More Disney World

The Grub

So, when you spend five and a half days in a theme park, you wind up eating a lot of straight up rubbish. I don't think I'll go into the details of every meal we had, but there were a couple of significant dining events along the way.

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall
Akershus is a full-service restaurant in the Norway pavilion along the World Showcase in Epcot. When my wife and I picked it, we did so because we were interested in Norwegian food, Akershus had gotten some decent reviews, and because the restaurant featured a cold buffet instead of appetizers. It was only after we'd made the reservation that we realized that eating at Akershus actually meant participating in the Princess Storybook Character Meal. Uh oh.

1. The food at Disney World is theme park food. That is to say, it mostly sucks. If you want a greasy burger with fries, what you'll get is right on par with fast food, maybe a hair better than cafeteria food. My wife and I knew this going in. We knew not to expect especially authentic Norwegian food, we also knew not to expect very delicious Norwegian food. When you plan these meals in Epcot, mostly you're doing it because a) it's very hard to get a table at a sit-down, full-service restaurant in Disney World without a reservation, b) the restaurant itself is sure to be pretty cool looking and interesting, and c) the food in Epcot is at least a little bit better than the full-on crap you get at the other parks. It's still not very good, though.
2. Character Meals are a hot-ticket item at Disney World, especially among the 12 and under set. How popular are they among adult couples with no children and virtually no interest in meeting Disney characters? Not very. But on the whole, they're actually pretty painless. See, most Disney World "characters" are like mascots: they wear big fluffy costumes, they don't speak, they have one facial expression, and they're pretty easy to ignore. Anything with the word "Princess" in it, however, has what are known as "face characters". These are basically real people with makeup and dresses on, they speak, they interact, they have a full range of facial expressions, etc. This is exactly the kind of situation my wife and I would typically avoid.

Now, what we didn't know was that this Akershus Princess Storybook what-have-you is actually a MAJOR item at Disney World, probably the second or third most popular meal in all parks and restaurants, and that the overwhelming majority of everyone . . . in fact, virtually everyone is there for the Princesses. Most people won't even notice the food. Experience has led Disney to presume that if you're attending the Akershus Princess Storybook Character meal, you are there to meet Princesses, such that you literally cannot get to your table before you've waited in line for a picture with Belle of Beauty and the Beast. Again, my wife and I were putting this knowledge together on the fly, so when we found ourselves waiting in line after we'd checked in for our table, we assumed that, like everything else in Disney World, there was just a line to get in, that was just a fact of life, even with a reservation, even after having checked in. It was only once we'd rounded a corner and were getting deeper into the restaurant that we observed that our line led into a small room with a photographer and a pretty woman in a yellow dress. I should mention that this line was not optional. It was roped off, and it was the only way into the dining room.

I'm not sure if we'd resigned ourselves to getting the damn picture, but as we got closer to the head of the line, I at least started to get a bit nervous about things. I really, really didn't want the picture, and I felt that it was appropriate to establish right off that I was there for the food, I didn't give two shits about meeting the Disney Princesses. Finally at the head of the line, my wife worked up the courage to tell the goofy guy running the show that we, in fact, preferred to skip the Princess photo. Now think about this, for a minute. We're in a restaurant with probably 200-300 other patrons, all of them families with small kids, and literally every single one of them only made the reservation so they could meet the Princesses. Most, if not all of them got up early several months in advance of their trip to Disney World so they could secure this reservation. We're literally the only adult, childless couple in the place. When my wife told the guy we wanted to skip basically the only reason to attend this event and just eat the food, which was a complete afterthought for every single other person in the whole building, I think he had some sort of brief outage in his brain. After stammering for a few seconds, he could only think to remind us that the Princess photograph was included in the dinner, as if the only possible reason for wanting to skip the photo session was the presumed cost of such a thing. He said this with such confidence that he actually kinda turned to walk away. What could we do? My wife just smiled, and told him very plainly that his reassurance actually made no difference in our decision to skip the photo.

I'm not sure he had a backup plan here. We might have been the first people ever to ask to skip the Princess photo at the outset of the PRINCESS STORYBOOK CHARACTER MEAL. He stared at us for a few moments, stammered some more, and eventually offered to open up the rope line and let us out, and we could sort of wander over in that direction and maybe tell the waiter. We did find a guy standing over near the dining room, and he looked every bit as puzzled when we explained why we were approaching him from a direction that probably no other person in the history of this restaurant had every approached him from, but eventually he did find us our table.

The rest is all pretty much the same. The food was ok enough but not special at all. The service was pretty friendly. The cold buffet had mostly recognizable, sort of American food on it. There was some smoked and pickled fish, there was a beet and apple salad, but everything else was like anything I could get at a grocery store: potato salad, macaroni salad, tuna salad, shrimp salad, cold cuts, cubes of cheese, salad, steamed shrimp. The entrees were pretty plain, I had lamb stew, my wife had something with a tough to pronounce name that tasted like Salisbury steak, with mashed potatoes and asparagus. The dessert was actually a trio: a mousse cake, a piece of coffee cheesecake, and a scoop of what they called "rice cream", which confused the hell out of every kid in the place who expected ice cream. It had no flavor, but was somewhat refreshing.

As far as the Princesses go, it turns out they're pretty well-trained as far as picking up the vibe of a table goes. Ariel stopped by first, and my wife and I sort of crammed as much food in our mouths as possible and tried to avoid looking at her. In retrospect, that probably wasn't the most mature way to handle the situation. She said hello and asked us where we'd swam from (very clever). It seems to me Alice from Alice in Wonderland came by next. First, I can't figure how Alice ended up as a Disney Princess, except that she's a girl. Second, she was very school-marmy, which did not sit well with me at all. She was friendly, but I didn't look at her even once. Next came Cinderella herself. Cinderella, you see, is a big friggin' deal in Disney World. Every goddamn kid in America wants to meet and have their picture taken with Cinderella. When Cinderella came to our table, we kinda gave her the same treatment we gave the others, which is to say we stuffed our faces and gave her the side-of-the-eye treatment. She asked my wife if I was her Prince Charming (those clever Disney Princesses), and seemed a little put off that we didn't really engage her or want a picture. The final princess was Jasmine. Jasmine was the most like a real person, she engaged us a little better, and we engaged her a little on the rebound. She asked if we flew here on our magic carpet, and when my wife answered in the affirmative, she looked a little incredulous. That was funny to me, to be honest. She asked what color it was, my wife said blue. She looked even more skeptical. She asked me what color the tassels were, and when I said gold, that clever, quick-witted Jasmine pointed out that it sounded more like we rode in on a genie than a carpet. Jasmine, of all the Princesses, came right out and asked if we wanted a picture. When we declined, she moved on. We finished our meal, threw back a second round of Carlsburgs, and got the hell out of there. $140 later, we'd had a substandard meal and avoided and offended nearly everyone in the place.

I doubt we'll do that particular dining experience a second time.

