Traffic, Candy, Beer, and a Mouse. These are the four words that can sum up my trip to Disney.
Friday afternoon, 3:45 p.m. we head out on our trip to Orlando. Mike (my bro-in-law) is in the driver's seat while Amber and I are just relaxing, enjoying the ride. We get on the highway after about a 20 minute wait to get gas (the boy was stubborn and wouldn't just wait until the next exit). As we're heading down to Disney, we discussed when we thought we were going to get there and just planned out our weekend. Everything was going great until we get past Palm Coast. Out of no where traffic just stops. Three lanes are at a stand still and no one is reporting anything on the radio. Just great.....we all were hoping for clear sailing since we were going to the park that night. It wasn't until Ormond beach (about 30 miles, I think, from Palm Coast) that we see what the problem was.Construction was causing a three lane expressway to condense to one. Normally they would do something like that late at night, not in the middle of rush hour, but hey..what do I know? After that mess it was clear sailing all the way to the Magic Kingdom
We arrive at the Magic Kingdom around 9pm. A couple hours later than we anticipated, but hey...we still got there with time to enjoy the park. We pulled up to pay for parking and I handed the lady a $10 and she handed me back change for a $20. I didn't realize this until after we drove off, but hey, who knew you could make money going to Disney. Anyways...I bought my ticket and all three of us entered the park. It was nice. The music from the Haunted Mansion was playing when you entered. Main street was all done up with pumpkins in the windows of the buildings.The castle had a spooky light to it. With our treat-or-treat bags in hand (kindly handed to us at the gate), we made our way over to adventure land. We rode some rides, got some candy, and made our way throughout the park. There was an awesome fireworks display that lit up the entire park. We timed it right with the parade and had a front row spot. Disney went all out with this parade. The headless horseman started it out by clearing the streets, then came the floats. Just about every disney character was represented (except stitch....=~( ) and they had performers between the floats. My favorite by far was the Haunted Mansion float. It started out with the ballroom dancers leading the float along. The float itself had the three hitchhiking ghosts on it, and it was followed by grave diggers. The grave diggers were the "icing on the cake" for this float. They followed behind carring shovels and performing their dance number. Part of their number consisted of the dropping their shovels on the ground and spinning them around in order to create sparks. It was awesome! Anways, after the parade we contiuned gathering candy and riding rides. We left the park around midnight with three very full bags of candy and singing "happy halloween boo to you."
**more to come**
Part 2
Sorry I didn't have time to finish my story at work, so here is the rest.
The next morning we awoke bright and early at 7am. I would love to say that we were all chipper and bounced right out of bed, but that wasn't the case. When the alarm went off, Amber asked who was getting up first to take a shower. After some bickering, I finally got up and took the first shower. We were all tired and grumpy, but hell..we were going to Disney that day and were going to have a great time.
We finally get ready, checkout, and made our way down for the free continential breakfast. I have to say I was very impressed. I thought there was just going to be a little bar with some pasteries and coffee on it, but the Marriott went all out. Anyways.....we ate, I found a computer to pay my credit card bill, and then we drove off to the park. First Stop: Animal Kingdom.
We arrived at Animal Kingdom between 930-10am. Once inside, we decided to hit the dino section first and then make our way around. We go on some rides; Amber and I puss out on one and kept our heads down and eyes shut the entire time. As we made our way around the park, someone whistling brings our attention to a show that was about to start. A group of about 5 or 6 acrobats were about to put on a show. Man it was so freakin awesome! They did some tricks with jump roping (a couple guys were jumping on their butts), jumped through some hoops, basic tumbling. The neatest thing was probably the limbo. Now you may be thinking LIMBO, what's so neat about that? Well, this guy managed to go under the bar that was, hmm....only a FOOT from the ground and still managed to keep his back from touching. I was just disappointed that I didn't get a picture of it. Anyways.....after that we continued through the park, I got my pic taken with Stitch (yay!), and we headed off to Epcot.
