Got home yesterday morning :(

[bazzanoid]

...and went from an unusually hot fall in florida with 3 weeks of near-constant 30 degree + weather and into wet, gloomy 9 degrees gatwick!

Highs:

AK's Wild Africa Trek
BGT's Rollercoaster Tour (despite the only stormy wet day of our trip)
The weather!
Legoland - a real surprise, we visited as we booked Discovery Cove when the ticket company we used had a free legoland promo on, so if it's free, why not? Thoroughly enjoyed it and they've really looked after the land after taking it on from Cypress Gardens
Be Our Guest restaurant - only had a lunch, but wow is the food good and the theming outstanding!
...and so many more to mention!

Lows:
The weather system in Tampa on Saturday 2nd Nov. On the day of our coaster tour.
Getting a ticking off from the local sheriff for travelling a little too fast at one point *ahem*.

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We flew with VA and had seats in the bubble there and back, i cannot fault them at all perfect service all the way. I'd preordered some cupcakes as an anniversary surprise for DW, and the flight crew took it upon themselves to supply complimentary champagne as well and the cupcakes were presented on chinaware from upper class. brilliant!

Once off the plane we were through immigration in around ten minutes, hung around for another 15 or so waiting for bags, then headed out to the rental garages to collect our hire car - Gold service with Hertz so our car was pre-allocated and waiting in a bay with my name on, a brand new Chevy Captiva with delivery miles only on the clock. Lovely!

Quick dinner at Denny's on the way to the villa then we just crashed into bed.

Oh the heat and humidity was bliss - taking full advantage of our villa's pool we were often taking a dip at midnight!

On my b'day we did the Wild Africa Trek at AK, loved it, our tour guides were informative and fun.

Had so many great days, and being there for three weeks we just chilled out and took our time - often we wouldn't go into the parks until mid afternoon, other days we were there for opening if we wanted to do something specific (test track, ToT, WWoHP etc).

Did a horseback ride at Forever Florida on the last friday, lovely change of pace, and followed up with a gentle stroll around St Cloud and Kissimmee.

On the saturday we did the coaster tour at BGT, and had the worst weather this side of hurricane season - at one point they were going to call the whole thing off because of the weather, we asked to stick it out as we'd already done the rides previously on the holiday so were only there for the behind the scenes stuff, our brilliant tour guides agreed and we were glad we stuck it out as the weather improved enough for the rides to re-open, and by this point it was knocking on midday, so there was next to nobody in the park - the longest wait was Cheetah Hunt at 10 minutes all day!!! As we were behind the scenes and the weather was bad we were also filled in on the weather 'banding' system they use, weather updates passed over the radio every 15 minutes to advise rideops of the current situation Green through Red, interesting stuff.

Sadly had to come home, great flight again but as ever couldn't sleep so i'm still jetlagged......

Took a bucketload of photos, so rather than try to select a few to share in-thread i'll just post the links to the facebook albums - all are public so even if we're not friends on facebook or you don't have facebook at all you can still view them!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

AK Africa Trek Album

Now time to start planning the next one!

 

[jen_uk]

Great trip, thanks for sharing the photos

 

[edinburghlass]

I'm only half way through but loving the photos from Legoland. Imagine making up the models as your job, what did you do today? Oh I made a giraffe and a zebra

 

[queendisney]

sounds and looks like you had a fab time.

Love your photo's

 

[bazzanoid]

Probably should have warned everyone its a lot of photos... There were three albums because facebook limits albums to 1000 photos....

 

[tinkertaylor05]

Wow sounds great! Just checked out your pictures from the safari, what time of day do you do it?

 

[pampat]

Your photos are beautiful. Thanks for the link to them.

Pam

 

[2Tiggies]

Another one here who's spent the best part of the last hour trawling through your photos Thank you so much for sharing all these! You clearly had a fabulous time

Those WAT photos you posted - were they all yours or were some of them the ones that were taken and put onto the disc for you? I am curious about the photos you get from the Trek as part of the package

It's nice to hear a good review on the actual food at BOG. I know the setting gets the thumbs up all round but as always, very mixed reviews about the actual food. Do you think a lot of the negativity is down to unrealistic expectations based on too much hype in snagging a reservation here?

I'm only half way through but loving the photos from Legoland. Imagine making up the models as your job, what did you do today? Oh I made a giraffe and a zebra

Are you secretly employed by their HR team? If not, they should hire you because the last two sentences alone make me want a job there

 

[edinburghlass]

This morning, as its chilly, I've decided I'd like to work as a tour guide in AK after checking out the rest of the photos

 

[2Tiggies]

Probably should have warned everyone its a lot of photos... There were three albums because facebook limits albums to 1000 photos....

Well I've gone through two of them and will do the third tonight

I have to ask, where did you get that nice little train set?

 

[bazzanoid]

tinkertaylor - they offer several times, we did the 11.45 one to coincide with a sensible time for the lunch!

2Tigs, the WAT photos in the standalone album are all taken by the official photographer - as well as the ones taken on the day you also get a 'top 50' images taken by the photogs since the tour was first offered. If the photos are displaying in the order they're supposed to on the album, all the ones before the two group shots were the stock images, everything there onwards was taken on the day.

Do you mean the little set of 5 wagons? I'm building a Z gauge coffee table and could not resist - we popped in to Colonial Photo & Hobby as its the only proper model rail store in the orlando area and I was determined to visit one. Originally intended to buy some N gauge stuff for a planned scenic diorama to go on top of a 4 foot gerbil tank in our front room, ended up buying z gauge wagons for the other project instead and after buying the Hogwarts Express O gauge model in Universal i'm now going to build a Platform 9¾ on the tank instead!

I think with BOG people expect food on par with the a la carte offerings at V&A and the like. While the food is definitely a cut above normal TS meal offerings, it's not at that level and it's not advertised or priced that way, so I really don't get the negativity about it