hilltopfamily said:
Have you put anything about your trip here on the boards for us to look at? If not, sorry to rush you!
Just interested in your experience. TIA
Thanks for asking. I've been delaying this report while I did the "clean up all that happened while I was gone" dance.
I went to the Holy Land Experience on Monday, January 31st. I had good directions and had no problem getting from Pop Century to HLE.
I arrived a few minutes before the gates opened. I was surprised at the lack of secrurity for the animals. They were easily accessible from the parking lot. I hope they take them elsewhere in the evening.
As you walk in the gate it's like walking through the gate of a walled city into a street market area. After passing a well stocked bookstore and a Petra-like rocky area where they plan to put a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit later you pass the garden tomb. Then turn a corner and find yourself facing a scaled down model of the temple. It's quite a sight. They have seating and a stage in front of the temple. Its there that they do some of their shows. To the right of the temple, behind the Petra-like rock formation is a building housing an exhibit on the Tabernacle. Go on past the temple to the left to the Oasis Palms Cafe (good food) then to another building housing a scale model of Jerusalem. I do need to note that there is no sign or designated entrance to the scale model of Jerusalme. When I asked I was pointed to a reddish door on the way ot the Scriptorium.
The Scriptorium is an interesting building. It holds a collection of historical Biblical manuscripts in a series of vignettes. The tour has computerized lighting with a narration track that guides you through the different rooms explaining the history of Biblical manuscript production. For me there are 3 highlights: an audio-animatronic figure of John Wycliff, pages from a Gutenberg Bible, and the finale ... paintings of heros of the Bible. While I did enjoy the exhibit and felt it was the best produced in the park I did feel that I was rushed through. There were 15-20 people in our group and it was difficult to give everyone a chance to look at the exhibit before the lighting and narration pulled us to the next room.
Let me back up toward the front gate and mention a few other things. The Wilderness Tabernacle exhibit was a lecture with an interesting shadow screen conclusion. Near the Tabernacle exhibit is a children's activity section with room to play and room for group activities as well. The Book store feasures novelty souvenirs from the Holy Land as well as books written for tourists in the Holy Land. Provides good resources for Sunday School and Bible study.
I was impressed by the restaurant. They featured a mediteranean style lunch with baclava for dessert.
There were a number of scheduled shows during the day, evrything from an auction which demonstrated common everyday articles from the time to music and dramatic monologues. It was a full day.
I would recommend HLE as a good experience for Christians visiting the Orlando area. I'm sure it would be even more fun to visit during a holy season but I really don't want to be in Orlando at Christmas or around Easter.
Hope I've answered some of your questions. Write me with more and I'd be glad to respond.
Thanks again for your info. 
Sounds great in theory! But probably not a sound idea for us though. (on a more serious note, said teenager has some special needs so she does really good for shorter babysitting chores such as me & DH's trips to the store or a local neighborhood place to eat, but longer jaunts require different babysitting accomodations---certainly not her fault, just the way it is 
) So, back to the original quandry. Well, at least there's plenty of time to decide!!! 
