Jecca Mehlota (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jecca_mehlota) wrote2010-07-01 02:15 pm
jecca_mehlota) wrote2010-07-01 02:15 pm
Entry tags:
Florida part two.
SO MUCH HTML
As established in the first, ungodly long post, Thursday was Epcot day because that was when it had extra hours, and because I had to be at the Dolphin at 8 pm to pick up my registration stuff and we were like a ten minute walk away.
So we threw ourselves out of bed and wandered over to the Boardwalk in search of DELICIOUS BREAKFAST. We hit up the bakery and had cereal (oh, man, we're boring) and also a tasty cherry danish! And all the birds hopped all over all the tables. There were, among other things, a duck and this adorably, tiny thing. Also there were some birds out on the water watching a fishing boat. Here's one of those.
We walked the long(er - it wasn't really long, it just wasn't as short) way around (past the wedding I mentioned earlier) and I took some pictures of Epcot from the outside (that "island" is one of the fireworks barges) as we approached.
We entered next to the United Kingdom, but as it was not yet 11 am, nothing in the World Showcase was actually open, so mostly we poked around, took a few pictures, (corrected my mother that the Tardis looks like a police box and not a phone booth,) and then hopped across the bridge to France as things were just starting up. TOOK MORE PICTURES. They had a film in France, but it wasn't opening for a bit, still, so we moved on rather than sit around waiting for it.
Next up was Morocco, which was pretty and full of awesome tile work. We walked through the back alleys, then moved on to Japan! [Random shot of the pool taken from somewhere around Morocco]
A lot of these places are mostly shops and restaurants, and we weren't hungry yet, and we didn't do entirely much shopping, which is why most of these are short, by the way. Anyway, Japan, though, we wandered through the one massive shop, because last time we were there, we bought awesomely comfortable shirts and we wanted to get more, since ours are old and worn, now. (We came back to buy it later, rather than carry it all around all day, but we did buy shirts - I got two, Mom got one, as well as some red bean paste-filled pancakes, some other weird candy, some DELICIOUS TEA omg, and some lucky cats. Again, pics will be in the BotCon section.) There was a BABY DUCK in the little water pool, and a pretty little dining area.
[The Epcot golfball]
"The American Adventure" came after Japan, which was more colonial stuff, I guess, but we didn't look around much and I apparently didn't actually take any pictures there, so MOVING ON TO ITALY, THEN. Here is a smaller version of the Poseidon fountain. Without water. Mom and I bought some chocolates and sat near that while we ate them and took a short break (because the sun was brutal and LOVELY LOVELY SHADE). Here are some grape vines and some flowers that was also right near by. Next, Germany, where they had a little train... thing set up. There was another duck (who looked massive in comparison) causing panic and wrecking havoc on the land. There is another hidden lizard in this picture. It's on the taller tower, on the right side, near the top. Here is the main town in the train set-up. GERMANY.
And next came China. There was a pretty little pond next to it. China, like France, had a little film, but unlike France, we actually went in to watch this one. (Last time we were here, my brother had already pitched a fit - he did that back in Japan, actually. He was very unhappy almost the entire trip for some reason - and been dragged off by Mom, so she'd never seen this, and actually, after Dad and I watched the film, we'd had to just run back to meet up with them, so after China, it was all new to both of us!) It showed us all sorts of places around China in a circle-vision theater (there are screens all along the walls of a round room, and often the picture is of a whole area, so you look ahead and see where you're going, and you can turn around and see where you're coming from. It's REALLY COOL but also sometimes vaguely vertigo-inducing). Inside the building, but outside the theater-room, they had a display on the Tomb Warriors. Took some pictures, so did Mom... (I'd turned the dating function on her camera off by this point.)
We got out of that and decided we were really hungry... Mexico was coming up soon, but did we want to wait that long? And what if we couldn't find a place to eat? So we had some shrimp and rice, and an eggroll, in China before heading off to Norway.
[A neat rock]
Norway had a bunch of viking stuff, and a ride where you got in a boat and sailed through ancient Norway and were sent rocketing off backwards by the Troll king and stuff. This is outside the ride. Sometimes you'd see the tail of the boat peek out through the cave. Here is a statue of a troll from the gift shop after the ride. Also there was a display where they were, I swear, playing music from The Lord of the Kings, from Rohan (the strings part from The King of the Golden Hall, from The Two Towers, I am pretty sure). Wiki tells me Howard Shore is Canadian, though, so unless he completely and wholly ripped off some Norwegian music, I don't really know what that was about.
