Disney Day 6 - The Not-Disney Day

And now, the trip report you've all been waiting for, the reason for taking this trip in the first place, the non-Disney Disney day. Today, we were scheduled to travel "off property" to the neighboring theme park of Universal Islands of Adveture. The purpose of this excursion was to check out the new Harry Potter themed section of the park. The handlers had arranged an early shuttle from their hotel to the park, and arrived before the gates were even opened.

Universal Islands of Adventure is known for its 'thrill' rides. The handlers, being frequent visitor to Cedar Point, weren't really interested in that.

After being stopped repeatedly at different road blocks through the park, we finally made our way over to Harry Potter world, and got our first look at Hogwarts castle.

Pretty cool, huh? Inside the castle is the main ride for the area (The Forbidden Journey), and we wanted to make sure we got on it. So, we jumped in the line which (strangely) was only a 15 minute wait. There were locker areas specifically for stowing of gear while you're on the ride and they used fingerprinting technology to lock and open. The handlers thought that was pretty awesome.

Handler 2 was a little wary after seeing this sign...and amused by the 'No Puking Guy' symbol.

And can I just say....Coolest. Queue. Ever.

No, I'm serious. Have you ever been in line for a ride and thought to yourself, "Gosh, I wish this line would move a little slower so that I could spend more time waiting." No, of course not. You're sane and lines suck. But this line.,.it did not suck, and we did want to spend more time looking at stuff. Trust me, if you ever get a chance to ride it, by the time it starts snowing indoors, you'll be agreeing with me.

The ride was pretty darn good. It combined the best dark ride (classic with animatronics) you've ever been on, with the best matches-up-moving-vehicle-and-movie type ride you've ever been on. Then throws in spitting spiders (yes, Jen, we're afraid you can never go on this ride) and fire breathing dragon effects. The handlers managed to get on it twice during the day, and were highly impressed.

Having seen our fill of the castle, an managed to not puke our guts out, it was time to explore the neighboring village.

We were greated by the Hogwart's Toad Chorus.

Here's Handler 1 (or her head, anyways) at the Hog's Head Saloon.

Handler 1 had to stand in line at the Hog's Head's bar not because it was a particularly popular attraction, but because it was prior to 11 am and there were already folks waiting to be allowed to drink alcohol.

After Handler 1 got her beer, and Handler 2 got his Butterbeer (which is a lot like a root beer float, with a little butterscothc flavoring), it was on to see more of the Harry Potter themed sights. There's Hagrid's Hut.

And the Hogwarts Express.

It should be noted that there are a number of shops in Hogsmead, some you can enter and many of which are storefront facades. However, they all have something animated happening in the windows. Little mandrakes cry from behind the windows of the herbal shop. A second floor music conservatory is caught in a whirlwind of sheet music. A sole pen moves by itself across a sheet of parchment in a stationery shop display. Attention to detail in this area is amazing.

Here's the inside of Honeydukes, where the handles picked up some choice sweets.

And we enjoyed the themed merchdise at Zonko's Joke Shop.

This is Olivander's, purveyors of fine wands.

And this is the line to get into Olivanders. Yes, in the town of Hogsmead, people stand for an hour in the hot sun to get into a shop.

There were two other rides in the Harry Potter Area. The handlers both went on the Flight of the Hippogriff...which was a kiddie coaster and very short. Handler 1 went on the Dragon Challenge by herself. She proclaimed it "just like the Raptor, but shorter". Handler 2, meanwhile, figured out the back way into the Dragon Challenge ride line by accident. Handler 1 was pretty weirded out to turn a corner in the dark and twisting line passages, only to run into Handler 2 heading the other way. Lesson being, Universal workers do not satisfactorily police their handicapped entrances.

Seeing as how there were other things to do in Islands of Adventure (no really, there are) we decided to explore a little more of the par. First stop, Jurassic Park!

The ride here was a boat flume, and Handler 2 questions why it's not the classic jeep through the jungle ride you'd expect from the movies. Oh well, it was fun and we barely got wet at all. The handlers liked the look of the Pternadon Flyers ride, which looked kind of like a high speed chairlift over the jungle, however, it was only for people accompanied by minors. Apparently, I didn't count, so the handlers couldn't go on it.

The handlers had lunch at the Dino Center. It was okay. Then Handler 1 kicked Handler 2's behind in dinosaur trivia...it's only to be expected.

This is the Lost Continent area of Islands of Adventure. It had one ride, one show and a magic fountain. True to our nature, we skipped the show, ignored the fountain, and went right on the ride. Poseidon's Fury isn't really a ride though. It's a walk-through "experience" where there's a bit of a show about an incredibly inept archaeologist and how he manages to land a room full of people in the middle of a battle between godlike beings. The effects were nice, but the handlers spent the whole time sniggering at the inconsistencies. Like, having glowing exit signs tend to ruin the atmosphere of "OMG we can't get out!" Also, there's this 'spell' on the walls that your resident idiot archaeologist accidentally illuminates and reads aloud. Handler 2 questions why, if you're in a 2,000 year olf temple, it's written in English? Linear B would be more appropriate.

Handler 2 is on a...umm...it's.....yeah....

We went on the Cat it the Hat ride next. This ride needs to be renamed, it should be called "How the Long Suffering Goldfish Saved His Family".

Notice how the hat is kind of...pink? And the blues are all sort of washed out? And thThe whole of Suess-Landing was like that - in desperate need of a coat of paint. Meanwhile the handlers have seen evidence that Disney actually repaints it attractions nightly. We're just saying that for a land that is supposed to be themed to the colorful world of Dr. Suess, paint might not be something you want to skip on.

