The Week in Orlando

Sandy and Darlene spent four days with us in the condo. The heat and humidity stayed pretty constant the week we were in Orlando. While I've been to Orlando many many times in August, this trip the heat was a deciding factor on how we toured the parks.

We visited Animal Kingdom Park and took advantage of the fastpass kiosk located near the Tree of Life. We got to the kiosk and stopped with a few other guests while the masses dashed off to one of the big attractions: Everest, Safari or Kali River Rapids.

We each obtained fastpasses for the major attractions within five minutes. This fastpass kiosk is in the experimental phase. I can't imagine how well it would have worked if people realized what those kiosks were there for. It appeared to be a kiosk for Bug's Life. We went to Kali River Rapids first and rode on it a few times. Fastpasses are typically not necessary for this attraction if you ride it first thing in the morning. Thoroughly soaked, we headed over to Dinosaur.

This was a pretty smart move because Dinosaur is mostly an inside experience. I got pretty cold in my wet clothes during the Dinosaur Experience. By the time we left the ride, I was able to enjoy the walk while thawing out. We went over to the Nemo experience. This show replaced one our favorite shows: Tarzan Rocks. The show was entertaining but I did not love it the way I loved Tarzan. Once is enough for me, I don't think I'd have to see the show again.

After Nemo, Darlene and I waited while the girls went on Mount Everest twice. They loved it! We wandered around, grabbed a snack and went on the Safari ride. Afer the Safari, we were pretty hot and tired and made the decision not to eat inside of the park. We walked the long, hot walk back to the car and used the GPS to find somewhere to eat. We chose Cracker Barrel and spent the rest of the afternoon there, playing checkers and having lunch.

Each evening contained some swim time for the girls. Typically on our trips, we would head out to a different park to enjoy the evening festivities but the heat really did a number on our energy levels. I'd chalk it up to old age, but the kids seemed affected as well.

We had not visited the Magic Kingdom before the cruise, and we were all excited to hit Main Street. I listened for the familiar music at the entrance to Main Street and hummed along. We caught the trolley musical morning show and watched it for awhile. I love that show, all of the cast members are dressed up in period garb complete with parasols and ride the trolley down Main Street, stopping in the middle for a song and dance.

We headed over to the Mountains and did both rides twice before heading out to the rest of the park. Space Mountain was closed for refurbishment. The girls were disappointed but we knew it would be closed ahead of time.

We went over to the rose garden and tried to find the spot where the ashes of a dear friend were lovingly spread. We spent a few minutes in the rose garden, talking about and remembering Amanda.

We spent quite a while waiting for the Monsters Laugh Floor and it sort of zapped us of our energy. We called it a day, after going to infinity and beyond. Of course, for us, calling it a day means spending an hour or so shopping on the way out of the park. The clouds were black, and a storm was heading in. We made it back to the condo in time to see a tremendous lightening storm.

Our MGM day was another hot day. We arrived at opening and we funneled up the street, waiting for the rope drop. We followed the crowds over to Toy Story Mania. In this park, unless you split up, you pretty much have to choose between Toy Story Mania, or Rock n Rollercoaster to ride without fastpasses.

We watched families split up and send some into the standby line and others get a fastpass. The fastpass line for Toy Story Mania seemed longer than the standby line, from the outside. We enjoyed walking through the attraction, checking out Mr. Potato Head and such. Darlene said they don't often go to the park, so most of it was a new experience for her. I tried to be nonchalant, but I think I kept saying, "You are DVC owners and you don't come to this park?" Yeah, I was real subtle.

I discovered on my last work trip that MGM is a great park to get done in one day. The attractions are close together, there is a lot of shade, and lots of opportunities for resting and rejuvenating. While other parks have long waits for short attractions, MGM can be the opposite. We went to get fastpasses for the girls at Rock n Rollercoaster, and they rode it a total of 3 times. They got to experience it from the front, back and middle and liked the front best.

While the girls were on the ride, Darlene and me went over to Star Tours. She said she had never been on it before. NEVER? I couldn't believe it! We went on Star Tours and enjoyed it. This attraction makes me motion sick at the same spot each time. There must be something off with the timing of the film and soundtrack. I feel the same way at Muppets 3D.

