Wednesday, 27th September, 2006
Ugh! Who in their right mind would get up at 4:00 in the morning while on vacation to get their hair fixed so they could put on their wedding clothes and go into the Magic Kingdom before it was even light just to have their pictures taken in front of the castle with no other people around? Are you kidding? Larry and I, of course.
The Magic Kingdom Photo Shoot is available only two couples who get married at Walt Disney World. WDW allows one couple per day to go into the Magic Kingdom along with a Disney photographer in the wee hours of the morning, usually around 6:00, before the park opens. The photographer takes pictures of the couple in front of the castle, inside the castle, on a balcony on the outside of the castle, and one other location. The other location is usually King Arthur’s Carousel; however, some couples have had their picture taken in front of another location such as the Haunted Mansion.
Actually, we were lucky that we got the late photo shoot time. During the busy months they actually do two photo shoots each morning, one at 5:00 and one at 6:00. Also, our photographer had called earlier in the week and rescheduled our start time to 6:30 so we actually got an even later start than usual.
That being said, 4:00am at Disney is just as painful as 4:00am any other place and so it was with no great amusement that I got out of bed so I could get a shower before Lisa Pena was due to arrive at 4:30. Lisa was unmercifully on time and as soon as she arrived Larry hastily threw on a Grand Floridian robe and scurried off to hide in the bathroom while Lisa got to work on my hair.
Oh my gosh, I was really looking forward to the photo shoot, inside the Magic Kingdom, not only because it is such a wonderful thing to be able to do, you can’t get married in the parks, well not without being a squillionaire and renting a whole park to yourselves, so this is the next best thing. But also because you get to go in the park when it is closed, and I mean really closed. Hanging around afterwards is one of my favourite things to do at Disney, but getting in there when all the night shift are doing their thing, is really, really cool, and I was really looking forward to it. But boy, getting up at 4am was pretty painful and having a make up lady come to do Robin, who seriously wanted me out of the way, wasn’t much fun either. So pretty much I hid in the toilet for the best part of an hour.
Lisa is just as cheerful at 4:30 in the morning as she is at noon and she soon had my hair and makeup looking great again. Both Larry and I managed to get ready and dressed on time and we were soon prepared to step back out in all our wedding finery. We had a small bet before we left the room as to how many people would congratulate us on our wedding this morning. Larry was sure that we’d be showered with well-wishes like we were on Monday so he opted for 20. I, however, was doubtful that there would even be very many people awake this time of morning, so I went with a much more conservative guess of 3.
I picked up my bouquet, which still looked great even two days later. Larry’s boutonnière, however, was not so fresh so we took one of the fresher roses out of my bouquet for his lapel and replaced the rose with the one out of his boutonniere.
We stepped out into the darkness of the early morning and walked to the lobby where our photographer, Mike, was waiting for us. As we entered the lobby, one of the Cast Members working at check-in was the first to congratulate us. That’s one.
Looking good for me so far!!
Mike’s van was waiting for us outside and he talked to us about his job as we drove to the Magic Kingdom. We got to drive into the park through a back secured entrance and Mike pointed out the extremely thick concrete barriers that can be raised to prevent unwanted entry by a vehicle.
Actually we are sworn to secrecy about the security information that we learnt from being in the park behind scenes. We have promised to tell no one, so I can’t actually tell you anything, but I can give you some hints, think Goofy and a Water pistol full of acid.
We entered the park by Splash Mountain and got to drive through Frontierland and Liberty Square and onto Main Street by the castle hub. We had already been warned about the crane which was situated around the castle in order to take down the current decorations. We had been assured by Disney that they would digitally remove the crane from any shots in which it appeared or we had been given the option to re-schedule the photo shoot anytime up to a year after our wedding. We had heard from other couples that had stages or cranes around the castle for their photo shoots and all said that Disney did a great job of shooting pictures so the scaffolding/rigging/staging didn’t show and that they had removed all traces from pictures in which it did appear. That, combined with the fact that it would be a pain to drag wedding clothes back to WDW at a later date, plus it wouldn’t seem as authentic as having the pictures taken during the week of the wedding, convinced us that we would go ahead and do the photo shoot even with the crane.
