When your friends claim they need a trip to Disney World to get away for awhile and ask if you are interested, you’d be a crazy fool to say ‘no’, right? Even if you were just on an American vacation in the fall?

We said, we’re in!

We have never travelled with another couple (have we?) and we were eager to have the chance to do so with our fun and laidback friends Tim and Liz. We’ve also never been to Florida, and Disney World is probably the last place I’d ever imagine Jeff wanting to go, but he was immediately set on the idea, or maybe it was because he realized that if we scheduled the trip right, he’d maybe have a chance to get to the Daytona 500 NASCAR race!?

Our friends don’t have children either, but they assured us they’d been to Disney before and assured us there was plenty of fun to be had for adults too!

So here’s the first thing to know about Florida. It’s crazy far from here. Like travel on 4 flights over 2 days kinda far.

The first day we left Dawson City, had a short stop in Whitehorse to switch to a jet plane, and then made it to Vancouver.

This was our first time staying at the River Rock Casino, near the Vancouver airport. It is a favourite for Dawson residents on layovers in the city. What a great time! Jeff and Tim hit the slots hard and were up hundreds of dollars! I quickly lost $10 and called it quits. Sometimes you just feel that you aren’t going to rake in the coins. And they aren’t even real coins. I miss the days of sitting at a slot machine with a bucket of nickles.

My cousin Meaghen lives nearby, so she and her partner Nick came to hang out for a while and have supper with us. Having recently lost our Grandma, it was extra nice to see each other.

The next morning we were up early and headed back to the airport for the last two legs of the trip to Florida.

We had a short layover in the Denver airport, enough time to hit the VooDoo Doughnuts shop!

I scarfed down almost two full donuts, a raspberry filled one, and then an enormous apple fritter that was just too much! But I got really close to finishing that thing!

Our flight was delayed a bit and somehow the 4 of us ended up in the very back row of the plane.

And soon enough, after watching a few unmemorable onboard movies, we landed in Orlando!! Jeff’s first time for seeing palm trees!

To start our vacation, we had 5 nights booked at the Clarion Inn and Suites across the road from the Universal theme parks. This hotel was perfect! We had rooms side by side on the second floor that were accessed from outside. There was a pool and a hot tub outside. The restaurant attached to the hotel was called Tabla Cuisine, an Indian restaurant. We arrived on Valentine’s Day, and our great luck continued when we were somehow able to get a table with all the other dining couples in the restaurant, and we had a feast! What a great restaurant! We had three flavours of naan bread, butter chicken, tikka masala, chicken cardamon korma, and some chicken manchurian as an appetizer. Mostly mild dishes for us Indian food rookies! We couldn’t eat it all! Here are the lovey couples on Valentine’s Day:

The next day was our first theme park day. I did zero preparation or research for these Orlando theme parks. All I knew was my Mom said we had to wear Micky Mouse ears (she’s been twice before). As it turns out, there are so many theme parks! And the one we were staying near wasn’t Disney at all. It was Universal. This was something entirely different!

The Clarion had a nice little breakfast cafe for the guys to coffee up and then we boarded the free shuttle over to Universal. We bought tickets for the two Universal parks that were side by side, for two days:

• Universal Studios
• Universal City Walk

Now the price of a theme park admission ticket… whew… well, let me save my thoughts on that for a future post. Let’s get to the roller coasters!!

Our first stop was right inside the gates – The Incredible Hulk Coaster!

I thought I was super clever bringing and wearing a fanny pack, but right away, this was obviously not the advantage I thought it was going to be. To get in line the Hulk roller coaster, you have to go through security! Including a metal detector! No phones, no bags, no loose items. Nearby, the park provided little lockers, though. You had to use your paper ticket to scan a QR code and then a locker door popped open so you can stuff all your stuff in. I didn’t know how far to go – glasses too? hats? Yep!

Then we got in line. Which is very much the theme for these theme parks.

We waited a long time, but thanfully, the line had a roof over it! We were grateful because that Florida sun will cook ya alive! But back to the wait lines, I’m certain they have experts designing these queues. You can’t see the front. And they zig and they zag so you have no good way to judge just how long the line is. Well there is a digital display on the outside of the ride that estimates how long you’ll wait. We saw waits from 10 minutes to 20 to 45, 60 and 125 minutes!! Some of the lines even have water fountains along the way!

Each ride’s wait line is themed to the ride, which makes them all pretty interesting, with sound effects and things to look at. And after the ride, it often exited you right into a themed gift shop, of course!

So back to this first roller coaster, the Hulk! This one had a shoulder upper harness that secured you in place. As the coaster starts, it slowly starts going up a steep hill and then it suddenly, unexpectedly, launches you so freaking fast upwards!! I read later that it hits 67 miles per hour on that first launch! And after that, it was one violent move, twist, spin, flip, after another. I couldn’t keep my head back, or find any way to stop my head from banging around off the shoulder harness bars. I closed my eyes sometimes. I like roller coasters? I mean, I haven’t been on one for probably decades, back to whenever the last time I was at Canada’s Wonderland north of Toronto? The absolute thrill of the terror. But this coaster was something else. I had vertigo and I was getting beat up everywhere. It was thrilling in a way, but I was terrified I was going to get off and not know up from down! What a way to start!!

