The BEST PLACE on Earth

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/06/2009 (6250 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Ponce de Leon scoured Florida looking for the fountain of youth.

Walt and Roy Disney built it 450 years later.

On an unremarkable spit of land, near an otherwise unremarkable town, the Disneys built what would give rise to the theme-park capital of the world.

Walt Disney World opened in 1971, five years after Walt’s death and three months before Roy’s.

It was Walt’s dream, carried to fruition by Roy, that the park "…bring Joy and Inspiration and New Knowledge to all who come to this happy place."

Mission accomplished.

 

"If you come back with a bad story about Disney World, there’s something wrong with you."

That was our friend, Jeff Caldwell, remarking on his family’s journey as we were getting ready for our own.

Truer words were never spoken.

We spent five days of our 11-day vacation at Disney and didn’t regret a minute of it. The kids enjoyed it almost as much as the parents.

The joy in the kids’ faces each time they came back to ask "Can we do that ride again?" and the smiles on their faces at every turn only reinforced every effort to connect with our inner children.

We’d been putting off taking the kids to Disney for a few years. At first, the kids were too young and wouldn’t form lasting memories. Later, the house needed this and the car needed that. Finally, my wife, Sandy, had enough. No more waiting.

The package price was a budget-pinching $4,000, but this year, that didn’t mattered. We’d heard enough stories about people waiting until it was too late, plans struck down by some tragedy, that this was the time to live in the now.

We touched down on a Sunday and by Monday morning, we were strolling through the gates to the Magic Kingdom.

It’s here where it all began. The iconic Cinderella’s Castle that graced every Saturday night episode of Disney in my youth is still here, just waiting for Tinkerbell to wave her wand. Fireworks light the sky every evening. Characters — Donald, Mickey, Goofy, Pluto — roam the streets, mugging with kids, high-fiving the parents, posing for photographs. Friendly cast members (Disney’s term for staff) are at every turn. Everyone, it seems, knows the answer to any question. ATM? Near the restrooms at the start of Frontierland. Haunted Mansion? Go here and turn left. Smoked turkey legs? On the cart across from the shooting range. Meaning of life? Sorry, can’t help you there.

Magic Kingdom is the first, and dare say, best, of Disney’s Florida parks. We did it twice, once on our first day and again the following Friday when we bought tickets to Mickey’s Magic Christmas Party.

 

111Down Main Street and beyond the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse is Cinderella’s Castle, the epicentre of the Kingdom. From here, the park branches out to Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Mickey’s Toontown Fair and Tomorrowland.

You can pick whichever area you wish first, but we chose to go clockwise around the circle. Adventureland has attractions such as Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride, a twist on the flying helicopter ride at The Red River Ex; Swiss Family Treehouse, which is a walking tour through the Swiss Family Robinson’s home; a Jungle Cruise on a boat past displays of tribal settlements and animatronics of African animals and Pirates of the Caribbean, a ride with Capt. Jack Sparrow through the swashbuckling world of ancient galleons.

Although the smiles never left the kids’ faces, they weren’t clamouring for repeat rides at Adventureland, so it was on to Frontierland. Here was where our youngest son, Austin, found his first really big grin of the week, crashing into the water at Splash Mountain, a stylized version of the log ride. He and I got soaked. And went back for more.

Also here, you can jump on the river raft and head over to Tom Sawyer’s Island, a collection of forts and bridges and other things to see inspired by the Mark Twain character.

We strolled in to Liberty Square, done to look like a colonial town from America’s earliest years, and headed straight for Haunted Mansion. The usher who stopped us (the entrance was full) put on his spookiest face and voice and, as he closed the doors, said, "Your time will come. Sooner than you think."

In Tomorrowland, we found our most fun. The kids really enjoyed Tomorrowland Indy Speedway, where you drive an Indy-esque go-kart around a road course. It’s incredibly safe, given that the kart’s progression around the track is governed by rails. The trick is to see if you can negotiate the course without bumping into the rails. We lost count of the times the kids rode, their faces beaming each time.

Austin and I were the only ones up for Space Mountain. It’s an indoor roller-coaster. Almost all of it happens in the dark. Images of stars and planets are projected throughout, but since you can’t see the track, you can’t prepare for the ups, downs and turns. Space Mountain didn’t impress one of the attendants at Expedition Everest (Animal Kingdom, see below), who called it an old, slow roller-coaster. But it was mighty fun for AJ and I.

All four of us — Sandy, Spencer, AJ and myself — howled with laughter at Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, where you ride spinning cars through a collection of alien enemies and attempt to blast them to infinity and beyond with your laser. Stitch’s Great Escape is also worthwhile, but I won’t tell too much to avoid spoiling the surprise.

In all, the Magic Kingdom was our favourite.

 

 

Our next park, on another day, was Epcot, which stands (or stood for, since the vision has changed from Walt’s original idea) Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.

It’s at Epcot where you realize Walt Disney wasn’t all fun and games. His vision was that you’d learn something, too. Here, you start with a ride on Spaceship Earth, which attempts to point to the future of technology by teaching you about the past. I think some of Epcot was a little too educational for the kids, but Sandy and I enjoyed it immensely.

