We drove to Treasure Island, which is a barrier island right next to St. Petersburg, and checked into some very nice condos right on the beach. We then all went out to the beach and played, then transitioned to the resort’s swimming pools, before heading in for dinner and a relatively relaxing evening. I ended up cooking dinner (the condos had full kitchens) and don’t like taking my nice camera to the beach, so no photos of this day. It was a nice change of pace, though, from amusement parks.
Day 5 took us to Sea World. Debi and I went to Sea World in, I think, 2003, over the winter break, so we remembered some of the attractions. But they have changed the shows substantially since then so there was plenty new to see. Also, we have a kid now, which changes the way you approach amusement parks.
We saw the killer whale show in Shamu Stadium and the dolphin show (some saw it twice while Brent and I went on an adult ride; Manta). We also saw A’Lure, which is like low budget Cirque du Soleil show that was good. But, mostly, the kids played in the kids play area. With both Debi and I around, I was free to snap some photos with the good camera. Here are some shots of Toren playing in the play area:
Toren playing a steel drum
Toren asking Sid the Science Kid's question, "What's up with the sky?"
A quick clip on the Merry-Go-Round:
And here are a few shots from the shows (helps having a nice camera):
dolphins!
big air!
synchronized whale jumping
While Toren liked the the shows, particularly the dolphin show that now incorporates birds, divers, and other students, for some reason he kept gravitating to a pearl diving attraction (divers will dive down and pick up oysters for you with pearls in them). Not sure what he loved about this, but we must have spent about 1 1/2 hours here watching the divers:
the diver is just to Toren's right; not sure what he's doing with his legs here
he was spoiled with gummy snacks during this trip
Um, yeah... Not sure but it's funny.
This was our last day in Orlando. I think we ate pizza at the hotel this night.
Steve and I split off from the main group this day and went to Universal Studios. If it were not for the new Harry Potter part of the park, I would not have been all that interested, but I’ve read all the books and heard a lot about the new attraction so I thought it might be worth going to see. It was cool, though incredibly crowded and probably a disappointment given the hype. But I did get to go on the rides and drink butterbeer in front of Hogwarts:
drinking a $4.00 cup of butterbeer in front of Hogwarts
With just the two of us, Steve and I managed to hit pretty much all of the adult rides in the Islands of Adventure park.
Meanwhile, the rest of the family went back to Magic Kingdom and spent the day there.
On a side note, when Steve and I walked out to our car to head to Universal Studios we noticed that one of the tires was flat. We ended up putting on the spare, driving it to the shop, dropping it off to be repaired, then picking it back up on the way home. The rest of the family ate at Magic Kingdom, so Steve and I picked up some grub on the way back to the hotel and called it a day.
The Harry Potter attraction is cool and probably worth seeing, but don’t get your hopes up too high. It’s smaller than you’d think and the main ride isn’t particularly impressive (one of the others is pretty good though).
Day 3 was at the Magic Kingdom. We started the morning with breakfast with Chef Mickey and friends. Toren likes looking at people in costumes and finds them entertaining, but only from afar. When costumed individuals get close he freaks out. So, he kind of had a rough time at breakfast (and he didn’t sleep well and wouldn’t nap). Here’s the best we could pull off as far as pictures go:
His name is Goofy, but to Toren he's "Creepy"
"Why am I standing next to a five and a half foot tall mouse, Dad? I don't think this is normal."
After breakfast we headed to the Magic Kingdom where we rode various rides. Here’s a shot of Toren being creeped out by the dolls in “It’s a Small World” (like father like son, I guess):
Toren on the "It's a Small (Creepy) World" ride
And some clips of Toren and Debi on the Dumbo ride:
Toren and Debi on the Dumbo ride getting ready to fly
waving from the Dumbo ride
waving at the end of the ride
Toren’s two favorite activities were playing at the Winnie the Pooh ride and driving the cars. He liked driving the cars so much I had to keep filming him (thus the three clips below):
I also shot a quick clip of this rabbit just hanging out in the park:
As evening neared a massive storm cloud approached. We dashed toward the Toy Story ride just as it hit and then found ourselves pushed out of the ride afterward into the torrential rain. We made our way into another exhibit to wait it out, then decided to call it an evening as the fireworks were cancelled. Unfortunately, the train caused some problems with the trams, making our trek home take about 2 1/2 hours. Ugh! Otherwise, it was a good day at Disney.
Even though all of her family was in town, Debi still had summer courses that were just beginning that she couldn’t afford to miss. So she headed back to Tampa this day while the rest of us made our way to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We went on a few friends, saw some animals, then went on the Safari ride, which is always fun (despite the rather lame attempt to make it into a ride with a plot). Having been on the Safari ride before I knew what was coming but was somewhat excited to see the cheetah, which we didn’t see the previous time:
cheetah on the safari ride
As I was managing Toren by myself, Steve, Debi’s brother, kindly took over photography duties and snapped the above picture (he got a bunch more of the animals that were very good as well).
We then let the kids play at length in one of the play areas that had slides and other stuff to climb on. I think all the kids loved it and, were it not for the scorching sun, we would have stayed there even longer. Here’s a clip of Toren running (such a cute run) in the play area:
And here’s a photo of Toren by one of the “fossils”:
Toren in the play area by one of the fossils that you can climb on
Brent, Steve, and I did sneak away to go an adult ride. I left Toren with his Grandmary. Apparently he cried the whole time (though, by the end of the trip he had warmed up to pretty much everyone).
We went to dinner that night at the T Rex Cafe. As the family was visiting right around Toren’s birthday (and they gave him gifts as well), we thought we’d just tell our server every time we went out to eat that we were there celebrating Toren’s birthday. We only managed to remember one night – at T Rex Cafe. They brought him out a cookie and ice cream, which he didn’t really want. Instead he wanted to hug Debi’s head as she made it back in time for dinner:
T Rex Cafe is like Rainforest Cafe in that is a themed restaurant, but it has animatronic dinosaurs. It was fun to see, though a bit pricey for us. That wrapped up the second day of the trip. We were all tired from a long day at Disney.