Giordano's
Giordano's, as you may know, is a Chicago-style pizza joint that delivers in and around Disney World. There are other Giordano's in other cities, but the one in Orlando (or more specifically, Lake Buena Vista) is the only one I've ever done business with. We ordered a delivery pizza from them on Wednesday for lunch, intending to make several meals out of it. Actually, my wife and I each had lunch, dinner, and breakfast the following morning from one pizza from Giordano's, so I guess we got our money's worth. As far as bang for our buck, we got a total of 6 meals out of 1 deep-dish pizza, and the tab was right around $30 with tip, so that's about $5 a meal. Not too shabby.

Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace is a really pretty restaurant inside the Magic Kingdom. I don't quite know how to describe it, actually. It looks Southern to me, it's huge, it's very, very bright and sunlit on the inside, it has super-high, almost greenhouse-like ceilings, and there are fans. I don't know, I feel like everyone has been in a place just like this, sort of regal and whimsical . . . forget it. Anyway, it's another Character Meal, but this one is Pooh and Friends. They all have costumes and so forth, so it isn't nearly as uncomfortable. Also, it's a giant breakfast buffet, so the focus is pretty heavily on the grub. Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyor circle the giant space saying hello, and then every 20-30 minutes or so there's a little game they play with the kids. My wife and I were most definitely there for the all-you-can-eat eggs and such, but we took a few pictures with the characters. After we'd eaten an insane amount of food, we found a bench in the shade near Cinderella's castle and did some people-watching. Frankly, we were both too full and too tired to do any rides, so we went back to the hotel. Later, she went to Typhoon Lagoon (a Disney water-park) with her sister and friend while I lounged around watching Sportscenter reruns and The Players Championship. You can't miss with breakfast at the Crystal Palace. First of all, there's a ton of hot food to be had. Second, it's pretty cheap by Disney standards. Third, the characters aren't very assertive, and they don't have voices. It's a winner. If I return to Disney World 25 times in my life (a real possibility), I'll probably eat breakfast at the Crystal Palace 20 times or more.

In addition to the pizza and these two full-service meals, we ate a handful of crummy burgers with fries:

1. In Hollywood Studios, at Backlot Express, my wife had a draft lite beer and I had a double bacon burger. We ended up eating here because the ABC Commissary had an impossible line. I'm not sure there's much of a difference, food-wise, between the two, but the Commissary is nearer the entrance, whereas one can hardly tell whether Backlot Express is open much of the time, due to its internal layout.
2. In The Magic Kingdom, at Pecos Bill Cafe, we each had a double bacon burger with fries, while her sister and sister's friend split a burger with fries and an order of chili-cheese fries. Pecos Bill has a pretty nice fixins bar, with sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions, pickles, nacho cheese, etc. It seems we eat at the Pecos Bill every year, possibly because it also acts as a convenient short-cut between Adventureland and Frontierland.
3. In our hotel, the Caribbean Beach Resort, at the food-court, which is located in the Port Royale building. I had a double bacon burger with fries (original, huh?), while my wife went for a meatball sub. I ended up waiting for maybe 10 minutes for my burger, which is funny, because there weren't more than a dozen guests in the whole building and not only was I the only person in line, I was the only person at the burger counter the whole time I waited.

Here's the thing about the bacon double burger: it's pretty hard to screw it up. You take a patty of meat and fry it up, you top it with a few slabs of bacon, and you're done. I've eaten all kinds of garbage burgers, so no matter how bad your particular rendition is, I probably won't be too horrified. When you're in a theme park, stick to the burgers and hot-dogs. Even pizza is a risk, in my opinion. Was it redundant? Sure, but in my mind, it's smart ordering.

There were also a couple of more interesting counter-service dining experiences worth noting:

1. The Rose and Crown Fish and Chips . . . place, in the United Kingdom pavilion in Epcot, where my wife and I ordered (what else) fish and chips. It really wasn't bad, actually. The fish was hot and crispy, and the fries were decent. I'd go back. I'm a sucker for fish and chips.
2. The Tangerine Cafe in the Morocco pavilion in Epcot, where we've eaten before. I ordered a falafel wrap, which came with some decent tabouleh and what was quite possibly the worst thing I've ever tasted; some pickled vegetables that tasted like they'd been pickled in ammonium. Seriously, I probably could have sued Disney World just for the awful taste. the wrap wasn't bad, though.

Now, in one man's opinion (mine), you can't go to Disney World without eating a lot of sweet stuff. Without question, Disney World does a much, MUCH better job with dessert items than with regular food. In fact, I'd say they do a pretty swell job, to be honest. There are a couple of can't-miss dessert places my wife and I will always hit on a trip to Disney World:

1. Next to the Main Street Bakery, there's an Edy's Ice Cream shop where you can get a pretty bitchin' sundae in a waffle bowl. They also used to serve a cookie sandwich, but it wasn't around this time through. I also don't remember it being Edy's in the past, but whatever. On our second to last night, we hit 'em up for a couple of hot fudge sundaes and ate those puppies in front of the castle.
2. In Fantasyland, Mrs. Pott's Cupboard serves up equally smokin' sundaes; specifically, an over-the-top brownie sundae and a nice strawberry shortcake sundae. The really excellent thing about Mrs. Pott's Cupboard is they use soft-serve ice-cream. I think they also have floats and cones, but all we've ever gotten are the sundaes. She got the strawberry shortcake, I got the brownie, it was money.
3. There's a candy shop on Main Street that I think is just called the Main Street Confectionery. At any rate, they've got a huge assortment of sweet stuff and a bakery counter. If memory serves, we've purchased fudge from the Confectionery every time we've ever been to Disney World. It's almost always a disappointment, but they have some really interesting flavors that are hard to turn down: lemon meringue, orange cream, butterfinger, cookies and cream, strawberry cheesecake, mint chocolate, peanut-butter chocolate, and so forth. I think we also got a couple of other sweet things in there this time. Next time, maybe we'll skip the fudge and just get some candy or something.

We also stopped in a Haagen-Dazs ice-cream shop in Downtown Disney and had a couple of ice-cream deals there, as well. I had two scoops of something in sundae form, and my wife had some sort of float deal. The service was really atrocious, so I doubt we'll go back.

The Pirate and Princess Party
This was, in my opinion, the highlight of the entire trip. In fact, the Pirate and Princess Party in Magic Kingdom was so great, I think every trip I ever plan to Disney World after this will be planned around some similar ticketed event. We had an absolute blast.

