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Old 25 Apr 15, 12:51 PM  
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He Has No Idea What He's Letting Himself In For! Day 9 - KSC & Senor Frog

After our launch shenanigans earlier in the week, today it was time to venture into space (or the visitor center for space, at least!) Our tickets had come free from the site we got our other tickets from, which had been the deciding factor when I was deciding who to go with.

We had planned to leave for the East coast at 8am so of course we left at about half past. I had read in the course of my research to be careful with the sat nav when going to Kennedy, and to make sure we stipulated the visitor centre so as not to end up at the employee entrance. I picked the first result for KSC anyway, thinking that it would at least get me on to the right road east and I could follow the signs after that. This approach worked well thankfully!

I was sitting in the filter lane on I-Drive to turn on to the I4 access road when Joe pointed out that the sat nav was actually pointing me to the next junction that was only about 100 metres down the road. Woops! Luckily at that time of day on a Sunday traffic was at a minimum so I was able to get us onto the correct road. I realised later that it was the same road we came in from the airport in the dark the previous week. What a difference between that dark stressful journey and this one!

I was looking for a petrol station as the poor hire car needed some juice. We made a turn off that promised fuel at a 7-11 and a Racetrac (the 7-11 being closer apparently) but we never saw the 7-11 and ended up at an obviously very new Racetrac station. The roads round about were all brand new and the station itself looked like it had been standing for about 20 minutes. There was nothing round about it but you got the impression there would be soon- funny thing to develop first!

I had looked up an Orlando fuel prices website before we'd left the hotel and was happy to see it was very much at the lower end at $2.63 a gallon. Again, Joe picked up some breakfast snacks, grabbing some Mexican inspired roll and making a hot dog with the pretty impressive (for a fuel station!) condiment bar. The best thing about this stop was that the workers were young guys who (I suspect) had been out the night before and they plugged something into the till that resulted in us being charged only $2.50 for both. What was on the receipt bore no resemblance to what we had purchased (but we didn't notice until later so honest mistake!) I left $50 to fill up the tank but in the end the car only took $33.25. This took it from 75 miles left in the tank to 475 miles left- so cheap!

I was a bit stressed after reading on here about the little lever you need to pull etc etc, but this station was exactly like a UK pump- relief! I went in for my change and we let the sat nav redirect us back on to the main road.

The road was long, straight and reasonably dull to drive. Traffic was very light. I discovered the cruise control for the first time and put it to use. We talked about how when the limit was 70mph, it really didn't feel like 70mph. Probably as I'm used to driving my wee Swift, 70 is more of an ask of it!


Weather wasn't looking very promising!


10 and 2 Sarah, 10 and 2!

We followed the signs and found the visitor centre no problem. Only $10 for parking today and we pulled into Lot 5 in a near empty car park. Keeping our eyes peeled for an Alaska plate after our Hawaii success on Friday, we got to the gate and took some photos:







I set the security gate off as I'd forgotten about my phone in my back pocket. We took some more pictures of the rocket garden and decided to get the bus right away. By the time we had walked round to the stop, I had somehow managed to lose my ticket! It must have fallen out of my back pocket as I took my phone out for a picture. It didn't matter as Joe's ticket got us both on to the bus but it really annoyed me as I absolutely hate losing things!

We enjoyed the bus journey and took a lot of photos but our driver/guide wasn't very easy to understand and he also frequently mixed up his left and right. We loved all the sights and couldn't get over the scale of it all! The crawler that pulled the shuttles about was immense! We thought it was funny too that the turtle crossing the road that the driver pointed out seemed to get our fellow passengers more excited than all the space stuff!


Looks like a totally different day weather-wise but I assure you these are my photos!



We were dropped off at the Apollo/Saturn V centre and were soon let in to the initial briefing. After this we moved through to the launch room, which was fun and made us realise, again, how quiet the place was when we saw all the empty seats!



After that we were let in to the main shed that had the Saturn V rocket. WOW, what a sight. I was astonished at the scale of it and quite content to just stand and gawp at it for a while. Joe meanwhile needed to find a plaque to read so he wandered on. They also had the van that they used to transport the astronauts. We slowly strolled round, reading a lot of the information.









When we got to the cafe it was approaching lunchtime (about half eleven...) so we decided to stop. Joe was THRILLED to see that they were selling Freshetta pizzas, as he used to love them when he was a kid but they don't sell them anymore here in the UK. He got one and was so happy that it was just as he remembered them being. I had buffalo chicken tenders. Hadn't had buffalo anything before and they were pretty firey! The coating wasn't as crispy as I usually like so they were a teeny bit slimey but they were still yum. Sharing a drink this came to $19.79.

We had the cafe to ourselves pretty much. Turned out this had been the right thing to do as by the time we had looped round and were coming back down the hall at the other side the cafe was packed full of people!



We went in to the little presentation hall to watch the presentation about the moon landing. I had no idea that it came so close to complete catastrophe! It was well done but clearly quite old, and as we left we decided that going by the clothes and style of glasses, the kids that provided the quotations were probably about our age now!

After that was a further room where a lot of the equipment was on display. We took our time here and took some more photos. Just outside this room there was also the opportunity to touch a piece of moon rock!







