Our honeymoon trip to Orlando! (Updated 7/10, Day 14&15; going home...THE END!)

[LISAMWDW]

Good stuff! We're heading over to US and IOA on our upcoming trip and we can't wait!

We love the Melting Pot! Yummy!

 

[mjkaferle5]

Enjoyed your T.R. so far!!

 

[lovealldisney]

 

[Marjol]

Day 7; Blizzard Beach & Pirate and Princess Party

We could sleep in a little again this morning, because the waterparks don't open before 10 am and we were going to Blizzard Beach. It's always nice to stay in bed a little later, although I really don't mind getting up early for the other parks, because I love the mornings there!

We had breakfast in our hotel again and were on our way to Blizzard Beach around a quarter to ten. Soon after, we saw this:

Although it was a little after 10 when we arrived, the parking lot was still almost empty. We parked the car in the first row, right in front of the entrance.

We walked into the park, rented a locker and found ourselves two sunchairs which we would use later on. We put our towels on the chairs and decided we would start of with the lazy river. We came across a photopass photographer and he took a couple of pictures.

After the pictures and finishing our round, we decided to take the ski lift all the way to the top of the park to do Teamboat Springs. We love this slide so much that we did it twice. We had to share our boat with other couples this time... last year we had one for the two of us!

We did another half round in the lazy river and did the Toboggan racers. Those are cool slides!

Gerbert had done enough swimming for the day and decided to go back to our sunchairs. I had a little swim in one of the pools, but swimming alone is boring, so I joined Gerbert pretty soon after. We had a nice rest and let our bathing suits dry. When we were all dry, we got our things out of the locker and had a bite to eat at Lottawatta Lodge. We made some pictures when we headed out of the park around 1.30.

We had planned a nice and quiet afternoon in the hotel, because tonight would be a late night. We first took a shower and spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping, watching TV and spending time on the laptop.

Around 3.30, we decided we were well rested and it was time to go to the Magic Kingdom for the P&P Party. I always love to see this when we head to the MK:

We parked the car and took the monorail to the MK, where we arrived somewhat after 4. Everyone with the P&PP tickets could come in after 4, so we got our special yellow wristbands and got into the park.

Walking down Main Street USA, we saw a Family Fun Parade. We have absolutely no idea what this is about, but we took some pictures anyway

There were quite some photopass photographers along Main Street USA and we let them take some pictures of us.

After that, we walked over to Frontierland. We went to Splash Mountain, but the fastpasses were already gone and the waiting time was 40 minutes, so we decided to skip it. We did get a fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain. Our return time was pretty soon, but we had some time left to do the Pirates ride and to get our picture taken with Hook and Smee (?)

We also watched the Pirate Tutorial and liked it a lot. This guy really looks and sounds like "the real Jack Sparrow'!

We also had some icecream (love those pineapple floats!), got our picture taken with Rafiki and one of the country bears and after that it was time to walk back to Big Thunder Mountain to use our fastpasses.
The line got so short that we didn't even need them, but that was great!
We ran into another pupil from my school here and had a little talk with them (Yes, it really is a small world). We walked past Splash Mountain and the sign said the waiting time was 30 minutes, so we decided to go for it. We were in the boats withing 5 minutes. It was great!

~continued in next post~

 

[Marjol]

It was seven by now and the park was getting empty, because all the people who didn't have the special P&PP tickets were asked to leave. We were ready to have a bite to eat and had a look in a small place close to the Haunted Mansion, but that turned out to be closed already. We decided to ride the HM while we were there.

After that, we walked to Discoveryland to eat something at Cosmic Rays. We had some chicken, it tasted fine. Stitch came in and I had to take a picture with him.

When we finished our dinner, it really got quiet in the park and we did Buzz Lightyear and Space Mountain at warp speed. It should always be this quiet... great!

We walked over to the castle to meet up with some people we know from a Dutch messageboard. Almost everyone was already there and we had a good time talking to them!

We were right in front of the castle and had an excellent view at the 8 o'clock show, which was really nice! I love the way Minnie and Mickey talk in this show!