First, a bit of background: for the last however many years, Disney has been offering what are called "Extra Magic Hours" to Disney resort guests. Basically, if you stay at a Disney owned resort, which are all inside Disney World, you have the option of entering a designated park an hour or two before regular park opening and staying at another designated park several hours after regular park closing. For folks with kids, or for those who insist on hitting their favorite rides with as little a line as possible, no matter the hour, the early Extra Magic Hours can be a real benefit. Granted, you have to get to the park of the day before 8 am, but for some people, it's great. For those of us who really like the way the parks look after dark and really REALLY like to ride the spooky rides or the dark rides after dark, the evening Extra Magic Hours are really cool. The two big problems with both the early hours and the late hours, in my opinion, are: a) not everything is open during Extra Magic Hours, and b) pretty much every Disney resort guest takes advantage of the Extra Magic Hours, so the extremely high percentage of all Disney Resort guests in one park at a time more than offsets the fact that everybody staying "off world" has to go home. To put it plainly, Extra Magic Hours come with huge, huge crowds and long, long lines.

Now, a ticketed event works sort of the same, except a) only people willing to pay for tickets get to stay in the park, b) pretty much everything in the park stays open, and c) instead of just leaving the park open later for resort guests (or in this case ticket-holders), they actually just close it early for everyone else. Oh, and one more thing: the park is decorated in a completely different way, and there are all kinds of totally different activities and events that take place. It's those last two points that, essentially, make it a party; the place is decorated, and there are things going on.

The Pirate and Princess Party was born from the improvements to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. When Disney World finished adding Captain Jack, Captain Barbosa, Davey Jones, and the new effects to Pirates of the Caribbean ride, they rolled out the Pirate and Princess Party, undoubtedly as a way of ensuring that the new Pirates ride was accepted immediately and as smoothly as possible. In general, I'd written the whole deal off as sort of a crummy afterthought, an excuse for little girls to dress up in hideous princess costumes, and little boys to run around pretending to shoot each other. However, on the Disney World website, the Pirate and Princess has its own page with some links, and it looked like a pretty good time. We all got tickets, and in the end, we were pretty damn excited about it.

We got there maybe an hour or two before the start of the party, which was at 7 pm. My sister-in-law had purchased eye-patches and earrings for each of us and a tiara for herself. Her buddy also had a pirate-style bandana with Mickey ears. We thought we'd be the funny nerds in costumes; not so. Nearly every guest in the park had some sort of costume on, and many of them were so elaborate they were easily confused with Disney performers. Every Disney cast member we saw who wasn't specifically tied to one ride or another had a pirate or princess costume. The entrance to the park had a red carpet rolled out and fog was being pumped around the whole entry area. Giant pirate symbols (skull-and-crossbones, treasure chests, etc) were projected all over the place, and man-sized pylons had been scattered throughout the park with big black "X" marks on them, where guests could stop in for "treasure". Most of the treasure turned out to be bead necklaces, but at one of the Xs we were given little black pouches and some fake jewels. You get the idea.

So, we went around collecting treasure and riding all our favorite rides with exceptionally short lines. This took a few hours. At a certain point, after the sun had gone down, we split up and got dessert, which we brought back to the area immediately in front of Cinderella's castle, where we sat to eat. It was here that we witnessed the greatest fireworks display any of us have ever seen.

I have pictures of this as proof. The Castle is always lit up at night, and the colors rotate. The fireworks started with a sort of romantic, Princess-vibe: lots of bright, pretty colors; lots of twinkling lights; soft, pretty music; and projections of things like roses (from Beauty and the Beast) and bubbles (from The Little Mermaid) on the castle, while the voices of Disney characters echoed around from the PA system. At some point (shortly after a battle between Flora and Merryweather(?) from The Sleeping Beauty over the color of the castle) there was a Pirate attack, which was illuminated (literally) by seemingly blowing the castle to smithereens using pyrotechnics. It was pretty incredible. I can't fully describe it, except to say that there were many explosions, it was super loud and super bright, and one could easily have been under the impression that Disney had decided they'd had enough of Cinderella's castle. Then, oddly, Tinkerbell flew from the castle (this is carried out by dressing a cast member up in a lit-up Tinkerbell costume and riding them down a zip-line into Tomorrowland), and the forces of good won in the end. If I can figure out how to post my pictures of this, I will. It was amazing.

Apparently we missed a couple of very impressive parades before the fireworks. I think we were waiting for Mickey's PhilharMagic when they went off. At this point, I'd be willing to guarantee we'll attend the Pirate and Princess Party again someday, and we'll be sure not to miss the parades. The fireworks alone were worth the price of admission. Seeing the park lit up in a completely new, very dark and spooky way was really special, and the overall experience was a lot of fun.

So that about sums up our trip to Disney World. I'd go into more detail about our hotel, except the accommodations represent such an infinitesimally small part of our experience down there, I don't even think I'd be able to describe the hotel all that well. I don't think I missed anything else.

Disney World Recap

Let's start with the drive down:

We left Reston at about 5 am Monday morning, with my wife driving the first leg. There was virtually no traffic headed out of town, and we made pretty great time most of the way. The first important stop was in Brunswick, Georgia, for barbecue at a spot called The Georgia Pig. The back-story on The Georgia Pig is that a friend and I ate there on the way from Jacksonville to Savannah in 2005. We'd gone to Jacksonville for the ACC Championship game between Virginia Tech and Florida State, and the day after the game we hung out in Savannah. We stopped in Brunswick for food, chose the Georgia Pig, and enjoyed it. The place has sort of a run-down, lean-to vibe going for it, the inside is always full of smoke from the pit, the service is typical roadside Southern (which is to say it's efficient and polite, but never enthusiastic or especially friendly), and the barbecue was pretty damn good. In 2006, on our way to our third Disney World trip in three years, my wife and I made a point of stopping in, as she loves barbecue about as much as I do. The Georgia Pig did not disappoint, we enjoyed our food quite a bit.

This time through we were a bit underwhelmed. I think we'd been a little too excited about returning, and though The Georgia Pig is a good place, it's not truly great. In our minds, we'd probably elevated it to an unrealistic ideal, and we were thus letdown upon returning. The food was good, but only good. The ribs maybe sat a little too close to the heat. We enjoyed it, but I doubt we'll put any special effort into returning.

Somewhere past Jacksonville I found myself really wishing I'd brought a map. See, we've done this drive four times now, and I was pretty confident it was more or less a straight shot and we couldn't possibly screw it up. But maybe 45 minutes south of Jacksonville, I started thinking the stretch of road looked more desolate than I remembered, and there was a major decrease in Disney World related billboards along the highway. Also, there was no mention of Orlando on any road sign. I hate getting lost, I hate it even more when I'm anywhere south of my home. Eventually, about 25 miles north of Daytona Beach, I made my wife pull over (she'd taken over driving again for the final stretch . . . I DID MY BIT) so I could look at a map at a gas station. All was well, we were still about a half-hour short of highway 4, which heads southwest towards Orlando.

Upon arrival in Disney World, we checked into our hotel, bought tickets to the parks, and switched to a room with a better view. All told, the drive down took us about 13 hours, which was something of a disappointment for us. We'd both swear we've done it in under 12 hours, though the math doesn't quite add up and we kept a pretty good pace the whole way. At any rate, in keeping with our plans, we stopped in the room for a change of clothes and went straight to the Magic Kingdom. Here's where things went a bit off.

