Day 6

There was a set of three small slides that were right next to each other, which meant Me, Beth and San were able to race against each other. For some reason I kept on winning and Beth said that I must have been cheating, San just said that I must have had slippy shorts on. (I won't print what my spellchecker came up with for slippy shorts!)

We even took some action shots of Beth whizzing down the longest of the kiddie slides, with her arms above her head and a big smile on her face.

When Beth had been on each slide several times, and had a good long play in the squirting ice pond, where she squirted water jets at Me and Peter, we decided to see what the wave pool was like as we had really enjoyed the one in Typhoon Lagoon.

The wave pool in Blizzard Beach didn't seem as big as the one Typhoon Lagoon and the waves were continuous small ones, rather than the occasional huge 6-foot ones, in between the smaller ones, as in TL. Beth was content to stand at the edge of the water and jump over the waves, but it wasn't as much fun as being swept off your feet by the huge waves. (This did mean that the tips of my fingers didn't take the pounding that they had in TL, which was a relief as they were just starting to heal!)
The wave pool seemed more crowded than in TL, but this may be because it appeared to be smaller, and the park in general was busier.
We then decided that we were hungry so we headed back to our sun beds and ate our sandwiches, whilst trying to stop a cheeky bird from stealing Beth's. After dinner, Peter wanted to show us what he had found at Ski Patrol, the 'older' kids play area, so we strolled over to the other side of the park.
The first thing we tried was an inner tube slide - we do enjoy these and this one was very fast. Beth was made up because again she could ride by herself. I just caught her at the bottom as she plopped off the end, and steered her to the side.
Beth then spotted the IceBerg Obstacle Course and immediately wanted to try it. This involved standing on big Styrofoam chunks made to look like blocks of ice that floated freely in a roped off section of the pool. The idea was to try to walk across the pool, whilst balancing on top of the icebergs and pulling yourself along using a rope. This was hard enough for the bigger kids, but as Beth could only just reach the rope, it was even more difficult for her. She ended up with Peter trying to walk behind her, pulling the rope down so that she could reach it, and the pair of them ended up falling into the water!
Beth was determined to make it across to the other side though, and with a bit of help, (I jumped into the water and sneakily held the icebergs still, through the ropes), she managed to reach the other side on about her fifth try, much to her delight.
After Beth had conquered the iceberg walk, Peter had a go by himself and fell in straight away, which made Beth laugh and make fun of Peter. As you have to be under 12 years old to take part in this activity, Peter had to look very young as the CM questioned him about his 15 yrs plus appearance! When he finally made it across, on his third attempt, we decided to head for Teamboat Springs, the world's longest family raft ride.
We climbed what seemed like never ending steps to the summit of Mount Gushmore, and by the time we got to the top we were knackered. It was a good job it was a cloudy day because I wouldn't have fancied climbing those steps in the searing Florida sunshine.
We had to wait about 25-minutes in the mist sprayed queuing area, but it passed by quickly as we kept ourselves entertained by seeing what we could see from the top of Mt Gushmore. In the distance we could see the top of Cinderella's castle, shining in the Magic Kingdom, sorcerer Mickey's hand holding the magic wand and the 2000 logo jazzing up Spaceship Earth in Epcot, (This has to be one of the best views we had of Disney's millennium icon). We could also see MGM and some of the Disney Resort hotels, I think it was the Polynesian and the Contemporary, but I may be wrong. We couldn't quite make out the Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom, even though that was the closest park to us.
Our 'guess the resort' game kept us amused until it was our turn to step on to the moving walkway and pile into our raft, (there is no dignified way that you can climb into one of these things). At least this time we hadn't had to carry our own raft up dozens of steps as they were carried to the top of the mountain on a conveyor belt system. They just appeared at the top from behind an outcrop of real looking rocks, ready for our descent to the bottom of the slope.
For one reason or another, I ended up sitting backwards as we hurtled down the bobsled run and apparently was screaming "I can't see where we are going". That was until we came to a bend in the track and our raft went all the way up the side as we sped around it. This spun the raft around so that I was facing forwards and I could see that we were heading for a huge white water plunge pool, this prompted me to yell "I don't want to see where I'm going!" - cue hysterical laughter from Beth and San.
We really enjoyed this ride, and no, it is not scary, I was just playing the part for Beth. It is very fast, quite long and we all got a good soaking. We had to keep hold of Beth because she thought it was great fun to keep letting go of the handles, but the ride is very safe and there was no danger of her falling out.
As we got to the bottom of the slope, a cast member insisted on taking our photograph and gave us a ticket so that we could view our picture later on. We then had a stroll around the back of Mt Gushmore and walked through the tunnel that ran next to the Cross-Country Creek. This time we were able to enjoy the squeals coming from the unsuspecting bathers, as they got to the ice-cold waterfalls, as we were safely on dry, (warm), land.
