Some Disney World stats.

Walt Disney World Resort Disney property covers 29 900 acres (approximately twice the size of the island of Manhattan).  That’s 47 square miles or 75 square kilometres.

5 900 acres are currently developed.  7 500 acres are wildlife conservation areas.

If you were to wash and dry one load of laundry every day for 33 years you would do as much laundry as Walt Disney World does in one day.

32 000 costumes per day are dry cleaned.

Mickey Mouse has more than 150 costumes.

Each year, guest consume over 7 million hamburgers.

Today it employs more than 66 000 “cast members”, spending more than $1.2 billion on payroll and $474 million on benefits each year.

More than 5 000 cast members are dedicated to maintenance and engineering, including 750 horticulturists and 600 painters.

The streets in the parks are steam cleaned every night.

While we are in Disney World, during the Easter spring break, there will be more than 200 000 guests visiting per day.   I can't stop thinking about the logistics of those 200 000 visitors.  They all need to get here, eat, go to the loo, and have a great time without getting fed up with the crowds.  It's quite a thing!

Movies and splashes

Another fun filled day with Luke and Ali falling asleep on the bus on the way home – pooped!

We went back to Hollywood Studios and I was initially frustrated because I was using last week’s schedule for Extra Magic Hours so we didn’t know that the park opened earlier than it did and ended up wasting some valuable time.  Time really does feel valuable here – 2 weeks is a long time but there is so much to cram into these days and I want to make sure that we don’t miss anything out.

We started the morning with an awesome ride – Toy Story 4D shooting game.  You have to compete against each other to see who can shoot the most targets using laser gun – it was really brilliant.  I offered $5 in a sweet shop to the winner but I got off the payment because I won!!  Luke was not far behind.   He couldn’t get a rematch because the ride is so popular and we couldn’t go again. 
Then on to Rock ‘n Roller Coaster which was amazing.  From standstill to fast enough to loop upside down in a couple of seconds – the story is that you’re in a fast limousine racing to a red carpet through Hollywood. 

All these rides start with a queue that is themed to the ride.  So the Toy Story ride was like being in a massive playroom with oversized toys all over the place and Scrabble and Snakes & Ladders on the ceiling.  Rock ‘n Roller Coaster had a ‘preshow’ which was a little skit about some famous rock band needing to get to a premier and ordering a limo that needed to get them there super fast.

We were silly enough to go on the sickening falling elevator again and it was just as bad the second time.

I loved the Star Wars simulation flying through space.  In the queue up to the show, there was lots of Star Wars stuff including a robot that told jokes.  When we passed him he said, “What’s that?  A camera?  You mean you’ve got to remove one out of a case?  You're Kidding!”  That really made me laugh.

We went to a couple of shows where they showed us behind the scenes in stunt shows so we saw massive explosions, cars turning over, lots of skidding and smoke, guys jumping off buildings, heaps of fighting, a man on fire, motorbikes jumping over 2 trucks.  You know, the usual Hollywood stuff.

We also went to a museum exhibition of Roy and Walt Disney and watched a film about their lives.  What a wonderful dream – to build a place where people of all ages can have fun and be together.  I think he’d be really proud of his world.

We started running out of steam after lunch, so we went to the Muppet show and then left HS without finishing everything – I was torn about leaving before we’d seen the Little Mermaid Voyage, but hopefully I’ll have time to go back and squeeze it in before we go. 

Then we headed off to Blizzard Beach water park.  Oh my goodness – that was a huge amount of fun.  Luke and Ali just loved it.  We climbed up the stairs about 20 times in 2 hours to whoosh down waterslides on tubes for 1, tubes for 2, tubes for 6, sledges or on our backs with our feet crossed and our hands crossed over each other in front of us – down the highest slide in the world… and gushing into a wall of water with a wedgie!  We had limited time before the park closed and lots to do so we didn’t stop for a second and ran most of the way.  Ali was so funny on the way up to one of the rides.  She got tired on the stairs so she revitalised her legs by doing a handstand!  Heaps of cartwheels from slide to slide as well.  Luke suggested that we do the water park the ‘traditional way’.  “What’s that?” I asked – he said that we should just do our own thing and meet back afterwards.  What a funny chap – what’s the fun in that?!!  He did head off on his own, but we hooked up again 30 mins later and carried on untraditionally and it was great to be able to enjoy it together.  When we did split up, Luke headed straight up to the highest, most scariest slide and did it all on his own.  It took Ali and I two hours to get up the courage to tackle the toughest one and, when we finally did it, we were lucky that we were the only people up there because Ali needed a few minutes to psyche herself up.  But she did it and then raced back up to do it again before the park closed.  The lifeguard guy at the top, who had helped persuade her that “while she’s here she might as well do it”, said, when she game back, “Are you for real!!?”

