Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida – October 4, 2011

I scheduled a trip to Orlando, Florida late last year with my good friend, Chris Yap. For those who follow my blog, you know that my trips have singular objectives. What the heck is a singular objective? I don’t visit a place (a city, a state, a country) and pressure myself to see everything in that location. I plan to do specific tasks. That way, I don’t pressure myself into trying to see and do everything and end up not enjoying. Anyway… that is the way I do things.

My singular objective for the whole three day trip to Orlando takes place the next day (see the next blog post for that). On this day, its DISNEY WORLD! Woohoo!

View Walt Disney World in a larger map

 

I scheduled my trip to Orlando rather strategically. First of all, I hate crowds. Hate hate hate. But Disney World?  I scheduled the trip to Orlando he first week of October. Summer is done for the Americans. School has just started, so there should be no American school kids lingering around. Second, it is hardly a holiday for other countries as well. Perfect.

Chris and I got to Disney from our hotel a little past 10am. Below a picture showing the first time I saw the Disney ticket booths relatively empty!

We decided to go to three parks roday. Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and finally Epcot.

So we started with Magic Kingdom! Woohoo!

Main Street had a fairly good number of people. But this was still not as much as if it were the height of summer.

Give or take… my 6th trip to Disney World

To my recollection, this is probably my 6th trip to Disney World. My last two trips were separately with my friends of officemates Deo Co and Norman Jose when were still with Microsoft. Previous to that trips ranging all the way to my first trip several years ago (never mind the actual year… hehe)

Cinderella’s Castle. Each Disney has a castle based from one of the characters. The one in Anaheim, California is Sleeping Beauty’s.

No luck with King Arthur’s sword!

Even though I have been to this ride several times in the past, it is still one of my favorites!

Animal Kingdom

After several hours in the Magic Kingdom, we hopped onto a shuttle bus for the Animal Kingdom. This was relatively a newer attraction and I have never been here.  So at least for me, it was new.

While in the Animal Kindom, I was so hungry we went to eat and got some generic theme park food!

Dinosours! Rawr!!!

No, we didn’t eat here.

From the Animal Kingdom, we made our way to Hollywood Studios.

Star Tours!!! They revamped the story!

Me and Chris outside Star Tours. We just missed the song and dance of Darth Vader and the Storm Troopers. Yes, that is an Imperial ATAT behind us. (If you didn’t know what that was, shame on you infidel!)

New York City (fake back drop)!

The Muppets!

Ah… Disney Travel

And finally we ended with Epcot!

I had a mission while at Epcot. In front of the Spaceship Earth Dome are these huge monoliths with metal etchings on them. These were called “Leave a Legacy”, where for a small price, you leave your mark with a photo of yourself or leave a quote behind. Lucky for me, I am immortalized twice here.

Here I am!!!

In 2004, I have a picture with Deo Co

In 2005, I came back with Norman Jose… ouch that metal was hot!

Anyway, back and inside… Chris I made the long walk around the world…

Morocco

Japan

USA… of course

Norway

Eventually ending up in Mexico

It was a long tiring day at Disney World…

Back to hotel and to forage for food.

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