Orlando - the city of theme parks

As announced yesterday, the next item on our trip is Orlando, the tourist capital of the USA. The majority of visitors to this city are attracted by the variety of different amusement parks... they are also the reason for our visit. Our focus is on the Universal Parks, consisting of the Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and Volcano Bay. We will summarize the next 3 days in this report and update it accordingly.

The parks are gigantic amusement temples that offer everything the hearts of adrenaline junkies of all ages desire. Water slides, 3D & 4D rides, live shows, roller coasters in different designs, and much more distributed across theme worlds built with remarkable attention to detail. The Harry Potter worlds are especially noteworthy. And to make sure you don't forget to spend money between the rides, the paths are lined with shops and restaurants for every taste. It can be said with good reason that every detail has been carefully planned to extract dollars from visitors' pockets.

As a start, today we enjoyed the very cool 4D rides Shrek and Transformers, the Mummy, parts of the Harry Potter world, as well as two very fun water rides. We got soaking wet from the water rides, but due to the heat, this was not a problem at all. On the contrary - we gladly enjoyed the refreshment! Fortunately, our hotel is only a five-minute walk from the park entrance, so we have planned an early attack on the attractions for tomorrow. This is the best way to avoid waiting times, which can easily reach 60 minutes or more.

Day 2

'Screw me, I'm going crazy!' These words from Olaf Schubert perfectly sum up today's experience. But let's start from the beginning: our devilishly good plan to tackle the best rides early in the morning quickly evaporated. Why? Because getting up early on vacation is just too difficult. Our planned 8 am start quickly became 11 am. So it was clear that we could only score in the back... but boy did we score! We kept going until 11 pm, so even the pedometer's battery started to glow. ;-)

With 12 hours of amusement park, we were certainly close to overkill, but it was still fun. Most of the sometimes truly breathtaking rides now have a green check mark for us. Check!

It was really cool that we managed to experience many attractions as a family. 'Fearless Luis' riding everything was already clear, especially since our visits to the parks in L.A. and Europa-Park Rust. But this time, Mara and Matzi-Man also stepped up and were not afraid of heights, water, or speed.

Luis and I topped it off with a ride on the 'Rockit', a roller coaster I wouldn't have ridden if the little man hadn't annoyed me all day. For better visualization, click: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDneUtf0b6A

Since the adrenaline and the rush of blood in my head are not letting me sleep now, writing today's lines is even easier.

Nadi will shortly take care of the pictures of the day, and then we'll talk again tomorrow.

Day 3

Today at Universal Orlando Resort, our focus was on Volcano Bay. But before getting wet, we really wanted to visit the highly frequented King Kong ride at Islands of Adventure. However, that meant a two-hour wait.... Well, what wouldn't we do. In the end, opinions varied on whether the high-quality animated 3D fun was worth it.

Afterwards, we went to the water park, and it was a true paradise for our 3 water rats. The facility designed like a volcanic island was gigantic. The boys immediately got hooked and couldn't get enough of the many attractions for hours. Lazy river, water currents, slides with inner tubes, single slides without tubes, slides for two or even four people... and then back to the beginning. In the meantime, Mara took it a bit easier and played in the various heated pools. In the end, it was another long day full of action and sensory overload, which also prompts me to keep it short today. After three eventful days, we have to admit, it was nice, but now it's enough.

Tomorrow we're going to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the USA.

See you there!

Day 4 - The Encore

Actually, our plan was to leave for St. Augustine quite early. But 1. things don't always go as planned, and 2. as you think. The weather in Orlando today was once again so beautiful that we couldn't resist taking the boys back to Volcano Bay one more time. However, Nadi and Mara wanted to dive into the 'shark tank' shopping mall again, so our paths temporarily separated today. In the late afternoon, a heavy thunderstorm abruptly ended our fun at the water park. The ladies were also done for the day, so we met up for dinner. After that, we finally hit the interstate towards the 'Nation's oldest City', where we arrived around 9 pm.

Our photo commissioner sends the message: 'I'm sorry, but I have no photo for you today!' ;-)