Sunday, June 27, 2010

Fun At Disneyworld Part 2


After our fun day at Epcot, we decided we needed some rest, so we took things easy the next day at Animal Kingdom, which I was grateful for. We first went on the ride Dinosaur, which was one of my favorites in all of Disneyworld. It basically has the same track as the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, but instead of Indiana Jones, you travel in a time machine back to the time of Dinosaurs and try to find a specific Dinosaur before the impending meteor. It was a lot of fun! After that, I rested while Kevin went on his favorite ride in all of Disneyworld, Expedition Everest. We then had lunch at a nice restaurant and headed to the Kilimanjaro Safaris, where you take a ride in a truck and see many real animals in their natural habitat with the driver as your guide. It was really a nice safari and cool to see the different animals such as giraffes, elephants, and lions.

After that ride, Kevin went on Expedition Everest one more time while I shopped for souvenirs. We left that night and went back to our hotel room and had hamburgers for dinner which Kevin went and bought at a bar. The next two days we went to Hollywood Studios, which I thought was a lot of fun. We went on the Great Movie Ride, which is where you travel through different movie scenes such as Wizard of Oz, Alien, and Indiana Jones. At one point, while you are in the scene of a gangster movie, one of the gangsters actually comes out of the scene and hijacks the car that you are riding and becomes the new tour guide, only to be killed later so the original tour guide could return. It was a lot of fun. Also fun was the American Idol experience where you become the American Idol audience and people who auditioned that day compete for an audience vote. It was fun hearing the different talent and getting to vote for my favorite. What was also cool was that the winner of each show during the day participated in a finale show and the winner of the finale show would receive a golden ticket that allowed them to go to the front of the line for any American Idol audition throughout the country. I enjoyed the American Idol Experience so much that I went a second time without Kevin.

We also went on Star Tours, which was identical to the Disneyland version. We attended the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, which was incredible and featured live stunt men reenacting scenes from the movie. After that, we went on the Studio Backlot Tour, which featured a tram tour through the Backlot, and some demonstrations of different stunts. We went into a place that had props from the movie Prince Caspian and then to an exhibit that showed the history of Walt Disney and how his dreams became a reality, which was really cool to see. That day we also went on Toy Story Mania, which is where you go through and use a kind of gun to shoot at things and try to earn points. The line was incredibly long, I believe the wait was up to over two hours at one point. Luckily Kevin and I had fastpasses, so the wait wasn't as long for us. That night we attended the Fantasmic show, which takes place in a theater specifically built for the show. I thought it was really cool, although Kevin was disappointed that instead of the part with Peter Pan that they have at Disneyland, they had a scene from Pocahontas. Also, the dragon that is supposed to come out at the end didn't quite work right, so that was a little disappointing. But, besides that it was a great show.

After that day, we switched hotels and stayed at All Star Movies, which was not as nice as the first hotel we stayed at, but fun in its own way. We spent the last 3 days of our trip going back to the parks and re-doing the rides we liked the best. We had lunch with Erin at Hollywood Studios on one of the days. After that, Kevin and her went on the Aerosmith Roller Coaster while I stayed behind and went to the 3D Muppetvision show. After that, Erin left, and Kevin and I went to a stunt show that involved cars driving backwards and lots of explosions. It was really awesome! On our next day we went to Epcot and attempted to eat around the world, meaning have some kind of food from each of the different countries. We got to America, and then were too full to eat anymore, so we were only able to eat halfway around the world. On our final day we returned once again to The Magic Kingdom and had fun repeating all of our favorite rides from there. It was great!

So, all in all, the trip was tons of fun and I'm really glad I went! Disneyworld doesn't have quite the same magic as Disneyland, but there is so much to do and it is so much fun!

Note: Sorry it has taken me so long to write this entry! I'll probably write another one soon where I go through what else has happened this summer (which unfortunately isn't much).

