Disney World

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Disney World

You might think that giving a trip to Disney World, as a Christmas gift, to a 4 year old is extravagant and you wouldn't be alone as I thought the same when Kellie proposed this. Her logic was that we dragged the poor child across the world for 6 months, had endless fun, great experiences, amazing food, adventures, beach, loads of ice cream and so on. Obviously you have to say sorry for that. Well lets not linger on that for too long. I might have enjoyed it a little too…

Our adventure started well. We had a nights sleep in Orlando and we wandered to the front desk inquiring where we could get discounted tickets (hey you should know me by now). And wasn't there just the man to help us. American/Italian salesman sums him up. Well in the end we agreed to go on a quick sales tour for holiday timeshares. 3 hour max we were promised with a free lunch. (He had me at free lunch 😊

Off we went to the sales centre where our personal sales assistant greeted us. We drove with him to the apartment complex, but not without passing via the American dream town. Think Hamtons style white picket fences, manicured lawn, postcard streets and a centre that boasted cute cafes and an “olden style” pub. This is where we tucked into our free lunch. After that we went to the complex where we were offered a 1/50th share in an apartment for the low cost of $36000 USD plus some ongoing feed. To cut a long story very short, after 4 hours of saying “well that’s interesting but a bad investment”, “no thanks “by the way we are backpackers”... we came out the other way with a 4 day ticket to Disney World for a very discounted price. I could tick the “timeshare condo” sales pitch off my bucket list and got cheap tickets. Felt like winning.

After a quick stop at the “Disney Shopping mall” Disney Quest, where you can find anything related to Disney and Americana we went to sleep to wake up extra early...

Let the fun begin… Not sure who was more exited Dillon or I but when we crossed the gates to Disney World the heart started pumping. After we parked our car and short train ride later it was time to ….. get finger printed. Yes Disney uses finger print technology to ensure you don’t share tickets. Not sure Walt would approve but hey happy to surrender my privacy to see Mickey.

Gosh its good. Disney World is just one pristine place where nothing is out of place unless they wanted it to look out of place. We had heaps of fun trying all the rides and seeing everything. Luckily it was the low season so there weren't that many people around. By the end of the day we also figured how to take advantage of the Fast-passes that we had. Over the coming days we perfected this to never wait more than 10 minutes for a ride…

And man did we go on all rides. Dillon’s inner daredevil was awoken and we did loads of roller coasters and anything that goes fast. Unfortunately for me though Dillon was still a fan of “it’s a small world” which he discovered a couple of years ado in Disney Land Hong Kong. I had to suffer through it 4 more times.

The highlight of the first day was meeting Goofy, Donald and then the man himself. Mickey Mouse. Dillon was certainly star struck. Mickey even speaks these days. I don't think you have ever seen a happier little boy.

The second day was spend at Disney Hollywood studios where Kellie rediscovered her love for slower and non scary rides as she made the mistake twice to trust my recommendation. It has to be said that I still don't know why she didn't like the Rock n Roller coaster where you go from 0 to 100 in 2.8 seconds while being shot into a dark tunnel and the first thing you do is a loop. I thought that was rather nice. Women…

This was the day where we really started to take advantage of our Fast pass. We pretty much did every ride and most of them twice.

Disney recently acquired the right to StarWars and man are they good at squeezing everything out of it. There was a StarWars ride, StarWars memorabilia and meet the stars of StarWars. I didn't miss the photo opportunity with Chewbacca and whatever the new Darth Vader dude is called.



Another day another park. This time it was Animal Kingdom. The Disney version of a Zoo…

Pretty good actually. Africa is impressive with its “Safari” that is a mix between being driven through an outdoor Zoo and a Theme Park. This is where Geoffrey (yes he came) our trusty travel companion finally met his family. The highlight of the park however was the Everest roller coaster. After I did one round I had to get Dillon on. You got to give Disney that they stick to the rules and the guys at the entrance took about 5 minutes to confirm that Dillon (on tippy toes) was tall enough. In the end he got through and he had a great time especially when the roller coaster went backwards. Ask him and he will happily tell you all about it.



One more day was spend at Disney World. Its even good the second time around. We did the rides that we missed on the first day and redid our favourites which unfortunately meant two more ride on its a small world…. After that it was time to say Goodbye to America and President Obama. Trump was coming in shortly after we left but that’s another story. For one last time it was time to say hola and head back to Mexico

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