AND NEXT WAS MEXICO, where there was a pyramid! And this was outside it! And THIS was inside it! That was the backdrop to a restaurant! Or possibly a ride? There was another boat ride, but we did not go on it. INSTEAD, oh. Instead, we sneaked our way into the reservations-only San Angel Inn Restaurante. See, we were just looking at the menu because... we do that. We read menus. Why not? ONLY. They had sopa azteca! OMG. IT IS SO GOOD! And Mom had never had it! And I only had it twice, in Mexico last year. And. And. Mom went up and basically said, "I know you're reservations only, but you've got sopa azteca on the menu, and my daughter went to Mexico last year and came home raving about it and is there any way we could just get a bowl of that...?"
And the hostess' eyes lit up and she actually wrote us a reservation and then she kept stopping over to talk to me because she was so excited to be talking to someone who'd been to Mexico, and to Mexico City (and Querétaro, which apparently no one she'd spoken to here in the USA had ever been to), and asking how the soup was (AND IT WAS STILL *AMAZING* LET ME TELL YOU if you ever have a chance to try to, please do so). We also had crab tostadas, which were also amazing, and then flan for dessert. And we left a ridiculously huge tip (though it was a small bill), but they totally deserved it.
After Mexico came Future World, which we weren't going to hit just yet, so we instead hopped on a boat and crossed the lake/pond/pool thing back to Germany (saw the cool picture outside Mexico in the process), scurried back to Japan and bought the stuff I mentioned above, and then went all the way back to the UK. There were fake Beatles singing songs and wanting us to sing along. JECCA DOES NOT SING IN PUBLIC. Mom had fun, though, so whatever. Then we went through the shop thing looking for these mint things (they were a seed covered in a little shell) they had last time that Mom really liked? I'd bought them for me, but she kept eating them, so when I did my GRAND SPEED TOUR across part of Europe, I bought her some, too. But that was, uh. A while ago. Summer of 2003. Anyway, while we were walking through, there was a little "TEST YOUR VOCABULARY" sign quiz and the only one I didn't know at all was vacuum / hoover. I couldn't remember pacifier, though, and the girl running the shop and I had a short conversation about all the random British television I watch...
And then, finally, last but not least, we went to Canada! They had a waterfall. And another circle-vision theater, which we also watched. When we got out, someone was sky-writing. JESUS LOVES U, U + GOD, and other such annoying messages with stupid text-speak abbreviations. Mom had seen him earlier, so I guess he's really, really bored or something.
I can't remember what we did next? It doesn't look that late in this image, but that's the sun staying up late for you... Oh, we saw some guys in kilts singing on the way out. Took a picture of the plant art outside France while we waited for a boat, and this time we took it the whole way to the hotel, which we went into to drop our stuff off and grab a snack.
AND THEN I STOOD IN LINE FOR AN HOUR, which actually isn't too bad, really. I just picked up my badge and box and shirt, though, no waiting in line for anything exclusively at the convention. Epcot has their fireworks display at 9 and no way were we going to miss it (thank goodness I was in the 8 pm group and not the 9 pm.... otherwise I'd've had to get up and go down even earlier the next morning...).
So, the boat driver had been telling us how much they spend on fireworks per day, and I don't remember what the number was, just that it was crazy a lot. But the show was SO AMAZING so you can see how. I TOOK A FEW VIDEOS obviously they won't be near as awesome as the real thing, but hopefully it gives you some kind of idea?
First it was just fireworks. ... "That green" does not really show up but it was very pretty.
Then Earth came out. You can't tell here, but while it did at first just glow a pretty colour, once it stopped moving, it had pictures of animals and places on the planet, and it was very pretty.
"It's all sparkly" is referring to the buildings of the World Showcase, which had lights all over them and had started twinkling. Please forgive my momentary stupid of turning the camera sideways.
At some point, which did not get recorded, the Earth split open and launched fireworks of its own...
