I thought it was so cute that I was distracted from writing my blog as I kept photographing it.
Our noisy neighbours weren't too bad today. Once again they were in the pool by 7am but all was quiet by 8am. A quick dip before heading off to a theme park perhaps?
We'd talked about going to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure today and tomorrow, but a few things have been niggling me:
> The temperature has been consistently higher than last year, which would make it uncomfortable
walking around in the heat.
> The main purpose of going to the park was to ride the Hogwarts Express. We'd heard that at least
one of the other Harry Potter rides would not be suitable for Harrison.
> Having reviewed the other attractions, I didn't think that we'd get value for money from the $450 -
$600 (approx £300 - £380) ticket prices (1 and 2 day passes). Harrison and Bernard are unable to
go on some of the rides due to their medical conditions. Also, Harrison perceives others as 'too
scary' so refuses to try them.
> Queuing with crowds in the heat might make us all a bit ratty!
We considered it again and decided that any theme park would be unbearable in the current heat. The temperature isn't due to drop to the low 90's until the weekend.
Before we left England, Harrison had wanted to go to Daytona and Legoland. However, since arriving here, the lure of the pool has been too great! Our decision not to go to Universal, meant that we were able to fit in our morning float in the pool before going out. We were a bit short of time though, so we did have to stop Harrison from taking his pre-pool shower. Today he was down to just two showers lasting around half an hour each! We need to break his three shower a day habit because unlike here, we don't have an endless supply of hot water at home!
Pool done and one shower each later, we were ready to head off to Chocolate Kingdom. This is a new attraction on a much, much smaller scale to Cadbury World. We thought it would be interesting to see how chocolate is made over here but more importantly, it's all indoors! The temperature today was 103F!
We thought the chocolate factory would be really busy because it was featured on the news last night.
The car park looked very quiet though and we were added on to the 2pm tour which had started five minutes previously. By joining them, we'd just doubled the number in the group!
The tour guide was very personable but it soon became evident (when Bernard heckled her), that although she had learnt her chocolate making script well, she had no knowledge of wider world history! We were taken through various little stage sets to learn about the history of chocolate and to experience the chocolate as it would have been consumed at each particular point in history. Harrison tried all of the samples except the drink that contained chilli. I also passed on that one! The tour was quite well done - a couple of minutes input from our guide, some optional boards to read for more information, objects and murals to see, audience participation via oral quizzes, taste tests and a very short cartoon video to keep the interest of any young children. The story was about a prince making a princess some chocolate shoes to replace those that a friendly dragon had melted. Not particularly relevant to us though, because Harrison was the youngest in our group of six!
Each 'room' followed the same format and with my trainer / teacher hat on, I generally approved of their approach ;-) It kept the group together and under control but some additional 'hands on' activities and interactive or paper based treasure hunt style quizzes perhaps after the official tour might keep visitors there a bit longer.
Harrison trying to catapult a marshmallow into the dragon's mouth to gain us entry into the factory area. We all had a go but as nobody was successful with the catapults the guide had us all throwing marshmallows at the dragon together until eventually one went in. She wasn't going to let us pass until we had succeeded!
The tour lasted about 45 minutes in total and at the end there was an option to create your own chocolate bar.
Having tried a chocolate covered marshmallow during the tour, this was what Harrison picked to add to a milk chocolate bar. He could choose up to three other ingredients but settled just for this one. This is progress though, because prior to this tour he would only eat Cadbury's dairy milk bars (with no enhancements whatsoever) or Creme Eggs. Today he tried a whole raw cocoa bean, chocolate covered marshmallow, slivers of shelled cocoa bean, liquid unrefined chocolate and mini dark, milk and white chocolate shoes. Bernard and I had been a bit sceptical about how the chocolate might taste. The only American chocolate we've tried to date is Hershey's and we weren't keen on it. The chocolate here though, was very nice and creamy. Much nicer than Hershey's!
Bernard and I were a little more adventurous with our joint milk chocolate bar choosing to add pecan nuts and coffee. We felt that adding bacon bits as our third ingredient was a step too far! Once created, the chocolate bars had to set, so we headed back into the main area / shop to wait for them.
All but one of our group were waiting for bespoke chocolate bars and having been on our feet for an hour or so, we would have appreciated a seat. Chocolate Kingdom could benefit from a proper coffee shop. They currently just sell bottled cold drinks at the till. With only a McDonald's in the area for competition, and an apart hotel opposite, they might do quite well. They could also do with more merchandise; specifically items that target children and tourists e.g. soft toys and pin badges with their logo on and maybe a picture book about the chocolate making process. Apart from buying their chocolate, there was a choice of a jute shopper, a mug or a bottle of liquid chocolate.
When the chocolate bars were ready, they were transported from the factory by an aerial conveyor:
We all enjoyed our visit but felt that maybe they should have a company research trip to Cadbury World ;-) They'd certainly come back with ideas! Harrison would like to have been driven around by a train (like the one at Cadbury World). A great suggestion for future expansion - the place is way too small for that at the moment!
Our next and final destination for the day was Old Town in Kissimmee. I'd seen it advertised in one of the free coupon / visit Florida magazines and thought it would give us a contrasting experience to the ultra modern attractions generally on offer. We completely missed it on our first attempt to locate it; partly because it was situated off the other carriageway and partly because it wasn't at all what we were expecting. We did spend about an hour here just walking up and down the street but Harrison was far more interested in Fun Spot next door, which had a couple of karting tracks and a ride on train! The Old Town is probably somewhere to come at night when the bars would be full and there would be other entertainment. I thought the shops might have been set up as traditional old stores but they were all selling cheap tourist stuff. Bernard hit the nail on the head when he said that this was Orlando's equivalent to a British pier. A quick explore was sufficient for us in 103F. We also needed to try and keep the car as cool as possible so that our chocolate bars didn't melt before we got them back to the villa! The street did look quite picturesque from a distance and I'm sure it was a lot more vibrant at night.
One of Harrison's requests for the holiday that we had not yet fulfilled was for 'a hotdog like the one we had in SeaWorld last year'. A quick trip to Walmart on the way home and he was sorted with a DIY hotdog kit :-)
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