--FLORIDA-- Part 2!!

Ok so we've got 2 more days to the trip and 2 more parks to check out.  Sunday was actually another clinic day and we did go to learn the new level 3 routines, but since they start with level 5, the more complicated routines and work backwards, we had a pretty good understanding of the new text and were able to buzz through them quickly.

Magic Kingdom was the first thing on the agenda. There were a few rides we had missed the first day and I felt that it was necessary to ride Space Mountain again!! We weren't there for too long but we even got to ride the monorail which made me very excited :)

We were off to Hollywood Studios.  I believe last time I was there it was actually called MGM Studios, but some of it was still the same, like the Indiana Jones stunt show and Tower of Terror.

There was a new coaster that everyone had been telling me about. Some rockin' roller coaster, something about Aerosmith . . . I got to find out what all the talk was about.  Holy cow this thing was cool!!  A giant limo is your car, and Steven Tyler counts down and this thing takes off!!  It's not like a lot of coasters were there are chains and things to pull you up a hill, there's hydraulics or something that just launch you!!  Then it's all in the dark sort of like Space Mountain but there are black lights lighting up different things.  Just make sure you hold onto your stuff, almost lost my camera bag going through the cork screw!!

The Tower of Terror is a ride I can remember doing when I was a kid.  I don't think anything about it has changed in 17 years, even the interior looked just like I remembered.  I can remember going on it with my mom and brother, and I think we waited forever to get on it.  I remember the sun going down when we went inside and it being dark when the doors of the ride opened at the top of the ride.  It was still fun!!  We felt the need to go on it a few different times :)

I was very excited to find out that Hollywood Studios does some sort of Star Wars weekend this time of year.  I personally love the original Star Wars so to walk around and run into Chewie and Ewoks was pretty awesome!!

Darth Vader was even around for the Jedi training when we were getting on the Star Tours ride . . . it's the simple things :)

Plus they did this dance party thing that night. We missed the beginning but still got to see Vader dancing to Bad by Michael Jackson.  It was pretty fantastic  :)

Our last day down in Florida and we were finally going to get to my second request of the trip!!  When I had last visited in '96 the Animal Kingdom was still being built and wouldn't open until '98.  I love going to zoos and aquariums, and I've always wanted to go on an African safari.  Shari assured me we would make it to the safari!!  We got lucky that Animal Kingdom had magic hours that morning, so we could get in an hour early.  Only problem was it took FOREVER to get a shuttle that day, don't know what the hold up was but we opted for a cab in the end and were still there about a half hour before the general public was allowed in.

 Expedition Everest was our first stop.  Such a fun coaster!!  Never thought I'd ever climb Everest (and that is probably as close as I'll ever actually get) or get chased by a Yeti. The view on the way up the coaster is amazing!!  Not only do you get an amazing view of the mountain itself but if you look out around you, you can see the Tower of Terror and the big Epcot ball.
The Tree of Life was just breath taking too!!  I had seen pictures of it, and seen it on Discovery Channel specials and that sort of thing but to actually see it . . . the detail is just amazing!!  There were animals everywhere. Carved into the branches, even on the roots at the base of the tree going into the water below.  It's a wonderful centerpiece for the park.

The safari!! There were 2 animal rides, the first one we did was a riding safari ride.  It was so much fun!!  You get into a safari truck and drive along a path but the animals are free to wander around the huge space.  There was something everywhere you looked!!  I could have gone on that one over and over again!!

The walk through safari was cool too.  Sort of like a zoo area, but there was a bird area to go through a huge gorilla enclosure, the meerkats were cute, and the landscaping was - like most things in Disney - perfect!!

Shari was a wonderful tour guide.  She knew which shows were the "must-sees" and knew how important it was go get in line early to get a good seat.  The Nemo show was cute.  To me it was really neat because the whole thing was done with puppets.  Made me miss being a puppeteer!! How some of them were designed and operated, even the sea plants had someone behind them to make them move and look like we were on the bottom of the ocean.  A truly fantastic show, but make sure to get in line a good half hour before show time!!

The Lion King show was the other show we made sure to catch!!  It was the Festival of the Lion King, so where Nemo was like a play telling the story Finding Nemo, this one had a lot of the Lion King characters but it had some acrobatics and performers, a little bit of a Cirque feel almost.  Still a lot of fun!!

