And I Think This Should Wrap Up the Vacation...

Okay, so we are down to Magic Kingdom and Disney Springs. Those are the equivalent of Disneyland and Downtown Disney in California. The whole Magic Kingdom being Disneyland thing still throws me off. I think it should be Disney World (which it was before they started adding things) and all of the parks together should be the Magic Kingdom, but they didn't ask me so I didn't get to say.

But anyway...

Disney Springs. It wins over Downtown Disney as far as size and restaurants go. It's huge. Which is kind of the Disney World theme. More is more. BUT...it loses to Downtown Disney in how far it is from everything else and the lack of Disney specific stores. That was the weirdest thing to me. There was a World of Disney which is like all of the Disney parks stores in one space, but in Downtown Disney there is that and a few extra clothing stores and Disney snack places and Disney art studios. Disney Springs had more just regular mall stores instead. And the ton of restaurants.

And when we got there on Saturday? Forget about it. It was so packed. We tried to do a little shopping and a little looking around and just couldn't. We met my family for some dinner and chose a quick serve place that we had heard good things about. We were in line for 30+ minutes just to order and then had to sit at two tables outside. Which wouldn't have been too terrible but it was cold. Right? Florida was so freaking cold. We went from cold to hot and then back to cold during our trip. And Saturday night it was cold. I felt badly for my niece, I think by the time dinner was over she was really regretting coming to see us. Now, that could have been the company but I'm going to pretend it was the wind.

We would have spent a lot more time in Disney Springs if it had been closer to the hotel for sure but the night we went for fancy dinner (so good, I mentioned it in the first blog) we waited for close to an hour to get our bus shuttle back to the hotel. Just not at all convenient. If it had been it would have been really bad for our budget and our waistlines I think. I really did like the variety, the space, the much better during the week than on the weekend parts. But it just can't beat Downtown Disney for convenience. We hit up DD probably daily when we are in California. To grab food, to shop, to walk around outside of the parks. It's just so easy.

Dinner with the Fam. Love them. 

There was also a cute little photo place that was tied to our Memory Maker. I was not happy to see that our "act scared" was due to Mal. I would have acted "Fan Girl" if I had known!

Posing with the Lego Hulk is a tradition...now I've gone coast to coast.

And now the main event. The Magic Kingdom. Disneyland is The Happiest Place on Earth and The Magic Kingdom is The Most Magical Place on Earth. All things being equal I'd rather be happy but there is something to be said for magic.

It's similar but not the same. It's bigger. The streets are wider. The lands are a little more spread out. Cinderella's castle has turrets and gates that spread it out wider than Sleeping Beauty's castle. And there is a restaurant in Cinderella where you can walk through Sleeping Beauty's and see her story. So a little different. They have a few rides that are different, and few different spins on rides that are the same. And like all the rest there is just more to it. More rides, more areas, more space, and a ton more people.

But it's still the favorite park. The rest are fine, but The Magic Kingdom is just Disney. It's what you are thinking about when you think about going to Disney, it's what you want. But there are some differences. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Be Our Guest, they still have Country Bear Jamboree and The People Mover, and the Carousel of Progress (which was hilarious and sad at the same time), and I am sure more that I can't think of. We tried to hit things that we couldn't do in California or were different in Orlando and then work our way out from there. 

Christopher tried the Citrus Swirl which you can get along with Dole Whip in World. We were both excited to try it, as it was something new and he got it first. When he told me what it was I decided to pass. It's basically frozen OJ concentrate with vanilla ice cream. When I was a kid we would eat that as a replacement for being able to get Dreamsicles. I never want to eat that again. I told Christopher I already knew that it tastes like poverty and sadness. I'm kidding, but only kind of. He liked it and I bet if I didn't have baggage I would think it was fine as well, but I stuck with Dole Whip. You can never go wrong with Dole Whip.

Seven Dwarfs Mine train was like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but with smoother track action. That was the other game we played, trying to see which rides were the same frames with different skins. There are a lot that are Small World but...and a few Big Thunder Mountain with...styles. We liked it. It was fun. Still like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad better. And we think Big Thunder Mountain is actually longer in Magic Kingdom. Which is when the more is more is the best idea! AND...the line is covered and has things to look at and do while you wait so that's cool too. 

We did a special dessert buffet to get a reserved space to watch the fireworks show one night. The dessert was just okay, the weather did not cooperate and we were freezing, but the view of the projections on the castle was AMAZING. We were so impressed with what they can do with that now. They also used a lot of that technology the night we did the after hours Villian party. There was a stage show and they changed the castle for each villain. It was pretty darn cool. 

The after hours party was also really great. It was an extra ticket, but the crowds are small and you can ride things easier and just walk around without having people breathing on you constantly.  And it was villain themed so I loved it for that as well.

