I Heart Vacation
So we just got back from 4 days in sunny Florida. 80 degree weather, one brief passing shower the whole time we were there. Then I get back and our cars are covered in a sheet of ice, there's so much ice on the trees that hang over the driveway that they hang down and drag across the top of the car, and it's going to be 20 degrees tomorrow.
Anywho... vacation was great. We arrived on Wednesday around dinner time so we picked up the car and drove to Kissimmee to find our hotel. It wasn't clearly marked so we drove halfway down 192-W trying to find it. Found it, checked in, and went do Downtown Disney for dinner. The hotel I picked out for us was literally 5 minutes from the Disney West Maingate, so it took all of 15 minutes to get there (we're used to staying on International Drive which is about a half hour away from the Maingate). We had dinner on Wednesday at this restaurant called "Bongos" which serves Cuban food. Very good...
Now, I promise I won't bore you with the details of our whole vacation but I have to mention Bongos because I have decided that I am no longer ordering a water with lemon. I ordered one at Bongos and instead they brought me a water with lime. It was so good. It's all I ordered the rest of the time we were in Florida, and I think it's what I'll order from now on. Mmm... lime.
Anyways... the rest of the vacation looked like this:
Thursday: Epcot day 1. We heart Epcot, so we decided to do 2 days of it. A lot of fun as always. We ate at the Biergarten in "Germany" for dinner that night, which is interesting because they seat you with random people like a "traditional Biergarten in Germany". We sat with a family from Houston who were Packers fans and had a great time. Tasty buffet. And of course we went on Test Track, Mission Space (the "green", less intense version because I'm a "wimp"), Soarin', Living with the Land, Maelstrom... it was a great day.
Friday: Magic Kingdom day. First things first we made a beeline for "Pirates of the Caribbean" because it was closed last time we were there. They did an awesome job updating it to reflect some of the things in the movie, and the animatronic Captain Jack Sparrow was awesome. Down to the quirky movements. We also caught a street show with Captain Jack later on in the day outside the ride and it was pretty cool. The actor they got to do the role could have been a dead-ringer for Johnny Depp - he wasn't, but I'm just saying. Splash Mountain was closed, which is a bummer becuase that's one of my favorites there ("Not the Briar Patch!!"). We did almost every ride including the Haunted Mansion which is Steve's favorite, saw Mickey's Philharmagic, and stayed late for the Wishes fireworks show, which was awesome. For dinner we did our first Character Dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern which was super fun. Another great day.
Saturday: Our Park Hoppin' Day. Animal Kingdom in the morning - first thing we did was follow the mass crowd of people to Expedition: Everest. It was awesome. SOOOOOO awesome. I wanna go on it again. We went on that twice (the second time someone in Finding Nemo: The Musical gave us their Fast Passes, which was pretty sweet). We also went on Dinosaur and did "It's Tough to Be a Bug" before park-hopping over to MGM. Once at MGM I got disappointed because one of my favorite rides was down for refurbishment - Aerosmith's Rock & Roller Coaster. 0-60 in 2.5 seconds or something ridiculous, all indoors with blacklights and it's just so cool. So instead we went on the Hollywood Tower of Terror which I love. We had an amazing dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby... amazing Cobb Salad tossed at your table, then I had this awesome chicken and we got dessert. I of course had a water with lime to drink. At this point I decided there's no such thing as a bad day at Disney.
Sunday: Epcot day 2. Spent more time in Futureworld this time and covered more ground. Did "Honey I Shrunk the Audience", Soarin', Test Track (twice!), Mission Space, Imagination Institute (with Figment), etc. etc. etc. My favorite show in all of Epcot was there - Off Kilter - it's a rock band with bagpipes, and they wear kilts. So of course I made Steve sit through it. Dinner at the Akershus in "Norway", and it was another Character Dinner this time with the princesses. We were greeted by Ariel, Belle, Snow White, and Cinderella. Caught Illuminations.
A comment about Sunday: So I wore my #39 Maroney jersey because I'm a big dork and I always wear my Pats jersey when they're playing. Steve was like "You're such a dork"... until we got to Epcot and saw SO MANY people wearing Pats jerseys. There were like 4 or 5 people gathered around Steve and I during the last 2 minutes of the game because we were monitoring the score on his Treo. GO PATS!!! :)
And... my souvenir from Florida: a cold. Yay!
