Attractions and other places we visit.
Finally, we spent a day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom park, which is part theme park, part zoo.
The central Tree of Life:
Avatar land:
Africa:
Jenn likes collecting the pressed pennies:
African safari:
Lunch:
Train:
Snack:
Tortoise:
The Tree of Life; if you look closely, it’s covered with animal sculptures:
The backside of water:
One day was enough to see everything we were interested in at this park. Worth a visit, but probably not a re-visit.
We also visited Hollywood Studios in Disney World a couple of times.
Entrance:
Main street:
Us in front of the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge:
Smugglers Run ride:
Drinks and snacks at Oga’s Cantina:
Uh oh:
Lunch:
Rise of the Resistance ride:
Muppets:
Runaway Railway:
Hollywood Tower of Terror:
Video:
Mickey ice cream:
Toy Story Mania:
Alien Swirling Saucers:
We went to the Brown Derby restaurant for dinner:
Neon:
Another day:
Back to our favorite part, Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge:
Transition from Galaxy’s Edge:
… to freeway tunnel:
We had dinner at the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater restaurant:
Neon:
The Fantasmic! show, better than in Disneyland as they have actual seating:
More neon:
We visited Epcot within Disney World a couple of times.
Epcot’s Spaceship Earth globe:
We dropped off our backpacks at a locker, and marveled at the advanced futuristic technology nearby:
Spaceship Earth:
A customized video created at the end of the ride.
Topiary:
Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind ride:
Monorail:
Epcot is arranged in several sections called pavilions, around a central lake. We first visited the Mexico Pavilion:
Frozen ride:
United Kingdom Pavilion:
Fish & chips for lunch:
France Pavilion:
Morocco Pavilion:
Japan Pavilion:
USA Pavilion:
Germany Pavilion:
We had dinner at the Coral Reef Restaurant:
Seas exhibits:
Mission: Space ride:
During our second visit the Flower and Garden Food Festival was underway, so we sampled several of the options:
Journey of Water:
The second day, we had dinner at the Space 220 Restaurant, which simulates a restaurant on a space elevator 220 miles above the Earth:
Spaceship Earth globe:
We did the Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind ride again:
Monorail:
We spent eight days at the four Walt Disney World theme parks. We took over 3,000 photos during that time… so a bit of a challenge to filter them down to a reasonable number for the blog. (Where “reasonable” is rather subjective.)
I’m doing a separate post for each park, starting with Magic Kingdom.
Us in front of the railway station:
Main Street USA:
Cinderella’s Castle:
Adventureland:
Pirates of the Caribbean:
Something we don’t see in California’s Disneyland: alligators and snakes:
It’s a small world:
The line was inside, vs outside in Disneyland:
New Zealand representation:
Teacups:
The new Tron lightcycle ride:
A video:
Speedway:
Carousel of Progress:
Train:
Liberty Belle Riverboat:
Haunted Mansion:
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad:
The Dapper Dans:
Haunted Mansion:
Parade:
Skipper Canteen restaurant:
Back to the campground:
Boat from campground:
Monorail:
Train station:
Jungle Cruise:
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train:
A video:
Rain:
Tomorrowland:
Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor:
Peoplemover:
Space Mountain:
Peter Pan’s Flight:
Journey of the Little Mermaid:
Gaston’s Tavern:
Monorail:
Ferry boat:
Parade:
We’ve previously done a few small sailing cruises, with about six guests. This time we did a larger one, “Island ‘Ting with Sebago Watersports”.
We wanted to do a sailing catamaran excursion. This one had snorkeling, kayaking, and a couple of meals and drinks:
A small breakfast:
Dolphin:
Pelican:
Main sail:
Ladder:
Sitting up front:
Catamaran:
People sitting up front:
We wanted to do a sailing excursion, but the wind wasn’t conducive to sailing, so they motored all of the way, with a little token lazy sailing:
Underwater pics from the snorkeling stop; these photos from the 360 camera, which didn’t do a great job:
These photos from my iPhone, which did a better job:
A small lunch; they really didn’t have enough food:
Ladder to kayaks:
They had enough kayaks for half of the people, so they split everyone up into two groups. We were in the second group, 45 minutes later. But we were right about the weight limit for the two-person kayaks, and moments after we got in, it capsized, dumping us in the water. So we bailed on that part of the experience. Disappointing. (It wasn’t just us, either; another couple also capsized when getting out.)
