Yesterday, I came home from Orlando, where I spent a day and a half at Pop Century. I usually have a copious amount of pictures along with my TR's but my camera is broken, I hade to settle for my camera phone (which I can't transer pics without getting boned in the wallet by Verizon). Here's the rundown of my solo WDW trip this week:
Departure from JFK, Tuesday September 12th, Noon. Great flight, watched some Columbo and Cold Pizza on the way down. I arrived at Pop Century around 4 PM, checked in and hung around in my room until 7PM watching my usual ESPN programming.
Around 7 I decided to take the bus to Epcot to ride the monorail loop to keep myself occupied. At the Epcot monorail station I chatted it up with a nice transportation CM named Terry who happened to hail from Upstate NY, he let me ride in the cockpit of the monorail along with a married couple on an anniverary trip. He was a very laid back fellow, at first glance most people would misatke him for your stereotypical Candian dude. He had a great attitude for working the straining job of transportation at WDW. I rode the loop to the Ticket and Transportation Center and back to Epcot before taking the bus back to Pop. I love the monorail.
The next morning saw me at the Magic Kingom at 9AM sharp, what I saw left me utterly slackjawed. No huge crowd between the gates and the train station. No huge "welcome" show by a trainload of Characters. The train simply pulled into the Main Street station and loaded passengers as I entered the park. Main street was near deserted. I was both happy and in a slight bit of despair. I immediately rang back home to make sure some national tragedy was not occurring whilst I was on Main Street. Nope, everything was hunky dorey. Wow.
I took the bridge to tomorrowland, there were about 2 whole families between me and the Astro Orbitor. WTH. I made a beeline towards Space Mountain, 3 people got in the standby line in front of me once I got visual of the Mountain, no more. I reached the line and the 2 CM greeters were as puzzled as I was, they asked me, "Where are the people?" I turned and looked behind me and not a soul could be found in tomorrowland. We shared a shrug and a giggle as they welcomed me into the empty Space queue.
I recorded a cellphone video of my traveling along the early queue with nobody in front of me, very creepy. I reached the Alpha Track loading area with 6 people being grouped in front of me. I got a rocket all to myself in the front seat. What followed was the creepiest coaster ride of my entire life. Space Mountain alone in the front is scarier than Kingda Ka and El Toro combined. My spine was tingling the entire ride through, I was frankly happy to be in one piece when I reached unload. It was honestly the longest ride of my life on any coaster, it seemed like I was riding in bullet time.
Long story short, I stayed in Magic Kingdom from 9AM to 12 Noon, in that timespan I rode all the following rides walk-on:
-Space SIX times
-The New Pirates (the Captain Jack AA's are amazing, along with the new/renewed effects, Davy Jones is the best)
-Big Thunder
-Splash Mountain
-Carousel of Progress
-Tomorrowland Transit Authority
I left MK around 12:10 after a heartly lunch at Caseys on Main Street. I took a picture of Main street from the left side of the train station as I was leaving and captured maybe 10 people on their way into the park. Those 3 hours were the wierdest 3 hours I have EVER spent in WDW nevermind the MK. I felt like I was breaking some sort of law.
I boarded the monorail to Epcot and arrived there around 12:30. Epcot was almost just as empty, though not as much as MK that morning, as it was a Night Extra Magic Hours Park. Here's a list of my activities buring my Epcot stay (including Extra Magic Hours activities):
-4 Rides on Soarin (wait posted as 40 minutes, but it was a walk on every time)
-4 rides on Spaceship Earth (Best ride EVER)
-3 rides on Mission:Space Orange (I'm not wasting a ride on the Green side unless I'm on a lengthy WDW trip)
-3 rides on Test Track single riders line (w00t I skipped the boring preshow 3 times!)
-2 rides on Maelstrom (longest line of the day, 7 minutes tops) I finally watched the short Norway Movie after the ride and it was the worst piece of cinema of all time. It managed to be both all over the place and bore me to "zzz"s at the same time.
-Universe of Energy : Ellens's Energy Adventure
-Impressions du France (Canada and China's films beat the pants off this movie, France's film only has the benefit of cushy seats and an astonishinly hot CM running the attraction)
-Rio Del Tiempo - the cheesiest ride of all time and it's absolutely awesome.
Side attractions:
-A lime margarita from Mexico while talking on the phone near China with some of my buds back home whilst being bothered by Lovebugs.
-Kaki-Gori from Japan. It's a really tasty snow cone with many flavors and really thin shaved ice (aka, actual snow). I had the Rainbow flavor, a mix of Tangerine, Honeydew Melon, and Strawberry. Absolutely heavenly.
-A Spaten dark lager from Germany being enoyed near the Odyseey restuarant during the FANTASTIC Illuminations: Reflections of Earth show at 9PM.
At 11 PM that night I took the bus back to Pop and literally passed out on my bed and woke up in time for Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPN2, I checked out after buying a few gifts for my family and hopped on the Magical Express back to MCO only to be met with an hour delay. Meh.
