2015: EPCOT

HEY I'M PRETTY PHOTOGENIC GUYS

EPCOT, as I'm sure I've said many times, stands for the ExPerimental Community of Tomorrow, a concept that has basically nothing to do with the current theme park; it was an idea for a planned community that somehow became a 18-story golf ball. Epcot is cut in two - the front half is called (frantic googling) ummm (asks Katie) "the future spot" and is where the rides are. The back half is the World Showcase, mostly stores and restaurants. Let's cover the ride first, then those of you curious about what we ate can read about the food and wine festival, and the rest of you can hit each other with sticks or do tumblr or whatever kids do nowadays.

Mission: Space

This is a fun ride where Gary Sinise puts you through training for definitely not NASA to go to Mars. The theme is serious, but it's more science fiction than real science (unless NASA is really working on energy shields and hypersleep). The little details really make this ride shine - you go on in teams of four and each get assigned a position (I got Commander) with duties to perform by, uh, pushing a big glowing button when Gary Sinise yells at you. We managed to survive the mission as each button was pressed in time, surely because of my commander skills. (This is one of the few rides where it matters who you ride with - if you get kids who don't push those buttons, you're usually a goner. Luckily, all the members of our crew were pros, and those buttons were mightily pushed).

Ellen's Energy Adventure

This is probably the weirdest ride in all of WDW (which stands for Wow! Disney World!). It used to just be a ride called the Universe of Energy, and when it got upgraded to Ellen's World of Energy, they kept all the dinosaur animatronics. This has resulted in a truly bizarre ride that starts with Ellen having a nightmare about losing a game of Jeopardy! about energy to Jamie Lee Curtis, then has a long dark ride full of dinosaur anamatronics (including, as far as I'm aware, the only place you can see a Ellen anamatronic fighting with a giant snake), then a movie about where energy comes from. If this sounds weird, it's even more weird than you can imagine. Good place to rest your feet, though.

Test Track

This is one of the two super-popular rides at Epcot (the other one being Soarin'). It starts out as you design a car, picking parts and the shape and trying to get a high score in four categories. Last time we made a sparkly purple monster smartcar with a 97 in Efficiency; this time we made a sparkly purple monster, uh, car equipped with a plasma engine that got 95 in power. 

~beautiful~

The actual ride has you get in a car-shaped ride vehicle and go through various tests - swerving around the road, going up and down hills, etc. This part is okay, but the best part is when you burst out of the building and go 65 miles an hour on a track that tilts around. This part is a ton of fun, and I'm sure this is why the wait is so long for this ride (and also, sadly, why it tends to shut down in the rain).

Soarin'

Soarin' is as awesome as ever; I think this is the best ride at WDW (Walt Disney World for you little babies) hands down. Basically, you get lifted in a hanglider into a circular IMAX screen. Even having gone on this ride a few times, the magic is still there. It's so real that I still find myself lifting my feet to avoid brushing the orange trees or ocean peaks I'm flying over. 

The line for Soarin' is also the best spot to find old Disney pros if you need any advice. (The highest IQ area in WDW [which stands for "Wampum Doesn't Work"]  is the fast-pass line for Soarin'; the lowest is the bus from Downtown Disney to anywhere.)

Living with the Land

This is a boat ride where the first third is a little boring talking about how great Mother Earth is and how if you litter, well, gosh, I'm just so very disappointed in you. The second two thirds you go through a greenhouse and are legally obligated to take a ton of pictures of lettuce being grown using the innovative nutrient film technique. This is more interesting than it sounds. One of these days we're going to take the Behind the Seeds walking tour, if my high arches can take it. (It's hard at WDW [which stands for "Warble Darple Doo"] for us high archies!)

Little Nemo Ride Where You Get In The Same Giant Clams as Ariel's Ride Although The Little Nemo Ride Was There First So I Guess More Accurately In The Ariel Ride You Get In The Same Clams As The Little Nemo Ride

I don't have much to say about this; this is one of the shortest rides out there and basically goes Nemo gets los- oh, here he is. IT'S A BIGGG BLUEE WORRRLDDD
This ride uses some kind of wizadry where they show fish tanks and superimpose Nemo and his computer generated buddies on it; the time we went on we saw both a lil' shark and a dolphin if you looked past Nemo yelling at his dad into the real aquarium. After the ride you can check the aquarium out. Last time we were here two manatees were bumping into each other derpily; this time they were either asleep or busy evading income tax. (Probably the first one. I don't know what taxable income a manatee would have. I mean, they have lettuce, but it's literally the green plant, not as in money. I'm pretty sure.)

