oh Florida how I miss your glorious heat :P

[number1tiggerfan]

Alright, first things first. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Holli, and I am a senior in high school, very energetic and fun to be around. This was my very first trip to Walt Disney World, though it will certainly not be my last I am a HUGE Tigger fan and not so much a roller coaster fan. hehe


So I know this is about a week late, but my computer was dumb and I’ve been busy. Anyway, I loved my first Disney trip, and am already making plans to go back in a couple of years… lol. On Thursday afternoon when our plane landed and we went through all the typical airport stuff, my group headed to our hotel where we got our room keys and those nifty mugs which allow you to get free refills from the beverage station during your stay.


We changed into shorts and t-shirts in our hotel room (as it was our senior trip, everyone had to dress nicely to set a good example for our high school), then whipped out our park hopper passes and hit the parks.


First up? Hollywood Studios. The first couple of rides we went on were basically walk-ons, and the third choice, Toy Story Mania, had about a 100 minute wait without Fastpasses and the Fastpasses were all gone. Meh. So, on to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. I was actually excited about going on that ride, because watching videos people took on rides made me really crave a good dropping ride. That line’s wait was estimated to be about 25 minutes, but it actually was much quicker.


Much to my dismay, one member of our little group informed us right as we were about to board the elevator, that “they put magnets in the ride to make it technically go faster than gravity.” Hoo boy this would be interesting. (I later found out, upon returning to cold and dreary upstate NY, that it was not magnets but ropes and a pulley system installed in the ride. Eh, six of one, half dozen of the other. My expression on the picture screen in the gift shop was priceless- shoulders scrunched up, eyes shut tight, mouth wide open in a scream… teehee!)


After that lovely experience (and I use the term lovely very loosely), Marielle and Julia, the other members of my group, decided to go on the Rock ‘N Roller Coaster, but being the nice friends they are, allowed me to hold spots for them in line for Fantasmic! They quickly realized that I am a wimp around extreme speeds and nothing they could say or do would make me suffer another terrifying experience like I did with the ToT. To their disappointment, the Fastpasses for the Rock ‘N Roller Coaster were also all gone with an extremely long wait. They joined me in line for Fantasmic! and after about two tedious hours of waiting, the show finally began.


It was certainly worth the long wait, I must say. I quite enjoyed the dancing monkeys and the end, where all the participating cast members rode by on a boat and waved at all of us. After that ended, Marielle, Julia and I found an ATM where I could withdraw money from my bank account for dinner, and off we went to a sandwich shop on Main St, USA. Unfortunately for us, the shop closed at 7, and it was about 9:30. Not cool. So we walked around the darkened replica of New York City (Marielle was very excited when she noticed the state flag lol) and took pictures before locating the bus and heading back to the All-Star Sports Resort where we ended up getting dinner instead.


The next morning, Friday, we were joined by our last roommate and a friend of hers and Julia’s. When we got to Magic Kingdom, I started snapping pictures again, and got a picture of myself in front of Cinderella’s castle (soo cool!) before we headed off to Space Mountain.


Looking back now, I really wish I’d ridden that one because the unofficial guide book I’d gotten from the library said it was very tame as far as roller coasters go (and I am NOT a fan of coasters), but I’d overheard Marielle saying someone had died of a heart attack while riding it. Unfortunately I missed the part where she said that poor soul had already had a heart condition to begin with, so my mind began working overtime and I bailed. I felt really guilty for bailing, and of course Marielle didn’t help matters any by calling me a killjoy, so I went to sit on the bench by the exit and waited miserably for the group.


Next up: Stitch’s Great Escape. I must say, that was not nearly as bad with the slime as people have made it sound… I thought it was quite funny (except for getting slimed, but it was really nothing more than like getting squirted with a water bottle; I thought it was buckets of the stuff, like on the Nickelodeon KCAs lol).


Julia felt bad and kept asking if there were any rides I wanted to go on, which I really appreciated, but of course Marielle and Clint were two strong forces that kept conflicting and so they ignored me completely. Oh well, next time I’ll do everything I want . Anyway, I suppose she felt guilty for calling me a killjoy at Space Mountain, because she was very evasive as we got closer and closer to the Dumbo ride.


I figured (correctly) that it had something to do with Tigger, and she had asked a Disney worker when Tigger would make his great appearance. I made a fool of myself (rather not go into details of what I did lol) , and unfortunately, no picture of Holli and Tigger. So sad


The Haunted Mansion ride, which was the next pick, was very interesting, and also the last in Magic Kingdom before heading off to Epcot on the monorail. (Does it always smell funny? I thought it smelled faintly of cow manure….) That first monorail ride was not a very good experience, let me just say. Marielle’s cup from the hotel somehow got jostled open on Space Mountain and spilled Powerade over everything, including her dad’s phone. Breakdown time…


When we arrived at Epcot, however, the other members of the group quickly made her feel better. I sat there like an idiot not knowing what to say, and besides everyone else had it under control anyway. Once in Epcot, we headed to The Land where everyone else rode Soarin’ (again I wimped out, and wished I didn’t. This wasn’t a very good first visit to the World) and then we got lunch. Not the best place for food in my opinion, but hey live and learn.


