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[Gonzo]

Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and Islands of Adventure

June 22-27, 2001

Cast:

I: (20 year-old going on 16, Disney park FIEND)
Mother/tikibird: (almost 39-year-old, Disney FIEND)
Father: (39 year-old, enjoys Disney parks some but definitely prefers Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure)
Brother: (17 year-old, ibid father)

Day 1

It was a bit of a hectic morning. One annoying tidbit would be when Mom asks if everyone has their photo ID to show the US Airways employee, I check my wallet only to discover that it is missing. It becomes perfectly clear to me at that point that my brother took it out of my wallet so he could buy cigarettes (he is 17 and we sort of look alike), so we got off on the wrong foot early. Dad was playing his usual “I don’t care if we go to the trip or not, so I’ll be Josef ‘STALLIN’” role. We were running late for our early morning flight and it seemed like a possibility that we could miss the flight. As we approached, a US Airways employee started asking for people who had 7:45 flights, and letting them skip the line. This was giving me the idea that mayhap we (with a 7:56 flight) might be overlooked, and therefore miss the plane. However, no such thing occurred, and the flight departed on time.

We arrived in Orlando, and headed over to the hotel we would be staying at, the All-Star Music Jazz building. We ate lunch at the hotel food court, and I had my staple vacation meal: chicken fingers with fries. It took some time to get everything in gear, and we didn’t end up leaving for Disney-MGM Studios until around 2 o’clock. When we arrived, there was a torrential downpour. Everyone else except for yours truly wanted to stay inside of a gift shop until the rain was over with. I, on the other hand, was extremely hyper and excited about going on rides/shows at this point. You see, this was something I was fantasizing about going to again ever since I got back from last May’s trip. I was not going to let a little H20 from the sky get in my way of viewing MUPPETVISION 3D and the Rock N’ Roller Coaster. Therefore, I volunteered to run hundreds of feet in the pouring rain to get us all fastpasses for the Rock N Roller Coaster. As I came back to the gift shop, I knew what was only minutes away, MUPPETVISION 3D, my favorite attraction in the whole park! The rain continued as I made a mad dash to the theater, while the rest of the family moved at a normal pace behind me. I was going so fast and in such a state of excitement, that I didn’t even notice that I passed NBA superstar Patrick Ewing on the way. We arrived just at the end of the pre-show (which I wasn’t glad about, because that’s one of my favorite, if not my favorite pre-show, but all was well) and the show itself was just as wonderful, if not more, then I remembered from last May. At the show’s end, I was cool, calm, and collected. A stop over to the gift shop was made, and a Gonzo beanie caught my eye. However, I didn’t feel like carrying it around in the rain all day, and I knew we would stop at this store again, so the blue guy purchase was put on hold. Afterward, we went over to the not-so-far-away Great Movie Ride, and had a short, 10 minute wait. I had gone on this ride before, but I didn’t remember several of the movies that one goes through on this ride. It was enjoyable, but I think the “acting” part of it kind of drags the ride down, as opposed to improving it. Prior to boarding this ride, I noticed that there was now a very large Sorcerer Mickey hat in front of the ride. I didn’t care much either way for the hat, but it seemed to disturb my mother deeply, and she would complain vigorously each time we passed it.

Next would come my least favorite ride experience of the entire trip: the Tower of Terror. I expected brother and father to enjoy this ride (they did) but it wasn’t until I got on it that I really remembered how much I disliked it the last time I went on it. What made things worse was the fact that we had to wait around a half-hour to go on it. As would be mentioned several times later by myself, this was the last time I was EVER going on that ride. I can’t stand it for the following reasons: the pre-show is really stupid, and doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Four people get trapped on an elevator and they all disappear with the elevator after a thunderstorm, and now, for some reason, we (lucky ones who get to ride this) are going to get to ride the same elevator. On top of that nonsense, I don’t enjoy heights, and when you’re up in the elevator, you can see the cars in the parking lot, and they are almost microscopic. Lastly, when the elevator jerks upward, it’s just a horrible feeling, and it gives me a headache. You get that sinking feeling inside, and that’s just not something I want to feel on a Disney World trip, much less anywhere else. So call me a “wuss,” but I can’t stomach that. However, there was ONE good thing to come out of this experience: a picture is taken of your elevator at the beginning of your “dips.” My father was sitting in the middle seat in the back row (the only one on the ride to get a seatbelt) and he was wearing a bright shirt. Therefore, he stuck out like a sore thumb and this made for one classic ride picture, at least for our family. While standing around in the TOT giftshop while the picture was being purchased, I walked around outside for a little, and I noticed a nearby water fountain. I took a drink, and the water was cool and not rusty! This was a first for me at any Disney World park. After the TOT picture was purchased, we then moved over to the Rock N’ Roller Coaster with our handy dandy fastpasses that I braved through a storm to collect. This ride is even better than I remembered, and the TOT experience was but an afterthought after going on this.

