Water: the Park and the Storm

Thursday we spent the day at Blizzard Beach Waterpark in Disney World. We picked the perfect day because temps were close to record-setting (seems that happens a lot to us) – it was hovering around 100 degrees so the water felt SO refreshing.

We tried every slide at least once. On the very first one, Summit Plummet, Bill lost his room key card out of a pocket that was velcroed shut! This is understandable when you realize that the slide is 12 stories high and nearly vertical. Disney’s website claims riders can reach speeds up to 60 mph!

Yesterday we had a relaxing ‘pool day’ at the timeshare. We needed to rest up after all those exhausting water slides the day before. Not long after we left the pool to have dinner in our condo, it got cloudy and windy. The next thing we knew, we were in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. From our balcony, we watched the drama. Look at these great shots Bill got with our new camera!

Notice the lightning bolt on the right

heavy rain and strong winds

Fortunately for us, this was the first rain we’d had this trip. The rest of the time, our sunsets looked like this:

Just enough clouds to make it interesting

Park Hoppin’

Monday morning we got up and drove the short distance to Disney World. We started at Epcot because we wanted to be sure to see the Flower and Garden Show which is in its last week. The displays were gorgeous! (Now is a good time to say that we don’t have any photos --- we left our camera back at the timeshare.) We especially enjoyed the topiaries in the shapes of the Disney characters.

We decided to make the most of our Park Hopper passes, so we followed our list to our must-do rides in Epcot (Soarin’, Spaceship Earth, and Test Track) then jumped onto the monorail for lunch at the Grand Floridian.

Next park: Animal Kingdom to ride the Kali River Rapids (we got wet!) and Expedition Everest. It was our first time on Expedition Everest and we loved it!

Then, Disney’s Hollywood Studios for our favorite ride, the Tower of Terror. We went there first, intending to pick up a Fast Pass and couldn’t believe it when the wait time was only 10 minutes! (In fact the only Fast Pass we needed all day was for Soarin’.) We also went to Muppet Vision 3D, Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream, and The Great Movie Ride while we were in the Studios park.

From there, it was back to Epcot for fish and chips at the United Kingdom so we could have a good spot to see IllumiNations fireworks and laser show.

All in all, it was terrific . . . with the shortest lines we’ve ever had in any Disney park and pleasant weather (90 degrees but tolerable humidity). I think the memories we have from prior trips here combined with our anticipation of future visits with our grandchildren, made this add up to ONE FUN DAY!

Orlando - so much to do, so little time

We arrived in Orlando on Thursday evening and drove straight to our timeshare and settled in for the evening.  The view from our balcony was fantastic.

The view of the pool area from our balcony.

Friday morning we got up and witnessed the lifeguards ushering out some unwanted guests from the pool area.

They had to leave because they didn’t go to the timeshare presentation!

Saturday we got up early.  We had big plans and reservations to attend the induction of two astronauts into the Astronaut Hall of Fame at Kennedy Space Center.  The drive over was 42 miles, took an hour and fifteen minutes and cost $3.25 in tolls (Florida doesn’t have FREEways). 

    

The first time we visited Kennedy Space Center (13 years ago) the whole tour took about two hours.  Now they have so much to see and do you will be lucky to get it all in in one day.

The first thing they had scheduled for us was a talk given by Astronaut Bob Crippen.  He piloted the first Space Shuttle in 1981.  The talk was very interesting and informative.

 

Next we were scheduled to have lunch with several of the astronauts.  It turned out that we had lunch then the Astronauts came out to a stage and talked about their experience of flying in space and landing on the moon. After their talk they opened it up to the floor for questions.  One good question was how much were they paid as an astronaut.  Since they were all military they just received their regular military pay.  One of the astronauts (Charles Duke) said he made $13.75 in per diem for going to the moon, after the Government subtracted for food, lodging and transportation!

 

(L to R) Walt Cunningham, Apollo 7, Richard Gordon, Apollo 12, Fred Haise, the infamous Apollo 13 (Houston we have a problem), Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14, Al Worden, Apollo 15, and Charles Duke, Apollo 16.

This was a lucky day.  It just so happened that a military Atlas 5 rocket was scheduled to blast off at 2:17 PM and we got to see it and hear the might roar from the blastoff.

If you look above the white spec in the sky you can see the rocket.

The last thing scheduled for the day was the induction of Karol “Bo” Bobko and Susan Helms into the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

         

Previous inductees and photos of the two new inductees                     Karol Bobko acceptance speech

Susan Helms accepting her induction medal

There was so much to see and do we didn’t get to do it all.  After listening to the astronauts and seeing the induction it really made us feel proud to be from the USA!