Day 36 & 37 - Orlando, Florida

Day 36 (31 July). We revisited Magic Kingdom today and it was great to ride the headline attractions again, but also to better poke around the areas that we had not seen before. We were now familiar with the layout of the park and able to maximize the use of the Fast Pass system. All attractions display the approximate wait time for the ride/show, but the really popular ones also have a Fast Pass system which allows you to get a ride ticket that you use in a future pre-determined time-frame. For instance, if it's 12.30pm and you go to Splash Mountain the normal 'standy-by' wait for a ride might be 60 minutes, but you could get a Fast Pass for between 3.55-4.55pm. You can elect to either stand-in line for an hour or get the Fast Pass, go off and do other things and then come back anytime between that pre-determined period and then go straight to the front of the line. It's up to you. You can't go and collect a range of Fast Passes for every big ride as there are time limits applied to how often you use the system, but it still works pretty well.

We rode Big Thunder Mountain Roller Coaster a few times (the family park favorite); Chloe overcame her fear of Splash Mountain (which was now considered tame after the Tower of Terror yesterday) and also looked at a whole bunch of minor attractions. It was another brilliant day and better than the first day we visited as we knew more.

Day 37 (1 August). We took the same second day approach to Disney Hollywood Studios which we really, really enjoyed. This is such an excellent park and it was great to get an understanding of movie-making and to enjoy their attractions. The movie sets and tours were really informative and the Lights, Motors and Action Extreme Car Stunt Show was great. The backlot tour was informative and we literally found ourselves in the middle of a canyon with an exploding oil tanker that was swamped by hundreds of thousands of litres of water - fabulous! The attention to detail to the small things was really noticeable and appreciated.

Last time we visited the Tower of Terror was the talking point, well this time the Rock'n'Roller Roller Coaster featuring Aerosmith took the cake - in a big way. Having been introduced to the 'ride background' by the rock band Aerosmith who invited 'us' to their concert on the other side of town we were soon strapped into the 'limo' which rocketed from 0-60 mph (100 kph) in about two seconds and the next 88 seconds were spent doing high speed loops, turns and twists with Aerosmith music pounding as we criss-crossed town to the concert venue. It was sensational - the best ride yet by far. Unbelievable.

So ends four days at Disney World and next stop is two days at Universal Studios with a focus on Harry Potter World. A large thunderstorm came through Orlando tonight and we hope it will keep crowds away tomorrow. The heat and humidity of the last few days has been a bit torturous, but we are pushing through.