As much as Derek had heard about Disney from some of his friends over the last couple of years, I thought he would like it better if he were a little older. I thought I would like it better, too. I wanted him to be done with naps, and to be able to understand more of what's going on. As an added bonus, now that he's reading, that helped his enjoyment and understanding of things as well. We went over April vacation week, so he didn't have to miss any school.
Monday morning we caught our plane and headed to Florida. I've only been to Orlando once before, and that was 10 1/2 years ago. A lot of things have changed! And so have my thought processes. I found myself amazed at the sheer volume of people, and at how many ways they have of transporting them around as efficiently as they can. We landed at the airport and caught a bus to the hotel. We stayed at the Disney Port Orleans French Quarter Resort. Disney had its own line of bus routes that get people to all of the Disney attractions as well as their resorts. There is no charge for these buses. I think that's a good move on Disney's part -- they will bus you to any other Disney location so you can spend your money at any of them. Then there are the trams that cart people around. There's the ferry and the monorail. And of course there's the way they manage tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people at EACH park daily to get them through the lines. Amazing.
I also found myself looking at all the buildings, both commercial and residential. To buy anything down there must cost a fortune. I really don't think the market will crash there anytime soon. One of our cab drivers even said that Disney has driven up the prices in that area so much that even they have trouble affording enough land to make an expansion worthwhile. They've done it to themselves. Only the luxury hotels seem to be able to buy anything substantial anymore.
We got checked into the room and had lunch. We took a Disney bus to the Wide World of Sports
complex. The only other passenger on the bus was from Hollis NH! It didn't click until a couple of days
later, but this was NH school vacation week after all. Derek had his Red Sox hat on, and this woman was
wearing a Sox hat and shirt. We saw lots of Red Sox hats and shirts all week wherever we went. Red Sox nation
is alive and well. (It's even easier now that we are the World Champions!)
We arrived at the complex and there was nothing going on that day. We walked right
in for free. There were maybe four other families there. The biggest attraction was the spring training
field for the Atlanta Braves. There were a lot of other fields, which are used for tournaments and things.
There are quite a few baseball and softball fields, a soccer field with a track around it, and an indoor
basketball arena which has three courts. There was a center walkway with perfectly grown and planted palm
trees down both sides. Since there was literally no one else around, I thought when else on this trip will
we have a place all to ourselves? Since I knew I wouldn't lose Derek, we got on opposite ends of the walkway
and I took a picture framed by the two rows of palm trees.
Derek bought a couple of small things at the gift shop. Overall, I think he did a great job of managing his money (he got some money for his birthday which we brought along). I never told him he couldn't buy something (well, except for a certain sword at MGM). What I did was help him think about things. Most of the time he concluded the same thing I did, but not always. And that was fine, as long as he was thoughtful about his decisions to either purchase something or not. We were talking with the people in the gift shop since there were five of them and we were the only two customers. Derek bought his things and we headed back to the hotel. He got a camera for his birthday and I told him to go ahead and take pictures whenever he wanted. I occasionally gave him major pointers (like to take the picture over the top of the fence and not through the fence), but overall I let him do what he wanted. He seemed very happy about that and was quite the little shutterbug. I told him when we got the pictures back we would go through them together. We left the complex and took the bus back to the hotel.
We spent some time in the pool. Then we got cleaned up and decided to try the sit-down restaurant at Port Orleans Riverside, which was just a short Disney boat ride away. We got to the restaurant and this is where I learned that the best thing to do is to make dinner reservations by late morning for that evening. This was a strategy that we would use for the rest of the trip. It was 7:45 and they said the wait would be an hour and 15 minutes. No thanks, so we ate at the cafeteria style restaurant that was next to it. After the short boat ride back (which by now it was dark and it made for a nice experience), we settled in for the night.
Our first full day in Orlando, and we went right to it. Derek wanted nothing more than to go to the
Magic Kingdom. And so we did! We rode the Disney bus from the resort to Main Street USA. Derek couldn't
have been more excited. A lot has changed, but the classics remain. I won't go through a complete list
of everything we did every day, but certain things deserve mention. Derek liked the Indy Speedway, the Country
Bear Jamboree, and of course, It's A Small World. To my surprise, he didn't immediately start singing the song
non-stop. He didn't start that until dinner time, and then it lasted all evening!! I sat through the ride, so
now you must see the pictures.
