We took the ferry boat back to the parking lot on Tuesday night just to try it out, but we decided to take it again this morning just to enjoy the view. I love ferry rides so it was a special treat for me.
Once inside the park, we made sure to stop at the fire station and pick up 5 more packs of cards. The girls wanted to get started right away fighting the bad guys in the portals, so we let them play for a little bit while we took the time to do the Swiss Family Treehouse, the Tiki Room, and Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain again.
Their Tiki Room has volcanoes in the window as well as rain, although they didn't explode like I was hoping they would
One of our goals today was to make it to Tomorrowland, which was the only area we hadn't really explored yet. We actually had gone over there late Tuesday night just to ride Space Mountain, but we had just run through the area and hadn't seen what else was around.
The rides in Tomorrowland are the Speedway (their Autopia), Space Mountain, the Astro Orbiter (still atop the highest building roof - Disneyland's was moved down to ground level when they put in the Rocket Rods), the Peoplemover (one of the other rides I really loved at DL that is no longer there), the Carousel of Progress (also defunct at DL), and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. They also have two show-like attractions: Stitch's Great Escape and the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor.
Since I can't help but compare these rides to the ones at Disneyland, I'll review them that way. Space Mountain still has the old-school cars, which were fun to ride in a retro kind of way. Without the head rests, you don't have the speakers for the music, so all you can really hear are a few sound effects and the cars on the roller coaster track. In this line, like the one at Big Thunder Mountain, they put stuff inside for people to do while they are waiting. Because we rode this ride really late at night, we never got to play it, but it's some sort of video game with big screens on the wall next to the line and a series of buttons on the handrail. Three or four people can play at the same time against each other one on screen, and there's about 8 screens total to play on. Now that's a smart way to build a line!
K on Space Mountain
We didn't ride the Astro Orbiter, but we did make our way up the ramp to experience the Peoplemover. The Peoplemover was always a must-do at DL when it was there, so I had to try this one out. Their cars aren't covered, but they ride just about the same and show sights inside many of the ride and shop buildings which was pretty cool. They didn't have the Tron portion of the Peoplemover, which made me sad, but I was glad to be able to ride this ride one more time and share it with the girls.
Their Speedway was pretty fun, it was also the old-school version they used to have at Disneyland. DL did a fantastic job making their Autopia ride much better using Chevron cars, adding lots more things to look at in the line and on the ride, and including extras like the off-road track, but we still had lots of fun driving around.
Can you see A in that car?
We also rode the Buzz Lightyear ride, which is a favorite back home. However, this was the other one of the two rides that I found hugely disappointing compared to their DL equivalents. The guns on their ride are mounted to the front of the car and have very limited left/right and up/down motions. It was physically impossible to hit at least 1/3 of the targets from any angle, which was really frustrating. The free range guns at DL are far superior, making for a much more fun ride. No wonder the one in the Magic Kingdom doesn't ever have a long line. However, inside the queue area, they did have this cool View-Master next to Buzz Lightyear and the wheel actually turned inside changing the photos in the view screens.
The two sit-down theater-type shows in this park were polar opposites. The Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor was a hilarious comedy show where they actually took texted jokes from the audience combined with jumbo-tron like images of members of the audience along with funny captions. We all laughed out loud while the characters poked fun at the audience and used lots of slapstick humor. This would be a fun show to see again and again since it's always different, with the only downside being the fact that they pack a huge crowd into the pre-show room like sardines and then proceed with an unneccesarily loud pre-show. The Stitch ride on the other hand, was completely pointless and not funny. It was a poor use of gimmicks and gags and the girls couldn't even follow what was supposed to be happening on the ride (which was nothing more than sitting down in a seat in a circular room). I had to explain almost the entire experience to them after the show.