Captain Eo

I remember in one trip report I wrote "Captain Eo is BACK, motherfucker" and sure enough Captain Eo is still BACK, motherfucker. This is a very charming 3D movie where Micheal Jackson, a two-headed muppet, grumpy robot, and one of those blue keyboard-playing elephant from Star Wars fight the Borg by shooting 80's special effects at them. This is a perfect slice of nostalgic cheese, as well as a nice big helping of classic Micheal Jackson, and I really recommend seeing it at least once. (Maybe twice if you really enjoy 80's MJ yelling "Hooter!!!!!" at a small blue elephant.) My only complaint is that the floor where you wait to go into the theater is sloped just enough to bother my feet.

Journey into Imagination with Figment

This is a tame ride for kids all about how great using your imagination is, guided by Eric Idle and a purple cartoon dragon who enjoys releasing skunk gas smells on unsuspecting audiences. Apparently this replaced a famous old Figment ride you can see muddy ridethroughs of on YouTube. The current ride is pretty cute, although it has one of those trademark Disney songs you will never, ever, ever be able to forget no matter what you do. Also features Eric Idle's face as the moon singing it when you get to the end.

Just Realized I Forgot To Mention Spaceship Earth And I Took A Picture And Movie Of It To Use Where The Movie Might Not Work, We'll see

This is the que. Did I take this picture off center? Ahhh, shit.

This is the ride in the globe. Good chance to sit down. Let's see if this movie I took of stick figure me with a weird head living in the future worked!

** UPDATE**

It did not work. :(

World showcase

The World Showcase has two rides and one cool movie. The first ride is a slow boat through Mexico's ziggeraut. This is a little weird. The start of the ride has you going past an Aztec pyramid and passing giant stone heads before you get to movie screens showing two birds looking for Donald to play a concert with. It's a little weird where the two parts overlap; at one point there's a screen of two cartoon birds chasing kids around looking for Donald over a statue who seems to be motioning up at the TV. "How do you like this mayhem?" he seems to say. "My civilization was destroyed, but do you like these cartoon birds?" It's weird. Katie says this ride used to have vendors following you on the video screens, which doesn't sound like a great advertisement for Mexico.

The second ride is undergoing rennovation; Maelstrom, the boat ride in NORVAY, is being turned into a Frozen ride, which isn't ready yet. Sadly, I think the goofy 1970's era movie about how great NORVAY is and the most cool, powerful and attractive thing you could do is come to NORVAY will be gone, but I'm okay with that.

The cool movie is in the American section, and is basically a history of America narrated by Ben Franklin and Mark Twain. However, I don't recommend seeing this show; the finale is an incredibly annoying, catchy song about America spreading its golden wings that will be using up precious real estate in my memory until long after I'm dead. I'll be in Hell rapping with Atilla the Hun, and he'll be like "Tell me about your life," and I'll be like "Golden biiiiiiird, you must keep dreaaa-aaaaaaming now!" 

Also, before the show a bunch of period-dressed singers come out and sing about AMERICA, and god help 'em, you just can't a capella sing the Consitution without it sounding super goofy. (These people have great voices, but even they can't manage to pull of singing "To provide.... for the comMOONNN.... wellllFAAAAAREE!")

There are other movies - China and Canada have eight-screen ones where you stand in the middle and have a 360 degree view - and France has a movie I only saw when I was here on a school trip lo these many years ago. I don't really recommend any of these. The 8-screen movies are kind of a neat novelty, but standing that long hurts my feet, and the Canadian one attempts to have a sense of humor and then closes with a song half in English and half in French from the winner of Canadian Idol. Yes indeed.

There's also many stores & restaurants. We ate at Nine Dragons in China for the first time, which was really good. We also ate inside the Mexican pyramid, which had great food, but our waiter disappeared for half an hour two separate times, so I hesitate to recommend this unless you have some time to kill.

chillin @ 9 dragons lol

Also, we got poured on while doing the Food & Wine festival. I hesitate to just call this rain; it poured and poured and poured. I ended up eating chicken nuggets hiding under an overhang next to the bathroom. Good nuggets, though.

Food & Wine Festival

It was too hot and too crowded to do the whole thing, but we covered a pretty good amount of ground. In order from the passport they give out:

Dominican republic:

Souffle de Yuca (Yuca Souffle topped with Griddled Cheese)
Katie: The griddled cheese was interesting and it was fluffy. I'd get it again.
Nick: Couldn't eat it because of the cheese. Thanks, Nobama. (Hey, how are these Obama jokes aging? You're a lovely audience.)

Caramel Flan with Rum-roasted Pineapple
Katie: Pineapple was too much.
Nick: Flan was good, rum-roasted caramel was a little weird; the rum had a bitter aftertaste that didn't go with the flan.

Refreshment Port:

Croissant Doughnut with Cinnamon and Sugar
Katie: That was fuckin' delicious.
Nick: Katie liked this so much she was tearing chunks out and moaning "FUCK THIS IS GOOD". So, good. 