Our poor photographer had a bit of a hard time keeping us focused on the pictures as it was very interesting for both Larry and me to be in the Magic Kingdom at this hour. The park was considerably less “deserted” than I thought it would be. There was maintenance vehicles all up and down Main Street and workers were bustling everywhere. All the sidewalks and pavement had been hosed off and were still a bit wet in spots. Closer to the castle, a group of performers were rehearsing the new show for the castle stage. It was funny seeing all the gang—Mickey, Donald, Cinderella, etc.—without costumes and in their workout clothes as they worked on choreography.
Mickey was a little woman in a grey sweatshirt. (Do you think that I can sue Disney for not providing me with counselling, to cope with the shock of finding out that Mickey is not REAL? I think $50 million is a reasonable sum. Though I’m more than willing to settle for a free two week per annum time share in the Grand Floridian, with no maintenance fees, a limo at my disposal 24/7, a lifetime park pass, and a golden fastpass, (though I’ll probably still scam fastpasses just for the sport.)
I had worn tennis shoes to walk around the park in so as not to get my wedding shoes dirty and had brought my wedding shoes to change into for the pictures. Mike advised me to leave the wedding shoes in the car since my shoes wouldn’t show in the pictures anyway, so it was a bit surreal to be traipsing around WDW in the dark, a woman in tights onstage whom they kept referring to as “Mickey Mouse,” gardeners replacing flowers and shrubs, garden hoses and extension cords spilling out all over the sidewalks, with me in my wedding gown and tennis shoes while me, Larry and Mike all held up the train of my dress above my knees so it wouldn’t get dirty or wet.
Mike took some pictures of Larry and I both together and separate in front of the castle (with the castle lit up and changing colors in the dark) then suggested we move around behind the castle for some shots and then come back later when the sun was rising to get some pictures of the castle when it was a bit lighter.
He drove us around the hub and into Fantasyland where we went to the Carousel for some pictures of us on the horses.
This was rather fun, I had to kinda, in a suit, stand on the sticky out bit of a stirrup four feet off the ground, on one leg, and then try to look natural in the photographs, still sulking because I had a spot on my lip. (With no Karen around to put make up on for me.)
Next, we moved to the castle, through a gate and up some stairs that took us to a balcony on the back of the castle. From there, we went inside the castle for some pictures in front of the mosaics and then on further inside.
After the interior shots, we drove back around to the front of the castle where the show rehearsal seemed to be just breaking up. As we were getting in place in front of the castle again, a group of dancers who were walking up Main Street called out their congratulations and said my dress was beautiful. That’s two.
Two in an hour, not looking quite so great for my prediction now.
We finished up just as it was starting to get light. Mike drove us back out of the Magic Kingdom and back to the Grand Floridian where he dropped us off. As we made our way back to our room, we were just about to go into the Pine Key building when a grounds keeper said “Congratulations” to us. Cha-Ching. Three. My guess exactly.
Sometimes, all the forces in the universe come together in such a way that you just can’t help being a bit smug in your rightness. Larry wanted to walk really slowly from the entrance of the building to our room, hoping against hope that we’d run into someone else who would congratulate us but it was to no avail. I was victorious in the congratulations game.
Hey you don’t get the impression that Robin is gloating do you??? No me either!
Back in our room we quickly changed clothes because we had a reservation for breakfast at the Crystal Palace and were supposed to meet Paula and Wes in the lobby shortly. Once we were back in more appropriate theme park attire, we walked to the lobby, stopping to admire a wedding party that was gathering out back of the main building.
Inside the lobby, there was a group of florists working on freshening up the floral arrangements. Larry talked to one of the Cast Members working on the flowers and managed to come away with a spare rose for me—how sweet.
Paula and Wes soon arrived and we took the monorail to the MK and once again headed down Main Street to the Crystal Palace where we swanked to Paula and Wes about having been here mere hours earlier when the park was closed.
Paula’s a big fan of all the Pooh characters, so we all enjoyed breakfast at the Crystal Palace. Larry even went so far as to jealously make threatening gestures at Tigger when he and I were having our pictures made with him. I had once shown Larry a picture of me and Tigger taken at
Disneyland in California with Tigger practically crushing me in a big bear hug (tiger hug?). Larry had always teased me about having a flirtation with Tigger—a fear that only escalated after the recent accusations of Tigger’s many molestations.
