After Hours

Monday some friends from Oregon arrived for a week at Disney World. On Tuesday, we met them for lunch at Animal Kingdom, and for a ride on Flight of Passage. Then we took them shopping at Cast Connection.

Wednesday night we attended an “After Hours” event at Hollywood Studios with them. It was the first time we had been to one. For three hours after the park closed, we enjoyed several rides with limited waits and complementary sodas, ice cream, and popcorn. As a cast member, I was able to buy discounted tickets.

Our tickets let us into the park two hours before it closed, so we were able to catch Fantasmic! 

On Friday, the kids joined them at Epcot and yesterday at Magic Kingdom, where they watched the Easter parade. Today they came over to our house for Easter dinner.

Flower & Garden festival

Last Sunday after work Susan and I went into Epcot to check out the Flower and Garden festival. As usual the festival had some new topiaries and some returning, although some in different places. Susan also checked out some of the merchandise booths.

We also caught a set by Rick Springfield at the Garden Rocks concert series.

Last Tuesday Jenn, Susan, and I spent some time shopping at Disney Springs, and met some friends for dinner at Ragland Road.

This afternoon Jennifer attended a book signing event with several other local independent authors at her Barnes and Nobles. She organized the event, and plans to hold one each month.

London Convention

Last weekend, Jennifer attended a convention in London. She flew out on Wednesday and arrived Thursday morning. After checking into the convention hotel by Heathrow, she and a friend took the tube to Piccadilly Circus, where they checked out a bookstore and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe there. 

They then made their way to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where they watched Frozen.

She and her friends attended the convention Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and on Monday she flew home.

On Thursday she went with some friends to a book signing at a local bookstore. 

Today she, Bryan, and another friend went to Blizzard Beach, one of Disney's water parks.

Megacon

 

At the beginning of the month, the kids went to Megacon, a big convention held every year at the Orlando Convention Center.

The next week Jennifer had a friend visiting from Oregon, so Susan went with them to Epcot to check out the Festival of the Arts. I met them after work to enjoy some attractions and check the progress on the Communicore Hall.

That night, we enjoyed a ride on Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, then headed out. The new Celebration gardens look really nice at night. 

The weekend after Megacon Jenn did a book signing at her Barnes & Noble, and then she and her friend drove up to Atlanta to meet another author. 

Then they attended another book convention. They drove home today, and stopped at a Buc-ee’s. 

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, which replaced the Shrek movie in Production Central, making a "Minions" mini-area. 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. 

On Saturday Jenn celebrated the release of her sixth book with breakfast with a friend at Steakhouse 71 at the Contemporary resort and a visit to the Magic Kingdom. Since her novel was a contemporary take on the Cinderella tale, she wore a Cinderella inspired outfit to take photos in front of the castle. 

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.

Yesterday Jenn drove out to Tampa for a book signing.

Celebrity Cruise

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

The cruise was out of Fort Lauderdale and had stops in Nassau in the Bahamas and Cozumel, Mexico, 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.