Of course, I understand that not everyone has time to read a long post detailing our trip. With this in mind I've prepared the abridged version, below.
Abridged Version
Trouble putting air in tires, easy drive down, drove through access road and grass to get to main entrance, bought Hani a hoodie for the weather, rode Dumbo, rode Merry-Go-Round, rode Snow White's Scary Adventures, picture with Ariel, picture with Pluto, ate pretzels with cream cheese inside, rode It's a Small World, picture with Scrooge McDuck, rode Splash Mountain, lunch at Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe, rode Pirates of the Caribbean, visited the Enchanted Tiki Room, rode Jungle Cruise, picture with Woody and Jessie of Toy Story, picture with Goofy, rode the Haunted Mansion, visited Minnie's House, visited Mickey's House, picture with Mickey and Minnie, watched parade, rode Astro Orbitor, rode Tomorrowland Speedway, rode Stitch's Great Escape, rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, tried to ride Space Mountain but it broke, picture in front of the castle at night, sleepy drive back home. Whew!
More Interesting Version
We got off to an eventful start when we stopped to put air in the front tires of my Honda Civic (with crumpled, falling-off bumper, perpetually-stuck-open gas door, and major dirt). I have never had need to put air in my tires; whenever they've needed inflation the engine has also conveniently needed an oil change, thus excusing me from pump duty.
Hani assured me that she was handy with automobiles and so before we left Gainesville we pulled in to my favorite gas station to refill and put a little bounce back in the car's feet. Unfortunately this particular pump was like nothing Hani has encountered before. Apparently air pumps in Malaysia are free to use and include digital pressure read-outs, while this particular model required quarters and was apparently purchased in 1945.
We put some air in the tires. How much, I'm not sure, but they didn't explode and handled a little off-roading with aplomb.
Off-roading? Oh yes. My Google Maps directions had us entering the Magic Kingdom park from the north side, as opposed to the main entrance to the south. This was kind of cool, as we got to see the stage-hand entrances, the engineering buildings, and busy-looking people walking from the staff parking lots toward buildings with names like "Disney University". Unfortunately, as we approached the main entrance from the inside of the park there was no clear way to get to the guest parking lots, nor was there an exit that would allow us to turn around without completely leaving Walt's compound.
The solution was to use an access road that I glimpsed heading off into the brush. We zoomed down the dirt road past an engineer in a pickup who watched my dirty white Civic bounce by with amusement. Apparently he was aware that while the access road did come out on the desired side of the main gate, it was blocked off with barricades. With white knuckles and a devil-may-care smirk we zoomed through a 4-foot space, through some grass and mud, and appeared, as though by magic, on the shoulder of the 20-lane entrance road. We had arrived!
Parking was uneventful ("Pluto 17" was our lot and lane) and we boarded the little tram that took us into the park. We arrived around 9:30 AM (the park opened at 9:00 AM) and there was already a sizeable crowd. It was chilly (for our Malaysian readers, it was freezing) and the native Floridians were bundled to the neck with all manner of clothing. Hani put on a sweatshirt I brought (over her own long-sleeve shirt) and I had a flannel shirt.
Once inside, our first order of business was to buy Hani a hoodie to put over her other layers. Then it was a picture in front of the castle (taken by a teenager who recognized and commented on my XKCD t-shirt). After that it was off to our first ride: Dumbo!
From Dumbo we went to the Merry-Go-Round, where I failed miserably at looking cool while riding a colorful pony. Next we rode Snow White's Scary Adventures, which was fun but made me remember the sadly-no-more Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I shed a tear as we moved on to Hani's first photo-op: a picture with Ariel of The Little Mermaid.
We waited in a huge line to get a picture with Pluto; apparently he's a super-star in the Disney universe. We discussed children on leashes and watched a parade go by, and saw a shift change in Pluto mascots (cleverly disguised as a quick jog into a nearby storefront). Eventually we got our picture.
Afterwards Hani spotted a food cart selling big soft pretzels. When we asked for two we were informed that the pretzels were in fact stuffed with a sweet cream cheese. We risked it and tried them out. Conclusion: delicious! I love bagels with cream cheese and this tasted somewhat similar, but with a soft pretzel shell and warmed, sweet cream cheese. Unfortunately we did not take a picture as we were chowing down, which is probably for the best as we tend to be messy eaters and nobody wants to see me getting cream cheese everywhere.
Post-snack we rode It's A Small World and got a picture with Scrooge McDuck. Unfortunately I was not able to get us into his will in the brief time we had for a photo.
After exhausting Fantasyland we strolled over to Frontierland to ride Splash Mountain. Due to the chilly weather the line was about 10 minutes long (and I overheard a staff member saying that they turned off the water cannons to keep the guests a little more dry and limit the number of hypothermia cases). Splash Mountain is a log flume with a long, scenic, story-telling ride inside a mountain leading to a visually impressive (but not record-breaking) drop. Hani and I really like log flumes which made up for the splashing cold water!
Trying to keep dry we stopped in at Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe for some food. Hani bought me a tasty lunch (with hot cocoa) and we sat around for a bit drying off and listening to a showboat and parade that arrived on-site.
When we finished eating we walked towards the neighboring Adventureland. It was about this time that we began seeing people holding immense turkey legs, like meat clubs, waving them about before swinging them to their mouths to rip off a chunk of roasted meat. I thought nothing of it at the time - a few people eating a few haunches of bird. Foreshadowing.
