robbo and leeazaa’s travel adventures

For the past number of days we have been at Disney World, which according to every one we’ve spoken with in Orlando requires ‘at least a week’ to see everything. Well, let me tell you that those people are quitters and should be ashamed to call themselves tourists, we the self proclaimed super tourists did all four parks in two days…. BOOYA!

behold....Disney!

street view in Disney Hollywood Studios

It’s a tough couple of days though and the journey is plagued with wave after wave of children and backed up by an armoured division of strollers and motorized carts, nicknamed ‘fatty carts’ on the frontline. The endless march was plagued by blisters and the enemy unrelenting but the rewards were thrilling.

everest rollercoaster in Animal Kingdom

The parks themselves are leagues better than Universal Studios as there is heaps more to see and do to the point where you can’t actually see one side of the park from the other. The pretext for each of the rides is well thought out and is a good distraction when you are stuck in a line for 30 minutes. Thankfully for us we had a system going so our wait times were minimal.

giraffe ass

It seems we have picked the perfect time to be in theme park country, all the hotel rates have come down dramatically and the crowds in the various parks have been ‘low’ according to the cast members. The queue lanes for the most popular rides show just how busy they can get but thankfully the extended, winding lanes have all been sectioned off for the off-peak.

Leeane in the Magic Kingom

To summarise, Orlando has been great humid fun and we’ve seen some cool stuff and some of the largest people ever but it has been a busy week so we are happy to have a day off tomorrow and then head off to see Uncle Bob and Duffy some more.

Rob

Tags: orlando

We booked a tour of the Kennedy Space Center which is somewhat close to the theme-park crazed area where we are staying. After rising at ungodly hour (6am) we sleep-walked our way to the pickup point for a bus ride to our first stop on the tour – an airboat ride along the everglades!

We climbed aboard the airboat which comes equipped with ear muffs due to the deafening sound. Our captain took us for a 40min ride, where we spotted many alligators and even a bald-headed eagle. I have to admit though, the first time the boat headed straight for some green weeds I felt like turning around to the captain to make sure he was paying attention.

Lining up for our ride

Gator!!!

Good hair day

After that we continued on to Kennedy Space Center where we spent the rest of the day. First up was a bus tour where we got to see some smart people building modules for the International Space Center and also one of the launch pads – with a shuttle ready to go for next months launch. Everything is just on a massive scale – its quite incredible really.

Astronaut Rob reporting for duty

Launch Pad

Our day also included a “Shuttle Launch Experience” ride which is NASA’s answer to Walt Disney World’s rides. The build up to the ride was a bit concerning with the constant video tour guide asking “Are you sure you want to do this?? If you don’t think your body can handle it please put up you hand now so a staff member can lead you to the exit”. Thankfully the ride itself was bearable (especially after the insane rollercoasters and Universal Studios). It basically involves a lot of extreme shaking to the point that your cheeks ache from flapping about everywhere.

We also seen some pretty cool 3D IMAX films about the International Space Centre and Walking on the Moon – definitely very cool indeed.

Houston.. we have a problem

An orbiter/shuttle

ridiculously large solid rocket boosters and fuel tank

The next day we visited the local mini-golf place which has 36 elaborate holes to play. It was good fun.. and… *cough* I won.

The technique is ALLLLL wrong!

Winning by so much I stopped for a break by the picturesque falls

In an update to Rob’s attack on me the other day about complaining to Universal Studios and being a “typical Scot”, I am happy to report that I scored two free tickets to return to the parks and hopefully go on all the rides which were closed on our first visit. It pays to complain I guess.

So we still have Walt Disney World to do here in Orlando – we will be doing that in a couple days as we want to avoid going there on a weekend.

Our plans are to leave Orlando on the 25th and head back to….. Texas! Yes we decided to skip New Orleans and head straight for the low-beer prices of the cowboy state. Uncle Bob, Duffy and Clyde thankfully said they would put up with us again and we will hopefully catch up with Matt and Lauren again too. So we will be spending a bit of time there before heading back to San Francisco (and an Average White Band gig – very exciting) before our flight to Japan.

Leeane

Tags: orlando

Orlando is like Las Vegas for families where instead of paying through the nose at the pokies, you pay through the sweat glands with the saturating humidity. There’s nothing like stepping out of your nice, air conditioned hotel room at 7:30 am to the smell of water in the air thanks to the 110% humidity.

Leeane appropriately standing where Australia roughly is

We made our way down the road to Universal Studios today, which actually consists of two separate parks one of which concentrates more on the ‘theatrical’ rides. Theatrical rides seem to be a bit hit and miss as some of them turn out to not be ‘rides’ at all but rather a handful of d-grade actors leading you around a few darkened rooms. Others have the same elaborate build up, but they pump you into a roller-coaster at the end of it for a quick getaway. I’m probably being too critical but when you line up for 20 minutes in the stinking humidity you kind of expect more.

You can see the humidity

Fortunately there are some awesome thrill rides scattered around the parks which don’t disappoint. Some of the stand out rides include, ‘The IQ Dropper’, ‘The Up Chucker’ and ‘The Potential Lawsuit’ all of which jerk you around like a killer whale tenderising a seal pup. Maybe we are both getting old or maybe the rides are just getting more insane but we definitely felt like we had sea legs after each ride and had to take a couple minutes to let our lunch settle between rides.

the spaghetti loop roller coaster

Back to the Future - delorean

All in all Universal Studios was mostly crowd-free so getting onto all the rides was more or less painless, the only bad point was that a bunch of the rides were closed or under repair. Needless to say Leeane did what Scot’s do best and lodged a complaint with them.

Simpsons Ride

wooooo

We are off to Kenndy Space centre tomorrow and an airboat tour over the Everglades, it should be a hoot. Apparently they have a Launch Simulator which should really push our internal organs into strange new places. Lawyers on standby…

Rob

Tags: orlando, theme park