Miami and Orlando

Jordan here writing part 2 of our vacation.

On day 3 we drove back to Miami. Miami reminds me of Recife, Brazil where I served my mission. It is a large, densely populated city on a coast with a hot and humid climate. The freeways are full of traffic, the skies were cloudy (as they usually are in Recife), and tall buildings line the horizon. The similarities end there, though, as I would say the people in Miami aren't as nice. First on our agenda was visiting the famous South Beach. Since I’m not a beach connoisseur, I couldn’t understand what sets it apart from other beaches, but the sand felt nice and the water was warm (according to Melyn, since I didn’t get in the water). Below is a picture where, if you look very, very closely, Melyn is off in the distance wading in the ocean.

We were only able to spend a few hours at the beach that day before it got dark, so we planned to return in the morning. Rain foiled our plans. The next morning was a total downpour. So we had breakfast, waited for the rain to die down, then decided to just go to the next item on our schedule, a historic mansion called the Villa Vizcaya.

This was definitely my favorite thing to see in Miami. The architecture was strange and amazing. This mansion was built around 1914 by a wealthy industrialist named James Deering. Though it was built a hundred years ago in Miami, its architecture resembles the Italian renaissance period. We couldn’t take pictures of the inside, so I suggest you google it to learn more about it. We did take many pictures of the outside and its gardens.

Getting to Orlando from Miami was a nightmare come true. We got stuck on Miami’s freeways and were forced to go in the wrong direction for what seemed like 8 miles. Thus, we were late getting to the airport and were frantic to make our flight. After all the stress of trying to get there on time, we missed our flight. We tried to check our bag around 40 minutes before take-off and American Airlines wouldn’t accept it. Pretty lame considering I know other airlines will check a bag up to half an hour before the scheduled departure (though a fee is sometimes charged). American Airlines put us on standby for the next flight, telling us our chances were “very good” for getting on. Well, two hours later we found that this flight was completely booked and they were telling us our chances weren’t good at all. Along with the extreme rudeness of the AA employees, this is one company we definitely won’t be flying with again. As luck would have it, an arriving international flight was delayed which freed some seats for us. I feel bad for the people who missed their connecting to Orlando, but it honestly was a relief to not have to be bumped to another flight again. Amazingly, AA didn’t lose our luggage on the way to Orlando and we were thankful for that. The picture below shows what Melyn got in her fortune cookies that she got from the Chinese restaurant while waiting at the airport. Both fortunes were very true.

Orlando

Though I’ve been to Orlando many times before, this leg of our trip was much more enjoyable than the days spent in Miami. Our hotel was much, much nicer (for about the same price too), we got to spend a whole day in the happiest place on Earth, and we just relaxed.

Our hotel was kind of like a bunch of condos situated on several golf courses. It had a large pool very close to our room, a hot tub with a waterfall, and complimentary bike rentals. Plus frogs came out at night, which excited Melyn very much (frogs are her favorite animal).

We woke up the next morning rested for our long day to spend at Disneyworld. We arrived at Hollywood Studios at 8:30 AM ready to take the place by storm. I had never been to Disneyworld in the summer (when my family goes, it’s always in November), so it was interesting to see how the summer crowds would be. The place definitely felt busier than in the winter; though I don’t think we waited more than 30 minutes for any ride (Fast Pass helped us avoid the really long lines). The newest ride there was the remodeled Star Tours ride. My Star Wars-obsessed nephews are going to go crazy over this one when they visit in the Fall; it’s just like the old one except is has an all-new 3D movie. All I can say is get prepared to see some eye-popping Star Wars action.

We had lots of fun with the Toy Story ride, screamed our lungs out on the Rockin’ Roller coaster, and Melyn loved the “princess” attractions they had there (she will devote a whole post to this).

A little past noon we made our trek to the Magic Kingdom. We knew from the forecast that the weather was going to turn rainy, so we hoped to get a lot done before the rain fell. Unfortunately, the downpour soon arrived. The streets instantly cleared of people. Crowds were huddled inside stores and under balconies. We had planned ahead an brought an umbrella, but there were still large puddles we had to walk through. The biggest downside to the storm was that they temporarily closed Splash mountain and Thunder mountain, which altered our plans. We had a fast pass for Space mountain, but that wasn’t available for a few more hours. So we spent some time going on rides we wouldn’t usually go on, like the carousel. We visited the Mike’s Laugh House from Monsters Inc. and LOVED it. We honestly laughed so hard. We highly recommend it to our nephews if they haven’t seen it already.  We also went to PhilharMagic, an awesome Disney musical show.  The rain eventually slowed to a slight drizzle and we were able to finish riding all the rides we had planned on.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but it was POURING rain - the hardest we have ever seen it rain.  We were some of the only people wandering the streets of DisneyWorld in the downpour.  This was from in line at the Haunted Mansion looking out.

That night we slept forever considering the busy day previously, and the next morning we spent some time riding bikes around the hotel property. We got quite a work out from that, which was needed after all the delicious food we had been eating.

We then made our uneventful last flight home.  It was a great vacation and we had a blast!