Day 17, Coming home

Today is our final day…so we got up latish and headed to IHOP for breakie.   Then back to down town Disney and the Disney Imagination attraction.  This time we decided to checkout the other floors.

On the floor below the games is a Cyber Space Mountain kiosk, here you create your own ultimate roller coaster…this was a must for Ems..But the best bit is you actually get to ride it…Ems and Joseph created a relatively tame one to start with, after which Ems created a couple more…both of which Jules road with her….Plenty of Barrel roles and climbs….We purchased the video of the 3rd and ultimate coater ride, when I back at home I’ll upload it on for all to view…

This attraction is a hidden gem, as we spent from about 11:00 until 15:00 in there.  There is a couple of virtual reality kiosks, along with some fare ground style games….It is certainly worth checking out if you find yourself in Florida on a wet day or just want to escape the sun for a bit.

As I said here is Ems top five attractions based on thrill level.

1. Gawazi, wooden coaster at Busch Garden
2. Sheikra coaster with a 200ft drop at Busch Gardens
3. Kraken another vertical drop coaster at Sea World
4. Areosmith ride at Disney Hollywood studios
5. Everest, Animal Kingdom

Obviously Ems own coaster would have come top, but only Ems and Jules got to ride it…and it is now digital trash..

As for the lamest rides/attractions

1. Prince Caspian ride at Disney Hollywood Studios
2. ABC Sound show Disney Hollywood Studios
3. Thunder mountain Disney Magic Kingdom

Day 16, The final push, Blizzard Beach

We decided to spend our final full day at Disney’s other water park Blizzard Beach.  This water park is very wacky as it has a snow theme, that’s right…A Florida water park that looks like a ski resort.  Where possible everything is made to look like snow, and Christmas carols are playing in the background. All the water slides are made to look like ski runs or toboggan runs.

There is the longest family raft ride, which was totally awesome, the best raft ride Ive been on all holiday.  From a beauty perspective it is the best looking of the two Disney parks, but it does lack alot of the thrill rides the kids expect.  We queued for one ride, for twenty minutes and it certainly wasn’t worth it….

Jules and myself went off for a walk leaving the kids at the sun beds, when we stumbled upon the ice cream kiosk.  One thing we have found in the US is whilst the ice creams arn’t cheap you do get lots og Bang per Buck.  So being a tight Brit, I find that two ice cream fudge sundaes is enough for all four of us.  At this kiosk they had the ultimate ice cream, that basically was fudge sauce, strawberries, ice cream, cream, cherries…all inside a sea side bucket…This was ten dollars enough for four by miles, so we bought it..$2.50 each is a bargain.  So we got one,  when we got back to the beds the kids were gone…and we ended up eating the whole lot between the two of us…man it was has a real gut buster….

When the kids got back.Ems was not impressed….

 

Left the park at 3pm to go home and pack and then off for dinner and probably an early bed.

Day 15, Finishing off Animal Kingdom

Today we decided to finish off Animal Kingdom, in fact it turned out that there wasn’t that much that we hadn’t done.  Ems wanted to do the Safari again, and I must say it was a lot better this time around, the driver went really slow when we saw animals and made up the time by driving really fast round some bits….practically felt like a ride, ( Ems observed a moderate result on the thrills index ).

We went to the bird show which I must say was pretty cool, had a host of different types of birds performing various tricks.  Even got to see a true American Eagle. 

 

 

We left the park, and headed off for a late lunch in downtown Disney, and then went off to the cinema to see Monsters vs Aliens in 3D…This was a really cool movie, you soon forget you have the 3D specs on, and get immersed in the movie.  I hope Pixar make more 3D movies…a lot of fun..

After that we checked out another Disney attraction that we hadn’t visited before called Disney Quest Interactive centre.  This is four floors of electronic entertainment, the only floor we managed to check out today was floor 3, this features loads of arcade machines, but most importantly for free….Joseph was in heaven he couldn’t believe it…and we spent a good two hours in here playing games.  Ems found a pinball machine that each player controls a ball by standing on a large pedestal, you play this we eleven other players, the idea is to make your ball score the most points…you control it by moving left to right, forwards and backwards.  After a few goes she was winning each round…wow I thought she is pretty good at that…especially since when I tried I came last but three….When I asked her what the trick was she responded, “ I have no idea, I just keep moving…”….