Anywho... vacation was great. We arrived on Wednesday around dinner time so we picked up the car and drove to Kissimmee to find our hotel. It wasn't clearly marked so we drove halfway down 192-W trying to find it. Found it, checked in, and went do Downtown Disney for dinner. The hotel I picked out for us was literally 5 minutes from the Disney West Maingate, so it took all of 15 minutes to get there (we're used to staying on International Drive which is about a half hour away from the Maingate). We had dinner on Wednesday at this restaurant called "Bongos" which serves Cuban food. Very good...
Now, I promise I won't bore you with the details of our whole vacation but I have to mention Bongos because I have decided that I am no longer ordering a water with lemon. I ordered one at Bongos and instead they brought me a water with lime. It was so good. It's all I ordered the rest of the time we were in Florida, and I think it's what I'll order from now on. Mmm... lime.
Anyways... the rest of the vacation looked like this:
Thursday: Epcot day 1. We heart Epcot, so we decided to do 2 days of it. A lot of fun as always. We ate at the Biergarten in "Germany" for dinner that night, which is interesting because they seat you with random people like a "traditional Biergarten in Germany". We sat with a family from Houston who were Packers fans and had a great time. Tasty buffet. And of course we went on Test Track, Mission Space (the "green", less intense version because I'm a "wimp"), Soarin', Living with the Land, Maelstrom... it was a great day.
Friday: Magic Kingdom day. First things first we made a beeline for "Pirates of the Caribbean" because it was closed last time we were there. They did an awesome job updating it to reflect some of the things in the movie, and the animatronic Captain Jack Sparrow was awesome. Down to the quirky movements. We also caught a street show with Captain Jack later on in the day outside the ride and it was pretty cool. The actor they got to do the role could have been a dead-ringer for Johnny Depp - he wasn't, but I'm just saying. Splash Mountain was closed, which is a bummer becuase that's one of my favorites there ("Not the Briar Patch!!"). We did almost every ride including the Haunted Mansion which is Steve's favorite, saw Mickey's Philharmagic, and stayed late for the Wishes fireworks show, which was awesome. For dinner we did our first Character Dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern which was super fun. Another great day.
Saturday: Our Park Hoppin' Day. Animal Kingdom in the morning - first thing we did was follow the mass crowd of people to Expedition: Everest. It was awesome. SOOOOOO awesome. I wanna go on it again. We went on that twice (the second time someone in Finding Nemo: The Musical gave us their Fast Passes, which was pretty sweet). We also went on Dinosaur and did "It's Tough to Be a Bug" before park-hopping over to MGM. Once at MGM I got disappointed because one of my favorite rides was down for refurbishment - Aerosmith's Rock & Roller Coaster. 0-60 in 2.5 seconds or something ridiculous, all indoors with blacklights and it's just so cool. So instead we went on the Hollywood Tower of Terror which I love. We had an amazing dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby... amazing Cobb Salad tossed at your table, then I had this awesome chicken and we got dessert. I of course had a water with lime to drink. At this point I decided there's no such thing as a bad day at Disney.
Sunday: Epcot day 2. Spent more time in Futureworld this time and covered more ground. Did "Honey I Shrunk the Audience", Soarin', Test Track (twice!), Mission Space, Imagination Institute (with Figment), etc. etc. etc. My favorite show in all of Epcot was there - Off Kilter - it's a rock band with bagpipes, and they wear kilts. So of course I made Steve sit through it. Dinner at the Akershus in "Norway", and it was another Character Dinner this time with the princesses. We were greeted by Ariel, Belle, Snow White, and Cinderella. Caught Illuminations.
A comment about Sunday: So I wore my #39 Maroney jersey because I'm a big dork and I always wear my Pats jersey when they're playing. Steve was like "You're such a dork"... until we got to Epcot and saw SO MANY people wearing Pats jerseys. There were like 4 or 5 people gathered around Steve and I during the last 2 minutes of the game because we were monitoring the score on his Treo. GO PATS!!! :)
And... my souvenir from Florida: a cold. Yay!