After the fireworks show, the park was closed to most people, but - as stated elsewhere - since we were at a Disney hotel, we could stay until midnight! So after the fireworks, we went over to Future World to ride the rides. :D Since it was dark, I only took this one picture, of the fountain with all the lights. Mom took one of the "mine" seagulls outside the Finding Nemo ride. They had it set so a wave would splash, and the gulls would all go "mine" a few times.
With two and a half hours, you'd think we'd have done more, but a couple of the rides we went on still had long waits. The Finding Nemo one we literally got to walk right onto (though the whole line area was really cool and made it seem like you were underwater). Soarin' was an hour wait, though. BUT COMPLETELY WORTH IT. OH! You get in seats and they lift you up and it's like you're hang-gliding over parts of California, it is so amazing and pretty and AWESOME. If the line hadn't still been so long when we got out, we'd probably have gone again. But it was. So we went over to the Test Track, instead, where the car you're in goes through "tests" like ... handling on rough roads, and handing with and without ABS. AND THE CRASH TEST!! Only the wall gets outta your way at the last second and instead you go rocketing along and it is WHEEE fun.
AND THEN we barely had a few minutes left, so we ran to Mission: SPACE where you get to go to Mars and - okay, I have no idea how they pulled the G-forces off, but woaah. You got in a little box and it tilted up and stuff, I... guess? It was really hard to tell what was going on, my inner ears were confused. I WAS THE ENGINEER. I put us into cold sleep for the trip to Mars and then extended the wings for landing. (Four people per shuttle, each had an assigned role. Navigator, uh. Something, Commander, and Engineer.) And that was ALSO AMAZING I need a new word, geez. And then we were out of time and the park was closed, so we went back to the hotel and went to bed.
AND NOW I SWAP FRIDAY AROUND AND JUMP STRAIGHT TO 5 PM.
Mom and I took the shuttle to the Magic Kingdom, but we also both had a fit of stupid and forgot that I had two pass cards, not just the one like she did. I'd already used my two all-day passes, and the after-4 pass was back in the hotel room... so we hopped right back on the bus and went and got it. Also, at this point I was exhausted beyond words, my feet ached, and I hadn't had lunch. WINNING COMBINATION. SO I was kind of listless until we got food in me. Basically what this amounts to is that we didn't get started until 9 pm.
Actually, we did go to Tom Sawyer's Island (and we took the train back to Frontierland), which I probably would have enjoyed more if all the artificial ambient noises hadn't given me Silent Hill flashbacks. (And, you know, if I wasn't half-dead at the time.) But yeah, then I had a taco salad and a candy bar, and then things were much better. As I said above, it was approaching 9 when we finished that, and Disney has a night parade. But we decided to try and catch it when it rolled through again at 11 pm. Plus, the line for the Haunted Mansion was really short. Unfortunately, some of the kids/teens in front of us were being idiots and causing trouble, so they kept having to stop the ride. Rarg. It is a testament to my exhausted that I do not remember the order of things so well through here. We might have gone on It's a Small World, or maybe the Haunted Mansion took long enough that it was almost 10 by the time we were free of it. I... think it was the latter? Anyway, Disney fireworks! So we went poking around looking for a good spot, got a bit disoriented regarding where the front of the castle was, and eventually just said MEH and stood where we were. Here's a picture of the castle before the fireworks started.
Oh, look. More videos.
Started with music from Cinderella....
We did move a little... Sleeping Beauty... If you can't exactly understand what the fairy godmother is saying all the time, don't worry. Most of us couldn't.
The Little Mermaid... until Captain Hook attacks and they play Pirates of the Caribbean tracks, instead.
I suspect my batteries died, or maybe I cut off the last one because I didn't feel like recording all the chatter? Either way, THE CASTLE IS ON FIRE.
But it's okay, because Tinkerbell shows up to save the day.
MORE FIREWORKS.
And then we hid from the mass exodus because woah crush of people. And THEN we went to Main Street to sit around until 11 pm for the Electrical Parade.
YES. MORE VIDEOS. And a few pictures. Many of them are quite dark. This probably has something to do with it being almost 11:30 at night. Also my camera's batteries died a million times during this.
These faeries were right at the front of the parade. (Took a picture of them, too.)
