The Florida Trip

We gazed out our window to see the smoke billowing from a large, angry volcano. Down below we could see several people swimming in the bay, oblivious to the potential danger. To the left children and women were floating lazily down a serene river. They seemed to be enjoying the tranquil environment with palm trees and other tropical vegetation swaying in the warm breeze. No one was paying any attention to the volcano. “What kind of place is this?”, Sherri said as she moved cautiously back away from the window. I said, “Oh, that’s just Volcano Bay, the water park. I would love to go down those huge water slides.” “You’re too old for that!” Sherri replied. The bay was a very large swimming pool at Cabana Bay Beach Resort where we stayed last week on our trip to Orlando.

Of course we have no small kids, and we didn’t take our grandchildren. It was only Sherri and me in Orlando for the purpose of going to Universal Studio and Universal’s Island of Adventure. I’ve never seen as many Harry Potters in all my life; small children, medium sized children, teens, college kids, young adults and crazy older adults, (Sherri and I not included) all dressed as Harry carrying around those magic wands. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Sherri and I rode several rides, if you want to call them rides.  I don’t think we actually rode anywhere. The cars we were in jerked around, twisted, and bounced, and it looked like we were moving, but I think we were being fooled as what we were seeing was being projected on a giant screen. We did Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, Skull Island Reign of  Kong, and we road the Harry Potter train which did take us to Universal Studio. The  Men in Black Alien Attack was pretty neat in that we got to shoot a aliens with our laser guns. I scored over 70,000 points. Sherri had just over a thousand. I don’t think she liked that ride very much. We did Sheri 4-D which was OK. Our favorite ride was Jimmy Fallon Race Through New York. I wanted to do the Transformer ride and the Homer Simpson ride, but Sherri didn’t want to. The Horror Show Make-Up Show was great.  I also wanted to ride some roller coasters, but Sherri thought we were too old. The next time we go I think we will take Brady because he loves roller coasters. I don’t think I’m too old.

We really wanted to go to Epcot. Sherri and I were there in the late 1980’s and loved it. Both of us were looking forward to going back, but Sherri got the flu and we had to come home. The day after we got back I got it and just now beginning to feel a little better. We spent two days in Savannah Georgia on our way down to Orlando. We had a great time there. Savannah is such a beautiful historic place with lots of great places to eat.

Back to the beginning. The hotel in Orlando where we stayed was really neat. The whole place was done in a 50’s and 60’s motif. The rooms were brightly colored and the entire hotel was decorated to model those classic two decades. Cars from that time were parked out front. We even had Zest soap and VO/5 shampoo in our bathroom. The place wasn’t all that expensive and the service was great. I would recommend it especially to those of you who lived in the 50’s and 60’s, if you aren’t too old by now. I’ll have to admit that at the end of the day after we had been at the park from 7:30 that morning until 5:00 that evening we were exhausted. Our fitbits registered about 21,000 steps for each of us. That’s a lot even for younger folks. Anyway we had a great time even though our trip was cut short.