Orlando Report--Days 1 & 2

(Blogging world, please listen in, but this "report" is written with our kids in mind!)

When I arrived, I joined Dad at the hotel where his company was holding their conference. It's called the Boardwalk Hotel and it's one of Disney's properties.


This is the view from the balcony of our room. See the sidewalk made of boards? In the early 1900's, cities on the ocean built "boardwalk" areas with hotels, restaurants, roller coasters and other rides, arcade games, and entertainments of all sorts. In those days, going on vacation to the shore was popular, and going to the Boardwalk in Ocean City, Garden City or Atlantic City was like going to Disney World today!


I loved this beautiful chandelier that was in the lobby of our hotel. It looks as if it's from an old-fashioned carousel, one of the rides that would have been found along the boardwalk.

The first night I arrived, we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom and drove around in a safari bus to see giraffe, lions, birds, gazelles, crocodiles and elephants. We were most impressed with the hippos--they were enormous and scary-looking! The crocodiles were all sleeping in the sun, Bantam8--no worries there.

We had wonderful appetizers outdoors while a caricature artist did Daddy's picture--and then he made me have mine done too. (A caricature is a cartoon drawing that exaggerates facial features. You know the one in Dad's office of him with the pens? They are pretty funny--you guys will love them!) Then our whole group had dinner at one of the restaurants there. Everyone kept telling me what a sharp guy and wonderful speaker they thought your Dad was!

The next day, Dad's conference finished up, we had lunch on the Boardwalk, and then we took a boat ride. The next picture is of a "sunken pirate ship" at one of the docks where the boat stops.


We couldn't believe how much property Disney owns, and most of it is connected by water, so you can get on a boat at the Boardwalk and get off at Epcot, or MGM Studios...which is what we did.

MGM is a theme park all about the movies made by MGM, which Disney bought out. The Narnia movie was made by this arm of the Disney empire. Here is the actual sleigh used by the White Witch in the movie. Blondechick, does it remind you of the one you helped push as a Cruelie in our show?













We went on a really great Rock'N'Rollercoaster inside this building! It was all dark with flashing lights, and we went upside down lots of times. I thought Bantam11 would like this giant guitar.



We watched a show with scenes from Beauty and the Beast; don't you girls love the hoop skirts in this photo?



We saw another show featuring stunts performed in Raiders of the Lost Ark.


Pretty cool, huh? Wish you all could have seen it!







The last show of the night was in the dark so it was hard to get good pictures. There was a moat of water in front of the stage, and at times there were boats on it with actors in them. At times they projected scenes from Fantasia and other Disney movies on a screen of mist--that was pretty cool. They also used colored lights with jets of water to make a light show, and in the finale, they poured some kind of flammable liquid on the water and lit it on fire! There were fireworks too. Can you see Mickey Mouse in this picture?









More soon, I hope, now that we finally got a high-speed connection at the place we're staying.

We miss you all so much. And yet, it's been so nice for me and Daddy to just be alone together. It sounds like you all are having fun while we're gone too. Bless you all, dears!