Our first ride in Adventureland was Pirates of the Caribbean. For the unaware, Pirates of the Caribbean is a very popular ride that takes the guests in little boats through the scenes of a pirate invasion of a town, complete with fire, smoke, cannonfire and cannonball splashes, marauding pirates and helpless townfolk, and humorous scenes of debauchery and piracy. The ride was so popular that it inspired the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. In a very evolutionary sense the movie then inspired Disney to update the ride with Johnny Depp's likeness and a few other movie-themed adjustments (luckily they kept the greatness of the original).
The coolest addition to the ride is the projection of the snake-bearded villain from the movie onto a wall of smoke through which the boat passes. The image blows around you as you move through the smoke into the next scene: a night-battle between pirates at sea and cliff-mounted artillery.
Hani makes a good pirate.
Next we went to the Enchanted Tiki Room, an animatronic, humorous show conducted by birds and talking volcono gods. It was stupid, but the good kind of stupid. We then went on the Jungle Cruise, a boat ride through a themed jungle conducted by a wise-cracking guide. Here's a picture of Hani on the boat as we got started.
We didn't have any luck locating "Bwana Bob's", a little shop I used to visit when I went to Disney World with my family back in the day. I used to buy shrunken heads carved from coconuts and rubber snakes and monkeys there. Alas, it was gone. On the way out of Adventureland we passed more people with huge turkey legs, gnawing on them like vultures, grinding their teeth, smashing the bones against rocks like tribalistic drums. Strangely animalistic.
We scored a few more pictures, including one with the cowboy leads of Toy Story and Toy Story 2.
The next stop was my favorite ride of the day (and my favorite ride when I was a kid): the Haunted Mansion. The Haunted Mansion is a silly/spooky ride through a haunted house with nifty ghost effects and a pun-dropping voice-over. Outside the mansion there is a graveyard with clever tombstones meant to occupy guests queueing. Quite possibly the coolest part of the ride is the small octogonal room a batch of guests crowds into prior to actually embarking. While the narrator intones spooky messages the ceiling, walls, and portraits mounted thereon begin to stretch upwards, but without any perception of motion or ceiling movement. It's a physical, tangible optical illusion and difficult to explain in text. It's very well executed and one of those "oh, cool!" moments.
Next we went to the kiddy-portion of the park to walk through Minnie and Mickey's houses and waited in a massive line to get a picture with the duo. In Mickey's house we saw Mickey's stove which was a long-running joke in my family following our first visit to the Magic Kingdom.
Who makes the better couple?
On the way to Tomorrowland we passed a parade which we stopped to watch for a bit. We also passed more bird-handed patrons. With meaty-fingers clutching meaty-legs they stuffed roasted turkey into their mouths as if they'd never eaten the gobbling delight before. Men, women, children; white, asian, black, hispanic; all sat on benches and stood watching floats, transfixed, turkey leg in hand. Terrifyingly omnipresent.
In Tomorrowland we rode the Astro Orbitor, a high-flying open-air spaceship ride that gives a great view of the park at night. We rode the Tomorrowland Speedway, a sort of go-kart on a track, but that was less fun because the operator put us on different sets, Hani a lap ahead of me. Afterwards we did Stitch's (from Lilo and Stitch) Big Escape, in which we were clamped into seats and subjected to simulated hot alien breath, sneezes, sounds, smoke, explosions, and other immersive effects. I recall that the same equipment used to be used for a scarier Alien-themed ride back in the 90s; the new one is more kid-friendly and humourous.
Next we headed back to Frontierland to ride Thunder Mountain Railroad, a roller coaster with a runaway-train theme. I first rode this coaster with my sister (then younger than 10), my parents, and my 60+ year old grandparents after my mother (who refuses to ride any fast rides) mistook it in the guide for a leisurely train ride around the park. The clank-clank-clank as the train goes up the first hill led to a terrifying two minutes as my grandparents clutched their hearts, my sister's sunglasses flew off into oblivion, and my mom... well, my mom was never quite the same! That ride is lore in our family, but it's a lot of fun and Hani and I enjoyed it.
It was particularly fun thanks to a little girl riding with her family who was in line just in front of us. Her parents continually debated whether or not she would enjoy the ride as she insisted that she would. Sitting behind her it was tough to gauge her reaction but as the train slowed near the end of the ride her expression provoked laughter from her family. In a very cross tone she exclaimed "NOT. Funny." She was wrong - it was hilarious!
The last ride of the night was to be Space Mountain, an indoors, in-the-dark roller coaster that I've never been on before. We had fast-pass tickets, meaning that we simply showed up at our allotted time and zoomed through to the front of the line. We were in the ride, strapped in, ready to go, when the lights came on and a voice came over the PA, telling us and the crowds that due to a technical problem the ride had to be stopped. We were so close! They gave us fast-pass tickets good for any ride in the park as a consolation, but it was the end of our day so we made our way out of the park, vowing to do Space Mountain next time.
It was a great day all around. While techinically it was a bit of a birthday celebration (on your birthday you, or anyone, can get into Disney World free) we really went just as a fun day for Hani and myself. We had a great time, riding almost everything we wanted to, eating some good food, taking lots of pictures, and visiting seemingly innumerable shops. Below are two pictures of us in front of the castle: one from a few minutes after we arrived (9:30 AM) and another from 15 minutes before we left (10:30 PM). From dawn to dusk it was a great day and we're looking forward to going again.
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