Orlando

Thursday 14.08

We left Savannah and headed for Orlando. The drive was long and hot. The traffic around Orlando is incredible. The roads around Lake Buena Vista, where our hotel was were constantly stuffed with cars. Our Radisson hotel was very stylish and we used the gym and pool in the evening. We also purchased tickets for Disney World "Hollywod Studios", which was the theme park that the kids chose.

Friday 15.08

Disney World - Hollywod Studios

The transportation to Disney World turned out to be rather long and complicated. Disney World has its own gigantic transportation system between the 4 theme parks it includes. There are buses, monorail and even boats that cross the artificial lake created on their grounds. We used a boat and a bus.

The boat ride to Hollywood Studios 

Indiana Jones stuntman show in Hollywod Studios. The show was quite impressive with gigantic houses etc being moved by big trucks to change the scenery. It also involved a lot of fighting shooting, and explosions.

 The Toy Story ride. We have tried it before, in Tokyo "Disney Sea". You are driven around in little capsules and have to shoot at screens with moving targets. I got the best score in the family!

There was a "Frozen" (after the movie) world where there was real snow to play in and a skating rink to skate in. Michael loved to play in the snow. Sometimes the simplest things are the best... They played Tyrolean music and we realized that they were trying to recreate something like Karlsplatz in Munich in the winter. We have the real thing at home!

The twilight zone tower of terror was a nasty ride. Michael had no reservations when we went there. We told him that it was going to be a scary ride but he definitely wanted to go. You are led into this house/tower and told a ghost story in the style of an old horror movie about people being taken into a new dimension by an elevator. Then you are put in the elevator, strapped down and the elevator starts to go up. It is dark and they continue to tell the story. All of a sudden the elevator drops and you are in a free fall and everyone screams. The elevator bounces up and down until you hardly know whether you are going up or down. Doors open up so you can see the outside park from high above in glimpses. Mai laughed hysterically. I turned to look at Michael when the lights came on again. He sat frozen still, looking terrified with a firm grip on the railing. Then, when he noticed me, a faint smile came on to his face. But he didn´t want to do the ride again...

The rock´n roller coaster. You are shot off and accelerate from 0 to 90 km/h in 2.8 seconds to loud Aerosmith music. Yeah, that´s a bit faster than my BMW. Then you are inverted and the train does all sorts of movements in the dark, and before you know it, the ride is over.

Hiroko in front of the Aerosmith Rock´n Roller Coaster.

We came home very late from the park and I went to get some pizza to go from a nearby pizzeria. I ended up getting a "deep dish" pizza, which is really more like a pie. We were all exhausted after the long day in the park and we looked forward to not having to get up early in the morning. We also looked forward to getting our house in Cape Coral after so many hotel nights.

16.08

We slept as long as we could, had some breakfast in the room and checked out of the hotel. It was a pretty short drive to Cape Coral (about 3 hours), so we wanted to go to one of the huge outlet shopping malls in Orlando before leaving. It was a very hot day and almost unbearable to walk around outside. As quickly as we could, we escaped into the blissfully airconditioned shops. Philip bought a skateboard, Mai and Hiroko some clothes, and I got Michael a Captain America shield that can shoot darts. Then we were off to Cape Coral. I was of course very tired so was almost falling a sleep behind the wheel. Some coffee helped me. We also tried the "gourmet" burger place "Five guys". It was good.

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