It May Be December, But It Sure Ain't Christmas!

By staying on Disney property we were able to take advantage of several perks Disney offers its resort guests - free parking at all Disney parks; free shuttle transportation from our hotel to the parks; Disney's Magic Express service, which includes free shuttle service to and from the Orlando airport (very handy since my return flight departed Orlando at 6:25 am); and best of all, Extra Magic Hours, which includes either 1 hour of early morning park time or 3 hours of late evening park time! We ended up getting 3 extra hours of evening park time at Animal Kingdom, Epcot and the Magic Kingdom!

I had never stayed on Disney property before, and I have to say there's a world of difference between their budget All-Stars resorts and the nicer properties we visited like Disney's Boardwalk, Animal Kingdom Lodge and the Grand Floridian. We ended up referring to our place as "the shithole" and vowed never to lower ourselves to such crappy accommodations again. This was nothing more than a low-budget motor lodge with outside entry, teeny tiny rooms, no coffee pot, a small tv and a remote with a mind of its own. Each day we had to walk by a particular row of bushes to get to our room, and I swear some mother tossed her shitty diapers out the door and they landed under those bushes. The All-Stars properties are strictly a 1 star operation, though security guards the place like Fort Knox.

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

We had not been to Orlando in 6 years, so there were lots of new rides and attractions to take in. One of the Magic Kingdom's best is Mickey's Philharmagic, a 3-D experience that revisits some of Disney's most classic musical moments in an entirely different way. The attraction is made all the more enjoyable thanks to Donald Duck who, in my opinion, is one of the funniest Disney characters ever created. He's also one of the most under-utlized characters in the park, so I was elated to finally see him featured so prominently in this attraction.

Pirates of the Caribbean has also undergone a significant makeover, and the results are dazzling! All-new lighting, costumes, sound and special effects have been added, and Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow has been added to several scenes. The likeness to his character is amazing, even slightly creepy!

Expedition Everest

We immediately went to Expedition Everest, which I knew absolutely nothing about. I was awed by the structure even before we got into the park, but seeing it from different vantage points inside the park really gives it a signature ride kind of feeling much like Spaceship Earth at Epcot and the Matterhorn at Disneyland.

The queue is wonderful, on a par with DL's Indiana Jones and IOA's Dueling Dragons. As for the ride itself, it depends on what kind of expectations you have. As a coaster it probably falls a little short, since it only has one moment of airtime and is primarily centered around the mountain's helix. But as an attraction it's extremely fun! We rode it 10 times, and surprisingly I liked it better during the daytime since you could see the animatronic Yeti for a longer time. It's an amazing creation, and in the daylight you can see it move around much easier whereas at night you only get a strobe light's look at it. I personally thought the torn track would have been much more effective had the train actually traversed the outside edge of the mountain, leaving riders dangling over the edge with only a torn track in front of them! I also thought the Yeti could have appeared one more time, perhaps chasing us somewhere in the helix. But those are minor quibbles, overall the ride is fun and thrilling and a great addition to a park that desperately needed this type of attraction.

Something happened to us on our second Everest ride that absolutely made our day. As the ride ended and we pulled into the station there were two Disney representatives waiting for us, and as we exited the train they shouted "CONGRATULATIONS!" and handed us a "Dream FastPass" which we got to use throughout the park for the rest of the day! This is part of Disney's "Year of a Million Dreams" and it certainly was a dream come true for Cindy and me. We looked like a couple of idiots jumping around and hugging each other, Cindy wearing her Tigger ears and me wearing my Mickey's Sorcerer's Hat ears. The Dream Fastpass included all of the Animal Kingdom's most popular rides, and while the park wasn't really crowded enough to need it on all of the rides, it was thrilling to get one just the same. It made our day!

Another new attraction in the Animal Kingdom was Finding Nemo: The Musical. The building itself looks completely out of place and doesn't fit in with the park's theming (of course you could say the same thing for all of Dinoland U.S.A.). But what goes on inside is, I think, the best musical show in any of the Disney parks. It was REALLY good, and I've never even seen "Finding Nemo." It was almost like watching two variations of the same play at once - you could watch the animated characters, or you could watch the actors, who managed to act while at the same time controlling the movements of their characters. It was a very clever, creative way of staging a Disney musical, and the original songs were so good I was amazed when Cindy told me the movie was not a musical! I predict this will be just as successful as Festival of the Lion King, giving Animal Kingdom two wildly popular musical shows.