So, you might notice it's not dark out yet in this picture. Well, the handlers were totally of the mind that they would head back to their rooms, take a short nap, and head back out again. Alas, that did not happen. Handler 1 had been feeling cruddy all day and just went right to sleep for 3 hours without a break. Handler 2 was fighting a cold and also wanted to get some rest, so we all just stayed in for the remainder of the evening. Yes, they are lame...and old...very, very old.

Disney Day 5

Hmm....we seem to be falling behind a bit in our updates. Stop slacking handler's and get blogging!!!

Okay, where were we? Day five was going to be interesting because we were scheduled to perform a rare Disney trifecta (visiting 3 parks in one day). This was not our original plan, but our earlier disappointments at DHS lead to this necessity. Our main goal of the day was to ride Toy Story Mania. Even though we got to the park shortly after opening, the fast passes were already for late in the afternoon. Knowing we wouldn't be staying that long, we decided to just get in line. A short 45 minutes later, we finally got to ride, and we thought it was well worth it.

We rode some other rides at Hollywood Studios, to justify our time there.

Then it was on to theme park #2 - Epcot.

See how happy the handlers are to finally really be experiencing the Food and Wine Festival!

Here is Handler 2 stymied by the choice between 15 beers from around the world. We finally decided on a flight of 3 beers, one of which was the 'Purple Haze'. That, my friends, is an excellent beer.

Okay, I have to introduce this little guy. He's a Vinylmation. What's that? It's the latest and greatest trading fad at Disney. The handlers couldn't care less about them and Handler 2 kept insisting they were stupid and he couldn't understand how they had become so popular so rapidly. However, after his beer flight, Handler 2 started thinking that maybe it might be funny to buy just one and trade it wherever he could and take pictures of each new one as we got it. So, here's our first (and only) vinylmation purchase. We'll post all of the ones we got in a future update.

And in a totally random occurence, the lady working the Chile booth turned out to be a snowbird based in Handler 1's hometown of Grosse Ile!

We sampled the offerings of New Zealand, Chile, Brazil and the Dessert and Champange booths, before ending up in Mexico.

While there, the handlers insisted we ride El Rio de Tiempo, which is basically the Mexican It's a Small World.

After that, we needed a stiff drink. Luckily, we had signed up for another seminar. This one was all about tequila tasting. Handler 1 thought it was very informative and actually gained a small appreciation for the drink.

After we were thoroughly watered (well Handler 1 anyways, as Handler 2 took one sip of each offering and made an 'icky' face before declining anymore) it was time to head back to the room and prepare for the evening's festivities.

A Halloween party requires a costume, so I decided to dress up as the scariest thing I could think of.

The handlers got into the fun as well. (If you don't get it, then you're not a J.J. Abrams fan).

The costumes ranged from the scary...

To the downright horrifying.

There's much to do at the Halloween party, not just going on rides in costumes and trick-or-treating. For instance, there's a special parade.

It's focused mainly on villans (or pseudo-villans) and the less desireable Disney folks.

The cool thing about this parade is that you get to see Disney characters that are never out at any other time. For instance, here's the hitchiking ghosts.

And fireworks, of course.

So, after one last ride on the Haunted Mansion, we headed off for bed.

Disney Day 4

Today we started out early so as to make our reservations at the handler's favorite breakfast spot! First stop was the Wilderness Lodge.

There we had an excellent and filling breakfast at the Whispering Canyon Cafe, and our friendly waitress Debbie was nice enough to take our photos.

After we stuffed ourselves, we made our way over to the Fort Wilderness Campground. Why? Well, something I've been leaving out of this tale thus far is Handler 2's new hobby. See, he recently got into geocaching, and although there are no real caches allowed on Disney property, there are a number of "virtual" caches. Handler 2 needed to get his picture here for one of them. But, since we were already at the campgrounds, we decided to look around.

We saw a bunch of the Disney working horses. Handler 1 was trying to figure out why all the ponies were cremellos (which means white coloration with blue eyes, a very rare horse coloration), then realized that, of course, these must be the ponies that pull Cinderella's royal coach for weddings and the like. Neat huh?!

Handler 2 thought it was hilarious that even the horses have Disney cast member name tags.

They really get into the spirit of things at the camprounds. These folks have completely decked their golf carts out in Disney Halloween theming.

These folks spruced up their campground (yes, that is a tent in the back...they have 20 inflatable decorations, but sleep in a tent).

I also attended an important summit for Gnomedom.

Such a nice fellow that Mickey the Gnome.

Then, it was off to the Magic Kingdom. Here it is in daylight (with bubbles).

The strangeness continued, as the Handlers insisted that I meet these giant chipmunks. They look as though someone has been experiementing on their brains. The one with the black nose noticed my old war injury from South Dakota and nonverbally chastized Handler 2 for dropping me. Well said giant black nosed chipmunk guy!

The chipmunks in the Magic Kingdom don't talk, but this trashcan does. Notice the guy with the bag in the foreground. I'm told that he is the trashcan's handler.

We decided to ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority (recently, and amusingly, renamed as the Peoplemover) to take in some of the sites of Tomorrowland in comfort and relxation.

Handler 2 is on a horse.

This is the handlers' favorite ride, the Haunted Mansion. Eh, I didn't think it was that scary.

Handler 1 is unendingly amused by these birds and how they just roam everywhere around the parks.

We rode most of the rides in the park, and all of those the handlers actually cared to get on. After the day was done, Handler 1 found us a spot near the rose garden to take photos of the fireworks display.

Then we headed home to the hotel, in the hope that on the morrow, we might be able to score fastpasses for Toy Story Mania before sampling at the Food and Wine Festival.

Quote of the Day: "The answer to the question 'Do you want to go on the Haunted Mansion again?' is always 'Yes'."