We retrieved our stuff from the lockers and soon could see normally again. The next stop was a ride that the 4 of us sat on side by side, and then it shot us way upwards, and then dropped us! It was thrilling and we wanted more! This ride was awesome because we had a bin to just dump all our stuff in before we got on. And also there was a very minimal line!

The weather was just awesome! We were wearing shorts, in February!

After that we found a water ride in the Jurassic Park part of the park that was pretty fun. The wait was kinda long, but we saw a little lizard while we were waiting so that was neat. This ride was a boat in the water and we lucked out and didn’t get very wet. Then we were into the Harry Potter part of the park The ride lines were super long and the line for the butter beer was even wildly long so we went through this area and found a place to eat lunch.

We waited for about 20 minutes for a table in a restaurant. It was a nice place that seated us out behind it on a covered deck, looking onto a pond with a view of the roller coasters.

Soon after lunch we were all the way through the park! Whaaaa? Already?

We stopped near the entrance to figure out what was next. Look at the flowers from this amazing tree! Looks like Dr Seuss dreamt it up!

Realizing that we bought tickets for both Universal parks, and they are attached side by side, we went over to the Universal City Walk park!

I don’t even know how to describe this park! It was streets with buildings from movie themes, and a New York looking street and another that looked like San Francisco. And it was Mardi Gras! There were parades and people on stilts walking around! There was a Simpson’s area and Men in Black and even E.T. and Back to the Future!

The lines were all pretty long so we mostly just walked around and checked it all out.

There were some characters scattered around, like a guy dressed like Beetlejuice and another like Doc Brown from Back to the Future.

The one ride that didn’t have a super long wait was E.T. I just LOVE E.T. – the movie, and the stuffed animal I had as a kid. I remember I wanted the E.T. toy for Christmas once that talked. I got just the ordinary stuffed one and I loved it for years, and then my golden retriever did for many more years! I couldn’t believe there was a still an E.T. ride! That movie is getting pretty old!!

This ride had an awesome waiting line, that walked you through the dark woods, and E.T.’s teacher from his home planet appeared, and there was that orange kid’s phone toy dialing for help for E.T. in another area.

It was a crazy awesome ride! I loved it! And when we got dumped into the E.T. gift shop, I just fell in love all over again with E.T. I mean just look at this guy!

At 15″ tall, each one of these E.T. stuff toys seemed to have their own personality. I immediately wanted it so badly, and it was only $20 something dollars, but I’m a grown ass adult who doesn’t need more toys. I did have to fight the urge to take him home though, at least three times on this trip. I LOVE YOU E.T.!

We tried another ride that was more of a simulation than an actual roller coaster. It themed for the Transformers movie. We had to put on 3D glasses and then get into a car inside a building. Then the ride somehow has the movie set projected around you think you’re on a crazy ride but it isn’t all real. It was amazing! I was screaming and shouting the whole time! Loved it! It was all the good parts of a roller coaster, without the G forces banging your head anywhere!

Then we found the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit ride that Tim had ridden before. It was a super long line. Maybe an hour? At least? This roller coaster had the lockers and security too. It’s claim to fame is that you get to choose your song that you can rock out to while you ride the ride! I picked Waterloo by Abba. I was so eager for this ride, but it was immediately very very bad. My brain felt like a rock being shaken in a tumbler. Immediately my brain hurt BADLY and I forced my head to the back of the support and mostly closed my eyes and squeezed my head tight to hold my brain from leaving through my orifices. We had just seen a lady get off the ride ahead of us holding her head too. It was like an instant migraine and quite terrible. I had to go sit down after we got off while I let everyone else fetch my stuff from the lockers. I was really bummed. That was the second terrible roller coaster of the day. Was I too old for these anymore?

Before too long the sun was setting and the 15,000 steps we put on our feet were taking their toll. At some point, Liz found a bulk candy store that allowed us to sugar up and press on (I’m more and more convinced that candy is an essential vacation element).

We wandered back out of the park and over to meet our shuttle bus back to the hotel. We quickly swapped our clothes for bathing suits and hit the hot tub and pool. The pool wasn’t heated and it was quite cold! But was it ever nice on tired swollen feet after 4 flights and an amusement park to be able to soak your limbs in the hot tub and then switch to the cold water of the pool. Then, we were so beat we ordered Wendy’s through Uber Eats directly to our hotel rooms and crashed out.

Before falling asleep I read that both the Hulk and the Rock It coasters were avoided by some people because of how crazy rough and violent they are. Maybe it was just those two rides and I wasn’t just an old softie wussy pants now?

Stay tuned for my next post(s) where we have two more days in the Orlando theme parks, and then where else do you think we went!?