But Dumbo rocked, man.
We regrouped at Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. This is a ride through a video game, basically. You're in a little car that you can rotate back and forth with a joystick, and you have a "laser gun" you fire at targets to kill space aliens and defeat the Evil Emporer Zurg, and not incidentally score points which are displayed in front of you.
And I beat the guys, she said modestly.
This earned me the privilege of sitting out the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway. Now, most of the time, the crowd control engineering at Disney is impressive. Rides are designed to move 'em in and move 'em out. Lines move. Even at Dumbo, which has a very limited number of seats and takes forever to load and unload, we were on the ride faster than the Ride Wait Time sign claimed. So I really want to know who the hell designed the Speedway? This is the only ride where the actual wait time exceeded what the signs claimed, and it was through a slow, convoluted queue, most of which was out under the open sky and the Florida sun. Steinar really paid for his two hours alone at Epcot, I'll tell ya. On the plus side, Robert really enjoyed driving a little car along at the speed of your average lawn mower.
Tomorrowland was a lot of fun, though, even with the long wait for the Speedway. A surprise hit was the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, little linear-motor powered trains that zip around on elevated tracks. You get to see the inside of Space Mountain and the Buzz Lightyear ride, and the narration is so over-the-top it's good corny fun for all. Perhaps nicest of all, you get to rest your feet and feel a gentle, cool breeze on your face. Ahhhh.
I also have to put in a word for Mickey's Philharmagic - which is really Donald's Philharmagic, but you know how jealous that stupid mouse can get. This is a 3D movie with other special effects, and it is a huge amount of fun, especially for dyed-in-the-wool Donald fans like the cast of this adventure. Of course the mouse has to be the hero in the end, but phhhhhbt.
Unfortunately, the Magic Kingdom is the one park where I got to see the least of what I wanted to - mostly because Steinar took the boys on some of the rides while I took in things of no interest to the kids (e.g. the Hall of Presidents). So no Splash Mountain or Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for me, at least this time, and none of us made it to Pirates of the Carribean. We also made a planning error, I'm afraid. Robert and I, together with my parents, had reservations at a restaurant called the Crystal Palace, a buffet restaurant in the Magic Kingdom with visits by Winnie the Pooh and some of the other Hundred Acre Wood characters. Steinar and Kenneth had reservations for the so-called Fantasmic Dinner Package, which included supper at Mamma Melrose's Italian restaurant at Disney-MGM Studios, followed by tickets in a reserved section of the amphitheater for Fantasmic!, a laser/fireworks/lots of other stuff nighttime show that I thought would be a bit much for Robert. Their reservation was early, something like 4:30, so they left about mid-afternoon to get to the Studios on time. That left me alone with an increasingly tired Robert. He announced he wanted to go back to the hotel and swim... except at that time it was late enough that I wasn't at all sure we would have time to do anything at the hotel, certainly not to swim. He wanted to ride the Speedway again - I wasn't willing to stand in the sun for thirty minutes or more to repeat a ride he'd already been on. We took a ride around the park on the train and played in Donald's Boat (a combination fountain/playground in Mickey's Toontown Fair), and that seemed to perk him up. But looking back I think it would have made much more sense to spread out the Magic Kingdom over two days instead of trying to do it in one looooong day. Ah, the wisdom of hindsight.
Just enough time to see the Enchanted Tiki Room (too loud!) and ride the Magic Carpets of Aladdin - like Dumbo, but with the added thrill of wondering if a camel is going to spit on you - and it was time to check in at the Crystal Palace.
This might have been the highlight of the trip for Robert. The characters were just wonderful. They stopped and waited for Robert to acknowledge them and react before getting too close - you could tell they were used to working with little kids. And Robert just loved the attention!
I thought Robert would want to wrap up the day with fireworks, but no go. This tired little fellow just wanted to get to bed.
Kenneth and Steinar gave both Mamma Melrose's and Fantasmic! top marks. Kenneth picked up yet another new favorite food, Italian sausage.
And so Day Three was followed by Day Four, as surely as... well, as surely as four follows three, actually. On to the Animal Kingdom.
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Created 29 March 2005 * Last Updated 14 July 2005