Earl of Sandwich really is amazing. Just very filling, you should try them out one day Marc.
September 2nd - Let the Magic begin
After our first day being uber long and actually having a rather late night too we decided to get up rather late and just take our time. I think the first thing we did once we left our room was keep taking note how ridiculous the heat was. The second thing we did was go to the fast food desk at the hotel to get our complimentary refillable drinks capsules. They were pretty cool and very good at keeping in liquid (take note Merlin!). So we filled our cups up and headed to the bus stop to catch the next bus to the Magic Kingdom. On our route to the park we actually went past the place they were storing the Seven Dwarves coaster track (you know that famous pic that was everywhere), was pretty cool going past it each time we went to MK.
The bus journey didn't actually take us that long, about 15-20 minutes. We decided to just stroll up Main Street USA and see what we wanted to do once we got to the main hub area. It felt quite busy and when we looked at the queuetime board it slightly confirmed this. The area with the shortest queues was Adventureland so we opted to go there and work our way around the park in a clockwise fashion.
So off to Adventureland we went. It was weird going into this area first because I'm so used to the layout in Paris, the design and look of it was also very different. It was weird seeing so many buildings in Adventureland and you could barely see the Family Robinson Treehouse from the main pathway, just felt odd but kinda cool. I've been curious about the Jungle Cruise ride for a long time now so asked if we could do that as we were coming up to it. Barely anyone else was waiting for it too (about enough to fill the next boat or so) which helped us make the decision. The heat was killing me too so I just wanted to sit down for a bit lol.
I quite liked the Jungle Cruise. It's a bit of a weird ride in that it solely relies on the cast member being awesome. Our guide kept telling very bad jokes, most of which I think went over Patrick's head but I found it all quite amusing. Overall it's a nice little attraction and most of the effects looked like they were working.
The Tiki Room, Patrick kept wanting to just walk past it, don't worry, we finally went in near the end of the trip
We still hadn't eaten anything so we took the decision to seek food before the mad rush. On our way to find food we walked past Pirates of the Caribbean, opposite was the Pirate Tutorial show which was ok, attracted quite a decent crowd. Moving on we finally sought out food in Tortuga Tavern, a fast food restaurant that did Mexican food. I got a burrito which had a decent amount of chicken, beans and rice in and then you're able to go over to a fillings table and fill to your hearts content. I'm always a bad judge with these things and maybe added a little too much. So I wasn't able to close up the wrap in the traditional way and I made a right mess but I don't care, it was absolutely nom. Oh and we were given humongous soft drinks, we had a little bit and then filled our hotel cups with the left over, of which there was plenty. Fantastic, now we can make it last longer. It also came with a dessert, we both went for gelato which stands for European Ice Cream, not real Gelato, still it was nice and cooling. Oh yeah -1 Quick Service Meal credit.
Patrick's food
So after filling up on lots of awesome food we headed slightly back for Pirates. Ok, so this confused me, before you even enter the building the queue splits into two and each side gets a slightly different route to the station. We entered in via the right hand side which turned out to be the longer queue of the two, oh well. Well, I say that but it was still only a good 15 min wait. We were getting close to the loading dock when the ride decided to break down. It took forever to deal with whatever the problem was and it felt like once they did fix the problem they made sure they sent every boat round empty before loading again. This was such an epic fail and was very random.
Anyway we were finally on (no idea how long we waited in the end) and off on our little journey. Right from the off I was a little confused with the layout. The steam effect with the projection of Davy Jones was very random however I thought the Barbosa and Sparrow additions worked really well within this version of the ride. The cannon blast effect worked really well too which was cool.
So what's better, Paris or Orlando? Paris hands down, from the epicly themed queueline to the sheer scale of the attraction. I'm still not sure if the film update would work in Paris, part of me hopes it doesn't turn up.
We then went into Frontierland up the ridiculous dead-end to Big Thunder Mountain. It had a fairly long wait, as did Splash Mountain so we grabbed a fastpass ticket for BTM. I don't think we had much of a wait so we just waited around until it was time. We then got on rather quickly which was nice. I wasn't sure how this was going to compare to the one in Paris and it had only recently come out of a massive refurbishment too. I really enjoyed it, very good fun. The random twisty track bit where they take the photo is very odd but I kinda loved it. It was all in fantastic condition and the coaster was super-smooth. I still loathe the ridiculous sound effects on the lift hills, they really aggravate my hearing, I was so sad when I heard it for the first time on this version too.
