Florida 2018 - Hollywood Studios

We've not had great luck this trip making it to any of the big rides before the line up gets too long. This time we got stuck in the slowest bag check line at Hollywood Studios. By the time we got through and walked to the Toy Story ride the line-up was probably 500 meters out the door. On top of that we got word that the ride was temporarily broken down. Sometimes that type of breakdown is temporary but with a 90 minute wait already we decided to cut our losses and try to find something else to go on.

Hollywood studios doesn't currently have a lot of rides that interest us and we already had Fast Passes for the main ones so we checked out the Star Wars area where we could get a picture with characters including BB-8. I was a little confused when we walked into the room because he's not a big guy and he's kind of quiet. Later on we had fun watching a 10 minute show on the future Star Wars land. In the line-up two storm troopers showed up and I was wearing my "Galaxy's Greatest Dad" shirt with Darth Vader. They were kind enough to thank me for my support of their cause.

After a relatively unsuccessful magic morning our Fast Passes were coming due so we headed towards the Tower of Terror and the Rock 'n' Roller coaster where once again we bumped into Callie's friend. We have a general idea of where they are each day but I'm amazed at how quickly we find them in the sea of people. I got a break from rides for a bit because both of these rides have big drops. I lent my band for Tower of Terror to Callie's friend and Kerry took turns with the kids going on Rock 'n' Roller coaster. It's definitely one of her favourite rides.

Before lunch we went to the Indiana Jones stunt show. They had three separate scenes with huge rolling sets that moved out of the way for each scene. They asked for volunteers and I guessed early on that at least one of them was an audience plant. They pulled Zack from the back where everyone else was from the first few rows. It became pretty obvious when he got into a fight with the biggest stunt actor there and took each punch perfectly. The final scene was from Raiders of the Arc with fire and explosions. You could feel the heat 100 feet away.

For lunch we had our first lunch reservation. Any of the reservation spots tend to be more expensive so we limited it to two this trip starting with the Sci-Fi Theater. It's a fun concept where you are inside, sitting in a car as if you are at a drive-in movie theater from the 1950's. The movies are all authentic including Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. The food was good but we did have two issues. One was that the car was like a real car with a back and front seat meaning you weren't really interacting with your full group. The other was that it was too dark to see your food which was a bit unnerving for Callie. Overall still a fun experience.

We took a break in the afternoon to go back to the hotel and have a dip in the pool before heading back for some evening shows. The first show as Fantasmic. We've seen this show in Disneyland and the great thing about Disney World is that it's a proper amphitheater so you can to sit down instead of having to stand. The best part for me was the music for the pre-show. The songs being played were current popular radio songs and the crowed was really into it. The show itself was good too with more fire, light, fireworks and a mix of projected scenes and real actors.

Fantasmic got out just in time for us to see the Hollywood Studios fireworks show. This one is themed on Star Wars and I think it's the best one I've ever seen and we weren't even in a position to see the whole thing. They had scenes projected on to buildings around the central square, fireworks timed to the Star Wars music and even had the lights on the trees changing colour in tune to the music. Hollywood Studios is a one day destination right now but once they finish up Star Wars Land the place is going to be my primary destination.

Florida 2018 - Animal Kingdom

We are staying at a Disney World hotel and one of the benefits is something they call Magic Mornings. On select days during the week that we are here the parks open one hour early for us than everyone else. This meant that rather than starting at 8:00a we got to enter the park at 7:00a and in Florida at this time of year this was before the sun was even up. The fun part of arriving in the dark was that Animal Kingdom has Pandora which is based on the Avatar movie. They've colored everything with neon and glow in the dark paint and being able to enter with so few people was amazing.

Our plan was to walk right to the Avatar Flight of Passage ride but it seems everyone had this same idea and the wait was already over an hour by the time we got to it. We had a Fast Pass for later so we decided to try something else. Unfortunately the other Avatar ride was broken so we exited and headed over to to Dinoland USA and the Dinosaur ride. The entire time we were on the ride we only saw 2 other guests. The ride takes you back in time to get something for some guy right before the asteroid kills the dinosaur. (I didn't follow the story very well.)

We finished off the rest of the rides in Dinoland including Primeval Whirl and Triceratop Spin then headed over to the Asia area and the Expedition Everest ride. This is a roller coaster ride that surpasses my roller coaster ride threshold so I looked after the bags while the rest of the family rode. It may seem like I spend more time watching rides then going on them, but there is only about 10% that are too much for me. My limits are spinning and big drops and anything upside down.