We came across the Runoff Rapids and as there was quite a long queue for single rings, we joined the queue for double rings, as it was much shorter. We carried our rings up the steps and Beth announced that she wanted to ride with Peter, which was OK with me as I got to ride with San for a change.
This was another fast and twisty ride and as we plopped out of the end of the tube, I went flying off the back of our ring as we hit the deep plunge pool and the ring came to an immediate halt. Once again at my expense, San, Beth and Peter wet themselves laughing, (or where they already wet?).
We then did another lap of Cross-Country Creek, which was by now much more crowded, so it took us quite a while to grab a ring each. It is definitely worth doing the Creek early in the morning to avoid the crowds because it is much more relaxing that way. (I even dropped off for a few seconds on our first go!)
As we completed the full circuit and climbed the stairs out of the Creek, we noticed that the sky had become quite threatening, and black clouds had begun to gather above.
Peter had challenged me to a race on the Downhill Double Dipper, so San took Beth back to the wave pool to do some wave jumping, whilst we joined the queue. As we waited it started raining lightly, but not enough to close the slide. Whilst we queued I noticed that the two girls in front of us were also from Liverpool, it turned out that they lived just around the corner from us, and Peter actually delivered newspapers to somebody who lived in their road. (It's a Small World After-all!)
Having collected our rings, we made our way up yet another set of steps to join yet another queue at the top of the slide. As we waited in line, the heavens opened and it began to pour down with rain. This time it was so heavy that the Lifeguard attendant had to temporarily close the slide until the storm passed over.
Twenty minutes later we were so relieved just to be allowed to go on the slide that it didn't matter that we couldn't race next to each other. (For the record, I think my time was about 13 seconds and Peter's was about 8 and a half, but it was still worth the wait…… just.)
We made our way back to the gazebo where our sun beds were, to find that San had been chased out of the wave pool when the storm had started, so had expected us to return about thirty minutes earlier than we had. The weather didn't look like it was going to improve so at three O'clock we decided to call it a day and went to get changed.
On the way back to the villa, we stopped off at Publix to get some groceries. The best thing that we found, apart from the beer, was Heinz baked beans and even though they were $1.69 a tin, they went perfectly with the corned beef hash that we made for our tea. (Mmmm, our favourite!)
After loading the dishwasher and having a quick Jacuzzi to get the sand out of all the places it shouldn't have been, we set off to spend the evening at the Magic Kingdom.
When we got to the car park we were able to park wherever we wanted, so I found an empty space right at the front of the Minnie section. It had stopped raining by now, but there were still big puddles everywhere. There was only one ferryboat running and as it had only just left the docking bay, the Cast Member said it would be at least 15-minutes until it returned, so we decided that it would be quicker to catch the Monorail to the Magic Kingdom entrance.
It was now about half past six and the park wasn't very busy, probably because of the rain earlier. We headed down Main Street and turned left towards Adventureland. San then realised that she hadn't been to the toilets in Agrabah, so we had to stop there first. I had to talk Beth out of wanting to buy a toy snake from the gift shops by the toilets as we waited, by telling her that they didn't allow them on aeroplanes, so she would have to leave it in the villa.
We then headed to my favourite ride in the Magic Kingdom, the Pirates of the Caribbean, so I put on my pirate bandanna which worried a couple of small children in the queue in front of us, and also drew some strange looks from their parents. Beth joined in the fun and insisted that she be a girl pirate, which apparently meant that she was a 'goodie'.
There was hardly any queue at all so we climbed straight into our vessel and set off to a rousing chorus of Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me. Pirates was as good as ever, although it now appears quite dated, but it will always be one of our favourite rides because Beth really believes, after many bedtime stories, that I used to be a pirate before I was a tax inspector. (Same thing really, but without getting wet!)
When we came out of the ride it had started to go dark. I then had to talk Beth out of buying a plastic sword, using the same reason as before, and she changed her mind and chose a shiny necklace instead.
We then strolled through Frontierland, taking in the sights and the Liberty Belle Riverboat looked particularly nice all lit up with fairy lights. We continued on into Fantasyland and went straight to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. We waited about 15-minutes before climbing into our honey pot and as we rode through the bit that was lit by ultra violet lights all our hand stamps from the previous days lit up on the backs of our hands, which was strange to see.
When we came out of the ride and were headed towards Cinderella's Golden Carousel, Beth noticed that Aerial was asleep on a rock in Aerial's Grotto, which was obviously closed because she was so tired.
We continued on to the Carousel, which is another of Beth's 'must do on each visit' rides. The Carousel oozes atmosphere in the day, aided by the classic songs that play as the horses gallop around, but in the night when it is all lit up with fairy lights, it really sets the scene in Fantasyland.

