I should start my blog by saying everyone is OK. You’ll have to read on to learn more about exactly what I happened.

On our first day in Orlando, otherwise known as our travel day, nothing overly exciting happened. We couldn’t check into the Hilton Grand Vacation Club until at 4 PM. We first went to Disney Springs, which used to be some thing else, but it’s much larger than we remember it being. Mom needed to figure out her ticket situation. They couldn’t do it over the phone, so she needed to go to the guest relations, and they were very helpful. That being said, she has 14 tickets to the water parks, which aren’t necessarily on our list of things to do this week. She also has some park hopper tickets that she and my dad purchased years ago. But she got them straightened out which is pretty cool. Our next stop was Publix to find some food that I can eat and mom can snack. It was a rough stomach day for me. Still trying to figure out what’s going on with my system.

So day two, we decided to go to the Magic Kingdom to do the fun things we each remember doing. We decided to splurge on the preferred parking pass, which is ridiculously expensive. We didn’t learn until later that you don’t even get a tram ride to your car. Oddly enough, there is more walking with proffered parking vs. self Park, and no tram ride. Never again. We took the ferry over to the park, which I don’t remember doing before, but mom says we must have. It was actually a lovely fall day here. It’s in the 60s in the morning and the highs were in the 70s.

Our first stop was a train ride. We’re got on it right away when we entered the park, and took it to Frontier Land. We had a goal in mind, to go to the haunted mansion. The lines are only 35 minute long wait. As you heard me correctly, that was probably the shortest line of the day for key attractions. I don’t remember the long lines. But I don’t like them. The haunted mansion was a just as I remember it. You walk into a weird room and the pictures stretch as the room grows. When you proceed into an area where you have to climb onto moving individual chair thing. There’s a conveyor belt so you walk along it and then climb into your chair to experience the ride. Ginger, in her not so graceful fashion, had a few difficulties getting into the chair and ended up laying on the conveyor belt. Fortunately, they stopped the moving belt because it looked like it was dragging her. I continued sitting in my seat, unable to even know how to help her. Fortunately, the haunted mansion attendants came over and helped her up, insured she was not injured, and then Mom climbed in her seat with no problems. This was the excitement of the day – first ride Ginger down.

We had fun going to our favorite rides and shows such as the Hall of Presidents, Country Bear Jamboree, Monsters Laugh, People Mover, Carousel of Progress, Cinderella’s castle, Main Street. Unfortunately, the lines were too long at the Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, It’s a Small World and Buzz Light Year – over an hour. Ginger wasn’t interested in either doing Tron or Space Mountain.

We considered going back this evening to see if we could see our favorite rides that were too long, but unfortunately, when we last checked, it was still over an hour wait. A day full of walking led to sore bodies, so chilling and watching the Phillies game tonight that’s all we can handle.

Tomorrow we’re going to Tampa to spend some time with John. We’re thinking about going to Hollywood Studios on Wednesday and visiting friends Al and Janet on Thursday.