Sorry, I didn’t do an update yesterday. We didn’t do much, we spent the day at the condo. We lazed around a bit in the morning, then took a trip to Walmart to get some groceries for the week. At Walmart there were a whole bunch of hot air balloons around for some reason.
After Walmart, we returned to the condo, and I finished up the laundry, then we went to the pool.
We hung out there for an hour or two and then the kids got bored and wanted to go back to the condo and hang out there. So we went back, and the kids just wanted to hang out, play some games, watch some tv, play around, etc. Guess they were just tired of travelling, and touring. Later on I put a roast beef in the oven and took the kids back over to the pool for another short swim. We came back in an hour, and I cooked up a nice roast beef dinner with potatoes, caesar salad, etc. It was a great dinner, and it’s sure nice having a kitchen and enjoying a fully home cooked meal for a change. Then we watched a movie on HBO,and went to bed.
Today we woke up and decided to go to Animal Kingdom. We arrived at ten to nine, and it was already packed. Well, I guess we again arrived on an early-entry day for Disney resort guests. Oh well, we’ll make the best of it. We entered the park, and took a photo in front of the Tree of Life.
We decided to go to Africa first.
We went to the Kilimanjaro Safari ride first, which already had a huge lineup, but we were now using the Guest Special Assistance pass which we got late on our last day in Disney, as Jorden was pooping out. So we were able to enter in the Fast Pass entrance, which meant a shorter wait. This time was WAY better than the last time we were on this ride, and we got to see a lot of animals, the kids were very happy. As usual, I tussled with the moral dilemma of whether or not I felt right about these animals being held captive for our enjoyment. The kids sure enjoyed it, and the animals had a lot of area to roam in, but certainly not the same as if they were in their wild environment. I think it’s also interesting how Disney is very careful how they quite often stress the fact that this park – Animal Kingdom – is NOT A ZOO. Perhaps Disney wants to disassociate themselves with such a moral dilemma. Anyway, we got some photos of the animals:
After this, we tried to do the Pangani Trail walk, but it was so crowded it was hard to walk. The place was absolutely insane! I talked to an employee, who told me it was like this because it was an early entry day, and gave us the advice to leave the park and do another park today, and come back to this park on another day when it wasn’t early entry and we could enjoy it more. We decided to heed that advice and leave for Epcot. It was only 10:00, so still early. As we were leaving, streams and streams of people were piling into the park, it was crazy.
We drove over to Epcot, and it was much better, not crowded at all. We rode Test Track, and then started going around the Pavilions, starting at Mexico. The kids got the little masks that they make and then get stamped at each Pavilion.
It’s a neat way to keep the kids involved and interested in a mainly adult-oriented park. Let me take you around the world:
Germany:
Canada:
China:
This was also China:
Those lily pads had frogs all over them, here’s a close up:
A couple photos of France:
Italy:
Japan:
Three views of Morocco:
Norway:
United Kingdom:
and finally, the USA:
Various people and acts we saw along the way:
Once done, we went into the Innovention buildings where the kids played around with the hands-on exhibits for awhile, and then we decided to head over to Magic Kingdom for the Spectromagic parade and fireworks. The kids wanted to take the monorail, so them and I took it, and John drove the car over and we met him on Main Street in the park. We looked around in the shops for awhile first as Kelsey was looking for a Pooh Bear fleece coat to buy with her money, then the kids wanted to ride Space Mountain. John was started to feel very poor, so I said I’d ride with them. I was really scared when we first got on (I don’t like coasters, remember?) but it really was nothing after The Mummy, and some of the other rides, especially after the coaster in California Adventure last summer. I didn’t even scream! We then went and tried out the new Stitch ride, which was fun. Then we went to find a spot for the Spectromagic parade, and we got a spot, not a great one, but a spot anyway. This Spectromagic parade was unbelievable, and 200% better than the one in Disneyland in California. Here’s some photos:
We were kind of around the corner a bit and far off, not near the front like most people, we couldn’t get near the front because it was like 6 people deep all along the roadway, but when Cinderella drove by, she made eye contact with Kelsey as Kelsey was waving furiously at her, and when she did she pointed right at Kelsey and then gave Kelsey and special little wave, which was really nice of her. Kelsey was so impressed it was so cute. I thought that was a very nice thing for her to do.
