If I am honest the idea of Florida has never really appealed to me. I have still to this day never been to Disney. I was convinced by my mate that I would like Orlando as there was plenty to do so we used our flight pass and before we knew it we were in Florida. As we had not really had much sleep over the past few days we took the opportunity to book into a hostel and this time we found one that would collect us from the Airport. By now I am starting to realise that backpacking is a fairly new idea to the Americans and it seemed that anyone could open a shack, chuck a few bunks in and label it as a hostel. Still, a comfortable bed is all that was needed and once we were there we were out cold for hours until we were woken up by a horrendous noise. Possibly the hugest crash I have heard in my life. I looked out of the window to check what was happening and expected to find that a bomb had gone off, instead I saw rain. The explosion was thunder and we were in the middle of a storm. The rain was coming down in the kind of volumes that would normally make the news headlines in the UK, followed up with pictures of people rowing boats down the middle of a small village or people sat on the roof of their home awaiting rescue. This only lasted for about 30 minutes though and once it had stopped the sun resumed and the ground was dry in minutes. The next day we made our way to the main reason for hitting Orlando. Adam had convinced me to go to Universal Studios as he thought that this would be much more up my street than Disney. I have to say, when it comes to theme parks the Americans really do go to town on making the whole experience as enjoyable as possible. One of the first rides we went to was the Jaws ride and we found we were queuing through an old boat shed with a lake behind us and TV sets showing clips from the Movie.
After a little while we were told that we would have to come back later as they were having mechanical difficulties. Somehow finding out that the Shark wasn’t working made the experience a little more authentic so we went to find another ride. We did eventually go back and successfully hunt down the killer great white and he really put us through our paces during the chase but we knew there could only be one winner. Other rides worthy of a mention were the Kongfrontation ride where we came face to face with a 50 foot gorilla as we attempted to ride a cable car, the back to the future ride and an earthquake simulation where we witnessed the results of seismic activity from a subway train. Scary stuff indeed. After 8 hours or full on adrenaline action we decided that we needed to pay a visit to the Hard Rock Café for a few beers and a good burger, something else that the Americans do very well indeed. I had to admit that my first experience of a themed park was an enjoyable one and yet I felt like there was still so much more to see of Orlando as we made our way back to the Airport for our next flight to, as yet, destination unknown. It turns out that the next available flight from Orlando was Washington DC….
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