John has a sister who lives in Lakeland, which is between Orlando and Tampa, and I had never met her. So we decided to visit her and go to the parks. We arrived Friday night and I loved exiting the airport into 70-degree warmth. Then the magic began on Saturday morning when we went to the Magic Kingdom, my personal favorite of all the parks. Even though I have been to Disney World many times throughout my life, it still has not lost its wonder for me. We rode in on the monorail after parking in the Donald section (I think). I have always thought the monorail was cool, especially when it goes through the "Contemporary Hotel" (which was probably contemporary in the 60's). It was hilarious because as I voiced this to John and Kate as we entered the hotel, the two young girls behind us screamed in chorus, "Oh my God! This is SO COOL!!!!!!!" (By the way, just about everything in Disney World makes me smile, especially seeing and hearing kids' glee as they discover it. Everyone is just so happy in Disney World. Kind of like when I visited Google, now that I think about it...).
Anyway, the monorail dropped us off and we walked through Main St. to Cinderella's castle. At first I thought to myself that everything seemed smaller in that way that things do when you visit childhood places when you are an adult. But as the day went on, that feeling went away and I felt like things were just the size they should be. :-)
As you can see from the castle picture, it was pretty cloudy that day. Unfortunately it poured down rain off and on for the first part of the day, so that wasn't as fun. Plus we had to buy $7 Disney ponchos. ($7! I must say they were quality plastic, though.) But on the other hand, it made the lines way shorter and we were able to use the ponchos on some of the water rides (like the 3 times we went on Splash Mountain).Here are John and I trying to wrest the sword from the stone.
I won't go into all of the detail on the blog (this is long as it is), but we basically went on every ride possible for "big" people (like, we didn't go on Dumbo). They have instituted a new system called FastPass and we worked that system to the bone. A FastPass is a ticket you get from a ride that tells you to come back within a certain hour window and you can go to the front of the line. So between that and the bad weather (and the fact that we were there in February, thanks Michigan!), the longest we had to wait in line was about 20 minutes.We went on all of my old favorites, plus rides I had never been on (Space Mountain - possibly my new favorite ride at Disney, Splash Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain railroad). Here are some of the classics:
Peter Pan! This had the longest line of almost any ride we went on.
The Enchanted Tiki Room! This had been "updated" to include Iago from Aladdin and Zazu from Lion King, and it wasn't as quaint as before.
Pirates of the Caribbean! With added Johnny Depp character! This was the Jack Sparrow actor. Earlier than this photo, we saw him running away from some overly zealous fans (2 teenage girls running after him shouting, "Jack -- take me with you!")
Splash Mountain -- a new ride for me and John's favorite. This is based on the story of Brer Rabbit and at the end you get thrown into the briar patch, down this huge drop.
The Jungle Cruise! I thought I had never been on this, but my parents told me that we had. You go through a "jungle" all the while your guide is making punny jokes. One thing I love about these parks is all the detail that goes into the rides, even when you are waiting in line. This was the lunch menu for the Jungle Cruise.
John and his sister, Kate.
Our guide through the jungle.
I like this photo because you can see the real ducks among the fake animals. :-)
Another favorite - the Swiss Family Robinson tree house!
Frontierland!
Just outside another favorite - Country Bear Jamboree!
On another new ride for me -- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!
We got caught for harassing Mickey Mouse (I guess I violated the restraining order from way back in 1983), so we had to spend some time in the stocks. We narrowly escaped!
We saw this show while walking through the park, but it was weird because they suddenly stopped in the middle, all the characters ran off stage, and they said they had to stop the show and hoped we could come back later.
So in addition to the old classics, they had also added some new things and my favorite of those was the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor in Tomorrowland. It was a stand-up comedy show where the cartoons interacted live with the audience. It was really funny and the best part was that John got on the screen for one of the acts. They were telling a story and would shine a spotlight on audience members to be the characters in the story. He was picked as "Randall". So of course, I have been calling him Randall every so often since then.
One of the last rides of the night. You gotta do it...Small World!
And for your distinct listening pleasure, I recorded the song during part of the ride! Mwa ha ha!They had "extra magic hours" that night, which means the park was open until 11. So we stuck around till the very end and saw a great fireworks show along with some of the SpectroMagic parade. Plus, we had one more ride to go on -- the Teacups!
A view of Main St. from the castle. This was just before the parade started.
A view of the castle. It constantly changed colors, and we tried to wait for it to change to another more appealing, less evil color, but it stayed on red for the longest time. So this is, as I like to put it, Cinderella's castle...in HELL!
Before we went on our trip, John and I saw a couple specials on Disney. In one of them, they talked about the elaborate technology of the SpectroMagic Parade. It is pretty cool.
On our way out, these people were standing above the exit, waving signs.
On the tram back to the parking, our driver had a fairly thick accent, so we cracked up at his announcements of the parking areas, "Meenie, Pludo, and Goopy". All in all, we had an awesome time, joking around and laughing, feeling like kids again. And I felt like I had truly accomplished something by going on Space Mountain after all these years. And it was awesome! Not scary at all. I really felt like I was piloting a rocket through space, which cracked John and Kate up to no end. But it was true! My parents told me afterwards that my great-grandfather who lived in Orlando as Disney World was being built apparently went on that roller coaster when it first opened.
It was really good to know that I will never outgrow Disney World. It will always be as magical to me as when I first walked through those gates.
I hope you have enjoyed this trip. Stay tuned for the next installment, "The Adventure"!
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