More Epcot Center and Daytona - Days 6 through 8

The pictures in this post are chronologically incorrect. Since I am new to blogging and adding pictures I guess I did it wrong. Anyway, we had a great time at Epcot Center. We were able to see many of the attractions there. I uploaded a video of the Singers at the USA pavillion. They were an amazing a capella group. Of course, it is expected that they are good, but they were also a lot of fun. The conductor reminded me of my Optometrist. It was a lot of fun.



On Wednesday we left to Daytona. We had a hotel room on the 11th floor overlooking the ocean. It was great. Daytona is a party town where high school and college kids were spending their beach week at. Everyone looked so young that I really felt old.



The big thing we did at Daytona was to visit the track. In the entrance to the Daytona Experience (museaum, entertainment center) they have statues of Dale Earheart Sr. and Bill France with his wife. Bill France was the creator of the Daytona 500.

We were able to visit the museum there, Dad and I used the simulators to race with each other. They also gave us a tour of the actual track and had our picture taken at Victory Lane. It was a great experience and helped me better understand the sport.

Below we are in Victory lane. They do not allow you to go to the Grand Stand but the picture was taken next to it.

The pictures below are still at Epcot. This one is in China. Very impressive. They had a fantastic movie. It made me want to go there.

More Epcot

Vacation without pay - Day 3 and 4

On Monday morning we had to attend a presentation so we got up early and had breakfast before going to the meeting place. The sales person we got was an ex-New York cop. He asked us if we owned a time share and we said yes. He proceeded to just chat and very loosely present his plan because he thought we were going to say no anyway. He was right of course but I learned something from this experience. When you present a product to a candidate if from the get go you assume the cutomer is not interested you project desinterest also. I felt as if this guy was not excited about his product. However, if you are enthusiastic about your product the prospect, although he may not have any interest to begin with, will get excited and may change their mind. This indeed happened later. You have to read the posting for day 6.

After the presentation they suggested we go to downtown Disney. Since I had never been there we decided it was a good thing to do . By now it was already 2PM.

Like everything Disney, the design is for people to have fun and enjoy. Downtown Disney is the biggest shopping center I have eer seen. It is designed so that vistors can alway park close enough to the shoppes. There are so many shops that there is no need to visit the whole place. many sotres were more than just stores. In T Rex they had dinosours that moved and made noise. In legoland they had an area where kids could play with legos, make cars and race them. There was a lagoon with the loch ness monster made in legos. Amazing.

On Tuesday we went to Epcot Center. It was a lot of fun. We did most of the park although Dan got tired towards the end so we did not stay for the fireworks at the end.

We had lunch in Morocco and enjoyed the belly dancer. We ate couscus (which is the official food of Moraocco, who knew?) with lamb and chicken. It was great food.

Vacation without pay - Day 1 and 2

My job has cut our hours due to the bad economy and so I was compelled to take 6 days off without pay in March. We decided to make something out of it as I am always complaining that I do not have enough vacation to do anything. We needed to go somewhere cheap. Dan received an offer to go and stay in a resort in Orlando, FLA 2.9 miles away from Disney for 5 days and 4 nights. The package also included 3 days and 2 nights in Daytona, 2 tickets to Disney World (we went to Epcot center), 3 days and 2 nights in Hawaii including the airfare. All this was for $99.00. The catch was that we needed to attend 2, 90 minutes presentations in each of those places. Since we already own a time share, I knew we were not going to buy anything so we took the package.

First thing we had to do was take Moto to Ryan's house so that he could dogsit for us.

Roman really likes dogs. He was happy to see Moto although he is samller than her. We chatted with Ryan for a few minutes and left to finish preparations for the trip.

After we arrived home we finished packing and left at midnight, Friday March13, for Orlando. We drove all the way without stopping other than for fuel/rest stops and one meal.

We arrived to Orlando at about 2:45PM, Saturday. We checked into the hotel and pretty much crashed.

On Sunday we got up early and went to breakfast at Perkins. Perkins restaurants are not common where we live, but Dan really likes their breakfasts and pies. So each time we travel we look for these restaurants on the road. In Orlando they had two of them so we lucked out.

I had made arrangements with the VO of Services at my job to meet and have dinner together. He and his wife drove from Tampa to meet with us. We went to an early dinner (late lunch) to the Long Horn Steakhouse. We had a lovely meal and it was a lot of fun to get to know Bob and his wife outside of work. The best part of the meal was the fact that Bob treated us. Thank you Bob!