See, the last two years (since our last trip to Disney World) have been pretty stressful. We've purchased our first home, brought home two puppies, both of us have changed jobs, and we've opened a new business. In that time, we've taken vacations, but nothing that has the same effect of making us feel completely disassociated from our day-to-day lives like Disney World. In our minds, this trip to Disney World had taken on a different sort of value, almost like a medicating thing. Honestly, I think we both sort of thought we'd arrive in Disney World and peace and serenity would wash over us, and we'd slip immediately into vacation mode, a groove of joyful, care-free existence from the moment we touched Disney World soil. If that sounds totally wacko, it's because it is totally wacko. There is no place like that, unless there's heaven. Most of all, though, Disney World is not that place. My wife and I are friggin' experts on Disney World, and if anybody can expect to slip right in at Disney World, it's me. It just doesn't happen. A trip to Disney World is a bizarre, immersive, balls-to-the-wall assault on the senses. It just is. From the moment you enter a park, you're bombarded with stimuli far beyond anything you experience on a daily basis anywhere else in the world: huge crowds, bizarre, brightly lit structures, loud music, long lines, strange characters, impressive fireworks, stunning parades, the works. You can't just leap in there, especially not immediately after driving for 13 hours when you've spent the better part of two years expecting Disney World to cure your stress. It's too much. And it was too much that first night. We were completely disoriented, and ended up with what I could only compare to post-natal depression. We wanted to love the thing we had anticipated loving, but instead we were disassociated from it and emotionally neutral.

Without going into too much detail, it took half of the following day to get into the swing of things, but once we did, we had a great time and got exactly what we needed from the place, which was 5 plus days of great fun.

What I think I'll do from here is review every ride and attraction we experienced in Disney World, including attractions we've tried on previous visits but not this time. Also, all the food we ate.

Disney's Hollywood Studios
Generally speaking, we start our Disney World vacations at "MGM" (as I still refer to it). Why? Because it's like a toned-down Magic Kingdom, has some bitchin' rides, and is pretty small in scope and scale. Frankly, I love the place, and mostly for that last reason. There are a handful (and only a handful) of awesome attractions, and you can experience the whole deal in half a day. That's what you need at the start of a trip.

• The Great Movie Ride - I've come to love The Great Movie Ride. It has all the things I look for in a Disney World attaction: cool sets, lots of auto-animatronics, a little action, a little drama, a little terror, a little comedy, a little fantasy, interaction with the "cast", and some reference to the outside world. I'm more puzzled than ever by the general lack of interest in this ride. It loads super-quickly and seems to have something for everyone. I don't know how I might feel about The Great Movie Ride if I had to wait in line for it, but since I never have, I'll take it as I get it. B+
• The Tower of Terror - First, the bad news: I can't seem to handle this ride the way I used to. I get sick! After the third or fourth go, I'm dizzy and nauseated. To put that into perspective, the first time I went to Disney World, I rode The Tower of Terror probably 5 times in 2 days. The second time I visited, I rode it probably 10 times in 3 days. This time? Only 4 times in 5 days. And I love the ride! I love the queue area, I love the pre-show, I love the second queue, I love the build-up, I love the pay-off. And it makes me sick, literally nauseated. Still, what a ride: A
• The Rockin' Roller Coaster - I don't love The Rockin' Roller Coaster, and here's why: it lacks character. The ride itself is incredibly fast and exhilarating, with loops and corkscrews and so forth, but it isn't charming and I'm not a huge Aerosmith fan. That might be a bit strange, but I have to say the following: the thing that separates Disney World, in my mind, from other parks, is the character. I go for the little stuff, the details, the sounds, the smells, the sort of living, breathing personality of each attraction. The Rockin' Roller Coaster is a helluva thrill, but the only character it has is Aerosmith, and even that is only incidental. That said, I had a great time on this ride this time, and a big part of that was that my wife, for the first time, enjoyed it as well. In the past, she's found the experience claustrophobic and painful, in no small part because of the huge overhead restraint they lower over you right before takeoff. It holds your head in a certain place, and if that happens to be an uncomfortable position for you, you're screwed. The key, for her, was changing her posture in the seat, and relaxing her neck. After she did that, her head didn't bang around so much and she was able to focus on the ride. She enjoyed it, and I wasn't distracted by feeling sorry for her, so I enjoyed it. It still isn't great, but I had fun. Also, I need a FastPass for this ride. FastPasses allow you to skip the long line, and I won't wait in a long line for this ride. I will for lots of rides, but not this one. B+
• Muppet Vision 3-D - Full disclosure: this is one of my all-time favorite attractions at Disney World and one of my all-time favorite rides or shows at any theme park anywhere. Talk about character: this guy is loaded with details, Jim Henson characters, multi-layered experiences, the whole nine. The exterior of the attraction is brilliant, the line is cute, the pre-show is hilarious, it loads quickly, and the show itself is friggin' genius. Who doesn't love the Muppets, first of all? If you can't get excited about Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fonzy, etc., you're inhuman. Beaker is a riot in his small role and the finale is uproariously funny. Great, great, great. A
• Voyage of The Little Mermaid - We saw this show for the first time this year, in an effort to see as many of Disney World's attractions as possible. I wouldn't say it was a mistake, but I wouldn't do it again. The opening is pretty cool, with performers in full-body black carrying brightly colored fish puppets across the stage under blacklight, which has the effect of making the performers disappear, such that the fish seem to be flying, or rather swimming, if you make the leap. From there, it was downhill. The girl playing Ariel was pretty and had a good voice, but it was pretty boring to watch her sit on a rock, flapping her fish tail, singing her big number for five minutes or so. Ursula, the sea witch, was carried out by essentially rolling out a giant float/puppet with either strings or performers (on the inside) moving her arms and tentacles. The first glimpse was a bit scary, but as she wobbled around the stage, the flaws became apparent, as when she'd wave her hand and her fingers would flop around like a water balloon made out of a latex glove. There were some cool little effects here and there, such as when Ursula made Ariel into a human, and then when Tritan did it again at the end, but Eric (the prince) was hideous and overall the show was just really corny and pointless. C-
• Star Tours - This Star Wars thrill ride doesn't really do it for me. Frankly, I enjoy the queue area more than the ride itself, in no small part because of motion sickness. This is basically a motion simulator that gives you the impression that you're zipping around in space, briefly engaged in a battle with Imperial Forces. The queue has lots of little Star Wars details, but the ride itself is jerky and nauseating (if you're me). It's cute, and I have a feeling if my guts and equilibrium would hold up, I'd really enjoy it. As it is, I'm a little lukewarm about it. C+
• Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular - We skipped the Stunt Spectacular this year. Once you've seen it three times, it really wears off. Once upon a time, I really liked it. There are some cool sets, and the action is pretty neat. Plus, there's some audience participation. I'm not sure I'll see it again. I know the friggin' thing by heart now. C+
• Studio Backlot Tour - Definitely the most boring time to be had in Hollywood Studios. There's a nice little disaster scenario towards the end, but other than that, the Backlot tour is really, really boring. Slow, hot, and boring. We skipped it this year, as we will henceforth. D+
• Fantasmic! - We skipped Fantasmic! this year as well. It's a fun show, and a good way to end an evening, but you have to get to the theater a good 45 minutes to an hour before the show starts in order to get a decent seat, and then you spend an hour boiling in the sun doing the wave over and over again. After that, I doubt there's a show in the world that could keep my attention. We intended to see it again this year, but couldn't get excited about the waiting. C+

We'll talk MGM food later. On to Epcot . . .

