[a throwback to a January 2018 JZSquared Disney Adventure]
Chapter 16: The Happiest Cruise that Ever Sailed
We’re having some CRAZY weather in Houston, folks. It is literally raining ice outside. My lawn has a layer of ice on it. I had to bring in my cacti because they were getting covered in ice. It is 27 degrees. School was even canceled, which was probably for the better. I mean I’m from the north, and I learned how to drive in sleet and freezing rain, though I prefer not to, but Houstonians surely have no idea how to drive in this weather, so I think it was safer to cancel school with tons of buses and parents and children all on the roads around the same time. I’m sure we’ll have to make up this day, but better safe than sorry, and a day off from school gives me more time to update this.
So where did we leave off?
Oh right, our introverted nerds had finished traveling around the world in way less than 80 days and decided to park hop on over to the Magic Kingdom.
It was still rainy, gray, and freezing [though not as bad as Houston is today] as we left Epcot. We walked over the monorail, hitched a ride, were delayed for a bit before the MK monorail arrived due to some issue with one of the trains, but after only about a fifteen minute delay or so, we were at the Magic Kingdom.
Hello Train Station.
Hello Christmas Tree.
Hello Castle, Hello Gray Skies.
Hello Selfie in front of the aforementioned castle.
I checked the lines app to see what rides didn’t have really long waits, and saw Haunted Mansion, which is one of my favorites only had about a twenty minute or so wait, so we decided to head to that one first.
I guess everyone else had the same app and checked it at the same exact time because the wait had jumped from about 20 minutes to 40 minutes, but we decided to wait anyways since it’s one of my favorite rides and we had 3ds’ in our pockets, which is the perfect activity to do while wasting time on a line. Also the dreary weather seemed perfect to ride HM.
I don’t remember the old queue, so I don’t have much to compare this one too, but it was a clever queue. Justin seemed to enjoy the interactive elements just as much as the little kids on line did, but at the same time, that line moved really fast, which is a great thing, but doesn’t give you much time to interact with the queue. But I think I’d rather ride the ride than wait in a line longer and play with some “haunted instruments,” but I’m sure on days when this ride does have a huge wait or it breaks down or something, those things are lifesavers to parents with kids.
When I was little and Nintendo was a thing [I’m totally showing my age now, aren’t I?], my brother had this Disney game for Nintendo and one of the rides as The Haunted Mansion, and that was one of our favorite levels, you had to throw candles at the ghosts and find the hidden ghost. [there was also an asteroid like game based on Space Mountain, a racing game based on Audiotopia, a side-scroller based on Pirates of the Caribbean, and a run away train game based on Thunder Mountain]
Anyhow the ride was just as I remembered, always a classic, still a classic, and we both love that ride. Justin thinks it’s one of the best conveyor rides at all the parks.
After HM, we strolled through New Fantasyland, and noticed that Small World didn’t have much of a wait, so we hopped on the line for the happiest cruise that ever did sail.
The restaurant that was next to It’s a Small World, Pinocchio Village Haus, had this one section that overlooked the ride, and there were these people just sitting there and holding gigantic cue cards that said things like “Start the wave,” “Do the chicken dance”, “high five a stranger”, “fist bump the person in front of you,” and things like that, and I’m not sure if that was a part of PVH, and they just have the cards there for anyone to hold up to the window, or those people, who were sitting there brought them for their own entertainment, but the family in front of us was having a blast with those cards.
The wait was maybe twenty minutes or so, before we had front row seats with no leg room, for….
I have a friend named Marie, who went to MK with her family, and got stuck on SW for over an hour and they had to listen to the song over and over and over again, and to this day, she refuses to ride the ride in fear of that happening.
I would have to say, that’s probably also one of my biggest fears, luckily our ride worked just fine.
My grandparents always loved It’s a Small World, I remember being little and riding it with them and only wanting to ride in a pink boat.
I think I prefer the Disneyland version, to be honest. I just really liked seeing the Disney characters incorporated into the ride at Disneyland, and looking for them as we sailed room to room.
But still, this is a classic Disney ride, and a version of it exists at every single Disney park in existence.
After our cruise, we were hungry since we hadn’t eaten anything since our snacks in Norway. We didn’t have any ADRs or anything, so instead we just went next door to eat.
Chapter 17: The Ride that breaks up Marriages
Justin and I wandered over to Pinocchio Village Haus to grab a quick dinner. I was said they were out of a seasonal cupcake that was on their menu though.
I had chicken nuggets and fries. Justin has breadsticks that he said tasted a lot like the breadsticks at Olive Garden, and he had a pepperoni flatbread pizza.
The nuggets were tasty and the breadsticks were good. Justin said his pizza wasn’t bad.
Neither of us thought the food was extremely overpriced for Disney, and there was a lot of empty seats throughout the resturant. We easily found a corner booth, just not in the room that views It’s a Small World.
After eating, we wandered over to The Hall of Presidents.
The only comment I will make is this…. I really thought the Presidents looked at the new President with disapproval on their faces when he started to speak.
You can kind of see it here.
Justin and I made a lot of other comments that we both found funny, but I won’t be typing them here.
After The Hall of Presidents, we decided to go to Tomorrowland.
The Castle looks so pretty when it’s all lit up.
We instantly went to Buzz Lightyear because that is one of Justin’s favorite rides, and there was no wait. He was determined to be a galactic hero on this trip.
GET READY TO TAKE YOUR BATTLE STATIONS.
