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The 4F Trip Report
Day 09 - 05-Jul-2009 - Kennedy Space Center
I was awoken rather rudely this morning by the alarm clock at 7am. I had heard that such times existed on holiday, but had never really seen any evidence for it until now.
As quietly as possible, I got dressed and slipped out - into the somewhat unexpected mist that gave a totally different feel to the Caribbean Beach Resort
So after one walk to Old Port Royale I was at the concierge's desk, and asked the lady if she was able to phone the on-resort Magic Kingdom Car Care Center and ask for a courtesy bus to be sent for me. Oh no, but she could give me a phone number for them. What's with that?
I used my mobile to phone and was told that sure, a courtesy bus could be sent. Around 0930. Hmm... that wasn't the plan. I said it was okay, I would just get the bus to the Magic Kingdom and then the monorail out to the Car Care Center. "No," I was told, "the monorail isn't running today."
Very strange. So I asked the concierge about this; she confirmed it wasn't running and wouldn't be for a couple of days to come. And she was no more forthcoming than that. Sounded as if something bad had happened. She was, however, willing to get me a taxi which turned up shortly thereafter, and duly took me out to the Car Care Center.
The car - an eight-seater of some flavour - was kind-of all right. Well, okay, it stank. Of what, I'm not sure - just general staleness, I think. But it was July 4th weekend, and it was "take it or leave it". I took it and, I have to say, once I worked out how to switch the air conditioning out of recirculate mode, the smell dissipated.
I drove back to our hotel, got some breakfast, and we were ready to go to the Kennedy Space Center.
This was something I was looking forward to. This was Disney's "Imagine" transformed into real life. This was where men were heroic and people did extraordinarily cool things. This was going to be good.
The journey was straightforward, and we got out of the car in searing heat. The car told me that the temperature in the shade was 35C, and that was around 10:00! (I left the display in "metric" mode - I wonder whether the next renter got really confused about that?)
We found the centre pretty quiet, and were easily able to exchange our voucher for tickets. But the moment we got through, I began to feel a little let down. There was a lot of "stuff" on display, like information on the International Space Station
the "Rocket Garden"
Even a Saturn rocket (it's huge
and I guess everyone has to take one of these
There was a mock-up of the Saturn's control area, where it was hard to believe that three grown men in space suits could work together
But it was all just "stuck out there" with a few noticeboards to tell us what each display was. The only thing that really bought anything to life was the nosecone mockup, where we could sit and pretend to be astronauts.
The kids found the place they wanted to go
yes, a big soft play area. We stayed there for a little while before going to watch an IMAX 3D movie about the International Space Station, and that did begin to bring some sense of Inspiration back.
That faded when we went out to lunch. The Orbit Cafe? As the Americans might say, puh-leeeeez!
Having said that, the lunch wasn't bad and we then went onto a bus tour.
Our first stop was near the launch pad. Now this was more like it. We went past the Vehicla Assembly Building - VAB - where the rockets are built and the Space Shuttle refitted after each flight. It's the tallest building in the world.
We saw the "crawler," the vehicle that carries the shuttle from the VAB to the launch pad, at a speed of around one mile per hour.
We could see the tracks along which it went, too
The 4F Trip Report
Day 09 - 05-Jul-2009 - Kennedy Space Center
I was awoken rather rudely this morning by the alarm clock at 7am. I had heard that such times existed on holiday, but had never really seen any evidence for it until now.
As quietly as possible, I got dressed and slipped out - into the somewhat unexpected mist that gave a totally different feel to the Caribbean Beach Resort
So after one walk to Old Port Royale I was at the concierge's desk, and asked the lady if she was able to phone the on-resort Magic Kingdom Car Care Center and ask for a courtesy bus to be sent for me. Oh no, but she could give me a phone number for them. What's with that?
I used my mobile to phone and was told that sure, a courtesy bus could be sent. Around 0930. Hmm... that wasn't the plan. I said it was okay, I would just get the bus to the Magic Kingdom and then the monorail out to the Car Care Center. "No," I was told, "the monorail isn't running today."
Very strange. So I asked the concierge about this; she confirmed it wasn't running and wouldn't be for a couple of days to come. And she was no more forthcoming than that. Sounded as if something bad had happened. She was, however, willing to get me a taxi which turned up shortly thereafter, and duly took me out to the Car Care Center.
The car - an eight-seater of some flavour - was kind-of all right. Well, okay, it stank. Of what, I'm not sure - just general staleness, I think. But it was July 4th weekend, and it was "take it or leave it". I took it and, I have to say, once I worked out how to switch the air conditioning out of recirculate mode, the smell dissipated.
I drove back to our hotel, got some breakfast, and we were ready to go to the Kennedy Space Center.
This was something I was looking forward to. This was Disney's "Imagine" transformed into real life. This was where men were heroic and people did extraordinarily cool things. This was going to be good.
The journey was straightforward, and we got out of the car in searing heat. The car told me that the temperature in the shade was 35C, and that was around 10:00! (I left the display in "metric" mode - I wonder whether the next renter got really confused about that?)
We found the centre pretty quiet, and were easily able to exchange our voucher for tickets. But the moment we got through, I began to feel a little let down. There was a lot of "stuff" on display, like information on the International Space Station
the "Rocket Garden"
Even a Saturn rocket (it's huge
and I guess everyone has to take one of these
There was a mock-up of the Saturn's control area, where it was hard to believe that three grown men in space suits could work together
But it was all just "stuck out there" with a few noticeboards to tell us what each display was. The only thing that really bought anything to life was the nosecone mockup, where we could sit and pretend to be astronauts.
The kids found the place they wanted to go
yes, a big soft play area. We stayed there for a little while before going to watch an IMAX 3D movie about the International Space Station, and that did begin to bring some sense of Inspiration back.
That faded when we went out to lunch. The Orbit Cafe? As the Americans might say, puh-leeeeez!
Having said that, the lunch wasn't bad and we then went onto a bus tour.
Our first stop was near the launch pad. Now this was more like it. We went past the Vehicla Assembly Building - VAB - where the rockets are built and the Space Shuttle refitted after each flight. It's the tallest building in the world.
We saw the "crawler," the vehicle that carries the shuttle from the VAB to the launch pad, at a speed of around one mile per hour.
We could see the tracks along which it went, too