Goodbye Orlando

Today marks a whole new adventure. Today I am flying to Las Vegas. I am at Orlando Airport and have been through security, no x-rays or pat downs. The man just guided me through the arch way to collect my carry on luggage. I am sitting at my gate. The Orlando Airport experience wasn't too daunting as I had been to this airport before and I just followed the signs. I have really enjoyed my time in Orlando. The Disney Resort was a fantastic place to stay in as there was transport to and from the theme parks every twenty minutes and at night I would go to Downtown Disney where there were heaps of Restaurants to choose from and there were plenty of Disney shops to buy from. I would love to come back to Orlando again. Next time I would probably divide my stay between two hotels: Disney and one on International Drive. International Drive has Sea World and Universal Studios. It also has Discovery Cove where you can swim with Dolphins and Wonder works. I would like to do a city and sights tour and also a hop on /hop off tour. The cell phone is working well however it takes dollars off for incoming calls. It doesn't run on a sim card just a battery and has a booklet with easy to follow instructions. Daily use-when I use it costs 99 cents a day plus calls cost 10 cents a minute. Last night I discovered that if you go onto the phones website through the phone you can find the locators of calling cards. You just need to enter the zip code and state and it states how many miles it takes. Pretty cool. I am sitting on $3 at the moment but when I get to Vegas I know the seven eleven store has my card for my phone. I don't need to travel to Walmart which seems to be out in the suburbs. Today I have a 5 hour flight to Phoenix Arizona and a 1 hour flight to Las Vegas from Phoenix. I am very lucky with flights. At the moment Atlanta Georgia and Dallas Texas has snow. The airports are closed, just as well I'm not flying to Dallas. Well that's all of the news from me. I hope that my hotel Circus, Circus in Las Vegas has WIFI. If there is a Starbucks I will base myself there. I will be meeting my parents in Las Vegas. It's hard to believe I have 12 days left of my precious holiday. Time is going too fast.

Miami in FloridaThe Adam's Family House which was featured on the TV series

Edith Piaf's House
Julio Iglasias' House

Miami Beach

Greetings from Orlando

Hi Everyone, today has been a great day for getting out of my comfort zone with Rollercoaster rides. Today I decided to do the rides I had missed out on due to long queues and waiting times. I topped up my four day pass and made it into a five day pass. As I had the hopper option on my card I was able to visit as many theme parks in one day. The first park I went to was EPCOT. I wanted to do the Sourin ride which a hanglider type ride where you would fly over California. It felt very real as you looked at this screen and it made you feel you were flying over rivers, trees etc. Then I went to see the Lion King Show which was a conservation type movie. After this I headed to the Hollywood Studios. It was much quieter compared to Sunday. I went on the Toy Story ride in which you had to wear 3 D glasses and earn points by shooting targets using a laser gun attached to a buggie. After this I had asterisked on my map to do the Hollywood Tower of Terror. The Tower of Terror is a ride which goes up to the equivalent of 13 stories and then it suddenly drops and you go up and down for about three times. I stood outside the main entrance to this ride and thought will I or won't I. Then I thought Joy you have come along way and I knew one of Mum's friends who did the ride. I chickened out in California when I saw it and thought I would do it here in Florida. I did it!!! Screamed all the way down. By the time the ride finished my legs were like jelly. As I was in the adrenilin rush mood I went on Aerosmith's Rollercoaster ride that went upside down, backwards and sudden stops. It went 60 miles an hour. I bought the souvenir photo to go with the ride. After this I went to Animal Kingdom and had a quiet time. I went to the petting zoo and patted the baby goats, sheep, cow. Very relaxing give them some of my rollercoaster jitters.

