This will be my last installment of our trip to WDW. What I have written here only scratches the surface of our trip. We do have pictures...over 650 of them, not to mention the ones Dianna gave us from her camera. We haven’t even looked through them to cull out the bad shots. I did get some once in a lifetime pictures of the inside of Space Mountain. We were riding the Tomorrowlad Transit Authority (People Mover) which goes inside Space Mountain. They happened to have the lights on doing a safety check. Usually you see the roller coaster trains zooming around in the dark. This time we could see everything about the ride.
I’ll end telling about Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. No one in our family had visited these two parks before.
SUNSCREEN. It is amazing what a difference going 750 miles south makes. We enjoyed weather down there that we’d had 4-6 weeks ago here in Tennessee. One reality for our family is sunscreen. We are so fair we can sunburn in a cave at midnight on night with a new moon. Jenna could apply her own sunscreen which helped. The challenge was getting the boys to stand still so we could grease them up and still get out the door in time to meet the Cotters. They say your epidermis is the largest organ in your body. I can vouch for that.
One morning Nate was goofing off. I had told him to get dressed and put his breakfast dishes away while I finished putting sunscreen on Ben, but he got distracted. A moment later I got on to him for not doing what I told him to do. He said, “Rats! So much to do in my life,” and then started scurrying around, acting busy.
HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS. The rides that were the biggest hit here were the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the Rock ‘N Roller Coaster, and Toy Story Midway Mania. The Rock ‘N Roller Coaster is the only Disney ride that takes you upside down. It does so three times: two loops and one corkscrew. The kids had heard about this ride early on so the standard question from them before went on any ride was, “Does it go upside down?” It became the family joke because the kids asked this of everything, including the Monorail.
Nate was a little scared before boarding the Rock ‘N Roller Coaster. You see, after loading the cars they move forward a bit and wait for a countdown. At the end of the countdown the ride takes off, accelerating to 60 MPH in 2.8 seconds. Watching this from the line Nate’s anxiety began to build so Vicki told him to pray if he felt scared. A miniute later he tugged on her arm and said he wanted to pray. Here’s his prayer: “Dear God, help me not to be scared on this roller coaster. And God, I know You’re going to be with me. Thank You.” Then he smiled real big and was good to go. Everyone was really pumped up after riding this.
The ride you need to Fastpass first here is the Toy Story Midway Mania. The technology behind this is incredible. As you ride this you stop at several different shooting gallery scenes. You have a gun on your seat and shoot the targets projected by a computer in front of you. You are also wearing 3-D glasses. All the projected targets appear to have depth as well as the projectiles coming from your gun (darts, water, etc. depending on the scene you are at). The computer even keeps score for you. This is a must do ride!
While the rides are good, the neat thing about Hollywood Studios are the shows. There are quite a few shows here and they average 30 minutes. This leaves you with a lot to do in a short amount of time which is why one of our days here was so rushed. Fantasmic combines live action with animation projected against water and retells the story of Fantasia. The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular recreates key scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark and then shows you how those stunts were done. And the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show recreates a high speed car chase scene like you see in stories like the James Bond films. Both of these shows include explosions that are close enough for you to feel the heat. We also enjoyed the Beauty and the Beast and Voyage of the Little Mermaid stage shows.
Our table service meal here was at the Sci-Fi Drive-In Theater Restaurant. All the tables here are shaped like cars and they all face a large movie screen. The movie is a bunch of movie trailers from old science fiction B movies with a few cartoons mixed in. It was just corny enough to be really entertaining.
ANIMAL KINGDOM is half zoo, half amusement park. It is the prettiest of all the Disney parks. One of my two regrets of the whole trip was not returning here for at least part of another day. This park, or parts of it, usually close earlier than the other parks due to the animals.
We really enjoyed seeing the animals whether it was from a walk-through exhibit or on a ride like Kilimanjaro Safaris. The Flights of Wonder show featured different birds and was fun to see. The Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo stage shows were both excellent. Expedition Everest was the roller coaster to ride here, and while it doesn’t go upside down there is the Yeti to contend with. The kids rode the Kali River Rapids (white-water rafting) twice and were drenched (which is why the adults opted out).
My favorite dining experience was the Tusker House Restaurant. This is an all-you-can-eat buffet featuring foods with an African flavor. After supper (Kenny, you’ll enjoy this) I was eating my ice when Nate stuck his hand down in my glass to get ice for himself. He didn’t seem to understand why I got on to him and said, “You can still drink it.” Trying to make him understand I said, “Not after you stuck your grubby fingers down in my glass I can’t.” I guess he still didn’t get the point because he stuck his wet fingers up to my mouth and said, “Here, drink this.”
RECOVERING. Well, this pretty much wraps up our trip. We only stopped at Ellis Brothers Pecans on the way home (well, I already mentioned spending the night in Tifton). It wasn’t easy to get up and go to work and school Monday morning. We all had the post vacation blues. It felt like it was Wednesday before we got caught up on our sleep.
We had been dreaming about this vacation for a long time, and it lived up to all our dreams. As a matter of fact, Vicki has been riding rides in her dreams just about every night since. I would go back and do every bit of it again. We’re even talking about doing it again in 4-5 years.
My computer says I have written over 5300 words about our trip. I hope I have not overdone it. All this doesn’t even cover all the special little moments like when Ben or Nate would spontaneously want to hold our hands as we walked through the crowds. I’ll bet that won’t happen the next time we’re there, and I am so glad we have things like that to look back on.
Joe
