Walt Disney 2020
Day 8: ICON park: ferris wheels, saltwater, wax and swings 450' in the air!!! Yikes!
Today we were heading to ICON park. I read about it online right before our trip here and figured it would be a nice addition to our "off" day. After all, I had to keep the munchkin active and busy and she was officially on Christmas break as of Friday. No more homework or difficulty trying to connect to her zoom classes. Plus this was a sleep in day for us...I mean her basically if you wanna know the truth.
We had finally ran out of breakfast items to make and decided it was time to let someone else do the cooking. We looked for breakfast places close to us and I put in "Denny's" on the GPS because during all of our out-of-the-way traveling from place to place, I knew I had seen one. So, off we went.
Along the way we seen a Waffle House. I absolutely love Waffle House and their breakfast sausage bowls so we decided to stop there. Now I have to say, the place did not have any plastic barriers between the booths like we do back home, there was no social distancing...people could sit back to back or at the table right beside you, and the staff had their mask down under their chin about 90% of the time. One of the other things that irked me was the cook didn't even have a mask on AT ALL!
Now this was all discovered AFTER we had sat down and ordered and more people were coming in and they sat them down at tables beside us or behind us (which was weird to us because at our waffle house, you always seat yourself).
Our food was good as always, but I couldn't help but think of all the things I had seen in that place.
As we were finishing our plates I hear Sakari say "eeeewwww". Oh boy now what. She watched "Vic" the cook drop a waffle on the ground, pick it up with his gloved hand, throw it away and then pick up a clean dish to put food on (including touching toast with his hands) that he just cooked to give to the waitress to give to the customer. That's just gross! Change your gloves!!!! This place needs to be reported!
I couldn't wait to get out of there so off we went with the GPS telling us where to go.
When we first arrived at ICON we went inside and purchased our tickets. We did the pack where you ride the wheel and go to Sealife Aquarium and the wax museum. Might as well do it all while we are here and it's cheaper to buy the 3 events pass than buy separate.
Up first was The Wheel!
INFO:
*It goes up 400 feet over Orlando and you can see various attractions.
* Opened in 2015 after 3 years of construction
*Equipped with 64,000 color-changing LED's for light shows
*Deemed the brightest beacon in the Orlando sky
*Can see the Natural lakes, Walt Disney World, Central Florida Landmarks, Universal Orlando
Now before getting into the area for the Wheel, they took our temps and also did a metal detector on us. It was weird and I have no idea why. They didn't do that at any of the other attractions.
The wheel keeps moving and the hubby was really worried about me stepping onto a moving object but it does go slow and I didn't have a problem with it. Up we went.
Inside the capsule they had these monitors that you could touch and scroll over to see what everything was and where it was located. I could definitely tell that we were close to Sea World because we pass it on the way and you could see the roller coasters.
Close up of Sea World
Walt Disney World off in the distance
Disney
And then there's this thing. Sakari spotted it and immediately wanted to go on it. I gasp and said no way! You're not getting me on that thing and I don't think you should go on it either. They are swings for heavens sake! These went taller than we did on the Wheel. So scary looking and I'm not afraid of heights. They looked like they went pretty quick spinning as well. I just really didn't want to go on it and the hubby wasn't sure either.
It was a nice ride and lasted for quite some time.
We enjoyed ourselves and it was a nice way to
start the day...nice and calm, high up, but safe.
Enclosed! No feet dangling. Very slow. Yea, I
liked this ride.
It was time to get off and the hubby warned me
"No tricks! You take it slow! Hold my hand!" I was
able to get off the moving Wheel with no issues
but landing is always weird to me. Just like when
you come off an escalator.
"Can we go get on the swings??????" I hear coming from some direction I was trying to avoid.
"Ok, do you want to go to see the ocean or the people?" I said. Sakari's reply...."Swings". That wasn't one of the choices. Sea or People?
She decided on the ocean of course and we came off the Wheel and back into the building and turned left and we were at the Aquarium.
Sea life was basically that...the ocean and fish. There were a few fresh water displays but most was saltwater.
We stood in line and then gave them our tickets. When you buy the 3 pack, they give you receipts for each attraction. Then in we went down under into the ocean blue.
The first room was a bright blue round room with schools of fish swimming around and around us.
Then these guys came out to pose for a picture for us.
The red jelly fish room!
So many pretty fish and corals
We came to a rather large tank with sharks, rays and a VERY curious Grouper that would follow us back and forth and even posed for a few pictures for us.
The next area was pretty neat. It was the Axolotl area. I know a lot of people have never heard of an Axolotl and that included me too until Sakari was in Elementary and her librarian raised these both at home and in the library at her school. Every year she would give the kids who wanted any of them a few. Sakari was always bringing them home. They are supposed to be very easy to care for and great pets for the inexperienced person who wants to own an exotic pet. Well, in my opinion, they were very hard to take care for. Her first one died. I guess the temps had to be a certain coldness and since it was young, water could only be so many inches. Then feeding them...had to feed them on some tiny cup down in the water so they'd know where to get the food from and you had to buy blood worms from the pet store.
