We left New Orleans and bussed our way along the coast. Today Justin decided we would be stopping for lunch in Pensacola Beach. Pensacola Beach is one of the tourist communities affected by the BP oil spill in the gulf and he thought it would be nice for 50 hungry people to go and spend some dollars there. To get there we had to drive along a very long bridge which I can’t find on the map but I remember it took ages to get there! Little Erin, Naomi and I headed to a local sports bar for lunch and Naomi and I enjoyed (?) $2 margaritas just because they were $2!
Onwards to Tallahasse the state capital of Florida, surprisingly as it seems like a really small place. We got there late so didn’t see much, we went to Applebees for one of our better included dinners (and it seems to be a hot place as when we left people were paying to get in to for some karaoke thing, I guess not much happens there!). Some of us then headed for a local bar which had a ‘wheel of fortune’ for free beer and played some pool and air hockey. Headed home at a reasonable hour to enjoy a room to myself, which resulted from a reservation muck up (after Erin and I had shared a bed in Memphis too!). Worked out quite well as I was ill and could not stop coughing due to *still* being ill.
Orlando beckons the next day and we get there early afternoon and a bunch of us decide to check out some water slides at Wet’N’Wild. Lots of fun, lots of queues and pretty hot. Managed to do most of the rides which was a good effort considering we were only there about 5 hours. The best had to be ‘Disco H2O’ where you go down into this funnel type thing with disco balls inside and disco music and you spin round a bit before getting chucked outside, pretty fun! That evening (still a little ill) we went for our included dinner – pizza which we waited nearly an hour for and a laundry party with Naomi. I hadn’t washed my clothes in a washing machine since the grand canyon, it was a crisis situation! The others went to a bar and got drunk and had a pool party at crazy oclock and I got woken up a few times, fun and games!
Our only full day in Orlando was next! We had decided to hit Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios as that is where HARRY POTTER world is! We upped the stakes and bought express passess (best $70 I had spent in a while!) so we could skip all the queues. They were amazing, walked past all the people queuing and didn’t wait more than 10 minutes, which is pretty good in the middle of August! Our first stop was of course harry potter world (officialy ‘The Wizarding World of Harry Potter’). Something was wrong when we got there so had to wait an hour in the queue with De, Trudy and Naomi. So we sat on the ground (it was hot and we weren’t precious) ate Choros, pretzels and slushy drinks for breakfast and got excited.
Harry potter world is really cool, if a little smaller than I imagined. The Hogwarts village has been done in such detail, you can go in all the shops, buy things from the movies (like butter beer and bertie botts beans) there is an owlery to send postcards and you can visit ollivanders. Trudy and I headed for the duelling dragons ride which was lots of fun and our first use of our express pass, it was set up like the challengers for the tri-wizard cup, very cute. Something I loved about universal studios was the quality and detail everywhere. All the rides are so well maintained, no wear and tear and really well made! Every ride the staff have uniforms themed to that ride (not just that area) its soo cute! On this ride they were dressed like the people who look after the dragons in the film! We skipped the ride inside Hogwarts as there was a huge queue and our queue jumpers didn’t work on that ride (bummer) but we cheered ourselves up by buying wands and other paraphernalia!
We next hit up the water ride section of the park, and oh my god the rides there get you SOAKED! Not damp, not wet but ‘oh my god everything I am wearing (including my underwear) is so drenched if I stripped off I could fill a paddling pool with the water I squeeze out of it’. Much fun, but kinda icky when its humid! We also checked out some more rollercoaster and superhero themed things, waited in a queue for 30 mins for bad fast food (there were only TEN people in front of us) and relaxed a little as our wonderful express passes took all the stress out of the day!
That night we had a barbeque (where even though I paid I ended up with no food – hmmmmm) and a party with a ‘D’ theme (Well gold bus was ‘D’ theme, white bus all had different letters which made it hard to tell who was what). Most of us got in on it (I was a domino!) but some lazy sods didn’t bother – you know who you are :P! It was actually pretty tame, lots of us went in the pool, some of the guys had nerf guns so there was a bit of a nerf war and Amy decided to have a little strip in the pool but pretty calm! Stayed in the pool until the security guy kicked us out (hmm, will that happen again??) at a rather early 12.30am and had a good nights sleep for the journey to MIAMI!
Okay, a side note on our journey to Miami. We were told we would get a tour of the Everglades included, yay we said. Justin says, if you don’t want to do it you don’t have to but there is nothing to do at the place we leave the bus. So we go on a little tour in these trolley type things. One of the most boring 90 minute periods of my life. Grass. Water. Birds. A gator. Repeat. For 90 minutes. Also one of the most boring tour guides in the world, he talked about alligators for 20 MINUTES! I was tired, ill, a little hungover and just wanted to sleep. We nearly killed Justin for not warning us. Bad times.
But, we were on our way to MIAMI!!!! So all is good.
TBC – Miami clubs, DASH, Miami Ink, booze cruises, SHOTS!, beach bumming and NASA baby!