One thing we've noticed at Disney World is that there are not a lot of spontaneous opportunities for pictures with characters. Most of the picture areas seem to be in controlled settings sometimes with wait times listed. The line-up for Minnie and Mickey looked manageable so we stopped for a quick picture. I like to take a bunch of pictures as the kids walk up to them because that's when they have the best smiles. Only then do I hand our camera off. The park is great about having a volunteer person take your picture with your own camera so you don't have to buy the picture from them.

A couple months ago Kerry signed us up for Fast Passes for everything including the Kilimanjaro Safari and a few weeks ago got an e-mail indicating the time we chose was no longer available. She signed up for something else at the time but asked about it at the front desk when we got here. They didn't know why the cancellation happened and said we could get a special pass for anytime on the day of our stay. We didn't know which day we would go so they gave us a pass for both days. This meant we got an extra pass to go at a time of our choosing!

We connected with Callie's school friend again for a ride on Expedition Everest. We have wrist bands with our passes on them and since I wasn't going to use it we gave it to her. There's no picture of us with our pass though I do wonder if she was listed as an adult male when she went through. After that we did the Avatar ride which has you on a motorbike like seat as you fly over Pandora. Definitely one of the best 4D rides I've been on. Carter was very excited to finally spend some of his money and he bought a banchee from the movie. It allows you to control it's wings and head and he's named it Cheech.

The pass we bought for the park allows us to go to more than one park each day but it also gives us access to the two water parks. The first one we went to is called Typhoon Lagoon and is themed on a shipwreck. I've been to most of the water parks in BC and this one blows them all away. There is a lazy river around the entire park that takes about 15 minutes to get through and water slides for all ages. The sitting areas have sand, sun ,and shade and with the weather at 28 degrees it was a great day to come to the park for the afternoon.

The water parks don't have direct access from  all the hotels and instead you have to transfer at either a hotel that does have direct access or in our case Disney Springs. This is a shopping district area that does not require a ticket and it was a good place to stop for dinner. We plan on coming back here on our last day so we didn't do any shopping or exploring. We stopped for dinner at Wolfgang Pucks and I already knew where we were stopping for dessert. I visited the Ghiradelli shop when I was in San Fransisco for a Salted Caramel sundae so now whenever I see one of their stores I have to stop. Callie and I shared so I didn't go into diabetic shock.

Florida 2018 - Epcot

Our strategy for Disney parks is to be there right when they open. You can usually get to some of the bigger rides before the line-ups get too big. Things weren't looking good when we got to the bus stop though because even though we had left at 8:15, the first bus wasn't listed to show up until 8:51 based on the 'Next Bus' sign. Things improved as we waited and eventually the first bus ended up being at 8:35. This was good for Callie who had been a bit slow getting going, much to Kerry's dismay.

There are three big rides at Epcot that we wanted to do including Test Track, Frozen and Soarin Over the World, however the way the Fast Pass works, you can only do one from that group. We had chosen Soarin so to start the day we ran to the Test Track ride which is a very fast roller coaster type ride in a car. The line looked a little scary but only because they hadn't opened the ride. Carter and I had fun designing our vehicle which came in 2nd overall in our group for speed and performance. Creating your car is really just a trick to make waiting in line more fun.

 After Soarin, we met up with the other family again for Mission Space. This ride is pretty smart as there is a green side for space wimps and an orange side for space experts. I of course am a space wimp and took the green side. Even then I still got a bit dizzy as it's another one that combines a simulator with a screen. Kerry did the orange side and it sounds like I made a good choice. The highlight of the day happened while we were waiting for our group to finish. Carter got the refillable popcorn bucket and tried to buy popcorn but they weren't open yet even though they had popcorn. They gave him his refill free!

We wandered around a bit as we waited for our next Fast Pass to come due and stopped in at a store that allows you to sample pop from around the world. I seem to remember more pop samples last time but this time all machines had the same options. I liked the Inca Cola from Peru and I choose my sampling order wisely. There is always one sample that no one seems to like and everyone had already tried it so I was able to avoid it. You can't buy any of the pop but it was still fun to sample.

After the soft drink store used our last scheduled Fast Pass to go on the Space Ship Earth ride. This is a very slow moving ride that takes you through key inventions in history, mostly from a European point of view. I think it is time for it to be updated as the last key event was Steve Jobs sitting in his garage creating Apple. I think it's safe to say that there have been a few key inventions since that time.

