DebIreland
ಠvಠ
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2005
- Messages
- 3,601
Part 13: Kennedy Space Center and The Boardwalk!!
Sunday 29th October, 2006
I was the first to wake up and realising it was only 7.30 (by the bedside clock) and, therefore, 6.30 in ‘new time’, I decided to grab another 30 minutes of sleep. Our plan for today was to take another hour on the beach as the boys were keen on getting in one more swim and then we’d go to KSC but make a stop first at a supermarket to a) stock up on non-perishables for The Boardwalk (as we couldn’t carry frozen or chilled food around the car all day) and b) once more, experience shopping in a U.S. supermarket. Rock and Roll!
(that one's especially for sharkB8HooHaHa!! 
)
Slowly everyone started to come around and we did the whole shower and dressing thing which, once more, took an obscene amount of time. We had decided to get a big breakfast in the hope of having that fill us up enough for most of the day, instead of stopping again for lunch. We pack up and, again, I am somewhat dismayed at the amount of packing required considering we had only been in the room a mere 14 hours including sleep time. So we kept some of the packing for later as we would need to come back to the room anyway to get dressed after the beach. On our way out of the room, Wayne looked puzzled and when I asked him “why?” he said “so it’s 9.50 by that clock, which means it’s really 8.50?”. I said “yeah”. He said “so how come my watch says 10.50, shouldn’t it read 9.50 cause I haven’t adjusted it yet?” Not being the sharpest tool in the workshop this early in the day (however early it actually was nobody knows] I expressed my puzzlement at this and actually suggested that perhaps his watch was faulty. Then, of course, it finally hit me that the bedside clock was reading the correct post-adjustment time. Clearly the hotel had set it in such a way that it adjusts itself automatically for daylight savings. Crap. So it was actually 9.50. And we had been moving so sloooooowly. Oh f....., I mean golly gosh darnit.
Anyway, onwards and upwards and all that. When we got down to the lobby, we checked out the breakfast menu in the hotel restaurant and, once more, full marks to us for spending money needlessly when we could ill-afford to.
It was 15.99 for the breakfast buffet. Considering the Crystal Palace costs 19 dollars for an incredible choice *and* characters in the middle of the Magic Kingdom, I think 16 dollars was way out of order. But, for some reason we went for it. Partly because, time was now an issue and we didn’t want to stray too far from the hotel. In retrospect, we should have just got the off-the-menu breakfast as we just didn’t eat enough to justify the cost of the buffet (DH and I were desperately trying to stuff food into ourselves Homer Simpson style). But there was only so much we wanted, especially me, I just wasn’t that hungry. Also, how mean is this???? DH and I got two coffees each and we got a glass of juice for each of the kids and guess what? Drinks are not included in the buffet price. 
This really annoyed me and we said it to one of the staff who pointed at the menu and there it was at the bottom - “drinks extra”. So the breakfast ended up costing us more than the price of breakfast in Crystal Palace or 1900 Park Fare. Doesn’t that seem so wrong? Oh well, the good news is that it did keep up going for most of the day, despite our limited appetites.
So whilst I highly recommend the Doubletree Oceanfront Hotel, I would say avoid the breakfast. We passed countless places afterwards goading and teasing us with their adverts for buffet breakfasts for half the price.
After breakfast we went straight to the beach via that lovely little wooden walkway. Having just eaten, the boys had to take it easy in the water. We didn’t want any cramps. They had a wonderful time in the water though and, once more, Alice thoroughly enjoyed playing in the sand and dipping her little toes in the water.
There wasn’t a whole lot of time so we didn't stay too long on the beach. Back in the room, the boys got changed and I packed up the remainder of our stuff. We had paid for the room in advance and didn’t have to stop by at the front desk on our way out so we were on our way.
We saw a sign for Winn Dixies so we stopped off there, me all aglow with excitement at the prospect of grocery shopping.
