Stalzer/Obele Family Blog

Nachdem wir uns gestern (Montag) einen ruhigen Tag gegönnt hatten, hat es uns heute in die Disney MGM Studios getrieben. Das Wetter war extrem angenehm (nicht zu heiss mit leichtem Wind) und der Park zwar voll, aber es gab keine Warteschlangen.

Nachdem wir uns den obligatorischen Plan am Parkeingang beschafft hatten, beschlossen wir, die “Voyage of the Little Mermaid” anzusehen. Die Jungs kennen Arielle (die Meerjungfrau) aus dem Fernsehen und Maxi erinnerte sich, dass wir diese Show letztes Jahr schon angesehen hatten. Es handelt sich um ein ca. 20 Min. Musical von Arielle.

Danach ging weiter in die Backlot Tour. Zunächst sieht man einige beeindruckende Wasser und Explosions-Effekte, die z.B. bei dem Film Pearl Harbour benutzt wurden und dann geht es in kleine Züge, mit denen man an alten Requisiten (viele Flugzeuge aus Pearl Harbour, Star Wars Raumschiffe, Herbie, und vieles, vieles mehr) vorbeigefahren wird. Der Zug fährt dann in einen Canyon und man wird Zeuge eines Erdbebens, das bewirkt, dass ein Tanklastzug explodiert - es ist beeindruckend wie heiss das Feuer ist, obwohl man eigentlich noch ziemlich weit davon entfernt ist. Danach kommt das Beste: es werden 265.000 Liter Wasser verwendet, um eine Sturmflut zu simulieren (siehe auch: http://www.mouse-studios.com/WDS/Courtyards/ProductionCourtyard/Attractions/StudioTramTour.htm). Klar, dass damit auch der brennende Tanklastzug nicht mehr brennt.

Von so viel Action beflügelt, haben wir uns dann gleich in die Indiana Jones Stunt Show gewagt. Felix war sich am Anfang nicht so ganz sicher, ob sich die kämpfenden Helden nicht doch gewaltig weh tun. Es waren beeindruckende Stunts zu sehen (Kämpfe, Explosionen, Leute, die von Häusern herunterfallen, usw.).

Nun völlig im Action Modus sind wir danach gleich weiter in die Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show. Hier hörte und roch man quietschende Reifen, springende Autos, Motorräder die sich mehrere wilde Verfolgungsjagden lieferten. Max war besonders von den Motorrad Stunts begeistert. Es gab auch eine Einlage mit Water Scootern.

Nach so viel Action hatten wir dann aber mal richtig Hunger. Wir haben uns ein schattiges Plaetzchen gesucht und unsere mitgebrachten Peanutbutter Bagels genossen.

Dann gab es fuer Thomas und mich (nacheinander versteht sich) die Star Wars Flight Simulation. Ich koennte diesen Flug stundenlang geniessen. Waehrend die Jungs und ich auf Thomas warteten, sahen wir Lightning McQueen und TowMaider an uns vorbeiziehen. Felix und Max waren total begeistert.

Zum Abschluss ging es dann noch in die Muppets 3D Show. Man bekommt 3D Brillen und sitzt dann wirklich mitten in der Muppet Show. Die Jungs waren sich nicht immer sicher, was wie weit an sie rankommen wuerde. Aber man sieht auch andere Zuschauer, die verwundert vor sich in die Luft greifen, um irgendwelche fliegende Characters beruehren zu wollen.

Danach waren wir alle ziemlich k.o. und Felix draengte, dass wir jetzt endlich nach Hause gehen, da er unbedingt Animal Planet im Fernsehen sehen wollte. Also sattelten wir die Pferde, ritten zum taeglichen Shopping Spass gen Publix und danach weiter in das Haus. Wir haben diesen Tag sehr genossen.

Of course, we have the GPS Data from our visit to MGM’s.

Felix updated the entry about the first Busch Garden visit. Have a look

http://stalzerobele.vasercontrol.com/2007/05/01/felix-and-max-as-reporters-in-busch-garden-tampa/

Ein kleiner Nachtrag - vorgestern abend gab es noch meinen “all-time-favourite”. Cherry Pie !!! Nachts um 11:00 habe wir noch einen Kuchen in den Backofen geschoben und eine Stunde später gab es das leckere Teil.

I had my new GPS with me - of course. This was our way through Bush Gardens….

After we passed through our “thunderstorm from hell” we treated us to a “dinner from heaven”. When we were looking for something to eat, we saw giant sweet water shrimp. Again, everybody selected their favorite food. Felix and Max chose chicken wings, Thomas and I decided on the sweet water shrimp and of course a little bit sushi.

