Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Themeparkalooza Days one and two

I didn't quite make that goal of blogging every day of my vacation. But guess what? I am on vacation dammit so I will not blog if I want to!

I think I have decided that pictures will be waiting too. They take forever to upload and I haven't the patience after 8+ hours of sun, heat, humidity, crowds, waiting in line, and doing thrill rides. I'll upload pictures later.

So Day One. Last day at Cocoa Beach. #2 and I got up and had an early morning swim in the ocean. No porpoise today, but we had the beach virtually to ourselves AND we got to see the beach vacuum cleaner and a guy who had a way with the sea birds.

BH drug the two of us back to the hotel so that we could leave for Orlando and theme park one of THEMEPARKALOOZA 2010!

First up: Animal Kingdom!!

Not my favorite of the Disney Parks. It is kind of like a zoo on steroids and I am not that fond of zoos in general. I did get a lot of lovely animal photos. My girls however are hugemongous animal lovers, and this place was right up their alley. Did I mention that it was hot? And humid? Now being from Kansas I am no stranger to humidity, but Lord Baby Jeebus. I don't typically spend all day traipsing around in it. Sucks the life right out of you. Thank goodness for many air-conditioned attractions to help break up the heat. Thankfully most of the day was overcast too. Some favorites for me were the Finding Nemo show. It is done with puppets, but you see the puppeteers, as they fly the puppets on large sticks. It was quite the spectacle. I also enjoyed the 3-D movie, "It's Tough to be a Bug." Short but fun, and complete with smell, movement, and live action sorts of stuff. If you have the chance I would suggest you hit both of these attractions. Last time we were there about 6 years ago we saw the Lion King show. We opted out of it this time to do other things, but it was really good and worth a see too.

THEMEPARKALOOZA 2010 DAY 2! UNIVERSAL STUDIOS ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE!!

This was the first time any of us had visited Universal Studios. I would definitely go back. Our main objective was to of course see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. As everyone in our party with the exception of yours truly are HUGE Harry Potter fans. I have to say that it was pretty stinking cool. AND RIDICULOUSLY BUSY. There are only about 3 rides, and the rest is pretty much stores and the like. But you had to wait in crazy-ass lines to GET INTO STORES! Stores! People! That is 10-different kinds of ridunculousness. But the stores were cool and full of every imaginable Harry Potter item. I have never been part of crowds like that before it was crazy. I highly recommend it, but I also highly recommend that you either wait a couple of years, or go in the way off season. The rest of the park was about what you would expect crowd-wise in the summer. I thought the Dr. Seuss area was fun. It was geared towards smaller kids, but the design was amazing. Of course we spent a fair amount of time in the Marvel Comic area, and rode a 3-D Spiderman ride. I couldn't tell you much about it. Between the 3-D and the movement I had to close my eyes or hurl from dizziness. I chose to close my eyes. Those were the highlights of today. Weather was similar to yesterday only with SUN. I am pretty sure I have never sweat so much in my life. I may never get the smell of sweat, sunscreen, and BO out of my nostrils. If the sun is out tomorrow, I swear that I will be reporting about the best $20 I ever spent on a battery operated fan-spray bottle combination that is filled with and kept in ice water, it will have Disney characters on it!

Now I must rest. This theme-parking is tiring. Fun. But tiring. Oh yeah...

Sweaty.


After Animal Kingdom

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree about Animal Kingdom. We did it once and probably won't do it again. We just went to Six Flags in St. Louis. The park was nearly empty. It might have been because we went on a Monday, but I cannot believe that was the only reason. We never had to wait in a line for more than a minute or two. It was great for us!