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Today we flew with Peter Pan, took a cruise through the jungle, rode a carousel, zoomed at light speed through a video game, visited a haunted mansion, saw Capt. Jack Sparrow, helped Buzz Lightyear save the universe, got people-moved, drove real race cars, and totally avoided It's a Small World. It was a day to remember.
Rocky, you WILL have fun today. (And as it turned out, he did.)
Walt himself used to say it's the happiest kingdom of them all. Looks like we are ready.
Just look at that smile! Rocky is feeling much better today.
If you pay extra, you can schedule “lightning lanes“ to cut down on your time in line. It turned out today that lightning lines don’t necessarily mean no waiting at all. This was the lightning lane for Peter Pans adventure.
And here is Bill getting off Peter Pan's Adventure. Notice the lightning in his step.
Right about now we split up. Bill and Joe went off to ride a fast roller coaster while Lily and Rocky checked out Prince Charming's carousel.
And there is Prince Charming himself.
Rocky is well at last.
And he's truly enjoying himself for the first time on the trip.
Want to see all this in motion?
Rocky tried to pull the sword from the stone.
I mean he really, really tried, but no luck. Guess he won't be a king after all.
Meanwhile, Joe and Bill had headed to the Tron attraction. Based on the Tron film franchise, primarily Tron: Legacy, the attraction features a motorbike seat design themed as lightcycles from the films. Each coaster reaches a maximum speed of nearly 60 mph, taking riders on a series of twists and turns through a layout resembling the video-game grid depicted in the film series.
Joe had to try out one of the roller coaster seats.
Looks cool, right?
But this is maybe the coolest pic of the whole trip. These boys are having a blast!
Good old Disney shot video from both sides!
Even better, want to ride the whole attraction? Here you go.
The four of us had a chance to bring ourselves up to date on our rides when we boarded the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, one of the park's earliest attractions. Designed as an urban mass-transit system of the future, vehicles take passengers on a grand circle tour of the realm of Tomorrowland that provides elevated views of several other attractions.
This is going to be fun.
Bill has said something silly. He does that a lot.
The People Mover is Rocky's kind of ride.
Slow and easy with lots to see.
He likes this.
In fact, we all do.
Rocky has found a great egret, but he's not getting too close.
He'll get close to Mom, though.
He likes that.
Now we have arrived at the Tomorrowland Speedway, formerly known as Autopia when Bill was a kid.
Joe and Rocky are prepared to take the wheels of some real race cars.
Richard Petty and Mario Andretti
That's Mario with Barney Oldfield.
Joe seems to have things under control.
Bill enjoys the ride while Joe drives.
Would you ride with this boy? I dunno....
Jim Gerard, one of Bill's friends and a colleague from his NASA days, retired from NASA and took a job as a character handler at Disney World. Even though he is retired from Disney now, he still enjoys returning to the parks to see old prince and princess friends. Today he got to see us! He's a great guy and it was good to chat with him again.
On our way to Adventureland we spotted a live character show in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle. It was hot out there in the sun and none of us much care for people dressed up in character suits anyway, so on we went.
Remember the movie the Swiss Family Robinson from 1960? No? Well, that's OK -- not many people do. It's about this family from Switzerland that gets marooned on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe, and they use wreckage from their ship to build a mansion in a tree. Joe is checking it out.
It's a pretty elaborate setup.
Rocky is certainly impressed.
It's shady up here, but it's still hot and boy are there a lot of steps.
Let's go cool off.
Rocky has found just the spot.
Those south seas idols are spraying a cool mist.
And Rocky just loves to get all misty.
Pretty soon he's going to get soaked.
Now he's all wet.
Rocky just had to have his very own bubble machine so Lily bought him one. And for the rest of the day everywhere we went we saw wonderful glorious bubbles.
He's forever blowing bubbles...
It is so very very hot here.
At least Rocky is keeping us entertained.
Is anybody ready for lunch? Looks like they are.
We could see the Beauty and the Beast castle up there on the mountain, but we had a little trouble finding the entrance. Ah, there it is, right by the menus.
We were assigned a table in the great hall where Beauty danced with the Beast.
And then we were greeted by the Beast himself! Is this great, or what?
Lily and the kids are certainly impressed by these magnificent surroundings.
And Joe is especially impressed by his first bowl of French onion soup. He thought it tasted great.
But it was more fun to play with the cheese.
The Beast doesn't mess around when it comes to serving his honored guests. Bill had the roasted pork chop. This is fine dining indeed.
Rocky had macaroni and cheese, which he pronounced "macnificent!" A punster at the age of 10. I love it.
Joe enjoyed his filet mignon.
And we all had a trio of desserts.
A song in “beauty and the beast“ contains these lyrics: Soup du jour Dessert today included some gray stuff, and guess what? It was delicious!
Rocky actually ate Chip the cup.
Now we are off to Adventureland for a jungle cruise. This is actually one of the oldest rides in the park as a version of it was present on Disneyland's opening day in 1955. And now that it has been made into a movie, it's one of the most popular rides at Disney World.
Climb aboard, everybody.
And watch out for the waterfalls.
Lily and kids are excited.
Our guide cracked one lame joke after another for 15 minutes straight.
But oh, the sights we saw.
Like elephants.
And more elephants and lots of other silly stuff. It's an old ride, but it's still fun.
Next up was the Haunted Mansion.
I'm not sure Rocky was too keen on riding around with a ghost aboard his car.
Then we saw the Pirates of the Caribbean.
And I gotta tell you we were getting kinda pooped.
Notice how Rocky isn't wearing his magic band? He loved to wave it at the gold statues, but he made his mother carry it.
The boys' magic bands could elicit reactions from gold statues like this in all the parks. Here Rocky is interacting with Chip and Dale. All he has to do is wave to them.
Here's another statue. Sometimes they didn't work perfectly. \
I think we're going to ride one more ride and then head back to the hotel's cool pool.
But first we have to get in the lightning lane for Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.
You reserve your place in lightning lanes by using the Disney app on an iPhone. This is supposed to make waits shorter, and actually the process works pretty well most of the time. Sometimes lightning lanes look like they're longer than the regular lines, but usually you come out better in a lightning lane, as we did this time. Eventually.
Lily and Rocky are firing lasers at the evil Zurg. Bless their hearts, Disney even created videos to show us helping Buzz Lightyear fight the bad guys.
Joe and Bill have demolished Zurg.
And Bill is thrilled.
It's hot and the sky is turning dark. Let's get out of here.
Oops, Mickey, Minnie and their hot air balloon are blocking Main Street.
Move it Minnie.
And take your mechanical dragon with you.
Almost free.
I think Joe has had a good day.
Here's our bus dropping us off at Kidani Village.
Outside our windows...antelope? Gazelles? I dunno because there seem to be no horns.
While Bill took a nap the others took a swim. Rocky is refreshed.
Lily plays with robots.
And Joe watches Star Wars.
Everybody has piled into bed with Bill's belly. All in all an excellent day.
And it ended with pizza!
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