Okay, so I’m going to try to best evoke our very recent Disney World week, for those who know Disney and have been, for those who haven’t been but would give it a go, and for cynics or the non-interested too!
It was our third Disney visit (each time to Disney in Florida). We went in 2014 and 2019. We’ve done all four parks before, plus Universal which isn’t Disney. This holiday we did four of the five parks, only missing out Hollywood Studios. Usually most of my postings on here are food-centred but for once this will be more of a general vacation write-up, but with details about the food experience as we go along…
Arrival, the hotel and Disney Springs
In 2014 and 2019, we stayed in budget motels in Orlando city and hired a car to drive to Disney. This time, my wife Marie said blow the expense of Disney hotels, after a difficult year (in which we didn’t get to travel that much) we were doing it in style! There are Disney hotels located in the parks themselves, and those are a fortune. Then there are still expensive but more reasonably priced Disney hotels scattered in various resorts a short bus or boat ride away from Disney Springs – the large shopping and dining complex. Those offer frequent, free bus rides to the Disney parks. Marie chose for us a room in the Port Orleans resort. We arrived on Friday late afternoon on a Frontier plane from MacArthur, Long Island Airport (an Uncle Giuseppe’s sandwich along the way). The one thing Disney doesn’t do anymore is get you from the airport to the resort, so we got an uber. The Korean driver was very friendly. We asked him how come his family had moved from South Korea to Orlando, and he replied that his family all love golf! It’s true that Koreans love golf (like our friend, Fred) and we know that to play golf in South Korea is very expensive.
We loved Port Orleans right away! Constant Louis Armstrong or other jazz was pumping out on a 56 track, looped tape all day but you don’t at all mind and it gets you in a good mood.
The rooms are laid out motel style, but are elegant and there are grass courtyards and the man-made river alongside. Yes, there are gator warning signs (though we were only to see a rabbit and squirrels!).
Here are a few words about our resort from the Disney site:
“Revel in the romance and pageantry of New Orleans’s historic French Quarter at this Moderate Resort hotel. Discover cobblestone streets, gas lamps, wrought-iron balconies and fragrant magnolia blossoms, along with colorful Mardi Gras characters and the sounds of jazz. Then stroll along the lushly landscaped Sassagoula River to Disney’s Port Orleans Resort – Riverside, where the bayou beckons, as do Cajun and Creole specialties.”
the boat from our hotel to Disney Springs below
After a bit of relaxation in our very nice room – two queen beds, we just used one and put a lot of stuff on the other – we walked the few steps to wait for the free boat ride to Disney Springs in the early evening. A bit of a wait, we chatted to a family from Nottingham, England. There were to be loads and loads of Brits throughout the whole week. In the U.S, half term for kids does not exist, but in my native UK it’s half term now. There are times when it seemed British visitors outnumbered Americans!
Of course there are many adults without kids who love Disney too.
Disney Springs (Friday evening and Friday night)
We had been to Disney Springs for a while in 2019. Marie drove us there, and we found it to be a really beautiful complex with loads to do. Skip forward to now, and as we’re walking in from the boat drop-off it was teeming with visitors right away. Well, it is Friday night after all. DS is full of everything, Disney shopping or just great shops (high end or more down-to-earth), loads of dining and light bite options and some quirky things too. We’d noticed the anchored hot air balloon in 2019, and we would have paid the $25 each for the experience but we’ve yet to be there when it goes (partially) up!
Then there are aquatic, vintage British Triumph cars that you can be taken in for a drive in on the river! Quite expensive, but Marie said let’s do it if we get time (we didn’t get around to it on this trip, but maybe next!).
First to choose a place for dinner. There is a big section given over to two big Irish restaurants (under the same company I think): Cookes of Dublin and next door, Raglan Road pub-restaurant. We settled on Cookes and the fish and chips were first rate. Proper, large whole battered fish like in the UK. Cookes dates from the late 1920s in Dublin. A great first meal.
Then really just lots of browsing shops, we saw some possible buys for later in the week like Haunted Mansion crocs for Marie. And she bought Enchanted Tiki Room Minnie Mouse ears!
