Photo TR: Magic Kingdom and Epcot 8/18/10

[Rastuso]

TR: WDW 8/18/10

 

Our one full Disney day was up next. And by full, I still mean we slept in because we were just too exhausted. We got to the park around noon. We parked surprisingly close to the entrance. I was happy with what looked to be a small crowd. Of course, thanks to Fast Pass, riding rides was really out of the question at first. After pin trading up Main Street, I took the tickets with me and got back to Splash for some Fast Passes. I was very surprised the return time was only a little over an hour later. The park was definitely uncrowded.

 

The plan was to meet at Pirates, one of only 2 non FP E-tickets. Of course, Pirates was DDM, so we hit the other non FP E-ticket, the Haunted Mansion. It had a posted 30 minute wait, but it was only about 20, and thankfully mostly shaded. The rest of the day was spent collecting fast passes and hitting lesser things, like Country Bear Jamboree.

 

I went over to get Pooh FPs, and again was surprised at how little into the future they were for. And we got Surprise FPs for Philharmagic. Gee, so a very basic 4-D movie has already lost its shine, just a few years after opening. They should bring back Mickey Mouse Review, since Tokyo Disneyland is getting rid of it for Philharmagic.

 

I was shocked at how much space there is behind the walls for the Fantasyland revamp. This is REALLY going to change this area. It’ll be great for little girls, and fairly worthless for little boys.

 

After eating at the Harbor House, and getting a Big Thunder FP, plus getting a Citrus Swirl (yay!) my son and I went on an EO adventure. We trekked out the park, and TRONorailed over to Epcot. We got to Captain EO right after they had chained off the preshow, but the CM left his post, and we quickly jumped into the preshow area, and right into the theater. There were plenty of empty seats.

 

I only saw Captain EO once in the mid 90s in this same theater, shortly before it was replaced by the only-need-to-see-it-once HISTA. I wasn’t expecting any 4-D effects, and was very happy that there were quite a few, and they used the motion base a lot too. I didn’t remember much of the movie, but it was gloriously cheesy 80s at its best. Michael’s non-gay rainbow shirt, horrible blue screen effects, and of course 80s pop music. I was surprised how bad most of the effects were since this was made after Jedi, and I believe was the most expensive film per-minute at the time. My son, who is a pretty big MJ fan, and wears a fedora a lot, loved it, especially the moon walking. Yeah, Michael was weird, although I don’t think he did a lot of things he was accused of, but damn he sure could entertain. I’m hardly a dance music fan, but I was really happy we made the trek over to see the movie one more time. I’m surprised they weren’t selling Furrball plush. My son is already lobbying heavily to get my wife’s duplicate one.

 

I decided we should hit the Imagination ride real quick, since who knows how long it will be around. This ride is just awful, the epitome of stupid budget cuts. Some of the rooms are damn near barron, with really just one effect in them. We then also hit Nemo real quick. Some handicapped folks made the line REALLY slow down. This ride is cute, but hardly worth much wait. I just wish we hadn’t missed the DL one by 2 days like we did.

 

We made the long trek back to the MK, and met back up with my wife. We then started using our FPs. Lines were pretty low in general. We finally got on Pirates, hit Mansion again, and Splash. We wanted to see the light parade, but needed to hit Space before that. Honestly, if I hadn’t known Space had underwent a huge refurbishment, I wouldn’t have really notice it. The load station was different, now missing the cool open ceiling. The ride was still fairly effect-free (I guess we just missed the new music). There were a few things here and there, but not much. It did seem smoother.

 

My son wanted to do Buzz, but the standby line was pretty long, and frankly, the ride’s pretty outdated (hell it was outdated when it opened). Pooh’s line was very odd. Has this ride totally lost it’s appeal? The standby queue was extremely short, due to construction, but it still wasn’t even filled. And it still had FPs very late in the day.

 

My wife had a decent spot for the parade on a wall behind a ramp that gave a good sightline, even with all the idiots insisting on standing on the wall, or ramming through the crowd with a stroller. Sadly, the bugs weren’t making their sounds very loudly, which is our favorite part. The new floats were very nice. I love the MSEP.

