Friday, July 31, 2009

A prehistoric Quest with a dash of motion sickness

Today was day two of our voyage to the sunny state. We awoke this morning around 6:30am, showered, ate our free continental breakfast and then back to the van to head to our next destination.

We were only on the road for 3 hours this time and it was actually enjoyable. Emily (our GPS) lead us straight to our new hotel.. Galleria Palms.



It was a very nice hotel and we were excited to know we would have clean beds to sleep in again tonight. Ben liked the hotel so much that he took too long in the shower so we had to leave him behind.

We forgot to eat lunch before we headed in the "Disney" direction but we were told there was a McDonalds in Downtown Disney so we thought we would eat there..... it would be cheaper right???? Ummmmm......NO! AND it was so packed that we all had to sit at different tables and make funny faces at one another. :)

After our very expensive, non-nutritional lunch at Fatdonalds we walked over to Disney Quest.


We walked up to the ticket window to purchase our tickets for the day and spoke to a very nice gentleman by the name of John. Greg and John started chatting and Greg (jokingly) mentioned it was our birthday tomorrow and wanted to know if we could get in free like all the other Disney parks.

John smirked and said "No, I wish we could, but we are not managed like all the other Disney parks. But, I will see if I can't work something out for you."

After he rang us up we noticed he only charged us half price for all our tickets. HALF price. Do you know how long I looked on the internet to try to find us deals into this place???? So, Greg's quote for the day was...."Trust my read and follow my lead."Ugggggg! I can't believe he saved us that much money just by chatting with a guy.

We did have to wear 3 Happy Birthday pins all day long and if I heard Happy Birthday once today I heard it 300 times. However, I would have worn a tall hat if that meant I could get in half price or free..... well maybe not a TALL hat, but I would have worn a hat. Tomorrow will be more of the same. :)

I was prepared today for motion sickness. I took my dose of Dramamine at least an hour before we arrived and I was ready for some fun. What I was NOT ready for was my reaction to riding in a very small, very hot, very FULL elevator.

The lady packed us all into the elevator, the doors closed and the lights went out. There we all were in the dark heat. Aladdin appears in the mirror in the elevator and I still notice we are not moving. I lean over to Greg and say in a very loud, panicked whisper.... WE ARE NOT MOVING. I am very claustrophobic and I was not enjoying the moment.

I closed my eyes and pretended I was standing somewhere very spacious (which is very hard to do when your body can touch everyone standing next to you). Needless to say it did not work and by the time the doors opened I had worked myself up into a pretty good panic attack and had to sit down for a few minutes. I had tunnel vision and was nearly passing out.

I am starting to think maybe I am getting too old for vacations. Between the Dramamine and panic attacks I am exhausted and we are only on day 2.

After all the elevator commotion we thought maybe we would play it safe and start out on a more calm floor of Disney Quest.... Create. Well, I didn't know "create your own virtual roller coaster and ride it" was on this floor. Leslie and I created our ride and Nick and Greg created theirs. We rode them and I was stunned to find out the Dramamine was doing the trick and I was actually feeling OK. It was fun to ride the coaster we had created just moments before.

We also learned how to draw Minnie Mouse

Here is my chubby little Minnie Mouse.....

and here are the kids drawing their Minnie Mouse.....


Greg and Nick drove a couple Star Wars Pod Racers

This was a real live people pinball game... we didn't play it but it looked cool.

Here is Greg playing his flight simulator. He loved it... I wish we could turn his computer games into something like this for him to play. It was like he was in a real cockpit. :)

THEN we played THIS game......




This game took everyone down. In the pictures above you can see the helmets we needed to wear. The virtual mask would then clip down onto the helmets which were on our heads. We were placed in a virtual comic book war with light sabers that we had to use to fight.

Everyone looked ridiculous playing it but that was half the fun. :) BUT, when the game began we instantly became very sick. This was beyond motion sickness; poor Greg was drenched with sweat after the game was over and he closed his eyes through a big part of it. After this game none of us felt the same again.

We mustered up enough strength to play Pirates of the Caribbean and we were glad we did; it was a great game and we had a blast playing it. The game consisted of running around a virtual ship while the captain (Nick) steers the ship up to enemy ships so we can shoot them and steal their gold. Greg, Leslie and myself continually ran into one another while running from one cannon to the other. It was hysterical and we had a great time.

After winning several chests of gold we needed to walk around an area where everything was not moving around so we decided to do a little shopping in the Disney stores.





We noticed they had nothing in the windows so we thought we would help them out a bit.

Leslie loved the Eeyore's.........


but not the price of the Eeyore's......


We visited Lego World too....




Pictures of everyone waiting for mom to finish using the restroom....



This is where we ate dinner.


It was delicious! Greg ordered Layers of the Earth Lasagna, Les ordered Mammoth Mushroom Ravioli, Nick ordered Peperoni Pizza with a Jurasic salad and I ordered Mammoth Chicken. Plus, they brought us out free birthday treats when we were done eating. (and sang very loudly)



It was a great day. We loved shopping in all the Disney stores and I had fun in Disney Quest too.... I am not sure how people stay there all day though. After a while the motion sickness really does set in.

It is late and I know I made many mistakes in this post... I am sorry and will fix them later... right now I am going to fall into bed and dream of Disney Hollywood Studios. (NOT the Tower of Terror)

See ya real soon........ :)

1 comment:

  1. What great perks you got for your birthdays! Way to go! You were braver than me with all your motion rides....I stuck with make-your-own song, pinball and the character drawing most of the time. Enjoy tomorrow. Love all your pictures!

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