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| Among the Crowd entering Epcot Tues, Feb 4th |
At, well, retirement age now, I’m not your typical Disney
fan in that I didn’t spend a whole lot of vacation time over the years doing
all things “Disney”. Oh sure, I grew up
with Mickey, Donald and Goofy, AND the Mousketeers …. Annette (Funicello) was my first “crush”.... and I
watched her, and the other Mousketeers too, of course, religiously on afternoon TV.
But actual Disney vacations were few and far between. There
was a woman who used to work at EWEB who took her daughter to Disneyland or
Disneyworld every year! My parents certainly didn’t do that; and
after Lanie and I married and had two lovely daughters, we certainly weren’t
like that either. Call our kids "deprived”
if you must; we went there as a family exactly once, in 1990, to Disneyland in
Anaheim. We had a great time, though I
think the girls, who were very young then (as were Lanie and I!) enjoyed the
swimming pool at our Anaheim motel as much as anything they experienced on that trip.
Anyhow, that was only my 2nd trip ever to
Disneyland, the first coming in 1955 or 1956… exact year and details are just a bit fuzzy from that long
ago. In any event, the original Disneyland, in Anaheim, had opened
for the first time within that past year.
We were visiting my Mom’s family in LA, and drove Out Into the Country to go to Disneyland and
also nearby Knots Berry Farm. Yes, you
heard me right, Disneyland was out in the country then, pastures, orange and lemon
groves, berry fields (hence Knots Berry Farm), little or no mega-development of
the modern day. You might say Disneyland
made Anaheim what it is today, as, years later, Disneyworld did Orlando. That’s a simplified assumption/statement, but
probably more true than not.
(Note - That looks, like... could it be?.. nah, that ain't Mom and me and big brother, Jim, walking into Adventureland!... )
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| Disneyland visitors, circa 1955 |
So, 35 or so years passed between my first and second visits
to Disneyland; and another 20+ years passed before I finally made it
to Orlando and Disneyworld. Compared to me, Lanie was a veteran; she’d been
there 8 or 9 years ago with our oldest daughter, Sara. SHE was the Disneyworld Expert, relatively
speaking. I depended on her to suggest
the best use of our two days we had available for the mega-Disney complex. We arrived in Orlando on Monday, Feb. 3rd;
but that day was spent getting a jack on our 5th Wheel repaired,
then hanging out at our most recent KOA park, in Kissimmee, conveniently
located only about 6 miles from the Disney mega-complex.
Tuesday and Wednesday were to be our days at
Disney. We had prepaid for a two day
pass, spending the first day at Epcot, and the second day at Animal Kingdom. We made maximum use of our time at both
entertainment complexes.
We literally hit the ground running at Epcot, there when the
gates opened at 9, and part of the mad rush to any convenient “Fast Pass”
kiosk. Daughter, Sara, did a lot of prep
work for us, among other things researching the Fast Pass system, which allows you, well, a Fast
Pass to enter/re-enter the most favored rides/attractions. They are not handed out like free candy; you
get 3 passes a day, you have to select which attractions you want the passes
for; and there are one hour long specific periods in which you can use each of your
three passes. We lined up three of the
more popular attractions, “Soarin”,
“Mission Space”, and, I think, “Spaceship Earth” to get Fast Passes for.
We had specific hours of use for all three,
starting later in the morning, but decided we’d try out various attractions
before using our Fast Passes. And we
went directly to Spaceship Earth, contained in the big Epcot Bubble that greets
you as you enter. It was fun, but we
were on to more thrilling rides soon enough.
One was “Test Track”, sponsored by Chevrolet (Big Bertha, our Chevy
diesel, would be proud). We, or rather Lanie, designed our vehicle (see
below). Then we jumped into a prototype
and headed out on the test track, which featured steeply banked turns and
speeds approaching 70 mph; exciting
enough, but we were out for even more thrilling stuff.
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| Lanie's Dream Car - Big Bertha's little Sister! |
We headed to “Mission
Space”, choosing the “Green” (less intense) option of a simulation where you
basically launch into space on a presumed mission to Mars. Amazingly, the Mars trip, narrated by
“Lieutenant Dan” from Forrest Gump (he
was also in Apollo 13), took less
than 5 minutes from launch to shooting past the moon to a very rocky landing on
the “red planet”. It was great!, and we
hadn’t even used our available Fast Pass,
giving us the option to go back later for the “Orange” (more intense)
option, which we soon enough did. Eh, you call this thrilling?...
the Orange option was just a tad more intense than “Green” The adrenaline rushes were addicting, and we craved even more!
We were having a whole lot of fun, but the best was yet to
come. Soon enough we were actually using
a Fast Pass for what it was intended, a quick trip to the front of the line for
“Soarin”, one of the featured attractions at Epcot. And it was truly wonderful, a simulated
glider flight over the beautiful state of California. But there were more thrills to be had; and
Lanie and I finally found, for us, the ultimate thrill ride, called,
appropriately enough, “The Sum of All Thrills!”
Amazingly, there was little or no wait to get in to this attraction.
The premise here was you designed your own thrill ride, choosing, as a vehicle,
either a Bobsled, a Roller Coaster car, or a Jet Plane. We went directly to the Jet Plane, dialing up
an assortment of spins, loops, twisting turns, etc. And then we went into a two-person capsule, the simulator for our self-programmed ride.
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| The Sum of all Thrills! |
It was great, very realistic… so much so that we went back
within the hour to have another go at it.
This time Lanie did most of the designing, amping up the thrill quotient
even more, no make that “much more”, than our first time through. And off we
went into the simulator again for truly the ultimate thrill ride for us
during that day; inverted two or three times, twisting turns and loops in which
you really felt the “G” forces pressing down on you, total adrenaline rush the
whole time! We’d found the ultimate
ride, for us at least, at Epcot!
The rest of the long day was spent eating and drinking at
various World themed locales, a Moroccan lunch, wine at an Italian bar, French
pastries for breakfast treats the next few days, and a wonderful Mexican
dinner; the day capped off by fireworks at 9 PM. We’d lasted a full 12 hours plus, and were
dead tired on return to the 5th Wheel about 10 pm.
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| Fireworks ending our long day at Epcot! |
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| Colorful Macaws (I think that's what they are) sucking up to their handler |
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| My (very) distant cousin hanging out in the woods |
But we were up and mostly raring to go to Animal Kingdom the
next morning. This was a shorter day…
the park closes at 5… with just one real thrill ride, the Mt. Everest experience. We,
of course, “thrill junkies” that we were, went on this truly unique and
exciting roller coast twice! The rest of the day we spent on various treks and
motorized tours of the Animal Kingdom Disney has created. On a safari trip, we passed close enough to
Giraffe’s and other African wildlife to nearly touch them. And a walking tour elsewhere in the park revealed beautiful
birds and other exotic animals. It was
another great day at the mega-entertainment complex they call Disney
World. But soon we’d be moving on to
other adventures.
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| Up close and personal with the giraffes on Safari Trek |
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