After the video, I had to wait a little while for the boat to come back. The fort is actually located on the other side of the river, so we had to take a boat across. The boat driver also told us about the fort, pretty much just repeating what the video had already said. The trip across only took a couple of minutes, and then we had 30 minutes to explore the site before the boat left to return to the other side.
After I had explored the site I got back on the boat. We went back across the river and I got in my car to drive to my next site: Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. This is located in St. Augustine, and is also known as the St. Augustine Fort. The same fort that Fort Mantanzas was built to protect. The parking lot for the fort is tiny and set in the middle of downtown, so I’m sure not all of the cars parked there are for the fort. I circled for a while before I finally found a parking lot a couple of blocks away and walked back to the fort.
Once I got my rental car I drove to Tampa airport so I could turn in my rental car and then pick up the suburban for the team. That took a while and then I had to drive to the hotel the team was staying at for the night. All in all, it was a good day and I marked off some more national parks off my list.
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We are halfway through busy season. Usually I would have to go to the office today, but Greg is letting the Oldcastle team have a free weekend. We all decided to take our free weekend in Florida. Austin is going to visit his cousin and Danielle is going to visit Margaret. I wanted to do tourist stuff, so I’m on my own. I got up at 4am so I could leave my house by 4:30 am in order to make my flight at 7:15am. There were no delays, so the 2 hour flight was easy. I could have worked on the flight, but I decided to watch The Crimes of Grindewald instead. It is set in the Harry Potter world, but it was very different. When I landed I got my bag and my rental car, and drove to Disney Magic Kingdom in Orlando. Disney has several parks in Orlando and I haven’t been since I was little, so I googled which park is the best. The response was if you have one day to be at the parks, the best one to go to is Magic Kingdom. Greg also just came back from taking his kids to Disney and he said Magic Kingdom was the one to go to. He also said to stay for the fireworks show because it is amazing. He also said to download the Disney app because you have to use the app in order to get the fast passes. I got to the park with no problems and parked in the Scar parking lot. Their parking lots are very organized. Parking in the back at 6 Flags at home means a long walk to the park. Parking at Disney means just walking to the end of the aisle. At the end is a tram that drives you to the train station. At the train station, you have the option to take the train to Magic Kingdom or one of the other parks. There is also an option to go to the parks by boat. I was ready to ride rides, so I took the train directly to Magic Kingdom. When I got there, the lines weren’t that bad. And since I didn’t have a bag (everything was in my pockets), I was able to go through the short “no bags” line. And then I was in the park.
I was the last cart in a line of 6, but it was worth it. The ride didn’t got upside down, but it did shoot us down the track at a fast speed. Since it was “space,” all I could see whizzing past me were flashes of light. The ride took some fast turns as we were going. And then it was over. It was maybe a 2 minute ride that I stood in line over an hour for.
While I was in line at the mansion, I got a notification from my app that the Winnie the Pooh ride was temporarily closed for maintenance. I wasn’t too upset, since I only got a fast pass because it was available. But the app offered me my choice of several different locations to have a replacement fast pass. So I looked at the options and chose the ride that I wanted that had the longest time, which was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. So I went there next, breezing past the line and getting on the ride immediately. It was another fun roller coast. It also didn’t go upside down, but it took us on sharp turns up and around the mountain. I’m really glad I didn’t have to wait an hour and a half in line for it.
I was really impressed with the activities available to keep the kids in line entertained at Winnie the Pooh. They had screens where you could draw pictures in honey. There were also pages from the Winnie the Pooh story on the walls that you could read. There were no screaming kids in line because they were kept entertained. All amusement parks need to start doing this, it makes for a much nicer experience!
I did remember Peter Pan, so I wanted to do Peter Pan’s Flight. There was no fast pass for this ride, so I had to stand in line with everyone else. The wait was only supposed to be 70 minutes, but it turned into over 2 hours. About 40 minutes in, they made an announcement that they were experiencing technical difficulties that were causing delays but that the ride was still in operation. By that point, I had been waiting so long that I had to see it through. I felt like I was close to getting on the ride, and the line was still moving, but it was moving very slowly.
Afterward, I headed for the front of the park. On the way there were several souvenir shops. I didn’t buy anything when I came in because I didn’t want to have to carry it around the park, so I stopped to buy souvenirs for my family. I spent a lot of time debating what to get them because everything was so expensive! Usually I just do shot glasses, but the selection wasn’t good. None of them even said Disney. I finally settled on getting them all hats. With my purchases, it was finally time to leave. I took the train back to the parking lot area. I then had to wait a while for the Scar tram, but at least there wasn’t a long line to get out of the park. Especially since I still had to drive an hour and a half to get to Titusville. I didn’t get there until almost midnight, and I checked in and crashed for the night.
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June 2022
AuthorThese are details from my adventures around the world. |