Country for old men

It seems that RVing is an entertainment for seniors. And we started our journey from the state for seniors. You'd think otherwise with Disney, Sea World, Universal Studios and all the other parks for kids, but wherever you look the avarage age is way above 60.

Activity board at camping

It's not all that bad. We expected nights at camgrounds to be all about bbq and beer, meanwhile all the activities take place during the day, and it's mostly walking, throwing horseshoes (looks like favourite game here) and dancing on Saturday at noon (maybe we're getting old but it's quite nice after all nights with way-too-loud disco music at Masurian campgrounds back in Poland). 

Throwing horseshoes

So we stayed at Southern Palms RV Resort near Eustis in Lake County Fl for a week. We even had enough time to go for a walk around Eustis. There's vintage car ralley, most of people we meet there probably had personal experience with exhibits when they were young. In a local cafe we see a birthday party, singing "Sto lat" - Polish version of "Happy birthday" which translates literally into "Hundred years", might be considered rude as birthday girl was eighty-something.

By the way, we take back what we wrote before, that we're not interesting for anyone. We just went to more social place - swimming pool next to laundry room, and for two hours of washing and drying we were the center of attention for seniors who just loved our kids and were very curious about our plans. If the average age was closer to 40 we would be probably "couple with spoiled brats", but as everyone was comparing Maciek and Kalina to their grandkids who they don't see too often, then our children were the cutest and the sweetets...

Shuffle board

Of course there are also disadventages. Five minutes after we hang our sheets out a lady in a golfcart came, saying in a nice but strict way that it's not allowed to hang anything (nobody said anyhting about the laundry a day before, but maybe they just didn't notice). Looking for a campground we found surprisingly many places that we couldn't go to because they were "For adults 55+ only". At the parking lots there are many more spaces for handicapped than in other states. People on electric wheelchairs are everywhere (however some of them look like they use it for convenience, not because thay have to, which bring to mind the ending of a movie "WALL-E"). On the other hand those scooters next to Wal-mart are sometimes really tempting... 

Oxygen delivery

You can like it or not, but comparing to Poland, where elders "should'n", "It's inappropriate", and it's best to just sit and wait for death to come, Florida is positively shocking. Maybe it's our personal frustrations talking, but we think it's not all about the money. Yes, of course, there are some active seniors in Poland, but most of people over 50 either try to be invisible or complain about their difficult situation. And it can be different. Most of seniors here are active, they just want to do something. They want to go for a walk, play bingo or throw horshoes, put a swimsuit on and excercise in a pool or move a heavy wooden table to move it from the way of Polish couple's trailer (this last one was a 70-year-old lady, when Ola tried to move the same table later, she was really shocked by how heavy it was).

Our super-strong neighbour's trailer

Seeing how active and how nice people are we can forgive long list of strict campgrounds rules. Once we get to staying around forty-somethings and their screaming kids we'll probably miss Florida.

Anyway, we already know what we want to do when we retire:)

Visiting Mickey Mouse

Maciek is a huge fan of Mickey Mouse, so it was our parental responsibility to visit Disney's park. We don't really understand his love for Mickey Mouse Club House but we've heard he is not the only one, besides for this entry we'll get a bag full of dollars from Walt Disney, so we are not going to complain.

Disneyworld is a gigantic complex made of four separate parks. We read in Lonely Planet that some people find it hard to believe that there is a city near by. That's true, driving on the highway we are passing by many signs for exits to different parks, Orlando is lost among them.

Tickets to Disney's empire can be bought for one or few days. One day ticket gives the entrance to one selected park (there's additional charge for park-hopper option). After a short discussion we've decided to see just one part - Magic Kingdom. Such a one-day pleasure costs 89 USD for an adult and 83 for child older than 3. And there's parking -14 USD. We took food with us and that was smart, as inside you can buy hot-dogs for 9 USD. And that was the cheapest food we found.

We got there around noon (not because it was far, we just like to sleep late). For a second we were considering going back home and coming back first thing in the morning on the next day, but then we admitted that it's not gonna happen, tomorrow we'll sleep late too. Besides the park is open until 9PM. Adult will manage but a child for so many hours...(later, around 6 PM we were sooo ready to go and Maciek was just getting started).

Disneyworld is loud. Loud music and screaming kids everywhere. When we once found a quite place it turned out to be the for smokers. We don't smoke but we stayed there for few nice minutes. Besides everything is perfect. From the moment of crossing the parking gates guests are sucked into a huge marketing machine. At the parking everyone is directed to their spots, then they get transported by ferry or by train to the park. Magic Kingdom is made of - if we remember well - 6 parts, between them you can ride a steam train (there are stations in 3 of them) or a rented golf cart if you are handicaped or you live in an rv park for "adults over 55" (more about it in next entry). You can also rent a stroller for the amount that pays back the price of a new one in just few days. There is a lot of places you can't go into with a stroller but each of them has a parking for strollers and even if you park it somewhere else, stroller fairies will bring it back in no time.

The first place we went to see was a theater were shocked Maciek was hugged by Mickey We were shocked too and before we realized it we did all the hugging the mouse too.

Then we went to see an all-stars, very moving show about dreams coming true.

Next we got sucked in by world of roallercoasters, rides and other attractions typical for this kind of place, most of them we had to wait in the line for at least 15 minutes, which probably isn't so bad for this place.  In the meantime we've decided to go for it - we bought icecream (in case you wonder what we did with this bag full of dollars) - Paweł didn't even try his one - seagull got to it first. And it was not a single case, there were lots and lots of them, sitting on strollers and taking out whatever they could find (luckily for Kalina - not babies). We have to ask: can this fundamental terrorism, threatening western ideology (overpaid icecream in a theme park)  practised by seagulls be be tolerated? We'll be in Washington DC in a few months, we'll ask. Then we can address an ultimatum to pay us back for the icecream. 

And did we like it? Like on roallercoaster, after being excited and amazed at first we had second thoughts. Often it was half an hour wait just to have 5 minutes of fun from which you go straight to a gift shop. And then the next one and the next one, all of them perfect in every inch. At the end, at 8 pm there were fireworks, and even though we were dead tired and really freezing by then, it was worth seeing. And then when we got lost on our way back we realized how much we didn't see, there were whole parts of park we didn't even get to.

What did Maciek remember? Unlike we expected not meeting Mickey Mouse. Actually, when he saw Mickey he asked where is Goofy. After finding Goofy he got worried about Pluto. After the show, where we saw most of the characters, question "what about Daisy?" was coming back even few days later. The only answer that was understandable for Maciek was that she went on vacation.

But what Maciek remembered best was a cruise inspired by "Pirates of Carribean", to be more exact a part with a fire. - I was a bit scared - he said - Why was there a fire? Did the firefighters come? - he kept asking. Another thing that got stuck in his mind were letter-shaped contrails (in case you don't know Maciek we can tell you he is a big fan of contrails:)

What did we remember? Really high prices of everything, seagulls-terrorists, too many sounds and long lines. But what the hell, there were moments that we did feel like kids. Sometimes it's good to remind yourself that dreams come true.