We had an elaborate schedule of park visitations set up, cross-referencing park traffic figures from various sources.
Couldn’t find the print-out, and tossed it out the window. Instead, we headed off for Epcot. And, for reasons that now escape me, we didn’t drive directly to Epcot, but drove to the Transportation Center and took the monorail to Epcot (scoping out the fallen trees in the neighboring forests as we went, courtesy of a trio of hurricanes).
Now, as it turned out, Saturdays are seen as a light-to-average day at Epcot, but it sure didn’t feel that way. Crowds, in early December, are a relative thing here at WDW, but it felt crowded.
Katherine, for her part, was most interested in going swimming. This was to be a recurring theme. Since Tuesday was the warmest day, in the low 60s, it wasn’t a wish she had frequently fulfilled.
Saturday was, fortunately, or unfortunately, our most frustrating day. We weren’t into the “swing” of the parks, and ended up spending more time running from place to place, standing in line, and dithering over what to do next, than actually doing stuff. FastPass (FP) worked against us here, as it had us doing long back-tracking to rides that we “had” to go on because we had a FP slot reserved.
WDW Tip: Be systematic. Stick to an area, clear it, and move on. Use FP judiciously, either on long lead-time rides (if you can get back to there conveniently), or on shorter lead-time ones that you’ll be in the area for. Don’t let FP drag you from Tomorrowland to Adventureland, “just because” it’s time for your ride.
We first hallooed off to the Big Ticket EPCOT Epcot items — Mission Space and Test Track.
The latter had the longest FP queue, so I grabbed those. We were on Park Hopper Plus passes, as the most convenient and least expensive per day. That sped up our arrival everywhere, and the plastic swipe cards were sturdy enough to carry around everywhere (I reserved a particular pocket in my photographer vest for them; I used the vest in lieu of having a lot of shirt and pants pockets).
Kitten was, alas, a scosh short for Mission Space. She was an easy pass for the 42″ rides, problematic for the 44″ ones, and right out for the (very few) 48″ ones. So Margie and I did the Parent Swap. She went first, while I rooted around the rear exit, past the inevitable gift shop, and into the Mission Control area. There’s a fun “race” game there with multiple consoles and two teams trying to race their ship from Mars to Earth. Kitten had little interest in that, and was much more into the Kid’s Habitrail, where she played with glee until Margie came out and I went around to the ride.
Mission Space is fun — very active movement up and down and around, and all the repeated (many, many, many) warnings about motion sickness are quite valid. Not a good post-meal ride, but an entertaining successor to the old “Mission to the Moon/Mars” rides from my Disney youth.
Not something I felt a huge yen to return to, though. Especially with the parent shuffle.
Ibises were ubiquitous around the parks and the resort. Even more so than ducks (or the occasional gulls or grebes).
The Life pavilion was closed, and Energy was busy, so we tacked across the park over to Imagination (we never did make it onto the Sea or the Land).
Imagination had been redone since I’d seen it eons ago. While it was great to see Figment, it was really more of a kiddie ride than something that could engage adults (except for references to previous Disney mad scientists). And a terrible waste of Eric Idle, too.
After the ride comes some fun sound and sight areas, along with a big presentation that flogs digital photography (by ride sponsor, Kodak). Katherine had fun in that area, bouncing onto noises, conducting orchestras with her hands, and similar revelry.
She also had the opportunity, in the gift shop, to make Her Very First Consumer Purchase.
For the past months, we’ve been using a supply of Disney Dollars (from the local Disney Store) to reward her for particularly good behavior. She’s been diligently saving them in her piggy bank (Power Puff Girls bank, actually), and had them on this trip in her belly bag in a wallet, which included her name and address and (my) cell phone number, and her room key (which, she was proud to tell everyone, was different from my room key and Mommy’s room key because, well, it was for opening the door, not for buying stuff).
So we looked around, and she decided she wanted a golden, glittery badge with Figment on it, so she gravely counted out her Disney Dollars, paid for it (I covered the sales tax), and put it on. Spiffy.
From there to the little dancing waters fountains, which delighted her. We backed into a little Figment photo encounter house by accident, and did the photo and autograph thang. Then …
… well, by then, it was time for Test Track.
Okay, Test Track is serious fun. The line queue is full of driving music (so to speak) and car test equipment areas. The video orientation is a waste of time (especially after the first time), but the actual ride — taking a car through test facilities and ultimately onto the speedway — was quite fun. We all enjoyed it.
Test Track was our first encounter at Disney with the ride photo, a regular at most amusement parks now. At some key point, a photo is taken of your car/log/bobsled/whatever, available for purchase at the end of the ride.
Now, a couple of things about this. Disney actually has a new PhotoPass program, where when the photographers at the different parks out on the streets take your photo in front of Cinderella’s Castle, or the Big Mickey Hat, or the Giant Silver Golf Ball, they swipe a card (or issue one if it’s the first time), and the photos are then electronically available to you at a shop up at the front of the park …
… or, now, online. I haven’t gone to the site yet, but supposedly all those photos will be available for 90 days. Which makes it a lot more likely that I’ll review them and, perhaps, actually buy a couple.
The exception to this photo wizardry are the ride photos. It may be that the infrastructure is already built, or maybe they think it more likely that people will choose them only Right There After The Ride, but that’s the only availability.
