summing up the orlando experience

To view the complete collection of photos taken in Orlando, click here.

Itinerary, click here.

Shopping and eating in Orlando, click here and here.

Day 1 part 1 in Disney World Epcot Future World, click here.

Day 1 part 2 in Disney World Epcot World Showcase, click here.

Day 2 in Disney World Magic Kingdom, click here.

disney world: magic kingdom

Despite a minor case of food poisoning in the night after visiting Epcot Future World and World Showcase, I gathered enough energy after resting the entire morning afterwards to make my way to Magic Kingdom. Admiral Joe Fowler dropped me off at the entrance at slightly past 2pm, leaving me only a few hours of daylight to explore the vast theme park.





There are many ways to explore the park. My original plan was to take the train once around the perimeter of the Kingdom before zooming in to the various lands within. However, thanks to the little episode of stomach discomfort which wasted three quarters of my day, I skipped the choo-choo ride and went on foot targeting the specific attractions I've marked out on my guides books. Another alternative was to take a leisurely cruise on Liberty Belle which I passed too.







I got a request from Tudi to take a snapshot with/of Tigger but he was nowhere to be seen. I ended up queueing up inside the Town Square Theatre to visit Mickey's Studio and to steal a quick photo with him and his girl.





So well. This is the only photo of myself from the entire week's stay in Orlando. At least I got to pose with the two famous mice as a remembrance of my magical experience in Disney World although I could have done without that spastic smile and pale green sickly complexion.



I stood overlooking the Main Street for a while, slightly nervous about making my way through that mob of people to Cinderella's Castle. It wasn't too bad after all once I merged into the crowd as there was lots of street entertainment to watch and shops to zip into along the way. I did a detour into Adventureland and checked out the cleverly built Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse that involved climbing flight after flight of stairs.







Once inside Fantasyland, I was so tempted to join the queues for kiddy rides that take you soaring through the air on Dumbo the Flying Elephant, galloping on Cinderella's carousel, spinning in a teacup in the Mad Hatter's tea party, rolling, bouncing and floating along with Winnie the Pooh or flying with Peter Pan through Neverland. Again, due to time constraints, I settled for one with the fastest moving queue - "It's a small world" indoor musical waterborne voyage through a series of animated tableaux where the insidious theme song sung by the colourfully costumed miniature characters in their Munchkin-like voices stuck in my head for hours to come. I also caught the 3D film at Mickey's PhilharMagic concert hall starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and many other most loved Disney characters such as Ariel and Aladdin just to name a couple, that reminded me of several of my favourite cartoons I loved watching as a kid before moving on to Tomorrowland.



They've got some serious rides here at Tomorrowland that I'd have liked to take if I had another day's time to spare. Instead I opted for tamer activities such as a sit-down interactive show at the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor where the hilarious jokes told by Mike Wazowski made me laugh til my sides almost split. I also went for the very educational Carousel of Progress where an animated legendary Walt Disney figure took us through transformations in domestic lives driven by technological advances over time.



Still in my learning mood, I visited the Hall of Presidents Museum and watched the multimedia historic film showcasing the trials and tribulations of the early days of the United States. The film ended with a stage line-up of audio-animated figures of every US President from the first President George Washington to the current Barack Obama. A ride through the Haunted Mansion was next where I had the whole Doom Buggy to myself and had to constantly brace myself for the sudden appearances of headless brides and floating apparitions.





As the park slowly got enveloped by the darkness of night, brightly lit floats of towering proportions carrying Disney's most loved characters filled Main Street in the Electrical Parade.





As the last of the floats disappeared, we were promptly treated to a stunning display of magical lights projected onto Cinderella's Castle perfectly choreographed with accompanying music. With no stable surfaces to support my camera and not much light, these are the only ones out of perhaps 80 photos taken that are clear enough for public consumption.



The Wishes Nighttime Spectacular rounded up the night for all park goers and I dragged my reluctant self back to the hotel to pack for the morning flight home.

disney world: epcot (world showcase)

Beyond Future World is the World Showcase - the main reason for picking Epcot as my top choice out of the four parks in Disney World to visit first. World Showcase has clusters of pavilions built around a lagoon to represent eleven countries (listed in the order I visited them): Canada, United Kingdom, France, Morocco, Japan, United States, Italy, Germany, China, Norway and Mexico.

Whenever I start trying to describe World Showcase to anybody, their first thought is always that it's a miniature mock-up of the listed countries. No no no! Each 'country' actually has life sized streets and buildings that are replicas of a real destination (usually a well known area) from that country and contains shops, restaurants, museums and theatres to showcase its produce, cuisine, culture and lifestyle. I particularly liked that fact that all the staff in each 'country' are citizens of the real represented country as part of the Cultural Representative Program.

