Disney is Surprisingly Educational, by Sam

You'd think amusement parks are all about the fun, but a place like Disney sneaks in the learning, too.

I visited the Hall of Presidents, and I said the Pledge of Allegiance with George Washington.

I think he chose me because of the Montreal Canadiens cap. And I think the little fart is trying to steal my thunder.

We learned about greenhouses and weird plants they used to get more veggies out of them, like tomato trees that produce more than 600 tomatos.

Disney. Inventing ways to feed the hungry and tired. Maybe they'll consider sharing this with the developing world.

I learned which countries invented what...desserts.

Japan invented kaki gori - flavoured shaved ice.

France invented pastries. Altogether now... "Thank you, France!"

China invented red bean and strawberry ice cream. Not a combo Canadians  are likely to come up with.

This  is Miyuki, a Japanese candy artist who made amazing lollipops out of hot sugar.  How can you not love a country where  this is a job?

I visited Tom Sawyer Island, which of course just brought to life the novel (thanks Mr Rutherford!)

You can find knowledge anywhere. Collect it and become smarter, don't just turn your back on it and ignore it.

Unless you need to shoot a gun.

Sam's Disney Favorites - revised and expanded!

Magic Kingdom. A small path around the castle gives you this great spot - and no strangers in my photo!

Splash Mountain and The Great Thunder Mountain Railway, in the Magic Kingdom, are my favorite sort of roller coasters. Splash Mountain follows the adventures of Brer Bear, Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox from the Disney movie Songs of the South. It is a roller coaster shaped like a log boat that goes through and around a mountain and we see the characters trying to catch the rabbit and put him in the pot! Brer Rabbit always escapes by outsmarting them. The song "Zipadeedoodah, Zipadeeay" plays at the end of the ride. I must have ridden it six times, and the best time was when we were in the front of the boat because we got sprayed more and we saw better!

Editmom's note: Due the the general excitement of being in Magic Kingdom, and the General Maxime who kept us moving from one high-interest Fast-Pass ride to another, there are no photos of either of these attractions. Even though we did them multiple times on multiple days.

• Some of our time in Magic Kingdom was spent eating, and I guess you can see why! Snack credits bought these for us at the Main Street Bakery. Best cinnamon roll ever.

My favorite park is Typhoon Lagoon, a water park with a huge wave pool and awesome body slides and rides. It's biggest slide is called Humunga Cowabunga. It's huge, it's fast, and it's steep! Typhoon Lagoon has Crush'n Gushers, which are like roller coaster tube slide that hold two people at a time. There is a long lazy river that brings you all around the park, so you don't have to walk far between slides. There is a kid's part called Ketchakiddiecreek where we can spray people and run around smaller slides, pools and fountains. They serve lunch at a place called Typhoon Tilly's and kids get their lunch in a bucket with a shovel so that you can play in the sand. The sand was cool and the water was hot. All around the park they play the Beach Boy's and calypso music. If you are planning to go to Disney, this is a must-see!

Editmom's note: There are no photos of the water parks since we left the camera at the hotel those days to avoid it getting lost or wet. Last time there were Photopass photographers in the water parks and we got photos that way, but this time they were no where to be seen.  

 

My favorite ride was Soarin' at Epcot, a ride that makes you feel like you are hang-gliding over California. The ride is always full and always has very long waiting lines, so you should get Fast-passes for it or go early in the morning. Or go early and get a Fast-pass, because you will want to do it again. By the afternoon the wait-time is over an hour. Who wants to wait in line an hour at Disney?

Editmom again: No Photos of Soarin' , an inside ride, or near The Land Pavillion where Soarin'  is found, in large part because the place was crawling with tourists who wouldn't move out of my photos. 

Walt Disney has some quite thrilling rides like Expedition Everest in the Animal Kingdom. Everest was scary. The ride is long, and you are inside and outside. People scream the whole time.  The wildest coaster in Disney, and I did it!

Sam and Max in front of Expedition Everest - the roller coaster is in the mountain. We took this at park closing when we were being ushered out of the park by a cast member who wouldn't let us any closer. Upside: no strangers in my photo.

