Category: disney

06/05/2017

How times flies. A week ago we had arrived after a fairly long journey and were at the gates of Magic Kingdom at 8am. Now, 7 days later, it was the same situation, however in the past week we had done all 4 Disney parks, Universal Studios, and the Kennedy Space Centre. One last day to act like kids (well, some would argue I do this most days and you are probably right).

 

 

Of course it was another early morning to do a Disney breakfast, this time in the Beast’s Castle. There were no character meet and greets, but it was just to have a good brekkie in elaborate surrounds, and be in the park nice and early. The castle was pretty cool, with all kinds of Beauty and the Beast ephemera about.

From there it was all about filling some gaps of things we hadn’t done (and getting on some of our favourites again). We were right next to Peter Pan’s flight so jumped on. For reasons unbeknownst to both of us, the line is always huge for this ride. I mean, it is fine, but it is just an elevated boat type ride through the Peter Pan story. We went on since we were literally first in line, but neither of us think it is worth the typical 90 minute wait.

From there we went to our first fast pass ride, Splash Mountain. Lucky we sorted fast passes as the line was… non existent. Nope, a 5 minute wait. That was OK… on we went and got nice and wet as we hoped… and then went straight back on. Why not?! It was already warm, and we may as well get doubly wet now than wet again later! So back on started our day nice and soaked. Oh yeah.

We jumped back on to some of our other favourites. Big Thunder got a run (still better than 7 Dwarves Mine Cart) and also onto Jungle Cruise (sorry driver this time… you weren’t as good as our first one last week).

 

 

 

In our travels through Adventureland, I finally got myself one of my Disney must-gets. Dole Whip Float! That super sweet Dole pineapple whip with pineapple juice is so delicious and perfect in the Florida heat. So much better than the Beer Float from a few days ago.

 

 

It was then into Tomorrowland to jump on a couple of rides. We popped on to one of our usual favourites, Buzz Lightyear Astra Blasters, which was actually named something slightly different. Once on the ride we found out why. It must have been the first version of the ride as it was very lacking compared with the usual. Everything about it (the guns, the targets) just seemed off. Oh well, now we knew.

Space Mountain also seemed a bit different. Neither of us could remember it being more of a sled that you rode in (single file, just like a bobsled). The ride itself seemed the same… rollercoaster in the dark with things flying about… but again it just seemed a little different. This must have been how they tried to differentiate Disneyland and Magic Kingdom a bit decades ago when this was built.

 

 

While in Tomorrowland we bumped into another character… Mr Incredible! We met the big guy and he was hilarious. He was “busting moves” onto Kate so I had some banter, and then in our photos he proceeded to block me out of all of them. Gold! It is great when the characters have some fun like this. I imagine it must be a tough gig being in these suits for hours, so I am grateful when they have fun with it.

We got one last ride on Haunted Mansion. It seemed a number of the rides were suffering technical difficulties at the park, meaning longish lines at most rides. We got our final fastness sorted for our favourite ride, so back on to Haunted Mansion for one last time. It was nice to get the buzz of our spooky hitchhiker mentioning Australia again.

 

 

It was getting dark and in our last hour or two we did some of the shows, like Country Bears and the Tiki House, as well as go around Pirates of the Caribbean again. Fitting since tomorrow we would be on our way to a country on the Caribbean. Maybe we would run into a pirate or two on our travels.

And so with that we were done at Disney World. I have to say, it was a super fun week. I like my Disney, but having the 4 parks, all quite different experiences, and staying in the resort with magic bands and easy fast passes and the systems that worked a treat, it was great fun. Kate did a great job of organising things which, while I was worried was going to mean we were TOO planned, actually meant we had a smooth and line-free Disney, which is the best type of Disney.

We got back to the room and did a pack, ready to embark on a new adventure… to Costa Rica!

 

05/05/2017

Having done the parks, we had the luxury of picking and choosing what to do for our final couple of days at Disney. We knew we were going to do one more full day at Magic Kingdom, but today we thought we would bounce around a bit between a couple of parks and Disney Springs. So with a relatively lazy start (leaving the room at 9am), we made our way back to Epcot to start the day.

 

 

Why Epcot? We were pretty content with our day at Animal Kingdom, that we got everything done we wanted to. We planned to go back to Hollywood Studios to go on our favourite rides again, but we rushed through a bit of Epcot and also were frustrated by the wait (and non-ride) of Frozen Ever After, so we headed back to fill that gap.

