Florida - Day 7-9 - Disney World

On day 7 we went to Florida's outlet malls, which was great and I spent far too much money! I did buy my parents, brother, and boyfriend some birthday presents though.

On day 8 we got up early and headed to Disney World. My friend had surprised me by booking a Disney hotel for the night, as we had a 2-day ticket!

We were in the Toy Story hotel at the All Star Movies resort, it was awesome outside, with huuuuuuuge versions of the toys! We checked in early, and couldn't go to our room as it wasn't ready. Luckily they have a baggage check-in service, and so we checked our bags in and headed for Animal Kingdom.

We got Magic Bands included in the price of our hotel room at Disney, which act as your hotel key, park tickets and fast passes! They were super handy, as they're just worn on your wrist and get scanned whenever you need to use them. In Magic Kingdom, we went on the Kali River Rapids (and thankfully didn't get as soaked as the rapids in Universal!), Expedition Everest, Dinosaur and went to watch the Festival of The Lion King show, which was awesome! We also ate dinner at Yak & Yeti, where you can choose to eat inside or outside. We wanted to eat inside, to escape the heat, but it was $10 extra to do so! The food was quite good, we had honey chicken, and sweet and sour chicken, with egg fried rice. It was slightly odd to be eating hot food, outside in the heat, though! 

After Magic Kingdom, we headed to Epcot. We walked the whole way around Epcot, and went in many many shops, and sat down for about 40mins in the shade with a slushy! We were almost melting, and couldn't face walking around or actually doing anything. Once we'd made our way out, we went to see if our room was ready, as we hadn't received a text like we should have, to tell us that it was ready for us. It turned out that the lady that checked us in, just didn't write our number down even though we read it out to her..! We finally got to our room, and had a well deserved rest. Then we went to Downtown Disney to have a look around, and decided we'd go to Crossroads, which is a mall and lots of restaurants. We'd been recommended it as it was only a 'short walk' from Downtown Disney. I don't know about you, but I don't call a 1.5mile walk a 'short' one, especially when you've walked around two Disney parks during the day! 

The walk turned out to be pretty worth it, we went to Uno Pizzaria & Grill, and seeing as they're well known for their pizzas, we had pizza. I had the Prosciutto Arugula Artisan pizza, which was amaaaaazing. Our waiter was lovely and very attentive too, and they had tablet-type-things on the table that you could play games on, order food and drink on, and pay your bill on. We were easily impressed by this, and even more impressed when it printed our receipt too! My friends parents picked us up after the meal, as we were too tired to walk back!  

The next day, we had a bit of a lie in, and headed to Disney's Hollywood Studios, I think this was probably my favourite park. I love all the 'behind the scenes' things to films, we went on the Studio Backlot Tour, and then went to 'Where Disney Characters Come From' at the Magic of Disney Animation. We had a look around the galleries after, which were awesome and we wanted to buy all of the framed prints from the shop. We decided to find the Animation Station, where you take a drawing class and learn how to draw a Disney character.. We thought we'd found it, and went into a room, where Minnie Mouse happened to be, oops, wrong room! But we felt obliged to have a photograph taken, we didn't want to upset Minnie! The photo was absolutely awful, we both look extremely exhausted, and so it's been swiftly deleted from existence! 

We did find the Animation Station, eventually! I was pretty relieved that my drawing wasn't absolutely terrible!

Once we'd walked around Hollywood Studios for a long time (we didn't go on any rides there, we didn't fancy the long queues in the heat!) We headed over to Magic Kingdom (after a 40min wait in the baking heat for the bus, grrrrr). We had a fast-pass for Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, because why the hell not. It was actually really good fun, you shoot all the batteries to defeat Zurg, and you have control of your chairs, so you can spin them around, which we did a liiiiittle bit too much! 

We also went on Stitch's Great Escape, which was pretty rubbish, and despite being told it was rubbish by many people, we still went on it! We also went on Big Thunder Mountain, as we had a fast-pass for that too. There was a man sat in front of us on the ride, filming it with his phone, and he kept turning around and filming us and laughing his head off. It was pretty amusing and weird all at the same time!

We wondered around the shops once we'd used our fast-passes, and then sat down for an ice cream (birthday cake flavour, and cookies and cream flavour, with caramel and cream!)

Considering we weren't going to bother going to Disney, I'm super glad we did. It's a magical place, and even though we were way too hot, and didn't go on many rides, we still really enjoyed it. I'll be back there one day! 

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Florida - Day 7 - Busch Gardens

We got up early to head to IHOP for breakfast, again, (yummy as always) before heading to Busch Gardens for the day! 

We managed to catch a couple of animals being fed before heading to the Serengeti Safari that we'd booked. The safari takes people out in quite small groups, on the back of a car, with a guide and a photographer. We were driven around all the different animals that they keep at the park, and told all about them. Our guide was really funny and very informative, which was great as you can sometimes get those guides that are super boring to listen to, and she wasn't at all!

We also stopped for a while to feed a giraffe! I've fed giraffes before at South Lakes Wild Animal Park, but it was great to do it again, especially being even closer. We were handed food to feed to her, and took it in turns to have photographs taken too. 

