Disney

Home Up

Friday morning, January 21st, we got ready to make our trek to Disney World!!  We drove the 20 miles to Orlando (since it was only a short distance, we didn't bother to hook up the tow car) and I kept having to pinch myself, I finally was getting there.  As soon as we were settled into our campsite, we tried to figure out how to get from one place to another in this amazing entertainment center.  We finally figured it out.  A short bus ride and a long bus ride (both on internal Disney buses) led us to Disney-MGM Studios.  The length of the trip within the Disney complex was hard to believe.  And the magnitude of just this one park was beyond my imagination. Norm took a few of the exciting rides (The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Rock'n'Roller Coaster) while Shelley took the chicken exit on both.  We also took The Great Movie Ride. 

MGM guitar

Tower of Terror

Sully from Monsters, Inc.

(thanks to Zack, we got it right now!)

Snow White

Mickey & Minnie

After the short taste of this theme park, we left for the Orlando Airport, where we picked up our good friends, Wally and Ingrid, who came down to visit with us for 5 days while they avoided the 20 inches or so of snow that fell on Hartford.

Saturday, the 24th of January found the four of us visiting the Animal Kingdom.  In addition to wandering around in this zoo-like setting, we saw the incredible movie, It's Tough To Be a Bug and the high energy show Tarzan Rocks. The Tree of Life was fascinating.  It was man made and carved into the trunk are lots of wild animals.  It is very lifelike and eerie..  We also took the Kilimanjaro Safari ride, where we saw lots of interesting animals in natural settings.  On Saturday evening we went to Downtown Disney, where we saw the incredible Cirque du Soleil and afterward grabbed a quick dinner at the Earl of Sandwich.

Ing and me at It's Tough to be a Bug, wearing 3D glasses

Ostrich with 3 eggs

Hooded bird

Tree of Life

Lion at the Adventure Safari

Pink Flamingoes

Zebras

Peacock

Sunday it dawned sunny, cold and very windy, and we met Wally and Ingrid at the Wilderness Lodge (where they were staying) and then took the bus to Epcot.  We all enjoyed Spaceship Earth, Test Track, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and Journey's Into the Imagination With Figment.  We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant and were amazed to watch a Japanese woman make little animals made up of candy.  We all spent late afternoon in our motorhome and returned to Epcot for a wonderful dinner at the Coral Reef in the Living Seas area if the park.  Thought it was pretty expensive, the dinner was wonderful...probably one of the best seafood meals we ever had.  And our table was only 10 feet from large windows that looked into a huge aquarium (48 feet deep and 203 feet in diameter) that had some 3500 fish and 65 different species.  We watched sharks, rays, giant sea turtles and the other fish constantly swimming around as we enjoyed our dinner.  At 9 PM we shivered our way to the central lagoon to watch the spectacular fireworks display.

Wilderness Lodge

Spaceship Earth

4 Amies en France

Epcot

4 friends with Mickey

China at Epcot

Shelley & Minnie

Ingie, Wally & Donald

The next day found us in the Magic Kingdom.  We all arrived there by boat in the morning.  We all took the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Pirates of the Caribbean & the Jungle Cruise.  Our Jungle Cruise guide had a real corny sense of humor - when some of the people on the boat didn't sit down, she called them "Bad Tourist!!"  She also cracked some awful jokes - for example - "What did Donald Duck say when he ordered chapstick at the drug store?  Answer - "Put it on my bill!!".  We also went to the Haunted Mansion and had a contest between the guys and the gals on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin - (the guys outshot the gals).  Ingrid and Norm rode Space Mountain while Shelley and Wally chickened out and waited (note from Shelley - Wal & I went shopping!!)  The four of us visited the Hall of Presidents and enjoyed the daily parade of Disney characters at 3 PM. We took a break in late afternoon for individual naps and then met at the Trail's End buffet in Fort Wilderness for dinner at 7 PM.  We all ate until we were stuffed...Shelley even said that she probably wouldn't eat for a week.  The food was ok, not great but certainly edible.

Buzz Lightyear

Splash Mountain

Disney Castle

Mickey in parade

Donald Duck

Main Street USA

Winnie the Pooh

Pinocchio

Alladin

Donald and friends!

Tuesday was scheduled to be our last day at Disney World.  We met at the park, and by then Norm had already taken a trip to Mars on Mission:Space.  It was the best ride in the park, but Ingrid, Shelley and Wally weren't ready for the challenge.  We then wandered around until after 3 PM.  We did Ellen's Energy Adventure, Mexico's River of Time, and the U.S.'s American Adventure.  We were also entertained by a woman all in white who stood on a pedestal and looked like a porcelain statue.  She didn't move....except she moved her hands slightly when sightseers came up to her for pictures.  We had lunch at the Chinese exhibit.

Norm with the Statue!!

Wally, Shelley & Statue Lady

Wally and Ingrid came over to the motorhome for dinner and then we said our sad farewells.  Except for a few weeks for Norm's back surgery, we have been away from CT for 4 months, and Wally and Ingrid were the first friends to visit us on our travels.  We had a great time with them, and their departure stressed how much we missed all our friends and family.

On Wednesday morning, the Colby's left for their return flight to Bradley Airport in Hartford (and the wonderful new England weather) and we made the short trip to Steffner, FL to Lazy Days.  During the past month, we had put together a punch list of 20 or so items on our new coach that needed attention and it was time for that.  The projects were all completed (with some aggravation) by Saturday morning.  In return for the aggravation, Lazy Days gave us 2 free evenings at Rally Park, their wonderful campground.  We took advantage of the time to unwind after the stress of dealing with service people.  And on Saturday night, we met our friends Donna and Jay Blumenthal (they organized and founded CHAI) at Cracker Barrel for dinner and a time to schmooze.    We probably won't get to see them again until mid-March.

On Monday, 1/31, we were ready to hit the road again.  We headed north on Interstate Route 75 and west on Interstate Route 10.  However, we interrupted our trip west to stop in Live Oak  to pick up our mail.  It was fun to see what a small operation A-1 is....there were about 80 cubbies for mail in a small office inside an irrigation installation company.  Susan, who runs the mail service also works at the irrigation company.  Anyway, after we got our mail, we started a whole new period in our RVing life.  We were really going west.   We continued along until we felt that we had made enough progress and stopped at beaver lake campground in Quincy, FL., just west of Tallahassee.  It was an unusual campground that was just behind a big gas station.  And we had to pay for the site at the gas station.  It was a pretty big site that was kept reasonably well, but they had no facilities and there were only about 5 rigs there.