.
Stuart is grumpy, tired and his feet hurt, so we decide to stay in the villa for the morning, then its off to Blizzard Beach, we had luckily found out that it was closing the first weekend, so we made sure we got there in the first week.
As we didn’t arrive till the afternoon the queues for the big rides were enormous, which set grumpy Stuart off again, who got changed after half an hour and sat in the beach chair fully clothed for the remainder of the day.
The rest of us got stuck in, particularly enjoying the lazy creek