Disneyworld: Part 2

In my previous entry, I wrote about the first half of our Florida Vacation including the Magic Kingdom and Disney's Hollywood Studios. With so much to report on, I had to break this up a bit.. and so here is the second part of our trip report, starting off with Wednesday.

Wednesday... Day 3: Epcot, my personal favorite of the Disneyworld parks. The day began early as my sister and her family had made reservations for an early morning "Princess Breakfast" over in the Norway pavilion. They also invited Amanda to go along, figuring she could use so more "girl time" after having to endure so many "boy attractions" over the last few days. She gladly joined them and had a wonderful time meeting all matter of princesses.

We joined back up with them after taking advantage of the low morning ride lines for Mission: Space (which the boys loved) and a favorite Test Track (Although I sure do miss the old World of Motion at times). But with the heat rising, one we finished exploring the Seas pavillion and Journey into imagination, we felt it was time to head back for a cool pool soak at the house. We finished off the day with Soarin, Spaceship Earth, and starting through World Showcase with Mexico and Norway. Finally, we finished with the family gathered for my favorite of the nighttime shows: Illuminations with its explosions, and fire.

Thursday: Animal Kingdom. This was a first for me since I was a little kid: I actually got to explore a Disney park that was completely new to me. Unlike all the other parks that I seem to know every little corner of, I have never been to Animal Kingdom so it was rather exciting to me to not really know where I was going, to see things I had never seen before. That said here are my initial thoughts ot the park:

It was far different from what I had mentally pictured. It was much greener and thick with foliage. Being the premier attraction: Kilamanjaro Safaris, a ride through the African savannah, I had pictured lots of wide open spaces in the park. Nope. IT's very green and jungle like almost all the way through, making it very easy to hide areas and attractions. And to add to all the jungle ambiance, a storm moved in in the afternoon DUMPING rain all over us. We finally had to break down and buy some ponchos, otherwise we would have been soaked.

Some highlights: Loved the safari tour.. very well done, The new coaster Expedition Everest was lots of fun as well although it was over in what felt like a blink of an eye. Dinosaur was fun but, although it is built with the same ride track and vehicles as Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye at Disneyland.. the latter is a much better ride.

Just as the rain picked up the hardest we all headed inside for a nice family dinner at the Rainforest cafe. That's where we learned an important lesson: when the family is all covered in ponchos (along with all the other people visiting the parks) suddenly everyone looks the same and it is very easy to think that someone else's kid is your own when doing a head count. Just as we were leaving the park, we re-checked only to discover: No Little Calvin. I high-talied it back to the restaurant and found him. Luckily, he has been trained well. He immediately went to the counter, asked for a manager and reported himself as lost, to which the manager stayed with him until I arrived. The manger complimented him on his handling of the situation, doing the right thing and staying calm under pressure. Although the situation was quickly resolved it scared the heck out of both of us. He still claims he is not going back to Animal Kingdom calling it the "Bad Place". Poor kid. At least we were able to end the day on a fun note, going back to EPCOT to finish World Showcase and enjoy Illuminations one more time.

Day 5: Odds and Ends and Star Wars Weekends. Having now explored all 4 theme parks, in our final day was all about the places we wanted to spend more time. And the morning held a certain treat: Star Wars Weekends. This special Star Wars fan gathering is held each weekend in June. Although some don't believe me, I did not purposefully plan this trip so that I could be there for this, it was just a great bonus that I discovered after our reservations were made (seriously!!!) This event included special Star Wars shows in the park, a character parade, special merchandise, meet and greets with actors and characters from the films, etc.. Lots of fun.

Being on site just as the gates opened we were able to watch Storm Troopers take over the park, then (geek alert) hurried to get in line to get Darth Vaders autograph. As it was we had to wait about 30 minutes. During the first 25 minutes our Darth was full of life, taunting the guests, making menacing lurches, just enjoying hamming up the part he was playing. Just before we got up there, suddenly "Darth Vader" had to "take a break to check on some issues with running the galaxy". It was obvious that this guys 30 minutes of blazing hot suit in the Florida heat was over and it was time to bring on the next guy. But this new Vader (although he looked the same) was not nearly as fun. He'd just stand there and not react to anything. Sure, you'd shove a pen in his hand and he'd sign whatever was given to him, but it was overly obvious that we had gone from an actor just having fun to some guy with a bad attitude forced to deal with people. Even without any dialogue it was amazing how much you could tell just from the suit movements. Being disappointed that we got "no fun" Vader for our encounter, I tried to liven him up a bit. I went up to him after our group photo and said "I have always wondered what there were for" and I began to push the buttons on the front plate of his vader suit. Needless to say, cranky Vader didn't appreciate this much and got quite agitated. I taunted him a bit more, just trying to get more reaction out of him to better match the lively Vader. Oh well, must have gotten a bad phone call while running the galaxy. Proof that even Sith Lords get cranky.

Next it was on the the Indiana Jones Stunt Show and the Star Wars parade, which the kids loved. Lots of costumed characters interacting with the fans, just having fun, although I have never had Sand People in my face whooping away. Very cool. Well done.

Afterwards, we were just walking down the street when we happened to bump into a very friendly Jawa, who accommodated us in our photo requests. But then, just behind him, we spotted a Guarmolean Guard, a pig like created that guards Jabba the Hutt. Little Calvin got all excited and run up to try to get a picture. But this character would have no such thing, really playing the "tough guard" role. Little Cal kept getting frustrated,, "I just want a picture!!" But the thing would just march away. Finally Little Calvin had had enough (and quite possible taking a que from my previous Vader playbook) decided to take matters into his own hands by going up and kicking the guard in frustration. Yes.. my son.. kicking the costumed characters. I immediately grabbed him and yanked him away, and the guy was TICKED.. he immediately, quickly marched away waving his hands to get people out of the way. Oops. Needless to say we had a little chat about why you don't kick people, even Star Wars aliens. Lessons learned for both of us.

The second half of the day was spent back where we started: The Magic Kingdom, waiting eternally for The Jungle Cruise (which seemed so anticlimactic after experiencing the real animals the day previous) and many of our other favorite classic attractions. One more story for today's blog: We had just ridden Pirates of the Caribbean and as always, you are let off the ride into a gift shop. Here, we could look at all manner of pirate stuff. We worked our way out of the gift shop and over to a smaller version while we waited for the whole family to catch up. In front of the shop was a whole rack of toy guns and Little Calvin was fascinated by them as he is not allowed to have toy guns in our house (mean parents, I know). So he's running around playing with a little pistol begging for me to buy it for him. Suddenly a little light goes off in his head, he walks into the middle of the gift shop, holds the gun up over his head and yells "NOBODY MOVE! HANDS UP!" Again, I immediately grabbed him, yanking him out of the gift shop. The girl working the counter just rolled her eyes and Little Calvin and I got to have yet another "things you don't do" conversation. That's my boy... committing assault AND holding up a gift shop,,, all in one day.

Soon, (and much to my disliking) the day came to an end, with tours of Mickey and Minnie house, Autopia, the Teacups, Haunted Mansion and finally Space Mountain, our final ride of the Disneyworld vacation. Time to head back to the house not knowing when our family would return to this magic again. But at least we got to leave in style with the boys getting to ride in the front car of the monorail, so that they could learn how to drive it and get their "Junior Monorail Drivers License". The perfect ending to the perfect trip.

Although the trip isn't over yet... Next up: Kennedy Space Center!