Another very long day, and not a lot of photos to show for it! OK, perhaps "not a lot" isn't the way most people would describe it, but there are definitely fewer than I have taken on most other longish days of the trip.

Photos: today only (sorry, no captions yet, it is late!), all days

We started the day at the other Disney water park, Typhoon Lagoon. We went around their lazy river, which went all around the circumference of the park just like the one at Blizzard Beach. I think this one might have been shorter, but I'm not sure. We then spent a fair amount of time in the wave pool, which was different from the Blizzardish wave pool we saw yesterday--whereas the one at Blizzard Beach produced medium-sized waves on a continuous basis, the one at Typhoon lagoon produced only about one wave every two minutes, and that wave was positively giant. It was fun, although we almost lost the little dry box I had around my neck which had, among other important things, our room keys in it. That would have been a bad thing. Fortunately some folks behind us found it and were nice enough to return it to us almost immediately. That's all we really did at Typhoon Lagoon; we were there for a couple of hours, then we made our way back to the hotel bus.

[More below]

We started the day by going to one of Disney World's two water parks, Blizzard Beach. Given my avoidance of things heights-related, we didn't really take advantage of the many water slides that were available there. We did go on "Teamboat Springs", which is a long, gradual slide in a raft that's big enough for about four people, and we spent about a half-hour in largish tubes on "Cross-Country Creek," a meandering river that goes all the way around the park. We didn't spend more than a few hours at the park because we didn't get there until about 11:30 or so, and we planned to leave around 3:30 due to dinner reservations. After doing the above (and spending some time in the wave pool--just like the beach, only better in my opinion), we figured we had done enough there (especially since we're planning to go to Typhoon Lagoon, the other Disney water park, tomorrow), so we left at about 2:30 to go on back to the hotel to get ready for our dinner reservations at 4:45. We left just in time, too: as we were walking out, an announcer came over the intercom and said that the National Weather Service had issued a severe thunderstorm warning for our area! It was raining quite hard by the time the bus got back to our hotel, but it never really got any more severe than that.

Photos: today only, all days

Oh, and I didn't take any photos (gasp!) at the water park, because I didn't even take my camera! We weren't planning to rent a locker, so I just took myself, my room key, some money, and a towel!

[more below]

We spent the entire day at MGM Studios, even though we hadn't expected to do so since we had already visited that park previously. However, sure enough, by the time we were done with everything, it was the end of the day, and we were both tired.

Photos: today only, all days

Oh, and before I get any further:

BEWARE: This man cuts in lines!

This man cut in front of both of us in line today, separately. He tried to cut in front of Anna in a line for fries, but she thwarted him with a feisty game of "Backpack Bumper Cars." He cut in line in front of me later when I was getting snacks before a show, this time by masquerading as if he were part of the party in front of me. I caught on to his little ruse, though, and did the only proper thing in such a situation--I took his picture.

As I've mentioned before, Anna's favorite Disney movie seems to be Beauty and the Beast, so we definitely had to go see "Beauty and the Beast--Live on Stage", which was basically a live-action 30-minute version of the movie. It was really well done, and we both enjoyed it! Besides Belle, Anna's favorite character in the movie is Mrs. Potts. Know why? If you know Anna, you'll understand. OK, ready? It's because the part of Mrs. Potts in the movie is played by Angela Lansbury, of Murder She Wrote fame. A fantastic a capella group called "Return to Zero" opened the show, and they were hilarious, as those types of groups often are. They and the show were both great, we both had a lot of fun there. :-)

[more below]

To make up for sleeping in yesterday, we got up much earlier today, and made our way to the Magic Kingdom by about 10am, and stayed there all day. Anna has decided that it is her favorite park, so we wanted to make sure we had a lot of time there to see everything she was interested in. They didn't have the Main Street Electrical Parade tonight for some reason, so I imagine we will go back at some point to catch that.

Photos: today only, all days

We saw lots and lots of attractions today, but the biggest hits were:

[more below]

We allowed ourselves to sleep in today, since we were both exhausted from yesterday, so we didn't get out to the park, Epcot, until about 1:30. We had a reservation at the Coral Reef restaurant, which was to be our "table service" meal of the day. (And, again, the free Disney dining plan we got still rocks.) Anna started with an appetizer of crab souffle and I started with a bowl of lobster soup. Mine was fantastic, but Anna didn't care for hers too much, and sent it back in favor of some braised beef, which was excellent.