After the show, we took a group picture:

And soon after, the parade started. I really loved this parade. Great music and characters!

After the parade, we said goodbye to everyone in the group and went our own way. We walked back to Tomorrowland to do Buzz Lightyear again. We also ate some ice cream and gathered some treasures. We also got some pictures taken.

It was already time for the music and mayhem fireworks, so we got back to Main Street USA to watch. The fireworks were absolutely incredible. I would have paid the ticket money for this alone. Loved it!

I really wanted to have my picture taken with the characters in their pirate outfits, but the line was really long... so we thought about it for a while but finally went for it anyway!
The wait was pretty long (45 minutes) and when it was our turn, the camera of the photographer broke down, but fortunately we still have our own pictures!

After these pictues, we walked over to Fantasyland, where we spent the rest of our evening. We did most of the major rides, like Pooh, Peter Pan and my favorite, Philharmagic.

It was around 11.30 when we left Fantasyland and we were feeling quite tired. We decided to call it a day and walked over to the exit. We got one more photopass picture taken on our way. I really like this one!

It was almost 12 when we got to the monorail station, but everything wen't pretty quick as usual and we were back in our hotel around 12.30, where we fell asleep pretty soon. It was a very nice evening! I loved the P&P Party!

Up next: Racing time!

 

[punkin413]

i can't believe we didn't see you guys at the P&PP!!! i think we had different touring plans though. although we WERE over in tomorrowland near where the characters were right after the fireworks, so i'm sure we were nearby each other. we were checking out the DJ and the breakdancers, then we rode space mountain, buzz lightyear and the TTA during that time. then we went to fantasyland, too! bummer that we didn't see each other!

didn't you just love those fireworks??????? they were UNBELIEVABLE!

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Sounds like a great day! Relaxing morning followed by the party, perfect Disney day.

I have never seen pictures of Stitch in that outfit!

Your fireworks pictures were beautiful.

 

[mkluvsmickey]

What a great day! Blizzard Beach looks like lots of fun - and it doesn't look like there were many people there.

Pirate & Princess Party looks incredible too! Love the pics with the pirate characters - definately worth the wait. How fun to meet up with people you know from a dutch messageboard - like you said - it really is a small world!

Looking forward to more!

 

[lovealldisney]

Oh no you were on page 3 we can't have that!!

 

[Marjol]

I'm sorry for the fact that I haven't been updating much lately.

I've been extremely busy. I'm an elementary school teacher and we have two weeks left at school, which means I'm writing rapport cards now and having a LOT of meetings in the evenings.

This, plus the fact that we have the European Championship soccer going on, which I'm watching.

I hope to do another update this weekend, but I'll definately finish it in a couple of weeks, when I have a few weeks off from work

 

[Marjol]

Day 8; Daytona 500 Experience

After the late night we had yesterday, we decided to sleep in a little. We weren't going to need a whole day to see the Daytona 500 experience, so I made a good choice planning this after the P&P Party!
I got out of bed around 8.30, took a shower and spent some time updating our travel report on the laptop. Gerbert got out of bed around 9 and after his shower, we went over to the neighbours (Sizzler) to have some breakfast.
While we were having breakfast, we came to the conclusion that we didn't look up where exactly we were heading, so we went back to the hotel after breakfast to look at the map on internet.

After that, we were ready to go!
The drive was a little longer than the drives we did in Orlando so far, but about 75 minutes later we saw this:

We found our destination pretty fast, parked the car and walked to the entrance of the Daytona 500 experience.

We bought our tickets and walked inside. We had a little pitstop at the bathrooms and after that we saw that the tram tour was just about to start, so we got in line for that first. There were some cars on the track and because of that we really couldn't hear the tourguide very well, but the tour was pretty interesting anyway. Yes, even for me.

We also got some time to walk around the fan zone, where we were able to stand on the victory lane platform.

After the tour, we watched the racing cars for a while and took some pictures of the grandstands.

