Continued from Part 1
If I were to have one epiphany about our destination it was that the Orlando area is HUGE. Oh… and the traffic sucks. Usually I can find a rhythm to driving somewhere but there didn’t seem to be any flow that could be achieved. The campground was all of 8 miles from Disney world but who knew that it would take 40 minutes or more to go each way. I digress.
Thousand Trails Orlando (actually Clermont) is the poster child for the brand. It boasted an abundance of well maintained sites and amenities galore.. most of which we didn’t get to fully embrace as it was primarily a place to stay close to our goal.
Day 1 (Monday) we headed to Universal Studios to break our legs in. The weather was perfect considering we left a snowstorm and freezing rain behind in Maryland. We rode several rides and now that Ryder is officially of height for all roller coasters, he and Kris embarked on the Jurassic Park roller coaster while EJ and I wandered through Mr. Seussland. Finally we explored each of the Marvel Comics exhibits and closed out the day at the Harry Potter neighborhood where Ryder was chosen by a wand from the famed wand store. Not withstanding, I (dad of the year) took Ethan in his stroller to see the dragon on the side of a building. Within moments, the childhood trauma that will scar the child for decades to come ensued as the dragon roared and spit an insanely hot fireball at us from high above.
Day 2 We were off to the real deal… Disney’s Epcot Center. Truth be told, we had to find the loopholes to get into Disney at all because the tickets and reservations process was booked out. The loophole for us was that we could get an all parks pass which allowed us to transfer parks mid-day, but reservations were only available for Epcot each morning. It all worked out really well since Epcot really engaged the boys anyways with age appropriate rides and attractions that they were both interested in. Then, by lunchtime we were ready for a break so we headed back to Talley for lunch and a nap (only for those under the age of 7 and over the age of 10 of course) and then returning to Disney Hollywood Studios later that afternoon. We wandered until they nearly kicked us out, the favorite spot was without surprise… Star Wars.
Day 3 We started out again at Epcot center and now that we had the lay of the land we knew the rides we wanted to hit first. An immensely helpful tip came from one of Ryder’s classmate’s mom who recommended that when we first arrive at the park (we had done this yesterday) that we register for a medical express pass and children with ADHD are eligible. What this allows us to do is register using the Disney phone app to “wait in line” without having to physically stand there. Then when we’re given the green light, we can walk through the express lanes bypassing 90% of the wait. The caveats are that you can’t be virtually “in line” for more than one ride at a time. So we would register for lines that had excessively long waits and then physically wait in line at other rides with short waits. Those were often the small kiddie rides to occupy Ethan anyways so it worked out perfectly. We rode every ride we could until nap time back at Talley where we walked the dogs, had lunch and rested up for round two. We closed out our final visit to Disney at the Magic Kingdom. The Magic Kingdom is a must do with classic rides (yes, “It’s a Small World” is now etched in all of our brains) with the central pivot being the castle. We made our escape as most of the crowds were building at main street for the fireworks so we could beat some of the traffic out. We did watch the fireworks the following day from our campground which had a spectacular view of them across the lake.
Continued in Part 3
