We started our trip Sunday morning. Got up and drove out to Orlando. Went to pre-check-in at the Wilderness Lodge Resort (because they said check-in wasn't until 3pm, but that we could drop off our bags when we got there and they'd put them in the room for us). Turns out, it was already ready. Bonus! So we went to the room and ooo'ed and aahhh'ed a bit at just how cool the place was and then we planned to head out. Originally, we had decided to do MGM Studios Sunday (since my Love'd never been there and I was only there once a LONG time ago when it first opened), followed by Animal Kingdom and Epcot on Monday to ride the new Mission: Space ride.
We left the resort to head to MGM - taking the wrong bus to get there from the resort and spending about an hour trying to actually arrive at the park rather then driving around all the other resorts and through Downtown Disney (shopping area with a movie theater and Pleasure Island). Ugh. When we finally got to MGM, we spent the day there. Turned out though that everything in WDW was closing rather early that night. The last time we went, the Magic Kingdom was open until 10pm. On Sunday, Magick Kingdom was only open until 7pm, Epcot until 6pm and Animal Kingdom until 5pm. MGM was open through 8:30pm. So we started wandering around and hit several of the shows - they don't really have "rides" at MGM, it's all shows. We managed to hit Disney Animation Tour (probably the coolest thing there), Pizza Palace (just like in Toy Story, it's an arcade/pizza joint), Walt Disney: One Man's Dream (self-guided tour through the history of Walt, though we missed the movie), Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage (which was actually done rather well), Voyage of the Little Mermaid (another live-action thing, which was done well enough, but which skipped pretty much all the plot points in the movie), Muppets 3-D (which was cute, but pretty much impossible to see the 3-d if you're like me and need to wear glasses under the 3-d ones), Sounds Dangerous (you sit with headphones and listen to events you can't see - lights go completely off. Good effects, but not that thrilling a "ride"), The Great Movie Ride (which was just about the only actual "ride" in the park). I also got to meet Buzz & Woody from Toy Story and took my picture with them. We didn't do the Aerosmith rollercoaster as I hate coasters and we didn't do the Tower of Terror because I'm terrified of heights and falling just isn't fun to me. *shrugs* We also didn't do Star Tours because it was one of the only things I had been on back when the park first opened and I thought it was rather urpy and not so well done. My Love doesn't like those kind of rides anyway, so I didn't mind not riding it.
It also started raining. Bah. We milled about for a bit in the rain - bought a Mickey umbrella - and decided we were going to call it a night. It was about 7:30pm or so and the only thing that we were interested in still was seeing the new night show, Fantasmic! but with the rain and the fact that people started lining up for seats at 6:30pm (TWO HOURS before show time), we gave up. I don't know whether or not it was cancelled as it was still raining - and lightning! - when we picked up the bus to head back to the resort.
We rinsed off, changed and took our car - rather then deal with the buses again - back over to Downtown Disney. We milled about, bought some fudge - you can get 1 1/2lbs of fudge in six flavors of your choosing for like $12 including tax (yum!) - and looked for somewhere to eat. We settled on Planet Hollywood and YUCK! was it a bad choice. Food was just.......ick. We both ordered bacon cheeseburgers and my bacon was literally nothing but very fatty beef jerky. 90% of it was gross, pretty much raw fat and the rest was literally rock hard. We got seated on the walk-way where every single server walked past and bumped into my Love every 30 seconds. $30 odd bucks for two burgers, fries and sodas - no alcohol even! - that wasn't very good means we won't be going back. Bleck.
We were considering hitting the oh-so-beautiful pool at the resort after we got back, but my Love forgot his suit. D'oh! We laid about a bit and then I finally got myself up to take a real shower and we pretty much passed out. The plan for Monday was to get up early and hit Animal Kingdom. Each day a different park opens an hour early for people who stay at the resorts and that day it was Animal Kingdom. Well, we kinda just decided not to bother because we had only a so-so day at MGM. (Both of us felt like we were just passing time rather then really having a good time). So instead, we decided to hit Epcot first to ride Mission: Space and then spend the rest of the day in Magic Kingdom (originally not in our plan at all as we were there in June and have one more visit before Sept 30th to use). We took the resort ferry over to Magick Kindgom (because Wilderness Lodge is right next to it and considered a "Magic Kingdom resort") and then hopped on the monorail over to Epcot. (Yes, we were just trying to avoid the busses! *lol*).
We get to Epcot and it was surprisingly busy. Especially for a Monday! We head over to the Mission: Space and pick up a FastPass (which lets you basically wait the time of the line without having to stand in line) and wander around a bit to kill the time until we can return. I take some photos and we get some breakfast. Then it was back to Mission: Space.
Holy Cow. It's an intense ride. And wholly unlike anything I've ever been on. My poor Love got really ill and felt like crap pretty much the rest of the day. I had intermitent moments during the ride of feelings really disoriented and then really "fooled" by the simulations and I was quite dizzy (to the point of mostly staggering after I got off the ride) and a little urpy for about 10-15 minutes after getting off. Beyond that, I felt fine. I'm going to give some links on the ride so that people wanting some in-depth info (technical and otherwise) along with interior pictures can read up on the ride:
Unofficial Mission Space FAQ
Mission Space on space.com
Mission Space info
Mission Space info at WDWMagic (includes construction photos/process)
The ride is a very advanced (and apparently custom-made) centrifuge system coupled with state-of-the-art sound and cutting-edge flat panel displays.
The ride system was manufactured by Entertainment Technology Corporation. ETC builds human centrifuges that create 2.5 G's [1 to 1.5 G's in one second!], large-scale intelligent VR training simulators, to creating the next generation of motion-based simulation attractions which will be able to allow sustained G's and continuous 360º motion in up to four axes on the ride.
Ride system: State-of-the-art centrifuge technology, sophisticated visual imaging systems and audio systems. Two primary computers on the ride system control the entire ride and show functions of the attraction, including the pitch and roll of each spacecraft. In addition there are 30 motion-control computers on board that control altitude during flight. A show-control computer operates the interactive functions within each capsule.
I would say that pretty much anyone who knows they won't hurl from the spinning (to be honest, I thought I would have been the one to get sick, so the ride can't be all that bad if I managed it; I'm a wuss who doesn't even ride rollercoasters!) should try it at least once. Though I would definately suggest not eating right before getting on and not to do it first thing in the day (because if you, like my Love, do end up getting sick from it, it can ruin the rest of your day). I don't think I'll be wanting to go on it again anytime soon, but...... I'm definately glad I did it at least once. It's utterly unique experience. The best part by far is the lift-off part because holy shit, it really feels like a lift-off experience - you pull G's and everything. They tilt the cars back so you're laying back and woah, it's convincing. After that, there's supposed to be a brief, simulated weightless bit (which I assume is the instant switch from pulling multiple G's back to normal), but to be honest, I didn't really feel it. I just felt like I wasn't being pressed into my seat anymore. *shrugs* Best advice though is to listen to what they say and do NOT take your eyes off the monitor and do NOT close your eyes. If you can keep your eyes/brain fooled by the visual, you minimize your motion sickness potential and won't get the inner ear/eye sight distortion.
..... I'm going to pause here because my friend's coming over and I need to go get dressed. Part two of the Disney recap will come later today....
~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream
at 8/29/2003 12:45:50 PM ~
~