The shrimp was wonderful. It had such an excellent flavor and taste ….

After dinner everybody was happy, tired and full. The boys watched a litte of their favorite movie Littlefoot and Thomas and I played pool. After that Felix played pool against Thomas and won. The boys were really tired and went happily to bed after a very exciting day.

Thomas and I were too lazy to write on the blog, so we decided to watch a movie.

Today we experienced our first real Florida thunderstorm. We were driving back to the house from Tampa Busch Gardens when the sky got darker and darker. Our two biplane pilots were sound asleep in the back of the car. When we had about half of the way, suddenly it began to rain. There was lots of gusting wind and heavy lightning and pretty soon there was so much rain, you almost could not see the street anymore. A lot of cars parked on the side of the freeway and the rest was crawling with emergency blinking on, so you could be seen by the car behind you. We have never seen so heavy rain. To bad the camera was in the trunk - this could have been impressive fotos.

The rain got lighter as we aproached Davenport. When we finally entered the shopping mall for our daily shopping - the rain had almost stopped.

Today we decided again to visit Busch Gardens, Tampa. Last time - when we dropped off Thomas at the Tampa airport for his Toronto trip, the boys enjoyed all the animals very much. So, naturally they were very excited to tell and show dad.

Compared to last Tuesday - today were millions of people in the park, but like Disney, the organization dealing with those masses is excellent. And since we were not there for the thrilling roller coasters - there was no wait for the things we did.

As last time, we started again with the alligators and went on to a Jungle trail where you could observe monkeys and gorillas. The landscape, plants and flowers are just incredible. After that Max insisted that he wanted to go to the biplanes (this is a ride for smaller kids - pure fun; last Wednesday we did´t do this ride).

On the way to the Sky Ride we discovered large turtles, a dromedar, african elephants. Finally we arrived at the biplanes. Both, Felix and Max, weren´t able to stand still anymore. They were so excited and a bit afraid how scary the ride might be. Well, as you will see from Thomas Garmin Map, we spent most of our time at this ride. Both pilots flew several times and it was very hard to convince them to go on - we had to promise to come back later for the ride again.

Then we went on the Rhino Ride. You first drive through the “Serengetti” with a big Jeep and then the Jeep flows down a river. Well, “due to technical difficulties, the water part of the ride was temporarily closed”. This was no problem - the land part of the ride was excellent.

After that we went on the Sky Ride - Felix and Max were very excited to show dad that they were not afraid at all. Max explained to Thomas what he should do in case he got scared. After the Sky Ride - we had to stop by the biplanes again, and again, and again…. I don´t know how often they rode - they had such a great time. We discovered that there was a motorcycle ride a little to the side of the biplanes. Well, as you can see from the pictures the two Stalzer-Biker-Boys enjoyed their ride like the pros. Then, of course, a couple last times on the biplanes, and we went on to try out the train which goes around the entire park. The train ride offers great animal and roler coaster viewing (you almost drive through some of the roler coasters).

After that we decided to go home after an exciting day.

Returning from Seaworld, we at the rest of the watermelon - That was really refreshing

Ich habe heute meinen neuen Forerunner 305 im Seaworld mit dabei gehabt und unsere GPS Daten den ganzen Tag gelogged. Dies waren die Wege, die wir gegangen sind

Today, we went into the Seaworld park. Helga and the boys have already been in Seaworld a couple days ago when I was in Toronto. Arriving at the park, the efficiency of the parking organisation is remarkable. We arrived with literally hundreds of others however being guided to a parking place was highly efficient.

After entering the park, the first thing we had to do is go to the stingrays. The stingrays are in a basin and they actually enjoy being touched (At least they give the impression. They probably are just looking for food). Next on the list was a visit in the dolphin basin. However, a lot of other people had the same idea. So we continued on to the underwater viewing area and the manatees. The boys are really fascinated from the sea cows.

After leaving the manatees, we found the dolphin show was about to start in a couple minutes. We actually got really nice places in the shade but not too far up. The show was fantastic. The choreography and the integration of birds, people, costumes, music was exceptional. The performers were doing somersaults from about 10m high - Amazing.

Next was a visit in a the aquarium under one of the rides. The aquarium had an ancient touch. The main aquarium were below the glass floor and over the glass ceiling. A little mermaid was projected behind the big aquarium.

Another big aquarium was the shark tank. You go by a moving sidewalk through a tube with sharks swimming around you.

