Last Thursday we headed out for an airboat ride through the Upper Everglades, followed by a visit to the Kennedy Space Centre. We were picked up by a tour bus around 8:30am and arrived at the Airboats around 9am. Having never been on one of these boats before, neither of us were sure exactly what to expect. And neither of us thought it would be sooooooo loud!! Although the tour company provided ear muffs, they were about as good as a pair of cheap (very cheap) noise-cancelling headphones (ie. useless!). Nonetheless, the experience itself was quite fun and a nice change from the theme parks. We did manage to see quite a few "gators" (although my camera, which was stored against a cold bottle of water had some "fogging" issues with the lens once it came out into the humidity, hence the photos are not crash, and the majority were taken on my iPhone), and despite the ringing in our ears for the next 24 hours, we both thoroughly enjoyed the Airboat experience.
Next stop was the Kennedy Space Centre - being a bit of an Apollo fan, I think it's fair to say this stop was more about me than it was Karlee :) We arrived around 10:30am and headed straight down the back to the Shuttle Launch Experience. I was quite excited to do this and given it was a NASA simulation, figured it would be somewhat of an adrenalin rush. 5 minutes later, however, and we were both bitterly disappointed, in what really turned out to be a very bumpy, seemingly unrealistic simulation of a shuttle launch. We then proceeded to the IMAX Theatres where we watched two films: the first about the Hubble Telescope, and the second about the International Space Station. Both were in 3D and very interesting, although more importantly, provided a reprieve from the scorching sun for nearly 2 hours! We then took the time to walk through some of the exhibits, before boarding the bus for the tour to the Apollo/Saturn V Centre - a tribute to the success of the astronauts that were involved in the Apollo program and the huge rockets that got them there.
On Friday, we took an early taxi over to our final hotel in the DisneyWorld Resort Area. We are staying at the Hilton Bonnet Creek Resort, which is all of about a 10 minute bus ride from Downtown Disney, and all relatively, easily accessible from the hotel via its complimentary shuttle service. Now for those of you that haven't been to DisneyWorld before, it is comprised of 4 individual theme parks (Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot & Disney's Hollywood Studios) + 2 water parks (Blizzard Beach & Typhoon Lagoon) + Downtown Disney (which is a very large shopping, entertainment and restaurant area at the edge of Lake Buena Vista). Seeing as though we arrived well before the check-in time of 4pm, we left our bags with the Bellmen and headed off to Animal Kingdom for the day. As the name suggests, this particular theme park is dedicated to the animals, with many exotic creatures on show. Our first stop was "Festival of The Lion King" - a stage show with the characters from The Lion King dancing and singing the well-known songs, followed by "Flights of Wonder", a 20 minute show involving lots of our feathered friends (including a brief appearance of a galah!!). We then headed off on the Kilimanjaro Safari, where we saw a glimpse of a wide variety of African animals in their natural habitats. Other attractions we experienced at Animal Kingdom was DINOSAUR, Expedition Everest, Kali River Rapids and Finding Nemo: The Musical. After a very busy day, we headed to Downtown Disney for dinner at Planet Hollywood.
On Saturday, we continued our Disney adventure to Magic Kingdom, which on its own, bore a very similar resemblance to Disney Land in California. We started off in TomorrowLand where we rode Space Mountain, visited the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor and took on the evil Zurg in Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. We then moved on to FantasyLand, where we took a trip through Belle's Cottage in an interactive adventure to meet Belle, Lumiere and the many other characters from Beauty & The Beast, journeyed 'under the sea' where Ariel lived and took flight over London to Never Land aboard Peter Pan's Flight. We also went on the 'it's a small world' ride, which thankfully was not as long as Disney Land and meant the rather repetitive song did not get entrenched in our heads for days on end, and took a walk through the Haunted Mansion.
After lunch we moved through to FrontierLand, where we rode Splash Mountain, which resulted in a rather serious drenching - but more so from the sudden weather change, than the ride itself. With the ever-consistent afternoon Orlando thunderstorm settling in, we started heading for the exit, only to make a detour to the Pirates of the Caribbean on our way out.
Sunday saw us sleep in a little after two big days in a row, before heading off to Epcot. We had high hopes for Epcot (based on what millions of other people had said on websites etc) and expected to be pushed to do everything in 1 day. However it soon became apparent that Epcot (well, for us anyway) was not it was all talked up to be. The most popular attraction at Epcot is the Chevrolet Test Track, however due to technical issues, it was on & off all day and was eventually shut down around midday. This meant that all the crowds typically lining up to for it, were dispersed elsewhere throughout the park. We went and saw the Captain EO show, which featured Michael Jackson and was truly terrible, followed by a Journey into Imagination with Figment, which was equally as bad. We then went for a bit of a walk around the World Showcase, visiting the United Kingdom, France (where we met Belle) and Morocco (where we met Aladdin and Jasmine) pavilions. It was such a hot day that there was no way we were going to attempt walking around the other 9 pavilions, so we headed back to Mission:Space, a NASA-style training and launch shuttle simulator - this was by far the best ride at the Epcot (and much better than the supposedly NASA-created simulator at the Kennedy Space Centre). In this ride, we actually experienced G-Forces (and maybe a little bit of motion sickness....). To end the day, we went Soarin' over California and visited The Seas with Nemo & Friends. Needless to say that by the end of the day, we were more than a little disappointed with Epcot (and we may have given it a new name.....along the lines of Dodge-cot).
