Adventures in Orlando: Day 7 – Animal Kingdom & Hard Rock cafe

[caroley]

<b>Carole : (40) Organiser and chief adventurer. Compulsive shopper.
Stephen : (43) Head beer drinker, and food taster. Trainee shopper.</b>

<I>As this was our third year running at Orlando, the plan was to take it all at a slower pace, and enjoy the atmosphere. No queuing and no commando tactics. We have annual passes for Disney and length of stay passes for Universal. We’re giving Seaworld a Miss this year rather than try to cram too much in.</I>

Day 7 – Friday 19/10/01
Today’s planned itinerary – Animal Kingdom, PS at Bomas
Weather – Clouds and sunshine. Some rain.


Didn’t get up ‘till 9am this morning. I had some fruit and Stephen ate some cookies. We had a bit of a tidy round as the shopping bags were starting to pile up. I finally got round to writing some postcards, while Stephen went to the hotel store to get stamps. I let him stick the stamps on, as they tasted foul . We left the hotel at noon, and headed for Animal Kingdom.

As we got on the parking lot tram, it started to rain a bit, but it stopped before we got off the tram. We had to laugh at our tram attendant, who welcomed everyone to the “crazy tram ride”. We decided to spend some time looking in the nooks and crannies of the park, rather than rush from one place to another. We must have spent an hour enjoying the Oasis, and the Discovery Island Trails. It was really relaxing just taking the time to watch the animals and the birds, and look at the plants. We even saw Skippy!

At 1.30 we were getting peckish, so we went to Tusker house. Stephen fetched a chicken sandwich for himself, and a veggie wrap for me, while I got a table and made a few notes for my trip report. The wrap was delicious, and Stephen enjoyed his sandwich. With a large coke and a bottle of water it came to $20.
We spent the afternoon, just wandering round, really. We popped over to Conservation Station and watched a talk on poison arrow frogs. Very interesting. As we’d got off the Wildlife express, the heavens opened so it was nice to get under cover. By the time we were ready to carry on, the rain had stopped.
We had a 6pm PS for Bomas at Animal Kingdom Lodge, so we left AK in plenty of time, so we could have a look round the resort. We were asked for photo id before being let into the car park for AKL. We had a good look round and decided that although it’s very nice there, we were glad we’d chosen the Hard Rock instead. (It was a toss up between the two when we booked.) It was nearly time for our meal, but there was a problem. Neither of us was the slightest bit hungry. We went and looked at the restaurant and it looked great, but we still weren’t hungry. In the end, we decided that it would be a waste of money to eat there for the sake of it so we went for a drive to find the new Walmarts, and got a few supplies in.

Now you might know, by the time we got back to the Hard Rock, we were getting peckish. Bloomin’ typical We decided to amble over to City Walk and see what took our fancy when we got there. We had a look round and decided on the Hard Rock café. We’d both fancied eating there for the atmosphere. Well, I had one of these All Access cards to get first available, preferred seating. There was a huge queue, but we walked up to the podium, waved our card, and were ushered straight in to wait in a very short line inside. After just a few minutes we were taken through to a small room at the back with large screens. We loved the music playing, the videos on the screens, and all the memorabilia to look at. Apparently, Orlando has more memorabilia than any other HRC.
Ok, the food:

I had a <b>Hard Rock House Salad</b>
Crisp greens, shredded cheese, onions, fresh tomatoes, black olives, shredded carrots, chopped bacon, chopped eggs and homemade croutons. homemade croutons.
Absolutely delicious. Really, really scrummy!

Stephen had the <b>Honey Bourbon New York Strip steak</b>
A Choice center-cut 12 oz New York strip steak grilled to your liking and brushed with a spicy-sweet honey bourbon BBQ glaze. Served with fresh seasonal vegetables and your choice of potato.
Stephen’s verdict - absolutely lovely.
And a <b>Homestyle Chocolate Cake</b>
Four moist layers of rich cake stacked on top of each other separated and surrounded by creamy chocolate icing. Topped with fresh whipped cream.
I was too full to even contemplate a dessert, but when Stephen ordered the chocolate cake, our server smiled knowingly and said she’d bring an extra fork. When she put the cake on the table, our jaws dropped. It was the size of a small house! It was at least six inches high (I kid you not) and very, very wide. Well, I thought I’d better help him out so we both dug in and made a considerable dent in it, but we could have done with a few more people pitching in, really. It was, however, very yummy. Good and chocolatey!
With a couple of Samuel Adams beers, some coke for me, and a coffee, it came to $75. Well worth it.

Well, we were stuffed after that. We’d looked at the nice book they put on the table for you to read. It had details of a limited edition pin they had for sale, with proceeds going to breast cancer research. The pin looked nice so we went to the shop to have a look. We bought a t-shirt each, and I had some pins. The nice one from the book, one with a pink Cadillac, the Halloween pin and one with a waitress on a whale (sounds strange, looks good). Oh, and a guitar one. I do like the guitar ones. Think I may collect those.
Walked back to work off some of that cake and had a relatively early night.

Pins bought today – 5

Tomorrow – Food and Wine festival & Illuminations cruise.

 

[Minniespal]

Thanks for the wonderful reports - luv reading them!!!