2013 Orlando - Disney's Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom was probably my least favorite area of Disney.  It definitely seemed aimed at younger kids.  And it didn't help that it poured for quite a while in the middle of our visit.  My niece and nephew really enjoyed the Everest roller coaster, and the woman next to me on the ride screamed like a mad woman, so it really was toned down.  Eryn perused the ride list looking for anything marked "over x inches" so she could be assured of non-kid rides.  She did enjoy Everest, however and went through the single rider line several times.

I watched a Netflix video about behind the scenes at the park when I got home in order to see what the attraction was that I didn't understand.  It's an amazingly large park when you watch the video, rather than miss half of it due to rain.

Eryn and Mom posing at the tree of life.  We went to A Bug's Life near the end of the day and didn't even realize it was sort of built into the base of the tree.  I'll admit, that was neat, both as a ride/presentation and realizing it was built into the tree (I learned that from the Netflix video).


From the dinosaur area.  Animal Kingdom did have the best food deals out of any of the parks.  Our food was much more edible than elsewhere and came with an endless supply of soda while we sat in the cafeteria.  Definitely a change from all the other parks and a refreshing perk on a very hot and humid day.  Eryn and I went on the single car roller coaster near here that purports to take you back in time to see the dinosaurs (it's a time machine) in a silly way.  As we rolled up the first hill, there's a spinning disk that indicates you're time traveling. The kid in the car with us yelled Hypnotoad! Hypnotoad!  Which would have been funny if he hadn't been non-stop talk for the prior three minutes.  When no one responded he kept yelling Hypnotoad! until he gave up and said, "I'm sure I'm the only one who understands that reference."  Poor dork.  Denied on the roller coaster.  He's like a modern geek Jesus back from the dead.  Before you feel too bad for him, he talked non-stop the entire ride.  He was even annoying Eryn, and her geek tolerance is amazingly high.


The safari ride was open, thankfully, so we got to see all the animals separated by the hidden barriers so they look like they're co-mingling.  I have a limited selection of pictures because while Eryn was in charge and took many photos, there was a family on the ride with us who kept sticking their fingers in all her pictures while pointing at the animals.  More annoying than the pointing was that every time they saw a new animal the dad would say, "Oh, , snap!"  It was funny.  Then annoying.  Then funny.  Then hilarious when we rode through a puddle near the end and he exclaimed, "Oh, water, snap!"  I told my brother in law the story later and he realized they'd met the exact same people during the downpour.  It was the wife in that family who also announced at the start of the ride, when we saw the Okapi, "Look at the cock-ee, look at the cock-pee!"  Probably close enough.

Eryn's picture of a rhino butt.


A giraffe attempting to hide.


Elephants doing something elephant-y.


At the end of the day, trying to stretch everything out because our shuttle wasn't due until 2 hours after the park closed, we went to the Lion King acrobat, circque-de-soleil (I don't care to look up the spelling; hope I'm close), circus, Heart-of-the-Beast type thing.  It reminded me I hate those things on so many levels, including because it's Lion King.  That may be right up there for me comparable to Ming's dislike of Avatar.  Quite a coincidence given the big tree featured at the park and in the movie (Avatar).  Maybe we have a mutual dislike of anything revolving around enormous trees.  It was impressively choreographed, but I was brutally bored.  Give me Our Town over pageantry when it comes to plays any day.  But as I've ended several of these posts, Eryn loved it, and that made me happy.

Orlando 2013 - Universal Studios (The Islands of Adventures Side)

Aha! Only two days of vacation left, and then I can get around to the State Fair.  If my pace keeps up, soon I will have a blog dedicated to things I did last quarter.  Very timely.

As we were at Islands of Adventure only two years ago, most of my photos are less happy family vacation photos and more how-do-I-amuse-myself photos.  Here's an exception.  The spires of the Harry Potter area.  The Hogwart's ride still made me somewhat ill, but overall I fared much better on the roller coasters than last time.  Which was good, because the lines weren't particularly longer.  A minute or two extra wait, but it was a quick trip to anywhere but the front of the dragon coasters.  And whatever old guy inner ear issue most of us develop at this stage of our lives that I was partially getting last time is gone.  A consistent application of roller coasters seems to be a viable cure, at least in my case.