Frozen Ever After, as I alluded to earlier, is the most popular ride at Epcot. In part because it is Frozen, and mainly because it is the newest ride. As such, Fastpasses are very difficult to get. So first thing we headed there and had the luxury of only having to wait 15 minutes or so to get on.

 

 

 

And how was it? It was alright for one of the slow boat-type rides. Given it is a few decades newer than most of its type (i.e Pirates), the animatronics were a lot better, with animated faces rather than the weird puppet like figures that is the norm. There wasn’t too much “Let It Go” either which made even more pleasant. As we docked to end the ride, there was basically no queue, so around we went again! Why not given we were going to head off from Epcot soon.

We wandered the international part of Epcot for a bit, which we had some trouble doing last visit due to the rain. In many respects if I had an annual pass to Disney here, I would end up spending a bit of time in the International Showcase at Epcot. Mostly because it is not about waiting for rides, rather than chilling out eating and drinking, so I could imagine it would be fun with a bunch of people to pick a country and hang out there for a few hours.

So after a couple of hours of wandering, we decided to head off to Hollywood Studios. Conveniently, a boat connected the two, so on to the boat we jumped and 20 minutes later we were at the doorstep of our second park.

 

 

We didn’t really have much of a plan here… we just knew that we were more likely to jump on random rides we liked here more so than Epcot. I went straight for Star Tours to see where I could end up. Sadly another pod race, but I did get to zoom around the Wookie planet which was fun. No Endor unfortunately. Kate took the opportunity to have some Darth Vader waffles from the nearby eatery. Why not hey?

 

 

With our magic bands and the app we scored some fast passes for Toy Story Mania which is always ace fun. We even bumped into some Army Men out front and joined in with their drill.

I had neglected one main ride here, mostly as it was a Kate no-go-zone, but also because, well, it seemed a bit kitschy. Rockin’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith. Yep, Aerosmith. That immediately dated the ride a bit, but it was a full on rollercoaster, so the opportunity arose and I jumped. The ride was just as I thought. After a VERY dated kitschy opening (apparently we had to rush to the gig!), it was onto the rollercoaster and off on what is probably the most adrenaline filled ride in the Disney Parks. Imagine Space Mountain but way faster and amped up and that is Rockin’ Rollercoaster. Good fun once it got underway… they probably just need to think about replacing Aerosmith.

 

 

As you may notice too, it was May 5th. May 4th is a BIG day in the Star Wars universe, but sadly the parks don’t seem to do too much. We had checked, and there was nothing worth coming to Hollywood Studios yesterday that was special, outside of a chance to buy a limited t-shirt. So we kept our Animal Kingdom plans. But being there on May 5th (which is also the lesser known celebration day… i.e Revenge of the 5ith) gave me a chance to pick up to limited pins that are only sold on these two days, one for each day. I nice specific memento for our trip.

We rode some rides some more (I hit up Tower of Terror again) and then at dinner time decided we should head to Disney Springs for an opportunity for some better food and drink. Kate had found a bar to try out, so on to the bus and in no time we were there.

 

 

 

 

The destination was Jock Lindsay’s Hanger Bar. Who is Jock Lindsay? He is the water-plane pilot at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it was his bar apparently. It was pretty cool, done up with all kinds of ephemera, including the gold idol hiding up on a shelf. Here they also had special cocktails and mugs, so of course we opted to try the one that came in the monkey head. We also had some good food to go along with our strong drinks which made a nice end to the day.

A bit of a wander around the rest of Disney Springs, and we drew a close to the penultimate Disney day.

 

04/05/2017

Our last Disney park! Not our last Disney visit, but our final park to visit, and my last park to see to get the set (i’m not counting Disneyland China yet). Animal Kingdom! This was the one park I really didn’t have much idea what to expect. Magic Kingdom I had basically visited in a bunch of other countries, Hollywood Studios there had been variations in Japan and California, and Epcot has been in the pop culture consciousness for a while. but Animal Kingdom was a bit of an enigma for me.

 

 

We arrived early for a planned breakfast. Another brekkie with characters and one that would get us into the fairly new Rivers of Light show in the evening. Animal Kingdom obviously has a strong African theme, and breakfast setting was no exception. Kinda funny given almost a year to the day I was in actual Africa. Breakfast was a pretty extensive buffet and I made sure to have lots of granola and yoghurt… as well as my fill of bacon. Mmmm.