Epcot
Epcot usually comes at the second half of our first full day in Disney World, and this trip was no exception. Seriously, you just can't go wrong with Epcot, unless you have kids. If you're in the mood for rides, they've got their share of ass-kickers. If you want food, there's plenty of it. If you want shows (why would you want shows), you're all set. If you want nerdy, cross-cultural educational experiences, this is the place. With the exception of shows, I sometimes want all of those things, so Epcot is a can't miss for me and the missus.

• Soarin' - Soarin' has to go first, and here's why: if you don't get in line immediately after entering the park, if you let any ride come before Soarin', you will probably not see Soarin' during that visit to Epcot. First, it's one of the top maybe 2 or 3 draws in all of Disney World, and second, the line moves INCREDIBLY slowly. This in the only ride I can think of where they actually have interactive games in the queue because you're standing still so damn long. Soarin' is a long-ish ride, and has a small seating capacity, and is incredibly popular and amazing, all of which makes it the most frustratingly difficult attraction to experience in all of Disney World. But, BUT, they've really done something special in the queue, something befitting of the brilliance of Soarin' itself. First, they've put giant scrolling panels of really striking, impressive impressionist art on the walls of the queue area. Then, every maybe 7 or 8 minutes, the art goes away and is replaced by a giant game the entire audience in line plays together. From what I could tell, there are several different games: the first we played involved some incredible technology that projected a giant outlined reflection of the crowd on the panel, and then across the panel little blobs of color went bouncing around, and the audience would wave their hands in the air to "hit" the blobs, and when the blobs were hit, they would splatter, and as the blobs splattered, they formed a giant photograph, or piece of art. After a few rounds of this, the scrolling art came back. The next game involved the same idea of the outlines of those standing in line being projected real-time onto the panels, then a flat horizon was put on the screen, and the audience would use the motion of their hands to augment the shape of the horizon, until they'd created mountains and valleys, and then another, closer horizon appeared, which was shaped again by the waving arms of the crowd, and then another, and another, and then seeds appeared, and by waving our hands a certain way over the seeds we could create plants and trees, until each panel had a big, beautiful, unique landscape across it. Then more art. Then, another game: this time, the audience would use the waving of their hands to control a hot-air balloon as it attempted to recover floating treasure from the clouds. Then more art. Then another game: this time, little balls of stuff rolled across an earth floor, and the audience would try to either smash them open or slap them into the next panel. The group in front of the panel with the most smashed balls won bragging rights, I guess. I had a lot of fun with these games, except someone in line ripped two putrid, suffocating farts that sent the crowd in front of our panel scurrying in a million directions, leaving our hot-air balloon to careen wildly around the screen. As for Soarin' itself, look; you can't describe this ride well enough to express how unbelievable the experience is. All that can be said is it simulates flying over California, and the experience is very realistic. Very VERY realistic. The music is beautiful, the scenery is breathtaking, this can even be a moving experience. A
• Spaceship Earth - I'm a big fan of Spaceship Earth. It's slow and relaxing, it's nerdy, and it has lots of auto-animatronics throughout. It tells the story of the evolution of human communication. Boy, doesn't that sound thrilling! It works, though, and they've added some technology that makes it interactive. Throw in narration from Judy Dench, and you've got yourself a winner. B+
• Test Track - The thing about Test Track is you get very little bang for your buck, so to speak. Here's the deal: at Disney World, wait time is like cash. The Great Movie Ride is a great value, for instance, because you get a pretty fun ride with a lot of different elements with virtually no wait at all. Test Track, on the other hand, has an incredibly slow moving line, and though the ride itself is pretty fun, there's no way it's worth that wait. Add to that that the queue area is totally obnoxious, the pre-show is a throw-away, and the ride frequently breaks down, adding additional minutes of wait time, and you can see why I'm very lukewarm towards the ride. Here's the secret: if you only go on Test Track late at night with a 10 minute or less wait, it's a pretty awesome ride. It's nerdy, it's varied, it's multi-layered, and it has an exhilarating finish. The last two times I've visited Epcot, I've only been on Test Track when there's been virtually no wait, and I've had a great time. So there. B
• Living with the Land - A slow-moving boat ride through agricultural exhibits and an experimental vegetable garden . . . now that gets the blood pumping. Seriously, I've avoided this attraction for years, mostly because it sounds like the most boring thing on Earth. We did it this year, and I can safely say I won't skip it again. I loved it. It has the auto-animatronics I love, and the experimental vegetable garden is friggin' great. You have to be the kind of person that can get interested in hydroponics and organic farming and soil preservation, but if you are, this is a great experience. I like science, I watch the nerd channels on TV, I look up crap like this on Wikipedia, this is right up my alley. I can't believe I ever skipped it, to be honest. I had a great time, I'll definitely do it again. B+
• The Circle of Life - On the one hand, I care about animals and the natural world. On the other hand, I don't much care for the Lion King, and I don't really like heavy-handed presentations. So while I applaud the sentiment behind The Circle of Life, I'd rather Disney used the energy and money behind the presentation of this show to maybe lower their own carbon footprint. That said, there was some beautiful photography in there, an uplifting message, and I do think it's important that preservation and environmentalism are discussed as often as possible. C
• The Seas with Nemo and Friends - The most accurate way to describe this is as a dark-ride, through an aquarium, with cartoon fish projected onto the aquarium glass, such that they appear to be interacting with the real fish behind them. It's a stunner. We did it twice. I don't know how they do it, but it's amazing. It seems as if Nemo, Dori, Nemo's dad, and all the other characters from Finding Nemo are swimming in a big tank with real fish, real sharks, real rays, and so forth. Pretty amazing. No thrills, ride-wise, but really fun. B+
• Turtle Talk with Crush - Crush is the "dude" turtle from Finding Nemo. Here, you sit in a theater and Crush seems to swim up to the glass wall of a giant tank in the room, where he interacts with people in the audience. Again, I don't know how they do it, but they do it. He singles out people in the audience, answers questions, asks questions, plays games . . . it's amazing. I can't imagine how this technology works. I loved it. They need to find a new seating method, because basically, all that took place was everyone piled up at the door, then the door opened, then everyone raced into the theater, and they had one soft-spoken girl trying to make sure everyone got a seat and people moved down to the far ends of the rows. It was a mess, and it took probably 10 minutes just to get everyone seated in this pretty small theater. Other than that, it was great. B+
  