My wife is in this photo.  I'm not sure it's possible to get a good photo on the bridge given the number of tourists that like to pose there.  I always want to just get off the bridge right away.  I'm not afraid it will fail under the weight.  I just don't like that crush of people.  Maybe it triggers my anti-zombie situation reflexes.  You don't want to be stuck in a group that large if one person goes undead.


We didn't make Eryn ride the Seuss Carousel (Seussousel?) this time because she's so cranky about being made to ride it last time.  But on the way out I did pose with one of the locals.


A second picture where I'm riding sidecar instead of behind him.  I can't keep him dry in the sidecar.


I'll confess, I'm not really spitting water.  It just looks like it.


At the Jurassic Park area.  The bronto is trying to eat what little hair I have left.  He's a hairosaurus, as opposed to a meatosaurus or a plantosaurus.  Eryn liked reliving her memories from last time at the dinosaur center.  There are times it's very obvious she wants to feel like she did during a particular event in her life, and checking out the eggs at the dinosaur center is a good example.  She was also keen to relieve the squirting of riders at the cartoon/water area that was next, but due to rain, many of the rides were closed down or not being ridden, and when we were on Popeye's boat, they shooed us off.  It looked suspiciously like a search for a reported package.  Lots of security.


I find the dichotomy of Spidey being Mommy's Angel amusing.  He's really more of an Aunty's Angel.


And this one is just labeled wrong.  That's not Jesus!


Just a nice picture.  No humor to be seen here.  Move along.


Also not humorous, but my panorama function captured a great picture of Hogwart's and Hagrid's roller coaster.  I wish someone had been going overhead on the tracks as I'd rotated that direction.
[Panoramic view]
 

Mommy's Angel riding his motorcycle.  This isn't exciting unless you're really into superheroes, but it reminds me of the Hulk roller coaster and Doctor Doom's drop nearby that Eryn and I rode while my wife hid from all the rain in the shops.  Doctor Doom's drop was pretty wild.  I think the Valleyfair Tower of Power has more variety, but Doom's Tower certainly threw you way up there.  A big smile on Eryn as we shot to the top of the park.

Orlando 2013 - Universal Studios (Not the Islands of Adventures Side)

We spent two days at Universal.  One at Islands of Adventure.  One on the studio side.  Grandpa and Grandma went with us and rode the roller coasters, the Simpson's ride, the Men in Black ride, the Transformers ride, the movie-making Disaster ride, the Shrek Ride, and more.

They updated the Simpson's area since the last time we'd been there to make it much more like Springfield.  I wonder if they have tap a computer screen and spend digital donuts to expand the place.  Here's my wife with Lard Lad.  I should have bought her a big donut to complete the picture.  There was an oversized Lard Lad mug I was going to get and then passed on, thinking I'd find it at the exit shop.  But apparently it was the only piece of merchandise not sold and resold and resold at all the various stores.  I talked to a guy on the way out about his giant Lard Lad donut and told him about Kyle's nephew's birthday donuts.



Eryn and my wife with Chief Wiggum.  I saw lots of folks pretending to eat his donut and drink his coffee.  I didnt' see anyone pretending to pee on his hydrant.


My wife was a good sport about posing next to Jebediah.


Mmm....Krusty Burger.  I don't know who that guy is or why he's point to the sky.


From the Simpson's ride.  My wife's favorite.  Grandpa and Grandma seemed very amused.  Enough so that Grandma went on the ride again.


In the line for the Simpson's.  Note, yet another Doctor Who related shirt.  A Disney themed one she didn't wear to Disneyworld.


At Moe's.  Barney is in the bar.  A Flaming Moe looks like Kool Aid with dry ice.  One of the workers tried to boot me from our table.  I told his boss on him.  Entirely appropriate as she put us at the table.


The Jaws ride was shut down while they're redoing that area of the park.  But Jaws himself is still hanging from the hook.  I suppose that would be not-Jaws.  The shark they thought was Jaws until people kept getting et.
Panorama


The other side of the park.
Panorama


You can't see it as well in the panorama, but the new ride was the Transformers ride.  It took forever to get through the line, partially because there was a temporary hold up, and partially because there were two spasmodic children running around for over an hour.  It was pretty cool as far as rides go, transitioning between video and mechanical.  Pretty convincing when things slam on the hood of your car and you bounce around.  The Mummy ride is similar, but not as cool.  Last time that one scared Eryn, but this time she was willing to go twice.

