Disney 2011, Day 3

Exciting Things That Happened In Between the Last Report And Now
A pirate boat sailed into the bay outside our room, "kidnapping" several children to take on a pirate tour of the lagoon. It was cute.

Today's the Magic Kingdom. I like the Magic Kingdom, even though Disney squashed my own idea for my own themepark, Dalt Wisney's Kagic Mingdom, where the idea is that you come in and sit in a waiting room, and then I give you a magical sack full of aromatherapy herbs to smell, except it's really airplane glue, and once you're tripping, I place you in a room with a disco ball and some experimental electronic music playing on a loop while I take all your money, and also, to legally cover myself, I put you in a T-shirt that says "I love Nickelback and waive all legal right to sue", and if you complain, first I'd blackmail you by threatening to reveal that you like Nickleback, and if you sue anyway, your shirt is an iron clad legal contract. *

* Note from the author's attorney: Absolutely none of the preceding paragraph is true, except probably "I like the Magic Kingdom".

A digression about the tone of these trip reports to hopefully make you forget the fact that I just suggested a theme park where people are tricked into sniffing glue while I rob them

I hope nobody's getting the idea that I'm not enjoying this trip; I'm just a natural smartass. Let's try the trip report without any jokes or me suggesting getting people to sniff glue and then robbing them:

Today we went to Teppan Edo. I ate raw tuna for the first time. It was good. Katie and I got chicken. It was tasty. Then we went on Captain Eo. I liked seeing 1986 Micheal Jackson agazzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

In which we leave for the magic kingdom and forget our phone, which we need because it has the incredibly handy Disney Mobile Magic app on it, which you can use to make reservations and check wait times

Then, we left for the magic kingdom and forget our phone, which we need because it has the incredibly handy Disney Mobile Magic app on it, which you can use to make reservations and check wait times. So we went back and got it. This was actually pretty easy; We just rode the monorail in a loop (it goes Polynesian, Grand Floridian, Contemporary, Magic Kingdom, Polynesian, Grand Floridian...) Since we came all the way back to our room anyway, we decided to the boat launch to the magic kingdom which, oh yeah, is only 50 feet from our front door. So we took the boat, which was nice. When we got to the Magic Kingdom, the first thing we did was go on the train, which is about a 20 minute ride that took us all around the park and back to the entrance. While doing this, Katie figured out that she can use her PHONE to make a reservation at any restaurant in the magic kingdom with an opening without having to call anyone have you ever heard of such a thing. So we made a 2:45 for Liberty Tree Tavern, which we'd eaten at before.

Now it was time for rides. First we went on Pirates of the Caribbean, which I think is our most gone-on ride, and doesn't show any signs of being topped. This is a great ride, but I'd like to remind parents that it's pretty PG - this is definitely the ride with the highest body count. They went back and added Jack Sparrow to the ride, and I don't know if it's because he's newer than everyone else or because they spent a lot of time modeling him, but he looks great, to the point where you'd swear it's an actor and not a robot. The fact that the ride takes place in the dark helps (aside from when dumbasses are taking flash photographs).

One of the times I have laughed the hardest at Disney

Katie and I are heading towards the haunted mansion. A staff member walking past us stops, looks around conspiratorially, and whispers in a worried hush: "I wouldn't go in there. It's haunted"

And it is. The haunted mansion was overhauled a few years ago, and it's great. Even the line to get in is neat; You go through a graveyard full of neat little toys to play with - a wall etched with musical instruments that make a symphony when you touch them, a book-case with books shooting out you can push back in. The ride itself is charmingly goofy, trying to scare you with impressive special effects while also making horrid jokes about how the library is full of - wait for it - GHOST writers HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ugh. At the end, a ghost wants to go home with you, and we got a goof on the top of our car who used a magic wand to give us ghost faces. And he's going to haunt us until we return to the haunted mansion. But then we'll get another ghost on the way out, I'm sure. That's how they get you.

Now it was time for (big fanfare)

The Hall of Presidents featuring our Kenyan In Chief, Barry Obamao

This is neat. You have a little movie about America, then you see all the presidents on-stage together. Once again, I have to give a lot of credit for the amazing anamatronic work here. Lincoln over-emotes a little while reciting the Gettysburg Address, but by the time the curtain rises on all the Presidents on stage, you'll have to have eagle eyes to spot that they're robots. The presidents even have idle animations; Some of them at the front look around the stage, and Obama follows each president as he's introduced. Then he gives a nice little speech about America. Also, they introduce each president, and I booed Franklin Pierce, a notorious "doughface", or Northerner in favor of slavery, and probably our nation's worst president. The more you know ~☆

On the way out Obumbler confiscated my not going on "It's a small world" and re-distributed it to his inner-city union thug supporters, so we had to go on "It's a small world". You probably already know about this ride. Whatever you're imagining, I assure you, is no match for the reality. You take a lazy river boat ride through seven continents while intensely creepy child dolls sing at you. What do they sing? This:

It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world!

(two second pause)

It's a small world after all...