Cindy got another little "Year of a Million Dreams" surprise when we ate lunch at Tusker House. Her server told her she was the hourly winner in their restaurant and handed her a free cupcake! It was enormous and looked really good, but selfish Cindy didn't offer me a bite.

I think Animal Kingdom is one of those parks that, like the Busch parks, is so incredibly beautiful it's a pleasure just to be there. And that is why I find Dinoland USA so disappointing on every level. As a themed area it pales in comparison to the creative thought put into the rest of the park. As an imitation of the tacky tourist trap it fails as well, it's just ugly and not very popular. And the signature ride of this area, Dinosaur, is just SO LAME I can't imagine anybody liking it. All it does is shake your pudding then come to a complete stop to identify some dinosaur that does nothing. The ride's "story" is irritating beyond belief, and the execution of it is even worse. This is obviously WDW's answer to DL's Indiana Jones Adventure, and all it does is raise the question WHY?

After the park closed we ate dinner at Boma, the african themed restaurant at Animal Kingdom Lodge. As buffets go, this was really good, particularly their incredible soups, 4 of which I tried. I also really liked an egg casserole dish that had a spicy beef underneath it - really unusual and very tasty! At the end of our meal our waitress brought out an artist's canvass with a Happy Birthday message on it along with a variety of cookies. The hotel itself is beautiful and we spent some time strolling the grounds and lamenting our inevitable return to the shithole.

The next day we went to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. I also got a great deal at the this park - 2 days/2 parks/no expiration for $99. We knew we'd only be spending one day at Universal, so the no expiration option would come in handy.

Pretty Christmas Tree at Universal Studios Florida

One of the biggest complaints I have about Universal Studios is their endless pre-show requirements they have on nearly all of their attractions. You go into one room, wait awhile, then watch a pre-show, then go into another room where you wait some more then watch yet another show telling you what you're going to do. Just get to the ride, for crying out loud! Do we really need to waste 20 minutes watching some lame instructions for what amounts to a bad motion simulator in Back to the Future? Nearly every attraction at Universal is set up this way, and I found it particularly irritating and a waste of my time.

"Revenge of The Mummy" is Universal's newest attraction, and I loved it. Like Expedition Everest, it's better as an overall attraction than a single coaster ride. I happen to love theming, and the theming is very well done here. The actual coaster ride is somewhat short and left me wanting more after my first ride, but on my second ride I was completely immersed in the experience and left feeling very satisfied. I still wish it were a bit longer but what it does, it does very well!

I finally got the hang of Men In Black! On previous visits I had no idea what I was doing or where I was supposed to shoot, and my scores were shamefully in the hundreds, not thousands! This time I managed to get up into the hundred thousands but still lost to Cindy who not once but twice chose not to share the secret scoring trick with me until after we were finished riding. Personally I would want to teach my friend everything so they could do their very best! At least on the second ride! But that's Cindy.

Universal is an ENORMOUS park. And a lot of its size seems wasted to me. The main square seems like nothing more than a collection of empty building facades, and I wonder why they don't make better use of it? I realize you can only have so many shoppes and restaurants, but why is such a beautifully built and decorated main square essentially a ghost town? The Christmas tree in Universal's main square was without a doubt the most beautiful one we saw on our trip, and it seems a shame to have it essentially abandoned in an area that has nothing else to offer.

I made the huge mistake of wearing sandals on this particular morning, thinking we would be going to IOA first and I'd save my shoes from getting wet. Wrong! NEVER try to break in sandals at an enormous park like Universal Studios! Within a couple of hours I had a two inch gash at the back of my foot where the strap rubbed against my ankle. And another strap kept pressing down on my poor pinky toe, causing it to blister. By noon I was hobbling gingerly with every step, and this on top of the 5 blisters I'd already acquired from the two previous days at Disney. I was actually lucky that Universal is relatively flat, I can only imagine the kind of bloody stumps I would have had if I'd been traipsing around a park like Busch Gardens Europe!

Cindy and me at Islands of Adventure

Nothing much has changed at IOA. Thank goodness! Incredible Hulk is still incredible, SpiderMan still astonishes, Dueling Dragons are just as thriling now as they were when the park opened (although Cindy the traitor claimed to like Montu better than Fire Dragon). Even Jurassic Park had every single effect working. We got to stay on Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges twice for a second soaking, and Dudley Do-Right also had all of its effects working. We rode all of the rides multiple times and managed to get our fill of the park in only half a day.

