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Dry-blogging, or "Doing it the Old-Fashioned Way" (tiny notebook, ink, etc.): My Trip Diary of WDW#25, 22 years of Ears, etc, with ancient childhood brother/sister-friends, Andrew and Steph.

1/18/03, 7:55 am:
Waiting for the cab after parents left, Andrew saw a bluebird outside the window. In winter.
I smell a good omen.

1/19/03, 1:30 pm:
Adventureland. Waiting for Andrew and Steph, watched kids lined up to meet Hook, Smee and Peter Pan. Kid playing PP is so good at his job, obviously loves kids a lot and wants to be an actor. I have a lot of awe for those who have to play characters without the aid of a mask because they require such a high level of personal interaction-- have to use their face, voice, engage with each person. It looks so exhausting. Peter Pan is amazing. I love this guy.

***
Philharmagic-- my parents raved but I was nervous about the potential rendering of traditionally 2D characters in CGI-- I really hate it when they do that; I hate that CGI castle logo with the CGI Tink that they show before Pixar movies and such-- but, despite the fact that I feel that to encourage the success of these types of attractions is what leads to such things as the closing of Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida (the studio housed in Disney World itself-- they did ~~Lilo and Stitch~~ Brother Bear most recently)-- I can't not like this attraction. Overall, in fact, I loved it. Donald Duck falls in love with Ariel and emits heart-shaped bubbles, and I actually welled up-- I almost shed a damn tear, and you just shut up-- when Jasmine finally places the hat on DD's head.
You can only see a new Disney attraction for the first time once, and I savoured it. Although Steph and Andrew couldn't believe I couldn't smell the apple pie that wafted in during the "Be Our Guest" sequence. I just can't smell things.

***
"Do you want to go inside?" Rhonda the Jungle Cruise tour guide asked me as we neared the entrance to the cave.
"No, let's turn back," I joked as we sailed into the darkness.
"Sorry, four people said yes-- in Florida that's a majority," Rhonda replied.

***
And as audio-animatronic Dubya began to speak, a baby began to wail.

***
4:50 pm Tomorrowland
I was just reminiscing to Andrew and Steph about the old "If You Had Wings" ride, which became Dreamflight which became Buzz Lightyear's Ranger Spin, and noticed for the first time ever that the ambient music around the Lunching Pad is the very same music from that ancient ride. It blew my tiny little mind.

***
It's ironic that the Carousel of Progress was more frought with technical glitches and timing mishaps than I've seen in any ride in a long time. (Apparently, a guest stood up mid-show, causing the theatre to stop rotating, as the animatronics droned on, and we skipped from mid-40's to mid-00's, and then tried to catch up, and then the show was ended mid-00's once again. There's your great big beautiful tomorrow, Waltie.)

1/20, morning Andrew
Rode Mission: SPACE all alone and reported that it kicked quite a lot of ass.
Got stuck at the top of Spaceship Earth-- I wish it were on the moon landscape. Shocked and upset by changes to Spaceship Earth. Big goddamn wand.

1/20 6:00 pm California Grille
Wine supper at California Grille with whole group-- got snockered on merlots chosen by the sensitive palette of TJ (did NOT knock me out of ketosis, but SOMETHING did yesterday-- too much salad?!) and by the time the fireworks started (new show, mucho-mucho magicale) were having the time of our lives, arms aorund each other, standing in a huge clump at the window and swaying to the music, ooh-ing and ahh-ing as if it was our first trip to Disney World.

***
Back at the Beach Club, saw a duck couple (Donald and Daisy?) warming selves in the heated swimming pool-- Steph and I brought out a bagel and fed them by hand.

Despite their cowardliness in the face of 40-something degree nights, the days were very warm and sunny and lovely.

1/21 11:45 am, MGM
Trivia Q - which Lord of the Rings cast member is an audio-animatronic character in The Great Movie Ride?

6:55 pm, Frontierland
I'm pretty sure my favourite moments in life involve the stars above me, the wind in my teeth, and Tom Sawyer Island to the left of me-- and the right of me-- and the left of me-- and the right of me--

9:48 pm, Fantasia Gardens
Holy mothra crap. I just won at minigolf for the first time ever. And against STEPH-- it's backwards day! Steph says I've become Kirsten, she's become me and Andrew has become her. And Steph has been spending a lot of time in the bathroom.

Scores:
Killer (S) - 71
Sparky (T) - 57
Golden Delicious (A) - 63

I am the new reigning QUEEN of Disney-themed miniature golf!

On the walk back to the Beach Club, we took a detour to loll around on the hammocks at the Swan Hotel and kick sand at each other under the stars. That's when Andrew lost his new sunglasses. It's always something. Nothing can be one-hundred percent.

***
Finally. Mission: SPACE. I was most apprehensive about this because it replaced-- irreversibly, I might add, with multi-million dollar remodeling of the architecture of the casing itself-- my all-time favourite WDW attraction, Horizons. Furthermore, reports from all sides were that if one tended to suffer from motion sickness, one would likely puke. Andrew's friend Maggie said that one in ten people blew chunks; my friend Chris confirmed, by text-message, that I would, indeed, vomit. But after much coaxing from Andrew, I finally relented. Nervous the whole time. So nervous I stopped resenting the replacement of Horizons and concentrated on my stomach. I heeded Andrew's suggestions-- keep your head back, keep your eyes on the screen, under NO circumstances look left or right. Gary Sinise did a spiel-- sort of obscure choice, did anyone even see Mission to Mars?-- and I got to be the Pilot. Steph was Commander. Andrew was the Geordi. I tried to comically freak out about the fact that we didn't have a Navigator-- there are four people to a "car" on this ride, and everyone has a "job"-- but they stuck in an overenthusiastic Southern accountant singleton, who saluted us and referred to us by our ranks-- and, yeah, okay, I'm beating around the bush--

It was freakin' awesome. I didn't get the slightest bit motion-sick, and I found the ride genuinely thrilling. It made me want to watch From the Earth to the Moon again.

This is not to say that I forgive the Imagineers for creating a ride that completely demolished my personal childhood uber-wonderland, or a ride that will never be filled to capacity because of the frequent need to swab the decks-- but, dammit, I enjoyed it.

Miscellaneous:
We decided that this would be trip that we get to ride all the things that I haven't gotten to ride in years and years because Kirsten never lets me, so we did, among other things, Small World, Carousel of Progress, Hall of Presidents and Indiana Jones' Epic Stunt Spectacular. Wild, man.

We did skip Animal Kingdom this time around. I didn't get to play homage to The Flik Show, or The Dave Foley Experience, or, as some like to call it, "It's Tough to Be a Bug"-- but just because Andrew wasn't particularly interested, and none of us really wanted to waste half a day of getting reacquainted with the classic rides of our childhood. We'll catch it next time. Anyway, there are only two attractions in Animal Kingdom that I have the slightest bit of interest in (Flik and Dinosaur!) and, furthermore, last time I was there I was perilously close to TREE SLOTHS. Didn't want to risk that again.

Andrew DID realize his dream of doing the front of the monorail again-- that thing is getting bumpier by the year, incidentally, and the grumpy monorail operator didn't have the slightest idea the last time it had been checked by engineers, and furthermore, his tone implied, he was busy doing his job and could we please shut the fuck up?

And that's that. I'm home again, and I'm freezing my fingers off. Disney World already seems like a distant dream. Although my mom's talking of going again in August. (Graduation present?) And we do miss going when the parks stay open late and you actually feel relief when the air-conditioning hits you. (Are we mad?)

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