Tadaaa!

We missed the rope drop show because we realized, as we were eating breakfast at 6am (damn west coast time zone differences), that only resort guests could see it due to Magic Hours (the park opening early for those privileged people). Dang! One more reason why you should bite the bullet and stay on property.

Splooge

We hit Magic Kingdom first and grab a tea and a muffin while the crowd surges past us to grab their FastPasses for Star Tours, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, etc. I found a “secluded” porch with a bench right on the street which provided a great place to people watch. Just the fact that this bench was taking up prime shop window real estate on Main Street USA made me really start to notice the differences between Florida and Anaheim. Even though WDW has the luxury of space, you wouldn’t find a “wasted” storefront like the one we sat in at Disneyland.

Hummingbird. Don't Worry Sylvie... I have more for you!

In fact at one point while wandering through DL, I turned to SharkBoy and said: “I have to confess, I don’t remember this park… at all!” Despite being there less than 5 years prior, I couldn’t remember the layout or attractions as well as I could for WDW. SharkBoy’s eyes widen “ME TOO!” he utters. It’s like we’ve just both discovered we’ve been mind-wiped like some alien abductee, but without the anal probing. Weird.

This unfamiliarity was welcome though. It was like we were visiting the park for the first time, all over again.

Gleeeruuuugh

I’m going to lump in both days and both parks, highlighting on the good stuff, to save you all some time:

• We were singled out again on Mike and Sully’s Monster Inc ride. Roz said in her gravelly voice: “Hey you two in the second row. I like your haircut.” YES! We’re easy targets.
• World of Color? Frakking amazing. Those YouTube videos we scoured over prior to our trip don’t do it justice.
• Ariel’s Undersea Ride? A soon to be classic for little girls (and some boys). Very reminiscent of Peter Pan, but with better robots.
• Speaking of robots… we got to finally see Great Moments with Lincoln and didn’t know what to expect. After all the video and cartoon intro, the curtain closes as if the show was done. SharkBoy and I exchange desperate glances: was that it? SharkBoy was going to tear the theatre apart – “We wants the ROBOT!” But the curtain re-opened to reveal the audio-animatronic. Whew.
• There was a large amount of party people after 10pm. At one point we had frat boys on our Splash Mountain ride, eager to test the boundaries of how far they could get out of the boat without stopping the ride.
• And there was the drunk girl outside Splash Mountain wearing “Get a Tattoo Pussy” tee. How she made it past the draconian front gate security with that is curious.
• Star Tours? We got Admiral Akbar the second time around. The third time, a Wookie got stuck on our windscreen. I may cry tears of Joy. Still haven’t done Bespin or Endor…
• Space Mountain was smoother in CA than FL.
• In fact, SharkBoy has a theory that I sort of agree with: Whichever park has the original ride, it’s better. Pirates, yes; Haunted Mansion, no (I think the new Escher room and final hitchhiking ghosts is better in FL).
• Soarin’ needs a new film. We were treated to a big bug on our lens for the first quarter of the ride. And it’s getting noticeably scratchy in these days of HD.
• elecTRONica should stay longer – if they could figure out how to get the Syd Mead bar fixtures in quickly and not have them lying around all day long in the sun (its pretty jarring in reference to a NYC street set), that would be cool. Flynn’s Arcade could be open all day! Fun retro!

SharkBoy's New Hat

Even though we had 2.5 days and were travelling light, we still managed not to do everything. I guess we’ll have to go back.

The Back End of C3P0

More park pics here