And she finally got to ride the Rocket!  That was the roller coaster she missed last time because we went to the Terminator presentation, which was incredibly lame, and the park closed an hour early for a corporate event.  This time she went three or four times.  I was on two of them.  The loud music does a nice job of distracting you from the fact that you're going straight up at the start.


Hipster shot!  I think it was an accident.  Reminds me it was incredibly hot.  I ate my Minion bar - chocolate and banana bits - very quickly to avoid getting chocolate everywhere.  It was pretty tasty for something named a Minion Bar that was based on Despicable Me.  That was probably the only ride we didn't go on that would have been fun, the Despicable Me ride.  The lines never went below 90 minutes. I suspect it's new enough that it gets an extra share of the locals.  Or maybe it gets more kids because of the older kid nature of many of the other rides.

Orlando - Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom.  We spent most of our time at Tomorrowland as Eryn enjoyed Space Mountain and the cars, but we managed to check out the other areas as well, including the Haunted Mansion and the animatronic presidents and the roller coaster out in Adventureland.  I remember enjoying Disneyland as a kid, but that was It's a Small World (which shocked Eryn a bit) and Peter Pan and the endless cartoons theater.  Eryn was scoping the list of rides to see which had a height requirement so she could be assured they were interesting.  It was HOT.  We had to take a number of stops just to hide in the shade.

Me pretending to be Perry the Platypus. Grrllllrrrlrlrlrlrlrlr....


Eryn at Tomorrowland on the car ride.


This picture gives you an idea of whether she was enjoying it.  For me it was a relaxing series of rides where I didn't have to do anything for three minutes except for when she was banging off the metal ridge that kept the car on the track.  There was no sleeping through that.


In case you want a POV of the full three minutes, here you go.  It comes with commentary although I'm pretty sure it's safe for work.  My wife is up on the peoplemover somewhere.



On the backside of the park, when it was getting hot, we checked out Tom Sawyer's Island.  It reminded me of the restaurant in Colorado with the tunnels in it and the diving.  My wife appreciated it as a nice place to hang out near the water while Eryn and I went to stand in the 40 minute line for the roller coaster.


The standard picture in front of the castle and Disney and Mickey, wearing a Daleks shirt.  I think you could get a pretty amusing stop motion/time lapse movie if you sat here for a few hours.  The people were most interesting than anything else.


Aww....when I took this I found myself wondering if a lot of people rub her nose for some reason.  Good luck maybe?  Or perhaps just because kids like to touch in which case I wouldn't get any closer without a handwipe.


We finished the day with the electrical parade.  It was a bit of a trick finding a good spot close to the exit so we could make sure we wouldn't miss our shuttle which was two monorail rides away.  We did a great job of getting there in time only to be faced with a shuttle that hadn't counted outgoing rides appropriately.  We ended up waiting for a secondary taxi whose driver lectured us about getting the return slip from the first driver despite having asked for said slip only to be assured we didn't need it because they had called in the extra car.  Good system.  Maybe you automate a few things for communication purposes.


We ended up on these steps.  Early on a woman stepped in front of Eryn and I had to shoo her out of the way.  Then another woman stepped in front of the little boy in front of me who had been in the second family on the steps after us.  His father asked her to move and she didn't replying, "I did not mean to be."  As in "I did not mean to be in his way."  SO FREAKING MOVE.  Dad looked a bit disappointed, so I did the big no-no if you don't want to end up being in a headline, "Stabbed in Disneyworld", put a hand on her shoulder, pushed gently and got more firm as she refused to move and told her, "You can't be in the way of the kid and he was here first."  She looked indignant, tried to hold her ground, and told me, "I did not mean to."  I replied, "That doesn't matter, you can't stay in his way" and just kept the hand on her shoulder until she slid over.  I think perhaps she was non-English speaking and someone may have taught her "I didn't mean to" was a polite way to say "I don't speak English" and make everything go away, but it doesn't excuse looking at the kid and deciding to stay in his way so you can film the parade.

