Disney World!
(Once again, all my own photos)
Day 1
Okay, this place is over 40 square miles. It's as large as several cities. And much of it is still undeveloped.
Every corner I saw was jammed with detail. It really is like visiting different lands: An African village, a shop on Nepal, or even the lands of Star Wars and Avatar.
The employee only signs, water fountains, and everything are designed to fit in the area's theme. They have fake advertisements posted on the walls and poles. Even the people working there fit in.
If it wasn't packed with tourists, you might forget you were in Florida.
These are the water fountains in the Snow White mine car ride.
Oddly enough, I was relieved to find the old classic rides with their old-fashioned animatronics. Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirated of the Caribbean, ex. I was afraid they'd be dumping the old rides and replacing them with crazy fancy stuff. But they haven't! There's awesome new rides, and nostalgic, fun old rides.
The first day we went to the Magic Kingdom - basically a smaller version of Disney World. I haven't been to a Disney Park in over 10 years, so that was fun.
I was excited to see wild ibis. We have some of these at the zoo, and I'd never seen wild ones.
Then I headed to Epcot.
It was close to closing, so I had to dash around like a mad person. And Epcot is huge, so I ended up wrecking my legs for the rest of the trip since I speed-walked all of Epcot @_@
Smart.
Dude, I want to spend more time in Epcot, visiting all of the little country areas. I got to see almost none of it. I did manage to jump in the Japan shop a couple minutes before the park closed. They had Pokemon, Zelda, and Ghibli stuff. I was far too excited to find those things in Disney World XD
I got out of the shop just in time to see the last few seconds of the fireworks show.
Each park has a big fancy show when they close. It basically funnels everyone out of the park, after dazzling them with lights and fire.
On the way out, I passed the Mexico area. And I saw a sign for a Coco show.
And of course it was closed. I thought it was just a little stage show. But I looked it up after I got home. It looks like they had a little shop in there. And I missed it.
Day 2
All of day 2 was spent in Animal Kingdom, and I could easily have spent another day or two there. It was massive.
And amazing.
In the heart of the park is a massive tree, carved all over with dozens, or hundreds, of different animals. I'll just share the giraffe with you for now.
Since I do behind-the-scenes tours at the zoo, I decided to try one at Disney. I took the elephant tour. They had someone from Africa talking about ways they keep elephants out of farms. If elephants eat the crops, people will kill them (because the people don't want their families to starve. You can't blame them).
Elephants don't like bees. Bees know to go into their trunks and sting where it really hurts. The people hang bee hives on fences around their fields. When the elephants try to get through the fences, the bees come out and scare them away. Brilliant!
Also, they have a place that takes care of injured wildlife found in the parks.
They grow a lot of their own food for the animals. And that farm is almost as large as the entire zoo where I work! @_@ Almost 100 acres.
Elephants eat a lot, after all. And they're only one of the species in Animal Kingdom.
More exploring after the tour.
They have two beautiful villages - the African one and the Asian one.
The African village, Harambe, has a store with lots of beautiful African artwork made by artists that came over from Africa. A man was there carving beautiful wooden animals.
And a woman was making amazing beaded jewelry. I got something from each of them. A carved elephant and a pair of beaded earrings.
You can go on an African safari. In Florida. It was very cool. They had elephants, painted dogs, white rhinos, cheetahs, ankole cattle, and everything else you'd expect to see on a safari trip.
There were masai giraffe, which I'd never seen before.
There were three young ones, all following an adult in single file, like little ducklings.
There was a baby gorilla too!
In the Asia region, there was a beautiful shop with traditional masks and carvings all over the walls. Remember I mentioned how much detail there is all over the place?
Well, this is the wall behind the shop's cash register.
If you go to a shop in Nepal, the wiring looks just like this.
DETAILS!
People who do amazing research. It's beautiful. TT^TT
I hardly saw any costumed characters. I think most of them had indoor areas so they didn't melt inside their costumes.
But look how lovely Kevin looks!
After visiting Africa and Asia, I went somewhere even farther away. Pandora.
This was one of the places I was most excited about. I love the movie Avatar. But I never could have expected how awesome Disney's version of Pandora would be.
You walk into Pandora, and suddenly there are the floating mountains towering above you, draped in vines and spouting waterfalls.
I headed into the riverboat ride, where you cruise through the glowing night forests, with the little spirit seeds floating around. It ended in a beautiful animatronic ot Mo-at, Neytiri's mom.
But the next ride blew me away. It was one of those virtual reality kind of things, where you put on 3D glasses. You sit on a chair like you're riding a motorcycle. And you ride a banshee through Pandora. You soar over the ocean and through the floating mountains. As my banshee turned and banked, I found myself leaning along with him, like I was on horseback, but in the sky. The giant red Toruk comes after you, and when you dive into a cave to escape, your banshee is panting and his sides are heaving under you.
