Day 3 - Part 2
In our last chapter, we left off with the Glennbo family exiting the Magic Kingdom, pushing through the rope drop crowd, and letting them wonder how we had gotten inside of that glorious park before opening. We may not have spoken it, but our attitude said, "Sorry people, that's Classified information."
We made our way up to the monorail station, boarded an awaiting train and left, with Epcot as our final destination. Here are a set of pictures you’ll seldom see: the Magic Kingdom opening ceremonies, as seen from a monorail
leaving the park.
After we arrived at Epcot, Lauren volunteered to run and get our first set of fastpasses, for Test Track. She was eager to prove that that she could overcome the rookie mistake she had made at DHS, when she had attempted to get fastpasses just before the window had opened. We told her to meet us at “Sum of All Thrills” in Innoventions, but we didn’t know if it was in Innoventions East or West. We gave her a cell phone, just in case she couldn’t find us.
The rest of us made a pit stop at the restrooms that are to the left of Spaceship Earth as you enter the park. I took this picture while I waited. (This picture was taken at 9:23 am, so we did pretty well getting to Epcot early, considering we’d already been to the Magic Kingdom.)
Then we went looking for Sum of All Thrills. With a 50-50 chance at correctly guessing which Innoventions building it was in, of course we guessed wrong and had to be directed to the other building. Just after we arrived at Sum of All Thrills, Lauren appeared, with fastpasses in hand. It sure is nice to have someone else help with fastpass volunteer duty.
Now that we were all back together, we turned our attention to:
In a nutshell, Sum of All Thrills is a roller coaster simulator. You get a few minutes in front of a computer to program your ride and then you get into seats that have been placed at the end of a giant robotic arm. Like this one...
...and it moves to simulate your ride. This next picture isn’t one of our crew (you can tell by the non-red shirt), but this is what it does for one of the more thrilling segments of a ride, such as a loop. This is about the max it would do.
We were carrying a bunch of stuff (backpack full of water, camera, etc.) so Judy decided to wait with our things while the kids and I got in line. (Naturally, there were places to put your things before you got on the ride, but we didn’t know that then.) Coming here first seemed to be a good idea -- there were only a couple of people in front of us. The kids decided that I’d ride with Lauren, and Marlene and James would ride together. After getting some instruction we were turned loose to design our rides. About the only part of the instructions that sank in was that we’d only have a couple of minutes to design, and if we weren’t done we’d get the “generic” (which translated to “lame” in my mind) ride. At first, Lauren and I were having a little trouble designing. We’d put in a big hill, test it, and it would say that it was too steep. Or we’d put in a loop and upon testing it, it would say that it was too fast and would crash. The clock was ticking, warning us that we were running out of time. We finally had an “aha” on how to do it, and got a decently-thrilling coaster design done with only seconds to spare.
We got into our robotic-arm roller coaster and noticed that there was a screen so that you could see the face of your riding partner, via closed-circuit TV. So, I of course started making Chaplin-esque faces, tilting my head with a far-off stare to get Lauren to laugh. By this point in the trip, she knew exactly what I was doing and gave me a chuckle.
Eventually our ride started, and it was okay. I’m not trying to disparage the ride, but if you’re looking for a major thrill ride, this isn’t it. It could be renamed “Some of the Thrills”. You can pretty much imagine what it’s like to ride in a seat at the end of a robotic arm. While you’re sitting at your computer, close your eyes and imagine that Chewbacca walks up behind you, grabs your chair and raises it over his head. (Hopefully you’ve got 10-foot ceilings.) That’s kind of what it’s like, only minus that wet-dog smell.
So there you go. It wasn’t majorly thrilling, but I’m glad I did it.
We got off of the ride and found out that James had chickened-out and left Marlene to ride theirs by herself. She said that he was the one who insisted on putting in all of the thrill elements, but then was too afraid to ride it. Oh boy. Judy wanted to take her turn, so convinced James to ride with her with the promise to keep it tame. They got in line, and of course by this time the line had grown substantially.
Here are James and Judy going for their ride.
They enjoyed it, and James survived, but we found out after they met back up with us that Judy had to throw him into his seat and strap him in. He was going to chicken out again. It’s really not that scary James!
From there, we decided to go on Mission Space. On the way we passed the Jammitors.
Last year, Lauren and I rode both the Green and Orange versions of Mission Space and agreed that Orange was the way to go – it was just as described, “more intense”. Judy wasn’t real sure about that decision, since she doesn’t like spinning rides, but we told her that you don’t really get a spinning sensation. You can feel your face getting pulled back during the take-off and it’s harder to push the buttons when you have to perform your job on the spacecraft. It’s really cool. (Famous last words, right?)
Here’s Marlene while we were in line, standing over a red light in the floor.