The rare time that I’m grocery shopping while I’m actually in the *mood* for doing it (i.e. Christmas and when I’m in a foreign country 
), I do tend to overdo it. We picked up all sorts of goodies and then some more. But we got real food too!! I was a bit disappointed at the choice though. I was sure that there’d be an unquantifiably large range of pastas and pasta sauces compared to here but actually, it’s roughly the same. I guess at some stage back in the 90s Ireland came out of it’s isolated backward position and became a much more cosmopolitan place with, amongst other things, an increased choice in consumer goods. Anyway, fret not, there was plenty of choice, just not as much as I had thought. I gleefully got my hands on a big ol’ jar of maple syrup. I also stocked up on wine and two crates of water. In fact I calculated that we got 12 bottles of water in Winn Dixies for the price of one bottle in Disney World. 
As we went through the aisles, I couldn’t help noticing the dual pricing on each product - the ‘Winn Dixie Clubcard’ (or something to that effect) price and the ‘regular’ price. And I thought, oh well, I guess we’re stuck with the regular price. Then it struck me that we should at least ask about this loyalty card thingie. So I sent DH off to ask. (I tend to do that - send him places to do things that I don’t want to do). Anyway he was told that it was no problem. We filled out a form, got our card and saved 20 dollars there and then. That was a worthwhile 30 seconds of our time I think you’ll agree.
So all done, we loaded up the car, took a few bottles of cheap and, thereby, utterly satisfying water into the car with us and off we went. I dreaded that we’d get lost again or do something to yet again add stress to our day but no, this journey went without a hitch. Whoah, it’s such a long way from the first signs for KSC until the point where you actually reach the car park. I’m not complaining. I was totally impressed by the vast amount of land used for the complex. We definitely have nothing like that here - I mean obviously we don’t have a Space Centre, that would be really silly, considering we can barely keep it together enough to have an army, let alone a space programme. What I mean is that it struck me as totally (and wonderfully) American that there was acres and acres of land and wonderful, smooth roads devoted to just the entrance to the Space Center. Wow!
By now it was 1.30ish and I was had read on the KSC website that they remained open til 7pm. I either read wrong or the wrong info was on the site because when we got to the ticket booth we were told they were closing at 5pm today.
I was kicking myself then that we didn’t move faster that morning (or indeed learn to tell time properly, pffft!) as I felt we had done ourselves out of valuable time at KSC. Looking back afterwards though, I felt we had enough time on this particular day as it’s a tiring place to visit so, even with all the time in the world, 3.5 hours was ok.
We paid our entrance fee - 120 dollars in total - and were told that we should get a move on as the last bus of the day would leave in 20 minutes. So we hurried in.
The security was the tightest I’d ever come across anywhere. We had to take everything out of each bag and each pocket and every item on us was scrutinised including the kids stuff. This took up quite a bit of time. When we were done we saw an info desk and, in our naivete, stopped to ask if it was really necessary to take the bus tour or could we just remain in the complex we were in. The woman behind the desk looked a bit puzzled and said “you really need to do the tour”. I had read about KSC in the ‘Beyond Disney’ book (from the same author as the Unofficial Guide to Disney World) but I had skimmed through it and couldn’t recall what point he had made about the bus tours. I now know that the bus tours are almost everything - there’s the IMAX Theatre back in the main complex and the movies they show there are definitely must-see (well, even to pick one of them, you don’t have to do all of them) and there’s other attractions too, but really, the big stuff that you go to KSC to see is only accessible via the bus trips - hence the woman’s puzzled look at my silly question!
We ran to make the last bus, stopping first to get the official photo done. Not the best photo ever, but hey, it’s all memorabilia. So we just about made the bus then, still not truly grasping the sheer humongous scale of KSC. We read on the map they gave us at the entrance that there would be three sections that we’d visit by bus and when done with one section we’d go and wait for the next bus to take us to the next place. The buses come and go approx every 20 minutes. A piece of great advice that I *did* remember from the Beyond Disney book was not to dally in any one place as it’s totally up to yourself to ensure that you’re back in time to see an Imax movie (or any other attraction back at the base that you want to see). I’m glad I read that as it would have been all too easy to get bogged down in the detail of any one of the sections and not get back in time for the last movie. It’s not like anyone announces that the last screening is starting in 10 minutes you know?
