One reason we've been wanting to go there, of course, is to visit Walt Disney World in Orlando. While we were making Los Angeles our quasi-home for a couple of years, we obtained year passes to Disneyland to celebrate Zephyr's 6th birthday. And we certainly took advantage of it during the ensuing year, going at least once a week. (Kimberly and I even went without him once when he was visiting his grandma and grandpa!) So we'd all been wanting to have a Disney adventure again, before Zephyr gets to be any less a kid.
We had almost two weeks to spend in Orlando before we started our performance schedule, so we decided to purchase 5-day passes, giving us a full day in each of the 4 theme parks, plus an additional day to review the highlights in each of them. We bought tickets online the day before our first visit, and saved 12 dollars per ticket. They were still supercallifragilistically expensive, more than twice what we paid for a full year at Disneyland.
Our first day, a Monday, was spent at Epcot (Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow). And our first stop in Epcot was Test Track, a ride that mimics the road tests to which new vehicles are subjected---with us serving as crash test dummies. It includes a stretch of very fast 'driving', the fastest speed of any Disney ride. We had a good time getting our hair ruffled by the wind, and returned to this ride several times.
There was plenty to marvel at; one of my favorite things was 'The Land', which included a boat tour through a greenhouse, where Disney grows an astonishing variety of fruits, vegetables and ornamental plants, along with fish and other marine animals---providing food for Disney's many restaurants. This project is being conducted in cooperation with NASA among others, because it's a step toward learning to live 'up there'. The plants are grown vertically, along lines stretched from the ceiling to small containers of potting soil below, to make maximum use of space.
The last thing on the Epcot agenda was a 9:00 pm presentation of 'Illuminations', which is mounted from about 40 barges of various sizes positioned in the water. It was quite impressive. But we discovered that we were wise to bring along earplugs. The decibel level for this performance---and a number of other Disney presentations---seemed designed to be accessible to the hearing-impaired, and to produce more hearing-impaired to be accessible to.
On Thursday, we used day number two of our passes for Animal Kingdom. This was the biggest surprise to me, because I've never been much of an animal person, even though some of my best friends are animals. I expected Animal Kingdom to be just a glorified zoo; I should have known better, given my extensive exposure to the Disney imagination.
In keeping with our philosophy of hitting the most popular draws before the lines develop, we stopped in first at the Kilimanjaro Safari, and were able to hop right aboard. In fact, we never had to wait more than about 5 minutes in line---maybe 10 on a couple of occasions---on any of our 5 days, thanks to our careful planning. Well okay, it also helped to make use of the Fast Pass, an idea whose time has more than come. If you don't want to wait in a lengthy queue, you insert your admission ticket into a machine and receive a pass to return in an hour or so, when you can go to the head of the line. It's line-hopping made legal---and sensible---and it probably saved us half an hour at least once or twice. The odd thing is that more people don't take advantage of it; I saw people in lines when the wait time posted on the monitor was 30 minutes or more. I guess waiting in line is a habit that some people find hard to break
Our next Disney day was Sunday, and it was designated for MGM. I had concerns about going there on a weekend and finding a huge crowd, but my resident guide assured my that her research indicated Sunday was a good day to attend because all the tourists would be headed home.
The atmosphere of MGM was strangely familiar. Having spent a couple of years in the Los Angeles area working in the film industry, we recognized the look of Hollywood restored to its heyday, and then some. The film studios, the art deco storefronts, the Crossroads of the World tower, and even the Brown Derby looked newer and more elegant than we'd ever seen them before. It's the Hollywood of Ronald Reagan rather than 'Sunset Boulevard', but one would neither expect nor hope for otherwise in a Disney park.
Okay, so on our fourth Disney day, we at last made it to the big enchilada: The Magic Kingdom itself. This was our first time on the monorail---you have to take some form of transit from the parking lot, because it's a couple of miles away from the front gate. This time we didn't spend a full day---only until mid-afternoon. Having put in so much time in Anaheim already, we were thoroughly familiar with nearly all the attractions, so we just gave them the once-over for old time's sake. It's still fun to ride the magic teacups, no matter if you're a two-foot kid or a six-foot kid. While on the Winnie-The-Pooh ride, we experienced yet another breakdown. After we had remained in our seats for about 10 minutes, attendants came and led us out, where we were issued VIP passes to jump to the head of the line for another attraction.
One thing that I'd really been curious about trying again was Space Mountain. While Kimberly and Zephyr had never been to Florida before, I was in Orlando in 1976, under circumstances I'd just as soon forget. But at least I was able to visit The Magic Kingdom, and I rode Space Mountain at that time. I found it to be quite a thrill; but years later when I hopped on Space Mountain in Disneyland, it seemed much tamer than I'd remembered. So all these years I'd been wondering whether the two rides really are drastically different, or my memory was just pulling my leg. Well, now I know: the two Space Mountains are virtually identical. I guess the only difference was that I was much younger back then---and had never before ridden a roller coaster in the dark.
We saw a group of prospective Disney employees undergoing training/orientation, and Zephyr, noticing that they were discussing roller coasters, couldn't resist dropping in on the class for a few minutes and impressing them with his own knowledge of the subject. They were quite tolerant of him, as one would expect from Disney workers; we've never met one yet who didn't have a bubbly disposition.
After doing everything we wanted at Magic Kingdom, we took a ferry to the parking lot, and then the monorail back to Epcot, where we repeated some activities until 9:00, when we watched 'Illuminations' for the third time---and this time we found the best vantage point yet: on the stone steps leading up to 'Canada'.
On our last day, we returned to Animal Kingdom, MGM, and Epcot. At MGM we saw the Indiana Jones Spectacular again--- it had a totally different cast---and we took our second tour of the animation studio, this time with a chance to see the animators laboring over their drawings and computers. Oh yes, we also finally ascended into the Tower Of Terror, and it was much more fun than we ever hoped. The brief mood-setting orientation video is designed to look like the introduction to an episode of the old 'Twilight Zone'.
Well, that wrapped up our first visit to Disney World--- and at the prices we had to pay (did I mention it was EXPENSIVE?) it just might be the last. Next year when we return to Orlando, we want to visit Universal Studios---Zephyr has a Spiderman obsession these days, and Universal has a Spiderman ride that's getting some fabulous reviews. But who knows--- no matter what the price, when you've been to Disney once, it's hard to stay away forever.