Gatorland

Since shortly after we moved to Florida, we’ve been saying we need to go to Gatorland. We finally went last week. It’s a pretty fun place, relatively small but relatively cheap too. Admission is pretty low because much of what’s there is not included in admission.

Gatorland has two large ponds filled with gators surrounded by several enclosure with other animals, gift shops, places to eat, and a couple of stages for animal shows. On one side of the property is a swamp walk which took us 10 to 15 minutes to complete. The backside has a small train which we paid $3 each to ride as well a monster truck trail. We had some lunch and looked at most of the animal enclosures, which took a little over two hours. We plan to go back another day to see the rest of the animals and watch some shows.

We decided to let our Sea World passes expire and get Universal passes this year. Last Wednesday we spent some time at the Studios. Bryan and I did the new Villian-Con attraction. It was pretty fun and the queue was well done. We stood on a moving conveyor and shot at stuff on surrounding video screens. Afterward we went to lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. 

Last night we went to Epcot and checked out the art booths at the Festival of Arts. I was hoping to stay for the new fireworks show but it was too cold.

Ohana

Since Susan got back from the cruise, we’ve been going out to dinner a fair amount, both to use the birthday coupons she got from several places and to celebrate her birthday and our anniversary. Last week we went with the kids to Ohana at the Polynesian Resort.  It had been over ten years since we ate there, and while it wasn’t quite as good as I remembered, we still left very full.

Before dinner we looked at the stores in the resort, and I checked out the progress on the new DVC tower.  After we tried to have a drink at Trader Sam’s, but the wait was too long, so we just went to the Tiki Terrace outside. The drinks were the same, and the atmosphere was pretty good.

 

A few nights later we went to the Rainforest Cafe at Animal Kingdom for dinner to use the birthday coupon she got from Landry’s.

Carnival Cruise

Susan and Jenn got back from their five night cruise on Carnival today. They went with a couple dozen people they knew through scrapbooking.

The cruise was out of Fort Lauderdale and had stops in Nassau and Cozumel, with two days at sea. 

Since they had been to both before a few times, they stayed on the ship and scrapbbooked and wrote, which is also how they spent much of the two sea days.

Park Hopping

Early yesterday morning Susan and Jenn headed to Fort Lauderdale for a cruise, so I decided to spend some time in the parks. I couldn’t get a reservation for the Magic Kingdom, so I started at the TTC and took the monorail to Epcot. The Festival of Holidays had ended before New Year’s Eve, and the Festival of Arts was over a week away. I walked around Epcot a bit, then hopped back on the monorail.

Once I got to the Magic Kingdom, I took a cruiser to the Fort Wilderness campground, and had lunch at Trail’s End, which had recently changed from a table serve to counter serve restaurant. 

After two o’clock, I entered the Magic Kingdom, where I admired the Christmas decorations and rode the train to Frontierland.

Once there, I checked out progress on the conversion of Space Mountain to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. The park was pretty crowded, so I decided call it a day and headed home.