Wednesday dawned sunny, clear, and once again, hot. I got up around 8:45, downloaded yesterday's pictures to my laptop and put fresh batteries in my camera, took a quick shower, and was out the door at 9:25 on my way to Epcot.
I wanted to ride Soarin' today. It had been selling out of FastPasses early in the day for as long as I had been in town, and the stand-by line was never less than 90 minutes, so after I got through the Epcot gates (darn biometrics slowed the gates to a CRAWL!), i went straight to the Land and got a FastPass slip. At 9:52am, the FP return time was only 50 minutes away at 10:42am, which left me the perfect amount of time to get breakfast.
I went to the Electric Umbrella, an old fave of mine, and got a bagel breakfast sandwich and hash browns for breakfast.EU was only moderately busy this morning, so I had no difficulty finding a seat, and eating my meal didn't take long, so i wound up browsing MouseGear for a while until my FP time came up.
When I returned to the Land and got into the FP queue for Soarin', I looked around a bit and was somewhat disappointed with the plain-Jane decor of the queue area and the pre-ride area. Drab white walls, chain link fence... I wondered if the attraction had been forced to open before the queue area's decor was finished. I was happy to hear some familiar music playing in the queue, however; I picked out pieces from the soundtracks of both Apollo 13 and the Last Starfighter.
The pre-boarding film showcased a flight director played by actor Patrick Warburton, who is most famous for playing Putty on Sienfeld.
I was seated for my first ride on Soarin' on the rightmost of three ride vehicles, in the back row, and all the way to the right. The ride vehicles each consist of three rows of seats which lift into the air one above the other. As I was seated in the back row of the vehicle, I was on the lowest level when the vehicle elevated, placing my feet about epithet or ten feet above the floor. The front row winds up at the top, about 20 to 25 feet above the floor.
Situated in front of the ride vehicles is an enormous, round screen, somewhat similar to an Imax screen. However, where an Imax screen is only curved horizontally, the Soarin' screen is curved vertically as well, and when the ride vehicles are hoisted in front of it, they are close enough that the screen bends around them on all sides, creating an illusion of flying through the air which is only enhanced by gentle movements from the vehicles themselves.
I was impressed, and I also got a great sense of nostalgia. I had seen this type of attraction before, but not on such a scale.
When I was a kid, I made a trip to the King's Dominion amusement park, just north of Richmond, VA. King's Dominion was, at the time, a wonderful amusement park, full of exciting thrill rides, great kiddie rides, and several fairly good shows. But near the front of the park, for a brief period during the early 1980s, King's Dominion sported a small theater with a hemispherical screen that showed a wonderful flying film nearly identical to the film showed on Soarin'. The theater at King's Dominion was perhaps 1/4 the size of Soarin', and there were no ride vehicles - in fact, there were no seats, forcing visitors to sit on the floor - but because the screen was 1/4 of a sphere and the audience sat entirely inside of it, the illusion of movement was profound. I remember leaning to and fro on the floor as I watched the film, and feeling my stomach drop as the film flew past a cliff and out over open air.
On my way out, I made sure to grab another FastPass.
My next stop was the Imagination pavilion, where I saw the perennial favorite, Honey, I Shrunk The Audience. When I came out I took a few pictures of the dancing fountains, then decided to get a Mickey Bar, seeing as how the day was already shaping up to be another scorcher. I ate my Mickey Bar as I walked, took a bathroom break to wash the sticky ice cream off my hands, and walked up the path to the Wonders of Life to see if it was open. Nope. Wonders of Life has been closed except in times of peak crowds for about a year now, and there is no indication that Disney has any intention of re-opening it any time in the near future except during peak seasons.
Since I wasn't far from the front of the park, I took the opportunity to ride Spaceship Earth. I chose just the right time, because there was no line, and I walked right up to the boarding area and got into a ride vehicle.
I was greatly saddened by what greeted me as I exited the ride, however. The rides exit, which was called the AT&T Global Neighborhood, had been a showcase of AT&T's communications technology. It wasn't a great exhibit, but it was better than nothing, which is what currently greets Guests as they exit the ride: nothing. AT&T had recently canceled its sponsorship of the ride, and Disney had boarded up the Global Neighborhood and turned it into a vacant slum. It was crude and depressing; rather like seeing a boarded-up, burned-out house in the middle of a vibrant middle-class neighborhood.
