Friday, the 22nd
Tickets in hand, Friday had us jetting back to Disney World; this time to the Magic Kingdom. No sooner than we stepped off the monorail than we were forced to take cover and dig out the vinyl. As you may be able to tell from the photo to the right, the poncho is perhaps the most stylin’ article of outer wear that can be purchased this side of Milan. With it’s translucent sheen and (in)toxic(ating) scent, the poncho is designed for rockin’ out. Also in this picture, you may note that Disney’s favorite customer is the kind who cannot support their own weight eats like a behemoth. With so many people to beef up, there were turkey leg vendors all over the park (I guess it belonged in the American pavilion at Epcot afterall) and a conveniently located Confectionery shop right at the entrance.
It took very little persuasion to take shelter from the rain by stepping into the candy store. They had chocolate and fudge, coffee and tea, cotton candy, M&Ms, cookies, brownies, Rice Krispie treats, candy apples, carmel apples, and apples covered in everything under the rainbow. They had sugar in a straw, gummy candies, hard candies, taffy, and popcorn; they had people making candy right before your eyes. The smell alone would have sent Wilford Brimley into a coma. I managed to escape without a single purchase, thanks in part to the fact that many of the stores are interconnected, meaning I didn’t have to go into the rain to leave candy. Next door over were some various sculptures for sale, and then… the exit to the rain.
We eventually gave up on the rain ending, and made our way out to Tomorrow Land, where we went on the Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin: a ride where the participants have control over which way their seats are facing, and get to shoot lasers at other people’s eyes targets along the way. At the end of the ride, we were sent into some pretty torrential rain. I’m talking flash flood material, that was so windy that your umbrella would get broken if you relied on it. We attempted to make our way toward Space Mountain, not realizing that it was out of commission and eventually sought refuge in one of the stores.
Andrea decides to get some of the water out of her sneakers.
Once the rain died down a bit, and we got bored of standing in a corner in Andrea’s puddle, we headed over to take a gander at Fantasyland. In the picture to the right, you see Cinderella’s Fountain, which is just outside of the castle itself. Then we have Andrea attempting to pull the sword from the stone, which is just outside Cinderella’s Golden Carousel. Apparently part of living happily ever after includes having a carousel in your back yard. Needless to say, said carousel is also a nice shelter from the rain.
The rain was still going at it as we left the carousel. We grabbed a fastpass for Peter Pan’s Flight. Before we had come to the Magic Kingdom, I had done a little bit of research online in the morning not only to find out about handy things like the fastpass, but to discover a little more about the history of the park. In the process, I learned about Hidden Mickeys. I had done a rather foul job of finding any of them, but before we went to the Haunted Mansion, I mentioned them to Andrea as I knew there was supposed to be one somewhere on the ride. The ride was pretty cool, despite that it got stuck when we were part way through it and we actually ended up with a third guest on the ride with us (pardon the poor photo… it was a *looooong* exposure). We managed to spot the Mickey on this ride, but in the end I think that the only hidden Mickey’s we happened to see at the Magic Kingdom were on this ride, and another one that was the Frontier Trading Post in Frontierland. On a side note, we did spot a hidden Stitch in the trading post as well.
With the rain preventing most the rides from operating, we wandered around Frontierland a little bit more. The one that we discovered… one of the secrets about Frontierland, is that it is actually owned and operated by a posse of Great Egrets. These bad boys were everywhere. And when the rain was coming down, there were definitely more of them to be seen then humans. It was pretty cool, as there was one that landed nearby and paid pretty much no attention to us at all. The one in the bottom left image must have not been even three feet away from me, and just sat there voguing for the camera like nobody’s business. If I had have looked at him sideways, I bet he would have pecked my eye out faster than you can say “We’re going to Disney World!”. Lucky for us, this was also around the point when the rain stopped. We made our way over to the Thunder Mountain Railroad as it started to open back up, and the wait time was pretty minimal. Probably only around 15 minutes, and some of that time includes walking all the way through the area where the line would be on a busy day. I’d forgotten how fun roller coasters are, but having next to no wait time makes them that much better!
It’s impossible to get through Disney World without discussing princesses. After riding Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Splash Mountain, we started making our way back to Fantasyland. Part of the reason was our fasttrack for Peter Pan, but the real reason was so that I could buy Andrea a crown. Along the way we found an… unofficial hidden Mickey, got hungry, and also took a closer look in Cinderella’s Castle where, having opened up after the rain, you could now see the beautiful mosaic work that that the Disney imagineers constructed. The mosaics told the story of Cinderella, and were really awesome. They are part of the inspiration for the mosaic I made.
We were debating heading straight over to Tomorrow land to go on another ride there, when we realized that if we waited in line, we’d have the chance of a lifetime to have our photos taken with the Ariel. Who could pass up an opportunity like that? Certainly not these two animators. Wait we did. For far more time than is reasonable for two adults who have already lived to see the passing of a quarter of a century forty five minutes. At the end of that time… Ariel went on a break. But after another short break, our patience was rewarded, and we had our two minutes and eighteen seconds of glory with the little mermaid. Actually, she looked like she was about our age, and possibly a little taller than myself. I’d hate to see the big mermaid.
We finished up with Ariel’s Grotto just in time to make it over to the Astro Orbiter for sunset. The Astro Orbiter isn’t the most exciting ride in the Magic Kingdom, however it has a great view of the park, which really starts to light up at dusk. Sunset came and went while we were on the ride, and we realized that we were once more ravenously hungry at the end of a long day. We decided we couldn’t wait for the Spectromagic Parade, and decided to b-line it for the exit. Well… as close to a b-line as our attention spans would allow at any rate. We stopped along the way to snap some more pictures since the kingdom is perhaps even more spectacular at night. Main St. USA really lights up at night! We got distracted enough that we ended up getting to the entrance just as the parade started. The thing is, the parade starts at the entrance. We were blocked in!
Cut-off from the exit, we were forced to enjoy the amazing Spectromagic parade.
So our day at the Magic Kingdom ended in us having a blast. We made our way back to the rental and headed to the hotel for some more homemade dinner: smoked sweet salmon with a mushroom tortellini. Tourist beware however; let the image to your right be a firm warning: walking around while wearing sneakers filled with water all day, will have an impact on your feet.