Celebration

When we came to Florida 8 years ago without children we went to the town of Celebration, it's such a strange place we had to take the children to see it. Celebration was built in the early 90's by Disney to reflect what it sees as a perfect community and old style values.

The town centres around Market Street and the Lake, which has seats and benches to enjoy the view of the local wildlife. We saw lots of squirrels, birds, turtles and even a couple of Gators. 

The town it amazingly clean, and spooky in it's perfectness. The trees have speakers next to them to pump out soft jazz music as you walk through streets based around 1950s design. I must say I could easily get sucked into living in this beautiful place and can image working on the crochet sat in one of these rockers. If I win the lottery I think this may become my retirement village.

The best thing Celebration has is it's wide open spaces, and this fountain that the kids were desperate to run through. Around the lake is a lovely pathway with signs showing what wildlife you can spot

Lucas especially loved it here as he had more freedom and didn't have to hand hold the whole way round, he is a cheeky boy.

Half way round the lake we came upon a bike hire place which looked great , we passed loads of people riding around on bikes shouting goo Morning as they went(yep that type of place). Now the thought of organised 10 of us onto bikes  filled me with dread, I'm quite scared of hire bikes since a different holiday biking accident years ago but they had the answer it that called an Oxford bike.This was a 2 or 4 seater bike  with a seat at the front for kids, it cost $50 dollars for the hire of both for an hour, we were given a mapped out route taking you on a basic route around the town taking in the different house styles and play parks.
We had fun spotting all the Easter decorations on the houses, one had giant eggs in it's hedge.
I would really recommend doing this, it was so much fun and really relaxed. Well as long as your not trying to take the racing line round corners or let 4 year old navigate. We headed of for dinner in an all American style dinner in town and then hit a water park for the afternoon. This was probably the best Easter Sunday I've ever had and not even a chocolate egg in sight.

Before I go i'd like to show you these pictures my lovely husband took(above and below), he took his fancy pants camera to Florida, which to be honest I was sometimes cross with it, he had a rucksack with lens to carry round.and I had everything else to lug round. I felt like a packhorse by the end of the day, tired and in charge of everything for the kids I could have thrown the camera in the lake sometimes. I'm really glad I didn't, his pictures are wonderful, he has a great eye for detail and is amazing at capturing the natural smiles and fun of children as well as their off guard spirit. I hope someday he'll sell his work so others can enjoy it too.
Long may he continue as I see a wonderful future of beautiful images filling our walls and albums, our children will have some beautiful times to look back on.

Make sure to add Celebration to your Orlando holiday, it would be the perfect place to relax away from the parks for a morning, and remember that sometime children need to run wild.

Holiday Time- Pre holiday and Flight.

Well in fact my holiday time is over now(cue big unhappy face) but I'm going to write all about it away. My original plan was to blog while I was there, it was a big; in fact huge holiday

-2 weeks in Orlando, Florida with tickets for all Disney parks, various water parks,

 Discovery Cove and Seaworld . 

I was going to blog each day but the true be told I was so exhausted every night I didn't have the energy to open my laptop.

 The holiday was quite split up to take into account 4 tired children(and 6 knackered adults) so some parks we went to twice. I've tried to contain the posts so it's easier for people to get info from, I'm going to be posting about different days under one park heading. I may keep updating these posts as new photographs and information become available. Also my Sister In Law Claire has a blog here where she'll have posts too. If you're come to these blog posts for trip advice and hints I'll write TIP where any good (well I think it is) advice is rather than me just rambling.

Pre Holiday 

The planning part was the easy bit for us, as we were guests of Sue and Dave (Mother & Father In Law) so they'd planned the flights, hire car, villa and park tickets (oh yes, I really know we're lucky buggers). We go on a family holiday with them and my Sister in Law Claire her Husband Lee and their 2 children Ben & Josh every year and I've blogged most of them.