After a nice dinner at the biggest Rainforest Cafe in the world, we were back to Hollywood Studios for the afternoon.  There were a couple rides and shows we just didn't have a chance to fit in the day before.  The Toy Story Mania ride was one of them.  We had been hoping to get fast passes but by the time we got there we had to just wait in line, which turned out to be not that bad of a wait. We had an ice cream wager riding on this game again.  I was super excited because I was winning after the first little game . . . Shari killed me again . . . a lot of fun though, wish we had, had time to do it again!!

Beauty and the Beast was being performed . . .

And we finished the night with the Fantasmic show.  That was cool.  They warned you ahead of time that you may get wet, they would shoot up these curtains of water and project scenes from different movies off of it.  Then behind it a live actors would pop up and do things, and boats would float by . . . It never ceases to amaze me what they do there, the brilliant things they come up with.

Well that was my super awesome trip to Florida!!  I can only hope it doesn't take me 17 years before I get to go back.  It really is a magical place where dreams can come true!!

Cheers!!

-- FLORIDA-- Part 1

Me and my family, Magic Kingdom 1996

I finally have a few minutes to sit down and write about my wonderful trip to Florida and Disney World!!  It's been a very long time since I've been to Disney . . . by a long time I mean 17 years . . . I'm not complaining. I'm grateful my parents waited until us kids were a little older and could really remember our experience, and we've taken plenty of other trips growing up, made so many amazing memories, but it's a place I've always wanted to go back to!!  I got very lucky in a couple different ways this year.  1 my boss and friend is a huge Disney fan, 2 USA Gymnastics decided to have National Congress in Hartford so Region 6 decided not to have a regional compulsory clinic, and 3 one of the national clinics was going to be right at Disney World!!  We were in!! We did get a lot of work done, but we also had just a little bit of fun . . .
Since the clinic was going to be at Disney we spent almost our entire trip on the Disney grounds.   Seeing that sign welcoming you to Disney brought back memories.  I remember the first time we drove by the entrance when I was a kid, I couldn't believe I was there when I was younger and I couldn't believe it a couple weeks ago either.  Our hotel was beautiful!!  No matter where we were I couldn't help but marvel at the attention to detail.  The Coronado Springs was so nice!!  I've stayed at plenty of hotels, but this was a little different then any I've stayed at before.

Instead of one big building it was a bunch of smaller ones around a pond.  It had a Spanich/ Old Mexico type flair.  There were even ruins at the pool.  We found our room and didn't bother to stay long, we were off to the Magic Kingdom!!
It was raining when we left Connecticut, it was a little over cast when we landed in Florida, and we got a little wet on our way to the bus stop, but thankfully it cleared up by the time we made our way across the Disney property . . . at least for the time being :)
We got to the park just in time for our lunch reservation, but once we ate I finally got to see it!!  The castle!!  When I think of Disney that's the first iconic thing I think of.  I was just excited that it wasn't pink this time!! (Last time they were getting it ready for a big anniversary celebration and the castle was pink to look like a cake)  I probably could have taken pictures of it all day but we had rides to ride and things to see!!
Some of the rides I remembered and some were new.  We did a few of the classics like It's A Small World, and the Haunted Mansion. I remember going on them but things had certainly been updated.

 The dolls in Small World were new, some of them would even blink their eyes and their mouths would move.  Haunted Mansion was very much the same except for the graveyard.  The ride stopped while we were in the ballroom part of the mansion, I was able to get a picture of some of the ghosts, which I thought was pretty cool!! Pirates had been changed to include Jack Sparrow and more of the movie cast, the Carousel Of Progress and People Mover were others I remember doing.

I am very grateful that Shari knows what she's doing at Disney and knew how the Fast Pass system works or we wouldn't have been able to fit in half of the things we did.  It's fast passes that brought about one of the funniest moments of the trip and we had only been there a couple hours!!  We had been over in Frontier Land getting fast passes to Thunder Mountain Railroad before we were going to head across the park to Space Mountain to use passes we already had.  Well I happen to notice this nice rainbow off in the distance, funny thing was there was no rain . . . yet . . . the thought no sooner crossed our minds and it started to sprinkle.  Florida rain showers are quick, did we want to take cover and wait or make a run for it?  We decided to go for it.  By the time that was decided it was raining.  By the time we got out of Frontier Land it was pouring!!  We could hardly see it was raining so bad, and by the time we got to Tomorrowland it was hardly raining at all . . . we were completely soaked!!  Dry people coming off some of the rides were looking at us like we were crazy, we couldn't help but laugh!!