We then stayed for another 15 minutes or so until the fireworks, which were spectacular too, of course. Then we went home to our condo, and to bed! Tomorrow we’ll try Animal Kingdom again.
November 9th – 12th
My bad, haven’t kept up to date here! Basically we’ve just been doing the same things, park hopping in the parks, and another visit to Typhoon Lagoon. We returned to Animal Kingdom the next day when it was less busy, and it was much better. They really are good in that park at making the children understand about conservation, observing animals habitats and understanding the need to preserve the animals and their habitats. So perhaps having the animals their does help to reinforce this education and conservation in the children and adults. I’m just on the fence about it, I’ve never liked seeing animals taken out of their natural environments for our own enjoyment. John doesn’t agree with me, he doesn’t see a problem with it, and tells me to “get over it, hippy-chick!” LOL!
Jorden and I also finally went on the scary rides, the Rockin’ Roller coaster and the Tower of Terror. We freaked out the first time, but we ended up going back and forth between those two rides almost half the day! The rockin’ roller coaster goes 0 to 60 MPH in 2.8 seconds!! You totally lost your stomach. It’s all inside in the dark, too.
Here’s some more various pics from the parks:
So we park hopped around, and on the last day Jorden cried because he didn’t want to leave, but he quickly got over it. Then today we spent our last day at the Villas, and of course they came by and tried to swing their time share sales pitch on us, but we weren’t buying it. Literally! So we packed everything up, and it’s early to bed tonight as we’ll be on the road at 5am on our second leg of the trip to Playa! We estimate it will take us about the same amount of time to reach Playa as it did to reach Orlando. The only planned stop we have is at Palenque, which is an ancient ruin and pyramid, and maybe Veracruz, but if we see other interesting towns and sites along the way we may also make some short pitstops. However, it’s been a hectic two weeks at the theme parks, and at this stage of the game, John and I just want to reach Playa and see that white sand, caribbean sea, and have a margarita!
I’ll try to find Internet cafes as I travel through Mexico, I don’t know how easily my dial-up will go, but I’ll try to keep posting daily reports. To my family and close friends: please don’t be too concerned if I don’t post one day, there may be times where we have chosen just to spend the night in our van if we can’t find any suitable accommodations, and in that case I probably won’t be able to locate any Internet cafes to upload any updates. Our main concern at that point will probably be just getting to Playa as soon as possible!!! =)
November 13th
Well, we left Orlando about 5am, and we drove all day, it’s really boring and not much to say other than we all got along really great in the car with no yelling, which was amazing! lol.
We had a lunch packed so we didn’t have to stop for lunch, we noticed more of the hurricane damage this time coming through Pensacola, most of the roofs were covered in blue tarps. When we were in Orlando, in fact, one in five of the big business signs were taken right out by the hurricanes. Here in Pensacola a lot the trees were downed, but we saw that the bridge was looking much better and almost back together.
One thing we have noticed about America that we love, is that Americans know how to get where they are going. They really know how to drive! Back home, I’m called an impatient, fast, crazy driver, but really I just drive like an American! Americans don’t mess around, they get on the freeway, they merge right away, they accelerate, they don’t sit in the fast lane going slow, they BOOGIE! I love it. I don’t know how they manage when they visit our area of the world, they must just be flabergasted at how poor the drivers are and at how poorly traffic moves!!! I don’t know how I”LL manage when I get back home. I’m going to be road-raging on everyone and laying on my horn, I just know it.
We stopped for some great old McDonald’s somewhere along the way, don’t ask me where, like I said we were on the road close to 17 hours and now i’m sitting here writing this, I”m a maniac. Anyway, we ended up in Houston, thinking we’d just go until we reached the other side of Houston. Well, IS there another side??? Houston seemed to never end today! Luckily we hit Houston at 9pm, so traffic was easy and light, but we still had to watch carefully for our turn-offs and exits as we tried to make our way from the 10 to the 610 to the 59, amongst 5 lanes of traffic, with all of them flying by us at what seems like 180….it felt like I was in one of Jorden’s PS2 games, Need for Speed Underground or something, and I was coming in last place.