From Spaceship Earth, it’s on to Universe of Energy. Ashes to ashes, dust to… well, oil. Ellen Degeneres takes you on a trip through the dinosaur age and explains how much of today’s energy comes from the remains of the dinosaurs. It’s witty and educational.

Epcot is also where you find Mission: Space. Here, actor Gary Sinise of Apollo 13 fame takes you in to flight simulators for a journey to Mars. You’re one of four crew members and each is assigned a specific task, from firing the second-stage rocket to initiating the descent on to Mars to extending the glide wings. Mission: Space comes in Mild and Medium. The more intense of the two exerts more G forces on riders in concert with the video on the monitors. We did both, and both were fun.

A trip to Epcot ends with the World Showcase. Not to belittle anything, but this is what Folklorama wants to be when it grows up. Mexico, Norway, Morocco, the U.K., Japan, China, Colonial USA, France, Italy and even Canada are showcased. Cultural exhibits and food vendors do their best to highlight the nation they represent. The teriyaki and tempura at Japan were as good as what I had in Japan, but the sushi was tame, with nothing more adventurous than California roll, which is barely sushi at all.

For Canada, an entertaining video by Martin Short does its best to dispel the notion we’re all Inuit living in igloos and quinzhees. We’re taken on a trip to Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and the Maritimes. Manitoba and Saskatchewan get short shrift, but the show does highlight Canada well. Disney even hires real-life Canadians to run the Canada exhibit. Short is funny at times, quite corny at others. If you’re looking for a hit of national pride while in Florida, you’ll get it here.

 

Marlon Perkins, eat your heart out.

You could do an entire season of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and never leave Disney. Animal Kingdom was one of our most-anticipated parks, and perhaps because of that anticipation, didn’t live up to our own advance billing.

It was crowded, much more so than Magic Kingdom, largely because the walkways were narrower, partly because this was the busier of the two weeks we spent in Florida.

But the Safari ride made it all worthwhile. We rode past elephants, giraffes, rhinos, lions, gazelles and water buffalo. The tour guide’s narrative was a bit corny, but we laughed and learned a bit too.

Animal Kingdom is also home to Expedition Everest, probably the most daunting of Disney rides, though the operator suggested it was tame by roller-coaster standards. You start out by climbing 100 feet up the side of "Mount Everest" and then all hell breaks loose.

You fly through and across the mountain until you see yourself heading for certain death: the tracks are out. The knowledge that this is the most-litigious society on Earth is somewhat comforting, but the coaster takes you fast right to the last second, stopping just before you plunge into oblivion.

But it’s not over yet. Now, you’re hurled backwards into pitch darkness and swoop — backwards still — up and around a sharp loop before stopping again and switching to forward motion again. The finale is a long plunge back into daylight, around a sharp left and to the end.

Hurl factor?

"We get one or two a day," said the operator. "It’s usually the backwards-in-the-dark part that makes them do it."

A highlight of Animal Kingdom was the It’s Tough to be a Bug three-dimensional movie exhibit. A short story line derived from the movie A Bug’s Life is presented in 3D, and this is no cheesy Vincent Price 3D either. While you do wear glasses, the effect does not seem to be dependant on binocularity the way 3D of old was. (Which is good, because I suffer some binocularity issues.) The characters literally leap off the screen and appear mere inches from your face. And they appear directly in front of everybody individually, regardless of where in the theatre they sit.

 

Hollywood Studios is the other of the four main parks at Disney.

If you love movies, you’ll love visiting here. And if you love participating in shows, you’ll love it even more.

At Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, they show you how a lot of movie stunts are made, and if you’re lucky, you’ll be one of the participants on stage. Trucks blow up and flip over, planes shoot fake bullets, buildings fall down and stuntmen crash through roofs.

One of our favourite, though hardest to get into, rides, was the Toy Story Mania ride. The wait was almost two hours, though again it was worse for us because it was our second week. But it was a hoot.

Here, you ride two to a car. Each rider gets a "gun" you fire by pulling on a rope at the back. Depending on where you are in the ride, you’re either lobbing rings in an animated, 3D ring toss or plates or balls at various targets. The computer keeps score of what you "hit." You spin around, but not violently. It’s a good ride for kids and fine for the timid.

We chose Hollywood Studios as our last park before leaving Florida. Some of it was under renovation and some was, as mentioned, a bit tame. But it was also where our most vivid memory of Disney magic was forged. At the end of the day, in showings at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., is the laser, water, fire, light and dance spectacular Fantasmic.

This was a sight to behold. Storylines play out in live action, with Mickey Mouse slaying a dragon, and in scenes projected on a wall of water sprayed from the surface of the moat surrounding the stage. Fireworks have nothing on this show. Characters, including Snow White and other Disney characters dance and act on barges that cruise around the moat. A huge fire-breathing dragon threatens to incinerate Mickey. Pirates swashbuckle across the stage.

It is a must-see for anyone heading to Disney.

 

Ponce de Leon had it wrong: the fountain of youth is not something you find in the Florida countryside.

It’s something you find within yourself, when you allow yourself to let go and be lost in the child-like wonder that a place such as Disney inspires.

The best place on Earth? Maybe, but if not, it certainly does come close.