This evening, we headed to Downtown Disney.  We probably should rather have just taken it easy but I was hopeful that we could go to Disney Quest – an indoor gaming area that I know Luke will love.  It didn’t turn out because they closed early and it’s an additional expense so I didn’t want to spend anything if we weren’t going to get the full enjoyment.  We went for dinner and the waitress must have thought we were really odd ordering 1 portion of chicken, 1 salad, fries and a side of seasonal veggies.  That’s probably a normal meal for 1 healthy American and we shared it.  It was a great meal and, for the first time, we managed to finish it all!  Luke was so funny – the 4 plates were on the table and the fries were in front of him so he just ate the fries.  I wasn’t happy with him starting with the unhealthy stuff so we moved the plates around so that the salad was in front of him.  He carried on vacuuming up the food as if it was chips.  Then we moved the plates again and he just carried on his vacuuming.  I don’t think he cared what he was eating as long as it was food and, if it made me happy for him to eat the healthy stuff – so be it!  We had a good giggle.  Another really funny thing was that 1 portion of chicken wings consisted of about 10 wings (huge), the salad was very generous and so were the chips (good ‘American’ portions), but the seasonal veggies were served in what looked like a tot glass!!  We each had 1 piece of asparagus, a green bean and a pea!!  These Americans do not have a clue about a healthy diet!  Not a single comment from the kids that we drank 3 bottomless glasses of water – I’m definitely winning them over on that one!

We stopped off on the way back to the bus at Haagen Dazs and the Lego shop and then back to the hotel.  Again – I’m ready for bed.  It was a lovely day.  Epcot tomorrow.

A slower day

I think that that fairy must have been on leave today because things didn't work out all that well.  We were going to go to Hollywood Studios but I suggested to the kids that we go back to Magic Kingdom and see the things we hadn't yet seen there and then spend the afternoon at the Blizzard Beach water park and then get an early night.  I think the flight and the hectic couple of days has caught up on us.  So off we headed to the Magic Kingdom again. 

Here's Luke on the bus with a little sucker that he bought.  It was really funny when he started to eat it because he wasn't too sure if it had plastic on it or not.  Couldn't have been very tasty!

 Luke was on form and made a couple of very funny comments. One of the attractions here is to book a meal where you can eat with a Disney character. Luke said, "Why would somebody want to spend $40 on a meal with somebody who can't eat and can't talk?" Then, later on, we saw a 30 min queue of kids waiting to get an autograph from Tinkerbell. Luke's comment was, "Why would somebody want to wait in a 30 min queue just to get a signature from some phony fairy?" It was very funny.

[mmm - thinking about it now... perhaps this is why our fairy left us!! Everything was going just fine until that comment.]

The 2 areas that we hadn't seen yet (Frontier Land and Adventure Land) weren't as hyped as the rest and the rides etc were quite tame.  We did see quite a funny automated show where a room full of birds, flowers and wood carvings sprang to life and sang some songs.  We saved the best for last but when we finally got to Splash Mountain, it was closed due to technical difficulty.  Then we headed for the bus to take us to Blizzard Beach and it turned out that there wasn't a bus directly from the theme parks to the water parks, so we had to walk (some more) to the closest resort to pick up a bus.  When we got to the bus stop, we found out that Blizzard Beach was closed due to a technical difficulty (lots of technical difficulties happening).  The wind was starting to really pick up and I started thinking about tornados.  The concierge advised us that the weather forecast was bad for the day and we should perhaps go back to our original plan and go to Disney Hollywood Studios.  So off we headed on a bus that stopped off at 3 hotels along the way.

We got to HS and I wasn't prepared at all for what we needed to do and see.  We went to 2 of the big rides to get a fast pass and the wait was 2 hours.  The kids were getting a bit slow so we had some lunch (another revolting meal it has to be said).  After lunch we headed off to Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.  It was really funny to see Luke's transformation pre-lunch and then in the queue for a thrill ride.  He was so excited and animated! 

The ride was brilliant - the best one that I've ever been on.  The kids are still debating the best.  Basically, you go up a very innocent elevator in a building and the electricity goes off so the lift plummets.  It really takes your stomach away and I didn't know whether to laugh, vomit or scream.  I'd really like to see the design of how the ride works.  I think that if the facade of the building wasn't there, you'd see 10 or so lift boxes going around the circuit again and again and I guess that there were probably 2 or 3 circuits (to handle all the crowds).  Difficult to explain in words.  Brilliant.