Space Mountain...well. This might be the biggest disappointment of our trip. We LOVE Space Mountain in California. It's a multiple rider for sure. And we were kind of impressed at the start for the Orlando version. The line is much cooler. In both ways. It's inside so you aren't baking like you are in California and it has some really neat things to look at. But the ride itself is awful. Like old school Matterhorn before they smoothed that out a bit awful. It's jerky and the cars are small and uncomfortable. It was one of the rides that was going to have a special theme for the Villains night so we rode it twice just to see the theme. Ugh. Not worth it. They added a little bit of a laugh and turned the lights out completely. California has a GREAT soundtrack and when they do overlays they do actual changes to the lights and music. It was just so not good. 

Pirates had the other additions for the Villains night and they added live actors into the ride. You had a pirate warning you in line that there was trouble ahead and then at a couple of spots in the ride there were pirates interacting with your boats. It was fun. Pirates overall is a better ride in California, but it wasn't bad in Orlando. 

I could talk about each area but I'll cut it off now.  The overall feeling for The Magic Kingdom was that it was the favorite park in Disney World, it was bigger than Disneyland, there were some real plusses to it. But it was super crowded. I think, for me, if you could change out the castle from Cinderella and put in the better Space Mountain then figure out how to get rid of a few hotels or streets or something in California I would like it better. In California. But since it's in Florida it's not my favorite, my favorite is the OG Park. But it was close.

This is actually from the restaurant of our hotel. Great view of the fireworks.

The monorail went right through our hotel.

Mal making her appearance at the Villains night

End of the night the Villains stand on the balcony and insult you as you leave! It was hilarious!

Waiting for Big Thunder...in the rain, it worked

It was a little wet

Giving our Meh instead of Ta Da reaction to Space Mountain

Christopher and I rode Splash Mountain at the Villains party but they weren't quite on the ball with the photo!

Our bundled up (it was 40) goodbye to The Magic Kingdom

So I think you've got the theme. It was big. It was crowded. Like crazy crowded. But we had a really good time. We got to spend a week together enjoying something we all like. We got to see things we had never seen before. We were able to see family not at a funeral so we weren't all crying at each other. We got to have some good food. We bought some fun things. But mainly we just enjoyed ourselves. 

Right now I'm even more grateful for that. I have no idea when we will see Christopher face to face again. We were going to go to a football game in September and then have the holidays together but I'm not sure that any of that will happen now. Our lives are all changed for the moment. And I am beyond grateful that it happened after we came home from vacation and not before. We planned for almost a year, just like everyone whose vacations were and are being cancelled right now. I am so sad for them and I hope they get a chance to go soon and have as much fun as we did. 

Disney.

Love it.

Back To Disney! The Unique Parks Edition...

Okay, so where were we?

Oh! Animal Kingdom. We were looking forward to this one. There is no equivalent in Disneyland. The pictures always look really great as well.

And it was...

Well...

The Expedition Everest roller coaster was a lot of fun. It was like the Matterhorn but with more. We really liked it. And the Pandora world was one of the most fully realized spaces in Disney. Very much like Galaxy's Edge. Just well done. And the Flight of Passage ride was brilliant. We had FastPasses for that one (thank goodness) or the wait would have been close to three hours. Insane. We weren't impressed at all with the safari. We were expecting an actual animal park, like free range animals in a large area. More natural interaction with nature for them. And there was a little bit of that, but it was mostly a drive through zoo. We have a great local zoo so it just wasn't really impressive. I wanted it to be more of a nature preserve and less of a traditional zoo.

We did not ride the other ride in Pandora, the Na'vi River Journey and that was a bummer, but it was the only truly hot and humid day we had and the line had a strong fuel odor. The thought of being in a hot line with that smell for an hour was too much for any of us to think was a good plan. So we looked at some pictures online of what we were missing and bailed.

It's a half day at best park for us. By far our least favorite. To be fair, part of that was the weather, but with only 2-3 decent rides in the place those lines are crazy. But again, because everything is so spread apart and the FastPass system is so wonky you can't really capitalize on that extra time by hopping over to another park real quick.

One of their "magic moments" add ins. I think they are fun. 

About the time I realized that there were going to be multiple Ta Das!

It was a random time for a picture so we don't look like we liked it, but we did.

And Dinosaur, a ride so lame I didn't even talk about it up there...

Okay, and then the other park that there isn't a comparable one in California. Epcot.

Brent and I went to Epcot in the late 80s when it was still pretty new. I honestly only remembered the giant golf ball, the Michael Jackson ride (before we knew anything), and the hydroponics exhibit which fascinated me. 

There was a ton of construction going on getting ready for their big anniversary celebration so we had kind of an odd experience getting around. It's also not really for us. We don't drink a lot. And we don't eat that much. Epcot is all about drinking and eating. There are people that that is their entire purpose for going to Epcot. To do an around the world pub crawl. We are too cheap for that! And the lines were really off putting. A margarita sounded good, but not good enough to stand 30 people deep to get one... At 10 in the morning...crazy.

