Well, on the upside, I woke up this morning with no virtual reality induced nausea or dizziness.     We headed out to Disney’s Animal Kingdom with high hopes.  I opted out of the Everest roller coaster, not wishing to tempt fate, but did go on the Kali River Rapids ride, which was fun.   We saw two tigers, some playful gibbons, a bunch of fruit bats and two or three loud macaws.

And then?

Have you ever been in a situation where you feel that you should be having way more fun than you actually are?   Because everyone you know has raved about the experience and told you how much you are going to love it?     That was us at about noon today.   We were hot, we were hungry and we were done with the Animal Kingdom.

So we took the Disney bus back to the Animal Kingdom Resort, from where, we were told, we could pick up the bus to Downtown Disney, where we planned to eat lunch before heading over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.    We got to the Animal Kingdom Resort and then sat waiting for the Downtown Disney bus for about 35 minutes.   Add to that the fact that September is when the ‘love bugs’ as they are locally known, appear in hordes to mate.   They are everywhere, and for some reason they particularly seem to love bus stops.  So poor Ben, who does not love bugs – even ‘love bugs’ – sat with his eyes closed most of the time so that he could not see them flying within inches of his face.

Note to self:  No more trips to Orlando in September.

We finally arrived in Downtown Disney at 1:30pm, which meant we’d spent more time in taxi’s or buses to that point than we had in a theme park.    We went from love-bug infested, sweltering heat, to the overly air-conditioned Rainforest Cafe.  Ben casually remarked that if the place was really a rainforest it needed to be a lot warmer, because jungles are hot.   But the food was good, and the day improved from there.   We went to the Lego store, of course, and designed Disney T’s at the Hanes store.    Then, as we were sitting outside so that Ben could assemble the Lego kit he got, Maya said she wasn’t really excited about Hollywood Studios, and would rather go back to the hotel and go swimming.   Ben immediately agreed.   Thank god for kids like mine!

Even so, it was 5:30 before we were back at the hotel.    We swam and had our dinner served poolside.    Much, much better.

So, with a deep breath and full recognition that I what I am about to say will be considered sacrilege to many – Disney is not our cup of tea.     Am I the first person to say that it totally wasn’t worth the money?  The Universal hotel was great, but other than that?   Give us the Bahamas and the Atlantis resort any day.

But – all is not lost.   Tomorrow we head to Wet ‘n Wild, which is Universal Studios’ water park.   I fully expect that we will love it, and since it’s our last day, it’s a good way to end the trip.

Moral of the story?  Live and learn – just like we always do.