Day 5

On Tuesday we were well rested and ready to go again. This time we were off to Universal's theme parks. There were two parks that we had tickets to - Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Islands of Adventure had more rides than Universal Studios so we started there. Of course, we started with the Marvel Superhero section of the park and of course, it was our favorite. Thanks to Joseph's pass that put us to the front of every line we cruised through the Islands of Adventure park, including a break for lunch at Mythos which is designed to make you feel like you are in a cave. Their desserts were absolutely our favorite thing we had to eat. We were full after eating lunch and were planning to say no to dessert but then our waitress came by with these delightful and fun looking desserts. There were 6 flavors in little glasses. They were less than $2 a piece and just the right amount for a taste but not so much you couldn't eat it all. Everyone but Nathaniel ended up having one of these desserts. After lunch we finished up Islands of Adventure (even repeated a few rides) and went next door to Universal Studios. We did the rides that interested us and some that we regretted and then we really had reached our ride limit. I thought my stomach would never recover. We finished both parks by 4:30 and then headed for the hotel for a nap/tv time before dinner. That evening we ate at Give Kids the World and then Dora came for pictures. Only Nathaniel was willing to have his picture taken with her but the other kids were happy to hang out at the theater and eat popcorn, slushies, etc while we waited. After this we still had most of the evening left and not much left to do - we didn't want to go to Disney until Wednesday because our pass was only good for one more day and we wanted the whole day not just an evening. We finally decided to find a movie theater and watch Batman: the Dark Knight. We had a great time and still think it is pretty funny that with all the other stuff we had to do we still found time to go see a movie.

What we rode/saw at Universal:

Islands of Adventure:

Incredible Hulk Coaster (Joseph's favorite of everything we did - he did this twice)

Doctor Doom's Fearfall (Joseph didn't want to ride this but he went anyway for his older brother and sister and found it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be)

Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man (Overall family favorite - also done twice - fantastic graphics)

Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges (You don't get this wet in the shower)

Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls (just as we got to the top of the falls there was a technical

difficutly and we sat at the top for about 10 minutes before we went down - it really takes

the fun out to pause in the ride)

Jurassic Park River Adventure (another great dinosaur ride)

Dueling Dragons (two roller coasters that go in different directions - fun, most of the family

rode both. The Universal employee that helped us told us we could ride as many times as we

wanted but we were done after trying both sides)

High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Ride (we rode this and the next one because Nathaniel was not

tall enough to ride the roller coasters at Universal and was feeling left out)

Cat in the Hat

Universal Studios:

Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast (ugh! this ride made us all sick!)

Revenge of the Mummy (the best ride at Universal Studios!)

Men in Black Alien Attack (fun but not wow!)

The Simpsons (you watch a lot of Simpson clips before you actually start the ride and then it

is a simulator that made most of us feel sick - not our favorite)

Day 4

On Monday at Give Kids the World we had our pictures taken with Disney Characters at breakfast time. Outside were Donald, Pluto, and Mary Poppins and in the theater were Mickey and Minnie. The picture at the top of this blog is from that day. We have a lot of pictures with these characters because someone was using my camera and Give Kids the World had a photographer taking pictures for us. When we got ready to leave to come home we were given a cd with the pictures on it and 2 5x7s of the picture above. After breakfast and pictures we went to Sea World. This was our least favorite day. I don't think it helped that we were tired and grumpy before the day began, but we also felt that Sea World was the least organized of all the parks. Our thoughts were that Disney hires the happiest people on earth, and that Sea World hired all the people who weren't happy enough to work at Disney. At Sea World we enjoyed the Shamu show and feeding the dolphins but for the most part it wasn't wow. We left Sea World around 3:30 to go back to the hotel and swim. The pool at our hotel had a 75 ft slide and was a really nice pool. We didn't get to swim for long though because there was lightning in the area and they closed the pool. After that we took a nap and watched some tv and our attitudes improved. Then it was off to dinner at Give Kids the World and after dinner we hung out and went to the Safari Theater at Give Kids the World to play Safari Double Dare. This was Give Kids the World's version of the game show on Nickelodeon where you end up with a lot of pie in the face. For participants they asked the audience to raise their hands if they wanted to come up on stage. Nathaniel kept raising his hand and Kent kept telling him to put it down because when you got chosen you were also volunteering your whole family if they needed them all. When Nathaniel finally got chosen it was only him that had to go up and he got to do a pie eating contest. It was so funny especially since he left his glasses on. While at the theater we also discovered that they served popcorn, slushies, drinks, pretzels, nachos, and candy. Again it was all you can eat and it was free. Needless to say this was very popular with our kids and for the next couple nights it became tradition to go to the theater to load up on popcorn and slushies. After the game we were done for the night and wanted to get a good night's sleep so that we could be ready for the Universal theme parks on Tuesday.