Anyway, back to our bus trip. I thought it might be, I dunno, a 5 minute journey to get to the first section. Well I was wrong. It was at least 20 minutes, that’s just to get from the Visitor Complex to the first stop off, which was The Observation Gantry. I was so aware of time ticking by and us not having seen anything yet so I was getting a bit worried. Oh no, didn’t I promise that there would be no more negative moods from me? Ok, ok, re-write - um, I wasn’t worried at all, scrap that. What I did was, I got everyone on board to catch hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’
Well actually, despite my worry, I looked over at Wayne and Garth and they looked so happy and excited at the prospect of seeing so many cool things, that was enough to make me happy. This day was really for them - what better age than 10 or 12 to visit a Space Center and all that it entails?!!
The bus driver was also a tour guide of sorts, giving us lots of info en route. He told us about The Crawler which is a huge transportation vehicle which carries the shuttle from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. That distance is about 3 miles and the Crawler moves approx 1 mile per hour. It doesn’t have wheels, it has tracks, like a tank. We got to see it.....
(that’s not my own photo - I got it somewhere on the web)
Finally we got the the Observation Gantry and got the elevator straight up to the top. It basically gives you the opportunity to get a great view of everything around the KSC complex including a good view of the the launch pads where the shuttles are launched from.
When we were done up at the top, we came back down and went to see the film which was held in, for all the world, a kinda metal shed. It was good - quite technical in parts but good overall.
At this point I want to say that if, like us, you experience Disney World just before coming to KSC, then you really do need to change your outlook in order to appreciate the Space Center. It’s quite stark, grey and functional. I mean, of course it is, otherwise it’s not going to be real, and I wanted it to be real. But I guess the point I’m making is that one shouldn’t look at it as another day out or, definitely, not as another Florida theme park. It’s far from it. It’s academic, it’s real and it’s, well, as I said, functional. But, amazingly, though I felt that contrast and I felt that functionality and practicality almost invade my otherwise ‘dream’ holiday, every time I looked at the boys, they were in awe of the place, smiles aplenty and soaking it all up. I’m so impressed with them. I enjoyed myself too, but personally I found that a small taste of each place was enough to satisfy my own curiosity whereas I think the boys liked to linger in each place. We tried to reach a happy medium.
I forgot to mention that Alice was not in high spirits. She was bored and confused. It was so hot that day and I guess she just wanted to splash around a pool or, indeed, see Mickey or Pooh Bear. But, for the most part, we managed to keep her calm. We had to leave our stroller back at the visitor complex but there are strollers parked at each bus stop and they’re free to use. We had attempted to get her into one when we got off the bus at the Observation Gantry but she was highly indignant upon seeing it and absolutely refused to sit in it. I must admit, it *was* a bit odd looking. Hee hee.
We went and waited at the bus stop for our bus to the next section and we waited quite a while. This was a tough wait, in the heat with the sun blazing down and I reckon we had just missed a bus. It was hard to keep Alice in line, literally. There was a gate on one side and a rope on the other so, in her boredom, she was trying to run under the rope. The bus couldn’t come soon enough!
It eventually arrived and we’re whisked off (well, you know, at about 15 mph and a journey of approx 20 minutes) to the Saturn V complex. Here we managed to coax Alice into the ‘embarrassing’ (lol!) stroller which made life a lot easier!
This section was much more crowded than any other part we saw so this is clearly the place people are most keen on and I can definitely see why. The Saturn V rocket is mind blowing. It’s size is too hard to describe. Its just enormous!
There was a really cool gift shop here called ‘The Right Stuff’.....
[continued in next post as this is too big!!]
