There is a Storm coming..... why are you standing there!

One thing I try to cover with all my Clients before they arrive in Central Florida is the weather they may encounter. July 3rd and 4th brought some typical weather situations for the Wet Summer Season  in Central Florida... Daily Severe Thunderstorms.  The skies darkened and was filled with lightning. Tourist and Locals stood in front of Cinderella's Castle Hub and snapped photos of the castle being struck by lightning.  While it may have gained some their 15 minutes of fame on the internet, it sure wasn't the brightest move. That picture or even staying in that spot to get the "best" view for fireworks sure isn't worth your life.
 
Florida is the Lightning Strike Capitol of the United States. While the number fluctuate every year, the numbers are the usually the highest in Florida for people struck by lighting. On our 2011 trip in August, we were across the street at SeaWorld when 8 people were injured at Discovery Cove by a Lightning strike. These people were "lucky" they weren't killed, but less than a month later at Adventure Island in Tampa, an employee evacuating a slide was killed by a lightning strike. Lightning is not something to mess with, so take cover when lightning is in the area.

Here are some really good tips about what to do during the storms that hit the parks and this applies to all parks.
1) Don't stand out in the open! Get indoors!!!!
2) Don't Rush for the exit.
3) Head into a shop and let the storm pass
4) Go to an indoor ride that has an indoor queue
5)Check out an indoor show
6) Don't wait at an entrance to be first in line for a ride to reopen.
7) Don't get on a boat
8) Don't take shelter under a tree
9) Get out of and away from pools
10) Don't hang out on your balcony

You are not Doc Brown trying to send Marty McFly Back to the Future. You aren't going to save the day with that awesome picture. When you get hit by lighting, your vacations is over, you won't get to see that amazing fireworks display or selfie with Mickey.  Be Smart and stay alive!

On our way to Celebrate EPCOT's 30th and some Halloween Fun!

Hey everyone! Our Fall Trip has arrived. This will be the first time in 17 years I will be In Orlando without children! It will be bittersweet but the wife and I are going to make it up to kids this Spring with a Spring Break Trip. That way they can experience the New Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom. While we plan on having a blast down there, we are also going to take care of some business. We will be taking tons of pictures to share you and current/future clients!

We will be staying at the Pop Century Resort for our first time ever and be taking advantage of the FREE Dining plan(we upgraded from the quick-service to the standard dining plan).  While there we will  be sure to take the  jog across the lake to check out the new Arts of Animation Resort and see all that it has to offer!  If there is something you want to see or know about, let us know and we will try to get first hand info for you. Our schedule is not very tight but we do have some things planned and are more than willing to find out the best and most accurate information to share with you!

Here is what our Schedule looks like:

Day 1: We leave bright and early Wednesday Morning to hopefully be on the ground at Orlando International to hop the Disney's Magic Express by Noon. 

After we  hit the online check in counter, we plan on exploring the Pop Century Resort to get the lay of the land pick up our items we had the Disney World Personal Shopper grab for us.  From there hop a bus to spend the rest of the day at The Hollywood Studios and take in Fantasmic!

Day 2: Thursday will be a extremely fun long day. After an early morning Rental Car pick up. We are going to head over to Universal Orlando. We are going to spend a majority of the day at Island of Adventure, riding the newly re digitized Spiderman , filling up on ButterBeer, riding Dudley Do-Right Falls( one my favorite water rides), and going haywire buying souvenirs for the kiddos.  Then we are going to hop over to the Studios to take in a few rides and become Minions on Despicable Me before we take on Halloween Horror Nights. I am especially looking forward to the Walking Dead Maze and Penn&Teller's Las Vegas!

I am going to ride this over and over and over......

Day3: Friday we are going to be up bright and early  to take in a Character Breakfast at the Magic Kingdom 's Crystal Palace then spend of the rest of morning hours hitting up our favorite attractions and playing Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.   Midday we are going head over to the ESPN Wide World of Sports to check out the Health and Fitness expo and to get our stuff for the Happy Haunted  5k Trail Run. We will cruise back to the hotel for some pool time and rest before heading back the Magic Kingdom to enjoy Mickey' Not So Scary Halloween Party!!!! I really am looking forward to seeing HallowWishes.

Day 4: Saturday's plan is to get up early and arrive at ESPN for the 5k. We are in corral A with bibs #2224 and #2230, if your in the area be sure to stop on out cheer us on! After the race and we have picked up our medal  the rest of the night is up in the air, we are still debating about going to the Twilight 10 Miler party at the Hollywood Studios, we shall see how we feel. 

Days 5 :  Sunday will be fairly loose go with the flow day. We will be sure to hit the Animal Kingdom, partake in the EPCOT Wine &Harvest fest, and enjoy dinner at Fulton's Crab House in Downtown Disney!

Day 6: Monday will be a day entirely devoted to EPCOT to celebrate the 30th Anniversary. We will kick of the day grabbing fast passes for Soarin and trying to grab some of the special merchandise. Then take part in some of the scheduled events Closing the night out with a concert by the 90's group Sugar Ray and Illuminations with the 30th Anniversary tag!

Day 7: Tueday morning will be spent shipping various souvenirs home, packing, and maybe a quick whirl on the monorails before we hop the Magic Express back to Orlando International.

Be sure to watch our facebook page for updates about our trip! Stay tuned for exciting announcements and giveaways also upon our return.
Thank you all for Supporting Matt's Firehouse Family Vacations. Exciting things are just around the corner!!!!!