Fried Chicken Chunks with Dole Pineapple Sweet and Sour Sauce
Katie: I didn't have too many of these. (Too busy eating the donut)
Nick: Very tasty, although I don't think they could find a less appealing name for this than "chunks". Nobody wants to eat "chunks". Great with BBQ sauce!

Greece:

Greek Salad in a Cone
Katie: Uh... just tasted like onions.
Nick: Didn't taste like anything; literally it was like wet lettuce in a cone. What happened here, Greece?? Ya done goofed!

Spanakoptia
Katie: Spinach and cheese filled pasteries. It was okay. Very hot!
Nick: This had my enemy spinach and my arch-enemy cheese so I didn't have any, although the name sounds like "Spankotopia", which is a place I don't want to live.

Patagonia:

Beef Empanada
Katie: I don't even remember this. I think it was okay?
Nick: Apparently I really like empanadas, because this was very tasty. I think the beef was a little bit spiced which was nice.

Grilled Beef Skewer with Chimichurri Sauce and Boniato Puree
Katie: I don't think this was very good. Or was it? I don't remember. I guess it can't be that good if I don't remember it. 

Nick: I have no idea what "boniato puree" is, but it tasted like mashed potatoes and was good. The beef skewers
were okay, but I thought the chimichuri sauce was grease, which should give you some idea of how it tasted.

New Zealand:

Lamb Meatball with Spicy Tomato Chutney
Katie: I don't remember this at all.
Nick: I just don't like meatballs, sorry. SORRY meatballs. (sorry you SUCK)

Seared Venison Loin with Wild Mushroom Marsala Sauce and Kumara Dumpling
Katie: I'm surprised I liked venison.
Nick: If you told me this was beef I would have believed you. The kumara dumpling is like a bread bowl the, uh, loin came in (doesn't that sound appealing)? Good, not great.

We got rained on hard af fam.

Australia:

Grilled Lamb Chop with Mint Pesto and Potato Crunchies
Katie: This is pretty good. Served just like on the cooking shows!
Nick: I don't really like meat on the bone, so I wasn't a huge fan of this. I accidently typed it as "Grilled Lamp Chomp".

Lamington Yellow Cake Dipped in Chocolate and Shredded Coconut
Katie: This was really good. It's a little tiny ball of chocolate and coconut and it's very delicious.
Nick: I'm not sure why this is called Lamington, which as far as I know is one of the stuffed toys on Doc McStuffins. Anyway, I tried to take a no-coconut bite of this, but I'm afraid I was defeated by my old nemesis, coconut. Haven't you ruined enough baked goods, coconut?!

Mexico:

Chilaqulies de Pollo: Corn Chips layered with Seasoned Chicken, Queso Fresco, Sour Cream and Cilantro
Katie: I would have eaten this as a meal!
Nick: I think this was my favorite dish at the whole food festival; slightly spiced chicken and flaky baked corn chips. My only complaint is that it was a little hard to eat (Katie tried to get a bite on her fork and the whole upper layer came off). So good we went back for seconds!

Pastel de Elote con Queso: Sweet Corn Cheesecake
Katie: This was super good too. They should just serve these in the restaurant.
Nick: Corn cheesecake sounds weird, but this was my second favorite dish - kind of like sweet corn flan. I ate two!

China:

Gaoli Beef Slider
Katie: I really wish I had written all my thoughts down at the time. More like a hamburger that you can eat without having to deal with all the meat. The beef was good,  but it's not like I'M A BIG WAD OF MEAT YOU NEED TO PUT IN YOUR MOUTH
Nick: Very tasty, although there were a few too many onions for me. I'd make a meal out of four or five of these.

(Maybe with the next item as the appetizer)

Chicken Pot Stickers

Katie: Super good!
Nick: They're pot stickers. I don't have much to add; very tasty pot stickers.

On that slightly underwhelming note, that's everything that happened at Epcot (and possibly a few things I made up).

Now who wants to see 10 billion blurry pictures from The Land??! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Welcome to HELL, hybrid bass!

I don't know why they're raising alligators. Do people eat these?

THE INNOVATIVE NUTRIENT FILM TECHNIQUE

I did not try these.

Wow, I really destroyed the page formatting adding captions to these

These rotate!

MUSTARD

2015: Day 1 - Arrival & Introduction

(A cartoon dog in a suit steps up to a podium and adjusts his glasses)

Oh, hello there! It's that time again - we're at Walt Disney World (or WDW, for you old pros) for 11 (!!!) days. We're taking a break from our careers as breakdancing guidance councillors who let kids know that real men use hugs not drugs for nice long vacation in Central Florida. I didn't get to sleep until after 11 the night before leaving and woke up at 4 am on departure day and had a hard time getting back to sleep because both cats realized I was up when I went to the bathroom and ran in there demanding I pay attention to them. As a result, this trip report may be a little bit more loopy than usual.

