I'm Back!

After a week in the sun, I have returned.

Wow that was fun!

After a weeks absence, I am back to the Blog scene. I have been in Orlando for the last week at Disney World. That was my Christmas Present this year, which is good for me considering I would have just received Mission clothes this year anyway. We did this trip back in 2009; what a difference 2 years makes:

2009

2011

Crazy.

We spent 6 days at the parks. I'll just summarize each day real quick.

Monday:

Monday was a really exciting day for basically one reason:

Harry Potter World.

Man was this place cool. They really pulled out all of the stops here. The whole area was really well done, the attention to detail was insane; I mean, they really put me in Hogwarts! The ride itself was really awesome, but really in-your-face. There was one point where I found myself nose to nose with a dragon breathing smoke into my face. All in all, well done.

We went on my personal favorite ride, Jurassic Park River Adventure, and didn't get that wet! So we felt bold and decided to tackle Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls. This is the end result:

Bad, bad idea. We spent most of the rest of the day with mildly damp jeans and shorts, and right when our clothes are basically dry, Jarom INSISTS we ride Popeye and Bluto's bilge-rat barges, another soaker. We figured since we were heading home right after, it wouldn't be that bad. We were wrong. Dead wrong. Islands of Adventure is a very wet park.

Tuesday:

Ah yes, the Happiest Place on Earth. We did a really good job of avoiding long lines and using fast passes (special passes that let you cut the line) very wisely this day. We started out on Space Mountain, which is my favorite ride in the park. I got to sit by my Dad who was whooping and hollering in fear the whole time. Those sounds will not leave me for a long, long time. I found it very hard to breathe on the ride since I was laughing so hard. After that, we went on all of the classics: Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan, It's a Small World, etc. Just a fun day at a fun park. We started to notice that there were a lot of people there by the end of the day. We should have taken that as a warning...

Wednesday:

Oh, who am I kidding? It will always be this to me:

Yet another triumph by Disney. This park literally takes you behind the scenes of Hollywood. It's my kind of park. It also has the Tower of Terror, Star Tours, Rockin' Roller Coaster, and Muppets 3D! Lots of good things at this park. Unless of course you're sharing it with 70,000 other people. This was the day of record setting numbers at ALL of the theme parks in Orlando. All of them. The streets were literally full to capacity that day and wait times for rides mounted to as high as 3 hours!! I am sorry, but no ride is worth that wait. The news told us that night that it was a 3 hour wait just to get IN to Harry Potter World, and an additional 2 hours to get on the ride. 5 Hours. No.

We still had a pretty good time that day. Got to go on almost all of the rides I wanted to, including Star Tours-The Adventure Continues!

We rocked our awesome 3D glasses all the way home. Totally worth the 90 minute wait!

Thursday:

Definitely my favorite park, hands down.

I don't really know what it is about this park that is so endearing to me, but I absolutely love it! We spent the first half of the morning in Future World, which is where the big ball is. We rode Soarin', Living with the Land, Test Track, Universe of Energy, and Mission to Mars. After that, we went and checked out the World Showcase, which spotlights the culture of 11 countries such as Norway, Germany, Japan, China, and Canada among others. This is just a really cool culture trip that is very authentic and fun! We finished the day riding the big ball, Spaceship Earth. One of my all time favorite rides, it takes you on a trip through time, studying the history of communication. While you travel "through time to the present" you get a chance to construct your own future. This is mine and Micah's:

Absolutely love Epcot.

Friday:

Also a super great park! Like Hollywood Studios, Universal Studios takes you behind the scenes of your favorite Universal movies like Jaws, The Mummy, ET, and Men in Black. It also has one of the best roller coasters I've ever been on: The Rip Ride Rockit! 

This ride was intense! It lets you choose your own personal music to rock out to on the ride, and it films you the entire ride! So you can watch your trip and even purchase it as a music video for the small price of $19.99! Gotta love theme park prices. We rode almost every ride at the park and had a really full, exciting day! 

Saturday:

We finished our trip at Animal Kingdom. This is a huge park, but doesn't have a lot of rides. What it does do, however, is immerse you in a real jungle. The environment is very natural and looks great! We rode the roller coaster Everest, which pits you against the legendary Yeti. We also rode Dinosaur, which is a lot more intense than you'd expect out of a kids park. We took the Kilimanjaro Safari through the "African Serengeti" where we saw rhinos, elephants, lions, and more! We saw Festival of the Lion King, which is cheesy, but pretty good. We saw It's Tough to be a Bug, which is a very in your face 3D movie about bugs starring the bugs from A Bug's Life. We finally wrapped up our trip where we started: on a soaking wet ride that Jarom wanted to go on.

  

Ironically, Jarom stayed the driest out of everyone so I guess I should consider myself lucky that I was sitting by him. But, being Jarom, he went again determined to get soaked. The Kali River Rapids lived up to their promise to leave none dry and Jarom came out drenched and shivering. With that, we left the last park and started wrapping up our Florida trip. On our way out, we saw this:

You know you picked the wrong park when there's so many people (100,000) that they have to start turning people away because they just can't fit any more in the park...glad we weren't there. That sign kind of sums up the whole week. Very full parks, busy days, long lines, and exhaustion. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Before we flew home, we spent New Years Eve at our condo. We went out to dinner that night at Shoney's.

Shoney's must be Ebonics for "White people don't belong here" because I felt really out of place at the buffet. Now, I'm not a racist by any stretch of the word, but any buffet with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, watermelon, and corn bread is obviously aimed towards a certain demographic. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the collard greens...

This may possibly be the most vile weed I have ever tasted in my life. I decided to try some because I figured if it's so popular in the south, there must be something special about it. There wasn't. It was slimy, chewy, and honestly tasted very fermented. I can't adequately describe how bad this stuff tasted. It was just...it was gross.

Sunday:

We flew home Sunday and were back in the comfort of our own beds. We had a 2 hour layover in Atlanta where we first met the squealing little boy. This kid threw temper tantrums left and right. But they weren't just  tantrums, they were full blown, hybrid squeals of displeasure. Oh man, if I had a quarter for every second I wanted to shoot myself on that flight...either way, we made it home safe and sound! So I'll be back to writing daily (hopefully) and in the meantime, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. Lets ring it in!!

AMS