Portuguese Man of War jellyfish (GIF):
The sister boat of ours at least bothered to raise the main sail:
Back at the dock:
Overall, a disappointing experience. We’ll probably stick with smaller tours in the future.
We visited Dry Tortugas National Park, one of the most difficult national parks to get to, requiring a ferry, seaplane, or private boat to reach it.
An interactive map:
We opted for the seaplane, since it was much faster than the ferry, and we’d never been in one before. It was a great experience.
The seaplane is offered by Key West Seaplane Charters, flying out of Key West International Airport (a rather small airport).
An info sheet:
Our seaplane:
Jenn got to ride up front, since she said it was her birthday when they asked if anyone was celebrating (we did go on her birthday in February):
Just 10 passengers:
Flying fairly low over the keys:
Sunken ship:
Approaching Dry Tortugas:
A close pass by a nice catamaran when preparing to land; sailing here on your own boat would be amazing:
Our pilot, who flies in Alaska in summer, and the Keys in winter:
Landing on water:
Handing gear to shore:
Us in front of the plane:
The other seaplane and the fort:
Fort Jefferson, the largest brick structure in the Americas, started in 1846, but never finished:
Old dock and the beach where we left our stuff:
Moat:
Cannonball furnace, where they heated cannonballs to slice through wooden ships like butter, and set them on fire:
Mariners Beware! I was wearing a Seattle Mariners shirt, so found that sign amusing:
Birds; Dry Tortugas is an important habitat for some seabirds. the adjacent Bush Key was closed for nesting season:
Pelicans:
The ferry arriving. Another nice thing about the full-day seaplane option was that we got to enjoy exploring the island for a couple of hours before most people arrived; just the 20 people from the two seaplanes, and a few overnight campers:
Once the ferry arrived, we headed back to the beach where we had left our stuff:
A hermit crab:
Bricks on the beach:
We went for a swim. Here’s the fort from the water:
We brought our snorkel gear, but the water was too murky to see much at the time.
Another pelican watching us:
We went back into the fort to kill some time:
Then back to the seaplane for the return journey:
Departing Dry Tortugas:
A private island:
Key West and Fort Zachary Taylor:
The “Southernmost” Point:
Marina:
Disembarking our seaplane:
A fun bucket-list experience.
While checking out Key West, Florida, we also visited Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park.
I previously posted some pictures of the beach part of the park, but this post is about the historic fort.
A sign at the start of the path to the fort:
Cannon:
Blacksmith:
The fort:
The courtyard inside the fort had a bunch of tents from re-enactors:
Re-enactors with cannons:
An old sail ship, flying a pirate flag and firing cannons, and the re-enactors:
Another ship:
They were probably going to re-enact a sea battle, but we didn’t hang around for that.
A fun array of cannons:
Another fascinating historic fort.
In Key West we visited the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center, with fascinating information about the waters around the keys:
We did a quick visit to Key West, Florida.
Lots of golf carts on the roads:
And tour trams:
And bikes:
Also lots of free-range chickens (mostly roosters):
We visited the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center and Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, which will be featured in subsequent blog posts. But we also stopped by the beach in the state park for lunch, which I’ll include here.
This beach is one of the southernmost points in the continental US. Quite a nice and popular beach, too:
Direction sign on the beach:
We grabbed some lunch at the cafe on the beach:
Another rooster:
We had considered visiting the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum and other touristy places, but had enough of walking around, so drove by them instead.
Houses with nice Caribbean paint jobs:
The aforementioned Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, with a bit of a line outside:
Why did the chickens cross the road? No, really, why?
The famous Southernmost point buoy, which as mentioned isn’t actually southernmost, but is a popular spot for selfies, with a long line of people waiting their turn:
Really not our kind of town; way too crowded.
We stopped by Robert is Here, a longstanding fruit stand in Homestead, Florida:
We tried several interesting fruits we hadn’t encountered before:
An interesting way to package pineapples:
Chickens:
Trying some of the fruit:
Some strange tastes, but we liked most of them.