What we rode/saw at Sea World:

Clyde and Seamus Sea Lion Show (fun!)

Shark exhibit

Shamu Show (amazing!!)

All the rides in the little kid section (Nathaniel enjoyed it)

Kracken (great roller coaster, especially since we didn't have to wait in a line)

Journey to Atlantis (fun water ride)

Fed the Dolphins (Joseph's pass gave him free fish and we enjoyed being able to pet the
dolphins while we fed them)

Day 3

On Sunday morning after breakfast at Give Kids the World they were doing face paining so we hung out there and Heather and Nathaniel got their faces painted. Heather had Minnie on her cheeks and Nathaniel had Yoda. Then we headed off to Disney's Animal Kingdom. We went first to check out the animals because our best chance of seeing them do anything besides lay around would be before it go very hot. After that we did all the rides that interested us at Animal Kingdom and then headed back to our hotel to get ready for church. We went to sacrament meeting at a ward in Orlando, ate lunch and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at Epcot. Besides riding the rides and seeing the shows one other highlight was our dinner. We had called and were able to get reservations to eat dinner with the Princesses at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in the Norway section of Epcot. It was a really cool experience. We had our picture taken with Belle as we went in and they later brought us 2 5x7s of our pictures. We also had Jasmine, Cinderella, Ariel, and Aurora come by our table and take pictures with us while we were eating. Another cool thing was that Nathaniel's ravioli was shaped like Mickey Mouse. It was a fun evening. After doing all the rides in the future land section of Epcot we wandered up towards the lake and watched the fireworks. We were not able to see all of the world showcase section of Epcot because Laura's knee was bothering her and we had already walked too much for her as it was. Laura had started out the morning at Animal Kingdom in a wheelchair because her knee was hurting. The wheelchair made it nice to be able to walk around and see all the animals without making life worse for her. At Epcot Laura didn't want to use a wheelchair. Her knee hurt but she was tough and didn't use a wheelchair again after Sunday morning. We had hoped to get back to Epcot and see the rest of the world showcase on Wednesday but that was the one thing we never were able to go back and do, mostly because we were too tired.

What we rode/saw on Sunday:

Animal Kingdom:

Kilimanjaro Safari (the animals were awesome)

Pangani Forest Exploration Trail (gorillas are Kent's favorite)

Maharajah Jungle Trek (the tigers were sleeping and the bats were huge!)

Expedition Everest (excellent roller coaster!!)
Dinosaur (great in your face dinosaur experience - one of our favorites)

Epcot:
Spaceship Earth (Wendy slept (literally) on this ride)
Mission: Space
Test Track (Heather's favorite ride)
Soarin (very cool!)
Turtle Talk with Crush (Duuuude! it was cool!)
Nemo and Friends (BORING!!)

