Sidelined by illness during the Disney Trip

 

 

I was hoping to give a play-by-play of my entire Disney trip, but unfortunately I was sidelined by an infection and had to go to a medical facility on the third day.  For those who stay on Disney property (and quite possibly anyone who stays in the Orlando area, but I don't know), there is a medical facility called Centra Care (407-934-2273) that will come and pick you up from your resort (great news for those of us who do not rent a car), take you to the facility to get treatment and then bring you back. 

We were originally supposed to go to Hollywood Studios on the day I got sick, so my husband took the kids to Blizzard Beach instead.  It was a blessing -- I'm not a fan of water parks.  Walking around all day in a wet bathing suit is definitely NOT my thing.  That and the fact that I'm completely "unplugged" when I'm there.

We went to Hollywood Studios the following day.  We got up early so that we get in line and sign my son up for the Jedi Training Academy.  It's always a treat for this geeky mom to watch her son "fight" Darth Vader.  When we got there, there were already hundreds of people there.  Here's the scam -- if you go to the park extra early for a character breakfast, you can get in way ahead of the crowds and get the best times for the academy.  This is a wildly popular event with kids and slots fill up early.  I was nervous that we wouldn't get him in, but we were lucky to get an afternoon appointment.  I have tons of pictures and video to commemorate the event.  :-)  While we waiting for his Jedi debut, we occupied ourselves with the ever awesome Star Tours ride, the Great Movie Ride, Toy Story Ride, and most of the others.  My husband is a fan of the Rock n Rollercoaster and the Tower of Terror so he went on those.  I'm a total chicken and stayed on the tamer rides.  We also got the opportunity to eat at the SciFi Diner.  I'll do separate reviews for the restaurants that we ate at in case anyone wants to give them a try.

One of our favorite night-time places to visit is Downtown Disney.  We usually went there at night to head to the arcade DisneyQuest.  This place is filled with tons of arcade and video games.  It also affords an opportunity for budding artists to learn how to draw classic Disney characters such as Mickey, Goofy, Minnie, etc.  Unfortunately, this will be our last visit to DisneyQuest as it is slated to close next year. I think that it a great shame as it is the only fun place to take kids.

Our next adventure was at Animal Kingdom.  I enjoy this park, not only because of the animals, but it also has several of my favorite rides -- the safari, the Kali River Rapids and most of all the Dinosaur ride.  With fast passes, we finished this park after lunch time.  There is plenty to do that would fill up the day, but this is not my husband's favorite park so he wanted to get all the good rides in and move on.

After doing the Disney Parks for seven days, we headed over to Universal Studios to experience the Harry Potter phenomenon.  Diagon Alley and all the other Harry Potter areas were amazing.  I highly recommend doing it.  There are other incredibly fun rides to go on other than the Harry Potter rides.  Spiderman, Transformers, Men in Black and the Minion rides were all favorites.  My husband and kids went on the Jurassic Park and other rides and roller coasters that I just sit and wait for them to finish.  We did that for two days before heading home.  It was a fun and exhausting time.  I am glad to be back because now I need to catch up at work and set the Fall Schedule for the family.

One thing that I didn't get to do while I was on vacation was edit my book.  However, I was able to write a flash fiction story on the plane on the way home.  :-)