#291a Disney

I wanted to tell you about the coolest thing that just happened. Last week some people that were RVing behind us have a cat and we have a cat so you get to chat now and then and have good conversations.

They are a couple that lives in Kissimmee and they like to RV around Florida some.

We exchanged info and they invited us to Disney Springs for lunch today.

During lunch, they gave us two tickets for Disney 4 park hopper. They had mentioned that their son is a manager there. They are super nice people and we hope to stay in touch for years to come. We needed to take advantage of it but because we're leaving Lake Louisa on Sunday morning. It was Thursday when we got the tickets and the weekends are busier so Friday is the big day. The weather was beautiful. It was probably only a high of 84 and that was in the hottest part of the day. Most of the time there a light breeze. To make things go well we had created a bit of a plan. We looked online and they made some suggestions. Make a plan but then be willing to completely abandon it if you need to. They had a new ride based on the Avatar movie. It was called flight of Passage where you ride on the back of the Avatar. It was just a Banshee. They said many times in the park there can be a five-hour wait to ride this. This is beyond absurd to me. If I wait an hour to do anything I'm about to die.

We looked online for suggestions and there was a lady that had sort of figured it out. We took her plan. She mentioned that the park and ride itself opens at 9 a.m. She said get there early and be done with all the security and be inside and poised for the starting bell. We got through security and began to go towards the ride at 8:15 which is where they let people in the park but there's just nothing open yet.

All this is occurring at Animal Kingdom. We did exactly what she suggested. We even found ourselves almost exactly what she said we should be and you should have seen the people jockeying for position.

Some were running like crazy people especially the young people. I assume they are trying to be the first to ride considering their enthusiasm. We got into place and then I felt it wise to go to the bathroom before I got into a long line. We were positioned well when it started at 9 and bam done I think we were finished at 9:15. For that ride, 1 hour is incredibly light in as good it gets. You also ask yourself, why not do a fast pass? They said the next fast pass for this ride is 60 days out. Wow.

The whole thing is a flight simulator and it is beyond incredible. You are sitting on a motorcycle seat type thing and they strap you in pretty tight. They seek out your genetic match to an avatar and all this stuff and it's pretty cool. If you'll hold your thighs tight to the machine you can feel the dragon breathing in and out, it's very cool. You fly through the air in do dips and fly off cliffs and it's just overwhelmingly wonderful. It's well worth an hour but for the people who stand in line for more than that God loves them. That was our first stop and probably the most important thing because after you get that done you’ve already had a great day at Disney. Next, we went wandering about and eventually went over towards Africa. We thought we would get something to eat. We got up at 5:30 a.m. and woke up with coffee and tea and hit the road a little after 7. We got there just before 8 and that was the prequel to what I just said. I had a protein bar but India hadn't had anything so it was time.

After Avatar we just walked around and looked at a few things and we went down towards a ride called the river. I figured it would be fun to do because it had had a 10-minute wait. We walked over there and it was an hour wait so we did not do that.

None of the restaurants open until 11 so had to just chill and think about this and the other. I started downloading some apps one for Disney wait times and the other was Disney app to get around a little bit better.

I had ribs India had a chicken bowl and we went to see it's tough to be a bug. It is a 3D show and then kind of moved on and considered going to the next park.

We rode the Disney bus over to the Magic Kingdom. Went down Main Street and just kind of did what we did.

Once again there are very few fast passes available.

I had put on my to-do list was the Carousel of Progress which is something almost nobody wants to do because it's old school but I love it. I saw it the once before when the kids were small. I wanted to see Mickey Philharmonic. It's a 3D show it's just a silly thing and I figured the rest of it was just walking around enjoying the Magic Kingdom. There's always music or marching band or the old-time barber shop quartet people. It's just interesting to be there. There were a lot of things I would have loved to have done. I would have enjoyed Space Mountain but it was an hour-and-a-half wait.

You look at but wait times and every single ride that would be fun as at least an hour and then there are almost no fast passes at all. We hopped on the people mover which is kind of like a little train that just goes around and rides you through Space Mountain. It kind of tours the park a little. We spent a lot of our time at Tomorrowland.

I decided it was time to ride the Mad tea party tea cups. India didn't want to so I rode alone but it was quite fun, oh well.

Later she said she kind of wishes she had.

I was keeping an eye on India during the day and I noticed that her watercolors were fading a bit. I didn't know quite what to do about it but both of us took several doses of a cocktail that we lean on now and then. It's one Aleve one Tylenol and one Advil and that'll do the job for the most part. I think she kind of did that again seral hours later. Something rubbed her foot the wrong way with her shoe but generally, she just looked a little wilted.

Being the Fix-It guy decided we got to fix this girl so we've decided that we had done about what we needed to do with the Magic Kingdom and we would have ridden Dumbo but it was an hour wait so dang y'all. I decided what we needed was some sugar or something to stimulate. We went into confectioners and we sat down and I mean everything is like an M&M for $5. I figured let's do it and I found this cookie that was in the shape of Mickey's head. It's kind of a chocolate chip cookie and then his entire ears were just chocolate.

