Spring Break 2023 - Day 7 - Disney World Epcot

Day two had us going to Epcot. Ordinarily we get a park hopper pass which allows us to do different parks in the morning vs the afternoon but they have gotten much more expensive so we made the decision to stick to one park per day. The weather for today was going to be the coldest so far with a low of 12 in the morning and a high of 19. Not terrible if  you were in the sun but not quite the Florida weather we had hoped for. Breakfast was beignets from our hotel. They were Mickey Mouse shaped which was fun but they still weren't as good as Cafe Du Monde. 

After waiting for Callie to get through security as she was stopped once again, we headed for Test Track which pre-dates the cars ride at Disneyland. You get to design your car at the beginning trying to balance performance and looks. Carter designed some crazy looking thing that looked like a small SUV on monster truck tires. Kerry and Carter missed registering their vehicle when we got on which was too bad because we didn't get to compare it to Callie's vehicle which was much more stylish. The ride itself gets up to 104km/h with a G-Force of 2 which you definitely feel. 

We attempted to do the Frozen ride next as we know it gets busy and isn't the fastest line up but it was temporarily broken so we headed over to the Italy pavilion to go on the Ratatouille ride. This is a 4D ride where you are experiencing the world from the rats perspective. There was a point where you are in front of a screen that has you scurrying under a table and it felt completely seamless. There is also a point where you are in the kitchen while they are making bread and you can smell the baguettes. It made us very hungry.

Next up was Soarin followed by the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride. The family claims they knew nothing about this ride but I don't believe them. It was new so rather than a separate fast lane, Disney had a virtual queue. You have to sign up at 7:00am and they tell you what time to come back and get in line. The line was still 45 minutes even with the virtual queue. The ride itself was definitely a 'close your eyes ride' from my perspective. It's a roller coaster like Space Mountain except the individual cars spin. It doesn't technically go up side down but it feels like it comes close. Never again for me. The family loved it.

The Frozen ride was open again but now showed a wait time of 65 minutes on the app, and apparently was 75 minutes by the time we were through the front door. Unusual for Disney was that the ride actually ended up being that long. The worst part about this particular line was that it was so incredibly slow moving. They Fast Lane was letting about 5 people through for every slow lane rider. All this for a basic boat ride like Pirates. We followed that up with the boat ride at the Mexico Pavilion that had zero line up and we walked right on. Mexico was better.

For lunch we had reservations at the Italian pavilion. It was good and I think for the first time ever, we ate every bite of food between the four of us. I had a minor issue with a bone in my chicken parmesan. Kerry attempted to hint for a discount but no luck. Although good, in hindsight, these sit down meals are pricy when you factor in inflation, tip, exchange rate and possibly credit card exchange fees. Ended up being $175 on our credit card. We then continued over to the Japan pavilion which I think is the nicest as they've spent so much effort on the gardens.

Next up was Canada house with its cobra chicken topiaries. The gardens are nicely done, the buildings look impressive and people seem to enjoy it there but as a Canadian it was mildly embarrassing. The 'ride' is a 360 degree movie showcasing the major Canadian regions including the east/west coasts, prairies, north etc. All was going well until they finish the movie up with an original song written for Epcot called Canada. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi_wDsfGp00) Not our finest moment. Thankfully they had some fiddle playing lumberjacks in the evening on stage which were much better.

We then had a fun 'interaction' with Pooh Bear. He was spending some time in a field catching butterflies and as we were going to get his picture, he started to head out to 'get some hunny' as his handler explained. I've never seen a character head for the exit so quickly. He was definitely done and completely avoided interacting with a kid that was trying to say hi as he was leaving. His handler had to clarify that he'd been on the job from 10:00am to 5:00p. Not sure if this was entirely true but it was definitely time for the next Pooh Bear actor. This one was done. 