Livin with the Land was interesting, very educational and not necessarily something I’d pick on my own, but eh whatevs. After that, the speed demons decided to ride Mission: Space on orange, and I opted out which is probably a wise choice for once, because the girl who joined us that day, Michalina, had taken motion sickness medicine and still got a little sick.


Now, on to the World Showcase. Clint was starting to get a little snippy, and I think he was just overly tired. Marielle and I bought passports at a gift shop, and had a blast filling those out, and Clint, Julia, and Michalina left us around China. Marielle had spent our junior year of high school in Japan, Kanazawa actually, and the closer we got to Japan, the more she would start involuntarily speaking Japanese, or English with a Japanese accent. Being the terrible (but loving) friend I am, I could not help but laugh at her, and she looked like she wanted to smack me (heeheehee!).


The most amusing part of that ordeal was that she’d be rambling on in Japanese, and wonder why I wouldn’t answer her (gee I don’t know, maybe because I don’t understand a word of what she said? Lol) and then she’d repeat herself in English after realizing her mistake. Then she’d do it again… Teehee it was funny


When we got to Japan, she chatted in Japanese with the shopkeepers of the stores we visited, which was rather entertaining. About the time we got to France, we saw Marie from the Aristocats, but unfortunately her picture taking shift was over by the time we got to her. Sadness. We bought French crepes from a little stand because we were getting a little hungry, and it made me feel immensely special to say, “Merci beaucoup!” to the cashier as it is part of the little French I managed to remember even after four years of taking it. Yeah, not my strongest subject…


Anyway, when we got to Canada, Marielle talked to the people there signing passports as well, because her dad is French-Canadian and her brother plays hockey. Might I just say, Francois, the dude who signed my passport, was pretty cute? Hoo boy lol


So after we finished our tour of the World Showcase in Epcot, Marielle and I caught a monorail to another park, most likely Magic Kingdom, and from there took a ferry to the bus station as the monorail system had broken down. When we got back to the hotel, the first thing I noticed as out of place was one of Mar’s bagels on the lock thingy, and the first thought through my head was, “Okay, either the maid has been doing some hardcore drugs, which I doubt, or Clint and Michalina were here earlier.”


My point was proven further when Julia came back and went to the bathroom to soak her bloody (ouch!) feet and found my Pop Tarts in the bath tub. Being overtired and hyped up on caffeine, I started laughing like an idiot as I found more stuff hidden around the room. When Clint and Michalina got back, they also started snorting with laughter as we asked them about why they put stuff in different locations.


It was certainly amusing, I’ll say that much. That night, there was a pool party at eleven, but when we went downstairs, the pool was void of our classmates. Unbeknownst to us, the party was in the hotel’s other pool, and to add salt to our wounds, the trip supervisors decided not to come over to the pool we were at and tell us. Mar was furious, but I was too tired to care, honestly.


Saturday morning. A backstage tour of Animal Kingdom was in order, and it was mandatory. If we decided to skip that, our park hopper passes would be taken away, so we hurried and got to the park at exactly 8 am, beating even the teachers. The tour was rather boring, telling me a bunch of stuff I already knew, like animal husbandry (I go to a technical school or whatever it’s called in the mornings for Animal Science, though I no longer have any desire to work with animals).


But we also got special Fastpass-like privileges on the rides they took us on (I bailed on Expedition Everest, of course), and Kilimanjaro Safaris was fun. The tour guide driver dude was a bit of a comedian, saying things like, “We’ll have to cut this two-week safari short… by about two weeks.” And honestly, though I know his driving was intentionally not the best, it kind of scared me lol. Not bad scary, like a roller coaster, but scary like if that were a highway I’d fear for the other drivers


After the tour finally ended, Marielle, Julia and I went to the Tree of Life and saw It’s Tough to Be a Bug! which was seriously cute. I gotta admit, I screamed a bit at the end when the seats rumpled (?) underneath us as the “bugs” left… wasn’t expecting that lol . Then we grabbed lunch at the Flame Tree Barbecue, Mar and Julia went on Kali River Rapids, and we went back to Epcot to experience a couple more rides. We bailed the parks at around seven, because Julia and I were suffering some unpleasantly sore feet, but Marielle being a dancer had much more stamina and could have gone a couple more hours at least, but we were all getting grouchy.


Sunday, Marielle and I hit Downtown Disney to get some last minute souvenirs, and Julia chilled by the pool. Julia had the unfortunate luck to fall asleep on her lounge chair and got badly burnt, though fortunately she had it easy compared to a couple other girls. They slathered on the SPF 110 and SPF 30, and still got sun poisoning… they were as red as Bob the tomato from Veggie Tales. It was awful, and I felt so bad for them. As our vacation drew to an end, Marielle and I sat with the others in the dining area of the hotel and talked until it was time to leave… So sad.

Of course, I was sad to be leaving but my mom was happy to have me back after four days without me lol. I changed into jeans at the Orlando airport and slipped my hoodie on during the flight back to cold and blustery Buffalo, NY. I was very tired on the bus back to my school, but of course very wide awake when my mom came to pick me up and I got to show off my souvenirs. All in all, despite not being able to get a picture with Tigger, I had a very good first trip to Disney. Definitely plan on going back soon.