The next round would be the teacher giving her eggs (they produce eggs over and over and over). Well her eggs never hatched despite doing everything she was told...they remained in their egg state for eternity.
Next round a few months later produced some eggs THAT ACTUALLY HATCHED!!! It was amazing to see them. She managed to keep a few of them alive for awhile, but eventually they didn't make it. Gosh they were so small.
Fast forward to the last and final try...The teacher hatched some eggs for her and then gave her a male and female baby. She managed to keep them alive for quite some time, but only 1 survived long term. I think we still had the girl up until last year and then I have no clue why she ended up dying. I think Sakari just wasn't feeding her on the right schedule anymore.
Anyhow, I have NEVER seen these things anywhere. Not at a store, not at an aquarium place or anything. So, we were thrilled to see this display area dedicated just to them here. Although, they only had the black ones there. They do come in a variety of colors and we had a pink one.
This is what Sakari's Axolotl looked like....a little alien lizard
Moving on after quite some time spent in this area...
Who's this strange fish?
We came across this fish...we were like "Is that a nurse shark?" It sure looked like one but man was it FAT! Could it be pregnant? I didn't see any other nurse sharks in the tank and this one just sat on the bottom hardly moving most of the time and it had a really large grouper hanging out with it the entire time and the grouper didn't go very far from it.
This guy got himself in a pickle...
When we came to this area, Sakari immediately said, THIS is what I picture your tank being like if you ever do another saltwater tank....lol
And lastly, we came to the "petting" area. I was really shocked that they had this open. I know at our local zoo, they have it closed due to the Corona and I don't mean beer.
Accomplished two attractions so far. I hear this little voice "Can we go on the swings now?"
Alrighty then, let's do the wax museum now and I headed toward Madame Tussauds museum.
Sakari kept looking up at the display and said "Is that really made out of wax? It looks so real!
We stood in line, gave them our receipts and headed in. We've been to a lot of these before (but this would be the first for Sakari since the last time we went she was very young. Anyone who has been to these knows that it's mostly movie stars made out of wax. So, I'm just going to show you most of them without comment unless there's something that I feel needs to be said. I mean it's a wax museum, they're made out of wax, they look real, end of story.
Of except this caddy should be fired.
I swear I don't know how she does this! Yes, she was on her toes.
Everyone always says that Sakari is going to grow up looking like Ariana Grande but if this wax figure is anything close to her actual size, then it's probably not going to happen because I swear her head was the size of an orange or darn near close to it. I kept looking at it over and over and kept commenting that there's no way her head is that small???? Of course it's hard to tell in the pictures but I'm telling you, it was SMALL. It didn't help that Sakari didn't have her hair down, heels on, skimpy outfit on or make up done. Then maybe she would look more like her in this picture.
See what I did here in the placement of my pics? :D Oopsy
We came to an area that you could interact with the figures and you had to figure out a "puzzle" type of thing to get something interesting to happen with the figures displays. If you could figure out the codes to certain things or look for the clues, lights would come on, sounds and everything. It was pretty cool. Then the helicopter you could actually lift up and become that superhuman you've always wanted to be growing up.
We were done with the museum and had a waxtastic time while completing our 3 attractions and headed outside where I kept hearing that little voice "Can we go on the swings now?" UGH! I needed to rest my foot. It was really swollen at this point and we sat for awhile and I checked in with the other kids and my animal sitter as well.
I needed something to drink, I needed to use the restroom, I needed to rest my foot, I needed...to stall with every idea I could to keep from going on these 450' in the air and up to 50mph swings. But, it wasn't working too well.
We walked over to the swings and my heart sunk into my belly. I really wasn't sure about this. Hubby convinced me I would be ok. Wait what? What about YOU being ok? He said as much as he was bummed that he wouldn't be able to go with us, he'd wait it out from below and take pictures and a video because he knew how much I needed those for my reviews. Yea right! I'm sure you are so bummed about this. How thoughtful of him....heh
Taking a second ride on the Wheel was looking more exciting to me but no....Sakari wasn't having it. She's such an adrenaline junkie. I'm more on the cautious side these days but I do know she gets this from both her mother and father.
We went inside to purchase our tickets. Let's just do this and get it over with. Wait, I need to potty again. I didn't want the onlookers below to think it started raining all of a sudden while we were on it. I just couldn't bare the thought.
We got in line and the hubby took his place on a safe ground-level bench below (lucky dog) and we were escorted to our swing, told to empty our pockets into the basket beside us, put our safety belt on and let the nerves begin. I watched a guy behind us put a very small child in the swing with him (I'm guessing maybe 5 years old) and his other 2 kids in the swings BEHIND him (that looked maybe to be around the 7-8 year old) and it made my heart race. There's no way I would have allowed my kid at such a young age to be riding BEHIND me where I couldn't see them or yell at them and they wouldn't have been riding without an adult that far up in the air. It just sent my heart racing. But, I guess I am the parent that allowed my 3 yr old to zipline in the rainforest by herself and also at 3 years old to jump off a 2 story deck into the ocean by herself in Roatan. Who am I to judge right? But in my defense, (at least for the last part) my child could swim. Maybe these boys could fly and I just wasn't aware of it.