The next couple videos are both Wonderland-inspired. I liked the spinning snails and turtles! [Picture]
Here's Alice, talking to the small children. AND THE OTHER TURTLE AND SNAIL! Also, my batteries died, which is why it cuts off in a weird spot (mid-sentence). [Picture]
Cinderella [Picture]
Peter Pan, with Peter and Captain Hook fighting.
First of two Snow White clips
Here's the other. It's short. GUESS WHY.
Pete's Dragon
And after this one I said ARGH and gave up on videos and instead just took a few pictures.
Pinoccio
-- again
And then the last float was all AMERICA!!! Which I suppose is all well and good, but I discovered something on this trip. While other people loving their countries is, I think very nice and it actually kind of touches me to see, USA patriotism just makes me roll my eyes. It's not that I hate here, I just hate that patriotism has become confused with nationalism.
HEY GUYS HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT. THAT WAS THE LAST OF THE DISNEY PICTURES! YAAAAAY I'm done for the rest of this entry (because yeah looks like BotCon's going to be its own). Hopefully I'll get that up tonight.
So! After the parade, we went over to Tomorrowland and grabbed a Fast Pass for Space Mountain, then walked into Stitch's Great Escape. It used to be some Lucasfilm-related alien encounter thing, and it was mostly the same, only with Stitch instead of some unknown evil alien thing that wanted to EAT YOUR FAAACE. But it was still fun. Then we grabbed some ice cream and wandered through Mickey's Toontown Fair on our way to Fantasyland and - I think this is when we rode "it's a small world" which I escaped without having been earworm'd - OR SO I THOUGHT, because I totally started humming it five hours later. Delayed earworm. Whatever. Next, we walked onto Pirates of the Caribbean, which is no longer the ride the movie was based on and is now instead the ride based on the movie based on the ride. It gets convoluted. (We did stop along the way because Mom wanted to go into the Hall of Presidents, but we'd just missed it.) From sailing through pirate-land (...er, waters), we went back to Frontierland and checked the times on Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. (Our Space Mountain time was coming up, so we didn't think we'd have time for both, since the lines were still a bit long.) We ended up picking Thunder Mountain, and we got the front seat, haha! Also, I am pretty sure I saw Scott McNeil in line behind us, which, you know, considering, isn't that surprising, but still surprised me anyway. AND THEN WE WERE LIKE WHAT THE HELL and got in line for Splash Mountain, anyway.
I kept my glasses dry! Except I forgot they throw water on you again after the massive plunge, so, uh, actually, no, I didn't. Oh, well.
Then it was, quick! Hurry! Time - EXCEPT OH WAIT HE'S ONLY JUST ABOUT TO START THE HALL OF PRESIDENTS SHOW COME ON MOM - so we sat and watched that, made Mom happy. And then we got in line for Space Mountain, and there were a bunch of frat boys being very, very loud behind us, but as it was 2 am at this point (oh god), and as they were a welcome change from SCREAMING CHILDREN, I found them more amusing than irritating. Mom was not so fortunate. Also Space Mountain is awesome.
And then we were on our way out but I was still looking for postcards and hooray, we did actually find some! Everyone who got one has probably noticed they are Epcot-themed, not Magic Kingdom themed, but I did buy them at the Magic Kingdom. The MK ones were not as awesome. Lots of postcards of the characters, when I wanted ... not that?
Anyway, we finally did escape at about 3 am - you know, when the park closed. We hadn't planned on staying that long, but I guess that's how it goes, sometimes, and, hey! We hit everything we wanted to. Whoo!
LJ, IF YOU EAT MY CODES AGAIN I AM GOING TO PITCH A FIT. THANK GOD
Also, BotCon post is next. I mean it this time.
... also I am apparently not getting comment notifications.
As established in the first, ungodly long post, Thursday was Epcot day because that was when it had extra hours, and because I had to be at the Dolphin at 8 pm to pick up my registration stuff and we were like a ten minute walk away.
So we threw ourselves out of bed and wandered over to the Boardwalk in search of DELICIOUS BREAKFAST. We hit up the bakery and had cereal (oh, man, we're boring) and also a tasty cherry danish! And all the birds hopped all over all the tables. There were, among other things, a duck and this adorably, tiny thing. Also there were some birds out on the water watching a fishing boat. Here's one of those.
