Saturday, June 19, 2010

Orlando Adventures

Waterpark view Me and the ladies ready for a night out on the town! Bubble room at Wonder House Ice Cream!
Emily's Ice Cream creation
Emily in the NASA simulator
Abigail as the astronaut
Abigail on the bed of nails at the Wonder House
Clyde and Seamore take Pirate Island
Look at that white belly! I mean on me, not the killer whale! Ha!
Shamu Show
Pirate's Cove Putt Putt
The Wonder House -Abi's favorite place
Our Balcony-Don't we look sharp!
Waterpark at resort that we stayed at
Here are a few pictures from our trip to Orlando. We spent the first couple of days resting around the pool area. There was a waterpark with slides right at the resort pool. There also was a pool area that had an outdoor pool where you swam indoors to the indoor pool and could even hoist yourself out and be right at the poolside bar.
We went to Sea World, but didn't do the other parks this time. We spent 13 1/2 hours there the first day when it was 98 degrees with a 104-108 degree heat index. The kids never complained about the heat. We had a few complaints about feet and legs, but nothing we couldn't distract them by going on to the next adventure. We visited as many shows as we could the first day and fit in as many rides and exhibits as we could in between. The first couple of animals we saw performing Abigail asked, "Are those real momma?" They would do some really weird things that we have never seen an actual animal do and it really did look unbelievable. After a few shows I think she realized that they were actually real. It is really amazing what they can train an animal to do. We bought some small fish to feed the stingrays and Abigail was the brave one to try it first. We read how to place the fish between 2 fingers and you were supposed to hold your hand down in the stingray pool and let the stingray swim over top of your hand and "slurp" the fish out from in between your fingers. Abi had the fish ready and was about to put it in the water and this huge white herring flew into her face and the fish was gone. I thought she had dropped the fish, Brandon said "Why did you drop the fish?!" Abi said, "I didn't drop the fish, THE BIRD GOT IT" Abi was stunned and never had a chance to get scared, but a minute later she said "That bird hurt my hand!" Then we read the sign about how you have to hurry and get your hand under the water because the birds were aggressive near the feeding tank because they like the fish too! I fed the stingrays next and I screamed when it slurped it up because its teeth scraped my knuckle and those things are really freaky up close. I changed my mind about every wanting to swim with them on a cruise excursion. We stayed in the park till after the fireworks show that night and we went back for our second day later in the week. We were all wore out by then and the day wasn't as smooth as the first, but we finished up all of the shows that we didnt get to the first day. We were there about 12 hours that day. We stayed indoors a lot so the above 100 degree weather wasn't too terrible! We also had some bad weather that day and some of the rides closed at times, but we worked around that and still had a great time.
One day we drove over to Cocoa Beach. That area was quieter than I thought it would be. It looked like a sleepy North Carolina Beach town. No high rises or crowds. The kids don't care where it is as long as there is waves and sand! We rode up to the Kennedy Space Center that afternoon. We didn't have time to go into it and look around, but we rode around and probably looked like a security issue!
Later in the week we visited the Wonder House. That was a place like Discovery Place with a ropes course, 4D movie (Canyon Coaster was playing when we were there), and roller coaster simulators. The kids loved it and there was lots of things to do there. Ya'll should go to http://www.wonderworksonline.com/ and look at this place-it is really unique.
Anyway there are lots of other adventure stories from this trip, but we will fill you all in when we see you next. Hope you enjoy the pictures!