Tommorowland and Beyond

We circled around past the Mad Tea Party ride and into Tomorrowland, which means the first ride in that section we hit was the "race cars" (as my boys call them).

 

 

 

They love driving the cars.  Love. It.  Me, I'd skip this one in a heartbeat.  Not that I hate it or anything, it just doesn't thrill me anymore.  Don't tell them I said that. 

 

It was maybe a 10 minute wait before we boarded our cars.  My driver likes to do this:

 

 

 

He doesn't even try to stay on the road.  He likes to bounce off the center rail like we are riding through a pinball machine.  Oh, my back! 

 

Brad's driver was much more concerned with trying to stay on the road.

 

 

Lucky bastard.

 

We still had some time before our Buzz Lightyear FP window, so we decided to do the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor.

 

 

 

Helllllooooo Humans!

 

 

We always get a kick out of that one.

 

It was time to use our Magic Bands.  FINALLY.  So, we headed next door to Buzz Lightyear.

 

 

 

We scanned our Magic Bands at the FP Return entrance (you'll hear, "Mickey Head to Mickey Head" a few hundred times at the Magic band sites) and then scanned them again at the end of the FP line.  Why twice?  I have no idea.  But it is that way on every FP+ ride.

 

We boarded our ship and the competition was on.

 

 

My picture above vs. their picture below.

 



 

Don't I look like I'm having fun?  I am!  Now look at the male types.

 

 

Apparently this is serious business to them. 

 

We decided that our early breakfast was gone and we needed to do lunch.  Since we were done with all we wanted to in Tomorrowland, we crossed in front of the castle to go to Liberty Square.  Oh, but let's stop for a couple castle pics on the way.

 

 

 

Never, ever miss a photo op. 

 

Once in Liberty Square, we heard the bell ringing at the town crier announced lunch at Columbia Harbor House.  That's where we are headed!

 

 

It was early enough that there was a short line.  Once we got our food, we headed upstairs to enjoy the (relative) quiet and the view.

 

 

I had the shrimp.

 

 

I haven't mentioned it up until this point, but we booked this package on a Free Dining PIN Code.  I have never used the dining plan before.  The dining credits were loaded on our Magic Bands, so I simply scanned my band and entered our code when we ordered.  It was quick and simple.  If you are keeping score, this is our first round of CS (Counter Service) dining credits.

 

After lunch, I decided it was time to introduce the boys to the Hall of Presidents.

 

 

I didn't think they would really enjoy the presentation until they were old enough to know some of the history involved and who most of the presidents were.  During the show I held my camera up to my chest so there would be no backlight, turned it on, and snapped a picture.

Considering I had no idea where I was really aiming the camera, not too bad a shot!

Next was the Haunted Mansion.

I was determined to go through the cemetery line this time.  We've never taken that option before, but since the line was relatively short I was willing to do the detour.

When you get to the musical instruments, touch them and they will play the corresponding sound.

 

 

 

And the sea captain's crypt makes noises and squirts water from time to time.

 

Then the book shelves are a puzzle of sorts.

When you push one book in, others will pop out on different shelves.  It was funny to see them try to push them all in at once.

After our tour of the cemetery, we were ushered into the "dead center" of the stretching room and then off to our doom buggy.  I still love that ride.

It was almost time for our next FP, which was Big Thunder Mtn Railroad.  Daniel asked for a snack first, so we stopped at Sleepy Hollow to get him a funnel cake.

 

Mmmmm... funnel cake.

He ate while we walked, which resulted in him getting a good coating of powder sugar from chin to thighs.  I should have probably cared about that, but... meh... I didn't. 

We got to BTMRR and were greeted with a ridiculous crowd at the FP Return line.

What the what?  I've never been in a FP line like this.  It took a good 3-4 minutes just to get up to the entrance where we could scan our Magic Bands.  After that, we sailed through the FP line and only waited another 5 minutes or so to board.  Were the people that slow at scanning bands?  Was somebody arguing and holding up the line?  Or is this a sign of what crowds using the FP+ system is going to be like in the future?  I don't know, but I will tell you that BTMRR had a long FP line when we returned to the MK later in the week.  Luck of the draw or a sign of things to come, only time will tell.

Anyway, we enjoyed the ride once we got on it.

 

 

By the time we finished, out next FP window had opened for Splash Mountain and we headed there.

I intensely dislike the dead-end funnel that is Splash Mtn's entrance/exit.  To have such a popular ride setup like that always causes a swarm of seemingly confused people swirling around that area between the turnoff for the ride and the actual beginning of the line.  Gah!