My parents gave me a budget to spend on souvenirs, but I wasn't able to. They sold shirts, weird foam Mickey's and lots of toys. Many of the toys were too young for me. I did buy a little bit of legos at Downtown Disney, where they have a small store (a bigger store is being built). They had a lot of themes, but not a lot of variety in each theme. The salespeople were annoying in that store.

The gift shops maybe sell crap, but if you go you'll have an experience you'll remember for life.

Examples of Sam's idea of crap. Photos are more like Jillian's idea of stuffed animal heaven.

Trick to getting no strangers in my photos: get to where you're going really early. Like fifteen minutes before it opens. With my early risers this trick is a piece 'a cake.

Desserts et collations:



Mousse au Chocolat de Chefs de France, les portions ne sont pas pour les novices!

À Walt Disney il y a beaucoup de desserts et de collations. La plupart sont sucrés. Comme desserts nous trouvons du gâteau au chocolat, des sundaes, des gâteaux au fromage, des brownies, de la mousse au chocolat, des sorbets, etc...

Maintenant pour les collations nous pouvons aussi en trouvées de bien sucrées et nous pouvons mêmes en avoir plus.  Par exemples de bons brownies, des limonades glacées, des kaki-gori, des crèmes glacée aux ananas (Dole-whips), aux gingembre ou aux fraise et feve rouge, de bons smoothies, des pâtisseries et beaucoup plus.

Je vous joins quelques photos. Appétissant hein? Malheureusement dû à la chaleur je n'ai pas pu en rappporter avec moi pour les partager.

 Gâteau fromage Napoléon au Coral Reef Restaurant

Kaki-Gori au pavillon du Japon.

Quelques desserts du buffet à Boma, Animal Kingdom Lodge, incluant les Zebra Dome cookies.

Cocoa Beach!

After a great deal of visiting, we had a couple of days of sun and sand. Here is what Jillian and Sam had to say about it!

Nous avons eu une journée très relaxante à Cocoa Beach. La réception de notre hôtel avait des '' boogie board '' à notre disposition et nous en avons grandement profité avec les vagues magnifiques. Il y a des vagues qui m'ont fait tomber, tout ce que je voyais étais de l'eau et je sentais mon '' boogie board '' parce que je l'avais par-dessus moi. Nous avions besoin de mettre de la bonne crème solaire parce que le soleil était chaud.

Il y a un magasin qui avait plein de gilet à manche courte de Cocoa Beach. Moi et mon frère avons pu se choisir chacun un beau gilet comme souvenir.

Nous avons également eu la chance de voir quelque chose de très rare. Une grosse tortue qui ne bougait plus. On aurait dit qu'elle était morte mais elle était encore vivante. ~ Jillian

 
Cocoa Beach is great.You have to have a good suncreen here, the sun is harsh.  The water is warm, the sand is soft, and the waves are great for boogie boarding! In two days we spent 9 hours at the beach. We had a blast.

There is a famous surf shop here called Ron Jon's Surf Shop, it is huge. On the beach there was a half-dead sea turtle. It was covered in algae and seaweed. On old man took it and put it in a big hole filled with water. We think he and his wife were going to call people to come and take care of it.

When we walked around the parking lot of the hotel I had the impression half the sate of Kentucky was parked there.

I hope I get to go back to Cocoa Beach some day. ~ Sam

The USS Yorktown, by Sam

Ever been on an aircraft carrier? Exploring the USS Yorktown, a WWII ship, was the best part of visiting Charleston.

It is docked at Patriot's Point. The ship was massive, just huge. It didn't feel like we were on a boat because it was enormous. To give you an idea of how big, there were 15 planes parked on the flight deck! The Yorktown has plane elevators in the fligtdeck to lower the planes up and down to the Hangar deck for repairs. Staircases were almost as steep as ladders. We saw the engine room (which I did not like because of the screened walkways and the narrow space the sailors had to work) to the bridge (where the captain and the navigator work). The ship had many rooms showing models of different ships and submarines and many photographs of ocean conflicts and naval battles.

