After months and months of being on the receiving end of laughter and ridicule regarding my Disney obsession, I finally had the opportunity to take my girlfriend to WDW for a day during our trip to see my family for Christmas. I had only 1 day to convince her that Disney was in fact a great vacation spot and worthy of future visits. I wanted to blow her away, so I chose to do a park hopper and do Animal Kingdom in the morning and Epcot in the evening...she had never been to either!
It was a hazy day at AK, and the safari yielded few animals on this trip, but it was still a very fun ride. The other animal attractions were also slightly disappointing compared to previous visits, but there was enough to see to have fun.
Everest was the big attraction for us as she is somewhat scared of rollercoasters, but wanted to go on it. It turned out to be the perfect ride as she was screaming and closing her eyes, but after the ride she said it was great and kept talking about it all day. She also kept commenting about how smooth it was and how safe it felt compared to her previous coaster experiences. Disney has clearly struck a nice balance on this ride of intensity and family friendliness.
After seeing more animals, we ate lunch at the Yak and Yeti. This is a very good restaurant! I was a bit worried after reading some of the comments, but the menu has a lot of choices and the food quality is very good. While not mind blowing, it was better than your average Chinese fare. I really wanted to do the Tusker house, but at $24 per person the buffet is IN-FREAKING-SANE. I'm sorry, but has Disney lost their minds? $24 per person for lunch??? Very disappointing to see such prices.
Anyway, we moved on and did the Primeval Whirl, which she hated due to feeling unsafe, and was then apprehensive about doing Dinosaur from the warnings, but I convinced her. It became her new favorite ride. She was hysterical throughout the ride. Not most peoples reaction, but she just loved the dinos and the cheesy dialog. After that we did the Festival of the Lion King, which was fun, and left for Epcot. Next time I will check out the Nemo show.
First thing we hit at Epcot was Living with the Land because there was no wait. The on-board audio is not quite as interesting as a real person, but it got the job done. The attraction is getting a little long in the tooth. The line for Soarin was 90 minutes, so we decided to do other things and save it for another visit.
Spaceship Earth was up next. I was curious about the rehab after all the negative comments, and I was perfectly fine with it. The sets looked great and as impressive as ever...she was really impressed with this attraction and kept commenting how amazing it was. Even the cheesy flash ending had us both laughing. While tech savvy internet people will look down on this ending, I think the general public will like it a lot.
Next we did Mission Space green, which was fun. We will probably hit the orange version next time though. The last ride we were able to go on was The Seas with Nemo. I had not been on this one, and it turned out to be pretty lame. Fine for the kiddies, but really just a long video and the word "Nemo" being yelled out far too often. I won't be hitting this one again.
For dinner we wanted Marrakesh. Again, the prices were just too high. I eat Persian food a lot and this place was just way too expensive. Disney is really gouging these days. Does the dining plan do anything to alleviate this? We settled for the counter service restaurant in Morocco, which was really quite good.
Finally, we ended the night with Illuminations, which is better than EVER. I saw this in 2006, but it has been taken up a notch. There was an extra ending for the holidays and really made it the best fireworks show I have ever seen anywhere...and I have seen many, many shows. They are really on top of their game right now with these shows. There were even more new fireworks that I have not seen before.
After the show walking through the world showcase my girlfriend was commenting on how far Disney had come and how she had no idea it would be this incredible. She already was saying how we needed to come back in the summer to do the other parks as well as the rest of Orlando. Looks like a successful trip!
It was a hazy day at AK, and the safari yielded few animals on this trip, but it was still a very fun ride. The other animal attractions were also slightly disappointing compared to previous visits, but there was enough to see to have fun.
Everest was the big attraction for us as she is somewhat scared of rollercoasters, but wanted to go on it. It turned out to be the perfect ride as she was screaming and closing her eyes, but after the ride she said it was great and kept talking about it all day. She also kept commenting about how smooth it was and how safe it felt compared to her previous coaster experiences. Disney has clearly struck a nice balance on this ride of intensity and family friendliness.
After seeing more animals, we ate lunch at the Yak and Yeti. This is a very good restaurant! I was a bit worried after reading some of the comments, but the menu has a lot of choices and the food quality is very good. While not mind blowing, it was better than your average Chinese fare. I really wanted to do the Tusker house, but at $24 per person the buffet is IN-FREAKING-SANE. I'm sorry, but has Disney lost their minds? $24 per person for lunch??? Very disappointing to see such prices.
Anyway, we moved on and did the Primeval Whirl, which she hated due to feeling unsafe, and was then apprehensive about doing Dinosaur from the warnings, but I convinced her. It became her new favorite ride. She was hysterical throughout the ride. Not most peoples reaction, but she just loved the dinos and the cheesy dialog. After that we did the Festival of the Lion King, which was fun, and left for Epcot. Next time I will check out the Nemo show.
First thing we hit at Epcot was Living with the Land because there was no wait. The on-board audio is not quite as interesting as a real person, but it got the job done. The attraction is getting a little long in the tooth. The line for Soarin was 90 minutes, so we decided to do other things and save it for another visit.
Spaceship Earth was up next. I was curious about the rehab after all the negative comments, and I was perfectly fine with it. The sets looked great and as impressive as ever...she was really impressed with this attraction and kept commenting how amazing it was. Even the cheesy flash ending had us both laughing. While tech savvy internet people will look down on this ending, I think the general public will like it a lot.
Next we did Mission Space green, which was fun. We will probably hit the orange version next time though. The last ride we were able to go on was The Seas with Nemo. I had not been on this one, and it turned out to be pretty lame. Fine for the kiddies, but really just a long video and the word "Nemo" being yelled out far too often. I won't be hitting this one again.
For dinner we wanted Marrakesh. Again, the prices were just too high. I eat Persian food a lot and this place was just way too expensive. Disney is really gouging these days. Does the dining plan do anything to alleviate this? We settled for the counter service restaurant in Morocco, which was really quite good.
Finally, we ended the night with Illuminations, which is better than EVER. I saw this in 2006, but it has been taken up a notch. There was an extra ending for the holidays and really made it the best fireworks show I have ever seen anywhere...and I have seen many, many shows. They are really on top of their game right now with these shows. There were even more new fireworks that I have not seen before.
After the show walking through the world showcase my girlfriend was commenting on how far Disney had come and how she had no idea it would be this incredible. She already was saying how we needed to come back in the summer to do the other parks as well as the rest of Orlando. Looks like a successful trip!
