Brian & Patty's Awesome Adventure!: Orlando, Florida Part II

April 8th - April 27th.
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Yes I know this is a long time coming but we have been soooooo busy with no time to update the blog. We have put small updates on Facebook to let those of you that follow us there to let you know where we are currently.
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There is a self pick orange grove by us that has "Monster Bus Truck" Rides. We found a Groupon that made it cheap to ride the "Bus", so we decided to do it.

Monster Bus

The Bus's did a tour of the groves, we saw some african animals like zebras and oxons, and did a little mud bogging.

mud boggin'

We even saw an alligator by their dock.

Alligator

If you remember I bought a two week pass for Disney World that allowed for all four parks within two weeks, five days. So we could go into one park twice. Patty decided she wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom twice, but more on that latter.

Next on the agenda is Disney Hollywood.

Disney Hollywood Studio

Here we are walking down Main Street. You can see Grauman's Chinese Theatre at the end of the street.

Main Street

Since Disney bought the Star Wars franchise they are really pushing Star Wars. There was random Stormtroopers wandering around Disney Hollywood the day we were there.

Stormtroopers

The big guitar is the entrance to the Aerosmith Roller Coaster. It is a fast and very good coaster unlike most Disney Coasters. You can also see The Tower of Terror on the right of the picture. There is more to the ride then in Anaheim. If I remember right in Anaheim it just goes up and down, this one actually follows a track and takes you around the hotel first before it drops. Pretty cool.

Aerosmith Coaster

We will keep each park to a minimum so we can actually try and catch up! :)

The next park we went to was Epcot. Epcot was the only park we were originally going to go to before Patty got here Disney bug bad! LOL!

Epcot Disney

There were a lot of these topiary Disney characters here at Epcot. This one of course is Buzz Lightyear.

Buzz Lightyear

There was a lot of different International lands that seemed to actually be represented by the host nations. China had reproductions of the Tomb Warriors.

Tomb Warriors

The best ride was the Spaceship Earth. We actually rode it twice. There is two levels of riding it, the extreme and the mild level. It is a space flight simulator. On the extreme level your "pod" is spinning at 30 mph in addition to the video and movements corresponding to the video so you really get the feeling of high speed space travel. It is extreme, and the workers were surprised that Patty and I were going extreme at our age! LOL!

Spaceship Earth

In California there is Downtown Disney where the restaurants and shops are. They have changed it to Disney Springs here in Florida. Like everything here in Florida it is a huge area, and is completely separate from the parks. This Lego Sea Serpent is in front of the Lego Store.

Lego Store

Patty getting to meet some of her favorite characters! Hello Winnie!

Patty, Winnie and Tigger too!

This was the Harley Davidson shop in Disney Springs. Had to jump on the Easy Rider bike! Get your motor running, head out on the highway. Looking for adventure!

Easy Rider

Finally we went to the fourth park, Animal Kingdom. It is kind of a zoo and amusement park rolled into one.

Animal Kingdom

The Tree of Life is huge. It stands 145 feet tall, and at the base it is 50 feet wide. There are over 8,000 branches in various sizes, and over 102,000 man-made leaves. Each leaf is over a foot long.

There are animals carved into the Tree of Life, Disney places the number at “over 300”. The animals can be found in the roots, in the trunk, and in the branches.

Tree of Life

There is a complete zoo here. Here is a gorilla mom cuddling up with her baby.

Gorillas

We kept thinking they would have the Matterhorn ride at Disney World, but the closest they they have is the Expedition Everest at the Animal Kingdom. Everest is much better of a coaster then Matterhorn so we rode it twice.

Expedition Everest

This park closes early at 6:00pm, because of the animals, and of course no fireworks.

We decided to go to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.

Kennedy Space Center

When you buy the tickets you get a bus tour of the grounds, you see the Space Shuttle Atlantis and a lot of space memorabilia.

NASA Sign

THis is the Apollo 14 space capsule.

Apollo 14 Capsule

Back when they ended the Space Shuttle program we watched them fly the Shuttle Endeavor into Palmdale, Ca on the back of a 747. Now that we get to see the Shuttle Atlantis close up it is impressive have large it is! And to think that they just glided it down to earth.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

Since we had a 5th day we could go to Disney World, Patty chose to go back to the Magic Kingdom because it is the closest to being like Disneyland.

Magic Kingdom again!

We rode some things we did the first day, and some things we don't normally ride. Here we are on the Paddlewheel River Boat getting a good view of Thunder Mountain.