been here a week now....so here it is so far....

flew with british airways, first time, very impressed, good food, good movies and good service although we were half an hour late taking off because the fire alarm went off in the terminal and they lost one of our passengers.....
landing was a bit rough though, worst i have ever had including the emergency landing i was on!!! pilot blamed it on "a bit of wind"....cos you get a lot of wind in florida.....

had to go shopping the first day because none of us (group of 11 people - no kids all adults) had brought any clothes with us. Festival Bay was first stop and a lot of shops here have closed down since i was here last (2 years ago). Ron Jon's is the only reason to visit here i think! then we went the new Prime Outlets (old Belz) and it's lovely now. It's a lot like Premium Outlets, where as you are outside walking around rather than in a big mall. All of the shops have good sales and there's a wide variety of shops as well. A definite improvement on the old Belz!!

Florida Mall was the next day's plan, spent all day there, JC Penny have a really good sale on, the whole store is on sale with most of it being buy one item get 2nd for $1....spent a fortune in there.

Saturday went to Universal. Quite quiet....no queues really except for simpsons which had a 90 minute wait. we didn't wait.....got flex tickets so we will go back one morning and just do that ride....plus prob mummy again because it is quite a brilliant ride that one!! Cunning plan.....put the people who haven't been on jaws before on the left hand side of the boat...they got soaked. The Earthquake ride has changed it's name to Disaster. Still have the underground bit at the end but now you spend quite a while making a movie which they show you on the screens of the underground while you are travelling back. a very funny and enjoyable ride, i was annoyed at first because Earthquake was a really good show but the new one is definitely better. i still haven't forgiven them for getting rid of king kong though....
had to do ET again just so we could make up some daft names for ourselves and here him say them at the end....they didn't know how to spell archibold though, nor do i to be honest.....
a new show there is "fear factor", they get people in the park to volunteer to compete against each other. it's a brilliant show. don't miss that one! don't compete though unless you are very physically fit and don't mind dead fish stuff being thrown at you. you do get to wear spandex though....
afterwards got a meal deal thingie where you get a cinema ticket and a meal in a restaurant for $25. a good deal i think. ate in nascar cafe, felt a bit rushed in there...here's your food, quick eat and get out!!! then went to see iron man, brilliant film. the cinema though was absolutely freezing....take a jumper if you are going there!! i spent the entire film trying to use my camera case to stay warm. my sister however fell asleep and missed most of the film.

sunday we went to see Duran Duran!! all the way to america to see an english band!! They were playing in the UFC arena which is pretty new by the look of it. It's on a university campus which we drove around in the day to pick up the tickets. drove down the road where they had all the fraternity houses, it's just like the films!! have all their letters written up on them.....they must have thought i was mental taking pictures of them!! Brilliant concert, didn't realise they were so popular in america!

Today we have been shopping again....for a change!!! we are stacking our shoe boxes up against the wall and so far we have bought between us....32 pairs of shoes....i feel an excess luggage charge on the way!!

now i should probably go to bed because it's gone midnight and we are planning wet and wild tomorrow. although at the moment the lights are on and off because we have thunderstorms...really good ones!!! so if that is happening tomorrow i guess we can't go to a waterpark!