We walked the long(er - it wasn't really long, it just wasn't as short) way around (past the wedding I mentioned earlier) and I took some pictures of Epcot from the outside (that "island" is one of the fireworks barges) as we approached.
We entered next to the United Kingdom, but as it was not yet 11 am, nothing in the World Showcase was actually open, so mostly we poked around, took a few pictures, (corrected my mother that the Tardis looks like a police box and not a phone booth,) and then hopped across the bridge to France as things were just starting up. TOOK MORE PICTURES. They had a film in France, but it wasn't opening for a bit, still, so we moved on rather than sit around waiting for it.
Next up was Morocco, which was pretty and full of awesome tile work. We walked through the back alleys, then moved on to Japan! [Random shot of the pool taken from somewhere around Morocco]
A lot of these places are mostly shops and restaurants, and we weren't hungry yet, and we didn't do entirely much shopping, which is why most of these are short, by the way. Anyway, Japan, though, we wandered through the one massive shop, because last time we were there, we bought awesomely comfortable shirts and we wanted to get more, since ours are old and worn, now. (We came back to buy it later, rather than carry it all around all day, but we did buy shirts - I got two, Mom got one, as well as some red bean paste-filled pancakes, some other weird candy, some DELICIOUS TEA omg, and some lucky cats. Again, pics will be in the BotCon section.) There was a BABY DUCK in the little water pool, and a pretty little dining area.
[The Epcot golfball]
"The American Adventure" came after Japan, which was more colonial stuff, I guess, but we didn't look around much and I apparently didn't actually take any pictures there, so MOVING ON TO ITALY, THEN. Here is a smaller version of the Poseidon fountain. Without water. Mom and I bought some chocolates and sat near that while we ate them and took a short break (because the sun was brutal and LOVELY LOVELY SHADE). Here are some grape vines and some flowers that was also right near by. Next, Germany, where they had a little train... thing set up. There was another duck (who looked massive in comparison) causing panic and wrecking havoc on the land. There is another hidden lizard in this picture. It's on the taller tower, on the right side, near the top. Here is the main town in the train set-up. GERMANY.
And next came China. There was a pretty little pond next to it. China, like France, had a little film, but unlike France, we actually went in to watch this one. (Last time we were here, my brother had already pitched a fit - he did that back in Japan, actually. He was very unhappy almost the entire trip for some reason - and been dragged off by Mom, so she'd never seen this, and actually, after Dad and I watched the film, we'd had to just run back to meet up with them, so after China, it was all new to both of us!) It showed us all sorts of places around China in a circle-vision theater (there are screens all along the walls of a round room, and often the picture is of a whole area, so you look ahead and see where you're going, and you can turn around and see where you're coming from. It's REALLY COOL but also sometimes vaguely vertigo-inducing). Inside the building, but outside the theater-room, they had a display on the Tomb Warriors. Took some pictures, so did Mom... (I'd turned the dating function on her camera off by this point.)
We got out of that and decided we were really hungry... Mexico was coming up soon, but did we want to wait that long? And what if we couldn't find a place to eat? So we had some shrimp and rice, and an eggroll, in China before heading off to Norway.
[A neat rock]
Norway had a bunch of viking stuff, and a ride where you got in a boat and sailed through ancient Norway and were sent rocketing off backwards by the Troll king and stuff. This is outside the ride. Sometimes you'd see the tail of the boat peek out through the cave. Here is a statue of a troll from the gift shop after the ride. Also there was a display where they were, I swear, playing music from The Lord of the Kings, from Rohan (the strings part from The King of the Golden Hall, from The Two Towers, I am pretty sure). Wiki tells me Howard Shore is Canadian, though, so unless he completely and wholly ripped off some Norwegian music, I don't really know what that was about.
AND NEXT WAS MEXICO, where there was a pyramid! And this was outside it! And THIS was inside it! That was the backdrop to a restaurant! Or possibly a ride? There was another boat ride, but we did not go on it. INSTEAD, oh. Instead, we sneaked our way into the reservations-only San Angel Inn Restaurante. See, we were just looking at the menu because... we do that. We read menus. Why not? ONLY. They had sopa azteca! OMG. IT IS SO GOOD! And Mom had never had it! And I only had it twice, in Mexico last year. And. And. Mom went up and basically said, "I know you're reservations only, but you've got sopa azteca on the menu, and my daughter went to Mexico last year and came home raving about it and is there any way we could just get a bowl of that...?"
