ENTERING A WORLD OF MAGIC, PART II
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Last week, Mike and his family started off on their
Disney voyage, taking in the Magic Kingdom and being attacked by a blood thirsty grackle.
Today, we visit the remaining three parks.
We decided to cram those two parks into two days because they were going to be the least interesting to my daughter. Remember, she’s 18-months old, so “not interesting” to her means “I’m not interested, and therefore others will have permanent hearing damage as a result of my screaming.” So we try to make sure that she is happy at all times. This is this reason that we have a television in the car. Before I had a kid, I swore that I would never have a TV in my car. My child could sit there and count mile marker signs like I had to when I was a kid. But one six-hour trip with an unhappy baby got me whistling a different tune mighty quickly. Trust me, six hours of Elmo is far better than six hours of “WAAAAAH!!!! WAAAAAH!!!!!” at a decibel range just below the level that would actually rupture my head.
Anywho, so we start off with Epcot. Our first stop was the Living Seas, which contains, big shock, fish. It’s also got sharks, manatees, sea horses, and a host of other sea creatures, but to an 18-month old, anything in water is “FISHEE!!!!!!”
After checking out many, many FISHEES!!!! we went to the Test Track. My mother-in-law stayed outside with my daughter while my wife and I headed inside this ride, which puts you in a GM test car zipping around a test track at 70 mph. That may not sound fast, but when you factor in the fact that there is no windshield and no driver, it seems way faster than you should be traveling. The woman sitting in front of us also learned a valuable lesson on the ride: zip up your purse, lest you have every piece of cash go shooting out over your head. I think we actually caught all of the swirling money, but SOME people in the car decided that we could not extract a finder’s fee, requiring us to return all of our found loot.
After a quick lunch, it was off to the second park of the day. When we went to MGM, I have to say that it was primarily for the grown-ups’ benefit. There really isn’t a lot for little kids at MGM, but there is the Tower of Terror and a roller coaster, so we had to go in order to keep me happy. The Tower of Terror is a ride in which you sit 13 floors up with 20 other parkgoers, and then free fall to the bottom, only to be shot back up and dropped again and shot back up and dropped again and shot back up and dropped one last time. By the fourth time, I was not sure whether I was going up or down, but I was sure that I had chosen the wrong seat when the guy next to me said, “Man, you should NOT ride this after drinking eight scotches.” Seriously. Fortunately, he kept his scotches in place, and I made it off the ride safe and sound. And clean.
On our final day, we headed to Animal Kingdom. I was excited about Animal Kingdom because any time you go to a zoo, there is a real possibility that you may see someone eaten by a cheetah.
My daughter really enjoyed seeing the animals, in particular the African safari ride, where we got close enough to touch a baby giraffe. I assume that the Disney folks would frown upon me pinching their animals, so we all kept our hands inside the ride.
We also saw elephants, tigers, gorillas and a crane that was taller than I am, which is way too tall for a bird. (Personally, I have always found Big Bird a little unnerving.) In addition to all of the animals, my mother-in-law also saw someone in a motorized wheelchair take out a pedestrian, rolling over the woman’s foot and dropping her like a bad habit. And the person in the wheelchair? No time to stop, apparently. Must have had to catch a show or something, because she left her soon-to-be-wheelchaired companion crumpled on the ground in pain. It was a drive-by wheelchairing.
But by far the highlight of my day came when we stopped to get a coffee. My wife and I were standing around waiting while my mother-in-law stood in line. As we stood there, something caught my eye off to the side, something falling. A split second later, my wife said, “What was that?” and started looking around, as if someone had just tapped her on the shoulder.
And, in fact, that someone was a grackle, perched in the tree above her, and it had tapped on her shoulder in a less than conventional or desired manner. After some choice words, several of which were very un-Disney like, my wife managed to remove the grackle debris. Meanwhile, I pulled myself off of the ground where I was rolling around laughing hysterically.
The rest of the day was spent taking our time checking out the animals, slowly strolling through the park and just enjoying our last day at Disney. It was a jam-packed three days, but it was well worth it. I can’t wait to go back soon. I hope they’ve done something about the grackles by then.