Vacation, Day 7

Again, another late post. I keep meaning to come back at night and instantly post, but a) we're tired and b) we keep getting sucked into the Democratic Convention, and without wireless internet here (Disney is a little behind on this front, I'd say), I can't post and watch at the same time. This post is long, and has a lot of pictures. Enjoy (?).

Anyway, Day 7. Still hot, still humid, but sunnier, so it's not all bad. We began our day yesterday with a breakfast at Boma, a restaurant in the Animal Kingdom Lodge reputed to have the best breakfast buffet on property. Being vegetarians we usually don't get our money's worth out of a buffet (probably not a bad thing, but still), but after several days of Kashi bars and bottled Starbucks for breakfast, we were ready for some protein and fruit and such.

Upon arriving, CP and I had a debate about whether the Animal Kingdom Lodge "essentializes" African culture. I'm not sure we reached a conclusion, but see for yourself:


I'm divided on the issue. What would a non-essentialized African "resort" look like? And couldn't one make the argument that all properties at Disney - even the American-themed ones, like the Boardwalk Hotel - are essentialized?

As we pondered these big questions, we headed to breakfast. I've had better (hard to top Esselon pancakes, in my opinion), but for Disney it definitely hit the spot. After, we wandered around the hotel and stopped to take this picture for MK and BB:

If you want some, we'll pick them up :-)

Next, we ran back to our hotel because I forgot my wallet, but this gave us time to load up on sunscreen (55 SPF and I am *still* a little burned. How do people live here??) and then head out to Disney's Hollywood Studios. As I predicted, CP really liked this park and found the architecture and costuming to be the best of any Disney park:


Next, we walked toward that pink building in the background, the Hollywood Tower Hotel, also known as the Tower of Terror:

Amazingly, we walked right on this ride and had little time to enjoy the design and themeing, which admittedly is pretty great:

As always, a great ride.

Next, we checked out the Aerosmith Rock n' Rollercoaster, for which we grabbed FastPasses and headed on our way. We saw the Muppets 3-D movie, and then tried to ride the new Toy Story ride, which had an 80 minute wait and no FastPasses left. By this time, it was incredibly hot and even more humid than when we arrived, so we decided to go back to Rock n' Rollercoaster and wait in line, figuring that the wait would be much less than the posted 40 minutes. The wait time itself wasn't bad; the line moved decently and had plentiful fans and even some air conditioning. The worst part was that we were sandwiched between two families, each containing between 3 and 5 children, all who had no conception of personal space or boundaries. They yelled, kicked, screamed, fondled us, pushed us, slapped us. This went on for nearly half an hour, until we subtly stood by the wall and let all of them pass us in line. We finally boarded the ride and thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it further destroyed my hair and left me crying from the speed.

By this time it was the hottest part of the day, so we decided to grab some ice cream and head toward the exit:

Incidentally, it was just about time for the 3 o' clock parade. Did you know one of the most frequently asked questions in Disney World is "what time is the 3 o' clock parade?" Seriously. In spite of our shared disdain for most parades, we lingered for a few minutes to eat our ice cream and see what it was about. Much to our delight, Pixar!


We then headed back to our hotel, spent a couple hours napping, snacking, and catching up on convention coverage. Next up? An evening at Epcot. We only had a few hours til park closing, but we wanted to walk through the World Showcase, have a snack, and watch the evening fireworks before heading back to watch more convention coverage (notice a theme here? It's hard for nerds to turn off the TV during an election, even on vacation.)

One could make another essentializing argument about the country representations in Epcot, but generally I think Disney does a pretty nice job with the food, shopping, and cultural depictions in each location. Of course Epcot is no substitute for visiting the real thing, but I think for those people who for whatever reason can't or choose not to travel abroad, it's at least a decent introduction.

On Sunday we had seen Canada, Japan, and Britain, so we skipped around and visited France first:


Next, we stopped in Morocco, which I think is one of the most interesting country pavilions in Epcot. It's run by the Moroccan government, not Disney, and according to CP who has actually been to Morocco, it's quite an accurate representation.


We then breeze fairly quickly through Italy and Germany (Italy is the weakest pavilion, I think, and Germany was too mobbed with visitors to really see thoroughly. I returned later for a pretzel and beer, though!), and then stopped in China:

We then visited Norway and Mexico at the end of the World Showcase, both of which were too mobbed to really see thoroughly. Even the bizarre-and-usually-empty boat ride in Norway had a 30-minute ride, so we peeked in the shops and went on our way. By now it was after 8pm, and when we stumbled upon a good location where we could sit and watch the fireworks, we camped out.

In spite of my Disney ambivalence, I have always been a sucker for the Epcot fireworks display, IllumiNations. I think it has a good message about global cooperation and human progress; it's accessible; and it's really, really pretty and has a great score. I was less impressed last night, however, because the central piece of IllumiNations, the giant globe, is sidelined for refurbishment. Without it, I don't think the story comes through as well. Nevertheless, we enjoyed.

Did we go out after this and party late into the evening? Nope! We came back to the hotel and watched Hillary's speech. Sadly, for us, this is a great way to spend a vacation.