Walt Disney World 2003

Beth and I took a long weekend to visit Orlando, Florida.  The dates were January 16 through 19, 2003, and the event was the marriage vow renewal of John and Mary Hollis.  Here are my photos.

Thursday, January 16, 2003

After a long travel by car, airplane, and then bus, we checked into Disney’s All Star Music hotel in Orlando.  The hotel is basically Disney’s equivalent of Motel 6 - short on amenities, but with a price to match.

Here’s our room.

That night, we went to Downtown Disney with John and Mary and tons of their family and friends.  We ended up eating at an Italian restaurant. Here’s a shot of our big table and Beth and Mary.

Friday, January 17, 2003

Friday we visited Disney Animal Kingdom, which is a cross between a zoo and an amusement park.  In typical Disney style, it’s fairly mediocre at both.

That morning, after breakfast, we took the bus from the hotel to the park Here’s a shot showing some of the buses from the Disney bus service, followed by some goofy photos of Beth and me.

We saw birds…

…and the giant hand-carved “tree” that forms the center of the park.

We went on the “safari” ride, which leads through “Harambe Wildlife Reserve”.

Then we walked around and saw some more animals.

Here’s Beth birding, of course.

Here are a couple places where the animals are kept.

Oh, what do you know!  Beth’s watching birds again!

I liked this sign.  We saw flying foxes and fruit bats.

Here’s a tiger we saw on one of the animal walks.

And another tiger…

Before leaving the park, we just had to get a photo of the two of us.

Here are two more shots of the giant “tree” in the middle of the park.

After leaving the park, we went back to the hotel, took a nap, and got dressed up to go out.  That night we went to a Cuban restaurant for dinner, and then to Cirque du Soleil.  They have a permanent production called “La Nouba” there at Disney Downtown.  It was awesome and impressive as Cirque du Soleil always is.  Here is the building, and the people I went with.

Saturday, January 18, 2003

After going around and around about it, Beth decided she didn’t want to visit Disney MGM Studio with me on Saturday.  So I went alone, and met up with some of the others from our party later. Here are photos of the main entrance to the park, a little lake, and the Indiana Jones attraction where they pretend to show you how Hollywood special effects are created.

Later in the day, Johnny and I went on the “backlot” tour.  Here are some of the old movie props you see there…

…and the explosions and “flash flood” you experience on the short and unimpressive ride.

I just had to get a photo of the Hollis family.  That’s Mary, Johnny, John, and Hayden, in front of the wizard’s hat that marks the center of the MGM Studios park.

Supposedly, this is the actual prop used for the 3d chess game from the Millenium Falcon in the original Star Wars movie.

Saturday night, after a long day of riding rides and so on, we had the big shindig. Mary and John renewed their marriage vows, and the rest of us ate a ton of good food and drank some champagne.

These photos seem to indicate that some people drank way too much champagne.

Here’s their cake, which we took back to the hotel.

Sunday, January 19, 2003

Sunday morning, we were up at 5:00 AM (which was like 3:00 AM to us, since we were still on Mountain time) and headed back home.  Here’s a shot of the swimming pool of our hotel, demonstrating what an incredibly cold morning it was in Orlando.  It was warmer in both Chicago and Denver that day.