Join us for our first ever trip outside the UK as we head for America and all things Disney!
Each place of interest is shown on its own separate article, reached by clicking/tapping the fourteen photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.
Wednesday 14 July 1993. To recap: it's our last day before returning home from Orlando back to the UK and we have spent it in the Disney parks, specifically the Disney MGM Studios and then EPCOT. We got on the Monorail around five o'clock and transferred over to The Magic Kingdom. It was still pouring it down with rain.
We ate in a restaurant close to Liberty Square where (only with the greatest difficulty) we resisted the clam chowder and enjoyed a more familiar meal, watering the gravy with rainwater drips from the head...
Then it was a race to repeat as many of our favourite rides as we could before the fireworks display brought the night and holiday to an end.
We rode the cablecar to Tomorrowland and went on the Carousel of Progress where the audience seating rotated around tableaux of different periods with animated robots saying how wonderful the new technology of that age was - it mostly automated some chores so the wife could do others... Having running water let her do more sewing, having a sewing machine let her do more ironing etc. Quite right too... Agh! No! Stop that! Yeowch! Ok, ok, I was joking!!! Someone's child was screaming throughout most of it, there was applause when the ride staff eventually came out to suggest they should take it outside. I thought the ride was excellent, we hadn't realised how old it was and it was dismantled the following year and disappeared into the very history it had depicted.
Another ride shortly to disappear was the Wedway People Mover, a train without drivers, based on the magnetic field induction principle where the magnetic field creates electricity as the train passes over it which gives it enough boost to reach the next magnet in the track. [Edit: the ride had a reprieve, but underwent a name change and was still there when we visited again in 2016, some 23 years later.) As we travelled on this we saw the most glorious sunset over the park.
Then it was back to the castle for the firework display. Disney don't sell you short on this, there's a great display every night and afterwards the park closes and a huge mass of people leave all at once, laughing, singing, dancing and as entertaining as any of the park's formal parades. It had been a holiday like no other. We had never before been out of the UK and our holidays were normally spent mooching around the old or picturesque places in the south of England. It was an unforgettable two weeks that we have never yet repeated, but one that I still hope we will sooner or later. (See my spoiler above...)
Friday 9 July 1993. We have booked to go to a cabaret dinner this evening so decide to have a lazy day. We visit the Mercado shopping mall and have breakfast at a cafe with a huge signboard describing all the different ways they fry eggs. Apparently we like them easy over and a little bit more...
After breakfast we had a look round the shopping mall and bought a couple of CDs of music that we were getting used to on the car radio whilst in America. I bought one by a hillbilly-looking outfit called The Cactus Brothers and it turned out to be excellent and a real foot-stomper. Then after a humble milkshake which made us stare in disbelief at a pint each plus a huge jug as top-up, we made our way to Kissimmee Old Town for a look round.
There was an Elvis Presley museum at Kissimmee and that had certainly made Fran excited about visiting. I like a lot of his stuff, but think it slightly weird the way he has been almost deified to be honest. He was however one of the originals and it's only right he should be remembered with love and respect. So we went round the museum that had a couple of cars, a large collection of gold discs, his pinball machine and some memorabilia of army days etc.
There was a large memorabilia shop themed around Coca Cola. I bought several postcards showing older advertisements and we bought some of the old original crimp-topped bottles of coke which at the time had disappeared entirely from UK shops. The place was fascinating to walk round and it was quiet enough for me to fall into a conversation with the guy serving behind the counter.
Then an afternoon of relaxing at the hotel before we headed for our dinner and cabaret at Fort Liberty, the home of Wild Bill's Wild West Dinner Show. We were seated at tables for around eight people and at each table one person was chosen to dish out the vittels. It fell to Fran to play the server for our table!
We were each given a cowboy hat adding to the atmosphere. They were made of straw... so it took a little imagination and suspension of belief (or disbelief) for this to work, but we were all looking forward to the proceedings so we went along with it!
The show had lots of music and a lasso-twirling rootin', tootin', ropin' cowboy! As the dancing girlies did the can-can you could see from her bandaged ankle that she had done it before!
Then a Native American Chief in full dress did a war dance and chucked a few tomahawks and knives around to great applause. When he finished he came down to our table to talk to us after hearing our accents. He was from Liverpool...
As the night came to an end Fran was presented with an Ornery Discharge from her duties as table monitor!
Thursday 8 July 1993. We have decided to have a day at Disney's MGM Studios.
We arrived early and the park was just opening, but Chip and Dale were there to greet us and we were told which rides would open first. The only ride open when we got there was The Great Movie Ride, housed in a copy of Hollywood's Grauman Theatre. This was a really good ride with tableaux of classic movies interspersed with live action performances based around western and gangster themes and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The Star Wars Tour was a simulator ride - but what a simulator ride!!! The queueing are took us through a futuristic droid controlled environment where the droids actually talked to people going round, making jokes about their clothing etc.