By now my 1:05 FastPass time had arrived, so I made my way back to Soarin' for another ride. The FastPass line was only 10 minutes long, so I was finished by 1:30; and as I left I noticed that the FP return time was now 4:30, three hours later.
Considering the long wait, and the fact that I had already ridden Soarin' twice today, I decided against getting another FastPass. But since I had not yet eaten lunch, I decided in favor of eating lunch. I made my way to the Electric Umbrella for a burger and fries, but when I got there the place was packed and had lines almost to the doors, so I left without eating and headed into World Showcase, taking pictures along the way and mentally reviewing the various counter-service places. I made it as far as Norway, made a quick bathroom stop, and returned to China.
I had only eaten at the Lotus Blossom Cafe once before, and although the food was excellent, I had seen nothing on the menu that couldn't be found at Chinese take-out places at home. Still, I was hungry, and Chinese food sounded good, so I went back to give the place a second chance. I was happy to find that the menu was different that it had been the last time I ate at Lotus Blossom, and offered some new items. I selected a Shanghai Chicken Rice bowl with a Coke to wash it down, found myself a table as deep inside the shaded but not air-conditioned dining area as possible, and started in on my meal.
The Shanghai Chicken Rice Bowl is, of course, a bowl of spiced grilled chicken on a bed of steamed rice, with a pinch of pickled veggies added for color. I don't care for pickled veggies, but I found the Shanghai chicken, which is somewhat spicy but not enough to be fatal, to be extremely tasty. I also found the size of the bowl to be huge for the $6.95 price; I would say that this simple but tasty dish makes an excellent lunch for the value-conscious. Or, heck, for the rich guy out for a quick and filling lunch.
My one problem with lunch was the heat. It was hot. Temps today were in the upper 80s again, making it a little crazy for me to have chosen a spicy dish for lunch, but I was hungry and it sounded good when I read it on the menu board. Anyway, I was hot, so after I finished my lunch I went on to Norway and rode the nice, air-conditioned Maelstrom, then browsed the nice, air-conditioned shops in Norway and Germany. In Italy and the American Adventure I took some pictures, then I sat down in a shady spot in the American Adventure to make some trip notes.
By the time I made it the rest of the way around World Showcase and back into Future World, I was getting extremely hot and coming close to overheating, despite guzzling a whole bottle of water on the way. I tried sitting in the air-conditioned Fountainview Bakery for a while to cool down, but the cool air alone was not enough to help me recover, so I decided to head back to ASMU for a rest break.
It didn't take me long to get back to my room, and when I did the first thing I did was take a cool shower. A shower with cool water is one of the best ways to cool down on a hot day, excluding a swim. After my shower I took a nap for about an hour.
When I woke I was feeling much cooler and recharged, so I dressed and left again. My destination: Magic Kingdom.
As soon as I left my room, I noticed a change in the weather. The temperature had dropped drastically; I would guess that it was 15 degrees cooler than it had been an hour ago. The breeze had also picked up quite a bit, and the air felt like a storm was on it's way, which would not be surprising for this time of year in Orlando, particularly in such heat and humidity.
I left the ASMU lot at 6:08 and got out of my car in the Magic Kingdom lot only 12 minutes later at 6:20; this is where having a car at WDW pays off, because it's not unusual to wait far more than 12 minutes just for a bus to arrive, whereas I was at my destination in 12 minutes.
Since tonight was the night for evening Extra Magic Hour in MK, the first thing I did when I arrived at the park was to look around for places to get the EMH wristband that is needed to remain in the park after the official closing time. But I saw nobody along Main Street or in the hub handing out these wristbands, so I asked two Cast Members in the Emporium where they might be, and was told by both that the wristbands were handed out "no less than two hours" before park closing, in three locations:
From Pirates I walked to Aloha Isle, which is across from the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse in Adventurland, just before the bridge leading to the hub. Aloha Isle is home to the frozen treat universally known as a Dole Whip, although that term does not actually appear anywhere on the menu board.
