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.
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.
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.
