Magic Kingdom Attractions ratings - Tomorrowland
Mark, Kirsten and I went to the Magic Kingdom after school on Thursday, November 13, 2008. Mark requested no princesses or fairies. Kirsten requested princesses and fairies. Luckily, we could agree on rollercoasters and rides.
I believed that getting the princesses and fairies done first would be wise so we set off for Mickey's Toontown to meet the characters. Would you believe that the line for the fairies was over an hour long! We passed on meeting them this time, more on that in another blog.
We did wait the 15 minutes to see the princesses. Cinderella was a bit miffed to find out that the line for the fairies was out the building. Apparently having flawless princess skin, hair and a dazzling smile (not to mention the gorgeous gowns!) is just not enough to compete with the gals from Pixie Hollow!)
Having completed the princess meeting, we went off to Tomorrowland. This is my rating of the attractions we saw there. ( 5 star the highest - NR- not rated)
*** Indy Speedway. It was fun to ride the gas powered cars, but my children chastised me for going too slow. I'm telling you I had the thing floored!
***** Space Mountain - a roller coaster in the dark, what could be better? Even Mark liked this attraction. We fastpassed this and rode it twice.
*** Astro Orbitor - We waited a bit to get on this one. It is basically a children airplane ride that travels in a circle and you can make go up and down by pulling on the handle. The cool part about this one though is that it is on top of a building, so you have to take an elevator up to ride it. Normally, I am pretty good with rides, but I am not so keen on heights, so my kids would probably rate this higher than I would.
NR Transit Authority - This is a train ride that goes through Tomorrowland.
NR Carousel of Progress - We've seen this before so didn't do it again. Maybe next time.
**** Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin - We like this one so much we rode it 3 times in a row. It appealed to Mark because you could shoot things as you traveled along in the car. Too bad we have no idea how the points add up as you shoot things. It would be even more fun to challenge ourselves to get higher scores.
*** Stitch's Great Escape - I guess when the shoulder harness came down I expected this to be more like a "ride", but it was still fun to watch the show.
**** Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor - Great new attraction. We all laughed at the jokes (most corny) and the audience participation was fun to watch.
We spent about 3 hours in the park. The weather was absolutely perfect and I think even Mark had a good time (After the princesses that is.)
Magic Kingdom Attractions ratings - Fantasyland
On Wednesday November 12, 2008, Kirsten and I went to the Magic Kingdom without Mark and Dave. That left us free to ooh and aah over all the beautiful Christmas decorations without Mark groaning and rolling his eyes at us. We also spent a good deal of time walking through the stores and admiring all the Fairy stuff for sale. (Yes, Fairymania has hit Kirsten - she is the "true" Tinkerbell.) But we did have time to see a lot of the other attractions in Fantasyland. So here is our opinion of each of the attractions: (with Tammy's star ratings- 5 being the highest - NR-not rated)
**** It's a Small World - just try to get that song out of your head when you are done. But it was a lot of fun for us to try and figure out what country we were traveling through based on the costumes of the kids. Kirsten thought that she would love to get a job as one of the kids swinging on the swings all day. I told her there was a reason that they used all robots - it would get boring after awhile, she disagreed. I liked this one so much because Kirsten liked it a lot.
** Peter Pan's Flight - was cute but after going on the other theme rides, it was predictable.
**** Mickey's Philharmagic - this is a classic. The 3-D effects make it a lot of fun. Even I tried to reach out and grab the bubbles! And we loved the surprise ending in which Donald Duck goes flying.
NR Dream Along with Mickey - missed this stage show, guess we'll have to go back...
*** Fairytale Gardens - what a beautiful place to sit and listen to a story with Belle! Would be even better if Kirsten was young enough to be picked for audience participation, but they only picked the little kids (under 7 years- I guess it makes it more interesting because you never know what they will do.)
** Snow White's Scary Adventure - another cute, but predictable theme ride. Maybe Kirsten was just too old so we didn't "catch the magic" on this one. Once upon a time Kirsten was very into Snow White (she even dressed as her for over a month straight - wore that dress everywhere, school, the mall, church...) but now she is onto other things (think Fairies..)
NR Cinderella's Golden Carousel - long line and we have done carousels before, so we skipped this.
NR Dumbo the Flying Elephant - ditto
NR Ariel's Grotto - long line in which you get to meet Ariel, we passed.
NR Pooh's Playful Spot - designed for toddlers, we passed.
** The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh - we waited an hour to go on this since we thought it was a new ride. I don't know if it was new or not, but it seemed exactly like the Peter Pan and the Snow White ride to us, just with different characters.
NR Mad Tea Party - this is the teacup ride. We passed since there was a line and we have ridden similar at Great Adventure dozens of times.
Kirsten and I had a great time together that day and it took us about 31/2 hours in the park to see the things I noted. We could have seen more if we had skipped the Winnie the Pooh ride, but now we know that it is not a ride worth waiting for. By the time our season passes expire next November, we will be Disney World experts!
Space Shuttle Endeavor Launch
On Friday night, November 14, 2008 we were sitting around the dinner table in Orange Grove Campground (Kissimmee, FL), when we got a phone call from my sister-in-law, Karen, telling us that the space shuttle Endeavor (Mission STS - 126) was set to launch at 7:55 pm. We had seen a day-time launch from this campground back in March of this year but because we are a little far from Cape Canaveral we hadn't seen much, but we figured we would stand outside and see if we could catch a glimpse of something this time.
When we went outside we saw a small group of people gathered around anticipating the same launch. One gentleman even had his outside TV on the side of his rig set to the televised coverage of the launch so we could watch and listen to the countdown. The launch went off as scheduled and we all scoured the sky looking for any sign of the shuttle and after about 30 seconds we still had seen nothing. Oh well, maybe it was shot off at a different angle or there was too much cloud cover. I hated to miss it because it was the last scheduled night time launch of a space program that does not seem to have too much future. I really was hoping the kids would be able to see it - in the same way that my parents wanted me to remember the first lunar landing (Appollo 11 back in 1969 - OK, at the time when they woke me up to watch it I didn't appreciate it, but I do now.)
Suddenly, at the top of the tree line, we saw this amazing ball of fire! It was phenominal, especially since we knew how far away it was, we could only imagine how big that plume of flames must be up close. About three minutes into the flight we saw them jettison the two solid rocket boosters. At that point the shuttle was traveling at a speed of 6,000 MPH, though to us it looked like it was only slowly inching away. It gradually disappeared into the atmosphere and within nine minutes of takeoff, the Endeavor was safely in orbit.
It would have been nice to have some pictures, but like all other things that look so wonderful to the naked eye, I am afraid that any picture we would take would not do it justice. Hopefully, the memory will stay with the kids for awhile, as do my memories of watching Aldrin and Armstrong walk on the moon a LONG, LONG time ago!