The funny thing is even though it wasn't really a park geared toward our tastes we ended up visiting Epcot 3 times. We went Sunday evening because we wanted to make sure we got a chance to see the Arts Festival. Which was not what we expected. It was more like pop up shops from Downtown Disney's art store than anything else. Some really cool things, but not really what we had thought it would be. We had our normally scheduled day, rode the Frozen Ever After ride that everyone loves, walked around and looked at the lands. Did some shopping AND rode the ride with the hydroponics! It was not nearly as cool as I remembered, but it was cool because it was what I remembered so that balanced out. Then we went back Saturday morning and rode Test Track when it reopened to the world. It was fun.

We rode a few other things, one was a trip to Mars for Christopher and a trip around the world for me and Brent. The effects are so strong on the Mars version that they were having trouble with vomit so they had a toned down version. We took the toned down version. Brent would have been fine getting the simulated Gs that Christopher did (he said he could feel it pressing his cheeks back and his face was a little numb for awhile after riding) but I would have been in the vomit group so...

We also had a really lovely breakfast in France on Saturday morning. Breakfast was a tough meal at Disney World. Just not their best. But this was really good. So that was nice. 

Epcot was fine, but again, it could have been a part day park for us. It just had to be spread out because of what rides were operating when, and our mistaken thought that the Arts Festival wasn't to be missed. Oh and that Frozen ride? It was fine. There was a part where you went backwards and that's always fun but it was just kind of It's A Small World Norway...with some really disturbing skin masks for the animatronics...

THE big get ride. 

The Festival of the Arts wasn't a complete bust, I mean I got this...

And these...

The photographer was very confused by Christopher...we thought it was hilarious.

I cannot even begin to tell you how mad I was when I saw this shot. The ball is perfectly framed in the gate. I ASSUMED the official photographer would line us up to get the Gate, the Ball, and us...*sigh*

TA DA!

The part I remember...

So this one is funny...we saw an "official photographer" everytime we were there taking shots with the Iconic Ball in the background. The lines were long, we were headed someplace else, we were coming back so we would hit it then...until the last bit of time in the park on Saturday and they were NOWHERE to be found. Oh well...we handled it. 

So our take on these two parks was they are fine. Part day parks for us. Would need to plan that next time. Factor in a commute time between them and hit them both in one day maybe. But, again, hard to do with the way their FastPass situation is set up. Epcot when it's all done with construction might be worth another crack. And maybe that time we'll decide to stand in that margarita line...

Park It Right Here!

Okay, so now that I have the food out of the way...

We are Disneyland fans. I love it. I've talked about it before. I don't know why because it's not like we are huge Disney movie people and people in animal costumes that cover their faces freak me the fuck out..but still. Love Disneyland. And Christopher loves Disneyland. We've done more family vacations there than anywhere else, including his high school graduation gift.

But Land. Not World.

Brent went to World once as a little kid and he and I went to World and Epcot once when we were first married and stationed in Orlando and that was it. We've talked about it over the years but the flight is long and why would we go to Orlando where the weather is worse and the flight is longer when we could just go to California?

But once Christopher started reading more about Disney World and the things they had that Land didn't he wanted to go check it out. And as I am a sucker for Disney and the opportunity to spend time with my son I was sold. And as Brent loves us and wants us to be happy he was on board too. The one shift we made was Christopher was in charge of the planning. He and I talked about things and he gave us all options, but the planning was on him. Because let me tell you World takes planning.

So what did we think?

We thought it was a lot. Like a lot. We also realized that for us even with it being a lot what would take other people 6 days still only takes 4. Our biggest problem was that everything was too far apart to really capitalize on that.

See in Disneyland we stay at one of the resort hotels which gets us early entry into one of the parks each day. We knock out a good chunk of the popular rides in that time and then use MaxPass to get our first FastPass for the day and go back and forth between the two parks as needed. We are often "done" with our top list by the afternoon of day one. We generally go for 2 to 2 1/2 days and hit up our favorites multiple times and have plenty of time for shopping and goofing off. It's so easy.

World is not like that. I got us the park hopper passes but would not bother with that going back. It's too much time to start at one park and then ride the bus to another. You can't use the FastPass system the same way. Your passes are booked out months before you get there and you have to use all three before you can book another. Which usually means that there aren't any left to be had. Because you can't book out too many FastPasses you are inline for rides quite a bit, and even with the FastPasses we were often in line for 20 minutes or so.

Because it's crowded.

Like insanely crowded.

