Trip to Disney World - July 1999
On our way down to the Sunshine State we had a 4 hour stopover in Denver. What an airport, HUGE and AMAZING. I've never seen so many planes in one place before. Since we got off a small plane we had to walk on the tarmac and Judy sure noticed the hot temperature, especially compared to Yellowknife. I said that this is nothing, just wait till we get to Florida and add in the humidity.
Once we found our gate for the next plane we decided to look around a bit. Well, lo and behold, there's a subway running between the 3 terminals. Being 3 hillbillies from the sticks, we thought we'd go for a ride. So we did, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You get the picture.
We didn't get in to Orlando until about 10:30 pm and, man, was it humid! Couldn't wait to get the blue jeans off and into shorts. We go to the rental car place and sign for our car but when I get to the car I notice that I don't have the keys. After going back to the rental office and searching everywhere, I find them in the trunk lid. (Like I said, "3 hillbillies from the sticks".)
Now, Disney World was very cool, we had a great time and spent a day in each of the six main parks and went back in the evenings to Magic Kingdom for the fireworks, parade and light shows. Daniel liked the Buzz Light Year Ride the most (we went on it at least 10 times!). One ride, Alien Attacks, scared the crap outta all three of us; way too real. The special effects were amazing, making you think that the alien you brought back from another planet got away and was lurking around in the pitch black room you were in. They had hot, moist air blowing behind you and when they killed it, warm water splatted on you like it was blood. When we got out of there Daniel said, "I don't wanna go in there again." Daniel got autographs and pictures from all of his Disney friends. Animal Kingdom, Epcot Centre and MGM Studios were cool too, but Magic Kingdom was by far the best.
The water parks were neat too. One park had an 8 foot high wave coming at you about every minute or so. And Judy and I also swam in a pool with some Rays and Tiger Sharks. That was funny because people were complaining that the water was cold (70f) and I was saying that it was a lot warmer than back home.
We went to Cape Canaveral to watch a 12:30 night time shuttle launch. It was really cool being able to go 80 mph and only being 10 mph over the speed limit. It took only about 40 minutes to get there. We did the bus tour on the grounds, etc., but couldn't get tickets for the liftoff viewing gallery so we had to watch from Tutusville, which is 11 miles from the launch pad. We waited at our car for about 4 hours (and so did 100,000 other people). 12:30 came and it was scrubbed. Now 100,000 or more people tried to leave all at the same time. Man, what a traffic jam! It took us three and a half hours to go the 8 miles to the expressway and about 20 minutes to go the remaining 30 some odd miles. Needless to say, we got to the hotel at about 5 a.m. The next day was pretty well shot because we didn't get up until noon so we just went to Gatorland and did some shopping. We also went to Sea World and that was pretty interesting. Also Universal Studios. They had some really cool rides but we were getting pretty tired of rides by then.
One of the drawbacks was that we didn't get to go to Cocoa Beach and see the sand and ocean. We did do a lot of swimming at our hotel though. Daniel's swimming lessons paid off big time because he loved the warm water down there. When we asked him what he thought of the vacation he said "Two thumbs up baby! Waaaaayy up." That sure put smiles on our faces.
We did notice something while there. We realized why there are so many accidents. People don't drive to the road conditions. It was raining one day and you couldn't see 5 feet in front of you. They all still drove fast! And when we were coming back from the shuttle trip on the expressway traffic got up to 70 mph again but they still all travelled 10 feet apart!! Just Crazy!!!!!
On the way home we left Florida at 7 am and didn't arrive in Yellowknife until about 11 pm so it made for a very long day. We sure were glad to get home.