(curtain raises)

We got to the airport and went through security (held up only by the TSA agents telling us we were the most cool, powerful and attractive people at the airport) and had a uneventful flight to Florida. 
A slightly interesting (translation: not interesting at all but I'm putting it in anyway) note I spotted in the men's room at the Albany airport - a passive-aggressive little plaque next to the hot air dryer stating that using a hot air dryer saves the earth and is more hygienic than using paper towels. "Huh, that's really interesting!" I thought, grabbing a handful of paper towels.

Once we got to Florida we used Disney's hassle-reducing service known as the Magical Express, where you put luggage tags on your checked luggage, and they pick it up and deliver it to your room for you. All you need to do is get off the plane, find the Magical Express area, use your Magicband (more on this later), and you're driven right to your resort.

Before we left the airport, we saw a Pinkberry ("Huh. Look, a Pinkberry") and I went to the bathroom and saw a sign saying that, sure, use those paper towels over there if you don't mind thousands of acres of rainforest being destroyed just so you can avoid using a perfectly good hot air hand dryer, it's fine. "Huh, that's astounding!" I thought, grabbing two handfuls of paper towels.

Yes, I know this is a picture of the Polynesian before we got to the Polynesian, but I have a LOT of Polynesian pictures to fit in here.

** HUSBAND TIP **

If your wife says something sweet like there's nowhere she'd rather be and nobody she'd rather be there with, "you too" is not a great answer, but it is much better than "I agree on the place, but I'm afraid that you're honestly my second pick to Samus Aran, because she has the incredible power of super-bombs and the magma-defying Varia Suit".

Don't say this thing either.

We're in the "Aotearoa" building with a nice view out on the garden from our balcony. The monorail comes right to our resort, and you can see it pass by from our room, which means I'm going to have to remember to close the blinds before someone sees my epidermis.

As a quick refresher, there's six total parks at Disney World: The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Downtown Disney (not really a park so much as a giant shopping center), and two water parks we never go to. This is for a few reasons; if want to cool off we'd probably just hop in the pool instead of getting on a bus and riding to a place with giant waterslides, and neither one of us really likes being seen in our bathing suit (Katie has one from Lane Bryant that makes her look great but apparently isn't super comfortable, and I don't like to reveal the second mouth in my chest that's always talking about David Tennant.)

David Tennant sans makeup

Today since we're both a little fatigued we just went to the Animal Kingdom for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, a big jungle-themed restaurant full of anamatronic animals. (There's also a huge aquarium you can walk under. We saw a fish on his side parked over a bubbler, but before I could get a picture of it the hostess came up and yelled KATIE HAAAAA-MERRRRRR!!! because our table was ready.)

Katie wore both pairs of glasses and her novelty pipe for most of the trip.

As it turns out with our deluxe dining plan, we have a life-ending 66 table service meals, each one being a appetizer, entree, desert, and non-alcoholic drink. I guess we'll end up walking it off. We both got the South China Chicken Salad, which I remember from last trip. We also got replacement Rainforest Cafe jugs. I'm very particular about these - they have to be 32-36 oz with a snap lid (NO TWIST ONS). Rainforest Cafe is the only place I've been able to find these, so we had to get two. NO, the 64 oz. Dunkin Donuts mugs aren't the same. They're too big, MOM. Sheesh.

After our huge salads and desert (mango sorbet for Katie and a root beer float for me) we were pretty stuffed, so we headed back to the resort. First, though, I went to the bathroom and saw a sign yelling "Only stupid little babies who hate Mother Earth use these paper towels for chumps instead of this amazing Dyson hot air dryer!"
"Huh, that's amazing!" I thought, grabbing two big handfuls of paper towels.

CAPTION: SALAD BIG

THINGS I LEARNED FROM A MOM TALKING TO HER SON ON THE BUS RIDE HOME FROM ANIMAL KINGDOM:

Space Mountain is "Mount Everest" (not sure I heard this right), and if you go there you will have "a booger explosion" (I'm sure I heard this right).

I also saw a kid sitting there with a really funny expression of tired concentration on his face and I kind of wanted to take a picture, but that would probably be a little creepy. ("Why, yes, I did just take a picture of your son. It's for my tripreports! I have a whole bit where they want me to use a hot air dryer but I just use paper towels!")

