Our time in Florida has been a “holiday within a holiday” as the rest of the trip will hopefully be a bit more relaxed. We have had a manic three weeks here rushing around trying to squeeze as much as possible into each day, marching top speed around the parks, ticking off each ride from the map...hmm, sounds familiar!
Before Mum and Dad McQuillan left to head back to the freezing shores of Scotland we visited Seaworld, the highlight of which was watching a dolphin blow bubbles and then play with them underwater and the Dolphin and Bird show was a close second favourite. The only downside to this park was the small and often overcrowded tanks and enclosures which the animals were kept in, we all felt there was a bit more that this park could be doing for animal welfare.
For Peter's 7th birthday we visited the Kennedy Space Center, which is a great day out as there is loads to do...the boys however chose to spend most of the day playing in the kiddie play park (as I stressed out about everything we were missing while repeating to myself “I must be more chilled out”).
We spent our last ten days in Florida trying out some new parks, namely Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Aquatica (our ticket also gave us admission to Wet 'n' Wild but we ran out of time to do that one!). Quick run down on each park...
Universal Studios was a disappointment...it was very disorganised, with
Aquatica is a brand new waterpark operated by Seaworld. We enjoyed this park, but again found it to be a bit disorganised in comparison to the Disney waterparks.
We noticed in all the parks that there were loads of Scottish people, I guess it must be half term in some of the Scottish schools this week. It was very bizarre to be surrounded by so many familiar accents when we are so far from home. The most Scottish thing I heard said was from a lady who had been on the Simpsons ride, who commented “Aye, it was guid, but it was an affy hing aboot” (translated: “Yes, it was good, but it was a long queue”).
The weather turned a bit more stormy in early October and we had thunderstorms almost every day, but they passed quickly and the heat soon dried up the rain. We have become pretty good at judging how long we have until the downpour arrives, although had a couple of complete soakings while we were developing our skills!!
There is loads to do on our campsite, there are two pools, a few playparks, kids activities, a restaurant, two shops, bike/boat/canoe hire, a nightly campfire with a singalong followed by a Disney film...so we have not been short of activities when we are not in the theme parks. The boys have also made some friends and have built a Fort in the swamp, which is subject to a programme of continuous improvement as better sticks and twigs are found.
The campsite got really busy over the weekends with a lot of Americans coming for a couple of nights. Americans believe in luxury camping and arrive with mountains of stuff including TV's, spare cars and their own golf buggies to get around. Most of the tents and RV's are decorated with lights and our neighbours on the second weekend gave us a set of fairy lights for our tent, so that we fitted in a bit better and felt a bit more American!
The main challenge while camping has been cooking with limited utensils...think along the lines of Ray Mears meets Blue Peter! We had to be innovative and kept jars, tubs and cartons to re-use as sieves, serving dishes and tupperware.
The only other down side to camping is the insect bites...we are all suffering at the jaws of the bloodthirsty beasties of Florida, leaving us with itchy bite marks all over our ankles and legs...nice!!
Internet access was not good in Florida and hopefully this slightly longer than usual blog post will make up for a few weeks with not much of an update. Hopefully over on the West coast of the USA it will be easier to get online...California is the home of Silicon Valley, so surely wireless internet will not be too much of a problem...
Here's hoping the next post will be describing my big win on the slot machines...now where did I put my lucky cork..?
Nic
xx
1 comment:
I love your blog..it makes me smile. I feel there must be a book in this for the future.
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