That's  my crowds story.  I dislike crowds and I dislike shopping, so the whole amusement park thing can wear a little thin by the end of a long day.  But I like seeing Eryn having so much fun. Here's Pete's Dragon which I thought was one of the cooler floats in the parade.


The live version because you can't appreciate it without playing the music over and over:


And another live version:


The castle at night from near Tomorrowland.  We rode the carousel at Tomorrowland which shows you the history of tech and the future from the perspective of one family.  It must have been cool back in its day.  To me, it really pointed out how fast tech is moving, because they could capture snapshots of generational tech in the past and now it changes so fast you can't pinpoint it for even a year.  The current day display seemed to be the one most out of date.


Eryn in front of the castle with a big smile.

Orlando 2013 - Epcot

Let's see, where were we.  Snap?  No.  Hypnotoad? No.  I'll get to those later.  Those are Animal Kingdom stories.  One of our five days of amusement-park driven fun at Orlando was at Epcot.  The last time I was at Epcot was in 1988.  25 years ago.  It was approximately five years old at that point.  Start making those sorts of timeline assessments and you begin to feel very old.  There are starting to be a lot of things I did a quarter of a century ago.

Strangely, we went to Captain EO, which even had it been there 25 years ago, I would have skipped.  And we missed Soarin', primarily because of the lines.  My wife wishes we had missed the Mission to Mars ride.  She came out of it looking like she was going to hurl and then started walking around like a drunk and was uncommunicative.  When she was responsive, it was nonsense.  She wouldn't stop trying to walk out of the area, and I finally had to stop her until she came back to her right mind.  Explains why I'm the designated parent when it comes to most high stress rides like roller coasters.

Eryn and Mom in front of Spaceship Earth.  Eryn loved the ride.  I'm now too old to love sanitized versions.  I wish there was an alternate time to go where they did the dystopic Spaceship Earth and showed wars and the awful futures that are possible.  Makes sense to me to engrain kids with hope.  But the cheerfulness in contrast with reality wears me out.


Eryn liked the video games at the end of Spaceship Earth.


This is a strange picture because it was pouring somewhere around this time.  I was so impressed with myself for staying dry, and then Eryn needed a bathroom and, by the time we were done, I had soggy dogs.  I remember this area from my teenage years.  It was the one that most impressed me.  Probably because as a kid I hadn't seen much of the world to compare it against.  I prefer real bike trails and museums to replicas.  We ate pizza right here.  It wasn't very good pizza for $30.  I didn't do the research I often do before we went on vacation this time, so my ability to render good judgments about dining and touring alternatives was restricted.  So there's no one to blame but myself.


In the Japan area.  I'm not sure why anyone would want to dress like Pedobear.  Creepy.


And almost as creepy.  Although if your girlfriend showed up in the footies (sans feet), you'd know to run.  That robe next to it might be a more complex issue.  Is she crazy, or does she do Midnight Martini style Hello Kitty themed burlesque dances as a hobby that you might learn to appreciate?


Eryn was off perusing the flavored sodas that you can only buy a subset of at our Cub.  I was checking out the tanukis.  Large-testicled racoon dogs with their own song.  I think Epcot should have a tanuki mascot for the Japan area.


This was one of the few things I was tempted to buy during the whole vacation.  Chopstick rests seem like a pretty cool gift, and the variety isn't as good on Amazon.  You can order them at EverythingChopsticks.  So there's a better opportunity to find chopstick rests than the large Lard Lad mug I missed out on at Universal.


It's not blue!!!  Eryn was disappointed it wasn't TARDIS colored.  But happy to get her picture in a booth.  It was still raining when we went past the British area, so it kept her out of the rain.  I looked for a match to her old English soccer jersey and couldn't find one.  Disappointing.  You can find one on line, but they come with corporate logos on them which is crazy for an $80 jersey.  She didn't call anyone, although I believe these are working phones.


My last picture of the day.  I didn't bother to take photos inside the design your own car ride or the Mission to Mars.  I should have snapped a picture of my wife looking ill.  I believe this is Canada.  We walked back into the tour area and the waterfall, coupled with the rain, made it so humid it was difficult to breathe.  But we look cheery here.  Eryn loved the park.  It was all new for her, so lots to enjoy.