Today was an early start as we were off to Kennedy Space Centre.
We set the alarms for 7am and were ready and out the door for 7:45 for the 75min drive to Kennedy. It is an easy straight road and we loved going over the Nasa Causeway with the water on both sides
I had not bought tickets for Kennedy while at home as there was always the chance we wouldn't fit it in, so we decided to pay on the door. 2 adults and 2 kids cost $191 for the standard tickets And arriving at 9:05 we only waited in a 5min queue. I took a photo of the leaflet so you can see what the standard ticket includes in the left hand column, and the right hand column shows what you can add at extra cost.
It was very impressive going in as the first thing you get to is the rocket garden which holds replicas of lots of historical rockets. There was a tour starting so we joined that where she told you everything about them. The kids were able to climb into the pod that the first American man to go into space was returned to Earth in.
We moved on from there to watch the first of 2 available 3D shows in the IMAX – Journey To Space. This was real interesting showing the history of the space race, the moon landings and all of the Apollo missions. Each film lasts about 40m and is shown roughly each hour.
We then decided to do the bus tour before it got too busy. The bus tour takes you from the main visitor centre (left of the bottom photo) 5 miles out to the Vehicle Assembly Building, which is the big famous one with the flag on the outside. You just drive past this a couple of times as it is a working building. It was really interesting learning all about the new rocket being built to launch the new Orion in future years and what trips they might do with that.
It was then onto the Saturn/Apollo centre where you get off and go round the exhibits. It was VERY impressive! We went through the info about all of the Apollo missions and saw lots of memorabilia.
We then broke for lunch. We had taken our trusty coolbag picnic as I had read somewhere the food was rubbish and expensive. The only thing I saw people buying were single pizza slices and they didn't look up to much but I didn't check what they actually sold or for how much. There were lots of nice picnic tables both inside the building with the air on, or outside in the sun. We were of course outside in the sun. The air con is fierce throughout the complex and I was glad I had taken my cardi as you were inside 90% of the time.
I toddled off to the shop and bought myself a NASA Tshirt and mortified Hannah by insisting on wearing it for the rest of the day. Tee hee! I don't care, I love it!
You then board any bus back to the visitor centre once done. It was already 1pm by now, time was flying in. Once back at the visitor centre we headed for the Atlantis exhibition.
This was both mine and Kevin's favourite part of the day as it was so interesting (so much info to take in), jaw-dropping (seeing the real Atlantis for the first time) and very moving (the forever remembered part for the lost astronauts).
It was also the kids favourite part for the huge double slide (Umpteen goes on that), being able to crawl through all the tubes of a mini replica Space station, and the Launch experience (strapped you in, tilted you back, shoogled you like mad). We were in there for almost 2 hours!
We came out, stopped for space dots (Dippin dots wouldn't you know!) and carried on into Mission to Mars which was a film and presentation about the hoped for Mars missions in the new Orion.
Then we went to the 4pm showing of the other 3D film in the IMAX – All about the Hubble telescope. That was fascinating and we thoroughly enjoyed it but the early start took its toll on Kieran. He fell asleep, 3D glasses askew, head back, mouth open, snoring his head off. My boy doesn't do discreet napping. No matter what way I shifted him he still snored. I could only hope with the sound of the film being so loud he didn't bother anyone. It didn't seem so but I was still slightly mortified.
We left just after 5pm and paid a quick visit to the memorial over the water behind the IMAX building. Again this was quite moving to see as across the day we had learned about each mission that went wrong and watched footage of the astronauts preparing to go up. To then see the memorials brought a lump to the throat, but it is very well done.
We finished up and headed for the car park. It closes at 6pm, we had done everything we wanted to do and Kieran was a walking zombie by now.
We discussed what we loved, and for Kevin and I it was hands down watching the presentation about Atlantis then the screen fading away to reveal the real thing right there, so imposing.
The kids both loved the launch experience which we had liked too. This was probably one of Kevin and I's favourite days. We seemed to spend all day saying 'Wow', 'Oh My God look at that', 'That's amazing', 'you would never think of that', 'this is brilliant'.
And although the kids wouldn't put it above their thrill rides at the main parks, they were still interested, and in no way bored at any time. They agreed it had been a really good day and it was nice to have a day out that felt less frantic than the big parks.
The kids just wanted back to the villa pool rather than stop at a restaurant, but as we parents didn't want to cook we agreed on a takeaway. We ordered online from Olive Garden and Kevin popped up to rolling Oaks to collect it.
We ate beside the pool. I let Kieran have a quick dip again but have just pulled him out and sent him to get dried as it was getting too splashy near his head for my liking. Kevin and Hannah are currently racing up and down doing (very short) lengths so Kevin can try to get rid of his burger belly!
Tomorrow we now have some FPs planned at Hollywood Studios so we intend an earlyish start to get as many rides in as we can, and are hoping it is not as busy as it was on Saturday!