Today, after straightening things out with our room (now rooms), we moseyed on down to Epcot.  We are beginning to get used to the benefits of staying at a Disney Resort:  Not having to drive anywhere (you get a bus for everything you want to do within Disney) and only having to carry around your room key.  All of our tickets are stored electronically in our room key, and we can also charge anything we want to our room key (eliminating the need to carry around cash or credit cards).

We spent a good deal of the day in Epcot.  Which none of us had been to in a long time, and we determined that we probably won’t go there again for a long time.  There really isn’t much there, and they took out a lot of the fun-because-they-are-so-lame rides.  One ride that I have fond memories of was replaced with Mission: Space.  I made the mistake of riding this ride on the Orange side.  See, it has two versions.  One is “Green”, which is mild and doesn’t “spin” (this is all they really tell you).  The other side is “Orange” which “spins”.

I found out the hard way that the “spinning” was part of the ride being a centrifuge.  It was insane.  I could have killed Joe for making me go on that side.  The moment the rocket started moving, blasting off into space, I felt like I was going to throw up and just did my best to concentrate on holding it in.  Tears were streaming down my face… well, not down - across… and I could feel the saliva building in my mouth.  In the ride, it is simulating traveling to Mars.  All I could do the entire time was pray that we didn’t make a return trip to Earth.

After that, we walked around the countries.  Joe met a troll and grew some blond braids in Norway.  We got some bratwurst from Germany, which made me sick.  We contemplated leaving the park, but decided to stay a little longer.  We went to Japan, which has the best store ever.  Anyone who has ever been to Epcot knows this, and anyone who will be going to Epcot - YOU HAVE TO GO TO JAPAN!  My mom bought me a Monchhichi doll, for nostalgic purposes (I had one when I was younger) and also for my future children.

We ended up eating at Marrakesh in Morocco.  Which was pretty good, but overpriced (even for the expected overpricing in Disney).  It may have been more worth the price if the entertainment was there.  In the brochure they described belly dancers and a band.  These were the main reasons I chose this restaurant, so I was a bit disappointed when we sat there for an hour and had absolutely no entertainment.  It would have been such a great seat, too.  Our table was right in front of where the band would have been.

After dinner, we left and went to the Magic Kingdom.  Our main goals there were to ride the Pirates ride (to see the new Jack Sparrow installment) and to ride the Haunted Mansion, which was supposed to have some additional things.  Of course, we haven’t ridden it in so long that we didn’t really notice anything new.  Joe and my dad went on Space Mountain (which I think has ruined his appetite for roller coasters for the rest of the trip - its just too rough and too small).

Joe and I are now resting in our own hotel room and looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

On Monday we all packed up the Element once again and back-tracked north to Orlando. Mom had already made reservations for the Disney Caribbean Resort. Having left her driver’s license back home, and my brother overnighting it down to the hotel, we needed to get there early to pick up the package. Everything went pretty successfully, and we even got to meet a three year old alligator when we went to pick up the tickets for Universal.

The guy from Gatorland said that they can grow about a foot a year. He said that even at this size, they can do some pretty good damage. Hence the very effective rubber-band muzzle.

Since we wasted a good deal of the day traveling and sorting things out, we decided we would use our two waterpark and more tickets and go to Downtown Disney.

While wandering, my dad ran into an old friend and business associate. I think they used to manufacture springs or something…

We also stumbled upon some giant Lego sculptures, where my mom got to spend some time with some Lego dogs. Degos. Legogs.

And Joe got eaten by a Lego Shark.

But what we were really there for, was to go to DisneyQuest, an “indoor interactive theme park”, and sheer disappointment. We thought it sounded really great. A roller coaster you can build yourself, other interactive booths, games, a virtual jungle cruise. Boooo. It was only a glorified arcade, not worth the time or money. One thing to stay away from if you find yourself there: Ride the Comix, which is supposed to be a virtual reality game that puts you in the shoes of a comic book superhero. It is completely and utterly lame, but aside from that, the attendants don’t spray down the helmets or anything. The helmet itself almost had all of us throwing up because it smelled so badly and there was other people’s sweat running into our mouths. One of the most disgusting things I have ever encountered.

