Robot Claw

And so, as we wait for the plane, our vacation draws to a close. The week whizzed by at record speed (as all vacations seem to) but much fun was had.

In my one-man effort to keep an industry alive, I sent 23 postcards this trip. Most of them should have arrived by now. I hope they gave you a smile 🙂

Also, I proved to myself that blogging from my phone (as every post this trip was done) is easy and effective. I’ll have to work out how to do that internationally 🙂

Oh yes, all photos were taken from my iPhone as well, which is a much better camera than my actual digital camera!

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed the travelogue 🙂

The combined ‘savannas’ that are part of our hotel contain 230 animals. From our room we’ve seen about two dozen different types including (every day) zebra, giraffes and ostriches.

In this shot, taken after some afternoon rain today, you can see oryx, a vulture (drying its wings) and some antelope:

Today was the last full day of our Florida vacation, and we spent much of it in Magic Kingdom and Epcot. By mid afternoon we were so tired we had to leave, and since monsoonal rain began as we walked to the Fiat we weren’t a moment too soon!

The tiredness? It’s still here (I’m falling asleep making this entry), I think I’ll need a vacation to recover 🙂

I know, I know! You’ve all been thinking “Why haven’t they gone to Disney’s Hollywood Studios yet?” You’ve probably also been thinking “He’s a hater; buying into the talk that DHS is the worst Disney park!”

Well you’d be wrong, since there was a good reason we left this park until today: Star Wars Weekends!

Every Friday to Sunday for a month this park is taken over by Star Wars events, merchandise and fans. And I’m glad to count us amongst them 🙂

Amongst other things, we saw Star Wars character meet ups:

We saw star wars actors and voice actors, including Jeremy ‘Boba Fett’ Bullock, Daniel ‘young Boba’ Logan and Ashley ‘Ahsoka Tano’ Eckstein:

We drunk drink from an R2 cup:

Ate a Darth Vader cupcake:

Built ourselves droid action figures:

Saw Star Wars props actually used in the films:

And even ‘fake’ props:

We even visited a giant Star Wars shop:

In which you could buy oodles of SW items including very expensive original art, of which this is an example:

But above all this SW madness two things rose to the top. The first was the updated Star Tours ride, which is now a 3D motion ride with many possible story elements (and planets to visit) that is likely different every time you ride! We rode it four times:

The other best thing about the entire trip day was the ‘Jedi Training’ show. Yes I know, kids dress up as younglings and fight Vader blah blah. But it was cute, and funny and well done:

But what was magnificent about it was this real-life Ahsoka Tano that I immediately fell in love with!

She’s beautiful! Her costume and (very professional) makeup were perfect! I swooned 🙂

So what else happened today at Disney’s Hollywood Studios? Well we went on all the rides, ate some delicious food, saw some shows, bought some stuff and ended up staying for over 11 hours! The weather even agreed, raining only briefly when we were comfortable in an air-conditioned restaurant!

But in truth the day was all about Star Wars, and what a day it was! In many ways, this day alone more than justified the entire vacation 🙂