Beside the Yorktown was a WWII submarine.  It was never use in battle because it was not ready until the end of 1945. It had narrow doorways and was quite small. I can't imagine living there for months.

If you go the Charleston, you have to go to Patriot's Point. It's great!

Fort Sumter, by Sam

We visisted Fort Sumpter two days ago. It's on a man-made island. We must take a boat to get to it. The boat was fun, it was big with hard cold decks, and warm fancy indoor rooms. In the water we saw dolphins, then waited waited, and got to Fort Sumter, a civil war fort.

There wasn't much left of it because it was bombarded for four years. The first shots of the Civil War were fired there and it changed hands a lot. It had cannons that could shoot 5km. It had Stare Towers, like STARE at somebody. The first is shaped like a pentagon. We didn't have much time there because we had to get on the ferry.

On our way back we saw more dolphins, and we saw the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier that we visited the next day. There were tons of other big boats in the harbour. I prefer small ones. I hope I'll be able to take pictures on the aircraft carrier.

Colonial Williamsburg part 3, by Sam

A neat fact about those times in the Virginia colony was that the kitchens were always a separate building, that way if it caught fire the house wouldn't burn down.

I recommend visiting Colonial Williamsburg because the buildings are impressive, the guided visits were interesting, and the reenactments were great. We were there two days and didn't see everything. If you do go, I think you should visit the printer, the apothecary, the tavern (which was were meals were served and people stayed overnight -sometimes sleeping on the floor and even with strangers!) and the guardhouse. I would visit again if I could!

Oh - people are wondering if it is warm yet? Not so much. The locals are complaining about how cold it is and running around in wool hats. We aren't complaining - I guess it is snowing again at home.

Colonial Williamsburg part 2, by Sam

The city has been preserved the same as colonial times. To make it look even more colonial, they had people dressed like they were in 1700. There were people in buildings explaining what their roles would be such as a slave, farmer, shoemaker, printer, wigmaker, wheel wright, blacksmith, and carpenter. Many of these people worked seven days a week, all day.

To my class - Thanks for the comments, guys! I'm having a good time in the States :)

Colonial Williamsburg part 1, by Sam

We visited Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia yesterday. It was really interesting. 98% of the population lived on farm plantations that grew tobacco and cotton. The farms, slaves, and children grew the crops.

There were two men making shingles for the roof of the blacksmith's shop. They said it would take 15 000 shingles to cover the roof and they could make only 100 a day at most because they were always talking to people. They let me split a log with reproductions of old tools. It was fun but it hurt my hands.

The Hershey Factory and Gettysburg

Jillian: We went to the Hershey Chocolate Factory. It was tempting to walk around the rows and rows full of chocolate. We went on a ride that showed just how they make Hershey's chocolate. We saw two big vats full of chocoalte. We did the ride two times! When we finally got off the ride a man gave us each a fresh chocolate bar. It was still hot.

Sam: The day before yesterday we visited the Hershey's factory. It has a ride showing how they make chocolate.
        There was a store full of chocolate up the ceiling, it was dizzying! The temptation was harsh.
       We also visited Gettysburg. We ate at the Lincoln Diner which was made like a railroad car. The diner was named for Abraham Lincoln who made a famous three minute speech in Gettysburg. There was a ton of massive monuments to the Union and Confederate soldiers who died there. The cannons were still there with mounds of dirt and grass around them to protect them. It was hard to believe that it was a battleground from the Civil War.




We are a couple of days behind on our blog - we're in South Carolina tonight and will catch up on our posts soon!

Sam's Top Five

Walt Disney is coming soon, or rather we're soon going to Walt Disney. I'm getting soooo anxious.

Here's my top five things I'm looking forward to:

The stunt show in Disney's Hollywood Studios because last time I was there it rained and the show was canceled.










The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular because maybe Jill will stay awake this time.







Colonial Williamsburg. I know nothing about Colonial Williamsburg but it sounds historical and I like history.






















And Shem Creek near Charleston. I like to see boats, but not be in boats. These are shrimping boats.












I'm especially looking forward to the water parks Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach because Florida is all about water if you ask me.


I'll be in those places soon and I can't wait to tell you about them.