The other problem is that when you look at the photos up on the monitors, they are combined with this annoying cartoony frame, which looks like it’s what the final photo will look like. Bleah. In fact, it’s not (from the one we did end up getting) — you actually get a straightforward photo, no icky digital frame. Which means that folks who thought that was spiffy will feel cheated, and those who dislike it will likely not have gotten the photo in the first place.
The $12 price tag for the photo is a bit steep, too. I don’t know what sort of margin they make from that, but I suspect if it were lower, they’d sell more.
As for the Photopass thang, it’s a faboo idea. I just wish there were more photographers out there to feed into it. You can usually find them near the entrances, and near the signature landmarks, and sometimes I saw them at some of the character appearances, but it seems like Disney could definitely support quite a few more of them than were around, and in more interesting places (heck, anywhere there’s one of those “Kodak Photo Spot” signs, for starters …)
We crossed over into the World Showcase at that point, continuing our Lots More Wandering Than Viewing activities. It was getting into early afternoon, so we tried for lunch in Norway, only to find that the nice restaurant there closes for the winter. We FPed the Norway Maelstrom ride (which Katherine likes), and wandered on, getting grumpier.
WDW Tip: Remember the Norwegian Margarita Principle: A grumpy day could possibly be made better by grabbing a margarita from the lakeside Mexico stand whilst on your way to Norway. Really. Think about it.
Katherine listened to a Christmas story in Norway with me, while Margie did some gift shopping in China. Then we had a photo op with Mulan, and bought an marionette, and continued. When we reached Germany we were getting still grumpier. Margie called for dinner reservations in Italy (the best, IMO, of the World Showcase restaurants, though I’ve not been to Canada or France yet), but they and Canada and France and England were booked. She did get us in to Morocco at 8:30, which we hoped we could push to see the fireworks at 9:30. Epcot’s “Illuminations of Earth” fireworks are truly faboo.
Meantime, we decided to nab late lunch (as the crabbiness quotient increased) over in England, which was across the pond (so to speak) from us. We’d packed and brought with us a fine gorp mix, but hadn’t brought it with us, for some reason. We took the boat (it occured to us that it would have been faster to walk, a theory I proved later). We at fish and chips (and a couple of Strongbows) from the take-away booth in England (which is the best take-away food in the World Showcase), then trotted off to Norway for our ride.
FP in Norway for Maelstrom meant missing all the 25 minute queue and going directly to the front of the line, which is well worth it for that particular ride (which is, to my mind, not worth much more effort than a walk-on). Katherine enjoys the trolls, and the waterfall, and we skipped past the Norway travelogue movie at the end. Minor shopping and on we went.
By the time we got to Italy, it was getting cold(er). Our weather this week was far sunnier than the last time (during which it rained most of the trip), but temps were generally in the low 60s at best, and the going-on-sunset chill breeze across the lake was pretty cold. And, of course, this being our first day, we hadn’t thought to bring sweatshirts.
I stood in the World’s Slowest Coffee Cart Line, while Margie and Katherine took in the show with the Living Statue, which was (so I am told) very fun to see, and at which Katherine had a ball. (She went up to the statue — a lady dressed and made up all in marble white), and the statue bent down and hugged her — but wouldn’t let go. So she slipped out under her arms, which made the audience applaud. Later, she got to take a feather duster to the statue. Great fun.
Espresso, biscotti, and very, very, very hot hot chocolate was not sufficient to banish the cold. So Margie and Katherine continued on shopping, while I high-tailed it back to Mouseworks in Future World (proving that walking directly was faster than the boat) and picked up some sweatshirts. This is how we end up buying most of our sweatshirts …
WDW Tip: Bring a sweatshirt if you’re there in the evening. Really.
I met up with the my better thirds back in Japan, whose shops now feature a lot of manga and anime stuff, as well as a whole cluster of Hello Kitty. We shopped a bit more (World Showcase being a fine place to buy Christmas gifts), and then headed on to dinner — a bit early — in Morocco.
The Marakesh Restaurant in Morocco is pretty good and tasty, if more than a bit gwai lo-fied. Katherine ordered the kid’s vegie couscous, while Margie and I ordered Royal Dinners. Alas, the belly dancer and music was just wrapping up when we arrived, but dinner was tasty and fun nonetheless (and Katherine nibbled from both our plates).
It was also a long process, and just as we were arising from table, the final thunder of the fireworks show was going off. Which meant we got all of the crowd, none of the show. Alas.
We trudged off toward the exits, boarded the monorail back to the Transportation Center, got on the tram, drove back to the lodge, and crashed.
WDW Tip: Consider your departure. Taking the monorail into Epcot, despite the interesting views of the hurricane damage to the forests, was not worth the extra time it took when it was time to head back at 10 p.m. The time and effort of how you arrive may be emotionally charged, but the time and effort of how you leave is physically draining.
WDW Tip: Consider a smaller park (MGM or Animal Kingdom) for the first day, while you get your travelling legs.
Most commonly heard words from parents to kids at the Magic Kingdom: “Are you having fun?”
Most commonly heard words from parents to kids at Epcot Future World: “Well, wasn’t that interesting?”
Most commonly heard words from parents to kids at Epcot World Showcase: “Don’t touch that!”