Orlando - aka liquid sunshine

My fam (mom, dad, bro, nephew & audrey) and I spent all last week in Orlando. My parents have a timeshare there and needed to use that facility this year instead of trading in the points, so off we went. We spent 3 days at theme parks, 1 day at a water park, 2 days at the hotel and 2 days traveling. It took just as much time to get to Orlando as it does to get to Hawaii. Hmmm...for me I think I'd rather go to Hawaii, but Orlando was fun.

Mgm/Hollywood Studios: Lots of "shows" to go to - more so than rides. Audrey loved the 15-min Playhouse disney show and we both loved the Toy Story ride. Tower of terror and the Arrowsmith rollercoaster were highlights. It rained that afternoon, but we didn't get too wet.

Animal Kingdom: Bad parenting moment for me - I took Audrey on the Dinosaur ride and probably scarred her for life. She's not a fan of the dark or of loud noises and the bumpy ride and scary dinosaurs had her literally shaking. Dumb, dumb dumb. Poor thing. She did get to meet several characters and the parade was probably her highlight of the whole trip. The look on her face as she saw the characters was priceless. Near the end of the day we got soaked in a torrential downpour. All makeup was washed off, clothes were soaked and I could ring out my hair. The super chipper employee chick informed me of the wonderful phrase "liquid sunshine." Lovely.

Magic Kingdom: Most of the Disneyland rides and I tried to keep it simple for Audrey. She screamed for the first few minutes in Small world because it was dark. She also cried in Winnie the pooh because it was dark and she thought there might be dinosaurs. We were all very efficient with our fast passes and made it to everything we wanted. Lots and lots of brittish, australian, spanish and other european accents - definitely outnumbered the americans. Best day for a rain shower - only 5 minutes!

Auquatica (brand new waterpark): Audrey was a total chicken and kept to the slowest baby slides. She had a great time in the kiddie pool area and made a friend with another 4 yr old that had the same swim suit. I noticed that middle-aged guys have way too much fun spraying everyone in the kiddie pool area. Kind of creeeeeeppppyyyyy.

Miscellaneous tidbits: Audrey and I still don't sleep well in the same room - we're both too light of sleepers even with her white noise machine! I almost ran into someone with my car - definitely need to check the blind spot first before turning. My brother saw a gator and a nasty snake on the golf coarse - something is just wrong with that. Vacations always go by too fast!