Main Street Trolley Show - Magic Kingdom Photoblog

I love the smaller scale entertainment you find at Disney World.  One piece I really enjoyed was the Main Street Trolley Show.

"Watch these citizens pour out of the trolley to dance and sing as they welcome you to the most magical place on earth!" 

The show lasts about twenty minutes and is currently on at 9.15am, 10.10am and 12.00pm.

Lots of energy and wholesomeness! 

Definitely one not to miss.

Travelling with a child with allergies to America with Virgin Atlantic

We hope that this blog post will be useful to people as we share our experience of travelling to Orlando with a child with nut allergies.

When we first started planning the trip last year we were surprised about the lack of information regarding taking medicine including an Epi-pen on a flight.  Judging by the number of post on Netmums this is clearly an important issue.

Our child is allergic to both walnuts and pecans and avoids eating them and coming in contact with them.  Following a bad allergic reaction requiring hospital treatment when he was younger he carries a bottle of Piriton (antihistamine) and an Epi-pen with him.

The main questions we needed help with were:

• Will there be any issues taking Piriton (a liquid) and an Epi-pen on a flight?
• What documentation should we take with us?
• What information should we tell the airline?
• Will this affect our travel insurance?

This is what we found out and a summary of our experiences.  We would definitely recommend your own research before you travel.

Will there be any issues taking Piriton (a liquid) and an Epi-pen on a flight?

Before we travelled we requested a new prescription for the Piriton as his old bottle had expired.  Conscious of the 100ml rule we didn't want to take the standard 150ml bottle on the flight.  Our local pharmacy were more than accommodating in splitting the bottle into two 75ml batches in smaller 100ml bottles.  Both were clearly labelled with all the relevant information.  We also requested a second prescription to take with us incase we had to buy more.  We put both bottles into small zip-lock sandwich bags and both myself and my wife took one bag each in our hand luggage.  We also put the epi-pen along with a duplicate prescription in a zip-lock bag and had in our hand luggage. 

What documentation should we take with us?

In addition to the duplicate prescriptions we obtained a letter from our GP outlining the medical condition our son has and the required medication.  We had to pay £25 for this.  We took photocopies of all our prescriptions and made sure that we both had copies in our hand luggage.

What information should we tell the airline?

Approximately two months before we travelled we emailed Virgin special assistance at special_assistance@fly.virgin.com where we outlined our son's issues.  We had a very nice reply back.  They double checked that we had requested a nut friendly meal for both the outward and return flight.

Will this affect our travel insurance?

We took out travel insurance with Tesco travel insurance and this did not complicate or change the premium for us.  We were asked the standard questions of which we were able to say "No" to everything.  At the end of the questions we explained about our son's allergy and because it did not answer "yes" at any point it was not considered an issue.  We definitely think you should mention any issues like this even if it is not flagged up by the questionnaire. A simple visit to the ER for a child could easily cost more than $2000.

Our experience of the flight

Outward travel through Gatwick was simple and we experienced no delays at security.  With the liquids being in 100ml bottles and the Epi-pen clearly visible we were not stopped or even questioned about it.  The Virgin crew came and checked which child was having the nut friendly meal and these were served separately.  The staff were very careful about checking with us at every food serving.  The only downside to the nut friendly meal was not being able to have the children's meal.

Coming back from America

We had no problems at all coming back through the TSA security checks at Orlando airport. The TSA agents didn't ask us for any documentation and were very happy for us to carry through the medicines in our hand luggage.

Final thoughts

We were pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to take our son into America even with his Epi-Pen and his medication.  I do think the key to this is preplanning and having everything you need with you.

Check list

• Eli-Pen packed in hand luggage in a zip-lock bag
• Liquid medicine in bottles less than 100ml
• Spare prescription and photocopy 
• Doctor's letter
• Email airline

This is based on our experience and research.  It is always worth discussing this with your own doctor.

An extra bit of Disney Magic happened at Animal Kingdom

I am a firm believer in the old saying of treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.  We made a real point of always saying "Please" and "Thank you" whilst we were in the parks.  It was obvious from a number of cast members reactions that this is not always the way that guests treat cast members.

Whilst we were at Animal Kingdom we caught the end of the end of the "Flights of Wonder" bird show in Asia.  Being an avid photographer I put my camera into high speed shutter mode and took lots of photos of the birds in flight.

As we were leaving the show I simply said "thanks" to the cast member and told them how much we had enjoyed the show and how I was pleased with the photos I had taken.

The cast member then told us to wait behind if we had a couple of minutes to spare.  It turned out that they were about to do some training with one of the younger birds and needed a family to simulate a small audience.  We were then treated to a small private training session for about five minutes.  It was really good to see how the training was carried out, but also to feel special that we were able to see it privately. 

You never know when an extra special moment of Disney Magic is going to happen, and we certainly didn't set out aiming for this to happen!

I do feel that cast members do appreciate good manners in the park and especially when guests say thank you after a ride or an experience.  

Have you had a moment where you have experienced an extra special bit of Disney magic? 

Jurassic Park River Adventure at Islands of Adventure POV

One of my favourite rides at Islands of Adventure has to be the Jurassic Park River Adventure.

There is a great amount of theming which anyone who either loves the original films or Jurassic World will appreciate.


I had an interesting experience on this ride, despite walking past several cast members and being safety checked before the ride started we were told-off for wearing the GoPro towards the end of the ride.  If you listen carefully you will hear an announcement telling me to take off my GoPro or the ride will stop!

Did you know? When the ride was first opened the 85 foot drop was one of the largest in the world for a water ride.

Frozen Royal Welcome Parade Disney's Hollywood Studios

We really enjoyed the Frozen Summer of Fun events at Disney's Hollywood Studio this summer.  A really good part of the day is the Frozen Royal Welcome Parade.

Anna and Elsa make a lovely guest appearance as they arrive at the Sorcerer's Hat stage.  There is some lovely winter themed performances during the parade.  This is definitely one not to miss.

Clyde and Seamore's Sea Lion High show at SeaWorld Orlando

We recently saw the hilarious new Sea Lion show at SeaWorld Orlando.  Clyde and Seamore's Sea Lion High show is a really entertaining High-school based comedy featuring some really cute Sea Lions, Walruses and otters.

The cheeky duo have a couple of classes left to complete before they can get into Ocean University.

Before the show starts there is a really lovely pre-show appreciation for teachers which (being one) I found really nice!

This is a great show and would thoroughly recommend it.

Florida Rain - August 2015

According to the Orlando Sentinel nearly 16 inches of rain fell in Orlando during August 2015. 

As we were gearing up for our vacation we were watching the news coming out of Orlando that July had already been a very wet month with lots of flooding in different areas.

Looking back over our 17 days in Orlando, it did rain nearly every day.  Much of the rain was the normal afternoon thunderstorm which dries us quickly.  As we got toward the end of the holiday the weather definitely turned very wet and I had a couple of driving experiences which were scary!

I was definitely not prepared for how quickly and how heavily the rain can fall and cause localised flooding whilst in Orlando. There were a couple of occasions when we decided to stay in the parks for "one last ride" which meant rather than leaving before the rain came we found ourselves leaving during a very heavy storm.

We did get wet, on a couple of days we got vey very wet.  

We did have some quite scary driving experiences and saw at least two accidents caused by people driving too quickly in the rain.

Did it spoil our vacation? No!

We did seem to see quite a few people leave the parks as soon as the first drop of rain fell.  We know that we got it wrong twice and probably should have left, but on most occasions we got it right!