After the late night and failing to really pack when I did get back to the room, I got a later start to the day, but after packing and checking out of the hotel, I was back at Perkin’s in crossroads at 8:30. During breakfast I checked twitter and saw that the construction walls had come down in Storybook circus, so that was my initial target for the day. Leaving crossroads and being a cheep skate, I headed into WDW via the Downtown Disney hotel boulevard, and headed via the back road (Golden Oaks, Fort Wilderness) to the Magic Kingdom area, which brings you out on the road that goes past the Polynesian, and then you head back towards world drive but just before you get to the dual carriageway you can do a U-Turn and are heading into the parking lot without going through the booths, so how was I supposed to pay……
Parking at this time (10am) was in Simba and after the tram and ferry I was back in the Magic Kingdom and headed back to the Circus area.
Some of the walls were down, the play area was open but didn’t have the water flowing.
The 2nd Dumbo spinner was in sight but again was not operating.
Feeling a little to old for Dumbo and the great goofini, I headed to The mad tea party, not to ride, but to finally find the plaque placed there in honour of Randy Pausch, you know Randy, if not then have a hunt on line for “The Last Lecture” a wondefull tail of someone who dying from cancer decided that that was the time to show how he had achived his childhood dreams if not exactly how he had planned them.
But now as the queues had started to get longer in the park, I made a decision I would not ride any ride today but experience a different day in the park, so spent some time wandering tomorrowland looking for pins and chatting to cast members and push.
After a while I headed over to the Sorcerers of the magic kingdom training location behind Ye Old Christmas shop, and after a short bit of training I was wandering around Liberty Square and Frontierland fighting the villians of the game, well mainly waiting in short queues to fight the villains. It is a fun little game and the windows are well hidden bar the queues of people waiting to play.
As it was now midday and I did plan on heading back to airport around 1pm so that I could catch the England match before my flight, The sorcerers game had suggested that if I wanted to continue I would next need to visit Main street and as that is on the way out I started to head that way, through the cut-through from Frontierland to Adventureland, at which point I noticed the Tiki room and that it had been updated last year (after my last visit) back to the classic version. So breaking the a day without rides, I got in the line
The new / old version is very similar to the Disneyland version, but is a nice way to spend a few minutes especially in the heat of the summer, but after the corny songs and jokes it was time to head to Main Street, I found the first window and after waiting for the 2 kids to play, I tried to enter the portal but was denied, I tried again and again was denied, both times with a video of Merlin explaining that I was in the wrong place, a helpful teenager pointed out that I had the wrong window but as that right one had a small queue, I called it a day and headed toward the exit via the Confectionary, where I picked up some fudge to bring home and a caramel apple to eat on the way.
The trip back was uneventful, It’s not the quickest route, but I headed down Osceola parkway and boggy creek road as there is a petrol station just 5 miles from the airport so with the full tank of gas the car was returned to Avis and I was in the terminal. A quick trip to the bathroom to change from theme park outfit of shorts and T-shirt to flight clothes of clean jeans and a baggy shirt.
I tried to use the auto-checkin desks for American airlines as they were handling my flight down to Miami, but it was only allowing me 1 piece of luggage, and I had (with the various shopping) ended up with 2 as I had upgraded the flight home to World traveller plus and had been told that that was my limit. So I got in the queue the woman at the desk was also certain that I could only take 1 bag unless I paid $60 for the 2nd one which was only a small backpack. I held firm and produced my itinerary from the paper work which stated 2 bags. That seemed to help, so always have all the paperwork you can. And I was finally checked in.
I headed to Chilli’s for lunch and as I thought that they would show the match and thinking I would have missed the first half was surprised to see it was only just started. I later found out that the rain had delayed the previous match and it all was delayed. Match over and with nice food in my belly and win against Sweden, I headed through security, spoke to my wife to let her know I was on my way and then got to the gate to find that the flight was delayed.
Weather in Miami had meant that the plane had not yet left to come to Orlando, but even with the gate crew knowing nothing, there is free wifi in the departure gates and if you can find a column maybe even free power, so a quick check on the web and I could find that AA was expecting us to be only about 1.5 hours delayed, as the flight was just about to leave Miami.
So 1 hour later than planned I was on the plan heading down to Miami, now this is a very quick flight 45mins of so in the air, but another plane was in our gate when we landed so as AA are cheap and didn’t want to spend money on having ground crew open another gate we waited for 45 mins for the plane to finally move, so now instead of having 4 hours to find a some dinner and relax before the flight to Heathrow I now had 40mins, which was spent walking very briskly from the AA gate to the BA one, just stopping briefly to grab some Coke and water for the flight.
The BA Flight was fine and bar lack of sleep, though I did get a few minutes of dozing, we landed on time and as I am registered with IRIS I had no issues with queues at immigration, and I was waiting for my bags, which didn’t arrive in the 1st wave and as there was a delay before the next set and needing the loo, I headed towards the baggage information desk just to confirm if they had made that mad dash the previous night, to be told “we don’t know” as AA don’t update the information at Miami. How can they not know if bags were on or not a flight?
Well you may guess where this is heading and yes after all the other bags had come out I headed back to state that there was no sign of my luggage. The Women at baggage services was very helpful and took all my details stating that they hoped that my bags just missed the flight so in that case they will arrive tomorrow morning and the courier firm they used will call me to arrange delivery at a time convenient to me including the next day which was a Sunday.
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