 

 

 

With a hearty brekkie to kick start our day we went to our first “ride”, Kilimanjaro Safaris. I say “ride” as it is actually much more like a zoo experience, where we loaded into big jeep like trucks and made our way through their african animal enclosure. It was a mini Ngorogoro Crater (well, kind of). They actually had quite a collection of animals… zebras, lions, elephants, rhinos… all the big ones. It was not quite as a big a deal for me as many others in the jeep, but it is still always fun to see those animals.

 

 

The day was much like our other Disney park days. We made our way to all the rides thanks to our well planned fast passes and Kate having a good idea of what we needed to visit. The centrepiece of the park is the massive Tree of Life… a statue of sorts that represents all the animal kingdom and it was a sight to behold actually. We would keep coming back to the tree as we moved from area to area of the park.

 

 

There was a bunch of fun rides here at the park. Given it was a nice warm day we decided to get on to Kali River Rapids nice and early. It was a classic water rapids ride. There were warnings about getting wet and we indeed did get wet. So nice! Very refreshing in the warm Florida morning. I also had fun on Expedition Everest, a rollercoaster type ride around and through a mountain, getting chased by the elusive yeti. Love some backwards roller coaster action.

 

 

We also had a chance to meet a bunch of characters. Mickey and Minnie were hanging out there as expected, but we also ran into Russell from Up (yay!) and even the cheeky Rafiki. We also went to a few musical shows. The Lion King show was pretty good, and the Nemo show not too bad either.

As the sun began to set we decided to jump on to Kilimanjaro Safaris again. At dusk the animals start to get a bit more active, and while it wasn’t too much different to the morning, it was fun to get out there again.

 

 

It was dark and time to head to our seats for the Rivers of Light show. On the way, the Tree of Life was starting its “awakening”… a series of projections on to the tree at different times that would make some of the animals carved into the tree spring to life. We saw the opening one as we headed to the show and it was quite stunning. The tree was teeming with life as animals got up to all kinds of things all around the tree. There are a series of different awakenings meaning we would need to get back to see some more.

 

 

 

 

We got to our seats ready for the Rivers of Light show. As mentioned, this was a fairly new show and quite hard to get in to. Unlike many other evening shows and parades, there was set seating so we were quite lucky to get a spot. It was a pretty cool show, a fairly straightforward boat-float-water projection type show. Being new gave it novelty for most, but for me I thought it was pretty good without being stellar.

With that it was time to head back to the hotel. We caught another tree “awakening” on the way out, and like most nights it was approaching midnight before we got the chance to jump into bed. Phew.

 

02/05/2017

Another day, another Disney park! Today was one I was really looking forward to, Epcot. Why was I looking forward to it? Well, I knew of Epcot and it’s big ball at the entrance, but didn’t know that much about it to be honest. All I knew was that it tried to capture Walt Disney’s view of the future to an extent. I was expecting it to be a little kitschy… and I wasn’t disappointed.

The whole park just felt really… 70’s. And not in a way where they tried to make it feel dated, but just that it had now become quite dated in places. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is about it, but the front half of the park certainly seems like a product of its time (the back half, the International Showcase, is a bit of a different story). But there was a charm and certainly lots of fun to be had. It was also their Flower Festival, so the entire park was adorned with flower representations of their characters which nice to see in the warm Florida sun.

 

 

 

Epcot is especially encapsulated in the famous big ball at the park entrance. I was super keen to finally see it, and it still looks like a 70’s view of the future. Ask me why and I can’t tell you, but to me it is certainly quite iconic as a particular view of the future.

At park open, I raced for Soarin’, aplane ride simulator through different key locations around the world. This is an update of the one in California Adventures, and is a great ride… being suspended in a big glider with dozens of others, and zooming around in front of a big screen that consumes your whole field of view. It is definitely one of the best rides in the Disney parks, and the long queue as I got out was testament to that.

The other main rides in the front half of the park are really showing their age, but in a kinda interesting way. I went on to a ride called Mission: Space, another simulator ride, but this tie for space travel. I had the option to choose normal or intense, and of course chose intense. You take the role a member of a space travel crew and get into a small simulator with only 3 others and then take off. DAMN! The feeling of taking off is nothing like I have ever felt in a ride. It was intense! And awesome! There are also moments of slight free fall feeling, as well as zooming around planets. If only the whole preamble to the ride part didn’t take so long, this would be almost the best ride in Disney.

 

 

The other space themed ride was one inside the big Epcot ball, Spaceship Earth. Riding in small carriages, you move throughout the ball, glimpsing at what the future may look like. Not sure how accurate it is, but it is certainly fun to see how we may be zooming around with jetpacks in the near future.