Another photo I took of Disney Springs later on in the night…
Day 1 – Epcot
photo by Adam Hardy
Epcot is Disney’s largest park, and is arguably the most appealing to adults though of course kids love it too. The park is really about science, nature, particularly planet Earth and its peoples. Walt Disney’s original plan was to build a kind of futuristic city (EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) but really that ambition was abandoned after his death in 1966. But it keeps its innovative character, and emphasis on teaching/enriching visitors in various ways. The park is roughly half rides and attractions and half a celebration of different cultures of the world, represented by about 8 or 10 chosen countries. These are showcased in microcosm, but the level of detail and ambience is impressive.
Lightning Lanes.
There are ways to not have to wait in a long queue for rides and attractions. You used to be granted I think three fast tracks each day, but now you have the option of paying a little extra for “lightning lanes”. A package that lasts the whole day. It’s not that much more foldin’ money, and Marie had seized on that opportunity. We didn’t regret it, as often in the next few days when queue waiting times were – say – 50 or 70 minutes for the most popular rides, we only waited ten or fifteen for many and so we weren’t wasting our day waiting in lines!
After pancakes and bacon in the hotel canteen, we walked around the corner to wait for the free bus. Again we ended up chatting to a British family, with a sweet kid. We got the Epcot bus shortly after, Marie sporting her new Enchanted Tiki Room Minnie Mouse ears! In the gift shops there are 101 different Mickey/Mini ears. It’s a ‘Disney thing’.
Two of our favourite rides at Epcot are ones I’ll have mentioned in past Disney journals: Soarin’ and Test Track. For ‘Soarin’, you enter a cinema with a giant IMAX screen. The difference is that when the film starts your seat is gently lifted and tilted (you use a seat belt) so that you have the simulated movement of a bird. The short movie flies you over a variety of Californian vistas: over the Oakland Bay bridge with the traffic way below, over vineyards, water rapids, nocturnal city scapes etc etc and the effect you feel is simply of flying! You sometimes swoop down so you feel that you’re just over the heads of, say, kayakers. Smells are also piped in, like orange peel over orange orchard farms or pine as you rise over trees etc. Like nearly all rides, it’s way too short. We decided we’d lightin’ lane it one more time later in the day. Marie loved it much more this time too!
this is from google images below (but fear not, you’re only in front of a cinema screen!!
There are a few other things you can do nearby too, in the same building as Soarin’. We watched a short film in another cinema, which describes the beauty of the Earth and then the perils of global warming, but with an optimistic “we can save the planet” way. And after that another wee thing that we’d done on the past two visits, with a very gentle paced water ride around Disney’s Biotechnology farm and lab, explaining how they grow all their own food for the restaurants/cafes on site and for other projects and emphasizing Eco-friendliness. I don’t know how eco dynamic Disney is. They certainly give that impression.
A bit of walking, we admired a manatees in an aquarium.
Test Track next. This is, well, a copy of a car company’s test track. As you strap yourself in to a car you follow the track around indoors in semi darkness before being gradually bolted out on a 30 or 45 degree angle – as in real test tracks – and up to an exhilarating speed for about twenty or thirty seconds. Simple, but a fun rush.
myself after Test Track
Then more walking slowly through the park, though you often find others rushing past you get to attractions and rides. There was a mini International Food Festival set up, and we stopped at the first stall we saw to buy and try a snack, Boursin cheese and fig small souffle. A bit sweet but quite nice.
Crowds were becoming denser as we entered the World Showcase over the bridge. Mexico comes up first. We had eaten at the Mexican restaurant on our first visit in 2014. It’s steeped in beautiful low-light ambience and very romantic. Each ‘country’ has its own shops too, music, churches/temples, other snacks, squares/plazas, streets and when possible Disney only employs staff native to those countries.
In China we sat down a while, and had light bites (I had hoi sin duck pancakes and a lychee beer!).
We went into the peaceful Chinese temple. We’re not talking some plastic building: Disney does everything very well, and if it is a convenience building you would never know. It has the genuine cooling sobriety and reverence which, I imagine, any temple in China would have.
Another snack next, some Indian fried cheese curds and samosas. Very good samosas. I would have preferred the curds hot rather than served cold.