Next up was what I like to call the 'Lettuce Ride'. It's a boat that goes through several green houses that showcase what gardening of the future might look like. Lots of different techniques for aquaculture and fun to see Disney attempt to say that it is a 'research' area when it's pretty clear they grow things off site and bring them in at their peak. I still like it as it is fun to see different growing techniques plus it's a leisurely boat ride that is good for napping or as we are now calling them 'nap train rides'. 

After the 'Lettuce Ride' we finally found some manatees. Not as good as seeing them in the wild but they are still fun to watch. It would be nice to think they grow the lettuce for them in the local green houses but it would be tough to keep up. Apparently they eat 75 to 150 heads of lettuce per manatee per day. One of the manatees likes to wander the tank and spends the entire time spinning. Kerry noticed that we saw the same guy doing the same thing when we were here several years earlier. These are rescues but I think they've gone slightly mad in captivity. 

We had dinner at the United Kingdom pavilion and Carter and I had fish and chips. Mine was missing most of the batter and I should have rejected it especially after I saw Carters. It was still very good. The last ride as a family was Spaceship Earth which takes you through history from a very American point of view where everything in history was either in Europe or the US. No mention of the rest of the world. The rest of the family also went on Mission Space which simulates a rocket launch. We then headed home after a very long day. Tomorrow is Hollywood Studios. 

Spring Break 2023 - Day 6 - Disney World Magic Kingdom

There are a few benefits of staying at a Disney World hotel. The first is that there is early park entry for Disney World hotel guests. For Magic Kingdom this meant we got to enter the park at 8:30am. The other benefit is that you are able to use their buses to get to the parks. Disney World is the same size as San Fransisco so it can take 20 minutes to get there. Rather than having to rent a car you can just take a bus for free. We almost didn't get on the first bus but it would have been okay as another showed up as we were loading.

One major change for park entry this year was security. Since 9/11 they have had metal detectors and bag checks for all guests. It started with a second row of tents but over the years they've added permanent structures. This year instead of every guest being stopped they have some sort of AI that scans all guests and decides which bags are at risk. For us that meant Kerry's backpack was safe but Callie's backpack purse got flagged every time. We figure it was the aerosol deodorant.

The park doors open around 8:00am but they have ropes stopping you from getting to the rides so we had a bit of time to to wait until our first ride which was Seven Dwarves Mine Train. The line up ended up indicating 70 minutes by the time we got there but the estimates early in the day are a bit generous so it was only about 45 minutes. One odd thing was the hair band graveyard we saw on the ride near the end. I guess people get bored when they are stopped and once one person does it everyone does it.

While waiting in line for Seven Dwarves we saw our first 'Karen'. A father and daughter were making their way through the line to catch up with their party and the 'Karen' started yelling 'Sir... Sir...' to one of the Disney attendants saying they were cutting in the line. No action was taken. Carter's comment was 'Oooh. A real live Karen in the wild'. Next up was Space Mountain. I don't mind this ride but I really hate the down parts of roller coasters. I tolerate Space Mountain once on each trip.

One thing we noticed on all the rides was that the water marks on the automatic pictures were much bigger. I guess too many people just took pictures of their picture rather than buying. 

Another change this time was a return to refillable popcorn. For $13 you can get a bucket with $2.50 refills vs $5.50 for a cardboard bucket. The way Carter likes to eat popcorn, refillable is definitely the way to go.

On our way to Pirates of the Caribbean we walked by Splash Mountain which for Disney World was being retuned. It was previously based on a movie called Song of the South which is a fairly tone deaf portrayal of the south in the early years after slavery. They are retooling it to be based on Tiana which is a Disney princess. I'm assuming it will still be a log ride but it will be sad not to have zippity do dah as the main song. Hopefully they pay tribute to the old Splash Mountain in some way.

We stopped for churros by the water though I wasn't very impressed. They were not fresh and had lots of icing and sprinkles on them. They are always better fresh. We then headed over to the Haunted Mansion. Some good ideas for gravestones for Halloween. This is where we started to see the flaw in not getting the Genie Pass and the apparent greediness of Disney. They've made it more expensive to use the Fast Lanes but with a very high limit for the number they sell. We found they let way more fast lanes through and it really slowed things for us.

