Islands of Adventure & Universal Studios

For Tuesday (11/21), we decided to mix it up and head over the the Universal Parks. I don't have a picture of it, but the Hulk roller coaster is totally awesomeOn our way over to the Spiderman ride, we saw the awesome X-Men :)























And who doesn't want their picture taken with Woody Woodpecker?! :)
I'm super excited about this! It's going to be totally awesome and Universal definitely needs it; this time around the Universal parks weren't as fun, they definitely lack the flare that Disney has, maybe it's that their employees aren't as excited to come to work.

On Wednesday(11/21) we went to Universal Studios. It was a lot of fun, but we didn't take many pictures. I think the Mummy was the most exciting ride we went on there.

We rode the new Simpson's ride, which was pretty good. You enter Krusty Land, and while waiting to get to the roller coaster they show clips from various Simpson's episodes, which is the only way to watch the Simpson's.
The ride took over the old Back the the Future ride, and instead of throwing out the DeLorean they just refurbished it into this ride. You get in what is supposed to be a cart that goes on a roller coaster and then you are thrown off the tracks and end up bouncing all over the park while Sideshow Bob is trying to kill you and the Simpson's family. It's thrilling.....but was overall a pretty good ride.
I do always enjoy Seuss Landing, it's just so fun and cute.

Disney World - Animal & Magic Kingdom

Monday (11/20) we had reservations for a character breakfast at the Animal Kingdom. We ate the Tusker House where they do Donald's Safari breakfast with Donald and Daisy Duck, Mickey and Goofy. I wanted to do a character breakfast for two reasons 1) Our friend Aaron brought his 12-year-old daughter, whom I thought should experience one and 2) I thought I should experience one too. I thought it was awesome! You just have to let yourself get excited for these things. Unfortunately, I think Alyssa was trying to hold in her excitement a little too much. It was fun to actually have interaction with the characters without having to wait in line, they came directly to your table.
Also, the food was really good. They had these really cute Mickey Mouse head waffles, along with all sorts of pastries, eggs, bacon, ham, cheese blintz, and other awesome things. I think it was totally worth the money, it was tons of fun and enough food to last most of the day!
After breakfast we went on Expedition Everest which is totally wicked, I highly recommend it.


I even found the "hidden Mickey" in the assortment of "artifacts" from Everest expeditions. It was a totally awesome find.















Aaron was really excited to get to the Magic Kingdom, he hadn't been there for something like 30 years, so it was about time we get there. We took a bus to the Transportation Center, and then got on an awesome ferry over to the Magic Kingdom.






















Last time Joe and I were at the Magic Kingdom it didn't go very well; it was cold and Joe made me go on Splash Mountain...after that all the magic was gone. This time it was tons better.














I'm not sure if it was all of the Halloween decorations or the weather, but it was so much fun. Aaron's enthusiasm definitely elevated ours and we were all practically bouncing around the park.


















We didn't plan on staying for the parade, but we ended up waiting around for it. They do the Spectro Magic parade now, which is of course crazy and bizarre but totally awesome at the same time, you just can't help but get excited about it.
Seeing people and floats covered in millions of lights spin around and dash about, it just makes you smile. After the parade there is the nightly fireworks display which is fantastic. They do it over Cinderella's Castle and have a little story that goes along with it about all your dreams coming true; which you'd have to say they almost always do while you are in Disney World.

Disney World - Epcot & Segways

On Sunday (11/19) we woke up early and drove over to Epcot. We had made reservations to do the Segway tour of Epcot, and we had to be to the park by 7:45!

Obviously the park isn't open that early, so when we got to the entrance to the parking lot the attendant wasn't even set up to take money yet, she just let us drive in and not worry about paying. It was awesome. We parked probably the closest to the front gate that we will ever park in our lives.


