Disney was, as expected, loads of fun. Maggie, unfortunately, is a bit of a scaredy-cat. And the weird things that scare her are those dopey (pun intended) puppet-skit rides that are all over the place at Disney. While riding on Splash Mountain, Maggie had no problem with the "drop 80 feet in a fiberglass log and get buckets of water dumped on you" part, but the singing puppets that appeared here and there during the ride really bothered her. She even got upset during her first stint on the "It's A Small World" ride, although she later warmed up to it and rode it two more times. It then became her favorite because it was painfully cute as well as quite easy to ride because the wait times are pretty short compared to other stuff.
She also got to meet loads of princesses and folks in puppet costumes. My parents pulled out the stops and signed up to a few "meet the character" meals, which included a meet-the-princesses lunch in the big castle in the middle of the park. Maggie really loved getting pictures taken with Jasmine and Belle and a half-dozen other hot costumed chicks princesses. I was wondering how she would reconcile her knowledge that cartoon characters aren't real with seeing real flesh-n-blood characters wandering around, but her suspension-of-disbelief reflexes were working just fine. We brought along her homemade princess dress which turned out to be a big ego-boost for mom, as all the other moms (and a couple of the princesses themselves) were impressed by the quality of her dress compared to the storebought versions that all the other girls were wearing. And strangely enough Miss Maggie was happy as can be to wear a dress that is constructed of several layers of plastic fabric while walking around in 95 degree temperatures and 102% humidity.
The good:
1. The food at the character meals. While expensive (typically $50 a person), most of the character meals were plenty of fun and the food at all of 'em was pretty good. Biggest portions were at the "Hoop Dee Doo Revue", which was a cowboy-themed stage show featuring all the fried chicken, ribs, and beer you could eat.
2. The characters at the character meals. All the characters and princesses and such mince about the restaurant and visit your table, signing autographs and posing for pictures with the kids. They're clearly following some kind of obscure algorithm because during the meals all the characters managed to visit our table exactly once, and no table was neglected by any character. If you've got young kids, this is worth it. Maggie and her cousins absolutely ate it up, even though Maggie didn't recognize some of the characters (like Chip-n-Dale and the characters from "Song of the South").
3. The employees. Everybody was friendly and helpful. Not an unfriendly person at the whole place.
4. Maggie. Maggie's a really contented kid, and she's really not the kind who demands lots of stuff. Even though Disney has approximately three gift-shops per park visitor, she wasn't all about getting loads of stuff. She pored through the dozen princess-themed shops but didn't really ask for anything. At the end of the day she declared that she wanted exactly two things, a pair of pink princess shoes (that match her dress) and a plush Tinkerbell doll. And she took us to exactly the shops that had 'em. We bought the doll and Grandma bought the shoes and she was happy as could be.
5. The Wilderness Lodge at Disney. It's intended to look like a gigantic log cabin, and I don't wanna think about the prices (I didn't pay 'em so I don't know), but the place was big and clean and had a really nice pool with a water-slide so the kids could continue to wear themselves out while you took a break. Only problem is that if you stay on the Disney property, you probably shouldn't plan to visit anything but Disney. The Disney Properties are kinda like the Scientology website -- once you're in it, all you'll find is more of itself, and it's nigh-impossible to click your way out of it :)
6. The Fawlty Towers hotel in Cocoa Beach. It's just a little TraveLodge looking affair, and it's really got nothing to do with the TV show other than the name, but it was clean and cheap and in a perfect location, a block away from the beach. The owner (who was in the office all the time) confirmed that their internet rates are much cheaper than their walk-in or phone rates, so use the link above if you wanna book 'em. Their "Tiki Bar" is just a little beer bar with a tiki theme, which was a mite disappointing because we had hopes for stirring rum punches served in coconut halves with shish-k-bobs of fruit, but they had a good happy hour and it was handy because the September weather in Florida somehow involves it raining for five minutes every half-hour.
