The rest of DisWorld......

Better late than never.......

Friday at the World was another chock full day. The four adults headed for a variety of different parks with Mac following Vanessa and Maxine around. The Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and the Magic Kingdom all got visits as favourite attractions were revisited and new ones had a crack at. Trev's aversion to the only big ride he didn't have a crack at Hollywood-the Tower of Terror was maintained, whilst the afternoon for the rest of the crew was spent at the resort's pool at Samawati Springs at Animal Kingdom Lodge.
An early evening was had as the boys prepared for their golf reservation on....

Saturday morning. Dawning bright and early for a 910am golf reservation at Oak Trail, the only walking only course at Disney. There are 3 other courses, Osprey Ridge, Palm and Magnolia, the latter two being the host courses for one of the annual PGA events.
The courses are located at the Northern end of the property up by the Grand Floridian hotel, which is near the Magic Kingdom Park. The boys caught the bus from AKL to Magic Kingdom and then hopped on the monorail for teh Grand Floridian. Upon asking at the hotel what was the quickest way to get to Oak Trail for our reservation, we were called a complimentary taxi for the short hop to the course. Brilliant!!
Upon arrival our tickets were scanned to confirm the round being part of our water parks and more add on, and we headed out to the course to murder a couple of buckets of balls on the driving range with the hire clubs....King Cobra clubs mind you. Very flash. Sweating like a Saudi camel driver, the three of us headed for the first tee to be confronted with a smiling cut out of Mickey and Goofy welcoming us to the next 2 hours of absolute torture. I can assure you, it is a complete miracle how the two cutouts still have their heads because by the time we returned after the 9 holes, a 1 wood King Cobra to the scones of the two aforementioned charcters was not only likely but deserved. The only reason we didn't decapitate the Mouse and the Doof was because we barely had enough energy left to make it to the clubhouse via the oxygen tent, let alone jail for destruction of Disney property. Imagine trying to play golf in a washing machine....thats how wet we got due to the humidity sitting at about 85%. Rough the likes that you can't imagine. As soon as the ball goes off the cut long green stuff, it is lost. Just accept it. 5 holes was enough for Larry when he decided that having a heart attack on the 6th wasn't part of his future. Trev and Wayne soldiered on, alternating between crying and hallucinating as the last 4 holes went by in a daze. Traipsing back to the clubhouse, the boys reconvened with a recovering Larry and were the beneficiaries of another complimentary taxi all the way back to the AKL. An afternoon spent at Typhoon Lagoon seemed to be a marvellous way of recharging the batteries. And it was!!!
Sunday was spent at a combination of the hotel pool and the Downtown Disney area. Some terrific shopping avails itself at Downtown and we can all confirm that we gave the place an absolute hiding for the 10 nights/11 days that we there. And it's not necessarily expensive either. If you pick the eyes out, then bargains abound. Sure Disney license and merchandise every conceivable piece of paraphenalia that you can imagine, but Christ they do it well. 95% of it is tastefully done and could adorn any house without looking cheesy and tacky. We needed to start reducing the amount of food in the fridge, so dinner was in our villa, as Trev started to fight the effects of a flu. Luckily Maxine was, as usual, equipped with enough tablets and pills to put a pharmacist to shame, and she gave Trev some pills that are usually used to cure animal transferred Ebola, and hoped that the Senior Strahan would improve sufficiently enough to keep up his recently acquired non-stop Disney addiction.

Monday morning dawned bright and a bit too early for Trev as our last character breakfast at Disneys Hollywood Studios was embarked upon without the slowly recovering Old boy. An early morning bus to DHS, and we headed for Hollywood and Vine for breakfast with June and Leo from Little Einsteins, Handy Manny and JoJo. Macks eyes lit up as the most interactive meal that we had included conga line dancing with the characters, as well as the usual table side visits from all the above. Upon completion of the meal, we headed for the Animal Kingdom minus Larry who went back to the room early. Vanessa rode expedition Everest whilst Max and Mac re rode the Pteradactyl ride. From there we headed for Nemo the Musical which met with different reviews from the various members of the travelling circus. Vanessa and (surely out of a sense of duty) Maxine as well, indicated their enthusiasm for a performance that included costumed humans running around with broomsticks adorned with characters from the movie "Nemo". Mackenzie was similarly enthusiastic due to her dancing and clapping (she was obviously under orders from her mother), whilst the only sane member of the group (Wayne) was bemoaning an hour of his life that he will never ever get back. It really was crap. (Was not!!....according to Vanessa!). An early afternoon departure from the park as planned, was never really going to happen as Vanessa seemed to find every character that Mac still hadn't been photographed with....and some that had already got a guernsey. The blue dude from "A Bugs Life", Thumper and his girlfriend Miss Bunny, some obscure guy from Tarzan, Donald (again), and Goofy (again)  led to a departure around 7pm for a return to the Lodge.
Tuesday saw an lazy start to our last full day at WDW. Vanessa went down to reception to organise our transport to the airport on Wednesday, and to confirm how many days of her and Mac's pass was remaining. As only 5 of the 10 days had been used, and 8 of the minor pass days were remaining, she payed extra to upgrade to "no expiration" which ensures that we can use the passes on the next visit. As Wayne had already had the foresight to add the no expire option on his pass at purchase he was already set for 2013. An afternoon visit to Blizzard Beach (our favourite water park) rounded out our park visits as Trev finally got his picture tackling Summit Plummet, Mac and Wayne took 3 laps of the lazy river and Crush and Gusher got a late afternoon hiding from Vanessa and Trev, whilst Maxine, Mac and Wayne admired the view from the zero entry pool of an approaching thunderstorm. A final dinner at the Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney rounded out our last day.