Getting into the park before it is open is totally awesome. They have the crazy Disney music on and with no one around it sounds super loud. The deserted nature of the park is fantastic.
Once inside we gathered with our group and were escorted by our Segway trainer to the training facility inside one of the Innoventions buildings. They have a whole training course that you have to go through before they take you on the tour. The training lasted about an hour, and was of course thrilling. Once we were all trained it was time to hit the open road on the World Showcase. Our tour guides took us along the showcase and taught us little facts about each country and gave us challenges on the Segways, like driving down a ramp and up the other side; you might think that would be easy, but we did have one lady actually freak out on the upside and fall off the Segway :) Touring around on the Segways was totally fun and totally worth the money. I definitely recommend doing it before the park is open, that way you can see it all totally empty, plus you don't have to worry about dodging crazy kids. When we were diving back to end our tour, people were just showing up, and the looks on their faces as we drove by were awesome. They were looks of jealously and mock all at the same time. You know you look like a dork on a Segway, but at the same time, everyone wants to try it. Once we turned in our Segways they gave us Segway pins (Disney is way big into pin trading) which you can only get if you go on the tour!
All I have to say is that if you are going to ride a Segway just once in your life, you should definitely do it in Epcot.




After the tour we adventured in Future World and went to their new ride The Seas with Nemo & Friends. At the entrance of the ride they have this awesome fountain that splashes water on the rocks as if waves were crashing and there are the "mine" bird from the movie. They periodically will start saying "mine...mine...mine, mine, mine" It was totally awesome. Joe caught some good video that I'll make him post. The ride was fine, they take you in one of those carts like in the Haunted Mansion and you go around trying to find Nemo. What makes it fun is that they have a whole aquarium behind the ride that they project the Nemo characters on so it appears as if the Nemo characters are actually in the water with real fish, it looked really good. Then After the ride you can walk around in the building and look at the aquarium and learn about fish and sea life. We even found the "hidden Mickey."

In the afternoon we went over to Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios). We wanted to ride the new Toy Story ride, Toy Story Midway Mania, and see the new Pixar Place area. All of it was totally awesome. The ride is great because they scaled everything so that you feel toy-sized. The line takes you through a bunch of toys set up like a fort, with Lincoln logs holding up board game boards as the roof. It was really fun. Mr. Potato Head does stand-up at one end of the room to keep you entertained too.
Once you are loaded onto the ride you can see you are in Andy's room. The ride itself was really neat, very interactive.
You ride on cars that spin around and put you in front of various screens presented by characters in the movie. You shoot relevant items out of your "cannon" and try to hit targets.

We of course rode on The Tower of Terror, which is always awesome. I especially enjoy the Hollywood Studios version compared to the California Adventure version. They are different in that the elevator car actually moves horizontally in Hollywood Studios instead of just vertically in CA. It gives an added feeling of not knowing what is going to happen.
The day was fantastic.

Disney World - Downtown Disney

Here we go, I have tons to post, so get ready! I'm breaking it out in several posts, hopefully that makes it easier to read and follow. To begin, Joe and I went to Disney World over the week of October 18th through the 25th, and it was totally awesome! This was our second time going (as a couple) and definitely the better time. We don't have a for sure reason why it was so much better, but we narrowed it down to better attitudes and paying cash for everything.

On the 18th we decided to leave our house around 10 and start the trek down to Orlando. We figured it would be like a Vegas drive from SLC. It was pretty close, around 6.5 hours, but a much prettier drive, no deserts.

We arrived at our not-as-nice-as-anticipated timeshare swap the Marriott Sabal Palms. The way the Marriott resort was laid out, you felt like you were headed back to the dumps and then came upon the Sabal Palms "Villas". Honestly, I don't know why I ever trust pictures that resorts post. Oh well, it was sufficiently sized and provided us with our needs, not necessarily our wants. When we checked in we learned that they did not offer shuttle service to the parks (during our last experience, the resort had buses that would drive you to and from Universal and Disney). We were very disappointed by this news because we were told they did offer free shuttles, they only offered a pay shuttle service for $15 per person! to take you to the park. We decided that we would just drive to the parks and pay the $12 parking fee.