Dinner time came rolling around after this ride and we had priority seating reservations for Primetime Café. I once again had my usual meal consisting of chicken (bbq’d) with a milkshake. The chicken was good, but nothing to get excited over. What was excellent was the chocolate milkshake, possibly the best I’ve ever tasted. After dinner, I figured that the Muppetvision would be wonderful to view as our food digested. [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img] While entering the attraction, mother asks a CM where the “key under the mat” is. We view it, and I am disappointed. Mom was informing me about this earlier, and I was expecting at the very least a cool-looking Kermit or GONZO key. We conclude the MGM portion of this day after this and head over to our hotel to rest.

We lay around for awhile and then journey over to the Magic Kingdom for E-TICKET NIGHT! But we left a little bit earlier so we could see a few things that would not be opened for the e-ticket night. The one ride that I requested to see first was the Pirates of the Caribbean. I had been fiending this ride ever since our December 2000 Disneyland trip. That version is truly a magical ride. This version, however, just does not quite add up to the original. It is much shorter, the pirates do not look as good, there is no Blue Bayou (and fireflies which seems to be a tikibird favorite), and the talking skullhead does not even compare. On the other hand, it is still a very good ride. Afterward, we notice that there’s a very small line for the new Aladdin ride, so we go on that for the first time. This is a very weak ride, and I made the mistake of riding it with my brother. The 2 of us argued the whole time over who should steer the carpet. I’d swear that we were back in grade school again. Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be riding that again unless it has little to no line, I’ve seen everything else I wanted to see, and I’m riding with someone who doesn’t care about who’s steering the carpet, or by myself.

Anyway, the time then comes for e-ticket night. Our first E-ride is Splash Mountain. This makes me happy, because this is my favorite ride in the Magic Kingdom. I do not enjoy the ride as a whole quite as much this particular time, however, because I’m a little worried about my gelled hairdo being messed up by the water. We get just about as wet on this ride while our log is near the log that goes down the big dip at the end than the big dip itself. But this ride is grade A+, nonetheless, and is even more enjoyable at night. This is because, when you’re outside, places like the opossum residence look more real because you don’t really notice things such as speakers quite as much. Also, the glowing eyes in the dark look better. At the conclusion of this masterpiece of a ride, we head over the Big Thunder Mountain. This is the most enjoyable time that I’ve ever ridden this ride, and I have much more respect for it now. The main problem I have with this ride is that, like Space Mountain, looks like a tall person’s head might get lodged off while going into some of those caves. Sure, it’s quite an irrational fear, but I wonder why the imagineers did this? The next ride we hit up is the Haunted Mansion, another classic ride. This is possibly my 2nd favorite in Magic Kingdom for its great special effects and the fact that it’s a dark ride.

Next on the itinerary is Tomorrowland. We go on Buzz Lightyear first and I rack up what I think is my highest score ever on that ride: about 189,000, which is quite more than tikibird’s 3,800. Tikibird still holds the family record with two 999,000 scores from May 2000’s trip, which nobody will ever quite figure out how she did. Next, tiki suggests that we ride the TTA. I figure “why not?” and brother and father don’t seem to excited about it, but we all go on it. I had to give tiki many props after we got off of this ride. I was expecting your average train ride, but this is kind of a dark ride in and of itself. You get to see Walt Disney’s model for Epcot Center, some very good looks at Space Mountain that you will probably never get to enjoy while riding Space Mountain itself, and you get to view just about every other ride/show there. There’s also a part that they kept from the “wedway people mover” I believe, where a lady is getting her hair done in the future. This has intrigued me to this day, and I wish I could have seen what the original ride looked like. TTA is now a must-see on my list for any Magic Kingdom trip, and everyone else agrees. Last, but not least, we ride Space Mountain. It’s a very cool ride, but I almost always end up getting that “head-lodged-off” feeling like I get on BTM. This ends our E-Ticket Night fun and we go on the Monorail. Thanks to tiki, we get to ride up front. This is quite a different experience to ride up front, and I really like when the voice on the ride talks in Spanish. [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]
End Of Day 1


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