Wednesday morning was spent doing final packing for an 11am departure on the Disney bus to the airport for our 230pm flight to Vegas via the travel "hotspot" of Alberquerque New Mexico. Tears were shed on the bus by the male members of the party, as our final glimpse of Disney disappeared in the rear view mirror. Two flights later and we arrived in Vegas about 4pm and headed for the Excalibur. Upon realising our cab driver was taking the long way to the hotel, Wayne gave the camel jockey a mouthful when we realised the $12 cab fare was heading towards $20. Upon enquiring with the baggage porter at the hotel on the unusually large amount of the cab trip, he managed to take down the number of the cab as Osama Bin Laden screeched off into the sunset upon realising that his scam had been uncovered. An evening buffet(hey we are in Vegas after all) rounded out an exhausting day.

A 630 am departure for Larry and Wayne as we headed for Bullhead to pick up the last of our luggage that we had left behind for the trip to Orlando. Returning around noon, we all headed for a bite to eat as Maxine and Vanessa (the Criss Angel show at Luxor) and Trevor (the O cirque de soleil show at the Bellagio), readied for their big nights out. Larry, Mac and Wayne kicked back with the opening night of the NFL season on NBC as our trip neared its end.

Wednesday morning saw Max and Larry leave about 930am for the trip back to Bullhead. Teary farewells were performed by one and all, as it dawned that we wont see each other for at least another 18 months. We all agreed to open Skype accounts to help keep in touch visually as it is super important for Mac to retain a link to her Nana and Grandpa Larry on the other side of the world. A late checkout at 3pm and the rest of us were on our way to the airport for our 5pm flight to Vegas. Baggage came in under weight (yay!!) and we were on the 1030pm flight to Sydney on the Qantas Airbus A380. What an awesomely sized aircraft. It's still a miracle to me how they get so much weight into the air, but bar a couple of bumpy moments halfway across the Pacific, and a sick little girl, the flight went fairly smoothly. 15 hours later and we touched down in Sydney to the world's slowest, most incompetent customs department. Could not organise a bit of hand relief on an adult film set the Australian Customs. Due to their pathetically slow and laboured service, we missed our connecting flight to Perth at 810am and had to take tghe next flight art 1010am. When we eventually got to Perth,, (after sitting on the tarmac for 30 minutes waiting for a gate to become available in Perth, Qantas performed to their usual high standard and informed us at the baggage carousel that they had left one of our suitcases in Sydney.....Welcome back to Australia!!!! Dave was there to pick up his Dad, whilst Mike, Cathy, Kiara and Brianna along with Kali, John and Alex were there to welcome us home and in Kali's case take possession of 6 Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Home by 4pm and the unpacking began as we re-acquainted ourselves with the animals and house.

A fabulous 6 weeks were over as we plan towards our next trip. I hope that you have all enjoyed the posts that we have posted over that time. Photos are available on our facebook pages (especially Vanessa and Trevor's). Thanks to those of you who followed our trip and I strongly encourage you all to try to visit the USA at least once before you fall off the mortal coil. A wonderfully diverse land geographically, wonderful service (95% of the time!!), welcoming polite people, and world class entertainment, be it in Vegas or the ultimate family holiday destination Walt Disney World in Florida. Couple that with it being remarkably cheap for most everyday items (food, accomodation, petrol etc) and you have a recession gripped country that in your humble correspondents opinion is second to none. Stick Bali and the rest of the Asian reason up your arse, and save a little harder to get to the states. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.

The entire crew of Strahans Across America say a fond farewell until next time............2013 here we come!!!!!!