Well, I'm here. Been here a few days, in fact.
Arrived Wed. Took Thursday as a do-nothing day, but used it to arrange my tickets and tours. Turns out KSC has a *lot* of special close-up tours they never used to have going on right now (limited time), so being a space geek I signed up for all of them. The VAB and Laucnh Pad tours on Friday, the Launch Control tour on Monday, and the historical tour (including the USAF part of Canaveral) on Tuesday (flying back Wed afternoon).
So, the gates at KSC open at 0900. The bus for the VAB tour leaves at 0930. No big, right? Except that it takes me nearly 30min in line just to get to the ticket window for pickup. At which point the drone behind the window tells me "no, you can only sign up for one tour per day." WTF? I spent two hours on the phone with KSC reservations hammering out this timing! Anyway, at this point, I'm boned on the VAB tour anyway, so I ended up at Customer Relations (much higher IQ level) and re-jiggered my sched. Basically, I'll be hitting the VAB first thing in the morning on Wed, then driving back to Orlando to grab my plane. No big deal, I should have nearly 3hrs to spare between.
So I took the close-up tour of Pads 39A and 39B... coincendentally on the 43 anniversary of the Apollo 11 landings. I swear, I did not plan this. But very cool. 39B is essentially the way that Atlantis left it on the last STS flight. 39A has been stripped down to bare pad and is being overhauled to accep multiple different boosters with the new "Mobile Launcher" gantry. And then I spent nearly 8hrs roaming KSC. BTW, the "Shuttle Launch Experience" is a heck of a ride. I knew the STS was a brutal lifter during the SRB phase, but OMGWTFBBQ. That alone is sufficient reason to never base another crew lifter on an SRB-derived design, IMO.
Then I left KSC and dashed back to my hotel, b/c I'd been overambitious and bought a ticket to the Cirque at Disney for 9PM. Then I proceeded to have a GPS glitch that ran me round the entire perimeter of Disney (in the dark) until dumping me... somewhere... so I missed the first 1/3 of the Cirque. But the last 2/3 were still cool, and I was too dead beat to get worked up over what I'd missed.
Today was going to be my SeaWorld day, but I woke up with one of those long, grinding stomach bugs, so I just made it another do-nothing day. Tomorrow is my Epcot day. And my next two KSC tours are middle-day items, so I'll have time to hit the Astronaut Hall of Fame and the Warbird museum in my spare time.
Man, I should have taken two weeks down here. But I would have had a hard time justifying the extra expense, and I've got Maker Faire in Detroit a week from today.
...how the heck did I take a major vacation and end up with *less* free time?
Arrived Wed. Took Thursday as a do-nothing day, but used it to arrange my tickets and tours. Turns out KSC has a *lot* of special close-up tours they never used to have going on right now (limited time), so being a space geek I signed up for all of them. The VAB and Laucnh Pad tours on Friday, the Launch Control tour on Monday, and the historical tour (including the USAF part of Canaveral) on Tuesday (flying back Wed afternoon).
So, the gates at KSC open at 0900. The bus for the VAB tour leaves at 0930. No big, right? Except that it takes me nearly 30min in line just to get to the ticket window for pickup. At which point the drone behind the window tells me "no, you can only sign up for one tour per day." WTF? I spent two hours on the phone with KSC reservations hammering out this timing! Anyway, at this point, I'm boned on the VAB tour anyway, so I ended up at Customer Relations (much higher IQ level) and re-jiggered my sched. Basically, I'll be hitting the VAB first thing in the morning on Wed, then driving back to Orlando to grab my plane. No big deal, I should have nearly 3hrs to spare between.
So I took the close-up tour of Pads 39A and 39B... coincendentally on the 43 anniversary of the Apollo 11 landings. I swear, I did not plan this. But very cool. 39B is essentially the way that Atlantis left it on the last STS flight. 39A has been stripped down to bare pad and is being overhauled to accep multiple different boosters with the new "Mobile Launcher" gantry. And then I spent nearly 8hrs roaming KSC. BTW, the "Shuttle Launch Experience" is a heck of a ride. I knew the STS was a brutal lifter during the SRB phase, but OMGWTFBBQ. That alone is sufficient reason to never base another crew lifter on an SRB-derived design, IMO.
Then I left KSC and dashed back to my hotel, b/c I'd been overambitious and bought a ticket to the Cirque at Disney for 9PM. Then I proceeded to have a GPS glitch that ran me round the entire perimeter of Disney (in the dark) until dumping me... somewhere... so I missed the first 1/3 of the Cirque. But the last 2/3 were still cool, and I was too dead beat to get worked up over what I'd missed.
Today was going to be my SeaWorld day, but I woke up with one of those long, grinding stomach bugs, so I just made it another do-nothing day. Tomorrow is my Epcot day. And my next two KSC tours are middle-day items, so I'll have time to hit the Astronaut Hall of Fame and the Warbird museum in my spare time.
Man, I should have taken two weeks down here. But I would have had a hard time justifying the extra expense, and I've got Maker Faire in Detroit a week from today.
...how the heck did I take a major vacation and end up with *less* free time?