Many of these 'countries' also play a short 15 - 30min introductory film about them - I went to all of them and was very impressed by the effort each pavilion takes to promote its home country given that I read from Wiki that "The only pavilion that is sponsored by the country it represents is Morocco. The remaining country pavilions are all sponsored by private companies.". I wonder why all the tourism boards of the remaining 10 countries have not participated. Singapore will do well to have a small pavilion there to educate the geographically ignorant Americans and other tourists on its existence on the world map. Even if limited by budget constraints, what's to stop STB from garnering business sponsors to set up shops and restaurants there? I'm sure there's an abundance of opportunity to tap into the tourist dollar.

Here are some hastily put-together collages of the pavilions I managed to cover while there was still daylight. I left out photographing the last two destinations (Morocco and Mexico) as it got too dark and I was rushing to find a good spot to watch the finale - IllumiNations.

1) Canada






2) United Kingdom




3) France






4) Morocco




5) Japan




6) United States




7) Italy






8) Germany




9) China






I wrapped the evening up by watching the 14-minute mesmerising display of fireworks, laser and water show - IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth - from an obscure corner where heads often bobbed into my field of vision. Add that to the fact that I did not have a tripod with me, it was impossible for me to get a single decent short to share with you this spectacular live pyrotechnic show so the best I could do was rip a photo off the official Walt Disney Epcot website and plaster it here in the hope they will offer me some kind of travel voucher to visit Disney World again in return for the free publicity I'm doing for them here. ;p

disney world: epcot (future world, international flower and garden festival)

I extended my work trip to Orlando by two days so I can spend some time at Disney World. However Disney is so huge with four different theme parks each requiring at least an entire day to cover all its grounds that I could only try to go to two parks in my limited time there. My choice was Epcot and Magic Kingdom.

Epcot stands for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow and is a concept developed by the late Walt Disney towards the end of his lifetime. Epcot sprawls across 300 acres of land and is divided into two main sections: Future World and World Showcase. I spent 12 hours exploring both sections and still barely covered even 80% of the entire park.

I started the day at Future World where this ginormous golf ball greeted me; this spherical icon is called Spaceship Earth and had a slow-moving educational ride through time and space which I opted not to go for.



While everyone else tried to arrive way before the opening hours in order to get to the popular rides first, I slept in and waltzed in past 11am and totally regretted it afterwards when I couldn't get onto the two rides top on my list to take:

a) Soarin' - you get onto a hang-gliding flight in a simulation environment where you soar in the clouds against the panoramic views of California.

b) Test Track - a high-speed vehicle-simulation ride where you undergo a series of safety and quality tests that General Motors performs on every prototype it manufactures.

For the same reason as the above, I totally skipped the entire Mission: SPACE pavilion. Instead I spent some time exploring the Innoventions Pavilion East and West where exhibits of amazing innovations created to make everyday life easier for all of us provide a very educational tour for kids. Below pic shows a technologically advanced interactive 30-foot fire pumper truck in the West pavilion.



I then decided to indulge my kiddy self by hopping onto a clamobile and joining Nemo on an undersea adventure at The Seas with Nemo & Friends Pavilion which also features a massive aquarium that holds one of the largest man-made ocean environments in the world. The gentle giants swimming gracefully in the manatee rehabilitation area instilled a peaceful calm in me but I quickly exited the place in horror when I saw those colourful electric eels in the neighbouring tank.



I went from the underwater world to The Land Pavilion where I took the Living with the Land boat ride that took us past the American plains, a tropical rain forest and the African desert to witness the latest developments in aquaculture and desert farming. We floated slowly past many greenhouses where their Biotechnology Lab personnel invest all their time and effort into researching sustainable farming. It is fascinating to see how they have created an aqua-agri environment where food crops, fish and alligators all come together to play their part in the production cycle, and to see sweet potatoes dangling in the air without needing to grow deep into the soil thanks to the discovery of a more efficient way of farming. An extremely thought provoking and humbling ride.



As I headed for the Imagination! Pavilion to try and catch the Honey I Shrunk the Audience - a 3D film experience highly rated in my guide book where you get sucked into a world of giant cats and dogs - I spotted random furry Disney characters such as this below along the way. I did not join any of the queues to get any autographs or photos with them as I had too much ground to cover in a very short time.



My guide was outdated as they had changed the 3D film to that of Captain EO starring the real Michael Jackson from days when he was so much younger and sexier. It was a bit weird and very funny to watch MJ acting the part of a spaceship captain on a mission to save the earth but the finale musical and dance performance by him was spectacular, as is befitting of the King of Pop.

