Into and out of the vat

Friday before leaving for Orlando I replaced the front struts on the Tacoma.  I was successful, however I am still unsure if my tires are balanced properly.  If you want to know all the details of the job, watch this.

The drive up to Orlando went smoothly.  The SSR gobbles up highway miles pretty easily.  However somewhere around the 3 hour mark my body starts to get a bit uncomfortable in the R.  It may look and sound awesome but nothing compares to the party van when it comes to driving comfort for long periods of time.

Cindy and I pulled into the hotel late afternoon and decided to spend Friday evening at Universal City Walk.  When we pulled up to parking toll booth it was about 5:50.  I saw the $15 parking fee and thought it was awful steep to just go walk around.  The attendant told us that if we were Florida residents and we came back 10 minutes later at 6PM the parking is free.  Ok, awesome.  I went to a gas station, filled the truck, and came back 10 minutes and paid nothing after flashing my drivers license, an easy 15 dollar savings.

We had dinner at Bubba Gump, the restaurant chain based on Forrest Gump.  I had a great meal and got obliterated on two blue versions of a Long Island Ice Tea, I think Bubba’s version is called Electric Tea.  Thank goodness I had a long time to let the haze clear.

The main reason City Walk was chosen was to see Man of Steel. We thought it would be cool to catch the film opening weekend at the huge cineplex  on site.  The Imax showing was sold out but I had no problem getting tickets for the normal 3D version.

The theater was quite large with two levels.  The theater Man of Steel was in was quite full by Coconut Point standards but we still had no issue finding a decent seat.  The one thing that was immediately noticeable was the room was cold, really cold.

The move was directed by the same guy that directed 300, Zack Snyder.  I have seen other movies he directed post 300 and to be honest, was disappointed.  I didn’t know what to expect this time around.

For the most part Man of Steel was pretty good.  On Facebook I had seen others describe it as “awesome” and “epic”, I didn’t quite agree.  My Facebook comment on the film was “Man of Steel was like being brought to orgasm so many times it gets to the point of annoying..”  Some were confused by this analogy but basically it meant even a good thing like huge action and fighting in a film can get to be stupid when that is all that there is.  The last third of the film was basically like one big WWE wrestling match.

I really can only give the movie a B+, sorry Zack.  At least it was better than Watchmen.  It didn’t help that my extremities had frostbite by the end of it.

Saturday morning we were up early to head to Seaworld.  The plan was to leave the SSR in the parking lot and instead take advantage of one of the free hotel perks, a free shuttle ride to the park.  Unfortunately we missed the 7:30 shuttle by 4 or 5 minutes with the next one not departing for more than a half hour.  F it, we’ll walk.  After all the map legend said the park is only .4 miles away. Well the way we wound up walking worked out to be more like 1.4 miles but hey, it’s exercise.

So there was another bonus for guests of certain hotels, you were able to get into the park a full hour before the general public.  They gave you a special card that you flashed at the gate that gave you the early access.  We were clued in by the hotel staff that a good use of that early time would be to get on Antarctica, a brand new ride that typically has wait times of one to two hours.  It was one ride that you could not use the Quick Queue card on. (more on this awesome card later)

Antarctica’s premise is it takes you through the southern most part of the world from the viewpoint of a penguin.  Well let me just use one word to describe the ride, lame.  You site in a circular thing and get spun around a few times while looking at a few video screens.  It’s a total letdown.  I could not imagine waiting two hours and be rewarded with that epic fail.  The only cool part of the Antarctic experience is once you get off the ride and get to see real life penguins in a frigid 32 degree habitat.  The penguins were awesome but you are so damn cold that you won’t enjoy them for as long as you would like to.

We rode all of the (adult)rides there and saw most of the show attractions on Saturday.  I enjoyed seeing the various animal exhibits up close like the dolphins, birds and other ocean dwelling species.

The most torturous ride was the Manta, a roller coaster that you ride in the same body orientation as a manta ray, belly parallel to the ground.  The ride instantly transported me to nauseous town when it went into an outside loop, meaning my body was facing the outside of the loop, not allowing me a view of where I was going.  For whatever reason that made me feel really sick.  I survived the ride without projectile vomiting but with little desire to jump on again anytime soon.

The Atlantis flume ride was fun because it had two big splash downs instead of just one.  The sky tower was just as it sounds, a big rotating tower that gave you a 360 birds eye view of the park.  Kraken was another bust you up roller coaster that at least allowed you to sit upright.  It snapped my neck around a good bit.

One thing that made all of the rides better was yet another awesome benefit of staying at a park associated hotel, a complimentary Quick Queue card.  This card allows you to bypass the regular lines at all of the rides (except Antarctica) If you buy the unlimited Quick Queue card at the main gate it costs you something like an extra $30.  However the hotel threw in a one use per ride version for free, which was perfect since hitting a ride once is typically enough for me at this advanced age.

