Epcot

Friday we headed to Epcot. We started in Future World with the 1986 3-D Captain EO with Michael Jackson. Our seats vibrated, we got sprayed, and things touched our legs! Crazy! It was a fun experience! Then we walked around the rest of the area and saw the beautiful flowers and views. The whole area was around a large lake. World Showcase went about two thirds around the lake. Lots of walking!

This is a picture of a street in England.

Tessa wanted us to make sure we visited France as she's learning French.
So here you go, sweetie! Tell me what these are!




We went into a little shop and saw these wonderful breads and pastries and got a treat. Yum!




We had ate dinner in Morocco and traveled through Japan, Italy, Norway, and many more countries. Lots of fun and lots of walking!

Magic Kingdom

Each afternoon the conference let out around 4 pm and we had discounted tickets to any park we wanted to go to. We decided to go to Magic Kingdom on Thursday and then Epcot on Friday. We hopped onto the Disney bus to the park and started our fun.

We were really there! Cinderella's castle!


Another picture to prove we were there.

We went up in Swiss Family Robinson's Treehouse and loved the bedroom way up in the tree and the hammocks to sleep in.

Next was It's a Small World and it was still great. It was hard to get a good picture as they were moving all around.


Marc wanted to do the speedway and so we drove together in one car and ended up in a horrific traffic jam! We were stuck in our car for about 10 minutes before we got to move again.


Cinderella's castle is lit up at night and changes colors. Here it is pinkish purple.


We also went on Pirates of the Carribean, Haunted Mansion, Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor (kind of an improv joke show), but the highlight of the night for me was Splash Mountain, which I persuaded Marc to go on. By the way, we hardly had to wait long for any of the rides and Splash Mountain we just walked on--no waiting at all!!! Marc was really nervous, and almost didn't want to go on. If there had been a wait he may have exited. Anyways, it was so fun and we were on the back of the boat. Here's the picture to prove how scared Marc was. He didn't want to look at all!! But he did it and said he'd go on it again.


We decided to skip the fireworks and made a run for the bus as Marc had an early session in the morning. As we were leaving the park the Electric Light Parade was just finishing. It brought back many memories. It was such a great time!

It was Magical!!

As we were returning to the airport we saw this sign on the freeway. We knew we were getting close to Disney World.

We headed to the special area in the airport where we were to board our next form of transportation--Disney's Magical Express--which took us to our resort. The excitement was building as we headed towards the resort. As the video played highlighting the parks, kids were literally bouncing on their seats! There was a huge thunderstorm as we drove along and we could hardly see out the windows. We arrived at Coronado Springs Resort and walked to our room in the rain. We kind of got lost as it was dark, but finally made it.

We loved the toiletries on the sink.

In the morning we looked out the window and saw this view. We had a corner room with windows on two sides and it was so peaceful. There was a quiet sandy beach with hammocks to lay in and palm trees. The lake wasn't for swimming in but had a lot of waterfowl living in it.

Our room was on the second floor on the left corner.

This was a picture of the main part of the resort from across the lake. I walked around the lake Thursday and Friday mornings (one mile around) three and four times before breakfast. It was so beautiful with lots of flowers and greenery, but very humid.

Sarasota Florida

We left for Orlando very early in the morning and stayed in Lakeland, Florida Tuesday night. Very in the morning on Wednesday, we drove to Sarasota to visit my brother Mark and his wife Sandi. We headed to Siesta Keys beach which is the #1 beach in the country. It was beautiful!

Here are Mark and Sandi. We really enjoyed our time with them!

The sand at Siesta Keys Beach was so white and soft and cool. It's never hot even in the summer as it is made from quartz. The water was cooler than we wanted and only Marc went up to his waist. You can't keep him away from the ocean! The rest of us just waded. We ate lunch at the coolest restaurant! Great seafood, a table by the water, and wonderful company! This was the sign out front.


Our table was on the waterfront and we saw this sign reminding us we were actually in Florida.

Outside the restaurant we found this cute cutout sign and took advantage of it.

We really had a great visit with Mark and Sandi! We drove back to the Orlando airport in the afternoon and turned in the rental car and got ready for the next part of our adventure.