My visit to Epcot coincided with the spring special event - Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival - and I was treated to a colourful array of flowers and Disney character topiaries of which many impressed me with the creativity shown in utilising so many varied types of plants to create the colours required and the attention paid to the minute details to create close to perfect semblance to the actual characters. Below is a series of pictures of some of my favourite creations that I spotted throughout the day in Epcot.











I then spent the later half of the day in World Showcase which I will endeavour to cover in a separate blog entry.

outlet shopping in orlando

The work trip to Orlando was planned in such a way that I had a day before the conference to rest after the 24 hours journey to the other side of the globe and to do the necessary event setup. Not wanting to sleep through the day and hence worsening the already bad jetlag, the guys and I decided to go outlet shopping. After consulting my two comprehensive travel guides bought in Kinokuniya and the hotel concierge, we took the i-Ride Trolley at the stop conveniently located right in front of our hotel to Orlando Premium Outlets just a 20min ride up north along International Drive. Second stop was to Florida Mall as one of the guys had a whole list of comestics he had to get for a sister.

Here is showcasing a bit of what I got that required some muscle help from the guys to lug back to the hotel. I shudder at the thought of compiling the stack of receipts to calculate the total spending on this trip although the fantastic exchange rate (1AUD:1.1USD) and 60% discount deals made a lot of the purchases extremely worthwhile to the extent I would have kicked myself if I gave them a pass.

A quick trip to Victoria's Secret where I almost didn't survive the throngs of people and only managed to grab a handful of cotton bras.



I finally got myself the Clarisonic set I wanted so badly at Sephora, saving myself the shipping cost if I had purchased online.



I was pleasantly shocked to find that the Dermalogical products cost only 60% of what I usually pay for in Australia so I decided to stock up on the cleansers as they tend to use up very quickly. The Very Sexy body mist was a $10 impulse grab at Victoria's Secret when I was queueing to make payment.






















One of the items on my planned shopping list was a big Samsonite hard case with four wheels (they call them the 'spinners') as my own suitcase that had served me faithfully for six years was damaged enroute. But I got distracted by this baby pink Tumi carry on case at their shopfront display. At close to USD300 with no special discount, I only convinced myself to get it after returning to the store three times to gaze longingly at it by reminding myself that 20% of the sales proceeds from that case went to some breast cancer support foundation. Thankfully I got a great deal at Samsonite subsequently where this particular case that met all my requirements was going at 50% of its usual retail price of $600. These two purchases assisted greatly in getting all my shopping loot around while I shopped some more.























I bought lots of clothes too but I soon tired of photographing them so here's a sneak peak at just two of my favourite buys. I love the tops for their retro stripes, colours and fit and because I have never owned a fur coat in my life and this XXS sized snow leopard faux fur coat fitted me so well and it was a steal at only USD40, I got it despite not knowing when the weather will get cold enough for me to ever have a chance to wear it out in Sydney. Other great clothing bargains were a pair of black velvet jeans with sparkly diamantes on the back pockets that made my legs look 50% longer and slimmer, a petite work jacket and some Calvin Klein underwear.






















I went into Kenneth Cole hoping to get a wallet as a gift but was distracted by their timepieces instead. I spent the better part of an hour staring at the many men's watches on display and convincing myself not to get anything as I have stopped wearing watches altogether since 2006. Then I spent another better part of an hour repeatedly trying on a cream coloured slightly above knee length trench coat and finally deciding not to get it as it was missing a belt. Well I did try to negotiate the price down and would have gotten it if they agreed to drop the price by 60% but the furthest they were willing to consider was a 40% discount. Too bad. A consolation was this pair of black sandals to replace the current pair that had its soles flapping open after a day of hard walking at the outlets. And as you can see from the series of handbag pictures below that I am a Kate Spade fan, just like the young Tin Pei Ling who's running for MP in SG now.






















All these handbags were going at 60% discount - how not to get them???






















There was no need for yet another toiletry bag or purse so I'm not sure how these came to be added to my shopping bag too. ;p






















Here's all the Kate Spade stuff I ended up with at the check out. I would have gotten at least a couple more if I had the means to carry them back to Sydney and if I haven't already owned a hundred other bags sitting idly in my wardrobe without ever getting to see daylight. I think I need to somehow either sell most of them or start using them!



I also got a Juicy Couture bag, not for myself, but as a belated present to a dear friend who was recently saddened she had to throw hers into the bin after it got ripped a big tear at the side.



And of course I had to get some Disney souvenirs for the girls at work. I also got a nice little Mickey with the American flag badge to add on to my flag collection of countries I've visited displayed on my camera bag.






















Next, I need to check my bank account to see how many days of air and water I have to survive on before the next pay check comes in.