Episode #45
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Orlando and More :
- – this episode is all Orlando and Florida from my vacation last week.
- – no detailed show notes (except for rant and shameless plugs); just me discussing everything I did there;
- News – Story 1: Disney World
- News – Story 2: Universal Studios
- News – Story 3: Kennedy Space Center and Daytona Beach
- RANT: Restricting access to Hogwarts Express train, requires park-to-park pass upgrade
- SHAMELESS PLUG: World Showcase at Epcot
- Ending
- Email Feedback
– my thoughts on having a 6 day park hopper pass to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.
– my thoughts on having 2 days to visit the Universal Studios and Islands Of Adventure theme parks.
– my thoughts on my day visit to Kennedy Space Center and a spending a couple of hours at Daytona Beach.
– we purchased our Disney and Universal passes from our timeshare ticketing with some good discounts; the Universal Studios passes we got were 2 day, 2 park with a free 3 day, which we didn’t use; we did not get the park hopper option, which limited us to spending one day per park; we didn’t find out how limited this was when we went to ride the Hogwarts Express train, which goes between the Hogsmeade (at Islands of Adventure) and Diagon Alley (at Universal Studios) Harry Potter lands, we couldn’t board the train; to upgrade our tickets to park hopper was $44 per ticket; that would have been almost $170 total for all of us to ride the train; to limit a feature like this to only those tickets with park hopper option is just plain greedy; the Harry Potter fans were disappointed, but understood the cost; it would have been nice to have been told this before we purchased to see if there was a cheaper option to upgrade the passes.
– this was my third time visiting Epcot; it’s my favorite park of the 4 Disney World theme parks; it’s separated into two parts: Future World and World Showcase; Future World has rides like Test Track, Soarin’, Mission:Space, Finding Nemo and Universe of Energy; World Showcase contains small versions of countries called pavilions like Mexico, Norway, Italy, China, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada; I love walking around and seeing how well cultured each pavilion is setup; the employees that work in each pavilion do 1 year internships and are native from each country they represent; so when you visit Japan pavilion, the employees are from Japan; and each pavilion serves various alcoholic drinks from each country; so I had 6 drinks this visit, enjoying some great tequila, limoncello, sake and beer; I can’t wait to go back again, even if it is 5 years between visits; although I would love it to be much sooner.
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I always ride Expedition Everest back-to-back-to-back. I usually get to the ride first thing when the park opens and can ride at least three times before the line gets too crazy.
My sister and I attempted the “Beers Around the World” tour of Epcot, but never made it all the way. Still on my bucket list.
The Hogwarts train is a brilliant way to make people pay for the Park Hopper, as historically most people never do this. Personally, I’ve never found enough at the Universal parks to hold my attention for two full days during the slow season, so I’d probably just get the park hopper for one day.
Glad you had a great time!
Yeah, I wish I would have known that before. I even did research before on multiple sites, and I didn’t see anything that eluded to Hogwarts Express needing park hopper.
I’m still bummed that I missed eating at L’ Originale Alfredo di Roma Ristorante back in 2007 (I missed it by more than 3 months)
We were lucky enough to go to the Magic Kingdom last year as I was in Orlando for work. Only at the park for a day which wasn’t long enough at all.
One day I’d love to go back and spend more time there and at the other parks.
One day at the park is not enough time. Hope you can go back with the young one to experience it longer.