Tuesday, 11/28/06
Dave and I spent the relaxing day at the pool. I’ve already finished one book on this trip and am on to the next one. I love that I can just plough through a book like this without the interruption of everyday life. Plus, I don’t have my comic books here to break up my reading time (my comic shop guy is pulling my weekly books for me so I’m have them when I return home).

At night, we went to the Magic Kingdom for a special ticket event: Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. The parks are typically decorated for Christmas at this time anyhow, but MVMCP has lots more. There’s a Christmas parade, a show by the castle, a rendition of Twas The Night Before Christmas, and a special fireworks display. The characters are dressed up for the season, there’s free cookies and hot chocolate and it snows on Main Street.

One of my favorite attractions — Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin — was open, so we went straight there. You might have noticed that we love rides where you have to shoot stuff, as evidenced by the amount of times we went on that Men In Black ride at Universal. The Buzz ride is the same thing, except you shoot the evil Emperor Zurg’s Z’s for points. There we are below waiting to get on the ride.

As if I didn’t squeal with delight enough on this ride, we got stuck in the main “Z” area, but our lasers still worked so I racked up 420,000 points! Woo hoo! Yeah, I know, I know, I’m a silly girl.

We also went on Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (which is so cool to go on at night), all the attractions in Fantasyland, and the newly revamped Pirates of the Caribbean.

Wednesday, 11/29/06
Today we went to the Animal Kingdom, which has become our favorite park at Disney World now that Expedition EVEREST is open. We were lucky enough to preview this new thrill ride back in January when we were last here.

The setup is that you are on a Himalayan Escapes tour, starting with the booking office, on through the Yeti museum, then boarding a 34-passenger railway (once used to transport tea) heading out to the foot of Mount Everest. The ride takes you through the mountain several times simulating the varying extreme temperatures. None of the dips are too intense til you get to the top of the mountain and screech to a halt as the tracks end in a twisted mess! (Those are the tracks below!)

Here’s where the intensity comes in — the ride goes backwards at a high speed and if you’re in the last car (which we were a few times), you’re at almost a 90-degree angle (or at least it feels that way!). When the car goes forward again, there are several plunges and a dangerous pass by the Yeti! That’s right, he’s pissed at the trespassers and tries to swipe the car right off the tracks!

After several times on this ride, we did Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl, and Kilimanjaro Safaris (where we got some beautiful photos of the animals there. I have to get those uploaded). We also caught Mickey’s Jingle Jungle Parade and got some grub at the Flame Tree Barbecue (French fries, onion rings, and garden salads).

Check out our dinner companion below. The family at the table next to ours was quite afraid of this bird for some reason. They were trying to scare it away and were covering their baby as if the bird was going to try to fly away with their kid.

When the park closed we headed to Downtown Disney to do some shopping and to see Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny. I already expressed how much the soundtrack rocked my socks off HERE, so it’s really no surprise that I would totally love this movie and will own it the minute it comes out on DVD and will have every word memorized that same week.

With that said, I can also see how POD wouldn’t have mass appeal. It really felt like one big inside joke. If you don’t already love these two characters, then you will have no affection for this film. If you don’t love heavy metal and can understand every wink to the heavy metal culture, then you will not get this movie. It might have helped to have a larger cast, especially for the “action” sequences, because the dialogue isn’t always strong enough be carried by only two people — even when one of them is Jack Black. The best part of the movie is, without a doubt, the rock-off with the Devil, played by Dave Grohl, who completely outshines every other scene. Grohl is the shit!!!

NEXT UP: Days 7, 8, & 9 Disney World

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 12:58 am and is filed under movies, Vacation, Disney World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.