Top 10 Thursday: Disney World

10. Disney's crowd control techniques—Amazing marketing skills in that company, I tell ya.  They had happy people stationed and waving at every potential grumpy spot in the place.  Before they open the parks, they have a big welcome ceremony and all of the impatient patrons get distracted by Mickey and Minnie.  Then when they have the big rope drop to open the park, it’s like a big parade of people following the walking cast members into the park.  No mad rush, no trampling.  Black Friday stores could take some tips from these people.

Animal Kingdom Welcome Show:

 Magic Kingdom Welcome Show:

 

9. Ms. Pac-Man—I know she's not Disney, but we found some retro video games in the hotel arcade.  Let’s just say all those hours and quarters I spent at 7-11 as a teenager paid off.  I’ve still got it.

8. Characters everywhere!  Most of them had lines of small children so I just looked and smiled as I walked by.  However, in the Animal Kingdom during a pouring rainstorm, after everyone else gave up and went home, we ran into Jiminy Cricket who helped us figure out an unidentified raccoon.  Then Rafiki made smacking noises in our ears while we took a photo.  He’s a weird one.  Then the next day, we thought we were going in to see an old-time Mickey and Minnie movie and found that it was a photo op with them instead.  Score!

7. Fireworks every night—What’s not to love about that?

 

6. The best people watching I’ve seen in ages-- There are groups of teenagers from South America all over the place.  Each group has matching T-shirts.  The “green people” were the most energetic at our hotel at first, but they are looking more and more tired at breakfast these days.  Apparently, the late night parties in the laundry room are catching up with them.  Now the “red people” are the perkiest, but if that’s them I heard outside my door at 11 pm, they’re probably headed for the same fate as the greens.  I had to giggle a little bit at the look on a fellow line-waiter’s face when Chris expressed her relief that there were no “colored people” in our line.  Context makes all the difference.  (An amusing fashion note. . . Many of the girls have cut the necks out of their T-shirts a la Flashdance.  Hello, 1984. . . I’ve missed you!) 

Later, while sitting on a bench eating a snack, we saw group after group of Kim Possible’s super secret spies working on their missions.  Using their special communicators, they made the glockenspiel people run around In circles.  People all over were pointing up and checking their watches, wondering why the cuckoo clock was going off at random times.  

In between spy missions, we watched a little kid swordfighting with his older brother.  The older brother is in for a long childhood.  The little guy was already kicking his trash with his mad sword-fighting skills while the big kid ran away whimpering.   

5. Finding out that there is more the Disney than the Magic Kingdom—As a born and bred Westerner, I really thought that DisneyWorld was just a bigger version of DisneyLand.  I didn’t understand all the hype.  Now I get it.  They have the whole Magic Kingdom, as well as 3 other different parks.  It's like fpur Disneylands . . . kind of.  Cool!

4.   Soarin’-- The biggest downside to Disneyworld vs. Disneyland is that the world isn’t in California.(Well, that and the humidity. . . )  With the new Soarin’ ride, you get to go hang gliding in California.  The scenery is incredible and you can even smell the pine trees.  I can’t lie. . . It scared me a lot the first time. . . but after that I loved it.

3.   Roller coasters—Space Mountain is a timeless classic.  Because we arrived at the parks shortly before opening, we had a little bit of super-efficient ride time before the crowds wandered in.  We rode Space Mountain 3 times in an hour!  Woohoo!  I was a first-timer on the Aerosmith roller coaster.  Wow!  It went from 0 to crazy fast in no time at all. Loved it!

2.   3-D shows—Thematically, my favorite was Star Tours.  C-3P0 flew our spaceship, even  though Darth Vader was shaking us with his telepathic powers.  And we flew through the Death Star!  (My name is Daphne, and I’m a Star Wars Geek.) 

    The best special effects were, by far, the bug show in the Animal Kingdom.  After surviving the acid-spitting bug, I was stung by a hornet and well, let’s not discuss how it ended.  Eeeeewwww!!!  Really, other than Captain EO, which was unbelievably awful, all of the shows were really fun.  Chris has a collection of “Daphne in yet another pair of 3-D glasses” photos.  Watch for them on Facebook.  Here's one of her:

 1.   Being one of the "children of all ages"—That’s what Disney's all about, right?  Who says you have to be a kid to be wow-ed as your Peter Pan car leaves the track and flies off into the night sky?