Back from Florida

We got back from our trip to central Florida yesterday. We did not rush to get to the Disney parks for the second the doors opened. If we got there at 10:15, so be it. We hit the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood (formerly MGM). We also took a day off from parks, and slept late, went to the pool at the condos, took naps, and basically relaxed. It was nice.

Remind me never to go to Epcot again. I've decided it is too much walking for very few rides. It is mostly just displays and things to look at. Then you get to the back of the park for the World Showcase, where several countries are featured. All there is to do there is look in gift shops or eat food from those countries. Meaning, spend more money. A couple countries have a movie about themselves, but they only show them at certain times, and invariably they had just closed the doors when we arrived.

Magic Kingdom is the best of the 4 Disney parks as far as I'm concerned. Plenty of rides and always entertainment of one sort or another going on. But remind me never to go on "It's a Small World" again, unless I'm about to pass out from heat and need 15 minutes of air-conditioning. Again, just stuff to look at and not very sophisticated by Disney standards (or mine). And that song!

Finally, it was time to ride "Thunder Mountain Railroad" with our Fast Passes. We get to the front of the line, requested the front seat of the roller coaster, are in the little holding spot where the doors open and you jump into the ride, and they announce the ride is shut down indefinitely. We were incredulous! Surely this was a joke. Then the automated announcements started repeating themselves. Then a cast member said "Sorry, folks, the ride is closed," reminding me of John Candy in the movie Vacation. Suddenly it dawned on me that we had already given them our precious Fast Passes to get on the ride without an obnoxious wait! And couldn't ride! Then we got the next best thing, or maybe something better: a generic Fast Pass that got us on ANY ride at ANY park, with no specific time to show up, and no expiration for 30 days. What a gem! We saved it and essentially walked onto the "Rockin' Roller Coaster" at Hollywood. That was a sweet ride. When the guy guarding the Fast Pass lines says "oh WOW!" when he sees your generic Fast Passes, you know you've got something good! I figure he'd probably heard about them at training, but had never actually seen one. His reaction was priceless.

The kids said "Splash Mountain" had been updated with a few more drops (used to be 2 small ones, and the 1 huge one) and now has about 5-6 drops. Of course "Pirates of the Caribbean" features Captain Jack Sparrow now and after seeing the first movie, the whole ride makes sense now. Know how they sell all sorts of character hats at Disney? The Jack Sparrow hats (tri-corner hat w/ dreadlocks and beads) was quite popular, and never failed to garner a chuckle from me, especially when I aw it on a little kid who was dressed kind of preppy.

We went to the "Hall of Presidents" this time, and I haven't been to it in probably 15 years. Boy, was it anti-South! Whenever they wanted to make a point about slavery being bad (and it was, no doubt), they used a thick Southern accent in the movie. Why pick that one 4-year period of the Not-So-Civil War to highlight American history? There are many battles we've won as a united country to highlight. Then, as they did the role call of Presidents, the animatronic presidents waved or nodded. It went rather rapid-fire, but you didn't hear a peep until they called out "George W. Bush" and some of the crowd booed and hissed. In rapid response, we then clapped and cheered, which seemed to embolden other around us to do the same. How dare anyone boo?! I didn't boo for Bill Clinton, and as the schmuck got impeached, he certainly deserved it. But I would never do it out of respect for the office of President. The entire "Hall of Presidents" left a bad taste in my mouth, and I had really been looking forward to it prior to actually seeing it.

A new attraction at the MK was really cool. It was a Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, where they told jokes and collected our laughs in a tank upon which to run the city of Monstropolis. What was cool, is the cartoon characters on the screen interacted with the audience in real time. Many audience members wound up on camera to generate laughs (sort of like Letterman or Leno do, with silly captions). They would even tell jokes that you text-messaged to them while standing in line! The whole thing was very clever.