So, lets start with Thursday, my birthday. Eddie and Andrew came over to my hotel and we had breakfast together in one of the restaurants there. We then drove over to the Magic Kingdom (actually, you have to park at the ticket and transportation center and take the monorail up). We arrive at the entrance right when they we starting to open. Somehow we ended up in the slowest security line ever, so I made the executive decision to skip stopping by guest relations for my "It's my Birthday" button until later. We headed straight to Space Mountain, which scared the bejesus out of me as a kid (and in Disneyland, but it was much better this time - the drops aren't too far, and that's what I don't like about roller coasters.
I won't go into details about every ride that we did, but we definitely most everything. A sampling: speedway, tea cups, haunted mansion, Peter pan's flight, it's a small world, big thunder mountain, Swiss family treehouse, buzz lightyear, move it shake it celebrate it street party, celebrate a dream come true parade, Philharmagic, Winnie the pooh, pirates of the Caribbean, monsters inc laugh floor, dream along with Mickey, enchanted tiki room, carousel of progress, under the sea, main street electrical parade, and wishes nighttime spectacular. So, yeah, a lot. Some of the rides are so tame that it's almost not worth riding them - you have to look at it from a story perspective. I could have skipped Peter pan's flight and it's a small world. I also don't like shows with audience interaction or where they spray you with stuff, so I didn't like monsters inc laugh floor. I adore carousel of progress - I bet it was my favorite ride even when I was a kid. I've always been a nerd. We did miss the hall of presidents because of timing, so that was a bummer.
For lunch, we went over to the contemporary resort and went to The Wave...of American Flavors. It was really good. I've been obsessed with 2 things recently - beets and fish. They had a great fish special which was really yummy. I had always wanted to stay at the contemporary resort - I love the monorail going straight through the building. But it was a bit too expensive when it came down to actually staying there on this trip. And, you know, it wasn't as amazing as I remember it being. I mean, the resort is nice, but it's definitely dated. It feels like what contemporary was 30 or 40 years ago, which, let's be honest, is exactly what it is.
The lunch reservation was at 1:00ish, and the dinner reservation we had was at like 6:00 in downtown Disney, at Wolfgang puck's. After that late-ish lunch, we could tell we weren't going to be hungry for dinner in time and getting to downtown Disney and back was going to be a pain, so we changed the reservation until the next night. It was a good plan.
After spending so many hours on our feet, we were exhausted by the time it came to the evening activities. We scouted out a good location for the electrical parade, but it came in the opposite direction from what I expected, so in order for me to not to have a lamp post right in front of me for the whole parade, I ended up kneeling down. For the entire 20 minutes. Two days later and I'm still feeling it. I'm getting to old for crazy stuff like kneeling. The Wishes Nighttime Spectacular was beautiful and I'm glad we hung in there until the end. It was a long, long day and I crashed right when I got back to my hotel.
Yesterday was a day that I was absolutely looking forward to - it was my 7-hour behind-the-scenes tour. So so excited. I met my tour group over in front of Epcot at 8:45. There were 36 of us on the tour. We had a bus and then in most of the locations, we split into 2 groups, each with our own guide. I wish that I had been with the other guide - I think his name was Rick, but Jeanna, my guide, was great too. Before we left on the tour, we had to choose a "bus buddy" to make sure that no one got left behind anywhere. There was only one other single on the tour, so she and I ended up pairing up. And ugh. She had no social skills and insisted on sitting next to me on the bus when there were other full rows open (I think she took the "bus buddy" term literally). At one point, I pulled out my iPad to check something and she was like "what's that device?" Seriously, I don't think she had ever seen an iPad before. I was so confused.
Anyway, despite that, the tour was amazing. We weren't allowed to take pictures in most of the places, so I'm glad I'll have this record to remember it all. We started with going backstage at Epcot. The World Showcase isn't open until 11, so we got to walk around it a bit before it opened. We went backstage at the American Adventure and got to see them doing practice runs of the show, which they do every night and morning before opening the park. We saw a sample animatronic head and I, of course, asked a ton of questions about the running of the show.
After leaving Epcot, we went over to the costume shop, which is on the backlot of Hollywood Studios. I think this was my favorite stop of the tour. We got to see where the costumes are designed, cut, constructed, and fitted. I found it really interesting to learn about the different types of costumes, based on the category of cast member. There are operational cast members - merchants, ride operators, security, all of that - who get assigned one or more roles. The costumes for these roles are checked out on an as needed basis. You can check out up to 5 complete costumes. You can do the laundry yourself or just drop off the costumes to be laundered and pick up new ones. These costumes are built to fill an inventory and cast members just pick up their size as needed. The second type of cast member is the characters. These cast members are hired to fit the costume. There is one costume size created, based on what the character is, and one of the big criteria for hiring is whether you fit the costume. The third type of cast member is an entertainer. These cast members are hired based on national and international auditions. They are hired one a one-year, equity contract and their costumes are built to fit them. They generally have 2 costumes per performance role and their names are sewn into those costumes. So yeah, super interesting for me, especially since I'm planning on taking some fashion design classes when I get home.
