Day 8 - NASA/Disney Springs - 'Mission - Space'

[kl_belle]

Index is here

Day 7 - TL/Epcot - 'Grab a Shell Dude' here

Day 8 – NASA/Disney Springs - 'Mission - Space'

It was an early start this morning as we had a longer trip out to the Kennedy Space Center planned today! We were awake at 6.30am, had a quick breakfast of cereal and tea in our hotel room and by 7.20am we were heading out to walk across to the Rosen Inn International where our bus was picking us up for the trip.

The bus arrived with no problems and we were on our way by around 8am, we had a few stop offs en route, including The Dolphin at WDW which we noted as we knew we wanted to head back to Disney Springs before the holiday was out so considered whether we could get off here on our way back.

The bus journey was quite uneventful, but the tour guide was great, giving us lots of facts about Orlando and Disney World and the gators as we travelled. We arrived at NASA around 10.15am and had the classic picture outside the famous sign!

We opted to do the tour around the launch pads first, as we had read this could take around three hours in total to do and it was one of the parts of NASA that Steven was really keen to see. It was incredible seeing where the shuttles launched from and how huge all the warehouses were.

Whilst in the Saturn V part of the Space Center we decided to grab some lunch as we were both getting pretty hungry. I had a pepperoni pizza and Steven had a cheeseburger with a drink each it came to around $17 so not bad compared to theme park prices really! We enjoyed this outside in the sunshine before looking around the rest of this area.

We headed back to the main complex after this and went to see Atlantis. The way that this part of the exhibition is done is really – wow! Loved seeing this and it was probably my favourite part of the day. Breathtaking to see a shuttle that has really been out there in space and we were just in awe at the sheer size of it.

This was new for Steven too as he said when he was last here 18 years ago (!) Atlantis wasn’t there so he enjoyed this part of it too, he also mused whether this was the shuttle that launched when he was in Florida back in 2000 as he had come to see the launch back then but it was sadly cancelled due to weather conditions when he was at the Space Center. Would be quite something to actually see a launch!

We headed into the IMAX next to watch ‘Journey into Space’. I accidentally fell asleep for a large portion of this film – oops! All the walking around and the early start had got the better of me on this day I think, but luckily I woke up to see the ending so that was at least something.

We then went outside to get some fresh air and enjoy the sunshine and wandered around the Rocket Garden. We didn’t really find this area to be anything special, but it was still nice to have a wander around.

After this we headed to the gift shop. It was rather overrun with excitable school children buying anything and everything space related (remember those days!) I bought a NASA pin from here as I had decided I liked the idea of pins so thought a NASA one would be good to have as I couldn’t imagine we would come back here anytime soon if we did return to Florida.

It was around 3.45pm by now so we were heading back on the coach for the second part of our trip to Lone Cabbage on St John’s River for an airboat ride!

We arrived here at 4.30pm and were very lucky as we saw so many gators on our airboat ride. The first one we saw was 8ft long and just sat chilling on the river bank – incredible!

We saw some smaller ones bobbing their heads above the water too as we rode around and were told these were the younger ones, most likely being just a couple of years old and how they had to protect themselves as other larger gators would sometimes eat the baby ones (horrific!)

We also saw what we thought was a snake on the water, but were told it was actually a bird which they nickname ‘bird snake’ as it goes into the water for food, but cannot fly again until it’s wings are dry.

After this it was again back to the coach and were on our way back to Orlando at about 5.45pm. They showed Apollo 13 on the way back which was a nice touch. We really enjoyed this tour and everything was as it was described. We booked this through FloridaTix for anyone wanting to do something a bit different next time you’re in Orlando – I would highly recommend.

The coach dropped off at the Swan at 7pm so we hopped off here so we could head to Disney Springs so I could get my Disney fix for the day and all the merchandise I had been eyeing up since we got here!

We headed straight to World of Disney when we got there and I finally got my hands on my beloved snappy Mickey I had been wanting, as well as a few bits for family and friends and a Disney magnet and pin for myself to remind me of my first trip and to go with my NASA one.

It was off to Days of Christmas next as I had also wanted to buy a Christmas decoration to remind us of our trip and Christmas is my favourite time of the year so I was excited to pick one out! We spent ages in here and could have easily bought about 20 different decorations but we eventually settled on a classic Mickey and Minnie with a bell on and wearing Christmas outfits. We also got the same one for my Mum and Dad as she had asked me to bring her back a tree decoration.

After this we wandered into Goofy’s Candy where I had been eyeing up the jelly beans. Jelly Belly ones are my all time favourite sweet and the choice in here was excellent. So we filled a bag full of all our favourites, I was also eyeing up a cute Olaf marshmallow pop but Steven insisted I was crazy to spend $6 on what was effectively three marshmallows stuck together on a stick (ever the accountant!) so I pouted – more because I knew he was right - and stuck with just the jelly beans from here.

Our shopping fix sorted we grabbed an Uber out of Disney Springs about 8.30pm. this was the only time we really had a problem with Uber as the driver cancelled on us to then pick up another person 2 minutes later despite saying he couldn’t see us, when we hadn’t moved from the pick up location! Oh well…we soon got our Uber and were back in the hotel by 9pm, dumped our bags and headed out for all you can eat pizza at CiCi’s on International Drive.

We really enjoyed it here and we both had all you can eat buffet, Steven had two beers and I had a refillable drink all for $25 – great price!

We were back in our hotel room by 10pm feeling shattered, we showered and soon fell asleep whilst watching Haunted Mansion on television, with our new snappy Mickey tucked in beside us.

Day 9 - Outlets/MK - 'Happily Ever After' here

[Eeyore-x]

Sounds like a lovely day, we are hoping to visit KSC on our next trip as we have not been and from your report i definitely think we will love it! Really enjoying reading your trip report so far

[kl_belle]

Originally Posted by Eeyore-x

Sounds like a lovely day, we are hoping to visit KSC on our next trip as we have not been and from your report i definitely think we will love it! Really enjoying reading your trip report so far

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Thank you so much for reading along! It's great reliving all the amazing memories from our trip. I would definitely recommend KSC if you haven't been before, it is a fascinating place.

[disneypars]

Fabulous day.

[Goldia]

Sounds like a good day out, love the pins you bought.

[pinktraceb]

Great day. My hubby also fell asleep during the film at KSC (in fact I think that at least a third of the cinema were having a little snooze!)