Our next ride was Goofy's Barn Stormer which is a roller coaster geared for kids. It's short and not very fast. I like to scream on this one as if it's the worst ride ever to see if I can frighten any kids. Best line I heard as I got off was 'Why is that man screaming. It's not that scary." It was now time for lunch which has sort of gotten easier as they have mobile ordering. As long as your phone has good wifi, you can order on the app and pick up right away. I had a chicken Caesar salad which was not very good. We finished the morning off with the magic carpet ride.

The start and end time for Magic Kingdom is enough that it makes sense to head back to the hotel for the afternoon for some time by the pool. We also had to wash clothes as it's difficult to pack for 10 days without washing clothes at least once. We wandered over to the sister hotel which is Port Orleans Riverside to check out their pool. We had thought our pool was going to be closed and we would have had to use Riverside but turns out that is next year.

We went back to the park around 6:00pm and tried to go on the Monsters Inc ride which we assumed was like Disneyland but turned out to be a life action comedy show. It was pretty funny with a bit of video interaction with the audience. One poor guy kept getting picked on. We also did the people movers where we saw the fireworks and Autopia where it's very noticeable they still use gas engines. I would not want to work on that ride in the pits. Hot and smelly. 

We also got to see the Tron ride at night. It wasn't open yet but was scheduled to open before we came to Magic Kingdom again. If we can get a spot in the virtual queue we'd be some of the first regular park goers on it. The outside looks amazing at night and you could see the cars running empty which you ride as if you are riding one of the Tron motorcycles. Probably too much for me. We headed back to Barnstormer which I decided to sit out. Apparently I was too busy on my phone because the family did it three times walking by me each time as there was no line up. 

Spring Break 2023 - Day 5 - Travel to Disney World

We got around 6:00am and got the car packed up because our hotel offered free breakfast at 7:00am. I made sure to make lots of noise as we were leaving to get back at the mean college kids who were blaring music walking in front of our room at 2:00am. Breakfast was not very exciting. Biscuits and gravy with cinnamon toast sticks and watery eggs. I had a bit but none of the family wanted anything so we left right away to go find Starbucks and Burger King. We also stopped at a Walmart to get breakfast things and water so we could avoid buying breakfast in Disney World.  Somehow we managed to forget the water though.

It was at this point where we realized we had missed out on the real Panama City Beach. Our hotel area was quite run down and there was even an abandoned amusement park nearby. As we were leaving though we realized there was a whole new area that included mini-golf with waterfalls and even the "Ripley's Believe it or Not" museum in a giant ship. Kerry now remembered that she knew about all of this from when we planned our trip three years earlier but had completely forgotten. My recommendation if you go to Panama City Beach is to not go where we went. 

One of the things that I dislike about Google Maps is that sometimes it offers you the quickest route that might only be quickest for a short period of time and is really not the best overall pay. Case in point for our trip leaving Panama City Beach was the dirt road it took us on before getting us on to the I-10. We ended up on several back roads before we were comfortable that it was sending us in the right direction.  Northern Florida was a very boring drive. Mostly just Forrests with relatively small pine trees. This is the part of the drive that we probably should have taken the older highway closer to the water.

Although our plan was to get to Disney World today we had one stop we wanted to get in on the way. There is a town called Crystal River that has a national park with wild manatees. They come into the inner channels at this time of year. We should have done more planning though as we had to get our car back by 6:00pm and forgot we were losing an hour with the time change. If the national park had parking we might have been okay but you have to park a ways out and get a shuttle. We walked around a bit but we struck out seeing wild manatees.

We dropped the car off at the Disney Car Care centre around 5:30pm and got a shuttle to the hotel. Check-in options are starting to change with hotels. If we had known we could have checked in remotely and used our phone to access our rooms. We checked in the old way, picked up our magic bands and started to explore on our way to the room. It was nice that we had done the real New Orleans before coming to Disney World. Callie picked up on things like fountains and architecture and the name of our gift shop was Jackson Square. Major difference was cleanliness and there were no holes in the side walks.