Sunday 29th October, 2006
I was the first to wake up and realising it was only 7.30 (by the bedside clock) and, therefore, 6.30 in ‘new time’, I decided to grab another 30 minutes of sleep. Our plan for today was to take another hour on the beach as the boys were keen on getting in one more swim and then we’d go to KSC but make a stop first at a supermarket to a) stock up on non-perishables for The Boardwalk (as we couldn’t carry frozen or chilled food around the car all day) and b) once more, experience shopping in a U.S. supermarket. Rock and Roll!
)Slowly everyone started to come around and we did the whole shower and dressing thing which, once more, took an obscene amount of time. We had decided to get a big breakfast in the hope of having that fill us up enough for most of the day, instead of stopping again for lunch. We pack up and, again, I am somewhat dismayed at the amount of packing required considering we had only been in the room a mere 14 hours including sleep time. So we kept some of the packing for later as we would need to come back to the room anyway to get dressed after the beach. On our way out of the room, Wayne looked puzzled and when I asked him “why?” he said “so it’s 9.50 by that clock, which means it’s really 8.50?”. I said “yeah”. He said “so how come my watch says 10.50, shouldn’t it read 9.50 cause I haven’t adjusted it yet?” Not being the sharpest tool in the workshop this early in the day (however early it actually was nobody knows] I expressed my puzzlement at this and actually suggested that perhaps his watch was faulty. Then, of course, it finally hit me that the bedside clock was reading the correct post-adjustment time. Clearly the hotel had set it in such a way that it adjusts itself automatically for daylight savings. Crap. So it was actually 9.50. And we had been moving so sloooooowly. Oh f....., I mean golly gosh darnit.
Anyway, onwards and upwards and all that. When we got down to the lobby, we checked out the breakfast menu in the hotel restaurant and, once more, full marks to us for spending money needlessly when we could ill-afford to.
It was 15.99 for the breakfast buffet. Considering the Crystal Palace costs 19 dollars for an incredible choice *and* characters in the middle of the Magic Kingdom, I think 16 dollars was way out of order. But, for some reason we went for it. Partly because, time was now an issue and we didn’t want to stray too far from the hotel. In retrospect, we should have just got the off-the-menu breakfast as we just didn’t eat enough to justify the cost of the buffet (DH and I were desperately trying to stuff food into ourselves Homer Simpson style). But there was only so much we wanted, especially me, I just wasn’t that hungry. Also, how mean is this???? DH and I got two coffees each and we got a glass of juice for each of the kids and guess what? Drinks are not included in the buffet price. This really annoyed me and we said it to one of the staff who pointed at the menu and there it was at the bottom - “drinks extra”. So the breakfast ended up costing us more than the price of breakfast in Crystal Palace or 1900 Park Fare. Doesn’t that seem so wrong? Oh well, the good news is that it did keep up going for most of the day, despite our limited appetites.So whilst I highly recommend the Doubletree Oceanfront Hotel, I would say avoid the breakfast. We passed countless places afterwards goading and teasing us with their adverts for buffet breakfasts for half the price.
After breakfast we went straight to the beach via that lovely little wooden walkway. Having just eaten, the boys had to take it easy in the water. We didn’t want any cramps. They had a wonderful time in the water though and, once more, Alice thoroughly enjoyed playing in the sand and dipping her little toes in the water.
There wasn’t a whole lot of time so we didn't stay too long on the beach. Back in the room, the boys got changed and I packed up the remainder of our stuff. We had paid for the room in advance and didn’t have to stop by at the front desk on our way out so we were on our way.
We saw a sign for Winn Dixies so we stopped off there, me all aglow with excitement at the prospect of grocery shopping.