More wandering through the countries, next we’re in Germany and then Italy where we sit down after buying a lemon sorbet, refreshing in the hot sun. The girl who served us was from Bologna. All the staff (‘cast’) wear name badges indicating where they’re from. She was delighted Marie used a dab of Italian, but when the Bologna girl started talking enthusiastically Marie had to explain she doesn’t speak much.
Then Japan. I remembered the drummers from last time. This time they were female and equally excellent, as they kept up a long and impressive performance in front of the pagoda.
photo by Adam Hardy
We looked in the Japanese shops. Some very interesting stuff, from funky small gifts to full-on Kimonos. Like last time, you can also pay whatever it is and some girls break open oysters to reveal a pearl you can keep (usually very small pearls, and maybe some shells don’t have any at all). It’s all done in a delightful way, and the Japanese girls beam genuinely.
Then Morocco. Okay, there will be one or two audience-pleasing cliches perhaps – such as belly dancers – but again the tiled squares, fountains, and facades look absolutely as if you were in the actual country on holiday. Despite the crowds you can sometimes find peace to yourself in the less busy sections.
Soarin’ for a second time, then back over the bridge to the ‘countries’.
Through England next. There’s a ‘Yorkshire County Fish and Chips’ shop, and of course a Rose & Crown pub. In a shop, I bought a Monty Python Spanish Inquisition t-shirt!
Then to ‘France’, where we had a reservation at the restaurant in a little while for the evening. Still sunny but it would be dark soon. Oh, I forgot to mention that we used our photo-pass too sometimes: the Disney professional photographers will take various photos of you that they send to your phone, with a ‘water mark’ over each one. If you like them you have the option of paying for any to be sent to you with the Disney water mark removed. We did that on several occasions, and there are some great ones of us. We had many taken on one day, and it’s $70 for all the days professional pictures so we might do that [a few days after getting back home, in the end we got such a lot of great snaps ourselves that we didn’t feel the need to buy the professional ones].
At the restaurant all the staff are genuinely French – speaking French among themselves. Our waiter was a real character. Food was excellent. Marie had the charcuterie meat and cheese platter, and I a steak au poivre.
Another ride next, in the French section by a whimsical fountain, ‘Ratatouille’ (whilst waiting a staff photographer took silly photos of us by the fountain, pulling whatever poses we felt like making). The Ratatouille ride was a lot of fun. Many of the rides today and over the days ahead were to be a mixture of reality and virtual reality, and sometimes only real and sometimes only virtual. This was a combination of both, as you’re spun around, over and under in the birds-eye-view of a cartoon mouse in the thick of the manic action of the kitchen.
As were leaving Epcot at the end of the day, we caught the fireworks and lighting display which is pretty spectacular but yet which they do every single night! Uhm, I did say Disney appears eco-aware but do fireworks damage the environment? Anyway, a wonderful first full day despite the huge crowds!
a photo I took of the light display…
Day 2 – Magic Kingdom
To those who don’t know about Disneyland/world so well, Magic Kingdom is perhaps the most famous park. It has very well-known rides and attractions, obviously plenty for adults but many based on traditional Disney films for kids. Magic Kingdom holds nostalgia for us from our last two visits, and one of Marie’s all time favourite rides is there – Haunted Mansion.
The park was built in 1971, so it isn’t the oldest. It’s made up of different themed areas. Fantasyland, for example, is where a lot of the children especially want to be and young girls get to dress up as princesses and wait in lines to meet their favourite film characters.
Others parts including Frontierland, Libertyland and Tomorrowland are just as much for adults. Some attractions look quite 1950s, and there are also delightfully old-fashioned things.
The free bus to Magic Kingdom, then when you enter the park the iconic view of Cinderella’s Castle is there right away, and the almost cake decoration perfect Main Street USA with loads of gift shops (and, usefully much later, a big Starbucks!). Disney always surprises you with a never-ending array of details often based on the famous cartoon characters. Mickey Mouse pumpkin street lanterns for one example, to be lit later.
We were to start with Haunted Mansion which we had lightnin’ lane for. Past the horseless ghost carriage and we were almost there. It’s not a fast or thrill ride, but the atmosphere of the ghostly mansion with all its many details and Vincent Price style narration is impressively atmospheric and dark, and likeably, deliberately cheesy. Many of the images and characters are holograms and it’s truly creepy and fun. There are two films based on the ride, one from the 1990s with Eddie Murphy which we were to see at home after getting back, and one new version which we were to see at a nearly empty movie theatre in Disney Springs tomorrow.