 

We were pretty much exhausted, so we headed out, hoping we could beat the fireworks crowd. We saw some of it, including Tink’s flight, from Main Street USA.

 

We got to the monorail station, and things got ugly, REAL ugly! We get up to the station, and people had come to a stop. A large black family was completely blocking the back half of monorail waiting area. The Disney folks asked them multiple times to move up, but they totally ignored them. I saw a pathway between the man and a stroller, so I headed back to the open waiting areas. Apparently, my backpack hit the stroller slightly as I walked by, which in the eyes of the man, was a fate punishable by death. He yelled at me that I had just hit his son. The kid in the stroller was oblivious to this fact. I said I was trying to get by, since they weren’t letting anyone in to the entire back half of the station. He didn’t care, I had “hit” his son. I said I didn’t mean to, but he wasn’t making it easy for the people in line to get by. Mind you, this was family of 7 or so who were taking up pretty much the entire load corral area . There was tons of empty space up by the track in their area.

 

I walked on, even though he was still yelling. The few people that were in that section all commented how the guy was a total ass. I then heard my wife start yelling. I tell them “my wife’s taking care of it”. Well, it got a lot worse. Soon after, the guy, who was much bigger than my wife and maybe a foot taller, was screaming at her at the top of his lungs. Saying how I was a MF-er for “hitting” his son, and that there was no way she, or especially MY son, was getting by. He was in full eye for an eye mode. It almost seemed like he was ready to punch my son because my backpack hit his son’s stroller.

 

At this point, my wife was yelling at him because he had used MFer about 5 or 6 times, loud enough that everyone even remotely close to the monorail station heard it. He didn’t care about anyone else’s kids, he said. All this went on with absolutely NO Disney intervention. By the time I had got back to them, a Disney guy told me to stand away. I yell at him for not doing anything to the huge black man yelling in my wife’s face, and my son was terrified and crying behind her. The Disney guy had the audacity to ask me “why didn’t you do anything?” At this point, he wasn’t letting me do anything. The monorail finally arrived, and the whole family quickly got on. They clearly didn’t want to stay at the scene, and Disney didn’t give a damn. They wouldn’t let us on that monorail. Of course, my son was bawling, and thought they would be waiting for us at the next station. Disney said absolutely NOTHING to my son, or my wife. They simply started letting more people up to the station, acting like absolutely nothing happened.

 

My wife said that as soon as I went by he said some comment about how “they’re all like that”, something racial. She also said he was actually shaking, and she thought for sure he was going to punch her. The guy clearly was 100% full of racial rage, and the fact that a white guy barely hit his son’s stroller with a backpack, trying to get by him, was clearly a hate crime. And it was also clear that Disney, nor anyone in the crowd, was going to say a word to a 300 pound black man screaming MFer at the top of his lungs. Had this guy started hitting my wife, he could have killed her before anyone stopped him, since the only Disney people there were two old, five foot tall retirees.

 

It almost seemed like his wife knew I didn’t need to be near him, because she wasn’t backing him once he hit Hulk mode, and was blocking me from getting near him. It was a horrible situation that Disney absolutely failed in handling. We were too damn tired to search out a manager and unload. From what I hear, unless you write a report right then and there, it never happened anyway. And we didn’t need any fastpasses at 11pm.

 

So, we had this guy on this trip, and our last trip to Disneyland had an encounter with a young Latina who used the f-word multiple times to us, right in front of a CM because we wouldn’t let her friends cut in front of us in the Indy line. She wasn’t booted either.

 

Can’t we all just get along? I thought we were going to Change all of this through Hope?

 

-RO

Can't wait for the movie.

So much better than HISTA.

Cool Jellyfish in Nemo area.

Weird 4-wheel vehicle at the Segway area.

I actually saw this movie in the theater.

Obligatory parting shot.

[1pizza14]

WOW! Disney did nothing at all?! Do you know why they were blocking half the station off? That sounds very odd. You got very lucky with the crowds. Great TR. Thanks for the story