Orlando day 7

Day 26 - 6/7/10 - Downtown Disney

This was the day that Emily was to compete in the Irish Dancing Championships which was very exciting! She danced beautifully and it was a fantastic experience for her.

We spent most of the day at the competition and when it was finished we caught a bus to Downtown Disney. We entered through The Marketplace and did a bit of window shopping on our way to the Lego Imagination Center.

We did a little shopping there and the kids lined up to play with the Lego displays outside but it started to rain so we decided to move on. We walked over to Pleasure Island to see if we could get a reservation at Raglan Road for dinner. There wasn't any problem so we said we'd come back in 30 minutes for an early dinner. We walked down to the West Side for some more window shopping. The boys (big and small) had loved Ridemakerz at Downtown Disney in Anaheim, so they made a beeline for there

while Emily and I checked out D-Street and Magic Masters. Then it was back to Raglan Road for dinner.

We loved the pub and had a really nice dinner there. We were too early for the entertainment, but we'd had our fill of Irish dancing for this trip so we weren't upset about that!

Loved this Guinness loving Mona Lisa!

After dinner we walked back over to The Marketplace to do some shopping. First stop was World of Disney where Alex tried to decide on a new hat

then on to Once Upon a Toy

where the boys had fun playing with the Mr Potato Heads

We bought some souvenirs, then checked out Disney's Pin Traders

before heading back to the bus stop and hopping on a bus back to The Dolphin.

Orlando day 6

Day 25 - Monday 5/7/10 - Animal Kingdom

We had a breakfast reservation at Tusker House but we decided to skip it and arrived at Animal Kingdom for opening instead. We arrived just after rope drop

 and once again, we went directly to Asia and Expedition Everest. We rode it once then grabbed fastpasses for later. From there we were heading to the Kilimanjaro Safaris, but when we saw that there wasn't a line for Kali River Rapids, we decided to ride that first. Of course we got soaked but we had a lot of fun! We walked into Africa and ran into Baloo and King Louie

and then lined up for Kilimanjaro Safaris as there wasn't a wait.

Baby rhino!

We loved the safari! From there we caught the train to Rafiki's Planet Watch. The kids weren't really interested in the Conversation Station so we spent a little time in the Affection Section petting zoo

then caught the train back to Africa and walked to Dinoland USA. On the way we met DeVine

and admired the Tree of Life

When we got to Dinoland we went directly to Dinosaur and got fastpasses. The kids wanted to line up as well but I wanted to go to the first showing of Finding Nemo - the Musical. A cast member heard us discussing what to do and she told us not to miss Finding Nemo. So we grabbed some luch at Restaurantsaurus and went to line up for Nemo. We couldn't get seats together so were split up, but we all enjoyed the show. After the show we walked back over to Expedition Everest and used our fastpasses. From there we went back to ride Dinosaur which was a lot of fun for most of us except for Sammy who was terrified and spent the whole ride hiding his face in my lap! Then we checked out the rest of Dinoland.

Unfortunately the fastpass machines for Primeval Whirl weren't operating so we had to line up for that. The line was long and moved very slowly. I hated this ride! Afterwards I needed to give my stomach a rest, so I watched the kids ride TriceraTop Spin while Alex got us a coffee.

We left Dinoland and walked over to Discovery Island to have another look at the Tree of Life

and lined up to meet Lilo and Stitch.

There wasn't another Festival of the Lion King show for awhile and we were all pretty hot and tired by then so we decided to miss it. We had a look around Camp Minnie-Mickey

grabbed an ice-cream at Campfire Treats and headed out to catch the bus back to the hotel.

After an afternoon swim we walked over to The Boardwalk and had dinner at ESPN Club. On the walk back to our hotel we checked out the Disney Vacation Club apartments which were very impressive and very tempting!

Orlando day 5

Day 24 - Sunday 4/7/10 - Animal Kingdom

We had another slow day today. Emily and I spent the morning at the Irish Dancing Championships while Alex and the boys had a sleep-in and a swim. At lunchtime they headed over to The Boardwalk to hang out at ESPN Club and to wait for us to be ready to go to Animal Kingdom for our dinner reservation at the Rainforest Cafe. They spent a good few hours there and didn't want to leave to meet us at 3pm when we were ready to go! We waited for them at the bus stop at The Dolphin and when they finally arrived we hopped on the next Animal Kingdom bus. The first stop was The Boardwalk which was where they had run from! If we had known that, we would have just met them there!

We arrived at Animal Kingdom and made a beeline for Expedition Everest. We grabbed fastpasses then joined the line as there was only a 20 minute wait. We loved it! Such a fun rollercoaster. We used our fastpasses to ride it again straight away, then walked to the front of the park for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. We were seated straight away, in the middle of a thunderstorm.

We had a really nice time, the food was good and we enjoyed the atmosphere. After dinner we returned to The Dolphin to watch the evening's awards ceremony as one of our girls was receiving a trophy which was very exciting and decided to have an early night.

Orlando day 4

Day 23 - Saturday 3/7/10 - Daytona/Magic Kingdom

Today was the first day of the North American Irish Dancing Championships at The Dolphin and two of the girls we were travelling with were competing, so Emily and I spent the morning watching the dancing. Alex picked up the hire car that we had organised the day before and took the boys to Disney's Wide World of Sports.

Around lunchtime Sammy joined us at the dancing and Alex and Harry drove out to Daytona Beach for the NASCAR race. There is an Australian driver doing NASCAR now, so their first stop was to buy No 47, Marcus Ambrose merchandise

then checked out the track

They were approached by a guy with a microphone who said they must be Australian because of the Ambrose t-shirts and he wanted to interview them. Harry ended up being interviewed on the big screen

and won these handset things to use during the race

They had a great time but it was a huge day and they didn't arrive back at the hotel until 2am!

Meanwhile, we were busy watching the dancing until about 3.30pm, then we caught a bus to the Magic Kingdom for our 4.30pm reservation at The Crystal Palace. I had been advised to book the early dinner so that we would be able to see the parade but when we arrived at the park we were told that the parade and/or fireworks may be cancelled due to the thunderstorms. We didn't really have time to ride anything before our reservation time, so we checked in early and joined the crowds waiting on the verandah. The wait wasn't too long though, and pretty soon we were seated and waiting to meet Pooh and friends.

Eeyore was first

followed by Tigger

and Pooh

and then we waited and waited and waited to see Piglet. He (she?) walked past us several times but wouldn't stop. We had long finished our meal and wanted to leave but we weren't going without meeting Piglet. I spoke to a cast member who promised Piglet would be with us soon but he did several more laps of the restaurant before he finally stopped at our table.

We finally had all of our autographs and photos so we headed out to our favourite part of the park - Tomorrowland

We saw Buzz Lightyear and joined the line to meet him, but then the kids said that it wasn't fair because Harry wasn't with us and he would be upset not to meet Buzz, so they voted to leave it for now and try to catch Buzz another time when we were all together. Unfortunately we never did get to meet Buzz.

We did Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress which was cute and turned out to be one of Sammy's favourites. But the weather was really bad by that stage and the rain was making us quite miserable. Nobody could tell us if the parade and fireworks would go ahead so we decided not to hang around and then be disappointed if they were cancelled, so we headed back to the resort where the kids relaxed and watched Disney Channel in the room while I did mountains of laundry.