Today is the day I can make restaurant reservations at Disney World. Yes, as of today, the countdown clock stands at 6 months. Six months from today, I will be boarding some airline somewhere for some flight to WDW. The details still have a little to be worked out. :)
Since I have been accused recently of being gloomy and self deprecating and near suicidal in my dark and dispiriting blogs, I thought I'd offer a little bit of light and love here on the web.
So I'm opening up this blog to you all... I want to hear your favorite Disney story - whether it be Disneyland, DisneyWorld, EuroDisney, Tokyo Disney, Hong Kong Disney, Dubai Disney, Atlantis Disney, or any other Disney park... wait, I think they just built one across the street... ;) Coming soon, in between Starbucks and McDonalds, your very own Disney Park... :) Anyway, I want to hear your favorite Disney story...
So dish!
4 comments:
Okay, so here's my story...
One Christmas my sister tells me that she's gotten me the best present ever. I'm naturally a little skeptical. One year she presented me with junk mail for Christmas. When I opened my present on Christmas, I was surprised however - for she had gotten me a week in Disneyland.
Naturally, I was both ecstatic and concerned - what the heck is there to do in Disneyland for an entire week (and this was before Cal. Adventure opened). But I felt up to the challenge.
We flew down in February and spent an entire week in Anaheim. The park was only open from 9am to 6pm, so that helped a little, as we had to compress one full day of Dland fun into one half day of attendance. But the lines were practically non-existant, so we were able to ride our favorite rides as many times as we wanted.
Round about Tuesday, though, I started to dream big. I started to wonder if, with so few people in lines, and with such a compressed daily schedule (only 9 hours of time), it would be possible to ride every attraction in Disneyland in one day. I told my sister about the plan and she felt that we were up to the challenge. That night, as we watched Alive and ate pizza, we plotted out our strategy.
On Thursday, we reached the park before it opened and went inside. To help our goal, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln was open before the rest of the park, so we were able to ride it first. Standing in front of the theater, I took a picture of my sister holding up one finger - to indicate the first ride of the day. As soon as the ride was over, we ran to the front of the park and waited for them to drop the rope. Remembering how the lines for Dumbo were always long, no matter what time of day, we ran immediately for the Dumbo line and were happy to be first in line. But they didn't start the first ride for nearly 15 minutes, which meant that we were already behind schedule before we'd even finished our second ride.
We raced through Fantasyland, Toontown (we didn't count the rides that we were too big to enter, nor the rides that were broken that day), Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Critter Country, New Orleans Square and finished with the Mark Twain Steam Boat in Frontierland. We took goofy pictures in front of every attraction (though shortly thereafter, when we finally got our film developed, we'd completely forgotten what the hand signals meant so we couldn't decipher the order anymore - was it one hand down one hand in a fist that meant twenty or thirty? ;)
We were also completely exhausted. Disney in a day is possible, with a little luck and planning, but it is also tiring. Still, my best Disney memory.
I have three favorite memories - two from DL and one from WDW. Well, I actually have about 500 favorite memories, but here goes:
WE WANT TO GET WET!
One trip, we went and it was blazing, blazing, blazing hot. The lines were long, we were all pretty broke, and stressed out. Our traveling companion was a delight inside the walls of DL and obnoxious outside. So, on the last day, we went to ride Splash Mountain.
We got on the ride with two other guys, I think they were marines. It was so hot and our boat got delayed. We started splashing each other, and one of us, exasperated, said, "I just want to get wet!" That did it - we started chanting, LOUDLY, "WE WANT TO GET WET!" through the WHOLE ride. After the big drop, we changed it to WE GOT WET.
We came into the station to applause. Later that day, I heard people talking about it on the train. It is still one of my favorite memories.
ROLL HOCKEY
On that same February trip, since the trip was paid for and Will and I did not have any rent, we sunk our whole paycheck into just having fun. And eating. One thing we always wanted to do was eat at Blue Bayou. So we did. We were sat at this impossibly small table by the water. They brought us rolls. Will couldn't hold on to his roll and it fell under the table. But, the table was so close to the one behind it, Will had no room to retrieve the roll.
He tried to pass the roll to me. It bounced of my foot and back to him. Thus, roll hockey was born.
WDW 1998
My favorite moments of our first trip to WDW together were silly, really. But I LOVED watching Growing Pains right before bed as we rehashed the day and relaxed.
will, i would not recommend "disney in a day" for your honeymoon. disney "yes", disney in a day, "NO" absolutely "NO!!!!"
i have only been to Disneyland once, right after holly and i became foster parents, and i loved it.
my favorite DL memory was making it off the Alice in Wonderland tea cup ride without vomiting all over my wife and kids (not exactly a wish upon a star).
my second favorite memory was not riding the tea cup ride again.
Like you Will & Heather, so many different memories of Disneyland and WDW to choose from...
Disneyland: I have two - the first was when we were there with the kids 18 months ago. It was late in the evening, and we were waiting to go on the steamboat Mark Twain, when the boat's captain came down and selected our kids to help him "drive" the boat. He led us up to his perch, through a separate, private entrance, and the kids got to stand on footstools at the wheel and "drive" the boat.
We talked about the park with him, and when we returned to dock, got to sign the guestbook up there.
My second favorite memory goes back to about 15 years - Page and I went at Christmastime together, left my parents' house in Daly City at 3 am, and arrived in Anaheim by 11 am. A huge thunderstorm hit around 8 pm - while I appreciate Heather's story about wanting to get wet on Splash Mountain, we were already wet when we got on the Matterhorn, which seemed to run just a little bit faster with the rain slicked tracks and the water running off the side of the faux mountain and onto our heads as we rode in and out of the tunnels.
Then, as we walked across the parking lot now home to California Adventure, we went puddle jumping. While waiting at the streetlight to get to our motel, a pickup truck drove by, hits this puddle, and splashes us. We didn't care...we were already drenched.
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