It continues to amaze me as I watch the boys grow up, how they become interested in the things that they do. Sometimes those interests reflect the things we like to do as a family like going to Disney or the beach, and sometimes I am not quite sure exactly where those passions come from. Take, for instance, Hunter’s love of cars. Normally boys take an interest in cars because their fathers have a love for them, which is not exactly true in our case. Yes, Hunter found his love for cars completely on his own, and the passion has stayed with him for a few years now. When he first became interested, Emily explored opportunities to see some of the more expensive cars that he loved, without having to fake our way through a dealership (which we have of course done). What she found was Hunter’s dream event, the Festivals of Speed, at the Ritz Carlton Resort in Orlando which we first attended in 2017 (check out link above for our 2017 adventure). Hunter fell in love, and as the 2018 event approached, he couldn’t wait to attend.
Unfortunately for the family, Sawyer had come down with pneumonia, so he and Emily stayed back at the house while Hunter and I made our way across town to the Ritz Carlton Resort. Because of the popularity of the prior year’s event, we had to park down the street at a high school and get shuttled over to the resort. We got dropped off in the front grass area located in front of the main entrance to the Ritz. The first display that we came across was the Tesla cars, which Hunter and I are both huge fans of. We worked our way through the car-lined entrance gawking at how many amazing cars we spotted in our first ten minutes of being there.
The ticketed entrance to where the majority of the cars were required us to navigate through the resort lobby, ending up in the convention center portion of the hotel. A quick walk down the stairs and we were greeted by a spectacular array of cars and tents that covered the back section of the resort.
We did our best to walk each section as completely as possible but there were a ton of cars. At some point, for a non-car-enthusiast, they all really start to look the same. Hunter is far more knowledgable about cars than I am and was able to spot cars and name them long before we were able to see the car logo. Hunter’s favorite cars currently are the Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, and Bentley.
Hunter was hoping to see the Aston Martin DB10 but since there are only two in existence, we thought it unlikely that they would be here at the Ritz for this event. The highlight of the event was seeing the Aston Martin Vantage, which according to the Aston Martin rep, was the inspiration for the DB10 in James Bond Spectre. Hunter was super excited.
We did our laps around the two main car display areas and we had had our fill. We were hungry so we made the terrible decision of grabbing a bite to eat from the burger vendor that was on the property. I am embarrassed to admit what we paid for two average burgers and chips. The wind was picking up so sitting outside to eat was an experience in itself. Our food containers flew off the table at least a couple of times.
After we finished our grub, we took a walk through the lobby to capture some photos of the Ritz Carlton holiday decorations at the request of Emily. I am no expert in interior design, but I feel like the lobby at the Ritz is not nearly as cozy and festive as it used to be. We took one more spin around the entrance area to check out some of the cars that we missed on the first pass, and caught the shuttle back to the car. Another fun outing with my buddy, as I learn more about cars each time we hang out! We took a bunch of photos of the different cars on display at the Festivals of Speed that you can check out in the photo slideshow below.