Once we were done with all the main rides at Epcot we walked over to the Epcot World Showcase which includes pavilions for 11 countries. It's pretty much what you would see if you went to a world fair with an area for each country. The difference being that I feel the representation for each country is a bit stereotypical. Canada included hockey, curling, lumberjacks and maple syrup. Mexico had tequila and skulls and of course Donald Duck wearing a sombrero initiating a light saber attack with Carter.

My favorite pavilion is Canada followed closely by England where they have quaint old streets and excellent fish and chips. My only knock on it is that all the staff have a very strong English accent. So strong I feel it's not quite real. The best part is that you can sample food the whole way round. Callie and Kerry had Chinese food, I had fish and chips and Carter, not surprisingly, stuck with America. I was amazed how many people seemed to end up eating at their own pavilion. French accents, English accents and American accents all at their corresponding country.

Florida 2018 - Magic Kingdom

Now that we are done with Kennedy Space Center and Universal studios it was time to return the car. We are staying at a Disney World Hotel and it includes a shuttle/monorail system to all the parks so you really don't need a car. I figure this means you save about 75 dollars a day in gas, car rental and parking. We dropped the car off and got on their shuttle. The driver said it was faster for both us and him if he took us to the Grand Floridian as long as we didn't tell anyone. They frown upon non hotel guests getting dropped off.

By dropping us off at this hotel instead of at the park it meant he avoided the car line up and we could do security there and catch the monorail. It worked out great as the security line was empty and the monorail drops you off on the other side of security at the park. I now didn't feel bad about tipping him a bit more than normal. He had a beautifully displayed tip jar with high denomination bills from various countries as well as a story about moving to England next week. Might not have been true but his drop of plan worked great so it was worth it.

We started our day on Buzz Light year where I masterfully scored more points then the entire family combined. Being able to shoot space aliens with lasers is a critical skill that I need to teach to others. Our next destination was the Tomorrow Land speedway. It was finally time for Carter to drive the car on his own as he's tall enough and can reach the pedals. I drove with him this time but next time I think he'll be okay with a car on is own. Driving a car on a track where you can only go forward is also an important skill.

We continued our day with our first Fast Pass which Kerry had woken up at 4:00a about 3 months ago to book. We are allowed 3 per day to start and can book more after we've used them. The first was Big Thunder Mountain which is a fast moving train, followed by Splash Mountain where I think we got about as wet as we ever have. We finally convinced Callie to go as we've been trying for years. It has a big drop that you can see from outside which scared her. We knew she had been on much bigger rides though and as expected I think she was a bit underwhelmed.

Next up was the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Space Mountain where we met up with Callie's school friend again. We have plans to go to the same park every day so we expect we will meet up with them when we can. They are already two families and to have three families try to coordinate our days is not a good idea. I saw a group of 12 try to get on one of the rides and it looked like a nightmare. They had to wait on the side until there was enough room on a single train car. It's much easier to get more rides in as a group of 4.

We like to break longer days up so we took the bus back to our hotel for an afternoon by the pool and a snack. There is a very friendly squirrel that seems to be around whenever we are there. It was begging for food at our table like a tiny dog. I think if we had asked it to sit and shake a paw it probably would have listened. Kerry also took some time to do a load of laundry. Another thrifty move of hers is to bring our own laundry detergent and fabric softener. Much cheaper than buying it there.

We started our evening on the people movers with the idea that the wait would be short and we could collect our thoughts. It's a slow moving ride through Tomorrow Land but for some reason it had a line up. We figure it must have broken down for a bit. We had Fast Passed Pirates and after a brief stop to watch a portion of the fireworks we got on to check the recent changes. It seems there is a lady pirate and they auction chickens instead of women. I think the changes are fine but as anticipated they are still controversial. Tomorrow we are at Epcot.

Florida 2018 - Universal Studios

On day two of our trip we headed to Universal Studios Florida. We still had the rental car and it was just a 20 minute drive where we found some reasonably priced parking at $22.00 per day with the option for preferred parking at $35.00. We opted for $22.00. There were plenty of moving sidewalks for the 10 minute walk to the front gate. Security at these places now includes bag checks as well as metal detectors and finger print checks. Gone are the days of just showing your paper ticket and walking in the front gate.