We had a hotdog for lunch and walked to the exposition area afterwards. We walked around the "museum" for a while, were we read all about Daytona's and Nascar racing history. There were also lots of things to see there.
We also looked at a huge picture which showed the whole Daytona complex.
It is huge!

We came across Acceleration Alley, a simulator racing ride. Gerbert wanted to ride, so we paid $5 and watched the instruction video. I got to ride along for free. Gerbert did really well, he became first!

We also did Dream Laps, another simulator, but you don't have to do anything yourself in this one. There were only 2 other people in this big simulator... which was nice, but nothing spectacular.

After Dream Laps, we both joined the Acceleration Alley again. I got to race my own car this time and it was pretty cool. Gerbert finished 1st again, I finished 2nd of our group (all those other names you see are computers...). I was quite pride of myself!

We walked around the exposition area some more and saw they were starting the pit stop challenge, so we went over to watch that. They were looking for an adult to participate, so I encouraged Gerbert to try it, and he raised his hand!

He had to change a tire with the help of three others. He got some instruction first, and after that is was time for the real thing. He did very well with a time of 25 seconds. The average was 40 seconds.

At 2.15, the IMAX 3D movie started, so we went to see that. It took an hour, but it was an interesting movie.
We watched the last few things we hadn't seen afterwards, like these cars.

We also felt how steep the banking is...!

We saw everything by now and decided to head back to the car. We made a stop at the souvenir shop on the way there, where Gerbert bought a very nice shirt. We also bought a drink for in the car.
When we reached the car, we talked about driving to the beach, but we're not very fond of the beach anyway, so we decided to skip it and drive straight back to Orlando. We saw quite a lot of HUGE cars on our way there... something you'll never see in the Netherlands!

We made a quick stop at Wal*Mart on our way back, because we promised someone we would buy them three bottles of BBQ sauce. We also bought some souveniers for our nieces and nephew.

We were back at our hotel around six and decided to eat at Olive Garden again. We had the soup as a starter this time and I chose the steak as an entree. It was good, but way to big. How can anyone eat this thing???

We were finished by 8 and walked back to our hotel. To our surprise it was raining a little! But hey, those plants do need some water sometimes...
Back in the hotel we decided to stay in (we had made some plans to go to Old Town tonight) and watch a movie. The 40 yr old Virgin was on, so we watched that. It was amusing, but way too long for a comedy! It finished around 11 and we fell asleep pretty soon after.

Up next: Universal IOA

 

[LISAMWDW]

Good stuff! Can't wait to hear about Universal!

 

[Marjol]

Day 9; Universal Islands of Adventure

We got out of bed around 8 and after we had another familiar breakfast in the hotel (I must say I was getting tired of these waffles by now... I've been getting toast with peanut butter from this day on ) we drove to Universal.

We arrived at the parking lot around 9.45. We had to park on top of the roof this time, which would mean we wouldn't have a nice & cool car when we returned, but our parking space was really close to the citywalk, so we didn't complain too much.

We chose the other direction this time and walked to Islands of Adventure. There were A LOT of people at the entrance and I instantly remembered why we usually go to the parks before opening hours... and not one hour after the park opened...

Well, we walked into the park and started off with the Hulk, always a nice wake-up call!

We continued our way to Spider-Man, our favorite attraction in this park. The sign said waiting time was 20 minutes, but we stood in line for over 30 minutes, WAY too long for Universal. But hey, Spider-Man is worth it... We loved it, again!

A little further on stood Wolverine... all by himself! So I hopped next to him to get my picture taken

We also spent some time making fun pictures. Toon Lagoon is very nice for those pictures...

We came across a hotdog stand and felt like eating one, so we bought some hotdogs and ate them somewhere on a bench in the shade.
We walked over to Ripsaw Falls, but weren't feeling like getting soaked, so we just spent some time looking at other people getting soaked. We also spent some quarters on the splash machines... I love those things!

We continued walking and arrived at Jurassic Park. By now we had seen it wasn't busy at all in the park, but that we just started at the same time and the same spot (tip: Start on the right side of the park and don't follow everyone else ).

Gerbert almost got eaten by a giant dinosaur, but luckily he was able to escape!

