Today we headed to Epcot at Disney World. We had a hard time deciding which Disney park to go to. Since we were only going to Disney one day we knew we wouldn't have time to do more than one park. So we chose Epcot. It was a great time...here's some pics!

Mission: Space ride...very cool!

From inside the Nemo ride (same for picture below).

Epcot doesn't really have many rides. In fact, Jim and I really like the thrill type rides more than anything and we both agreed that we probably wouldn't spend the money to go back to Disney unless we were taking kids there. Anyways, there were a few more rides and then the rest of Epcot was "visiting" different countries. It was kinda neat and they really did well making the whole area like the country (they had restaurants, shops, employees dressed like/speaking the languages, etc.) So here's our pics from around the world!

China:

The ceiling in the China building. Very cool!


France:


























Great Britain:
















































He was headed to the Ministry of Magic (my Harry Potter peeps will know what I'm talking about) :)



Canada:
(Yes they sold hockey jerseys in "Canada". So cool. But all they had were the Canadian teams (Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto & Edmonton)


















































Germany:




























Morocco:




























America:






















Italy:


























Japan:


























Mexico:



























Norway:

We took the monorail over to the entrance for Magic Kingdom because we just had to see the famous castle.

We haven't picked out the pictures that the Disney people took yet, so those will have to wait...
After Disney we came back to the hotel and got around for dinner. We went to Pat O'Brien's which has New Orleans type foods...but the real reason we wanted to go there was because they have a piano bar. We used to go to a piano bar at The Bob/Bobarino's in Grand Rapids and it was awesome. We loved it. So we went there tonight. Food was ok, but the entertainment was great. They had two pianos and the guy nearest us was nothing short of amazing. I wish I had a fraction of his talent.























































Yes Kala that IS a drink (and yes it's alcoholic) in front of me. Jim and I both had a couple drinks. lol

Jim's conference starts tomorrow so I have mornings and some early afternoons to myself. YAY! Time for me to work on my tan. :)
Until then...

Whew. What a great day! :)

Whew. Today was a great day! We had a ton of fun! We started the day off with breakfast. The hotel has a continental breakfast (not free) but they also had a breakfast buffet at Islands Restaurant in the hotel...since the continental breakfast wasn't free, we went for the buffet. Mmmmm YUMMY! It reminded us a lot of when we were in Hawaii because we had a buffet everyday and the food was very similar. Anyways, here's a picture from breakfast.

From there we headed to Universal Studios for the day. Here's some pictures from around our hotel on the walk to the water taxi to get over to Universal.

(Some weird flower that I thought was neat)

Our biggest complaint when we went to Hawaii was that we didn't have enough pictures of us together...so we made sure to try and get lots of pics of us together (of course at Universal and Disney they have those people around that will take the pictures for you but you have to pay for them...but we decided we would bite the bullet and just get them). Anyways, the big Universal globe (from the pictures yesterday) is right before the entrance into Universal so we had our picture taken there. Unfortunately they're actual pictures so I can't scan them in, but here's a picture of the picture. lol

Ok, so from there we got to the entrance to Universal. Pretty cool!

So as we were getting ready to go into the park, guess who comes walking out...Mr. Homer Simpson himself (Jim is a big Simpson's fan. LOL). So Jim waited in line to get his picture taken with him.

While walking through the park we saw lots of peeps...Scooby Doo, Madagascar, Curious George and the Man with the Yellow Hat (Jim says that's somebody's name???), Woody Woodpecker, the rest of the Simpson family (Marge, Bart & Lisa), some pharaohs or something from The Mummy and that's probably about it (until you read below).

Universal is pretty cool. It's all set up to look like you're walking downtown in a city. Our first ride was...guess...The Simpsons Ride. LOL! It was really cool!

After that we went on a few more rides (Men In Black, Jaws, Twister, Disaster, etc). The Mummy was the BEST ride. It was great.

Jim just HAD to have his picture by the train and the DeLorean from Back to the Future II.

We ate lunch at some Irish restaurant and then went to Shrek 4D which was really cool. Afterwards we had our picture taken with Donkey and Shrek. No idea why we wanted our picture with them, but Donkey was hillllllarious. Too funny. Here are pictures of those pictures. LOL

We left Universal and went back to the hotel to take a swim in the humongous pool. Here's a pic from looking out our hotel room window. We have a garden view room. The shelter on the left side is where the luau is held on Tuesdays and Sundays! Sweet!

We went to Emeril's restaurant for dinner. We both got the same thing...a 14 oz. NY Strip Steak with a homemade Italian sausage, twice baked potato, asparaus, fried onion and an escargot brandelaise. We both got the escargot brandelaise (the sauce) on the side. We weren't too sure about escargot (I mean seriously...snails???) The steak was to die for. Honestly, best steak I've ever had. The asparagus, great. Fried onions, holy cow good. And escargot? GOOD! I can't believe I tried it. Yes ME! Who a few years ago wouldn't eat anything that was remotely out of the box...Yes, I ate escargot tonight. Although as I was eating it I kept thinking...awwww my poor snails in my fishtank...that's what I'm eating. LOL For dessert we got a carmelized white chocolate toffee crunch cheesecake with hazelnut shortbread and butterscotch sauce. Again, YUM! The actual cheesecake was better than The Cheesecake Factory...the extra tastes of the cheesecake (toffee, white choc, etc.) wasn't as good. But overall, definitely right there with Cheesecake Factory. We might have to eat beans and rice for the rest of the time we're gone, but it was worth it!!! :)

Tomorrow we're headed to Epcot Center. One of the best things about staying on the Universal Resort was that we had an Express Pass...just show our room ticket at the ride entrance and we get to go to the front of the line! So one ride's wait was like 30 min...we were on in 2. It was SWEET! But we won't have that at Epcot since that's at Disney...stupid lines. Here's hoping it's not a busy day. hahahaha!!

Anyways, until tomorrow...

We're here!

We made it to Orlando! Here's some pics from today!

Here we are before heading to the airport! All ready to go! Although I think Jim is STILL thinking to himself "Why in the WORLD does Michelle need to take SIX pairs of flip-flops?" hahaha! I guarantee I'll wear them all too. :)

When we landed in Orlando, we rented a car to make the drive to the ocean. Jim hadn't seen the Atlantic before, so we went to Cocoa Beach. On the way there we had to go over this bridge and seriously...it looks like you're just going to fall off the road!

We had to pass by Cape Caneveral to get to Cocoa Beach and being that it was Sunday, some cruise ships were docked! They take off at 4 on Sundays, but we missed when they left.

We ate lunch by the ocean and then went swimming. The waves were coming in good and pummeled us a few times! It was bunches of fun! Here's a pic after we were done swimming too.

After we left the beach we finally made it to the hotel. This hotel is GORGEOUS (Loew's Royal Pacific Hotel). Here are some palms lining the road coming into Universal Resort--man I just love palm trees. :)

We returned the rental car and then freshened up before going to get dinner. We went to City Walk which is a part of the Universal Resort that has all sorts of restaurants, shopping, clubs, etc. It's really cool! We took a water taxi over to it. This was a part of the hotel where we got on the water taxi...notice the sand, my rear will be parked in that getting a tan this week :)

We ate at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. It was pretty yummy!

After that we walked around City Walk..did some shopping...took some pics.

(This one's for you, Raubin!)

Well I'm off to bed now. We're headed to Universal Studios tomorrow. I'll try to get some better pics of CityWalk (during the day this time)!