Vacation, Day 4

Admittedly, this post is a bit late. We're exhausted. Tired. Spent. (You get the picture). So, today you get an exciting two! vacation posts in one day.

Yesterday was our final day at my parents, and was spent primarily doing laundry and packing. Yes, exciting. Speeding ahead to mid-afternoon, we gassed up the car and headed out on Florida's Turnpike to Orlando. The drive was fairly unremarkable, except for (I'm sure this comes as a shock) the most intense rainstorm I have ever driven through. We drove at 35mph in a long line of cars all with their hazard lights on (not sure drivers in Massachusetts would ever be that safe or courteous?); eventually the rain dissipated, but it was a tense drive nonetheless. And, of course, the rain made pictures impossible, which is sad because I really wanted a picture of Yeehaw Junction, a notorious tourist trap located off the Turnpike in the middle of nowhere. Also notable about Yeehaw Junction? According to the previous link (you know, I am using Wikipedia on this blog more than I ever have in my life. Where are my principles?), Yeehaw Junction was originally named Jackass Junction. I guess the new name is better?

Anyway, we arrived in Orlando around dinner time and checked in to our hotel for the evening, and we're both in agreement that it may be the nicest place we've ever stayed. Instead of eating dinner, however, we decided to head right over to Disney. Now, I have mentioned before that I have some ambivalence about Disney, but by the time we arrived here, that was pretty much gone:

I swear, Disney must put something in the air that makes tired, cynical adults turn into clapping, giddy children. Not that we did that. Right.

We had decided that the first stop on our Disney excursion should be the Magic Kingdom. It's iconic, and I would bet that for most people who repeatedly visit Disney, it's the first place you go when you arrive. That was the case for me throughout my childhood, so it was a fun bit of nostalgia to anticipate seeing the castle for the first time. It didn't disappoint:

If you're wondering (probably not) why we didn't get one of those nice pictures of the castle while walking down Main Street, it's because we had inadvertently arrived during a parade. I'm not a huge parade fan, but it's always nice to see Mickey, right?

After dodging the parade crowds, our first stop was CP's favorite ride from childhood, Space Mountain. As we waited in line between screaming children and smelly men, the ride - of course - broke down. I was starting to think this might be a bad sign, but the issue was resolved quickly and we were soon hurtling through space. Next, CP indulged me in riding my favorite ride from childhood (yes, I am that sad), where I snapped this photo of CP. I promise CP is not actually on Space Mountain in this picture:

Next, we wandered through the crowds to Adventureland, where we stopped at the Aloha Aisle soft serve stand to try the infamous (by Disney standards, I guess?) pineapple Dole Whip. The verdict? Not bad! As we ate ice cream we headed toward the Haunted Mansion, another of my favorite childhood rides and one that has been significantly updated since my last visit. The ride itself isn't actually blog-worthy, but the people with whom we stood in line definitely were. There are no pictures of these people because I was afraid I might get knifed for taking one. Seriously! We were sandwiched in line between a group of surly teenagers hurling expletives at each other (when they weren't threatening to kill each other) and a group of mulleted, sleeveless-shirted men with Southern drawls who were far less well-behaved than the childreen they were with. For no reason that I could discern, one of the mulleted men would periodically bang on the nearest garbage can and grunt. I wish I had audio of this, because it is far scarier than I can describe with mere words. (Also, we could hear him bang on his ride vehicle and grunt loudly all through the ride.) Needless to say, we left this ride pretty quickly.

Things improved as we headed over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (awesome at night; in all my visits as a child and an adult I have never ridden in the dark, which is so much scarier than riding during the day.) and the newly updated Pirates of the Caribbean. The Johnny Depp audioanimatronics are CREEPY, in that they are so lifelike. We had an entire boat to ourselves and MAY have (can't confirm or deny this) sang the "yo ho, yo ho, it's a pirate's life for me" song throughout the entire ride.

By this time it was almost park closing and we wanted to get out ahead of the crowds, so we exited and decided to take a loop around the Magic Kingdom resorts on the monorail, which might be my favorite thing in all of Disney. Even though the technology is old and now significantly outdated, there is still something novel about it. As we rode around, we experienced a bit of the "Disney magic" when the monorail made an unexpected stop to hold for traffic. We were high above the ground over the Seven Seas Lagoon opposite the Magic Kingdom, and at that moment, the evening fireworks display at MK began. I've never seen it from such a great vantage point, and it was definitely a nice way to begin what I hope will be a relaxing week.

More to come - we are just about to depart our golf resort to move over to Disney. Later today, we hit Epcot and maybe the Magic Kingdom again for Extra Magic Hours, which keeps the park open until 1am tonight. I think we're going to be tired after this week.