Photos: today only, all days

From there, we proceeded to walk around the Future World portion of Epcot, where we hadn't really spent much time so far. We both enjoyed the "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" show, which is much more impressive than the corny name would suggest.

[more below]

We started today by getting up relatively early and heading over to Animal Kingdom, a newish theme park that neither Anna nor I had been to before. I don't think it was even here when I've been in the past! Our first stop of the day was for breakfast with Donald Duck at "Donald's Breakfastosaurus". That was a buffet-style breakfast with all kinds of good stuff, and before long, Pluto, then Goofy, then Donald(!), and then Mickey came around to our tables to play with us! We met another nice couple from Jacksonville, FL, so we took pictures for them as well (that's who those folks are if you see them in the photo stream).

Photos: today only, all days

In that park, I rode a smallish roller-coaster named Primeval Whirl, which was OK because it didn't have a lot of drops. I don't like drops. We also went on the "Kilomanjaro Safaris" where you actually get in a truck driven by a guide through some beautiful animal sanctuaries. This one was awesome! Anna wanted to go on Expedition Everest, but that one closed down because it was having "technical issues". I'm sorry she didn't get to ride it, because there was no way I was going to get on it myself (reference earlier commentary regarding "drops"). Aside from Kilomanjaro Safaris, another of our favorites was "Dinosaur!", which was a bumpy, scary ride through the dark; it was great! :-D

[more below]

Anna had planned for us to get up this morning and leave by 7:30am; however, our experience yesterday with the light crowds convinced her it would be OK for us to sleep in a bit. We got going at about 10am, and headed for the Magic Kingdom using the fabulous Disney buses.

Photos: today only, all days

While we were on the way, an amazing thing happend: we saw the Space Shuttle Atlantis take off! We were just arriving, and saw a rocket streaking up into the sky in the distance; we watched it go up as it blasted off into space! All of us on the bus had goose bumps from watching it go up. Even though it was at a distance, seeing that made the whole trip worth it, even without all of the Disney fun!

[more below]

I booked (and paid for!) a Disney vacation for Anna for her birthday, back in May. Why? Because she's never been, and that issue needed to be addressed. :-) Today, we made the trip to Orlando. The day started too early for my taste (7am), but we really packed it in.

Before I get too far, photos are available here.

We flew Southwest, which was awesome; we'll definitely do that again. The staff was super-friendly, and, since we got there so early, WE GOT TO SIT IN THE EXIT ROW. Since I'm (apparently) quite tall, most airline seats are not (how do you say it) "comfortable," but these rocked.

The entire experience of geting from the airport to the hotel was smooth; we went downstairs in the terminal to a desk, where we were directed to a bus, which drove us to our hotel. We made special reservations for our bags, so we didn't even have to pick those up--they just showed up in our hotel room later!

[more below]

I recently decided that the reason I don't like any of the laptop bags I've ever tried to use is because they don't have enough pockets. Cables, adpaters, and everything else ends up in a big wad at the bottom of my bag, which drives me up the wall.

I made one that seemed to fit my somewhat picky specifications, and published a guide on how I made it. Hopefully it will come in handy to someone else out there who's as finicky about their bag as I am. (I hope they like Velcro.)

So, Anna and I flew down to Austin, Texas to attend a wedding between her friend Terese and Emily's brother, Derek. Our flight left at the unGODly hour of 7:00am yesterday, meaning that we had to get up at about 4:30 to get to the airport in plenty -o- time to make everyone happy. So, we made the trip on about an hour of sleep each. (Note for those not paying attention: that's not enough. I make no promises that I won't slit your throat for any reason, legitimate or contrived, on that little sleep.)

Flying is fun now, thanks to a combination of the following:

• a laptop (mine)
• a headphone jack on the above
• a Y-splitter for said headphone jack, allowing two sets of headphones to be used simultaneously
• two sets of noise-canceling headphones
• tv shows downloaded off of various BitTorrent sites
• a Madagascan Giant Hissing Cockroach (note: you can buy them at that site)

Just kidding about that last one.  (More below!)