Two hundred and fourty five<\/strong>. That’s how many days from today we have to prepare for our Disney Cruise and Park vacation and I’m going to start offering up my opinion about The World and all that makes me love\/hate it.<\/p>\n

Let me get the glaring joke about the title out of the way first: I am sure that postbear will look at the title and say “ALL OF THEM”. Okay that’s done.<\/p>\n

Here’s my list of rides that are of no value at all to guest experience. This doesn’t mean I don’t like them or that they’re not fun, I’m suggesting that maybe over time, they’ve lost their spark or that they were last minute ideas implemented without thought of how time would treat their existence. Here we go, in order of Meh to Wah!<\/p>\n

5. Rafiki’s Planet Watch<\/strong>. If you’ve never been to this pavilion, I would recommend you sit it out. The train ride alone was created by someone in the Disney Imagineering department who has way more patience<\/em> than your average person. First, you wait for a train to bring you to the pavilion. And wait. And after what seems like a lifetime of waiting, you wait some more. When the train does arrive, you and a few hundred strollers jam their way onto the small train. The seats are similar to Disneyland in that you’re sitting looking “inward” to the park and parts of the service roads that supply the Animal Kingdom’s vast veterinary areas. You’d think that would be interesting to see, but they’re basically parking lots and square buildings. Once at the station, you have a good 5 minute walk to the pavilion, which admittedly is a nice trek, but the payoff is a let-down. The building is<\/em> interesting – full of animal facts and real veterinary bays where doctors actually work on poorly animals, but you can scoot through all this in 20 minutes. If your child is fully engulfed in RCS (Restless Child Syndrome) then that means another 20 min wait for the train to get back.<\/p>\n

4. Studio Back Lot Tour.<\/strong> This Tour should be an exciting lesson in how movies are made, yet the inclusion of Michael Bay talking up Pearl Harbor<\/em> makes my lunch come burbling back up. Example: In describing the Tram part of the tour, Wikipedia states without any sense of irony: “A highlight in the building is the room full of tires used for the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show.<\/em>” A. Room. Full. Of. Tires. There are gems you get to see while on the ride, like the vehicle boneyard (The skip from Return of the Jedi<\/em>!! The sun-faded ship from Flight of the Navigator<\/em>!!) and they do take you through the costuming department of the park which is a glimmer of how “Studio-esque” Disney use to be in Florida. But then you’re shuttled through a\u00a0 part of the ride where you’re scalded and wetted, much like the Universal\/old Earthquake<\/em> ride, sans The Rock. I know you’re going to say that this ride is integral to the whole “studio” theming of DHS and taking it away would make the park less “Hollywood”. To which I agree and realize this whole point could have been avoided if Disney just got rid of the Michael Bay video at the beginning.
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