Around this time, the wether decided to take a turn. And I mean a TURN. Our bright blue skies became torrential downpour. So much so that much of the park was under half a foot of water. Kate and I made a break for the Nemo ride, and by the end of the dash my shoes were absolutely full of water. Looked like Florida weather had caught us.

 

 

It was still raining when we emerged so took the opportunity to catch up with some more characters, two of my recent favourites, Joy and Sadness. Alas Anger wasn’t about for me to rage with. We also got to meet Baymax and he was indeed as squishy in real life as he seems in Big Hero 6.

 

 

In between bouts of rain, we also found our way into a weird pavilion that simply had a bunch of soda fountains with strange drinks from around the world. Yes! My kind of place! It was funny to watch that people just would not try certain flavours, in particular the Japanese carrot based drink. Of course we had them all and they were all fine. Sadly the Italian soda was not there, one it seemed was a chinotto type drink. Damn! I love me some bitter Italian beverage.

The weather proceeded to have moments of torrential rain until about lunchtime when the sun emerged and we were able to wander more freely around the park. This coincided with moving into the back half of the park, the International Showcase… or as I like to think of it, World Expo ’88. Epcot truly is a weird place. You have all this (now) retro-future vibe at the front half of the park, and in the back half around the lake, it is all about celebrating a random assortment of countries in different ways. All areas had their own architecture in the style of the country they were representing, and then there would be different things to do. Not rides as such, but often 360 degree films about the countries, or maybe a slow boat ride through the country. The there was the food and (quite amazing to me) the booze you could have at each stop. We started heading counter-clockwise, starting with Canada for some lunch.

 

 

 

We planned to visit Canada for lunch, as apparently it was home of a quite fantastic poutine, a Canadian speciality. So in we went to Le Cellier and strapped in. Of course we wanted to eat everything, and even our choices of a cheese soup each and a poutine each ended up being way too much. But it was so delicious! The soup was great, but the poutine was awesome. I went with a bacon based poutine (of course) while Kate went for the Le Cellier Signature Poutine… the chips with Canadian cheddar cheese, black truffle and a red wine reduction. I have to say Kate’s was the winner. Super rich but super delicious. We had plans for dessert, however that didn’t eventuate when we were so full after that.

 

 

 

 

 

So with full bellies, it was off to explore more countries. We went from Canada to the UK to France and to Japan, meeting characters and sampling food and drink on the way. Japan gets a special mention for actually feeling quite Japanese actually. Of course the main beverage oddity I would come across was there… a Kirin Beer Float. Yep. It was basically Kirin beer with frozen beer on top. While it sounded OK and looked great the frozen beer was not necessarily the greatest thing I have ever had, even on a warm day. Oh well, live and learn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We kept moving around the lake… Germany to Italy to a generic African country to Norway to China and to Mexico. While in Mexico we went on the 3 Caballeros ride, and met a Mexican themed Donald Duck as you do. And while in Mexico we took the opportunity to get stuck into some empanadas. Mmmm.

With that we had made our way around all the countries. We had plans to see the light show on the lake, so decided to fill in some time by visiting a ride dedicated to Figment, the Epcot imagination dragon. Kate seemed to have a fascination with Figment. Me… I just thought it was all a bit odd. But keeping with the spirit of Epcot I guess!

 

 

The sun had gone down and it was time to head back to the lake to watch the Illuminations show. We sorted fast passes so went to our spot and had a great view of the show. This fast pass thing was working very well for us.

We still had an hour or two before park close, so we decided to head back to Norway and try and give the most popular things at Epcot a go, meeting Anna and Elsa, and jumping on the relatively new Frozen Ever After ride. We got to Norway and basically walked in to meet the two Frozen gals. Frozen Ever After was a different story. Only 30 mins the sign said. Yay! However when in line we realised that was not the case. Close to an hour later and we were not really getting anywhere. It seemed the ride was suffer a fair degree of technical difficulties. I guess we can say we went on “Frozen Ever After – The Line Ride”.

So we decided to cut our losses and legged it to the USA area to catch their “America, F’ Yeah” show. Well, it was a historical animatronics show but did end up being very “USA USA USA”. It was fine, and it was quite funny to be in an auditorium that probably could hold a thousand people with like 6 people in there. When we were done it was 11pm and time to make our way back to the front of the park and head back. Another midnight night, and another early morning coming.