Vacation Journal: Disney World Part 2
(Note: I had originally planned on breaking this post down into two segments but Cooper was not cooperating tonight and I couldn't get it finished. I'll have the final piece on Saturday. You can find Part 1 here.) DAY THREE
10:00 am - Today is our most ambitiously planned: Magic Kingdom in the morning, Hollywood for lunch, Epcot for dinner. Let's do this!
10:25 am - Lindsey has a curse wherein she says something like, "There's no traffic!" and then we hit major traffic. She just said, "There's no one here!”
10:26 am - …And immediately our bus has been bombarded by people.
10:45 am - Two women next to me are wearing the same shirt except one says "Mommy" and the other says "Mommy's Favorite." The second woman is 40 years old.
11:12 am - Stepped foot off the bus and already this is a mistake. There are 100 billion people at Magic Kingdom this morning. The plan is in shambles.
11:16 am - We have lunch reservations in another park at 12:50 and we haven't even made it through the bag check yet. We are forced to bail.
11:17 am - Worst part about Disney: not all locations have buses to every other location. So you have to find other means of transportation.
11:25 am - So we are taking the world's slowest ferry across a lake so that we can then take a bus from the Transportation Center to Hollywood.
11:40 am - The Transportation Center looks like it was originally designed in the 70s as a Greyhound Bus depot. It's bad.
12:03 pm - Rock N Roller Coaster has one of the best beginnings of any roller coaster ever. After that...meh. But it's worth it for the jump start.
12:21 pm - Now it's on to Muppet Vision 3D. You have to do this ride if you're here because, you know, Muppets but it REALLY needs an upgrade.
12:50 pm - Sitting down for lunch in the Sci-Fi Drive In. Food is only okay but the ambiance is great and you get to sit quietly in the dark so that's a plus.
1:35 pm - On the downside, the quiet dark has left me in desperate need of a nap. Ambitious plans to the wayside, I must retire for the afternoon.
4:10 pm - Nap accomplished. Someone hang a banner.
5:15 pm - Our first FastPass of the day brought us through the Toy Story Midway Mania. If you've not experienced this ride, your life is meaningless.
5:16 pm - Okay, maybe not meaningless. But man. The design for this ride is impeccable. This is why people come to Disney World.
5:37 pm - The wait was short at Star Tours so I figured why not? We got a different video than the first time and now I wonder how many options there are.
5:38 pm - A little Googling reveals the answer: 54!!! 54 different video options! I'll see you guys in a couple of days, I have 52 more rides to take.
5:55 pm - We're not into souvenirs AT ALL but this Vinylmation thing Disney started a while back is pretty sweet. I bought two from the Star Wars line.
5:56 pm - Alright, so I bought three. Lay off!
6:02 pm - Dropped by the Osborne Family Dancing Lights just in time for the beginning. Easily the coolest light show I've ever seen.
6:20 pm - We've got dinner plans later this evening but it's been at least 3 hours since we ate and that's illegal in Disney World so we ran into Pizza Planet.
6:31 pm - How it's possible that Pizza Planet DOES NOT have a crane machine filled with those little green alien squeakers is beyond me.
6:51 pm - Our final FastPass of the day has brought us back to the Tower of Terror for a night time ride. Seriously, guys, I love this ride.
6:58 pm - If you're a tall, pale, gangly kid and you apply to work at Disney World, chances are you'll end us as a bellhop at Tower of Terror. Creepers. Like Oren from Parks and Rec.
6:59 pm - When we get to the actual entrance to the ride, the group behind us divides: the women all get on board and the guys all bail. Booooooo.
7:09 pm - From Tower of Terror, we hustle to get to Epcot but this is another time where the parks don't connect by bus. Now in line for a dang boat.
7:14 pm - Discussing Tower of Terror, the guy behind me tells wife "Guys can feel themselves falling better because their (junk) jumps into their throats.” I’ll leave this one alone.
7:28 pm - The kid behind us in line has been quacking at the ducks for 20 minutes. If you strangle a kid, you get kicked out of Disney World, right?
7:42 pm - Now (Junk) in the Throat Guy has started quacking. I might be going insane.
8:05 pm - The boat deposits us at Epcot's back entrance. Of course this is the one night we're eating close to the front entrance.
8:30 pm - Tonight we're dining in the Coral Reef restaurant, continuing my streak of eating seafood at every dinner. This is the height of luxury!
9:25 pm - Epcot is open late tonight for resort guests so post-dinner we're trying to hit some of the big rides, like Soarin'. 10 minute wait. Bingo!
9:38 pm - Sign outside Soarin': "Those who have a feat of heights or are prone to motion sickness should not ride." Again, this ride is called Soarin'.
10:23 pm - Exiting Journey Into Imagination with Figment and all I can think is, LSD must do wonders for this ride.
10:27 pm - We're capping our night off with the Captain EO 3D journey starring Michael Jackson. It's extremely dated and cheesy but it's still great.
10:33 pm - Seeing Captain EO is like Christmas with your great grandma. Every year that it's still here is a treat. It could end any day. YOLO.
11:09 pm - On the bus back to the resort, there is a mom wearing a Nickleback concert t-shirt. No need to worry, I've already alerted CPS.
11:22 pm - The only standard bottled water in Disney is Dasani and since it is low on the bottled water spectrum, that means paying extra for SmartWater.
11:26 pm - Since you asked, the bottled water spectrum goes: 1. Ozarka 2. Aquafina 3. Fiji 4. Dasani 5. Nestle 600. Deja Blue This is not up for debate