I walked out of that ride in a daze, feeling like I'd really just gotten back from a flight on Pandora.
When I was leaving the ride, it was starting to get dark. It seemed that the things around me were starting to glow. Filled with anticipation, I hung around for another two hours watching the forest slowly light up around me. The whole of Pandora world glowed in the dark! I took photos, but they don't do it justice at all.
Absolutely stunning.
I bought one of the little jellyfish-like tree seeds, and it glowed in the dark with me as I walked around Pandora.
Finally I managed to drag myself away from Pandora.
I decided it was time to find food. Most of the food you find around Disney World is soda, ice cream, burgers. Fancy fair food, more or less. But they do have some nice restaurants too. Some of them looked really expensive. But the Asian restaurant - the Yak and Yeti - looked good without being... extremely expensive (though it still costs $40 for dinner, a drink, and a tip).
It was packed, but they gave me a seat at the bar. Which I found funny since I don't drink. But the food was good. And the bartender was very entertaining.
I didn't even consider this at the time, because I was still in a daze (and continued to be until a couple days after I got home). But this was the first great bar tender I'd gotten to interact with since I read that manga XD
Pro tip. If you're ever at Disney World and want a drink that's more refreshing than soda, go into one of the nicer restaurants, or a bar (I never thought I'd advise someone to go into a bar XD But they can have non-alcoholic stuff too). And hey, all the drinks there are expensive so you may as well pay a couple extra bucks to get something more interesting than coke. I got pear lemonade. It was delicious.
Remember I mentioned that the Disney Parks put on big light shows to mark the closing of the park? This one was out on the lake in the Asia area.
They must use so much energy and money to run these things. All the flashing lights and fireworks and fountains and bursts of fire. But at the same time, they're always well attended, so it's not like it's a real waste of resources. It's frivolous, but entertaining. I watched three of these light shows, so it's not like I have any right to complain about them.
Day 3
Our last full day at Disney.
We went through most of the rest of the Magic Kingdom.
I rode Space Mountain twice in a row because there was no line in the morning. I feel like the Disney Land one is better (I haven't been in that one in ten years, so my memory may not be fully accurate).
Then we headed over to Hollywood Studios, where they have the Star Wars land: Galaxy's Edge.
It wasn't as cool as Pandora. But it was a close second. There were all these little nooks filled with machinery, droids, speeders, or even small space ships.
And there was the Falcon.
Once again it felt like stepping into another world.
There was one ride (a second ride opened a couple months after our trip). I assumed it would be another virtual reality thing. It kind of was. But it was mostly a simulation. Everyone got on a team, and we became a crew for the Millennium Falcon. And I was the pilot! I got to fly the Falcon!
Well, half of it. You have two pilots, two mechanics, and two gunners. I piloted the Falcon from side to side, and the kid next to me did up and down. I didn't crash us at all (though the kid did XD )
To my excitement there were some animals around as well! Including a pet shop.
We got the blue milk (that Luke's family drinks in episode 4) and the green milk too. I think that's what Luke drinks when he's on exile on that island.
It was actually a slushie. But it was fun. I used to make my own blue milk. I'd heat up milk and honey and add a tad of food coloring. So I had to try the official stuff. It's bantha milk! I never knew that until I went to Galaxy's Edge.
Also, the shop keepers are all in character. They'll ask you to pay in credits. I you mention another place, like California or Hawaii or something, they'll say, "I've never heard of that. Is it on another planet?" (The person I was with got confused and tried to explain where this other place was, and I had to whisper that they were in character).
Even better. There were storm troopers wandering around, asking for your permits. And they would insult people. The last Star Wars movie at the time was "The Last Jedi." The storm troopers went up to a lady who'd just bought a light saber and said, "if there is a lost Jedi, it's not you." The whole crowd went, "Oooooooohhhhh."
I was laughing so hard.
So, oddly enough, Star Tours is just outside of Galaxy's Edge. They have a lot of scenarios you can go through. I think it's about 50. So I went on it a couple times. And I go the SAME ONE TWICE IN A ROW. What are the odds, huh?
Sigh.
I looked around most of the rest of Hollywood Studios too. The Rock 'n' Roller Coaster was one of the best coasters I've been one.
There's some evidence of Jakjak.
And I saw Fantasmic. It was different from the Disney Land version. Another big fancy light show. Not something to think about, but just something to be awed by XD
An awesome trip. We had such a good time all around. From the lovely country to Africa and Asia, Pandora and Star Wars. I got to ride a banshee and pilot the Millennium Falcon.
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