 

Day 14, Relaxation and a splash of Disney

Decided we needed a rest this morning, so a slow wake up and the morning around the pool.  In the afternoon we headed off to Disney Hollywood studios to finish off the bits we missed when we left it on Monday.

Ems was desperate to do the Tower of Terror ride, which is a lift that free falls…So we got a fast pass for that, and then started to do the more sedate activities.  There still seemed to be loads of people in the park.  The kids managed to do Star Tours again ( groan )…

We went to an exhibit/show on Walt's life that was pretty interesting, seeing where he came from…we also managed to stop off at the Candy store and buy some scrummy chocolate delights.  Jules had an apple coated in chocolate and toffee, Ems is obviously missing fruit now as she was desperate to have a bite of just the apple part.

Ems got her ride on the Tower of Terror and thought it was pretty awesome, and I'm going to get her to rank all the rides at the end of the holiday, and publish them here.

After four hours in the park we were done, and headed off back home to get something to eat.  The kids were desperate to go to a US TGI’s why I don’t know…so we headed off there for dinner, and an early bed.

Day 13, Busch Gardens

13 was certainly not unlucky for us we awoke to a restored Florida weather pattern of Sun, Sun and more Sun….So after splashing on some sun cream accompanied by the normal groans from the kids, we set off for the park.

Boy how the park looks so different in the Sun.   The park was without doubt the best one we had visited so far, in terms of layout, low  number of people, and most importantly for Ems the best rides..There was no doubt these rides would score highly on the thrill index.  The lack of queues for the rides was especial welcome as it meant she was back round for more….Even little man benefited with multiple goes on the dodgems.

Ems is pictured 5th in from the right on the front row…Yep the front row…The ride features a vertical 200ft drop.

There were rides for us mere mortals such as log flumes and raft rides

Busch gardens is not just about thrills it has a host of animal attractions, with the centre point a recreation of an African savanna.  I must say the park was truly beautiful, and the enclosures for the animals extremely well thought out and generous in size.

We finally left the park around 18:00 for the drive back to Orlando.  Ems left having truly experienced the high end of the thrill index.  We had no way completed the park, and if we were to ever come back to Florida I would certainly be coming here.

Oh and the final highlight for the day a trip to Jamba Juice…something we experienced on the West Coast but failed to find here…

Day 12, Tampa Bay … bit of a wash out

Today we awoke early for the first of two days in Busch Gardens…but unfortunately the weather wasn’t what we booked.  Florida was experiencing a severe storm…there was even the possibility of isolated tornadoes…Being British we still ventured to the park but the rain was poring down and with the onset of lightning no rides were running….So after getting cold and wet we abandoned the park for the moderate safety of the shopping mall…I say moderately safe  as Jules is very dangerous when armed with credit cards and time to kill.

By 16:00 the storm has still not ceased so we went back to the hotel to checkout the Pink Panther 2 movie…the kids really enjoyed it.

Hoping tomorrow brings better weather

Day 11, Hollywood Studios

Today we set off for last Disney park we have yet to visit this trip, that being Disney Hollywood Studios.  This park is built around the idea of a theme set.  The streets are set out like a 1950’s American town.

Ems was keen to checkout the big rollercoaster ride in this park, Jules had previously done this ride in Disneyland Paris, but for some reason Ems wasn’t up for it then, but she certainly was today.   I'm pleased to say it scored well on the thrills index….

 

Whilst Jules and Ems where getting their thrills…Joseph and myself headed off for the stunt show…This features hide speed car chases in front of your very eyes, and various insights into how they perform a lot of the tricks…His words as we left “totally awesome!!”

We also checked out the Muppet 3D show which was extremely funny, well for us Adults especially who spent many a Sunday tea time watching the Muppet show. 

Oh and they had to do Star Tours for must be the 6th time at Disney…We left the park early for our trip down to Taper Bay where we were staying in a hotel for two nights.