The final day, and we decided to end as we'd begun, with the Magic Kingdom. Having packed the night before we had an early start, leaving our bags at Bell Services at our resort we boarded a bus to the Magic Kingdom.
It was already getting busy as we arrived, with full ferryboats and monorails depositing hoardes of people into the park entrance area. I wasn't looking forward to the bag check - in my rucksack today was all my hand luggage, plus a change of clothes for the afternoon! But we got through quickly with no hassle at all.
Spotting that it had a minimal queue time and was unlikely to improve, we began with the first ride we did two weeks ago - Splash Mountain. The 15-20 minute queue had grown to around 45 by the time we left the ride, so that was a good move!
Our second ride was Peter Pan's Flight - one of the few attractions we hadn't previously done, as it's always had a queue. This time, however, we had a FastPass booked, so skipped the 50 minute queue for a nicely-done but visibly aging flight over a model London from yesteryear. Nice, but I wouldn't have queued for it.
Straight across the park to my favourite ride in the place - Space Mountain. FastPass let us skip a moderate standby queue, and for a change we got the Alpha circuit (the past few visits we'd always ended up on Omega). In my opinion Alpha gives a slightly smoother ride - it certainly felt less jerky. It's still a brilliant ride by anyone's standards, all the more so given it's got no inversions and no modern gimmicks, just a clever design and visual effects.
Back across the park again, we thought we'd check on the Pirates of the Caribbean queue but it was a bit much to make it worth our while. Instead we popped into the Enchanted Tiki Room - another attraction we'd not previously experienced. While I can't say the show blew me away it had a lot of old-school charm and reminded me very much of old Disney animations from the early days, like Snow White and Bambi. Plus it was air conditioned and had comfy seating...
From there to our final FastPass, the Haunted Mansion, another of our favourites. I still love the queue line - every time we do it I find a gravestone I haven't read or a visual gag I haven't noticed. There was a new shop in a similar theme opened opposite, but as it had a queue to enter, I decided not to bother. What we did do, however, was visit the Harbour House quick-service restaurant for lunch, where Tom had a large lobster sandwich while I had a very acceptable grilled salmon. It was difficult to find a table, so a helpful member of staff ushered us into the cordoned-off disabled section where there was space.
The sun was now beating down, we'd used all our FastPasses and ride queues were getting busy, so we decied to call it a day and got a bus back to the resort. We passed the couple of hours before our coach sitting by the pool (in the shade) reading and making the most of our refillable drinks mugs. We then used the showers by the pool and changed into fresh clothes ready for the flight.
I'm now writing this at the airport - it was slightly confusing at check-in as the lady on the desk told us we'd been upgraded but as far as we can tell from the boarding passes we've actually just been moved seats. Not that it really matters. She also let me get away with a slightly overweight suitcase (it had somehow grown to 28kg - I blame all the presents I've brought back for people!) Our flight is showing just under an hour's delay, so no rush at all. Hence this blog :)
Next time I write it'll be back in the UK, where I doubt the weather will be as good. I'm in shorts & t-shirt - how cold will Gatwick be tomorrow morning?
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