The rare time that I’m grocery shopping while I’m actually in the *mood* for doing it (i.e. Christmas and when I’m in a foreign country ), I do tend to overdo it. We picked up all sorts of goodies and then some more. But we got real food too!! I was a bit disappointed at the choice though. I was sure that there’d be an unquantifiably large range of pastas and pasta sauces compared to here but actually, it’s roughly the same. I guess at some stage back in the 90s Ireland came out of it’s isolated backward position and became a much more cosmopolitan place with, amongst other things, an increased choice in consumer goods. Anyway, fret not, there was plenty of choice, just not as much as I had thought. I gleefully got my hands on a big ol’ jar of maple syrup. I also stocked up on wine and two crates of water. In fact I calculated that we got 12 bottles of water in Winn Dixies for the price of one bottle in Disney World. As we went through the aisles, I couldn’t help noticing the dual pricing on each product - the ‘Winn Dixie Clubcard’ (or something to that effect) price and the ‘regular’ price. And I thought, oh well, I guess we’re stuck with the regular price. Then it struck me that we should at least ask about this loyalty card thingie. So I sent DH off to ask. (I tend to do that - send him places to do things that I don’t want to do
). Anyway he was told that it was no problem. We filled out a form, got our card and saved 20 dollars there and then. That was a worthwhile 30 seconds of our time I think you’ll agree.So all done, we loaded up the car, took a few bottles of cheap and, thereby, utterly satisfying water into the car with us and off we went. I dreaded that we’d get lost again or do something to yet again add stress to our day but no, this journey went without a hitch. Whoah, it’s such a long way from the first signs for KSC until the point where you actually reach the car park. I’m not complaining. I was totally impressed by the vast amount of land used for the complex. We definitely have nothing like that here - I mean obviously we don’t have a Space Centre, that would be really silly, considering we can barely keep it together enough to have an army, let alone a space programme
. What I mean is that it struck me as totally (and wonderfully) American that there was acres and acres of land and wonderful, smooth roads devoted to just the entrance to the Space Center. Wow! By now it was 1.30ish and I was had read on the KSC website that they remained open til 7pm. I either read wrong or the wrong info was on the site because when we got to the ticket booth we were told they were closing at 5pm today.
I was kicking myself then that we didn’t move faster that morning (or indeed learn to tell time properly, pffft!) as I felt we had done ourselves out of valuable time at KSC. Looking back afterwards though, I felt we had enough time on this particular day as it’s a tiring place to visit so, even with all the time in the world, 3.5 hours was ok.
We paid our entrance fee - 120 dollars in total - and were told that we should get a move on as the last bus of the day would leave in 20 minutes. So we hurried in.
The security was the tightest I’d ever come across anywhere. We had to take everything out of each bag and each pocket and every item on us was scrutinised including the kids stuff. This took up quite a bit of time. When we were done we saw an info desk and, in our naivete, stopped to ask if it was really necessary to take the bus tour or could we just remain in the complex we were in. The woman behind the desk looked a bit puzzled and said “you really need to do the tour”. I had read about KSC in the ‘Beyond Disney’ book (from the same author as the Unofficial Guide to Disney World) but I had skimmed through it and couldn’t recall what point he had made about the bus tours. I now know that the bus tours are almost everything - there’s the IMAX Theatre back in the main complex and the movies they show there are definitely must-see (well, even to pick one of them, you don’t have to do all of them) and there’s other attractions too, but really, the big stuff that you go to KSC to see is only accessible via the bus trips - hence the woman’s puzzled look at my silly question!
We ran to make the last bus, stopping first to get the official photo done. Not the best photo ever, but hey, it’s all memorabilia. So we just about made the bus then, still not truly grasping the sheer humongous scale of KSC. We read on the map they gave us at the entrance that there would be three sections that we’d visit by bus and when done with one section we’d go and wait for the next bus to take us to the next place. The buses come and go approx every 20 minutes. A piece of great advice that I *did* remember from the Beyond Disney book was not to dally in any one place as it’s totally up to yourself to ensure that you’re back in time to see an Imax movie (or any other attraction back at the base that you want to see). I’m glad I read that as it would have been all too easy to get bogged down in the detail of any one of the sections and not get back in time for the last movie. It’s not like anyone announces that the last screening is starting in 10 minutes you know?
