Magic

When I heard we were going to get up at 6 a.m. to leave by 7 a.m. for Disney World, Hollywood Studios, I thought to myself "Self, why do we have to go so early? We're on vacation here!" But by the time we actually got there and got in, it was already past 10 a.m. and things were rolling and lines were growing. On the way there I had my phone GPS set up for "Hollywood Studios, Orlando." This took us to a strip mall area in Orlando at a store called "Hollywood Studios". Whoops. Fortunately, Hollywood Studios, Disney was only 25 miles away from there and on the exact same road, so it was no biggie--we just stopped and had breakfast and kept on rolling. Of course Steve still hasn't let me hear the end of it, of me taking them to a mall instead of Disney, but that's okay. ;) We still arrived within about 2 minutes of the van full of 12 other people we went with.

The day had a 70% chance of precip, so we knew it was going to rain on us. So we packed rain jackets, got umbrellas, and were as prepared as possible. We got lucky, and it didn't rain until almost 1 p.m., so we had the morning to stand in line at the Tower of Terror (which has been renamed to "Hollywood Hotel Tower"). Steve and I went alone, and Kaylee went with her friends. I wasn't sure she'd like that--it's an elevator that shuts the doors and gets pitch black, then takes you up several stories and drops you, lifts you, drops you, etc. They USED to shove you outside the hotel and let you look all around before they brought you back inside and dropped you down. They've changed it and some of the things you see, and now they open the doors to the outside, but you stay inside the hotel. They take your picture right as they're dropping you, and in the previous one I did before we had kids, Steve is laughing and I look concerned. In this one, I'm laughing, and Steve's looking at me and laughing too. It was actually a good picture, but not worth spending the money on. ;) Surprising me, Kaylee did like it, which is good. Next we all went to the Indiana Jones set up, and then we divided up for the rest of the day. Kaylee went with me and Steve, and the other group of 12 went off and did their own thing. We hit it all, all that we wanted to anyway, something you can't do well in a big group. Star Wars had a simulator with 3D that was *really* good. We came out of there laughing and clapping...it was like you were in a fighter ship, and if you're motion sensitive, it's not a good plan. At one point our aircraft was shot down, and we spun around and headed down for the water, and I'll tell you what, I braced my arms and legs against the seat and felt concerned for a minute there. It was probably one time that being a pilot was not a help--I could feel that impact coming a little too well. After we crashed into the water, we were driven up on land and crashed to a stop in a hangar with a pointy-nosed airplane that crashed "through" the glass right at us, and everyone in the whole thing threw their heads back and many arms went up over faces. It was super realistic, and very cool. I had fun with that--flying through space, warp speed, the acceleration, the dogfighting, the simulator was a full motion one (well, not 360 degrees, didn't go upside down), but plenty realistic. That was my second favorite ride of the day. Once it did start raining, around noon, we had our gear out, we ate lunch in a crowded, noisy place. Shoulder to shoulder people, tin roof, loud noise, and it cost $42 to get the three of us a drink and a burger/fries (couldn't buy it w/o the fries) apiece. Cough choke gag. You couldn't blame the crowds, it was moms with strollers trying to get their kids out of the rain, but man, they were brutal, pushing, trying to steal space even if it was yours. We ate with a wall of people standing at our back making it impossible to get out for refills or anything. When we did leave, we walked around dry in the rain, went to a few more rides and had a nice time. We went to one that was a special effects ride, where they did actual filming for movies. They gave us a couple of demos, and it involved bullets and fire and explosions, which I like a great deal, so that was fun. Then they took us on a tram to a scene with an oil tanker that explodes and a waterfall that sweeps it towards all of us in the tram. The waterfall poured water into the back seat where we were, and all that effort to stay dry, all those hours of rain that I kept dry in, ended when the water from the ride soaked my pants. Le Sigh. ;) The last ride we went on was my all-time favorite. It was new to us, wasn't there last time we came. It was an Aerosmith Rock-n-Rollercoaster. Steve kept insisting it would be a simulator like the Star Wars one, even though they kept coming across the loudspeaker and saying "Upside down maneuvers". But it was indoors, and you could take bags with you, so how much of a roller coaster could it be, right? We got in there, and saw the thing for the first time, and it was a full shoulder harness rocket you from a stand still to a high rate of speed in just a second actual roller coaster. And it was awesome. They piped Aerosmith music right by your ears, which was kind of loud, but that accelerated takeoff was great, and it went immediately into a pitch black tunnel and then did a corkscrew and a loop, in the pitch black. Then it had some neon lights here and there, but mostly it was black and threw you around. There was at least one more loop and corkscrew somewhere in there. I was laughing when we stopped, Kaylee was laughing, Steve hopped out and said "That was the most realistic simulator I've ever been on!" We saw the photo they snapped right when you're accelerating into the black, and Kaylee was mouth wide open laughing and Steve and I were eyes squinty from the push but smiling, so we bought it as a family portrait of fun for the day. That was a great last ride to end on.

The last thing we did that day was go to see "Fantasmic", which had a final show at 10 pm. It was in an outdoor theater (it quit raining), and was a lights, firework, water display that was pretty neat too. I took lots of photos of the fireworks and lighting, because I like that stuff. It was a nice note to end on. The park was closed after that show, so we were all shuffled out the front door, took the last shuttle back to parking, got in our respective cars, and came on home. We got home around 12:15 or so, while the van of 12 other guys got home around 1 a.m., and stopped at a grocery store for breakfast for the next morning. Not us, man. We hit the bed and crashed, hard, until like 10 a.m. this morning.

My feet were dying. I mean, dying. I hobbled to our room like an old arthritic woman last night. The lines weren't terrible for Disney because of the inclement weather and rain, but we still had three of the rides that had an hour to a little more than an hour wait standing in line. The rest were more reasonable. The walking didn't bother me (until my feet were already dead), but that just standing there? That was terrible. I couldn't find a way to stand that didn't hurt-my feet were screaming at me. The worst was before Fantasmic though, because it was just a mob, a literal mob of college spring breakers all crowded in right on top of you, pushing, yelling. We had to hold on to each other's shirts just to not get separated in the mob. But once we got in and sat down, it was great, and we enjoyed the show. All in all it was a successful day. We got to see about everything, we had fun, and we spent the whole day doing pretty cool stuff. Kaylee enjoyed it, and was older this time so she'll remember it better than her last journey to Disney when she was 6 and still believed in Princesses. :)

Oh, I shoplifted from Disney on accident. We purchased a couple things from a gift shop, and one was a fanny pack that we were going to give to Kaylee so she could safely keep her cell phone, some money and her sunscreen with her. I had it slung around my shoulder, we bought everything and walked out. I went to take it off my shoulder and fill it with her stuff, and I said "Hey, they didn't take the tags off of this one." Then we realized the security lock was still on it, and I must not have put it on the counter. The price had been plenty high even without it, so I didn't notice I'd missed it. We went back in and paid for it. That was a little embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as being chased out of the store by security would have been. "Suuure you didn't mean to steal that, lady. That's what they all say." Lord.

Fun day--I'm glad we did it, even if it did cost an arm and two legs and broke my feet too. ;)