I arrived about 10 minutes early for the 7:30pm meet and found MargaretJ, the organizer, already there. The rest of the group filtered in by 7:40. There was MJs son Matt and her brother Danny, Cshore and her daughter AliKat, a fellow from the Tagrel.com boards named Justin who is known by the screen name Preacherboy, and his lovely wife Stacy, and finally Rosebud and her daughter Val. This little mini-meet felt like a family reunion to me, because over the years I had met all of these terrific people several times except Justin and Stacy.
Once the whole group was assembled, we approached the counter to get our various frozen treats, but first we handed a camera over to the CM behind the counter and asked him to take a picture of our group from his perspective.
After most of us got our Dole Whips, we moved back to Main Street, because a few of the group wanted regular ice cream instead. We found a place in front of Casey's Corner and waited for the ice cream lovers to get something from the ice cream parlor across the street, and sat around talking till nearly 8:40. We finally broke up when various FP return times and restaurant Priority Seating times approached.
After leaving the group, I headed for the front of the park because I had found out, finally, that one of the places to get an Extra Magic Hour wristband was just inside the park gates, near the train station. The line was short, and I soon had a CM putting a hospital-style wristband on my arm. While going through the motions, I discussed crowds sizes with the CM; he seemed knowledgeable ad gave me a few statistics: Magic Kingdom's actual capacity is about 100,000 Guests, but that the cutoff point, i.e. the point where they stop letting people in, has always been 80,000. He also said that the cutoff point was recently lowered to 75,000, but he didn't know why. Today's crowd he estimated at about 60,000, and he expected the EMH crowd to be around 20,000.
These numbers jibe with what I have heard from other sources, although there are always a few crackpots who spout outrageous numbers and swear to them because they heard the numbers from a "reliable source", such as a janitor or a resort CM. Well, I'm not the most trusting sort, so I didn't take this CMs numbers as gospel, but having heard the same numbers from many different sources on the net, I am inclined to believe that they are in the right ballpark.
After securing my wristband, I decided to make my way back to Fantasyland to see Phil - Mickey's Philharmagic, that is. Phil is one of my new favorites in MK. On the way I had to thread my way through very heavy crowds on Main Street, which were assembling to see the Spectro Magic parade. I normally don't watch parades, but when I got to the walkway into Liberty Square, I ran into Cshore and AliKat, and wound up standing with them through the entire parade.
After the parade, the crowds seemed even thicker. I think everyone on the parade route was making their way to Main Street for the upcoming fireworks show, and I was moving against the flow on my way to see Phil. When I eventually got there, the theater wound up being only 3/4 full, and I enjoyed the show as much as I always did.
When I got out, however, I walked smack-dab into one of those little bits of Magic that often hit you unexpectedly in the middle of a trip. The MK fireworks show, Wishes, was showing as I left Phil. I have seen Wishes before, and I think it's the best fireworks show Disney has ever put on, but I have never seen it from Fantasyland. Holy Cowsills! You can't see the entire show from Fantasyland, but most of what you do see is directly above your head. The lower shells are so close that there are actually water sprayers on the roofs of the buildings back there spritzing the entire area to prevent falling embers from starting fires. And when some of the closer shells go off, Fantasyland lights up like high noon! On some of the farther shells, I counted 2 full seconds from the burst until I heard the sound; the speed of sound is roughly 1100 feet per second at sea level (it varies slightly with temperature), so the shells were about 2200 feet away, or a little less than 1/4 mile. This would place the launchers completely outside the park - while the launchers for some of the shells had to be on top of some of the buildings in Fantasyland.
Once Wishes was over, at about 10:15, I found a stone bench across from Small World and sat down to make some notes and wait for the crowds to thin out, and eventually went over to ride Haunted Mansion and take some night photos of the outside. Then I rode Pirates, staggered tiredly to Main Street, where I got a sandwich and crumb cake in the Main Street Bakery, and left the park, totally exhausted, at about 1am. I was in bed and asleep by 1:30.