 

When we came out of the tower, it was bucketing with rain.  We waited it out a bit but then put on our rain coats and headed to the Beauty and the Beast show.  It was in an amphitheatre with a roof but it was open on all sides so the rain was still coming in.  The show started but was stopped after about 3 minutes because of the inclement weather - by then it was thundering. 

Then we headed off to find something else to do (as I said - I wasn't organised with a plan).  We got quite lost and the map got wet and fell apart.  Ali said that she'd had enough and wanted to shloomph in the hotel for the rest of the afternoon.  I tried to push her on a bit so we went to the "Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow".  While we were waiting, the rain was still bucketing down and there were a couple of holes in the awning with lovely fresh rain water gushing down.  The water here is terrible and the purified bottle water (no spring water available) is pricey so I asked Ali to go and fill up the water bottle which she did.  We drank the water (with those funny Americans staring at us in disbelief - how can anybody drink rain water!!) then Luke went to fill it up again.  He was advised by 3 people that we shouldn't drink the water because there's algae on the awning!!  The show wasn't very good at all.  The kids thought it was hysterical when we came out of the show and I said, in a French accent, "Out of all the rides that we have done, that one scores a zero." 

Ali got her way and we headed back to the hotel to relax and catch our breath a little.  I took advantage of the time to do a load of washing and did some people watching - fascinating people.  Ali and I discovered the build-a-salad option in the fast food restaurant.  So we built one salad for $10 and it was so big that it could have fed all 3 of us.  When we got back to the room with the salad, Luke was already asleep.  Best food so far!  As I type this now, Ali's fallen asleep on my bed and it's only shortly after 8pm.  So an early one for all of us - I'm looking forward to a really good night of sleep.  We've got a solid plan to tackle HS again in the morning and will hopefully get to a water park in the afternoon (weather permitting).

The only single criticism of Disney World is that they really could be more healthy and environmentally friendly.  When we have finished with lunch in the park, we just tip the entire tray's contents into the bin.  In the hotel room, the plates, cups, cutlery and glasses are all disposable and replenished each day by housekeeping.  I keep on thinking about this poster:

A snippet from Ali

Hi its Alice. My best part of Disney World so far was the rollercoasters, My favirout roller coaster was Mount Everest. You go up this really steep track backwards and really fast.Then it lets you go and you go super fast.Its so cool.Yesterday we went to go to magic Kingdom and we where there till 10 0'clock and we watched the fire works by the castle.

it was A   
               M
                     A
                         Z
                             I
                                N
                                   G  

A snippet from Luke

luke here, had an awesome time today at disney studios! there was an elivator that we got into and it dropped 19 floors down to the ground! It started raining really hard at about lunch time, so we came back to the hotel and relaxed, looking forward to the rest of the trip!

Tech difficulties (even in the US!)

Last night  we got back to the hotel POOPED, but I was determined to diarise it all in the blog. So I only got to sleep at nearly 1am after struggling with a bad internet connection, but adament that I had published the new page. Now I see that it didn't work!!! 
SA friends and family -  they'll be a new update when you wake up  EVERY morning (unless there are more tech difficulties). I promise to write something every night.

What a great day.

I have been looking forward to this holiday for a year and today I was just so happy to be here and all the waiting and saving have been worth it.  This truly is an amazing place. 

Yesterday, the walkways had imprints of horse's hooves.  Today, in Asia at Animal Kingdom, the walkways had bicycle track imprints.  And in Discovery Island, the walkways were imprinted with leaves and twigs.

We got the park early - about 15 minutes before it opened and that was brilliant.  The park was actually already open when we got there which was a bit confusing.  But it's all part of the crowd control thing.  These Americans have got large crowd control management down to a fine art.  We could only walk up to a certain point and then there were 2 guys blocking the way with a long rope.  When 8am came along, they walked us to the 'Everest Expedition' ride in a controlled manner - herded behind the rope.  The problem is that they used to have mad rushes when the park opened and it was chaos, so this is how they have handled it and it worked really well. 

The Everest Expedition roller coaster was really fun and, all in all, we went on it 4 times today and didn't have to queue longer than 5 minutes - thanks to the very cool Fast Pass system.  The kids absolutely loved it and Ali is now an adrenalin junkie just like her brother!

The attention to detail is wonderful.  When you get closer to the Everest Expedition, there are Tibetan prayer flags all over the place and the queuing area is decorated with all the things you'd find in an old-fashioned Nepal expedition - crampons, sleeping bags, ropes.  Even the rooms feel like a Tibetan tea house.

The Africa section was a low point for me so we left quickly.  Us South Africans are so lucky to have the real thing on our doorstep.

