Orlando (Part 2)!
January 11-22, 2023
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| Dreams do come true! Our trip to Italy was officially over and now the challenge was to get our camper out of storage from Winter Garden RV Resort (where they had storage spots, but no campsites available) and set up in Orlando RV Resort (where they didn’t have any storage spots available, but we did have a campsite reserved!). We also had to pick up groceries, as we had completely emptied out the refrigerator for the time it was in storage as well as get Frankie picked up from the home where we had boarded her while we were gone. Of course, all of this landed smack on Dick’s birthday. It’s not the ideal way to spend a birthday but, at the same time, we had just landed from the vacation of a lifetime! |
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| The guy wire made this a tricky spot to get into. Fortunately, Dick is amazing at parking this thing! |
Remember that cough and congestion I talked about while we were in Rome? Well, Covid finally caught up with us! I had never even considered that we had anything other than the common cold! No fever, no sore throat, everything tasted delicious… just a cough and some nose blowing going on. Needless to say, we regretted not masking up after we started having symptoms. I feel bad about all of the people we possibly exposed.
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| Dang it! |
We stuck around the camper and kept to ourselves for several days, just to be sure we weren’t exposing anyone else. The resident sandhill cranes were our morning alarm clocks with their friendly call. The sunrises were spectacular, so I was thankful for the cranes’ invitation to join them for the start of the day!
Before long, we were back to good health and once again out and about! Disney World was a 30-minute drive from our campground, so we spent a day at Magic Kingdom, taking in a lot of their classic rides! While waiting to get into the park, we were talking to a man visiting from Indiana. He told us he was there for one ride only – Splash Mountain. He even had a Splash Mountain T-shirt on! He clued us in that this ride was going to close soon and its days were limited. With that knowledge, we quickly added it to our “must do” rides! If you hear the seats at the front of the ride are where you stay the driest, know it’s a myth. We had the very front seat and certainly were wetter than anyone else after experiencing the five-story, 45-degree plunge at the end of the ride! The funniest part was immediately following our slap of water to the face! Suddenly, my Apple watch began alerting me, "It looks like you have fallen. Do you want to call 911?" I was laughing so hard, it was challenging to respond! We had a grand day and completely enjoyed our time at the Most Magical Place on Earth!
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| I can't say I wasn't warned! |
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| No one else even got a drop of water on them! |
We spent another day exploring Epcot! It was fun jumping from country to country trying the local cuisine. Having just enjoyed REAL pizza in Naples, I just couldn’t bring myself to try this pizza, however! I can say the school cake and kringla from Norway, crepes from France and chicken teriyaki in Japan were all pretty good! One can only eat so much, so we had to be content with the entertainment of the mariachi band during our time in Mexico!
The rides… it was the best of times, it was the worst of times! Guardians of the Galaxy opened May 2022 and is absolutely the most amazing ride I’ve ever been on! It’s a roller coaster through outer space, but Space Mountain can’t come close to comparing! Following the ride, however, I had the worst case of motion sickness I can remember for a long time! I’m super glad I went on it, but will I ever do it again? Probably!
The one ride I won’t go on again is Spaceship Earth. Although this ride is Epcot’s iconic giant golf ball, its mechanical features are sadly outdated and full of glitches. The ride takes you through the development of technology from the ice age to current day. That’s all good. The bad part is the ride gets hung up constantly and at one point we sat for 10-15 minutes at the same spot. What should have been a 15-minute ride took closer to an hour. OK, it is the icon, so I’m glad I went, but will I do it again? Nope!
The ride, “Living with the Land” is a slow-moving boat ride that includes a tour of Disney’s greenhouses. It was super interesting! They grow a lot of the fresh fruits and vegetables served in Disney World’s restaurants! They also continue to research and develop new methods of growing produce in such innovative ways!
Our night at Epcot ended with a giant fireworks, water, and laser light show that beat all! Overall, our day at Epcot was out of this world – or at least mostly out of this country! Well done, Disney!
We had a few days of sunshine and 80-degree weather before we left Orlando and found ourselves enjoying the pool at the RV park. It was a nice way to get fresh air and keep cool all at the same time! The clubhouse also offered live music on a couple of occasions. We never did make it over to the pickleball court, but we did really enjoy staying at this park.
Last October, we met Robert and Vickie at Forest Lake RV & Camping Resort in Advance, North Carolina. It was amazing to see them once again here in Florida! Robert and Vickie invited us to spend our last evening in Orlando sharing a campfire, bottle (or two) of wine, and snacks at their campsite. It was delightful to get to know this couple better! We certainly hope our paths cross again!
Up next: Dade City, Florida
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