The most enjoyable ride was the Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold. I’m not just saying that because I’m a pirate, either. We had fun. I got to be the captain of the ship (and rightly so), and I also manned 2 cannons when needed (try steering a ship and shooting a cannon some time - not the easiest task in the world). It was crazy insane fun. We did so well blowing up ships and gathering booty that we got the highest rank you can get.

That night we headed over to Pleasure Island to go to the Comedy Warehouse. It was super-lame improv comedy. There were two comedians who weren’t too bad, but they couldn’t be as funny as they probably would have been because they had the “Disney Restraints”. After the disappointment there, we headed over to the Adventurer’s Club, which was an audience-participation comedy club. It was a lot better than the Comedy Warehouse, although, I enjoyed the pre-show comedians better than the show itself.  We’ve theorized that the key to enjoying anything in Pleasure Island is being drunk.  Not being very big drinkers (I think I had 2 whole drinks the entire vacation), we didn’t enjoy much.

We then went back to our hotel room. Four adults sharing one room. Aside from the close quarters, my dad was snoring so loudly that neither Joe nor I got any sleep. In fact, at 1am we drove to the lobby of the hotel (it was a large resort) and asked what the rates were for the rooms.

Me having only gotten 1 hour total sleep that night and Joe having gotten no sleep at all, we registered an additional room for the following two nights to make our stay more comfortable.

Stay tuned for more Florida vacation stories…

Of course, upon arriving in Florida and making a trip to the nearby grocery store, we immediately realized that something was setting us apart from the locals: Our pasty white exterior. To remedy this, of course we needed to make a trip to the beach. So we all hopped in the Element and ventured out.

What a perfect day. The sun was out, it was bright. There were no clouds in the sky - well, maybe one. We all got a good head start on our tans.

We even went in the water, despite the scary Man-O-War warnings.

The worst were the Rip Currents, which were pulling us all around, and almost pulled my bathing suit off with them. At one point I surfed on a wave, and realized the top of my bathing suit had come up and I was being exposed. Luckily I was still under water, so I fixed myself before anyone else noticed.

When we were too tired to fight the water any more, and too baked to fight the sun, we went back home to make lasagna for Joe’s older brother and his wife. We would have made some for little Byron, but I think his teeth might need to develop a teensy bit more. It was Joe’s first time making lasagna, so my dad supervised. It turned out pretty good, despite Joe’s lack of restraint while adding the ricotta cheese.

That night, we had a special visitor: One of the local wildlife attached itself to the window above the front door. We all had a lot of fun trying to take pictures of it without it jumping on us. It had a lot of colors, and we could tell that it was most likely poisonous.

We left Pennsylvania last night at 8:30pm and arrived at our destination (Sebastian) in Florida at 12:30pm today. It was a long drive. After a quick lunch by the river at Capt Hiram’s, we all took a nap until dinner, when we went to Joe’s older brother’s house.

Joe got to meet his new (and very first) nephew, Byron Bruce Camp. In the picture you can see Byron doing what he does best: Sleeping.

And I love the Discovery Channel.

I love the mountains,
I love the clear blue skies,
I love big bridges,
I love when great whites fly
I love the whole world,
And all its sights and sounds,

Boom dee odda, boom dee odda,
Boom dee odda, boom dee odda

I love the oceans,
I love real dirty things,
I love to go fast,
I love Egyptian kings,
I love the whole world,
And all its craziness.

Boom dee odda, boom dee odda,
Boom dee odda, boom dee odda

I love tornadoes,
I love arachnids,
I love hot magma,
I love the giant squids,
I love the whole world,
It’s such a brilliant place, 

Boom dee odda, boom dee odda,
Boom dee odda, boom dee odda