And the hostess' eyes lit up and she actually wrote us a reservation and then she kept stopping over to talk to me because she was so excited to be talking to someone who'd been to Mexico, and to Mexico City (and Querétaro, which apparently no one she'd spoken to here in the USA had ever been to), and asking how the soup was (AND IT WAS STILL *AMAZING* LET ME TELL YOU if you ever have a chance to try to, please do so). We also had crab tostadas, which were also amazing, and then flan for dessert. And we left a ridiculously huge tip (though it was a small bill), but they totally deserved it.
After Mexico came Future World, which we weren't going to hit just yet, so we instead hopped on a boat and crossed the lake/pond/pool thing back to Germany (saw the cool picture outside Mexico in the process), scurried back to Japan and bought the stuff I mentioned above, and then went all the way back to the UK. There were fake Beatles singing songs and wanting us to sing along. JECCA DOES NOT SING IN PUBLIC. Mom had fun, though, so whatever. Then we went through the shop thing looking for these mint things (they were a seed covered in a little shell) they had last time that Mom really liked? I'd bought them for me, but she kept eating them, so when I did my GRAND SPEED TOUR across part of Europe, I bought her some, too. But that was, uh. A while ago. Summer of 2003. Anyway, while we were walking through, there was a little "TEST YOUR VOCABULARY" sign quiz and the only one I didn't know at all was vacuum / hoover. I couldn't remember pacifier, though, and the girl running the shop and I had a short conversation about all the random British television I watch...
And then, finally, last but not least, we went to Canada! They had a waterfall. And another circle-vision theater, which we also watched. When we got out, someone was sky-writing. JESUS LOVES U, U + GOD, and other such annoying messages with stupid text-speak abbreviations. Mom had seen him earlier, so I guess he's really, really bored or something.
I can't remember what we did next? It doesn't look that late in this image, but that's the sun staying up late for you... Oh, we saw some guys in kilts singing on the way out. Took a picture of the plant art outside France while we waited for a boat, and this time we took it the whole way to the hotel, which we went into to drop our stuff off and grab a snack.
AND THEN I STOOD IN LINE FOR AN HOUR, which actually isn't too bad, really. I just picked up my badge and box and shirt, though, no waiting in line for anything exclusively at the convention. Epcot has their fireworks display at 9 and no way were we going to miss it (thank goodness I was in the 8 pm group and not the 9 pm.... otherwise I'd've had to get up and go down even earlier the next morning...).
So, the boat driver had been telling us how much they spend on fireworks per day, and I don't remember what the number was, just that it was crazy a lot. But the show was SO AMAZING so you can see how. I TOOK A FEW VIDEOS obviously they won't be near as awesome as the real thing, but hopefully it gives you some kind of idea?
First it was just fireworks. ... "That green" does not really show up but it was very pretty.
Then Earth came out. You can't tell here, but while it did at first just glow a pretty colour, once it stopped moving, it had pictures of animals and places on the planet, and it was very pretty.
"It's all sparkly" is referring to the buildings of the World Showcase, which had lights all over them and had started twinkling. Please forgive my momentary stupid of turning the camera sideways.
At some point, which did not get recorded, the Earth split open and launched fireworks of its own...
After the fireworks show, the park was closed to most people, but - as stated elsewhere - since we were at a Disney hotel, we could stay until midnight! So after the fireworks, we went over to Future World to ride the rides. :D Since it was dark, I only took this one picture, of the fountain with all the lights. Mom took one of the "mine" seagulls outside the Finding Nemo ride. They had it set so a wave would splash, and the gulls would all go "mine" a few times.
With two and a half hours, you'd think we'd have done more, but a couple of the rides we went on still had long waits. The Finding Nemo one we literally got to walk right onto (though the whole line area was really cool and made it seem like you were underwater). Soarin' was an hour wait, though. BUT COMPLETELY WORTH IT. OH! You get in seats and they lift you up and it's like you're hang-gliding over parts of California, it is so amazing and pretty and AWESOME. If the line hadn't still been so long when we got out, we'd probably have gone again. But it was. So we went over to the Test Track, instead, where the car you're in goes through "tests" like ... handling on rough roads, and handing with and without ABS. AND THE CRASH TEST!! Only the wall gets outta your way at the last second and instead you go rocketing along and it is WHEEE fun.