After unloading the car we decided to make the most of our week and went to Downtown Disney. I wish we had gone to previous time because Disney is revamping Pleasure Island, and all of the fun clubs were closed for renovations; it looked like The Explorers Club would have been a lot of fun, but alas, we were too late to see it. For the most part Downtown Disney is shopping and eating, but Disney style. They had fun looking restaurants, like the T-Rex one, or the huge paddle boat turned fancy seafood restaurant. There was also the biggest Disney store I've experienced, along with an awesome Lego store (where I wanted all of the legos) and a large pin trading store. It was fun to walk around and get ready for a week full of Disney!

Here's Joe with some Lego men, along with a wall with over 4,000! The Lego Loch Ness in the water was totally awesome. And I really enjoyed the city scapes, I took a picture of Lego Paris and Lego London.

Sisters

I have been horrible at blogging, so I'll do a mini post.

Here I am with my two awesome sisters Rachael (the blond) and Becky (the brunette that isn't me) - we were at Training Table on Thursday 11/6.

I think this is a great picture of us. I love my sisters, they are totally fantastic and very special to me. I am so grateful for their advice, love, and support.

Lots of love to my awesome sisters!

Camping?

Joe and I went camping! I know, we really aren't campers, and I got a lot of responses like "But you don't camp..." when I said we were going camping (September 26 & 27).

We drove up after work on Friday, unfortunately we got up there after dark. Luckily our friends Bob and Jason helped us set up our tent (Bob and his family have our same tent!) Once we were set up and moved all of our stuff into the tent, we all sat around the camp fire to get the camping started. Of course we had smores, which are always fun.

Saturday morning we all got up and had pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Luckily the Lunt's and MacPherson's have camping stoves, so that cooking was easier.

Bob, Diana, & Chad
The MacPherson's tent and ours behind itThe Lunt's trifecta tent

The Poole's tent

After breakfast we decided it would be fun to go the the Amicalola Falls State Park (http://www.gastateparks.org/info/amicalola/) and check out the water fall, apparently it's the tallest East of the Mississippi River! Of course, we had to get there first, and Google Maps has a hard time with Georgia roads. We all got a little lost, but then Chad Poole used his trusty iPhone and GPS'd us there. The state park was really nice. We walked along a path that took us to the ridiculous staircase up to the top of the falls, it was something over 400 steps to get there AND you had to walk back down the stairs to finish out the trail. It was worth the climb, even though I paid for it later in weird muscles I didn't know I had. The wilderness in Georgia is definitely different than in Utah (obviously), they each offer their own awesomeness. I'm glad we were able to see some of it.

After the state park visit, some of us needed to go into town, Dahlonega, and get some groceries and things. We drove through their totally cute downtown/main street area (http://www.dahlonega.org/index.php/visitors/visitors.html) there's something to be said for smallish towns.

When we got back to the campsite we had some awesome slaw dogs, Bob made some homemade slaw that was awesome, even Joe enjoyed it. Then Bill, Emily & Sally showed up to hang out for the evening (Emily was basically 9 months pregnant and didn't want to sleep on the ground). The kids played around in the creek along our campsite while the boys did manly things, like splitting wood. Really though, it was scary to watch, so I'm glad Joe didn't do it very long.
For dinner Saturday night, we all brought steak and potatoes! I have never done steak on an open fire grill. Both turned out awesome. Joe totally enjoyed the steak, my was a little under done (cause I'm a woos), but it all tasted good. After we did more smores, fire toasted marshmallows are so good.

Everything turned out well, even though sleeping wasn't that awesome. Next time we'll bring some sort of air mattress or padding. I can't sleep on the ground like I used to at girl's camp. I was also a little freaked out by all the spiders and bugs. All the creepy crawly things in Georgia seem way bigger than in Utah, even the daddy long legs. Perhaps we'll go camping a few times next year, and maybe when we return to Utah, we'll see if we have become adventurers.