We had breakfast in the restaurant area of our resort, and after a very chaotic and confusing line, managed to get our omelets.
Disembarking the bus at the entrance to The Magic Kingdom, Joe and I found these very tight pair of Apple Bottom jeans walking in front of us. I, of course, had never heard of this brand or line of jeans, so didn’t get any allusion to a song like Joe did.
All I knew was that these jeans were too damn tight on this girl. However, I see from the Wikipedia entry that these jeans are made for women with “large, rounded buttocks,” so maybe it’s just me.
We met Kathy, Al, Amy, and Allie at around 10:00. When we found them, Al, Amy, and Allie were actually in a ride or listening to a performance or something, so Joe, Kathy, and I walked down to It’s A Small World to get some FastPass tickets for our group. However, once there, the wait time was only 10 minutes, so the three of us just went on the ride.
Kathy shared an anecdote about Disney making the boats smaller on this ride, because Americans are getting so heavy that the bigger boats would “get to certain points in the ride and bottom out, becoming stuck in the flume.” (Full story.)
When we came out of that, Al, Amy, and Allie were there, and berated us for not waiting for them to go on it, and threatened to make us ride it again.
From there, we went to The Haunted Mansion, in which Amy and Allie rode together, Joe and I rode together, and Kathy and Al rode together. I’ve always thought that that was such a cool ride; however, at least one teenager didn’t think so, as when we were exiting, he was yelling loudly to some friends, who had asked how it was, and he screamed, “It was kind of gay.”
“Ooh, I’m not so thrilled with that description,” I said as we continued on our way. No one else in our group made any comment about it.
Next on the agenda was the Pirates of the Caribbean, which is another one of my favorites. It’s been updated with all of the movie stuff, including three appearances by the Johnny Depp character, none of which means anything to me as I’ve never seen any of PotC movies.
My favorite part of that attraction is one of the very last scenes, where the dog with they key in his mouth is sitting outside the jail, just out of reach of the prisoners who are all trying to entice him closer with things like a great big bone.
I found myself thinking, while passing the scene with the ladies all being sold at auction for the men’s pleasure, how it’s all so acceptable to have such innuendo about the men and the women, while totally unacceptable to hint at anything that might have been going on between the pirates themselves. I’m thinking there was, at the very least, some bi-booty going on.
We dropped the girls off at their band’s meeting place in Frontierland, so that they could start getting ready for their parade participation, and the four of us had lunch at Pecos Bill’s, which was just a nightmare in terms of the sheer volume of people trying to eat at that time in that place.
After that, and before the parade started, Al, Joe, and myself took in the Country Bear Jamboree. Still corny as ever, there are a few never-fails-to-make-me-laugh moments in that show.
Joe pretty much hated it, and it didn’t help that Kathy called us in the middle of it. It was getting close to the parade time, and we were frozen with the idea that maybe she was calling to tell us it was starting earlier than planned.
Out of there, we made our way to the area from which we were going to watch the band come down Main Street U.S.A. Here’s a shot of the street before things started:
And here’s “Uncle Joe” in his new shirt that he bought yesterday to keep from freezing, not wanting his picture taken, but proud to be awaiting his nieces’ band about to parade down Main Street U.S.A.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Northwestern Marching Band of Albion, Pennsylvania:
And here’s Joe’s oldest niece, Amy, at the helm as Drum Major:
The next two pictures may or may not contain a picture of his other niece, Allie, the sax player. I can’t recognize her in either:
The rain was on and off at this point, and it continued to worsen as the day and night progressed.
I always like to take a picture of flowers with my macro lens feature to see how it will turn out. I took this one of some flowers right there on Main Street U.S.A. where we were watching the parade:
While Kathy and Al went to meet the girls after the parade, Joe and I went back to Liberty Square and checked out The Hall of the Presidents. This has always been one of my all-time attractions at Disney.
I enjoyed it again, and managed not to cringe too much when “W” spoke, as I think they did about as good a job as possible in making him sound half-intelligent, or should I say not sounding like the absolute boob that he is.
Before we left the Liberty Square area, Joe snapped this inside joke shot of me. Some of you out there know to what it refers.
Hmmm. I look like a good candidate for some Apple Bottom jeans myself.
Once everyone was back together, we decided to head over to Hollywood Studios before the weather got much worse, and because we thought it was closing at 7:00.
The thing that Amy and Allie most wanted to do with their uncle on this trip was to ride the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster—a “road trip” with twists, turns and loops through Tinseltown,” and The Tower of Terror.
We went on The Tower of Terror first because its line’s estimated wait time was 60 minutes. The Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster’s was 110 minutes.
We were in and out of The Tower of Terror in less than 45 minutes. We waited an absolutely excruciating 95 minutes for the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.
There was a Lesbian couple in front of us, who, during the entire 95-minute wait expressed affection for one another, mostly in ways that people wouldn’t think twice about if a straight couple was doing it, but it did go on and on and on, and every once in a while veered into wincing territory, like when the one reached under the short sleeve of the other one’s blouse and rubbed up in there.
It was annoying noticing all the people around stealing glances, and some outright gawking, including one guy who absolutely couldn’t take his eyes off them.
I have to admit that even I grew tired of it by the end. It just added one more tiresome element to the long, long line, it getting late, in the rain, and everyone getting more and more exhausted. I would have been just as tired seeing a straight couple being this affectionate for this long.
Oh well. In spite of the excruciating wait, this ride was by far the best ride to me at Disney now. I also have got to believe that the very first “take off” of this ride is faster than that Test Drive ride billed as the fastest ride in Disney. It was just the coolest ride, a lot in the dark, and a roller coaster that takes you upside down a few times during the trek. Fun. Fun. Fun.
While we were in this ride, the bottom had fallen out in terms of the weather. It was pouring. People were coming up the exit to the ride to get out of the rain, and it was hard to even get by them to get out of the thing.
When we finally reached Kathy and Al, Kathy confided in us, away from the kids, that a tornado had been spotted in this storm system that was passing through.
We walked too far in too much rain to get dinner, only to find the eating venue closed once we got there.
We decided to ride with Joe’s sister’s family back to their Caribbean Beach resort and have dinner with them there. We got absolutely soaked and it was so cold waiting for three buses, as everyone was trying to leave the park at the same time.
Once there, I had a killer Greek Salad, and bought a Turkey BLT sandwich to eat later back at our resort if Joe and I went out for a few drinks before retiring.
After dinner, we said our goodbyes, and Joe and I headed back to our resort.
We had to take a shuttle bus to Downtown Disney to catch another bus back to Port Orleans. It took way longer than we wanted it to (almost an hour), but we did get to see Downtown Disney, which was cool.
Back at our place, we changed into dry clothing, and went down to the bar, which was absolutely teeming with folks drinking and singing along with a wild-ass piano player like you’d see in the clubs of New Orleans.
We joined in the festivities, had two drinks each, and then headed back to our room, close to midnight, exhausted, and needing to be down at the entrance of the resort with our luggage to catch the 8AM Disney Magical Express back to the airport tomorrow morning.
Needless to say, we’re not feeling too magical right now.