Our stay in Miami over and everything packed up, we headed north towards Orlando. The kids were all very excited … this is what they have been looking forward to the entire trip.
We stopped at Manatee Lagoon in West Palm Beach in the hope of spotting some Manatees (also known as sea cows). We had read it was an ideal location to spot them at this time of year (Manatee Season) as they congregate near the clean warm water outflow of the adjacent Clean Energy Centre. However, it was not to be our day and the best we saw were the concrete statutes out front.
Back in the car, we continued our journey north towards Orlando. We arrived and started heading to our accommodation at the Disney Animal Kingdom Lodge. The kids had no idea we were staying at a Disney property so were quite surprised when we turned up. We are only staying here for 2 nights as it is expensive and much more cramped than the house we have booked for the remainder of our time here. That said, it is definitely bigger than Washington and we have a separate bedroom for Mark &I, kitchen, in room laundry facilities and 2 bathrooms. Our double balcony overlooks the savanna where we can see animals roaming.
We collected our Disney magic bands and then headed to Magic Kingdom where we had a lightning lane pass (the new Disney Fast Pass system which you have to pay for daily (although we got a great deal on our tickets booking them through the UK site and got this included) starting at US$25 per day per ticket ?) for Space Mountain so we parked, got the tram to the monorail entrance and caught the monorail to the entrance of the park. When we arrived we just caught the end of a parade and then made our way quickly to Space Mountain (you get allocated a one hour slot to enter the line for the ride and it was fast running out) and had a short wait before we boarded the ride. Space Mountain is a classic Disney ride and always good fun.
Everyone was feeling rather peckish by this time so we found a cafe, Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe. Since Covid they have now introduced a lot more mobile ordering which makes the process a lot more seamless. We ordered online and then quickly collected our food which was actually pretty good.
Everyone fed, we had our next Lighting Lane booked for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a rollercoaster with no loops but still lots of fun and everyone enjoyed it. It was then onto Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin where you are in little carts and you fire lasers in a gallery shooting style game. One last round on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and we decided to head back to the hotel via a few shops on Main Street.
We settled into the hotel and decided to head to the sister hotel for a quick service meal and picked up a few breakfast supplies before heading back for bed.