In summary, this was the wierdest and the most awesome one day trip down to the World of all time, for me. It was well worth it. If anybody has any questions feel free to ask. If demand is decent I'll get a pic or two from my cell phone online for your enjoyment. (while you're at it, feel free to PM me any horrible spelling/grammar mistakes as I wrote this entire post in one sitting and I will fix them)
Departure from JFK, Tuesday September 12th, Noon. Great flight, watched some Columbo and Cold Pizza on the way down. I arrived at Pop Century around 4 PM, checked in and hung around in my room until 7PM watching my usual ESPN programming.
Around 7 I decided to take the bus to Epcot to ride the monorail loop to keep myself occupied. At the Epcot monorail station I chatted it up with a nice transportation CM named Terry who happened to hail from Upstate NY, he let me ride in the cockpit of the monorail along with a married couple on an anniverary trip. He was a very laid back fellow, at first glance most people would misatke him for your stereotypical Candian dude. He had a great attitude for working the straining job of transportation at WDW. I rode the loop to the Ticket and Transportation Center and back to Epcot before taking the bus back to Pop. I love the monorail.
The next morning saw me at the Magic Kingom at 9AM sharp, what I saw left me utterly slackjawed. No huge crowd between the gates and the train station. No huge "welcome" show by a trainload of Characters. The train simply pulled into the Main Street station and loaded passengers as I entered the park. Main street was near deserted. I was both happy and in a slight bit of despair. I immediately rang back home to make sure some national tragedy was not occurring whilst I was on Main Street. Nope, everything was hunky dorey. Wow.
I took the bridge to tomorrowland, there were about 2 whole families between me and the Astro Orbitor. WTH. I made a beeline towards Space Mountain, 3 people got in the standby line in front of me once I got visual of the Mountain, no more. I reached the line and the 2 CM greeters were as puzzled as I was, they asked me, "Where are the people?" I turned and looked behind me and not a soul could be found in tomorrowland. We shared a shrug and a giggle as they welcomed me into the empty Space queue.
I recorded a cellphone video of my traveling along the early queue with nobody in front of me, very creepy. I reached the Alpha Track loading area with 6 people being grouped in front of me. I got a rocket all to myself in the front seat. What followed was the creepiest coaster ride of my entire life. Space Mountain alone in the front is scarier than Kingda Ka and El Toro combined. My spine was tingling the entire ride through, I was frankly happy to be in one piece when I reached unload. It was honestly the longest ride of my life on any coaster, it seemed like I was riding in bullet time.
Long story short, I stayed in Magic Kingdom from 9AM to 12 Noon, in that timespan I rode all the following rides walk-on:
-Space SIX times
-The New Pirates (the Captain Jack AA's are amazing, along with the new/renewed effects, Davy Jones is the best)
-Big Thunder
-Splash Mountain
-Carousel of Progress
-Tomorrowland Transit Authority
I left MK around 12:10 after a heartly lunch at Caseys on Main Street. I took a picture of Main street from the left side of the train station as I was leaving and captured maybe 10 people on their way into the park. Those 3 hours were the wierdest 3 hours I have EVER spent in WDW nevermind the MK. I felt like I was breaking some sort of law.
I boarded the monorail to Epcot and arrived there around 12:30. Epcot was almost just as empty, though not as much as MK that morning, as it was a Night Extra Magic Hours Park. Here's a list of my activities buring my Epcot stay (including Extra Magic Hours activities):
-4 Rides on Soarin (wait posted as 40 minutes, but it was a walk on every time)
-4 rides on Spaceship Earth (Best ride EVER)
-3 rides on Mission:Space Orange (I'm not wasting a ride on the Green side unless I'm on a lengthy WDW trip)
-3 rides on Test Track single riders line (w00t I skipped the boring preshow 3 times!)
-2 rides on Maelstrom (longest line of the day, 7 minutes tops) I finally watched the short Norway Movie after the ride and it was the worst piece of cinema of all time. It managed to be both all over the place and bore me to "zzz"s at the same time.
-Universe of Energy : Ellens's Energy Adventure
-Impressions du France (Canada and China's films beat the pants off this movie, France's film only has the benefit of cushy seats and an astonishinly hot CM running the attraction)
-Rio Del Tiempo - the cheesiest ride of all time and it's absolutely awesome.
Side attractions:
-A lime margarita from Mexico while talking on the phone near China with some of my buds back home whilst being bothered by Lovebugs.
-Kaki-Gori from Japan. It's a really tasty snow cone with many flavors and really thin shaved ice (aka, actual snow). I had the Rainbow flavor, a mix of Tangerine, Honeydew Melon, and Strawberry. Absolutely heavenly.
-A Spaten dark lager from Germany being enoyed near the Odyseey restuarant during the FANTASTIC Illuminations: Reflections of Earth show at 9PM.
At 11 PM that night I took the bus back to Pop and literally passed out on my bed and woke up in time for Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPN2, I checked out after buying a few gifts for my family and hopped on the Magical Express back to MCO only to be met with an hour delay. Meh.
In summary, this was the wierdest and the most awesome one day trip down to the World of all time, for me. It was well worth it. If anybody has any questions feel free to ask. If demand is decent I'll get a pic or two from my cell phone online for your enjoyment. (while you're at it, feel free to PM me any horrible spelling/grammar mistakes as I wrote this entire post in one sitting and I will fix them)
