Ok so for years we've wanted to take a "real" vacation. So we've been biding our time waiting for things to go just right. And it finally did. From all the points on our credit card we were able to get $750 in cash. For being a TMobile customer for so long we got a free "buddy" plane ticket, and for buying our house we got two free nights in a hotel. Plus using online sites we saved 50% on the other two nights in a hotel. Our car rental was more than 50% off. And by getting the "Orlando GO Card" we got to a whole bunch of places we never would have gone.
Needless to say our trip cost us a fraction extra out of pocket cash compared if we hadn't got things perfect.
After days of waiting for the right price on plane tickets we finally were able to get tickets to be in Orlando for 4 nights and 5 days. But since we flew out so late and came back so early it was only like being gone for 3 days. To start things off we thought we'd shoot a little video for the kiddos so they knew what it was like.
After the laborious hotel junk, renting a car (and laughing at the guy helping us for wearing a sweater and it's 75 F. outside) we were ready to play.
The first place we went to was Dixie Crossroads in Titusville. It was the area of my mission I started in and ended in. This restaurant had to be hands down the best. They had Rock Shrimp. They contain shells hard as a crab. And then there are the corn fritters which are scones with corn in them, don't ask me how but i love them. I had the dozen and half rock shrimp and Courtney had something non sea food.
We then drove down to Cocoa Beach (think I Dream of Jeanie). We went to Harvey's orchards. There we bought fresh OJ. Oh it was soooooo good. You cannot compare it to any oj you buy in the store. Unfortunately I got the half gallon instead of quart, we couldn't drink it fast enough before it sat in the car and went sour.
The whole part of this day was mostly cloudy and rainy. Yet we weren't cold.
Ron Jon's is a block from the beach so we had to go there.
It was still drizzling, and there were
probably 5 peopleon the beach. The rain was part of a storm so the waves were tall for typical waves. Believe it or not I had never walked in the water (or tasted it). We couldn't resist playing around in the warm weather and water. The only bummer.....we forgot our swimsuits at the hotel an hour
away, CURSES.
While there are no pictures we ended the night by going to Hard Rock Cafe.
DAY 2.
Starting day 2 off we headed back to Titusville to start using the GO Card. We went to NASA. It was great. The sun was shining, the air was warm and moist, and there barely was a soul there. No crowds, no noisy kids, just fun. We couldn't pass up any chances for pictures so we took just a few here. After about three hours we were ready to move on to our next spot.
GATOR LAND
OK this place was cool. Except for the spider, Courtney almost died. We thought we'd be there a half hour or so. Come'on how long can you look at gators. We were there almost three hours and about ever hour there was a "show". The first one consisted of the workers showing off spiders, and snakes.
The second show was Gator Wrestling. Which is pretty much a guy walking around a bunch of gators, pulling one by the tail and messing around with it. In the first picture he's showing how easy it is to keep the mouth closed. The guy was pretty funny, poking the eyes and making fun of genders.
Then came the famous jumping gators. Now when I was on my mission Elders would talk about how the gators would jump 10ft out of the water so I was pretty stoked. Unfortunately the were in the process of training new gators so the most we got was a lunge out of the water.
These gators are about 10 ft long.
We also went on a small train ride that took you on a tour of the area.
This gator is about...fake.
That night we went to Old Town and found a haunted house, probably not the best idea with pregnant woman, but hey we're on vacation why not. We found this stellar hole in the wall restaurant "TexMex" oh, our food was excellent, oh yea and how bout eating outside in December. My BBQ sandwich was awesome.
Later that night we went to Ripley's Believe It or Not. Our feet were dying from all the walking. This is supposedly one of the largest tires on earth.
At the end of Day2 we were soooo tired and sore. Luckily we had changed hotels and were now on International Drive which has all the touristy places, so the drive wasn't far. This hotel had an awesome bed, not like the first one where were dying because it was cardboard stiff.
DAY 3
No time to waste. We got up nice and early and stepped out our our room (11th floor) into FOG. It was so thick and odd. Of my two years there it was rarely foggy. We made the drive to BOGGY CREEK AIR BOAT RIDES. It was on the edge of a11mile wide lake. At first we though we'd be the only people on the boat but then a bus of about 15 Russians boarded. They were funny. At every upclose gator (largest was about 3 ft long) they would stand up and take tonz of pictures. Guess we were lame cuz we just stayed sitting but after gator land it wasn't that awesome. But the boat, hoooowieeee that was fun. The water was only a foot or so deep.
Our next stop was a Wonder Works. It's best explained as a play land for adults.
This is me sleeping on a bed of nails.
Now this whole trip couldn't end with out a "date" so we went mini golfing and out to eat at Planet Hollywood.
Phew what a trip. And yet I've still left things out (flee markets, getting lost, getting lost, oh and getting lost).
It was weird when we were done it seemed that things on day one were a week ago. We had rarely rested, we had driven over 500 miles and seen plenty of awesome things.
We had to be at the car rental at 5 am so we set our clocks early, dumb luck our plane was delayed an hour and we got the call too late. We were only three hours early for our flight. Boy were we finally glad to take a seat and go back home.
Ok only another 8 years till our next trip.
