Ok, apologies for the lack of pics. I promise to add some later - or I might put some at the end of each batch of days.
So I made my 3rd trip to the U.S. in just over a year - Orlando in October last year, touring the west coast in April and back to Orlando but this time with my folks in tow. Now, I'm not one for making plans, mostly due to having to cater for one of my parents who isn't massively into theme parks or Mickey Mouse...!
Day 1: The Magic Kingdom
We turned up fairly early, not on rope drop but early enough as I knew there would be long lines for the Diamond Cart Mine a Ride, and I wasn't 'disappointed'! Being first on my rough list of things to do, I warned my folks that there might be long wait times for things. My mum is happy to go along with things but my dad hates waiting for anything, so had comments about things taking far too long to get anywhere in general...now before you ask why I didn't get a fast pass, I did...except in family tradition, we didn't book anything till quite late and I attempted to get fast passes for the first day with little luck. Anyway, after 90 minutes (probably a bit less), we got to the ride. It was worth the wait. I've never ridden a smoother roller coaster ever! The swing of the cart bodies made things seem ultra smooth with a Brer Rabbit-eque ride through the seven dwarfs diamond mine a nice touch. My folks enjoyed it despite the wait and in a surprise, for me, in any case - I got invited into a selfie with my temporary cart companion...if you're a member of the forum, please get in touch as I'd like a copy of the pic! This last second surprise ending to the ride amused my fols no end...!
After this, it was mostly walking about trying to work out what my dad wanted to do other than not go on anything(!) so the first day was restricted to a ride on The Little Mermaid...very similar in feel, to me, to The Haunted Mansion but it gave a nice precis of the story. I took my mum to check out Carousel of Progress whilst my dad wandered around outside - he'd been told not to bring his coffee in, so chose to sit things out. After that, it was a wander round Storybrook, up and down Main Street so I could take pictures and a trip into Guest Relations where I managed to get tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party for Thursday...perhaps not a bad thing seeing as I was trying to break my dad into all things Disney gently! I did manage to get them to eat hot dogs at Casey's, so not all was lost...!
Part 2 of The Magic Kingdom to come later...
Day 2: Epcot
A more successful day as this wasn't about me forcing my folks onto rides but onto stuff they liked before. My mum is a massive fan of Soarin' so we made this the first destination and a much shorter wait time than The Diamond Cart ride and also the first time when my folks rode it in 2007. As usual my mum took great joy in playing the interactive games to while away the time and we were there in less than an hour; in '07, we waited more than 2 hours to soar for 3 minutes! In a slight change to the Soarin' I remembered, we ended up flying down Disneyland's Main Street to end the flight. A visit to Test Track 2.0 followed which we all enjoyed, although we chose the single rider line to cut down the wait time. After that, a ride on Spaceship Earth where my mum happily told my dad that M had voiced the narration and told me that fact after (which I knew but allowed my mum to tell me...not always a good idea to be the know-it-all all the time!) we skipped the rest of the rides as I knew they wouldn't be able to ride Mission to Mars and thankfully, Ellen's Universe of Energy was down.
We spent the rest of the day touring The World Showcase. A quick trip with The Three Caberellos ended up with a silly pic of me in a sombrero and we had a disappointing wander through one of the Norwegian houses where it seems Frozen has stomped all over things again. We looked at the warrior exhibit in the China pavilion with a recreation of the Terracota Army and spent a little time looking through the oddly laid out emporium before cleaning the snack shack of its curry chicken puffs and most of the spring rolls in order to make up a version of their platter deal...we whizzed thru Germany and Venice before stopping for a while at Japan, watching the Japanese dude hardly contain himself as he went thru 5 pearl 'discoveries' in quick succession. We glossed over The American Adventure (sorry USA!) and France before stopping to watch The British Revolution in the British pavilion. Passable covers but Ozzy playing at Disney? Is this a normal part of their routine...? The final stop was Canada as we saw a bit of their replacement chainsaw act. What happened to all the music In the World a showcase?
Day 3: Hollywood Studios
Again, this was initially about getting my folks to try stuff they hadn't been to before or done in a long time. Today it was about Star Tours, The Little Mermaid (again) and Beauty and the Beast for my mum. I took my folks onto The Great Movie ride and managed to get a sub 50 minute wait for Toy Story Mania as well. Whilst I sent my folks to watch Beauty and the Beast, I took the rare opportunity to ride both The Rock 'n' Roller Coaster AND The Tower of Terror BEFORE they finished the show...!! I always ride the Aerosmith coaster when I'm in town and believe they'd cleaned up the video for the pre-ride teaser and shortened it. I'd never ridden The Tower of Terror. I'm not a big fan of 'drop you whilst you crap your pants' rides but a supposed 25 minute wait turned into a 5 minute wait and I figured I'd have nothing to lose. It's not a bad ride...certainly less scary than I thought it would be although the lady next to me was hanging on for dear life and screaming until it finished and she started laughing instead. The Little Mermaid show was better than Beauty and the Beast, in my opinion in terms of how they edited the movie to fit into a limited time. The use of clips from the movie was good.
We took in The Muppet 3D movie and watched a 'film' crew carry out a shoot on the Streets of America which was amusing. I persuaded my dad to stay around for Indiana Jones. He figured he'd seen it once and it wouldn't be the same, but it was different enough to even when I saw it last - no more rolling stone and I think they'd moved the plane sequence around and this time they blew the truck up where they didn't when I watched it last.
After this, it was a small case of hanging around for the first of three showings of Fantasmic. Again this has changed since I last saw it but it was a nice end to the day.
More to follow and I'll edit in some pics at some point soon...assuming I remember to finish the report...!
Yes, that's me in the profile pic...kudos for guessing the movie...
Does it go upside down?
That annoys me so much.