So we came off very happy guests and we wandered over to Splash to get a fast pass for that too. There was quite a long wait for this fast pass return so we headed over to Liberty Square for the Hall of Presidents but we'd just missed a performance so we had to wait 20 minutes or so. Hmm, after a little bit of "wtf do we do now?" we finally entered Fantasyland (which just looks awful) and entered the queue for It's a Small World. It was quite a long queue but as with these rides the queue moves quickly.
I kinda liked that each continent was in it's own room but there were so many random scenes and I'm not sure what it was but I weirdly prefer the Paris version (the exterior is definitely superior).
Eww
So after It's a Small World we headed back into Liberty Square to check on Hall of Presidents. Turns out that we had missed the next one too but it wasn't much of a wait for the next one. We had a little browse in the nearby shops including the Christmas shop. When we went to actually go and see Hall Of Presidents we clicked that there wasn't much of a wait until the parade. Also turns out that the show in front of the castle was about to start. We rushed over to there to catch the show which was alright.
After the show we decided to grab a good spot on Main Street for the parade. The parade was preceded by the Philharmonic band which was cool.
The parade itself was rather random but as with all Disney parades, it's generally quite fun.
So that was over and we went over to the Hall of Presidents again. This time we only had a few minutes to wait so we finally timed it right. It was quite an interesting show. The Lincoln animatronic is incredible and I can see why he's popular. Obama really doesn't look like Obama though, even from a distance it looks nothing like him, silly Disney. I loved how all the presidents would slightly move throughout the entirety of it, as if they were real people. I saw one pat the one next to him on the back after he was mentioned, I thought that was amazing, just that level of detail and care when probably 1 in 50 people notice it <3 So yeah, lots of American history yadda yadda but still cool what they can do with some amazing animatronics. OH and some peeps got a little political with whoops and boos when certain peeps were mentioned - lol.
It was then finally time for our journey down Splash Mountain. It's weird seeing a log flume but with such a wide boat and proper seating, still it was comfortable and cool. I absolutely fell in love with this ride, it's just so epic, the detail of theming is fantastic and just how many drops does it have? So many animatronics too and just, wow, love it. There were clearly a few effects that weren't working but overall it didn't detract from the ride and I can see why it's so raved about.
We decided to walk back to Fantasyland to check out the new Circus area. The Dumbos had quite a queue so we didn't bother with that but I wanted a go on Barnstormer. This was after we spent a little bit of time going 'I want to cool down in the Casey Jr water thing but I don't want to get too wet'. We ended up standing next to the front of the train as we hadn't seen any effects at that end and then he just went 'boom' and we got fairly moist lol. We spent a little bit of time of running under the shoots of water and that, such big kids lol. Overall it's a really nice little area and it compliments the train station really well. Kids were absolutely loving it (not surprised, it was so bloomin' hot) but it's a shame that because of their actions a fence has been put up around the front bit of the train.
So yeah, cred. Barnstormer actually had quite a queue but we didn't really care too much about that so we joined the back and awaited our turn on this Vemoka family coaster. For starters, I really love all the theming in the area, some of it is quite subtle but overall it's just fun and I really liked it. The coaster was your generic Vekoma rollerskater (or whatever they call them). So it's fun, shame there isn't a whole load of theming around the coaster itself but it's still fun. Oh and how long is that exit path? It's ridiculous.
I'm not 100% on the order of things to be honest but I think we popped into Tomorrowland and we randomly rode Carousel of Progress. This attraction, which may be a little outdated, was very fun and that song, gawd that really does imprint itself into your head doesn't it?
Next up was Stitch's Great Escape which had no wait. It's quite good fun if a little scary at times but that Stitch animatronic is amazing and I want it.
I think we were running out of time because of our dinner reservation so we just headed over to Liberty Square to wait for our reservation. Our dinner reservation was at the Liberty Tree Tavern. I think it looks great from the outside and the entrance hall is fantastic. We had apparently booked a popular time as there were lots of families waiting for tables.