We rode the River adventure (on of my favorites) and it was so quiet there that it was a walk-on and we left with the boat only half full!

We came across the little rollercoaster "Flying Unicorn", which we didn't do last year, so we hopped in line this time. Well... in line... it was a walk on once again. But what a boring ride... never again!

It was time to get some action and we rode the two Dueling Dragons rollercoaster, starting with the red one and then our favorite, the blue one. We were finished within 10 minutes!

We got something to eat at the Enchanted Oak Tavern, where we also ate last year and loved our meal, so we came back. It still was a good meal, still burgers, but a litte above average with a corn cob.

We walked a little around the area when we finished lunch and enjoyed the view and each others company

It was time to go to the last park area: Seuss Landing!
We made a train ride above the park, which was cute, and did the Cat in the Hat. The other rides are a little too childish for us

When we got to the exit, we decided we wanted to ride Dr. Doom's fearfall, so we did that... and after that we were ready to say goodbye to IOA!
It is a nice, relaxing park with low crowds, but if I had to skip one park, it would be this one! There is just too little to do and I don't love the atmosphere.

We decided to drive to Downtown Disney and see a movie.
We bought tickets for "Made of Honor", which would play at 4:55. We had two hours left before 4:55 and we decided to spend that time in Disney Quest playing some small games. We also went to the Virgin store and bought a Disney book & Nintendo DS game.

We bought some drinks and snacks for the movie and enjoyed it very much (Patrick Dempsey ). There were quite some people in the room, which surprised me!

After the movie, I got my picture taken with the new Pixar hero, Wall*E. I'm very curious how this movie will turn out!

We headed back in the hotel around 7.30. On our way, we saw TGI Friday's and decided to have dinner there. I had a pasta dish with chicken and Gerbert had the fajitas. They were both good. We were back in the hotel somewhere around 9, where we watched some TV.

Up next: Sheikraaaaaaaa!

 

[punkin413]

great update! i've never done IOA. the last time i went to universal was in '92 and they didn't have it yet. looks fun though!

i can't wait to hear about shiekra!!! DH wants to ride that so bad!

 

[Marjol]

Day 10; Busch Gardens

We got out of bed pretty early again this morning, because we had another trip outside Orlando planned; we were going to Tampa Bay to visit Busch Gardens!
A park we hadn't visited last year, so we were very excited!

We had breakfast in the hotel (which was very quiet this early....!) and got in our car around 8 am. The trip to Tampa Bay was uneventful and we got to Busch Gardens a couple of minutes after 9, the parking lot had just opened!

Because we were one of the first to get on the parking lot and they were apparently not expecting large crowds, we got to drive to the preferred parking lot. We parked our car right in front of the entrance!
We walked over to Guest Services, to get our "free tickets", which were included in our Discovery Cove package. They weren't really fast, but we got our tickets eventually.
We took a quick stop at the restrooms and got in line to get into the park.
We got a park map and just started walking... without any plans... that's different for a change...

The first ride we saw was the wooden rollercoaster Gwazi. The Lion side was closed, so we went on the tiger. The line was very short, so we were almost immediately ready for our first ride of the day.

But wow... what a dissapointment. I hated it! It was too shaky.. I came out of the ride with a headache. Gerbert laughed really hard when he saw the onride picture... I looked as if I was really to punch someone... very mad. He wanted to buy the picture, but I refused. For some reason we didn't even take a picture of it...

After the bad start, we decided to walk to what we thought would be the best ride in the park; Sheikra!

The line was very short and we got to sit in the middle row. I loved, loved, LOVED this ride! It was so great! It wasn't scary at all, as I was first thinking it would be.
I wanted to ride again and we waited for the first line now (they only let you do that when the crowds are very low). I loved this experience even more... it is so amazing to see all the drops!!!

It was time for another ride and we came across the Stanley Flume rides, a water ride. The people who were coming out of it didn't look very wet, so I thought we would be fine. Everything was fine untill the last small drop, I got a load of water on me... and was soaked...

