IHSAN KHAIRIR

Orlando Day 3 – Disney MGM Studios

We began the next day by visiting Disney MGM Studios (now known as Disney Hollywood Studios), the movie/film industry themed portion of Walt Disney World.

Everyone felt so uppity that day that we took almost 10 pictures every 3 minutes… we barely walked 5 steps and all of us just stopped to take pictures…

We took pictures with anything that catches the eye… even just a car on the side of the road…

MGM Studios has sets for filming scenes in certain cities… for example San Francisco (the pic above)…

… and the classic New York City. Personally I think the NYC set looks more convincing, what do you think?

The ride of the day… The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in the Hollywood Tower Hotel… the ride drops you down and shoots you up multiple times and you can see the view outside as well… got us pumped with adrenaline. Good thing we got on this ride before lunch.

Car stunt show was both fun and educational… and they try to slip in some comedic appeal as well, which, for the easily amused me, worked excellently. The show featured some car stunts and also some ‘how we did it’, with a cameo by the famous Volkswagon Herbie (the Love Bug) and a big explosion to end the show.

As with previous Disney parks… go to the Disney store, wear fancy hats, take pictures, put them back. Pick another hat, take pictures, put em back. Rinse and repeat. Haha we’re so cheap! We’re the real Mad Hatters of Disney!

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Next stop: EPCOT                  

This is a repost with minor edits of my vacation to Orlando, Florida with my Malaysian college-mates. We went for the trip in the summer of 2006, while I was still an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

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Orlando Day 1 – Seaworld

We arrived in Orlando from Detroit at about 10 am, rented a car, checked in at a hotel, and out to Seaworld that very morning. The weather was really hot and humid, which kinda reminded me of Malaysia… that first day I think I sweat gallons. By the time we went home my shirt was almost entirely soaked.

Took a picture right after the entrance gates. On the ‘lighthouse’ at the back – there’s a drawing of Shamu – the bigshot celebrity orca at Seaworld.

Shamu is really BIG. That killer whale didn’t look as huge while swimming around in the water and tossing the trainers around. Once it ‘whaled’ itself onto the stage right in front of us we could see how big this mammal is compared to us humans.

I expected to be soaked by Shamu’s tail splashing but we were seated too far back to be splashed on by the orca. The audience who sat on the first 4 or 5 rows were soaked. I wouldn’t mind the soaking; it was just too hot, I’d love it if a whale would splash cold water to cool me down.

Shamu was everywhere… and almost every time we see the whale’s representation (sculpture, statue, mural, etc etc) we would stop and take a picture. I guess it wouldn’t be Seaworld without Shamu.

A shark was flying around in a dark room… nah. This was taken while we waited in line to see some sharks in an aquarium. That shark on the wall is of course fake.

We ended the day petting some dolphins. Earlier we petted some stingrays… they are cold, soft and slimy to the touch. These friendly and cute dolphins however, are hard and smooth to the touch, reminded me of a shiny motorcycle gas tank or helmet.

We did a lot more than just watching Shamu and petting dolphins, but I just want to make these entries short and simple, so tell me if you want to know more (which I’m sure nobody does).

Next day, our next destination – Animal Kingdom.

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I have been browsing my old Xanga entries and stumbled upon the Orlando posts, which brought back a lot of memories. Seeing that I used to have zero readership back then (and some small amount today) I decided to reshare the experience again here with the fairly recent readers.

Has anyone else here been to Seaworld Orlando? If you have, please do share your experiences as well, it’d be fun to recount and relive the moments =)

I shall repost Day 2 of the Orlando trip in the next post.