Friday Night In Orlando

Florida Trip Report Part 5

First off i really need to write these trip reports sooner, I mean Florida was a month and a half ago (and california 3 days away). But after a fun day at the studios I decided to try the non-drunk side of Downtown Disney. I had a blast at downtown disney it is a really fun place to walk around with all the music bumpin, cool lights and buildings. I didn't eat there on friday night, but did on sunday and fully recommend the meatball sub at Earl of Sandwich for a quick meal. I didn't do a whole lot on the "West Side" home to Cirque and Disneyquest. I did stop in on of the shops (I think it was the magnet store) where i found these awesome bouncy balls the size of a standard softball.

They were the same material as a bouncing ball you'd find in a vending machine and were very heavy, I'd never seen them before. Then I had a fully sober walk thru pleasure island (mannequins totally has no signs of a gay bar from the outside) to the marketplace. I saw the construction for the absolutely massive T Rex restaurant which is gonna be like rainforest cafe. One of my favorite parts of the marketplace is the outside of the LEGO store where they have all the giant lego sculptures, the best being the LEGO family.

The marketplace is also home to the World Of Disney store, which must be the worlds largest disney store, so many different rooms you could easily spend an hour shopping and exploring the place, especially if your a fan of the mouse like I am. The pirate room is also home to the old "Peg Leg Pete" parrot animatronic that used to be outside of the ride in florida. They also have a fantastic and gigantic disney themed toy store, and a few more disney specialty shops like a store with stuff for pets and a christmas store. If you really like Disney and don't mind dropping some coin they got a great "Art Of Disney" store. Along with ceramics and paintings, you can buy prints of the classic attraction posters from the magic kingdom (I am hoping to pick up a few from disneyland on friday................... have I mentioned I am going to Disneyland on friday on the blog??)

Then after I was all done at the classy Downtown Disney, I decided to check out some of the classic Orlando Schlock at Fun Spot & Old Town. These two locations are right next to each other and have some cool stuff. NOW let me be clear these places aren't up to the ummm standards of the rest of orlando, but they got a coaster credit so I am there. Old town was where the coaster was at so I hit that first. It has an outdoor junky mall feel to it, I did find one good buy at the weird african-asia-tiki mask store. The coaster was a standard windstrom and was overpriced and nothing specail. The best part about the Fun Spot / Old Town combo are what are typically referred to as upcharge rides. Old Town has a slingshot and skyscraper, but Fun Spot has some truley crazy stuff. They are of course home to the famous 300 foot skycoaster, now I did the 150 or so foot tall on at KI and was completely terrified (the video of it is on youtube somewher) and I know there is no way I'd ever do this one. Fun Spot also has G Force Accelerators which are air launched dragsters that look like a blast.

Friday Night in Orlando was fun, but not near as fun as Saturday at Magic Kingdom