Then we walked through the now ever-crowded park to another nostalgic attraction of ours and very famous to Disney-ites: the Enchanted Tiki Room. There is also one at the original Disney park, Disneyland in California and that dates back to 1963. The one at Disneyworld in Florida was built in 1971. After queuing you enter a large round wicker tiki hut. There are fake tropical birds on perches above, and lots of other man-made décor around. All is very colourful and spotlit. The show – which lasts for about fifteen minutes – starts with the birds seemingly “coming to life” and starting a comical conversation between themselves. The birds represent different nationalities so the accents are strong. I think Fritz starts off proceedings. Then they break into song, the famous ‘Tiki Room’ number. Then the singing flowers have their turn, and the drumming alligators join in and so on. My brother, Martyn, would roll his eyes and exit to the nearest place to get a beer within seventeen seconds, but we like it!
Out in the hot sun, we got a seat and shared a pineapple Dole-whip cream ice which was delicious.
Another ride next, as we used Lightnin’ Lane again and did the Pirates of the Caribbean ride that we had also done in 2014 and 2019. It’s on a boat as you ride in man made caves and observe fake, animated pirate models and scenes on all sides, Johnny Depp’s character appearing several times. It’s really well done. They’ve changed and polished some scenes, and eliminated the canon fight between pirate ships that used to you splash you a little.
For a change, we then took the complimentary scenic train through to another section of the park we wanted to get to. We realised you can’t actually get off at Tomorrowland, so we rode around again to the nearest walking point to it.
In Tomorrowland – which looks very 1950s/60s sci-fi futuristic – we tried a younger ride, “Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger”. It was one of those where your car spins around fast and you shoot at targets and compare scores. We like those! Then the endearingly very old-fashioned, mechanical show ‘Carousel of Progress’ that we know so well from past visits. It’s from the New York World Fair of 1964. We enjoy it. Mechanical models of a typical American family (on a gradually revolving stage) take you through various ages of the twentieth century, enjoying the advances of modern technology as told through the father’s soothing, jovial narration.
Fast food, good quality burgers and fries next in a large cafe, we rode the Space Mountain shuttle out of Tomorrowland and rested our weary feet for a bit. In Fantasyland next – the most crowded – we did ‘It’s A Small World’, of course (again part of our personal Disney nostalgia, and countless visitors’)! Equally corny but equally lovable, it’s tradition.
We did another kiddie ride, Nemo, and then a sit down and we bought a “grey stuff” dessert. It’s made using oreos and vanilla pudding and looks like an ice cream. Surprisingly very tasty!
More walking around amongst the massive hoards, our next ride was the iconic spinning ‘cups and saucers’. This is one you often think of with Disney. It can be tame or it can be fast. As you sit inside and around the cup, there is a metal disk in the middle which you spin yourself, as determinedly as you like depending on how fast you want to spin. It’s not as crazy fast as the waltzers used to be as a kid in England – tattooed fairground workers like David Essex and Ringo Starr in ‘That’ll Be The Day’ wanting to scare the beejezus out of us – but I gave it some ‘welly’ for Marie and I and we had some thrills.
Some more wandering, we came to the Hall of Presidents in Libertyland. We had done this on ‘14/’19 too. A presentation about all the American presidents. We remember it well from before, and just through natural tiredness of walking over 27,000 steps yesterday at Epcot and a lot today I think we both felt a bit sleepy when sat down inside in the air-conditioned theatre. I even fell asleep for a moment or two!
Back out in the bright sun, we decided to get on the big Liberty Belle boat for a mellow ride.
Alighting a bit later, we dropped in to another theatre at the last calls to watch the Country Bears Jamboree performance. It definitely helps to be high or tipsy for that! Our favourite bear was maybe the one singing ghastly, Halloween style songs and interrupting other performing bears!
It was getting dusky now, and we’d done almost 20,000 steps already again. Marie declared she needed a coffee. In one of the biggest, best organised and friendly Starbucks you’ll ever find we got a creamy seasonal brew then moseyed around the beautiful, packed streets and took photos before calling it a day and easing out to get the bus back.
