[Politzania]

Day 2 – Thursday, 2 Dec 2004

Today's Event: Candlelight Processional

Woke up early, even before the wakeup call at 6 am. Got ready & had breakfast in the room and were heading over to Magic Kingdom by 7:15 for early entry morning. The weather was quite nice – I had on a Tshirt & shorts, with a denim shirt as a light jacket. We discovered that French Quarter is usually the first stop in the Port Orleans resort – which means you’re almost guaranteed a seat, but you usually have to wait thru the 4 stops at Riverside before you’re on your way to the park. We got to MK about 5 min before it opened.
We wore our Stitch shirts: Scott found a good picture of Experiment 626 in his space suit, holding his guns. The caption: “Take us to Stitch’s Great Escape and noone gets hurt”. On the back, another pic with the caption “Meega nala Queesta!” We got quite a few comments, especially from cast members. The attraction itself, well, we enjoyed it.

** POSSIBLE SPOILERS **

The storyline was fairly amusing and the Stitch AA is incredible! The first room has a briefing featuring the Councilwoman & Gantu. The second room is a demo of the transportation of level 1 prisoners. Skippy’s there as a jaywalker & the second “Skippy” is now a jelly-donut thief who burps a lot. There’s a touch of bathroom humour, too. On to the main room, where a level 3 prisoner is to be teleported to into the facility. The setup is nearly identical to what I remember of Alien Encounter; with the main addition being the tracking cannons. The room does get completely dark a few times & the effects can be a bit loud & sudden; we didn’t hear any screaming children, so apparently word is getting out to parents about the appropriateness of the attraction. I would have liked to have seen Stitch peeking out from a few places after his escape; and the video of him in the park didn’t change from day to night, as we’d heard it was supposed to. That video was also a lot shorter (a few seconds) that I thought it would be. The chili dog smell is pretty strong & kinda gross; IMHO that could be toned down a bit too!

** BACK TO THE TRIP REPORT **

Walked on to Buzz – of the 3 times we rode, Scott only let me win once! Controlling the spinning makes a difference I think. IIRC, we both made it to the upper levels of Ranger Class 1. Over to the TTA next, where we were the only people in our “train”. I think this is one of the overlooked attractions; you get a great view of Tommorrowland and can rest your feet as well!

Fantasyland was our next stop – where I rode the teacups. Spinning clockwise seems faster than counter-clockwise I think. Got my first autograph of the trip: the White Rabbit. There was a fairly short line for Pooh (less than 5 min) and then we visited Snow White. Apparently it was too early for Mickey bars, so we had to settle for the desserts at Philharmagic. The 3-D effects still just blow me away in this show; I don’t think there’s a bad seat in the house. Peter Pan was next, with the longest wait so far (about 10 min). We couldn’t remember if “Ariel” has always been one of the mermaids or not.

Over to Liberty Square and the first of a couple of visits to Master Gracey and his mansion. Scott’s Mickey Bar search was finally successful, and we had a snack while waiting for the Country Bear Jamboree – Holiday Edition. This show is a lot of fun & if you’re at all a fan of Henry, Trixie and Big Al – make time to see this! They do allow flash photography during the finale, but you have to be quick or you’ll miss it.

We continued around to Adventureland and visited the Pirates before getting lunch at Pecos Bill. I had the chicken wrap (pretty good) and Scott had a burger. We grabbed a FP for the Jungle Cruise and caught a show of the Tiki Birds while we waited. We also had time to visit the Swiss Family Robinson; something we hadn’t done the last few trips. After going up & down all the stairs, we remembered why! The views are quite attractive tho, and worth the trip up. Then we were off to visit our favorite skippers – listening for new jokes & groaning at the classics.

We headed up Main Street, collecting a few autographs along the way, as well as lots of photos of the decorations. Main Street is so pretty dressed up for the holidays! We hopped on board the train and rode it around to Toontown, which was packed. We browsed around the store a bit, decided to skip the autograph lines, but did take a quick tour of Minnie’s house. Back around to Tomorrowland and another trip on the TTA. Before we left the park, we browsed around Exposition Hall – make sure to visit the back hallway for some neat photo opportunities, including a Mr. Toad ride vehicle.

We had the Candlelight Processional dinner package scheduled for tonight, so we took the monorail over to Epcot. You can still see a lot of hurricane damage in the wooded sections of the property. From our chats with the bus drivers, they’re probably just going to leave those areas alone, except for eventual replanting. Our first stop in Epcot was Ice Station Cool – another overlooked attraction. We tried all the drinks again (except Beverly) – I have to remember to sample Kinsey before anything else, unless I want to pucker up!

We’d heard some good things about the brand new show at the Living Seas: Turtle Talk with Crush, so we visited there next. Outside the entrance, there was a living coral reef (aka stiltwalker in costume). Very cool interaction with the kids! Turtle Talk was totally awesome, dude! There’s a small theater with a fishtank screen up front. Crush swims over for a Q&A session with the audience. Working with a cast member inside “the people tank” with us, he calls on members of the audience (usually kids) to answer their questions and ask some of his own. The lip sync is really pretty good, and he’s got quite a repertoire of actions, as well. This is definitely going to liven up this pavilion; which is still one of my favorites, despite the sea cabs being long gone.

Figment was greeting guests outside his pavilion, but he wasn’t signing autographs. He’s a fairly new character, so we’ll try again in February. Of course we went on his ride.. but we never do seem to get the rose or mint scents; just the skunk!

It was around 4:00, so we headed over to the World Showcase, as we were attending the 5:00 showing of the Processional. Scott got another Mickey Bar to tide him over til our 6:30 dinner at Biergarten. I wanted to get a beavertail, but the stand was closed. I found out later, much to my chagrin, that they aren’t selling beavertails at all anymore; they’ve been replaced with the pretzel bread. A moment of silence, please...

We arrived about 5 min before they were letting people with the CP dinner packages in and ended up with pretty good seats – second section back, second row. We’d heard that you don’t want to sit too close, as it’s difficult to get the full effect from up front.
The Candlelight Processional was simply beautiful – the music, the singing, the costumes and lighting… Disney magic at its best. Kirk Franklin was the narrator for our show; I’d never heard of him before, but he did a wonderful job. It was a very moving performance; we both got a little choked up during the last few songs. After the show, we made sure to visit the kiosks outside the American Adventure to get the pins. I wanted the sweatshirt as well, but they didn’t have it in my size.

We still had some time before our 6:30 PS, so we browsed around Germany for a little bit. We sat with 2 couples and two men from Germany. We weren’t really in the mood for conversation, and apparently neither were they, as we didn’t talk much during our meal. I don’t think that atmosphere is quite right for us; however the food was very good; I liked just about everything I tried (and I tried nearly everything). Scott wasn’t quite as adventurous, but found enough to fill up on. We’d had a long day, so we walked slowly back to the front of the park, stopping at the main pin station and Mouse Gear.

We got back to the hotel around 8:30. Before going to bed, Scott copied his pics over to the laptop. I tried doing the same, but my new camera and the laptop don’t seem to play together nicely. I should have tried it before we left, as I still had pix on the camera from before the trip. Luckily, I had enough space to take most of the pix I wanted; besides, Scott’s the main photographer on our trips (and does a great job of it, too!)

The weather was overcast for most of the day, with occasional peeks of sun in the afternoon. It definitely cooled off once the sun went down & I was glad I had my denim shirt with me.
Pedometer totals: 17,287 steps = 7.19 miles. We got to sleep around 10:00.