We got our passports sorted(how much?) and bought new luggage as the kids got to take cabin bags on. I quite enjoy packing and like the challenge of being below a certain weight, which should be easy in a villa with washing machine. 

There's a type of freedom thinking this is it, this is my sum life for 2 weeks. I'm more of a I'll figure it out when needed rather than bringing the kitchen sink type of girl.

I bought guide books these were the ones I like best, and read forums which just terrified me. 

Why does no one write positive reviews on these things? 

I was mostly worried about the scale of Disney Parks and the risk of losing my children in them. 

TIP: I bought small keyring sized tags from Wilkcos which we attached when we went to all major parks, they had our phone numbers wrote on them so if the children did get lost we could be quickly contacted. I also took photos of them as we left the house each morning so I knew what they were wearing and introduced them to cast members in the first park we got to so they knew what they looked like.

I also asked the children to shout mine or Daddy's real names if they became lost as the parks are full of kids shouting Mum and Dad, it's hard to hear the difference.

 The Flight

We flew with Virgin Atlantic  from Manchester to Gatwick, then Gatwick to Orlando International. I can't fault their service on the plane, the food was pleasant much better than expected, and they were very friendly to the children on board. Even having an Easter Bonnet competition where you had to make your bonnet from detritus left over from your journey so far.  

All four children fared well on the journey considering they'd been up since 4am, we'd packed DS(perfect for a plane journey) books and toys, as well as them getting a backpack with stuff to entertain and play with from the Virgin staff. All the seats had a TV in the back so they could watch films and play games on them too. However about 4hours in Lucas started to complain of a tummy ache and needing a poo, he went to the toilet a lot for no reason, meaning we were having to get up and out a queue over and over again. We thought we was just bored, took him for walks etc but by the time we were ready to land he was really fidgety. Just as the seatbelt sign went on and toilets locked he told me he'd had an accident, the stewardesses couldn't help as they had to be seated.

Then as the wheels touched down he threw up all over me. I'm telling you this for a reason, in this situation there's nothing you can do other than hug your child and ride it out, it's just one of those things which in years to come will seem a bit funny.When we stopped the stewardess came over to say she'd unlocked a toilet for us to clean up in and took away a blanket covered in sick still with a smile. I had spare clothes for the kids in their hand luggage and had packed in case our luggage went missing in my cabin bag as my Husband just had his camera bag as hand luggage. However it turned out I'd not packed any clothes for myself(silly silly) so I ended up having to enter American security checks covered in puke and looking very weary. Lucas once cleaned up announced he felt much better now, and when do we see Mickey?

TIP: Always keep baby wipes in your bag on holiday, be it throwing up kids, to cool a hot and sweaty brow in 32degree heat or for sticky lolly pop hands; you will use them.

TIP: Make sure each person has their own stuff in their carry on, then you know everyone is covered. I should have make my Husband take a cabin bag even if all it fitted in was his camera, spare shorts,t shirt and toothbrush. At least then I would have fit my own stuff in.

We had a few hiccups getting to our villa, and contacting people about it which Claire talks about here, 

and I'm sure some stern words will be passed onto travel agents in due course over it too.

TIP: If staying in a villa double check the address details are current, and Google street view so you know what it looks like. In America a business address can in fact be nothing more than a glass door with lockbox next door to an all you can Chinese buffet.

Which is hard to hard at 10.30pm after being awake 24 hours, in the dark in a strange country.

TIP: If you're driving hire an American SatNav or GPS system from Amazon. We would have been stuffed if we didn't have one.

And so to bed on our arrival day, a full day of travel, check ins, tiredness, excitement, stress, vomiting, getting lost, crying, jumping on the bed, cuppa tea, sleep. 

Was it worth the hassle to get there? Look at their faces, what do you think?

Longleat: Revenge of The Monkeys

Half term holidays over again, we loved Dorset so much last year we booked the same holiday house again to visit.  However this year the weather was against us again, but minus the snow and power cuts it worked out better than our other holiday this year.