Day 2

Saturday we woke up early (really early since it was two hours earlier than in Utah), ate a quick breakfast at Give Kids the World and headed to the Magic Kingdom. Magic Kingdom was a perfect place to start. It is geared more towards younger kids than all the other parks and while the rides were fun they weren't as intense as some of the ones we rode at the other parks later in the week. It was a good way to get Joseph started on roller coasters which was his main goal. It was also a great start to our experiences to pull up to the parking window and show them Joseph's "Give Kids the World Button" which gave us free parking. The attendant would just wave us on through. It took us a couple rides to figure out how the guest assistance pass that Joseph had worked but once we figured it out our time standing in lines was over. We would show his pass to the attendant at the main entrance and depending upon the ride we would enter through either the handicap access route, the exit, or through the fastpass route. All of these meant essentially a trip straight to the front of the line at every ride. It was amazing. It was also amazing how fast you can go through a Disney Park if you have older kids who don't mind the walking and if you don't have to stand in long lines or play the game of walking back and forth through the park to get fastpasses. We finished seeing everything we wanted to see at the Magic Kingdom around 4:30 and headed out to go to Give Kids the World. At Give Kids the World the kids had a coupon to get a free pillow each, so we went to the Castle of Miracles to get a pillow. These pillows are wonderful. Just right for sleeping on the airplane, not too big to be in the way, and each one looks different so the kids can tell them apart. Joseph also had a star that he could give to the star fairy and she would place it on the ceiling in the Castle of Miracles so he did that also. It was pretty cool. Joseph wrote his name on his star and then placed it in a treasure box that was connected to a computer. The screen on the wall showed the star fairy taking the star away and when you looked in the box the star was gone. The next morning the star was in the ceiling with the others and you received a passport to tell you where your star was. Joseph will be able to go back to Give Kids the World anytime he visits Florida and he will get to eat a meal for free and he can go and find his star which will be there forever. After this we ate dinner and headed back to Disney for more fun. This time we went to Disney Hollywood Studios. We didn't have enough time to see everything there - partially because one roller coaster wasn't working that night and partially because after Star Tours our family stayed in the gift shop for about an hour making their own light sabers. (Yes, Brad had to have one also!!) By the time we were done there it was late and time to go get some sleep before we started all over again the next day.

Our list of rides we rode/shows we saw on Saturday:

At Magic Kingdom:
Space Mountain (loved this - everyones favorite at MK)
Laugh Floor Comedy Club (amazing interaction between audience and screen)
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
Tomorrowland Speedway
Toontown to see princesses and Goofy, Pluto, Donald
It's a Small World (boring)
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (another favorite)
Splash Mountain (wet but not too wet!, loved it)
Haunted Mansion (the ghosts are great)
Pirates of the Caribbean (Captain Jack looks real - the younger kids had to ask if he was)
Jungle Cruise (Nathaniel was chosen to drive the boat on this ride)
Magic Carpets of Aladdin (boring)
Dreams Come True Parade (loved this - all the favorites were there, including the dwarfs for Laura)
Lots of Shopping for souvineers (the kids couldn't wait)


At Disney Hollywood Studios:
Tower of Terror (Joseph's least favorite - totally scared the younger kids)
Toy Story (another favorite)
Star Tours (really cool but made some of us feel queasy)
Shopping for build your own light sabers

Day 1 of Vacation

We left for our vacation on Friday the 18th of July. We had warned the kids that we wouldn't have much to eat all day except for the small snack and drink on our flights because there would only be 30 minutes between flights. It turned out that on the second flight from Albuquerque to Orlando, Southwest offered us snacks and drinks multiple times and there wasn't even a chance for the kids to complain. I can definitely say flying with Southwest was wonderful. You can check two bags and you still get drinks and snacks on your flight. When we arrived in Orlando we were greeted by a person holding a sign saying "Give Kids the World Welcomes Joseph Talbert". How cool is that?! Our escort helped us get our baggage and our rental van. We were hoping for a minivan as our rental but ended up with a 12 passenger van. It was huge and after a couple of days of driving it Brad got used to it and parking and speed bumps became a lot nicer. Brad and I didn't mind the speed bumps but the kids complained (especially Kent who hit his head if we went to fast over one). From the airport we went to Give Kids the World to check in with them and do our orientation meeting which was where we would get our tickets to the parks. Upon arriving we were given 2 stuffed animals for each of the kids (all the kids got a Mayor Clayton stuffed animal and Joseph was given a Mickey Mouse and the other 4 kids got a Shamu). We also received a big purple bag full of various toys and movies and stuff for the kids. It was wild to think that we hadn't even bought one souvineer and we already had an extra bag of stuff for the trip home. Well, I went to the orientation meeting and Brad and the kids went to the Gingerbread House (see pictures) which was the cafeteria for Give Kids the World. At the Gingerbread House we were able to eat Breakfast and Dinner every day that we were there. It was an all you can eat style place and at dinner they even had food that little kids love. Nathaniel ate spaghetti and meatballs every night and usually had seconds. After finishing up at Give Kids the World we went to our hotel which was the Caribe Royale. We had two rooms with a connecting door which we just left open so it felt like one big apartment. Each room had two queen beds and a fold out couch so in order to prevent fighting Heather and Nathaniel each had a fold out couch and the other kids got their own beds. Brad and I shared but we were okay with that (we don't argue and fight like the kids do!) By this time it was late and we were off to bed so we would be ready for Disney World in the morning.