But hey, it was hot, so I didn't care that much.
We decided we wanted something to eat and I saw this place where they sold funnel cakes. I love funnel cakes and I bought one with strawberries. Gerbert got a hotdog.

We walked over to the train station to take a trip around the park. We had some time left before the train would leave, so we took some more pictures of Sheikra and looked around the tiger habitat.

We took the train to the second stop; Congo, where we got out to ride the next rollercoaster; Kumba!

We didn't have to wait in line at all for this one. We really liked this coaster too. Gerbert wanted to ride again, but I felt a little dizzy, so I offered to take some pictures while he rode.

You can't see it, but he is on this picture, back row, on the right (orange shirt, if you look really close )

We continued our way and walked to Rhino Rally. We saw some elephants on our way there.

We didn't really care for Rhino Rally. It was really short, especially since the water area was closed. It was nothing compared to the AK safari and we were a bit dissapointed. We did find the Rhino though!

But there was more to explore! We decided it was time for some ice-cream and after that, we saw the 4D Pirates show. We learned that you can also get really wet in a 4D show... Gerbert was in the wrong seat I guess!

We took the skyride to the other side of the park, Egypt. We liked the skyride. It is relaxing and you get a nice view of the park!

We visited the last working rollercoaster (they were working on the Scorpion) of the park in Egypt; Montu, and really loved this one as well, although it was not as good as Sheikra. It was a walk on (again!), so we rode it twice.

We walked around Egypt for a while and took some obligatory tourist pictures. We slowly walked to the Morocco area, where we wanted to see the Katonga show. We came across Myombe Reserve, where we watched the monkeys for a while. I still have a thing for these animals...!

We were at Katonga about a quarter before showtime and there was almost nobody in the room, so we were able to get great seats. The show was enjoyable, but I was getting tired and I had some trouble keeping my eyes open...

It was 4.45 and we had done everything we wanted by now. We wanted to do Sheikra again, but weren't feeling up to the long walk... so we decided to call it a day and head back to our car.

We had a fun day at Busch Gardens and I would definately recommend this park to others! Especially on a slow day like this!!

We were back at the hotel around six, where I took a little nap. We drove to Outback around seven and were really surprised with their food! The waitress was a little annoying... but the food was SO worth it!!! We were sad we didn't eat at Outback before, we would definately have been back!

We had the cheese fries as an appetizer, which were so good! And my steak was just the best, Gerbert also adored his chicken!

Outback was situated across a Publix, so we went there after dinner to buy some moleskin and tissues.
We were back in our hotel around 9.

Up next: Our encounter with dolphin Rose in Discovery Cove!

 

[LISAMWDW]

 

[punkin413]

i can't wait to ride this one day!!!! looks like so much fun. glad you liked it!

isn't outback great? we are lucky enough to live very close to one, so we go there a good bit. great food!

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Busch Gardens looks like a lot of fun and Sheikra looks amazing!

 

[Marjol]

Day 11; Discovery Cove

Today was THE day... the day we had been looking forward to for months. We were going to swim with a dolphin at Discovery Cove!
We didn't have breakfast in the hotel, because Discovery Cove is an all-inclusive place. We were in the car by 7:40 so we would be able to swim with the dolphins early in the morning (they're supposed to be most active early in the morning).
When we were almost there, I realised I forgot to get the memory card from the computer! We decided to check in first and to drive back to the hotel after the check-in to get the memory card.

There wasn't a line yet, so we were able to check in pretty fast. We got the first swimming time of the day; 9 am. By now, it was almost 8, so we had the time to get the memorycard. We did and were back around 8:30. By now we had only 15 minutes left to get to the Starfish cabana, so we were in a little rush. Someone gave us some information about Discovery Cove, we rushed to the locker section, put our things in the locker and picked up our swimming gear on the way to the cabana. I got an XS swimsuit, but I usually wear XL clothes. I asked them for a bigger size, but they said it was perfect... When we got to the cabana, all the others were already there, except the trainers, which took another 15 minutes. We all had to sign a waiver and watched a movie about the dolphins.