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Fun At Disneyworld Part 1


This past week, I went to Disneyworld with Kevin to celebrate our graduation from BYU. We had been planning this trip for quite some time, so it was exciting to see it actually become a reality. We left early (early for me at least) to go to the Salt Lake Airport. I always get nervous in airports, but everything went really smoothly, and I enjoyed the flight to Orlando because I got to play trivia with other people on the plane, including Kevin, and I even ended up with the highest score of the whole plane ride. I was also able to listen to a lot of great music on my ipod while doing this. It was really a blast! That first day we basically just made sure we got into our hotel and were settled in. We did go to Downtown Disney that night for a little bit, which was when I first realized that this was going to be a very hot week, the weather was really humid and hot which was uncomfortable until I got used to it a little more throughout the week.

The next day, we started our Disneyworld adventures at the Magic Kingdom. This is basically the part of the park that most closely matches Disneyland. I went to Disneyworld about 15 years ago when I was 10, but I didn't really remember the Magic Kingdom at all. So, it was all basically a new experience for me. Kevin and I spent the morning in Fantasyland going on Peter Pan, It's A Small World (both are not quite as good as the Disneyland version in my opinion) and Snow White and Winnie the Pooh (which are both superior to the Disneyland version in my opinion). Then, we met up with Erin for lunch at a hot dog place that she is a huge fan of. We then went on all the other Magic Kingdom rides, included my personal favorite, Mickey's Philharmagic. This was a 3D movie in which Donald Duck goes through several other Disney movies. It is really creative, fun, and most importantly for me, not too intense. We also went on The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Carribean, The Jungle Cruise, Country Bear Jamboree, Tiki Room, Stitch's Great Escape, Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor, and the Carousel of Progress. Of course, Kevin and Erin also went on Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain while I waited, since I'm not a fan of big drops or fast, roller coaster rides. It was a really fun day, and we were able to see The Main Street Electrical Parade and the big fireworks show at night.

The next day we spent at Epcot, which is probably my favorite of the four Disneyworld parks. I remembered a little bit more of this park from my childhood. Before we got to Epcot though, we met up with Erin at a restaurant to eat breakfast with Disney characters. I wasn't sure what to do when the Disney characters came to our table, but it ended up being a lot of fun, and I got several cool pictures with the different characters (Donald, Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy). After that we took the monorail to Epcot. There are basically two parts to Epcot, the Future World and the World Showcase. We started in the Future World and went on several rides. My favorite was Soarin', which takes you on a hang glider through various parts of California. I also went on Spaceship Earth, which is inside the big golf ball and takes you through a perspective of Earth's history. I also went on a ride called Living with the Land, which is a slow moving boat ride that takes you through all the agricultural advancements that Disney is working on.

After spending time in the Future World part, we began our journey through the World Showcase, which is basically where they have representations of 11 different countries. We started in Canada, where we watched a really cool movie about Canada. At this point my legs got really sore and it became difficult to walk, which was unfortunate since we had a lot of walking in store this day. But, I kept on through England and then on to France where we watched another movie, this time of course about France. I was so exhausted that I took the opportunity to take a nap while the movie played (don't worry though, we went back another day and this time I actually stayed awake for the movie!). Also, at this point I was getting really hungry, which I think contributed to my fatigue since I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and it was now approaching dinner time. We made reservations to eat in China, so we made our way over to the restaurant which was about 5 countries away. After eating, though, I felt better, and we went to Mexico and went on the little boat cruise through Mexico with the Three Cabelleros, which was entertaining. We then went on a ride in Norway called Maelstrom that takes you through some viking lands and then has you go down a short waterfall. It was a lot of fun. After this we headed to Japan, mainly to get a spot to wait for the fireworks show, illuminations. I needed to sit down since my legs were really sore at this point, so I waited alone while Kevin ran around Epcot getting candy bars and Erin spent time shopping around Japan (her favorite country). They stood in a different spot for the fireworks show for a better view while I stayed sitting. After illuminations, we left Epcot and got much needed rest for our next day....

...and I'm starting to realize that this is going to be a really long entry, so I'm going to end part 1 here and continue on in a later post. Stay tuned for our time in the Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios...