The anti-Disney day. Mr. Kelly McGuire happened to be in Florida with a broken plane, so he had the day off and drove up to Orlando to visit. We all went to Gatorland in the morning and saw some great shows. Max was called on stage and held a huge python with a couple of other people. He was described by the presenter as ‘the kid with the high socks’. Lucy and Roly also held the python for a picture. Nate was pulled from the audience to pick out the ‘gator that would be wrestled for the Gator wrasslin’ show. Squirt was about 8 feet long and the wrassler said that he was one of the largest in the pit. Also, Nate got to pose on the back of Squirt for a photo op. Ga

After lunch we went out to Wild Willy’s Airboat Tours for a ride in a flat-bottomed airboat. We 9 were in our own airboat and the Captain did a great job showing us some of the nature of central Florida. Roly had a hard time finding the alligators in the water. At one point he was very frustrated and said “I only see rocks”. A few seconds later he exclaimed, “Hey, that rock is moving!” After that, he seemed to do OK with gator spotting. We also saw a bald eagle perched high in a tree.

For all of our transportation, we had been utilizing Lyft and Uber. With 8 people in our group, we always needed two vehicles, but they were never more than 10 minutes apart. Kelly had rented a car for his drive and so the Bernards rode with him during the day. The Theules used Lyft to get to Wild Willy’s, but didn’t discover that Wild Willy’s was outside of the Uber/Lyft pick up area until we were ready to head back. We all 8 passengers piled into Kelly’s Nissan Altima sedan for a ride back into the ‘pickup zone’. Kelly dropped us at the very edge of the zone and then left to catch his flight. It was quite an adventure and everything worked out. It was funny to be on the corner of a highway with a stroller and a bunch of kids, waiting for 2 different cars to pick us up.

We spent today at the Disney Animal Kingdom. We saw a ton of animals (it is part zoo, after all) and rode the Safari Train. The Lion King show was an easy one for me to fall asleep in, it was so dark. Expedition Everest was a highlight ride, and Roly enjoyed beating me at Whack-a-Mole.

Toby is a bit bummed. The weather forecast has various days of rain next week while we are at the Disney parks. My experience, and what residents have told me, is that the weather changes daily in Orlando, so I’m not going to spend any time looking at weather forecasts farther out than the prediction for the next day. We got out of the AirBnB condo in a weird way. Toby contacted the owner to ask for late checkout (11a rather than 10a) and she said it would be OK and that she would talk to the management company. At 10:10a, the management company rep knocked on the door. Toby explained the situation, and the lady said she would come back at 10:30a, so it was a rush. When we started taking the luggage to the car, the lady and the cleaning crew were waiting in the hallway. It was a bit awkward.

We went to Disney Springs, which is like Universal City Walk and had a great lunch at Raglan Road Irish Pub. They had Irish dancing and music during our lunch and we had a great table. There was a little girl on vacation who got up on stage and did a couple of numbers with the musicians. She wasn’t wearing her dancing clogs, but it was impressive nonetheless. At 4p, I got the family situated in the rooms at the Vacation Village at Parkway Resort. We have a 2 bedroom unit and the Jan Bernards family has a 1 bedroom unit across the hall. The units could use a refresh, but have a lot of space for my brood.

I had to return the rental car that I had while working, so I met the Bernards at the airport and rode home with them in an Uber. Orlando does not let Uber pick up at the airport without paying a protective tariff. So we hopped on a local hotel shuttle and called the Uber from there. Being Saturday night, it took longer than normal for the car to get to us, and the hotel shuttle was returning from its trip to the airport when the Uber arrived. We got a fairly stern glare from the shuttle driver as we pulled away.

Clear day today. I spent time at the Salem Xulon Press offices and at the offices of the MyRadar app. Matthew Hintzen and I had lunch and caught up. Toby and the kids avoided the Disney properties (her research has led her to believe that Friday’s are very crowded). Instead, they went to WonderWorks, “An Indoor Amusement Park”. We came back together for dinner in the evening and prepared to move accommodations to our timeshare in Orlando.

It rained most of the day today. I spent the day at the Salem Orlando offices. Toby and the kids used the first of their 5-day tickets to visit the Magic Kingdom. They all slept late and headed to the park around noon. They had brunch at the Disney Contemporary Resort and then rode the monorail into the park. They were not daunted by the rain. The park was not very full and they got to ride/see/do everything that they were interested in. I picked them up when the park closed at 9p.