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Published: September 2nd 2007
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From 20th - 28th August we were in Florida - kind of a holiday within a holiday. First stop Orlando, where we stayed with an old friend of Tom's. In fact, Tom first met Jim while working in Laos; and when he returned to the US he met with Jim in Florida, bought a Kawasaki (which he still has) and the two of them rode their bikes across the country to Oregon. Since then Tom has harbored a desire to do a bigger trip on a “proper” bike (sorry any Kawasaki owners out there!), hence our big tour.
Jim lives just a few miles away from Disney World, and spends most of his spare time there (no, he really does - the camp reps know him by name, especially at Epcot!). Florida residents get a good deal on annual membership, and I think Jim would be the first to admit that he certainly gets his money’s worth. So, day one was spent at the MGM Studios with a flying visit to Epcot and a quick drink in the Rose and Crown (part of Epcot is comprised of mini sites representing about 12 countries, including England). There are rides in
all of the parks, with something for everyone. Tom had a great time on the Aerosmith-themed roller coaster at MGM - I had a great time shopping while he was on it!
Day two and over to Animal Kingdom - this is my personal favorite I think, but it’s “not a zoo” as Disney is keen to point out. The safari ride takes you through animal enclosures with everything from white rhinos to tigers, and it’s all very open and as near as possible to the natural habitat of the animals. They have several successful breeding programs, and seem to be quite heavily involved in conservation and research, something that neither of us was aware of. This park is great for kids of all ages and has a pretty strong emphasis on teaching visitors about caring for the environment and conservation. And, of course, all the Disney characters are used in the effort to get the message across, and they regularly appear “in person” and incorporated in the rides and film presentations, of which there are plenty. Imax and 3D films are used in all the parks, complete with special effects such as spraying the audience with acidic termite
saliva (water - at least I hope it was water!) and smell-o-vision (from skunk to apple pie). Very effective!
In the afternoon we made our way over to Magic Kingdom. This is more the classic Disney that you expect, and is heavily geared towards younger children - but it does have the legendary and compulsory Pirates of the Caribbean ride, updated to include scenes from the recent movies (Drink up me harties, yo ho!) Great fun, and suitable for everyone, Arrrrrrr. Unfortunately, we got caught in some heavy rain while there, and it didn’t let up so we were not very well prepared for our ride back to Jim’s. Still, the rain did give us the opportunity to purchase some highly desirable Disney rain smocks, which was nice.
Jim was working over the next couple of days, so we decided to extend our trip and take a ride down to the Keys, which has been recommended by a few people we have met along the way. Key West, one of the four “corners” of the USA (we already did the top left corner, Blaine, at the start of the tour … do I see a pattern developing here??!)
is very pretty and picturesque, but also susceptible to hurricanes as there are no natural defenses from the sea. It was home to Earnest Hemmingway for the last 30 years of his life, so it was a nice detour to walk round his house with its beautiful gardens. Apparently Hemmingway was a great cat lover (he kept lots of domestic cats and shot lots of wild ones), and the descendants of his domestic cats are still living in an around the house. They are treated like royalty, with their own miniature version of Hemmingway’s house to sleep in, and although they are all different breeds some of them have six or more toes on their front paws. I tried to get a picture of one but they weren’t very cooperative.
Day 32 and back to Orlando - we arrived by lunchtime so we decided to take in the Kennedy Space Centre, which we had originally planned to spend a day visiting but, having already extended this leg of the tour by several days, we decided to fit into an afternoon. Big mistake! This was a real highlight, and a lot quieter than Disney. A bus takes you on a
tour of the site, which includes a viewing gantry for the shuttle launches, a visit to the space station laboratory where you can see them putting together actual payloads for the next shuttle launch to the space station, and the Apollo Saturn building which houses the original mission control centre (complete with original computers) and the back-up rocket for one of the Apollo missions. This was just a small portion of what was available - we didn’t have time to see everything. Just a few facts that I can remember from out whistle stop tour (I think these are right, no time to check though as it’s getting late and I need to get this onto the blog site!)
- Technology developed by NASA in its space program has to be put in the public domain
- The shuttle is attached vertically to the fuel tanks in a huge hanger, which has the second largest volume of any building in the world (the first being at Boeing)
- It takes 8 hours to transport the shuttle and its fuel tanks 3 miles from the assembly point to the launch pad, which happens about 3-4 weeks before launch.
- The shuttle
was designed primarily to deliver components to the international space station, and there are about 23 missions left. After that the shuttle will be scrapped and a new generation of space craft developed, focusing on more manned moon landings and longer manned space flights
- The space centre covers quite a large conservation area and has approximately 2000 alligators. They are also rather proud of their nesting bald eagles (the largest nest they have has been there for about 13 years and is the size of a king sized bed!)
It was amazing to be here where the actual shuttles are housed and launched - next time we will try and time our visit to coincide with a mission (the latest one ended just a couple of days before we arrived).
Finally, our last day with Jim was spent as Jim spends most of his Tuesdays - in Germany. As I mentioned earlier, the Epcot Disney park houses mini country sites, and every other Tuesday Jim has lunch in Germany (where, as elsewhere, the staff know him by name). The surprising thing about these mini countries is that they are highly authentic, to the point of being staffed by
citizens of that particular country. England had the Rose and Crown pub, complete with authentic bar menu and beers on tap (yes, alcohol is available on all the Disney sites), the Twinings tea shop and the Yorkshire fish and chip shop. Our lunch in Germany consisted of an all-you-can-eat buffet of traditional German fare, which I have to say was the best meal I’ve had since we set off (excluding home-cooked meals of course) in a German Bierkeller complete with Um-pah band.
For some reason I expected Disney to be a bit grubby, overpriced and tacky. Instead we found immaculate sites, good quality food and souvenirs and as much concern for education as entertainment. It was quite an eye opener, and we have a great time. Many thanks to Jim, our host and tour guide!
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Keith
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Tom and Jim in the Rose and Crown,Epcot
Cheers Tom,those pints look almost good enough to drink.Takes me back to when we had the Salthouse Inn