Christopher chose the time of year that is historically the lightest attended. It was still crowded. Part of that was the opening of Galaxy's Edge so people who had put off vacations came during what was usually an off time. And part of that is Disney has been aggressively marketing those downtimes to markets where people are on vacation in February. So even though it wasn't as bad as it can get in those parks it was as crowded as a holiday in Disneyland.

Crazy crowds.

The parks are bigger though. Like Hollywood Studios is bigger than California Adventure (the equivalent park) and The Magic Kingdom is bigger than Disneyland. The streets are wider. The lands have a little more open space. So that's nice, but they fill all of that extra space with so many more people. Staying on park doesn't really get you much benefit, because there are SO many more on park hotels that most of the people are staying at the park.

We did do an after hours event on Friday and that was great. It was an extra ticket and limited people so the lines weren't terrible at all. It was cold and we did end up in a couple of long lines at the beginning that if we had known we would have avoided but it was still really nice. You could walk without getting elbowed and lines moved super fast. But again, another ticket, so added expense.

I didn't want to carry my camera around, sometimes it's an extra trip through security if you have one and if you can skip that bag line, then skip that bag line, so I only have a handful of pictures I took myself. And then I have a TON of pictures from them. I bought the Memory Maker and made the boys stop at almost every place I saw a camera person. So I have a lot of those shots. The funny thing (to me) is that they had you do the same poses at each stop no matter where it was; which would be odd, EXCEPT...one of them was TA DA! So I have a Grand Finale Series of TA DA shots with not only Christopher and me but all three of us! At about the third shot when I realized this was going to be a thing I started to get giddy thinking about it. A game within our visit. Gotta love that.

So let's see what are the highlights? First off that Christopher planned everything. I know I keep mentioning that but honestly I think I would have been overwhelmed or not at all prepared if he hadn't done the research and set us up. It's hard for a Land person to understand how complicated World is. Dinner reservations 6 months in advance? FastPasses picked 3 months out? What? Why? But he did it and that was perfect.

Parks:
Hollywood Studios: This is where their Galaxy's Edge is. If you are a big Star Wars fan I bet this is awesome. As it is we aren't that kind of fan so it was cool but not COOL. The new rides were really interesting. The Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is a really cool concept. It's a video game inside a ride. Everyone has a part to perform. I think if you are the pilot it is the most fun and you get the best view. As a gunner my controls were off to the side so to see what I was supposed to be doing for our mission I couldn't really watch the front of the ride to see what the ride actually was all of the time. But still pretty cool.

The boys were the pilots. I would have rather been an engineer because they have the least to do.

For Rise of the Resistance you have to get to the park and be scanned in before it opens and then use the app to get a boarding group if you want to ride. And even then you might not get a boarding group, or you might get a high number and the ride shuts down so you miss your chance to ride. All sorts of maybes. We did this park our first day so we would have other chances if we didn't get in the first time. And since there was a marathon we didn't know about so all of the roads were closed around our hotel and it took an hour for our Lyft to get us and get us to the park we were ready to do just that. But we slid into the park with 3 minutes to spare and got Boarding Group #24. Whew! Better to be lucky than good!  And it was a cool ride. I don't have pictures, there are a lot online if you are interested, but I didn't take any. I was too busy looking at everything. And there is a lot to look at. I think you could ride it a few dozen times and see something new. And the cast members are full on in character the whole time. No friendly Disney smiles here. It was very fun.

These are not the crowds you are looking for...

The other highlights of Hollywood Studios was the OG Tower of Terror. I have nothing against the reskinned Guardians of the Galaxy version in California Adventure, except that Tower of Terror didn't need a reskin. It's a great ride with a fully realized story. I would have rather seen them do something new but I get it that in California space is an issue and since they are turning that area into Marvel Land it will fit. But...

Also Toy Story Land was amazing. Technically we really explored this on Friday when we could get Slinky Dog Dash FastPasses but still...it's very cool. Much better than Cars Land in Adventure. But to be fair, we aren't Cars fans so that whole area is kind of lost on us.

The boys also really enjoyed the Rock n Roller Coaster. Me? Not so much, it goes upside down and that's not my favorite. But they really liked it.

Over all Hollywood Studios vs. California Adventure is kind of a wash for me. Hollywood Studios has a few better rides and the aforementioned MORE ROOM but it's still a 3/4 day park for us and since it's not just across a walkway it's not convenient for park hopping.  And did I mention the crowds? For instance if we hadn't gotten passes for Slinky dog the lines were well over two hours almost the whole time! Crazy!

And I just realized I need to pare this down because I'm not giving highlights so much as breakdowns. So let me sum up...

Or break this into another blog. Which given I just had major download issues and I want to take a nice socially distanced walk while it's still sunny I'm going to go with that...And I'll leave you with these two shots from HS.

So here we are just chilling at Hollywood Studios...

And here we are Brent still chilling, Christopher having a ball, and me FREAKED THE FUCK OUT...