We scanned our Magic Bands and went quickly through the FP line to board our boat/log/thing.

I will title these shots BEFORE:

DURING:

And AFTER:

We got a pretty good face full of water at the bottom.  The boys were thrilled.

Next we did Pirates of the Caribbean.

Standing in line, I got a better shot of the wet leftovers from Splash Mtn.

Since we were close enough to Aloha Isle, I used a snack credit for my rare taste of ice cream.  The Dole Whip Float.

I was starting to get tired, so I asked the boys if there was anything they wanted to do before we called it a day.  They both wanted another spin on Buzz Lightyear.  Couldn't pick something close by?  Nooooo.  Okay then.  Back to Tomorrowland it is.

 

As long as we are here, let's do the other rides in this section.  Like Tomorrowland Transit Authority (okay, my feet were starting to hurt and this is a good chance to sit down for a few minutes).

And then Space Mountain (yay!).

 

 

Joshua had spotted Rapunzel's tower earlier and wanted to go see what it was before we left, so we headed back toward Fantasyland.

Yep.  It's Rapunzel's tower.  What was there?

Bathrooms.  Really pretty setting and all that, but still.  Just bathrooms. 

The guys all wanted a snack before we left, so we took time to make that happen.

Yeah, leaving is not a quick thing for us.  There is usually a long list of "one more things", which is why I start the process well before we run out of steam.  But, it appeared that we really were ready to go this time.

Some parting shots.

We caught a bus back to our resort and then got our van to drive back to the lobby.  I didn't take the keys with me for the van, so Brad had to run up to the room and get them and our refillable mugs (which I will describe in a moment).  In the meantime:

Oh, no!  We killed Joshua!  Death by theme park!  

We drove back to the lobby and had dinner at the food court.

 

 

The food was surprisingly good.  Better than any food court fare we've had before.  Either we got really lucky or things have improved.  Either way, I'll take it.

Now, back to the mugs.  Sigh.  Okay, the mugs were included in our package too.  I don't know if that is part of the Free Dining thing or if it is standard to include them in a room-and-ticket package.  I have no clue.  Anyway, they program your mugs at check in to be valid for the length of your stay only.  There is a RFID chip in the bottom of those suckers that tells the soda machines if your mug is currently valid or not.  This only applies to the soda machines.  The tea, coffee, hot chocolate, etc did NOT have the trays that you have to set your mug on to trigger the computer to fill them.  To make the soda machines work, you have to put your mug exactly on the circle under the dispenser before you push the button to fill it up.  Once you take your mug off the circle, you have to wait at least a minute and some random amount of seconds before you can fill it again.  The most common time was a minute and 37 seconds.  Why a delay?  I have no clue.  Maybe they had a rash of suicide soda mixers and wanted to put a stop to it.  (Ha!)  I'm just telling you how it works.  Also, if you don't have your cup lined up just right, you will hear a voice say, "Please place cup on tray."  I came to loathe the male voice that told me that.  "I promise that I HAVE the cup on the friggin tray.  I'm tired and cranky.  Give me my Coke before I rip your voice box out!"  Okay, I never actually said that out loud, but it was screaming in my head.  I learned that some banks of soda were touchier than others, so if you try one machine and it yells at you, don't waste your time.  Move down to the next set of dispensers and try again.

Back to dinner.  While we were eating, there was an announcement of some sort and all the CMs started a parade to the tune of "Down at the Riverside."  A song that turned out to be more of an earworm than "It's a Small World", which is quite an accomplishment.  The boys joined in the parade and at the end were rewarded with Mickey straws.

They charge 70 cents for those things if you want them at checkout, so I highly recommend participating in the parade if your kids want one.  I think the parade happens at the top of every hour, or at least they started at 9pm one night that we were there and at 10pm on another night we were there.  It might not happen all day, but during mealtimes I would assume it does.

With our first day of theme parking behind us, we drove back to our room to go to bed.

I wanted to make a side note about the resort before I forget.  The lobby and all its amenities were way, way too far away for us to walk to.  If you wind up in one of the buildings that are too far away (and this resort is huge), your only options are to drive or catch a bus and ride it around to the South Depot stop.  Since we had our vehicle with us, it was no big deal to drive when we wanted to go, but I think it would have been a drag waiting on a bus just to get back to the lobby food court.  Not so much of a drag that I wouldn't recommend the resort, because it was beautiful and I loved it.  Just tossing that out there as food for thought for future consideration.