AND THEN we barely had a few minutes left, so we ran to Mission: SPACE where you get to go to Mars and - okay, I have no idea how they pulled the G-forces off, but woaah. You got in a little box and it tilted up and stuff, I... guess? It was really hard to tell what was going on, my inner ears were confused. I WAS THE ENGINEER. I put us into cold sleep for the trip to Mars and then extended the wings for landing. (Four people per shuttle, each had an assigned role. Navigator, uh. Something, Commander, and Engineer.) And that was ALSO AMAZING I need a new word, geez. And then we were out of time and the park was closed, so we went back to the hotel and went to bed.
AND NOW I SWAP FRIDAY AROUND AND JUMP STRAIGHT TO 5 PM.
Mom and I took the shuttle to the Magic Kingdom, but we also both had a fit of stupid and forgot that I had two pass cards, not just the one like she did. I'd already used my two all-day passes, and the after-4 pass was back in the hotel room... so we hopped right back on the bus and went and got it. Also, at this point I was exhausted beyond words, my feet ached, and I hadn't had lunch. WINNING COMBINATION. SO I was kind of listless until we got food in me. Basically what this amounts to is that we didn't get started until 9 pm.
Actually, we did go to Tom Sawyer's Island (and we took the train back to Frontierland), which I probably would have enjoyed more if all the artificial ambient noises hadn't given me Silent Hill flashbacks. (And, you know, if I wasn't half-dead at the time.) But yeah, then I had a taco salad and a candy bar, and then things were much better. As I said above, it was approaching 9 when we finished that, and Disney has a night parade. But we decided to try and catch it when it rolled through again at 11 pm. Plus, the line for the Haunted Mansion was really short. Unfortunately, some of the kids/teens in front of us were being idiots and causing trouble, so they kept having to stop the ride. Rarg. It is a testament to my exhausted that I do not remember the order of things so well through here. We might have gone on It's a Small World, or maybe the Haunted Mansion took long enough that it was almost 10 by the time we were free of it. I... think it was the latter? Anyway, Disney fireworks! So we went poking around looking for a good spot, got a bit disoriented regarding where the front of the castle was, and eventually just said MEH and stood where we were. Here's a picture of the castle before the fireworks started.
Oh, look. More videos.
Started with music from Cinderella....
We did move a little... Sleeping Beauty... If you can't exactly understand what the fairy godmother is saying all the time, don't worry. Most of us couldn't.
The Little Mermaid... until Captain Hook attacks and they play Pirates of the Caribbean tracks, instead.
I suspect my batteries died, or maybe I cut off the last one because I didn't feel like recording all the chatter? Either way, THE CASTLE IS ON FIRE.
But it's okay, because Tinkerbell shows up to save the day.
MORE FIREWORKS.
And then we hid from the mass exodus because woah crush of people. And THEN we went to Main Street to sit around until 11 pm for the Electrical Parade.
YES. MORE VIDEOS. And a few pictures. Many of them are quite dark. This probably has something to do with it being almost 11:30 at night. Also my camera's batteries died a million times during this.
These faeries were right at the front of the parade. (Took a picture of them, too.)
The next couple videos are both Wonderland-inspired. I liked the spinning snails and turtles! [Picture]
Here's Alice, talking to the small children. AND THE OTHER TURTLE AND SNAIL! Also, my batteries died, which is why it cuts off in a weird spot (mid-sentence). [Picture]
Cinderella [Picture]
Peter Pan, with Peter and Captain Hook fighting.
First of two Snow White clips
Here's the other. It's short. GUESS WHY.
Pete's Dragon
And after this one I said ARGH and gave up on videos and instead just took a few pictures.
Pinoccio
-- again
And then the last float was all AMERICA!!! Which I suppose is all well and good, but I discovered something on this trip. While other people loving their countries is, I think very nice and it actually kind of touches me to see, USA patriotism just makes me roll my eyes. It's not that I hate here, I just hate that patriotism has become confused with nationalism.