• Mission: SPACE - We skipped Mission: SPACE this year. My wife gets claustrophobic, I get critically nauseated, to the point of needing to shut down for the rest of the day. They've installed a tame version of the ride for those of us that (literally) can't handle the G forces of the full ride, but that threatens my manhood. Seriously, we planned to go on it, but after getting a bit queazy on The Tower of Terror and Expedition Everest at different points of the trip, we decided against it. I'm sure I'll do it again. C+
• "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" - This was a major disappointment for me in 2006, so we skipped it this year. We go for the 3-D shows, but this was so lame I was actually angry stepping out of there. It also has no pre-show or queue area, just a big empty room you wait in until the next show starts. D+
• Maelstrom - Yeesh. Skipped this one this year too. Really wack. Like a carnival dark-ride determined to misrepresent Norway and offend Norwegians. Really crummy. D+
• Ellen's Energy Adventure - The 8 minute pre-show felt like it lasted forever, and then the ride itself is 37 minutes long. To hell with that. I'm sure it's fine, but I'm not losing 37 minutes learning about energy, not unless I'm on my couch at home. I like Ellen and all, but not that much. We bolted after the pre-show. C+
• World Showcase - There are too many pavilions (11) to go into each one in detail. Let me just say this: I love them all, except the boring as hell U.S. pavilion. The Mexico pavilion is stunning. The entire thing is indoors, inside a giant Mayan Temple replica, and once you're in there, it looks like you're outside, in Mexico, at night. There's another temple in the background, and a volcano off in the distance. There are shops and restaurants and bodegas and so forth. It's great. We ate in Norway (more on that later). We browsed in the amazing China pavilion. Germany has loads of awesome German stuff and a really fun restaurant. Italy is beautiful and has a lot of olive oil and wine and candy. Japan is huge and has a massive Japanese department store, full of fascinating stuff and friendly staff. France is beautiful, Morocco is deep and labyrinthine and fun, the U.K. has a lot of variety, and Canada is another beautiful one. They're all great. We spent the better part of a full day exploring them for the umpteenth time. It never gets old.

We'll get back to food at Epcot later. There's a story there. For now, let's talk Animal Kingdom . . .
Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom, generally speaking, is how we start our second full day at Disney World. It's huge, narrow, hot, humid, sometimes confusing, and doesn't necessarily have a lot for everyone. It has something for everyone, but not a lot for everyone. Generally, we hit up to 5 attractions at Animal Kingdom and bid it adieu. We don't generally return to Animal Kingdom, and I don't think we've ever eaten there. I don't dislike it, but I feel like Disney is still trying to figure it out.

• Expedition Everest - As with Soarin', you pretty much have no choice but to hit Expedition Everest first thing in the morning upon arriving at Animal Kingdom, unless you don't mind waiting for eternity. Our strategy is to hit the FastPass line first, then jump in the still-short standby line, then hit the FastPass line for another quick ride. I like Expedition Everest. The queue area is incredibly long, but it's packed with details and information about the Himalayas, with humorous suggestions about "the yeti" thrown in. The ride itself is very, very fast. It starts out going forwards, then shoots backwards, then forwards again, then you get attacked by the Yeti, who is monstrous and intimidating. It's fun. I think if it were a bit slower, it might be even better, especially on the final forward part. There's a specific part when you rocket back into the mountain where, if you have the presence of mind, you can look up and get a great view of the Disney version of Everest, from such an angle where it really does look immense. Still, Expedition Everest makes me dizzy. What a loser I am. Rides that I actually like make me queazy and I have to limit the number of times I ride them. B+
• Kilimanjaro Safaris - Kilimanjaro Safaris is pretty straightforward: you get on a big safari bus and ride through a nature preserve. There's a pretty weak story line that involves helping to stop poachers in the preserve, but that's really secondary to the experience of seeing animals up close in what is essentially their natural habitat. Disney has done an amazing job of recreating an African environment and constructing it in such a way that the animals have as much freedom as possible. The space is humongous and impressive. This time through, not only was our bus-driver and tour guide an awesome, quick-witted Florida guy who really enhanced the ride, but the animals themselves were out and in action. We saw probably 4 or 5 giraffes, maybe as many as 8 elephants, a shit-load of hoofed animals, hippos, rhinos, lions, primates, crocodiles, flamingos, you name it. I love this ride, and this was the best experience I've yet had on it. Definitely go in the morning. A
• Kali River Rapids - Another budget item: not worth a long line, but solid gold on a boiling hot Florida afternoon if you can catch it with a short wait. Basically this is a white-water rafting experience, with a little landscaping and some special effects. I like a good tube ride, and this is a good tube ride. If you catch it with a long line, you will wait all day. This has to be one of the slowest moving lines in the world. We caught it at a good time and loved it to death. My wife and I got pretty drenched right at the beginning, which caused her sister and her sister's traveling companion to chuckle and gloat. Minutes later, at the end of a steep drop, they got absolutely annihilated by a massive wave of rushing water, which might have been the funniest thing I've ever seen. They had zero chance, which made it even funnier when they tried to shrink down in their seats to avoid the water. This wave was probably a foot over their heads. Hilarious. I'm still laughing. B
• DINOSAUR - I really like DINOSAUR. It scares the crap out of me. First of all, it's dark as hell in there. Second of all, the dinosaurs move really quickly. Third, when they roar, they mean it. Mostly, the experience is incredibly intense and reminds me of the Haunted Forest, a favorite Halloween spot in the area. Things leap out at you from the pitch dark and don't seem to have good intentions. The ride is very jerky and violent, which adds to the overall intensity of the experience. It's not a brilliant ride, but it is unique in Disney World and is very effective. B+
• Primeval Whirl - This is the last ride in the world I should ever be riding. Basically, all it does is spin you around and around. It's a carnival ride. It has no character, no pre-show, no details. You load into a ride vehicle, strap in, and off you go on a short little coaster ride, pretty much spinning like a top the whole way. Did it make me queazy? Sure did. Did I get on it a second time, when my wife, her sister, and her sister's friend queued up a second time? Hell no. C+
• It's Tough to be a Bug! - This is another 3-D show, and I've got nothing against it. The waiting area could be a bit more interesting and a bit less claustrophobic. The show itself is funny and light, but it seems to scare the shit out of little kids, such that the theater descends into chaos very early on. Those of us who are still seated midway through the show are almost constantly making way for shrieking kids and furious parents as they storm towards the exit. If I could see this show alone, I'd probably love it. As it is, we skipped it this year. C+

We did not eat in Animal Kingdom again this year. On to The Magic Kingdom . . .

