Last day at Disney!

All of our running around non-stop, on top of LeakyCon and her JumpstART experience, finally did Sarah in. She was draggy as we ended our Magic Kingdom day, and the next morning, she literally could not get out of bed. I sent Larry and Emily off the Epcot (so sad - the one park I was REALLY looking forward to going to!), and stayed at the room with my sick child. She slept nearly the whole day, I caught up on my blogging, and successfully communicated in Spanish with the housekeeper. Sra. Perry would be so proud!

 Much improved the next day, we set off for our final day at Disney, and, indeed, in Florida. This day would be spent at Disney Hollywood Studios. This was a much smaller, less crowded, and easier to navigate park - a good choice for a final day. Following Larry's "Disney Bible", we cherry-picked the things we wanted to do and see.



Entering the park was like entering a world of retro, largely art-deco buildings. Lots of theaters and "shops".

     

Mickey's Sorcerer's Apprentice hat was at the center of the park, and was quite the spectacle. Clever landscaping was found nearby.

  

Favorite rides? Tower of Terror and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. Tower of Terror had a fun set-up with its Twilight Zone approach. Combine that retro feel with a haunted house, and you've got me hooked. The ride itself was not so terror-filled as touted and shorter than expected, but the drops were exciting.

     

I am surprised I made it through the "Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Starring Aerosmith". A mouthful of a name, it was probably the most jarring ride I rode. My eyes were closed almost the whole time, and I'm so glad. I didn't even realize we'd turned upside down (maybe even twice...) until my family told me afterwards. Holy cow! I'd never have gone if I'd known that! Maybe I have more motion tolerance than I thought. As with others, this ride was over at just the point when I started worrying about losing it. I guess they know what they're doing!

 

Best restaurant of the Great Theme Park Tour? Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano. Wonderful food, attentive service, and not typical fast food fare. A sit-down, order-from-the-menu place, it fit the bill when we needed more than just burgers and bad salads.

Best show? Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. Staged as a shoot on a film set, it was exciting, full of dangerous stunts and special effects, it held our rapt attention the entire time.

     

Worst "show"? Narnia. A cheap shot at synopsizing the movies. A waste of time.

Honorable mentions? Muppet Vision 3-D, surprising since I'm not a huge Muppet fan, either. It was cleverly written and, well, 3-D! That always makes it better!

 

The Magic of Disney Animation was interesting, too, especially with two budding artists in our group.  

On our final day, I finally got into the whole "hidden Mickey" search. I love puzzles and such, so I'm sorry I didn't engage in the hunt sooner. Truly, we were so pushed to see and do what we wanted at Magic Kingdom, we really didn't have the leisure to look and relax. Epcot was a bust for me, so, I guess this really was my only chance. So, I found a number of hidden Mickeys, some I am sure more legit than others.

      

By the end of this short day, we were ready to go home. Fun, yes, but the culmination of time spent on our feet was beginning to get to us. So glad we had a few days time between Universal and Disney, or we never would have made it. Six theme parks in one trip is a lot of ground to cover!

 

Magic Kingdom

Let me just say up front that I'm not a Disney fan. One reason it's taken us so long to do the theme park thing is that I find Disney so commercialized, uber-expensive, and fake. Yet, here we are, experiencing a rite of passage that, it seems, every American is supposed to have. I must say, as we drove onto the property, I was astonished at the sheer amount of land Disney occupies. Impeccably landscaped, expansive, and stretching for more miles than even this flat acreage will allow, I was truly amazed. I'm not sure how I feel about that, except to say they were smart to buy it up when they did. Once in the park, the landscaping efforts continued to amaze us. The flowers were beautiful.

  

I wasn't expecting it to take so long to actually enter Magic Kingdom. It was probably an hour from the time we parked to our first step into the park proper. First, there's the ticketing area, then you have to decide which mode of transportation to take across the lake. We took the ferryboat, had my bag checked (because Mom always has the bag with everything we might need), and finally entered the kingdom every little American girl is primed to dream of entering. 


    


Due to the ages of our daughters, we were able to skip most of the princess- and character-laden areas of the park. Thank goodness. I have never seen so many strollers in one place in my life. I'm not a Mickey Mouse/Donald Duck fan, either, so it was just as well that we moved on.


So, for all my cynicism, I must admit that we had a pretty good time. It was so hot, we decided to hit Splash Mountain first, and get good and wet, thus allowing us to stay cool for a while as we enjoyed other rides. Boy, were we disappointed. We hardly got wet at all. Despite what we'd heard, it was over-hyped, not nearly as refreshing as we'd hoped.





Disappointing, too, was Pirates of the Caribbean. The pirate mannequins were just so fake and it was way too short. We were just getting into it when it was over. Oh, well.


Big Thunder Mountain RR was pretty fun - and I survived! They did a convincing job of depicting the Monument Valley landscape - even if they did mistakenly claim it's in Arizona, not Utah. Hmm...


 

Space Mountain, on the other hand, was one of our favorites! I'm so proud of myself for going on it, and happy I didn't get sick. I am thankful it was dark, or I probably would have freaked out. It to, was pretty short, but that probably helped me keep my stomach in check, so that's OK. It was a pretty exciting ride while it lasted.

Larry talked us into doing It's a Small World. Yes, I've heard how annoying it is - that same song over and over and over. But, what surprised me was that it depicted the countries of the world in such a stereotypical manner, not at all PC. Maybe it's a bit dated since it was first built? I also felt it would have been more effective if there had been labels denoting each country as its representatives appeared.

I did enjoy the Haunted Mansion. I thought the ghostly special effects were well done. Emily disagreed. I have to say, though, the getting there was brutal. We were so crammed into such a small space while waiting to enter the ride. The woman behind be kept pushing me the entire time. I was quite uncomfortable with the lack of personal space; I felt that too many people were getting too familiar with my butt. And nobody needs that!

       

Now, I know I said we skipped the kid stuff, but Larry insisted we ride the Magic Carpets of Aladdin. His all-knowing bible of all things Disney said it was a three-star ride. Pretty cute, and I didn't have to worry about being sick!

  

For my literary fix, the girls and I visited Tom Sawyer Island and wasted some time while Larry attended Mickey's Philharmagic. The raft ride over and back was a cute touch. I may have to go back and read some Mark Twain again to refresh my memory of the sites depicted on the island.

  

We all met up again at the Hall of Presidents and appreciated the opportunity to cool off a bit. This area definitely had a colonial feel to it.

   

We left Americana behind when we entered Tomorrowland.

  

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin was a fun ride. We had a good time shooting at all the targets, and accrued a much better score than in Universal's similar Men in Black ride.

 

For all my eschewing of the classic Disney princess overload, I have to admit that Cinderella's castle is quite a sight to behold when it's all lit up at night.

  

We stayed for the fireworks, of course, but got out of there before the final parade hit.

The monorail took us back across at the end of our day, and we dragged ourselves back home. This was our longest day yet (it's a lot of ground to cover), and we were beat.



I have to say, these theme parks, in general, are masters of crowd control. They know just how to keep everybody queued for maximum use of space and minimal confusion about who's turn is next. We loved Disney's Fast Pass option that is part of the ticket price, but thought Universal did a better job of keeping us entertained while waiting in line. Disney seemed to just herd us along. We also preferred Universal's use of lockers for storing bags. A hassle, but no concerns about stashing or losing our belongings on a "bumpy" ride.

This cynic's overall impression at the end? Gooey, yes. Plastic, definitely. Way too cheerful at times. Overly priced? Without a doubt - and so was Universal.  But impressive property and grounds, and a fun day for our family.