USA

Disney World

So we stayed the night in Forsyth, Georgia. It was a nice enough place, to stay the night. We then went on to Florida. On the way there, there were some pretty big storms. Which was annoying, as everyone slowed down about 50 miles under the limit. Sure, drive safely and with caution in the rain, but this was a bit excessive I thought. Anyways, we arrived at our RV park and settled in for the night.

The next morning we woke up at 8am, so we could catch the free shuttle at 9am that the RV park provided. We had a nice chat to a lovely family from Canada while we were on our way there. So we arrived at Disney World, and this place is MASSIVE. And I mean MASSIVE. Not only do they have like 4 different “worlds” which in their own rights are their own theme parks, they have numerous hotels and resorts and restaurants. You literally have to catch a bus or monorail between each different world. It’s insane, also the shuttle driver told us that they have their own power source, waste facilities, telephone lines, police etc so basically it’s literally their own little world. It was $90 for one world, plus for $35 you could get access to any of the 4 main worlds. We got that option and the first world we went to was Animal Kingdom.

It was pretty cool. The first major thing we did was the safari where they drive you through “Africa.” We got to see many cool animals, including, Elephants, Cheetahs, Hippos, Ostriches, Black and White Rhinos, Gazelles as well as some others I can’t remember. Once we finished that, we went to the Dinosaur part of Animal Kingdom. They have a system, called fast pass, for some of the major rides/attractions, where you get a ticket which tells you to come back at a certain time, and when you come back the line is much shorter than the normal waiting line. We got a fast pass for one of the rides, and while we were waiting for our time to arrive, we went on a rollercoaster. It was pretty enjoyable, but not overly exciting, especially after some of the coasters we went on in six flags. We then went back to the ride we got the fast pass for. It was a pretty cool ride, where they ‘take you back in time’ and you travel through the world of dinosaurs just before the comet hits, so you get jolted around a bit and it goes fast at times, and dinosaurs come out at you, but its nothing really overly scary, yet still enjoyable.

After Animal Kingdom we went to the Hollywood Studios world. We went and got a fast pass for the Star Wars virtual reality thing. As it was a bit of a wait, we went and got lunch at this ‘diner’ that was themed like a drive in theatre. It was pretty cool, and you sat ‘in a car.’ After we had lunch, it was time for our fast pass to be accepted on the Star Wars ride. There are a few hundred different story lines it follows, ours was pretty good. We then went to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids exhibit, which was pretty cool. I enjoyed the movie as a kid, and basically it’s a kids playground, and a pretty awesome one at that. I would’ve happily climbed around everything, and played but neither James or Kyle were keen to, so we just walked through it. I also did my first plank ever, on a giant ant. It was a really bad plank, but o well. We then went and saw the Indiana Jones stunt show, which was pretty cool. They did the stunts, and then explained a bit of how they actually do them.  We then went on the tower of terror ride. You are in an elevator, and it goes up really fast then drops you down pretty fast, it was pretty cool. We then made our way to the biggest world, which the name of escapes me.

We got there by monorail. This was by far the world with the most to do, and it even stayed open to 1am. Unfortunately, our free shuttle picked us up at 10pm, so we didn’t have that long there. It is also the land that has the Disney Castle in, so that was pretty cool to see. We started off getting a fast pass for one of the rides and then going on the Pirates of the Carribean ride while we were waiting. It was pretty cool, and I know that movies storyline, well the first one, came from a ride at Disney World. I’m not sure if it was this one, or if there’s one at Disney Land in California. As it was a inside ride, it started pouring down. It was a bit of a relief, as it was a hot day, but also kind of annoying. We decided that we didn’t want to waste our time under shelter, so we walked through the rain, and were the only ones to do so. We got absolutely soaked, but it was rather refreshing after being so hot all day. Unfortunately, the ride we got the fast pass for wasn’t operating in the rain, we waited a little while to see if the rain would stop, but it wasn’t showing any sign of doing so, so we moved on. We then walked to another part of the park that had more undercover attractions.  We did a Lilo & Stich ride, simply coz it was operating. It was ok, but nothing really exciting. By then we had about an hour and a half before we had to make our way back to be picked up by the shuttle. I really wanted to go on the Space Mountain ride, but the wait for it was 80 minutes. After some discussion, it was decided that Kyle and I would go on Space Mountain, and wait, while James would do his own thing. The wait was 80 minutes. It wasn’t too bad, for some of the line, they have these games you can play while you wait, which was a cool way to kill some time, and we also started talking to a guy from Brazil who was travelling the East Coast of the USA by himself.  Speaking of Brazillians, there must have been hundreds of them, if not thousands (I’m not exaggerating) in tour groups or camp groups or just on holidays. Anyways, as time went by, so did the amount of time we had to we had to go get the shuttle, and we were contemplating leaving the line. We held on though, and actually got pulled out of line, as there were 2 empty seats. The ride was awesome, and essentially worth the wait, and hey we were out of the rain while we were lining up anyways. It’s really fast, and if you’ve been to WB Movie World on the Gold Coast, and been on the Scooby Doo ride (which itself is awesome, go on it if you go there!) it’s similar to that. Similar in the sense that, it’s inside, and it’s dark, and you can’t see where you are going, except for little white lights, which I suppose are meant to be stars, except it’s a lot faster the Scooby Doo. After we finished that, we ran to the monorail to make it to our shuttle in time. This was easier said than done, as it was fireworks time, yes fireworks around the Disney Castle. It would’ve been pretty cool to see that, unfortunately the fireworks started at 10pm so we couldn’t hang around. So we ran, and caught the monorail and ran some more, just so we didn’t miss our shuttle, as it was stressed to us that it leaves promptly at 10pm and doesn’t wait for anyone.