The Magic Kingdom
Let's not kid ourselves here; The Magic Kingdom is the real show at Disney World. The other parks have parking lots, the Magic Kingdom has a Transportation Center. You park at the Transportation Center, take a tram to the front of the center, then take either a monorail or a ferry to the Magic Kingdom, which is located on it's own island across a giant lagoon. You're riding a big ferry across a big body of water to a small island that has a giant castle looming in the middle. If you're in the moment, it's pretty amazing. Anyway, it goes without saying we spent more time in The Magic Kingdom than anywhere else. We had breakfast there one morning. We rode almost everything. We stayed until the wee hours. When people get warm and fuzzy reminiscing about Disney World, this is what they're thinking of. The Magic Kingdom has all the goofy magic, all the entrenched warmth, all the history, all the characters, all the good feelings you've ever had about the Disney cartoons you grew up with. Ultimately, it's that association that makes it special. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Dumbo, Pinocchio, all the way through Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Bug's Life, Mary Poppins . . . there are references to all these movies and all their characters around every corner here, and those things that don't reference those favorites are characters in themselves. Plus, the best rides are here.

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - I'm starting here because I think it's first, alphabetically, of the rides and attractions that I'm fond of. In my opinion, this is another budget item. We rode it twice, once during the day with no line, and once at night with no line. I didn't love it either time, but I really enjoyed it. It's fast, it's zippy, it's fun. There isn't a lot of character, but it rides like an old wooden coaster, and those rides have personality unto themselves. With a short line, and especially at night, I won't skip it again. B
• Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin - This ride is essentially like playing laser tag, only you're tagging auto-animatronic characters and scenery on a moving ride vehicle with Buzz Lightyear calling you to action against Evil Emperor Zurg. It's a ton of fun, it loads quickly, and you get to keep track of your score. There are no thrills, but it's a lot of fun and is even somewhat relaxing. B+
• Country Bear Jamboree - This show has tons of character, but it needs major refurbishment. Whenever someone makes fun of Disney World, this is what they're aiming for. Decrepit old auto-animatronic bears that barely work, with awful sound that you can barely distinguish, singing cute and actually pretty good folksy blue-grass. There's nothing wrong with the template, but the execution needs fine-tuning. I mean serious fine-tuning. I'm talking characters with only one working eye, here. It was mighty beat up. C
• "it's a small world" - For some spooky reason, "it's a small world" has really grown on me over the years. It's all character, and it's a little eerie. That said, there's lots of color, there's that damn song, it's plenty cute, and it loads very quickly. Something about it, I don't know . . . I like it. I can't quite explain it, but I almost wanted to get on a second time. Weird. B
• Jungle Cruise - Seriously, this is the second or third worst ride I've seen at Disney World, and I wouldn't mind at all if they got rid of it altogether. First, the line moves INCREDIBLY slowly. Second, the ride is so decrepit and hideous. Third, the people running it don't do a great job, they seem to have their friends in the boats with them from time to time, which I find off-putting. Fourth, there's a certain mean-spiritedness about it. Much of the ride is built around the ability of the boat-driver/tour guide to keep the riders interested and amused, and most of their schtick is puns and one-liners, which get very old. I couldn't decide if this was a crummy, fake-real version of Splash Mountain, which has the boats and auto-animatronic animals, only you like it, or a crummy, fake-real version of Kilimanjaro Safaris, which has the tour guides and real animals, only you like it. At any rate, I pretty much hated it and won't get back on it. I'm sure there are people who are nostalgic about Jungle Cruise, and I have no problem with that. In general, I support the notion that nostalgia alone should be enough to keep certain rides around. But I really thought Jungle Cruise was an antiquated, decrepit piece of crap with no relevance whatsoever. D-
• Mickey's PhilharMagic - Now this is a special attraction. Basically, Mickey's PhilharMagic is a 3-D theater show, in which Donald gets sucked into a musical sequence of selected scenes from more recent Disney 2-D movies (and when I say 2-D movies, I'm talking about non-Pixar movies) when he screws around with The Sorcerer's Hat. Donald, first of all, is so damn cute. Second of all, as if a 3-D presentation of favorite 2-D Disney movies wasn't enough, the screen is actually a wrap around that goes about 180 degrees around the room, making it that much more immersive. Third, the visuals are just incredible, and the music is great. They're all good Disney numbers, like "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast. I'm not sure they could improve this at all. I love it, I could see someone saying it's the best attraction in all of Disney World. I won't say it, but I'd listen to someone else saying it. A
• Peter Pan's Flight - This ride always ALWAYS has an incredible line. I'm pretty sure you could come to The Magic Kingdom at 3am on the quietest night of the year, and there'd be a 50 minute wait of friggin' termites waiting out in front. Seriously, they've got to figure out a way to load this puppy faster. Beyond that, it's a swell ride. You start off at ground level, and then you seem to go way way up in the air as you leave London, and then you descend back to ground level once you get to Neverland, and then you're done. The use of scale to change the rider's perspective is impressive, and the visuals are very well done. There are no thrills here, as I'm sure you're never actually higher than maybe 12 feet off the ground, but it's cute and fun and great-looking. I really like it. I hate the line, so we only went around once. B
• Pirates of the Caribbean - Pirates has been updated. They've added new music at times, they added a really cool effect where Davey Jones' visage is projected onto a thin veil of mist near the beginning of the ride, where he sort of dares you to enter. That's cool, really cool. Also, they've added Captain Barbosa of the Black Pearl, and most importantly, they've added Jack Sparrow throughout. Here's the thing: if, like me, you're annoyed by the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, if you think Jack Sparrow is an annoying character, and if you find the encroachment of pop-culture into things that are otherwise sentimental and nostalgic obnoxious and offensive, you might have a hard time with this change, especially if you once counted Pirates among your five favorite Disney rides. If, on the other hand, you remind yourself that Jack Sparrow, Davey Jones, and Captain Barbosa are just pirate characters like any other auto-animatronic pirate characters in Pirates of the Caribbean, that they barely speak and act just like everyone else, and that really, they'd be there whether or not you'd actually ever seen or been annoyed by the movies, then the ride is essentially the exact same ride you've always loved, plus a really groovy effect near the beginning. Honestly, my biggest problem with the new version is the new music near the beginning of the ride. The early part of the ride has always been my favorite. It's very dark, and instead of human pirates, you have pirate skeletons, stretched out dead on an underground beach (very spooky), or standing at the helm of a tattered old ship with lightning and dark clouds behind them (even spookier). It used to be silent, with just the monotonous chanting of "dead men tell no tales" echoing throughout. Now, there's this quite, sorta spooky music playing, and I'm not used to it. Maybe I'll get used to it, but I'm not used to it yet. Oh, also, they added some really cool effects towards the end, when the town is burning and the pirates are reveling, some embers and small flames that weren't there before. I still love it, but I have to get reacquainted with it. A