We had reservations at Planet Hollywood in Disney Springs at 7:00 and had just enough time to catch a boat to Disney Springs. Most of the hotels have a 'unique' way of getting to at least one or two key locations and ours was a boat. Others have things like the monorail or gondolas. Planet Hollywood was a bit much for me. Very noisy and lots of people. Even though I was hungry, the full rack of ribs was way more than I could handle. Presentation was nice. It came on a tiny picnic table. It was at this point that I realized these sit down dinners were going to be pricy. They averaged $175 for the three we went to.

We finished the evening off with dessert at Ghirardelli. It's not cheap but these are the best sundaes I've ever had. They put a big glob of sauce in the bottom before they put the ice cream in so you always get to end with the good stuff. I highly recommend. We also wandered around Disney Springs a bit. It was a Friday evening and it was St. Patrick's day so it was very busy. On our way to the restaurant we had to run past an Irish Pub and they had live music and it was packed. We took a bus back to the hotel and got rested for our first day at Magic Kingdom.

Spring Break 2023 - Day 4 - Panama City Beach

We weren't technically in a hurry this day but we still got up early and headed to the airport to pick up our rental car by 9:00am as soon as the place opened. We were headed to Panama City beach and since we were only staying a single night we wanted as much time there as we could and it was about a 5 hour drive away. Kerry had booked the taxi the night before which turned out to be a good thing as our taxi driver was apparently also the dispatcher and he had to say no to a ton of cars. They only had minivans in the immediate lot so we got a free upgrade and let Carter pick the colour.

We were on the road by around around 9:30am and we had several states we had to get through including Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. It would probably have been nice to take a few roads closer to the water but we didn't really have a lot of time so we stayed mostly on the I-10. I'm not sure what I was expecting for this area of the US but it felt a lot like other areas we have driven. Major highway with lots of fast food restaurants at the exits as well as Love's gas stations. It was interesting to drive some of the major causeways.

Our hotel was a typical coastal water front hotel. 7 or 8 stories with the balconies facing the ocean and the door on an outside corridor on the front. We had assumed spring break would be finished by now but a lot of the universities have different weeks. This meant a lot of drunk college kids doing everything from beach volley ball to beer pong on the beach. We also noticed that all the furniture in the room was plastic which is probably a good thing when you have to clean up after spring breakers every March. The room itself was great for me as it had separate rooms for each of the beds and a couch for Carter to sleep on. 

We had long planned to try out a beach side restaurant near our hotel called Harpoon Harry's but I guess they rent themselves out for special events during spring break so we wandered down the beach headed towards the next bank of hotels. Kerry didn't want drive and risk losing our parking spot as it was very difficult to find. We got about halfway there when Kerry realized she had dropped her room key in the envelope with our room number on it so we had to head back. Amazingly she found it where she had last taken her phone out for pictures. We ended up at a pizza joint across from out hotel where we shared pizza and wings.

While wandering up the beach we found a mini-golf place which only took cash. I assume cash only business tend to be for money laundering but it was still not a bad course. Most of the holes had multiple obstacles and often were mechanized in some way. Mini-golf continues to be Carter's nemesis. There was a hole with a turtle where you have to get it through the middle or it gets spit back out at you and it goes all the way back to the starting point. Carter missed at least a half dozen time and was not happy. Lesson learned for everyone else to lay up on the first shot. I ended up winning the evening by 10 shots. Fun night for me!

Spring Break 2023 - Day 3 - New Orleans and the National WWII Museum

We can't start every day with beignets at Cafe du Monde so today we had beignets at Cafe Beignet. Actually, just Callie and I did. Kerry and Carter branched out. To be honest we're not entirely sure we ended up at the right Cafe Beignet. Kerry and Callie had looked it up and we were heading in the right direction, but it turns out there our several and we may have been headed to one on Canal Street, but we ended up in a much smaller one. I think it was a lot nicer though. A hole in the wall that almost seemed like the inside of a streetcar with tiny birds wandering between your legs at the table.

