0 WillCAD OnLine - WDW Trip Report 2005: Friday May 20, 2005

Friday May 20, 2005

Magical beginnings

After going to bed so late last night, I fully expected to need to sleep pretty late this morning, but surprisingly I was wide awake and ready get going at 7:30am, so I got up, showered, dressed, and went to the ASMU food court for breakfast (taking my refillable mug from a previous trip). Breakfast, I found, was as good as I remembered from the ASMU food court, allaying the fears I harbored that quality in my favorite counter-service place may have dropped since my last visit there, as it had at so many places in WDW.

After breakfast I walked back to my room to rinse and drop off my mug, and also called the Maintenance line from my room phone to report the leaky toilet, and paused to write a few notes. Then it was off to the Magic Kingdom.

Magic Kingdom is my least favorite of the four WDW theme parks. This is, of course, at odds with the millions who think Walt Disney World IS the Magic Kingdom, and all that other stuff (you know, the other three theme parks, two water parks, 24 resorts, 5 championship golf courses, a huge sports complex, and a shopping center twice the size of any shopping mall in Orlando) is just kinda, you know, extra, like those extra screws you always seem to wind up with when you put together a Sauder bookshelf. Well, center of the Universe or not, the Magic Kingdom has a heavier concentration of kiddie rides and attractions than the other 3 parks, not to mention the fact that it is always far more crowded than the others, all of which adds up to make it my least fave of the four. But that doesn't mean I don't like it, I just like the others better.

Technology is our friend... sometimes

After leaving my Grand Am in the giant MK lot, and carefully noting where I parked, I took a tram to the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC), where Disney was continuing a recent practice of checking park passes before Guests were allowed to proceed to the monorail and ferryboat stations. I also noticed something new in front of the TTC ticket windows: automated ticket vending machines. This must have been a test program, as there were only four of the machines under a temporary awning, and they had several Cast Members watching over them to explain them to Guests. Since I already had my park pass, a Standard Annual Pass that I had purchased in December 2004, I didn't need the machines, but it was nice to make note of the fact that Disney is embracing a little automation in an attempt to make waits shorter and lines move faster.

I boarded the ferryboat Admiral Joe Fowler without delay, and after a few minutes to get all the Guests aboard, we were off on the 5-minute sail to the park. On the way I put sunblock on my arms, legs, face, neck, and ears rather thickly; the day was already shaping up to be a scorcher, and I could feel the sun pounding down on me. I use Coppertone SPF 50 sunblock; no sense buying clear sunglasses, a privacy fence made of Plexiglas, or sunblock below SPF45. I want to protect myself, not roast myself to a nice golden brown like a rotisserie chicken. Melanoma ain't pretty, folks.

When I got to the park gates, I was dismayed to see that, even at 10am, a full hour after park opening, there were still long lines at the turnstiles. I got into one and watches as Guest after Guest needed lengthy instruction on not only how to insert the ticket properly, but how to use the fancy new biometric finger readers which were now required as an ID check of all Guests using the new Magic Your Way passes. I was also dismayed to see that Disney had indeed spent a fortune to replace the biometric readers which had been on every turnstile for several years for use by Annual Passholders, with a new version painted in bright Mickey Mouse colors. They didn't work any better, they just cost money and looked prettier. It took 15 minutes for me to get up to the turnstile and feed it my AP.

I hate the biometrics.

Decorations for the castle, decorations for me

Once inside, my first task was to take some beauty shots of Cinderella's Castle, which had received a makeover for the Happiest Celebration on Earth, a Disney festival commemorating the 50th anniversary of Disneyland's May 5, 1955 opening (5-5-55, celebration begun on 5-5-5, 50 years later - get it? Symmetry!) The castle was decked out with lots of gold filigree, gold flowers, and golden statues of Disney characters like Peter Pan and Wendy, and Timon and Pumba. I loved it; I thought it was just the right amount of pizzazz without going ridiculously over the top like the famous Pepto Cake Castle debacle of a few years ago.

