We always take a spring trip to St. Simon's with Matt so he can attend a conference there. I decided to add on three nights in Orlando. My original intention was to take the boys to the new Legoland theme park. Matt didn't think I could stand to be in Orlando and not visit Disney, but I assured him that it would be fine. He finally told me that it would be okay if I wanted to take a day for Disney since we would already be there. I caved and planned a day for Hollywood Studios. This is a park that I have not spent much time in as I didn't think there was enough to do for a whole day. I was wrong, and we had a great day.
We had committed to a timeshare owner's update at 8:00 in the morning. The park opened at 9:00 and I wanted to be there to get the boys signed up for the Jedi Training Academy. They have a certain number of slots during the day, and it is first come, first serve. We were very excited to be in and out by 8:30. I think they have figured out that we aren't buying any more points, so we got our money and headed to the park. We were in line for sign ups by 9:15 since our resort is actually just a mile from Hollywood Studios, and we already had our tickets. Matt headed over to get a fast pass for Toy Story Mania while we waited. We were signed up for the 3:00 "training". After that, we hit the Tower of Terror and Rock'n Roller coaster using parent swaps on both of those. Next, we saw the Disney Jr. stage show. Luke and Thomas were both excited to see Mickey Mouse, Handy Manny, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and the Little Einsteins. After the show, we had lunch, rode Toy Story Mania with our fast pass, rode the Great Movie Adventure, saw the parade, and did the Training Academy.
The "padawans" are trained as a group, and then they each have the chance to battle Darth Vader with the moves they learned. Joshua got to do this a couple of years ago, so he is a pro.
Back then, they actually chose children from the audience, and Caleb wasn't chosen. It was great for him and Luke to have this chance.
Luke was standing next to the Jedi leader during the training and actually whacked him a couple of times with the light saber. So, when Luke went up for his battle, the trainer made some comment about him being a wild one, ha! Afterwards, each child gets a certificate of completion for the training.
Anna and Thomas did a lot of riding and waiting on us, but they were troopers. Anna has already developed a "thing" about the camera. Here you see her actual smile, and her "I'm done with this" look. Isn't it funny? I love those little poked out lips.
After the training, we rode Star Tours and visited the Honey, I shrunk the kids playground. Then, we saw the Indiana Jones stunt show and visited with Phineas and Ferb. We were done after that, literally. We headed back to the room to rest up for the next day.
We headed 45 minutes out of Orlando to Winter Haven, the former site of Cypress Gardens. There they have opened a Legoland park. It still has the garden areas and the water ski shows. I was disappointed with the park. Even though, we had two free tickets, and Thomas and Anna were free, it was quite expensive to enter. The rides are all for 2-12 year olds, which I knew going in, but I still thought they were little, like targeted for 6 year olds. It is almost all outside, and the temp hit 100 that day. The Lego creations were fabulous, and the boys liked checking out all the different figures in the sections of the park.
After Orlando, we headed to St. Simon's with a lunch stop in St.Augustine. We had lunch at the Spanish Bakery and visited the Castillo de San Marcos. It was hot but a great history lesson for the day.
In St. Simon's, Caleb proved to be an excellent fiddler crab catcher. He only got pinched once, and he said it didn't hurt.
Anna had her first visit to the beach. She loved digging in the sand and splashing in the waves. The full moon had caused a higher tide than normal, and there was lots of bamboo floating in the ocean. Joshua did his part in trying to clean the ocean.