• Snow White's Scary Adventures - Here's what I bet: I bet they added "Scary" to the title of this ride because so many kids were having their balls scared off by the witch. Seriously, this is a scary ride. But now that it says "Scary" right in the title, it's your own damn fault if you don't like being scared. I like it. It took me a second try, after not liking it at all 2 years ago, but now I get it. The witch is friggin' scary, alright? That's how she should be. She's scary as hell in the movies, she's effing scary on the ride. I dig it. B-
• Space Mountain - Ok, now we're getting to the top dogs. Space Mountain is, simply, the shit. It's an indoor coaster, it's zippy and fun, it's done in the dark, there are stars and constellations and galaxies and astroids moving around, it's both serene and exciting, it makes you giggle, and it is it's own character. It has transcended the need for references to things outside of itself. You can't miss with this ride. It's your favorite small, zippy wooden coaster, only in the dark, indoors, with nerdy, ethereal outer-space music and stars. It's the champ. A+
• Splash Mountain - An adorable, serene little boat ride through a day in the life of Br'er Rabbit, as he looks for adventure out in the world and is reminded of the importance of home and contentedness. The music is great, the visuals are great, there are dozens and dozens of characters, several quick little drops along an otherwise slow-moving ride, and the plot is easy to follow and told in a creative way. The entire thing is indoors, with a couple of very brief exceptions, but is done in such a way that only a few points in the ride seem to be indoors, and only then because they're supposed to. This is a can't miss attraction. If you don't mind getting a little wet (or in some cases REALLY wet), this is a perfect, perfect ride. It's relaxing, and then there's a sixty foot drop at the end. I love it. This is what I think of when I think of the giggly happiness of Disney World. A+
• Stitch's Great Escape - When somebody makes a list of the all-time turds of theme park attractions, Stitch's Great Escape ought to be right at the top. First of all, Stitch is an annoying little shit, a garbage character from a stupid Disney movie. The ride itself is a carbon copy (I shit you not, it's the exact same ride) of the Alien Encounter ride that used to occupy this same space in The Magic Kingdom. Alien Encounter was, apparently, too scary (I thought it was pretty scary, but I can't imagine it being TOO scary for anybody old enough to be going on it in the first place). In Alien Encounter, you end up being locked in a seat in a pitch black circular theater while the Alien from Alien and Aliens (and so forth) moves around the room, terrifying everyone. This was done creatively, with very few visuals. Each seat in the theater has a set of speakers right behind the head rest, such that everyone in the room hears the Alien the exact same way, and it seems to come up behind every individual at the exact same moment, and breathes in your ear, and pushes that gooey little tongue-head up against your neck, etc. It was effing scary. Apparently too scary for some. What was the brilliant solution? They replaced the Alien with Stitch. I shit you not. It's still pitch dark, you're still locked in, only now, instead of threatening to slaughter you, the thing moving around the room burps in your fucking face. And to make sure you get the joke, the pipe a foul smell in your face. What a friggin' disaster. Seriously, they didn't even change the pre-show, they just painted some fresh, bright colors on the robot so it would be . . . umm . . . less scary. I hope I win some drawing that allows me to take a blowtorch to this ride. I friggin' hate Stitch's Great Escape. I want to howl at people in line, or chase them away. Kids still shriek and cry in there, and their locked in parents still can't save them. We skipped it this year, and that will always be the case until they get rid of it. F
• The Enchanted Tiki Room - Just a train wreck. Truly, a waste of space. Not hate worthy, but I can't believe there's a person on Earth that actually enjoys this piece of crap. You sit on a bench in a circular theater while a bunch of friggin' auto-animatronic birds sing some bullshit song, until Iago the annoying parakeet interrupts with some jazzed-up, pop version of the Genie's song from Aladdin. Then, some other crap. Seriously, if it weren't totally rude to barge right out of this show, if it wouldn't cast sunlight on an otherwise dark theater and piss everyone off, virtually everyone in there would be filing out. Frankly, someone ought to just start the conga line and get everyone the hell out of there. We skipped it last year, we skipped it this year. I don't demand they dump it as I do Stitch, but it sucks. D-
• The Haunted Mansion - There's only so much gushing I can do about a ride. This goddamn thing really tests that level. It's the perfect attraction. It has everything I've ever wanted in a haunted house, and now that they've spruced it up a bit, it's even better. The exterior, the queue, the pre-show, the second queue, the visuals, the sounds . . . everything. It's perfect. In the whole world, this is the king of the haunted house, the king of the dark-ride. I wouldn't change one single thing about it. It's shear discipline that I don't just ride The Haunted Mansion repeatedly from the time I set down in Disney World until the moment my wife drives me kicking and screaming to the car on our final night. If you know me, you know I go for things that are dark and spooky. Well, this is the standard for those things. A+
• The Laugh Floor Comedy Club - This show features the same amazing technology from Turtle Talk with Crush. The premise is a comedy club run by the monsters from Monsters Inc., where they gather our laughter to fuel their city. It's brilliant, and to make it even better than Turtle Talk with Crush, they've figured out the seating arrangement, it's even more interactive, and they will actually use jokes that you text in to them while you wait in line. You really have to experience things like this firsthand, but it is exactly this kind of attraction that permanently separates Disney World from other theme parks. They may get owned on the thrill ride scale, but this application of imagination and technology is completely different, and experiencing it is unlike anything you can get at another park. The Laugh Floor Comedy Club is worth the price of admission to The Magic Kingdom if you've never been, because it's the perfect microcosm of what makes Disney World so beloved to those of us that keep returning. A
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh - This is essentially the same ride as "it's a small world" and Peter Pan, in that you board a slow moving ride vehicle and go on a short, indoor trip through an auto-animatronic presentation. Only it's not really as good. Winnie the Pooh is very cute, as are Tigger, and Piglet, and especially Eeyor. But the story isn't very coherent, and it isn't as eye-catching as Peter Pan. Also, it broke down while we were riding. Also, the line is always totally absurd. My wife and I were most impressed by the use of fiber-optics to create what looked very convincingly like rain. In the future, I'll probably ride it once per visit, but only with FastPass. B-
• Tomorrowland Transit Authority - Tomorrowland Transit Authority is essentially a tram. It takes you from the Tomorrowland Transit Authority entrance to . . . well . . . the Tomorrowland Transit Authority entrance. It's like a tram to nowhere. Try, then, to explain why I love it so much. It's smooth and relaxing and private. There's no story, but there's a sort of PA announcer/narrator voice, kinda like you might hear doing promotions on a subway or something, and he introduces Tomorrowland (an area of The Magic Kingdom) as if it's a place people live and work. There's no pressure to pay attention to him, but if you do, it adds a little humor to the whole deal. Most of the ride is indoors, and all of it is covered. There are absolutely zero thrills, it doesn't even go up or down an inch, but it does briefly go through the Space Mountain building, as well as Buzz Lightyear, and has a few nerdy little scenes set up to suggest that you're traveling through a futuristic city, with robots waiting to board trains and so forth. I don't know, when you've been on your feet all day and you're hot, Tomorrowland Transit Authority kinda hits the spot. It's a ride for folks who don't want to wait in line for anything, don't want to ride a ride, but also don't want to stop riding rides. I really like it. B+

We did eat in The Magic Kingdom. We also had a totally new experience there. All that is up next.