Once I had a few castle shots, I went looking for the barber shop. Yes, MK has it's own real working barber shop, right there in the park, on Main Street USA. There are only two barber stations, however, so my wait was nearly 45 minutes, but since I hadn't had the opportunity to get a trim before I left home, this was a necessary evil, because my hair, while not long by any stretch of the imagination, was fairly thick on top, and that just wouldn't do in the Florida heat.

While I waited, I watched the other folks, some adults, some kids, get their haircuts, and every one of them was going the extra mile and getting an outlandish color put in. The color rinses right out with plain water on your next shampoo, but it would stay in for the remainder of the day. By the time I got my turn in the chair, I decided to go for it, since several of my friends had done so last summer while I wasn't in WDW, and I figured that if they did it, so could I.

I walked out of the barber shop with purple hair, filled with small mylar Mickey-head confetti (which they call pixie dust), and a purple Mickey head dyed into the back of my head. The barber took a couple of pictures of me in the chair, just so I could prove that I had actually gone through with it,

I marched my purple-topped self up Main Street to the Partners statue and discovered that Disney's new Photopass system, whereby roving photographers handed out cards with barcodes on them to Guests for each picture they shoot, had not only caught on, but had encouraged Disney to put a lot more roving photographers into the parks. In fact, there were two Photopass photographers set up in front of the Partners statue, with their cameras on tripods, taking pic after pic of Guests in this, the most popular photo spot in all of WDW. I posed for a couple myself, since I am in so few of my own vacation photos, especially when traveling solo.

I then took a few more close-up pics of the castle decorations.

Noodlerama

It was approaching lunch time, so I went down to the Rose Garden, which is always one place in all of MK that is never crowded and always quiet. Sure enough, there was only one family of 4 down there, and I settled on a bench under the pavilion (trivia: the MK Rose Garden and it's pavilion were originally the queue area for the Plaza Swan Boats, an original MK attraction that closed down in the early 80s). My purpose here was to find a quiet place to call Mike Scopa and give him an update on my trip. I talked to Mike for about 20 minutes, then made my way to the Tomorrowland Terrace's new Noodle Station for lunch. I had never eaten in the Tomorrowland Terrace before the recent conversion to the Noodle Station, but the menu had looked pretty appealing on the internet, so I wanted to give it a try.

I selected a Shrimp Pad Thai, which is a bowl of lo mein style noodles with lightly spiced shrimp. I found that it was not only very tasty, but packed with a generous quantity of shrimp. I took my time and enjoyed lunch very much, and resolved to eat at the Noodle Station often in the future.

After lunch, and a bathroom break, I made my way into Fantasyland and enjoyed one of my favorite MK attractions, Mickey's Philharmagic, or Phil as I like to call it. Phil is the newest, and I think the best, of the so-called 4-dimensional movie attractions in Orlando, which consist of a 3-d movie coupled with some audience effects like water sprays, vibrating seats, and air cannon.

My next destination was Haunted Mansion, but the line was out into Liberty Square almost to Columbia Harbor House, and though the sign said it was a 20-minute wait, it looked more like 70 minutes to me. I kept on going.

I was getting hot, and had a craving for some desert after my lunch, so I kept on walking till I got to Aloha Isle, got myself a pineapple dole whip, and found a shady spot to eat it and cool down. Afterward, I headed over to ride the nearby Pirates of the Caribbean, which had only a 15-minute stand-by line, and bought a couple of maps in the gift shop, which I had shipped to my hotel.

After a short break inside Pecos Bill's to write some notes, I went back to Haunted Mansion, where the CMs in front assured me that the line really was only 20 minutes, and although I was skeptical, I got into the line anyway. As it turned out, my skepticism was unfounded, as the line was actually less than 20 minutes.

