Famous!
That's right! I know it's a burden to be so well-known and -loved, but you must bear it bravely, for your fans' sake!
In the meantime, here's
Day Two, Part Two: Saturday, Dec. 6: It’s (Still) a Marshmallow World in the Winter
(A quick note about the chapter titles: “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is my favorite holiday song, because I associate it with Disney, which is indeed the most wonderful time of the year. And Regis Philbin sang “It’s a Marshmallow World in the Winter” during the 2006 Christmas parade on ABC – it’s possibly the cheesiest holiday song imaginable, but since we’re in the midst of a chapter having to do with the Christmas parade, I figure it’s apt.)
On our way out of the MK around 11:30am, the parade taping is in full swing, and we know we made the right choice to get out now. Crowds are still pouring in through the front gate, being diverted backstage past the hat store; we’d be eager to peek backstage, but we’ve already seen that area on 2005’s Keys to the Kingdom tour. We do get a shot of the platform set up for Regis and Kelly:
We watch the parade every Christmas morning; this year, we’ll be able to say we were there, and that we saw the back of Regis’s head! How exciting.
We catch the monorail to the TTC, and then to Epcot, and this is when I’m starting to really notice the wet, croupy cough people are exhibiting all around us – in elevators, on lines, in pre-shows. I caught that wet, croupy cough on our 2006 trip, and it turned into a full-blown bronchial infection that lasted weeks and required two rounds of antibitoics. I am determined not to get sick this time, and if I do, to nip it in the bud.
We reach Epcot by noon; with single-minded purpose, we hustle over to Soarin’, where we pass up the hour long wait for some 5pm Fips. Then we decide to check out Sunshine Seasons for lunch. It seems like a shame to eat on the fly at Future World in Epcot, where there’s so much great counter service in World Showcase, but we’re hungry right now – a half hour walk to one of the countries feels like too much. Fortunately, Sunshine Seasons has a lot of variety, if not a lot of ambiance – Bill grabs a chicken wrap, and I get seared tuna salad and black bean soup – and the food is good.
Another somewhat off-topic musing: At Sunshine Seasons, I see a guy who looks a little like Billy Idol, and I start thinking about my friend Cal, who died of natural causes this summer at the age of 41. Can was a bleached-and-spiked blond, arms full of tattoos, who wore a lot of leather; he’d been a street/club kid in the city before he cleaned up and became a tech guru, which is how I met him at a job back in ’96. He was also an enormous Disney fan who visited the world annually with his girlfriend, a gorgeous, surgically enhanced exotic dancer. I remember him complaining to me back in ’97 that Disney was going downhill – on his most recent visit, he said, they had stopped pressing Mickey heads into all the pats of butter. “Now they’re just regular pats of butter,” he said sadly, shaking his head. At his memorial service, there was a picture of Cal with Mickey, arms around each other’s backs. Cal’s wearing a Chernobog t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and he has the biggest grin on his face. This is how I like to think of him – with that big Disney grin – and even though it pangs me to remember that he’s gone, I’m glad to have a moment of remembrance of him happy.
After lunch, we want to go to ImageWorks in the Imagination pavilion, because my friend Georgia told me her mom sent her an unintentionally creepy video postcard from there, and so naturally I want to do the same. Unfortunately, there are a ton of people using the equipment, and I get a snippy “could you move out of the way” from someone when I lurk too close to their station, waiting for a turn. Chastised, I decide we’ll come back another time, and maybe even see Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which we haven’t seen since our first trip in 2005, when I experienced it under less-than-ideal conditions (small bladder + long pre-show = severe impatience on my part).
So we start strolling towards England, where Bill has heard they sell Flake bars, which are supposed to be super yummy. The World Showcase players are just wrapping up, and we see that two of our favorite Adventurer’s Club alumni are in the troupe – too bad we just missed them! But according to the Times guide, we can catch them in a half hour in Italy, so we grab our Flake bar (yummy, but not the end-all-be-all of yumminess), and browse a little bit in France on the way over (where I am dusted with glittery body powder, and Bill submits to some cologne sampling before we hightail it our of the parfum shop).
The Flake bar wasn’t enough yum for Bill, especially as he was forced to break off a piece for me, so he gets some cherry Kaki Gori from the stand in Japan while I commandeer some seats in Italy. By the time the show starts, we both have clown-red mouths. A young man roaming nearby had been making a lot of noise before the performance, yelling to his friends and generally making a spectacle of himself; the World Showcase Players (which, sadly, do not include any AC alumni in this iteration) draft the loud young man as the mime in their production of Romeo and Edna, which has the handy effect of shutting him up during the show so others can actually hear and enjoy it. Skillful casting on the part of the ever-resourceful improvisers of the WSP!
We know we’ll be back this way to watch the American Adventure, and we browsed Germany last night, so we don’t stop again until China, where we skip the movie (Bill’s call, not mine; I would have been happy to watch it again, as we’ve only seen it once), and spend a little time looking at the Tomb Warriors exhibit. Another reality TV call-back: the Tomb Warriors were featured in an episode of the Amazing Race. Because everything relates to reality TV!