Since there were 5 of us we had to split up, as the spacecraft only seat 4. James and I went with a mother and her son, and the girls and Judy went either with just 3 in their car or with a single rider. The son riding with James and I was a little nervous, so James got to act all tough and experienced since he’d been on it before. He described to him how we’d have to push buttons and different times and everything. Anyway, we had an enjoyable and successful space flight and exited our vehicle. I didn’t see Judy and the girls right away, so thought that maybe there was a different hallway for them to exit, and we walked on to the game room that you go to after the ride. Nope, they weren’t there either, so we backtracked up the hallway. We soon found Judy and the girls walking very slowly and Judy wasn’t looking so good. She had just become our second casualty of the trip. She said she knew 5 seconds into the ride, that this had been a very bad idea. We found some steps for her to sit on just before the game room. (I’m surprised they don’t have a bench or something for people to sit on outside of the ride. They have barf bags in there for Pete’s sake.) She sat there to collect herself for probably 15 or 20 minutes. A couple of times cast members came by to ask if everything was all right. I split my time between sitting with her and checking on the kids, who were playing the giant computer game.
Yes, only a picture of the computer game. I knew better than to take a picture of a green-faced, red-shirted Judy.
She knew that she’d be all right in time, but we were a little worried because we had an ADR for Biergarten, yes, a big buffet, in about an hour and a half.
Eventually she felt good enough to start walking, slowly though. As we went through the gift shop, my kids put on these space helmets and looked at me to take their picture. As I took it I was thinking, “Holy Cow! That looks exactly like Liesa’s (All7OfUs) avatar!” This was completely spontaneous and unstaged. The kids don’t even know now that this picture looks just like someone else’s.
We thought that maybe some pop at Club Cool would help calm Judy’s stomach, so walked over there. We didn’t take any pictures this year, but we watched a lot of the other people trying Beverly. One girl made a great face and she apologized to us, but I said, “Oh no, don’t apologize. You just made my day!”
As we left Future World for the World Showcase, I paused to take a picture of Spaceship Earth.
We walked to Mexico and it was almost noon. Our ADR was for 1:05, and I thought that we probably had time to go on the Mexico ride and Maelstrom before we had to get to Biergarten. Since our fastpass window was open again I decided to run ahead and get fastpasses for Maelstrom just in case there was a wait. (I know, who gets a fastpass for Maelstrom?)
Marlene took a bird picture around Mexico while they waited for me.
And I got back with our fastpasses.
Then we went into the Mexico pavilion to go on the boat ride, “The Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros”. While in line, I told the kids that the ride was kind of like a Mexican version of “It’s a Small World”. Judy reminded us that the last time we rode IASM we got stuck on it, and that had better not happen to us on this one.
Some of the scenes from the ride.
Poor Donald. “Thank you sir. May I have another?!”
And then, as we approached the exit, just as had happened on our last trip on “It’s a Small World”, the ride stopped. We sat and listened as the three caballeros repeated their spiel over and over again. I don’t remember all of it, but Donald saying “Hasta la vista!” is etched in our brains. At one point the warning about the ride being stopped came over the loudspeaker, but when they went back to the regular spiel it was just Donald saying, “..sta!” We laughed at that, but you probably had to be there. After about 5 minutes, we moved the remaining 40 feet and got off of the ride.
After the ride we watched the glassmaker a little bit.
And we looked around in the shops. There was some jewelry that Judy liked that looked like it might go with some she already had, but she wasn’t quite sure if it was the same color, so decided to hold off on buying it. Marlene spent some of her spending money on a bracelet.
Then we walked up to Norway and the wait time for Maelstrom was 30 minutes! We of course, bearing fastpasses, were able to walk right up! Oh yeah! This was our first time on this ride, ever. And apparently I didn’t take any pictures. It was okay, not a ‘must do’.
After the boat ride we still had some time before our ADR so decided to stay for the movie and learn a little something or two about Norway. We sat down and they closed the doors. "Good, let’s get this show on the road" thought I. Nothing happened. Then the doors opened and they let some more people in. They sat down and the doors closed. I said, "Okay, let ‘er rip, we’ve got time constraints". Nothing. Apparently they were having technical difficulties so we gave up on the movie and left.
Out in the gift shop the kids posed with the most photographed guy in Norway. I think Marlene is picking his nose.
Yep, she’s picking his nose. And I think it’s causing him to tighten his grip on James.
Up next: Biergarten, bathrooms, and Lost and Found
Link to next chapter
That's ok, if Judy can't figure it out from my poor description, I'm sure we'll survive. If my son gets desperate for it I can ask the gals husband again (I don't know her name, but see her husband at meetings occasionally)
She believes it to be an unfounded rumor.
Don't you love when that spontaneous, fun stuff happens?! 