We went in the Muppets "4D" Experience. It was 4D because not only was there a 3 dimensional film but halfway through, the Swedish Chef broke the projector and Sweetums came out into the audience, the lights came up, the two old guys heckled from their box and the Swedish chef opened fire with a cannon upon which huge lumps fell off the walls!
The main streets had the feeling of old Hollywood or New York with 1930s to 1950s themed buildings and some old cars parked here and there.
Tom and Jerry The Movie was about to be released onto the world as a totally predictable disaster. Ignoring all the wonderful cartoons that had been made in the 1940s, it gave the characters unrecogniseable voices and instead of them knocking seven bells out of each other, had them working together in a rescue mission. Proof - as if we didn't know - that people with money don't always have the brains to go with it.
On photographs the New York set looks perfectly plausible and unbelievably expensive to create. It is all painted on plywood!
Another picturesque corner at MGM Studios with old street furniture - a semaphore traffic light - and the old black and yellow taxicab parked up at the side of the road.
Min and Bill's Dockside Diner was housed in a somewhat cartoonish boat.
Tuesday 6 July 1993. We had had a relaxing day, visiting Disney's Island of Discovery and spent the afternoon in the hotel, playing cards and watching the day's thunderstorm send lightning down to hit the lamp post opposite our room...
Outside the hotel around 5:30, waiting to be picked up by a bus. We had booked to go to a bar-b-que for a meal that night and I'm not sure why we were amazed at being taken back to the same spot and the marquee that we had seen earlier - but we were... We were told that there would be a competition between all the buses going and that they were all named after a Disney character. To our amusement, we found ourselves on a Minnie Bus!
The barbie was served along the front of the marquee with all manner of meats, beans and afforded us probably our first taste of B-B-Q sauce (we were very conservative in our eating habits back then!) Seated at long trestle tables we got into conversations with people seated near to us and it was a good meal.
Then a cabaret - a comedian whose jokes were more to the American type of humour than to our own and then an excellent group. Whilst the group were playing, the room filled with Disney characters.
Once Mickey and Minnie had done the length of all the tables, signing autographs and posing for photos, they went to the space before the stage and danced together, leading to several thousands of feet of video tape whirring through cameras! Out of all of the couriers from the many buses, we saw Jonathan on the way in (remember him from the Silver Springs day?) and were amused that old Charlie who was on the Tigger bus asked his passengers to cheer for "Tiger!" Not a big Disney fan then Charlie...?
The food disappeared, but the drinks were free and plentiful. The band was good and the atmosphere was that of a party. At 11:00pm we were ushered onto the white beach and watched from a distance of a mile and a half, the firework display at the Magic Kingdom. On the horizon lightning was playing, adding to the display.
Then it was back to the buses, where my badge fell off. It was stuck back on unceremoniously... We had bought some sweets which looked exactly like Polo Mints right down to the hole and colouring of the wrapper. They tasted like dentists' mouthwash though and I gave an "Ugh!" of surprise and to my horror it shot out of my mouth and went rolling down the bus aisle!
Tuesday 6 July 1993. We were knackered after last night's scare about getting lost on the roads so we were late up and anyway had decided not to go into any of the big parks. Our Disney tickets included days at their smaller and less well known parks so we visited the Island of Discovery, a tropical island with a zoo.
The island was reached from another park called Fort Wilderness that was themed on the old American West. As we walked down to the beach of white sand to get the boat to the island we passed a huge marquee that was being made ready for a bar-b-que.
We deliberately missed the first boat out to the island in favour of having a drink - it was already very hot - and sitting here to take in the view over the lagoon.
Once actually on the island the heat increased seemingly ten-fold. Probably it was just the humidity as we were entering a jungle environment. The island had many timber walkways over swampy ground. Below we could see crocs and alligators, turtles and all around us were lots of vividly coloured birds. Parrots, parakeets and some gliding birds - paragliders...? One of which pooped on me... At one point a long snake slithered across our path just in front of us. I made sure that it wasn't going to get close enough to poop on me...
Even though there were plenty of drinking fountains about, the heat was getting to us and we were relieved to get back on the ferry to come back to Fort Wilderness.
We had a quick look around Fort Wilderness and peeked into the large marquee again. A stage was being set up so there was going to be some sort of entertainment with the barbie!
A must for Disney lovers, this is our account of a fortnight spent at the Walt Disney Florida Complex of resorts and parks with loads of photos, an excited 5-year-old, her Mum and Dad and us two crumbly Grandies along for the ride. Or several rides... oh... I can't go on that with my blood pressure...
Click each photo for the corresponding article.