As we were driving, we spotted our friendly Motel 6 sign along the highway, and decided to skirt over three lanes of traffic to make the exit (lucky thing I was driving, John’s much more conservative in the driver seat than I). We made it alive, but alas, we’re still in Houston! Ah well, we’ll say goodbye to Houston at 5am tomorrow morning, and hopefully we can cross that Mexican border by mid afternoon.
We will be arriving in Brownsville on a Sunday, so we are hoping we’ll find a Mexican Auto Insurance agent open. If not, we’ll have to hang out there until Monday, we don’t want to cross without insurance. John’s already a little nervous about the drive in Mexico, he certainly doesn’t want to do it without insurance.
Well, I have to get some sleep! Again, family and friends, if you don’t hear from me for awhile, don’t fear! It just means I’m too busy getting to my beach and margarita to stop to find Internet access!
November 14th
Well, I didn’t sleep a wink last night. The problem with finding a hotel in the middle of the night, and with picking a Motel 6, is that you don’t know where you are or how bad it really is until you get into the room and get settled. Turns out it was pretty seedy! John and the kids had no problems getting to sleep right away, but there was so much activity above us and outside going past our room, I couldn’t get much sleep. And I was worried about our van, which we couldn’t park near our room. We have a steering wheel immobilizer which helps, I suppose, but still it could get broken into or even stolen with that on, and then we’d be royally screwed! So basically I managed about 2 hours sleep at best. John was up around 4am and asked if I wanted to get on the road, and I said sure why not, I’m up anyway. So we packed up the kids, much to Kelsey’s protest. She just wanted to sleep in, not that I can blame her. But I explained that she had been sleeping in the past few weeks in Orlando, and would be able to sleep in again once we got settled in Playa, but for now she had to get up early while we were travelling. The kids went back to sleep in the car anyway, and slept until about 8am when we stopped for coffee.
There were a lot of dead animals on the side of the road along the US 77 south to Brownsville. I think they were coyotes. It was a horrible drive this morning, it seemed like the sun was never going to come up. John’s back was killing him from the driving yesterday, he has a bad back from a back injury, so I did a lot of the driving today. And the road just seemed to go on and on and on. We were both really tired, our backs hurt, our necks hurt, our butts hurt…and John started giving me the “this was all YOUR idea” look. =) We were both thinking about how far we still have to go to get to Playa, and wondering if it really was all worth it. Basically it was a downer morning =(. We got to Brownsville, Texas around 11:00 Texas time, and when we found a Sanborn’s outlet to purchase our Mexican auto insurance we found out they were closed on Sunday’s. We then grabbed a phone book and started calling around, but no one was open on Sunday. We went to the visitor info centre, and they told us that no one would be open at the border probably either, or in Matamoros because it was election day over there. Darn it! John really didn’t want to chance going into Mexico without insurance, so we decided just to grab a hotel room, relax a little, collect ourselves and head over in the morning. John was really stressed about the crossing too, and worried for some reason. I’ll admit, I’m a little nervous about it too, I guess it’s just a little trepidation of the unknown. John is more worried about the drive through Mexico!
We got a room at the Red Roof, and then I went back to the visitor info centre a little later to ask a couple more questions, and the gentleman told us that we could purchase our mexican auto unsurance online and print out our documents at the library. Yeesh! Wish I had known that a few hours ago! I went back to the hotel room where they had high speed internet and did just that, but I saved the forms in pdf to my laptop, and I’ll print them out later. By now it was mid afternoon, and we decided to go to Staples and get all the photocopies of our car registration, drivers licence, etc. that we thought we’d need for tomorrow at the border to get our car permit. Then we had an early dinner out. We then dropped John off at the room, and I took the kids to go see a movie, The Incredibles. They had this weird short movie before the movie about a Jackalope, me and the kids were wondering what in the world a Jackolope is??
It felt kind of surreal coming out of the movie theatre, thinking to myself that I’m actually here, in a border town, about to cross into Mexico in the morning and DRIVE through Mexico to Playa. We’ve just got to keep positive, remembering the white sand and turquoise water at the end of the tunnel!! It’s hard sometimes not to let the long days of driving get to you, especially when the scenery doesn’t change and it just streches on and on. But we have Palenque to look forward to next, a ruins site I’ve wanted to visit for a long time!
Which us luck for the morning!