I'm still thinking about more stimulants so I found a Mountain Dew as a monster beverage and I decided that would have the kick required. We sat down on a park bench listened to the barbershop quartet and had the big chocolate cookie and a monster beverage. After that, her colors came back and she was pretty perked up. I was making jokes about how that pretty soon she was going to say I want another one of those and another one of those.

Next, we get on the Disney Bus and we go to Hollywood. This particular wait for the bus was kind of long. I figured it would be a nice rest but it was so packed that I had to stand up the whole time. Both of us had stood but a nice guy maybe 40 something gave his seat up for Miss India. I thought that was kind of dang nice and I told him so.

We got the Hollywood and walked down the main drag and got to what looks like the Gruman’s Chinese Theater. I think it's Walt Disney presents. Years ago it was on my list but we didn't get around to even thinking about it till about 5:45 and it closes at 6s so that didn't happen. This time but we look and the Star Wars flight simulator was available for maybe a 15-minute wait or in this case 10 minutes. It was fun mainly because I like flight simulator rides. After that, we went to the Star Wars mini-movie. It was a 20-minute you know Star Wars thing but once we went over there it wasn't 20 minutes anymore it was an hour and that kind of stinks. At this point for some reason, I looked for a fast pass it says there are no more. It was getting a little bit towards dusk and at this point and we walked in towards the Tower of Terror which had what looks like a 35-minute wait. Even with the monster drink, I think India is starting to wear out on me. She didn’t want to do the tower of terror and would just happily sit on the bench and wait for me. As soon as I got there it was a 30-minute way I don't mind for a cool ride. I got in line and they announced that one of the elevators was broken so instead of having three going or whatever they were down to two which pretty much changed everything into a much longer wait. A lot of people had already turned around and we're leaving. It looked like a hundred people gave up. When they made the announcement I decided it was Disney and things fixed pretty quickly so I would hang in there. I don't know whether they got it fixed or not but things moved along pretty soon. I’m sure I was in line for 45 minutes. When I heard the screaming starting up I knew they were doing much better. Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore I called India I said should I give up? I asked the gentleman beside me if he'd ever ridden this before. Were we even close he said you're kind of already past the giving up point that we're only about 10 minutes out. I said well you're right I'll hang in there so I let India know and hung in there. It was an exhilarating experience but I think it turned into almost an hour wait which is no fun but it was such a cool ride.

We had planned on being over towards Epcot in the evening for the water illumination show. We decided we should eat at one of the restaurants at Epcot so we headed that way.

Even though this was a rather full day I think that we didn't do near as many things as we had hoped to. I certainly thought I was going to ride more rides at Epcot. I even thought they were going to go back to Magic Kingdom at 8 when the lines were short for Space Mountain and none of that happened.

We noticed that there was a boat ride that would take you from Hollywood to Epcot and so we voted that would be fun. We took the boat ride it stopped at 3 resorts and ended at Epcot. We saw the resorts for Swan and Dolphin which is the crazy $500 a night thing and the yacht club.

We decided to go eat in France and went that way and it was kind of like $15 for an appetizer in $40 for an entrée. We went on down to Morocco and had a nice kind of pita platter. I had the gyro-type open-face thing pita pocket, so good. We had the outdoor table and did some people watching.

At this point the weather was beyond perfect it must have been like 76 with a nice breeze.

As we were eating, they were announcing the illuminations starts in15 minutes so that worked out pretty well. Also meaning that it was quarter till 9.

We started walking generally towards the big golf ball which is spaceship earth and the entrance exit to the park. We stopped multiple times along the way to just trying to take in the light show but because it had been a long day we thought that maybe positioning towards the Disney bus would be better than just standing there for the whole show. We watched it sort of in our peripheral vision. We generally headed towards the exit and it seems like that became pretty popular because at some point either just before the show ended or right as it ended we were in a sea of people going to buses. It was about as smooth as it could be because it's just as soon as we got in line the buses were already there and no line. We sat down and were ready to go and he left out in about 10 minutes.

The bus driver was chatty and told lots of jokes and trivia stuff so that was nice. so we were heading to the Animal Kingdom parking lot. When we got there we had no idea where our truck was but we had written down road 32 33 and there were no signs like that. It's kind of weird but we asked some young ladies that were very nice if they knew where the tram was. They said they quit running an hour ago. Since there's no tram we kind of wandered around a little bit hoping to find the truck. Eventually, we asked an employee and he said that we were generally going the right way. After a bit we found it and it was so easy enough.

We got in the truck and headed back towards Lake Louisa Campground which is about a 25-minute ride. It was a pretty busy day or a full day but we never really rushed around. We didn't get to do everything but it was fine. I got to tell you the day started at 5:30 a.m. and we got back to the rig at 10:30 p.m. I was determined that we need to sit down and have a nice hot tea before we went to bed. We did and I think that once we laid down we might have hesitated about 30 seconds before we were both sound asleep

I would say it was a fun day at Disney and we enjoyed it quite a bit.