We then noticed that It's a Small World had no queue, so we decided that now was as good a time as any to subject ourselves to the slow and torturous boat ride, and its tormenting tune. When we came out of It's a Small World, Beth wanted to go on Peter Pan's Flight, but as the queue was 45-minutes long we talked her out of it.
Instead we headed over to Tomorrowland to see how it looked in the night, and it was also lit up looking very futuristic. There were no further Fastpasses available for Buzz Lightyear and the queue was 45-minutes long, so we decided to leave it until our next visit to the Magic Kingdom, when we could use a Fastpass.
Our plan was to go on rides that we hadn't done before, and as there was no queue for the Tomorrowland Transport Authority, we gave it a try. TTA travels around the top of Tomorrowland, past most of the attractions, giving you a distant glimpse of each ride. The best thing about is was that it gave us a chance to put our feet up for a while.
Next we wandered to Mickey's Toontown Fair, tired now, and walked straight on to Goofy's Barnstormer, twice with no wait. It was now about 8.30 and a lot of people had gone to stake out a spot for the 9 o'clock Electrical Parade. As we walked back through Fantasyland the queue for Peter Pan was now only ten minutes long, so we joined the line, which only lasted about five minutes.
We thought it would be a good idea to head to Frontierland to ride Splash Mountain, whilst half of the park guests were watching the Electrical Parade. When we got there, after finding our way through the dark, we joined the twenty-minute queue in eager anticipation. To our horror though, as we waited, the Electrical Parade finished and all the Fastpass holders, with a window for this time period, all used their Fastpasses at the same time, so swelling the queue. This made our twenty-minute wait stretch to 45-minutes. Some of the people around us in the queue got quite annoyed at this, but That's Life, I'm sure we did the same to other guests when we used the Fastpass system.
The moral of this story, and tip of the day, is Do not join a standby queue whilst a parade is in progress, if your wait is going to be longer than the parade itself. When it finishes, everyone who has a current Fastpass will use it as soon as the parade finishes, which makes your wait even longer. (Common sense really!)
When we eventually climbed into our log and set off on our journey around the land of Brer Rabbit, we got quite a surprise, which actually made our wait worthwhile. As we got to the part of the ride that goes outside the mountain, the 10 O'clock Fantasy in the Sky fireworks were exploding high above the castle. This happened to us last year and we thought it was great, but to have it happen again, by pure coincidence, was unbelievable.
Beth then decided that she liked the look of Big Thunder Mountain, as she was getting quite brave with roller coasters, having already ridden Goofy's Barnstormer, The Flying Unicorn and Woody Woodpeckers Nuthouse Coaster, so we sent Peter on ahead to check out the queue time. When he returned insisting that it was only fifteen minutes, we agreed that it was worth a try.
Big Thunder Mountain has been awarded San's most hated queuing area because she thinks it is claustrophobic, which the dark did not help as it wasn't very well lit, and the Western theming with lots of wood doesn't give you much to look at. You just move up and down wooden lanes, like herds of cattle in pens.
We waited about 20-minutes before boarding our rickety mining truck and Beth insisted on sitting next to me, as she did on most rides. We enjoyed BTM, but expected it to be much worse than it was, (more like the Indiana Jones Ride in DLP). It was quite fast and very jerky, as I'm sure a runaway mining truck would be, but the lasting impression for Beth was of the bats hanging from the ceiling as we went through a cave. She actually ducked down under my arm in case they were real.
It was nice to be able to say that we had eventually been on all three of the 'big mountain' rides, as we hadn't made it onto Space Mountain or Big Thunder Mountain last year, and Beth was finally getting a taste for roller coasters.
We warily headed for Main Street and looked around the shops, where Peter bought a spinning strobe light that he was able to programme to say anything he wanted. The first thing he made it say was 'Wet T-shirt competition here today', I don't know where he gets it from! (These were probably leftovers from WDW's Millennium celebrations.)
We stayed in the shops until the 11 O'clock Electrical Parade started, so the crowds of people who left earlier could disperse, and as we waited for the ferryboat, we saw the Electrical Water Pageant floating across the Seven Seas Lagoon.
When we got to the car park the queue for the tram was still 40-50 people deep, but as we were only parked in the Minnie section, we didn't have to get involved in the pushing and shoving.
When we eventually made our way out of the car park, for our journey back to the villa, I think I was the only one left awake. So much for a 'rest' day!