The line for Thunder Mountain winds around inside, as most of the lines do.
Once on the ride it takes you up up up a tunnel to a waterfall and then outside. When the train went outside,
we got wet. It took a few seconds to realize that it was because it was now raining out! We had no idea.
At first we had thought it was just part of the effect. Unfortunately,
it rained for the rest of the day. Sometimes it got harder and sometimes it practically let up. For the rest
of the afternoon and evening, we had to find rides that were inside.
We ate dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table, and had a great meal. For the rest of the week, we made reservations for sit-down dinners, and grabbed breakfasts and lunches as we went along. After dinner, we somehow found Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. It turned out to be a lot of fun for both of us! Derek got 1,800 points. I somehow wound up with 131,500. Whatever. The line wasn't bad, so we went right back and did it again. Of course we defeated the Evil Emperor Zurg both times. Because of the rain, they cancelled the nightly parade and fireworks. We went back to the hotel in a heavy downpour, and fell asleep quickly from our big day.
We got a bit of a late start due to a shuttle mix-up, but still made it to Universal Studios. Actually,
we somehow wound up going in to Islands of Adventure. We spent most of the day there. We saw the
Eighth Voyage of Sinbad Stunt Show, which was actually very well done. In Seuss Landing, we rode
both the Caro-Seuss-el merry go round and the One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish ride with goes around
and we (well, Derek did it) control the up and down. He wanted to sit on the inside because the outside
person gets squirted with water. He got it a little bit too. It was a warm day so I didn't mind.
The Incredible Hulk Coaster was the high point of the park for me. Somehow the line split into two, and we just picked one. It turns out that there is a line specifically for the front seat, and the other line is for the rest of the seats. So we were in the front seat! I guess this may spoil the surprise for anyone wanting to ride this for the first time, but I have to mention it because it was such a surprise. Most roller coasters start by taking you up up up to the top, and then you go down the big drop. So as we started up up up through the tube to the outside world, this is what I was expecting. WRONG! About a third of the way up the tube, the coaster went to full acceleration and we blasted up the tube to the outside and at the top we were flipped upside down for the first drop/loop. Wow! The rest of the ride went full speed ahead, and a couple of times I literally lost track of which way was up. What a great ride that was!
We rode the Pteranodon Flyers in Jurassic Park, which as you may have guessed is a sky ride where we sit under the dinosaur as it flies us around. After that it was time for our dinner reservation. After dinner we had just enough time to go into Universal and see the Shrek 4-D adventure (through the miracle of OgreVision). That was a lot of fun. By the time we got out of that the park was closed. We went back to the hotel. After a little time in the pool and then the hot tub, it was bed time.
Thursday was an absolutely gorgeous day! Sunny, very warm but not too hot, and not humid at all.
Every day should be like that! After breakfast we took the Disney bus to MGM Studios. We saw
quite a few shows. Playhouse Disney Live was the first one we saw. It starred characters from
Bear in the Big Blue House, JoJo's Circus, Stanley, and the Book of Pooh. It ended where it started
with Bear and his friends. I've always liked Tutter, and the more I watched the show the more I
like Pip and Pop.
We went on to see the Beauty and the Beast show, as well as the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. The Mermaid show was a lot shorter than the last time I was there. Then again, they were able to have a lot more showtimes that way. And of course we had to go to Muppet Vision 3-D! We sat in the theater of the "old" Muppet Show with our 3D glasses on and watched the show. It was just as good as I remembered from last time. I love the Muppets!
We had lunch at Pizza Planet Arcade, straight out of Toy Story.
We went to the Magic of Disney Animation presentation. It was both enjoyable and educational. Afterwards,
Derek got his picture taken with The Incredibles. Also, he answered some questions on a kiosk and it
said that the character that's most like him is Buzz Lightyear. Derek was happy about that. I liked the
last question which was something like "Do you prefer to eat lunch with nice people or to eat nice
people for lunch?" It said Derek was loyal and would go to "infinity and beyond" for his friends.
We didn't go on the Star Tours because I remember it making me slightly motion sick, and Derek can
get a little worried when enclosed rooms start to move anyway. But we did find a few Star Wars vehicles
outside of the ride.
We also took the backlot tour. The first thing they did was to film a replica of a scene where
a ship in the harbor is under attack. They had a couple of volunteers who acted it all out, and of course
they got soaked. We saw the "Earful Tower", which is a water tower (with no water in it).