After breakfast, since it was Wes and Paula’s last day at WDW, we asked Paula what park she wanted to go to. She chose MGM so we took the boat from the MK to the Grand Floridian, picked up the van, and drove to MGM.
Paula and Wes had to leave around 3:00 this afternoon in order to make their flight back home. The plan was for them to take the rental car back for us and Larry and I would just make use of Disney’s Magical Express transportation for our return flight on Saturday. Since I had rented the van for all of us to use this week, I wanted to give Paula and Wes some money to fill the van up with gas before they returned it.
As we pulled into the parking lot at MGM, I gave Paula a twenty-dollar bill for the gas. Paula wanted to be sure she didn’t accidentally spend the money so she folded the bill a couple of times and barely stuck it in the slot of the CD player—kind of like tucking it above your head in the sun visor just to keep it safe till they got to the airport.
We all watched, frozen, as the CD player kicked into life, whirred for a moment, and then sucked the twenty bucks inside. The looks on our faces must have been priceless as we sat, blinking like a bunch of cows, staring at the CD player for a moment. “I suppose hitting the ‘eject’ button isn’t going to help?” someone asked, as we finally just started laughing.
They were right. We tried ejecting the “CD.” We tried putting a real CD in and then ejecting it. We tried fishing it out with a bent paper clip, hair comb, gum wrapper, whatever; all to no avail. Larry muttered something about how now we American’s know what it’s like paying British gas prices. In the end, I just gave Paula another twenty and we shrugged it off. Live and learn.
So, with a new life lesson under our belt, we grabbed a ride on a tram and headed into MGM. First up was the Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster in the stand-by line. Larry tried to scam us some Fast Passes but decided that they were the most well-guarded Fast Passes in history. I think he even compared the CM to a Bengal Tiger. Luckily, the stand-by queue wasn’t very long (it’s not the size of the line that motivates Larry to get Fast Passes through ill-gotten gains, it’s just the fact that he can) so Paula, Larry and I (Wes isn’t a fan of the ride) were on our way in just a few minutes. Larry graciously offered to ride by himself (he queued for the first car) so Paula and I could ride together.
I must admit, I’m rather fond of queuing for the front of this line. If you ask nicely, they will let you stand behind row one, and it usually means that you miss two or three goes before it gets to be your turn, but it’s worth the wait. The launch is probably the best bit of the RnRC and, you can’t beat the anticipation of sitting at the front, and watching the lighted sign count down, then the scrreeech as you set off. (Added on a sound track of course.) The acceleration is fantastic, just remember not to put too much hair Gel on your bonce before you go on the ride, or you might look like Tintin for the rest of the day.
Next, we rode Tower of Terror twice in a row with no wait with Larry floating his bottle of water on the way down. Wes sat this one out as well and said he was going to walk down Sunset Boulevard to the Villains’ Shop to look around.
After the second ride, Larry said he was going to go and find Wes and keep him company while Paula and I opted to ride Tower of Terror one more time. This time, once we had almost reached the top of the shaft, the doors opened showing us part of the window and we dropped a few feet and abruptly stopped. The doors closed, the car rumbled a bit, and we dropped a few more feet and then….nothing. As we all sat in the dark waiting for another drop there were a few nervous titters and then…silence. And waiting. I remember thinking, “If this drops again, I think it’s going to be for real.”
There was a whimper or two from a few of the younger kids on the car and immediately all of us adults started reassuring them. “It’s okay. It’s just a glitch. They’ll have the lights on soon enough.” etc. Sure enough, after a few minutes of total darkness, the lights in the shaft came on and an announcement was made that they were having some technical issues, for us to please keep our seats and we’d be moving soon. I was pretty jazzed about being stuck on the ride and I knew that Larry would be jealous about missing out on the whole experience.
All the passengers discussed amongst ourselves whether they’d just drop us with the lights on or lower us down slowly. I was betting on the lowering us slowly option since I’m sure Disney would figure everyone would be pretty unnerved by the whole experience and they wouldn’t want to upset anyone with any sudden drops.