Our plan was to meet up with Callie's school friend at the Harry Potter area. Carter and I made a few stops for pictures with various Simpsons characters along the way. Carter doesn't even know who they are but who wouldn't want a picture with a friendly cop eating a doughnut. Kerry was leading the way until we discovered she was looking at a map for the other park. That's like trying to find Paris with a map of England. She was moving more by feel anyways as we knew Harry Potter was at the back of the park so no harm done.

We found Diagon alley which was done perfectly in the spirit of the books. It wasn't marked and you had to go through a break in a brick wall that opened up to an area that perfectly matched what you would expect for Harry Potter. We had to wait a bit before meeting our group as they had arrived a few minutes before us and were already on one of the rides. This gave us a chance to explore a bit and we quickly realized that Universal Studios seems to be more about merchandise than rides. There was only one ride and about a dozen stores. Still fun to explore.

After we found everyone and they went on the Gringots ride one more time while the line was short it was time for selecting a wand or in Harry Potter world, where the wand chooses you. There is a 5 minute play and Callie's friend got chosen to star. The merchant got very into the scene and the room has several effects including lights, sound and shelves that react poorly when you cast the wrong spell to find your wand. Callie choose the 'non interactive' wand which was still $46. I think it probably costs about $2 per wand to make based on the volume they are selling.

Wand choosing was incredibly chaotic and if you go I recommend you see the play and then go around the corner where you can just pick the wand you want and buy it. The actual wand store is more mysterious with lot's of box opening and closing. It was good to get that finished so we could try the other highlight of the day. Butter Beer which figures quite prominently in the books. I would characterize it as a caramel flavoured cream soda that has been coloured yellow and even comes with a foam top. Probably terrible for you but still very tasty.

Three 12 year old's don't make decisions quickly so Carter and I took one of these moments to go check out the Transformer's ride. This is where I realized that I am not a fan of the style of Universal Studio rides. They tend to be 4D where there is a 3D screen and a car that you ride that shakes you around. I don't do well with this style ride and have to spend most of the time with my eyes closed to avoid getting too dizzy. The ride doesn't move much but the addition of the screens is too much. They still seem like fun rides for those moments I do open my eyes.

Transformers was a sign of things to come as every major ride seemed to be 4D. Kerry and the kids had a great time on Jimmy Fallon Race Through New York and The Mummy. By the time the Mummy came along, I figured I could stay outside with my eyes closed which worked out better for everyone since Universal asks that you keep your bags off the ride which means a lot of time putting things in lockers. We also did the Shrek ride which is a theater show with seats that bounce up and down and water gets sprinkled on you to match the scene.

At this point it was time for us to split up. We had paid for the park hopper pass where Callie's friend only had a ticket for a single park and was planning on coming back for the other park. This meant she couldn't join us on the Hogwarts Express which travels between the two parks. The train leaves from the 9 3/4 platform and you even get to walk through a wall. Everything looked great but it was a bit anti-climactic as when you are on the train you are just viewing a screen for the window. There are shadows moving in the hallway but everything is over pretty quick.

The second portion of Harry Potter land was just as amazing as the first but this time was focused on the out doors. There is a perfect replica of Hogwarts that houses the Forbidden Journey ride. The estimate for the right wait time was somewhat deceiving and we had to stuff everything in a locker again but the ride itself was worth it. I got to see about half of it since it had some real portions in addition to the 3D screens where I kept my eyes closed. The kids and Kerry went on the Hippogrifth ride to finish off our Harry Potter experience.

The second park had areas like Hero Island and some bigger coasters like The Hulk. This ride was way to much for Callie, Carter, and I, but Kerry had it on her list of rides she wants to do. The wait was longer than anticipated which of course adds to the drama and she confirmed it was not a ride we would want to go on. We finished the day on the Jurassic park ride since it is a water ride and it was too cold to walk around wet. After a quick desert we walked back to our vehicle at the end of a 12 hour day. Universal Studios is definitely for older kids and people not as ride wimpy as me. You'd need at least a full day per park to do everything.

Florida 2018 - Kennedy Space Center

We started the day with breakfast in our room which we brought from Canada to save money on at least one of our meals each day.  Things get expensive when you have to add 30% to every price you see. Although our main destination this spring break was Disney World we added a few new destinations to our trip to Florida. The first was a trip to the Kennedy Space Center which was about an hour from our hotel so we needed to rent a car for our first couple days. The shuttle for the car rental place picked us up at the hotel and with the help of Google Maps we made it to the Space Center just as it was opening.