We got a little competitive on the Buzz Lightyear ride (Shari kicked my butt), laughed our butts off on the laugh floor, checked out the new Fantasy Land, and stayed for the shows that night.   I don't remember seeing the Electric Parade as a kid, but I know we watched some sort of fireworks show at the castle one night.  The new show is mind blowing.  They use the whole castle like a canvas projecting movie clips and characters on it, all to music.  It was amazing!!

We closed the park down that night, but we got to see so much!!

Day 2 was going to be a full day at Epcot!!  I had heard a lot about the Test Track and the Mission Space rides and couldn't wait to check them out!!

Test Track was our first stop.  There were a bunch of future concept cars in the waiting area where you walk onto the ride.  Before you get to actually ride the coaster you get to design a car first.  Our first design of the day we decided to go for all power!! This car was so ridiculously impractical is was amazing!! It was fast but did terrible on all the other tests.  Later that day we did it again and decided to go green and give it a little flower power (no joke we painted it green and put flowers on the side . . . it was hilarious I'm not going to lie) That car did amazing and was pretty close to the top overall design for the day (go figure).  The ride was fun though.  You'd go through different tests, like testing on wet road and handling and then you go outside and fly around the building like it's a NASCAR track :)

Mission Space was another cool ride.  I've always wanted to be an astronaut so anything space I'm there!!  There are 2 different intensities and we jumped on the more intense one.  It took a little while to get on the ride and everywhere you turned there were warnings about motion sickness and claustrophobia.  I don't get either but it really made me wonder just how bad this ride really was.  It was so much fun!!  You get inside a space ship and get launched to Mars and end up in a asteroid field, then you crash land . . . so much fun!!

One of the big attractions at Epcot is the countries showcase.

While we were checking things out we saw them getting the big globe and barges of fireworks ready for the show that night

Before we went to lunch we jumped on the Land ride which actually goes right around the restaurant we were going to.  The ride talks about the Earth and farming and even takes you into some of Disney's gardens and greenhouses where they grow food that's used throughout the parks.  Some of their methods were very interesting, like suspending the plants to make bigger fruits and vegetables. 

 Lunch that day was at the Garden Grill.  It's one of Shari's favorite places, and it was a character lunch :) I remembered eating at a character place when I was younger and Minnie and Mickey were dressed in overalls with straw hats, a very country sort of place.  After looking through an old photo album I discovered I had in fact eaten at this same place 17 years ago :)  We were like little kids, getting to meet Chip and Dale, Pluto, and the big mouse himself!!

We checked out some more rides and shows like Soarin' and Captain EO, we Journeyed Into Our Imagination, and even went back to Mars.  We finished off our night with the lights and fireworks show!!

We closed 2 parks in 2 days, had been having a blast, but next day we had to get down to business and start learning the new compulsory routines!!

ESPN Wide World Of Sports wasn't that far from our hotel but only a handful of shuttle buses go there, none of them went from our hotel (the host hotel . . . yeah try to figure that one out) So our mornings started bright and early with a :45-1 hour commute to get a mile and a half down the road.

The clinic was packed!!  We saw a lot of familiar faces and learned a lot!!  We still have some practicing to do but we were able to get a jump on learning so we can teach the kids back home.  It also gave us something to think about while we were sitting on the buses early in the morning or late at night!!

Since we would be spending all day at the clinic we decided it would be a waste to spend money on a pass for the parks that day.  Instead we went to Downtown Disney to catch the Cirque du Soleil show La Nouba.  As usual with Cirque, it was amazing!!  There were cool bike tricks, the power track and tramp act was so much fun, and the little girls who did the diables were so talented and adorable.

Amazing show, shops, good ice cream, and crazy Lego sculptures . . . oh yeah, we closed down Downtown too . . .

Saturday was another full day at the clinic and we headed over to Universal in the evening.  I had 2 requests for this trip, request #1 go to the Orlando Margaritaville.  Come to find out it's at the Universal Studios City Walk.

We didn't go into any of the actual parks, but we could see some of the roller coasters and the Harry Potter castle off in the distance.

 It turned out to be a pretty special night because we were able to meet up with our friend Darcee while we were there!!  Darcee used to coach at the gym with us and moved down to Florida about 2 years ago.  Thanks to social media like facebook we can still see her and her growing family, and thanks to facebook we were able to connect while we were down there.  It was so nice to get to see her and catch up face to face!!

Well that's part 1 of my awesome trip.  Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom to come soon :)

Cheers!!