Unfortunately, yet another storm came along and cut our day short. We were rushed off at the end of our safari because of it, and the park closed all the rides! We wondered around and looked at the animals for a while, but there was soon nothing else left to do and so we went back to the villa! 

That evening we went to Golden Corral buffet, which was pretty rubbish if I'm being honest! There was quite a lot to choose from, but it just didn't taste very good. I tried some of their 'famous' fried chicken, which tasted of pure grease, I managed one bite and couldn't go near it again. I ended up eating salad more than anything. We wanted ice cream for dessert too, but the machine had broken and the staff weren't listening to a man that was telling them the machine was broken, which was a bit annoying. I did manage to get some ice cream from somewhere else in the restaurant though, so it wasn't too bad. They did have cotton candy, which we obviously had to have, and that was probably the highlight of the whole meal! 

Florida - Day 6 - Clearwater, Tampa

We drove to Clearwater early in the morning, and stopped off for a McDonalds breakfast, I was gutted that they didn't do bacon butties :( and so I opted for pancakes, and of course a hash brown.

We went on a 'Sea Screamer' to do a bit of dolphin spotting! We also stopped to see some homes of the rich and famous in Clearwater, which was pretty interesting. The guide told us about what's in some of the houses, like secret tunnels to the sea, countless bedrooms etc. We also saw a shark (boat..). 

We spotted a few dolphins after being out to sea for only a few minutes, and later on we managed to get them jumping in the waves behind us, which was awesome to watch!

Once we'd checked into our hotel for the night, we headed out for pizza. Trip Advisor told us that a little place called Post Corner Pizza did amazing pizza, so we decided to try there. Admittedly, at first, the service wasn't too good. As we ordered drinks and they didn't arrive for about 15mins, although everyone else seemed to be being served. It turned out that our waitress was stuck with a huge table at the other end of the restaurant! After that mishap, everything else was fine. I ordered a buffalo chicken pizza, which was amazing. I couldn't eat the whole thing, and took half of it back to the hotel for later!

Everywhere in Tampa advertised how great the view from their restaurant/bar was for the sunset, and so we decided that we should probably watch it. I also finally decided that I should use my DSLR, seeing as I'd taken it and not used it once. I managed to get some pretty decent photographs, although it was hard not to with it being such an amazing view.

Once the sun had set, we decided to opt for an early night, and of course eat pizza in bed. Unfortunately, I barely slept, as I had this view from my bed. As lovely as the view was, it kept me a wake because it was so bright! 

Florida - Day 5 - Food and Shopping

We headed to Mall of Millennia on day 5, and of course, straight for the food court. I had honey chicken, with egg fried rice, and an egg roll, and it was delicious!

I bought more clothes. The tops are from H&M and Walmart, and the shorts from Forever 21, and some Gilly Hicks underwear (it was on offer for $10 for bras and $3 for knickers!).

After the mall, we went to Bubbalou's Bodacious Barbecue, which is an awesome little place. I don't think it's so well known by tourists, which was quite nice as you usually bump into British people everywhere! I ordered the pulled chicken sandwich, which was sooooo good! 

Easy Recipe - Hummus & Flatbread

Hummus and flatbread is easily one of my favourite snacks, and it's not too unhealthy when it's shop bought either! But I'd never made hummus from scratch before, despite being told a million times that it's easy and I should try it.. So I finally did, and it really is super simple, and much tastier than store-bought hummus.

Let's start with the hummus!..

All you need is..

• Chickpeas (feel free to de-shell the chickpeas for a smoother hummus)
• 1-2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• Half or one clove of garlic (chopped or crushed)
• 1-2 tbsp salt
• 4-5 tbsp water

I've given really unspecific measurements for the ingredients, but it's all down to how you want it to taste, or how you prefer the texture. I added everything bit by bit until I was happy. Depending on how much you like garlic, be careful about how much you add, I added a whole clove and it is VERY garlicky!

1. Add the chickpeas, salt, garlic, some lemon juice, some olive oil and water into a food processor.
2. Mix until it begins to form a paste, if it's too thick or if it's not smooth at all, simply add more water and olive oil. Be sure to taste it occasionally and add more lemon juice, salt or even pepper to your taste.
3. Carry on adding your ingredients between mixing until you reach a consistency that you prefer.

And now for the flatbread..

All you need is..

• 100g plain flour
• 125g natural yoghurt
• Salt and pepper
• Water (if needed)
• Olive oil (for the frying pan)

This flatbread recipe is the simplest recipe there is! 

1. Mix the flour and yoghurt with salt and pepper to your taste. Add more yoghurt or water (if you've run out of yoghurt) if there is too much flour in your bowl. 
2. Separate into two balls, and roll them both out into a circular shape, make sure you dust flour onto your surface.
3. Add a tbsp of olive oil to a frying pan, and warm the flatbreads through. You'll know they're ready as they'll begin to change colour and simply look like flatbread! 

And you're all done, these two recipes are SO simple, and it only takes about 30-45mins to make everything. The recipe makes plenty of hummus and two flatbreads, so it'll last for more than one serving (unless you just can't stop eating because it's so yummy!). You could also eat your hummus with carrots or peppers, it goes well with so many different things, enjoy!

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