The only new ride at IOA was The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride in Seuss Landing. This was a surprisingly good attraction, providing a nice, relaxing ride around Seuss Landing and affording wonderful views of the park. I'm really glad they added this, I think it's nice to counter thrill rides with things like this that lets folks sit back and relax.

We were really smart to come to IOA on a Thursday. The only disappointing part was that the park closed at 6:00, but we thought better to have shorter hours with no lines than an extra hour or two on Saturday in a potentially packed park. It was the right decision, and any later park hours would have been wasted as the only rainstorm we encountered opened up almost precisely at 6:00 p.m. And what a downpour, too! I felt so sorry for folks who purchased a Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party ticket for that night, as I'm sure it was ruined by the wet weather.

We, however, did not have our evening ruined. We had another great meal at Pastamore in Universal's CityWalk. I really like this restaurant and don't understand why it doesn't get more acclaim. Our meals were wonderful and the service was good, and it was so nice to look outside at the downpour going on and know it didn't affect us.

EPCOT

This was the most time I'd ever spent in Future World and I have to say, the changes and additions have made Epcot a really great park. Soarin' is one of those rides I never wanted to end! And as a space junkie, Mission: Space is one of the most thrilling attractions I've ever experienced in my life! I got off that ride more pumped up than I've been since riding Superman at Darien Lake. I absolutely loved it! Cindy told me the ride has been tamed from its earlier version after people died on it, and I can only wish I'd ridden it's original version. The launch was spectacular, but I wish it had lasted longer, and since this is where I felt the most G-forces, I imagine this was where the ride was cut short or tamed (again, I knew nothing about this ride before riding it). And like Soarin', this was a ride I wished would never end. I would love to have orbited Mars a bit more before landing, and I really wish we'd experienced the journey back home! But what is there is incredible, and it made me realize how lame motion simulators like Back to the Future and Star Wars have become.

Disappointments were The Seas with Nemo and Test Track. The Seas with Nemo was just flat out boring until the very end when the animated movie characters appear to be swimming in the real aquarium with live fish. And Test Track has always been a headscratcher for me, it rides like a failure and leaves me wondering why in the world it continues to be popular. There's nothing to like about it, the tests are stupid and I feel like an idiot sitting there having to go through all that nonsense.

Two other disappointments occured in World Showcase. Maelstrom in Norway is without a doubt the lamest boat ride I have ever ridden. The scenes look cheap and makes the overwrought narration sound even worse ("da spirit of norvay lies in da heart off is pee poll"), and the wait to get the hell out of there is longer than the ride itself! We were held at that exit station for over 5 minutes, and once the doors opened every single person BOLTED through the theatre and out the doors. I vill neffer go back to Norvay again.

Without a doubt the worst attraction I experienced on our entire trip was the American Adventure. It made me want to declare jihad on this attraction and blow it up. Oh my god, it was ENDLESS! And everything about it - the music, the narration, the images, the animatronics, EVERYTHING about it was boring! As I said to Cindy as we were walking out, "well that was the last straw."

World Showcase only has two attractions that are really a must-see. Reflections of China is a 360 degree Circle Vision film that manages to convey everything that is exotic about China. I really don't like having to stand up to watch it, particularly when my feet are killing me, but I understand why they have it structured that way. Unfortunately I encountered an old man who clearly crapped his pants just before entering the theatre. I got a good whiff of it and was immediately taken back to the shitty bush at our shithole. I nearly mowed down Cindy trying to get away from him, and Reflections of Chinaman, as he was thereafter known, mercifully disappeared shortly after the film started.

THE World Showcase attraction for me, besides Illuminations, continues to be "Impressions de France" in 180 degree Circle Vision. The song that opens the presentation, "Aquarium" from Saint-Sans, somehow always brings me to tears and makes me want to cry. It's such a beautiful, haunting piece of music. And the film itself is everything you'd expect from France - bold, dramatic, a little stuffy, and very emotional. I'd buy the DVD of this if it were available.

