On Tuesday and Wednesday of our trip, Griff went to his conference. Wah wah... Seriously though, Jerry Seinfeld and Lin Miranda were two of the speakers so how bad could it really have been?!
But WE went Disney World! Disney was a whole different beast from Universal Studios - different crowd, muggier, more crowded, but still the Magic Kingdom took me right back to 1990 (or whenever it was) that we visited when I was young.
We spent our first day at Magic Kingdom.
Shot some stuff with Buzz Lightyear (Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin) and rode a skinny rocket thing (Astro Orbiter) on top of a tower in Tomorrowland. Both enjoyable but let's get on to the good stuff.
Walked through the Hall of Presidents in Liberty Square en route to It's a Small World. Of course, we broke out into The Simpsons' Krustyland version of during the ride. Maybe it was just me.
After that, it was time for the Haunted Mansion. I have no pictures of this. I was trying to coax and convince someone who shall remain unnamed that it was all pretend it and if a little three-year old girl thought it was her favorite ride, it couldn't really be that bad. Unconvinced, he stayed with us even if he didn't enjoy it one bit. Madelyn and I loved it.
The line at Splash Mountain Falls wasn't too long. Well, it said 60 minutes but we were hot, had had a snack, and were willing to give it a shot. I'm pretty sure we only waited 30 minutes. And, we got this gem of a picture on the final, big downhill.
I know, I know. You can't see us very well. Have no fear. I've taken the liberty of zooming in. Pay no attention to the literal posers in front of us.
After we were thoroughly soaked from Splash Mountain Falls, we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad two or three times in a row. THIS was my favorite ride from 1990 and I think it STILL is my favorite ride. Loved it. All three of us did considering we'd get off the ride and then go get right back in line to do it again.
We split some hot dogs for lunch and rode several other rides - Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, and even got caught in a parade. Mickey went right past us on a float. Madelyn and Sawyer were too cool to wave at him. But, he waved at me and I waved back. Nailed it.
We did a lot of walking. Went to Gaston's to have some Grey Stuff. But, apparently they only serve Grey Stuff during special events. Rode the Mad Tea Party and several other rides before calling it a day. (Our schedule was dependent on the hotel shuttle we'd ridden over.)
We rode both the ferry and the monorail on Tuesday and had a fun, full day. "Monorail, monorail, monorail...Is there a chance the track could bend?"
On Wednesday, our travels took us to Animal Kingdom. Given that we were exhausted from our three previous days and having switched our ticket from Hollywood Studios to Animal Kingdom the night before, we were light on Fast Passes and found ourselves long on lines. Nevertheless, we persisted.
We scored a Fast Pass for Expedition Everest - Legend of the Forbidden Mountain. It's a thrill ride aka roller coaster. As we were walking to it, we could hear a roaring and screaming. Then, we came around a corner and saw that it was the ride we were headed toward. All three of us collectively agreed to pass.
Then, we came across Kali River Rapids. This was a fun one with a very short line. So, we rode it a few times and got varying degrees of wet each time. Still fun.
Tried to ride Dino-Sue. The line was long and unfortunately the ride broke as we were just about to get on. So, we passed as well. We were right next to DinoLand USA so we rode Triceratops Spin. It was fun and the right speed for us after all of the other "thrill rides" we'd been on over the last few days.
Both Disney and Universal have apps where you can see the estimated wait time for rides throughout the parks. By this point in the day on Wednesday, every ride we were interested in had a 50+ minute wait. Even Kilimanjaro Safaris had a a 65+ minute wait which was a bummer. That one would have been really fun..if we could have gotten on. The two popular Avatar rides had estimated waits of 75 and 190 minutes. I was not about to get in line for over three hours so we opted for Na'vi River Journey.
In line for Avatar Na'vi River Journey. It said this line was 75 minutes long and they weren't kidding. Was the ride worth the 75+ minute wait? Undecided. I will say that it was really cool and the music and environment really enveloped you. But, I also felt like it was the 21st century version of "It's a Small World" from Magic Kingdom.
Unfortunately, after Avatar we kind of peetered out. We had a bite to eat, found this thing that translated your dog bark imitation into words and had quite a bit of fun with that. We also saw a flock of parrots fly by overhead two times. Oh, and Sawyer scoped out a hat he wanted so we tracked it down. You can't see in the picture but Simba's tail is on the back of the hat. I would wear this but I wouldn't look nearly as cute.
We went to It's Tough to Be a Bug! as our final thing before heading out for the day. Was not expecting to be as frightened in this 4D video/experience as we were. I'm not sure which was worse - having someone spray "bug killer" on the crowd or when we needed to make way to let the roaches, spiders, and beetles all exit the auditorium only to have the underside of our seats booped. Don't get me wrong. It was a cute show and they had all of the appropriate warnings beforehand. But, I wasn't prepared for all the gotcha moments.
The storms rolled in after that so we headed back to the hotel by a Lyft. So much for waiting for the hotel shuttle. Had some downtime at the hotel and then enjoyed some afternoon/evening swimming once the weather cleared up.
On our final morning, I finally rented the kids an inner tube at the pool. We had four hours of glorious pool time (mostly all to ourselves) before showering, packing up, and heading to the airport to come home. Workday Rising was over.
When I asked the kids to rank their days from most to least favorite, they agreed: Day 2 at Universal Studios, Day 1 at Disney World, Day 1 at Universal Studios, and Day 2 at Disney World. I would say our "conference" was a success and now that I know how to plan/manage a Disney trip, I'm all for doing it all again. Universal, too.
Thank you, Griff, for taking us with you to your work conference!