Soon, we were slowly lowered down the shaft with the doors open and the lights on. It was neat to see all the various effects and decorations in the light and there were several things I had never noticed before in the dark.
When we reached the bottom, we were not at the usual unloading place right outside of the gift shop. We were met by a very nice bellhop (I suppose they can be out of character when the circumstances warrant it) who apologized for the malfunction and said everyone who wanted could ride again with no wait (and on a different car, of course!).
Only two people opted out, so the CM lead the rest of us through some maintenance hallways (this, as you may recognize, is a maintenance service hallway), up an elevator (“Let’s hope this one works,” someone said), and back into the “real” basement where we got to move ahead of everyone else and be put on a new elevator.
As an aside, have I mentioned that I got an email from the guy who dubbed Rod Serling’s voice on Tower of Terror? No? Well how lax of me. He had read a comment in one of my trip reports about some food at Conversation Station in the Animal Kingdom which was labelled “Primate Maintenance Biscuits.” Thus the comment, “This, as you may recognize, is a Primate Maintenance Biscuit.” He said that when Disney was auditioning voice actors for the part, they had Rod’s widow come in and listen to the finalists and she picked him. Cool, huh?
Anyway, our new ride went off without a hitch and the entire car applauded when we landed safely at the bottom.
Since we’d been a bit longer than we’d planned, we figured the guys would be looking for us by now so we hurried down Sunset Boulevard towards the Villains shop. We shouldn’t have worried because when we got to the end of the street, we found Larry cast as the leading man in the middle of a Streetmosphere skit. We watched the end of the performance which was greeted with tumultuous applause and a barrage of cards from agents and Hollywood scouts. Or maybe it was timid applause and garbage from aging girl scouts. I forget which.
Larry told us his tale of being cast in the show and we told the guys about being stuck on the Tower of Terror. As expected they were sufficiently jealous that they missed out on our unauthorized Disney experience.
Yup being cast in the Streetmosphere show, stood in the middle of the boulevard having people laugh at you rather than with you was way better than getting to see the insides of the Tower of Terror, good deal Larry, you did well. Not!
We decided to do the Great Movie Ride where we had a gangster who should definitely not quit his day job to pursue an acting career full-time. Afterwards we went through a walk-through exhibit about the Chronicles of Narnia and then took a turn on the Backlot Tour.
It was getting close to time for Paula and Wes to leave in order to catch their flight back home so we went to Pizza Planet to get something for a late lunch before they took off. They had been able to use almost all of their
Disney Dining Plan credits except for a couple of sit-down meals and a few snacks. They gave their room keys to us in case we could use any of the leftover options today (unused options expire at midnight on the day you check-out).
After we finished eating, we walked out of the park and back to the car. Wes drove us back to the Grand Floridian where we said our good-byes before they headed off to the airport.
Hey Wes and Paula, thanks for coming to the Wedding, and thanks for helping us have a really great time, it was good to get some time to get to know you all.
After they left, it seemed eerily quiet. We had had so many guests to worry about all week long and, after the wedding, the numbers had been steadily decreasing day by day until finally here we were; just Larry and me. I think Empty Nest Syndrome must feel something like this after all your kids have gone off to college and you and your husband are left rattling around in your big, quiet house.
After waving them off into the distance and standing in the quiet for a few seconds we did what any other self-respecting couple left alone for the first time would do: went back to the room for a 15 minute power nap and then legged it off to the Animal Kingdom where they were having Late Entry for the evening. We were, after all, at Disney and there were parks to visit and rides to ride!
We hopped a bus to the Animal Kingdom and headed straight for Expedition Everest. As we waited in the queue, we noticed a CM measuring youngsters to make sure they were tall enough to ride. If the child was tall enough, the CM stamped their hand with a stamp that said “Yeti.” I asked if I could get my hand stamped as well and the CM good-naturedly obliged.
When we reached the loading platform, I showed the CM my hand stamp and remarked that I had been measured and was tall enough to ride (at 5’ 9”, there was little doubt of that). He laughed and said that, if it had been him doing the stamping, he would have stamped “Yeti” on my forehead instead of just on the back of my hand.
