Posted on 08/24/2006 8:32:53 AM PDT by Maximus of Texas
It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of my weekend movie reviews so I decided to post a review of my recently completed vacation to Walt Disney World. Yes, I know volumes of books have been written about the place but, as always, my take on things can be somewhat different. You, the reader, as always, are free to share your memories and experiences.
Ok, here we go:
This was a last minute trip so there was really no planning on our part. We booked everything Tuesday morning and showed up Friday. No maps, no “how to” books, nothing. I grew up around Six Flags so I was expecting a nice, landlocked amusement park but soon found a city unto itself. That place is freakishly huge! We soon got accustomed to the buses and the layout of the place.
Extended Park Hours - Not a good thing. A few nights a week, one of the parks will stay open longer for WDW Resort guests. Good thing, right? The whole park just for the WDW folks? Wrong! What happens is that all the WDW Resort guests decend on that one park and create a huge log jam. We hit Magic Kingdom on their extended evening and found more people and fewer rides open. Not a good combo. We left earlier.
Dining Plan - If you eat two full meals a day, this is a good thing but we were finding that we were forcing food down just to take advantage of the thing. Also, no one told us we need to book reservations so far in advance. We had a hard time finding places with spots open but in the end it all worked out. Plan runs $40 per day per person. Would I have spent $160 a day on food for my family? Probably not. We would have been better off eating one large meal per day and snacking the rest.
Epcot – Ok, neat place but the Tour of Countries was a disappointment. Nothing but gift shops. The best part was the Canadian band that rocked out with bagpipes. We had lunch at an English pub (only place with openings, see comments above) and I was reminded why we don’t have English restaurants over here.
Disney Princesses – I heard so much about them and failed to see one. Dangnabit, Max!
Magic Kingdom Parade and Fireworks – Wow! Make sure you are in front of the castle to see the show.
WDW Guests - Humans are weird. And we’re fat! When its hot and you’re at an amusement park, people tend to wear things that show every roll, every flaw, etc. I can say this because I need to lose 25 pounds but we’re a world of fat people! 90% of the people in wheelchairs and scooters were not handicapped but simply too fat to walk. And these folks and their families would scoot to the front of the line. Somtin wrong ‘bout that!
Rides – Some of the rides are dated but overall, all of them were enjoyable. The worst one we experienced was the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” 3-D show at Epcot. The show is about 20 years old and needs to be put to rest. The wait directly outside the theater was terrible. No AC and they crammed about 400 people in that room. A lot of the shows/rides were simplistic but when you’re hot and tired, those are welcomed at times. Oh, on the safari ride in Animal Kingdom, our guide, who was acting scared with reports of danger ahead, sounded like she was having multiple orgasisms with her “oh’s”. It was getting somewhat embarrassing.
TV Stations in the WDW Resorts - ABC, ESPN and Disney were your choices (well, a few others but you get the point). We got hooked on the “7 Top Attractions at WDW” loop that featured Stacy. She was high on something. We had her lines memorized by the time we were done.
Weirdest Sight - A group of Hindu Monks in their orange robes and wood sandals in line to ride the Arrowsmith Roller Coaster.
Hi teeny, how are you? :)
Gotta make those reservations for the character dinners early to see Cinderella. She appears in the lobby of Cinderella's Castle for the "Cinderella's Royal Table - Dream Dining" breakfast, lunch, and (NEW!) dinner and actually bustles among the tables at dinner for the 1900 Park Fare restaurant in the Grand Floridian resort for dinner.
Don't ask me how she manages to simultaneously be in the lobby of her castle and in the resort restaurant at dinnertime -- I'll let you know, since we're taking the wee ones there in October, and we've already long since made the reservations for both the resort and castle dinners. (My daughter, who is pushing all of 3, is a Disney Princess fanatic.) There should also be Arielmania, since The Little Mermaid will just have been released on DVD a couple of weeks before. Ariel is cute, but Belle is HAWT!
My kid is the same way. We will be watching something on tv and he'll ask "why is that happening?" or something similar. Half the time I have to tell him "I'm seeing it for the first time, too"... the other half of the time I have to tell him "They just explained it while you were talking."
But Ariel shows more hooters that Belle.
Is your daughter taking her Cinderella costume to wear to the meal?
I'd hit Belle before Ariel any day!! She likes to french!
Sounds like my husband...:)
Can I not have both?... at the same time?
I'll agree with you on that part. She's also the only one other than Jasmine who bares her midriff. But Belle is still the most gorgeous. At least according to what my wife has drummed into me.
I would have to agree.
LOL...he tends to form an opinion before he gets all the facts, but I love 'em. :)
You betcha -- we picked it up this past weekend (the Disney store in the local mall got in a fresh shipment for Halloween). She insisted on wearing it all the time so we finally had to put it away and let her wear this other generic princess costume to wean her. She's got the faux-glass slippers too. Actually, as we speak, my wife is returning them for a larger size because, while they just fit now, she is worried that they'll be too small come October.
Why stop at two? Go for all of them (I believe that's eight at last count).
My granddaughter attends these meals in full costume and it is such a precious sight! Her mother gave her a princess party for her 5th birthday and all the girls came in costume, including her mother. It was an absolute delight!
I didn't want to be greedy
Ah yes, Disey World. It has pretty much ruined Orlando IMO. I've been dragged there a few times.
One time we'd just ridden some "ride" and we're going up an escalator when suddenly some 8 year old boy started screaming. Somehow a pin of some sort had come out of the escalator and had stuck deep into his knee. He was with his grandmother, who couldn't pick him up so my wife did as she was very close to him. She began carrying him upstairs as I went ahead to find a Disney employee. The employee I found was some warbley-voiced kid who was clueless as to what to do and I told him to get an ambulance or "some kind of help." We left the boy and granny there and moved on.
I know another lady whose child was kidnapped at Disney. He was around 5 yo as I recall and was actually tethered to the mom with one of those springy child leashes. She looks down and the leash was cut and the kid was gone. She immediately went to security (wherever that is?) and the head cop, who was previously employed in NYC brought her to the exit of the park.
The security guy said for her to look at all children's shoes as they are leaving the park. Sure enough she spots her kid's shoes and the kidnapper had already changed the kid's clothes and DIED his hair! She was one of the lucky ones.
Of course this stuff rarely if ever gets any press because its just bad for business. And since Disney practically owns this town, well, you can connect the dots...
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