That's about it for today, although I wanted to talk about the magic bands a little bit. These are wristbands that basically take care of everything you need at Disney - it's your room key and credit card in one; you use it to pay for meals (on the meal plan or linked to your credit card), open your room, get into the parks, and set up your fast-passes. The way Disney has these set up is amazing; as soon as we used our magicbands at the Magical Express kiosk, Katie got an email from the resort letting us know our room wasn't quite ready yet. Disney really is its own little world with these, far away from the little bit of Central Florida your bus (excuse me, motor coach) drives through, the slightly skeezy Central Florida where you can get "Hong Kong Cuisine" and "MASSAGE" in the same strip mall. (And that's not a bad thing, although my legs could use a MASSAGE after all this walking. Oof!)

TOMORROW: Our first foray to the Magical Kingdom ends on a cliffhanger as Katie becomes the Purple Ranger and uses her mighty zord to foil Lord Sledge's evil plans. (ED. NOTE: This joke was written when Power Rangers Dino Charge season 1 was on the air and is now terribly dated; of course it turns out the Purple Ranger was Miss Kendall, and Lord Sledge was defeated when the Red Ranger crashed his ship into Earth. Please feel free to change "Purple Ranger" to "Silver Ranger" and "Lord Sledge" to "Heckle" as appropriate. THANKSSSS)

Found this in my photo roll

Disney 2013 Wrap-Up

THE REVIEWS ARE IN

"Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. Grades 9-12." - Booklist

"A modern masterpiece by one of history's greatest heroes" - Nick H.

"Full of exquisitely detailed characters who, despite leading unconventional lifestyles within a notorious crime family, experience the triumphs and failures of the human condition. Filled with the requisite valor, love, and rancor of a great epic" - Amazon.com

"A confusing mish-mash of lies, libel, and accounts of who ate what when" - New York Times Review of Books

"sux azz" - NicklebackFan1

On our last day it was 8 degrees in Albany and 72 in Florida, so I'm not really looking forward to returning. We didn't do much new at Epcot (although we did go on the MORE INTENSE Mission: Space where you get G-forced on takeoff), so here's a few odds and ends that didn't make it into previous reports:

When we went to Animal Kingdom, Katie was menaced by a bee who landed on her. She managed to escape without being stung, but not before betraying humanity and swearing fidelty to the bees, in return for never being stung and a lifetime supply of honey, which she likes in her peppermint tea.

Katie also recorded people coming out of the women's bathroom at Disney Hollywood Studio.

When we saw Gaston at the Magic Kingdom having his picture taken with people (I didn't get one - I hear he bites), Akiko asked why the guy they got to play him wasn't as handsome as the real Gaston. I belive this is known as an ice burn.

Planets visited on Star Tours

Hoth: 3

Kashyyyk: 1

Tatooine: 1

Naboo: 3

Coruscant: 2

Injuries sustained

Katie: Mild muscle pull in right leg, eaten by a dinosaur, two bug bites

Nick: One bug bite, eaten by a dinosaur, sore feet

Rides people swore loudly on:

Kiliminjaro Safari, It's A Small World

Miley Cyrus covers of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree that I seriously, unironically like (!!!):

1 ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwJ253zPM9M )

First words we heard over the plane's PA after landing on the God-forsaken tundra of Albany, NY: "We're not in Florida anymore."

AND I GUESS THAT'S IT YOU GUYS. Next trip is in 2015; I think we're going back to the Polynesian. Rarrrr.

Disney 2013, Day Seven

Today we did the only park we hadn't been to yet, Disney's Animal Kingdom. Just a quick note here: There's not a whole lot of material to make jokes about at Animal Kingdom; it's more of a take a trillion pictures kind of park, so this report might be a little dry. (When I put it up on the blog it'll be spiced up with a trillion blurry pictures with captions like "I think this is a monkey" and "Is this a lemur?")

When we arrived we went straight to the Rainforest Cafe. Katie got the chicken stir fry again. I got the South China Salad, which was quite good. If you're curious, "South China Island Dressing" is sesame ranch. "Are you going to put this in your trip report?" Katie asked, pointing her fork at me accusingly. "Put what in?" I asked innocently. "That you're getting something exciting and I'm getting the same thing I already had." "No," I lied cunningly. 

Then we had desert which was the same mango sorbet from Day 1; It was good. Then we hit the Rainforest Cafe gift shop, and we got new mugs. You may have seen me carrying around my 32oz Rainforest Cafe mug; it served faithfully for four years, but the outer shell broke and the top fell into the sink while it was full of gross scummy water and the mug was finally retired with honor (tossed into the garbage), so I'm very excited about getting a replacement. Hey, you just read a paragraph about me buying a plastic mug; this is going great!
2015 update: Both Rainforest Cafe mugs died within weeks of our return, with the second one taking a very dramatic plunge down the stairs =[

Also, there's this huge fish tank you walk under.

Then we went on

DINOSAUR 

Yes, the official name of this ride is DINOSAUR. This is very based on an obscure movie from the year 2000. I'd been on this ride before, but it wasn't until this time that I figured out that you're actually saving the hero of the movie DINOSAUR by bringing him into the future so that he doesn't die with the rest of the DINOSAURs. Huh.

