On our way to the most magical place on earth...

We got up, finished packing, checked out, and headed to Kim's to say goodbye. We only had half an hour to chat, before we had to head to the airport. :(. 

At the airport Charlotte was desperate for mac and cheese from Chilli's, but they didn't do take out, so she had to settle for Doritos instead. Such a hard life. 

The flight was uneventful - and our shortest flight of the whole trip, which was nice. We arrived in Orlando, grabbed our bags, and headed off to the Magical Express.

The Magical Express is Disney's beautiful free bus transportation to their resorts. And we got to use our super you-beaut a magic bands for the first time. We had had them sent to Kim's house so we were all wearing them and able to touch them and watch Mickey go green to wor us in. 

Once on the bus it wasn't long until we reached Walt Disney World, or WDW, and then not much longer until we reached our hotel. For the first 4 nights of our stay we had a booking at the Villas at the Grand Floridian Hotel, one of Disney's flagship hotels at WDW.

We checked in, and bell services walked us and or luggage over to the villas, pointing out the pools on the way. We were taken to our room on the second floor, room 1222, and opened the door to find...

...Pixie Dust! Although we had booked a studio room, they had given us a 1 bedroom. Wow! The room was absolutely beautiful - a kitchen, lounge, HUGE bathroom, bedroom. Charlotte was excited by the bed that pulled down from the wall underneath the TV, and both the kids were wowed by the TV in the bathroom mirror - as in, it looked just like the whole mirror was just mirror, yet one part of it was actually a TV screen. So easy to get them in the bath when they can watch TV. Just hard to get them out :). 

We wandered around for a bit and checked out the pool area with its water slide and Mad Hatter Tea Party water play area. There was a fire pit where the youth counsellors were handing out sticks and marshmallows to toast - yummy. 

We then headed off to find food. After checking out all the options we got a table at the Grand Floridian Cafe - which is much more upmarket than it sounds from the name - and had a beautiful dinner. Wayne would have enjoyed his steak much more, except Charlotte decided she didn't like her meal and proceeded to eat half of the steak. 

We then wandered back to go to sleep, ready to prepare for our first day at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow. 

It's raining, it's pouring...

The first bad weather we've had so far, and it meant a change in plans. We were going to see a farm and baby animals and pony rides and stuff like that, but it was all outdoors. So that suddenly came off the agenda. 

Instead we decided to go visit the Jelly Belly factory. What's not to love about jelly beans!!!

We picked Kim up in our lovely weird car and headed off to the factory. On the way we passed Racine - home of the Racine All American Baseball League team of "League Of Their Own" fame. 

We got to the factory and Charlotte and James were both immediately taken by the Frozen movie playing above one of the displays, and by the seemingly unlimited amount of jelly beans there. Or infinity, as Charlotte said. 

While waiting for the next tour we damples a few of the flavours - the new champagne flavour was yummy! None of us wanted to sample the Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans flavours though - earthworm or vomit flavour anyone???

We jumped on the train for the tour, to discover it was mainly video shown at each "stop" (or pause!) It was still interesting, learning about how they derive new flavours, how they make the middle and the coating, how they sort them so only the perfect ones get put in the packets, etc. 

They spent a bit of time explaining how they perfect the flavours, which made us wonder who was the unlucky person who had to verify the dirty nappy bean taste!!!

We also saw prints of famous Jelly Belly art - Elvis, Queen Elizabeth, the Statue of Liberty etc. 

At the end of the tour we were each given a sample pack of jelly bellys, and then we got to shop!

You'll all be pleased to know that, unlike when Kim and I did the Laverne and Shirley walk at the brewery tour last time, we totally behaved ourselves and didn't embarrass anyone. Well, that, and Max wasn't there to be embarrassed either :). 

After the tour we headed to Walmart for some more last minute shopping. Wayne tried very hard to get himself on the People of Walmart website by 1) wearing his too big jeans without a belt and almost losing them in the middle of the store, and 2) trying on a Tshirt by stripping off in the middle of the store. We haven't checked the website - did he make it???

Our final dinner in Wisconsin was burgers that Scott grilled on the BBQ. Yum!!! We hung out at Kim's for a while, until the kids were almost falling asleep. We said our final goodbyes to Scott and Max and headed back to the hotel to pack and sleep. 

Travelling, travelling, travelling...

Up nice and early this morning to catch a plane to Milwaukee. We headed off to the airport with only a minor panic by Michelle that she'd misread the time luggage needed to be checked by and we were going to miss it. The worry was all for naught though, as the flight was delayed. 

And delayed. 

And delayed. 

For some reason the flight didn't leave Denver, so never arrived. They ended up getting a plane from Oakland - a whole 10 minutes flight away. Lol. So they had to get a crew and pilots etc to fly the plane to San Francisco, just to get off and be replaced by the actual crew. 

We ended up heading off about an hour and a half late, which wasn't too bad in the scheme of things. When we arrived in Milwaukee we headed off the to car rental place to pick up our car. Based on the success of our amazing mini van in San Francisco, we had booked a mini van again, but through a different company. 

Hmm. When you're told "sorry, we don't have any mini vans left, but we have this Ford Transit you can have, it's almost the same," don't believe them. It's not almost the same as a bells and whistles mini van at all. And then when they charge you for a 33 gallon tank of petrol (when you opt for pre-paid rather than trying to find a petrol station on the way home), well that gets very expensive very quickly!

We went straight to Kim's house, where we were warmly greeted, followed immediately by "what type of car is that?" "I've never seen a car like that." Lol. Told you it was weird. :)

We had a lovely dinner of fried chicken, chips (fries), and salad, followed by cooking s'mores on their brand new fire pit which they had built the week before. 

After we had finished eating we thought we had better go check into our hotel before it got too late. We headed over to Delafield and found the hotel - very nice it was too. Our room was only a few doors away from the pool, which made the kids very happy 😊

Here We Go Again...

....we're almost off. T - 4 days and counting.

We can't wait to head off travelling again. It's been 20 months since our last big trip and Michelle, in particular, is getting antsy about the whole no travel thing. This time though, it's a BIG one.

The itinerary in brief is:

San Francisco and Sacramento (to catch up with Nancy and Norm!)
Mukwonago, Wisconsin (to catch up with Kim, Scott, and Max!)
DisneyWorld!!!! Of course, including a day trip to Universal to see the improved Harry Potter World and ride the Hogwarts Express
A Transatlantic cruise from Orlando to Copenhagen, on Disney Cruise Line
A Baltics cruise round trip from Copenhagen, on Disney Cruise Line
A Norwegian Fjords cruise round trip from Copenhagen, and you don't get a prize for guessing that we're on the Disney Cruise Line :)

We will post updates as we can, depending on wi-fi availability. We're not sure what will happen in the 29 nights (!) that we're on the cruise, so we may be pretty quiet and then upload heaps at once, so keep checking in if you're interested in what we're up to.