The bad:
1. The food at the non-character meals. Most of the fast-food at Disney is typical theme-park fare, which means that it's really expensive and is mostly awful. If you're into paying $9 for a clammy burger and clammy fries, it's the place to be. I think if I had it all to do over again, I'd schedule myself for a $50 character meal and bring along a couple of sandwiches and a half-dozen fresh oranges (readily available everywhere in Orlando) to eat during the day.
2. The food at NASA. Same as above, only worse. Grab a couple of sandwiches at Cocoa Beach before you head over to NASA. There's nothing around NASA for about ten miles, so don't get outta town thinking you'll be able to grab a sandwich at the next 7-11, because there ain't any.
3. Maggie and I. Maggie was a complete scaredy-cat for many of the rides, even the mild ones like the Buzz Lightyear "Zap the Funny Aliens" ride. She should've been a little braver and recalled the Willy Wonka disclaimer that I kept telling her (twists and turns around every corner, but nothing dangerous). And I should've been better about channeling my frustration regarding the whole thing.
4. Disney's point-meal-plan-thingy. Disney's always tried to get you to shed all concept of the outside world, and this extends to everything. From the hotel TV's that place all of the networks up around channel 60 to the speakers everywhere that play every possible permutation of "The Circle of Life", it's clear that Disney is a reality unto itself and you're now part of it. And Disney's been working for decades to extend that reality-distortion to money (remember Mickey Bucks?). Now when you check in, you get a plastic card that they explain is THE ONLY THING that you need to keep in your pocket. This card is your hotel room-key. This card is your park ticket. This card is hooked up to whatever short-term-high-interest-debt-system-card that you bring with you so it can be used in gift-shops. This card also has meal credits on it so you can just flash it at any restaurant or food stand and receive your food. But it doesn't really work. There are loads of tiers and levels and credits that count towards "table meals" versus "quick meals" versus "snacks", and nothing's actually labeled in credits, so it's impossible to know exactly how many credits you have and how that translates to actual food. Apparently we're not the only people confused by it because Disney's getting ready to abandon it.
5. The shout-out to creationism at NASA. NASA is all about the science, so I found it really jarring to hear that one of the taped tour-bus-messages from somesuch administrator talking about God and how space exploration can better help us understand how he Gloriously Created Everything. We were less than 24 hours from sending a probe to the asteroid belt, and suddenly I got the feeling that I was sitting in one of those doublewide-trailer museums where they teach how Our Flat Earth was magicked into existence over a six-day period in 4,004 BC, all proven by ancient holy books which are completely reliable because they say they are.
(and I visited one of the premier doublewide-trailer-creationism-museums just south of Fort Worth, so I know of which I speak)
Actually I got a little depressed while sharing a $9 sandwich at the NASA "Out Of This World Cafe" (or somesuch similarly trite name). I felt that there were really two NASA's there. One was the real NASA that was full of gray peeling buildings full of engineers who were figuring out how to get a Yugo-sized robot to a distant planet. Then there was the NASA that I got to visit, which consisted mostly of IMAX shows narrated by Tom Hanks coupled with theme-park rides re-branded as "simulators". I know it sounds elitist and I know there's security, but I felt like the real NASA was just sitting there right out of my reach, and I was stuck in the fake NASA that ignored all that nerdy engineering stuff that won't appeal to folks making side-trips from Orlando. The only real glimpse I got of real NASA was watching the launch from Cocoa Beach. And about the only person at fake-NASA who was even aware of the launch or anything about it was a JPL engineer that Shelly happened by while in a gift-shop. I was ready to fall at her feet and beg to be taken to the real NASA.
More later I'm sure. I have loads of pictures.
I now understand how you must feel all the time (i.e. old [wink]) now that I have seen that they no longer play Rescue Rangers on TV.
When I visited Disneyland I was quite a bit older, so a lot of stuff like character meals and the like were right out.