By this time we were hungry for lunch, so we headed to the familiar Tomorrowland Terrace. Unfortunately, it was closed for the season and I found that odd. I looked at the map for another option of real food (so many places just have ice cream, slushies, etc or are super-expensive), and found one just up ahead on Main Street. The girl out front asked us if we had a reservation. Now, keep in mind that this wasn't a fancy place. Just a regular walk-up counter eating-place. When we said we didn't have reservations, she told us the wait would be about 15-20 minutes before they would let us inside to even order. Crazy! I can't imagine what that place would be like on a busy day. We already knew that all the pricey restaurants had advance reservations, but had never considered the regular ones did. The Book had mentioned it was hard to find a place to eat in the park, but with nearly an hour commute outside of the park, you don't have much option unless you plan ahead. And many people did plan ahead. I asked at the front gate if you could bring food into the park on the first day and was told you can bring anything in except glass bottles and booze. We saw several families walking around with coolers full of food. That's definitely different from DL, but on a crowded day at least you'd be able to eat. Since we had the Rewards Card, it was actually cheaper for us to eat inside the park than out of it, so we just made the best of situations like this.
Heading back over to Frontierland to eat, we were able to battle some more villains in the portals for a while and experimented a bit with another similar game they were testing out where you would scan your token and it would make different things happen around Adventureland. This one was pirate-themed and used treasure maps, but it wasn't as interactive and the girls didn't like it as much.
After a little while, we took a few minutes to do something you have to do at any Disney park - ride the train! One of Walt's favorite things and a must-have at every park of his, we couldn't leave without riding it at least once. The train at Disney World has only three stops: Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Main Street. For some reason it doesn't stop at Tomorrowland, and it also doesn't have the dinosaur/Grand Canyon scenery the one at DL has. It was nice to ride, though, and we were treated to a extra-special ride in cars pulled by the Walter E. Disney engine itself.
Back on Main Street, we decided it was time to save our spots for the parade. Many people began lining the streets at 7pm, but we were lucky to find a spot on the side of the center circle in front of the castle. In this park they have back-to-back-to-back shows at night, so you just find a spot and stay put for several hours. The Main Street Electrical Parade was at 9pm, the show on the castle was at 9:45, the fireworks were at 10, another show on the castle was at 10:35, and then they did another Electrical Parade at 11pm. This all made for some seriously gridlocked traffic on Main Street at night in the park. I was the runner and grabbed dinner and then dessert of waffle sandwiches topped with fresh fruit and with (or without) nutella while Mike held our spots on the curb. We finished just in time for the parade to start. I was so excited to hear them say "The Main Street Electrical Parade" in the beginning announcement since DL had changed it to "Disney's Electrical Parade" when they moved it to California Adventure. They also changed "Disneyland proudly presents..." to "Disney proudly presents..." when they moved it. Here the parade said "The Magic Kingdom presents...", but it was so close. Ok, so maybe I'm just a little bit obsessed. :)
The parade itself was very well done, and although it had several less floats than the DL one, I enjoyed it very much.
The show on the castle was pretty cool, too. They projected moving images onto Cinderella's castle along with movie clips and music. It was really well done and a lot of fun to watch. I think maybe they do this at DL, too, because it seemed kind of familiar, but we so rarely watch the fireworks from Main Street back home so I'm not sure.
Cheshire cat castle
Wreck-It-Ralph
Lion King
The fireworks show was good, but felt shorter than DL's, and we found it rather odd that even though they set the fireworks off behind the castle, they either shot them lower or farther away because part of the fireworks were blocked by the castle itself. We figured that all of the people who were directly in front of the castle probably couldn't see many of the fireworks at all. We actually made our way through the crowd part way through the fireworks and used the congested time to ride Space Mountain again before making our way back to Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain.
Just like in Hollywood Studios, this park does a show right when the park closes at 11pm. I still think that's very weird as it makes leaving the park really difficult once all of the rides have closed. We weren't in a hurry tonight, so we just found a spot on the side of the parade route and decided to watch the Electrical Parade one more time. This time, we pretty much had the parade all to ourselves since there was no one else around. It was interesting to see which character could see us and which couldn't, and it was also fun to see them respond to us and each thing the girls were doing since there weren't many other people around to interact with.
waiting for the parade to start
C got a lot of attention from the characters in the parade, many of whom followed her lead and laid down on their floats or laid their hand on their hands in mock sleep
After the parade was over, we snagged some abandoned strollers and made our way back up to the front gates to head to our car and back to the hotel. The days definitely feel much longer here in the heat!
No comments:
Post a Comment