Anyway, the ride itself is that you're in a time machine in the dark that skids all over the place. They do that thing where they take a picture of you at the scariest moment of the ride, and Katie decided that the expression on my face was "concern". Unfortunately, we were then eaten by dinosaurs.

We had some time to kill after DINOSAUR (getting digested takes a long time), so we wandered on over to Finding Nemo - the Musical! This is a 40 minute stage show that recreates the entire plot of Finding Nemo, except everyone is an actor holding up an expressive puppet. It's cute. Also, being able to sit down in the dark for 40 minutes was nice. And at the end when Nemo was found (spoiler alert!) like a billion bubbles came down from the ceiling. 

Prisoner 24601 - your sentence is over and being a flamingo has begun!
I don't know what I'm saying.

Kiliminjaro Safari

This is the signature attraction of the Animal Kingdom: A 20-something minute tour of the nature preserve. Last time we went, there was some guff about poachers where the tour guide pretends to help out a African guy named Wilson who's trying to save a baby elephant, but this has been cut in favor of just showing more animals. I think this is a wise move; seeing all the animals is awesome, and you don't really need that extra goofery.

And did we see all kinds of stuff and take about a billion pictures? We saw all kinds of stuff and took about a billion pictures. At one point we had to stop because a rhino was wandering across the road. Also, while we were waiting in line there were two cute little girls kicking each other. The end. Or is it? Cue pix (click to enlarge):

Either an alligator or a crocodile

Giraffe hiding behind a tree. 

Pretty sure these are animals of some kind?

Zebras/SJWs

This gorilla really didn't want his picture taken.

*SIGH*

Rhinos love standing in front of the ride vehicle.

But not exfoliating.

Pangai Forest Exploration Trail

The Safari lets out next to a trail you can walk if you want to see even more animals. We saw a meercat and a bunch of gorillas who were not terribly pleased to have a ton of pictures taken of them and also one of them smelled bad as a defense mechanism. We also saw a hippo who was sleeping underwater with just a little bit of its hump sticking out of the water that three birds were relaxing on. Also Katie's Charmander evolved into a Charmeleon and wasn't cute anymore so she gave it to me but I didn't use it because I already had a Fennekin.

Next we wanted to go on the Maharajah Jungle Trek, which is just like the walk we had taken, but it's in Asia and has tigers and birds. We ran smack into a parade, though, and ended up as the tail end, walking about fifteen feet behind the float Mickey Mouse was blowing kisses from. This part was a little weird.

The Maharajah Jungle Trek itself didn't have as many interesting animals (although we did see a very bored tiger), but the atmosphere was nicer; whereas the Pangai Forest is just wood huts, the Maharajah is done up like a abandoned Southern Asian temple. Also, it had some cute bats. LOOK AT THAT DUMB LITTLE BAT FACE. WHO'S A DUMB SLEEPY BAT? WHO IS??

Look at these cute chumps!

This tiger is in jail for contempt of court. Thanks, Obama.

Yak & Yeti

The last thing we did was eat dinner as the park closed 15 minutes after we finished. We went to a new place called Yak & Yeti where I got the sweet and sour chicken, which was great (not very sour, but I'm not complaining). Katie got vegetable lo mein with her buddy tofu. "Are you going to put this in your trip report?" she asked, pointing her chopsticks at me accusingly. "Put what in?" I innocently asked. "That you're getting something exciting and I'm getting something I eat every week."  "No," I cunningly lied. 

Then we had desert which was a trio of sorbets for me (orange with red sauce, one that tasted like frozen lemonade, and raspberry, and apparently I like raspberry sorbet) while Katie got some crazy skewer of pineapple and fried wontons with cream cheese inside.

And that's it for Animal Kingdom. Tomorrow is Mickey's Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom. Oooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Disney 2013, Day 9

We had a short day today after the madness of being out until midnight at Mickey's Christmas Party the night before. (These are going out a little out of order; there's not that much to talk about for today, and I'm still trying to remember everything that happened last night. Just blame it on a wily time traveler.) 

Today we went back to Disney's Hollywood Studios, because going on Star Tours four times just isn't enough.

As soon as we arrived we headed over to Hollywood & Vine. This is a buffet style restaurant with characters roaming around. I shook hands with a pirate Katie says is from some Neverland show and got a creepy shoulder massage from a lady in a purple dress with a huge head. Also, there was a bear.

Foodwise, I'm leaning a lot about myself on this trip, as I apparently really like buffets. In fact, I think I was stuffed before I'd even seen half the line of food to take. I ended up eating a bunch of Asian fried chicken (no idea from where in Asia, but it came with little baby corn), garlic mashed potatoes, buttered corn, and some of Katie's shells from the make your own pasta section. The desert section had chocolate-covered apples and little key lime pie bites that weren't bad, but the real star was the banana cream puffs, which I ate like six of. 

