It is spring break time and traffic conditions seem to prove that out. The number of cars on the road is higher than it has been since Christmas time. There are also many RVs on the roads. Traffic backups are much longer than normal. I haven’t noticed the increase in visitors during the spring break periods in past years since I was moving at least every two weeks. This made comparisons over time more difficult. I was also not in this central Florida area during March. The theme parks are a magnet to families. This is a school vacation week for most of Florida and the neighboring states.
The other thing that I am surprised about is the apparent end of snowbird season. It doesn’t seem like it is time yet. In my head the end of March is when everyone starts to return north. When I was in Arizona during March a few years ago, people started leaving at the beginning of March, but I thought Florida was different. I guess not. As I walk around the park, I already see more and more vacant units. They have been buttoned up for the summer. The park owners association annual meeting is this coming week and the office transitions to summer hours at the end of March.
I escaped today’s traffic with a visit to a nearby wildlife preserve. There was only one car in the parking area, but I didn’t see anyone around. I took a walk along the trails and around one of the little ponds. It didn’t qualify as a hike, because it was far from strenuous. Still, it was a good visit with nature.
I’ve visited Disney twice this week. It is a great place to get in some exercise while seeing the pretty flower displays and the antics of crazy visitors. I need to get in my time this week, since next week is a blackout week for my annual pass. The months of March and April have a lot of blackout days for Spring Break and Easter vacation periods.
Crowds at the theme parks were up this week. I didn’t ride many attractions. The lines were just too long. On Tuesday I walked around EPCOT taking pictures of the flower and garden festival. Today I walked around the Magic Kingdom and had a supper of Lobster Roll, Clam Chowder and Fries at Columbia Harbor house. I followed it up with a Brownie Sunday at Anti Gravities. The crowds discouraged me from remaining for fireworks so I was home by 8:30PM.
I spent the weekend in search of wildlife. On Saturday I drove north to Clermont. The park on the shore of Lake Minneola usually has a lots of wildflowers in bloom and a few wadding birds along the lake. On this visit all I found was people partying. The park seems to be very popular for birthday and anniversary parties. All of the pavilions seemed to have the balloons and music of merriment as people celebrated. The only wildlife I found suitable for picture taking were a couple of squirrels.
This is fake wildlife. The Spike the Bee shoulder plush came home with me from EPCOT last week. He is the mascot for the Flower and Garden Festival.
Today, Sunday, I drove south to the Kissimmee River area east of Lake Wales. This area has had a lot of birds and even an alligator or two in past visits. Today I didn’t find much of interest. There were a few birds occupying the buoys in the river and what I think was an Osprey down river fishing by diving toward the water from about thirty feet in the air. It was unsuccessful as each dive ended well above the waters surface.
Traffic both days this weekend was heavy. It doesn’t help that most of my driving is in the afternoon and early evening. I try to get my chores around the base camp done in the morning before I venture out. Today’s task was of the yard work variety. I had to trim the Bougainvillea bush. It has beautiful purple flowers, but the stems have little thorns and it grows rapidly. This is the third time this “winter” I’ve had to trim it.
The Flower and Garden Festival began on Wednesday at Disney’s EPCOT. Having learned my lesson visiting the last festival on opening day, I had no plans to attend on Wednesday. The opening day crowds are just too much. The weather on Wednesday was also very windy and a little wet. I waited until today, Thursday, to go to the 2025 Flower and Garden Festival for the first time. It was a beautiful slightly cooler than normal day.
There were plenty of people at EPCOT today. It probably was as busy or more so than it was on the opening day. Large groups, strollers and Electric Convince Vehicles filled the walkways and often block the path forward. If people drove the way they navigate around a theme park, the roads would be lined with smashed cars and long backups. Dodging people to get a clear view of the flowers and the topiaries was quite a challenge. It was well worth it. The colorful displays and artistic topiaries were beautiful.
