To top it off, Abe grabbed a hot chocolate powder mix from our snack box and poured it into the lidless hot cup provided by the hotel, only to spill half of it out the window when we went over a speed dump in the hotel parking lot. It would have been a lot worse had Arielle not recommended holding it out the window, and as a result, only a little bit got on the car. Though we were only about 4 miles from Disney World, we hit a good amount of traffic getting into the Magic Kingdom parking lot and waiting for the monorail after taking the tram.
We were excited to be able to see our friend Hailee, who helped make our day magical and suggested we watch her friend Mickey in the Move It, Shake It parade, which was great. The park was way more crowded than we thought it would be, and we saw cheerleading teams all over the place, apparently in town for a big competition. We reserved a time with FastPass for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, but in exploring the wonder of Magic Kingdom, we completely forgot and thus never got to go on the ride.
We took the monorail over to Epcot, where we stopped in to try Coca-Cola flavors from around the world, with Abe enjoying two non-carbonated options, and traversed through countries. Realizing how exhausted we were after only half a day, we stopped for fish and chips from England, which were delicious (and reasonably priced, which is not something we had expected). Abe was feeling particularly tired after the meal.
We used our FastPass to go on Living with the Land, a very low-key but highly informative tour of the greenhouses in use and ecological endeavors being undertaken to make Disney environmentally sustainable.
While Abe stopped at the bathroom, Arielle quickly reserved a ride with FastPass for a far more exhilarating attraction - Mission: Space. Abe opted for the lighter “green” mission while Arielle went for the more traditional “orange.” Separately, we both found the experience remarkably unpleasant, pushed to extreme discomfort and nausea by the motion simulator and use of G-force, not to mention the fact that you’re trapped in metal boxes with no escape or panic button. Arielle got what she calls an insta-migraine. Arielle had remembered earlier that our friend and Abe’s former coworker Maxine had two sisters who worked at Disney World, and when Abe texted her, she called him to say that she happened to be visiting and was coming over to Epcot shortly! We sat and recovered from Mission: Space while waiting for Maxine and her sister Sarah to exit the Test Track ride, which Abe went on eleven years earlier and knew well enough not to try again. We caught up with Maxine and Sarah briefly and walked over to our next reserved attraction, Soarin’.
While we were both a bit apprehensive about being hoisted into the air to see majestic sights from all around the world, it ended up being enjoyable and did not add to our misery. We bid Epcot adieu and journeyed back via the monorail and tram to our car, which we drove to Hollywood Studios. There, we boarded a tram that took us in a big loop to just across from where we had parked. Hungry but not yet having had dinner, we each bought ice cream. Abe opted for the Mickey sandwich and Arielle got the Mickey ice cream pop.
We didn’t have too much time before the Fantasmic show but decided to try for one of the rides in Toy Story Land. Abe had the opportunity to go on Toy Story Mania a dozen times in a row during his last park visit in May 2008, when the ride was still in previews. It was considerably more crowded this time, but we took the fact that the standby wait time dropped from 40 minutes to 30 as soon as we arrived as a good sign. The lines inside to get to the ride seemed neverending, but eventually we did make it! It turns out that this rotating shooting game was well worth the wait. Abe managed to trounce Arielle score-wise, but her overall accuracy was better. We highly recommend this attraction!
We raced over to Sunset Boulevard for the 8pm Fantasmic show, noted as a must-see by avid fans Teri and Aaron. We were very grateful that Hailee got there early and saved us seats in the fourth row. We will note that we got quite a bit wet as water sprayed during the theatrics, and we were also sitting right behind a pole that at some pointed blocked Mickey entirely from Abe’s view as he tried to survive being targeted by a number of Disney villains in the extravagant if a bit convoluted story. After an enjoyable performance, we walked back to our car and said goodbye to Hailee. We had originally planned to head straight back to the hotel but instead drove about half an hour to Universal Studios City Walk. Arielle had found out that her cousin David and his family were in town visiting from White Plains, so we met them and walked around for a while catching up.
We left and returned back to the hotel, ready for a good night’s sleep after an exhausting but very worthwhile day at Disney.
Approximate number of miles covered: 10 (by foot)
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