Anyway, back to our bus trip. I thought it might be, I dunno, a 5 minute journey to get to the first section. Well I was wrong. It was at least 20 minutes, that’s just to get from the Visitor Complex to the first stop off, which was The Observation Gantry. I was so aware of time ticking by and us not having seen anything yet so I was getting a bit worried. Oh no, didn’t I promise that there would be no more negative moods from me? Ok, ok, re-write - um, I wasn’t worried at all, scrap that. What I did was, I got everyone on board to catch hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’
Well actually, despite my worry, I looked over at Wayne and Garth and they looked so happy and excited at the prospect of seeing so many cool things, that was enough to make me happy. This day was really for them - what better age than 10 or 12 to visit a Space Center and all that it entails?!! The bus driver was also a tour guide of sorts, giving us lots of info en route. He told us about The Crawler which is a huge transportation vehicle which carries the shuttle from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. That distance is about 3 miles and the Crawler moves approx 1 mile per hour. It doesn’t have wheels, it has tracks, like a tank. We got to see it.....
(that’s not my own photo - I got it somewhere on the web)
Finally we got the the Observation Gantry and got the elevator straight up to the top. It basically gives you the opportunity to get a great view of everything around the KSC complex including a good view of the the launch pads where the shuttles are launched from.
When we were done up at the top, we came back down and went to see the film which was held in, for all the world, a kinda metal shed. It was good - quite technical in parts but good overall.
At this point I want to say that if, like us, you experience Disney World just before coming to KSC, then you really do need to change your outlook in order to appreciate the Space Center. It’s quite stark, grey and functional. I mean, of course it is, otherwise it’s not going to be real, and I wanted it to be real. But I guess the point I’m making is that one shouldn’t look at it as another day out or, definitely, not as another Florida theme park. It’s far from it. It’s academic, it’s real and it’s, well, as I said, functional. But, amazingly, though I felt that contrast and I felt that functionality and practicality almost invade my otherwise ‘dream’ holiday, every time I looked at the boys, they were in awe of the place, smiles aplenty and soaking it all up. I’m so impressed with them. I enjoyed myself too, but personally I found that a small taste of each place was enough to satisfy my own curiosity whereas I think the boys liked to linger in each place. We tried to reach a happy medium.
I forgot to mention that Alice was not in high spirits. She was bored and confused. It was so hot that day and I guess she just wanted to splash around a pool or, indeed, see Mickey or Pooh Bear. But, for the most part, we managed to keep her calm. We had to leave our stroller back at the visitor complex but there are strollers parked at each bus stop and they’re free to use. We had attempted to get her into one when we got off the bus at the Observation Gantry but she was highly indignant upon seeing it and absolutely refused to sit in it. I must admit, it *was* a bit odd looking. Hee hee.
We went and waited at the bus stop for our bus to the next section and we waited quite a while. This was a tough wait, in the heat with the sun blazing down and I reckon we had just missed a bus. It was hard to keep Alice in line, literally. There was a gate on one side and a rope on the other so, in her boredom, she was trying to run under the rope. The bus couldn’t come soon enough!
It eventually arrived and we’re whisked off (well, you know, at about 15 mph and a journey of approx 20 minutes) to the Saturn V complex. Here we managed to coax Alice into the ‘embarrassing’ (lol!) stroller which made life a lot easier!
This section was much more crowded than any other part we saw so this is clearly the place people are most keen on and I can definitely see why. The Saturn V rocket is mind blowing. It’s size is too hard to describe. Its just enormous!
There was a really cool gift shop here called ‘The Right Stuff’.....
[continued in next post as this is too big!!]
Then again, I’m sure the man knows what he’s talking about.
, made a quick outline of what we wanted to do at MGM the next day and I fell into a deep slumber, totally at peace with the World, with an excited grin, ear to ear, as I anticipated waking up in this beautiful villa and travelling by boat to MGM!!!