I took lots of pictures, but stopped taking pictures of the topiaries halfway around the World Showcase. I need to save some for later. The festival runs until the beginning of June.
The weather cooperated this weekend. It was great weather for a walk around the pond in the nearby wildlife management area. The last week of warmer weather following a few days of rain really brought out the wildflowers. I tried to take pictures of a lot of them, but the overcast lighting conditions made some of my attempts futile. Catching a picture of the illusive turtles was also difficult. They seemed to know I was approaching before I actually saw them. Most of the time I only heard the sound of a splash as it dived for the bottom. It was a refreshing afternoon walk.
I have also been able to get in a few additional walks around resort. This is the peak period for northern visitors to Florida as is clear by the heavy traffic on the area roads, but there are still a few residents that haven’t returned to the park this winter. The units still show signs of being in “storage” mode. There are also a number of homes up for sale, but most of those are still occupied.
It is interesting to observe the license plates on the cars in the resort. After Florida the most prevalent state of origin seems to be Michigan. There is even a notice about a meet up in Michigan this summer in the park newsletter. Ohio and Pennsylvania are also well represented in the park. A couple of plates from Nova Scotia are a surprise. I’m not sure I’ve seen any other travelers from that Canadian Provence on my Rambling Road Trip.
February was a busy month in the resort and March seems to be even busier, but the month of April is quiet. Many people will be returning north before Easter.
The “It’s Tough to be a Bug” show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom is coming to an end in March. The 3d movie complete with sound, smell, water and tactile effects began it’s run inside the Tree of Life when the park opened in 1998. It is being replaced by something centered around Zootopia later this year.
I made a visit to Animal Kingdom on Wednesday to catch one last performance of the show. It isn’t my favorite attraction at the Animal Kingdom. I probably only watched the show four or five times, but I’ve been to the park more than fifty times. Clearly it isn’t one of my favorite shows. The bug show is fairly dark both figuratively and in actual fact. The story of a bugs life isn’t very uplifting. It really scares the little kids as identified by the screams and crying. Hopefully, the Zootopia theme will be better. I don’t really know since I haven’t seen the movie.
Of course I couldn’t go to Animal Kingdom with out walking the animal trails and riding the Safari. Many of the animals weren’t active in the middle of the rather warm day. On a positive note, the crowd was low making the wait for the safari short. Here are some of the animal pictures.
Friday night I finally got to enjoy some fireworks at Disney World. Lately I’ve been leaving the park before the fireworks shows start. When lines for attractions are long, it becomes very boring to wait around for the fireworks, so I go home with the thought that there will be another opportunity.
Friday night at the Magic Kingdom was my night for fireworks and I have the weather to thank. It was a very cold day and an even colder night. Once the sun set the temperature rapidly drop to fifty or a little below. When combined with a strong northwest wind, it felt even colder. I came prepared with two sweatshirt layers over a long sleeve shirt. Other people weren’t as prepared and the crowd thinned out rapidly as the temperature dropped.
I rode several rides that I don’t usually get a chance to ride because of the long lines. Being able to ride the attractions made the wait for the fireworks and the ability to kill time after the fireworks while the crowds for the transportation back to the parking lot to thin out a much more doable thing. I got to ride the Haunted Mansion and the Jungle Cruise for the first time in a long time.
My viewing location for the fireworks was in frontier land at the back of the park. I didn’t have time to get to main street after I got off the Haunted Mansion ride. The view from the back is great for the high exploding shells. The crowds are also much thinner, but you don’t get to see the shells framed the castle or the projections on the castle and main street shops. Here are some pictures.
Well it finally happened. Ever since I went from daily blog posts to twice weekly, I knew eventually I would forget to post on schedule. As I was about to go to bed tonight, I remembered it was Thursday and a blog post was due. It is now shortly after midnight on Friday morning and I’m writing this quick post. I will back date the post so the online sequencing comes out correct.