The girls called us and we met up with them and did the Great Movie Ride. I do love this attraction. We had lunch at the Backlot and people watched. We caught a pretty good street show by the Sanitation Department. Our timing was perfect.

Darlene and Sandy had a flight home on Wednesday early afternoon. I had planned on going to a park after dropping them off at the airport. I thought this might mean we'd make some evening shows at one of the parks. We slept in a bit, maybe by an hour, and had a leisurely breakfast. We fed the ducks outside and had a last swim.

It was a quiet ride to the airport. The girls had mixed emotions, having hit their saturation point of togetherness mixed with the sorrows of goodbyes. After dropping them off at the airport, we headed to the Magic Kingdom. We caught a bit of the afternoon parade, split a Dole Whip, and rode Splash Mountain a few more times. We had dinner at Sweet Tomatoes down the road from the condo. The food isn't fabulous, but it's a nice change from burger counter service. I wished we had thought to go there with Darlene and Sandy, they probably would have liked it.

Victoria's choice, we went to Animal Kingdom again on Thursday. We spent the morning riding Kali River Rapids, remembering this trip and many others where we got to know people while riding the rapids. We did the Safari and walked along the Jungle Trek. Because we did not see the Lion King on our last visit, we made a point to see is on this visit. It is still as fabulous as ever.

We agreed to leave the park at around 2pm and take a nap. I planned on doing some packing to make it easier in the evening. We headed out to Downtown Disney in the evening and did some shopping. We were surprised we didn't really find anything we 'must' have. We split a sandwich from Earl of Sandwich, watched a show on stage, and headed back to the condo at 8pm.

Friday was our last day in Orlando. Our flight was at 5pm, allowing some time to tour a park in the morning. We arrived at Epcot at 8:30am. We followed some folks through a gate and got hunted down by a security guard stating we had to walk around the fence to get our bags checked. I'm not sure how my parking pass, diamond parking, was any advantage over other parking if I had to walk all the way around. We stood in line, everyone sweating profusely before 9am. At 8:50am, we entered the gates and the entire mob headed over to the LAND to Soarin' Over California. There was a rope there and we waited again until 9am, where several cast members walked us to the Land.

We road Soarin' in row 1! YAY for us, row 1! Our last experience was row 3, where you can see feet above you during the attraction. Victoria wanted to do Test Track and we rode the single riders line three times. We got in line to do Spaceship Earth because Victoria had not been on it since it was refurbished. As we walked into line, a boy about Victoria's age dashed in front of us. Pretty rude. I thought it was strange he would ride this by himself.

In a minute, a woman with a baby joined him. Victoria gave me a look and I told her to let it go since the mother might have been tending to the baby. Then a grandmother and a child joined them. Then a father and another child joined them, all within a 5 minute time span. I said, "you've got to be kidding me." They all knew what I was talking about and said they are a family and wanted to ride together. I told them it was rude to cut in front of people and not enter the ride as a family, because they were being rude to all of the families behind us. The rotten little boy made comments the entire time we were in line. What a rude little shit that boy was. I let him go on and on, and did take some comfort knowing the family was humiliated by his behavior. The mother's neck and cheeks were red and she tried to get her son to be quiet. Had I continued to engage, all I would have accomplished was that I'd be in argument with a child. The parents tried to get the son to stop and eventually yelled at him, making a scene to get him to stop. What did they expect, sending him to stand in line, knowing people would be upset? I kept thinking, karma.

We left Epcot at noon and tried to motivate each other about not being sad our vacation was coming to an end. We were sad. We had no immediate plans to return to Disney World but we knew we were lucky to have been often this year. We got back to the condo, took showers and finished packing. Victoria took a nap and I read my book, soaking in every last minute of vacation. I was glad we decided to finish the vacation this way, rather than going to the airport from the park.

We dropped the car off and grabbed a luggage cart. We found our way to the Southwest luggage counter and checked our bags. We got through the security and to the gate when we learned our flight was delayed by an hour. We decided to eat dinner at the airport to kill some time. I texted Darlene to let her know we had not been able to find Sandy's DVD or locket. We had checked and checked and checked. I do not think it was in either condo. Before checking out, we checked the lost and found and the housekeeping service at the building where we initially checked in.

Our flight was an easy one and we spent longer than usual waiting for our luggage. We got back to Park Ride and Fly and got home at 10:30pm. We dragged in the luggage and hit the hay.