After six banana cream puffs, we had no choice but to go on the Indiana Jones stunt show, which I'd never seen before and was very entertaining. Like the movies it's a mix of action and comedy, in this case the comedy taking up time while the sets are moved around and prepared. 

Next up was Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which is a very short live show. The entire thing is only 15 minutes long, and it's very strangely paced. First they do "Under The Sea" with big puppets, which is neat, then an actress comes out with a mermaid tail and does "Part Of Your World," which is nice, and then it gets weird as Ursula comes out, does a super quick version of "Poor Unfortunate Souls", then we super fast forward and it's over and everyone lived happily ever after please exit to your right thank you. It feels like someone designed the first act of a great show and then got bored, and Katie described it as "lame", thus making me OFFICIALLY a bigger Little Mermaid fan. What up!

Studio Backlot Tour

This is a weird ride. You start out by seeing some effects in a water tank (water cannons, fake gunshots, propane going off, etc.), then you ride past two P-51 Mustang props from "Pearl Harbor" (this ride keeps talking about "Pearl Harbor"). The planes had been painted to look like planes from, um, Planes, the movie, with big goofy eyes and smiles, but the voiceover hadn't been updated, so the guy's like "These spectacular props look ready to fly directly into battle!!!". Then you go into a canyon where they set off a huge propane fire and like 70,000 gallons of water, then you drive through the prop department and you're done. We did see Jabba's Sail Barge just sittin' out on the grass, which I think Katie got a picture of. 

Note from Katie: Actually, it was not the sail barge, it was the ship that Luke, Han, and Chewie were put on to be thrown into the Sarlacc. MMHMM.

After this we had a fast pass for one of the most difficult rides to get on in all of Disney. It was time to see what all the fuss was about on

Toy Story Midway Mania!

This is kind of like a super version of Buzz Lightyear's Ranger Spin, where you sit in a vehicle and shoot targets. Instead of having a lever that lets you spin, the car spins around for you, and you just focus on shooting. What makes this so amazing is that you have 3D glasses on and are shooting at huge video screens that show every shot you take and anything you hit getting broken, popped, splattered with pies, etc. (The first section, where you learn to shoot, had the dinosaur from Toy Story hiding behind a target as I blasted it with dozens of pies). I can see why this ride is so popular; it's incredibly satisfying to shoot stuff and watch it go flying in 3D. Katie got a slightly higher score, probably because I had to keep switching arms - unlike the Ranger Spin, you can't hold down the shoot button, you have to keep pulling back on the pop gun. Katie's rough upbringing as a lumberjack in the Canadian Pacific Northwest served her well here.

Next we debated going on "Rock 'n' Roller Coaster(r) Starring Aerosmith Presented by Hanes(r)", but nothing about "Blast off in a stretch limousine through the freeways of Los Angeles to the rockin' tunes of Aerosmith" sounded appealing. So what did we go on?

STAR TOURS

Oh, don't look surprised. This time we got Naboo as the first planet, which I'd never seen before, and made 3P0 very happy as we ended up in a pod race ("I've always wanted to do this!"). For the second planet we got Naboo. That kind of sounds like a disease when you put it that way. "You've got a case of Naboo." (shocked gasps)

Well, I'm getting a little punchy, so I guess I better wrap up here. Tomorrow we're doing Epcot again, and after that (sign) coming home to (big sigh) Albany. 

Disney 2013 Day Eight

Today we did Mickey's Magical Christmas Party. The way this works is that you buy a ticket (about $55), and in return you get to stay in the Magic Kingdom as everyone else is kicked out from 7 PM to 1 AM. And you also get free cookies, hot chocolate, apples, and apple juice. At first, I'll admit that I scoffed at the price, but at what ended up being less than $10 an hour, the atmosphere really is special. It's not just the thinner crowd (although that's part of it); Some combination of less people, how surprisingly dark the Magic Kingdom gets at night, and the atmosphere of a brightly lit up distant castle and dark walkways punctuated by giant glowing candy canes where you can get free food and drinks really does something to you. I'll return to this theme a little bit at the end, but it's something to keep in mind as we strolled from ride to ride actually feeling cold for once in Florida.

But before all that we hopped the monorail and went to the Polynesian resort, where we stayed last time, for a nostalgic dinner at the Kona Cafe. We both got the pan-asian noodles, which is basically a heap of onions, peas, peppers, noodles, and chicken (me) or tofu (katie). After that was the famous banana creme brulee, which was just as good as I remembered, but I had too many pan-asian noodles to finish it all. 

