Nov. 2nd, 2008

serinde: (brew-up)
I have many burbling thoughts about the current Disney World experience, but I am tired and am not sure I'm up to putting it all in. We shall see how far I get. In meantime: I have a bunch of delicious leftover gloppy Moroccan food; do we think it's likely to get bounced by the TSA as a Spooooooky Liquid? It's a little thicker than curry.

Magic Kingdom, the Short Form: There's really not a lot there I'm interested in these days. Space Mountain, chiefly, which I will walk across broken glass for. (I do not, however, recall it shaking my bra off on previous visits.) Some of the Tomorrowland stuff is still kinda nifty in a wacky retro way, and I'll admit to having a good time on the rocket ships.

General Annoyance: Any ride where they have decided to "reimagine" it, not by redoing it entirely, but by having $PRODUCT pastede on yay. The most egregious example of this was Stitch's Great Escape, neƩ Alien Encounter. They changed almost none of the physical plant except cosmetic lettering & labelling, and making the horrific Cthulhoid alien that crops up in the middle into a 3' tall Stitch. Everything else was animated projections on viewscreens of characters you have not heard of and do not care about with an exceedingly lame plot sort of pieced together around it. -500, would not ride again, even if it was pouring rain outside.

Similarly, in Epcot, the Living Seas, formerly an actual learning experience (however mild), is now "The Seas with Nemo and Friends" which consists of you riding v e r y s l o w l y through a tunnel while having characters from the film projected onto empty fish tanks or undersea sets in front of you. There is even less plot than the previous example, and mostly consists of every character calling "Nemo! Nemo!" while Nemo giggles and swims offscreen. I wanted to take an axe to the whole thing.

Less annoying: Pirates of the Caribbean now has animatronic Captain Jack Sparrows in random places, in a sort of Where's Waldo kind of way. Meh, whatever. Expected it. Universe of Energy now has Ellen DeGeneres imported, without the ride/experience/thing changing much; also meh, whatever. There are still dinosaurs which is, I think, what most people who actually give a crap come to the table for.

A far better example of a partial redo is Journey into Imagination, now Imagination!. They decided that the weird bearded guy wasn't doing it, but Figment the dragonling was, so they re-themed the concept as an imagination lab thingie where Figment is sort of created, or discovered, or something. There are still elements of the previous version, there are even some recycled sets, but it doesn't feel patchwork; the whole thing hangs together tolerably well.

Some really awesome new shit: Test Track (formerly Worlds of Motion) (it was always a GM commercial, but now you get a bitchin' ride that goes very very fast beforehand) and Mission:Space with its space training simulator. I was prepared to be annoyed, because I sorta liked Horizons with its Visions of Future Cities in Inhospitable Environments (though I expect it would be awfully dated now); but the simulator converted me. I am here to tell you, my children, that 2.5 Gs doesn't sound like much until it is pulling on your face. Total Fucking Nerd Moment: I spotted the old Horizons symbol, from back when Epcot had such things, in the center of the wheel-shaped space station model right inside the entrance on the right side. Nice touch.

There is a new ride in The Land, called "Soarin'", which is apparently all that and a bag of chips, since the line was never less than a hour. So I did not bother.

Post-ride playground breakdown: Mission:Space awesome, Spaceship Earth and Test Track pretty good, The Seas, Universe of Energy, and "Innoventions" (formerly Communicore) meh (though that latter is probably better for smaller kids; but words fail to express my opinion of the "Segway Test Zone"), Imagination! serious weaksauce--especially compared to what it used to be.

World Showcase is as it has ever been, only with a Food and Wine Festival added. That is where all my money went. Little kiosks all over the place, each brought to you by a different city's tourism board, with delicious bite-sized food from said place. And they were all good. And since each one is only $3.50 - $5, you think "oh, well, that's nothing" and oh look, there's a wine or beer pairing and that's about the same price, well that's fine, and pretty soon you're blotto before you're halfway around the lagoon. There were a lot of very, very merry people, in a way that is not usually consonant with the Disney Experience. This was mildly hilarious.

Also, let it be noted that Orlando city buses are a functional but tiresome way to get to and from the parks.

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