Disney Day 2 (5-27-15)

Wednesday's agenda was Epcot Center.  On our visit in 1982 (August, I think), Epcot Center was still being built, scheduled to open in October.  We have always wanted to come back and see it, so today was the day.  We had breakfast at the Food Court in our hotel circle, then drove over to Epcot.  This "Kingdom" is really spread out, and we did a whole lot of walking today.  We took in several shows here, and a few rides:  The grown ups went on Test Track first thing, while I entertained Andrew.  We saw Ellen's Energy Adventure, the Circle of Life, Turtle Talk, and Journey into Imagination.

 

We spent a lot of time in the Future World West which has "The Seas with Nemo & Friends" and Turtle Talk.  We didn't get to do "Soarin" which is like California's "Soaring Over California" and I really liked that one at Disneyland but the wait times were always too long.  This area had a wonderful aquarium as well.

From here, we got something to eat, then headed over to the different countries.  Mexico is one of the best ones, it was first, and we spent way too much time in it.

Maybe Andrew needs a pinata!!

 Andrew was trying out a pillow here.  Looks like it fits.

 Kaylee checks out all the soccer balls.

Andrew likes the peacocks and can say that word really well.  We finally left Mexico and ventured through China.

We walked quickly through or past a few other countries, but it was getting time for the fireworks here and we didn't want to miss them, so we found a place to sit on the ground and settled in.  Joe finally got his funnel cake so we shared that while we waited for the excitement.  These fireworks were really different than last nights, had a globe that they did a lot of different scenes with.  Very amazing!

Kaylee borrowed Andrew's stroller for a seat for these fireworks.

By the time the fireworks were over, everything else closed so we just had the long trek back to the cars!  And it was a long way!  But we finally found our way back to the room and called it another full day.

 It was a long way back up off the ground.

I figured the problem here.  Our tour guide (Bridgette) is back to training for marathons and is running every chance she gets.  She's up to 5 miles now.  Believe me, you do not want to tour Disney World with a marathon-runner as your tour guide.  Poor Joe, still recovering with his broken foot, and me -- I'm just old.  So we GOT TIRED!

Disney Day 1 (5-26-15)

The "10-days-of Kaylee" continue.  On Tuesday, we drove over to Disney World for a 3-day whirlwind vacation there.  John had to work, so he wasn't able to join us.  Disney was high on Kaylee's to-do list for Florida, so Bridgette decided to make the trip for her.  We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort, a Disney hotel, arriving around 3:30 on Tuesday (Bridgette had to go in to UT for a meeting on Tuesday morning, so we left as soon as we could get ready upon her return home).  After the check-in process and waiting for the bus, we hit Magic Kingdom about 6:00 p.m.

No shortage of people here!

We were able to take in a parade right away, our first sighting of Mickey and Minnie, and most of the characters on the floats.

We took in a few shows and rides:  Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World (one of my personal favorites -- to me, this one personifies everything that Disney does exceptionally well), Jungle Cruise, and Thunder Mountain for the grownups (Andrew and I sat that one out).

  We tried to line up for the electric parade but the streets were too crowded.  However, we did catch the end of it as we came out of one of the Lands (frontierland, I think).  And we watched the fireworks -- let me tell you, Disney knows how to do fireworks -- they were awesome.  Bridgette, Kaylee and Andrew headed back to the buses after the fireworks, but Joe and I decided to take in one more show -- the Bears Jamboree.  We had seen this on our other trip to Disney World 33 years ago and Joe remembered that we had really enjoyed it, so we caught it.  And then, on our way back to the bus, they do some magical light show with the castle so we watched part of that.

When we got to the bus stop, Bridgette and her crew were there -- still waiting, and it was 11:00 p.m. now.  They were at the front of the line, but there was a traffic accident on the highway and our buses were being delayed.  Someone graciously let us through to catch up with them, so we had just a short wait and we were on the bus.  We got back to our rooms and went straight to bed -- 11:45 and Joe and I were exhausted.

Memorial Day (5/25/2015)

We finished off our Sunday evening by baking chocolate chip cookies.  I had lots of help with this project.  Kaylee was good help but I can't say the same for the other two.  And John hasn't changed much in the cookie-making department since he was Andrew's age.

Monday's agenda was the Tampa Aquarium.  After John made us a full-scale breakfast of sausage, scrambled eggs, biscuits and pancakes, we headed into Tampa.  We got there fairly early and had a very enjoyable day there.  John thought it was a lot better than the last time he was there, which was probably 5 years ago. 

We started off with lots of ducks and different kinds of birds, which Andrew always likes.  

There was an interesting exhibit of a family of lemurs piled on top of each other sleeping.

And turtles are always of interest.

There were several really large sheepshead in one tank, as well as Kaylee's mean old burr fish that bit my finger.  (By the way, it's very difficult to type with a sore finger).

There were lots of neat things to see, including a hands-on area where you could touch the different sea creatures.

In this area, they had several different shells that little kids could climb in and on. Andrew moves around so fast it's hard to capture a good picture with him sitting still.

A little rest

Kaylee and Andrew in the shark's jaw

 

 

 

 

Next up was the splash park area, which Andrew loves.  This time he had Kaylee to play with, which made it even better.

Even Dad got into the act.

We finally finished up here, Bridgette put Andrew back into dry clothes, and we walked over to Hooter's for lunch.  There was a Carnival Paradise cruise ship in port right next to the aquarium, and we all thought we should hop on board.

We didn't hang around for it to depart, but it sure would have been fun to go wherever it was headed.