From the beginning I had been attempting to get the family to go to the National WWII Museum as its one of the top museums in the US. They had it in their head that it was just some old planes at an airport. When we were driving to the swamp tour we drove by, and they realized it was an actual museum that looked pretty interesting. We didn't have anything else planned for the day so we decided we would come first thing in the morning. We had picked our breakfast location to be on the way, so it was only another 15-minute walk. 

The museum is incredibly well done. It takes you through the major events of the war and it has artifacts from land, sea, and air. If there is one fault of course it's that it is entirely from the American point of view. Not necessarily wrong but from walking through you would think the Americans lead the entire war effort. Kerry indicated she saw the word Canada mentioned once and I didn't see it at all. Even for D-Day they listed Omaha beach as well as 'four others' in at least one location. I still do strongly recommend you go if you are ever in New Orleans.

We spent the rest of the day in the French Quarter wandering around to some of the remaining sites we had on our list including Pat O'briens where Kerry and I got their signature Hurricane. The kids also had virgin versions. Mine was not virgin but perhaps it should have been. Those things hit hard. Kerry had the kids escort me through the French Market. We also stopped off at Hotel Royal which has a courtyard that was the inspiration for Marcel's house in 'The Originals'. As far as we can tell, they didn't shoot any actual scenes there.

We went to Louis Armstrong Park as there was a cemetery nearby that we wanted to check out. The Park itself consisted of some interesting ponds, statues and buildings though it was pretty empty. I think it has more going on when there are concerts in the concert hall. We attempted to go to the cemetery, but I should have remembered that the ones near the French Quarter are restricted to tours only. I think there would be too much traffic otherwise. Kerry got as close as she wanted to anyways by peering in through a gap in the front gate.

Speaking of dead people, Kerry and Callie had gone to Muriel's for dinner the night before and had to go back during the day today to check out the table set for Pierre the resident ghost. We now have our own official ghost story. As we were getting ready for bed, one of the lights flickered off casting half the room in darkness. Callie indicated it must be Pierre so I asked nicely if Pierre could turn the light back on until we were ready to go to bed. The light came on about a half a second later. Kerry is ready for us to get to Disney World now. 

Spring Break 2023 - Day 2 - New Orleans and the Swamp

The weather is a bit cooler than we would want for a southern vacation but it's still close to 20 degrees and sunny so we can't complain. We woke up early so that we could go to Cafe du Monde as soon as it opened before we left for our swamp tour. Cafe du Monde is New Orleans' version of the first Starbucks but much older as it was established in 1862. Kerry and the kids are already familiar with it because Disneyland has replicated it as part of their New Orleans Square area where you can get beignets and mint juleps. Callie was very excited to try out beignets from the source and they didn't disappoint. Warm, fluffy and lots of icing sugar. We'll go back at least one more time.

The next item on our agenda was a trip to the swamp. Carter had a few items on his list of things to do and it included a swamp tour. We walked down the waterfront to catch a bus that took us out to the swamp. We checked in at the tour office and found they had an albino gator. Albino gators don't last long in the wild, not just because they are easy to see but also because they don't do well in the sun. This isn't a good for a cold-blooded animal who needs to sun themselves to get moving in the morning. This gators name was Sugar, and she took so long to move we didn't think she was real at first.

We had considered doing an airboat tour, but I didn't want to have to wear sweaty earmuffs and I think we made a good call. The swamp boat and the air boats all started from the same location and the airboats were very loud. It was quite cold on the day we went so the alligators were mostly hiding in the mud and we only saw a couple of them. I'm pretty sure the airboats were scaring them away before they even saw them. I had thought the airboats would be able to go places we couldn't, but I think they just went to the same places we went but faster. 