The Hollywood Tower of Terror

Aerosmith's ride that went 60 miles an hour

Greetings from Orlando

Hi everyone,

I had another fantastic day here in Orlando. I have to say the Americans are very friendly and welcoming. Today I visited Disney's Hollywood Studios. It was very busy and there long queues for rides and the fast pass ticket machine ran out of tickets. So I decided to avoided curing I thought I would see some of the live theater shows such as the Little Mermaid, Prince Caspian, the Indiana Jones stunt show and the behind the scenes tour looking at special effects, wardrobe departments etc. I also meant from a Walt Disney biography theatre session that Mickey Mouse was originally called Mortimor Mouse that Lillian Disney Walt's wife thought that Mortimour was a bit pompous and liked the name Mickey and so the drawn mouse had a name change. It was interesting to hear that Mickey Mouse has 170 costumes/outfits. He has more clothes than me. I really liked the great movies ride which looked at movies over time using puppetronics. There was the Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Bugsy Malone, Mark Twain movies and a very early film that had a lot of sychronized swimming in it made in the 1930's. Tomorrow I am visiting Magic Kingdom and then on Tuesday I am really tempted to get a one day hopper pass to do the rides I have missed in Orlando. I also need to post away a parcel of shopping down to New Zealand. Love the shopping here bought a couple of Disney Cross Stitch kits the other day. Well I better catch the bus back to my resort.

Greetings from Orlando

The Disney All Star Music Resort-this was the area that I stayed in:- The Rock & Roll area

Hi everyone it feels like ages since I last updated my travel blog. I am staying at a Disney Resort which has two outdoor swimming pools and it is music themed. I am staying at the Rock & roll block. Unfortunately it doesn't have wireless WIFI. If I had my school laptop on me I would be able to use an ethenet cable so for these last few days I have been missing the net. On Wednesday I went to EPCOT which is one of Disneys theme parks. The park was divided into two parts. The first part was on space exploration rides to do with the future and the second part was on the World Showcase featuring themed villages from around the world. There was: Canada, Britain, France, Morocco, Italy, Germany, America, Norway, Japan, Mexico and China. I liked going to the world showcase as they showed movies, had themed rides and souvenirs on the country.On Thursday I went on a tour to Miami and the Everglades. The Everglades is an alligator farm. I had the most memorable experience at the Everglades. At the alligator show this Cuban zoo keeper demonstrated wrestling an alligator and explained his moves. After this he called a person from the audience to wrestle this large alligator. Out of all people he chose me. I was so nervous and he sounded so convincing. In the end he pulled out this medium sized alligator which had tape over it's mouth and showed me how to handle it. Then it was a photo shoot session with me and the alligator. He was quite cute the way we had to hold him. Then after this we went to Miami. I had lunch there with my tour group. After this we went on this harbour cruise. It was 1.5 hours. The tour was 16 hours meant to be 14 hours.Yesterday I was not very well. I don't know whether it was food poisoning, exhaustion, a 24 hour bug but at 2:45am yesterday I was vomiting and had the runs. I haven't been that sick in years. I just took it easy at the resort no theme parks. I did go out and get a cell phone at Walmart. I paid $14.95 for it with $10 credit on it. Mum and Dad here is my new number: 321 246 5622. I will leave it on. I think there is a 4 hour time difference to where you are. Orlando is ahead of time.Today I woke up feeling much better and have avoided the American diet of fried foods and have stuck to fruit. I went to the Rainforest Cafe tonight at Downtown Disney. I had a lambshank with vegetables. It was very nice. You'll be surprised to know I'm at Downtown Disney and it's 9 o'clock lots of people around and regular Disney resort buses to pick us up. I love this set up.

EPCOT-Walt Disney Theme Park. Future LandThe World Showcase:

BritainMorocco

Germany

Japan

My Alligator Experience

I have made it to Orlando. Two big airports to contend with. Dallas had four separate terminals in which you had to get the Sky Link train to. The plane landed at terminal d and I had to depart Dallas at terminal c. When I got to Orlando I had to get the shuttle tram to take me to the baggage area. Then I went down to level 1 for my Disney Express ride. Unfortunately I was on the wrong side of level 1 so I asked a man to show me where to go. I am sitting on the Disney bus to take me to my resort. I am feeling exhausted and hungry I think if I did this trip again I would probably have a night in Dallas. There is a three hour difference between Vancouver and Orlando. Orlando is three hours ahead in time. We are waiting for more people to get on the bus I wonder how long we have to wait. I'm looking forward to getting myself cleaned and having a shower. The weather is about 20 degrees celcius a contrast to Vancouver. I feel I am making silly mistakes due to tiredness I wish the driver could come and drive the bus. I am tired of waiting and so are the kids in the bus LOL.