I told my hubby how much I loved him and gave him directions on taking care of the animals, to tell my other kids I loved them and that I hoped he could survive on his own with the laundry and chores around the house and then....
...up we went. "Are we there yet?" Sakari said "Mom, we just started" :/ I already felt like we were high enough. Maybe if my swing broke at this point, I would crush all my bones and my eyeballs would pop out but I just might make it. Any higher than that and it was doomsday.
We kept going higher and higher and faster and faster. We are one of those dots way up there and hadn't even reached the top yet. Do you know that this ride claims to be the tallest swing ride attraction in the world?
Here is a picture that puts how high this attraction is into perspective (of course not my picture)
Of course the minute we got up there, the wind was really blowing and it really does feel like you are going really fast! Immediately my eyelashes started blowing and it wouldn't be me if something didn't go wrong. I got an eyelash in my eye and it was killing me. I was cupping my hand over my face, I was trying to keep the wind from going in my eye and trying to get the eyelash out. I spent a better part of the ride from the top and all the way coming down not being able to see. Just my luck of course. BUT....I SURVIVED!
We exited off the ride and the hubby come running to me with open arms and then whispers in my ear ever so delicately "I'm so happy you're ali....still gonna be able to take care of the animals and clean the house"
Sakari said she wanted to get another caricature done and also wanted a henna tattoo. When we came on this vacation, we told Sakari that this was her main Christmas present. So, we would pretty much do whatever she wanted and she could get pretty much whatever she wanted. I can give her a list of chores to do around the house and by the third chore, she's already forgotten the rest of the things. But tell her everything we are doing while on vacation and everything these attractions have here and she will not forget a single one of them. Selective hearing and memory at its best.
We headed off in the direction to get herself a tattoo. (Sakari does these herself almost on a weekly basis so I'm honestly not sure why she felt it necessary to get one here but she states that it's different having someone else do it).
Notice how excited she was...she was WAY in the lead.
She picked out her tattoo and took her seat.
She absolutely loved it.
Then headed next door to get her drawing, but this time she wanted all of us in it and didn't want color.
As he was sketching me I was laughing and then said "Wait, I really don't have squinty eyes!" But really I do especially when I smile and have never had an artist draw me without them and I knew this would be no exception.
I thought they turned out really good and they look just like us. This is the kind of drawing I thought we were going to get out of the guy at Disney who charged us $45. This guy was was less than that and we had 3 people!
After this, we were pretty hungry and decided we would eat some place here instead of going home to cook. Our food source was winding down since we had already been here a week and honestly I just didn't feel like cooking and neither did the hubby.
We ended up going to Buffalo Wild Wings because the hubby thought wings sounded good. We decided to eat outside on the terrace, because it was nice out, and had a lovely meal...other than the waitress kept calling my hubby "honey, hun, sweetie" and so on, which was getting so annoying because she sure didn't acknowledge me or Sakari that way, to the point where I was seriously about to say something to her about it and tell her it was disrespectful with his wife sitting right here. I know that a lot of people use this terminology and especially people from the south, BUT they usually use it on everyone when talking and not just signal one person out sitting at the table...which happens to be my man. It was just weird and annoying and I couldn't wait to get out of there.
The Wheel and the StarFlyer was all lit up at night and so pretty. It almost made me wish we would have rode them both after sunset.
We figured we had done everything there was to do and headed to the van. There must have been some type of meet up with these slingshots because the entire ground level of the parking garage was full on them. For those of you that don't know what a slingshot is, it's a 3 wheeled motorcycle with 2 of the wheels being in the front. Kendra had a few of these over the last few years and they are so much fun to ride.
We put our address in the GPS and off we went home...the same way we came this time.
We arrived home to a surprise!!! How lucky were we!
He was pretty big and sitting on the wall in the dinning room. He had friends too. Sakari ended up finding one in the bed upstairs in the loft. Lucky us. I knew we were bound to run into those huge Florida cockroaches but dang I thought we were going to escape it this time around since our vacation was almost over.
The house does exterminate and they also have some of these...I'm not sure how they work and always wondered if these "frequency" things had any effect on bugs. Just to make it clear...this plug in bug-be-gone-ridder was in the same room as this cockroach. ;) So I probably have my answer there.
Sakari ask if she had to get up early the following day and I replied no. She was relieved. She ask what we had planned tomorrow and I told her I really didn't have anything for tomorrow other than packing. Daddy told her we'd probably go ride go-carts or something because we had passed a place with a sign that read go-carts.
A little T.V., shower and off to bed we went.