Epcot provided my two most unique and memorable dining moments. For breakfast I had a fruit croissant, which was filled with custard and fruit just like a tart! It was delicious, even the custard was exceptionally good! And our dinner that night was at Marrakesh, the Morraccan restaurant that features belly-dancing. Our meal was sensational - we both raved over the Beef Brewat Rolls - layers of thin pastry stuffed with seasoned minced beef, fried and sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar. The combination sounds slightly disgusting but they were so good both Cindy and I wished we'd had a plate of about twenty! The lamb was fork tender and was easily the best lamb either of us had tasted, and the couscous put Boma's version to shame. It was an exceptionally good meal, one of the best I've ever had in any park, and the music and belly dancing were just the icing on the cake.

Despite friends insisting we see the Christmas Carole presentation, we opted not to do so. First of all, the narrator was Kirk "Growing Pains" Cameron, and second, we've both seen and done this very thing in high school and college. We watched a little of it after dinner and I'm convinced this is a highly overrated "must-see" presentation. Besides, nothing, NOTHING about this trip put me in the Christmas spirit! I don't care how many decorations they put up or how many Merry Christmas parties I went to or how many lights I saw or songs I heard, there's nothing about 80 degree weather and palm trees that says Christmas to me!

Illuminations: Reflections of Earth continues to be my favorite Disney experience. It is just a very moving, emotional presentation that was only made better by their holiday addition of "Let There Be Peace on Earth." I had goosebumps throughout the show and that final song brought tears to my ears. There's nothing else like it.

Our day at MGM went much better than either of us expected. MGM is, again, another movie park that LOOKS great and is a pleasure just to be in, but really doesn't appear to offer much to do! However, we ended up doing nearly every attraction and enjoyed it thoroughly. Tower of Terror is the most amazing dark ride attraction in the world, and we got to ride it numerous times. Rock n Roller Coaster has gottten a little bit rough early in the ride, but it's still a fun coaster with a great soundtrack. And the Muppets are, I think, right up there as one of the top attractions at MGM.

We had dinner at the Prime Time 50s Cafe, and I loved it. They must have given me about 2 pounds of pot roast, and they even accommodated my request for collard greens in place of carrots! Cindy cleaned her plate and our waitress, Aunt Jennifer, oohed and ahhed over it then took it around to every table and showed it to everyone. She also came in with a birthday cupcake and made everyone in the room sing happy birthday to her and sign a birthday card. Cindy wasn't particularly happy about it and I should have known she doesn't like that sort of thing, but you only turn 40 once and I wanted her birthday to be special.

We got great seats for Fantasmic! We sat dead center, middle row. The show was excellent as usual, and I'm so glad they got rid of the pre-show cheerleaders who warmed up the crowd with the annoying "Who Let the Dogs Out?" But something occured that I'd never seen before, and that was that people actually got up and left before the show was over. Two couples in front of us left, which spurred a family of 10 beside them to act like sheep and do the same. Which meant they were all standing in front of us while the show was still going on, and for what? To beat the crowd out of the gate? These people come here and spend an hour waiting, all to leave five minutes before the show is even over? It makes no sense to me how people could become that jaded, not to mention just plain rude! And the thing is, A LOT of people did it. Cindy said you can't stop people from being rude but personally I think they should rope off the aisles and make an announcement that no one will be permitted to leave until the show is over. I'm still surprised that anyone would want to go to all that trouble to get there and then leave early!

A small glimpse of the Osborne Family Christmas Lights

Worn out!!! It's hard having this much fun!

Eventually we went back to the park and before the regular park hours were over we had done every ride in the park again. Even on a much more crowded day, we were able to use Fastpass to our advantage and swim against the tide, so to speak, so that we never encountered any long lines, although they were certainly there. We closed our night by watching the parade "Spectro-Magic," and out of the four parades we saw, I would rank them 1) Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Parade, 2) Animal Kingdom's Jingle Jungle Jamboree (which reminded me a lot of Epcot's old Tapestry of Nations Parade), 3) Magic Kingdom's Spectro-Magic, 4) and MGM's Stars and Motor Cars, which was the only parade I didn't feel like a kid while watching.

We didn't take advantage of our final evening extra magic hours. It was 10:45 already and I had to be up at 4 o'clock to catch my plane back home. So we reluctantly left the Magic Kingdom and with that, our Disney World trip came to a close. Early December really is a wonderful time to visit Disney World and Universal, to take advantage of the low crowds and see the parks all gussied up for Christmas. Just don't go expecting to be put in the Christmas spirit!