We hadn't originally planned on doing the Kennedy Space Center on our first day but Callie's friend from school got in at 2:30a and our plan to meet up with them at Universal Studios wasn't going to work. They asked if we could switch up our plans which worked out okay because we had the car for two days. The only hiccup was that our tickets to the Space Center didn't start until the following day. Apparently we weren't the only people with this problem and were able to use our tickets anyways.

We started our day with a tour of the rocket garden. Unlike SpaceX launches, rockets from the 60's were not reusable so rockets that actually flew in space are at the bottom of the Atlantic. The rockets in the garden however were mostly real rockets, that just never launched. After the tour we went to the Shuttle Atlantis building. This wasn't here the last time I was here and was constructed to house the real shuttle after it was decommissioned with the end of the shuttle program. At $100 million  the presentation was amazing with real shuttle hanging from the ceiling and other great displays.

The highlights included a shuttle launch simulator, life sized models of the Hubble Space Telescope as well as portions of the International Space Station. The space station exhibit was a bit frightening with a glass tube suspended about 50 feet above the ground that you had to crawl through. Kerry did not enter.

After the shuttle building we got in line for the bus tour to the launch pads. This was my only complaint about the whole day. They didn't seem to have enough buses running to keep the lines manageable.

The tour itself was great. We got to see the shuttle launch building where they assembled the shuttles as well as the launch site for SpaceX which recently launched a car into space. SpaceX decided to build their own building which doesn't surprise me since they are in this for the long run and renting space with other companies doesn't mesh with that. The tour also stopped at a building where you can get lunch and see the original Apollo rockets which are absolutely massive. There are only 3 left in the world that were originally planned for further moon launches and the presentation was great.

After lunch we got back on the bus and stopped by the gift shop before going to see an IMAX show. This was a good day to have the option to be inside. As we were walking to the gift shop, there was an announcement that we needed to get inside due to lightning. We slowly made our way there and after a few minutes of shopping realized why. Rain, wind, lightning and thunder had us trapped for about 45 minutes. We couldn't even go to another building while the storm was over us and there were apparently even tornado warnings. Other than the long lines and almost tornado, it was a great day.We even got to see several gators on our bus tour!

Florida 2018 - Getting There

Question - What time do you leave for the airport when your flight leaves at 6:30a? Answer - You leave at 11:00p the day before of course. I should clarify that we booked a flight out of Seattle to save money on airfare so it doesn't really make sense to then stay in a hotel the night before. Getting up at 2:00a just seemed like a disaster so that left leaving late the night before with the intention of having a bit of a nap in the airport and sleeping on the plane. We were the only car at the border when we crossed and our drive down was very quick. Carter and I slept while Kerry and Callie played various Disney tunes. We dropped our car off at a long term parking lot and took a shuttle to the airport where we arrived approximately 4 1/2 hours early for our flight. Our plan to sleep at the airport didn't work out well because they decided 2:00a was a good time to drill concrete and for some reason they play an incredibly loud announcement about the size of your carry-on every 5 minutes. Things got a bit better once we were able to check in and get through security.

The best thing about getting through security was we were able to find some older style seats without the stupid bars in between each seat so you could lay down. We had a 3 hour lay over at Chicago and finally arrived in Orlando around 8:00p despite some crazy weather. Our plane had to circle for about 30 minutes and it seems we were lucky to land at all. Callie has a friend that is coming to Orlando at the same time and their plane got diverted to Tampa. By the time they got into their hotel room and into bed it was 2:30a in the morning local time.

We got to our hotel room around 10:00p local time and were pleased to find that the dining area was still open. We were quite hungry though after ordering our food we realized we were not American portion hungry. We each got our own meal and in hindsight could probably have gotten away with 2 or 3 meals split between us. The food was excellent but a bit on the expensive side. Good value for the amount of food we did get.

Before I end explaining our first day I must mention our wonderful travel agent. Kerry did the initial booking but our other travel agent always calls into the hotel later to see if there is anything special they can do for us. In this case this meant asking from a room that was a bit closer to the pool. Due to construction at the hotel, the only option was a 4th floor 'preferred' room near the secondary pool and close to the front entrance. We're also close to the first bus stop so we should always get a seat on the bus. I highly recommend BK Travel.