It's probably the last thing he got excited about. On our first day at Universal he wore a poor shoe choice and his feet hurt the rest of the trip. And, to top that off he caught some kind of cold or sinus bug and was pretty ill for the next several days. Here's the entrance to the park.
Yes, it's already decorated for Halloween. Mickey's not so scary Halloween party was held on select days and Saturday was one of them.
I would have loved nothing more than to attend but you had to pay an additional $60 to go, and an additional $54 dollars for kids ages 3-9! That's insane. Anyway, our plan of attack was to enter the park and head straight to the Haunted Mansion, my all time favorite ride at Disney. However, that part of the park was closed until the official opening of 9am. What the heck is the point of letting us in early if all we can do is walk up and down Main Street USA (picture below), through the castle, and Fantasyland, which was mostly kiddie stuff?
This is the famous Cinderella castle.
Yep, that's a huge crane obstructing the view. Of all the times to be working on the castle. Here's the mosaic pictures from walking through the castle.
In all the times I've been to Disney I don't remember seeing them. They're beautiful. This is the park through the other side of the castle.
This is the back of the castle.
Michanne stayed positive even though most of the park was cut off and suggested we just ride something. Something turned out to be Snow White's Scary Adventures which was pretty pleasant.
The artwork was fantastic and nothing bumpy for my folks to endure. Then we saw Mickey's PhilharMagic, a 3D movie featuring Mickey, Donald Duck and some characters from Fantasia. So, within 30 minutes I saw two things I'd never seen before. We decided to spend the last 15 minutes of the hour waiting by the rope that blocked the rest of the park. People started to gather, including dozens of strollers, and at last we were permitted in. Onward to the Haunted Mansion! I really, really love that ride!
If you've never been on the ride the first thing they do is gather everyone in a room and a spooky voice starts talking about the unfortunate things that happened to previous guests and you watch these paintings expand that show their demise. This little boy was terrified! He was crying and clinging to his father who was trying to point out all the neat things to look at. He just wanted out of there. After that ride Michanne and I wanted to ride the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster but it was temporarily closed, as was Splash Mountain.
Splash MountainSo we waited in line to see Tom Sawyer Island which was a drag. The order of the rest of the day is kind of a blur but I'll fill you in on all the other stuff we did as best I can. We rode the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was around long before the Johnny Depp franchise, and got stuck. All the boats ahead of us kept on going but we just stayed put and boats were piling up behind us. There were about 20 people on that thing and we just sat and waited for assistance. This pirate lady came out from behind a curtain and told everyone to raise their arms and sway right, then left, and repeat. It took several tries but we finally got unstuck. I enjoyed it despite the snafu. They had a huge gift store full of stuff just for the ride. It reminded me that I didn't get a Haunted Mansion t-shirt and I didn't want to leave without one. Michanne and I wanted to ride Haunted Mansion again and as we passed the entrance we saw a kiosk set up, yippee!! So, we barely got started on the ride and the dang thing stops--it keeps repeating something about ghosts messing with the ride and to stay seated in our doom bugy. It happened a second time but we didn't mind because it gave us more time to look at everything. After the ride I bought my beloved t-shirt. When I got home last week I looked on eBay for more Haunted Mansion merchandise. I found a 4 volume comic book set which arrived today. I can't wait to read them! After that we had what I considered to be the best meal of the week at the Liberty Tree Tavern. Michanne and I split the pot roast dinner and mom and I had clam chowder again. So delicious! After lunch we went on the Jungle Cruise which is described as a silly safari boat tour. My goodness, this thing was fun. Our host was freakin' hilarious. He nailed all the puns, deadpan jokes; really he made that ride memorable. And he liked my "So many books, so little time" t-shirt. Then we walked up the Swiss Family Treehouse--another of my childhood favorites.
I don't remember it being that high though. Michanne and I checked back with Big Thunder Mountain and it was up and running. We didn't have a long wait because we used our fast passes from earlier that morning. It wasn't as fun as I remembered, definitely tame after riding the Dragon Challenge and Expedition Everest. We passed on Splash Mountain all together because everyone was getting soaked. We took the train to Tomorrowland so Michanne and I could ride Space Mountain. Our parents rode the Tomorrowland Transit authority while we rode Space Mountain.
We rode it twice, a different route each time. It was a blast. After that we decided it was time to shower and rest up before dinner and a show at Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM studios). All day we saw people with happy birthday buttons and I didn't know where to get one. As we were headed to the monorail I just asked a store clerk and she gave me one and three "I'm celebrating" buttons for my family. Here's a picture of me with my button, which you can barely see.
I wanted pizza for my birthday dinner so we headed to Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano which was packed. So packed in fact that they were only seating parties with prior reservations. Dang! So, we walked and walked and tried to find something indoors because I was melting. We settled on the Commissary for burgers and fries. Then we headed to the farthest point in the park to get seats for Fantasmic. This is advertised as a 25-minute nighttime spectacular with lasers, lights, dancing fountains and special effects. We sat on bleachers for about an hour waiting for the show to start. Here's a picture from those magical 60 minutes.
The show finally started and within about 5 minutes we all knew this was a waste of our time. It was more like images projected on water, a long Disney commercial. Belle and the Beast did make an appearance and my picture is terrible but here it is.
I'll share my sad Epcot/Belle story on the next post. We cut out early and made a mad dash for our bus to rescue us from the cheap theatrics. The sad part is that hundreds of people were waiting in line for the next show to start! We got back to the hotel and I went to the "ice cream" parlor at the resort to get Michanne and I a little treat. It wasn't ice cream, it was bad ice milk. So sad. All in all I had a fantastic 30th birthday and I can't wait to do it again next year (I wish)!