After I invested in a car decal in the gift shop we decided to get the bus back. We had heard an employee say at some point that 5 buses from a cruise liner had just arrived and the place was going to become really busy and, sure enough, we passed lots of buses full of people on the way to the Apollo/Saturn V centre so we felt lucky to have decided to do it first in our day!

The driver on the way home was better and so we learned a bit more. We grabbed a drink at this point and sat in the sun as my lunch had made me really thirsty and there was no food or drink allowed into the Atlantis centre. $3.17 for a 500ml bottle of Coke!



Duly refreshed, we waited for admission into the initial Atlantis screening. By the time we were let in the room was about half full. They showed a montage of the process of putting the space shuttle together. I don't really remember much about the presentation to be honest! The second room then showed you the initial launch as if you were in the shuttle, which was really cool. I loved the way they had you all facing forward then they opened the doors to be faced with the real thing right there- very impressive.


My current phone wallpaper!

We both liked this centre better than the first one- it was obviously newer and the displays were better and more informative. I was particularly taken with a display that detailed what items had been developed due to the R&D that went into the space shuttle. I loved the idea of the contact lenses that you wear to sleep in, then by the time you've woken up they have changed the shape of your cornea so you can see without lenses all the next day! Fingers crossed those get developed a bit more, as they'd be handy for theme parks!



After we had soaked up the Atlantis experience, we tried the launch experience, which didn't have any queues and was a fun simulator. The lockers were a bit funny though, and Joe couldn't get his stuff back out of his as the system wouldn't recognise his code. He had to find a security guard and describe exactly what was in it before he would let him have it. The process would have been smoother if Joe had remembered which locker was his.

Another gift shop on the way out and I needed yet another drink! We had a quick browse in the Space Shop but didn't make any purchases. Thought the prices were reasonable though.

We had a quick trot round Explorers Wanted, and noted carefully what life will be like when we all have to move to Mars. Next was Robot Scouts. All the voice note has about this is that it was, “kinda crap” but we did have it to ourselves. Think it was a bit old and aimed at kids.



We had a slow stroll back round past the Rocket Garden and had a look at the nature & technology exhibit. Seemed to be an excuse for someone to get their taxidermy collection out! Lastly was the early space exploration exhibits. The early space one was really good and we spent a while in there, reading all the info. I was amazed that in the 1920s a man was writing about how he envisaged rockets going in to space.

We decided that we were finished at this point and headed back to the car. We hadn't seen any of the IMAX movies but we decided to give them a miss. On looking at the map online while writing this I also noticed we didn't stop at the astronaut memorial. It didn't seem well marked which is a shame.

Overall we enjoyed KSC and would recommend, but I think it relies a bit too much on having “stuff to see” and if you want to understand what the stuff is you might have a harder time of it. My conclusion on our trip note was that it seemed to have a level of assumed knowledge about the American space program (fair enough, maybe it's covered in school) that we unfortunately didn't have. Joe's conclusion was that he “left with more questions than answers” and he felt it didn't give you a very comprehensive knowledge, but that in a way that couldn't be helped (given there were some disasters that could only be covered very tactfully). The newer Atlantis exhibit was definitely the best.

The drive back was fun. Joe slept for most of it so missed out on seeing a huge wild pig at the side of the road- glad we don't have those here!

We quickly got ready at the hotel and headed out for a walk along I-Drive. This was our last night here as in the morning we were supposed to be moving to the Hard Rock Hotel for 2 nights. When I saw Bahama Breeze I steered us in there, as I had read so much about it on here. Neither of us were feeling the menu though, so we passed on it and walked on, ending up in Señor Frog.

We had a nice server from Mexico, and as we were walking I indulged in a cocktail, which I was offered in a small, medium or large. Went for medium and was presented with an rather large comedy palm tree souvenir glass, score!

We shared chicken quesadillas to start. They were expensive but tasty. This time Joe didn't think too much of them but I liked them! I then had a BBQ chicken wrap for my main, which I didn't even manage half of. It was huge! Don't know what I was thinking agreeing to share a starter as I wasn't too hungry. Joe had the Philly cheesesteak sandwich, which he said was nice and also huge, he moaned about being full all the way back to the hotel. We also tipped the resident balloon sculptor $5 and were rewarded with some awesome headwear.







The bill came to $80 including tip, and we left just as the band was starting and a queue was beginning to form- seemed to be getting busy for a Sunday night! Yet again we were not ready to party and instead headed back to the hotel to do the trip note (I am yawning throughout!) and have an early night. A very early start for Universal tomorrow was on the cards- little did we know in 24 hours time we would be on a flight home!

I'm going to make one more thread on this report for our last day, round up and highs and lows, then I'm planning to cover the insurance battle and what happened next on a new pre-trip report!

Final thread now here!

Thanks for reading

Edited at 08:08 PM.
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Old 25 Apr 15, 04:31 PM  
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I've really enjoyed reading your reports.
Thanks for posting.
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Old 25 Apr 15, 04:50 PM  
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Originally Posted by Mortimer Mouse View Post
I've really enjoyed reading your reports.
Thanks for posting.
Thanks so much
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Old 2 Sep 15, 12:26 AM  
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KSC is fascinating, but maybe I had a bit more of an understanding about the space programme because of my history fixation and my sci-fi geekishness?
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