The trainer came in and gave us some information about the dolphin swim. And after that it was time to get to the dolphins! We were assigned group C and got dolphin Rose and trainers Kara and Jen.

What a magnificent experience!! We LOVED everything about it. In the 35 minutes we were in the water we got to pet and feed Rose, to kiss and hug her and we got to swim with her too. We also got a lot of information about Rose. The dolphins performed some tricks for us too. It was excellent and totally worth the money!

We were so sad when it was time to say goodbye to Rose. This is the downside of doing the dolphin swim early in the morning.... everything that is coming now isn't as spectacular as the dolphin swim!
We thanked our trainers and were lead to the room where you can order pictures of your dolphin swim. We had talked about that before we got here and had already decided we would take the picture cd package. The picture cd package included all the pictures on cd, 5 big prints and two keychains with our favorite picture. We were the first to order and got order number 1! We set our pick up time after 3 and after that we were done.

We walked to the Laguna Grill to have some breakfast. We were just in time, because it would close at 10:30. Breakfast looked very nice here. We had some good croissants and fresh fruit.
After breakfast, we headed to our locker to get our camera. We wanted to take some pictures of the park before we tried everything out. We started out at the starfish cabana, where we took some pictures of the dolphin interaction.

Besides the cabana's was an area where you could pet stingrays, a salt water bath with tropical fish swimming around and a lagoon/lazy river kind of thing where you can just relax and swim.

We took a look in the aviary too. You can get your own cup of birdfood and the birds aren't too shy... they will sit on your arm and even on your head to get the food!

We saw some beautiful birds here, including this one:

We had finished our way around the park now and walked back to the locker to put the camera away and try the swimming facilities we just saw.
On our way to the stingray lagoon, we came across a snack corner and got some chips and icee's. I loved the fact that everything is included here, it is great to walk around without any money on you!

We started the swimming with petting the stingrays. I don't really like those rays (bad experience with a biting ray in the past...) but we tried it anyway and it was pretty cool.

After that, we swam with the tropical fish for a while. We saw some big fish! It is a funny and strange feeling to swim with those fish...
We also floated around the lagoon for a while, very nice!

After that, we decided to find ourselves some sunbeds to get our bathing suits dried up so we could get some lunch.
Lunch was at Garden Grill too and they had a lot of choices. Gerbert got the deluxe cheeseburger menu and I got the chicken menu. Both were great. I also got some strawberries and melon and we got some cakes for desert. Excellent lunch!

We went back to our sunbeds and just lay there for a while. We were in the shade, but were still able to see the dolphins, which was great. We had some nice relaxing time!

It was around 3:30 when we decided it was time to leave the park, we were done with the relaxing...
We picked up our picture package and bought a little fridge magnet as a souvenir. It was 4 ish when we got back to the car, which was in the hot sun... it was 102 F inside the car! We put the airconditioning on and the temperature dropped pretty fast.

When we got back to the hotel, we took a nice cold shower. After that, we watched some TV and spent some time on the internet. Some friends in the Netherlands were online and we shared some dolphin pictures with them.

We also went looking for a nice restaurant for our last night outside the parks (We had ADR's for in-park restaurants for the next two days) We wanted to try a restaurant we hadn't been and looked at the menu's of some restaurants in the area (gotta love the internet!). We finally decided we were going to eat at Ruby Tuesday and we drove there somewhere between 7 and 7:30.
It was very quiet at Ruby's, but the atmosphere was nice, the waiter was excellent and the food was good. We also got it at a slower pace, which is great, because it usually is served sooo fast! I always wonder what American people think when they come to Europe and eat in a restaurant... you must think our service is soooo slow..!

After we were done with our food, we went to a little souvenir shop next to Ruby's, where we bought some souvenirs for my sister.
We drove back to the hotel, where we were planning to see a documentary about Disney we had hearded about earlier today, but we couldn't find the right channel and finally gave up and watched something else.

This was a day which we wouldn't easily forget!!

Up next: Time for some backstage magic!

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

The dolphin swim sounds like so much fun. Your pictures turned out great!