The card was simply awesome.  We would see a line snaking back and forth for miles however it was no concern for us.  We would simply follow the Quick Queue signs that lead right to a different way to get in.  The attendants were quite good about making sure they jumped to help us right away.  If I were to estimate, I have no doubt that over the two days we spent at the park the QQ cards saved us at least 4-5 hours of waiting in line.  I don’t know I would do a park without them now and if you are smart you stay at a hotel that throws them in for free.

The attendants were supposed to punch out or mark your card for whatever rides you used it on.  Some did but most didn’t.  Hell some didn’t even ask to see the QQ card, we just told them we had it.

I am sure the people that were broiling in the sun forever in line absolutely hated us as they saw us suddenly appear and hop on the ride they have been waiting 45 minutes for,  30 seconds later.  I would hate us too if the situation was reversed.  I felt like a pure bred Republican, I have to admit.

Of course there was no avoiding the negative things that annoy yet amuse me at amusement parks, people, endless waves and waves of people.  Now mind you, I didn’t get annoyed by all of them, maybe only 80%.

If amusement parks are a microcosm of society then let me tell you, society is fat, really, really fat.  I saw countless big uns lumbering through out the park, looking miserable while trying to carry their bodyweight in the stifling heat and humidity.

Then you had the clueless people that would walk 25 feet while staring straight down and then act surprised when they collide with someone/thing. The rude people that think you will care less if they jump in front of you in whatever particular line you are waiting in at the moment deserve a titty twister or two.

I really had urges to inflict blunt trauma on the people that use motorized scooters for no other affliction but pure laziness or as an attempt to work the system, since scooter dwellers get preferential treatment park wide.   I would see a woman drive up close to the restroom, get up, walk in without any visible signs of difficulty besides being a fat ass, and then return again to their scooter to go score their next benefit as a “disabled” person.  Argh.  Sure some people legitimately need the use of a motorized set of wheels however I would feel comfortable wagering most that I saw suffered most from a lack of motivation.

Bad parenting was evident everywhere from the obese 6 year olds to the kids that had their faces buried in an Iphone game during an entire animal show while dad allowed it to go on without objection.  You are surrounded by the wonders of the world and you let your kid play Angry Birds instead?  Idiot.

Yes I could have just plopped myself down in a shady spot and done people commentary all day but then I would be no better than the Angry Birds father.  I actually appreciated everything the park had to offer me and wanted to experience it.

Mid afternoon the weather turned nasty, letting loose with heavy rain and lightning.  We took that as our cue to call it a day.  Unfortunately with no rain gear or umbrella we wound up trying to run away unsuccessfully from the rain drops.  By the time we reached the bus shelter we looked like we had been swimming with Shamu ourselves.

Saturday night we returned to City Walk, this time being sure to arrive after the 6PM witching hour.  After a good meal at a place called the Latin Quarter that had a very odd looking man playing live guitar, we walked around a bit.  I came up with a spur of the moment idea to see if we could get into the 9PM Blue Man group show.  We scored one of the last remaining pairs of tickets and score an incredible discount by simply showing we were Florida residents.  Flashing our DL cards saved between $50-$60.

Despite getting in last minute we had really good seats in the 5th row, right behind the splash zone where they hand out plastic ponchos.  I had seen BMG in Vegas and was a bit underwhelmed, I was hoping they would redeem themselves this time around.

They did, somewhat.  The show was entertaining with some repeat of what I saw previously.  There was a very funny segment where they pulled a very old lady out of the audience for a prolonged bit on the stage.  By the end of it she was practically crying and wanted to get the hell off the stage.  It was a bit awkward yet funny as hell.

The show was almost a full 2 hours of non-stop percussion, bright colors and laughs.  I enjoyed it, just again, not as much as hoped I could.  Cindy is a big BMG fan so she loved it.

So on Sunday we headed back into the park to hit somethings we missed on day one.  For some reason, most of the animal related shows/areas are closed until 10am so we had to reshuffle our agenda.  We wound up spending a good amount of time at the seal feeding area. I found the seals to be awesome and cute.  The cutest thing I saw the entire weekend were two seals snuggled up next to each other sunning themselves on a rock.

So we eventually got to knock out the other attractions like the Wild Arctic ride, the seal show, Shark Encounter and a few other items including one more ride down the log flume.  In total we saw something like half a dozen animal shows and I liked each and every one.  They were all very well produced.

We had lunch at the Shark Grill restaurant, an awesome place where you enjoy high end food while seated next to the HUGE shark aquarium.  It was one of the coolest restaurants I ever ate at and the meal I had was equally good, a great way to wrap up our Seaworld experience.

We wound up rolling out about 2:30 and after fueling up with some Dunkin Donuts coffee headed home.

It had been quite a few years since I had visited any Orlando theme park and my first time ever visiting Seaworld.  My experience makes me want to try to get back there more regularly when it is a little bit cooler with Quick Queue passes in hand….

You can see all of my pictures from the trip here…

I spent a good portion of today changing my rear shocks on the Tacoma.  See the associated videos below.