Thankfully the holiday house had a swimming pool to drag (literally in my case) the children into when the weather was really bad.  

Also having been here before, we knew some places which were weather friendly. 

I love Longleat, you can use Tesco vouchers to get free passport tickets, and it has a great mixture of covered things to see and do for all ages. Although we did have some ticket issues they were quickly resolved, see Claire's post here for another take on this attraction.

This is my post from 2010 Day 1 and Day 2, quite a bit had changed since then. Much to Maisie disgust the teacups were no longer there, but everything else was and it's all been given a facelift to theme everything together in a Safari look. Previously the attractions all looked completely separate, I like that it all looks more cohesive now and can't wait to go back in a year or so when it's all completed.

I won't write everything again so feel free to look up my old posts. 

I loved seeing these guys really close up this time, you could almost here her purring over that bone.

Anne the Elephant came to give us a lovely welcome to, she doesn't always come outside as she's a little shy so this was a good treat. You can read her story here.

 So the last time we went the Monkey Enclosure was closed, but not this time. I will point out we have had our lovely car less than a month and although not brand new is still fairly shiny, the gates hanging with car parts were enough to put us off driving through. 

However Stu's Sister wanted to go with her kids as it was closed last time they came, and then Dave my Father-In-Law started to say how he wanted to see the kids looking excited at the monkeys close up. 

We were forced into it, we drove through...

This monkey owes me £8 which is the cost of a new antenna for my car, Maisie completely freaked out hearing the monkeys climbing on our roof; whereas Lucas was laughing like a loon. 

Ahh, however we were distracted from our car eating monkey by seeing, so close this lovely Mummy and her baby sitting on Claire's car in front.

As it then educated it's young in car chomping, beware the cute monkeys if you like your car. 

At this point it started to rain and there was no way we were putting the wipers on; we saw what they happened to other cars. 

We survived to go round the rest of the park though and had a great day.

What you been up to in the half term? 

Have you survived the monkeys?

Amanda.x.

Sea, sand and sickness

So for a few years now we've been taking holidays with family down south, however this year we went North instead and headed towards Northumberland.  It's not far to drive just over an hour and the beaches there are wonderful. We were staying in a grand and beautiful holiday house, they have to be quite big as it's for Sue & Dave(Mother/Father-in-Law) and their dog Fox, Claire and Lee(Sister/Brother-in-Law), their children Ben and Josh and their dog Bonnie and myself, Stu, Maisie and Lucas.

We were staying within a short drive/long walk with children from Cresswell beach, a shell finders haven, and after a week of beautiful weather I was hopeful it would continue throughout the week. 

Well how wrong was I, and the week had more in store than a bit of dodgy weather.

I'll leave the highlights for other posts but a quick run down of the week is 

Friday:
arrive to lovely house settle in, weather nice.

Saturday:
Alnwick Castle (Harry Potter day), weather nice, Barter Books, Ben get sickness bug.

Sunday:
Holy Island, pleasant weather, long walk, Lucas gets sickness bug.

Monday:
Cragside, beautiful weather and amazing place, long walks, great bridge, play the hat game :-)

Tuesday:
Farm park outing, it bloody snows, came home to 12 hour power cut, drink a lot by candle light.

Wednesday:
Claire gets sickness bug, Meal at Tree house at Alnwick, get call from solicitor to say house sale can complete, Stu and I have to drive home remove furniture from house and post keys into estate agents. Goodbye house. I start throwing up on way back, sickness bug gets me.

Thursday:
Sunny :-) Bamburgh Castle (amazing), picnic, surreal telephone call in Castle to sale house sale is completed. Onto the beach, everything is lovely. Maisie get sickness bug.

Friday:
Pack up, Stu complains of tummy aches :-( bug comes home with us.

All in all a strange and yet wonderful holiday, and in the next few posts I'll explain why.

Hope you had a great half term holiday

Amanda.x.