HEY GUYS HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT. THAT WAS THE LAST OF THE DISNEY PICTURES! YAAAAAY I'm done for the rest of this entry (because yeah looks like BotCon's going to be its own). Hopefully I'll get that up tonight.
So! After the parade, we went over to Tomorrowland and grabbed a Fast Pass for Space Mountain, then walked into Stitch's Great Escape. It used to be some Lucasfilm-related alien encounter thing, and it was mostly the same, only with Stitch instead of some unknown evil alien thing that wanted to EAT YOUR FAAACE. But it was still fun. Then we grabbed some ice cream and wandered through Mickey's Toontown Fair on our way to Fantasyland and - I think this is when we rode "it's a small world" which I escaped without having been earworm'd - OR SO I THOUGHT, because I totally started humming it five hours later. Delayed earworm. Whatever. Next, we walked onto Pirates of the Caribbean, which is no longer the ride the movie was based on and is now instead the ride based on the movie based on the ride. It gets convoluted. (We did stop along the way because Mom wanted to go into the Hall of Presidents, but we'd just missed it.) From sailing through pirate-land (...er, waters), we went back to Frontierland and checked the times on Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. (Our Space Mountain time was coming up, so we didn't think we'd have time for both, since the lines were still a bit long.) We ended up picking Thunder Mountain, and we got the front seat, haha! Also, I am pretty sure I saw Scott McNeil in line behind us, which, you know, considering, isn't that surprising, but still surprised me anyway. AND THEN WE WERE LIKE WHAT THE HELL and got in line for Splash Mountain, anyway.
I kept my glasses dry! Except I forgot they throw water on you again after the massive plunge, so, uh, actually, no, I didn't. Oh, well.
Then it was, quick! Hurry! Time - EXCEPT OH WAIT HE'S ONLY JUST ABOUT TO START THE HALL OF PRESIDENTS SHOW COME ON MOM - so we sat and watched that, made Mom happy. And then we got in line for Space Mountain, and there were a bunch of frat boys being very, very loud behind us, but as it was 2 am at this point (oh god), and as they were a welcome change from SCREAMING CHILDREN, I found them more amusing than irritating. Mom was not so fortunate. Also Space Mountain is awesome.
And then we were on our way out but I was still looking for postcards and hooray, we did actually find some! Everyone who got one has probably noticed they are Epcot-themed, not Magic Kingdom themed, but I did buy them at the Magic Kingdom. The MK ones were not as awesome. Lots of postcards of the characters, when I wanted ... not that?
Anyway, we finally did escape at about 3 am - you know, when the park closed. We hadn't planned on staying that long, but I guess that's how it goes, sometimes, and, hey! We hit everything we wanted to. Whoo!
Also, BotCon post is next. I mean it this time.
... also I am apparently not getting comment notifications.
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That is a bit odd.. why were you in Querétaro? Most people go to Acapulco and then get naked and come home. Em I mean spring break happens.. ok shutting up now..
damn that food does sound yummy @_@ and its cool how they have so many different countries repreented :D
aw fireworks :) now I feel better about missing all of them for the 4th. These look damn cool. Like that water thing! have you seent he ads? it looks awesome!
The earth exploded! oh no! T_T doom. remind me of robotech season ones ending.. so sad...
Silent hill flash backs? ok if I ever go to disney world I'm avoiding that train.. if possible.
The castle movie music thing is pretty damn cool :)
Holy crap! the vids almost crashed my browser... the power of fireworks @_@
Slash mountain :) that had to have been fun!
PS LJ is being weird and not all comment notifications are being sent. I've been getting pokemon through one of the comms here and we've all had trouble since Sat
no subject
I was in Querétaro because our teacher lived there for many years and really loved it, and wanted us to be able to see it and learn about it firsthand. IT WAS SO AWESOME.
Epcot's fireworks were SO AMAZING omg. BEST.
It was not the train, it was Tom Sawyer's Island! And then more the ... mill-place. The caves weren't TOO bad, I was just already unnerved by the mill.
aaaaugh, no! DO NOT CRASH THE BROWSER, VIDEOS!
Yeah, I get none and then I get a million, though some have just never shown up at all. It's frustrating.