There’s nothing in the shops we can’t find in Chinatown (and this Chinese shop doesn’t even feature bootleg Louis Vuitton handbags, the way ours do), so we mosey over to Norway and get on a fifteen-minute line for Maelstrom. We’ve never seen this ride with a line in all of our three previous trips; this line moves fast, but is clogged with a hyperactive group of young football players, all jumping on each others’ backs and sitting on the ropes and generally making a ruckus. I pray we won’t be in their boat, and the cast member who dispatches us must read this on my face, as she sends the lot of them off in a half-full boat and lets the rest of us ride peacefully in the next one. After the ride, we stay for the movie, which makes you want to go visit Norway…in the 1980s, when this thing was produced.
This giant Norwegian will crush that icebound ship and those polar bears!
We amble back to Future World, where Soarin’ is out of Fips for the day, so we pay a little visit to Club Cool, and sample the samplings. Bill actually likes Beverly, the weirdo; I’m more of a fan of the watermelon soda, though of course I have to taste them all again. Well-hydrated at last, we press on to MouseGears, one of my favorite stores in the parks.
Bill wants a groovy retro Epcot t-shirt (my groovy Epcot t-shirt inspires that reaction in people), but they don’t have his size, and while I’m assiduously browsing for gifts for all of my friends’ kids, I’m not ready to buy yet, so we leave empty-handed, and start poking around Innoventions (yet another reality TV shout-out – we call it “Interventions”). We check out a presentation of the 3D movie/quiz Storm Surge (also known as “Honey, A Hurricane Shrunk the Garage”), we watch a lively performance of the Velcro show, “What’s Your Problem,” featuring yet another Adventurer’s Club alumnus, and, though I nearly go out of my mind with impatience waiting through the looooong pre-amble for the Segway demo, we get a few seconds on Segways, which we’ll be riding at greater length later in the week. ZOMG! Segways are so much fun; I wish they were a) cheaper and b) legal for use in New York City.
Finally, it’s 5pm – where did the day go? – and time to use our Soarin’ Fips. Wow, wow, wow, do I love this ride, especially from B1, where we are lucky enough to be seated right now. My favorite scene is Malibu at sunset, when you’re skimming so fast, right over the water, and you can almost smell the suntan lotion on the surfers; Bill likes the LA freeway at night. Of course, we both love the
Disneyland ending – we can’t wait to get there, someday.
After Soarin’, we take another ride on Spaceship Earth, and program a different future for ourselves at the end; then we hang around the exhibits after the ride. I test my reaction time (not as good as I’d hoped), hand-eye coordination (okay), and sequential memory (darn good, for an old lady like me), and Bill plays a driving game. And, because we are extremely immature, we giggle at the fact that the pavilion is presented by Siemens. Not that there’s anything funny about the word Siemens!
(Please don’t ban me.)
The exhibit lets us out right by Gateway Gifts, where they have the t-shirt Bill wanted in his size, hooray! Now we can be matching Epcot dorks. I also get an Epcot pen with a geodesic dome on its cap. I am religious about writing with “Walt Disney World Resort” pens, but they don’t provide that many in the room, and when they inevitably die on me mid-year, I am left sad and bereft, so this fancy Epcot pen will come in handy. Hey, it’s a business expense!
We still have almost an hour before our ressie at Coral Reef, so we watch the fountain dance to the music for a few minutes, and then take the Nemo ride. Again, these kiddie rides take on a whole new dimension when I think about coming with my friends and their little girl; I can’t wait for this theoretical trip I keep planning. I’ve read tons of threads about bringing little ones to the parks, and what the ideal age for a first visit is, and though it’s hard to be patient, I think we’ll wait until she’s almost five to present the idea. But I just want to, like, stand over her and blow on her to make her grow faster! Just…hurry up and be five, already!
We check in at Coral Reef at about 7:45, and sit on the stone ledge outside with our pager, watching people walk up to the counter and get turned away. I feel bad for the parents with cranky kids who just want to get them fed – didn’t they get the memo that they had to be up at 6:45am exactly 180 days ago, fingers poised over the telephone keys, ready to play “Dialing for Dining Reservations” if they ever wanted to eat at a place with napkins on the table?
We’re seated at 8:05 – not bad, for an 8pm ressie – and our table is right up against the aquarium. “You’re going to make a lot of friends at this table,” predicts the young lady who seats us; in fact, she has to shoo a family kneeling on our chairs to view the tank before we can claim our seats.
These fish at our elbows are all, "You gonna eat that bread? We'll take some of that bread, if you got extra. Come on, you can always ask the waiter for more bread."
Our server is Riley, and he’s terrific – very prompt, helpful, and low-key but friendly – it’s not his fault that it takes almost twenty minutes between appetizers (super-yummy lobster soup for me, highly praised surf and turf app for Bill) and main course (mahi mahi for me, pork tenderloin for Bill, with thumbs up all around). Bill has the chocolate wave for dessert, and I sneak a bite, just to see if it lives up the hype. Yes! Quite good. If I weren’t “on a diet” (let’s just ignore the bites of Flake bar and Kaki Gori I had earlier), I’d order my very own portion.
[Wow, I am long-winded! I think I will break here and return tomorrow with Day Two, Part Three: It Remains, At Least for the Foreseeable Future, A Marshmallow World in the Winter.
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Another girlbomb trippie! Sounds like you had an amazing time- can't wait to read all about it!