The dinasaur area was fun.  I especially liked the area where all the visitors were being "herded" onto their cars - it was like a laboratory.

At lunch time, we ordered Asian takeaways and they came on those square cardboard boxes that you always see in the movies.  Yesterday, I told the kids that from now on, we're going to share 2 meals instead of 3.  But we didn't do that and, once again ended up with way too much food.  How can anybody eat that much!  So later in the day, we just bought 1 icecream and shared it as a snack.  This is a much better plan.  For dinner, I ordered 1 chicken caesar salad and 2 portion of chips ("we don't sell chips - we have fries").  That was a fine dinner for the 3 of us and there wasn't any waste.  I can't say that we are overly impressed with the food.

Part of the 'rules' of this holiday is that the kids have to drink 500ml of water for every non-water drink.  Little did I know that a non-water drink (ie: a "soda") will be served in a cup that is enough to feed a family of 4 and, wait for it... the cup is bottomless!  So, when they've drunk the 750 mls in the cup, the waitress just comes along and brings ANOTHER one!  The upside of this is that it's rather appalled the kids - how can a nation consume so much sugar!  I think I may be winning them over on the water persuasion.  This really is the land of abundance. 

Then we went to the Finding Nemo show and so far, this has been my favourite thing.  It didn't impress Luke much - no thrills or audience participation or water.  But what creativity!  It was a puppet show with dancers and singers holding or wearing their fish / shark / starfish / seaweed / turtle costumes and singing out the Nemo story.  I absolutely loved it - it brought tears to my eyes.  The costumes were just so wonderful and I just love the fact that there are people in our world whose passion it is to create such happiness.  It was bliss.  When our 30 min show was finished, the next bunch of people crowded into the theatre and the cast had to redo the whole thing - they must do it more than 12 times a day!

After Finding Nemo, we went to another 2 shows.  "It's tough to be a bug" where we were squirted with acid, stung in the back, swatted, farted on by a stink bug and then cockroaches left the show under our seats.  Really excellent 3D stage show.  We saw it twice.  Then we went to see the Lion King dance - somehow managing to arrive exactly as the doors closed - right on time.

Alice went to go and get her picture taken with Mickey Mouse and she was wearing an old Mickey t-shirt.  Mickey was so funny when he saw himself on her t-shirt - he pointed to it and jumped up and down.  All the characters that are wandering around the place are so good.  To think that these people do this all day every day and still have so much energy - you'd think they were doing it for their first time.

Oh - earlier in the day, Ali had also had a picture taken with her and a Disney dog - one of the Disney characters I'm not familiar with.  I didn't see it, but after Ali, there was a little kid on a leash and the dog was holding onto the kids leash.  How funny.

We came back to the hotel in the afternoon - I was hoping to get to one of the waterparks for a couple of hours.  But that was a bit of bad planning because they close at 5.  So we had a swim and a bit of a break and then headed back to Magic Kingdom at 6 of so for the evening.

Luke just wanted to do Space Mountain again and so he went to get us fast passes.  When he came back, the time for the fast pass was after 10pm.  I didn't say anything, but I was not that impressed - it tied up our fast pass option for the whole night for something that we'd already done.  I wanted to go to Fantasyland which I was a bit concerned about with Luke because it's too young for him and I was concerned that he'd get bored.  But I was determined to see the things so we started the 50 min queue to see the Little Mermaid show.

Along came L (name disguised so that she doesn't get into trouble).  She had a permanent family fast pass and needed a family.  Now how's that!  She whizzed us off to the Little Mermaid, Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pans flight and after about an hour we'd done all 3 and had a good conversation about cuss words in America. 

It was awesome and I think that Luke would have been miserable if we'd spent  entire evening in queues for these little kiddie rides.  As it turned out, he loved them because we could do them quickly and L was a hoot.

Then we rode the carousel (just like in the movies), went to Mickey's PhilharMagic (more 3D theatre with a splash) and went to It' A Small World - all 3 of them had no queues.

Finished all of that just in time to see the electric parade, and the nighttime spectacular - a fireworks display that went on for about 15 mins above Cinderella's castle.

Finally, our Fast Pass for Space Mountain was valid and we did that ride again.

Last year, when we went to the Kruger, I really felt that we had some kind of well wishing fairy looking over us and keeping us safe and making everything work out really well for us.  That fairy is back and I hope it stays with us for the full two weeks (touch wood).  We've been so lucky with our timings of things and strangers have been so kind.  The weather is wonderful - I can't bear the heat and it's just perfect.  I just feel so lucky to be able to be here with 2 such special kids that are having a ball.

Now that we've shared our final ice cream for the day, it's time for teeth and then bed.  I am absolutely pooped.  Night Night.