We’d had another highly enjoyable day, but Magic Kingdom is simply too many people for us. Okay, Epcot too but we love Epcot beyond any crowding issues! Boat back to the hotel. Next time we’ll probably skip Magic Kingdom, but we’d ‘scratched the itch’ of re-doing some attractions we’re always fond of.
I can’t remember if it was tonight but one of the nights after the parks we spent an hour at Scat Cat’s Club (a bar on site near our hotel room). Marie had a very good mocktail, and I a three rum laced Hurricane cocktail.
After getting back from our day out anywhere, we always chilled out at the hotel resort, mostly in the excellent and quite cheap dining room and always with that upbeat New Orleans jazz playing.
Day 3
Spent mostly at Disney Springs, and our day to take a break in the middle between the parks!
Disney Springs was definitely a lot less crowded than Friday night, though it was to fill up hour-by-hour (still better though). We walked a different way over the bridge in order to get to the cinema and buy tickets to the new ‘Haunted Mansion’ film for the matinee. We passed an absolutely ridiculous length line for Gideon’s Bakery Cookies. I mean…why?! It’s one of the latest trends. Marie makes cookies from home that are probably even better! We later got talking to another couple, again who live in Nottingham but are Irish, and they waited in the queue! You have to call ahead, and can’t just walk in so these people have arranged pick-up but apparently it’s very slow moving
The hot air balloon looked beautiful today, though it was deemed too windy. We looked for somewhere for lunch. We first went into a Pele soccer/football shop though they didn’t even have any Newcastle shirts! They had West Ham’s home and away. I like the old retro ‘Toffs’ shirts best though, the old cotton ones from the 1940s/50s/60s/70s etc but do they still sell them?
Marie found a great little place for a Spanish lunch. Not Latin-American but from Spain. We had a slim Spanish baguette called a flauta, with chorizo and some patatas bravas. A big bright window overlooked a big M & M’s shop, and people taking family photos and selfies next to the animated chocolates every few seconds.
My wife Marie, then Pepe’s flautas below
We also passed the House of Blues, which hosts some very good rock bands.
The sun was high in the sky. A soothing Starbucks break indoors before an equally relaxing two hours at the cinema next. The new ‘Haunted Mansion’ movie is suitably Gothic and fun, and very apt!
Shopping next, as Marie finally got to buy the Haunted Mansion theme crocs. The shoes are very striking!
Marie had reserved us dinner at Raglan Road Irish pub for the evening. You might be thinking we’ve just eaten but Starbucks and the film, then strolling around had taken up about four plus hours.
Raglan is a big place! We were taken through a couple of big rooms to a nice table at the back. We ordered up lamb casserole and fish and chips, and I a flight of beers. My seat was facing the restaurant, Marie with her back to the restaurant. Now, Marie can’t stand two Gaelic things: bagpipes and also Irish clogging. It turned out that a few young cloggers employed by the restaurant perform about every half an hour or less! Imagine Marie’s horror when she suddenly hears the evil clop-cloppeting going on behind her!!
The food was great though!
We tried some bubble waffles with peanut butter ice cream back outside, now after dark, and enjoyed a bit more exploring before heading back.
Day 4 – Universal Studios
As I mentioned, Universal is its own thing, and not owned by Disney. So we needed to get a taxi there, but it wasn’t that expensive and very pleasant.
We had been before to Universal, and we enjoyed the laidbackness as soon as we entered. One other thing you feel as you go through your Universal day is that it’s more, for want of a better word, “macho”. More male and more adult, with chunkier, no-nonsense rides. Based on this day’s visit, there’s not as many young kids compared to other theme parks. The streets are done out like film sets, which is wonderful, and they have characters as you go along. Marilyn Monroe sat in the back seat of a passing convertible, Beetlejuice will be greeting and meeting at the side of the road etc etc.
It was another sunny day with a bit of occasional rain but not much, we were in the mood for more fun and chose straight away to try a Despicable Me (Minions) ride. A virtual reality one where you’re slung around and shunted along an enjoyable and silly journey, we really enjoyed it and also the next ride, ‘Fast and Furious’. You walk your way along and through a recreation of the crew’s headquarters, through what feels like stockyards and mechanics and it’s all very tongue-in-cheek with actors explaining the rules. Then you go on a part virtual reality high speed chase. Again very enjoyable!
