Florida Trip
Summary: Flew to Florida, went to 6 Theme Parks... ate lots of good food, went swimming/hot tubbing, came home.
For the more extended version (with pics) read below:
On Saturday, I woke up at 6:15 AM, packed some last minute items, and headed to the airport w/ my family. I was in charge of the airplane tickets, so I did the self-check in and we were waitng for our plane, by 8:30...
In the meantime, we went to the worst McDonald's ever. They didn't have any biscuit sandwiches (not even on the menu!) or any cinnamon rolls, wtf mate?! So I got a bagel sandwich combo, with watered down orange juice. It sucked.
The plane ride was fine, it was nice seeing the snow disappear on the way down. When we landed in Orlando, it was around 80 and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We went and grabbed our luggage and rental car, and were off to the condo (which ended up being one mile from DisneyWorld)...
We had two condos for 5 people, each with two bedrooms, and 3 bathrooms. Not too shabby. There was only one king size bed per condo, so I had to make do... (before and after)
We unpacked, and I went to check out the rest of the "High Point World Resort" area... I found a pool:
We then went to Publix, to get some groceries... lots of good food, let me tell you. We came back and made some dinner, went swimming, then headed off to Downtown Disney... which was insanely packed (the parking lots were all full, and 90% of the empty parking spots had jackasses standing there waiting (saving spots) for their car to come around) I wanted to get out and kick each and every one of them.
We got back and chilled in the hot tub. Verrry nice.
On Sunday we started the day off at EPCOT (and went back at night, hence the nighttime photo):
We checked out some of the rides in the front of the park... including Test Track, Mission: Space, Honey I Shrunk the Audience, and Soarin'. Test Track was awesome as usual, my parents really liked it. Next up was Mission: Space which was pretty intense for a Disney ride I thought, it was pretty realistic to what I would think a launch into space might feel like. Soarin' was pretty cool too... your feet dangle, and the seats you are in are lifted into a dome-shaped screen... when the movie starts you feel the wind blowing at you, and can look, up/down/left/right/ and only see the screen. It really looks like you're flying, it was pretty sweet. That line was the longest all day (but we had a FastPass), probably because its being marketed as the best thing since sliced bread (billboards everywhere, and lots of commercials on TV calling it Disney Worlds "#1 Must See Attraction"... I don't know about that...
From there we headed over to Disney-MGM Studios and headed for Tower Of Terror:
Despite how many people were in the park, there wasn't a line... it was great.
We went on the rest of the rides in the park: Rock 'n Roller Coaster, The Great Movie Ride, the Backlot Tram Tour, and then headed back to EPCOT for their fireworks show. They really had everything lit up, and it was pretty cool (including a tunnel of lights that moved to the music):
When we got back to the condo, we went to the hot tub and met some MSU'ers from Chicago (haha...) They were nice people.
On Monday, we went to the Magic Kingdom:
Went on just about every ride that we wanted to, and some that we didn't (me atleast) including Small World (I wanted to shoot myself)... The lines were all pretty short.. the longest we waited was about 10 minutes.
That night, we headed back over to MGM to catch Fantasmic, but it got rained out, like whoa... We didn't want to buy ponchos (8 bucks each) so we got soaked (I dried off a little on Tower of Terror, and Rock N Roller Coaster) and headed back for the night:
Heres a pic of a giant hat:
Tuesday we went to Universal Studios, that place was dddddddeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaddddddddd..... No waits whatsoever... went on literally every ride in the park, including the kiddie rides. The Mummy roller coaster was the best thing there, it was insane, and completely unexpected. There was a backward launch, and an uphill one, some fire, and water, lots of drops, and all out craziness... I loved it.
We ran over to Islands of Adventure for a minute or 20, and got on Hulk, and SpiderMan with no waits at all.
It was my brothers birthday (he's 33) so we went to great seafood place, where I got steak. haha. And explored downtown Orlando.
On Wednesday we went to Animal Kingdom:
went on all the rides there, as the park was EMPTY. Got to go on a couple of rides I hadn't gone on before, Primeval Whirl, and Dinosaur!<---- you know a ride is great when little kids come off crying... muahahaha.
We left the park and had a big lunch at Bahama Breeze, went and napped/swam, and spent the rest of the night at EPCOT... getting back in time to watch LOST, of course...
On Thursday, we went to Islands of Adventure, got on all the rides with no waits (except a little one so we could get in the front/back rows of Dueling Dragons). Ate at Hard Rock Cafe, and ran over to ride the Mummy again (twice)
Friday was a parkless day, we went to the Waffle House for breakfast, where I got Hashbrowns scattered smothered and topped. Delicious. Then we drove around, went to a couple malls/outlets, and eventually back to Downtown Disney, where we saw Derailed, and did some more shopping.
Relaxed the rest of the night, ate all of our leftover food (which was a lot), and went to bed.
On Saturday we headed back to the airport, got charged 6 dollars a gallon for gas in the rental car (we were late, and didn't have time to fill it up, so they did)... and hopped on the smallest plane ever... I had to hunch when inside... there was one aisle with one seat on one side, and two on the other. I'll stick to big planes from now on... luckily the next flight was bigger, and about 1/3 full.. I was able to fully recline my seat and everything it was great.
Now I am back, and have sooooooo much to do.