After a little bit of a wait we were called up and taken to our table. All the seating areas were quite small and had quite a homely feel to them, I liked it, created a nice atmosphere. The dinner option is that they basically come out and place a family roast style buffet on your table. It gets a little cramped but we really liked it. The food they give you is really good and OMFG honey butter *drools*, who knew butter could get any better. Our amazing waitress was shocked when we said we couldn't deal with any more food but we still had desert to go. Wow, I think it was like an apple crumble thing and it was amazing. -1 Table service credit
After we had finished our epic meal it was already dark out which meant it was nearly time for the night entertainment. We went to the bottom of Main Street USA for the Main Street Electrical Parade. Turns out we managed to get a great spot, it was right outside the gate where the parade came from and there was no one in front of us. I really didn't like the huge spotlights they turned on at the top of the buildings, they were just a bit too bright, it was fantastic at ruining photos.
Getting ready for Halloween <3
It was then time for the parade. I love the music for this parade and have done for many years. Overall it's really fun, if random at times and it's clearly been updated within the last couple of years with projected faces on characters and that. I was really shocked by the use of characters actually live talking to the crowd from atop of floats, was cool.
we lol'd
He was talking to everyone - da ****?
It was then time for [strike]Dreams[/strike] The Magic, The Memories and You. A random projection show on the castle where they show random pics taken on that day, however unless you're right in front of the castle you can't actually see any of the pictures properly, all very random and pointless. The random scenes were clearly cut outs from tests for Dreams at Paris which was quite amusing. However with the poor projection system used it just looked a bit odd and some of the mapping on the castle was very off. That was actually the last night of that show too, they're changing it into something slightly different so it'll be interesting to see what they do.
TronCastle
So after that random show it was time for Wishes. It was alright, nice to hear that main song again as it reminds me of my first time at Paris.
So the park was now closed but we were Disney hotel guests and there was Extra Magic Hours to be had, hurrah. I think the first ride we went on was Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. There was no queue, we approved of this. Patrick didn't approve of the ride though, I agreed that the Paris version was better but I still enjoyed it, I do like shooter attractions despite their flaws. I think I beat Patrick by quite a bit which resulted in him moaning about the trigger not working properly.
Next up was Space Mountain. It actually wasn't walk on, there was probably a 20 minute wait. This is obviously when we found the interactive games in the queue, so addictive, you end up not wanting the queue to move on, so much fun to be had. I think they were closing off one of the coasters so they were sending everyone to the left hand side. Finally on and sitting in the very odd coaster train. Quite a comfy seat but it's such a hassle get in and out of. There are some moments I really loved, like the random tunnel at the start with all the light and sound effects and the helix of doom with the whizzing noise. It's very good fun but I do prefer the Paris version, not like you can really compare them though as they are completely different.
The uber long exit out of the attraction seems like a big joke though, takes about 10 minutes just to exit. Just what were they thinking when they designed it?
We then randomly decided to ride the People Mover. Such a random attraction. Not a lot to really say about it either really.
So after the People Mover we decided to head back over to Liberty Square for Haunted Mansion. It was basically walk on but we decided to venture through the interactive graveyard anyway. I think we missed some of the elements of the new graveyard but the bookshelf was fun, quite easily amused. The Madame Leota gravestone next to the building entrance is amazingly creepy, I thought it was me seeing things at first but after just staring at it for ages and saw it proper move I was like holy cow that's amazing.
So, anyway on to the actual attraction. First things first, it's nice to have the audio in English so I can understand what's going on. Not like there's much of a storyline to the attraction. I didn't get why there was a really cramped narrow queue alongside the conveyor belt/loading area, felt unnecessary. Still, the ride is quite fun, I'm not sure story wise how we're meant to magic from the top of the building to the graveyard though. Meh. The updated effects were fantastic, floating Leota and the different effects in the mirror were just excellent and I'd love Paris to get them.
Btw I prefer the Paris version, it just works with the whole Frontierland story so much better and that.
We decided to end our day with another ride on Big Thunder Mountain. It was also walk on. Loved it even more in the dark, great fun was had and so we went round again, awesome.
It was very late, about 12:45 or something and we were uber tired by this point. So off to the bus to get back to the hotel room. And that was that. A great first full day in a park. The crowds weren't too bad and it would also be the busiest we'd see the park throughout our entire trip. There are some aspects which I really like about the Florida park but I think the attention to detail in the architecture and overall design of the park among other things make me prefer Paris.
Thanks for reading. Coming soon - O! Canada and the nightmares of Ellen