By Monday, we were exhausted!! So we decided to make the most of another scorching hot day and head to Florida Mall for a bit of retail therapy (and more importantly, AIR CONDITIONING!!). 6 hours and a substantial sum of cash later, we headed back to the hotel for a lazy afternoon by the pool, sipping cocktails and drinking beer.......ok so drinking Coke and Diet Coke, but the alcohol version sounded better......
Tuesday was another hot day, but with a few more clouds in the sky to keep the sun at bay occasionally, we headed off to Disney's Hollywood Studios. This particular theme park is more about the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and movie productions, and out of the 4 theme parks, came out second best. Here we watched Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage, the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular and the Lights, Camera, Action Extreme Stunt Show. Compared to previous stunt shows we have seen, Karlee & I both agree that it was not quite what we expected - both shows were more a "behind the scenes" look at how certain stunts are done and then reenacted for the crowd, which takes away from it all because there is a lack of momentum and excitement for the stunts when you know what is going to happen and how. I guess we are both used to the show at Movie World where it is a continuous show, that does not stop and start and simply shows off stunts and high-powered KA-BANGS! There were three great rides at Hollywood Studios - The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Rock 'n Roller Coaster and Toy Story Midway Mania. The queues for all these rides were ridiculous, consistently exceeding 100 minutes. Needless to say we utilised Disney's FastPass system for these which is essentially a reservation system for the most popular rides in each park. The best part is that unlike Universal Studios and Wet 'n Wild, Disney's is completely free. To use Disney's FastPass, you simply put your park ticket into a special machine at the entrance to the ride and it spits back out a ticket telling you what time (a 1 hour window) to come back and skip the queues. In order to stop everyone just getting FastPass tickets continuously, you cannot get your next FastPass ticket from anywhere else in Disney World for another 2 hours. In addition, there are only a limited number of FastPass tickets available for each attraction each day so as more people obtain a FastPass ticket, the 1 hour window pushes further and further out towards the end of the day until there are no more tickets available. It may sound like a rather odd and complicated system, but once you use it, you can work wait times to your advantage. In a nutshell, the first thing we did upon entering any of the parks was obtain a FastPass to the most popular attraction and then we would spend the next 2 hours seeing shows, meeting characters, getting lunch and going on the rides that had short(er) queues. As soon as the 2 hours was up, we would then get our second FastPass ticket to the second most popular ride, and whilst waiting the next 2 hours, we would usually be able to utilise the first FastPass ticket, however without waiting in any queue at all. If you continue this process until the end of the day, it usually means you only end up waiting 30-45 minutes maximum on some of the smaller, less popular rides, but 0-10 minutes for the insanely popular rides - works a treat!!
Anyway The Tower of Terror surprised both Karlee & myself as it was actually a little different from the one in DisneyLand so needless to say, it provided a refreshing sense of excitement of the unknown. Toy Story Midway Mania is another fun one. Basically you go around a track in a little car wearing 3D glasses and use a funny looking "gun" to shoot at targets on video screens to get points. It might sound quite cheesy and something for 3/4 year olds, but it was a hell of a lot of fun! Some of the other rides we went on here was the Great Movie Ride & Star Tours: The Adventure Continues. We were intending to hang around for Fantasmic! however the Orlando thunderstorms set in around 7pm and there were already people lining up for the first show at 9pm - after a long day in the sun, neither of us had the patience to battle any more crowds, let alone waiting around for another 2 hours!
Wednesday we had another sleep in before heading over to Blizzard Beach, one of the 2 Disney water parks. We arrived about midday and left about 3pm - that is how small this park is!! For those of you that know Wet 'n Wild on the Gold Coast - think a quarter of the size, but triple the number of people!!! There were the usual tube rides, an outstanding "lazy river" called Cross Country Creek that went the whole way around the park (actually handy to utilise as a mode of transport between the few rides they had) and a family-friendly whitewater raft ride called Teamboat Springs, which was by the far the longest water ride I think i've ever been on before. The main attraction here is Summit Plummit, a near vertical drop that sends you plummeting towards the bottom at speeds of up to 90km/h. However given this is the one and only "thrill ride" at the park, the wait time was well over 60 minutes and my feet wouldn't have survived standing on the hot paths and stairs for that long - let alone being sandwiched between children for that long of a period!
Thursday & today (Friday) we have spent being extremely lazy and having a bit of relaxation time to ourselves that has consisted of sleep ins, watching some TV shows in our room and simply laying next to the pool reading (Karlee: books; Ben: iPad), going for the occasional dip and float around the hotel's very own "lazy river" and having our food and drinks brought to us under the shade of our umbrella by poolside staff :) Needless to say, it has been a very enjoyable couple of days of being able to simply relax, do nothing and enjoy our holiday!
Tomorrow we leave Orlando and the US and start our journey back home. We leave Orlando at 6pm (8am Sunday Brisbane time) and arrive home at approximately 7am on Monday morning. We have had an awesome time seeing the many sights from New York to Disney World, and the best part is that this trip hasn't seemed to have flown by as quickly as previous ones. Getting back into the swing of things back home is going to be difficult but thankfully both Karlee & I have next week off work. I think what is going to be even harder is finding space in our storage unit for everything we have bought!! We left with a combined luggage weight of 41kgs, but we are returning with 131kgs - not a bad effort I say!
The last of our photos are below - the quality of some of these ones are not as great as previous as all the Disney World photos have been taken with my iPhone to save lugging my camera around all day at Theme Parks! We both hope you have enjoyed reading our blog and staying up to date on our adventures. We look forward to catching up with everyone over the coming weeks :)
