Field Report from The Mouse House

When we decided to include Florida in our 2020 travel plans, we knew that part of those plans would include Orlando and time at both Universal Studios Florida and Walt Disney World (a.k.a., the Happiest Place on Earth - or the Mouse House).

Doug's sister Tommie Lou is a self-professed Disney fanatic, and had volunteered to come down and serve as our personal tour guide - an offer we were happy to accept. TL was also our first overnight guest in the Ciaowagen (BTW, we are always happy to host others who are interested!). She stayed for eight days, and it was a great visit.

First up were two days at Universal Orlando. They have two theme parks - Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure - that are connected at the back by the Hogwarts Express. For Harry Potter fans, Universal Studios hosts an amazing reproduction of Diagon Alley complete with fire breaking dragon, and Islands of Adventure hosts Hogsmeade Village. Universal's rides tend to focus more on the teenager-and-above demographic, including more hard-core roller coasters (one goes straight up - see pic below). Many of the rides use movement-controlled seating choreographed with 3-D movies - resulting in very realistic experiences.

We had a "down day" where we moved the Ciaowagen to Fort Wilderness (the campground at Disney World) and shopped for groceries. While at the Walmart, we ran into the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile! We spent some time talking to the "Hot Dogger" (that's their official title) drivers. We found out there are 6 Wienermobiles nationwide, and that each year only 12 Hog Doggers are selected from over 7,000 applicants. We also had a chance for an up-close encounter between the Wienermobile and the Ciaowagen - prompting the question "What would you get if you mated the two?"

Then began four days of Disney immersion, with one day in each of the Disney World theme parks. Interesting factoid: one an average day, Disney World hosts over 150,000 guests. We deliberately picked mid-February as a less-than-busy period to visit, although there were still tons of people, including many families who must have pulled their kids from school for the trip. We made liberal use of the FastPass+ plus system - since we were staying in a Disney World resort, Tommie Lou was able to line up 3 FP+ in each theme park 60 days ahead of time.

We hadn't been to Disney World for five years, and some of the parks for about 20 years, so we experienced combination of old chestnuts (e.g., the Jungle Cruise) and new attractions (e.g., the Stars Wars-themed Galaxy's Edge area that opened up in Hollywood Studios just last fall).

First up, the Magic Kingdom...

The nighttime fireworks at the Magic Kingdom was truly impressive, because they've covered Cinderella's Castle with LED lights that showcase ever-moving patterns during the show.

The second day we spent at EPCOT. We managed to snag photo ops with BOTH Mickey and Minnie Mouse, along with some other characters.

Since my sister is an Annual Pass holder (as well as a member of the Disney Vacation Club (timesharing), she gets the Photo Pass option for free (normally, it's $150-200). There are photographers stationed all around Disney World, ready to take your picture with characters or at major attractions (see examples above). The Photo Pass also included "enhanced photos" - I've provided a few examples below.

EPCOT was celebrating the International Arts Festival. There were pictures you could pose with, as well as a "created by guests" mural project that was underway.

We closed out the EPCOT day by watching the fireworks show from the comfort of our dinner table in the Mexico pavilion, and then walking by lit-up "Spaceship Earth" on our way to the parking lot.

We spent Day 3 at Disney's Animal Kingdom, which we hadn't visited in 20 years. We don't have a picture of it, but there's an amazing ride based on the movie Avatar, where you are flying around the planet Pandora on an Ikran (or Banshee) flying lizard. There's a whole Pandora section in the park, including a quite convincing model of the floating mountains.

Day 4 was our visit to Hollywood Studios. We spent much of the day in the new Galaxy's Edge Star Wars area. A lot of attention to detail makes it feel like you're on Tatooine or one of the other low-tech Stars Wars planets, complete with patrolling storm troopers who would briefly stop and interrogate visitors before telling them to "move along." There were also a lot of Star Wars fans who were wearing various character outfits. One of the new rides allowed you to fly the Millennium Falcon, and we also managed to get on the new Rise of the Resistance ride - it's actually a three-part ride where you start on a training flight, are taken prisoner by the First Order, and then are freed by the Resistance and escape.

We stopped at the Cantina, where Jeannette had a very space-age drink.

Other activities at Hollywood Studios included the falling elevators at the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the Frozen singalong (hllarious with all the preschoolers, many dressed as princesses, mimicking Queen Elsa's movements while singing "Let it Go"), the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, and visiting Toy Story Land and riding the Slinky Dog roller coaster.

That was the end of our time at Disney World, but we still had a few Florida things up our sleeve. We drove out to the Space Coast and visited the Kennedy Space Center. As children of the 50s and 60s, it was exciting to see some of the early rockets and also visit the Apollo area with a full-sized Saturn V rocket.

There was another area dedicated to the Space Shuttle. To get a sense of scale, take a look at the shuttle booster rockets and fuel tank below and find Jeannette at the bottom right.

Inside the building, they have the space shuttle Atlantis. Although we've seen the shuttle Discovery at the Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy center in Virginia, this was exciting because the shuttle was tilted and the bay doors opened so you could see both the top and bottom of the craft.

There was a SpaceX launch while we were in the area, but we had to see if from our campground (about 35 miles south) on a semi-cloudy morning, so we had about 3 seconds of visibility of a bright burning flame.

Finally, we went to Melbourne to visit Jeannette's friend Clare (who was in our wedding) and her husband David. They took us on a tour of the area, including a visit to the Ron Jon mother store in Cocoa Beach. It was a surfer's paradise to be sure.

We returned home for a week and a half at the end of February. Then it would be back to Florida for some time at America's oldest city: St. Augustine. More about that in our next blog post!