I guess you can say that Epcot is the adult park of Disney (unless you want to count Pleasure Island, but that's not a really a park). We happened to be during the International Food & Wine Festival. They had many booths setup from all these different countries with many types of food to try. We quickly made our way to Soarin (the new ride located at The Land) and get fast passes for later that night. After that was done, it was time to hit the countries and see what this festival was all about. We make it to the world showcase and see all the booths. We really didn't have a particular place we wanted to go, but we all just wanted to sit down and enjoy some food. As we're making our way through the countries, we end up in America since Mike and Amber wanted to hit an ATM. Well, the ATM was broken but we did discover that there was a beer seminar going on. We all agreed that it sounded interesting, so we decided to check it out, plus the lady said it (and the samples) were FREE! Come on, how often do you get something free at disney, especially alcohol. Anyways, the Samuel Adams beer company decided to host a beer seminar during the Food & Wine festival because they represent an American beer company. As we entered, we are handed peuter (sp?) beer opener key chains and are directed to our seats. Placed infront of us is an informational placemat filled with little tid bits about the beer samples and the company. On top of the mat are the four samples of Sam Adams beer. We tasted the Sam Adams Light, Octoberfest, Boston Lager, and the specially brewed 10th anniversary beer. The host started out talking a little about himself and the brewery. Eventually he got to the beer infront of us. He started with the Light and made his way around. He explained what to look for if you were a beer taster....like the color, smell, flavor. We were able to compare the smells with the main ingrediants that go in beer (hops for example). I enjoyed that since it made it easier to really understand what the guy was talking about. Overall I enjoyed the light and octoberfest, but the lager was just gross. However, the 10th anniversary brew was my favorite. It was specially brewed for this festival and it will not be sold in stores (dammit!). What made it special was that it was brewed unfiltered and was made with molasses (apparently no other beer in America in unfiltered and contains molasses). Man, it seemed that everyone in the seminar loved that beer and we can only have it there. Well after the four little shots of beer, all three of us had a buzz (guess lack of food will do that to you). I experienced my first Disney World buzz. We all decided then to get more of the 10th anniversary brew at the booth they had set up (this time not free) and pick where we wanted to eat at.
We made our way to Canada only to discover that it was booked for the next 3 days. The hostest was kind enough to make us reservations at a different country (we chose Moracco) and we went on our way. Now none of us have ever ate there before and were hesitant at trying something different. We walked in and were met by the belly dancer in the middle of her act. That lady can dance (we got a pic of that too!). The food was awesome and all of us agreed that we would eat there again, no questions asked. After eating, we made our way to try a different park. Next stop: MGM
The ride to MGM took forever since we decided to take the boat over instead of the bus. Once we arrived, we headed over to Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster (type ride). The coaster had a long wait, so we grabbed fast pass tickets. Mike wanted to ride on the tower, so Amber and I left him and went shopping for a birthday present. We all met up about 45 minutes later and decided to go kill the time we had before we were allowed to use our fast passes. We ended up seeing Muppets 3D. Man, it's a cheesy film, but I like it. I like the interaction between the robots in the theater, the film itself, and the one live action guy who comes out a few times. It's nice. Once the film was finished, we headed over to the coaster and redeemed our passes. Next stop: Back to Epcot
We head back over to Epcot with about an hr and a half to kill before our fast pass for soarin was good (we got the pass at 2pm and werent able to use it until 745, how messed up is that?). Amber needed to go to Japan to get a present for someone, so we started the walk around the countries. Stupid me leads the way, only to discover I took the scenic route. We ended up going back through American, so we took a detour to pick up some more beer. This time it was the Sam Adams Cream Stout. Yea......not my favorite, but Mike paid so it worked out. We made it over to Japan, sat down, and finished off our beers. It didn't take Amber long to find what she was looking for and we made our way back over to The Land.
Now Soarin is the new ride at Epcot. Your are placed into one of three rows, soar into the air, and view different landscapes from around the world on an IMAX type screen. As the clips change, so does the smell in the room. For example: there you are soaring over the ocean and you can smell the salty air. Another one is a clip of a orange grove and you can smell the oranges. It was awesome. A ride for the senses.
After the ride, we decided to head home. Overall, it was a fun time had by all. I would like to go back to Epcot during the festival and just enjoy that. I would like to try all the different types of food and drink, and of course stay on property so I wouldn't have to worry about driving. So anyone interested in going, let me know. I wouldn't mind heading down there and spending some time with the Mouse again.
She is such a good writer when she wants to be. :)
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