Going to the far end of Seaworld, we visited the Arctic Experience. Entering the building you had a choice of going with an helicopter full motion simulator r just watching the video. We choose to just have a look at the video. In the Arctic Experience, the temperature was just 16 degrees. After touching some “real” arctic ice, loking at polar bears, walrus, caves, etc. we went into the warm (or hot and humid) again.

After crossing the lake, we went to the Pet Ahoy show. It is a show with real animals being “saved” from the animal shelter and taught tricks. A really nice show, as numerous cats, dogs, a pig, birds, etc. were doing their stories, e.g. a dog calling his girlfriend, getting money from an ATM, buying flowers, getting a car picking her up for dinner, etc. The boys really liked the show.

I had my new GPS with me and we walked approx. 7.5 km in the park.

Es ist gerade kurz nach 9 Uhr und meine Zuckerbäcker sind dabei, frische Croissants und Cinnamon Rolls zu backen. Gerade wird mir auch ein frischer Milchkaffee gereicht. Irgendwie könnte ich mich an Urlaub gewöhnen.

Tagesplan ist heute, gemeinsam Seaworld nochmal unsicher zu machen.

Nachdem wir bis heute nachmittag gewartet haben, bis mein neues Spielzeug angekommen ist, muß ich doch gleich mal ein bisschen was darüber schreiben. Ich habe mir einen Garmin Forerunner 305 genehmigt. Dies ist ein GPS, Heartrate Monitor und Uhr in einem. Es merkt sich die Position jede Sekunde und man kann dann die Daten analysieren oder auch z.B. mit Google Earth zusammen exportieren. Hier mal ein Beispiel von einem Testlauf hier um den Block

Heute haengen wir zuhause rum und experimentieren mit allem was wir hier so finden. Die Jungs haben gerade die Playstation 2 entdeckt und versuchen sich als Autofahrer im Simpsons Look. Papa kopiert gerade die Giga-Bytes auf unseren Picture Server und ich habe mich im Billiard versucht.

Eigentlich wollen wir heute nach SeaWorld. Thomas hatte vorgestern bei Amazon einige Dinge bestellt, die Overnight Delivery, eigentlich heute vormittag ausgeliefert werden sollten. Nun ist es 2:30 pm und der Delivery Truck war noch nicht da… wird schon noch kommen. Irgendwie tut dieses Gammeln auch super-gut. Vielleicht gönnen wir uns später noch ein Shopping Center und dann unseren Publix, um rauszufinden, was es denn heute Abend leckeres geben könnte - die Jungs sind schon wieder Hamburger hungrig.

Das Wetter ist traumhaft. Es ist zwar extrem heiss, aber noch nicht zu unangenehm schwül. Das Haus hat ausserdem eine gut funktionierende Klimaanlage und das ist echt super. Man kann sich draussen aufheizen und geht dann rein, um wieder auf Normaltemperatur zu kommen.

Heute haben wir unser Bergfest; d.h. wir sind jetzt schon eine ganze Woche hier - kaum zu glauben. Die Zeit ging einfach viel zu schnell vorbei. Nun bleibt uns nur noch eine Woche…. schnief. Mal sehen was uns heute noch alle einfällt.

Today, we went to the Epcot Center. Epcot stands for Experimental Prototype Community of tomorrow. After entering, a big globe featuring the earth is at the entrance. Behind the globe, two buildings show innovations, exhibitions and all sorts of experiments. The boys were fascinated by the big fire truck at the entrance. Another favorite was the exhibitions about the below earth architecture of ant hills, termites, moles, etc.

I got the chance to drive a Segway PT. The Segway is basically a platform with an engine, two wheels and a stick to control it. It is really simple and fascinating. Here is a link to a short video of me on the segway.

After leaving the experiments, we went to the Turtle Talk with Crush - another favorite of the boys. It is an iteractive show where the kids can talk to Crush (the turtoise from Finding Nemo). After looking at all the fish, crabs, dolphins, sharks, etc. I was having a look at the Soarin’ ride. The park was fairly empty however for Soarin’ ride the waiting line was more than 1 hour. So we went around the lake looking at the exhibitions of all the countries. At the italian exhibition, we got us some coffee and had a break.

On the way out, we went into the globe at the entrance which features a ride showing all the innovations regarding communication of the human society. Starting with cave painting, papyros, the first printing press, on to computers and the internet, the key elements were shown. On the way out, a computer based game where you have to drive a car around different obstacles could be played. The boys (Felix was steering and Max was controlling the power setting) were able to get to the “Commander” level - This is the new favorite of the park.

On the way home we got some Sushi (He He) and we went home for a quiet evening.