Orlando Part II: Disney Day 2 (12/11/06)

We were pretty fried by Monday morning after running all over the place the day before. Slicing off my finger tip didn't help either. But we were in a nice warm king size bed, and that certainly did help.

We started the second day at Epcot, and had breakfast there in The Land pavilion. While making a brief stop at the other three parks a few years ago with Stephanie, I had not been to Epcot since 1990. I hate to say it, but it left me a bit indifferent this time.

While in The Land, we did the boat tour of the experimental agriculture facility, which is really cool. It appealed to the science dork in me. We skipped Sorin' out of respect for Catherine's potential yack factor. ;)

The Living Seas aren't living anymore, they're just The Seas, perhaps because they cannibalized one of the neatest things Epcot had going for it, and replaced it with a bunch of Nemo stuff. I'm not hating on Nemo, I'm just so disappointed in the way the actual marine life has been deemphasized and reduced in scope. Sea Base Alpha is essentially gone, and I didn't notice the restaurant that used to look into the main habitat.

I thought that Spaceship Earth was going to be down as they changed it, but apparently that overhaul came and went. We ended up getting stopped twice in the ride. I can't believe how loud the thing is. Despite the noise, it's in remarkably good shape overall, and it does make you think a bit about how far we've come in terms of our ability to communicate. Then you get a little sad when you realize the potential being wasted on MySpace. :)

We zipped over to Test Track and got Fastpasses, but would not ride it until the next day.

The World Showcase was always the part I found most interesting, and the flavor of each country is so unique with all of the natives working in each one. We started in Mexico on the boat ride, which is a little cheesy, but I love the location with the restaurant there. Next was Norway (land of the blonde giants) and really like their boat ride. I especially liked the ride op who declared us "brave vikings" at the end.

We had lunch reservations at Alfredo's in Italy, and of course had to have the Fettuccine Alfredo. Needless to say, it was awesome. The pasta is made there, and unlike the Italian chain restaurants in the US, they actually emphasize the cheese and not the cream, so the sauce is a hundred times more tasty. Yes, it's death on a plate, but it's super yummy. Our waiter was a complete douche, falling into the Italian male stereotype, unfortunately.

After lunch, we headed back to our room for a nap, still not quite recovered from the day before. As it turns out, we ended up napping most every day, mostly because we could. At least the bus rides were tolerable mid-day.

Instead of going back to Epcot, we went back to Disney-MGM since we didn't get Rockin' Roller Coaster the day before. They also had extended hours, so it made sense to enjoy the park a bit more. We snuck into the last Little Mermaid show, which was cute even if the lead wasn't a great singer. Sadly, we ended up eating chicken tenders and fries (again) because it was the best we could find. There was some kind of big private catered event going down in the Indy pavilion.

We walked through the area with the lights again, and peaked into the Pizza Planet, where Cath was disappointed to see no claw machine with three-eyed aliens.

Rockin' Roller Coaster was a lot cooler than I remembered. The music coming out of the train was loud and clear, and I can't believe how fast they move the trains between unload, load and launch. It's really impressive.

Other than a little shopping, that was largely our day. With one more day on the three-day tickets, we still had plenty of time to get around and do the things we wanted.

I'll also say here that I'm annoyed with the lazy fat-ass culture that Disney caters to. By the time we left Disney, I got really tired of seeing 40-something people who choose to rent an electric scooter and not get on their own two feet and walk. It's not that I feel I was inconvenienced, but rather people, especially kids, who had real problems. We watched as one of these people got on a bus, most of which hold two chairs at most, while a pre-teen kid suffering from some degenerative disease that made his limbs essentially non-functional, was left on the curb waiting for the next bus. That really pissed me off. Elderly people, who generally get up and walk when they can, were similarly displaced by people who are lazy, angry at everyone and unwilling to do anything about their health. One of these idiots ran into Cath three times the day before in line at Animal Kingdom and never so much as apologized. It didn't ruin my day or anything, but it just made me sad that people like this abuse the accommodations made by the parks.

On the third day...

Too bad you skipped Soarin'. There really isn't a yack factor to it. I always take dramamine for such rides and didn't need for Soarin'.

Now Mission Space and Body Wars, that's another story. Big mistake riding those back-to-back and that was with dramamine. I didn't yack but really didn't feel so good afterwards.

I can honestly say Mission Space is the first and only ride to make me question my yack factor. It was intense and of course the actual mechanics behind the ride are amazing.

I loved Soarin' .. Body Wars on teh other hand. Having alot of sims experience I can honestly say that our sim motion to film synch rate was off by about a second to a second and a half. Just enough to make me never want to ride it again.

.. ohh and ditto about the electric scooter people ..

^ LMAO, Lori, you rode M:S and Body Wars back-to-back? :o

I didn't realize you were *that* tough... ;)

Either of those alone is more than sufficient to make me queasy, so much so with BW that I haven't been on it once in at least 5-6 years. M:S I simply *had* to try, and even went on it again another day to be sure, and yeah, that thing was a yakker (one that I called BEFORE the barf bags went in)....but somehow the non-spinning version makes me think "what's the point?"...

edit: Agree totally with Rob, the bad parts of Body Wars (and other bad sims) are definitely the out-of-synch scenes...throw off your equilibrium in a BAD way... :(

*** Edited 12/18/2006 10:06:44 PM UTC by rollergator***

Funny thing about Mission: Space, Lady T, who can so much as read in a moving car or play a first-person perspective video game without getting nauseous was fine. I, on the other hand, who counts rotors, frisbees, and orbiters among favored flats, needed to sit for a minute after the ride.

However, the most nasueating attraction in Epcot *has* to be those CircleVision films. I would love to see the Chinese one, but the 'O Canada' film really had be seconds from spewing. I finally just had to close my eyes the rest of the film. My sister felt the same way.

Was Epcot and MGM as crowded as MK?

You are at least lucky that you got to ride Rock n Rollercoaster, Splash Mountain, and El Rio del Tiempo - they are all down for rehabs during the month of January when I'll be there.

I'm glad to hear it's not just me. Made the mistake of grabbing a quick lunch followed by Mission Space then Body Wars - all in a 40 minute span. Kept the turkey leg down, but barely. Close to becoming a human Tilt-A-Hurl. Was afraid the Disney engineers were going to make my stomach contents part of the exhibit.

I skipped Mission: Space entirely, not because I was scared of it, but because of all the "normal" people who didn't like how it made them feel afterward. Let's face it, most of us don't experience any G's for any significant amount of time, so we're not used to it.

Yes, the other parks were just as crowded.

Wow, sounds like Epcot should be renamed Boatcot. ;)

Regarding the alfredo...that's exactly why I prefer to cook instead of going out. Then again, it might be difficult to cook a meal while you are at a park. ;)

---

Jeff said:

I'll also say here that I'm annoyed with the lazy fat-ass culture that Disney caters to. By the time we left Disney, I got really tired of seeing 40-something people who choose to rent an electric scooter and not get on their own two feet and walk.

---

Just like walking into Wal-Mart.