We made one more stop in Hollywood Studios at Tower of Terror. Rick explained to us how the ride operates and told us some really interesting stories about the evolution of the ride. They claim that each experience is randomized in terms of your up and down drops in the tower. In actuality, there are 6 unique sequences. And the main reason that a car needs to be pulled off the track to be serviced? Sanitization after a "protein evacuation." Too funny. Also, after riding the Tower of Terror in Disneyland, I have no desire to ever ride it again.
Next stop was Animal Kingdom, where we got to see the vehicles lined up in their holding warehouse for the Parade. The Animal Kingdom parade is different then the magic kingdom parades in that it's much less formal and more interactive. The floats were pretty cool and we saw them doing some work on a couple of them.
One more stop before lunch - the horticulture shop. We saw them creating topiaries, which was cool. They construct the frame out of steel, stuff it with dirt or moss or something, and then pin the pants on the outside. They are watered from the inside out using a drip irrigation technique. We saw lots of characters in topiary form, including Belle, the Beast, Chip, Cinderella, Prince Charming, and lots more.
Lunch was all-you-can-eat BBQ at the Wilderness Lodge. I think they were trying to be Texan, but they had pork ribs and no beef ribs. Texas fail. The food was still good, even if it wasn't authentic Texas.
The after lunch stops were great too. First up, we went to the Central Garages, which is where all of the rides and cars and such are built, maintained, and repaired. We saw a number of new cars being built for the new Miners ride in Fantasyland as well as a ton of random items from all over the various parks - Space Mountain cars, it's a small world boats, carousel horses, jungle cruise animals, and more. They mainly try to do preventative maintenance, so on a schedule, each unit from a ride is sent to the garage, disassembled, assessed, fixed as needed, reprinted, and put back together. In that way, they manage to prevent the majority of issues before they become problems. It was great to see a huge focus on safety here as well. It's a shop, like any other shop, it just happens to be at Disney. And it seems like the primary focus is worker safety in conjunction with quality work.
Our final stop was the Magic Kingdom. We parked behind Main Street and went down into the Utilidors. Oooooo, ahhhhhh. Yes, the fabled Utilidors. Guess what? They looked like tunnels. Oh, you don't know about the Utilidors? Well, let me fill you in. The story goes that Walt was out in Disneyland and saw a cast member from Frontierland walking through Tomorrowland (or something like that), and thought that was ruining the illusion. So when he started on the plans for Disney World, he added plans for this tunnel system below the Magic Kingdom. The Utilidors are technically on ground level and what appears to be ground level of the Magic Kingdom is actually the 2nd floor. Cool, yes? So we hung out downstairs for a little while - saw a couple characters in full hair and makeup, but only partial costume. That was really cool.
We went upstairs, watched the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Parade and then walked up Main Street with Jeanna pointing out some inside information, like the names and business names on the buildings.
So that pretty much wrapped up the tour. On the bus ride back to Epcot, Rick told us this great story of how he, along with a stage manager on a show he was working years ago made the wishes of 2 dying kids come true. That was pretty special. Definitely something to remember. Maybe I'll get to that story at some point on here. For now, I'm too tired.
After the tour was over, I met up with Andrew and Eddie at a wine bar out at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and then we went to Puck's for dinner. I'm glad we pushed that out a night. We were able to relax, take our time, and really enjoy the experience. I got a beet salad (of course), red snapper, and carrot cake. They just changed over their menu on Wednesday for the first time in about 4 years, so it was cool getting to try the new things on the menu. I was so stuffed by the time we finished that I couldn't finish up my carrot cake and I brought some of it home.
So that's as far as I can get tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll get caught up on both today and tomorrow.
We went upstairs, watched the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Parade and then walked up Main Street with Jeanna pointing out some inside information, like the names and business names on the buildings.
So that pretty much wrapped up the tour. On the bus ride back to Epcot, Rick told us this great story of how he, along with a stage manager on a show he was working years ago made the wishes of 2 dying kids come true. That was pretty special. Definitely something to remember. Maybe I'll get to that story at some point on here. For now, I'm too tired.
After the tour was over, I met up with Andrew and Eddie at a wine bar out at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and then we went to Puck's for dinner. I'm glad we pushed that out a night. We were able to relax, take our time, and really enjoy the experience. I got a beet salad (of course), red snapper, and carrot cake. They just changed over their menu on Wednesday for the first time in about 4 years, so it was cool getting to try the new things on the menu. I was so stuffed by the time we finished that I couldn't finish up my carrot cake and I brought some of it home.
So that's as far as I can get tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll get caught up on both today and tomorrow.
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