Day One: September 26th.
When we left off, Kassidy and I had spent a lovely couple of hours relaxing by the Volcano Pool. Knowing that we had Military Salute tickets that needed to be activated by the end of the day, we hopped out of the pool and on to the resort bus to Hollywood Studios to experience the first of the World.
It takes about 20 minutes to get to DHS from the Polynesian, including a resort bus stop at the Grand Floridian resort, as all of the Magic Kingdom area resorts share a bus to DHS and Animal Kingdom.
We stepped off the bus and hurried to activate our tickets and get through the gate in order to make our 3pm lunch ressies at the Sci Fi.
(My review of the Sci Fi is included in my Dining Review entitled How Many Character Meals is Too Many?)
I made several mistakes on the first two days, and my first mistake was not checking the Times Guide when we entered the park. One of the three major things I had wanted to do was see Muppet Vision 3D. Its RIGHT ACROSS from the Sci Fi, but Kassidy wanted to actually "ride" something, and after checking my
Undercover Tourist App on my iPhone (which I found invaluable btw), I discovered that there was a 10 minute wait on the Tower of Terror. We beelined it across the park around 4:15pm, and arrived at the Tower. Super happy bonus surprise, we walked right on! No wait at all.
My 7 year old is normally timid and shy, and has never been to a theme park or ridden anything more wild than a carosel in her life. at 48 and 1/2 inches tall, she is just tall enough to ride every ride at Disney. I decided that this ride would be a good test. If she hated it, no biggie, at least she could say she tried it.
The ride ruined her for the rest of the trip. But not for the reason you might think. SHE LOVED IT. She loved it so much that she drug me back on three times in a row, each time we walked right on. We would have gone a forth, but the line started to pick up a little at that point, so we moved on.
Walking across the street, Kassidy noticed the words "Roller Coaster" and started to drag me towards the Rock and Roller Coaster. Still, I was hesitant that her newfound daredevil attitude was some strange fluke.
"But honey", I warned her, "This one flips you upside down. Are you ready for that?"
Her eyes light up. She smiles. I see the glint in her baby blues. At that moment, I knew I had created a little adrenaline monster.
She drug me on it four times. Yes. Four times. We never waited longer than just the pre-show before you board.
From this moment on, before we rode anything else for the next 5 days, she would ask me before went on any ride if it was a roller coaster. When my reply was "No", as it was often seeing as Disney has a depressing lack of thrill rides, her response was not a positive one. Her unexpected love of all things dangerous and thrilling would come back to bite me on Thursday, but I will get to that in due time.
By the time we were finished being dropped, whipped, and thrown upside down, it was close to 6pm. I was ready to sit down with some of my beloved Muppets and relax. Before heading over to the other side of the park, for some odd reason I chose to take my first look at my Times Guide to discover that Muppet Vision 3D....closed at 5:30. I was seriously disappointed, but was even more thristy and sweating like woman of ill repute in church. Luckily, a showing of Voyage of the Little Mermaid was about to begin, so we ducked into the theatre to catch the show. I was SO glad we did!
Voyage of the Little Mermaid was one of the highlights of the day. The show was really well done, and a lot of fun with the bubbles and the misting, and the gigantic Ursala. We really got into it, I cannot say enough about it. Watching my daughter bounce around trying to pop bubbles and cheer for Ariel really melted my heart. I wish the show was longer. 17 minutes was not enough.
At 6:30, we took a look at the line for Toy Story Mania, just for kicks. HA! I won't even go there. The line completely packed that entire area of the park. It wasn't worth getting any closer than the Barrel of Monkeys for a closer look. The crowd began right after the Prince Caspian attraction and people clogged the rest of the street down. Instead, we shopped around Villians In Vogue for a bit and grabbed another bottle of water before we decided to head down to grab a seat for Fantasmic, a show that I was very highly anticipating.
We entered the theatre right at the stroke of 7, and I was glad we did. The seats were half taken at that point, with certain sections roped off, and castmembers shuffling the masses to the left in an effort to fill all of the seats. I was nervous while standing at the top and peeking towards where we would be seated, still nervous as we moved down our assigned row, and then shocked as we moved down our aisle. We were five rows back, front and center. Best seats in the house, it was great. We parked ourselves on our slab and waited. And waited......and sweated....and waited.....and sweated....and complained.....and checked the time......and waited.....until finally the house lights dropped and a voice from above announced that the show was about to begin. YAY!
The show itself was everything that I had expected it would be. It was amazing, and thrilling, and slightly frightening, and exhillarating, and visually stunning. The best part though, honestly, better than the safari animals, better than Maleficent as a dragon, better than the finale, better than it all, was watching my daughter.
Kassidy is 7 going on 17. The days where she used to watch cartoons are over, now its all iCarly and Wizards of Waverly Place. She wants a cell phone and her ears pierced. (I say no to both.) So imagine my joy when my wanna-be tween is staring at the stage in awe and screams her little heart out, "Run Mickey! Run!" When he encounters the dragon. And "Fight Mickey! Fight!" When he pulls the sword from the stone. I looked at my little girl in that moment and realized that at heart, she really is still a little girl. It brought tears to my eyes, I was really, really taken aback. It was wonderful. Moments like that prove to me that Disney really is a magical place to be.
It was Robert Frost who penned the line "Nothing Gold Can Stay". And boy, was he right, because all of my elation of the entire 25 minutes of Fantasmic came to a massive, deflating halt as soon as the show ended. Leaving Fantasmic was the WORST experience of our entire week at Disney, hands down. I saw ugliness, I heard rudeness, and was a part of the mass of confusion and disorganization. The whole thing was a MESS. An absolute mess. I will never, never, never go to Fantasmic again. The only way that I would ever consider stepping foot into that show would be if they offered a separate Fantasmic Dinner Package that allowed you a separate special exit, not a special seating section. I cannot even describe the massive mess this was. This was also the only time that I can say I encountered blatantly rude and "un-Disneylike" castmembers, and BOY were they rude.
I don't even know where to begin with specifics. After the show is over, all 5000 or so people step up at the same time and attempt to leave out of one exit. The exit is essentially the same area you entered through, EXCEPT, they have roped off half of entrance, making the exit half of the size. Castmembers line the rope, attempting to direct people towards the left. The major problem with this is that people with strollers now have to pick up their stroller on the opposite side of the street from where they dropped it off. Mass confustion ensues. People are trying to head the direction they dropped theirs off at, but they are unable to get that way. The castmembers were way beyond rude to anyone approaching their rope. They were joking and making bets about how they would "take people out" for going the wrong way. There was a mass of people, all crushing against one another all trying to exit through a tiny area. A woman in a wheelchair, holding a child on her lap, rammed me repeatedly in the ankles with her chair trying to make me move either out of her way, or faster. (I was physically unable to do either due to the number of people.) It was RIDICULOUS. It took close to 45 minutes to leave the park, and then another 15 for the resort bus to come so that we could all jam on like sardines for the 20 minute ride back to the hotel. Never again will I do Fantasmic. I'm glad I saw it, it was a great show, but I will never subject myself or my child to that exit experience ever again. Its just not worth it.
We arrived back at the Polynesian exhausted and ready to collapse in our soft, fluffy beds in preparation for hitting the ground running at Epcot in the morning! Sleep was a very, very good thing.
Next up...Sweating Around the World Showcase