Did he succeed?
He got close.
I did not. I’m first class, he’s a cosmic commander, even after googling how to get a perfect score on his phone right before we rode.
Justin says I look pissed, I told him I was concentrating and determined.
Next we rode the Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover. It was freezing up there, where we got into the ride. There was quite a windchill going on.
This is the only picture I got:
A picture of the beauty parlor of tomorrow.
It was my first time ever riding TTA. I enjoyed it. I was surprised with how fast the actual car went. I somehow thought it’d be a slower ride? It was also freezing cold. Justin and I both enjoyed it though I think Justin was a little disappointed that the lights were not on in Space Mountain as we passed through it.
Next we watched Carousel of Progress. I vaguely remember this from when I was little. I enjoyed it a lot. I think I have more of an appreciation for the attraction now that I’m an adult. Justin enjoyed it too and was impressed that so many of Walt Disney’s visions of the future do indeed exist today.
Unfortunately for Justin, Space Mountain, his favorite ride in the entire world had a crazy wait even in the cold weather, so we left Tomorrowland, and headed on a quest to find the Winnie the Pooh ride.
When I was little I vaguely recalled there was a sky ride in Disney in Tomorrowland, sort of like the Disney gondolas that they’ve started to build, and I remembered riding with my nana. A quick google search told me that there was one that was there till the late 90s when they did the big refurbish of Space Mountain and such, so I wasn’t crazy, it really did exist. I even have a picture of my nana and me on the Skyway somewhere.
Anyhow…
On the way, Justin saw his other favorite ride, and my least favorite ride.
Oh Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, how I hate thee, let me count the ways…
Justin and I stopped in Disneyland on our honeymoon, which was a road trip up the west coast, and we went on this ride, and Justin spun the teacup so hard that I was extremely sick afterwards, and to this day, we joke that it’s the ride that causes divorces.
He really wanted to ride it, and he said it was no fun alone, so I reluctantly agreed to ride with him, as long as he kept the spinning to a minimum, and for the most part, he did, but I really really hate that ride. I think it’s the only ride I hate.
[sadly enough I never remembered to take a picture of this in the daylight]
[I like the Cheshire Cat]
We continued our quest to find The Winnie the Pooh ride, though I don’t recall why I was so eager to ride it that night.
We took a few wrong turns:
Then eventually came to this:
And decided to ride The Voyage of the Little Mermaid instead.
Chapter 18: We never found Pooh
So, we never actually found the Winnie the Pooh ride. I mean, we did eventually ride it, on Wednesday, when we came back to MK, and it was light out, and we could actually see, where we were going. But judging from the location we found it at on Wednesday, we just somehow completely missed it that night, and we walked right past it!
So instead we rode Voyage of the Little Mermaid:
[is it just me or does Ariel look very unsure if she actually wants to prince to kiss her… and when you think about… Ariel is ONLY 16, why is she in a boat with a strange prince anyways?????]
This ride was identical to it’s Disneyland counterpart. Still a cute ride, still rarely gets a long wait, which makes it a winner in my books! It’s a cute ride, I enjoy it.
Next we headed towards Frontierland to ride two mountains, Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain.
BTM is one of my favorite rides, though ironically, I don’t think I’ve ever ridden in during the day. We tend to only ride it, at night. It had only a 10 minute also know as 0 minute- it takes ten minutes to walk to the train- wait. We walked right and rode it. This is another one of Justin’s favorite rides. I think it’s better in the dark.
Splash Mountain had no wait either, and even though it was cold, and freezing, we figured we’d ride it anyways. I’m sure people thought we were insane.
As we started riding it, the fireworks started, and I must say, it was very cool to watch the fireworks as we were riding Splash Mountain, it was totally unplanned, but totally awesome.
The one thing that did bother me was that everything in this room said “zip-a-dee”, but that song wasn’t playing, it was some other song, and it just seemed like “zip-a-dee-do-dah” should be playing! I mean that’s the song they sing in Disneyland for this ride, if I recall. Instead it was some other song.
This was the first of many entertaining photo poses for this ride throughout the trip. You’ve been warned!
We got off the ride just as the fireworks started to finish.
[the only firework pic I got]
We barely got wet on the ride, but the guy in front of us got soaked.
We then decided to go to Adventureland to ride Pirates of the Caribbean, where I had to explain to Justin that the ride came first, Johnny Depp came later.
As of January 1st, the red head is still for sale. [Though as of today, October 28th, 2018, the redhead is no longer for sale]
Pirates will always be one of my favorite rides, Justin enjoyed it too, even though he got splashed pretty badly from a cannon ball.
After that we headed back to Tomorrowland to ride the last of Disney’s trifecta of Mountain, Space Mountain.
There was still a pretty long wait, even at like eleven pm. The wait was 80 minutes. We probably waited about 80 minutes. We got lucky though because we were only a party of two, and sometimes people’s families lacked two people, so we actually got to probably cut about 10-15 minutes of waiting because the cast members needed a party of two.
SM is an awesome ride, though I think the bad 80s techno is louder and more prevalent in the Disneyland version, and I sort of missed that, but a great ride.
After SM, we were tired, and our feet were killing us, so we headed back to Main Street and towards the buses:
We took a very crowded bus back to Pop Century, filled up our refillable soda mugs, went back to our room, and fell asleep.
That was Day Two.
On Day Three, we tackle Hollywood Studios, and Ohana.