We’ve had a few days pootling around this week because the weather took a cooler turn due to a snow storm further north pushing a cold wind down here. Not exactly cold…. about 18C but not exactly sunbathing weather either.

On Sunday we had breakfast at Bob Evans with Steven and Pamela. It was ok. Not as good as Dennys. Then we had an explore around the resort area of Disney. We parked up in the carpark for the Swan and Dolphin hotel and got the Fantasia golf to validate our ticket so that the parking was free.

Then we walked through the hotels admiring the grounds to the boatdock and got a Friend Ship (Disney’s free boat transportation) over to Hollywood Studios. I went in to Guest Relations and got them to check some old tickets we had. Luckily they found we still had 1 park hopper day ticket and 8 water park passes. That’ll be useful and we may have a park day after all.

From HS we took the latest Disney trandsportation system – the Sky Liner – a modern cable car as far as the Caribbean Beach resort – what a great system!!! Lovely views over the park and resort area. It really brings home how huge Walt Disney World is – 48 square miles – and with lots of areas of wilderness built in to create wildlife refuges. We explored around for a few hours and then went home. Steven and Pamela came back for dinner and another convivial evening.

On Monday, it was definitely chilly although or perhaps because, the sky was blue and clear. Stuart and Fi went exploring for the day with Steven and Pamela and after lunch Bob and I drove to Melbourne to visit Harriet. Buddy and Fran, Harriet, Bob and I had lunch in the nursing home restaurant. It was excellent. We chose taco salads with shrimp. They were mega and you could eat the taco “bowl”. We played rumicube with Harriet.

Yesterday, we had a quiet morning and then Stuart and Bob played golf at the Marriott course here, and Fi and I went to one of the two huge outlet malls and did some shopping. We had a great afternoon visiting the shops and bought some early presents for family events this year. Fantastic savings in some stores. We’ll go to the other mall before we leave.

last night we went out for dinner to the Outback Steakhouse. We all wanted Prime Rib and they offer that every night. Bob and I have a passion for it. The wonderful slabs of buttersoft meat were served with mash, jus and a salad. Just delicious. I’m afraid we fell on the plates before I could get a photo.

Today the sun was back so we spent the day at the pool, basking. Tonight we ate in – meatballs with pasta made from pea flour. Tomorrow we are out and about again, visiting springs for kayaking and then having dinner with Fran and co in Tampa.