My big event over the last few days was a stop at Disney’s EPCOT for my last visit during this years Festival of the Arts. It was really a stop to get some exercise walking around the World Showcase and some Fish and Chips at the UK Pavilion. I also watched the Broadway artists performing songs from the Disney on Broadway playbook.
The pictures attached to this blog post are some of the blossoms around EPCOT on Tuesday afternoon.\
The last three days included two “iffy” weather days surrounding a very nice weather day on Saturday. On Friday and Sunday cold fronts approached the area from the northwest. On Friday black clouds accompanied by brief showers were the primary weather feature of the day. Today (Sunday) strong winds dominated the day. A bigger cold front approached from the northwest. It did a good job interrupting the Daytona 500 NASCAR race for about three hours, but by the time the front arrived here it was nothing much. Still, it kept me from outdoor activities.
Luckily, I took advantage of Saturday’s good weather for a trip to the Atlantic coast. Specifically, I went to the Port Canaveral area. I stopped at Kelly Park on Merritt Island to watch the sailboards, sailboats and other contraptions taking advantage of the wind over the waters of the Banana River. The area was quite active and some of the water craft were moving at amazingly fast speeds.
As late afternoon approached, I moved on to the “Cove” area in Port Canaveral to watch the cruise ships depart. There were six in port. Four departed starting at 4PM and the others were scheduled to leave starting at 5PM. When I got tired of watching the brown pelicans, I departed for home before the last two cruise ships set sail. The port seemed to be very active. In addition to the cruise ships there were several freighters, tugs and a Space X barge with and expended Falcon 9 rocket onboard in port.
Mother Nature is trying to make up for the colder than normal January. The last few days have been well above the low seventies normal high for the season. Today the temperature even reached ninety degrees. With the high temperature came a summer like pattern. A couple of random downpours interrupted the day. Thank you to the people in the states north of here that have endured the cold, wet and severe weather that has allowed Florida to experience nicer weather.
The traffic in the area is frustrating me again. The volume let up a little after the end of year holidays, but it has picked up again. I imagine the February and March snowbirds and spring breakers will keep the volume up. The bigger complication seem to be the section of Interstate 4 between this area and the resort corridor. It is considered by some surveys to be the most congested section of Interstate in the country. At the beginning of the month the state started an emergency construction project to add one lane in each direction and a couple of wider intersection ramps. They are planning to complete what is generally three years of construction in one year. Most of the actual work will be done at night, but the obstacles in the road associated with construction will be there during the day. In the past the traffic wasn’t bad between about ten and two during the day. The construction on the interstate seems to have eliminated that period. Once the interstate is full, the local roads fill up with people trying to dodge the interstate traffic. I got caught in the interstate traffic on Tuesday and the local road traffic on Wednesday. It took an hour and a half to get from my base camp to Disney World on Wednesday. It usually takes 45 minutes with traffic and 20 minutes without.
My visit to Disney on Wednesday was another visit to the International Festival of the Arts at EPCOT. While I went to tour the art exhibits again, my real reason was to have a interesting place to get my walking exercise in. I enjoy people watching and all of the possible activities around the area as I walk. On this visit I visited the aquarium at the Living Seas pavilion and enjoyed the Voices of Liberty a capella singing group at the American Adventure. It was a hot day in the sun so I only made one lap of the World Showcase. When combined with the walk in from the parking lot and some walking in the front area of the park it adds up to about 3.5 miles. You really need to add another lap around the World Showcase or out to the Boardwalk Resort loop to get in a good walk.
Bambi topiary for the Flower and Garden Festival starting in March is already out.
I had another hour plus trip in traffic to get back to my base camp from EPCOT. The roads inside Disney are also showing signs of congestion caused by Interstate 4 delays. I am sure there are a lot of commuters that are cutting through Disney attempting to find a faster way home. Rush hour traffic leaving Disney property toward the west doesn’t seem to be consistent with any Disney based timing.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 