Days 13-25 Walt Disney World Resort
I decided that this post will not feature too much information on Disney World but a quick synopsis of our time here. If you are interested, several sites can provide more information on Disney World itself. The goal of this post is to get you up to date on a few of our experiences over the past two weeks in order to prepare you for getting back into the flow of receiving daily updates again.
All together we spent thirteen days in Orlando with most of that time at Disney World. The first four days my dad and his girlfriend Gloria were here along with his friend Pete and Pete’s wife Linda who live in Ft. Lauderdale. My brother Josh also spent the first seven days with us. I can’t tell you how much we enjoyed sharing this experience with my family. Shawn Reece also had so much fun with his grandpa and uncle! Orlando felt very lonely after they departed and it just never felt the same. We discovered that it was much easier to leave people than to have people leave us.
No one in my family had ever been to Disney World before so it was new to all of us. Since my dad was only in Orlando for four days we decided to spend one day in each park. In my research, I had read that early May is one of the best times of year to visit as it isn’t very busy. Being that it falls between spring break and summer vacation it is sort of a shoulder season. The parks were indeed very reasonable the whole time we were here and never really became too crowded. Our first day was spent at the Magic Kingdom, the 2nd at Epcot, 3rd at Disney MGM Studios and the 4th and last for my dad at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Our 3rd day was perhaps the most interesting as a huge rain storm suddenly descended upon us at the Disney Studios park. We were utterly drenched during the long run from the park to the car. It was very similiar to a monsoon and lasted almost 30 minutes. The water in my shoes left behind a couple of blisters that hampered me for awhile! After my dad left, we spent the rest of the time experiencing the things we had to skip over the first time we visited the parks while also repeating the attractions that we enjoyed. We also took the time to enjoy both of the Disney water parks and the Downtown Disney entertainment and shopping area.
Each of the theme parks offers a vastly different experience. Personally, I am partial to the Magic Kingdom because of it’s similarities to Disneyland. (Of course this meant that my dad had to ride it’s a small world!) The Animal Kingdom is also an extraordinarily beautiful park and the experience there is a memorable one. The safari ride is fascinating and we were able to see many animals come to within a few feet of our vehicle! Disney World is “as large as they say” and it takes quite a bit of time to cover. We tried to limit our theme park time each day to no more than eight hours or so. We definetely didn’t want to burn out and no matter how you cut it here, there is a lot of walking!
Visiting Disney World was always a dream of mine and in thirteen days we covered most of it. You are probably thinking to yourself that thirteen days is a bit excessive, isn’t it? All I can say is that in hind site we were probably ready to go after 11 days, but we had already paid for the hotel for the extra couple of days. We did vary our experience a little as we spent two days running errands and participating in non Disney activities.
Orlando is definetely a unique place that I feel everyone should experience. Greater Orlando not only has Disney, but a Sea World and two Universal Studios theme parks. In the Disney area (just outside Disney World itself) alone we must have seen 15 minitiaure golf courses. This area has more for a family to do on vacation than just about any where else I have seen. We are satisfied that we had plenty of time to enjoy Orlando and are ready to explore more places that hold new discoveries for us.
As mentioned before I broke my laptop through a series of unfortunate events. This is one of the reasons that the site has been empty for a while. We had to break down and buy a new laptop and I am finally up and running on it! We were very fortunate to find a good deal at Best Buy that met our budget but also the size requirements that we have. The good news is that the new laptop is quite a bit faster so maybe I will get to do some video projects that I have been thinking about. Stay posted for that! Unfortunately for us this laptop doesn’t have a PC card slot which is what our Verizon Wireless internet card uses, so we are going to have internet access only while staying at hotels that offer it. I will still write a post for every day we are in the USA, but they may be uploaded several at a time depending on how often I have internet access.
Starting tomorrow, we will be back with daily posts featuring details of all of our many fun adventures. Strap on your seat belts folks because we are not planning on any more breaks in the near future. Tomorrow we leave Orlando in the rear view mirror and head over to the Kennedy Space Center before heading down to Ft. Lauderdale. We will then spend a couple of days in South Florida before making our way up to Georgia and beyond. It feels good to be getting on the road again. When we arrived here, we really were just settling into the “on the go” lifestyle. All three of us have found that we enjoy life on the road tremendously. We also want to take the time to thank everyone for writing to us and keeping in touch. We love you all! Talk to you soon.
We want to thank everyone for the comments and emails. Your support is truly appreciated and keeps us going.
The Coomer Family
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coomer family
that is really neat to have some family join you guys in orlando / disney. it is official the rebels signed the big center,they needed and he sounds like the “real deal ”
today is yankees /red sox start of 3 game series.life is good!!!
love you guys
tom phelan
We didn’t see one shaped like a box of fries but we did see the McDonalds that claims to have the largest playplace!
WONDERFUL TO HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN. I WAITED PATIENTLY AND IT WASN’T ALWAYS EASY. MY COOMER FAMILY YOU ARE MISSED VERY MUCH AND I WOULD LOVE TO TALK TO YOU A LITTLE MORE OFTEN IF POSSIBLE. WELL AGAIN I WAS THRILLED TO SEE YOU WERE BACK ON TRACK IN YOUR WRITING. HUGS AND KISSES. LOVE MOM AND GRANDMA XOXOXOX
Good to hear from you. Watching the Travel channel, they had a McDonalds in Orlando that was the shape of a BOX OF FRENCH FRIES, Did you get to see it? Safe driving, hugs Phyllis.