Flying to Florida

Hello everyone, and welcome to my family friendly, Disney-fied adventure to Florida. Our trip began ungodly early on Friday morning (4:15) as we quickly cleaned up, jumped into the grandhandlers' car and took off for the airport. This was to be my first experience flying, and I have to admit I was a little nervous.
What do you mean I don't get a seat?! I need a seatbelt!

Afetr several harrowing hours of hurtling through the skies, we arrived in sunny Orlando. Since we were now in the land of all things theme park, it was time to take our first ride.

In all honesty, I wasn't that impressed with it. Where's the magic Disney?

Rounding out our trifecta of public transportation, we hopped on a bus to our final destination.

Disney's Pop Century Resort.

We checked in, grabbed lunch, grabbed a nap (the handlers kept complaining about being "exhausted"), and then headed out for our first real theme park experience: EPCOT!

For those of you who don't know, EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. How that translates into a big silver ball and a host of fake world landmarks, I'm not quite sure.

EPCOT is in the midst of hosting it's 15th annual Food & Wine Festival, and the handlers were eager to experience all it had to offer. We first had a reservation for a demonstration with the proprietor o Moonstruck Chocolates. He taught us how to make a carmel torte (not a tort, that's a legal thing) with chocolate ganache. We got to sample his creation with some sparkling rose'. The torte was wonderful, and the wine very good as well!

Afterwards, we went on some rides (one involved dinosaurs and Ellen Degeneres...I don't get it) and explored the park. The handlers also sampled some of the Food & Wine Festival offerings at the Greece kiosk. They enjoyed their little snack.

In Disney, even the sidewalks are magic.

Handler 1 had fun taking night photos, aided by the lovely full moon. She didn't have a tripod with her, but did okay. And she did get to use her new star filter to good effect!

Afterwards, we headed over to Downtown Disney, where the handlers were not fully able to not purchase souveniers. It was fairly crowded there, which gave the place a festive atmosphere. The twinkling lights and full moon helped too. We had to make a special pilgrimage to the defunct Adventurer's Club.

Sigh...reduced to a blank wall for the display of cheesy holiday effects...so sad. We miss you Adventurer's Club, Kongaloosh!

The handlers grabbed a quick dinner and decided to pack it in after their very long day. We look forward to more adventures on the morrow.

Only in Disney can you find folks in period costume rocking it out to Canon in D. There was also a guy with a guitar and a digeridoo...no, I'm totally not kidding about that.