Orlando Eye+Gatorland

When Chantelle called me up and said they could use their parents' time share in Orlando for free and so they needed to know fun things to do in Orlando besides Disney I was thinking....?!?!?!?!? What is there to do in Orlando besides Disney? (By the way, I'm totally with her on not doing disney with toddlers. While they enjoy it and it's cute, and all of you can definitely take your kids and I have zero judgement, for us personally I feel like it's a waste. And two minutes in the line for Orlando Eye solidified that. Ruth was ALL STARRY EYED and excited and had all the anticipation. But Will and Molly? Waiting in line was pure heck. And this was not even a long line. Tantrums, struggles, whines, tears. They weren't excited. Even though they had been beforehand. They didn't talk about it afterward really, even though Ruth brought it up over and over and over again. Pretty much, I want my kid's to be Ruth's age or older to spend that kind of money. It's just so much more magical and less stressful for the parent! Any who--just so you know I support your decision Chan!)

Come to find out, there is A TON of stuff to do in Orlando besides Disney. The Orlando Eye was less kid friendly, but was on all of the Go-Orlando card choices. Since that is what they had, those are the things we did. I enjoyed this SO much. It was so fun and neat to see everything from up above and I thought it was really cool.

They did the aquarium the day before we got there and LOVED it, so there's that too if you ever find yourself in Orlando. 

The Aquarium and the Orlando Eye have the same entrance, so my kids got to enjoy NEMO for a little bit. 

On the ride! You rode up in a glass box, basically, and then a little movie told you all the things you could see. It was fun. Pretty sure we spotted the temple! 

After that we headed over to Gatorland. This was Jeremy's first choice and he loved it. As for me...it was meh. I mean, once you've seen a gator, you don't really need to see 300, right? But I do have to say their shows had top notch entertainers and were really fun to watch.

Part of the 'meh' experience is probably due to the fact that our stroller had a flat tire and so I was using an umbrella stroller for Will, who had been limping since the day before (and then mysteriously stopped, weird boy) and had to pack Molly on my back. Which would have been fine if Molly hadn't pulled my hair the ENTIRE time (I'm not used to packing her, it's usually too hot here.) and Will hadn't kept jumping out of the stroller. Also, that meant my camera and diaper bag had to be hauled around instead of just stashed away. Oh how I love you, lovely Phil and Teds double stroller. You were dearly missed. 

Ok, this is pretty cool to see.

This was my favorite show. They were hysterical and the crowd was funny too.

Yup, that's a tarantula they just put on her hand and back without her knowing!!!

That lady at the end saw the snake and ran away! HAHA!

Daphne wanted to hold the snake. It wrapped around her four times!

Gatorland is in Kissimee, FL which is the beginning of the Everglades. They had a beautiful boardwalk out over the swamp. I really loved it!

One last gator show:

Will couldn't lift the head up by himself, so the man's arm had to stay in the picture to help him. Haha. I was so surprised. They walked right up to the gator's and sat right down! 

One FAT gator! 

 Last show, Jumpin' Gators!

Then we went back to the condo completely exhausted and hungry and ate some delicious chicken alfredo made by Jeremy and attempted to put all the kids to bed, haha. It was fun!