The highlight of the trip was the gators followed by the swamp cows. (This was all we actually saw.) At one point our guide threw out a marshmallow for the gator to hunt. The cold weather was apparently impacting him. He swam slowly toward it and made one halfhearted attempt to grab it but in the end the marshmallow got away. I think we saw five gators in total and learned a lot about floattantes. It seemed to be our guides favorite word. I think he said it over 100 times.

After our tour bus dropped us back in the French Quarter we wandered around a bit and checked out more of the area including Canal Street. There is a distinct difference between the business district and the French Quarter, and it's separated by this street. On one side you have skyscrapers and a modern downtown and on the other the majority of the buildings are one or two stories tall interspersed by a few older styled more modern hotels up to 5 or six stories. Apparently, it was in the 1960's that preservation of the existing buildings finally took hold and new hotels are no longer allowed in the French Quarter boundary.

By now we had told Carter about his surprise activity. While searching for New Orleans items online Kerry noticed that there is an NBA team here and they just happened to be playing the lakers while we were here. Carter was very excited to get to watch his first NBA game. He and I walked to the Smoothie King Centre from our hotel. Our seats were upper deck, but it was still a nice view of the game. The game itself was notable for the wrong reasons. Records for 3 pointers by the Lakers as well as their largest ever lead at half time of 40 points. Still a fun time.

 

Spring Break 2023 - Day 1 - Travel to New Orleans

The week that Covid hit in 2020, we had a trip planned to New Orleans followed by a drive to Orlando. It was cancelled just days before we left. Three years later and we are attempting that same trip. Our flight to New Orleans left at 7:15am so we left for the airport around 4:00am. With the recent time change this meant we got up at 3:00am and it felt like 2:00am. Our plane boarded on time, and we were optimistic we would make our connecting flight in San Fransisco despite only a 50-minute layover. As we were taxiing however the captain announced we had to 'park' for 30 minutes due to weather issues in San Fransisco. It wasn't looking good.

Our hope was that the weather would cause our connecting flight to be delayed as well. All we could do was eat our 30-calorie airline snack and hope. When we landed, the stewardess asked if anyone had a tight connecting flight and 2/3 of the plane put up their hand. It might have only been the kids that didn't. She then clarified that people travelling to New Orleans and a couple of other destinations were the tightest and asked everyone to let us off first. It wasn't initially looking good but eventually people moved aside, and we were able to run to our gate.

I ran ahead and managed to get to the gate before it closed. There were two people in line and just as I arrived, I heard one say they "would have to close the gate after these last two". I identified the Schwab family had arrived and indicated the rest would be there shortly. They asked if we were from the Vancouver flight and said they didn't think we were going to make it. Our flight to New Orleans was uneventful and actually arrived 24 minutes early. With a 0-minute layover it felt like a direct connection.

We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel which is just a block off Bourbon Street. As I type this, I can hear the music though it is very quiet. Our hotel is a former convent and orphanage. Apparently, a nun committed suicide in one of the rooms above us and it is considered one of the most haunted hotels in New Orleans. I'm not going to say I believe in ghosts but the lights flicker, the phone mysteriously was knocked off the hook and when I was taking a nap, I swear I felt someone sit down on the end of the bed. We're going to leave a chair in the corner open for ghosts, just in case.

We arrived around 4:30pm local time so after we checked in to the hotel, we wandered around a bit to find something to eat. We weren't necessarily picky, but we found it very difficult to find a place that was open, had no line up, had food and not just alcohol and included something from our list of New Orleans food that we wanted to try. In the end, Carter and I ended up at Willie's Chicken Shack and Kerry and Callie had pizza from a place next door. The fried chicken was very good. The chicken was from the Jurassic era based on its size and the spices made it very flavorful.

We ended the evening with fudge from Kilwin's Candy store and frozen custard from Abbots. Apparently, this is 'French style' ice cream. I only had a spoonful, but it was delicious.

We went back to our hotel and went to bed around 10:00pm. With the 1-hour time change, two-hour time zone change, latitude change, up early and busy day it felt like bedtime.