So we made it back to where we were meant to be picked up from, with about 5 minutes to spare, and it wasn’t there. We saw the Canadian family who had been waiting there for half an hour, so we knew we didn’t miss it. It ended up being late, so much all the running an stressing was for nothing. It came up at about 1020pm. However, there wasn’t enough room for us! We weren’t sure how this happened, they took our names, and asked us all if we were being picked up at 5pm or 10pm, so that there were enough seats for all. So after the driver called the owner of the shuttle business, we were told to wait and we would be picked up eventually. Great. It was rather annoying, and I know in the end, it’s not that big of a thing, and hey the service was free with our RV park, but it was still frustrating, and by the time we were picked up, we could’ve watch the fireworks, not ran like idiots through crowds and probably done some other stuff as well. So at about 1110pm we were picked up, by the owners of the taxi service that ran the shuttles, in their own car as well. They were nice people, and explained that, someone got on the shuttle saying that they made the trip there (which they didn’t and we could’ve told them that, coz it was full on the way there with us, the Canadian family and another family) and so they wanted to go back. Damn you dishonest people! So we eventually made it back a little before midnight!

Miami

So today we were making our way to Miami today. We stopped off at a Walmart to get some supplies, and to check out a Walmart. It is massive, but it sells everything, like lots of shops here. Basically if you put a K-mart (with a bigger and better range than K-mart), a pharmacy, coles, a liquor store, subway and a bank together you get Walmart. It’s really convenient, all your shopping done in one place. We then went on down to Miami. We eventually made it to our RV park, and chilled there for the rest of the evening.

The next day James and I wanted to check out more of the outlet stores, where as Kyle didn’t want to. So James and I went to it, while Kyle stayed back at the RV. This place was MASSIVE! It also had some really cheap deals, on good brands as well. James got some really cool and cheap converse, as well as some clothes and other stuff. I got a couple of pairs of shoes, as well as a Charlie the Unicorn shirt, books and some Lindtt Chocolate. We didn’t end up getting home to about 1115pm, and Kyle had gone out to some bars that were nearby. James and I decided to stay and drink the beers we bought on the way home rather than try and find Kyle. It was an enjoyable evening drinking in our RV and we went to bed at about 230am, with still no sign of Kyle.

Kyle had come back sometime overnight, and had a killer hangover. He said he stayed at the RV until about 6pm, and then went out. I guess in every holiday there is a day were you do nothing. Today was that day, Kyle was really hungover, and threw up at some stage eventually. I wasn’t really bothered, and was happy to chill out all day, to be perfectly honest, I was a bit indifferent about coming to Miami anyways. So we did nothing all day, just chilled in Betsy and watched TV. That in itself was an experience anyways, daytime television here is hilarious! You start off with ridiculous court shows similar to Judge Judy. Then you have game shows like Let’s Make A Deal (the one we went on in LA), Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Family Feud and Price is Right. Then you have to drama shows like Jerry Springer, which is back by the way. Unfortunately, it’s really bad, maybe because I’m older and more cynical, but it also seems very scripted and there are fights every 10 seconds, and there’s more crowd chanting “Jerry Jerry” than actual issues being discussed. There’s also a show called Maury, which does lie detector tests and DNA tests, to see if partners have been cheating and who really is the father of the child. That show was much “better” and I use that in a relative term against Jerry. There was one lady who celebrated with her sister like they had won 1 trillion dollars when they were told this guy was the father. Part of her hilarious celebration was doing some head banging/arm waving crazy movement in his face, which was hilarious. Then you get dramas like Bold and the Beautiful and Young and the Restless, then onto talk shows, like Ellen. Then on one channel there were 2 eps of Family Guy then 2 of The Simpsons then 2 of Two and a Half Men.

So that was our day, and that night we slept as we had a long drive the next day.

Instead of driving straight to New Orleans, we stopped off inside the Miami border for the night, which was a 10 hour drive from Miami. As this was the day that Harry Potter was released, I wanted to go see it, and we had some time, so we drove to a cinema nearby, and I went and watched HP while James and Kyle watched Horrible Bosses. Movie tickets were so much cheaper then back home $8.50 for an adult for a normal movie and $11 for my 3d HP movie. We actually got there rather early, as we didn’t realise we were in a different time zone now, and time had gone back one hour. Harry Potter was really awesome, and it was the end of era really, and the guys said Horrible Bosses was pretty funny.

So that was Florida. Maybe not as exciting as one would expect Florida to be, except for Disney World and HP, but still enjoyable, and I guess we were bound to have a nothing day eventually.

Now we are on the way to the Big Easy, AKA New Orleans, then Texas then Vegas, then LA. In 15 days, I will be on a plane home. I was feeling pretty homesick while I was in Miami, and in some ways I can’t wait to be back home, but I also don’t want to leave either.