Back out, and into the kind-of British area. There are mock London train stations, and then the Harry Potter world, which we remember well from last time. Into Diagon Alley, brilliantly done with it’s atmospheric shops and building facades, and the twisted neck of a dragon atop a corner house, which literally does breathe out real fire at intervals. You actually feel the heat briefly! We had ourselves a pint of butter beer.
Then the Harry Potter ride next. Because I don’t do roller coaster rides, or only the least scary ones, Marie had been tipped by a work colleague that the HP “rollercoaster” is quite tame and easy.
Even so, as we waited in the line I wondered. Some might consider it tame, but would I? Marie is okay with proper rollercoasters from time to time, by the way. I looked behind me and there were some very young kids waiting, and an old lady in a wheelchair, so maybe I could get through this! I needn’t have worried, there was only one, slight drop and it was also indoors in mostly darkness!
The lead through to the ride car was fun too. Parks usually make the most of the anticipation factor and to offer entertainment to stop the public from getting bored waiting, and there were holograms of strange H.P film characters sharing dialogue in a make-up of a ghostly London bank.
Not long after, another ride, Transformers, which is another virtual reality one with 3D glasses. We like it, and had done that one in the past, though you are jerked around a lot.
We were in a fine mood and enjoying the vibe and park. Next a British style lunch in a room vaguely resembling the Potter college hall with benches, Marie had toad-in-the-hole and I bangers and mash, HP brown sauce on the table. It was quite good.
It was perhaps next when we went into a show, the new attraction, “(Jason) Bourne Stuntacular”. We’d seen a stunt show at Universal in 2014 in which scenes from Indiana Jones were performed outdoors; cars exploded, lots of fighting and fire etc and it was a solid bit of entertainment. For the Bourne, you enter a cinema/theatre for the performance. It was real stage performers with excellent acting, convincing fight scenes, agents on phone conversations, high speed chases etc and then behind that a huge wrap-around screen and a revolving stage, then real helicopters and planes dropping from the ceiling and a convincing sense that you were moving through dynamic real-life action. You literally feel from your seat that you are hovering outside the top of a skyscraper office building, at night, under a helicopter with simulated propeller winds and watching the high-octane action. It was brilliantly done, and the best super adrenaline staged performance at a park we’d ever been to! I would say it lasts about 20 minutes.
waiting for the show to start…
A little later we tried a much older ride, from 1989, E.T. It was fun and funky, and gentle and nonsensical as your moved through this grotto land in a suspended car. Marie loved it, and wanted to ride it a second time (or even live in the grotto world!). We had time to kill before the next thing, so we did go back though they were having technical difficulties – a car stuck – so we postponed doing the ride a second time until a bit later.
(Marie would quite like to live down here!)
Next an animal stage show outdoors, ‘Animal Actors On Location’. Another one we had done in the past. A happy, lovable motley crew of species performing comedy feats…dogs, cats, birds, porcupines, pigs and so on are orchestrated by a trainer or three who address and convene with the audience. One or two of the animals didn’t comply much but the odd fiasco just made it more entertaining!
Anyway, we had a terrific day and we’d now put Universal well up there as one of the most enjoyable parks. Back at the hotel we toasted marshmallows over a fire pit on the courtyard lawn, had dinner and took it easy until our final day tomorrow.
Day 5 – Animal Kingdom
We hadn’t been to Animal Kingdom since 2014! Marie set plans for us to arrive at the park really early, by 7.30am. The main reason being to get there for the ride, ‘Avatar Flight Of Passage’. Being at a Disney hotel, even one of their resort hotels, also allows you to enter the parks an hour before a majority of visitors.
So we duly arrived early. Most people were legging it! We were very much looking forward to trying the ride – you can’t lightnin’ lane it as it’s so popular – but we generally never rush on anything. I think rushing is low class unless there’s an emergency or important reason. So we let many people pass us, and we enjoyed taking a quick look at one or two animals on the way. Then we got to Pandora, and joined the actual queue/line. The scenery of Pandora (the planet on which the film Avatar is set) is a brilliant piece of engineering. Really stunning, we weren’t sure what was natural and what was man made! The whole park so far felt like an upgrade on when we last went, just really beautiful and relaxing. The wait for the ride was about 30-40 minutes I think, but it went quickly.