I don't know, the amount of craftsmanship evident is impressive; There's a bunch of rooms, and they're all huge, with big high ceilings, and everywhere you look there's something: Dancing singing dolls, singing dolls floating from baloons, singing dolls standing on the moon, the sun dancing, the sphinx nodding her head looking half asleep. But I just find it creepy. Many it's the many, many, many times you're invited to look up the skirts of foot-tall child dolls. France is represented by a big semicircle of female dolls holding their skirts up while they kick, and that's how the ride starts out. Seven continents later and it ends with a dutch girl floating from a balloon, wearing a skirt, with the entire inside done in gold glitter. Can we get these kids some pants?? I don't know. If you come down to Disney, you owe it to yourself to go on this ride, and if you don't, I'm going to tell these dolls where you live.

Then we ate lunch

Lunch was at the Liberty Tree Tavern. Katie and I both had the salad. She had hers with garlic buttermilk dressing. Mine was with "Tavern-made dressing", and I dunno what it was, but it was delicious. It was nice and sweet, I think it had molasses in it. After that I had a burger and Katie had a veggie burger. This was good too, but I'm glad I saved room for desert, which was "Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake", which is totally worth the embarrassment of asking for ooey gooey cake. It's a big scoop of vanilla ice cream with crushed heath bar dust on top of a light piece of cake filled with toffee filling and caramel sauce. It's not too rich, don't ask me how they do it.

A digression on the danger of traversing the Magic Kingdom

The magic kingdom loves parades. Do you have a dream? They're gonna celebrate it. Did one of your dreams recently come true? Oh, you better believe they're gonna celebrate the shit out of that. And they're gonna do that with a big honkin', singin', dancin', dream celebratin', cuttin' you from the rest of the park off PARADE, mother fucker. These parades come down the boundary between fake America - Libertytown, I think - and Fantasyland, where you have It's A Small World and some classic rides. We wanted to get to Futureland, so we were on the wrong side of the parade. But then Katie had to go to the bathroom and by the time she was done the parade was over. So I guess that was kind of a pointless digression.

Remember when we forgot the phone? Here's some excuses to give your wife about why it isn't your fault, from wisest to most thrilling

I forgot it because I was too enraptured by your beauty.
I remembered to forget to remind you, so I remembered if you think about it.
I packed it, but then while you were looking out the window a were-badger broke into the monorail car we're in now and she tried to take the phone, and when I was trying to fight her off she bit me and now I'm a were badger except I also turned into a badger and back in the meantime so I don't have a bite mark on me, and also everyone else in the monorail car got bit by a were-badger and they have a code of silence so if you ask them they'll deny that any of this happened.

Then we went to Futureland

First up was Stitch's Great Escape, a cute theater show where the gag is you're a Galactic Patrol Agent on your first day on the job, and Stitch is going to, spoilers, escape. Um, greatly. This is one of those shows where you sit in a theater and there's all kinds of special effects; Stitch steals someone's chili dog and burps in your ear, Stitch jumps on your shoulder harness, Stitch tickles you as one of the Galactic Patrol Agents helplessly screams "He's torturing them!", etc. It's cute, and the fact that your boss is the bad guy from Lilo & Stitch is a nice touch (what other rides are you working for the villains?)

Next up was the People Mover. This ride is my speed - no wait, and you take a leisurely zoom around Tomorrowland up off the ground. You even go underneath Space Mountain, which you can see inside, and is the closest I'm gonna get to going on that, thanks.

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin was up next. This is a ride where you and your partner get in a ride vehicle and shoot at bad guys for points. I committed the ultimate crime of getting a higher score than Katie.

Nick's guide to cheating at Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, for evildoers everywhere

Use your free hand to balance the blaster and never stop shooting.

Like everything at Disney, the amount of detail included is really impressive. As you get into your car, on the far wall there's an awesome  \30-foot wide glow in the dark backlight painting of Buzz Lightyear fighting the evil space emperor Xenu. While going through the line, your briefing is presented on a huge wall-mounted Viewmaster, and it has the picture wheel sticking out the top. Not only that, but you can see the slides in the picture wheel, and it even cycles through them in the correct order. WOW

Next up was a ride I've never been on before, the Speedway; I'm not sure what's so futuristic about this since it's basically you driving a car. It's like a go-kart, except the car is on a metal rail, and you use the wheel to keep it straight on the ral, otherwise it lurches around and plays tire squealing sound effects. It was fun and relaxing since Katie was driving, although she was drunkenly swerving all over the road, possibly still feeling those two Green Pythons from yesterday.

Last up was the Carousel of Progress, a theater show where your seat - in fact, the whole theater - rotates around the stage. It covers four different time periods, starting with the turn of the century, so you have this guy show up and go "Boy, now we have an icebox, there's no WAY this could get better," then you rotate to the 1920's and there's a guy who goes "Golly, now we have a refridgerator, there's no WAY this could get better," and so on up to, I guess, now? with HDTVs, Laserdiscs, virtual reality, and ovens that go up to 950 degrees and explode when you incrediously go "950 points!!!" at Grandma's virtual reality score. Sure, why not. Also, the guy doing the narrating kind of sounds like Norm McDonald.

That was about it for the Magic Kingdom, so we got the boat home and I wrote up a trip report that I remind everyone is not admissible in court.

Wife Addendum: In case you haven't been able to tell, Nick's many Obama jokes are making fun of Tea Partiers and their dumbassery.  If you look closely, the real birth certificate is in Robot Obama's pocket! Tomorrow is my birthday. yay!