We went to the Catastrophe Canyon where they dumped massive amounts of water and blew a couple of things up.
Then they took us around back so we could see how it all works. We saw some
"bone yards" where vehicles from
past shows or movies were pretty much left to rust.
After dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby, we took a Disney bus to the Magic Kingdom. We wanted to see the parade and fireworks, since the rain had stopped it the other day. The parade was very entertaining, and the fireworks synchronized with the music and lights on the castle (we were right in front of the castle) were amazing. They probably spend more on each night's show than the Town of Merrimack does for their annual 4th of July show! After a long day and late night, we hopped the Disney bus back to the hotel and that was that.
The weather on Friday was even warmer than Thursday! What a perfect day for Sea World.
Thursday and Friday both I wore my sunglasses outside but if a line or a show was inside, I
usually put the glasses up on my head. They were up and down so much that even when I was
wearing them I still felt "phantom" glasses on my head. Instead of having Hat Hair, I had
Sunglasses Hair. One thing
I've always loved about Sea World is that the pace of the day seems much more relaxed. There are plenty
of shows, and enough time in between to do other things. The day alternates between walking around to see
things and sitting down to enjoy a show. Of course we saw the Shamu Adventure. Derek
realy liked the killer
whales, as most people do. At the end, they brought out a HUGE killer whale whose sole purpose was to flip on
his back and use his giant tail to splash massive amounts of water on people. They warned people and gave them
time to move, but most people didn't move. We weren't in the soak zone to begin with, so we stayed dry.
Clyde and Seamore Take Pirate Island was, to me, the high point of the day. It was really funny. (This was the sea lion and otter show.) It was funny as written, and even funnier because the trainers blew some lines and also wound up laughing a couple of times. And it didn't help that a couple of times the animals, especially the otter, didn't always get things quite right. At least they don't take themselves too seriously! Though part of the reason this was my favorite was because they didn't have a dolphin show. Dolphins are my favorite. They had a dolphin presentation, where they explained a lot about dolphins, but no show where they jumped and flipped and all of that good stuff. They are almost finished building a new stadium for the dolphins, and they will have the shows there once that's done. It's scheduled to open this summer.
We also saw Odyssea -- "A non-traditional circus that defies gravity". It seemed to me like Sea World's version of Disney's Cirque de Soleil, so I named it Cirque de l'Eau. (Hey, I did take five years of French before I graduated from High School!) It was almost as strange as Cirque de Soleil, and of course had an underwater theme to it. It was enjoyable, and the main thing is Derek liked it.
In between all of this we saw the stingrays, the penguins, the polar bears, the walruses, and of course
the sharks (another of my favorite, though they tend not to be trainable enough to put on shows).
The last show we saw that day was Fusion, which was a show that had some average stunts and some dancers.
The whole thing was set to music. The stunts were very basic. A couple of water ski jumps, some fast boat
riding, kites with really long tails being flown from the back of moving boats. The most impressive thing
was the high diver guy. He dove from a platform 80 feet above the water. One note about the picture.
I wanted to include both the top of the platform and the water to show how high it was, and I tried
to catch the diver as high as I could. Well, he jumped up and out of my picture! That little round
thing at the very top of the picture next to the tower is him with his legs up and he's reaching up to touch
his toes. And of course I barely noticed the dancers.
OK, fine. Maybe I did have a favorite dancer. But it's not like I went up to her after the show, or talked
to her, or asked what her name was or anything like that...
After meeting Laura, we had dinner (and no, Laura was not part of the "we" that had dinner). Then the park was pretty much closing, so we went back to the hotel. We got back there a little earlier than most other nights, except for the first one. That was good since we needed to leave early the next day. We did have a little time in the hot tub before bed.
Saturday was our travel day home. We got up, got packed, had breakfast, and headed to the airport. We had a direct flight down but had to stop at BWI on the way back. We landed in Manchester around 4:30 and found it was raining out. A far cry from the 90+ degrees it was supposed to be in Orlando that day!
I'm glad we waited until Derek was a little older before taking him on such a big trip. Not only will he (hopefully) be able to remember it for a long time to come, but I saw so many little kids that were so tired and all they could do was scream. Derek was wonderful the whole time. Yes, we were lacking for normal amounts of sleep by the end, but that's another reason I saved Sea World for the last day. It was a very relaxing way to wrap things up.
I would have to say the trip was a HUGE success!