You sit on your own individual vehicle which looks a little like a motorcycle. You fit snugly in, and are automatically strapped in, but very comfortably. Oh, you wear 3D goggles by the way. Then you appear to fly through the Avatar world, kind of the feeling of Soarin’ you swoop down into valleys and up again and through lush vegetation, and amazing scenery. Even better and more exciting than Soarin’. You’re virtual-reality flying on the back of a banshee (I think a flying dragon in the film). A ride I can’t imagine most people not loving.
Then plenty of strolling around, sweet smells and nature and animals. We stopped for a while to watch a favourite – otters!
And lemurs, which are another favourite. Anyway, we did more rides, we had a casual lunch of some top quality kofta and pita lunch from Kusafiri I believe, we did the safari tour then later an animal trek on foot. The kofta sandwich and handmade crisps/potato chips was superb! A big shout out in general for the big strides in way better quality food in many tourist attractions everywhere in the last ten years!
I took a lot of photos on the safari and on the nature trek…
photos by Adam Hardy
Really Animal Kingdom became our second favoured park, only after Epcot. We walked almost 20,000 steps again I believe, but this time we were fully relaxed, no aching feet.
Like 2014 we went into the giant hut (or tent, forget which) to watch a performance of the Lion King. I imagine it’s quite a lot different to the film and Broadway show. This one is full of acrobatics, though like the original show also bursting with bright colours and enthusiasm. Always a life-fulfilling experience. Oh, and we saw another animal performance outdoor stage show, again full of unplanned little disasters as the animals didn’t always want to do what they were supposed to do. Though it made it all the more entertaining.
There is one industrial strength roller coaster at Animal Kingdom, ‘Expedition Everest’. Every so often you hear that thunderous roar and people screaming happily as it emerges from tunnels or around bends. Marie said she was thinking of doing it on her own, seeing that I’m scared of such things (though I have abseiled outdoors in Wales, something I was very relaxed about but that Marie would never do so everyone is different). Marie has done white-knuckle rides in the past, including California Disney with a work colleague a few years ago. She preferred not to in the end, after not wanting a recent ice cream to make her feel queasy up there. We asked a family earlier what ‘Expedition Everest’ was like. They said it was wonderful fun, and that you go at great speeds upside down and backwards! Uhm…that’s a good thing??
We love zoos, and Animal Kingdom is just a zoo with great rides and attractions really. I took a LOT of photos on the safari tour!
We had another very nice last night around the hotel, drinks (beer for me) and we bought more Mickey-shaped beignets!
The next day we were at the airport suitably early for our 2pm flight, but bloody good job we were as the queues at Orlando Airport for security were the longest we’ve ever seen!! An hour stood waiting, just for security!
On the plane home we had burger king whoppas (we beat the long queue for that by paying cash!). On the plane there was a very loud family with a noisy kid behind Marie, sometimes kicking the back of her seat. I didn’t notice so much, as I was lost in music on my walkman, caught in a trap going from Cymande to New Order to Grizzly Bear and even a couple of Fall songs (Touch Sensitive and Foldin’ Money).
I’m looking at the very few scribbled notes I made in a journal too, for things I forgot to mention. At MacArthur Airport on the way to Florida I said to Marie that Frontier Airlines made me think of the competitive sports, fun tv series we watched in England when we were kids, ‘It’s A Knockout’, and it’s motto “Jeux sans frontières ”. It means “(games) without borders/frontiers”. We looked up the history on wiki. Apparently Peter Gabriel’s song was inspired by the phrase on the programme, and Kate Bush used the words “it’s a knockout” in a song as a result of the series. I think those words appear in Gabriel’s too. It ran from 1966-82 in the UK and we would watch it all the time in the 1970s (Belgium always seem to finish last). In the U.S it apparently was called ‘Almost Anything Goes’ in the mid 1970s but didn’t last long!
And that’s my Disney 2023 write-up. It’s still seemingly doing very well indeed, with crowds as big as ever despite the great expense! We might do a long weekend next time, but perhaps not leaving it quite so long…
and that’s a wrap (waiting for our uber to the airport)
TravelHoglet 