One monorail trip later and we were at the Magic Kingdom, where we got our plastic wristbands that marked us out was one of the 1% allowed to stay while the rest of the plebes returned to their hovels and makeshift mud huts. We arrived at around 6:30, and to get out of the crowd we ducked into Pirates of the Caribbean. In a Christmas miracle, there was nobody taking flash photographs (!!!!). Also, in the bathroom there was a loop of steel drum covers of Christmas songs going. 

We both got jackets - I got a black Pirates one while Katie got a truly impressive light pink Pirates jacket emblazoned with pictures of the Black Pearl from the first movie and fake I (heart) JACK tattoos. 

And guess what was fixed and running???

IT'S A SMALL WORLD

it's a world of laughter, a world or tears
it's a world of hopes, it's a world of fears
there's so much that we share
that it's time we're aware
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 world after all!!!!
it's a small, small world!!!!!!!

In all seriousness, I shouldn't have eaten those magic mushrooms before going on this ride. Also, there was someone behind us lustily cursing on It's a Small World. I don't even know how that happens.

Peter Pan's Flight

This is one of the rides that's normally just about impossible to get on; during the day it's usually never below 90 minutes. I can see why the wait time is long as it's pretty unusual - you get in pirate boats and fly over scenes from Peter Pan. The ride is all in the dark and there's a lot of day-glo paint that makes for a very neat effect. I'm not the biggest Peter Pan man myself, but it's hard not to feel at least a little exhilarated at the beginning of the ride as you fly through Wendy's window (also a good name for an art supply store) over a dark London rendered in such detail that there are moving cars over the bridges. 

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

This is a cute ride where I couldn't understand anything that was happening. I think Winnie the Pooh wanted honey and got stuck in a tree and Tigger bounced around being manic. You know, that one.

Mickey's PhilharMagic

We tried to see this on our second day and the "magic piano" broke. With the Christmas party in full swing, there was no line (the theater was maybe 1/15th full and one of the employees dryly noted that "we're not expecting a full house"). This is a 3D movie where Donald steals Mickey's magical hat (apparently Mickey being a sorcerer is canon now) and ends up on a montage through songs from the 90's classic Disney movies (Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Lion King). It's cute, and at the end Donald gets blown out of a tuba, and if you look at the back of the theater you can see his big duck butt sticking out of a broken section of wall. My only issue here is that Donald is huge at this point; his butt is as big as a car, and he could do some real damage if he got loose. I think this is where I make my apparently trademark "concern" face.

Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid

Why yes, I am typing the names of these rides directly from the park map. I don't have much to say about this; this is the fourth time we went on the ride this vacation, and it still looks great. It was very strange seeing a row of empty clamshells behind us. Mickey's Christmas Party, y'all.

Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover

On our way to this ride fireworks started going off. It was kind of scary since the first firework sounded like a gunshot, and they didn't get any quieter as we wandered over to Tomorrowland and got on the PeopleMover. (No, I'm not going to keep typing it like that.) I'm afraid Disney has spoiled me for fireworks; the sheer amount of them they send up is truly impressive, and watching them from the People Mover was quite relaxing.

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin

I forgot to mention that we went on this with the Webers way back on Day 3. Seems like so long ago. This is another one of those rides that normally has a massive wait time we were able to get right on thanks to the smaller crowd. In this ride, you sit in a little car with two laser blasters and shoot at targets. You can use a little joystick to spin yourself around, usually to the amusement of the people in the car behind you, and as we found out, you apparently get points for shooting the space rangers in the car ahead of you in the back, as I definitely got at least 100 points by keeping the trigger held down and strafing the Webers. Weather that means you get points just for shooting or that the Webers are agents of the evil Emperor Zurg I'll leave up to the reader, but it probably doesn't pay to take any chances.

Oh, I almost forgot - this is also one of those rides where your picture is taken and you can see it up afterwards. Both times I looked "concerned," although the Webers looked great on the first go-round, and at the Christmas Party the hands down winner were two teen girls taking a selfie where one had her tongue sticking out. (I think I got 100 points for shooting her earlier; her tongue may be working for Zurg.)

Stitch's Great Escape!

This is a cute theater show where you're a guard at your first day of training and Stitch is captured and (checks title) he escapes and then he teleports away and the head guy is like "Good job," even though you didn't do anything and the space slug police officer played by Kevin McDonald is like "If you come back tomorrow turn off your cell phone!" (because nobody ever turns their cell phone off. Stop texting during the ride!). The end.

After that we wandered back over and did Haunted Mansion and Pirates again. By this time it was midnight and the park was emptying out as the park closed at 1 AM. As we ambled down main street under Christmas carols and Disney-generated snow, I have to admit that this was money well spent; Mickey's Magical Christmas Party isn't really a "party," but it does live up to the rest of its name.

Tomorrow: EPCOT one more time!!!!