With the parade about to start, I figured this would be a good time to try some Tomorrowland attractions, so I went in and rode Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, scoring a respectable 657,100. When I got out of Buzz, Tomorrowland was mobbed, since the parade was over, and although I wanted to see the Carousel of Progress, I was feeling a bit claustrophobic in the heavy crowds, so I made my way slowly back to Main Street toward the park exit.

I stopped briefly in the camera shop on my way out to check out the new photo download machines. These machines had been installed in January 2005, at the same time that Disney discontinued 1-hour film processing on property; they allow Guests to download their pictures from digital camera media to CD. Cost was $11.95 plus tax, and there was a limit of 120 pics per CD.

Resort hopping

Afterward, I left the park and took the monorail around to Contemporary. I noticed as I was waiting to board that the MK monorail station has gotten all new chrome gates installed since my last visit. At Contemporary, I took a bathroom break, washed up a little, and re-applied sunblock, because the sun was beating down pretty intense, and with all the sweating I was doing, I figured that much of the sunblock I had applied that morning probably washed off. Then I browsed the always-pretty shops on the Grand Canyon Concourse and sat down in the Outer Rim lounge for a few minutes to write some notes, and decide where I wanted to have dinner that night. I came up with my favorite sit-down restaurant at WDW: 'Ohana, in the Polynesian.

Once the decision to eat at 'Ohana had been made, it was a simple matter to hop on the monorail once again and ride over there, but 'Ohana didn't open for dinner till 5pm, so I had about 20 minutes to wait. I sat in the Tambu lounge and looked over some of the pictures on my digital camera until someone came to the podium, and put my name on the list as a walk-up. The CM told me I'd probably be called at about 5:20, but it was actually only about 5:10 when my pager went off, and soon I was busy stuffing myself with mass quantities of fried rice and grilled meats and shrimp. My servers found out that I liked the shrimp best, and kept pushing it on me until I had a whole skewer's worth, in addition to the appetizers and the other three grilled selections. The grilled turkey was particularly good that day, too.

After stuffing myself near to hurling, I paid my check and slowly got up from my table to waddle on out to the volcano pool. I turned on my camera and began taking pictures of the Polynesian grounds and scenery until about 7pm, by which time I felt I could ride the monorail without my meal putting in a return appearance. I took the monorail around to the TTC, got my car, and went to Downtown Disney with the intent of seeing Star Wars Episode III, since I had missed the opportunity yesterday. Since it was Friday night, all the shows were sold out up till the 10:30pm show, so I bought a ticket to that one and browsed a few stores. I spent a lot of time in the Virgin Records Megastore, playing the Star Wars Episode III Lego game on X-Box (not a bad game at all, fun but reasonably challenging), and paged through a few books relating to the new Batman Begins movie due out this summer.

Feel the Force

I was a little tired, and I was sick of the 'pixie dust' in my hair falling out like dandruff in a shampoo commercial, so I drove back to ASMU and took a shower to rinse the gunk out. I didn't want to fall asleep for fear that I wouldn't wake up in time to get to the movie, so I watched TV until about 9:45, then drove back to Downtown Disney. Parking at the West Side was pretty full, so I wound up with a spot almost at the very end of the parking lot, but I had allowed enough time so that I was able to get into the theater about 20 minutes before show time and get a reasonably good seat. I also enjoy watching the trailers for upcoming movies, so I try to get to the theater before they start. Tonight they were showing an excellent trailer for the Fantastic Four movie; I had been hoping for a Batman Begins trailer as well, but no such luck.

The movie let out at 1am, and although it was late and I was pretty tired, I have always loved wandering Downtown Disney after all the shops are closed, so I walked through Pleasure Island to get to the Marketplace and enjoyed looking over the new Lego creations almost in complete privacy. There were a few other people walking through, and some maintenance people cleaning up, so I wasn't totally alone, but the place was very quiet and peaceful.

It wasn't long before I was exhausted; I took a few minutes to sit on a bench outside Bongos and write some notes, and then grabbed my car and went back to ASMU. I was in bed by 2am.