After our expedition was complete we went to Dinoland and took a ride on the spinney side of Primeval Hurl. After our spintastic ride with Karen and Clive, I’ve become quite fond of this ride.
Once we were off Primeval Whirl and had regained our equilibrium, we noticed that there was practically no wait for the Triceratops Spin. I had never ridden this ride (though I’ve done my share of Dumbo as a child) and it’s not normally one that I’d go on, but with no queue for a ride that is so painfully slow loading, it was a chance not to be passed up. My nephew, Michael, phoned while we were just about to get on the ride but the deafeningly loud music made it impossible to talk to him so I said I’d call him back in just a few minutes. After the short, but enjoyable ride (during which Larry controlled the height) I called Michael back and he was very jealous that we were at Animal Kingdom while he was at home taking semester tests for school.
Countdown to Extinction was our next stop where we decided to snog (A quaint UK term for “kiss.” Honestly, all the guidebooks I read said that they spoke English over there, but I think they lied.) during the picture to see if they’d still put it on display. They did and I was tempted to buy it but, when we considered that between the two photographers and one videographer on our wedding day and the Magic Kingdom Photo Shoot just this morning we probably had roughly a million pictures of us kissing this trip, we decided to let it pass.
We decided that we both wanted another ride on Expedition Everest so we walked back to Asia and queued up. There was a bit of a wait but by the time we had one go on the ride the queue had shrunk about 90% so we got right back in the queue and walked on again. Both of these rides were cool in that the lighting was so different than what you usually see on the ride during broad daylight. The first time through was right at dusk and the mountain and scenery looked amazing in the twilight. The second time was in the dark which, like most other fast rides (Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, for example) caused a heightened sense of speed.
As we walked back towards the exit we enjoyed the scenery and the water all lit up at night—something you don’t normally get to see during the AK’s normal operating hours. I would highly recommend going to a late entry at the Animal Kingdom if only to ride Everest in the evening and to enjoy being at the Animal Kingdom after dark.
As we exited the park, there was a bus to the Grand Floridian waiting so we had to run for it. Back at the Grand Floridian we quickly freshened up and changed clothes. Larry was very Miami Vice in his linen suit and coral shirt. We matched quite nicely as I had on a coral blouse and long black skirt. I mentioned this to Larry and he said that he thought “coral” was blue. I explained that, no, coral was indeed a peachy, salmon-y color. “Oh sure,” he replied. “Common coral. But not the rare BLUE coral.” *Sigh*.
I think that Robin is trying to confuse me. She has always been mortally wounded that I have a bit of a thing about Ariel. So ever since she has tried to keep me away from anything nautical or fishy. But you know, there are few things as erotic as seashell lingerie.
We took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom where we then transferred to a boat to take us to the Wilderness Lodge and to Artist’s Point for dinner.
It was almost 9:00 by the time we arrived at the restaurant so it was fairly quiet (a ten minute walk-on, Larry says) and we were seated almost immediately. For our starters, Larry chose the smoky Portobello soup while I had the selection of artisan cheeses, both of which were quite good. For the entrees I had the cedar plank salmon and I believe Larry had the grilled beef tenderloin. We were both stuffed after the entrée so our server was nice enough to box up a portion of the berry cobbler to go (though I don’t think we ever got around to eating it—the Dining Plan gives you way too much food—although we did both taste a bite of it).
Considering that we’d both been up since 4:00 this morning and that we’d had a rather busy day, we were both starting to fade fast by the end of the meal. Our server was chatting to another table of guests while we were waiting for our bill and we were both tempted to just put our heads down on the table and sleep. We finally got everything squared away however and opted on just taking a cab back to the Grand Floridian rather than having to take a bus from the Wilderness Lodge to Downtown Disney and then transferring to a bus to the Grand Floridian (the Magic Kingdom had been closed for a while after our dinner so there were no more boats running from the Wilderness Lodge—something you need to plan for if you’re going to be dining at a resort later in the evening). The whole fare plus tip was around $10 and we were so tired that it was well worth it to us.
Back at the Grand Floridian we both collapsed and slept for a full, blissful 8 hours!
We may have snogged for a second or two.