Traveling with someone with a food allergry

When you have someone in your family that has a food allergy, your dining options tend to become limited. Disney on the other hand works with that person to make their dining experience is as pleasant as possible while addressing the food allergy. My wife has a food allergy that tends to make dining difficult. She is allergic to onions. Onions, in all of its various forms, are in more foods than most people realize. So to help people understand how Disney goes out of their way for food allergies, my wife has taken over the blogging duties for this post.

Anyone with a food allergy will tell you that it isn’t easy to go out to eat; you never know what you can and cannot eat. Most servers when I tell them that I have an allergy are pretty good and will go talk to the cooks, or look on the packages of the food to find out whether I can have something or not, then come back and tell me. Sometimes no one at the restaurant can tell me what I can eat or not, this is not the servers fault but the restaurants’;that is truly inexcusable.

This is where we celebrated our anniversary

Last spring when we were making a few of our dining reservations for our trip to Disney I was worried about which restaurants I would be able to eat at, and what they would do so that I wouldn’t go hungry.So when making Advanced Dinner Reservations, I let the person on the other end of the line know I had a food allergy.  They assured me that they would put that on the reservation.  At our first dinner at The Magic Kingdom, Cinderella's Royal Table, I made sure that the hostess was aware of my allergy and when we got seated, on our ticket in big red capital letters it said “ALLERGY” when the server acknowledged it and told me that I would not be able to order my dinner until the chef had come out to discuss what on the menu I would be able to eat. When the chef came to the table, he knew every ingredient in every dish, 

so she knew exactly what I could have; I was very impressed and relieved, but this was for a plated meal.

My goofy hubby

The dining room is beautiful

 I had fears about eating at a family style meal, which is a wonderful option at Disney. When we got to this meal at the The Good Turns Restaurant at the Land in EPCOT, I was informed there were numerous dishes I wasn't going to be able to have but the chef asked me what I would like and put together a plate with just about everything that was on the regular menu specially prepared for me minus any ingredient that would have onion in it. . There ended up being so much food on that plate I couldn't eat it all. I did learn the hard way though, that even if you do tell them when you make the reservation that there is someone with a food allergy, you still have to make sure you tell the hostess when you get there; it doesn't get put on your ticket without doing that, there is a small communications error in the chain there. I was very impressed by how out of their way the chefs at Disney went, and how serious they took my allergy.

Not only did I have a great meal, I got to meet Pluto also.

I am looking forward to our next trip to Disney, not only because of the parks, but because I know, I will be able to go into a restaurant and say “I’m allergic to Onions” and know that I’m going to have an enjoyable meal. I would highly recommend to those of us with food allergies or other dietary requirements to eat at Disney. It was annoying to not be able to choose 100% of what I wanted to eat, but it was a huge relief to know that the food I was eating was not going to cause me problems.

It's Gone? The Animal Kingdom

Back in March of 1998, we were fortunate enough to be invited to take part in the soft opening for Disney's Animal Kingdom. The park has changed quite a bit since then and here is a photo journey of  how some of  the park has changed.

Remember this picture?

This Iguanadon was part of the  Discovery river boat ride. He now sits in front of Dinosaur the ride.

The Animatronic Iguanadon was one of the highlights of the Discovery River boat ride that no longer exist. The Iguanadon currently has taken up residence in front of Dinosaur replacing the original Styracosaurus that was there for park opening.  The landings for the boats still are present. The one near Dinoland USA is currently the meet-n-greet for Pooh and friends.  The boat ride originally circled the Tree of life giving and unique views to guest and couple of  surprises along the way.

This is where the Iguanadon currently resides. The name of the ride was changed to help market the movie Dinosaur.

  While still visible  near Camp Minne-Mickey, the boat ride took you much closer to this rock formation.

Dragon Rock

After encountering the dragon rock formation you slipped passed a cave where a fire breathing dragon was living.

This is still there, probably over gown with the rest of Discovery River. We got a little toasty during the soft opening because of  an inexperienced skipper still learning how to maneuver the lengthy boats.

 Guest also got the below view of  Harambe and the Tusker house, there were even a few geysers in this area to try and spice up the boat ride.   Where Everest now sits, we were told once Asia was opened (yes Asia was not open for the preview) water buffalo were to have a habitat and be able to enter Discovery river. That habitat never came to be. The boat ride was actually slow and was very boring. It was  a good idea to make it disappear. There are some great Youtube videos of the boat ride where you can see how awkward the ride really was.

Jambo 

During the soft opening, only Africa, Camp Minne-Mickey, DinoLand USA(minus Primeval Whirl), the oasis, conservation station, Discovery River Boats, and The Rainforest cafe were open. It's tough to be a bug and Asia were not yet complete. We returned after the grand opening and were able to catch the new show Pocahontas and her forest friends. It was an animal show that also had Grandmother Willow. Eventually this show got retired and is now stroller parking for The Festival of the Lion King. 

Please park your strollers here......Grandma who?

The Festival of the Lion King has changed but not in performance; the theater was originally open air. This made sitting through the show not so fun in the humid Florida air. It was eventually was enclosed and "air conditioned" as it is now. 

Are those trees and daylight I see?

While the Animal Kingdom is still relativity young, the changes that have occurred have made for a much better experience for guest.  Do you remember the original story line for the safari? What is your favorite attraction past or present in the Animal Kingdom?